Forever A Fangirl

Gemstone Globe

Gemstone Globe, originally uploaded by Caprica2006.

I turned 47 today--November 29.

Very happy with the gifties. Season One of Battlestar Galactica, BSG Season 2.0, and BSG Season 2.5 (okay, I bought 2.5 for myself but 'ya can't have one w/out the other). A couple weeks back I was thumbing through a Design Toscano catalog and came across a gemstone globe. I ooohed and ahhed and my youngest son was within earshot. He insisted on getting it for a b-day gift and it is gorgeous!
We went out for dinner to Christl's German Inn as my son needed to do so for a German paper (and 'ya know, it was my birthday).
Arg! That stuff is heavy.
Saw Borat Sunday night with all three guys as having a b-day midweek is not so good when it's a school night.
Finally, spouse brought home a dozen roses of every hue and he's doing a complete remake of my bathroom--everything--fixtures, cabinets, paint (flooring I still need to go pick out).
I don't think I've cleaned up this well since I was a kid!

World's Shortest Personality Test

Your Personality Profile

You are funky, outdoorsy, and down to earth. While you may not be a total hippie... You're definitely one of the most free spirited people around. You are very impulsive - every day is a new adventure. However, you do put some thought behind all your actions. Still, you do tend to shock and offend people from time to time!

                                         http://www.blogthings.com/worldsshortestpersonalitytest/

Impulsive...shock & offend...funky. Yep that's me. :D

What Is Your Elf Name?

Your Elf Name Is...

Candy Eggnog Breath

                                               http://www.blogthings.com/elfnamegenerator/

Heh.

Good Spirits

I had a fantastic day.
We are having this weird extended warm spell (which I assume will end abruptly with a fierce, inhumanly frigid blast).
The fantastic-ness (not a word, I know) was in no small part due to the weather. It was top-down weather and I was out three times in the Mustang doing the top-down thing.
It was just so very awesome to be riding around the northwest suburbs of Chicago during a freakishly warm spell. (It is, after all late November. I mean post-Thanksgiving!)
It really doesn't take much to put me in good spirits--but being in good spirits means a whole-heckuva lot to me. When I have the top down I just want to shout to the world, I'M FREE!!!!

Put a little sunshine in your life

I begin to really miss the sun this time of year with the hours of daylight dwindling each day so spouse has made sure I'll have some sunshine in my day--every day--by buying this for my bathroom:

Forgive yourself

OK, so you wish you hadn't eaten every dessert at Thanksgiving dinner just because you didn't want to offend the bakers of the pecan pie, the pumpkin pie, the apple pie, the chocolate-chocolate torte and that vegan thing.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0611240253nov24,1,981718.column?coll=chi-opinionfront-hed

That's me in the mirror

A Mirror Project  submission.

I'm a passenger in the Mustang. I like how you can't tell where I end and where the clouds begin.

Wii did it!

The wii, a new console from Nintendo. It's release was highly anticipated by my 14 y.o. son.

Mission accomplished!
The wii game system by Nintendo is something that my 14 y.o. Nintendo-fan son has been mentioning for more than a year (two?). The date of distribution, like that of it's competitors was shifted around quite a bit--no pre-ordering--no absolute knowledge of what it was going to cost even! (about $340 as pictured--- my son paid for every cent of it).

My spouse is a COSTCO member and his inside knowledge from two COSTCO sources made the difference in Chris finally getting his wii.

Spouse was told either that Monday or Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. the bundled consoles would be available for sale--COSTCO does not advertise..

Monday, he and just one other parent (while he was there) were told to come back on Tuesday at 10 a.m.. When spouse hit the COSTCO entrance doors just before 10 am. today there were about 20 other people desirous of wii's as well.

Everyone got one out of a total of 40 wii bundles that COSTCO put out today. Yay.
And we have inside knowledge of when the next batch will be will be released (wouldn't Black Friday be perfect?)

I haven't heard my two sons sounding like they are having a raucous good time in eons.
Darned if the freebie generic game selection that came with the wii didn't have their attention all evening. And the game entails standing up and really moving around.
You are in the game. It's different and it's cool..

Pete Townshend ~ Slit Skirts

Some days this song just resonates with me a bit more.

It's partly a slice of my life, reversed.

(Couldn't get the You Tube linkage to work so you hafta click the link.)

The Who or in this case Pete Townshend going it alone... well, live is better, IMO.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6tKXtqZG04

I was just thirty-four years old and I was still wandering in a haze
I was wondering why everyone I met seemed like they were
Lost in a maze

I don't know why I thought I should have some kind of
Divine right to the blues
It's sympathy not tears people need when they're the
Front page sad news.

