So it finally hit me that today is Angel season premiere, and I've been a goofy-giddy. I've managed to avoid all spoilers but one, and that should be taken care of tonight, so I'm way spoiler-free.

I've spent the last hour struggling with cables to get the VCR set up to record. Over the last couple of months, Jason and I have bought a switcher mainly for use with the PS2 and DVD player, but we've also added the Gamecube and Xbox. We rarely use the VCR and didn't bother to connect it, so now I have to figure out how to work it in without screwing everything else up. And I have to do it fast. Only an hour left, and I still have other preparations to make, like dinner and a shower and shave (anyone else get all spiffified for a television show?).

Also, it hit me again. No new Buffy. /cry

(via IMDb) History of Theatrical Animation To Air on Bravo

Bravo Channel has scheduled a documentary marking 100 years of theatrical animation to air on Sept. 26 at 8:00 p.m. Titled The Animated Century, the two-hour film will include clips from more than 160 films from 26 countries, including 12 Oscar winners. The film is being hosted by three characters created by Bill Plympton and animated by St. Petersburg, Russia-based Konstantin Bronzit. Famed documentary film maker Ken Burns remarked, "This is a terrific, entertaining, intelligent history of the animated film. From the earliest scratchings to the latest computer graphics, this fascinating story tells it all."

RIP John Ritter

Today has even more Whedonverse happiness:

Jason took me to Best Buy and bought the new Buffy game.

And I received my Angel season 2 dvds from Amazon.


Days and days of Jossdom, and to top it off, Saturday is Buffy Margarita Night at CJ's.

Firefly going to the big screen!


Ack, I'm all emotional right now.

So, I'm watching my man Jeff Corwin, when he shows me the stuff of nightmares: the coconut crab! [transcript of the episode] Jeff says they can grow up to three feet in length (head to tail) and weigh forty pounds. He'd picked one up and it was friggin huge! It was the size of a small-to-medium dog, omnivorous (including carrion) and the really scary part is that they climb trees. It's only a small evolutionary step to learn to jump down on passing victims. Being hit on the noggin with a forty pound crab would probably knock a guy out, leaving the crab to feast at it's leisure. Or, if they learn to work together, they could rip you into bite-size crab snacks.

Most of the information I can find on them refers to crabs from Oceania (and it talks about them as food), but the one Jeff found was on Zanzibar in East Africa.


For those into that type of thing, some boobies to spice things up.

If you're into Jeff, this ep ("Zanzibar: Dr. Corwin I Presume") has sexy-shirtless Jeff.

Freddy vs. Jason. If you're a Freddy fan, go see it. It's worth it!

Essay by BlackHat Matt on the end of Changeling

[The link in the original post about this essay is dead. I've picked up this copy and I'm posting it here so that it will always be around]

The End of the Dream

By

Matthew McFarland

I remember when Changeling: The Dreaming first came into my life. I was at a convention in Toledo, Ohio, in August of 1995. I had started playing White Wolf games the previous fall (Wraith: The Oblivion was the first White Wolf game I ran, and it pretty much sucked me into the rest of the World of Darkness®). Anyway, a new game coming out was like Christmas morning. I wasn’t, however, planning on running it right away. In keeping with my lifelong policy of getting overextended, I had something like five different games going and whenever three or more of my friends got together, I seemed to wind up running a one-shot (which invariably became a chronicle, because people always loved their characters).

So I bought Changeling, and my friend Mike read it while we were still at the convention and had a character concept in seconds. I remember that character. His name was Tal, he was a sidhe (House Fiona) and he was a tragic love-story sort of figure.

This was back when you drew your bunks from a deck of cards, you know. My brother played a pooka who turned into a ferret; I remember him hiding in the troll character’s hair (the troll was played by my friend Carrie Lewis; remember that name, it’ll be important later) and then casting a Chicanery cantrip. He drew the “Moo” bunk, so what you had was a ferret leaping out of a troll’s hair and crying, “MOOOOO!!!”

“I love Changeling!” was a common refrain in that group.

That chronicle, much as I loved it (I set it at a summer camp in Michigan that I used to attend; to me, that place was a sort of Glamour) didn’t really go anywhere. The next time I ran Changeling, it was much more focused. I set the game in Detroit (the most banal city I could think of, and I don’t need your hate mail, thanks very much), gave everybody an extra dot of Banality and five extra freebies and then dangled the plot hook. Five sites in the city could be properly prepared and then used to open a trod to Arcadia. But the nature of the trod would be determined by the fae who opened it — that is, Seelie or Unseelie.

I had two groups in that game, four Seelie characters and four Unseelie characters. I never ran them together; we’d cover one span of time with one group and then I’d meet with the other group later in the week and they’d “catch up.” That game never really ended, either. I have lots of great memories from it (I encouraged folks to act out their bunks, and my friend Mark actually tore the legs of an already-dead tarantula for a Primal bunk at one point), but the story didn’t end. I don’t know who opened that trod.

This seems to happen, you know. It’s hard to end a dream. Typically, dreams end abruptly — you just wake up. Sometimes, that’s a relief. Sometimes, it’s painful. Most often, it’s anticlimactic and a little disorienting.

There’s a point, here, and you’re probably catching on already. But I’ve got some more folks to talk about first. If you’re one of those folks that gets annoyed when people talk about their characters, you may want to skip a few paragraphs.

I haven’t played a lot of characters that were my own; that’s the consequence of being the guy who can run a game at the drop of a dime and always seems to have the money to buy the books and the time to read them. As a result, I remember the few characters I’ve played pretty vividly, and Changeling always seemed to produce the ones that I was most attached to.

I played a selkie once, believe or not. The game was set in San Francisco, I believe (California, anyway; it’s been a while). He was a surfer. Had some problems with the Sabbat. He swore an Oath of Truehearts to another character (a satyr, played by the girl I was seeing at the time). She broke the oath. The relationship went sour. Life imitates art?

I played a sluagh, once. He was a childling named Matthias, and he was a devout Catholic. He couldn’t speak above a whisper, but he could sing as a result of his faith, and he performed miracles over the course of that game. I was lost when I played Matthias, though I didn’t know it at the time. Matthias was a fish out of water in so many ways, but he was strong and devout, no matter what horrors he saw. He was, in some ways, what I needed to be. If you can’t find a role-model, you make one.

