Congratulations are in order!

The seller accepted the Busgirlie family's bid on the cedar house! And at an offering price of $35k less than the seller's asking price, that's a bonafide miracle and answer to many prayers (not the least of which were offered fervantly by Vikki and co.!). Anyway, congratulations you guys!!

By the way, I like how Razzi has her blog page set up. I like the list by date with the entry titles. Very cool. :)

Friday Five Time!

1. What's your favorite piece of clothing that you currently own?
Hmmm, I'd have to say it's my Birthday Suit. It fits me like a glove. Second to that would be a black knit 3-piece trio of shirt, jacket and slacks. The fabric is a wonderfully draping, sort of shiny knit. It is so comfortable and it's flattering. I like my Birthday Suit, but it looks a whole lot better when clad in my black suit. :)

2. What piece of clothing do you most want to acquire?
I would love to find a soft cotton knit sweater that's actually long enough for my torso and arms. Something generously cut and comfortingly casual.

3. What piece of clothing can you not bring yourself to get rid of? Why?
I have a few...I garden, so I have several loose, stained t-shirts which are irreplaceable for working out in the yard. They look horrid, but I figure no one expects a person to look her best when she's out sweating in the sun and has dirt and mulch adhering to nearly every surface....Right?

4. What piece of clothing do you look your best in?
See #1.

5. What has been your biggest fashion accident?
Well, none of it was an accident; I did these things on purpose. But I was a teenager, so I was insane. That said... Gosh, probably the 80's. Tight, tight jeans with a bandana tied around one leg, just above the knee. Tank tops (or, worse, tube tops) overlaid by open-weave mesh. Spiked hair in front, long hair in back - no graceful transition between the two lengths. Oh, and legwarmers. I need to find the photo of when I dressed up with some friends and went to Max & Erma's restaurant on my friend's birthday. We really thought we were dressed to the nines, too.

This column is way too wide! And my right column is too far over; it's lost in the far-scrolling-reaches for those viewing 800x600 I'm sure, and I hate for anyone to have to scroll back and forth on a page. In a nutshell, right now I want the text in this column to have a right margin about the same as this left one, but with the whole column being narrower. Blargh! I am not an HTML queen, and have just been modifying a very basic template. Help, Angiepangie!

Eventually, I'd like this center column to have its own scrollbar independent of the sides. That would entail frames. Shudder.

Sarah and Howie, my two first loves as a married lady. Sarah's my first dog (as a married lady), and Howie's my, well, first and only husband. ;)

This struck me as really, really funny...Folks, this is NOT gumbo. It's condensed, chicken and vegetable soup with a little rice thrown in for good measure. It isn't even spiced, let alone spicy, for Pete's sake! You ain't HAD gumbo 'til you've had Lisa's gumbo. That gal can really cook. We're going to Louisiana for Thanksgiving this year - the first year either of us has made plans outside our families for the holiday. We've gotten to know Lisa and her hubby through Dave's Garden, and they invited us to come on down south and visit. We can't wait to try turkucken. Ya'll heard me right....Turducken. See it for yourself, and drool. You can also listen to the Turducken Song at that same site. ;)

My BIL Steve came home from the hospital today! He's staying at my MIL's home while he heals. She changed his bandage today and said his poor arm looks terrible, but what can you expect? It's an arm and it's attached again, so it's a miracle. He has what the surgeone jokingly called an "erector set" bolted into his arm to immobilize the bones while they heal. I'm looking forward to visiting him now that he's back home and five minutes from my home - I just wasn't up to the long drive to and from the hospital plus the long walk from the parking garage to his room and back. I felt so bad not visiting, though!

Howie came home today with three doggie presents: three Nylabones, the kind with the transluscent middles full of nubs to clean their teeth while they chew. AND they're bacon flavored. I tell ya, this evening was the first time since Buddy came into our lives that it was quiet. All three dogs were gnawing away in happy abandonment.

Emma demonstrated one of her peculularities again; for some reason, she loves to take a chew toy and put it in one of Howie's shoes while she chews it. Whether this produces some added olfactory zing, I'm not sure. I suspect so, however. She also seems to like how she can prop the bone up in the shoe. Howie's friend Mark stopped by tonight with his wife and one of his girls so they could meet Buddy, and Emma was true to form, bringing her bone over to mark and putting her paws on top of his shod feet to chew her bone. Goofy dog.

