Gold Medal Game

So, the Canadians are about to lose to the U.S. in hockey.

(Cue throwing of moose in my direction)

(Cue dousing me in maple syrup)

(Cue "oouting" me into a snowbank)

All right, now that youse guys have gotten your revenge, der hey, let's play the damn game before the ice melts from all the blustering of sports announcers.

(Just so you know, Canada, we're about to kick your frozen asses into the northern waste of the Arctic.)

This isn't a particular brand of loyalty to my own people, no. This is just because I have to cheer for SOMEONE here and it doesn't make sense to cheer for Canada when the rest of the country is probably cheering for the US. If it was the UK, I'd be cheering for them, but since it's not I have picked a team and I'm sticking with it.

They are never going to start this game, are they?

Ta,
Bec

PS: Will report later how this one came out- I'm probably going to have to leave the house before it ends at this point. Looks right NOW that we might have lost (sorry I insulted Canada-most of the time you're really nice people and I particularly want to live in Vancouver at some point-so don't come down and over and kill me, OK?)

Organizational Nightmare

So, been busy today. I have lists of my books, my DVD's, my VHS tapes, and my CD's. Whew! Tomorrow I will HOPEFULLY get started on a list of my work (ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. That'll take decades to finish.)

I'm leaving the house in 20, so just wanted to let you know that most of my books, surprisingly, are replaceable should I move to a foreign country whose initials are U and K. I should have known-I'm a sick little classics buff, me.

Here, I'll post a list of all the books I've got, just so you can get an idea:

Classical Period Literature

The Odyssey-Homer
The Iliad-Homer
Aesop's Fables
The Aeneid-Virgil
The Orestia-Aeschylus
Electra and Other Plays-Euripides
Theban Plays-Sophocles
Ovid-The Metamorphoses
Love Poems of Ovid-Ovid
Anthology of Roman Drama
Myth and Legend-Bulfinch

Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, Crito
The Consolation of Philosophy-Boethius

British Literature From 700 to 2010

Beowulf
Complete Works of Shakespeare
Milton's Poems
Gulliver's Travels and Other Writings-Jonathan Swift
Dracula-Bram Stoker
Pride and Prejudice-Jane Austen
Emma-Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility-Jane Austen
Mansfield Park-Jane Austen
The Bronte Sisters (contains Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and Agnes Grey)
Beyond the Fields We Know-Lord Dunsany
Winnie-The-Pooh-A.A. Milne
Brave New World-Aldous Huxley
1984-George Orwell

Antic Hay-Aldous Huxley

The Screwtape Letters-C.S. Lewis
Magician's Nephew-C.S. Lewis
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe-C.S. Lewis
Prince Caspian-C.S. Lewis
Horse and His Boy-C.S. Lewis
Voyage of the Dawn Treader-C.S. Lewis
Silver Chair-C.S. Lewis
Last Battle-C.S. Lewis

The Silmarillion-J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hobbit-J.R.R. Tolkien
Lord of the Rings (one volume edition)-J.R.R. Tolkien
Children of Hurin-J.R.R. Tolkien
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight/Pearl/Sir Orfeo-J.R.R. Tolkien

Fantastic Mr. Fox-Roald Dahl
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy-Douglas Adams
Restaurant at the End of the Universe-Douglas Adams

Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling:
Sorcerer's Stone
Chamber of Secrets
Prisoner of Azkaban
Goblet of Fire
Order of the Phoenix
Half-Blood Prince
Deathly Hallows

Good Omens-Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
American Gods-Neil Gaiman (autographed copy)
The Graveyard Book-Neil Gaiman (autographed copy)
Broken Music-Sting

Ghosts and Bogles-Dinah Starkey
Norton Anthology of English Literature First Edition Vols. 1 and 2
The Plantagenets-John Harvey
Merlin-Norma Lorre Goodrich

British Poetry
John Keats-Selected Poems
William Wordsworth-Selected Poems
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam-Edward Fitzgerald

