Friday, June 15, 2007

Where I've been.

Tired. Achy. Busy.

(I also have so many draft entries that I think I've officially created more drafts than actual published entries. Perhaps today I'll finally go back and start, you know, posting some of those. Because they're almost done, and most just need some sort of conclusion. Since I talk about some of my favorite things in the world, they do go on for some time. I talk about The Plague and how it won't kill us if we just respond correctly, and quickly. By the way--that guy with the XDR-TB is a jerk. Not because of his XDR-TB but because he openly disregarded instructions from the CDC. If the CDC tells you to stay put until they know more about your XDR-TB, then you freakin' stay put until you hear differently! Dude knew he was doing something he shouldn't be doing when he flew to Canada because he suspected that he was on the US No Fly list. As far as I'm concerned, I think he should be happy that he didn't get put into jail for what did, like that poor Russian guy in Arizona a few months ago, who also has XDR-TB and was JAILED for going out in public without his face mask on. The fact that more tests showed that Speaker's strain of XDR-TB is not highly contagious doesn't excuse what he did AT ALL. Had he just listened to the CDC and waited for those test results to come in, then the whole mess could probably have been avoided. But Speaker's an annoying fat-head who thought he knew more about TB than the CDC. Also: The CDC is not perfect and the only person we have to blame for that is Bush, who consistently cuts funding to everything important to us because of his goddamned war.)

I need to work on writing shorter parentheticals.

Devin and I both finished the six Harry Potter books in eight days (so that was a while ago, and I wrote a draft entry about it). Since Devin asks me every other day when the new book comes out, I made a sign, and posted it in our kitchen, that says, "The next Harry Potter book is STILL coming out on July 21st." I smacked him when he started complaining about having to wait that long because I've been waiting two years for this book (eight if you consider how long I've been reading the entire series).

He also made me promise to get him his OWN COPY. Which I think is a spectacular waste of money but he's adamant that he will NOT wait for me to finish my copy (even though I'll read it in one day, as I've done with all of the other HP books, but that's not good enough for Devin).

After finishing up Harry, I watched Season 3 of "Battlestar Galactica." I highly recommend watching this show if you're not watching it already. You need to start at the beginning, though. (Seasons 1 and 2 are available to rent, like most TV shows are nowadays, which is a wonderful use of DVD technology. Season 3 comes out sometime in August.)

The final season doesn't start until February of next year, so I let Devin complain about the long wait because it wouldn't exactly be fair for me to start griping when I'm smacking him around for complaining about having to wait for the last HP book. Although eleven months between seasons really is an insanely long amount of time to wait for a show. They're showing a two-hour episode in November but it's a prequel to stuff that was already dealt with during Season 2 (if I say any more, I would veer into spoiler territory).

We celebrated our two-year wedding anniversary earlier this week (the 11th) by going out to dinner and then seeing "Ocean's 13." Which we both liked it, but not enough to see it again on the big screen. And as much as I love Ellen Barkin, there needed to be more women in the movie. Maybe just ONE more woman. But it was funny, and fluffy and certainly not a waste of money.

My arthritis was kicking my ass for the past few weeks. The weather's been going a bit crazy and all of that change made my knees swell on a daily basis. Although now that the weather has finally settled on hot, my joints are no longer achy balls of pain. I've been able to go back to doing Yoga and Pilates (even though I hate Pilates because it is brutal). And Devin is thrilled because I'm no longer lying around the house with my knees propped up and ice-packs strapped to them.

Otherwise it's been a lot of summer TV. I'm addicted to "Hell's Kitchen" and "Top Chef," even though I hate cooking and eat very bland foods when I'm sick, so I also have an aversion to anything spicy. But "Hell's Kitchen" cracks me up and "Top Chef" teaches me all sorts of things about cooking. (Even though I never put any of that knowledge to good use.) I also love seeing the "Top Chef" people go absolutely nuts during their Quick Fire challenges.

And, of course, I watch "So You Think You Can Dance?" because DAMN, the top twenty dancers this year are phenomenal. This week was the first night of competition for the top twenty and it was spectacular. Usually the first week isn't particularly good because you have dancers who are dancing in styles that they have never danced before, and many of them have never done any partner work, either (for those unfamiliar with the show, the top twenty are partnered off into ten couples and they continue to dance as couples for many weeks).

The few dancers who struggled with new dance styles, and were put into the bottom three couples by popular vote, managed to save themselves (except for two contemporary dancers) based on their solo routine. Which sucked for the two contemporary dancers who went home because their solo routines weren't even as good as their auditions, so they were sent home by the judges. (Again, if you are unfamiliar with the show, America votes for their favorite couples, the bottom three couples then have to perform solo routines for the judges, and the judges send one boy, and one girl home. This goes on for a few weeks until most of the dancers have been sent home.)

Although I'm getting tired of the judge's fascination with break-dancing. They kept one guy who pulled out the same damn break-dancing tricks that he's been doing since the first round of auditions and the judges are still heaping praise on him. They must not realize that there are a whole lot of guys in this country who can spin around on their freakin' heads. (I remember guys break-dancing during breaks between classes while I was in junior high. They'd bring out pallets of cardboard--old refrigerator boxes and the like, and would practice spinning around on their heads, and a bunch of other common break-dancing tricks.)

