Ok, so I'm posting today

Or I'll try to, anyway. I'm a little bit on the cranky side, to be honest, so I'm not guaranteeing that anything worth reading will come of the blather.

And why am I on the cranky side?

Oh, I'm just sore and creaky, that's all. A joint that doesn't usually act up has been proving that it can, and a couple of hours in the planetarium the other night aggravated it to the point where I was walking around like I was 103 years old yesterday.

I'm only about 72 today, though, so I guess you could say that things are looking up.

It's kind of annoying finding yourself dealing with so many aches and pains at a comparatively young age... or not so young, maybe. Maybe this is just a sign that I'm not really at a comparatively young age anymore and the warranty is soon to expire. Happy thought, that.

Incidentally, and since I've already used both of them in this post, did you know that guarantee and warranty are both the same word? It's true. The initial sound shifted a bit as the word went from language to language, but it's really the same damned word.

English. Confusing, exasperating, and very, very cool. I think if more people knew a little bit more about how our (or any, for that matter) language evolved, they'd have a lot more appreciation for it.

Erm, sorry. Language history is somewhat of a hobby for me. Anyway, where was I?





Oh, right. Whinging.
Are we sure we want to get back to that?

Well, I suppose there's an interesting aspect to this pain thing. Normally I'm not too bad with a certain amount of pain. For those new to the program, I have an old injury that has settled into a background ache, and that ache follows me around every day. You get used to that sort of thing (to a point, of course. I recognise that chronic pain can be a real problem if the pain isn't just a vague ache. I'm lucky to be at the level I am, and I know it). It's funny, however, that even with a certain amount of daily pain the brain still goes into a bit of a panic (or, in my case, a major whinge) if the pain gets worse or appears in a new place.

It's preservation, I suppose. Even if there's a baseline level of pain, the body still needs to examine and protect itself from unfamiliar pain. Things would be quite a mess if that instinct wasn't there, after all. Pain can mean injury, and if an injury isn't looked after the whole thing becomes a dangerous circle as the injury gets worse and makes the pain worse which makes the injury worse...

Or something.

I'm just babbling here, you know.

And, frankly, it's causing me pain to be sitting in this chair right now.






Sounds like a good reason to end the daily blather for now, especially as it's obviously not going to emerge from the whinge zone.

I'll see if I can find something non-whingey (or at least less whingey) in the cranial archive for tomorrow.

I'm not posting right now

Um. Again.

Anyway, I don't feel like posting right now. Maybe I'll catch you later, or maybe not. We'll see.

I'm not posting today

Um.

Ok, I'm almost not posting today.

See you tomorrow.

So...

What does one say after several days of not posting followed by a couple of days of nearly-not-posting?

It seems like most of the stuff I would normally blather about has already passed its best-before date. I mean, I didn't even take the opportunity to complain about the SAG Awards red carpet, and it seems a bit late to do that now. In summary: ladies mostly boring; guys... bow ties? Heard of them? Oh, and I don't care if Angelina is ANGELINA -- she needs to stop going out dressed in a bag.

So there.

Now, what else?

Well, I can't even talk about the new season of Project Runway Canada because I haven't watched my recording yet. I was watching Scrubs (and... erm... wtf with the unnecessary muppetage, people? I like Muppets as much as the next person (possibly more than the next person, if the number of Muppet links that make it on to the blog are any indication), but superfluous muppeting is almost a crime. Even if Grover was there. And couldn't you have made it so that Elmo wasn't? Elmo gives me the shakes. To the point where he (he?) isn't getting a link. Oh, and here. Just because it was on the related videos list and I wanted to watch it.). I promise I'll watch Project Runway when I get home from work, though.

I know you were probably worried that I'd miss it.

Some of my two fans are possibly wondering what it is with me and Project Runway (and Top Chef, and Food Network Challenge...). Well... TLC doesn't show the bike building programs anymore. And I'm not talking about the Teutuls. I'm sure they're still on, but I kind of got over them once they moved into their third or fourth new building. No, what I'm talking about is that I like to watch creative people be creative. And if it's creativity under pressure, that's even better. And if it all goes horribly wrong, that's pretty good too.