I played a sidhe, once. He was once of House Fiona but left in an attempt to form his own noble house with his oathcircle. It didn’t work out. He wound up falling in love with a mortal girl. He was a Humanist, as I recall. He worked in a coffee shop (the game was set in my home town of Toledo, and I worked at the coffee shop in question, myself). He didn’t want to get involved with all the supernatural craziness; he just wanted to live his life and love his girl. I played Sir Lelio (or Damian, as he preferred to be called) when I was growing up.

God, that’s scary. Growing up is like waking up — you might be relieved, but you might be disoriented, frightened, or just a little disappointed.

Changeling isn’t necessarily a game about growing up and the idyllic time that is childhood (because as any kid will tell you, childhood isn’t all that idyllic anyway). If anything, it’s about the wonder of childhood, but fear is a big part of that wonder. But it isn’t necessarily about that — Changeling’s a big game. You can tell any kind of story with it because it’s about stories. And I think maybe a lot of folks missed that. Forest for the trees, you know?

I got it. So did you. You probably got a little choked up in Autumn People in the opening fiction when the girl opens her box and looks at what’s left of her wings. Maybe you smiled in the second edition of Changeling when the narrator talks about riding the yellow walrus. Possibly, when reading Shadow Court, you were surprised at how easy it was to fall into the nightmare, to imagine playing a fae sworn to darkness.

You remember the kid in grade school who had imaginary friends long after everyone else had formed their cliques? Remember the kid that just didn’t really fit in well, not because of anything you could pin down, but just because he or she was an easy target and was sensitive to what people thought and said? Oh, you were that kid? Me, too. Funny, that.

There’s a point, here. I’m pretty sure you understand, but just to make sure: Changeling appeals to those of us who understand that these characters live. Not in a “I am my character” kind of creepshow, but simply that when you spend time and energy crafting a character for any game (or any story, or whatever), it lives, somehow, somewhere. Authors talk about characters speaking to them, demanding extra scenes in fiction or a different ending to a story, and as an author, I’ll say that you ignore your characters at your peril. They might stop talking to you, after all.

I’m rambling a little here, and that’s deliberate, because it’s human nature to avoid bad news. You already know this bad news, but that doesn’t make it a lot easier. You ready? OK, here we go.

Changeling is going away, and it’s not coming back. You will never get Book of Glamour or Kithbook: Boggan or Keys to the Kingdom. If Changeling ever does come back, it won’t be in the form that you know, and you’re better off not comparing the new to the old, because then you’ll be missing out on the wonder of the new game. The story is ending. It is time to wake up from the dream.

God, it hurts just typing that. It feels…banal. Like I should hit my “delete” key about 6000 times right now and obliterate this whole thing. But see, that’s the thing. This needs to be said. You need to know. You deserve to know.

Changeling doesn’t have to end for you, of course. As has been stated ad nauseum on more forums than I care to think about, all you need is the core book and a little imagination and your troupe can play this game forever. And I hope that you will. But for me, the reality is a little harsher, because I’m the guy who gets to (has to?) oversee The End.

(Anybody who wanted to skip the sappy stuff about the game and what it means to me should start reading here.)

When we decided to do a hardback encompassing the “minor” game lines (that’s Hunter: The Reckoning, Demon: The Fallen, Mummy: The Resurrection, Kindred of the East, and Changeling) we struggled a bit to find developers. Oh, it wasn’t a stretch that Ken Cliffe would do Hunter and Mike Lee would do Demon, them being the full-time developers of those lines and all. C. A. Suleiman was only too happy to jump back into development for Mummy, as well. Kindred of the East was a little tougher, seeing as how Lucien Soulban (the most recent developer for that line) was up to his eyes in Orpheus, but we got Kraig Blackwelder to do it, so that’s good.

Which leaves Changeling. I think Ken was pretty relieved when I casually mentioned that I’d love the job. Honestly, I think the alternative might have been not having the section at all — there was a suggestion that we not do one, seeing as how the line had been dormant for so long.

Bullshit, says I. “You know all those Changeling fans who will be horribly upset if their game doesn’t get its due?” I said. “Well, I’m one of them.”

(That suggestion was never taken very seriously, actually. But it annoyed me anyway.)

So I found myself with 30,000 words to end one of my all-time favorite games. I don’t know if you have any idea what 30,000 words looks like, but to give you an idea, the revised tribebooks for Werewolf are about 65,000 words each. 30,000 words isn’t much, but that’s all I’ve got. There’s a bucket of cold water in the face for you.

I decided immediately that I needed two authors on the book, and that one of those authors had to be metaplot savvy. I admit, I haven’t played Changeling much in recent years and I’ve fallen behind on the metaplot, so I wanted an author who knew what was going on and could work in as many nods to the existing, ongoing stuff as possible. That author was Peter Woodworth, author of (among other things) Kithbook: Eshu and House Beaumayn from the Book of Lost Houses.

The other author, though, I wanted to be someone who knew the game and, more importantly, understood the game like I did, but hadn’t worked on it and did not know or closely follow the metaplot. I wanted someone who loved Changeling but who wasn’t tied to what it had become — who was more well-versed in the essence of the game than its form (not saying that Pete doesn’t grasp the game’s essence, I’m just saying I wanted him for different reasons). That author was Carrie Lewis, one of my staple Dark Ages folks, but more importantly, one of the people who was right there with me as I discovered Changeling eight years ago.

So what’s in the Changeling section of Time of Judgment? Possibility. A lot of different ways for Winter to come. The potential for the fae to go out with a whimper or a bang. A lot of thoughts on how best to run the last Changeling story, on where the fae are going, and even on what happens next. There’s hope, there’s despair, there’s war. Some familiar faces show up.

What’s not in that section? The answers.

I thought about this. I really did consider combing through the books and answer all of the nagging questions, putting definitive, “canon,” official stamps on everything that Changeling has left hanging. I thought about having Pete and Carrie write up what was happening in Arcadia, what has happened to Sir Seif and Kind David, how to open the Triumph Casque of Sorrows, and so on and on.

I didn’t, and I’ll tell you why — those are your stories, not ours. We gave them to you. You own them, not us. We can’t finish them, because they haven’t been ours in a long time. I didn’t want to tell you what to dream; I don’t have that right. The last material printed for Changeling: The Dreaming is going to consist largely of suggestions, thoughts, and possibilities from and by people who love this game.

