Saturday Mornings

I like animation quite a bit. And for quite a few years, I've enjoyed watching many cartoons on Saturday morning. I was sad when Superman was taken off to be replaced by one of three showings of Pokemon, which I did watch but didn't really enjoy. I could see the appeal of it to younger children, but it wasn't for me.

Not having cable or satellite, my cartoon watching is limited to whatever is shown on broadcast networks. The WB, UPN, the CW, and ABC, all provided cartoons worth watching to some extent or another for the past few years. Beginning this current season, though, there's just nothing on any more that I want to even waste my time with. It's very sad indeed.

While I was at my mom's house for Christmas, I got to watch some Spongebob (he's a sponge, you know), and some other stuff that I don't recall titles for. I did get to see The Brave and the Bold, a cartoon starring Batman and having special guest stars teaming up with him (mega excitement to see Plastic Man) patterned after the comic book of old. My initial perceptions of this show were negative, mostly due to the style of the cartoon, very reminiscent of the 60's TV show, which I enjoyed, but that's over and done, at least in that style. I was pleasantly surprised, though, and maybe next year it will show up on broadcast networks.

Pondering: why don't I have cable or satellite? Well, my cable company has steadily reduced offerings and increased pricing, but they have increased the number of Spanish stations, so what am I complaining for? And satellite I believe would be too restrictive (you can only record what the box is tuned to, and you can't watch other shows (or so I understand)). Either way, I'm not ready to spend money on everything when I only want a few channels.

Welcome, 2009!

I officially welcome 2009 to the world. Not first, not splashy, just ... welcome. 2008 turned out to be a pretty horrific year for me personally. With my father's brain tumors returning leading to his ultimate death, my mom's nearly fatal collapse, and work becoming more and more stressful with little hope economically of being able to change jobs, my apartment being an overwhelming mess, and my own personal health failureschallenges (the onset of high blood pressure and diabetes), I have been truly ready for a new year to come along, accompanied hopefully by new attitudes (my own and others, too), new determination to change what I can, and a hint of an idea of being more selfish and less so at the same time.

I'm neverI've never been good at keeping resolutions in the past, so why set myself up for failure? I can and do fail miserably easily enough on a daily basis. A couple of years ago I came up with the idea of setting goals, but that turned out to be merely a semantic game I did not win.

But, I have to change. Apparently, I've suffered insanity the past few years: I've done the same things I always do, yet nothing seems to be different. And it's frustrating now to the point that I lash out in anger at the silliest of things (and bigger things, too, like apartment management changing the gate entry system to a new code-based rather than apartment-based keypad entry, and failing to put my apartment into the list — along with a friend's — and did I mention that they failed to notify me that they had changed the system? par for their course).

So, anyway, if you think about it, say a prayer for me as I plan subtle changes (because big ones will never be successful at this point) that will add some variety and more importantly improvements to my life.

Thanks, and may 2009 be your Best! Year! Ever!

A Christmas Missive

I contributed to my DVD horde today by purchasing some Gilmore Girls (I'm not afraid to admit that I like this show) and the two volumes of Warner Bros. Holiday DVD Collection. My, that's a lot of DVDs in my collection. Anyway, I watched the first disc in Volume 1 of the collction, Boys Town (and on the flip side, Men of Boys Town. What a great movie or two. Both of these spoke to something in my heart, but more of that later.

I started watching A Christmas Carol from 1938 with Reginald Owen as Scrooge. And I got to thinking about our life in America today, what our expectations are about things, and all that kind of thing. In particular, about Christmas. I could go on about how commercialized Christmas has become and how we might just as well call it X-Mas for all we don't think about Christ and His birth. (And yes, I know the "x" really does stand for Christ, but in today's world, it's not understood or generally meant as a substitute for Christ). And to be honest, I've played a bit into this commercialism this year, but I do it out of love rather than obligation. ($200 isn't too much to spend on my mother, but don't let her read that! LOL.)

What is Christmas for beside a celebration of the birth of our Savior? I think spending time with family is important. In the past, I've always looked forward to Christmas. This year, though, with the death of my father, I've been dreading these holidays. When I think about it, that he's gone, it truly brings me to tears. And my poor mother, all alone now. She and my father had made plans, well, not so much plans as enjoying being with each other, and they were looking forward to retirement.

Again, I know I'm not the first person to lose a parent, and I'm blessed that he was around for as long as he was. And still, it hurts more than I can tell. As a friend who has passed this way told me, this is not something you can practice for or really even prepare for. You can expect it, but that's it. I know he's out of his suffering, and still it hurts. I can only trust that God will see us all through.

