Beth's Contradictory Brain

Hehehe

"Did you know that cellos can get frequent flier programs? And they can get upgraded to first class? Because you have to buy a seat for your cello, you can't check it."
"I wonder if cellos get two pieces of checked baggage. Like a violin, and a viola."
--Two guys outside Triple Rock

Found on In Passing.

And, no, as a matter of fact, I don't have anything interesting to say today!

Yeah for BBC America

A few months ago we started watching So Graham Norton, but it doesn't come on until 10 pm weeknights here, and I try to be in bed by then. Once again our DVR has come to the rescue, I can now record them and watch them when I get home from work. He is so fantastic!! Here you can read audience member's funny stories.

The show Coupling is growing on me, it's so much braver and funnier than Friends! And the boss in The Office is so hard to watch because it's a brilliantly executed character.

Spam

I'm one of those people who reads so many different things in different places, I can never remember sources. The other day I was reading an article about emails and spam and such. Having a fairly new email address, I've been surprised at how soon spam finds it. What I read was that those same bots that search engines like Google use to find updated websites, can also troll around gathering email addresses off of websites. It recommended not using an actual link to your email address, but typing out the address - like I changed my to over there on the side. I suppose it's also a bad idea to have comment programs remember your info.

Even if it just helps a little it'll be a good thing.

Cool Blog

L.T. Smash is a reserve officer in the United States Military who has been recalled to active duty and deployed overseas in support of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM. This website is an online journal of his adventures. It is meant primarily for the use of his family and friends, but all are welcome to visit.

Scroll down a couple of entries and read why he's where he is and what he has to say about courage. Great stuff!!

Day Two

It's just after noon and we're finally two degrees above freezing! Woohoo. Which means, no, I am not at work again today yippee!! It took us about fifteen minutes to clear my car off enough to go to IHOP. Our sidewalk is at a slope, so I fell on my butt trying to just get to the car! I could have made it into work today, but why? My salary is one of the lowest among my co-workers, let the higher ups risk going in to work!

One funny thing, there was a bank robbery this morning here in town. How fun! It's not like the cops are going to be able to respond very fast. Ramen is so ready to go out and run around, I think he has cabin fever way worse than we do.

Other than that it's a slow news day for me.

I got my wish

Yes, the freezing rain started early yesterday evening and so we're iced in today. There's even a chance it won't be clear tomorrow morning! It was so nice to sleep late today! The best thing today is that we have that digital video recording feature thru Time Warner. I've got several programs recorded we haven't watched yet. Maybe we'll even get around to watching the rest of our Sports Night dvd. Mostly it's nice to do nothing.

The only down side is that Nerdstar was going to drive up to Dallas to pick up my nephew so he could stay with us for a few days, but the weather postponed that. Maybe next week if she's still not working.

Sorry this is so boring, but I'm bored with the world right now. I mean, this whole U.N./Iraq/War thing is starting to play out like a Shakspearian farce. If I were clever enough I'd write it up, but I'm not. I'll just say my brain is too frozen!

Well, I'm off to more tv watching!

Brrrr!!

Wow, it was 75 and sunny yesterday. It started out about 37 this morning and it's now 29 and drizzling! Woohoo! I might actually get to sleep in tomorrow morning because of icy roads. I know for those of you north of here - and almost everyone is north of Austin - this is no big deal. What's going to be the most fun tomorrow morning is turning on the local news and hearing about the 700 car wrecks! Yes, I'm sadistic!

This weekend I started re-reading A Prayer For Owen Meany. Wow. I'm not sure if I'm more like Owen or John when it comes to view of God and religion. But I can't even imagine what it would be like to know how and when you're going to die. It's a fantastic book about fate.

While driving this weekend I was talking with (to) Nerdstar about what's the point of this life we have here on earth. I mean, assuming there is a God, and that there is an eternity after this life - how crazy is it that these few years on earth - and even if you lived to 100 it would be nothing in the face of eternity - have any bearing on how you spend that eternity. And to make it even worse, we don't even know for certain about any of it. I mean, ok, so if this life does determine eternity, wouldn't it be a little better if there were at least more clearly stated rules? Yes, I know, it's supposed to be all about free will and faith. Just seems to me there's a little too much faith called for. There should be something more concrete to go on. Maybe the universe itself is supposed to be evidence enough of God. (and generally for me it is) But just knowing there is a God wouldn't provide much in the way of direction on what to do with this life.