European Literature from 1700-2010

The Classic Fairy Tales (Norton Critical Edition)
Voltaire-Candide and Zadig
Les Miserables-Victor Hugo
The Queen of Spades-Alexander Pushkin
Cyrano de Bergerac-Edmund Rostand
The Plague-Albert Camus
The Little Prince-Antoine de St. Exupery

American Literature from 1776-2010
18 Best Stories by Edgar Allan Poe
The Best of Louisa May Alcott
Illustrated Man-Ray Bradbury
Wrinkle in Time-Madeline L'Engle
Left Hand of Darkness-Ursula K. LeGuin
Dune-Frank Herbert
The Prophet-Kahlil Gibran
The Madman-Kahlil Gibran
It's Not About the Bike-Lance Armstrong
The Lake of Dead Languages-Carol Goodman
The Wizards of Odd-Edited by Peter Haining

American Poetry
100 selected poems-e.e. cummings
Poems by Harris George Curtis

Yearbooks, Cookbooks, Reference Books Comic Relief, and Religious Stuff
One Luther's Small Catechism (blue)
Two Red Hymnbooks (old version and new version, both with my name engraved on them)
Two Bibles (one brown and taped, one in a black case)
One very old German missionary's book from 1872
One very old German hymnbook from 1896
Four RHS Yearbooks-2000-2004
Necessities and Temptations cookbook
Merriam-Webster's Rhyming Dictionary
Murphy's Law-Arthur Bloch
Can't Remember Shit-Donald Wetzel

That's it! Remarkable, no?

Ta,
Bec

Quick Post

Want to be sure I keep announcing this so that EVERYONE watches this in April (I know it's early, but I'm gonna keep it throwing this up here so no one has an excuse to miss it)

HAMLET
Starring Patrick Stewart and David Tennant

AIRING ON PBS

APRIL 28th, 2010

7 EST/8 CST

WATCH IT!


There's nothing particularly interesting going on about me at all. That's all I gotta say.

DAYS TILL ELEVEN PREMIERES: 40 DAYS (Only that? I thought it'd be longer...)

Ta,
Bec

So...So. Been Better...

1. The Doctor Who premiere date in the UK is April 3rd, the day before Easter. Great. Now I have to listen to those who whine about Matt Smith for an extra three weeks.

2. I've been sick since about Monday last week with a dastardly, terribly bad cold. I wound up lying down for a lot of this week because I felt like hell and couldn't walk very far without dizziness. I'm recovering now but still have the coughing and the occasional sneeze and for some reason, sensitivity to light. I have trouble with looking at bright stuff without squinting (which is why this entry's gonna be short.)

3. Will everyone stop screaming about Matt Smith's eyebrows and let me TALK?

4. Thank you.

5. Spritey's been a bit more of an annoyance lately (i.e. the little snot tried to sneak a chewie out the door under my nose the other night,) and Whisper's been watching the Olympics because she likes the hockey games.

6. I want a jelly baby. Anyone got one?

7. No? OK. I guess I'll just have to suffer.

8. Dad's watching something with caves. I feel like I'm in science class again. I would rather watch something on my own than watch this-I was never that good at science and I never have to take another one again, so I think is where I stop.

Ta,
Bec

Not Much Up

Nothing is going on.

Really.

Save for my mother tipping over old ladies and Dad seemingly over his grouchiness and me having what seems to be near-permanent stomach upsets (that's because fibro makes people sensitive to stress and our stomachs react badly to it. Dad's been up-ing the stress with his grouchy. Heartburn, discomfort...you name it, I've had it lately.)

Nothing else though. Boring, really.

Ta,
Bec

But Do You Recall...The Most Interesting Psycho of All?

Okay, so long ago and far away, I posted an entry about a man named Homer Van Meter who caused a bit of fuss...entry below.

Nothing much happened to me today. My life is dry and boring at the moment. However, Rhinelander (my hometown) is producing the odd news again today:

There was once a man named Homer, really named John. He was ever so slightly off his nut. He wrote a book once talking about his recollections as a Celtic warrior of several hundred years ago (apparently he is a reincarnation of said Celtic warrior) but oddly named himself after one of John Dillinger's gang of men.

