Random wibblings of an insane science fiction fan

 
Just got back from the vet, where all three cats had their annual checkup and shots. Vir, who's been on diet cat food for a couple of months now, has lost less than an ounce. Happiness, who was skinny to begin with, has lost an entire pound.

Right. Starting tomorrow, Vir gets strictly-measured rations, Happiness gets canned food every day (since I know she'll eat that), Nova gets to eat only when I'm watching him to make sure Vir isn't sneaking snacks, and my life gets just that much more complicated.

Labels: cats

posted by Betty at 8:41 AM [2 comments]

 


Yay, Adama! Adama rocks.



I think that's what the last Heroes quiz I took said, too. Hey, could be worse. Could be a lot worse.

Although, wait... I'm I'm Adama, and I'm also Micah, does that mean Adama is Micah? Because that's just weird.

Labels: stupid internet quiz

posted by Betty at 9:25 AM [0 comments]

 
Dear Nature,

The mornings that come in the middle of my day are supposed to be pleasant and dewy, caressed by gentle morning breezes and warmed by golden morning sunlight, so that I may fully appreciate this whole "daybreak" phenomenon while I am properly awake for it. They are not supposed to be blustery, cold, ice-laden, and generally unpleasant. Please see to this immediately, before my sleep schedule changes again.

Thank you,

Me

Labels: random thoughts, whining

posted by Betty at 8:22 AM [4 comments]

 
A cool bit of news:

The Jim Henson Company Launches on iTunes

Sci-Fi Cult Hit FARSCAPE and Classic Puppet Series FRAGGLE ROCK Go Digital

NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES -January 28, 2008- The Jim Henson Company today announced that favorites from the Company’s TV programming and feature film library will be available for purchase and download on the iTunes® Store (www.itunes.com) beginning today, January 28th, 2008. The launch will begin with episodes from the first seasons of the critically acclaimed award-winning sci-fi series FARSCAPE and the endearing favorite FRAGGLE ROCK.

The Jim Henson Company has partnered with New Video, a leading digital aggregator of independent video content, to bring these highly sought after programs to the iTunes Store, the world’s most popular online music, TV and movie store. Television shows are $1.99 (US) per episode, and music videos and short films are $1.99 (US) each. Through this new partnership between New Video and the Jim Henson Company, both the FRAGGLE ROCK and the FARSCAPE series will be available in their entirety in the coming months.

"We continue to be honored and thrilled by our fans’ ongoing desire to support their favorite shows and view them using all formats of media," said Nicole Goldman, Vice President of Marketing and Publicity of The Jim Henson Company. "We know our fans have been asking for these titles on iTunes and through our partnership with New Video, we hope to serve our loyal supporters and also introduce these beloved shows to new audiences."

I know a number of people who've been interested in seeing Farscape again, or for the first time, or more completely, and who have been having difficulty finding it on disc, so hopefully this will be useful to some of those folks. Needless to say, I recommend the heck out of that show, if you haven't seen it yet. And Fraggle Rock is fun, too, from what I remember.

Labels: farscape, tv shows

posted by Betty at 11:26 PM [0 comments]

 
I've ended up getting into a discussion about chiropractors on someone else's blog. I really don't want to continue the discussion there, and I don't particularly want to get drawn into any long debates about the subject here, either, but in the interest of wider public service, I thought I'd also post here with a link to the article I cited there: "Chiropractic: Flagship of the Alternative Medicine Fleet," part 1, part 2. It's a good examination of the reasons why you shouldn't automatically assume (as most people understandably do) that whatever a chiropractor is going to do for you is medically legitimate.

Labels: science

posted by Betty at 12:49 PM [5 comments]

 
Wow, mornings are so much nicer when they come in the middle of my day.

Labels: bits of my life

posted by Betty at 9:04 AM [0 comments]

 

Labels: stupid internet quiz

posted by Betty at 8:32 PM [8 comments]

 
28%

Labels: stupid internet quiz

posted by Betty at 3:17 AM [9 comments]

 
Teeny Little Bigfoot on Mars: Aww, teeny Martian Bigfoot is kind of cute.

Tiptoeing Through the Minefield of Movie Spoilers: Your guide to calculating how long you have to wait until whatever you want to say about that movie you're talking about no longer counts as a spoiler.

