I'm playing WoW again, sparingly. I just don't have the obsessive interest in it that I used to have.

Making some new friends on Facebook, and creating a pretty kick-ass farm. It makes me feel like I'm being social since I can't get out of the house very often.

Ecstatic about "Chuck" getting renewed for a 4th season! They dragged it out just about as long as they could, so it kinda hurt, but it's all good now.

On the health front, I can't say much. My new meds are covered under medicare - the old ones weren't. We pay a LOT less, but they're not as good. Some days I find it difficult to just get out of bed. My days of going to Gaming / Comic / Pop-Culture Conventions are over I'm afraid.

We managed to make it out to California for WonderCon in April - I'm glad we got to go, and if it turns out to be my last convention, I'll be happy. Much less trouble with people being inconsiderate as I had to use a wheelchair again, and the people couldn't have been nicer. Got to meet Adam Baldwin up close and personal - one of the nicest guys ever. He hunched down for my picture so he wouldn't tower over me.

Saw the "Chuck" (of course),  "Human Target" and "Fringe" panels. Attended Kevin Smith's chat as well, he's always slap-nuts funny. Finally got a really nice copy of "House of Secrets" #92, which completes my Swamp Thing collection. Been looking for a copy with a pristine cover for about five years now. Glad to have that done with.

Also went to my home town while we were there. I was surprised to see it wasn't as dingy as I remembered it. My old house (my dad actually built it in the 50s) was incredibly well-kept. They even put spanish tiles on the roof, which enhanced it quite nicely. I could see in the window a little and it appeared that they even kept the entry-way shelving. It's that staggered 50s style open "wall" shelving that separates the entry from the living room. It's something I've always kept in my mind for putting in a house someday. It was really nice to show my husband where I grew up, even if it was rather rushed. We had planned to jaunt down to Monterey / Carmel as well, but had to scrap that as we wanted as much time as possible to get back up to the San Francisco airport.

I love our apartment, the closet is big enough to be a small bedroom, and we have a shower stall AND a garden style tub. Not to mention the 100sq/ft deck.

There are a couple of things I don't like however. Firstly, there was the battle we had wtih the leasing office about our air conditioner not working. We got a new manager last year and, imagine this, the AC got fixed right away. The asshole before him just didn't want to help us.

Another issue I have is that there is virtually no insulation. I'm not even sure it's up to code even though it was built in 2002. I can hear our neighbor talking on his cellphone while he's on the can, which is super. The closet, again, which I love, is either colder than outside in winter, or stifling hot in summer. Any other room is okay, they all have vents and windows.

The worst thing of all, and one that I refuse to ever repeat, is the proximity we have to the street. We've lived almost this close to Route 66, and we had no issues with noise, but the street combined with the lousy insulation makes for a very unpleasant noise pollution issue.

Here are some pictures:

View from the Deck (there are garages straight below also)

View from the Bedroom Window

So, you can see how close the street is to our building. We're four stories up, and I can hear WORDS to the music of the cars that go by. It makes me feel like that old lady that yelled at the kids when they stepped on the corner of her lawn on their way home from school. I don't WANT to be upset with "these kids" and their loud music, but when it wakes me up at 3am, I can't really help it.

We have a lovely neighbor (who got evicted and will be moving this month) who likes to go out and "warm up" his car by revving it for a half hour, then when he gets home after midnight, he sits in it while it idles and listens to his music. He's my FAVORITE person. (/end sarcasm) Oddly enough, as I'm writing this at 8pm, he's out there right now, starting up his car. (I'm adding this in while I finish up the entry, it's 8:15pm and he JUST left)

Also, if you look at the view from the bedroom window, there's a utility room straight down. When the utility workers pull up to work, you can hear them chatting, and it echoes nicely as they yell to each other from the closet.

Does this make me a cranky old lady? God I hope not. I'm just gonna be pickier about our next place. I wonder if there's any complexes that let you spend a night before you sign the lease?

Lemme explain.

I own this phone:



Yeah, it's really nice ;-)

Well, I keep it with me, which means I plug it in on my nightstand when I'm in the room watching TV, and also when I'm sleeping. Last night, it kept waking me up by saying "DROID!!!". I couldn't figure it out. I thought, "Why is it yelling at me? Have I wronged it in some way? Does it not like my Zachary Levi wallpaper?".

I bet some of you are laughing already, but I figured it out just this afternoon. I put in my Facebook and gmail info, and forgot to set the "alert on new message" setting, so every time I get an email or a Facebook posting, it yells at me to pick it up.