Our old meezer cat Elliott used to take his toys and make a game of putting them in empty tennis shoes. There was a little wind-up furry dog he especially loved, and at least one time I put my shoe on only to find my toes blocked by that little gadget stuffed down in the tip of my shoe. For that matter, he liked just burying his head in stinky shoes and wrapping his front feet around them. I'd forgotten about that until just now! Ah, memories.

What IS it with shoes??

I'm sad right now. I just learned that a friend of mine from Dave's Garden died. A prayer request was posted for her family. I'd never met Tink76627 (Peggy) in person, but we'd e-mailed back and forth and she posted a lot at Dave's. She was always sending some little cheerful e-card or note, and I'll miss that. She had crippling rheumatoid arthritis and had a lot of pain, but she still kept gardening, still laughed, and just went on living. I don't face near the trials she did every day, and I get mired down in self pity sometimes. God love her. I hurt for her family, too, and pray they'll be comforted. :(

We just finished watching Braveheart and I am once again reminded of (1) how complacenet and comfortable I am in my freedom, (b) how darned sad it is when a great character is killed in a story and (three) just how much I like Mel Gibson and his movies. It's been so long since I'd seen this movie, much of it - especially the strategizing, politics and betrayals - were new to me. I was feeling like heading to bed with my Stephen King novel and letting Howie finish watching the movie on his own, but now I'm glad I watched it. Historical accuracy/inaccuracy aside, it is a movie of epic proportions and brings out some incredible acting from its players.

It also brings out some thoughts in me. America. Of course I love living here. But do I value the freedom? When I watched the horrific battle scenes, perfectly realistic given the weapons of war we know they fought with back then, I recoiled. It was repulsive! Now we push buttons and make phone calls from the safety of bunkers, and planes deposit their payload on our enemies, and missles are launched remotely.

When I see something like Braveheart, I am forced to think about the battles which have been waged so that I can enjoy this complacency I find myself in. Isn't that ironic? Ugh.

The following was hand-written in a little spiral notebook because a thunderstorm prompted us to unplug all the computer equipment. I was going to scan the pages and post them as images, but decided to just type them here, verbatim, instead. Just pretend what you see is written with a gold metallic gel pen in my loverly handwriting. ;)

We had a good bit of steady rain today. The computers are unplugged as I write this, and I am stretched out on my side on the couch, hunkered down in its voluminous cushions, snuggled up with Buddy and Sarah at my feet. Emma's sought out a more solitary siesta by herself on the loveseat across the room. That's probably for the best since things are a little crowded.

The rains have ceased for the time being, but it is still overcast. It is nice to have the blinds drawn open; usually the afternoon sun forces us to shut the living room up, dark and cavelike, until nightfall.

Sarah, as she always is when the view of our yard and street is unobstructed, lies up against the back of the couch with her head resting on a pillow. She's watching for squirrels, people, and other dire hazards.

Buddy is curled behind the crook of my knees, breathing softly in slumber. He's not gotten to the point of snoring just yet. Besides the hum of the electric fan and the occasional hiss of cars passing by on wet pavement outside, it is really quiet here.

Why am I writing this? Because it's all culminated in one of those sublime, peaceful moments in life. As I lay here reading my novel, I got one of those lovely feelings of well-being. When you get right down to it, stripping away all the petty complaints and whinings about wants, what more could I really need?

I have a comfortable, restful home, a husband I love dearly, and these surprisingly wise and wonderful goofballs with fur. It's raining, the couch is comfortable, and my book is really good.

And I've learned that I am still able to write without the aid of a keyboard and mouse.

Is it GODZILLA?
brought to you by Quizilla

In case you don't know what this is about, check out this link. It's only one example of Toho Co., Ltd.'s quest to stomp out anyone using "zilla" in his or her name. Why? Because Toho owns the trademark and all rights to GODZILLA. Gimme a flippin' break. Go to http://www.davezilla.com and show your support, y'all!

