Praise?

Proof that critics are running out of ways to express praise.

The quote which appears on a book I just bought reads: "Literary crack cocaine."

Uh, yeah.

Tidbits

My boss called me over to his office and did a quick performance review on Tuesday. I was given a raise (first in two years, other than cost of living adjustments) and a bonus. That was nice to hear/get. Need that extra money for immigration costs and wedding.

I went to see my eye doctor about the return of Creepy Red Eye, aka episcleritis. Since it's idiopathic, it's hard to tell what is causing it, so they can only treat the reaction. I have drops to use 4x a day for the week. If it reoccurs again, I will have to go see my doctor and be tested for a bunch of possible diseases, most commonly rheumatoid arthritis or lupus. It could also just be that my eyes freak out and get inflamed sometimes, and it's not indicative of anything. I really hope that is the case.

I keep getting wrong numbers on my landline at home. Most of them have been from some dopey guy looking for "Squirrel". How many times will it take him to realize he's repeatedly calling the same wrong number? This morning at 6:20, it was a call from another wrong number. I said hello 2-3 times. Upon realizing I wasn't who they wanted, held the phone away from their mouth and said "Oh shit, I called the wrong number" and hung up. Jackass. You could have at least apologized for waking two people up. GRRRRRR! Another particularly annoying caller shows up as "Unknown" and then hangs up as soon as the phone is answered.

On top of all of these wrong numbers are the numerous 800 lines that are telemarketing calls. I don't understand why they are allowed to block their name. If you're calling on behalf of someone, you shouldn't be allowed to block your name from the caller ID.

Weekend

I had a good weekend this weekend, especially seeing as how I had John here in person instead of via PC.  Makes the relationship a bit easier.

 

After picking him up at the airport on Friday, we came back home and had lunch.  After lunch, I headed back to work and he went to rest/watch TV.  Friday night we cooked some pork chops for supper and watched an Audrey Hepburn movie, Funny Face (which features the dancing scene recently used in the GAP ad).  I seem to be continuing my feelings toward Audrey Hepburn movies as being meh.  I still have My Fair Lady to watch, which I have never seen, so I will give Audrey yet another chance.  I did like her in Charade with Cary Grant.

 

Saturday was a lazy day.  We lounged around until heading out for church.  We had dinner at Vito's before the play, then on to see Glass Menagerie.  While I thought the acting was well done, I didn't care much for the story.  I'm looking forward to Cabaret.

 

Sunday we woke up and went to pick up my Dad & family at the airport.  We dropped by to see my brother and leave him some stuff I'd bought for him in Calais.  Then it was on to lunch at Swiss Chalet, and shopping for some more clothes for John.  His goal is to be able to leave enough clothing here that he won't need to bring any with him on future visits.  On Sunday night, John went with Stew to see 300, and Jenn and I hung out and watched some of my Melrose Place Season 1 DVD.

 

That was pretty much my weekend.  Simple, but special because I got to spend it with John.

Visit Eve

It's Visit Eve today, and I am pretty excited. Our last couple of visits were usually dampened by me worrying about our impending civil nuptials. With that out of the way, I can just relax, be happy, and enjoy his visit. I spend a lot of my time worrying about pretty much anything, but right now I just want to leave that behind, focus on the present, and be happy. I think I deserve that, so I will focus on making that a reality. It is going to be great to see him feeling better while on his new medication.

I took my car in today for round 3 of the "Fix the ABS light" game. This time it was an old code that didn't get cleared. All of the sensors are showing in the normal range, nothing is acting up, so I hope this is the end of the problem.

I need to run out at lunch and/or after work and get some groceries. Maybe with John here I won't be as tempted to succumb to having popcorn for supper.

John will be working while he is here (as will I) so I need to get my office cleaned up. My office is one of those rooms I stick stuff in to get it out of the way of the living room or bedroom. As a result, I have papers piled everywhere that I need to go through, organize, file, etc. I'm going to try and get that done tonight so it leaves space for him to work and also has me ready to do my taxes. I think I may be missing a slip, but once I go through those papers, I'll know for sure.

One more sleep!

TV notes

Random, haphazard thoughts on TV.

In between the events of my weekend, I spent time trying to catch up on all of the things my TiVo has been recording lately. I watched some movies fully, others bored me so I deleted them. TiVo is recording more than I can watch, but whatever I can get to, I'll get to, and what I don't, I don't. All of the movies it is recording are older movies, so it's been a lot of black and white, golden Hollywood moments. Mostly this is due to the fact that Rogers gave us TCM and AMC.

I'm looking forward to the return of Six Degrees this week. Not that it's a great show, but it's nice that they're at least burning off the episodes so we can see the rest of what they've filmed. It was really frustrating to be watching Vanished, only to have Fox put the remaining episodes online. That's a great idea, which I am all in favor of, except for the fact that they block you from accessing the shows online if you're located outside the US. Thanks for nothing.

I wonder if Six Degrees will actually pick up a bit in ratings with the recent announcement of Bridget Moynahan being pregnant with Tom Brady's baby? Possible, but not likely. The show has pretty much been marked as a goner anyway, so a small ratings increase would be irrelevant.

