Enjoying the sun

Enjoying the sun, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

What I'm Watching: Same old stuff.

V: This series isn't doing much for me, except it's nice to see Nicolas Lea again, and every time I see Elizabeth Mitchell I miss Juliet from Lost. Speaking of...

Lost: 3 Episodes to go. I have some ideas, but it's fun to have no real idea of what will happen.

American Idol: Unless she really hoses it, Crystal Bowersox had this in the bag by the second ep of the final 24. I like her singing. I wish she would quit getting lippy with the judges.

Fringe: We've only watched one episode since it returned, and despite the nifty 1985 logo and theme song the ep was a royal bummer. There's nothing like watching a nice, sick kid die onscreen! It made me feel bad for the mad scientist more than I already do.

24 Since it's the last season, Jack Bauer should really spend these last 4 hours breaking Tony out of jail and the two of them could go on a roarin' rampage of revenge. It could be a combination of Thelma and Louise, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The body count would be staggering. And gratifying, considering all the morons, asshats, and dweebs the two of them have had to put up with the last 8 years.

Also and speaking of: President Taylor? Laura Roslin would have eaten your lunch. AND she would have airlocked ex-president Logan before he got his first conspiracy out of his bag of tricks. Where's Logan's ex-wife when you need her? Somebody needs another stabbing.

Sleepy men

Sleepy men, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Nothing new to report - I just wanted to post this picture.

Batter up

IMG_4805, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

This weekend was uneventful even though the weather forecasters were all running around screaming "ZOMG WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!". I do realize some people were hammered that hard on Saturday but we were just soaked thoroughly. There were no trees uprooted in the park so it was fairly tame weather for us.

Friday evening despite a little rain Brenden had his second Calvinball Tee Ball game and he did well. His attention was diverted the first inning because he had to use the bathroom and let everyone in viewing distance know this fact much to the detriment of his father's blood pressure. I marched him to the bathroom as soon as the inning was over.

Here's some more of our league's Tee Ball rules: An inning consists of everyone on the team batting, no matter the outs. The games run 45 minutes or 2 innings. Hitting the tee-ball stand with the bat is a foul. Runners can be tagged out or forced out. I'm not sure if a force out is impossible if there is no one on the base behind the runner. I also doubt there's an infield fly rule.

Any ways Brenden got a hit both times at bat and did good running to the other bases. He played the pitcher's position the first inning and first base the second. He showed some defensive skills with the last batter from the other team hit - the bases were loaded and since it was the last hitter no matter what the coach had them run the bases. Brenden caught the ball and tagged out the last 3 runners one by one as they ran home.

So Saturday Brenden and I went stir-crazy watching the rain and finally for one hour before sundown the sun came out and we played in the mud in the front yard. Sunday I did yardwork while Brenden got himself muddy again. That was our weekend.

Go Tiny Tigers!

IMG_4803, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

We had a busy weekend - noontime Friday I was groundcrew for a skydiving demonstration into an elementary school. Then I hurried to buy supplies for a camping trip. Photos soon come, I think. We stayed close to home at Smith Lake in Cullman. Friday we froze our butts off because I neglected to pack adequate blankets.

Saturday we went fishing but Brenden decided it was more fun to play in the lake than to fish so we let him splish around until he got tired of it. We got him cleaned up and drove back home because he had his first T-ball game in the afternoon. It was quite amusing - the phrase "cat herding" came into mind quite a few times as I watched the coaches try to get the little kids to do what they were supposed to do.

I felt proud of Brenden - he got the pitcher's position. He doesn't pitch of course, but the kid in that position has to field 85% of the balls hit. He did a good job running up and corralling the ball. He's not really old enough to make good judgement calls about when to try to throw the ball, tag the kid out, or run the ball back to the pitcher's circle (that basically takes the ball out of play). I was proud though that he was so heads up during the entire game and not out there digging in the dirt. Much.

He got two hits and a run - but no matter they don't keep score at that level.

Normally I don't have a problem with competition but in this case I think it's a good idea to not keep score. Otherwise I think the parents might get a little psycho.

St. John Soon Come

What's on the Beach, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

We'll soon be going back to my favoritest place on the planet. We'll be going in May for a week. Hooray!

