Of 2006 anyway. ;-)

I went back to my posts of a year ago to look at what resolutions I made and achieved or, more likely, failed to achieve and I discovered…I made none. Well, that’s one way to go. I can’t really think of any grand declarations I want to make for this coming year. I can go with the old standards of procrastinating less, being better organized, finding more time to write, and after the past couple weeks, eating healthier. I don’t even like to think about the junk food consumption as of late. Today alone I’ve had soda, movie theatre popcorn, a giant chocolate chunk cookie, and a most excellent chocolate truffle courtesy of divahag.

Maybe I'll try venturing to the store tomorrow to buy some healthy food. Unbelievably, I have nothing I feel I have to do tomorrow. I can just relax and do nothing if I want. Though, I think shall start burning shows off the DVR. I have about 64 hours of programming sitting on it right now. :/

This evening I have no plans other than TV watching and sleeping. I’ve never gotten the big deal about celebrating New Year’s and I’d rather not be on the road with all the drunk drivers. I did go out this afternoon and saw Dreamgirls which I would highly recommend seeing if you are a fan of musicals. All the hype about Jennifer Hudson is totally deserved. OMG, my breath actually hitched in my chest a few times during her big number. She owns that movie and I wish her well with the best supporting actress Oscar which I’m sure she’ll be nominated for. She should be in the lead category, she’s in more of the film than Beyonce and out performs her in every single way, but Helen Mirren is considered a lock for The Queen so she'll have to throw her hat in the ring for supporting actress.

Beyonce, though she did not have as strong a voice as any of her female co-stars nor was her acting as good, was actually well cast in the role of someone with not as much talent as those around her, but with a pretty face and a “quality” about her. Here Deena is a product much as she is herself and Diane Ross who the character is based on.

I saw a bunch of unremarkable trailers accept for Shrek the Third which looks to have the potential to be funnier than the last film.

After the movie, mom and I came back to my apartment and I made her watch Little Miss Sunshine. (That and the CD arrived Friday raislak – thanks! :-) Fortunately, she found it lived up to my hype. If any of you have not seen that film yet, do so immediately.

There are a bunch of meme’s going around. The one regarding favorite fandom moments over the past year peaked my interest. ( My Top Ten – 70% Bamber/BSG Free! )

While cleaning out the bookmarked sites on my computer the other night, I came across AOL’s In2TV and discovered they now have nine episodes of ‘Eyes’ available for viewing. For those interested in another Tim Daly show axed too quickly by ABC, check it out.

I received two more holiday cards. Many thanks to thegoyle and hockeyvaughnfan I’d also like to wish hockeyvaughnfan a slightly early HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Hope you have a great day.

And A Very Happy New Year to you all. I wish you all a safe evening and only wonderful things in the 365 days to come. :-)

Tags: holiday_blatherings, movie_recaps
Current Mood: relaxed

Not that I'm not grateful. I don't need the distraction of posts this week at work. Though, surprisingly, work hasn't been as hellish as I expected it to be. I'm sure by Friday I'll be threatening to kill people. You think I'm kidding, don't you?

Everyone seems to be posting about their holiday festivities or lack there of. so I guess I shall join in. There wasn't any excitement and only a little negative drama. The drama courtesy of a cousin who married a real piece of work. I think I called her a gold digger not long after they were married. Guess who was right? And the key to getting my mother out of the kitchen seems to be talking excitedly while holding onto a knife.

As for presents, I got a ton of limited edition M&M merchendise. My mother seems to feel that M&M/Mars has found a sucker in her. I also got a couple of coffee mugs to add to the collection - Marvin the Martian, personalized with my name on it, and the other listing all the broadway musicals that ran in 2005. Oh, and she located on CD a reading/performance of 'The Odd Couple' with Nathan Lane, David Paymer, and a couple of folks from 'The Simpsons'. I also recieved in the mail cards from thegoyle and carrielee, Eminem's latest CD from ketzel, and a box of goodies from writteninstars including the first two seasons of 'Newsradio' and a gorgeous, fits perfectly green cordoroy jacket. :)

And from the 'I Didn't Forget, I Just Didn't Post' file, a belated HAPPY BIRTHDAY! to _jems_! Hope you had a great day. :)

Remember how I said I probably wouldn't post about BSG while watching the 2.0 discs? Yeah, I may be rethinking that. Actually, it was while watching KLG Parts 1&2 again that I had a few thoughts. I didn't think it was possible to observe anything more from those eps. And I couple things have also popped into my mind about this season. I'm through 'Resistance' (which I may have watched twice ;) and shall try to refrain from posting until I get to the end of the set.

