Television

Tonight I watched the premiere episodes of Desperate Housewives and the Bionic Woman. Desperate Housewives looks like it's shaping up to be one hell of a season. I really liked tonight's show. The Bionic Woman, on the other hand, was pretty lame. It felt like I was watching something made for the Lifetime Network, but even for Lifetime it was sub-par. Good ideas, but very poorly executed. I know it's only the pilot, so hopefully it will get better. I'm going to give it a couple of episodes before I decide to keep it or drop it. I heard production was halted so that they could retool the show, so the powers that be seem to think it's in trouble already. Part of me hopes it stays sucky so I can drop it and not feel like I'm missing anything.

206

Sunday night. Desperate Housewives is supposed to start tonight. Am I ready to get sucked back in? We'll see.

I worked my first Sunday at the State today. It wasn't painful at all, either. My loud mouthed neighbor didn't come in to work today. The four of us who sit in my part of the floor did spend some time talking about the loud mouth, though.

The new QCast I was wishing for in my previous entry is now up and running. I'm scared. I think I'm going to save it for work tomorrow, though.

After work today, I went out for one of my walks. I was getting sad thinking about the weather starting to change. It's going to get to where I can't go out walking like I do now. I've really stepped up my walking this year. It's become something I do, rather than something I think about doing. I remember last winter I would go to the mall on Sunday mornings before the stores opened to walk. And I would get off the bus early and walk home for about 30 minutes. Most, but not all days. Ken suggested looking to buy a treadmill. I like the idea, but where would we put it? We don't have a lot of options. I'm all for it as long as he promises he'll use it, too.

I'm at 226 lbs. I'm exactly where I was pre-vacation. I'm a little disappointed, because I thought for sure I was going to be able to hit 225 (or less) for the first time. But no. I can't seem to get below 226. I've been in this area for about two months now, give or take. I should be more frustrated than I am. I hate that the weight has stopped coming off. I still have 26 lbs to go, though 11 lbs is completely acceptable. I need to lay off soda. I've been drinking too much of it and not enough water. My goal for this week is to improve on this.

Catching Up

I haven't posted here since Tuesday. I didn't intend on going that long, it just happened.

*Put in 6 hours of overtime today. Thinking about doing the same thing tomorrow. I need a really nice paycheck. I'm almost completely caught up on that damn credit card. Almost.

*I was bad yesterday. But it's not my fault. Bitch Amiee baked brownies (three varieties, of course) and I had to eat some. I only had the fudge brownie and the peanut butter brownie. Man, they were good. And that's why she's a bitch. Plus, Tom's last day was yesterday and there was retirement cake. It's just plain rude to not have retirement cake. I decided that I would get off the bus early and walk most of the way home, but the sky was looking very unstable, so I nixed the idea. It just started raining when I got off the bus and in the two minutes it takes to get home, it became a nasty downpour. I got soaked. About 40 minutes later the sun was back out but it was much cooler. I grabbed my jean jacket to go for a walk. I haven't worn it in months and months. It doesn't fit the same anymore. When I started my diet, I could only button the bottom button as long as it was under my massive gut. No other buttons. By the time it was too warm to wear it anymore, I could button the whole coat, but it was just a bit snug. When I put it on yesterday, I was amazed at how roomy it was. I could fit a small child inside the thing with me and still button it up. The bottom hem of the coat hangs three or four inches lower than it ever used to. I wanted to cry.

*I'm 100% caught up on everything from vacation. All podcasts are now current, all magazines are now current, all tv is now current. If I didn't waste the last few nights on the computer, I'd be all caught up on current tv, too. And cleaning. I'm supposed to be cleaning right now.....

*Ken's home from New Mexico now. His plane got in late last night. He was still asleep when I got home from work this afternoon. Whatta bum.

*My friends Nessa, Holly & I kind of crank called our favorite podcast last night. I'm afraid that when I hear it, I'm going to be disappointed in my parts. In my defense, I was exhausted when I called in and I was a rambling mess. But I had such a good time playing. Those guys are the best. Now I want a new QCastCT and I want it now.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

I feel like I've started making headway in catching up on things that fell by the wayside during vacation. I was off today so I semi-cleaned the house (I cleaned downstairs... didn't touch upstairs... saving it for another day), finished the stack of Entertainment Weeklys that were piling up, finished up all the laundry... You know, that sort of stuff. I've also been making headway in my podcast list. I'm down to about 18 hours of unlistened to shows, and the older the shows get, the more likely I am to just delete them. With new shows arriving every day, I've got to do something. I usually listen at work in the morning, then I switch over to music in the afternoon, but I haven't been listening to music in an attempt to be current. This is all fine and dandy, but I have a shitload of new music I just uploaded to my mp3 player. The new Melissa Etheridge, the new Debbie Harry, the new Nellie McKay, the new songs from Trisha Yearwood's new Greatest Hits album, the new Joni Mitchell, the new Scouting For Girls, the new Dwight Yoakam, the new Jann Arden.... So I'm falling behind on my new releases (but I moaned about that in an earlier posting.)

I wasted a big chunk of today, I feel. I brought Ken to the airport at 5 this morning. He's gone until Friday. I had a doctor's appointment and some errands to run (record store.....). I spent more time than I should have playing on the computer today. I could have done so much more. Listened to music or podcasts (instead, I did neither). Cleaned more. The computer can be the most addictive thing in my house and I don't know why. I'm glad I went out of a walk today. It was beautiful out and it won't be for much longer. I should have been outside more. Bah. Back to work tomorrow.