And it's light entertainment that keeps me from getting to any of my own creating, of course. I have so many things that I should be doing instead of watching Project Runway, but I suppose I'll get to them later.

Maybe.

For anyone who hasn't experienced Project Runway Canada (especially any accidental visitors of the American persuasion), let me just say that it compares favourably with Project Runway in the States and Project Catwalk in the UK. Yes, I watch 'em all. Our version is missing Tim Gunn, sadly, but we do have Iman. I actually prefer her brand of aloofness to Heidi's, as difficult as that may be to believe.

And the designers? Canada can produce crazy and bitchy with the best of them, folks.

Anyway, I need to get to work. And don't be surprised to hear more about pointless television in the next little while, since there seems to be an embarrassment of riches(?) stockpiled on my dvr just now.

I lead such a full life.

I have a headache

It figures, you know? When it's cold I can't go outside, and now that the weather's shifted the change in pressure system means that my brain hurts and I can't think.

I'm such a happy camper at the moment.

And that's probably all you're going to get out of me today. My blather isn't forming into words, I'm afraid. It's more like the baby imitation that guy on the current (and currently annoying) McDonald's commercial does, so if you can picture that sound you've got the gist of what's on my mind just now.

I'll try again tomorrow.

Maybe.

Quick pic

Yeah, it's a bit of a cop-out when I haven't posted for a few days (blame the weather. I do), but this is all you're getting today because I need to do work things.

I'll try to have something long-winded and pointless tomorrow.

Guess the shape

I don't normally share photos from work on my personal blog (that's what our work blog is for, after all), but this one was kind of neat in an abstract way that makes it more or less unsuitable for the work blog. That's why it's here instead.

I know it looks like a lot of nothing, but bear with me. I'll explain.

Last year Wheat came to one of my planetarium shows to take some photos that we'd be able to use for our advertising. Some are of the outside of the dome (and the backside of me, which is why you won't be seeing those ones here anytime soon), and some were taken inside during and after the program.

The problem with the ones taken during the program is that it takes a very long exposure to get anything like a recognisable picture in a darkened dome, and I'm not generally staying still long enough for a long exposure to work well. I'm pointing at things, shifting position so that my legs don't fall asleep (we sit on the floor for planetarium programs), working the controls... that sort of thing. As a result, most of the photos taken during the program aren't really usable.

Including this one, obviously. But it's cool when you figure out what it is.

Go ahead, click on it to enlarge it and see if you can figure out what it is.

It took me a bit, to be honest. I hadn't seen these shots in a while, and when I was going through them yesterday to find something for a brochure I was working on, my first thought when I got to this one was definitely in the wtf range. There are no weird red blotches in the planetarium projections, after all. I couldn't imagine what the magically appearing red blotch could signify, except maybe aliens among us.

Kidding, yes.

Then I looked more closely at the shape, and the "stars" in amongst the lines of the shape.

And I figured it out.

Have you?

The backwards-question-mark-looking thing is the clue.

It's the constellation Leo. Leo is what's showing in the star projection, and the red blotch is what my light-pointer looks like in a long-exposure photograph. I must have been tracing the shape of the lion when Wheat took the picture.

See? I told you it was neat.

And with that, back to work for me. Oh, and if you're in the northern hemisphere and get a chance to do some star gazing, Leo (with special guest Saturn) should be visible in the east after about nine-ish this time of year. Go have a look. It's neat in real life too.

Nothing

Yep, that's what I have in mind to blather about. A great big ol' nothing.

We're running at about the same speed as usual, then.

I'm certainly not going to talk about the inauguration, that's for sure. It was more or less inescapable this morning if a person was attempting to watch television at all, though. Then I came to work and it was on streaming video in the office.

Sigh.

Ok, so I can understand why so many people were watching, and I get why people are excited. It's just... well, first of all he's not my president. Second, he's not going to turn water into wine anytime soon, although you wouldn't have known it if you'd listened to the worshipful coverage the whole thing was getting from even the Canadian media. He's just a politician, folks. He's got a helluva job ahead of him, too, and I can only hope that a few of the people forming the ecstatic masses of today are still a little bit happy a year or two from now.

I'm so completely not into politics.

And having said that... I really don't have much else to say. What should I be filling space with, then?

