To quote a friend of mine, "it's like the 70's and 80's died today". Both Michael Jackson & Farrah Fawcett. End of an era, and all that rot.

I loved MJ when I was a kid. Thought he was the bees' knees and all that. Then he got all weird and yeah, no thanks. Farrah Fawcett was draped on the walls of more teenage boys than you could shake a stick at, I've no doubt of this, and she was a pretty interesting lady to boot.

I have more to say on this but I'm tired, I'm fighting off a crazy tonsil infection thing that is playing havoc with my sweetmeats among other body parts. Cheers.

Today was also the last day of school, hurrah!

Kermit singing "Needle in the Hay"

(Find more at sadkermit.com)

Who watches "Fringe" and why was I not informed about how good it is? Shows that are intriguing and make me actually laugh out loud for reals are few and far between, and I really like this one. John Noble won me over from word one - seriously. Even S loves it, but then again, he loves Smallville, something I only moderately forgive him for loving. (Insert very long rant about how much Smallville sucks here.)  

Speaking of shows that are true and wonderful diamonds in the rough that I call "reality tv overdose", I'm glad that "Chuck" got renewed, boo to having to wait until next March to see anything, but what can you do huh?  

Not sure what I feel about how "How I Met Your Mother" ended this season, but I'm willing to stick it out. Wondering how long Dexter will continue to be brilliant, hoping they only let the show run until it runs out of steam rather than beat a dead horse. Remaining hopeful for next season.  

I gave up completely on Mad Men, which is a bit heartbreaking because it had soooo much potential in Season One but Season 2 left me cold.  

C has become hooked on CSI so I've been watching seasons 1-7 with her as we have them all on DVD - I feel it's important to watch with her, to help her understand more subtle plot points but also to be available for discussions the episodes inevitably bring. She's pretty astute and always has been, and has no trouble discerning between what is real and what is fiction, and she's drawn her own conclusions about a lot of things but she likes my feedback, and I like that she still seeks it. It's win-win, if you ask me.  

This became longer than I intended - I really only wanted to comment on Fringe. So yeah. It's awesome.

It's stormy outside and the kids said it was a "ripoff" that school wasn't cancelled. For a bit of rain? Give me a break.

I'm going to start taking vitamin B6 & B12 to see if that helps me some with some of my problems. Long shot but you never know.

I came thisclose to deleting my facebook the other day. I just can't be bothered with it and I ignore about 90% of the invites to events, games, useless applications, etc. At the same time, some of the people I want to keep in contact with use facebook exclusively. Bleh. I hate feeling cornered into using a social networking site that is useless to me. I was thrilled when myspace stopped being in vogue, I'm praying that happens to facebook sometime soon but I doubt it.

Twitter is the next "big thing" which I've been using for some time for "mini posts" about absolutely nothing with zero value aside from mild entertainment. What I like about it is, I'm not forced into using it to communicate with people because nobody in their right mind would use twitter as their primary communication tool. For those of you in the know, here's a fun drinking game - have a drink every time p diddy mentions the phrase "locked in" or any of it's variants. I get what he's doing, it's the whole "stay positive" vibe, and I can't fault him for that, but it is amusing.

Ok time to see if my get up and go just got up and went without me.

Too lazy to make my own site layout, I yoinked one from btemplates.com. I reckon it looks as chaotic as I feel lately.

The weekend was hectic, with C having Guides camp (what craptastic weather they had), my brother-in-law's buck and doe, and Mother's Day. 

I lost my cell phone. That really, really sucked. It's like losing a limb for me because I used that thing as a planner, phone book, alarm (to remind me to take meds), you name it. Whoever out there that has it now, I hope you burn a thousand fiery deaths. I am so not kidding.

On the bright side, I got a new one to replace it, for FREE, thank you Rogers. It's a texty thingy that has a little keyboard that flips out when you need it, I didn't really need that but it's nice to have. 

I had a crap day at work today, I don't even want to get into it that's how bad it was.

Mother's Day was nice, K made me a bookmark and a card, C made me a rain measuring thingy and a card with coupons in it. One of them is good for "one week of K and C not arguing" - fat chance of it working, but the sentiment was there. One was for 5 free hugs which is pretty magnanimous of her as she is really stingy on the hugs - always has been. 

Ok my eyes are blurry and my ears feel blocked (again and always lately)

Ciao.

Texts from last night - a website dedicated to drunken text messages. NSFW but that should go without saying.

Obscure lyrics for the win!*

I've been reading Michael Crichton books because I found a bunch at a garage sale for practically nothing. The one I am currently digesting is "The Andromeda Strain", which I'm finding mildly entertaining more than I normally would as it happens that this book is often thought of when pandemics come into the foreground. Queue in the current "swine flu" issue. As a sort of whistling in the dark method of humor, I told my husband that the swine flu must have come from space pigs landing and spreading their virus among unprepared earth swine.

I am not all frightened and "oh noes the world, she is ending!", but I am concerned more than I probably would be, as my parents are currently living in Aguascalientes. Mom emailed me today to say things were looking up though, and Mexico City is calming down some, which then sets the course for how the rest of the country responds. They are still being cautious, but they are hopeful of a swift resolution to the problem.