This guy, Homer, had a bit of a gunslinging reputation himself. Check this out:

A logger told investigators two men drove up and shot at him while he was working alone in the woods, sparking a gunfight in the forest, the Lincoln County Sheriff's Department said.

John "Homer" Van Meter of Rhinelander told investigators he had never seen the men before and didn't know what prompted the shooting, said Mike Caylor, communications officer with the sheriff's department.Van Meter, 52, was in serious condition at an area hospital Friday with three bullet wounds to his torso and a graze wound to his head, Caylor said. The injuries were not considered life-threatening.

According to the account Van Meter gave the sheriff's department:Van Meter was working around noon Wednesday in the town of Tomahawk when a passenger in a black sport utility vehicle got out and began shooting at him with a handgun.

Van Meter ducked behind his truck, where he retrieved his own pistol and returned fire, which he believed injured the passenger.The driver emerged with a rifle and began shooting, but Van Meter said he probably injured that man as well, and the driver got back in the SUV and drove away without the passenger.

The passenger started running through the woods, so Van Meter grabbed a 12-gauge shotgun and continued the gun battle until the man disappeared. Van Meter sustained the torso injuries during the chase.He walked back through the woods, discarding his shotgun by a road after he grew too weak to carry it. Wardens with the state Department of Natural Resources found the shotgun by the road Thursday.

Van Meter sought help from a homeowner, who called 911."Everything we're finding in terms of physical evidence is matching up with what Mr. Van Meter is telling us," Caylor said.

Investigators found more than 30 shell casings from the original shooting site, believed to have come from the driver's weapon. The crime scene covers a two-mile stretch into the woods, slowing the investigation, according to authorities.

The problem with this little story was that the whole thing, although entertaining to read, was a hoax. He made it up. Shot himself, the truck, the trees, supposedly even his dog in the process.

The police began to suspect something when Sonoma County (yes, that's California) called them up in northern Wisconsin to tell them Mr. Van Meter had pulled this once before on them. They began to suspect that the "two men" didn't exist anywhere but in the confines of Mr. Van Meter's own bullet-grazed head.

Now this man wants a gun. They haven't let him have one for a year (with good reason), but he wants one now to protect himself from those people who are trying to hurt him...but tell me: does anyone who's reading this think this guy should have even a steak knife in his possession?

Yeah, me neither. You can find a synopsis of his book on Amazon (called "Little Guy.")Apparently Amazon doesn't think too highly of him, either.

By the way, the news item of the day was that the judge refused to give him what he wanted. Apparently Homer Van Meter will have to ward off the bad guys with something less than bullets-a ray gun, perhaps? His helpful Celtic warrior persona?

That's about all I have to say on the subject. Most everyone around my family upstate thinks he's a little, well, but I know his ex-wife, who is a very nice lady and immeasurably saner than he is.

Cheerio (let the zany continue!)
Bec

Okay, so now you remember this story, now hear this: His house burned to the ground this morning. Sounds at the moment like a total loss. He had at least a half-dozen fire departments out there trying to save his house.

While this sucks majorly and all that, the State Fire Marshal and the Sheriff's Department are investigating the fire. Sounds to me like they don't really trust Mr. Van Meter. I wouldn't either.

I'll keep you updated on this one-it may get very, very twisty very soon here.

Ta,
Bec

All Right, I've Finally Had It.

First off, the Big Indian dinner went all right. I think if I had A) kept my mouth shut about the spices in it, Dad wouldn't have had ammo to complain and B)if the naan bread had been spread out more, it wouldn't have resembled a hockey puck so much. Other than that, Mom said it was good. Dad thought it was too spicy. TOO SPICY? There were TWO, count 'em, TWO SMALL pinches of cayenne pepper in THREE pounds of chicken and sauce. They were practically non-existent. And the cloves weren't bad at all, not heavy like he said. He was probably whining because his mummy doesn't make Indian food, so he decided he doesn't like Indian food. (I say get over it already and expand your horizons.)