Just seems to me there's an awful lot at stake in such a muddled game.

Convoluted Weekend

I'm back at work this morning, and thankfully it seems like a long time since I've been here!

Friday night was probably a study in variety. We went to grab a quick dinner and then went to a church service. Nerdstar and I have been talking about God lately. A church I've never attended, but used to know people who did, holds Friday night "prophetic" services. I thought I'd see what God's supposedly saying these days. It's so hard to write about this stuff - to put it in terms someone without a non-denominational background can relate to. In this service there was naturally a lot about the upcoming war and how Christians are God's warriors, thru prayer and such. It's such a compelling idea - that someone praying, either in church or at home alone, can help overthrow evil just as much as the actual soldiers deployed. And I must admit it's an idea I believe. There are so many stories in the Bible of people changing God's mind. My favorite is Moses. When he first goes up the mountain to talk to God, God is all about completely wiping out Israel. He's pissed at them. Moses goes on and on about how God can't do that, what would people say about Him and such. So, God relents and gives the ten commandments instead. Then, Moses goes back down the mountain, sees the golden calf, and immediately asks God to kill them all. Very funny stuff to me.

Anyway. It sounded to me like God's probably saying a lot of the same stuff He said back during the first Gulf War. Sitting there my biggest question was, what's different this time??

We didn't stay for the whole service. It got pretty annoying. So many of the people were there for reasons other than communing with God. Which is fine as long as you're not pretending otherwise.

From there we headed downtown to go hear Ginger play. WOW! The band before her was pretty good. It was a nice warmup. There were several babydykes in the audience and it was fun to watch them. The set Ginger played was fantastic. I've been going to hear her for about six years now and I'll never understand why a record label hasn't signed her.

Saturday we to Lake Charles full of optimism. How silly of us! We had nothing but bad luck all night, but tried to minimize the losses. Sunday we woke up with optimism again. That was downright stupid! The losses grew. It's just amazing when our luck is on a bad streak. We keep thinking, ok any minute now it's going to change. Nope. Not this weekend. What was frustrating was watching this little older man go from $300 to $4000 next to us at the craps table. Then, this little old lady put $100 in a $5 slot machine and walked away with $1500.
We're just hoping we got all of our bad luck out of the way and we'll do better in Vegas. Sometimes I get frustrated losing money thinking what we could have bought instead of giving it to the casino. But the idea was to get away and have some fun, and that's what we did.

Rainy Friday

It's still rainy today. I think our local weather news geeks were jealous of the snow coverage last week so they hyped up the "potential flooding" around here yesterday. Very lame.

I didn't sleep worth shit last night, either I was awake and my brain was racing or I was asleep having weird dreams. I woke up tired and grumpy. Then I get to work only to find out our front desk receptionist is going to be out today because of semi flooded roads. That's b.s. When we left yesterday she had plans to stay somewhere else so the roads wouldn't be an issue. Not to mention, it really hasn't rained much today so the roads are probably fine. Guess she decided a day off probably watching mindless daytime tv would be better. All that means I'm answering twice as many stupid calls today as yesterday, when I really don't want to be answering any.

Hi, this is bitch beth.

Three more hours and it's the weekend. Nerdstar really wants to go to Lake Charles and do a little gambling. She figures her bad luck has to end sometime, and at a blackjack or craps table is just the time! Who I am to disagree!

Tonight we might go to a cd release party for Ginger Leigh, a local chick I've been listening to for several years. She has a solo cd from several years ago, and a couple of cds she recorded with Sarah Dashew I really like. Two very cool ladies with great voices.

Nobody does it better

From Lileks today - I’m writing this on the anniversary of the murder of Daniel Pearl. Keep that in mind:

It takes a particularly rarified variety of idiot to look at a Jew-hating fascist with a small mustache - and decide that his opponent is the Nazi.

Burnt Money

I forgot, we did watch a cool foreign film last night. It's title in English is Burnt Money. It was set in Argentina mostly. It was about a small group of male crooks, two of whom were lovers. As I keep saying about the foreign films I watch, there's no way Hollywood could have made this movie - their stereotypes of both gays and crooks would have prevented it. It was mostly a love story in a dark setting. At times it reminded me of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and at times Thelma and Louise. Yet, it's not really like either. (you know what I mean.) Check it out if you can find it. We rented it from Blockbuster.