Smart Woman Survival Guide returned with new shows this weekend, that was good to see. No sign of Rumours, which the CBC seems to have abandoned but made no announcement. Little Mosque On The Prairie rolls on, but I don't think it's retaining the ratings that the CBC hoped for. Unfortunately, the writing is to blame. When you can see the 15 or 30 second preview for the upcoming show and already feel like you've watched the whole show, you know you have a problem. It could be so much better if they didn't fall into typical sitcom scenarios where you can predict the plot a mile away.

Air Farce is celebrating their 300th episode on March 30th with a live show.

March is a wasteland of shows taking breaks, and I find that a bit frustrating. You never know if a particular show will be running on a given week, or if it's taking a few weeks off to premiere a mid-season replacement.

I'm tired of hearing reports of how Autumn Reeser (Taylor) "revitalized" The O.C. this season. Am I the only one who found her incredibly annoying? The forced pairing of her and Ryan was useless and really didn't make any sense. It was like the writers were saying, "Hey, we have these two characters, let's just put them in a relationship even if it doesn't make any sense for them to be together. The show's ending anyway." You know what: she didn't "revitalize" it that much, because now it's canceled. I don't dislike her as an actress, but the character was just annoying and had no chemistry with Ryan. They should have ended the series last season when Marissa died. To end this rant on a bright note, SoapNet is airing The O.C. from the beginning starting on April 9th. I miss the glory days of the first season of this show, so I may re-watch some of it, while I still have my Dad's satellite dish hooked up.

Speaking of said satellite dish, I've been recording tons of original Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes. Really enjoying them, and since they're only half hour installments, they're easy to watch.

Two of my favorite shows at the moment are Ugly Betty and Men In Trees. Ugly Betty is campy and just so much fun to watch; pure entertainment. I actually wasn't expecting to like Men In Trees, but I have grown attached to it. I think Anne Heche has had enough time out of the limelight to do this role and not have people only think about her past actions. I think she's doing well in the role and I hope she continues to grow the character.

ER is boring me. I'm not sure why I'm hanging on to watching it. It has finally reached a point where all of the original characters are gone, and the ones currently on the show don't do anything that isn't frustrating or boring. This is another case where TV critics attribute the revitalization of a show to an actor, in this case, John Stamos. Yeah, he's a more famous actor than most on the show, and perhaps he draws fans who previously didn't watch the show. So far the character hasn't really done anything to write home about. I suspect next season will be the last for ER.

When actors who are in a show together end up dating in real life, why do writers seem to want to pair them together onscreen as well? I don't understand why they have bothered to pair Cameron and Chase on House, other than the fact that they are engaged in real life. Can't people just work together? What's the harm in that? At least this has only taken the tact of them sleeping together and hasn't become a huge storyline on the show... yet.

Desperate Housewives. Better this season, but just put Gaby and Carlos back together already. How long is Carlos going to live at Mike's house?

I do like the addition of Logan (Chris Noth) to Law & Order: CI, but Vincent D'Onofrio, Super Genius, is still my favorite character on the show. It took the Captain (Eric Bogosian) a while to grow on me, but he's ok now. I do miss the ADA (Courtney B. Vance), though.

On regular Law & Order, I am not a big fan of the new female lawyer, nor the new female detective. They're meh.

Why can't ATV air Ebert & Roeper at the proper time? Why do I always end up getting pieces of CSI: Miami reruns?

Another weekend down

I had a reasonably good weekend. It began Friday night when Jay came over. We had some Chinese food and watched Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent. Decent movie, seemed like a bit of a different vein for Hitch, but the best part was watching the special features after the movie. I think I got much more out of certain aspects of the movie after having the extra commentary. Later that evening I had my usual Friday night phone call with John.

Saturday I slept in. I decided with the impending rain that I had better clean out the snow that had been gathering at my basement door, and also clean off parts of the deck so I could walk down to the compost bin. Unfortunately, that meant some strenuous shoveling because there were a couple of layers of snow and ice to get through. Took me a while, but I managed to get most of it cleared away and it was likely a good thing that I did. I didn't end up having any flooding problems this weekend, so that was good. Dad found a sump pump that he thinks will be good for the basement, so that needs to be ordered & installed. With the weather warming up, I'm going to have to keep an eye on things down there.

Going through 2 layers of ice pretty much wore me out, so I crashed on the couch after that. Went to church, and then afterward ran around picking up some groceries for my mother. She's been pretty sick with strep throat and hasn't been able to leave the house in a week. She also had to cancel her trip to Montreal to see my brother, SIL and nephew because she's nowhere near well enough to travel yet. I hope she can reschedule and get to Montreal at another time.

Sunday was a better day than I expected. I had to go in to work at 1pm to help install a piece of equipment. I wasn't convinced that it would work, but it worked on the first try and I was done within half an hour. I made a couple of catch-up phone calls after I got home. My grandfather called around supper time asking if I would go out and bring him some food, which I did. He's still not feeling that well. I think we'll have to start getting someone in to cook meals for him. Sunday night T-L dropped by to chat and give me a card. It was nice to see her, we hadn't chatted in quite a while. Later, I chatted and then phoned John. Can't wait until he arrives on Friday.