I have been thatching and mowing the lawn the last couple of weeks all with no allergy symptoms. I'm not bragging as much as advertising how well Nasonex + immunization shots have been working for me. Many people here at work this week have been Claratin Zombies.

Old B Photo because I'm Lame

sitting up, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

This last weekend Brenden and I chased a hot air balloon. Well, I chased it in the minivan while Brenden watched Spongebob in the back. I took no photos, like an idiot.

Skydive Alabama celebrated its 10th year anniversary and amongst the festivities were hot air balloon jumps. My job was to chase the balloon, bring jumpers to where it landed, and pick them up again after they jumped. Sunday morning was the easiest chase ever - the balloon went up, the jumpers jumped, the balloon came down. All in the same place.

Other than that, not much is happening. I watched Don't mess with the Zohan, an Adam Sandler movie. It was stupid, and to my shame I laughed. A lot. Wouldn't it be nice though if all of the middle East problems could be solved with hair salons and shoe stores!

Foolish Topics

Hickory Smoked Bacon, originally uploaded by moknits.

This article,, if you read far enough down, talks about vegetarians and about if they slip back into meat eating, it's usually because of bacon.

Mmmmmmmmmmm bacon. The gateway drug meat!

Spring is Sprung!

Texas Tornado, originally uploaded by michaeljames.

It *must* be springtime in Northern Alabama! Plants are blooming, my allergies are on the rise, the temperature is tolerable, and the tornado siren got its first sounding yesterday afternoon!

Whatever it was it passed south of us and no damage was reported. We got a frog-strangler along with some hail for about 10 minutes then the sun came out.

MSTified

TV 001, originally uploaded by bonniegrrl.

What I'm Watching:

UP We finally watched Pixar's latest. Yes, it's terrific and deserved it's nomination with the rest of the Best Movie choices (it won best animated feature) but I was boo-hooing 10 minutes into the movie and plenty of other scenes set me off too.

I'd really like to see Pixar do a movie where a woman (or a female character) is the central character. I'm not complaining, really: I'd just like to see one. Yes, Boo, Dora and Elastigirl are awesome, but they weren't the central characters. I can't rank it yet with the other pixar movies because I don't know if I want to subject myself to that again any time soon.

Zombieland I've pretty much given up on zombie movies, but after an enthusiastic recommendation from Helly Jon and I gave this one a shot and we laughed ourselves silly. It's violent, but not grindingly so, and had some surprising warmth to it. That's about all it has in common with Shaun of the Dead, if you were wondering - the writers of the former freely admit they were inspired by the latter. Zombieland is as American as Shaun of the Dead is British and other than funny + zombies they don't resemble each other at all. Of course I loved and enthusiastically agreed with all of Columbus's 31 rules - I insisted on pointing out some of my own (to my husband's annoyance / amusement) one of which turned out to be a major theme: There's Safety in Numbers. Also: pretending to be a zombie as a prank during a zombie apocalypse is not a smart move.

Mystery Science Theater 3000: I've been loading up my Netflix instant queue with a bunch of these shows. For the uninitated, MST3K was an original program that was shown on the Comedy Channel (later Comedy Central) in the late 80's and early 90's. When it was cancelled it was picked up by SciFi and eventually ended in 1999. I was fortunate enough to catch it from the beginning.

The premise involved a janitor who was put aboard a space station by some mad scientists who would subject him to their evil experiments by making him watch a bad movie every week. In order to survive, the guy created some robots to keep him company. He and the robots would watch the movie and offer plenty of snark along the way. So that was the show: we watch a guy and his robots watch a bad movie.

It was a great show and I miss it. I'm glad that slowly but surely they are being released on dvd. Some of the best episodes are missing because of copyright issues and I hope they will be cleared up eventually. Like a lot of MST3K fans I had a lot of eps on tape, and like an idiot I lent them out.

Is it Summer Yet?

Ilu B me, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Wow, it's been a while! I think Winter is finally on its last legs, and it's about time. We've managed to burn through a whole cord of wood this season (you yankees - quit laughing!). Jon and I got so good at building large fires we managed to melt our fireplace grate.

