LotD

The Facial Hair Society -- just... well, no words.

Hulu

So I'm liking hulu.com more and more. I've watched several different shows, including Morgan Spurlock's "30 Days", which I've always been interested in, and Battlestar Galactica. I also found episodes of "Remington Steele" and "The Facts of Life" on there, but haven't had a chance to watch them.

You do have to register to use Hulu, but it's free, and it's actually got a neat perk -- you can "subscribe" to shows and they automatically load into your account when the latest episode becomes available. Of course, I logged in today for the first time in more than a week and was just overwhelmed by how many episodes were in the account (anything more than 2 shows seems like a lot to me; I'm kind of one show/one night kind of gal. Actually, more of a 1 1/2 show, if you count the first 12 or so minutes of the Daily Show).

They have movies on there as well, most of them fairly old, and lots of documentaries. But what I like is that I have access for the first time to some shows on cable that I'd heard about but was never able to see. Now if I could just get "What Not To Wear" online*, then that would be just awesome and I'd have everything I'd ever want in my couch potato life.

*I'm looking for legal, free episodes only

Money, money, money

I got my piece of the stimulus package today -- the $40 coupon for the converter box for the switch from analog to digital. Actually, I don't know if the recent arrival was part of the extended funding for the switch (and was tucked in the stimulus bill) or if someone's coupon expired and I got another one. Either way, I finally -- after several months on the waiting list -- got my coupon. And perfect timing too. My free service, provided by the apartment complex, ended last week and now I'm back on local only. So getting the coupon this week so I can make the transition to rabbit ears was really good timing.

Incidentally, hulu.com is pretty decent when it comes to providing television shows. I recommend "Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog" -- very cute 3-parter from Joss Whedon and singing! Good singing! Good lyrics. So yeah, I don't actually miss cable because I can get Battlestar on scifi.com or hulu.com the day after, and the Daily Show is now on hulu.com so I don't have to deal with Comedy Central's funky player. All in all, not a bad deal. Definitely a good option if, in these tough times, you're looking to cut costs -- you can still get most of your favorite shows online for free with minimal commercial interruption.

Twelve step program?

Yes, I'm on Facebook, but thankfully, I didn't say yes to any of the questions in this article about How to Identify Facebook Addiction.

Definition of a fan

This article about the Chris Brown/Rihanna thing from last week made my jaw drop, especially the quote at the end of this paragraph:

A source close to the investigation told E! News that Rihanna told police Brown threatened to kill her and then choked her until she lost consciousness. His camp never responded to repeated requests for comment on the allegations.

But Clinton Brown predicts that Chris' true fans will stick by him through what could understandably be thought of as the beginning of the end of his rampant popularity.

"If you are on his side, you are on his side," he said. "Just because someone trips, if you are truly a fan, you are not going to demonize him instantaneously."

But he added, "This music industry is very unforgiving when it comes to having indiscretions. He will continue to be a good person. He loves people. And like most of us, most humans, things will occur. And hopefully a person won't be judged simply on that alone."

Just to be clear, we're talking about an alleged threat of murder and the infliction of severe injuries that landed Rihanna in the hospital for 5 days. We're not talking about a minor misjudgment here, not the same likes as Hugh Grant or any number of other idiotic things celebrities do. Sheesh. I can't imagine still wanting to be a fan of someone who threatened to kill someone else. Well, OJ does have fans, so I guess it's possible. Clearly, Clinton Brown and I have very different ideas on what the impact of this 'indiscretion' will have and really what it shows about a particular individual. Thanks, but no thanks.

Shakespeare has a lot to answer for

Romeo and Juliet are a pair of knuckleheads. These two have launched a thousand fics and movies, and through various media, the idea that these two are the world's greatest lovers, star-crossed and all that, has survived. In truth, we're talking about two teenagers who fell in lust love at first sight, gyrated their way through hormonal-fueled angst, and then they impetuously died over a misunderstanding. This is an adolescent romance that lasted all of, what, 24 hours? Even Britney Spears' first marriage was longer than that. Weirdly, all this translates into the World's Most Romantic Romance Ever (tm), enough so that someone wants these two on their wedding invite*. Or maybe you'd like a "Romeo and Juliet" themed wedding? If you happen to attend such a wedding, I'd recommend staying away from the cocktails.

* Also, apostrophe abuse, which is just unconscionable

Bill sez

Email circa October 2004:

"Now, one of Clinton's laws of politics is this," [Bill] Clinton said. "If one candidate's trying to scare you, and the other one is trying to get you to think, if one candidate is appealing to your fears and the other one is appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope."

Whoozers

Seriously, nothing more painful than downloaded 6,345 pieces of email, spanning more than five years, and many of them really ill with viruses. On the upside of this, I think I've finally figured out where all of my email has been disappearing to. On the downside, I'm seeing emails/addresses that I really didn't want to see again. But that's another story entirely.

PSA

I just realized that the Top Sekrit (tm) email account is malfunctioning. I'm not receiving email there. I didn't realize that the credit card on the account had expired -- the last emails I received were on January 30 -- but I'm still getting a moderate amount of spam and my website is up and running, so clearly it hasn't been completely turned off. I've paid the hosting charges for this month, but just be advised -- if you sent an email to the Top Sekrit (tm) account recently, I may not have received it.

Black ice is not nice

I forgot how scared I was of black ice until I encountered it this evening -- shiny patches against black pavement, illuminated by lights coming from surrounding buildings. It was hard to walk slowly because the wind was blowing so hard and while the mercury might read 34 F, I'm pretty sure the wind chill was in the teens -- the type of cold that blows right through your skin and rattles your bones. Definitely not a fan.