Hmmm

Why does the word blowjob come to mind??

Bleh

This is pretty funny - moviegoers suing for having to watch commercials before movies.

Can't really say there's much going on this week. Last night it started raining and it's not supposed to stop until Saturday morning. I like rain, what sucks is listening to nine out of ten coworkers bitching about the rain!

We toyed with the idea of doing something fun last night, and then opted to be our sofa slug selves instead. Tonight there will be a fire in the fireplace, frozen pizza for dinner, and Survivor and ER on the tv.

Perspective on Protester Numbers

Some 3 percent of Americans bought duct tape to fight the terror fumes, according to this ABC News-Washington Post poll. And the anti-war protests were attended by less than half of a percent of the U.S. population.
So what's up with the other 96.5 percent of Americans?

Wrote the following on Sunday, and never quite finished it. But what the hell, here it is:

Yes, you have to go read it for the rest :-)

Life With Pets, the unemployed version

Now that I am unemployed, I've got all the time to devote to my pets. Today marks the one week anniversary of my unemployment, and I'd thought that I'd just update you on what's happening with the pets and I.

Little Man, my feline son, has taken to sneaking bits of Ramen's dog food, and Ramen, doesn't really seem to mind it at all. I guess Little Man misses his old artificial color-laden cat food.... too bad.

Silly usually just lounges around and ignores me. Beth had a interesting theory last night about how Silly was the one who had unleashed a curse on me, that was why my luck has been so bad. With the way that she'd stare at me, I couldn't help it but to think that there's probably some merit to her theory! Ramen has been getting more walks, and I hope he's happy about that. He has also managed to lounge on our bed while I am taking morning showers. He should know that he's not allowed on the couch or the bed.... I guess that all fell out of the window. When I'd catch him, he'd stare at me as if I am interrupting
something legitimate.

Being with them, overall, has been therapy for me. Answering phone call from from frustrated people, and working for a messed up company seems like a million years ago!

Being Smart vs. Being Popular

This is a great essay about being a nerd instead of popular in high school.

The main reason nerds are unpopular is that they have other things to think about. Their attention is drawn to books, or the natural world, not fashions and parties. They're like someone trying to play soccer while balancing a glass of water on his head. Other players who can focus their whole attention on the game beat them effortlessly, and wonder why they seem so incapable.

Even if nerds cared as much as other kids about popularity, being popular would be more work for them. The popular kids learned to be popular, and to want to be popular, the same way the nerds learned to be smart, and to want to be smart: from their parents. While the nerds were being trained to get the right answers, the popular kids were being trained to please.

I just sort of made it thru high school. I had plenty of friends and always had a boyfriend. I had decent grades in honor classes. I was in concert and jazz bands. I knew I wasn't in the "in" crowd, but I never really wanted to be. But I wasn't a nerd because I didn't think I was that smart. People who know me now, particularly co-workers, would guess that I was the smart one in my circle of friends in high school and college. Truth is, I was the average one. My attention was spread too thin to be really outstanding at much of anything. Sometimes I regret that, sometimes I'm glad a did a lot of things ok.

Bored and Boring

I once had someone tell me that being bored wasn't a good enough reason to do something - I told her she was dead wrong! I mean, if we could delete all the things that get done in this world out of boredom - would there really be much left??

That said, yes, I'm bored out of my skull at work today. This following a boring weekend at home - which was very nice.

Friday Nerdstar surprised me with a very sweet card, a little box of chocolates, and a necklace and earring set with my birthstone. I am very lucky to have such a sweet snuggle bunny! We had a nice dinner at new to us restaurant.

Saturday we took Ramen to the park to run around. He's such a cute dog and it's fun to watch him run at full speed - very elegant. Then we took him to get a bath because he stunk very, very badly!

The rest of the weekend was spent reading and watching tv. Bored and boring.

If I Were Bush

This is the speech I'd give Monday around noon...