So I saw some of the Academy awards. I was tickled Christoph Waltz one best supporting actor - he was the best thing about Inglourious Basterds. I was glad they gave John Hughes such a great tribute - the Academy can occasionally get over it's ART facade and admit that they are a large part of pop culture and Hughes' movies had a large impact on people my age.

I was happy Katheryn Bigelow won best director. As for Hurt Locker winning best picture, I told my brother this: It is better than Avatar and Inglorious Basterds, but District 9 was a better movie (these are the only nominated movies I saw. Yes, I have yet to see the Pixar movie!). Hurt Locker and District 9 both had plenty of exploding humans, but Hurt Locker didn't have any Mecha.

No, really. I thought District 9 was a better movie. Still, I'm glad for Katheryn Bigelow. Hurt Locker is a really good movie, and in it she explores a subject she is very fond of: men. Me too, Katheryn; me too!

Nothing new to report as usual

IMG_3658, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

So my computer died. I wanted to Blame it on Bill but it turns out the Windows patch was incompatible with some malware lurking on my computer. That's what was causing the perpetual BSoD. Reformatting the hard drive and upgrading to Windows 7 was the best thing to do. My computer caught a virus and turned into a zombie!

I'm watching (and digging) the last season of Lost. I actually understand what is going on even if I don't completely know why it's going on. The dichotomy that is John Locke - the pathetic, gullible loser vs. the island leader badass now makes total sense to me.

Ellen DeGeneres is actually a good replacement for Paula Abdul on American Idol. Paula was always the "nice" judge and Ellen fills that role well without slipping into drug / booze addled rambles. The final 24 have been chosen and do I have any favorites? The chick with the bad teeth is really good.

24 is 24. I'm always happy to see Katee Sackhoff, but her character is a loser with a stupid subplot attached. I kept waiting for her to shove a knife in her ex-boyfriend's belly and laugh about it, like she did so many times when she played Starbuck and was being harrassed by the eternally creepy Leobens on BSG. Speaking of, Keith Callum Rennie was co-starring on 24 for a while as well, playing a creep who got stabbed to death by a pissed-off woman (typecast much?), but without so many lives. Maybe Jamie Bamber or Tricia Helfer will show up and we'll have a BSG trifecta.

We're not getting any of this

IMG_2403, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

WTF - everyone SOUTH of us is getting blanketed with SNOW!

I received a perpetual Blue Screen of Death on my home computer thanks to a Microsoft update - that's their ultimate plan to prevent vulnerabilities - if you can't use your computer, no one can!

Instead of repairing it, I grabbed some things off the hard drive, re-formatted it, and have installed Windows 7 (I was on XP). So far I like it, even though it's a little frustrating because the user interface is quite different.

I forgot to mention that Jon and I watched a fascinating documentary: For All Mankind. Someone went through the vast archive of footage of the Apollo missions and made an audio-visual mosiaic of the moon landings. There's no narration except for some archival commentary from some of the astronauts. The documentary conveys what it must have been like to be stuck in a small rocket-propelled can for days in the eternal vacuum of space just to reach a dead alien satellite. I haven't felt that kind of wonder and awe about what we accomplished (with late 60's tech!) since I was a kid. I can't wait until Brenden is old enough to appreciate the Space and Rocket center here in Huntsville.

After watching this documentary, I totally appreciate how well Ron Howard captured the geeks in the control room in Apollo 13. They truly were a bunch of white nerd-boys who smoked like chimneys. And Ed Harris totally nailed Gene Krantz ("not on my watch!"). I need to watch it again.

The Low Crawl of Winter

IMG_3669, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Ugh. I've had a migraine for two days now. Blech. Or maybe it was because Jon and I watched the season premiere of Lost last Sunday and I'm still trying to get my brain around it. I guess I'll avoid spoilers, but it was sad to see all those dead people.

Brenden and I play a lot of the Wii Lego Indiana Jones game together. There are some tough puzzles in that one!

Even though Bioshock II came out today, I'm re-playing Fallout 3 yet again. I had to try the Point Lookout add-on, and it was kind of disappointing. Mothership Zeta remains my favorite. I do like having an axe for a melee weapon, though. Whee!

Is Fox trying to kill Fringe? They show a couple of eps here and there then take it off the air for a month or so. Way to kill any momentum.

Caprica needs more exploding robots.