Oh, hey. I just thought of one thing.

Cool.

I went book shopping yesterday because I had a couple of Christmas gift cards to use. It's been a while since I've been shopping anywhere but in a grocery store (yeah, Christmas shopping didn't happen at all this past year. Seriously), and it's really been a while since I was in a bookstore. I'm afraid I've been won over by the whole online shopping thing when it comes to books, if only because I generally save a bit of money that way.

Yesterday, however, found me in an actual, real-life, physical bookstore.

They're kind of fun, you know.

It's far easier to browse in them than it is online, for one thing. You're more likely to find something you wouldn't normally buy, as well. And since that's my usual aim when I get a gift card...

I should explain that.

I generally go out of my way to buy something a bit unusual when I have gift cards to spend, because I figure that if I'd been given a book rather than a card the book would be a little off my usual beaten reading path. So, to make things more "gifty" I try to stay away from the usual work-related or weird-hobby-related reading list and get something a little different.

And what was the little different this time?

Well. I could tell you, but then I'd have to type a whole bunch more words when I should be getting back to work. If you're desperate to know what's new on my footstool (they're not on the shelf yet, silly, because I haven't read them) you can click on the Shelfari link on the sidebar (that'd be the thing that looks like a bookshelf on the sidebar) and look at my profile under I Plan to Read. Everything there except the Stephen Fry book was from yesterday's browse.

Ah, the Stephen Fry book.

It's been planned to read for about a year now. I keep starting it and then getting involved in other things. It's the exercises, you see. I want to do them, but I never seem to find the mood...

Oh well. Someday.

Back to work for me now. And if you decide to look through the rest of my Shelfari shelf, just bear in mind that it's only representing about half of the books in my life at the moment.

My one-room apartment can be a pretty scary place. Unless you're into libraries, I suppose.

Non, je ne regrette rien

I dunno. The title was for something I was going to blather about, but now that I've typed it I'm not really in the mood to blather. Let's just use it as an excuse to listen to Piaf then, ok?

Anyway, the whole sentiment doesn't fit me. I regret plenty, and being the olf that I am I think about the regrets constantly. I don't actually ever do anything about them, but I do think about that too.

A lot.





Ever just want to turn off your brain for a while? Yeah, me too.

----------

You know what? I just realised that if I'm not going to blather about what I was planning to blather about, then I have nothing at all to blather about today.

Maybe we should make this a clip show? Haven't had one of those in a while.

Ok then... this.

And because of that, this.

And that leads me to this, of course. I've got a long-time love on for that musical. The rhythmic stuff is so, so much fun.

But where can we go from Meredith Willson?

Um...

Musicals. Let me think.

All right, I've got it. Here! That makes me happy.

What else makes me happy? Hmmm. Well...

Let's just go for the obvious, I guess. Meaning sketch comedy, not necessarily the... subject matter... (I damned near put a smilie on the end of that sentence for no reason. I must need to get out more).

See you all later.

Pointless thought of the day:

Who do you suppose it was that decided it would be a good thing for women's armpits to smell like cucumber?

Seriously.

The antiperspirant I'm using at the moment has a "green tea and cucumber" scent. I don't think that I aimed to smell like a cucumber; more than likely I just picked up the particular brand without even looking at the scent. I do that occasionally.

I'm not saying that the scent isn't pleasant, because it is. I'm just saying... cucumber? Really? It just doesn't seem like the obvious choice. I mean, I know when I think of armpits the first thing that always comes to mind is cucumber.

Ah well. As long as no one adds ranch dressing I suppose I'm all right.

----------

I was out looking at the stars for a while last night (and since my little autofocus camera can't do much about taking shots of stars, I've given you a mountain ash in the dark instead. And here I bet you thought that the photo was COMPLETELY pointless. You know, like it usually is). It was a beautiful clear sky (at least when I was out. When my father went out later the clouds had already moved in. Serves him right for waiting) and since -- unusually -- the temperature isn't minus godawful it was a pleasant night to be outside.

It's been ages since I've gone out to look at the sky, and I've missed it.