"Fellow Americans, people of the world, in light of the protests and anti war, anti American sentiment so overwhelmingly displayed over the weekend, I have had a profound change of heart and mind. Effectively immediately, I am ordering home all American soldiers stationed outside of the U.S. Those troops will instead be used to patrol our now closed borders. Also effective immediately, I am cancelling all foriegn aid - monetary, medical, and food.

The world does not want us to interfere any longer, I am now in full agreement with the world."

That's what I would be so very, very tempted to say!! Just think of the benefits to the economy, the jobless, and those on welfare. No more cheap labor or welfare recipients coming across the borders. There would be a huge increase in jobs due to having to manufacture more goods instead of importing them.

I find it fascinating that I'm reading Atlas Shrugged at this time. The struggle of the characters in the book who have been the leaders in industry is whether to stay and prop up an evil system or drop out and let the world fall apart. Obviously I'd be more than a little tempted to be one of those who drops out and leaves the rest of the world to suffer the consequences of their stupidity.

This is just another example of why Nerdstar is constantly thankful I'm not the world dictator I dream of being :-)

Protests

If the only places you're getting information and feedback about the "peace" protests is CNN and the New York Times, well, you can get infinitely more information over at Instapundit (linked on the right) and the links he posts.

curious

Ok, so someone started reading along Tuesday night about 9 pm... in site meter it shows you're using rasserver.net and in the central time zone. You're checking in pretty darn often but not leaving any comments... this makes me curious!

Humor

My dad thinks like this. My mother, on the other hand, has no sense of humor!

Joe Bob

I love Joe Bob Briggs. Years and years ago I watched his take on b movies, fun stuff. Nice to see he has a serious side to go with it all. Diversity is Overrated!

Utopia has been achieved. Each corporate entity is precisely balanced to reflect the exact percentages of every race, ethnic group, gender and sexual orientation in every statistical category, including lesbian Eskimos and displaced Slovenian Muslims.

You would need a brand-new diversity policy to ensure there was balance among all the various diversities. You would have to write policies evening out degrees of reward, title, compensation and position, so that no one was left out and no one group was favored over another. You would, in fact, need a bureaucracy to constantly monitor the shifts in human fortune and the ever-present danger of some subdepartment of a regional office falling out of diversity balance.

Read the whole thing!

V Day

Happy Valentine's Day! It's a beautiful rainy, stormy day here in Austin. I'm suffering thru another boring day at work. My gumpiness is at it's lowest levels of the week, and since we're heading into the weekend, that's a good thing!

Tonight I'm taking my girl to dinner. The way to her heart is absolutely thru her stomach!!

A little good news. My office does the customer service side of the standardized testing, but next door they do the scoring of the essay part of the test. It's not a permanent job, but Nerdstar has been hired to do some scoring staring the third week in March. It's a ways off, and we hope something more permanent comes up before then, but at least it's something!

We're trying to take the whole "run for your lives" aspect of the media with a grain of salt. While walking Ramen the other night we were talking about meeting places if for some reason we really couldn't get to our home. But really, unless you have family close, where else would there be to meet? If it's really all gone to hell in your city, it's not like you can meet up at a landmark or mall or something. Her family is in Houston and mine is in Dallas. If Austin is fucked, Houston and Dallas probably are too. My parent's don't have cell phones or email. Her grandparents don't either, and they don't speak English. Those sorts of details would make it all rather tricky if the big bad happened in Texas. So, we know where to head when, will probably pick up a radio that you crank up, but really, us city folks just aren't really well suited for survival stuff.

For Buffy Fans

Cool promotional artwork.

Hehe

Because in these crazy times, these things matter - duct or duck?

Too funny!

Talk about a funny misunderstanding!!

More bad news

Well. Nerdstar showed up for work this morning and was "let go." Nice. Bastards!! The only reason she doesn't fight them is that she was planning on quitting anyway. Such is life.

Libertarians

Yep, I'm a libertarian - that's what my voter registration card says, that's how I voted in the last elections. And the more I read Ayn Rand, the more of a Libertarian I become. Unfortunately, the Libertarian party does not have that one main, normal enough candidate to represent it.

Libertarianism is simplicity itself. It proceeds from a single, quite beautiful, concept of the primacy of individual liberty that, in turn, infuses notions of free markets, limited government and the importance of property rights. In terms of public policy, these notions translate into free trade, free immigration, voluntary military service and user fees instead of taxes. Sometimes these policies are argued in a totally unforgiving way so that it's not easy to separate the lunatics from the libertarians. But it's a snap to separate libertarians from conservatives.

