Various & sundry

Battlestar Galactica

Oh my word. Really, there are no words.

Walking Unawake

One round after another of loud, bright and mildy violent thunderstorms last night made both the cats and Husband excitable, ensuring a sleepless night for yours truly. And then, the power went out. It was still out when I left for work this morning, after getting dressed by flashlight.

Staycation

Said storminess is supposed to last all week. It's not official yet, but reality is rearing its ugly head and getting all up in our faces with the strong probability that, unless we want to pitch our tent in a rowboat, our camping trip this week is off. We may spring for a hotel room somewhere, instead, just for a change of scenery. At least I'll be able to get that uninterrupted writing time I've been pining for.

Shirtgate

At a company-wide meeting last week, lots of "GASP!"s and "Oh no he din't!"s were heard following the comment, from a member of management, re: a slighly low-cut women's company logo shirt worn by our web site photographer, "We need to get a shirt like that for our project secretary." Turns out it was a completely innocent comment stemming from a conversation said manager just had with said secretary about how she wanted a shirt like that but was too shy to raise her hand and ask how to get one, but that's not how it was taken by the dirty, dirty minds of the majority of the people I work with (myself included, because hi, I'm twelve).

I forgot all about it following the meeting, but as of this morning, CONTROVERSY! Said manager was apparently dressed down by his higher-ups, and an emergency admin meeting was held to explain the context of the comment and let us know what we can do if any of our delicate womanly feelings were hurt by it. The general consensus was that they should apologize by giving each of us a shirt in that style, because it was hella cute for a company shirt. And thus a scandal was averted.

(Not that we actually got free shirts for all of our mock-indignation, dagnabbit.)

Staycation, Part 2

I don't know how I'll end up spending the next 6 days, but one sure bet is that they won't be spent online. So have a great week, folks, and I'll catch you next Monday.

Weekend highlights

Randomly, and most notably:

• Went house hunting. Found two possibilities-a great house in an iffy neighborhood and an iffy condo in a great neighborhood. Hopefully if we keep looking we'll find a happy medium.
  
  
• Sewed a liner for my aforementioned new purse. Realized I don't have the right color thread to attach said liner to said purse. Sad.
  
  
• Watched BSG. Reactions: LIKEWHOA! And also, SQUEE!
  
  
• Had mixed feelings about "The Doctor's Daughter" -- both the ep and the character.
  
  
• Worked out on eliptical to The Takeover: Episode 1 and then took a bubble bath to Steampod: Episode 1. Enjoyed both heartily. The workout, less so.
  
  
• Worked on memorial Fizzgigg scrapbook and cried a little more. :(
  
  
• Daydreamed about house in item #1, with its great back yard and great big laundry room that would double perfectly as a craft room.
  
  
• Watched Anne of Avonlea and cried even more. Still crushing big time on Gilbert Blythe. May have to read those books again.
  
  
• Tried Baked Tofu recipe. Was less than whelmed with result. Mixed it in with homemade fried rice, which made it better.
  
  
• Made my own oatmeal packets, which took about a minute and saved me a bunch of dollars. And also are healthier.

And...that was my weekend, in a nut.

How was your weekend?

Time vortexes (vorteces?), near-death experiences, and lovely knits

Wow. Where did the day go? I'm not one to complain about work going by quickly, but I haven't actually done any work today, and now I'm about out of time, and it feels like I just got here and what happened? I think I might have fallen through a time portal. Or maybe it was a productivity black hole. Yeah, that last one's more likely.

I can tell you where part of my time went: I spent probably an hour replying to text messages from my nephew and husband, who both decided they had IMPORTANT THINGS to tell me RIGHT NOW OMG, at the same time. Of course, I'm always too polite (read: wuss) to either ignore their texts or tell them that I have work to do. And so I end up having an hour-long schizoid conversation about Myspace and car repairs and Battlestar Galactica and saving receipts. ...I'd make a joke about Nephew's definition of urgent compared to Husband's, but mine tends to line up with the former's, so I really can't say anything there. What's more, he's watching the DVDs for the first time and he's halfway through Season 2 and I really can't blame him for needing to talk about it immediately. Because "Pegasus" is like whoa. So I completely understand.