In terms of my lifetime, the sky thing's fairly new for me. Now I really enjoy going out and seeing what I can recognise in the constellations, but for the longest time I couldn't have cared less. Oh, the Apollo missions to the moon interested me on a childish scale (I wish I'd been old enough to appreciate them more when they were happening), but as for the sky itself... well, whatever. I didn't think it was worth the effort.

I'm very nearsighted, you see, and I just assumed that it would be too much trouble to try to resolve anything that wasn't within about a metre and a half of my nose.

So what changed? A couple of things, really. Specifically, the mobile planetarium and my father's telescope.

My two fans probably recall me mentioning the planetarium now and then. You can use the blog's search bar yourself if you want to see what I've had to say about it. The short version is that we have one at work, and certain parts of the year find me doing a LOT of planetarium shows. I'm reasonably comfortable with it now, but that's a fairly new thing for me too. Back before we got our own planetarium set-up, we used to rent one for a few weeks every couple of years and run masses of students through it in a short time. The shows generally consisted of some basic identification followed by some sky mythology. I knew diddly about the sky, but I had a bit of a background in mythology from back in university. As a result, my shows usually became five minutes of can anyone find Orion? followed by an hour of storytelling. Yep. One, big, massive cheat. It didn't matter, though, because I only had to do it for those few weeks every two years.

And then...

My father built a telescope.

He'd always wanted to, and once he'd retired he ordered a kit and put one together. A six-inch Newtonian on a Dobson mount, for anyone who follows that kind of thing. Which I don't. He painted it teal, by the way, but that really has nothing to do with the story so I'm not even sure why I mentioned it.

So my father had his telescope, but he didn't really know his constellations well enough to be able to locate things with it. He naturally turned to his daughter, figuring that since she'd done planetarium shows for years she'd probably be able to help him find things.

Silly man.

I went out with him several frustrating times, map and red flashlight in hand, trying to help him point his teal beast towards such-and-such Messier Object, and then I started to notice something.

The sky's not as hard as I thought it was.

It's all about landmarks. Find something you know and see how it can point you to something else. Like using the pointer stars at the end of the Big Dipper to find Polaris, except on a larger scale. Just about everything out there points to something else, and once you learn that it's really not too bad a job to learn the basics of the constellations.

Sounds obvious, doesn't it? Well, it is obvious. People have been doing it for centuries. It's just that Yours Myopically couldn't be bothered to try it before then.

There's probably a life lesson in there somewhere, but I'm not in the mood to be preachy today. You can fill in the blanks yourself if you like.

Anyway, I learned more of the sky, and as I did I started to appreciate it more. I have scads of (badly written but very enthusiastic) sky poems from back then, because it really was a lightbulb I can do this moment for me. Nowadays I can go outside, find a star picture, and immediately relate to those people who created the sky stories I'd been telling others for so long.

Or feel like I can relate, anyway.

And how do I feel about looking at the sky now? Well, it's one of the few times in my life that I really feel connected to... I was going to say the universe, but let's say human history instead because that fits better.

And it's all because my father built a teal telescope and expected me to know something about the sky.





Weird how things work, isn't it?

Stupid photoeditor games

This'll be quick. I've kind of had a late start to the day, and now I really need to go and find some lunch.

So. Today's pointless photo has very little to do with reality. The sunflower I took the picture of was real, yes (depending on your definition of real, I suppose), but the way the photo looks now is entirely due to the effect of the flash and some subsequent buggering around with my photoeditor.

I like the way it looks, though. Makes it seem more of an abstract thing rather than just a dead sunflower on my balcony.

My usual method of editing photos is just to crop things to their best advantage (at least, the way I see their best advantage. The occasional weird bit of cropping you see here is completely on purpose. Sometimes, I'll admit, I see things a little bit... oddly compared to the world in general), and to slightly adjust contrast and lighting if the camera's picked up something that shouldn't be there. Occasionally, though, I'll move the various sliders to extreme positions just to see what the result is.

Sometimes I like the experiment better than the actual photo.

Ah, the fun of digital.

Anyway, no message or pseudophilosophy today. Just a picture of a dead sunflower that's had too much artificial shadow added to it because I thought it looked neat. I guess you can extrapolate other things from that if you choose to, but as for me I think I'll just head upstairs and cook an egg.

