I wanna rock and roll all night...

And on with more fun stuff from me.

Today's scent trial is Snake Oil. Its supposed to be exotic spices and vanilla. And on the reviews for it were fantastic. However, on me its merely ok. It smells nice, but not something I'm overly excited about. I'll use up my sample size of it, but probably won't buy a larger bottle. Unless it changes a lot. (Rumor has it, that if you leave it sit for about 6 months or so, it gets different. So that's what I'll be doing.)

Last night saw me at happy hour. Unfortunately for me, I had just eaten salad for lunch and didn't have a good base for my drinking. After two beers, I was really feeling it, so I had some dinner there, and drank another two. Hee hee! Good thing I had someone along to give me a ride home, and then a ride back to my car. At least I didn't end up spending a big chunk of money to do that. Yay!

I've also been working my way through SeaQuest. Perhaps you remember it, a rather campy and lame submarine show from the 90s? I loved it at the time it was on, and felt like revisiting it. In this case, it started off pretty good...not as crappy as I thought it would be. But quickly turned south. By the end of Season 1, it was downright ridiculous. I'm through the first couple disks of Season 2 and it just keeps getting worse. But not so bad that I won't watch it. Though, I am glad that Netflix only has Season 3 available as a watch it online sort of thing. Without internet at home, I'll just have to miss out on it. Darn.

Look out! Its the Evil Tonsil of Swollen Ouchiness!

Run! Run for your lives!

So far its just one that horridly swollen...the other should be following along soon. Yippee. And just in time for my learn how to use the new software training trip that starts on Monday. (Unless I manage to drown the germs with the mint tea I'm shoving down my throat-when I get home I'll see if a mouthful of Drambuie will help out.) Timing is everything. =P Oh well, at least its Cincinnati I'm going to, and not somewhere super sunny and full of fun things to do. I won't be missing a whole lot if I end up holing up in the hotel room.

On to more exciting things. Did a second trial with my waffle maker. Only this time used one of those mixes. They tasted ok, but the batter was Way too runny. Next time I won't add all the water they say too.

Yesterday I finally watched Talledega Nights, or something to that effect...the Will Ferrell NASCAR movie. I wasn't really wanting to watch it, but I won it in a Christmas party game. I'm generally not a big fan of his...so I went into this movie thinking it would be a big crap fest. Going into with that mind set seemed to have helped. It wasn't completely awful. It wasn't a great movie or anything like, but was fairly amusing...a bit stupid...but that's what it was supposed to be. It might have been the fever...but it even made me laugh a couple of times. I'll have to give him another chance. Or at least watch him when I don't feel good.

I also started watching the BBC adaption of The Buccaneers (which is Not about pirates-I didn't think it was, but figured I should clarify that here). I never read the book, but so far the show is quite good. Looks like there isn't going to be a happy ending, but if I remember correctly Edith Warton wrote that book, and she wasn't a fan of happily ever after. I should have the second (last) disc of it tomorrow. And like most BBC stuff, its a beautiful show.

I'm so glad that Netflix has a lot of BBC available. Its so consistently better made (and better stories) than most American television. I also really like how they don't just keep dragging shows out so much further than they need to be, just because its popular. More of the miniseries sort of stuff there. Which is nice.

Oh, and Happy New Year!

Adventures with Whistles

As promised, a UPS box was waiting for me when I got home on Friday. Inside was my shiny new tin whistle. I've been playing with it a lot since then. I've progressed to make fewer horrid screeching noises out of it. (I knew my neighbors were going to love it!) Its quite different and harder to play than I had thought it would be. It'll take a lot more practice to get it under control. But, its do-able! And so much fun! The problem I'm having with it right now is that I used to play brass instruments...and with them, volume is controlled by how hard you blow. (Ha! Sounds so dirty.) And your embouchure controls the tone. With the whistle, tone is controlled by your breath. So far, I haven't been able to hear any difference in the note by changing the embouchure. Its turning out to be great fun. Once I master this one, I'm planning on getting more whistles in different keys. (They're made to play in one key-you need a different whistle for a different key.) Keys of course meaning which notes are sharp or flat. Should I turn out to be proficient in whistles, the ultimate plan is to try out a lovely wooden flute. Whistles being my gateway instrument to the flute. (I'm a touch afraid of the flute...it will be so very different from anything I've played.)

All this whistling (I probably put in about 9 hours of it over the weekend) has put a damper on my attempt at nano though. Well, I still could have made time to write more...but it just wasn't a priority for me this last weekend. I had better things to do...things like watch tv (the winner of everything I watched was Tin Man-I saw the first two parts-if you haven't seen it, go find it-its brilliant), take naps, read books, curse at the fact that I hardly got any trick-or-treaters, spend hours taking apart the treat bags I had assembled for them, play with yarn and eat candy. I think I'm going to put most of the blame on the candy though...I'm sure it put me into a sugar coma of some sort where all I was able to do was lounge about. It wouldn't have had anything to do with my laziness or habit of procrastinating with everything. Nope. Couldn't be that. So far I have a grand total of 3 words. Ha! Even worse...it isn't even 3 words that are going to stay, just a little reminder to me of what I picked to write about. (I've been tossing ideas around for a few days, and finally just picked one and will be going with that.) Since I'm sure you're curious now...my three words are Sleeping Beauty Sucks. I've always hated that bitch and its time she got what she deserves!