And I'm not saying that break-dancing well is easy. It's hard as hell but if this particular break-dancer (there are a few of them in the top twenty) ends up having to perform a solo routine again, he'd better do more than freakin' spinning around on his head. Even the other break-dancers in the competition realize that there has to be substance to their routines to balance out the tricks.

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Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Out of touch with time.

And probably reality.

This year is going by at an insane rate. I can't believe that my two-year wedding anniversary is less than a month away and Devin and I have no idea what we are going to do about it.

Although it will probably not involve spending much money, unless our parents gift us with a gift certificate to a nice restaurant. We're lucky to be able to funnel money into our savings account after paying our bills and mortgage.

Last week, Devin had the brainstorm that I needed to replace Gilmore Girls with another show. Which was really just his three-thousandth attempt to get me to watch Battlestar Galactica.

Entertainment Weekly is obsessed with this show. Since I read every issue cover-to-cover, I had been telling Devin about it because it sounded like something he would like. Which turned out to be a gross understatement: He loved it. And maybe I made fun of him for loving what is basically a science-fiction soap opera.

Before Gilmore went off the air, Devin would complain about how yeah, it sucks when the shows that I like go on hiatus, but they come back on in a few months, and his precious show isn't even returning from hiatus until 2008. Once I learned Gilmore was ending for good, I turned the tables on him and said hell, at least your show is coming back.

Yes. Sometimes we act like children.

Since watching my shows last week ran the gamut from being highly emotional to just sucking monkey butt, I was pretty cranky over the weekend. Obviously, Gilmore made me crazy. Then Jaslene won America's Next Top Model and it was making me think that Tyra is either on medication, or needs to be on medication because that was a seriously fucked-up decision. (I could actually give a reasonably well-argued rant for why Jaslene was the stupidest choice possible for winner but I shouldn't waste my time because obviously the judges don't give a rat's arse about who is actually the best freakin' model. Stupid show.)

Then CSI got way creepy. Which is saying a lot because CSI is certainly not a warm-and-fuzzy type of show. Although their Miniature Killer storyline was fabulous, and it left us with a great cliff-hanger. But it also gave us the creepy puppet man who turned his dead five year-old daughter into a puppet for his stage show and kept having her sing about how she had a "pain in her sawdust."

Try getting THAT out of your mind.

On the work front, I actually had the mother of a former pool client calling me a couple of times Friday afternoon because his son told her to call.

The son is in his forties. I've dealt with some crazy callers at this job but I had never had a forty-something year-old man have his mother call me because he felt that we were not returning his calls in a prompt manner. (Which was completely untrue--we returned his call every day that week, he simply didn't happen to be home for the calls and refused to give us his cell number.)

(Although it was a bit funny when Devin was trying to figure out the work number that he gave us. Apparently, he gave us a work number that is actually an emergency hotline for freeze disaster relief. Which was pretty much useless because it was an answering machine.)

That pretty much unhinged me. I've gotten yelled at, cursed out, and hung-up on by former customers but I'd never been scolded by their mothers. I feel very sorry for that man's wife.

So, it was in this weakened state that Devin convinced me to watch some Battlestar Galactica with him over the weekend. We watched the three-hour-plus miniseries that served as one huge pilot for the show.

Now I'm hooked. You have no idea. It is the soapiest, campiest show that I have ever seen and I'm in love with it. In two days, I managed to bust through the entire first season.

Of course, Devin is thrilled that we actually have a shared interest in a TV show that isn't The Simpsons. I still can't really believe it. I have been mocking Devin for loving this show for almost a year.

He also might be gloating a bit about how his devious plan worked so well. Although he was a bit peeved with me because I was laughing at things that he felt were NOT funny. Except I always do that. Gilmore didn't bring out that side of me because the writing for it was superb, right up to the end.

I love dialogue. As a kid, I actually wrote far more plays than I did short stories. In class, whenever we were given a creative writing assignment, mine were always heavy on the dialogue. In fact, up until high school, they were pretty much ALL dialogue.

Oh yeah. That's also why I'm writing a one-act play for Script Frenzy. It's the June version of Nanowrimo for dramatists. Luckily the deadline is only 20,000 words, so I actually have a chance in hell of making the deadline. (Even though re-reading the entire Harry Potter series and watching two more seasons of Battlestar might make writing a one-act play a bit impossible.)

Although, honestly, I'm not that worried. Most of my Nano novel was dialogue because I am one of those people who enjoys dreaming up characters and then putting them in a room together to see how they interact.

Plus, if it's any good, I can submit it to the local community college for their theater department to use when they perform their one-act plays at the end of the year (obviously, I would have to wait until next year). I did this with a one-act that I wrote in high school but they didn't go for it because the main character spent the entire play in a hospital bed. Although this was before W;t won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

(I wonder what the hell happened to that one-act of mine, now that I think about it.)

So, you may now start betting on which thing I will not follow through with:

Reading the entire Harry Potter series by July 21st.

Writing a 20,000 word one-act play during the month of June.

Watching two seasons of Battlestar Galactica.

Watching any of the first two movies in a trilogy, of which the third installment is coming out this summer (Pirates, Bourne, Ocean's).

Or all of the above.

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