An update about my brother-in-law Steve, whose right arm was caught in machinery at work this morning. The arm was pretty much severed below the elbow and he's in surgery now - and they're attempting to re-attach his arm. The surgery was expected to take 10 hours. Please keep him in your prayers. Thanks so much!

ADDED: Another update. It wasn't as bad as they thought. The surgery went well. The arm was more crushed than anything and they think he'll have use of it back within a year or so. He will be in the hospital about a week, they think. Oh, thank God.

Wooo, I'm actually getting these done on Monday....Here is PromoGuy's Monday Mission 2.33:

1. Many children have blankets, or a favorite nubby stuffed animal that they like to keep near them for security. Do you recall what you had for your "security blanket" as a child? When did you finally give it up? What brought that about?
This one's easy. My favorite stuffed animal was Pink Dog (hey, maybe my creativity was latent, okay). Like the Velveteen Rabbit, Pink Dog was loved threadbare in spots and the luster went out of his coat. Somewhere I have a picture of me in my grandma's camper, nestled in the hammock-like bed with Pink Dog held close to my heart. I'll see if I can find that and post it sometime.

2. Now that you are a big kid, what do you have to give you that same sense of security?
Three real dogs, but none of them are pink. Seriously, though, I think my husband gives me the strongest sense of security. I know it's not good to find your security in any person or thing, but I can't help it that he makes God's love more real in my life just by being there for me.

3. With a little over four months left in 2002, have you accomplished everything you wanted to for the year? Is there anything that you would like to accomplish before the year is over?
Have I accomplished everything? Being that I am not a goal-setter by any stretch, that's hard to quantify! My poor garden pooped out as soon as the weather got really hot, and then I was limited by health problems and things went further downhill in the yard. But I've reconciled myself with the fact that it's just a yard and I can always clean things up when I'm better. Before year's end I would really like to clean up the spent perennials and do a good job of putting the garden to bed for the year. And I want to be sure the leaves are all raked and shredded before winter; cleaning up wet leaves in the spring is a bummer!

4. I don't know about you, but it seems to me children have it pretty good these days. Game systems, computers in the home, microwaves, cable TV, the internet, cell phones and pagers, they certainly have a wider variety of technology than most of us did as children. What modern convenience, if any, do you think it would be good for children today to do without? What would they gain?
I think it would be good for kids to do without TV. Of course, that would mean the parents would benefit, too. When a kid is fed a steady diet of TV every day, there's little left to imagination (unless they buy TV-related merchandise and roll-play based on what they've been told about the characters). Kids who are brought up on the hyper-manic production techniques of today have a harder time concentrating at school because real life is not so fast-paced and action-filled. Kids would read and do more imagination-driven things if they had no TV, too, and that would benefit everyone.

5. Many of us have one thing in which we believe we excel. What do you do better than most?
I think I communicate better than most, especially in writing. Wherever I've worked, people have appreciated my written instructions and communications, and that makes me happy.

6. In the United States, and possibly other countries, teenagers in High School usually wind up falling into several social circles or "cliques." Stoners, Rich Kids, Jocks, Cheerleaders, Band, Drama, Goths, and so on (though the names are probably different today). What High School "clique" did you find yourself in? Was it by choice or did it just happen? Did you look down on other groups? (Aw it's ok, it was/is High School, we all did dumb stuff)
I moved from a Chicago suburb to a small Ohio college town just in time to start high school. By the time I came on the scene, the largely preppy and affluent kids had been going to school together since kindergarten. I was neither preppy nor affluent, and I was non-athletic and troubled. The kids who took me in were the stoners, at our school known as motorheads back then. I jumped right in with the wrong crowd and did a lot of stupid things as a youth; the funny thing was, though, I was also very artistic and read a lot, so my group jokingly called me the "intellectual hood". I still smile to think of that because it pretty much sums up who I was for a time there.

7. (it begins) I have great news! I won the contest and we now have plane tickets to anywhere in the world. The bad news is we have to pick a place now and leave in the morning. I can't decide where to go, so you get to pick. Where should we go, and what is the first thing we should do when we get there?
LOL, you expect me to decide something like that on such short notice?! Okay, I say you should fly to the birthplace of your ancestors. Make it on your father's side for now. When you get there, you should find the town where your kin lived and take lots of pictures - interview any surviving friends/family while you're there.