Speaking of timesucks, I finally caved to pressure and created a Myspace account, but only so I could access Nephew's and Neice-in-law's profiles and read their blogs. I threw my Etsy shop widget up on my blog page over there, but that's about all I plan to do with it for the time being. I reserve the right, of course, to change my mind and go to town on my profile settings in the future.

And speaking of Etsy, while I was at Wal-Mart during lunch waiting for my windshield wiper blades to get replaced (side note: do you know what's scary? Having your windshield wipers crap out on you as you're driving to work pre-dawn in a downpour. That's what's scary), I finally picked up all of the notions I need to finish the purse I whipped up the minute I learned about slip-stitch knitting. Okay, maybe not the minute. But I love that stitch pattern and I want to learn more. As for the purse, I haven't decided yet whether it's going in the shop or on my arm. Maybe both. I'm still rocking the Lucy bag I made last year (I washed it the other day and it shrunk and now it's even cuter), so I think maybe it's time for a change.

And now that I've managed to fall even deeper into the vortex of slack, I'd better start trying to claw my way out of it lest I become trapped and frozen in time. Or something.

Various & sundry

Some links and items of interest:

FOX has yanked the licensing for the Buffy Sing-along. If you were hoping to catch a viewing of that in your neighborhood someday, you can sign the petition here.

James Marsters is still pretty adorable.

Chrome-jobs have feelings too, apparently: We Were Centurions

...that's all.

Crossroads

HA! That was fracking awesome.

It's taco time!

Mmm, tacos. And while I scarf, thanks to astute commenter Nicole pointing me to Alluc.org, I get to catch up on my missing episode of BSG. It's the best free lunch ever!

Did I say there'd be pain tomorrow? Because, ow.

I went to the gym, so somebody pat my back and give me a cookie. Or, I guess, a low-cal, low-carb cookie alternative. Sigh.

I haven't mentioned it because all of the wrist hurtiness has kind of overshadowed it, but I've also managed to jack up my elbow, and it's also been pretty sore for a couple of weeks now. Since the brace seems to be helping my wrist not hurt, the elbow pain has become more prominent. I started to use that as an excuse to weasel out of another week of going to the gym, but instead I got tough with myself and faced the fact that I need to haul myself over there regularly and focus on building strength and flexibility so that I won't be so cotton-pickin' prone to injury.

To that end, and since the treadmill workouts haven't been doing a thing for me, today I started working out on the weight machines. I have to be careful lifting weights. They can be deceptive, especially when I'm just starting out. I'll do a relatively light set, think how easy that was and that it must not have been very effective, ramp it up and do a longer, heavier set. By the time I'm done I still don't feel like I worked hard enough, until I go to stand or pick something up or otherwise use the muscle group I just worked and start trembling and almost fall down and know with absolute certainty that tomorrow, there will be pain.

So, yes. Tomorrow there will be pain. My legs are shaky when I walk, especially when I climb stairs. And you know those muscles above and to the sides of your boobs, just under your armpits, whatever those are called? Girl pecs, I guess? Those tremble every time I lift my arms. It's an odd feeling. I'm not sure I like it.

***
In other news, my mom apparently managed to delete everything I recorded Sunday-before-last on her TiVo before I had a chance to watch any of it, including and most notably the season finale of Battlestar Galactica. I don't suppose there's anybody within the reach of this blog who could help a fellow geek out and hook me up with a copy? Downloading it's not possible. I'm not sure playing a DVD-R disc is, either. A plain, old-fashioned video tape would be the surest way to go. I'd pay for it, and for shipping.

Meanwhile, I've just got to somehow not get spoiled.

An interesting life is a curse, anyway.

I didn't get any of the eBay stuff photographed this weekend. I was about to, when Matt was all, "Come and watch Sopranos with me. Just for a couple of hours, then I'll go do homework and you can take your pictures then." Which sounded plenty reasonable, but then of course once we were done with Sopranos we remembered we still had a Nip/Tuck DVD we needed to get watched to send back to Netflix, and once we were done with that, it was time for my shows on SciFi.