Thankfully ok

It was a worrisome day today, but thankfully John wasn't in any kind of extreme danger.

It's hard being across the continent and getting a phone call that says your husband has been taken to the hospital. Even just as a precaution, that's not something you want to hear.

I'm very thankful this didn't happen while he was home, alone. Caly isn't very good at using the phone. Lots of people were around to notice he wasn't doing well. It's good to have people who care.

10 weird things

Having been tagged by Mare, I refer you to an old blog post in which I actually voluntarily listed the things that made me weird. I do need to add a 10th point though.

10. I eat popcorn as a meal. Regularly.


Updates:

6. I do like hot chocolate, that's the only opaque beverage I'll drink.

7. My aversion to food shaped like animals actually happened earlier than I realized. Apparently, Nana used to always make molasses cookies in the shape of gingerbread men. My mother says I found this upsetting and Nana started using a flower shape instead. I have no memory of that, but it's an interesting story.

Caly

A couple of pics of Caly from my last trip:

She was looking very cute and I went for my camera, but then she moved and just looks annoyed in this pic. She got blinded by the flash.



Couldn't get her looking at the camera.


She seemed to be good with me right off the bat on this trip. I think she's learned that two people giving her attention is even better than one.

Mmmmm, chocolate

Someone just walked into my office and offered me the last piece of Leonidas Belgian chocolate from a box she brought in. Her husband frequently travels to Belgium for work.

She didn't knock, but she came bearing gifts, so I'm not cranky about that one. :)

I miss the Leonidas stand in Moncton. :(

Just knock

In my office, I sit with my back to the door. I don't like doing that, but it's the only way I can sit. My chair back is high and obstructs the view of my phone, meaning that people can't tell when I am talking on the phone. This would not be a problem if people walked up to my door, knocked, waited for me to say "hello" or some kind of response, and then proceeded into my office.

Instead, I am constantly bombarded by people walking straight into my office, without knocking, chatting away at me [in some cases very loudly] like I am able to listen. Not only are they disrupting my phone call, but they're also wasting their breath because I am trying to concentrate on whatever problem the person on the phone is having. Other people walk in so quietly, without knocking, that by the time they are standing beside me and begin to speak, I've jumped 10 feet in the air because they scared me. I am often absorbed in my work and don't hear someone enter. My co-worker has to answer the "Is she on the phone" question multiple times per day. I can only imagine how aggravating that must be after the 10th time in the run of a day.

Knocking and waiting for a response doesn't seem to be in some people's realm of capability. How about this? Walk up to my door, come in, and step two steps to the right, then they would be able to easily see if either my in-use light was lit, or they'd be able to see the receiver's cord stretched out, indicating that I am holding the receiver to my ear. Simple? You'd think so.

This has been annoying me to the point where I have thought about trying to place a light on the wall above my desk that will indicate when my phone is in use. I've searched around on the internet for such a device, but all I can find are circuit diagrams of how to make one.

I just don't understand what's so hard about knocking before entering.

Tired

I'm feeling the jet lag today. I didn't begin to attempt sleep until 1:30am, and had to get up at 7am for work.

I had a tight connection and a bad flight yesterday. It started out by the plane sitting on the tarmac in Vegas for an hour, waiting for a storm to pass and a place in line to take off. Since I didn't have much time for a connection in Montreal even if things were on time, I was starting to wonder if I was going to have another overnight visit with my brother and SIL.

The flight itself was annoying, to say the least. The people in the row behind me seemed to enjoy using my chair back as support, so I got jostled around every time they moved. The man in front of me couldn't seem to decide if he was going to sit straight up or recline, and thus kept hitting my laptop. While trying to watch a movie through this, a flight attendant walked by and suddenly there was water all over my head and running down my neck. I was pretty pissed off, and about to point out to her that she should watch where she was going, but the speaker came on and they asked if there was a doctor on board. Complaining about water when someone is sick is petty, so I mopped myself up and silently thanked the fact that she hit me instead of my open laptop. When we landed, we needed to wait for EMTs to board before we were allowed off. I had to run for Customs, so I didn't have time to stop and complain about the water incident. I made it through Customs without a problem or wait, but then had the usual 20 minute wait for my luggage. It came off the belt and I grabbed it and ran for the agent. I then ran for the connecting baggage drop-off, and thankfully this time I made it. While I enjoy seeing my brother, I really just wanted to get home.

The flight to SJ was ok for the most part, with the exception of the guy sitting next to me who didn't seem to understand or care about having his carry-ons stowed. He had two, and they both sat at his feet. He had them between his feet, of course meaning that he encroached on my space. I am not a large person, but I like my personal space. I was annoyed, but didn't make a big deal out of it. At least I didn't get water dropped on me again.

I wasn't feeling too bad when I arrived at work this morning, but I'm now feeling pretty tired. I am looking forward to going home, starting the fire, hitting the couch, and catching up on the TV I recorded when I was away.