Now, for anyone in the Seattle area who are not sdwolfpup or brynnmck because they, along with danceswithwords already know they are stuck with me, I'll be in Seattle from January 11th thru the 15th. If you'd like to see about maybe meeting face to face (I'm really not that scary) drop a line here or e-mail me. Thus far the only definite plans we have are for Sci-Fi Friday and DSW and I have discussed the Science Fiction Museum.

Tags: holiday_blatherings
Current Mood: sleepy

Before I get to what has significantly cheered me up this past week or so, let me explain why I’ve been so delinquent in getting to the good stuff. I’ve made mentions here and there that I’ve had a truly horrible week. I came seriously close to crying twice at work because I felt overwhelmed, stressed and angry. Generally I’m not at a loss for words, but I became so furious while trying to deal with an American Express representative I came to a point I could no longer speak to her. Then it took a good five minutes after I was off the phone before I could speak to anyone. Did I mention this all happened after 5:00 when I should have been on my way home? And that the impetuous for the problem is the fault of my dumb ass boss? And every time I felt I was beginning to make progress on the huge piles of work on my desk and silly enough to become optimistic that there was an end in sight, another huge ass stack of work would be delivered.

On top of work hell, I had to take my mother to the emergency room twice. Without going into the long story because, frankly, I don’t wish to relive it, the short version is she had a CAT scan on Monday to check her kidney (its fine) and by Tuesday was having an allergic reaction to the dye they used. Nothing life threatening happened, but she did break out in a rash and was itching like crazy. When the meds didn’t work fast enough for her liking, we had to make a second trip back.

Oh, and during the first trip to the ER, my check engine light went on in the car. I took it into the dealership today and, Christmas Miracle!, it was only a gunked up hose and cost a lot less than I expected to fix.

So, other than managing to, after four days of trying, post my KLG recap, I haven’t had a ton on time for LJ or e-mail. I think I finally caught up with replying to people yesterday. I’ve seen a lot of folks posting about the cards/gifts they’ve been receiving and I felt bad for not doing the same. I think we all like to know when what we sent has been received and appreciated. I cannot begin to express how much your thoughts and kind words have meant to me. Seriously, I think I have the bestest group of friends there is and that all of you have chosen to be friends with me I take as a very high compliment. And that you actually enjoy my BSG/Bamber ramblings and I haven’t driven you all mad is just frosting on the cake. ;-)

Now, here be who I‘ve received cards from as of this afternoon…

avrelia (A card in Russian!), brynnmck (Super sekrit secret question - brief? Why is that? Do I have to share him? ;), cathyteach2 (Baby pic!), dementedsiren (OMG, you wrote me a ‘Bones‘/Bamber ficlet! How cool are you?! Very cool. And it‘s the rare time I haven‘t found Temperance annoying. ;), electricexprmnt (Frankenangels? Now that‘s scary.), fer1213, gobi_rex (A woman of fine shipping choices.), hockeyvaughnfan, jidabug, keswindhover, mirandaflynn, molly_may, dragonfly0303, onlyoot, poshcat (Who will force me to explain to my mother why a woman is sending me a card with a woman in lingerie on the front. :p) , raislak (A closet poet), roquelaure, sal101010, and sweet_ali (I‘m not that nice - really!).

And then there are the wonderful prezzies from fer1213 (Great music), danceswithwords (Chocolate and Bamber - two things that go great together. :), the combined efforts of sdwolfpup and brynnmck and our mutual love of Archie and Horatio, reckleslinguist (She found a Blue M&M Han Solo! And some other stuff. ;), x_h00ine (Hugh Laurie contraband!), dragonfly0303 (Josh!), and raislak who gifted me back in friggin October. :p

I’d also like to give a big shout out to writteninstars who mailed out my package before Christmas this year! I’ll be waiting for the family of five remarks in comments now…

Now let me take a moment and not be all about ME. Happy Birthday! to swsa. It’s always been a joy to read your Buffy snark and insight and you have my gratitude for keeping me away from the TWOP boards. I hope you have/had a great day. : )

Tomorrow I have plans to see The Family Stone and perhaps squeeze in some BSG 2.0 viewing so I may post again before Sunday. If not, Happy Holidays!