There's ham from yesterday, after all. And it's the rules that when one has ham for supper one day, one absolutely must have scrambled eggs with ham and cheese the next.

Well, it's the rules in my culinary universe.

And since it's alllll about me...

Pointless photo of the day:

Kind of busy with work things right now. I'll try to be coherent tomorrow.

Well, somewhat coherent.

Um...

Blatherific?




Whatever. See you later.

Stop it stop it stop it

My apologies for skipping out of the world yesterday. It was a combination of lack of sleep, crappy weather, and not wanting to be around people. I get that way sometimes.

----------

The back of my left hand (of which I am very thoughtfully NOT posting a photo) is currently a lumpy, scaly mess. And why? Well, because I keep scratching it. And why do I keep scratching it?

Because it's itchy, silly people.

I have no idea why it's itchy. It could possibly be eczema, but since I've not had it examined I don't want to jump to that diagnostic conclusion. I have enough allergy problems that it could easily be contact dermatitis of some form, but I'm not sure about that either.

What it is for certain is itchy, and I'm having a bugger of a time not scratching. I've been moisturizing like nuts (and let me forestall the overly helpful out there by saying that yes, it's a hypoallergenic non-scented moisturizer) and it's helped a bit, but I'm beginning to think that the only way I'm going to get myself to stop scratching when I'm not paying attention is to take up the full-time wearing of gloves.

Which will probably end up irritating the skin even more and I'll be itchier than ever.

It's not exactly the first time it's happened. Dry winter air seems to bring on random itchiness in a lot of people around here, and I'm no exception. My biggest problem, though, is that I find it so, so hard to leave well enough alone. When I get itchy it's easy for me to scratch to the point of removing skin, unfortunately.

And this is even with the world's shortest fingernails.

In case anyone's interested, I was also very much a scab-picker as a child. I'm a little better about things like that now, but all of this scratching is most definitely a manifestation of a life-long problem with keeping my hands to themselves.

When it comes to me, I mean. I don't pick other people's scabs.

You're welcome.

And I promise that I'll stop talking about scabs now.

Anyway, if the only subject I have in my brain to type about is itchy skin (and just on the one hand. That's very puzzling to me, you know, that it's just on the one hand) then it probably means that I should stop blathering completely for today.

Unless someone really wanted to know about itchiness.

Or scabs.

Yeah, yeah, ok. I really will stop with the scabs now. Even though they happen to be pretty fascinating things when you're not picking them off before they're ready to go...

Man, do I need a life. Proof? Well, stay tuned to the other blog in a day or so for the latest in Play-doh sculptures. Yes, I'm serious.




And how sad is that?

Pointless cat photo of the day:

And that'll have to do.

I'm off to get some other things done now.

Or attempt to, anyway.

Wish me luck.

Ties, dammit

Picture uploading's not going so well at the moment. I'll try again in a bit, but if it doesn't want to load I'm not going to fuss.

This'll be quick anyway, because I've been busy reading Golden Globe stuff and I should get to work now.

So. The Globes. Can't say I care who won, because it's all about the clothes and the drinking for me. Speaking of drinking, though, if we had been playing that lack-of-bow-tie drinking game I suggested a post or two ago, I would have been wasted within the first half hour of the red carpet coverage. Geez, people. Long ties do NOT belong with tuxes. As I said (well, texted) to the Toronto office last night, it looked like some bizarre shiny-suited business conference out there. Dressing up should meaning dressing somewhat differently than you do at the office, as far as I'm concerned.

And as for the ladies? Well, mostly safe and generally attractive. Cameron Diaz's choice of colour was pretty horrendous, however, and Marisa Tomei apparently thought she was going to a pirate-themed party. Drew Barrymore had Marilyn Monroe's hair (from one of Marilyn's more drugged-up, bedheady days), and Renee Zellweger? Well, all I really need to say there is that the first, long distance shot they had of her on the red carpet had me thinking that it was Sharon Stone.

Trust me, you never want anyone thinking that you've dressed up like Sharon Stone for an event. Unless, of course, you happen to be Sharon Stone. She probably doesn't mind being thought of as Sharon Stone-esque.