The whole article talks about the differences between conservatives and libertarians. It would also be interesting to see the differences between liberals and libertarians.

Gay oscars

Andrew writes about "How Gay is Oscar?" Me, I'm not overly impressed. Until there are a significant number of films every year with gays and lesbians as main characters that are more than stereotypical crap - well, I'm just not impressed.

4 seconds

Nerdstar's test this morning consisted of a trigger pull (how many shots you can fire in 60 seconds) she raised her score from last month by more than ten; sit ups, push ups and pull ups, all of which she improved her scores; a 120 yard dash that includes zig zags, and a two mile run. Last time halfway thru the two miles her stomach cramped up and she couldn't finish. Today, she finished, but came in over the allowed time by FOUR SECONDS. The guys proctoring the test said they couldn't help, the recruiter said she'd have to see if headquarters would pass her.

I told her how proud I am of her! She worked hard this last month and improved everything she could improve. Can't do more than that!

Big Day

Today's a big day for Nerdstar. Right about now she's in Houston about to start the physical fitness test for getting a job with DEA. This is her second time to take it, and if she doesn't pass today she can't try again for a year. For almost a year and a half now she's been trying to get a job with the FBI, NSA, DEA or even a job as a Postal Inspector, where she can use her language skills. This is pretty much her last chance. DEA isn't the first choice for either of us, but it'd be ok.

Because of this job hunting process, big decisions have been put on hold for about a year and a half. We talk about moving out of Austin - really out of Texas - so we don't have to suffer thru these hot summers. We were hoping she'd get a job that would pay for the move. There's the whole house and baby issue. We've put off thinking of buying a house in Austin, since we haven't been sure we're staying. I spent a year trying to get pregnant, to no avail, thinking she'd get a good job and I could stay home and be mom. Now it might be her who does the pregnancy thing since my body won't cooperate.

So, today could be the start of a new life somewhere else thru a job with DEA (although it would still take six to nine months for the application process to be completed). Or it could be the end of this round of effort and we'll have to make plans for staying here in Austin.

Underlying all of that though is always the chance she'll be called up to active duty in the Army reserves. She thinks there's no chance of that really happening. I'm not so optimistic.

Throw in a little general anxiety over the possibility of more terrorism and the waiting for war to start and ... UGH!! It all keeps my brain a little on the frantic side.

In the meantime, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for her test today. It would mean so much to her if she passed!

Born Rich

I caught a news story interviewing the guy who made this film, Born Rich, the other day. I'm hoping it'll be distributed and shown somewhere in Austin, or at least released on video.

Black Cloud

There's been a little black cloud of pms over my brain for the last couple of days. It's still there today which is making work frustrating as hell. It's hard to be nice to idiots when all I want is to be in a semi dark room with the covers over my head!

It was a decent weekend. Nerdstar had drill so me and the pets chilled on the sofa during the days. Saturday night we took some groceries over to a coworkers who's had surgery. It was nice to hang out and talk. Last night we went and had some bbq at our new favorite place - Rudy's.

So, no movie reviews, nothing fun and exciting happened. Just a nice dull weekend.

Friday hodgepodge

Like everybody, I'm very happy it's Friday and that I can sleep late tomorrow. It's all of 34 degrees here, but no snow - way unfair! There's a chance of snow tonight, but it would only last until mid morning anyway. It's funny how some people really hate cold weather and some really hate warm weather, but we don't necessarily live in the climates we love. If and when we move out of Austin, Nerdstar and I both insist it be to cooler climates. If my body is never in temps over 85 again I'd be perfectly happy!!

It was cool on ER last night to see them Googling the blind date guy after writing about that the other day!

I'm still reading Atlas Shrugged, maybe I'll finish it this weekend. But it's tuning my brain in to all the subtle ways people are anti personal achievement, anti rich etc. So it got me to thinking over dinner last night about lottery winners. It would be cool to do a documentary of people who have won over $10 million (in my mind more than enough to buy a couple of houses, a couple of cars and not have to work). What were their views of "the rich" before winning? Do they now consider themselves part of "the rich"? Do the lottery winners contribute as much to charity as "the rich"? Things like that. I think it would be very telling. I think sometimes athletes are kinda like lottery winners - they still carry the image of growing up poor and being poor long after signing multi-million dollar contracts.