The stuff that dreams are made of, in other words. As a not-entirely tangential aside, did you know that quote is originally from Shakespeare’s The Tempest? The actual line is: “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded by a sleep.”

Speaking of Shakespeare, I just thought of why I knew, right from the start, that I would love Changeling. The first add I saw for the game was in the first edition of Wraith (my first White Wolf game, remember?). It had a quote from another Shakespeare play on a background that looked like shattered glass. The quote had only the first three couplets of the speech, but I’m ending with the whole thing. It seems like the right thing to do.

If we shadows have offended,

Think but this and all is mended;

That you have but slumbered here

While these visions did appear,

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding than a dream.

Gentles, do not reprehend:

If you pardon, we will mend.

And, as I am an honest Puck,

If we have unearned luck

Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,

We will make amends ‘ere long.

Else the Puck a liar call,

So, good night unto you all.

Give me your hands, if we be friends,

And Robin shall restore amends.

— Matthew McFarland, 8/8/2003

So, it looks like White Wolf is bringing the entre World of Darkness (setting of its most successful game lines) to an end. Not a lot of details yet, but it seems that this ending will actually be a rebirth and shake up of some kind. It'll be interesting.


It's also a kick in the gut. Along with news of this ending comes sad news.

"Changeling is going away, and it’s not coming back. You will never get Book of Glamour or Kithbook: Boggan or Keys to the Kingdom. If Changeling ever does come back, it won’t be in the form that you know, and you’re better off not comparing the new to the old, because then you’ll be missing out on the wonder of the new game. The story is ending. It is time to wake up from the dream."

Blackhat Matt, who will be overseeing development of the Changeling portion of the end, has written an essay (source of the quote above), first expressing his feelings concerning the end of Changeling, then giving us, the fans, a hint of what this Time of Judgement will have for the Fae. What will it have? Thirty thousand words. Depending on artwork, it's a little more than two dozen pages to wrap it all up, and that's it.

This is an emotional thing for me, on level with how I felt about the end of BtVS. This game was my Buffy before I found Buffy, and its end is no less painful.

Having now had just over a month of wonderful Lazy Time, it's time to seek out gainful employment. Can't be a sponge forever, I suppose.

I've spent the interim pointedly not being online. The world sucks, and I pretty much wanted to ignore it for a while. Also, it has been a little difficult adjusting to the idea of an upcoming Buffy-free fall season. I'd only been able to turn the show on a couple of times but happened to catch a couple of my favorite eps ("Passion" and "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered"). I'm getting better though, and I'm pledging to not go totally out of touch with the world again. I may have missed out on the Firefly preorder opportunity.

So, to satisfy my Slayer craving, New Friend Cody loaned his Xbox to me so I could play the Buffy game I'd bought several months ago. I was a little disappointed at first that the actress they got to voice Buffy didn't sound like Sarah Michelle Gellar, but a few minutes into the game, I was marvelling at how much she does sound like SMG. This game kicks ass. I LOVE beheading vamps and dusting them with a thrown stake or a crossbow, and I get positively ecstatic when a perfectly executed kick knocks a suck-head into a conveniently positioned broken chair leg. I am SO looking forward to the next one, due out later this month.

The other major thing I played was Enter the Matrix. One of the few complaints I'd heard about the Buffy game was that it was too short (I disagree with that), but Enter the Matrix was completely playable in a few days. The game consists mainly of getting from Point A to Point B while killing various security guards, and the driving/flying levels absolutely suck (boring much?). The best things about the game is the bullit time (use a hack to get unlimited focus and just play with that) and that the storyline of the game parallels and intersects with the storyline of The Matrix: Reloaded. The game was fine, but I'm glad I didn't have to pay the $7 to rent it.

Currently have Silent Hill 3 here, waiting to test it out. Jason has played it a little, and it looks good. May make job seeking very difficult this week.

Last day of employment. Will celebrate with a nap. That is all.

Today begins my last week of employment with TV Snide. There will be much pointlessness over the next couple of days.


Yesterday should have been the first day of my last work-week here, but I thought it was Sunday, so I slept in. Around noon, I found out that it was Monday, but I was in such a rare great, positive mood, I decided there was no way in hell I was going to work and have my mood ruined. Soon after, I found out that Katharine Hepburn had died, and I was too foul-mooded to go to work.

..


In unrelated news (at least, it appears to be unrelated), scientists say that people pretty much like to date themselves, which may explain why I enjoy masturbation so much.

If you have infant or toddler offspring/nieces/nephews, you probably shouldn't look.

"Long Island: Our Story, the most extensive series ever undertaken by Newsday, documents local history from the Ice Age to the Space Age. In addition to the hundreds of pages produced for Newsday's print editions, this site offers a wealth of additional photos, source documents, audio, video and more."

Wow.

and FOX still fucking sucks.

sigh.
More Firefly here.

Ah! Angel s2 dvd set has a release date of September 2. Go go preorder!

"Ridiculous Lucky Captain Rabbit King! Lucky Captain Rabbit King Nuggets are for the Youth."

Totally explains the kind of day I'm having.

And so, my time at the video store is done. I will have weekends free again!


Today is Nephew #2's sixth birthday. His birthday party tomorrow is BYO water gun, so I'm thinking I'll be hiding out most of the time.

Actor Gregory Peck Dies at 87.

..

Mine.

Picked up my Buffy season 4. Looks slick! If you need me tonight, I'll be in Sunnydale.

I'll flog myself later for letting this slip my mind, but Buffy season 4 dvd set hits shelves tomorrow!

I just realize that I have only 4 weeks at TV Guide before the layoff. Hooray summer vacation!


for those who may care but don't really want any detail: TiVo And Gemstar-TV Guide Announce New Business Relationship. I post this mainly becase I've lately been thunkulating on getting a TiVo, despite only turning on the television once since Buffy's finale (and that was to watch syndiBuffy). Perhaps, with my involuntary summer vacation coming up, I should wait on the TiVo decision.

via WHEDONesque: Buffy was nominated for the Television Critics Association Heritage Award, which, according to its website, "recognizes a long-standing program whose positive cultural and social impact extends beyond television." BtVS appears in good company, alongside Reading Rainbow and 60 Minutes. The 2002 winner was The Simpsons.