BONUS: Must I beg you?
Oh, yeah, with all your heart and soul.

This week's comment question: What's your favorite dessert?
Mmmm, I have voracious, insatiable sweet tooth. The best desserts for me are the creamy ones with the light, Cool-Whip sort of topping. I love those cakes with Jello poured into the holes poked in the cake's top. Mmmmmmm.....

Please Pray

...We just heard my DH's brother Steve has been in an accident at work. Steve's arm was caught in a machine and they have taken him to a hospital in Columbus. We don't know which arm it is or how serious the injury is. I hope and pray he doesn't lose that arm! Aside from his work, Steve's worked so hard to learn blues guitar and really loves to play. If you're the praying type, we'd surely appreciate some prayers going up on Steve's behalf. I'll update more later after Howie gets back from visiting the hospital and knows more.

It's been another movie kind of weekend here at the homestead. Be ready with a cup of your favorite beverage and be ready to read. :)

Having never read anything by Truman Capote, I now want to. Howie and I watched The Grass Harp, the adaptation of one of his novellas, on the Independent Film Channel today. The official link is at its producer's site, Fineline Features. Wow, what a great movie!

As usual, it didn't get too high a rating in the consumer reviews I've read at Internet Movie Database and Rotten Tomatoes, but we loved it. It's typical that movies we like others find boring. We love a good people story with in-depth characterizations, movies about personality quirks and family conflicts and healing.

This one is set in the 1940's, one of my favorite eras when it comes to music and style, and set in a small southern town. When young Collin's mother dies, he goes to live with his father's two spinster cousins, Verna (Sissy Spacek) and Dolly (Piper Laurie) Talbot. A few days after that, Collin's depressed widowed father drives himself off a cliff into the Gulf of Mexico.

A sidenote: Okay, but don't worry, it's not one of those movies which goes from depressing to more depressing. You will not watch the credits roll only to find yourself fumbling for razor blades or a handgun to end your misery, I promise!

Dolly and the housemaid Catherine (Nell Carter) are best friends, and they bring Collin under their wings and befriend him. Joining their odd circle is retired judge Charlie Cool (Walter Matthau) and itinerant mother-cum-evangelist Sister Ida (Mary Steenbergen). Jack Lemon and Roddy McDowell also play parts in this movie. They all do a super job and make you really believe in and care for the characters. It's just a magical, touching, and often hilarious movie.

The links I give offer some plot information, so I won't go into detail here (but beware of plot spoilers at those links!). The filming is exquisite and the costumes are wonderful - it's lovely both to look at and be lost in.

Breather here...Whoooooo.

We also watched a couple of fluff movies today, thanks to Howie's co-worker loaning us a couple of movies. Those we could have lived without, though one of them sparked some good conversation afterward.

Pure, silly fluff was Legally Blonde. Reese Witherspoon is such a cute thing, and so funny. If it weren't for her, I don't think I'd have stuck with the movie. You know something which I really liked about the movie? It probably isn't what most would expect to be a stand-out thing. Her character, Elle, is a rich, fluffy sorority girl, yet when she goes to Harvard, her best friend ends up being Paulette, the gal who does her nails down at the boutique; her friend is a high school dropout and what many would dismiss as "trailer trash", yet Elle identifies with her and befriends her.

Paulette plays a sounding-board role in Elle's life, I think, and serves as a means for the film-makers to voice the otherwise friendless Elle's thoughts to for the audience. I don't think the beauty shop scenes lived up to their potential at all, but I know this is just a light comedy. Like many such light comedies, it of course had plot holes you could land a plane in, but it was a fun diversion.

And finally...

We watched Shallow Hal, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Jack Black, and Jason Alexander. This one we initially liked okay (not great, but with enough to keep things going). The more we thought about it afterwards, watched the cut scenes and interviews, the less we liked it. The movie's about Hal (Jack Black), a guy who has impossibly high standards when it comes to women.

