Ordinary Day

Monday afternoon, by way of taking advantage of a day off from work, solarbird and spazzkat and I went to go see Cloverfield.

(Which is, by the way, a quite tight and intense little movie--but for the love of god, be warned, if you're prone to any kind of motion sickness, sit way, way back in the theater. Also consider taking some Dramamine beforehand.)

(Also, we had the new teaser for the forthcoming Trek flick in front of the movie, which I have to admit really rather made my little fangirl heart go pitter-pat, particularly when the first few notes of the familiar theme song welled up over the pan shot across the under-construction saucer section of the Enterprise... and, well, gosh. <3 Man, I hope they don't screw this up. I'm really in an Original Trek mood after giving Dara the remastered DVDs of the first season, so yeah. Bring on the new kids, and here's hoping they do the old familiar characters justice.)

(But I digress.)

I mention the Cloverfield excursion mostly because both beforehand and afterward, we popped into Barnes and Noble. I had a couple of coupons I wanted to spend, and the first one went to me picking up another Waifs CD. I offered the other to Dara, but she couldn't think of anything she really wanted to get even though she waffled for a bit on the very first season box set for The Avengers. (ETA 10:08pm: Dara says I got the season wrong--it's second series Avengers she was interested in. My bad!) So I settled on spending the second coupon on the last box set for Remington Steele.

Which of course was very foolish of me to do two days before my birthday--because Monday night at dinner, I learned to my chagrin that risu was of the opinion that I Really Shouldn't Have Done That, to which I went "ah" and immediately resolved to not open up the package so that I could take it back to B&N and swap it for something else. *^_^*;;

I did that today, and settled on two CDs: In All Things by Leahy, since I do have quite the long string of good luck with Celtic-flavored Canadian bands, and also The Best of the Chieftains, because I keep saying I should damn well have some Chieftains, so now I do. I'm pretty sure that there is a law written down somewhere, probably in Ireland or Scotland, that all fans of modern Celtic music should own at least one Chieftains CD. And I am a law-abiding citizen!

Anyway, it turned out that the extra box for Steele was actually a get-well present rather than a birthday, but most welcome nonetheless. And between that and the gifts from Dara and Paul, it has been a very DVD-heavy birthday, with emphasis on the Swoonable and the Funny. In the Swoonable corner, we have Steele (the 4th and 5th season box set), the second season of MacGyver ("his mind is the ultimate weapon", says the tagline on the box, to which Paul added that this is scary given that it lives under the ultimate mullet), and, to crown off the lineup, 3:10 to Yuma, the Crowe/Bale edition. BOOYA. And over in the Funny corner, we have the 11th collection for Mystery Science Theater 3000 as well as Eddie Izzard's Definite Article.

technoshaman has come over to help Dara with a server swap, and he brought a card with him which was very cute. My boss even gave me a card today as well. All in all, as birthdays go, a pretty fine one indeed. <3

Last night, perhaps due to realizing that Faerie Blood has been in the e-queue at Baen for a year now, I dreamed that they accepted it. However, when I got the offer via text message on my phone, I realized that something was wrong with the entire situation and that surely I had to be dreaming.

spazzkat suggests that the dream should have proceeded to have Russell Crowe show up with a copy of the novel, asking for me to sign it so that he could give it to Alan Doyle as a gift. And then Alan would show up, asking me to sign a copy of Russell.

Then they would make out.

That would have been a much more interesting dream.

And now, to make up for last weekend, I'd like to post about some things that don't suck.

I have once more begun to try to cut down on my soda. I am trying not to get too ambitious about the goal here or to make long-term plans, since my luck with that lately has been kind of sketchy, but for the last two days at least I've limited myself to two cans of soda a day. At the same time, I'm trying to take myself off the Trazodone since I have reason to believe it's messing with me, and I've stayed off that for the last two days too. So far I have noticed an immediate lessening of the general background noise of tension I've had in my system for a while. This is a very good thing indeed. And I need to remember this feeling for the next time I start getting way too interested in the diet Dew.

I got a surprise letter from the College of Veterinary Medicine at WSU yesterday, informing me that Ravenna Animal Hospital had made a donation to them because of Polly. And Polly has been added to the list of pet names here. That was an incredibly sweet gesture of the vet, and made me feel rather misty.

A story on our site made me feel kind of misty, too. A couple of days ago we'd run this article about how lack of dental care is leaving the poor in agony, and as part of that article a picture had been run of a guy who was sobbing in the dental office since his blood pressure was too high for them to give him anesthetic. Apparently this prompted an outpouring of offers to help from Times readers to get this guy the dental care he needs. That really made me go "awww". Sometimes, every so often, people don't suck.