It's been just over two weeks. I still get emotional.

via Dark Horizons:

One woman who is definitely not in the running [for the role of Wonder Woman] is singer Jessica Simpson. But she is managing to keep tight-lipped about playing the lead in the next big movie based on a popular Marvel Comics series. "I don't know if your everyday person would know it," she recently told reporters, "but I can tell you this -- it's not Wonder Woman." [source, scroll down. also a some SMG there]

::prays to Stan Lee that it not be Dazzler::

not that there's a huge chance that Dazzler will ever make it to the silver screen, but evertime they mention a "singer" up for a role as a Marvel Comics character, I get nervous. and psychotic.

Comfort food toys.

"Three alternate universes have come together to form one, now one ship and crew have to fix it."

Those three universes are the Whedonverse, Star Trek and the X-Men. . Posted as a "Look what's out there!" kind of thing, it may cause cringing.

Me: Very satisfied. Very sad.

Made even better by FX airing Welcome to the Hellmouth and The Harvest tonight also.


"The Earth is DEFINITELY doomed."

Woot! Got my Kindred: the Embraced dvds! (Amazon link)

New Buffy game out in August! Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds. You can play as Buffy, Faith, Willow, Xander, Spike and Sid the Dummy(!), but no Giles.

The game's storyline seems topical, if you take Pure Evil as First Evil (if they are two different things, do they get along, or do they fight over who gets to destroy the world?): "Developed as a "lost episode" from season five of the television show, Chaos Bleeds involves an unraveling tale in which a dimensional bleed has been enabled by Pure Evil to consume humanity once and for all."

A good weekend for me:

Saw X2. Gah! If you haven't, GO SEE IT!

I received my Dazzler: the Movie.

Bought Fray #7, though I'll have to reread before commenting too much. It's like a companion piece to the current Buffy arc.

Bought the Star Trek: the Next Generation - The Complete Seventh Season. I was going to buy the second season, but then I had this wacky notion that I didn't have to buy them in order! After that, it was tough to choose between the fifth (which I missed most of) or the seventh (which had so many episodes that I liked).

Jason bought me this.

For Jason, I bought Xena: Season One (though for much less than the website's price). Best thing about it is that everytime you open up the little foldy box thing, it says "Yiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyi!" (ok, not really, but it'd be fun if it did).

Saw Equilibrium. It's 1984 with many gun battles, some martial arts and a sword. Also Christian Bale and Taye Diggs. This and The Transporter are now on my Must Have list.

A map of the orignal area code boundaries established in 1947. I'm enough of a goob to have pulled up a current map to switch back-and-forth between the two ("They've added one there... and there... and there....").

Management here at TV Gourd has their collective heads up their ass. Or their heads up their collective ass. I'm not sure which.

We're working on a huge project (one of those "We know this isn't really what your group does, but we could really use the help because, instead of using the last 6 months to work on it, we put it off until the last minute!" -type things^†).

Problems include:
• Forcing us to use proprietary programs that we've never used or been trained on, and no, they're not going to train us to use them.
• Those same programs actually being of no use to us.
• The one program that is useful (and almost necessary) is one that can't be installed on our group's computers because our software is out-of-date.
• The single, most useful database resource available to us (as in, 80% of the information we need is there) is also a single user resource. Only one person at a time can be logged in to it!
• The reports from which we're working: There are two different versions of the first half of the first report, no one seems to know what happened to the second half, while the second report is being given to more and more people who all try to start on the first page. When it is divided, it's by "I'll take the third page!" instead of dividing it up by subcatagory, so we'll have multiple people working on the same subcatagory.
• No standardized method of keeping track of our progress. I was the first to begin working on the report and I use a apparently complex system involving colored highlighters and a pen. When the others were brought on, Dumbass_Manager_01 asked me to explain my system, then suggested the others use whatever will work for them. Which, of course, will be great fun when all the reports are given to one person to be compiled.

^† Even better is when they say "If you do well on this, maybe they'll keep you around instead of laying you off!" when we've already been told by several management-types several months ago (including the one who said that) that the layoff dates were finalized and that there is nothing, short of a Jedi mind trick and the blessing of an Incan mummy girl, that will alter the fact that we're being laid off.


edited, because it's harmonious when your corresponding nouns and verbs agree in number.

Odd Place Names: Meat Camp, NC

An interesting site that I've missed until today: EyeWitness, "history through the eyes of those who lived it." I haven't had a lot of time to explore it yet and only read of a few events in which I have a particular interest: The San Francisco Earthquake, 1906, The British Burn Washington, DC, 1814, The Destruction of Pompeii, 79 AD, and Doomed Expedition to the South Pole, 1912.

At the bottom of this page is an audio clip of a very cranky Orson Welles during a voiceover recording session that wasn't going well.

He doesn't sound much like The Brain (except for that "Yes!" part about one minute in). Compare to The Brain's voiceover in his commercial for his new fragrance, Subjugation.

Oh, and wasn't last night's Angel great? I LOVED it! The season is building up a lot of excitement and tension, and now I can hardly wait for Wednesdays.

Is Wes getting hotter with each episode?

One episode from each Joss series nominated for a Hugo in the same category (plus two Enterprise eps I'm not concerned with):

Nominations for the Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form Category:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Conversations With Dead People"
Firefly, "Serenity"
Angel, "Waiting in the Wings"


Do they ever have three-way ties, 'cause I can't pick just one (though I am leaning toward "Serenity," but I think that has more to do with everything that happened to the series and the general feeling of FOX FUCKING SUCKS that I still have).

Some people need to be thoroughly flogged.

Clock spider.

Spiders don't really bother me, but if I saw this one, I'd probably freak and wet myself.

"I've been moved to tears on Buffy before but I've never been so truly upset."

That's about all I can say about "Dirty Girls."

It's difficult to believe that a New-Buffy- Tuesday could get much better without more Buffy news, but mine got a little better outside new-Scoobiness: I paid off my car today. Yay!

So, between this and my not-quite-three-weeks-old computer, I remember the reason I took up that weekend video store job, and maybe I'll whine a little less about never having a day off.

New Buffy tonight! Yay!

Last night, I saw the trailer/commercial for the second X-Men movie for the first time. I nearly wet myself with Fanboy Awe.

Some stills. Siryn? Look at her clothes! I'm liking this Jubilee better than the Generation X tv movie one (though I like that one too, and the whole movie). Yum!

Gotta stop looking. I'm starting to get all spazzy.

Small things make me happy: a transcript for Clue

WADSWORTH
Professor Plum, you were once a professor of psychiatry,
specializing in helping paranoid and homicidal lunatics
suffering from delusions of grandeur.