The incense burned away and the stench began to rise
And lovers now estranged avoided catching each others' eyes

And girls who lost their children cursed the men who fit the coil
And men not fit for marriage took their refuge in the oil
No one respects the flame quite like the fool who's badly burned
From all this you'd imagine that there must be something learned

Slit skirts, Jeanie doesn't wear any slit skirts
I don't ever wear no ripped shirts
Can't pretend that growing older never hurts.

Knee pants, I don't ever wear no knee pants
Have to be so drunk to try a new dance
So afraid of every new romance

Slit skirts, slit skirt
Jeanie isn't wearing those slit skirts, slit skirt
She wouldn't dare in those slit skirts, slit skirt
Wouldn't be seen dead in no slit skirt

Romance, romance, why aren't we thinking up romance?
Why can't we drink it up true heart romance
Just need a brief new romance

Let me tell you some more about myself, you know I'm sitting at home just now.
The big events of the day are passed and the late TV shows have come around.
I'm number one in the home team, but I still feel unfulfilled.
A silent voice in her broken heart complains that I'm unskilled.

And I know that when she thinks of me, she thinks of me as him,
And unlike me, she can'tt work off her frustration in the gym.

Recriminations fester and the past can never change
A woman's expectations run from both ends of the range

Once she woke with untamed lovers' face between her legs
Now he's cooled and stifled and it's she who has to beg

Slit skirts, Jeanie never wears any slit skirts
I don't ever wear no ripped shirts
Can't pretend that growing older never hurts

Knee pants, Jeanie isn't wearing any knee pants
We have to be so drunk to try a new dance
So afraid of every new romance

Slit skirts, slit skirt
Jeanie isn't wearing those slit skirts, slit skirt
She wouldn't dare in those slit skirts
Wouldn't be seen dead in no slit skirt

Romance, romance, why aren't we thinking up romance?
Why can't we drink it up true heart romance
Just need a brief new romance

Battlestar Galactica: Hero, S3E9

Screen cap of Tricia Helfer as Caprica/Chip!Six

Tonight's episode of Battlestar Galactica "Hero," was worth watching even though it had too many storyline fragments that never gelled into a cohesive whole.

It did introduce a potential answer to why the Cylons seemingly randomly attacked the 12 colonies after a 40-year silence but it had too much filler and dropped storylines. It could have gone in any number of directions like what were the exact circumstances that led New Caprica president Gaius Baltar, held prisoner & tortured on a Cylon Basestar, to find himself in a comfy bed with two great-looking (Cylon) women?...and it wasn't one of his elaborate waking dreams!

I could have watched more of that ...

And what about one of the "heroes" in this episode? "Bulldog," aka Carl Lumbly/aka that guy from "Alias." It just made no sense to just send him off after his understandable yet all the same extreme behaviour unless it was to get psychiatric help. Was the debriefing left on the cutting room floor?

And there always more potential story when Adama & Roslin are in the same room. Middle-aged fireworks...great stuff from a couple of actors who don't do a lot of teevee and whose roles are pivotal to this show.

That's a few points that I had problems with but there are always great nuggets within every BSG episode. In "Hero,"  XO Saul Tigh, aka that really good Canadian actor Michael Hogan had some meaty stuff to work with and as always, he did it very well. He's Emmy material all the way.

I'll watch this eppy again over the weekend and come back here to add more about what I did like. This show is made for more than one viewing.

I always love Mary McDonnell's work on screen with Eddie Olmos. Check out this cap from next week's BSG:

President Laura Roslin & Admiral William Adama in a scene from S3E9.

EDIT: I watched BSG's "Hero" episode again and it refreshed my memory about the things that I appreciated about this epi.

The long, slow sweep of the camera of almost the entire length of the flight deck--very nice CGI. It's not a scene that is shown a lot I've read, because it's so costly to do so. It is big fun to watch when it is shown though.

I like seeing a Cylon Raider up close and personal--this was the first since "Scar." It was hard to keep a straight face though when the little doors swung out from Cylon Raider's underside followed immediately by a gush of reddish liquid stuff.

I enjoy the scenes on the Cylon Basestar vs. some opinion that it was lacking. I'm liking getting to know  the "enemy."
                                                                                                                                          

I really didn't dig the story as a whole that much--it felt like filler with a side order of one big reveal and a titillating glimpse of Xena/Number 3's (apt name, no?) back-almost-side.

The actors rock--as they always so as a true BSG fangirl I'll look forward to the next show (in two weeks--damn you, American Thanksgiving!) and keep in mind the many stellar shows that the show already has come forth with. I've no doubt there are plenty more to come. The worst BSG is better than any episode of LOST after Season One.