Anyway, back to Crichton. What I find interesting about his fiction is that what he writes is plausible. There is little in the way of a reader having to work on their suspension of disbelief because frankly - we have the technology to carry out a lot of what he suggests in his books. His published speech at the end of his most recent title, "Next", is well thought out, and I have to agree with his arguments with regards to gene patenting and its inherent problems. I find it frightening (but not surprising) that there are recent claims that a doctor has successfully managed to clone human beings. More frightening is the possibility of the U.S. taxpayers' funds being portioned towards research and development for human cloning. Frightening, but not surprising.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not an alarmist. I am far from building a panic room and preparing for the end times, or any of that jazz. But it stands to reason that there are plenty of moral, ethical, nevermind scientific, reasons why this is so wrong. I understand the more noble reasoning behind it - "we could build parts for transplants, research diseases and cures, bla bla bla!" Yeah, that's great, but at what cost? There is always the seedier side to the coin, and let's not kid ourselves, if there's something to be exploited in this, it will.

Now I'm just rambling and tired. And wishing I had someone to parry all this off of. Off of? Off with? Something something. Time for bed now I think.

*Ok, I'll spill - the title of this post is a line from the lyrics to the song "Andromeda" by Zucker Baby.

The next time one of my culinary experiments fail, I will refer to this and not feel so bad:

http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/

Hammer, check out the twilight cake, talk about hilarious.

My parents are living in Aguascalientes now, so clearly I'm worried about this whole swine flu mess.

I got an email from mom, per my tweets to the right there: 

The people that died in Aguas were from Mex City. We have wipes and hand sanitizer everywhere and masks, even at the grocery stores. Yesterday and today dad is working from home, the schools are closed until May 06,but so far all business is open. Due to this flu and the 4 deaths the Gov't has closed the Feria & any activity such as soccer games bull fights etc are all closed. 

So yeah. I'm more than a little concerned. I understand that the media tends to spin these things out of proportion, but I find it hard to guffaw at this when it affects the people I love. So if you are the praying kind, would you mind kicking one towards my parents' general direction?

Danke.

Grace

He did it.

So uh, I find it pretty amusing that Ashton Kutcher is trying to beat CNN for twitter followers. The nice thing is if he makes it to 1 million followers he is donating 100,000 to purchase  mosquito bed nets in honor of World Malaria Day. But even without that, it's still amusing.

He decided to stream his reactions live, archive here: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1393560

The Kutcher vs. CNN tweet charting live: 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/16/ashton-kutcher-vs-cnn-twi_n_187835.html

Highlights: Ashton goofing up popping a champaigne cork and drinking out of a commemorative Chicago Bears cup. That's right.

Anyway. Um. I forgot what else I was going to write about, a sure sign I'm tired.

Oh wait right. Eye appointment. The eye doctor put all kinds of liquids into my peepers that made them huge and stingy and then did a barrage of tests and the conclusion is: the reason I am missing spots of text when I am reading has nothing to do with my eyes but probably everything to do with my CNS (central nervous system) oh gee, shocker there. Score one more in favor of it being a neurological thing that's messing me up so bad. It's been almost a year since the initial crazy hospital visit form hell, and still no answers. Yay socialized medicine!

This Saturday is S's birthday. I already gave him his gift - a blue DS so he can stop stealing mine and his own copy of Brain Age 2 so he can play sudoku all he likes. Was tempted to buy him a pink one but thought better of it. He loves it of course. On Saturday we're having people over for chicken wings and a keg o beer. Wish I could join them but I unfortunately have to be the sober type person, stupid meds. It's all good, I'll find a way to have fun anyway, I always do.

I can also tell I'm tired because I'm not caring much about the bad grammar (ie run-on sentences) but oh well, it's the internet, I already win by spelling as well as I am regardless of mistakes.

Back to watching old episodes of CSI on DVD with the commentary on. Be excellent to each other people.

Cheers.

If you were to give me a bouquet of sound, what would be on the list?

I have this song in my head now. 

She spilled her coffee broke a shoelace
Smeared the lipstick on her face
Slammed the door and said Im sorry, 
I had a bad day again

Well, Friday the 13th is certainly living up to its reputation this time around. Ever have one of those days where it just all plummets from the minute you wake up? I woke up with a cranky throat (not a good thing to have when your job is to talk to people alllll day). Kids were at each other over nothing, which I suspect is a result of the jitteries about the March break starting next week. Went and had breakfast with my mother, who is here to help my brother with his newborn twins, and while it was nice, it was peppered with the usual guilt-and-martyrdom song and dance that we have perfected over the 32 years of my existence. 

Work was no better - "coaching" sessions with sub-boss, answering the phones to complaints complaints complaints. Cranky-throat feeling not helping, and I bit my tongue, lucky me. Couldn't wait for the day to end but when it finally came I ended up having to stay 20 minutes late anyway to help someone process and submit a deal to us that had to be done pronto. Came home to empty house which was nice but only lasted about 47 seconds. Kids at each other again, S also in a cranky mood because work has been hurty for him, even the cat was in a bitey "don't you dare look at me!" mood. 

Piece de resistance: My computer has more trojans than a frat house. I have all kinds of online downloads and never had a problem until I installed a legitimate program - Nero of all fucking things. Checked processes and FOURTY SEVEN items were running in the background. Loaded up my anti-whateverwhatever prog and sure enough, wormy worm trojan trojan spyware malware bla bla bla. I know what you are thinking, I probably brought it on myself with the downloaded stuff, but I assure you, I am very cautious about that sort of thing, check it out all the time, pretty much all of my downloads are from legitimite sources, etc etc. I didn't think it would be necessary to safeguard against something I paid for with cash money and brought home and installed. You want to talk about pissed? Pissed am I, good sir or madam. 

So now I am waiting out a repartition so I can salvage some of my files before the great purge. Thank God for 400 gig hard drives and laptops to use in the meantime, that's all I have to say. I'm kind of hoping that the repartition and hardware update will help, but I know better. 

See you on the flipside, I guess.