Like his best friend Mauricio (Jason Alexander), his unrealistic and shallow expectations keep him from having many relationships until...Yes, the hook. Hal gets stuck in an elevator with motivational speaker and author Tony Robbins, who counsels with him during their wait and bestows on him via hypnosis the gift of seeing women as they really are. He will, says Robbins, see their inner selves and beauty rather than their outward appearances. Okay, just go with me on this.

Suddenly, every woman he meets is gorgeous by worldly standards. And they all like him. He thinks Tony somehow just gave him confidence and that's the reason for his new found success. What he doesn't realize is that the women he's so taken with are, by worldly standards again, fat and/or ugly. (This I will touch on in a moment). He meets Rosemary (Gwyneth Paltrow) and is smitten. They begin a courtship and he falls for her, head over heels. He doesn't realize that she really weighs 350 pounds. Everyone around him can see this, but he sees her as slim, siren Gwyneth.

You don't see much of the "real" Rosemary through much of the film. But the film-makers go out of their way to show you she's fat. A chair she's sitting on at a diner bends and collapses beneath her bulk. When she cannonballs into the pool, the resulting plume of water goes sky-high. The underwear she discards are gigantic (you wonder how Hal overlooks that). You see far-away shots of her in her real form, and some close-ups of her big legs.

Hal's friends are polite to Rosemary and to Hal, but are repulsed by her and can't understand what he sees in her. His friend Mauricio thinks Hal's been brainwashed and, predictably, hunts Robbins down and begs him for the magic words to release Hal from his hypnosis. Zap. Now the dilemma: Will Hal still love Rosemary now that he sees her as she really is?

I won't give the plot away any more than that. I will say this, though. The movie sets out to hammer the lesson of "inner beauty" into our heads, but makes so many fat jokes and digs at the "less than lovely" that it falls flat when you really think about it. It did develop Rosemary as a really neat person, but I wonder how the audience would have reacted if she'd been shown more in the fat suit. This movie just leaves me kind of torn -- did I like it, or did I not?

Things like the breaking chairs and Rosemary cutting herself a huge chunk of cake at an office event just play right into hurtful fat stereotypes. Not only that, but the other girls he thought were beautiful turn out to be homely and greasy-haired. In the "extras" portion of the DVD, they showed a brief interview with Brooke Burns, who plays a minor role as Katrina. She made this big deal about how ugly the character was, from her crooked, dirty teeth to her dull, greasy hair. So....Am I to believe that all homely people are also slobs with terrible hygiene? And do all fat people eat huge portions of food in public? Do they all dress in completely unflattering clothes?

No.

It reminds me of the episode of Friends when they put Courteney Cox Arquette in the fat suit to show how Monica would be had she not shed her pounds. Suddenly her IQ dropped 50 points, her voice became whiny and piercing, her dress and hygiene went bad, and she hoarded what little food she wasn't stuffing into her mouth. What? All because she was fat?

I don't think I can say it any better than this article does.

By the way...There was much about the movie I liked, too. I just feel so ambivalent about it right now. Yes, I am a plus-size woman, an ample woman...A woman of substance...Tall, but well-insulated and voluptuous. Could I relate to many things about Rosemary's character? Sure I can. Does that make me sensitive to fat jokes and put-downs? I'd be lying if I said no. I carry as much a burden of memories as I do of pounds, and I am realistic enough to know the two are inter-related.

One other thing...I find it interesting to read many people who negatively reviewed Shallow Hal at IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes made the point of saying they were not fat, but were very offended by its poking mean jokes at the same time it was supposed to say appearances aren't what count.

Okay, at this point I feel I'm rambling...It's late and I'm tired. What IS it with me lately staying up so darned late? It's not a good thing, I think; it's just been easy to do since I am still more comfortable sleeping on the couch because of the cushions and handholds for rising. But it is also where the computer is, and it's sooo easy to find a whole night's gone by while you've entertained yourself online. Do I hear an amen? Holy cow, I hear thousands of 'em! ;)

Feel free to leave some comments and let me know your thoughts on Shallow Hal if you saw it. Or that Friends episode. Or just anything I've touched today.