Existing all the things

I've had so many ideas for blog posts lately, but I haven't done anything about it. I do have a draft about Jesus, but it's not flowing together completely, so I still need to work on it.

Anyway, I get several different emails daily from Google Alerts. (Aside: this is a great service, kind of like an automated Google search delivered right to your inbox every day; you should really check it out. note: this is not a paid advertisement.) Through some of the alerts over time, I've discovered some kind of movie-review 'bot (robot) that's kind of "engrish", except more like "ind-rish".

One particular alert item that came across today was for one of my 50 favorite movies, Charade, starring Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. This is the Hitchcock film that Hitchcock didn't make but wishes he could have. [Editor's Note: While this is one of my favorite movies, it could be a gross inaccuracy to state it is one of my 50 favorite movies. I have not counted, nor have I ranked, movies beyond say my top five.]

This is the quote that showed up in my inbox (when I went to get the quote, I discovered it's for a movie, Wait Until Dark, starring Audrey Hepburn (as a blind woman) and Alan Arkin. Very suspenseful. On with the quote:

Wait Until Dark was grateful! You have to detect this movie! A egregious performance by Audrey Hepburn & Alan Arkin make Wait Until Dark a “have to twig” movie! The eye-opening cast includes Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna,

Doesn't this seem like some kind of Mad-Libs type thing, where someone picked out some adjectives which were selected at random?

Short

The innocent blame themselves.
The guilty blame the innocent.

Wondering

I always wondered what I would think or do if I ever encountered my ex-fiance again. Well, through the magic of Facebook, she contacted me tonight.

I went cold, because our parting was a tad one-sided, or make that one-decided. She just kind of dumped me with no real explanation. When she got married a few months later (within the year), it kind of dawned on me that maybe, just maybe, she had met someone else that floated her boat more.

Which I could handle. I was more upset that, with her being my best friend for so many years, she just shut me out cold. It's not like we had imaginary conversations or anything. I actually talked to her in person and on the phone, and she talked back. Until she discarded me.

Anyway, I realize now it's better that we didn't get married. But that was a really big wound that just kind of scarred over after a long long time. (add a few more "long"'s to get a better picture -- then double it)

The Things He Carried - The Atlantic (November 2008)

This is what I've long thought about "security" at airports now, that it's just for show and does nothing for true security. All the current TSA guidelines do is make life harder for the average and even not-so-average travelers. Real terrorists, however, will always find a way.

The Things He Carried - The Atlantic (November 2008)

We only attack what's been done in the past (like the whole liquids brought on board thing, which seems more about raising the economic status of terminal shops than anything to do with security), and we do nothing about prevention/detection.

Our solution most likely will be further harassment of grandmothers and children.

Writing

So far this year, I have not managed to write a great deal on this blog. Nothing much to say, I suppose, other than it's just been a way tough year for me, possibly the hardest one ever, and I just haven't felt like writing a whole bunch. And not being around a computer to type up the things that do pop into my mind.

Driving to work this morning, I was thinking about National Novel Writing Month (affectionately "shortened" to NaNoWriMo) starting up Nov. 1, and how I'll be either driving to VA or in VA for the first few days, but I should write anywhere I can, not just in TX. Then I thought that I should get some voice recognition software for my laptop. Fifteen hundred words a day is a whole lot of typing; dictation is faster-- even with corrections. I'm a decent typist, but not that fast, about 40-50 words a minute (if I know what I'm typing). I also thought about getting one of those digital voice recorders that will transcribe into your computer using voice recognition software (kind of cool and geeky). So many decisions.

I also don't currently have the discipline of writing daily, so I thought I would at least blog every day to help inspire that. We'll see how that goes. I'm also thinking about cheating on my novel-writing by starting it now, just so it's not quite so ambitious a task, as I will give up rather easily. At the very least, I can start planning it now, characters, settings, situations, plot, etc. All in concert to produce my first unreadable writing for fun. Oh yeah, this is for fun. Again, check the "we'll see" column for that one.

Well, it's late or early, depending upon how you look at it. Rather than look, I should just close my eyes and go to sleep. I will after I post and put my laptop out of my bed.

So, we don't know science

Got this clip from failblog.org.



While there might be things to wonder about in our water, that it creates rainbows when the light hits it is something that should reassure us, not cause us alarm.

Work is Back to Normal

So, I get in today, and our male boss/owner, who went to China the day Ike hit, has returned and delivered us an email: Since we missed three days (24 hours) of work, and since traffic has been bad since then and we were late/delayed, we are being "charged" for the "fair" amount of 12 hours to apply against vacation time or make up the hours. Never mind that the building was shut down for those three days, and that some of us had no power (they were without power until Saturday).

Apparently, we were just goofing off, choosing not to come work.