Sun! Darkness and torrential rain. Blinding sun! Sheets of hail.
This has been our weather today. We're in the rinse cycle again as I type this. Don't like the weather? Wait five minutes.
On another note, after yet another attack on my animals by rampaging stupid dogs, I'm finally putting up fencing. Granted it's not "pretty" fencing, but t-posts and field fence will keep out the varmints until we get something nicer up.
Our neighbor to the north (who's dogs are not a problem at all) offered this sage commentary yesterday, "Well, those chickens run loose." Well, duh! That's why I'm putting up a fence. His unruly grandkids run loose, too, and now I won't have to worry about them stumbling into my yard, hurting themselves, and their mother having conniptions and suing us (yes, she's that unstable). Yes, I was a bit cheesed.
Irregardless of whether I have animals "running loose" in my yard, I shouldn't have to put up with rampaging dogs tearing it up on my property.
It will save on bullets, too.
Friday, March 24, 2006
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Life in the Fast Lane
Truck back online: check!
VW waiting to be registered: in progress...
Sand in tilt yard for tomorrow's jousting practice: check!
Running around like headless chicken prepping for tomorrow and the Cav School and the dance show in April and...: check!
VW waiting to be registered: in progress...
Sand in tilt yard for tomorrow's jousting practice: check!
Running around like headless chicken prepping for tomorrow and the Cav School and the dance show in April and...: check!
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
A Year at the Movies
Great read, especially if you love movies and the film-going experience! Kevin Murphy can write up a storm. Two thumbs way up. More when I'm done fixing my stupid car...grrrrr....
When I was in high school and college I used to work on my own car. I liked to work on my own car/boat/etc. While I still like to fool around with a boat (when I have one), I have lost the joy of working on my car. I don't have the urge to spend a day cracking my knuckles against a cold engine block and fighting with stuck bolts and crawling around in the dirt under a very greasy mini-Borg-like glob of mechanical mess. I don't need to feel cool, impress "the guys", and otherwise prove my self-sufficiency anymore.
There are so many things I'd rather be doing. Digging in my garden, for instance, or sewing, or putting up fences, or building a henhouse, or doing bookish researchy things. Anything! I just want the car to work. I want to get in, depress the clutch, turn the key, and zoom off to the library/nursery/fabric store like Batman on a mission. Did Batman spend his afternoons under the Batmobile? No! I don't think even Alfred did, come to think of it. Where's my VFX Dept.?!
Why this litany of rage? My truck has, to be technical, busted a gasket (or something) in the power steering area. I think the seal around the shaft to the impeller thingy is fritzed, because the fluid just runs right out along it, and I kind of need that steering concept to function. Of course it's a "take it to the shop" thing, because I guess you need a special tool to pull the pulley. $$$$$ Gack. So....I'm stranded while The Man is at work every day, unless I can get the VW running. The VW that sat for two years in California (another long story). The VW that coughed and sputtered all the way up here from CA because it sat for two years and I'm guessing has a totally gummed up fuel filter. So I'm replacing the plugs and filter...as soon as I can find the filter. Those clever Germans have hidden it somewhere, which is amazing since it's the size of an oil filter! So I'm digging out my coveralls and looking for my tools, and I'm not particularly enthused. I know I'll feel great about it when I'm done, but right now I'm just annoyed.
Oh, and my computer mouse died, perhaps in sympathy for the rodents the cats have been eliminating, so I'm reduced to the carpal tunnel horror of the trackpad on my laptop. The agony.
OK, I know, there are children in Ethiopia who don't even have a laptop, so... I'll shut up now and go out to the garage. I'm very thankful for my lovely garage, by the way. It has lights, a concrete floor, a fancy door, window, and two power roll-up doors. It's very swanky. If you have to work on your car, you should have a garage this nice. Just wanted to end on a positive note.
When I was in high school and college I used to work on my own car. I liked to work on my own car/boat/etc. While I still like to fool around with a boat (when I have one), I have lost the joy of working on my car. I don't have the urge to spend a day cracking my knuckles against a cold engine block and fighting with stuck bolts and crawling around in the dirt under a very greasy mini-Borg-like glob of mechanical mess. I don't need to feel cool, impress "the guys", and otherwise prove my self-sufficiency anymore.