The Jim Henson Company's official Farscape page: Newly revamped and very nice looking. Contains character bios, an episode guide, images, and other cool stuff.

Hot Library Smut: Porn for bibliophiles! Completely work-safe, though, honest.

Dolphin Play Bubble Rings: Video of dolphins blowing bubble rings. Beautiful.

Doctor Who: Revolutionary Or Tool Of The Man?: The Doctor's government-toppling proclivities, charted over time and compared to the real-world political landscape. It probably means something profound.

Test Your Tiredness: A reaction time test that's supposed to gauge how tired you are. It told me I "seem pretty awake," even though I really didn't feel like it at the time.

Who has the time?: A replica of the fob watch from Doctor Who's "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood," now for sale. Want, want, want!

Labels: random links

posted by Betty at 2:51 AM [2 comments]

 
So, I got this letter from my mortgage company trying to sell me insurance that'll cover my mortgage payments if I get hit by a bus. Which I'm not accepting, because, screw it, let my next of kin sell the damned house. But there's this one sentence, in bold, that I can't stop staring at:

Don't wish for accidental death protection when it's too late -- Send in your enrollment form today!

OK, never mind the dubious grammar with the dash and all. Does anybody but me see a really weird logical error there?

Labels: bits of my life

posted by Betty at 8:26 PM [9 comments]

 
Yes, yes, I do remember that I have a blog... What can I say? It's been a very uninteresting week, or something.

I did figure I would at least pop in to say to my loyal readers that if you're at all interested in space science, you should go here to see cool pictures of Mercury from the MESSENGER mission.

Also, if you're at all debating whether you want to bother watching Torchwood this season, I definitely recommend checking out the first episode, because it's surprisingly good. I'm really hoping it's a sign of where the show is going from here rather than a fluke, but I'm feeling pretty optimistic. I've always said I thought there was a good show in there struggling to get out! (I believe the episode is on BBC America next weekend, by the way, for the law-abiding Americans in the audience.)

Labels: doctor who, science, tv shows

posted by Betty at 6:19 PM [15 comments]

 
Cursor 10: A really nifty little puzzle game. You get ten cursor guys who start out on the bottom floor of a building, and your goal is to get one of them all the way to the top. The twist is that each of your game lives takes place simultaneously, so every time you start a new one, all the previous yous are still running around doing stuff. Trust me, it's easier to play than it is to explain, and a lot more entertaining. It took me three tries to figure it out, but the learning process was a lot of fun.

The GOP Primary Field in Buffy Villains: It's kind of frightening how well some of these match up. Some of the comments are pretty funny, too.

The Purple Nurple Optical Illusion: I had loads of fun flicking my eyes back and forth over this. I played around with it for ages. It was immensely cool. Then I stopped looking at it and immediately felt sick. You have been warned.

Lost recap in 8 minutes, 15 seconds: It leaves out everybody's Daddy Issues and reflects the show's unfortunate obsession with who's kissing whom a little too well, but it's actually not bad as a capsule summary of the incredibly convoluted story thus far. Also, it really brings home just how incredibly bizarre that show actually is. (Needless to say, it's massively spoilery.)

Labels: random links

posted by Betty at 6:24 PM [2 comments]

 
Current clothes: White t-shirt with a picture of Brak from Space Ghost. (All hail Brak!) Blue long-sleeve shirt over that, unbuttoned. Blue jeans. White socks. White belt. Black sneakers.

Current mood: OK. A little rushed. I have to go to work soon.

Current music: It was more random-shuffle stuff last night. I remember some more REO Speedwagon. Also some Tenacious D.

Current annoyance: I had yet another dentist appointment last week to get yet another filling replaced, and once the hours-long numbness wore off, I started noticing a little sensitivity in the tooth they'd just worked on. Nothing too horrible, but if I drank a cold beverage and held it around the tooth, or sucked cold air past it, I could feel some very mild discomfort. For days, I tried hoping that if I ignored it, it would go away, but it didn't. So, of course, this afternoon when I'd pretty much made up my mind to call the dentist and get an appointment to have it looked at, it suddenly seems to have stopped. Now I don't know what to do. Stupid teeth. I swear, they're my least favorite body part.