Tonight is going to be a snuggle by the fire kind of night! Nerdstar has drill this weekend and has to get up early - yuck!

Tatu

This article about the duo is interesting on a couple of different levels. The public reaction (so far mostly in the UK) is silly to me. "I think they should ban it, I think radio stations should take it upon themselves to ban it," Richard Madeley, half of the Richard & Judy talk-show team, said on the air recently. "We are being told that these girls actually have underage lesbian sex in real life, and we are being told by their manager that he spotted a gap in the market -- a pedophile gap in the market."

It pisses me off to no end to hear even the suggestion that two underage girls kissing somehow represents, or appeals to, pedophilia, while if those same two girls are kissing boys that's perfectly ok.

Katina and Volkova themselves seem to revel in the publicity a few smooches have brought on their previously unheard of act. Both have said they genuinely feel love for each other, but that one day they want to have husbands.

If it is true they're just exploiting the whole "it's cool to be bi or gay" idea among teenagers then that will piss me off just as much.

And this: Ivan Shapovalov, creator and manager of Tatu, rejects the pedophile label, but says openly that the target audience is older men in search of "underage entertainment." Billed "Nabokov's envoy on Earth" by the Russian newspaper Kommersant, he confesses he got the idea for Tatu after looking at popular Internet pornography. is wrong in more ways than I can state!

Hehehe

Penguin cartoon. Thank God for the internet and all it's insanity when I'm bored.

Quiet again

Guess I'm feeling pretty mellow the last couple of days. We booked our flight to Vegas for our birthdays in March. We're pretty excited. We go to Vegas about once a year. It's just another area in which I've totally corrupted Nerdstar. She'd never been there before I took her, now she's hooked on Vegas AND gambling!!

The office I work in is going thru some reorganization, and it's actually all good stuff that's happening! Our top boss has his office in Iowa City, but comes down sometimes. He gave a decent presentation yesterday. Our local boss is resigning the first of next month to do something more worthwhile than show up here everyday - good for her. I'm really happy with who they chose to replace her. Other than being completely underpaid, it's not too hard to be here everyday, and it's actually getting better.

That's pretty much it in my boring life. Tonight we'll either go hear a pianist or catch a movie. Date nights in the middle of the week are good.

It's cold and overcast, just like I like it. Then tomorrow and Friday are supposed to be rainy with an even colder front coming thru - nice!! We still have firewood!

Impressive

David Russell seems to be a decent kid.

We didn't watch astronauts land on the moon, we don't have many notable space achievements, its all been done for us. My generation has always had astronauts, they aren't heroes to us, we haven't discovered anything new through them. We take astronauts for granted, space travel is supposed to be easy; we're going to live on the moon. Today's discoveries and feats are made through computers, how can I make that my hero? The people most effecting my generation are the computer programmers, the game makers, and those who brought us Napster and Kazaa.

The people who have accomplished great during our time on Earth are invisible to us. When was the last time you saw a poster of a computer programmer on your child's wall?

Our ignorance is not an excuse but look at what we are left with. Generations before have explored many of the conceivable frontiers. We have no New World, no Oregon Trail, no gold rush, no Alaska, and no man on the moon. You've left us to do the almost impossible. We are lucky, and happy we have the things we have today. We're glad we didn't have to grow up without the Internet, cable TV and video games. But look at where you've left us.

You know the drill, go read the whole thing! (you'll probably have to scroll down to find it.)

Girlfriend School

If there is no such thing as girlfriend school - there definitely should be!

I've said before that the fact that Nerdstar never dated anyone until she met me (at age 27) has some great advantages to it. But there are also some notable disadvantages. She never really learned all the details that make up romantic life, you know, like saying "I love you", hand holding, little love notes left to find.

We joke all the time that she's really just a twelve year old boy, unfortunately that means she has a twelve year old boy sense of romance, communication, and foreplay.

So we've decided that she needs to go to girlfriend school for a week or month or so. :-)

Because while you'd think that having a girlfriend for almost four years would be schooling enough, I seemed to have failed her.