PLUM
Yes, but now I work for the United Nations.

WADSWORTH
So your work has not changed.

The April 12 issue of TV Guide has an article about John Walsh. The really "Ah-ha!" part: In 1996, FOX "dropped [America's Most Wanted] due to declining ratings. Fifty-five members of Congress lobbied for its return, and 38 governors signed a letter in support of the show. Fox reversed its decision."

So there it is. Folks, start writing you Congresscritters now and call your governor to get them signed on. We can still save Firefly!

I left my apartment after lunch yesterday, got to the bottom of the stairs on the second floor (I live on the third) and there's a squirrel sitting in front of my downstairs neighbor's door. Being of the "Aww, a cute little squirrel!" type, I stopped to watch him do his little squirrel thing, expecting him to freak out and run away. Instead, he puffed his little tail and started shaking it at me. After another "Aww, how cute!" moment, I stepped slowly toward him (had to round the corner to go down the next flight of stairs). He turned like he was going to run, but then he turned back, puffed and twitched his tail again, and took a hop toward me and snorted. Again I thought it was cute, and fascinating. Here's this liiiitle fuzzball threatening me and letting me know that he means business.

I took another step to go around the corner, and again, he hopped and snorted at me. Then again. And again. And once more. At this point, I'm starting to get a little freaked, wondering if this squirrel could be rabid and carnivorous. I stepped again, and this time, the little guy turns, runs a foot or so, turns back, and repeats the hop-snort process until he's close enought that I could have reached down and picked him up. That was a little too close for me, so I hurried around the corner, with the squirrel turning away, hopping back, turning away, hopping back, and snorting at me the whole time. I turned to go down the next set of stairs, which double back and would have forced me to go by the squirrel again. The space between the bars on the railing is way more than enough for a rabies-crazed squirrel to leap through and eat out my eyes once my head was level with him. I didn't want that to happen, 'cause I like my eyes. Instead, I backed up, walked through the breezeway to the back of the building, took the rear stairs, and walked around the building to my car.

A vicious, diseased-brained, possibly flesh-eating squirrel has taken over the front side of the second floor of my apartment building.

Update: Went home for lunch today and thought I'd check up on the squirrel. He was still there.

Upcoming Buffy eps:

• Tonight: all new "Lies My Parents Told Me"
  
• April 1: "Sleeper" (repeat)
  
• April 8: "Never Leave Me" (repeat)
  
• April 15: all new "Dirty Girls".

Upcoming Angel eps:

• Tomorrow: all new! "Players"
  
• April 2: all new! "Inside Out"
  
• April 9: all new! "Shiny, Happy People"
  
• April 16: all new! "The Magic Bullet"

Neither Gem Nor Star
Embattled TV programming-guide provider Gemstar-TV Guide reported this week it will restate $111 million in revenues it booked in the past. In other words, the company claimed revenues it shouldn't have.


Naughty, TV Guide!

Still, most of us around here preferred Henry to current Big Cheese Jeff.

I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome all the fine folks coming from Metafilter, and to let you know that Angel is on tonight at 9pm, EST, on the WB. You should watch it. It'll answer every question you could possibly have about anything*.



* may not be the truth

Dreamed last night that I was in Sunnydale with the Scoobies. Andrew had been arrested and was in jail, all part of some devious plot by the First, who was controlling the police officers. Somehow, Jonathan had come back to life, but the First and his Bringers didn't know that. We used Jonathan as a decoy to break Andrew out of jail, and hid out in Angel's old mansion, only the mansion was different. Much bigger, more spacious, and less darkness there. Also, Katharine Hepburn lived there with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who spent the entire time naked. And anatomically incorrect. And his job was to cook corn dogs for the ball park next door.

Andrew and Jonathan disappeared, while Buffy and Katharine argued over the best way to fight the First. Buffy eventually stormed out, leaving me to deal with the fuming Ms. Hepburn. Katharine picked a fight with Arnold, then kicked him out of her house for not paying rent. Instead, Arnold climbed into bed, pulled the blanket over his head, and disappeared. This is where I woke.

I saw that there's a rumor going 'round that Jennifer Lopez may take her fiance's surname when they marry. Won't happen. J-Leck doesn't work.

FX is running Buffy season 5 right now. They're still in the first half of the season, which means lots of Joyce moments that make me very sad. I get a little emotional every time I see her with that bandage on her head.

What will I do with my Tuesday nights?

CNN on Daredevil. Confirms my fears (no I still haven't seen it. Hush). I also overheard some people discussing the movie at an eatery around the corner from the cinema. The big thing I noted was that "Affleck doesn't fit the superhero" discussions.

I can still have hope for the Hulk movie, right?

Hunter: the Reckoning (my brief review) has some sequels in the works.

For Xbox, Hunter: the Reckoning - Redeemer

For PS2, Hunter: the Reckoning - Wayward.

I enjoyed the first one on Gamecube, and I'm happy that there will be sequels. I have a second reason (again) to get an Xbox.

Yeah, I like dumb humor:

One day Count Dracula is walking down the street when suddenly 10 tons of smoked salmon sandwiches, sausage rolls, vol-au-vents, chicken wings, chipolatas, tomato salad, pizza slices and crisps descend on him from a great height and knock him to the ground.

"Oh no!" he gasps with his dying breath.... It's Buffet the Vampire Slayer!"

Had a nice post on why the next comic-to-screen superhero should be Dazzler, but Blogger ate it. All I have left is a link to a decent walkthrough of Dazzler's history (ignore the part about Dazzler: the Movie wrapping up her series. It didn't. Her title ran for another dozen issues or something). [here's also the cover to Dazzler #1]

Never trust (or like) anyone who says their favorite movie is "Halloween III."

Inside joke:

Two Film Reviews That Say More Than They Say:

• The Four Feathers - an Heath Ledger film I liked!
• The Tuxedo- is there a Jennifer Love Hewitt film I don't like?

Been watching my Angel dvds all week, trying to get caught up. So many suprises for me. I started watching Angel in the middle of the second season. It's nice to see how they've maintained continuity, plus there's the bonus that these episodes have been really good. I've seen a lot of people during seasons 3 and 4 say that Angel is really good now. It seems to me that it always has been.

By the way, I've missed this Cordelia. Woot! and Wesley in leather trousers!