I have more, but as I said above I should be getting to work. Apparently my photo's not going to load today, so we'll do without pointless visual imagery until tomorrow. Oh, one more thing I wanted to mention, however: I always, always love reading the fashion "experts" after one of these things. I've only looked at a couple of slideshows today so far, but the two I've looked at were unintentionally hilarious because the experts had picked EXACT OPPOSITES for best and worst.

That pleases the evil in me more than I can even relate.

Later, all.

Wish my head had LESS space

Oh, how clever. She's referencing yesterday's post...

Ok, so maybe clever isn't the word I'm wanting there. I don't feel terribly clever anyway. What I feel is headachy, and that'll probably continue for the next few days with my luck.

The chinook winds are moving in, you see. And while the warm chinook winds are good news for anyone who was sick of our recent minus godawful temperatures (i.e. me), they're also bad news for anyone who gets pressure headaches associated with chinook winds (i.e. me).

Sometimes you just can't win no matter what happens.

Ah well. I suppose I'll take the winds over not being able to go outside for days on end. Just barely, though. Chinook headaches aren't a helluva lot of fun.

----------

So, update on yesterday: I did actually manage to fit a quick doodle into my massively unbusy schedule. Yay me. It's not one of my best, but if you're curious you can find a photo of it on the old blog. Um, that'd be here. You'll also find it as Shrubbery on the sidebar. For those new to the program, the old blog used to be THE blog until the code got mangled and patched enough that I decided to move the daily blather over here and redo the old place as a storage bin (round file?) for my various artsy endeavours. Or lack of same. It hasn't been too busy lately (much like this place) but I'm hoping to get back to it a bit more in the new year.

And if you head over to the old place and wonder about the play-doh, well... let's just say that I'm broadening my horizons. Or something.




Talking about the old blog reminds me that I wanted to mention something about the slideshows on both blogs. I was going to talk about Golden Globe anticipation (the entertainment sites are practically giddy with it since the Globes are back for the first time after last year's strike-caused debacle), but I think I've probably talked about silly award shows enough lately so we'll do this instead.

The slideshows, then. For anyone unfamiliar with Blogger and the workings of the Google family, here it is, then. Any photos that are posted on this blog or the old blog are hosted in a Picasa web album. The two slideshows on this blog represent the older photos I've posted as well as the photos the Toronto office has added. On the other blog, the slideshow is of all the pointless doodles I've posted over the past while. Clicking on any of the slideshows will take you to the photo and its album.

Incidentally, the only reason that my more recent photos aren't in a slideshow on the sidebar is that I didn't think we needed THREE slideshows on the blog. If you're desperate to see the current album, there's a separate link to it a little further down the sidebar.

And so why would you want to look at the same pointless photos in album format? Well, there's a couple of reasons, and I'm not sure that all of my two fans are aware of them. First, I caption and tag the photos in my albums. Some of the captions are straightforward. Some of them are weird. Occasionally, though, the captions offer a little more information about the photos, and occasionally (ok, rarely) that can be interesting.

The second reason you might want to visit the albums to see the photos is that you can comment on them. Yes, I do actually welcome comments. My photography is, as advertised, largely pointless, but if there's something about a photograph that strikes you I really would like to hear about it.

Once you're in an album you can easily navigate to my other albums if the mood happens to strike you. And you can comment on them, too.

Isn't feedback fun, boys and girls?





Erm... I think I've run out of stuff now. Stay tuned for tomorrow's whinge about the Golden Globes. All I can say is that somebody better be wearing something completely ridiculous or I'll be terribly disappointed.

Two years of disappointment in a row may be too much for my shallow little heart to handle, you know.

Headspace

As opposed to headroom, which would be something different.

And does anyone else think it's weird that the person who left the tracks in today's pointless photo had one boot and one hoof?

Anyway.

Assuming that my father doesn't have other plans for the afternoon (I'm temporary weekend chauffeur these days), I'm going to try to make myself do some doodling today.

Doodling hasn't been happening much lately.

I haven't been in the right headspace for it, I guess.

It's a weird thing, that. I mean, if I'm in the right headspace to be doodling I can really get into it. I enjoy the lines, the textures... even, to a certain extent, the eff-ups that lead to the whole thing becoming something that it wasn't originally intended to be. It can be almost like meditation, doodling -- or at least as close as Yours of the Short Attention Span can ever manage to get to meditation. I'm too easily distracted (and too much of a five-year-old) to ever really meditate.