I've been much too lax in updating my blog. In truth, I've just been lazy! I've not written much personal correspondence, not written here...I've pretty much just surfed and participated in the forums at Dave's Garden and read other peoples' blogs. I made random comments on a few, even promising to divulge which Peanuts character I am. Okay, it's late, but here is my Peanuts profile, okay?






Which Peanuts Character Are You Quiz



There. Ya happy? Actually, I went from being Sally several days ago to being Snoopy now. I must have gotten a lttle smarter or something. At any rate, I guess it's better than Being John Malkovich. Sorry, couldn't resist. I have been meaning to rent that, by the way. Any of you folks watched that movie?

Angiepangie has unearthed a Veggie Tales personality quiz, I see. I have taken it and will now and report my findings before I comment in her blog and tell her to be watching my page for my results. Things seem to work better when I perform actions prior to promising them, I think. ;) Here ya go, I am Jr. Asparagus:






Which Veggie Tales character are you?

this quiz was made by Karen


Must be because I love asparagus and my favorite Veggie Tales video so far has been Larry Boy and the Fib from Outer Space! Did you know there's a new full-length Veggie Tales movie coming out October 4? I want to see it, but I'm not sure if I can stand sitting in a movie with an audience of 75% young children, LOL. Don't get me wrong, I like kids; I just like them in smaller numbers and in places I've not paid my burial money to enter for such a brief interlude. ;) I believe I'll wait until it comes out on DVD and watch it with our friend's son. :)

Let's see, what else is new? Oh yes, thanks to seeing Chari's write-up at Techfluid, I now am aware of (and listed at) Eatonweb Portal. It's a big old search engine/portal for bloggers and lurkers alike. If you're a blogger, go and register for free and be eligible for a free text ad to bring more traffic to your site. If you're a lurker, check it out to find blogs about everything under the sun; I found some really cool sites there just browsing by category and keyword.

We've spent the weekend hunkered down and bathed in the glow of the TV, enjoying a movie marathon. My DH used some of of his overtime money and got a cheap Apex AD-1100w DVD player (under $65 at Wal-Mart, wooo!). We've watched the following fare since Saturday:

The Princess Bride - one of our favorites ("he said 'to blathe'", Angie, LOL)

Best in Show - Mocumentary about the obsessions of the big-time dogshow circuit

Analyze This - Cute...But c'mon, a sequel is in production?!

Lord of the Rings, along with all the cool special extra DVD stuff

War of the Worlds - Original 1953 film great SFX for the time, but...How do you compare?

Toy Story 2 - As fun as the first romp

Random Hearts - Oh, ugh. Please, value your 2.25 hours more and save your money!

Yes, we're taking a little break here for sleep. My brain hurts, especially after that last movie. What a depressing, boring, pointless drag that was, even with Harrison Ford. Yuck.

My belly is feeling better with each passing day, so that's encouraging. Thus far I've been able to stave off over-friendly pets and keep paws from puncturing my midsection. My mom and dad are still helping out with dog-walking duties for another week or so until I'm able to handle the pull of the leashes. It's been kinda nice not having to go out there and wait for our three dogs to do their respective duties in the yard. I thank God for family willing to walk the dogs. :)

The Friday Five (.org)

1. Do you have a car? If so, what kind of car is it?
Yep. It's a 1987 Dodge Aries, given to us at no cost by my hubby's grandmother when she received a newer one in an inheritance. We've had it five years now, and aside from a slow oil leak and a sagging cloth headliner, it's been tried-and-true for us.

2. Do you drive very often?
Not really. I did when I worked, but since I've been a homemaker, I don't really do that much anymore. I am a homebody, really.

3. What's your dream car?
Hmmmm...I love Jaguars. I also like the 1965 Ford Mustang, in cherry red, convertible. Mmmmmmm.

4. Have you ever received a ticket?
Yep. I was running late to the doctor's and crested a hill going 55 in a 25 zone. I slowed down right away, but the cop who nabbed me got me on his radar before I braked. I had to go to the small town's mayor's court and everything. $130 taken outta my hide - ouch.