Current thing: Lately, I've been feeling a strong desire just to hole up somewhere with a supply of hot cocoa and a stack of books as long as my arm and not come out for a week, minimum. That's really all I want to do right now: sip hot beverages and read and let the world go by without me.

Current desktop picture: A picture of a snow-dusted TARDIS with a wreath on the door that I got from the BBC's Doctor Who site a couple of Christmases ago. It's doubtless time to change it, though. After all, I've taken down the other Christmas decorations. All two of them.

Current book: Mainspring by Jay Lake. I've only just started it, but it's pretty cool so far.

Current song in head: It seems to be Warren Zevon's "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead," because I was just thinking that I want to read the Zevon biography of the same title that my sister got me for Christmas sometime soon.

Current DVD in player: Most recently, Man of the Year. Which was watchable, but not great. It didn't seem at all sure whether it wanted to be a comedy or a drama or a romance, or what, and it was trying more than a little too hard to go for the feel-good vibes by the end. So, basically, a Robin Williams movie. Oh, and in the other player: the second disc of Lost in Time: The Troughton Years, a collection that features the surviving episodes of Doctor Who stories that were partially burned by the BBC. Man, when I get my time machine, my second stop after the Library of Alexandria is going to be the BBC video vaults.

Current refreshment: Lemon-ginger green tea.

Current worry: Will I finish this and get it posted before I have to go dashing off to work?

Current thought: I kind of have to pee.

Labels: currently, meme

posted by Betty at 2:38 PM [2 comments]

 

Which Doctor Who Character are you? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Sgt. Benton You are Sgt. Benton! Calm, fixed, resolute: for being such a nice person you have a bit of cynicism that you keep hidden. It helps you sort out the good from the bad when you deal with people. Not easily fooled by mere charm or facade, you are, all the same, a simple soul. You long for love but don't quite comprehend romance. you recognize that a stable home, longterm friendships, and trust and respect are the foundations of a happy life. Sgt. Benton 50% Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart 43% Jo Grant 43% The Master 32% Captain Mike Yates 29% Doctor Who (Third Doctor) 11%

Hey, I'm happy with that result! I adore Sgt. Benton, honestly. In my eyes, he is the great unsung hero of Doctor Who.

Labels: doctor who, stupid internet quiz

posted by Betty at 7:17 PM [7 comments]

 
Having earlier done that meme where you post the first line of the first post of each month of the year, it's time (for lack of anything more interesting to do) to do the reverse version and post the last line of the last post of each month. Which gives us:

I feel like Grampa Simpson. Just don't go screwing it up, now, 'kay? Which is itself mildly annoying, but at least it covers up the sound that's deliberately calculated to be annoying and impossible to ignore. Wow, but I think it's been a while since a TV show seriously did that to me. Damn it. And this despite the fact that I've actually remembered to wear sunblock a few days this week. I'm not entirely sure what that means. Or go and comment on "Human Nature" some more. Following Lynyrd's example, I will post this and quickly depart. Thank you. I've only got a few episodes left, but now I'm sort of afraid of them. My fingers want to type sentences.

Well, now I know what to do if I ever want to simulate the ramblings of a schizophrenic.

Labels: meme

posted by Betty at 5:31 PM [1 comments]

 
Happy New Year to all! 2008 seems pretty good so far. It's nice and sunny here (if still uncomfortably cold), and I'm enjoying a relaxing day of doing essentially nothing at all. Last night, I went and hung out with friends and played card games, although, sadly, I had to make kind of an early night of it. Even if I don't have to work today, I've still gotta be a morning person for the rest of the week. Bah!

It's traditional at this point for me to post a list of all the books I read in the preceding year, but this time I have a much easier way of doing that than typing out the entire list. So, here: Books I Read in 2007. They're even pre-sorted by the order I read them in! (Well, mostly. When I finished two books on the same day, they don't necessarily show up in order, but even I don't really care about that very much.) Man, I love LibraryThing.

Grand total is 138 books, which isn't bad at all. (You'll note, if you follow the link, that there are only 137 books listed. There is one missing, because the only books that show up there are ones that I own, and I had to borrow Out of the Darkness (the final book in the Babylon 5 trilogy I read in January) from a friend.)

And I'm looking forward to lots more great reading this year, especially considering all the books I got for Christmas!

Labels: books

posted by Betty at 2:11 PM [5 comments]