/facepalm. I hang my head in shame.

When I got all my mad SSA monies, we went out and got some luxuries. One of them was this fantastic Keurig one-cup brewer. Probably shouldn't have, because now I drink a shit-ton of coffee and tea.

For a few years we had the Melitta One-on-One brewer, but they stopped making my chai pods. Stupid people-not-liking-really-good-tea. I'd heard good things about the Keurig system, so I ordered one from Amazon. When it arrived, we tried it out and MAN does the stuff taste good. Bed, Bath and Beyond carry the "K-cups" it takes. We took a little trip to get some varieties and found some really good flavors. I particularly like Mocha Java and Donut Shop Cinnamon Roll.

While there, we saw this:



It's the Keurig stand-alone milk frother. BEST. INVENTION. EVER.

Back in the stone ages, before single-cup brewers, I had a huge Barista type coffee machine. It had all the bells and whistles. I loved being able to froth milk and make coffee for myself. Well this little gizmo just sits next to the brewer plugged in to the wall, waiting to froth.

Now I make a concentrated Chai and add nice, warm, frothy milk as I stir in the sugar. I use 2% milk because of the lactose thing, and it tastes just like whole milk. I'm ECSTATIC.

I'm no Billy Mays, but I highly recommend Keurig if you enjoy a quality cup o' joe. Tell 'em I sent you. ;-)

It's no secret that I watch and LOVE "Chuck". I also casually participate in the "Chuck" forum at chucktv.net (which is awesome and fun btw). I've noticed that the "shippers" that root for Chuck / Sarah are especially vehement on the topic of their relationship. I'm not bashing them, I'm a borderline shipper myself, but sometimes I just don't get the amount of fervor generated when something happens that might be a bump in the road for them.

"Ships" go all the way back to the early 1970's when they were called "slash". While not exactly the same as "shippers" ("slash"ers are mainly for same-sex pairings if I'm understanding the term correctly), that movement seems to have started the whole 'rooting for a fictional couple' thing. Now pair this with the "Jumping the Shark" phenomenon, specifically the "They Did It" and "Wedding" tropes, and you sometimes have a recipe for disaster.

I guess I'd liken it to reading a romance novel. You WANT them to get together through the whole book, then right at the end, they realize they love each other, they get together, and then the book's over. That's when you stop reading. I'd guess that hardly anybody wants to know what happens beyond that... I mean, it's a story, right? That's the "Happily Ever After".

I'm not saying that's what things will be like when Chuck and Sarah finally decide they're grown-up enough for a real relationship, in fact, I think this may just be THE show that is the exception to the rule. Mostly because that's not WHY I watch the show, it's merely a component of a larger, much more complex series of storylines. Of course, that's just my opinion, but I do worry. I worry every time I see a die-hard shipper declare "I'LL STOP WATCHING IF ..." insert whatever obstacle has come up. Why on EARTH would they stop watching? Is that all the show is for them? I mean, I guess it is, but "Chuck" is so utterly full of content I end up scratching my head when I see that mentality.

I hesitate to even post this, I don't want to incur anybody's wrath. I'm mostly curious as to how this type of thinking evolves into a "do it or die" type of attitude. Perhaps the Olympic break was a good thing. It's given people time to calm down after the infamous "Chuck-gate" of 2010. Not to be confused with "Snowmageddon", which occurred simultaneously for me.

My overwhelming belief is that the fan-base of the show is made up mostly of people that watch for the WHOLE show, and not just the relationship. I think honestly, that most of the shippers fall into that category as well, and they just THINK they'd stop watching. Of course, I could be hopelessly wrong.

And yeah, I know the show is preposterous sometimes, and just outright silly other times, but I don't care. I could watch every episode one-hundred times and still enjoy it. I can't count the number of times I've giggled at the lines "Thank you Devon", and "Traditionally I'm a peppermint man, but I'm livin' on the edge", and I STILL have no idea why. Also, I know I'm just an old married cougar, but damn if that Zach Levi doesn't give me a virtual nerdgasm.

Okay, so confession time.

The ONE thing I've always wanted to do is to sing in a Disney film. I'm not bragging when I say I have a very nice singing voice. I'm still a slouch compared to my brother, who can play any instrument (not kidding), and my sister who teaches opera.