Speaking of which, still feeling let down by Dresden Files, although it is showing signs of improvement. As long as I don't compare it to the books and tell myself that these are not the characters I already know and love, but simply unrelated characters in an unrelated universe who just happen to have the same names (something I've had plenty of practice doing with Smallville), then I can enjoy the show and admit that it is, at least, an entertaining hour of television. So I'm just going to leave it at that.

And then there's BSG. OMGLaura! So scary, with all the talking--no, screaming of airlocking Baltar! Eeee, that was awesome! As for Karleedeeanders--WTF-ever. Seriously. It's becoming my fondest wish to see Dee and Sam hook up and live happily, functionally after and leave Kara and Lee alone with their whiney-ass loser selves. I can't believe they cut an entire interrogation scene between Laura and Caprica for their self-inflicted melodrama. Bah.

As for the rest of my weekend...

- Hugo's: I meant to take a picture of my breakfast so you could see for yourselves how much food they give you, but I got all mesmerized by the mountain of forbidden carbs before me and forgot until I was halfway done eating. Lordy, that was good stuff.

- Pan's Labyrinth: Good, but slightly overrated, much as I'd feared. It was a very well done, engrossing movie, but it didn't really move me the way all of the praise being heaped upon it led me to expect. Matt felt the same way. He doesn't even really like the whole fairy-tale genre, but he was disappointed that the film didn't spend more time in its own fantasy world. It also reminded us both a lot of Devil's Backbone, which we rented not too long ago, and we both suspect that maybe that's why we weren't blown away by it, since we'd both already been exposed to that whole "real life is scarier and more cruel than anything the supernatural could throw at you, especially if you're a little kid" sensibility that it had going on. I did like the ambiguous ending and the way it was left wide open for interpretation, and that's all I'm going to say about that.

- I knitted several little projects over the weekend, making up my own patterns as I went. I'll go into more detail about them over at the knitting blog later, but I think with a few pattern adjustments and embellishments these will make good projects to sell.

- I went all day yesterday without any caffeine. It wasn't by design, it just sort of happened that way. I thought about trying to see if I could repeat it today, but then I woke up with a headache that only coffee could cure. Oh well.

Today is all about getting back on track. I'm still caught up (mostly) at work, I've eaten only healthy things so far today, and I power-walked a mile and a half at the gym. I also wrote a little this morning, and I'm going to try to finish out the chapter I'm currently working on today. If I'm happy with it I might even post it, but I'm going through a really self-conscious phase right now when it comes to my writing, so we'll see.

My life is comfy and dull.

Too many angst-ridden woobies on one night!

I was trying to restrain myself and save this for Friday, but with another winter storm moving in (yay?) and a chance I'll have to scuttle my butt home early tomorrow, I might as well get it out of my system now. I'm about to pee my pants with excitement over this Sunday's lineup on SciFi. Dresden! New BSG! Fangasm! Squee!

My excitement over The Dresden Files is somewhat tempered by trepidation over how this is going to screw with my preconceived perception of the characters. I'm pretty happy with the versions in my head, but the more I see the promos the more this Not James Marsters guy is growing on me as Harry. And now I suppose with the news about the ASoIaF series I'd better get used to the idea of some Not James Marsters guy as Jaime Lannister, too. Unless the casting fates love me enough to give James the job, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Also making me trepidatious is the knowledge that they've changed Murphy's first name AND cast a latina actress to play her (meanwhile casting an Irish American actress to play Susan Rodriguez, so go figure), but she's a good actress from what I know of her. I only know her from Nip/Tuck, but if she can bring the chemistry she displayed with Julian McMahon over to DF and spark with Harry, then I'll be a happy 'shipper, despite them no longer fitting my AU Spuffy vision. And Jim Butcher says he's happy with the casting and that everybody captures the spirit of the characters, even if they're not physically ideal for the roles, so if he's happy, then I'm excited.

Three days! Whee!