More of What I'm Watching

IMG_3664, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Jon and I finally saw Avatar and we watched it in 3D. Yay! It was good, but not great. I've said before I judge James Cameron harshly because he's better than most directors working in Hollywood today (plus he directed Terminator and Aliens, and I love both of those to smithereens). Someday I'll rank JC's movies but for now I'll place this somewhere between The Abyss and True Lies. It was certainly better than Titanic!

My problems with the movie were with the script. There's nothing groundbreaking here, Humans Are Bastards and they are targeting Noble Savages for their land and a Mighty Whitey is the protagonist). I'm also not certain why Sam Worthington is such a hot item right now. He's very good looking in a generic way but I wasn't impressed with his acting skills. Sigourney Weaver and Zoe Saldana blew him out of the water.

Which is what I did like about the movie: Sigourney Weaver plays a cranky but good-hearted scientist and I loved seeing her again. Zoe Saldana was the main Na'vi character. I never undertood why she fell in love with Worthington's character but at least she had a full range of emotions. Plus she kicked butt and I'll avoid spoilers but I'll say a common outcome with the Final Boss battle was averted here near the end of the movie. Bonus: Michelle Rodriguez, whom I always love seeing. No offense meant to Jenette Goldstein (who played a terrific Vasquez), but I always thought Cameron would have cast Rodriguez as Vasquez in Aliens if she hadn't been like 5 at the time.

Oh, and the main bad guy is a Colonel Badass and much fun to watch. The special effects are amazing and Weta, the New Zealand effects company pwns George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic. The fight scenes are worth the price of admission alone and Cameron knows better than to use Shaky Cam. So my final verdict: Avatar = Pretty!

More Creeping

IMG_3671, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Wow, I am such a frakking geek. I bought a couple of Bear McCreary's soundtracks from seasons 2 and 3 of Battlestar Galactica. His choices are so eclectic: you have plenty of celtic and arabic influences, plus for quieter moments piano and / or violin, and then there's of course the constant poundy, poundy drums. He likes them more than the Japanese do. That's saying something!

Anyway listening to it makes me miss the show something fierce. Yes, I'll watch Caprica, but there's no Mom, Dad, or the Twins. No Tigh or Caprica 6 or Baltar. Will there be anything on this new show like the time Madame Airlock told the chief mutineer she would use everything at her disposal, including her eye teeth, to end him? Anything as jaw-dropping insane as the mid-season 2 story arc of the Pegasus and crew? Or as nifty-cool as the Galactica jumping into New Caprica's atmosphere to release fighters? If Caprica doesn't break my heart at least once an episode or so it won't measure up.

24 has started again - yeah, I'm a masochist. Enough said about that. Less than a month to go for the next season of Lost! Yay!

Creeping January

IMG_3662, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Nothing new to report - Brenden told his first joke (that I understood):

Brenden: "This is yummy!" (referring to his strawberry flavored applesauce).

Me: "I'm glad you like it."

Brenden: "No, mama, you say 'you can say that again'! Ok? I say is yummy, you say 'you can say that again'!"

Me: "Um, ok."

Brenden: "This is yummy!"

Me: "You can say that again!"

Brenden: "This is yummy! Hahaha! Isn't that funny, mama? Isn't that funny?"

Of course it was.

Also: Happy 92nd birthday to Major Richard Winters, the only nonagenarian I have ever had a crush on. Watch Band of Brothers if you have no idea who I'm talking about.

Winter Fire

IMG_3666, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

What I'm Watching / Reading:

Land of the Lost: No Trope links because this is a will Ferrell movie which has become kind of a trope in itself. So I was wrong about my prejudgement about this movie. It was not worse than G.I. Joe. and that is damning it with faint praise. Some people consider this movie a rape of their childhood, but really: Land of the Lost? Sure, I watched it when I was a kid but even back then I knew it was a lame show. Most of the funny moments involve scenes with Matt Lauer.

9: Animated post-apocalyptic tale. Fascinating to look at, but it had some plotting problems.

Extract: I love Mike Judge and here he does what he always does - he shows us idiots being idiotic. The protagonist is a chemist and owns his own business so you think he'd be a little less stupid than the idiots who work for him, but he accidentally takes a horse tranquilizer and ends up getting talked into hiring a gigolo to have sex with his wife. See, this way he can cheat on her, guilt-free. This movie had its moments but on the whole I'd rather see Idiocracy again.