Since I was very young, in fact, since before I was born, my family took a Disney vacation every year. My father owned stock, and got to attend the stockholder's meeting every December at Disneyland in Anaheim, CA. When I was young, there were only the older Disney animated musicals to watch, but when I hit my late teens they started putting out films like "The Little Mermaid" and "Beauty and the Beast". Thus, I discovered the new era of Disney musicals.

While my friends who sang were into Andrew Lloyd Webber or "Grease", I was belting out "A Whole New World" in the shower.

One of my strengths is being able to switch musical styles with ease. I can sing the songs from "Little Shop of Horrors" in each appropriate style. When I hear a duet, I sing both parts in their respective octave. It's just weird.

Lately, since I've been much less active, I don't sing nearly enough to be in practice. It's evident any time I try to sing while I'm watching "Glee" (don't even get me started on how much of a dork I am for watching that), when I can't hold a note, or I waver through my break. But if I ever got a shot at even the tiniest of parts in a Disney movie, I'd practice as long as it took to be absolutely perfect.

In the last couple of years I've resolved myself to the fact that I will most likely never see this happen, but there's always something that keeps it in the back of my head. I still feel like I have a contribution I haven't made in this life, although it's been a pretty good one already.

Yeah, we're buried, again. The grocery store across the street closed early (even though when I worked there they said they hardly ever did that, being based in Rochester, NY), and therefore, I couldn't get my migraine meds. Three days and counting until the store reopens in the morning. I could live without the pain to be honest. ;-)

The entertainment for the day came when I heard a horrible noise coming from outside our bedroom window. We look down over a tiny corner of the parking lot, and when I peeked out, I saw a front-loader adjusting the bucket in a parking spot. As it raised and lowered it again and again, it seemed to be malfunctioning. He'd apparently hit a pylon and damaged it somehow. The two other guys in snow equipment came to help him, and when he drove out of the spot, the bucket fell off. The next half hour was spent on cell phones, and finally, loading it onto a tow-truck to get it out of here. It was a flatbed truck, and the guys had to heft the bucket up after it. I normally wouldn't laugh at that sort of thing, but the driver looked like he was barely 16. I feel bad for him, but whoever decided he should be working heavy machinery in an odd storm like this is out of their mind.

This week in TV has been pretty "meh" so far. Monday's "Chuck" stirred up a bit of controversy, so much so that the creators had to do an impromptu interview to quash some of the uproar. As I'm a long-time Star Trek fan, I get how people can be so completely invested in a show, but I've always been able to completely separate real life from fiction. As long as the show is entertaining, I'll keep watching it. If it stops being good, I stop watching, it's as simple as that. "Chuck" is still great to me, so I have faith that it will get resolved with it's usual humor and action.

"Lost" was just okay, I hardly ever say that, but "What Kate Does" was kinda dry to me. Don't get me wrong, it's still a gazillion times better than most of the other dreck out there. As I was rewatching it today, I had the absurd thought that when it gets to the Locke-centric episode this season, it will flash between a blank screen (as he's dead in the Islandbound timeline) and the Crashless timeline would show him and Jack interacting. That would be a riveting hour, yes?


A show that's surprised me is "Life UneXpected". It's cute and funny, although a little sad at times, and not exactly the cleverest thing out there. I wasn't expecting to like it though, so at least there's that. Worth checking out since it's only a few episodes in. "Castle" was good this week as always. I caught myself hoping that Beckett would take an interest in finding Castle's father, but they resolved it nicely at the end of the episode. The two scenes with baseballs being thrown around were both fairly hilarious.

Well, that's it for now. I already have another topic ready to go when I get around to writing again. See ya soon!

We were getting low on Milk, so Sean decided to go to the store before the snow really got going. CRAP IN A HAT people around here are insane.

NEWSFLASH!!!
You do NOT need five gallons of milk to get through even the worst snowstorm. Bread molds after a few days, you won't run out by Monday. Yes, you'd think those are common sense, but NOOOOooooOO not here. He managed to get what we needed despite the shelves being completely ransacked.

Moral of the story: I hate it here. I know I'm not supposed to like the sun, being a gamer and all, but I'd like to see it year round please.

I wanted this post to be separate, because she deserves her own note.

A couple of weeks ago, we lost a member of our family. Just as 2010 started, our cat Zoe had a stroke and lost her sight, then two weeks later, had another and had to be put to sleep.

She was not JUST a cat to me. We got her the year we were married, 1996, and she was immediately in love with us. She would hear me sing and come running, sometimes even coming up to rub on my chin as I sang. Her favorite song was the theme to "Star Trek: Enterprise", proving that she belonged with us.