Shedd Aquarium Photos

Create Your Own

BSG: What's Your Rank?

What's Your Rank?

QUOTATION OF THE DAY

"It's not that we 'could be' the weaker sex - we are the weaker sex. Even when men and women have the same disease, we often find that men are more likely to die."
DR. ROBERT TAN,   geriatrics specialist in Houston.

This is just more evidence supporting conclusions that were drawn long ago. Ashley Montague's The Natural Superiority Of Women, written in the 1960's cited reams of science from an anthropologic/sociologist viewpoint that made such a conclusion seem like one everyone would agree with.
Didn't happen. It's heartening that they are still trying.

I find it fascinating that there's such reisistance to the acceptance that women were built to last longer than men.

My muse

Crown Fountain, Millennium Park, Chicago

 

Rummy Resigns

Finally...

And a little blast from the past (Click it!).

It was a thumpin

"It was a thumpin," President Bush told reporters at a White House news conference in regard to the redrawn Washington landscape.

Critiquing Mena & Ben's New Child

                               

As my dim memory seems to recall, a few months back TypePad (developers Mena & Ben Trott & Co.)  offered me as the renter of a TypePad weblog, a chance to preview their new endeavor, yet another blogging system. At the time, I didn't think much other than it could be interesting as I am always on the lookout for new and better. Who isn't? :D

I didn't realize that it was/is free too, as I hadn't done much more than register my intent.
I've come to know not to underestimate the TypePad people. I signed on to TypePad over three years ago (blog years I believe, are somewhat similar to "dog years")  as a newbie blogger knowing that some of the people behind Movable Type put TypePad together for those of us that are far less enamoured of writing our own code.

TypePad, a paid blog, has been a good fit for me. It has tremendous customer service and has gradually added a number of things that I'd felt were missing--spellcheck, more fluidity of use--but alas, no smilies!

So to the new blog. It's free. It's aimed at the "I'm too old for MySpace" crowd. It's still in it's infancy but it's got the stamp of Mena & Ben on it.

Better than TypePad in a couple ways so far: FREE stock photos,  FREE hosting of your own photos, gorgeous templates (backgrounds) and pithy, sort of Zen-like pop-up messages if something goes clunk (like you hit a button and didn't get what you wanted--when that happened just the once so far to me--I just hit the button again--getting what I wanted).


VOX is meant to be a private/ family & friends-type blog (or not--your choice).
It's  MySpace without the glitter and music player but with lots of other goodies. So far, I've said ah about twice as much as ugh--a good start.

                               

                                The photographs on this blog are mine unless otherwise ID'd (like, "My son took this") or if not ID'd, are publicity shots/stock photos.

I'm browsing the VOX stock photo collection right now. I put in "dog" as a search term and there were plenty of results.
The two above showed up twice--along with about a dozen others.
Pretty cute pooch, No?

 

And here are a couple for "bikini."                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Not bad. Was trying to gauge how

"adult" VOX is. Stock photos seem to have a nice PG-13-ish feel ( though I am far, far, far from 13).                                                                                                                                                                     

One more. I'm sooo good at time wasting. Let's see...dog, bikini, (this is like free association) let's see how diverse we can be. First "woman":

Uh-oh, a bunch of skinny white women. Some in couples but generic just the same. Maybe that's why they are called "stock." Try again. "fat woman." Huh. One photo in a bikini, one in Amish clothing, neither of whom has a face. Then lots of skinny, white women and some examples of heathful food.                                                                                                                                                                      

                               

                               

 

Well, free photos are good. A tiny attempt at
being comprehensive is ...something that could improve.
There is so much that comprises VOX (it has a spell checker--even ahem, TypePad didn't have that for some time--and they still don't have smilies (bah).
Must go attend to my other blogs very briefly...more later.

Oh crud, the spell checker is having troubling spelling.

(cross-posted from Vox)

Art is...

Art is mysterious, a thing of dreams and magic, but it's also coldly practical. A thing of toil and skill and repetition. ~ Julia Keller

Okay, what is this young lady playing? I can't get even a good guess from anyone.

Anyway, I was very impressed with her.  I thought she showed great poise.

(This is either the Fremd High School Symphonic Winds or the Wind Symphony--sorry, I forgot to take notes).

The Concert Band (Freshmen)--youngest son is a member.

Four bands, one night. Good experience.

Suburban Halloween Night

There was a shortage of healthy pumpkins here this year due to disease. At the pumpkin farm  we saw quite a few white pumpkins.
This one looks pretty cool all lit up.

"Tommy's house"

more here