5. Have you ever been in an accident?
Sure have, though never anything causing serious bodily harm, thank God.

You're reading the blog of a newly de-herniated woman. I had outpatient surgery yesterday to repair one just above my belly button. Yesterday afternoon I spent in a fog, in and out of sleep on the couch. Today....Ouch. I woke up stiff from sleeping in one position all night long (on my back, of course) and missing a dose of Tylenol #3. The second day's always the worst, they say, so I look forward to feeling better each day. The Tylenol hasn't been strong enough for the pain, so the doctor prescribed something stronger; I will probably be zonked out for a day or two, so don't be surprised if I am blogless for a bit...Or if my blog entries make no sense at all, LOL.

My mom's been a sweetie, coming over to walk the dogs for me. She's sitting across the room from me right now, reading a Stephen King book. It's nice just having someone here with me. Yes, the girl who is famous for being able to entertain herself for hours via surfing the web is glad to have her Mommy here. :) I don't feel much like writing right now, so farewell for now.

I am a little brain-dead today for some reason, so I'll start out with Promoguy's Monday Mission 2.31 and see if that gets the creative juices flowing. I was going to write about Mel Gibson's new flick Signs already, and one of the questions asks for a quick review of a movie. So I'm already half way there. :)

1. Ever considered just deleting your Blog and not doing it anymore? What prompted that and what stopped you?
I've only been blogging since May 2002, so I haven't considered closing it down just yet. I do wish more folks would leave feedback, though; I'm just a feedback kind of person and I like exchanging e-mails with folks.

2. How about a quick review of the last movie you saw?
What great timing! The latest movie I saw was Signs and I loved it. I don't want to give too much away here. I will warn you that, if you're expecting Men In Black or ID4, this is not your movie. It's more the style of a good old-fashioned suspense thriller than in-your-face sci-fi. There's a lot of story, a lot of laughs, a lot of things that go bump in the night (by far the scariest element, I thought)...But there's not a lot of aliens. I think I liked it more because of that suspense element. Graham, played by Mel Gibson, is a widowed Priest who has given up his pastorship. He is bitter at God and about life since losing his wife six months prior. A lot of the movie is about Graham's struggle and what the crop circles and alien invasion means to him personally, not just the world at large. The acting is excellent, and I mean excellent. It's so hard to give a brief review without giving too much away. I think I'll have to write a review, complete with spoilers, and just post a link to it in my blog.

3. What's your favorite gadget? Are you lusting for any new ones? Will you ever be satisified???
By far my favorite gadget (second to my PC, of course) is my Olympus C-2100uz. This camera is awesome! We just upgraded to it from an Olympus C-2040z, and we're really pleased with it. Am I lusting for new gadgets? But of course, dear reader! With the innovations bombarding us every week, how can you not have gadget lust? I view the love of technology as parallel to the love of learning; the day I quit learning is the day I die, and likewise my excitement for technology is insatiable.

4. Saturday night I played "UNO" for the first time in years, I mean it has been over 10 years since I played it. It was great fun, but it really made me want to learn how to play Backgammon again. What "table game" do you enjoy playing most with other people? Have you played it lately?
I'm a word game freak. Scrabble's my favorite, and we have a travel edition which is great for playing in bed. There's nothing like getting a great word on a Triple Word square, and using all seven letters in that word. Wooooooooo!

5. About a year ago I was obsessed with loosing weight, and I dropped pretty low before I got a handle on things (I've actually gained about 8 pounds of it back, and it is still a struggle sometimes to not try to loose it). Thankfully, I like fattening sweets and buttery popcorn too much to live like that for too long. Have you ever been obsessed with something so much that it was close to causing you physical or mental harm? If not, have you known anyone else who has?
Probably the most dangerous thing to me was the way I let my biodad manipulate my feelings. I fretted constantly about my relationship with him because, truthfully, I didn't have a relationship with him and I didn't want one. I finally got clued into the fact that he was just going to use me up and alienate me like he did his brother, sister and every friend he had out where he lives, and I decided to cut off contact with him. It's one of the best decisions I've made.