There are so many things I'd rather be doing. Digging in my garden, for instance, or sewing, or putting up fences, or building a henhouse, or doing bookish researchy things. Anything! I just want the car to work. I want to get in, depress the clutch, turn the key, and zoom off to the library/nursery/fabric store like Batman on a mission. Did Batman spend his afternoons under the Batmobile? No! I don't think even Alfred did, come to think of it. Where's my VFX Dept.?!
Why this litany of rage? My truck has, to be technical, busted a gasket (or something) in the power steering area. I think the seal around the shaft to the impeller thingy is fritzed, because the fluid just runs right out along it, and I kind of need that steering concept to function. Of course it's a "take it to the shop" thing, because I guess you need a special tool to pull the pulley. $$$$$ Gack. So....I'm stranded while The Man is at work every day, unless I can get the VW running. The VW that sat for two years in California (another long story). The VW that coughed and sputtered all the way up here from CA because it sat for two years and I'm guessing has a totally gummed up fuel filter. So I'm replacing the plugs and filter...as soon as I can find the filter. Those clever Germans have hidden it somewhere, which is amazing since it's the size of an oil filter! So I'm digging out my coveralls and looking for my tools, and I'm not particularly enthused. I know I'll feel great about it when I'm done, but right now I'm just annoyed.
Oh, and my computer mouse died, perhaps in sympathy for the rodents the cats have been eliminating, so I'm reduced to the carpal tunnel horror of the trackpad on my laptop. The agony.
OK, I know, there are children in Ethiopia who don't even have a laptop, so... I'll shut up now and go out to the garage. I'm very thankful for my lovely garage, by the way. It has lights, a concrete floor, a fancy door, window, and two power roll-up doors. It's very swanky. If you have to work on your car, you should have a garage this nice. Just wanted to end on a positive note.
Monday, February 27, 2006
Oscar Oscar Oscar...
As you all know by now, this is the 51st annual Academy Awards. Two hours of sparkling entertainment, spread out over a four-hour show.~~Johnny Carson
Have you ever watched a movie based solely on the fact that it was nominated for or won an Oscar? Nope.
How many of this year's nominees have you seen? 1 Which ones? Howl's Moving Castle
Do you think the film and/or actor deserved the nomination? YES
Are there any you wanted to see but have not managed to do so yet? Yes: Capote, Narnia, Harry Potter, War of the Worlds, King Kong, Good Night and Good Luck, Walk the Line, Munich, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, Pride & Prejudice, The Corpse Bride, and Wallace & Grommit. No, we don't get out much. I will see them all eventually.
(Courtesy "Musing on Movies")
As far as a detailed commentary on the nominations, I'll leave it to Jeffrey Overstreet since I pretty much agree with him across the board.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
CGI Captain
I've decided to remove the sidebar "What I'm Watching at Home" list, because it's a pain to update, manually, in my cheapo freebie blog courtesy of the wonderfull folks at Blogger. Henceforward I'll just comment on films in a brief entry if watchable, link to a lengthier entry if warranted, or refrain from posting at all if the thing is a bust. If it's very lucky, the offending awful film might get mention over at my Romance Novel Roundup.Anyhoo: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. As a film: watchable diversion. As a CGI extravaganza: WOW!!! Very light on plot and with pretty much no character development, it's not exactly a masterpiece of storytelling...but it does have Jude Law, Angelina Jolie (all too briefly), and Gwyneth Paltrow, who opted for the frugal "three facial expressions only" (ernest observer, disarming cheerfulness, angry girl) acting style in this one. By the time the credit crawl showed up, I was pretty much convinced that the film really exists as promotional material for Computer Generated Effects shops. The whole thing was shot on a blue screen set, and even the Evil Genius bad guy was stock footage. Very well integrated stock footage, but still, just more of the "see what we can do these days!" kind of thing. The net result was that I felt I had just watched one of those films you see at a World Expo that is really advertising or educating in a very entertaining way.
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