Doodling, though, is different.

When I can get into the right headspace.

I haven't been too successful with that in the past while. And why? Well, for the same reason that I disappeared from the blog for so much of the past two months. Real life kind of took over, and doodling didn't happen. Shame, that. I have a reasonably new moleskine sketchbook that I haven't even opened yet, ferpity'ssake.

That's practically a crime, you know.

The ironic thing is that the fact that I haven't been able to get into the proper headspace to sketch has probably been preventing me from getting into the headspace that sketching generally leads me to.






Ok, that last sentence was more headache than headspace. I hope you followed where it was trying to lead, though.

As for me, lunch. Then whatever errands the father figure may need to run. And after that?

Well, wish me and my pencils luck.

Have a good one, all.

Hmmm

I had something earlier, you know.

It was called work.

No, no, no. Work is the reason that I can't remember what it was that I wanted to post earlier. Terrible when you work at work instead of posting blather for no apparent reason.

Anyway. Whatever it was that I was going to post is now lost to the landfill of my brain and has probably been covered by the remnants of someone else's lunch by now.

Erm... ignore that last little bit. It makes about as much sense as it seems to.

I did have something to say about the general boringness of the dresses at the People's Choice Awards the other night, but it's a sad state of affairs when all you really have to mention in the way of excitement is that you can't quite figure out why Kate Hudson seems to be so happy about wearing designer caftans these days. Yeah. Here's hoping for better from the Golden Globes.

People try a little harder there, at least.

Sunday, remember? I expect you all to be there. Haven't quite decided on the drinking game yet, but I'm still open to suggestions. We could start with have a drink every time Dee becomes indignant at the sight of yet another idiot man wearing a long tie instead of a bow tie with his tuxedo. Although...

It could be a very hazy Monday for some of us if we were playing that game, really.

Anyway.




Oh, so sorry. I see that I'd already said anyway.

Anyway, I'll try to remember what it was that I was going to say today and use it for tomorrow, if still applicable. In the meantime, if you're looking for an example of pointless behaviour to scratch your head over, I've posted another piece of "art" on the old blog. Shrubbery, that is (the blog, not the "art"). You can find it on the sidebar to the right.

And yes, the quotation marks around art really were absolutely necessary. It isn't so much art as the obvious need to get out more...

And the award for silliest hobby goes to...

Me, for watching award shows.

Or for taking pointless photos of snow on trees. Either works.

Back to the award shows, though. I've mentioned award shows here before. I don't watch them all, but I do watch quite a few of them. And yes, I will be watching the People's Choice Awards tonight. I won't be watching them with rapt attention, and I'm much more looking forward to the Golden Globes on Sunday, but the PCAs should hold me for now.

So, two things: why awards shows, and why should I consider it a silly enough hobby to merit its own award? Let me answer the second thing first...

I rarely, if ever, see any of the movies that are nominated for anything. I don't have anything against movies, really; it's just that I can't be bothered to pay that much money to see something that I may or may not even like. Occasionally I'll pick things up when they come out on dvd, but I can honestly say that I haven't been in a movie theatre for the better part of ten years. At least. And as far as television nominations go, well... I follow exactly two t.v. dramas and one comedy (which, after last night, even I can admit is well past its prime). I'm more of a late-night talk show and Discovery Channel kind of girl. Ask me about crab fishing. I can tell you all about crab fishing. And how things are made.

Ok, so I also watch the Food Network. I can't help it. I like Top Chef. And, erm, watching Gordon Ramsay swear. But that's a topic for another time. Holy Whomever, is that a topic for another time.

Anyway, that all takes me back to why awards shows, and the simple answer is -- my two fans will have already shouted it out -- the clothes. Oh my sainted grandmother, the clothes. There is just nothing like a Hollywood awards show to bring out the expensively yet horribly dressed ladies. Who obviously, obviously haven't the faintest clue as to how to move in evening wear.