Oh, back to the tv....I watched the opening of the Legend of the Seeker show. It was crap, I didn't like it...but I sat there continuing to watch it. For some reason, I was taking delight in how horrid I though it was. Then during commercials I was reading the book its based on. So, its a step above the tv version of the Mists of Avalon...which was so awful I couldn't watch it...but still a waste of time. I haven't quite decided if I dislike because its veered so far from the book (I wasn't expecting it to follow the story all that well), or if its also just bad tv. I'm going to have to keep watching it until I figure that out. I'm not a huge fan of the books, I have most of them...but after the first 3 or 4 it really started getting old...the story was just dragging on and there's no end in sight. (Rather the same as Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series...started out fantastic...but just didn't have the staying power for me.) With both of them, I feel like I should read them all, just because I have put in the time reading a lot of them (I read almost all of both of them), but I find myself just not caring what happens to any of the characters in them. Maybe I'm just not a fan of the "big" epic stories.

Tea-rifficly fun TV!

Well, the vacation was successful. The weather cooperated and the leaves were starting their shift to the lovely fall colors. They were just starting when we got there, and were in full color mode when we left. Yay fall!

Unfortunately for me, I came down with the plague on Wednesday night. We were leaving Thursday morning, so that wasn't a big hamper on the vacationing fun.

Then Saturday was park wedding time. My cousin had a very casual and fun reception. The coldness and outdoors part didn't help me beat off the plague though.

I've spent most of this week in a drug-induced stupor. I woke up much better today though...I don't have to share my barking cough nearly as much. Hopefully by the end of the weekend I can go back into my bed at night, rather than being propped up on the couch. (It helps me breathe to not lie flat.)

Happy note.....
I hooked up my digital convertor box for the tv. I get more channels now. Yipee! I got in two pbs stations (oddly enough, it doesn't pick up the pbs I used to be able to get in), cbs, and some weather channel that I didn't have before. Now I can watch Ghost Whisperer as its on tv rather than waiting until the dvds come out. Woohoo! Too bad for me I'll be a season behind though. Last year's season just came available on Netflix, and I haven't watched any of it yet. I jumped it to the top of my list now though, so I won't be behind for long. Its strange not to be watching fuzzy shows anymore...or having the picture change based on where I'm sitting or standing. Its rather sad to think that there won't be little kids watching the "black bugs" fighting with the "white bugs" with a glimpse of some cartoon every so often.

Today I'm still attempting to drown the plague bugs that are in me...drinking lots of ginger ale and teas. I've opened a new box of tea here...Lipton's Vanilla Caramel Truffle. It sounded rather tasty. It smells dreadful though. But tastes good. Which is strange, usually things don't taste as good as they smell, but its the opposite in this case. I really need to start drinking more teas. I like to buy them all, and I have an absurdly large collection going. Not to mention, I just ordered another $50 worth from Adagio. They've got really good teas there, and a good price. And they come in such Cute containers! I really love the little sample sized stuff, enough to try the tea, but not a lot of it, so you don't waste it if you don't like it. Lots of it makes really excellant iced tea as well. I'm a little excited about it, because they have thier holiday teas in again...so I can pick up more of the ones I liked...and try some of the ones I haven't had yet.

When I was very little....

Cartoons used to be so much better when I was younger. You know, when I had to walk two miles uphill to school, during a blizzard...wearing newspapers on my feet because I didn't have shoes. But I've made a recent discovery. I can actually get in a PBS station on my rabbit ears! Yay! And there's a rather lovely cartoon on it...all about Curious George. Last night I learned all about making apple cider. The squeals and monkey noises he spouts out really make me happy. Though, I must admit...I wonder about the Man in the Yellow Hat. Why does he like yellow so much? Why did he wear an old fashioned yellow bathing suit when they went to the beach? Why does he have a pet monkey?

Its no Fraggle Rock, but its really one of the best cartoons I've seen in a very long time (of course, Fraggles weren't cartoons-for the most part-there was that short-runned cartoon version). I really miss the Fraggles, I'm so glad almost all of them are on DVD now. I've been watching them again, and I'm amazed at how different the show is now that I'm watching it as an adult (or as adult as I'll ever be). I didn't realize it when saw it as a child, but there are so many lessons to learn in the show...but they're subtle lessons. No after-school-special "what did we learn from this" sort of talks at the end. The brillance of the show is completely amazing. I can see where it helped shape me into the person I am today. I think that's part of the problem with so many cartoons, the creators of them don't realize the power they have. Jim Henson was a genius and I'm so glad I was the perfect age for the Fraggles when they were on tv.