6. Did you grow up in a family or community that displayed racist or prejudice attitudes? Did it influence you in any way, either toward or away from those views? How did you manage to avoid it, or did you?
My biodad is a prejudiced man, yes. And of course that effects me; how could it not? Of course I hear the phantom racial slurs in my mind from time to time, but I am a grown up and I know from life that those mocking words are just that: phantoms. I choose to look beyond the outward stuff, because that's not what makes us people in the first place.

7. Good grief, I am starving! You got anything to eat around here?
You just missed some real kick-butt chili. It was sprinkled generously with shredded cheddar cheese and topped with a dollop of sour cream. Mmmm-mmmmm good!

BONUS: What did you tell them?
Aaaaarugh?

This week's Comment Question: What browser and version number are you using?
IE 6.0.2600 ad infinitum. ;)

The Friday Five from fridayfive.org:

1. What is your lineage? Where are your ancestors from?
Let's see, on my mom's side there's a lot of English names, as well as some Russian. On my dad's side there's German and English...I'd really have to do more looking into this for a good answer.

2. Of those countries, which would you most like to visit? England. Even if I didn't have ancestors from there, I've always wanted to visit England, especially Yorkshire.

3. Which would you least like to visit? I've never really had much of a desire to visit Germany. Nothing personal. I have this thing about being able to communicate, and I'm afraid of going to a country where I don't know the language. Thing is, I only know English. But I do know that well, at least. I'm not very cosmopolitan, LOL.

4. Do you do anything during the year to celebrate or recognize your heritage?
I love good German potato salad and sauerkraut, but I don't do anything to mark my heritage -- I'm too much of a mish-mash mutt to single any one ethnicity out.

5. Who were the first ancestors to move to your present country (parents, grandparents, etc)?
Somewhere up in the great, great, great, great...We're not Mayflower people, but we've been here a while. ;)

I found a neat personality quiz just now, thanks to a link in the Neat Net Tricks newsletter. It's the Color Quiz, and it purports to report your current emotional state by examining your choices of colors presented to you. It was actually very accurate in telling my current state of mind. I guess it makes sense...Fast food chains and marketers long ago figured out that certain colors affect people in certain ways. The person who developed this test interviewed thousands of people guaging their emotional state first, then having them rank several colors in descending order. It made sense, he said, to do the opposite then: to have people pick colors and then tell them what their choices say about their current emotional state. I think they explain it a lot better than I do -- So just check out the link, will ya?

Woooo hooooo! I got the camera today. I didn't even realize the UPS guy had dropped it off until I went to their website to check on its status. The driver had left the package in front of our garage door in the driveway, for Pete's sake. If my DH hadn't already left for work, he might have run over the box as he backed the car out of the garage. I sent feedback to UPS via their website, including a link to a picture of our house (hey, I'm visual) and asking they tell the local drivers it is not acceptable for packages to be left in the driveway by the garage. Within an hour, I had an e-mail reply apologizing for the bad experience and promising they'd forwarded the info to the local UPS hub. And within two hours after that, a man called from the local hub and left a message on our machine. He said he'd spoken to the driver and the guy told him he thought it would be the best place for us to be able to see it. He saw a small porch up in front of the house, but the item wouldn't have been any more protected there. Of course, the driver who did this was was filling in on our route for the regular guy. Ever notice how it's never the regular driver who does the screw-up? ;) Well, I'm just thankful the box didn't get smashed by our car tires, and I'm happy to have the camera a day earlier than the tracking info had indicated.

The zoom on this thing is great - equivalent to a 35mm camera's 38-380mm. Here's an example. I took these shots of our sycamore tree while standing on our patio, about 30' away from the base of the trunk. The tree is probably 75' tall, if not taller, and she's a grand old dame. :) Click the below thumbnail to enlarge.



I need to get use to a couple things, one of which is the fact that the flash is a pop-up type and does not go off unless you manually flip the little switch that makes it pop up. You have to watch the display for a flashing lightning bolt icon - that indicates a flash is needed - and either adjust your exposure or flip up the flash. Otherwise, the camera still fires, but with no flash...And the pictures turn out underexposed. The controls and menus are similar to the ones on the C-2040z we had, though, so the learning curve won't be too steep. It's mainly getting used to the zoom's various focusing ranges and that flash thingie that I need to do.