Jason's been watching the eps too, after I go to sleep. He's determined to finish the season before I do so he can say "Ha ha! I saw it all before you did!" Then I'll laugh back and say "Ha ha! I've already seen the other three-and-a-half seasons before you!"

(this post edited because it was mistakenly published before I meant it to be)

Hooray for Pokemon vitamins! Picked up some last night while searching for something for a back ache. They come in four colors/flavors, with pokemon shapes. The purple flavor is shaped like Gengar (my favoroite pokemon)! Of course, gengar is a ghost pokemon of the poison element. I don't know what marketing genius chose him for the purple shape, but if a kid knows his or her pokemon, you'd think they'd avoid the gengar vitamins.

Angel season 1 DVD set is on the shelf today. Happy joy!

Details on the Region 2 DVD set for Buffy season 6 (will this also be what's on the Region 1 discs in 2004?), including director's commentary for "Bargaining," "Hells Bells," "Grave," and "Once More, With Feeling" among others, as well as Karaoke Sing-Alongs (!!!!!! for OMWF? If so, my neighbors are gonna fucking hate me. If they already didn't, I mean). Joyous happiness!


Army of Darkness (Boomstick Edition).

Though anyone else linking to Peter David's blog right now seems to be talking about his recent Buffy entry, I'm gonna point to "Of Muppets and Money". I'm not going to dig deep enough to figure out who Kathleen O David is (because I'm lazy, and really don't have the energy to care), but it's a muppet link, which I don't have often enough.

Muppets rock. I hadn't seen an episode of The Muppet Show in years until I recently rented a 3 episode DVD (the one with Julie Andrews, Gene Kelly, and Elton John). We need more muppets in our lives.

We'll probably be seeing Nathan Fillion back on television soon, though not in the role in which I'd like to see him. I'm happy for him, even if it means I'll have to watch NBC again.

Barring the return of Firefly (which I still haven't left go of. There has to be a way!), I'd like to see Adam Baldwin somewhere. Naked, if possible, but that's not necessary.

If I can't have Firefly (FOX fucking sucks!), I'd really like to see all the cast in new things. I liked them all, but I think I may have trouble dealing with Gina Torres and Alan Tudyk on separate projects. Zoe and Wash belong together. And they belong with Kaylee and Simon and River and Book and Inara and Jayne and Mal on Serenity.

but geez, wouldn't that make a cool Supreme Court case? Godzilla v. Mothra. How could SCOTUS make a decision? Which ever big, bad ass monster they decide against would go on a rampage, destroying Washington D.C. That'd probably make the court less likely to accept cases involving giant monsters and superpowered beings.

and what about Ecks v. Sever? The justices would all be killed in the resulting gun-and-martial-arts battle.

from Appellateblog, An interesting ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit:

Sharply divided en banc Tenth Circuit, by vote of 6-4, rules that a Kansas appellate court could hold defendants guilty of crime for which they were not charged, tried, or convicted.

In these consolidated appeals, one habeas corpus petitioner had been convicted of indecent liberties with a child, while the other habeas petitioner had been convicted of rape. Under Kansas law, because the victims of both crimes were close relations of the offenders, the proper criminal charge that should have been brought against both offenders was the charge of aggravated incest. On appeal in the Kansas state court system, appellate courts corrected the error themselves, changing the defendants' convictions in both instances to convictions for aggravated incest.

The majority opinion began by noting that "Petitioners-appellants Steven D. Beem and Donald H. Henson, Jr. sought habeas corpus relief in federal district court, 28 U.S.C. sec. 2254, arguing that the Kansas state courts violated their federal constitutional rights by sentencing them for aggravated incest -- a crime for which they had never been charged, tried, or convicted." By a vote of 6-4, the en banc court affirmed the federal district court's denials of these petitioners' habeas petitions.

Now, most of my legal training came from watching Perry Mason and The Practice, so reading the actual ruling is something of a headache for me to try to comprehend. I rely on the Appellateblog summarization, but, by what's provided, I agree with the lead dissenting opinion on this:

In the present case, the majority has ignored the Supreme Court's mandate in Cole. Mr. Henson was charged, tried, and convicted of rape, and Mr. Beem was charged, tried, and convicted of indecent liberties with a minor. As the Kansas Court of Appeals in these cases held (based on Carmichael), under Kansas law, both should have been charged, tried, and convicted of aggravated incest. Vacating Mr. Henson's and Mr. Beem's sentences and then sentencing them instead for aggravated incest (because their conduct also violates that statute) clearly violates Petitioners' due process rights because they were never charged, tried, nor convicted of aggravated incest. As this court previously stated, "[w]hat . . . is before us now is the fundamental due process question of whether one can be sentenced for a crime not charged and to which no plea of guilty has been entered. The answer is an unequivocal no." Von Atkinson v. Smith, 575 F.2d 819, 821 (10th Cir. 1978) (applying Cole)

I haven't been able to find anything else on this (mainly, I think, because they aren't conveniently named things like Godzilla v. Mothra. Or they may be and I missed it). I'm waiting to see if anyone picks this up and breaks it down for the Judiacially Challenged such as myself.

I'm crossing my fingers…

My Buffy season 3 DVD set should be in today.


That will be the only time I order something important from the video store. I ordered and paid for it 7 weeks ago, and I've been waiting not-so-patiently for it to arrive. You know what really sucks about that? Other video stores have had it for some time while I've had to wait.

David Greenwalt talks about the Angel season 1 DVD set and DVD sets in general. sorta. (via WHEDONesque)


Same website: Wherehouse Music Seeks Chapter 11 Protection. Setting aside the share of blame they give to illegal music downloading, the other major factor they attribute is... competition. "If it weren't for those damned competitors, we'd be doing great!" Fa la la

holy shiznit, i think i actually fixed the permalink problem on my own!

from the TVtracker daily ratings analysis:

"On Fox, the Friday news remains grim with recently relocated drama Fastlane (#4: 3.8/ 6) and the once relatively promising John Doe (#5: 3.4/ 5)."


Friday nights will kill these shows (not that either deserves to live. To put it in perspective, Firefly started around 4.1 and slid to just under 3.0).

And FOX still fucking sucks.


And Jayne is still yummy.

I cannot express how glad I am that today is Friday. Yay just doesn't cut it.

Coming to Lifetime Movie Network: "On the Edge of Innocence"

A rebellious 17-year-old manic depressive is committed to a mental hospital after she starts skipping her medication. When she becomes romantically involved with a fellow patient, her psychiatrist tries to break up the relationship, forcing the troubled teens to flee for the Mexican border, encountering trouble along the way.