Prince Within Part 1 is looking pretty sickly these days. There are massive, massive problems and I don't know if I'm capable of fixing them. I may (and that's may, mind you) have to temporarily toss out everything to do with Part 1 and start from scratch on it. But that's only if I can't work out the issues with the original by March.

Suffice it to say that there are some structural issues. I have no clear setting (huge issue there) and no clear set of seizures or results of those seizures. Darren seems to be throwing himself under a train and John seems to be barely caring or even walking away when he should be helping most. And of course, there's the issue of Darren's parents never, ever showing up even once to take care of him.

Those are just some of the problems. Every time I go to fix a problem I make about six more (wouldn't you know it, me trying to help get this story back on the tracks is taking it more and more off into the dusty plains of "OH HELL, NOT AGAIN!" )

I wish I could stop talking about them and work them out, but right now I'm at the bitching and whining stage. In about a week I'll have worked past the complaining and battened down to work, hopefully on my way to finding a solution.


And now for me getting something off my chest. Bear with me. I'm going to bitch some more...



So, I've been watching Matt Smith videos in preparation for his debut next month as Numero 11.

I've also been reading some of the comments that people are putting up about him.

And I've gotten mad.

Again.

1. Matt Smith didn't hire Matt Smith as the Doctor. Someone ELSE (casting agent most likely, and possibly Steven Moffat) hired him because they saw something that they were looking for in their new guy. They obviously thought he could do the job and hired him to do said job. So stop picking on him.

B...no...wait a minute- 2. We have yet to see more than SNIPPETS of Smith's Doctor, so stop comparing already. You can bitch when you've actually got to see what he has to offer and gotten to actually compare him with 4 or 7 or 10 or 3 or whatever you please.

3. They wouldn't have hired the guy if they didn't think he was capable of keeping up with Steven Moffat's scripts. They wouldn't have hired the guy if his Doctor wasn't going to be unique and fascinating and all that stuff.

So, to anyone who's been whining about losing Ten and gaining some KID to play with his TOYS in the TARDIS and God, he'll NEVER be Tennant and he'll NEVER be Tom Baker and he'll NEVER be ECCLESTON, stop your whinging, whining, and complaining. He's new, he's nervous, and you're not making his job any easier with all the sniffling. I'm certain that the Tom Baker fans aren't still whining that Davison was too young to do the job 30 years ago, and I'm certain that once we've seen Smith's Doctor in all his beige and bow tied glory, we will come to love his Doctor as much as we've loved all the others. GROW UP, ALREADY.

And this is not to say that I don't and won't miss Tennant. He is and was and will always be my Doctor. Ten was the personality I came to know and love in Doctor Who, and I am still sad that he's gone. BUT I, unlike some teenage fan girls whining about the new fella, can accept that this show goes through a major cast change at least once every couple of years and a new Doctor on average every four to five years. This is the way it's been since Hartnell was around and I believe the ability to change its main character's face and personality entirely every half-decade is part of the charm and why the show's been able to go on so damned long. It's a legendary, wonderful, crazy bit of writing that came out of a moment of desperation to save a show that had barely started and was losing its lead actor to age, and wouldn't you know, it's sustained this show for approximately half a century (give or take a few years in there.)

I, for one, am willing to give Matt Smith a chance. I just hope others will, too.

Ta,
Bec

New Guy's Starting Early This Year

So, the last series of Doctor Who (that would be Series 4) started in April. I remember because I was sitting in the manor house of Harlaxton, in the basement Bistro, screaming at the telly screen when Rose suddenly just APPEARED out of nowhere and then poofka, vanished.

But THIS year, the new series is starting MARCH 13TH. Ooh, yippy (and that is said without a smidge of sarcasm.) That means I have about a month and two weeks before 11 premieres. GOD. It's so sudden-it's a whole month earlier than I expected him to arrive.

Okay, so March 13th. Yipe.

On other fronts, my Big Indian Dinner is set up for tomorrow. I'm making rogan josh with chicken and naan bread. Possibly rice, but only if I get enough hands to help. We'll see if this goes according to plan.

Ta,
Bec