In 2002, I was still adjusting to my seizure disorder, and hadn't gotten my meds quite right. I had issues with breathing, which Sean usually caught or I awoke without incident. One day, I was lounging and had a small seizure. I stopped breathing, and blacked out. Sean was working, but Zoe noticed and walked up on my chest to wake me. She saved my life that day, and she will be a part of me forever because of it.

On the bright side, we still have the monster devil cat, Buster. 30lbs. and counting. He's missing her like crazy even though they didn't really get along, and he comforts me even though he's really daddy's kitty.

Zoe will never be replaced. She was the most intelligent cat I've ever owned, and she and I were utterly devoted to each other.

Well, it's been a while. Although since nobody reads these, I'm sure it's fine :-D

A quick health-related update:
Some of you may know that Sean and I have had some REALLY hard times over the last year. He lost his job, and we went virtually penniless while waiting for my Disability lump sum payment. I only was able to take my anti-seizure and pain meds sporadically, and I haven't yet recovered. So essentially, my day consists of pulling the laptop over to the bed to do some gaming, watching TV, and making a few trips to the bathroom and kitchen. It should get better, but it's slow going.

My Public Service Announcement:
PLEASE support quality entertainment. I know TV isn't the end-all / be-all, but why can't we get away from insipid train-wreck TV? If you have any inclination, add good shows to your DVR, subscribe to them in Hulu, talk to people about them... I'd love a world where I don't have to see news about "The Bachelor" in the "Top Story" section of Reuters. My recommendations? "Chuck", "Castle", "Community", "Parks and Recreation", "Leverage", "Psych", "White Collar" and if you simply MUST have some sort of reality TV, "The Amazing Race". Also, can Kanye and Jay disappear already?

And speaking of television (believe me, I wish I had something else to talk about), it's been a really great week. "Chuck VS. The Nacho Sampler" was a stark vision of things to come on "Chuck" and it was riveting. 

Also, not sure if you've heard of it, but there's this weird little show called "Lost" that started it's last season this week. I know, it's obscure. Nobody ever watches it or talks about it. [end sarcasm] Sean and I have been trading theories all week. We got the entire run, Seasons 1-5, on Blu-Ray and watched them before the season premier, and it's amazing to see all the little things you don't remember from the earlier shows that tie right back into the new season.

My favorite theory at the moment is that the island is the Garden of Eden, and Jacob / MIB are the cherubim that were sent to guard it from re-entry. They continue to draw flawed humans to it again and again, seeking either signs of redemption (Jacob), or a final verdict of our flaws that would seal it off to humanity forever (MIB). I flash back (haha) to "Dogma", where Loki and Bartelby want to enter Heaven again after being banished, or even "The Sandman" storyline where Lucifer wishes to relinquish Hell to another guardian. They all seem to carry the theme of looking for a loophole to end their servitude and allow them to return home.

The Garden of Eden contained within the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil" and the "Tree of Life". When Adam and Eve disobey God by partaking in the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, they are banished forever, and Cherubim are sent to guard the Garden with "Flaming Swords" to prevent any further entrance by man.

The bubbling healing pool immediately made me think of the "Tree of Life" and thus, my theory was born. Perhaps, after manning their posts ad infinitum, the Cherabim (Jacob and the MIB) have slowly been testing humanity to either prove or disprove their worthiness. Either way, they would be free of their burden forever. If humanity is proven worthy of re-entry, no guards would be needed, and if shown to be irrevocably flawed, the Garden could be either destroyed or sealed forever.

The Smoke Monster looks vaguely serpent-ish, and seems to test a person's overall "goodness" or "badness", just as the snake temps Eve to see on which side she will err. It also embodies the concept of the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil". Okay, so it's not a literal tree, but not much of this mythology is.

The "Tree of Life" would, as implied by the name, would grant eternal life to those that partake of it's "fruit". On "Lost", we have Richard Alpert, who mysteriously has not aged in many years while serving Jacob. We also see the pool of water in the temple, which has healing powers, and seems to bring people back from the dead.

I'm still pondering the significance of the parallel worlds, the Islandbound and Crashless storylines, but I think they're showing us that these people's lives were destined to be intertwined no matter how events unfolded.

Okay, so that's enough for now. Hopefully I'll return to the land of the living more and more, and be able to communicate with the outside world. Thanks for listening!