Under the Dome: This Stephen King book is about a thousand pages long and I read it in about 3 days. It's a page turner (kindle clicker?) about a small town that gets trapped underneath an impregnable force-field. I won't go into more to avoid spoilers except near the end of the book I was shaking so bad I didn't want to finish it. I'm glad I did though. I think it's some of his best writing ever. Your mileage may vary, of course.

American Idol is back, and it's Simon Cowell's last season. How the hell can AI go on? The whole reason to watch the show is to see Simon cut off some clueless contestant at the knees then dash a cup full of piss-tinged reality into said contestant's face. All with that dry british drawl. Also Paula Abdul is gone. No more incoherent drug-fueled rambling. How boring! I didn't last long last season, anyway. I doubt I'll make it past Hollywood week for this one either.

2009: The Year in Recap Form

Magic and Dutchman, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

January: Visit to Ed and Jen's place in Massachusetts. Snow! Yay!
February: Disney Cruise to the Caribbean! Yar!
March: Battlestar Galactica ended. Whaa!
April: I got a Kindle (II). Yay!
May: Life (the TV show) got canned. Boo! But, I also got to see a great movie in the theater (Star Trek). Yay!
June: Much remodeling work done around our house. Ouch!
July: I earned a trip to the emergency room due to a bulging disc. Ouchouchouchouchouch. Also new kitties. Meow.
August: Jon and I have our 10 year anniversary. Muah!
September: Great Tampa visit w/ dad and Ilu so Brenden can go to the beach. Whee!
October: We go camping and Brenden catches a catfish. Yum!
November: Thanksgiving in Oklahoma. Yum!
December: Long nothing-doing vacation at home during Christmas. Ahhhhhhhhhh.........!

So there you have my year in review. Heh.

Rabbids

Raving Rabbids!!!!!!, originally uploaded by meljpouliot.

I had a whole week off for Christmas, plus New Years. We didn't go anywhere and just stayed home. Jon did some work on the house but spent a chunk of time at the drop zone. He bought me Dragon Age: Origins for Christmas and I spent most of my free time playing it.

Like Bioshock is distantly related to System Shock II this game is the indirect descendant of Baldur's Gate. BG is an FRPG based on Dungeons and Dragons. DAO isn't D&D but it will be quite familiar to any experienced RPG gamers. At first I thought the story line was too limiting - I think I'm spoiled by the open worlds of Bethesda Softwork's Elder Scroll series, not to mention my favoritest Fallout 3. DAO's characters and story line sucked me in, however.

I won't go into details - there's a blight upon the land and your character is called upon to stop it. You meet people along the way who can join you for your quest and you can get kind of attached to some of them.

Anyone who remembers the somewhat stilted dialog from portions of Baldur's Gate take heart: the people who wrote Dragon Age apparently watch Joss Whedon shows and the conversation is more entertaining than usual. The first NPC who can join your party, Alastair, is a cross between Xander from Buffy and Mal from Firefly. That's according to the people who designed him and it's a fairly accurate assessment.

Brenden got loads of toys besides the way-cool brain-sucking space aliens. He received a Wii game that he's addicted to: Ubi-Soft's Rabbids go home (it is spelled "rabbid" and for good reason). He was entertained for almost an hour when he discovered a portion of the game where one of the rabbids gets stuck in your controller. You shake the controller and the rabbid makes lots of noises while on screen you see a little cartoon rabbid careening of the interior of a Wii remote. The rabbid is pretty happy about it. Anyway Brenden squees and laughs his little buttocks off when he plays.

Which is great, because it gives me more time to fight blood mages, darkspawn, and the occasional archdemon.

Things from Outer Space

IMG_3672, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Merry Christmas, everybody! By happy accident, Brenden received the best toy I have ever seen. On my recommendation his abuela and grandpa sent him the Imaginext Space Station. It included these horrible looking octopoid aliens as you can see above. Well as you can see in the picture below, they sit nciely on the play figures' heads. Brain-sucking space aliens for your preschooler! Fischer-Price FTW!