Forced to flee to the border!

I love this network. I've never actually watched it, but I'm reading through a movie synopsis for March and it's hilarious. All of these women in all of these unfortunate, often bizarre circumstances. It's not all murder. Sometimes, it's women facing suspicions when long-thought-dead relatives turn up to claim inheritences, or "emotional and financial distress when a business tycoon decides to buy their property, which would sever their longtime roots in a Nova Scotia fishing community."

A quick rundown of today:

1. At around 3am, power went off at my apartment again. Repeat of Sunday (grrr), only this time, it wasn't restored until 8:40am. My alarm clock has no batteries,so I awoke when the heater and my fans kicked on. I was two hours, thirty minutes late for work. /cheer Temperature in apartment when I awoke: 40 degrees. No hot water. Makes for a grouchy Terrence.

2. Workload maintained at level of the previous 5 weeks, i.e., twice as much as normal due to #3.

3. Long ass, boring meeting this afternoon with 75 other people. Very boring and quite long ass. Topic: How to find another job. Our jobs are going away over the next several months to Pennsylvania. They originally told us that in a November meeting, but today's meeting was to let us know that the time table has been moved up. Some groups will be leaving months earlier than originally planned. My group was scheduled to go sometime around July 1. Now, we'll be leaving… around July 1. We'll find out definite date ranges next week. Also, we're not being Laid Off. We're being "Transitioned" (thank god, 'cause I'd cry if this was a lay off). And they did spend the bulk of the two hour meeting going over tips for a better resume and cover letter, and even roleplayed an example of an interview.

archiving link here: Killer Super London Fog of Black Death (via archived Max)

Mr. Pointy, a Buffy script/transcript dialogue search. My first search, for "Computers don't smell," came up empty. Misspelled words in the transcripts can cause some problems. Via WHEDONesque:

Oh hey, I forgot about that permalinks-not-working thing. I'll get right on that <snicker>

Jason and I were talking the other night about various console games, and we decided suddenly to buy a Gamecube. And six games. I haven't made my way through them yet. I've only tried a little of Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, but I spent a lot of time on Hunter: the Reckoning, one of the two games for which I wanted an Xbox (the other being, of course, Buffy).

"Hunter" is based on the White Wolf pen-and-paper role playing game of the same name. I enjoy a good hack'n'slash video game, and Hunter certainly doesn't fail there. Hordes of zombies, gargoyles, and other unidentifiable undead come relentlessly. It's grand fun for up to four players.
It's a bit different from the normal hack'n'slash in that you can choose one of four "Creeds" (no, not that one), or character archetypes, that has a distinct role, with appropriate "Edges" ('supernatural' abilities, though if you're familar with the RPG you'll now why "supernatural" isn't right) to fulfill that role. Edges aren't your only weapon/defense though. Each character starts with a melee weapon (sword, axe, knives) and a ranged weapon (mostly firearms, but one has a crossbow), and there's also a variety of weapons you can pick up along the way, from shotguns to chainsaws.

The first night we played, we were up well past sunrise. It's a kick ass game, everything I'd hoped it'd be, and well worth the cash if you like that sort of game. It stays mostly true to the game on which it's based, and has a decent storyline to follow. It can be tough too. Jason and I together only made it through a few chapters (the toughest part we played so far was the part where you have to keep the little girl alive as you escort her through the cemetary to a church where her parents wait. The girl is stupid and slow. She runs for the nearest player instead of the one safest, that is, the one who's not actively engaged in serious smackdown with some walking dead. I wanted to let her die, but you can't continue without protecting her, and since I was playing the Creed: Defender, it was kind of my job to hold her hand throughout). If we restart, without the learning curve, we'd do much better and get to see much more of it. If we could get a couple of other people to play with us to fill out the party, I've no doubt that we'd own those zombie hordes.


Now that Hunter is out of the way, I wanted to add that Jason (who works evenings) has me doing the same thing for him. I'm turning on the stupid lighthouse at 6pm.

Scratch another off the wishlist: The Young Ones - Every Stoopid Episode.

Tonight's Buffy is a new episode, "Potential."

I missed it before, but now that I know about it, I'm sharing: Jean has started a TV Guide Spoiler Topic over on her forums. You can check on the TV Guide summaries for future episodes of Buffy and Angel, and talk about 'em there.

Because Hotmail is crap, I've updated my email address. If you've been using the stinky fish address, just change the domain name (see sidebar) and I'll get it.

I was able to get to my Hotmail yesterday, and I've forwarded everything to the new addy. I'm still going through and replying to everyone. Give me a wee bit o' time.

Woot! I knew I wasn't wrong about using a comma before an and. Now I can stop editing them out when I review the papers, reports, and blog entries I write, and I can feel good about it not doing it.

Hey folks, don't forget the new episode of Angel tonight.

Garth Franklin of Dark Horizons gives some "links, rankings and quotes from my reviews for the creme de la crap that blinded us in 2002."

I haven't seen some of the films he lists (The Master of Disguise and Texas Rangers) and one I hadn't even heard of (Abandon). Of the ones I have seen, for the most part, I agree with him (though I did like Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever. C'mon! It's a shoot 'em up with lots of explosions. Who needs a story?). His list of "Other Notable Fizzers" contains one that amused me (Big Fat Lier) and one that really cracked me up (The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course, but probably not for the reasons that the producers, studio or Steve and Terri Irwin hoped for).

Mmmm! More Seann Scott!

Four consecutive days that I can't get into my Hotmail. I thought I'd found the problem on my end and fixed it because I was able to get in. Once.

Please don't hate me because I'm not replying to you.

The title bar of this Metafilter discussion made me very happy.

In the mail this weekend, I received an envelope from Max with a tape of the two hour pilot/finale ("Serenity") of Firefly that I had missed last month (thank you sooooooo much!).

I'm completely baffled by FOX's decision not to show it as the pilot. On it's own, it's a strong episode, well written, well acted, with action, humor and drama. More importantly, it was a great pilot. Everything was set up, the back story explained so much better than the blurb just before the theme song each week, and we're introduced to the characters and see the dynamics between them as they form instead of being thrown in the middle, wondering why He behaves that way toward Her and Him, and why She said what she said. It's a credit to the writers, cast and crew that Firefly as shown was addictive, but how many more viewers would it have had had this pilot been aired as intended?