Tags: holiday_blatherings
Current Mood: thankful

My enthusiasm for the holidays lies somewhere between "OMG it's Christmas! Wheeeeee!!!" and "Is it January yet?" I enjoy making cards, but want to take a sledghammer to my old computer and printer. I love giving gifts, but loathe having to go out in the cold to get them (let's take a moment to give thanks to online retailers). And I adore the lights and pretty decorations, it's the time it takes to put them up and take them down is a pain in the ass. Today, I ventured out to pick up a few odds and ends. Stuff I didn't need to get, but thought would be nice little extras with gifts I had already purchased. For the most part it went OK, until I decided to go to Target. I never made it to Target. Seriously, traffic was backed up for what was probably a mile. I couldn't figure out why until I remembered between me and the Target was, oh, Sam's Club and Costco. So, I turned into a drive and ended up going to visit divahag in her own retail hell. Other than groceries, I don't think I'll be going near a store until at least December 27th.

I've been catching up with some shows I recorded last week and ( 'Alias' did something I didn't think was possible... )

And while I adore you all, I *really* adore sdwolfpup and brynnmck today for feeding the Bamber obsession. ::crosses fingers that I'll get to see them and danceswithwords soon::

Tags: holiday_blatherings
Current Mood: chipper

In the roughly two years I've been using Firefox, my e-mail has never been quite right. I could do all the basic stuff, but the little toolbar to do smilies, bold text, etc. never appeared. And the formatting on numerous e-mails would alays become wonky when I went to respond. Today, as I was swapping e-mails with some folks I noticed how nice and neat the e-mail looked. And, OMG, my toolbar is there! What the frack happened over night? Did Mozilla and Yahoo make for the holidays? Yes, it really is the little things that make me happy. :)

As for celebrating the slaughter of the indiginous people, it's been postponed here due to weather. It's just my mom and I getting together and I only live about fifteen minutes away, but the way the weather was when we spoke the thought of me driving made her nervous. Well, more nervous than she normally is. :p Ironically, ten minutes after I got off the phone with her, the sun came out and the snowing subsided substantially. There may be more to it than weather issues. My dad died the Saturday after Thanksgiving four years ago and that's playing on her mind a bit. Me? Not so much. But I don't dwell on things as she does. I'm more like my dad in that respect.

So, Plan B is to maybe go see (finally) 'Walk the Line' and then have dinner afterwards either tomorrow or Saturday. And it looks like I'll be giving her one of her Christmas gifts than too. Let me explain why. About a week ago I bought her a robe. She's always complaining about how cold she is, she's keeping the thermostat lower this year because of gas prices, and she doesn't have one. I bought, for myself, the exact same robe about a month ago. It's very plush terry cloth, long, comfy and keeps me very warm. After 'testing' it out, I picked up one for her, one size larger and in a different color. I didn't want to be twins. ;) This morning as we were talking on the phone she was telling me how cold she was and how she was thinking of ordering a shawl type wrap she saw in a catalogue. The little alarm in my head went off. Quickly, I try to find a way to dissuade her from ordering. I ask what material it is and she says fleece. Bingo. I point out the static electricity problems that come with fleece. Well, she saw another one in another catalogue that was a poly blend. O...K....I start pushing natural, breathable fibers. I point out I have a fleece robe and how it gets too warm sometimes and the shock problem. She then picks up on the word "robe" and tells me *that's* what she needs and what do I think about terry cloth and where in town she could find a nice one? Envision me slapping my forehead if you can. I know she won't be buying anything before I see her, so I'm just going to give up and give it to her. Considering how cold it is, it is rather silly to keep it in the bag for four more weeks and I get the added joy of her beating herself up for ruining the surprise. :)

Now I shall spend the rest of my day cleaning in preperation for her eventual arrival. Probably bake that chicken I have in the fridge before it goes bad. And I got one of my orders from Deep Discount DVD that I believe includes 'Lady Audley's Secret' which means it's me and Jamie tonight. :) I also have BSG watching and write ups to do.

Hope those of you getting together with loved and not-so-loved ones are having a nice day. If not, put down the carving knife and walk away. ;-)

Tags: holiday_blatherings
Current Mood: good