Not that I do either. I had a bit of it when I was still performing, but I'm quite willing to admit that I'm out of my element in evening dress. The difference is that I was never (well, ok, maybe a couple of times) being videoed trying to pretend that I knew what I was doing in evening wear. And I was certainly never watched by thousands of people while doing it, that's for sure.

Ah, the clothes. Skinny women looking like train wrecks, and men in very nice suits.

I like a nice suit.

But I may have mentioned that once or twice.







Augh. A quick search reveals that I have mentioned it once or twice. Or more. I guess it must be true, then. And if I can find blather about it with a quick search, I'll leave you to search the blog yourself if you're desperately keen to know why I like a nice suit. Or several.

When it comes to the two above-mentioned award shows, I also enjoy the speeches. I certainly can't say that about every awards show, but the PCAs and GGs tend to have some entertaining blather going on. For the first it's because the winners already (for the most part) know that they've won, so everything's loose and not quite as frenetic. For the Globes it's... alcohol. But I'll leave that for now. I'm generally short enough on topics that I don't want to be discussing tipsy speeches until they've actually happened.

On Sunday.





We should have a viewing party.

With a drinking game.

I'll leave you to put on your thinking caps about that one.

I really should get back to work anyway. And maybe, possibly, make it to an actual full-sized grocery store on my way home.




Need some snacks for the award show, after all.

Ouch

I have a headache.

This whole not sleeping through the night thing is getting a bit old, I guess.

And frustrating, since there's really no reason for it.

Sometimes there are reasons, you know. Sometimes it's because I worry about things (I'm a world class, olf-worthy worrier, unfortunately. And was even as a child). Sometimes it's because my brain gets too busy with other things to remember to sleep. And sometimes... it's just frustrating. Like it is at the moment.

Ah well. Headache's as good an excuse as any to avoid shopping for yet another day, I guess. Grocery shopping, that is. I'm not sure why I've been avoiding it, but I have been. It's got so that the regular routine is to stop at the local corner grocery (and incidentally, if your neighbourhood is one of the many to have lost its corner grocery, you're really missing out. I'm lucky enough to have a real, honest to Whomever, pre-supermarket-style grocery a couple of blocks from me. With a tiny little bakery and everything. It's been a lifesaver more than once) and pick up the bare minimum of whatever I need to get through the week, and then tell myself that I'll get to the bigger stores later.

Later hasn't happened for over a month.

I'm starting to run out of staples.

That's not good.

What if I need to put two pieces of paper together? Tape's not going to manage it.





Yeah, I had to make the the lame joke before someone else made it for me.

Anyway. That's all I've got. I know I was going to talk about the snakes, but since they're nothing but frustrating this time of year it would have been a very short talk. And now, I'm off to... I dunno. Look at the reading file, I suppose.

This whole work thing's sort of hard to get used to.

New post

New post, same non-subject.

Actually, I'm just trying to be a good do bee and get back into the swing of working. Yes, I've finally become stir-crazy enough (what with being trapped in my own private stir by the weather for so long) that work is actually appealing to me.

At the moment.

That'll probably change once I've struggled with feeding the idiot snakes for a while.

I'll let you know how that went tomorrow, by the way. At least it'll give me a topic to blather about.

Oh, and if anyone's been checking the other blog (look at the side bar for the link to Shrubbery. I'm too lazy to do anymore cutting and pasting today) and waiting for the next installment of Fun With Play-doh... I haven't actually gotten around to anything yet. I had a few days of not sleeping worth beans, and that led to a few days of not doing anything but watching television while wrapped in the world's ugliest (but comfortable) quilt.

Incidentally, the bright idea that some networks have of not bothering with programming at Christmas but instead having "marathons" all frigging holidays? Not so very bright. Especially when you're sleepless, grumpy, and housebound because of the weather. Finding nothing but entire days of the same stupid shows on the boob tube tends to make a person look forward to getting back to work.

But please don't tell anyone here that I said that.

Later, all. I've got some serious mouse-defrosting to do.

Hey, it's the new year

Yep.

Ok, so I don't really have anything and I'm trying to catch up on a couple of work things that've been neglected (yes, I'm actually planning to work this month. I think they'll all be in shock to see me). I thought I should post something, though.

More snow.

Yep.

Erm... see you tomorrow, I guess.