As y'all have seen over the last week, I've been more aggressively reading. Which has meant that I haven't listened to stuff on my iPod as much, and that means I have yet to actually listen to the new podcast from Great Big Sea! *blush* I really must correct this little problem this weekend. I may lose my GBS fan cred if I don't. ;)

What I have been listening to, though, is Carbon Leaf. I am seriously grooving on Ether-Electrified Porch Music. I may even like it better than Echo Echo; so far every single track on it is striking me as potential repeat-play material, which puts it out ahead of Echo Echo. This will require a few more plays to give it a proper judging. And I've been slurping up the classical music compilations I've got, too; I have found that they seem to unwind me on a fundamental level. The same level that's been feeling quite good with the hard cut of caffeine over the last two days, in fact.

TV-wise, although I have not yet posted an in-depth post about it, I did like the second episode of the Dresden Files. I don't think I'll do in-depth posting about it this weekend just because I want to focus on getting some writing and editing done, but I did want to at least note that yeah, the episode was good. I liked it a little better than the premiere; it felt more like a Harry story to me.

Movie-wise, courtesy of boxer_ferret I hear tell that Russell Crowe has been signed in a new take on the Robin Hood story--playing the Sheriff of Nottingham. As a good guy, even, investigating a string of murders for which Robin Hood is the suspect. This should be entertaining. And this weekend I hope to meet up with mamishka and go see The Painted Veil, which promises to be full of fun socialness and English-Patient-y romantic angst with Edward Norton and Naomi Watts.

Last but definitely not least, I'm slowly closing in on the five-month mark with Faerie Blood in the e-slush pile at Baen. And trying to remind myself that this doesn't mean much, since their turnaround time is like 9-12 months... but still. It feels satisfying that they haven't told me no quite yet.

Miles from 1/20 up to today: 31.1
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1730.4
Miles out of Rauros Falls: 421.4
Miles to Isengard: 62.6

Yesterday, in the hopes of relaxation and getting my ass out of the house for a little while, I went out to meet up with the lovely and talented mamishka for a viewing of the new Russell Crowe flick, A Good Year. Before I met up with Meems, though, I indulged in a bit of retail therapy on the Ave, since I hadn't been there in ages.

Since Tower Records is going out of business, I stopped in there to see if by any chance they had any Seven Nations discs. They didn't, but I did wind up buying an Afro Celt Sound System disc (Volume 1 Sound Magic) and the second season BSG soundtrack disc (since I do like the music from the show).

At the U Bookstore, I picked up three books: Charlaine Harris' Grave Sight now that it's out in paperback, Yasmine Galenorn's Witchling since she's local and I wanted to have something else of hers (and I wanted to see how she does with something paranormal/fantasyish), and Gina Farago's Ivy Cole and the Moon, which sounded vaguely entertaining and seems to involve a female werewolf.

And last but not least, at Zanadu Comics I finally picked up the graphic novel version of the latest Elfquest story, Discovery. As y'all know I was waffling about whether or not to get that, but after flipping through the soft-bound graphic novel I figured what the hell, I'd give it a shot.

Then I swung down to the Metro Theater to meet up with Meems for the movie. Which turned out to be about what I expected. It's unfortunately not getting very good reviews--I think a lot of people are just really boggled by the whole idea of Russell in a fluffy, comic, romantic movie. I didn't have much of a problem with it, but then, I've also seen him in Mystery Alaska. And I'll be commenting further on the flick in another post!

Wednesday through Sunday miles: 13.3
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1528.9
Miles out of Rauros Falls: 219.9
Miles to Isengard: 264.1

On the one hand, my kitty's apparently having escalating problems. She's started pulling the stunt she did not long after we got her, when she had stones in her bladder and had to have surgery--she's been urinating all over the house, and it's got blood in it, and this really concerns me. It may be a recurrence of the previous problem, or--and this is equally likely as far as I know--the thyroid meds I've got her on may be messing with her kidneys. I really need to talk to the vet, and called twice today to try to get her to call me, but so far she hasn't called back. If she doesn't call me tonight I'm going to have to call back tomorrow morning and leave a more urgent message.

And I came home tonight to find a new spot on the carpet, which had apparently been there long enough to stain, along with quite a bit of Polly's stern communique on one of the leather sandals nearby. Does anybody know how to clean a leather sandal? Should I bother? Or should I just air it out?

Also, the power supply on my laptop is acting like the connector has a short in it. It's starting to do that thing where I have to wiggle the cord around to make it stop flashing the battery icon up onto my systray. Meh. This means I'm going to have to see about buying a new power supply, 'cause, well, I need a computer and stuff.