Google

The good, bad and ugly of Google. Have you ever done a google search on someone you've met, either for work or pleasure??

Sunday

Today was very relaxing. It was nice to sleep until noon, watch some tv, be a bum. Although, I did something I haven't done in a long time, I hand washed the dishes. The dishwasher in this duplex sucks!!

I watched Indiscreet with Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman this afternoon. Omg is she just beautiful. It was so cool to see just how much Isabella looks and sounds like her, that soft sexy accented voice. mmmmmm

I also watched the Ellington dvd. It was such a sweet, endearing movie, or rather, the characters were sweet and endearing. They were two men who were just getting out of a mental place and living on their own together. I'm always struck by how hollywood couldn't make films like the foreign films I watch. A movie like this would have either been a stupid comedy or overly sentimental or something. So, thank God for foreign films!

Now I'm just waiting, as always, on Nerdstar to get back from Houston.

Saturday Night

I'm feeling a restlessness I haven't felt in a while. I didn't expect to feel it tonight. Nerdstar is in Houston. We've had some tensions between us and frankly, I was looking forward to having the house to myself today and tomorrow. I have nothing to do except what I want to do.

I think the disaster today is playing a part in my mood. I think it sucks that there's this feeling of - oh, it was only seven astronauts, they knew the danger. It's like if something isn't as tragic as 9/11 it doesn't register. Maybe that's just me.

I've spent almost an hour trying to get MT to upload the pictures I took earlier this week. No luck, it says transfer=100% but then doesn't pop up the next little screen to finish the process. So, I tried to be all techy and just upload the file into the directory in MT using my c panel. Well, that works fine except then I don't know the link to the file to post it in an entry. Yep, frustrating!

Last night we went to dinner and then to Barnes and Noble, I've got plenty to read these days so I wandered into the cd section. I bought six, yes, six cds.

The very best of Deee-Lite (It makes me smile!)
The Best of Chick Corea
The very best of Acoustic Alchemy (I'll probably end up getting more of theirs)
Ugly Americans - Boom Boom Baby and Stereophonic Spanish Fly (They're a local bad who was wildly popular five or so years ago.)
and DJ Micro - Music Through Me (My very first techno cd, which I'm listening to while I'm online.)

I don't listen to music much at home, I don't drive my car very often so I usually have the local news/talk radio station on driving to work and back, so mostly I needed something to listen to at work. Spinner sucks, the local radio stations play too many commercials all day long, and I can't really afford XM for my office (not even sure it would work since I don't have a window.)

I rented dvds this evening. I watched About A Boy earlier. It was ok, about what I expected. I also have Lovely and Amazing, which I don't know much about, and Elling - a Norwegian film with subtitles.

If this were back in my single days, it's the kind of night I'd say fuck it all and pick a bar and go sit and drink and watch people. I would spend two or three hours in the bar and never say a word to anyone, just sit there and feel invisible. I've spent a lot of time feeling invisible. And it's not that I couldn't do that tonight. I think I've just gotten too old to bother.

Guess I'll log off and watch another movie and try to occupy my brain.

Not Again - The Space Shuttle is gone

How sad. How very sad. Another tragedy on another beautiful day. It feels even weirder knowing it was over Texas, so relatively close to my parents' house. It's a modern miracle there is a space program at all, accidents are bound to happen. But that doesn't make it any less of a tragedy.

God bless the families of the astronauts.

update 11:22 am For the best on the web I've seen about all this - please go read Instapundit. The info and links there are amazing.

Such strange times we live in. 9/11, war, the general overall threat that another terror attack could happen at any time, this space shuttle Columbia disaster... but what strikes me as odd is the way we all just keep on keeping on, as if we're not living in strange times.

Nerdstar had gotten up to drive to Houston this morning for the Chinese New Year. Not long after she left, I went back to sleep and she called. I could hear CNN being broadcast over her XM radio. She said, turn on your television. My first thought was we're at war, the second was more terrorism. If I'd been driving with her to Houston, it would have been so tempting to drive on over to where all the debris is today. Now I'm not sure what I'll spend the day doing. Watching the tv, reading.

One more link - this blog is going to try to keep up with the various info being posted about the space shuttle. The weather radar pics showing the debris trail are stunning.