Adventures In Dining

Just before vacation, I went out in the backyard to cook dinner on the grill. Only there was a problem. I turned the gas on and lit the thing, only to have flames shooting out the front of it. Not a good sign. The grill was getting old and it was time for a new one. And the timing was pretty good, too. Got one at Target on clearance, and an additional discount on top of it because we were left waiting for them to bring one out of the backroom for so long. I assembled the sucker on Wednesday, but didn't actually have a chance to use it until tonight. I hooked up the tank to it and wanted to run it for a little while to burn off whatever residue might be on it before cooking on it. That was all fine and dandy until the propane ran out. Rather than trudge over to Home Depot for a new tank, we decided to go out to eat instead. (Shocking, I know!)

Ken's been after me to try this place over by the house called TJ's Cafe. The place has been open for as long as I can remember, but I've never been and neither has Ken. He's been after me for probably three years to try it. So he wore me down enough for me to agree. We pull into the parking lot and the place is hopping. I notice two old people leaving, going to their car. And two other old people. Already I'm afraid. We get to the door, Ken opens it looks for about one milisecond and turns around to go. I only caught a slight glimpse of a table of ancient people. He has a major restaurant phobia. That is, he can't eat anywhere where it feels like it's someone's house that's been turned into a dining room. Weird phobia, but it saved us from eating there. The fact that the youngest patrons were in their early 60s was enough for me, thank you very much. As we're trying to get out of the parking lot, three more cars full of seniors pulled in.

Instead we went to one of our reliable places. Firken and Fox. It's an English style pub and we really like it there. The place was mobbed when we arrived. We didn't realize that the football game was on and apparently this was a favorite hangout of fans of the Cleveland Browns. There was a huge crowd of them and they were all very, very, very loud. Everytime something happened during the game, they were all into it. Like a bunch of fucking losers. Half of them were wearing their Browns jerseys. You know, I fail to see a difference between this and a Ren Faire. Every time the Browns did something good, there was this one nasty hag, who had a sign, by the way, would try to hug as many guys as she could. I think she was hoping to get lucky, but I'm sure she went home to her cats. Alone. The men's room door was kept propped open because the losers were afraid they were going to miss something.

What I don't understand about football is the clock. We got to the place when there was 8 minutes and some seconds left in the game. We looked over the menus, ordered, waited longer than usual for our food, ate, paid and left and the game hadn't ended yet. Crazy.

In the proud of myself department, I asked if I could substitute a salad for my fries.

I Want

This has been a pretty good year for music. For me, at least. Seems like there are weeks and weeks that go by with nothing new that interests me, and then a ton of stuff comes out all at once. Looks like we're at the "feast" end of this "feast or famine." This coming Tuesday there are going to be new cds by

Melissa Etheridge,
Joni Mitchell,
Nellie McKay
and Herbie Hancock.

Now normally I wouldn't care much about a Herbie Hancock release, but this has two things going for it. One, he's covering Joni Mitchell and two, Tina Turner guest stars on one of the tracks. And if this isn't enough, Annie Lennox's new cd comes out next week, as does Siouxsie Sioux's. I'm glad I get paid three times in October!

I'm still not feeling 100%. My cold is almost gone, it seems, but I've still got a stomach bug. I need to shake this right now otherwise work on Monday isn't going to be fun. I have Tuesday off, which is nice.

I read on Pod Is My Co-Pilot's blog earlier tonight that Alice Ghostley died. I'm really sad. I loved her on Bewitched and she was my favorite part of Designing Women. They're dropping like flies and I'm not happy about it at all.

Bionic Woman vs. Fembots

Sniffles

Still sick. Bah! I hate having a cold, especially one this time of the year. I think you're only allowed to feel this crappy during the winter. My symptoms don't jive with the weather outside currently. But I think I got hit going from the heat of Florida to the crisp coolness of the Northeast. I'm not really sure why, since our hotel room at Disney was rarely above 40 degrees. Ken was so excited when he realized we had one of the older style air conditioning units in the room. Most of the resorts at Disney have replaced the old units with motion detector units. If no motion is detected in the room, the air doesn't blow as hard. But we had a unit that stayed on until it was actually turned off. My glasses fogged up every time I left the room. That's how fucking cold that room was. Maybe it was the room that got me sick? I don't know. All I know is I'm giving up Saturday overtime because I feel like crap. We have Sunday overtime this week, which is rare. If I'm feeling better and still feeling poor, I'll go in then.

I weighed myself when we got back. I put on six pounds while on vacation. I was expecting more but hoping for less. I give it a week or two before I drop back down to my pre-vacation weight. Not feeling good also means not getting out there and walking. Again, if I feel better, I will go walking tomorrow. I've got the motivation, just not the energy.

I'm listening to DUSTY IN MEMPHIS right now. I haven't listened to it in a long time. I keep forgetting how awesome it is.

I went back to work on Thursday and spent a good bit of time catching up on the office gossip. My favorite bit was finding out that one person I work with sent around a collection envelope last week because she was fund raising for Alzheimer's. Coincidentally, she was on vacation this week. Not the first time something shady has happened around her vacation and it won't be the last time. I just can't believe the people who actually believed it was for charity.

I got a couple of mentions on the newest episode of QCastConnections. I was really, really happy to hear my name mentioned. It was a great ego boost this morning. Add to this the fact that Rosie baked four cakes for Jeanne's birthday today, I was in hog heaven today. Rosie is an amazing cook and these cakes were so damn good. I had a slice of the chocolate cake and of the better than sex depending on who you're having sex with cake.

I really need to clean my home office/comic book room. It's a fucking pit.

Bleeegh

I don't feel good. I have a cold and it's fucking annoying. I just chugged some more NyQuil and I'm about to go to bed.

That is all.

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