On the other hand, boxer_ferret has posted a whole new slew of Russell Crowe pics over on russellcrowefan, and several of these pics have The Doyle in them. And if there's anything that can bring a smile to my face, it's pictures of Mr. Crowe and Mr. Doyle making music together.

Saturday miles: 0.1
Sunday miles: 2.4
Monday miles: 3.9
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1416.95
Miles out of Rauros Falls: 107.95
Miles to Isengard: 376.05

With all the times I have been perturbed at seeing the name "Russell Crowe" misspelled (Rusell and Russel being the two most common variations, hell, the man seems to have his name misspelled almost as often as I do), you'd think I would have caught that I'd misspelled said name as "Russsell Crowe" in the tags on one of my very own posts. I mean, damn. Russell fangirl and a writer. Oi! No excuse. None! *^_^*

(Er, okay, well, I did catch it. I mean, you'd think I would have caught it sooner. That post has been up since May! *^_^*)

I really must remember to adjust the Smart Playlists on my iPod so that the dummy files used by the iTrip, the frob I can attach to it to let it play over my car radio, do not come up when I try to go through my Not Recently Played playlist. 'Cause y'know what I don't really want to listen to? 100+ 5-second files that go "beep".

However, after hitting the Next button a lot to get to some actual music, 30 Odd Foot of Grunts came up, and that's all to the good, 'cause now I'm all 'oh yeah, TOFOG1 goodness!' ^_^ Some of the songs that originally sold me on the whole idea that Russell Crowe can, in fact, sing.

And now I get some Billy Dean Cochran guitar solo goodness, too!

Rumors are still flying about a possible Master and Commander sequel. According to this, Mr. Crowe has "signed on" for a sequel--though I don't know if this is definite by a long shot. My usual source of Russell news these days, Murph's Place, also mentions this tidbit but does not yet corroborate it.

My previous commentary on this matter still holds. To wit: "oh please oh please oh please DEAR GODS YES let there be a sequel." ^_^

I am reminded also that I really need to pick up The Surgeon's Mate to get it onto my To Read queue, for lo, it would be good to have more of the Aubrey-Maturin books under my belt, so's I can amuse myself with rampant speculation as to where in the storyline a second Aubrey-Maturin flick could go!

And in other news, gosh it's hot. Unseasonably hot around here. I've been too hot the last couple of mornings walking in on my commute just wearing a sweatshirt. So I've planned ahead today and worn a white T-shirt and my new white shorts.

And as long as I'm on the topic of movies, I just got email saying Real's going to have a morale event next week to go see The Da Vinci Code. To wit, BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Given that critics are not impressed with the film so far, and given that I've never had an urge to read the actual novel--every single serious review I've seen about it says it's schlock--I was not feeling moved to go see this flick. But what the hell. I'll go snicker at it for free if they're going to pay my way and give me popcorn and soda. And hey, it does have Ian McKellen in it, and he is getting good marks for his performance.

Tuesday evening miles: 2.15
Wednesday morning miles: 2.1
Miles out of Hobbiton: 998.85
Miles out of Rivendell: 540.85
Miles out of Lothlórien: 78.85
Miles to Rauros Falls: 310.15

It seems that Russell's current band (The Ordinary Fear of God, a.k.a. TOFOG2) now has its very own official MySpace page. Bitchin'. :D Two songs off My Hand, My Heart are listenable there in their entirety: "Testify" and "Raewyn", which IMHO are two of the best ditties off the entire album. "Testify" is a good solid rocker of a piece, and well, I've commented on "Raewyn" before. And the page also has a neat group photo of the band, including the lovely and talented Mr. Doyle, whose influence (I continue to assert) has definitely kicked Russell's sound up a notch.

And damn, I wish I could make that show on the 17th! Sniff. :) If any of the Russell fans on my Friends list get to hit that show, I want to hear about it!

(Hrmm. Clearly I need me a Musical Russell icon...)

ETA 11:46am: This snurched from boxer_ferret: Russell's wife Danielle, who those of you who attended the TOFOG show with me in 2001 may also remember is a singer in her own right, also has a MySpace page up! She's got a new album coming out as well, and I may have to get that, 'cause I did rather like White Monkey.

It's Russell Crowe's birthday, and he hits the 'life, universe, and everything' number this year. It is also the third anniversary of his wedding to his wife Danielle, and now that they have a second boycub on the way, I expect it's a good day for them indeed.

Oh, and Russ? Let's make this forthcoming year a bit quieter, 'kay? Aside from A Good Year coming out. You can make all the headlines about that you like. And a headline announcing a Master and Commander sequel would be lovely. ^_^