Let it snow

It's snowing outside of my window. Three to five inches. I'm moderately excited. It's the potential for rain and icy weather I'm not so crazy about. Thankfully, I don't have to drive in the morning and navigate these roads in my tincan on wheels.

Just one of those things...

The only thing worse than one roll of really bad thin and scratchy toilet paper is having twelve rolls -- double size.

Grrr...

So I haven't been able to blog because I'm getting old (I did get older recently) and cannot remember my password for blogger. I can't remember my password, because it's the same as one of my email accounts, which I recently changed the password for, because someone -- SOMEONE OUT THERE -- is using my email address for their own. Which is so bizarre to me because clearly they are looking for a job and are getting responses to their job search IN MY EMAIL ACCOUNT. Not to mention, they're getting invited to all the cool parties, and they're also traveling a lot, mostly from Detroit to other parts of the country, and usually on Northwest. I know this because they keep sending their boarding pass to my email account. They also have an interest in law school because someone I started getting missives on study groups and LSAT preps; when I emailed back to get off the list, the response from the law school was that I had requested to be put on the list, and they sent me my email as proof.

This is not a recent phenomena, but one that has been going on since fall. At first I just thought it was a typo, but no, someone out there really is using my email account. They're not doing it intentionally; I think they honestly think that my email address is their email address. And the crazy thing is, they can't read their email, they're not getting their email. You'd think when they didn't get the information about law school or their boarding pass, they'd catch on that they didn't have the right email address. But I'm starting to think the user of my email address is a couple of crayons short of a full box or simply doesn't care.

Anyway, it's getting annoying but there's nothing I can do about it. I've RSVP'd back to a couple of parties saying, "Thanks, but you have the wrong email address." This must have paid off though. Recently, Crayon Box has been trying to reset the password to my account. I know this because I keep getting the "Reset password" emails in one of my other email boxes. So clearly they keep trying to get in but can't. I got me some strong passwords.

Anyway, all this to say that I couldn't remember my password to blog because I've got to keep a step ahead of Crayon Box... but if I could blogged, I would have let out a big hip hip hooray on January 20! I'm keeping my hopes high for Obama, but understand that no matter what some might think, he doesn't walk on water, and he's inherited a mess of gigantic proportions. I don't envy him. Not one minute. I bet he's wishing he'd read the job description more closely, don't you?

LotD

I've found this Creative Writing Prompt site helpful in clearing away cobwebs.

New comments

I've replaced the YACCS commenting functionality with blogger's commenting system. It should work the same as YACCS, although the template isn't as pretty as the one I used for YACCS. It will ask you for a login -- you can sign in with a google account, Open ID, or anonymously. For now, I've turned off word verification because I find that highly annoying but if spamming becomes a problem on this blog, I will enable it. Let me know if you have any problems using the new commenting system. Note -- If you sign in anonymously, please sign your name. Thanks!

You can never have too much Bollywood

This is one of my all time favorite songs from Bollywood. This is from the movie "Guide":



and also this golden oldie from "Guide":

Tech

It looks like my longtime comments provider, YACCS, isn't around. I'll wait a couple more days to see what the situation is before I go in and tinker/tamper with the commenting function on the template.

ETA: Looks like after seven years of service, YACCS discontinued its commenting service on Dec. 23, 2008. Wah! It was fun while it lasted. I will see about adding blogger's commenting function here.

Word

It's not often when reading one of the major national newspapers that I'm stymied by vocabulary in either a news article or opinion piece, but I was recently this week in an opinion article at the WaPo and the word is this: opprobrium. The word could either refer to "a death metal band from Metairie, Louisiana" or "Disgrace arising from exceedingly shameful conduct; ignominy; Scornful reproach or contempt; A cause of shame or disgrace." It's a great word, but I can't ever see using it in casual conversation. Now pontificating from a podium with finger pointing and a stern lecturer of a voice, that's more like it.

Note -- there are a surprising number of news stories using this word. See here.

Life in the slow lane

The problem with having a computer circa 2001 is that it doesn't play well with newer technology. So this whole thing about uploading pictures from my India trip is taking way longer than it should, and then in the middle of the whole thing, my computer got tired, and rebooted itself. Everytime I plug in my digital camera, Windows gives me the helpful hint that upgrading my USB ports will allow the camera (and my iPod) to work faster. It's tempting, but it's also tempting to buy a new computer.

Here's the thing though -- other than the USB applications (ie camera and iPod), my computer works great for my daily activities which are nothing more complicated than email and writing and web surfing. Every now and then I'll use PhotoShop or Dreamweaver to update a page on my site, but MS Word is about as complicated as I get on a regular basis. This is why it doesn't make sense to buy a new computer and I'm not sure whether buying a new computer will make uploading pictures that much easier; I suspect part of the problem can be chalked up to "user error."

Resolve

I didn't make any New Year's resolutions last year because well, I never keep them anyway. This year, I've decided to give it a shot, even given my past history of lasting about a week on any one resolution. Here are my resolutions for this year:

* Keep my kitchen counter clean
* File/shred my paperwork
* Use those coupons I keep getting at the grocery store/Target
* Keep my toe-nails painted
* Start the morning with a few stretches
* Cook more at home and wean myself off my Morningstar-heavy diet which is getting a wee bit pricey these days
* Keep my car cleaned on the inside and outside
* Remember to ice my Achilles tendons, as if the pain of the tendons wasn't reminder enough
* Read more books