I knew that Friday night would be death to the show, and I've considered often what night it should have been scheduled. After seeing "Serenity," I'm convinced it should have been a part of the Sunday night line-up, FOX's strongest night.

So, with it is with solid conviction that again I say, FOX fucking sucks.

Images from JoBlo.com with the ever tasty Seann Scott.

In other movie news: Considering it's not due out until June, I'm starting to get way too excited about the Hulk movie.

UPN makes a huge mistake. C'mon, WB!

Eric Balfour (Jesse, in Buffy's "Welcome to the Hellmouth") will be in the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" remake. Here's a photo of the cast in one scene (main link here). Don't you just feel so much pity for beautiful people? No matter where they go, when they get into a group of 4 or more, serial killings always break out. It's sad really.

There's also a shot of Jessica Biel. It looks like it's from "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," but it's actually a candid photo of her reaction when her agent told her "We just found out that you're contractually obligated to continue appearing on Seventh Heaven."

I was hoping that the end of the holiday season would mean a leveling-off of work, but it seems that the (Sorta) Big Wigs at TV Guild have made some decisions that greatly increase my workload. More details on that another time (ooh! suspense!).

I wanted to spend the day analyzing last night's Buffy, but my workload wouldn't permit it, and won't for long time, I think. Coupled with some projects I have going on elsewhere, I probably won't be getting much Buffy-talk done in the near future.

Hotmail is flubbed up for me again. I get "You are not authorized" messages or "Page Not Found." I started having these problems when the company decided to upgrade my browser, so either TV Gruel or Microsoft is responsible [sound hypothesis, if I ignore the fact that it's also happening to me at home]. Seriously, I'm not ignoring anyone.

Lastly, my Buffy s3 DVDs didn't come in. I've decided to blame FOX for this, only because I haven't said in a couple of days that FOX fucking sucks (If you say "Fucking Sucks" fast enough, it sounds like FOX, you know, and for good reason).

Bonnie Hammer, president of The SciFi Channel, talks with TV Guide's Insider about the cancellation of Farscape.

I hate that Farscape has been cancelled, but to be honest, she's right about the series becoming too serialized. I'd watched more than a few episodes, and missed even more. It could be very difficult for me to follow what was going on. Still, I wish they'd give it a proper send off and wrap up. One day, I'll buy the DVD sets and will prefer that the last episode feels like an ending.

jeez, this thing made me laugh! i want that poster-sized on my wall.

Tales of the Slayer, Vol. II is now available. I still don't have the first one, book or comic book.

My little Amazon Gold Box thing includes an offer for a Norpro Stainless Steel 8-Inch Mesh Strainer. Normally $23.99, if I act within the next 60 minutes, I can get it for $12.95. I'm thinking about, though I know it'll probably end up on a shelf in the back of the cupboard, forever unused.

"Undoubtedly, the most important thing about Halloween 4 is its ending, which is probably the most creative and suprising ending ever filmed for the fourth film in a series." [source]

High praise? The next installment of the Michael Myers saga is supposed to be written by the same guy who wrote the fourth.

Edit 1/07/03: [/sigh this one has been shot down. Actress Bianca Kajlich said on her message board that it was false.]

Narfe!

Here's what we have listed in the TV Goad database regarding Buffy for January:

• Jan. 7 (tomorrow!) - "Showtime" (new ep)
• Jan. 14 - No Buffy. Some blooper clip show that'd be better suited to another night. any other night.
• Jan. 21 - "Potential" (new ep)
• Jan. 28 - "Help" (rerun) This is the Cassie episode, of which I think Sarah Kuhn missed the point.

For Angel:

• Jan 15 - "Habeas Corpus" (new ep) New night.
• Jan. 22 - "Long Day's Journey" (new ep)

Beyond that, we haven't any episode titles listed, though both shows are scheduled to air through the end of February (that could change, of course, should the need for another blooper clip show develop).

There's a link at WHEDONesque to some spoilery pics from "Potential," the new Buffy ep that will air on January 21. The site is in German, so I thought I'd take a look. I can't read the text, and how spoilery could photos be (yeah, I know they can be really spoilery. I was making excuses)?

OMG! Yeah, it's spoilery, and I was twirling in my chair, much to the amusement of my co-workers. It made me happy, DON'T LOOK! Trust me, you'll be much happier if you're suprised during that episode.

Buffy season 3 DVD set will be out tomorrow. I ordered it from the video store at which I work part-time, but it still hasn't come in. I'm worried.

Just as I did when the seasons 1 and 2 sets came out, I'll be giving my third season VHS taped-from-FX tapes to my sister. The difference this time is that I have some of the little snappy-cases from the video store, and I'm going to make some nifty little cover inserts for them. My sister won't care about that. She and my nephew just want the tapes. So, if anyone with any power over my Buffy order is reading this, please consider that, if my order doesn't come in tomorrow, it'll make my little six-years-old nephew sad. Won't you think of his happiness and insure that I'll get my Buffy s3 DVDs on time?

Nope, this color thing won't work. It is already irritating me and making my eyeballs hurt.


Hotmail had been seriously screwed up for me lately. Most of the time it won't let me in. When it does, my mail often isn't be there. I'll have to figure something out.

Kitties are gone, cute as they were. I want some suspense every time I load my blog. What color will it be now???

This probably won't last long. There are things about it I don't like. The happy colors, for one. And man oh man is that A LOT of color. Ick.

(still too lazy to work on something original. I'll just keep borrowing the work of others)

Gah, I fucking hate FOX. I read articles like this one about Firefly and I get all choked up again that it's been cancelled. [Long, full-of-profanity, anti-FOX rant omitted]

link via WHEDONesque.

Only because I should have his photo somewhere on my blog:


Which Firefly Guy is For You?
brought to you by Quizilla

So after a weekend of illness and one whole day of wellness, I was sick again on Tuesday and Wednesday. I got to spend New Year's Eve lying on the couch wrapped in a blanket (in between mad dashes to the bathroom to yak up what wasn't in my stomach), and feebly asking Jason to bring me water.

Again, I watched movies to treat my ailment (screw medication!). Prescribed DVDs for both bouts of infection:

The Importance of Being Earnest.
Signs (Shyamalan's little monster short is hilarious!).
Blue Crush (which may have been the real reason I was periodically running to the bathroom to retch).
The Good Girl.