Random Thoughts After Too Much Wine

Alternate Post Title: Blogs are a good place to post random thoughts It's a great night for sitting outside. A storm blew through here earlier, taking the humidity with it. For the next 6 months, storms will only increase the humidity. So I'm sitting outside to take advantage of the cool (66 degree)weather. When suddenly, about 27 minutes ago, I heard lots of screaming. It was a kid In Distress. This is Highly Unusual in my neighborhood. We are a quiet bunch. Then the pounding started. It was the sound of metal on metal, but it was so loud! I peeked through the slats in our fence - right about the time the pounding stopped - to look into the yards of our neighbors and saw nothing. I sat back down, took a sip of wine. And the pounding started again. Repeat above about 3 times. Then, I smelled a grill fired up. I love the smell of grills. So I went inside and asked The Professor about it. He hadn't heard anything, and - knowing me oh-so-well - simply refilled my wine glass and sent me on my way. And as I went back outside he said "I wonder if some one's trying to hide a body?". WHAT? How do you get from "excessive pounding noises and a grill smell" to "hiding a body" in 45 seconds? I blame it on the fact that he's a Yankee. I don't know if you've noticed, but those Yankees are some suspicious folks. On a completely unrelated topic: Stepson is at the prom. THE PROM. Now, I didn't go to either of my proms. So I can't speak with certainty about what happens at one of these shin-digs. And there's a 99% chance that I won't ever know what happens at Stepson's. But still. He's at the prom. With a GIRL YOUNG LADY. Remember when he went to his first Homecoming Dance? And The Professor and I had to drive him to the restaurant, and I took pictures and probably embarrassed the ever-loving heck out of him? (Stepson, not The Professor). In 12 months he'll be finished with high school. I need more wine.

Spring Time in Alabama

Why hello, Mr-Eighty-Four-Percent-Humidity-At-Nine-AM. So glad you're back. Any chance of all those water molecules you're holding in suspension being let loose for my tomato plants? No? At least you brought me these too look at:

Travelling. And also: I'm a dumbass.

Last week, The Professor and I went on a traveling adventure. I had to go to DC for a conference, so after much paperwork, I convinced the government that I wasn't going to waste a bunch of government funds that could be spent in a better manner, and got to stop and spend time with family on the trip. So, how am I an idiot? My aunt - no, the OTHER aunt - took The Professor and I to Monticello. And after we arrived, paid for tickets (scrounging for cash when their credit card system crashed), took the shuttle up to the house, and then walked out to the gardens, I saw one of the most incredible views in all of Virginia. It was gorgeous. We were on the side of the mountain, in the middle of a beautiful garden, looking out at a view that has to be seen to be believed. Me, being me, whipped out my handy dandy digital camera and snapped the first picture. I love my camera. It's AWESOME (Thank you BestFriend!). And I got something to this effect: "Error! Memory card unavailable. Idiot." Yes, dear readers, I had left the memory card, that so handily slides right into a slot on my laptop, INSIDE said slot on said laptop. So, I slipped the camera inside my purse and decided that at least I'll have the memory of Monticello. With an awesome aunt, and an awesome husband, and an awesome day. That was made even more awesome by the decision to skip lunch in favor of sampling some wine at a local winery. Also? The memory that I am an idiot.

Washington DC

So, click on the picture and you'll see the pictures that I miraculously remembered to take. Although right now I'm not happy with Google for not importing all the picture titles that I created when it imported the pictures. Flickr, you will always have my love. Even if you don't currently have my money. Update: Picasa Web Albums also - apparently - doesn't keep pictures in chronological order when it uploads them. It seems to put them in alphabetical order, which is interesting since they don't upload the titles at all. Google, you are SOOO letting me down here.

The Tudors : Update

An update to the ongoing inconsistencies with The Tudors: Because you know you care. From The Professor: 1) Last night, they introduced the character of Pope Paul III. The problem? The pope at the time was Clement VII. 2) Paul III (Who wasn't really pope yet) tells dude from England that he's going to send Dude to the Jesuits. Problem? Pope Paul III did, in fact, commission the Jesuit order - but not for 6 more years. There were, in fact, no Jesuits at that time to be sent to. Also, this can't really be an exact inconsistency, so I don't care, but I want it known that while Thomas Cranmer did sneak his wife into England (due to the fact that priests weren't supposed to have wives) - there is no evidence she arrived in a crate. What they got right: Anne's quote "I have a craving for apples", indicating she is pregnant.

This wasn't here the last time I was

World War II Memorial

Free Trips are awesome

In about 6 and a half hours, I'm leaving town for a week. I've been lucky enough to get travel money from work to go to DC for a few days for a conference. The good news is your tax dollars are working well for me. I get to stop and see the parental units and the baby brother on the way, and an aunt and uncle on the return trip. Thanks, America! Actually, for full disclosure and so I don't get hateful comments, I'm spending less money on travel than a coworker who is flying and not getting to visit family. You're welcome, America.

I < heart > John Scalzi

Because I seem to have started an "I <>"* thing here. And because I love this: http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=579 Thanks to my sis for the link. *for the geeky html-y types: the spaces in "<>"are because blogger wants to read it as a tag if the spaces aren't there, and doesn't recognize "heart" as a tag. And so it looks like "I John Scalzi" if I don't put the spaces. Which makes a lot less sense.

The Tudors: Blowing off some steam

Last year, The Tudors broke on Showtime, starring a completely yummiliscious Jonathan Rhys Meyers, someone I once thought I could watch reading the alphabet backwards for hours on end. Apparently, I can't watch him play Le Roi Henri. Which is sad on so many levels, but I think I'm going to just focus on why this makes me angry. Henry VIII life was dramatic. It was romantic, tragic, creative, inventive, volatile and about 1 kajillion other adjectives that I could list. It is really a story so unbelievable, that if it hadn't been so well documented due to the fact that he was a king (who kept killing wives and started a new religion, among other things), no one WOULD believe it. It's Hollywood come to life, only in the past. Before there was Hollywood. So why, Mr. Screenwriter, did you have to go and mess with it? I don't just mean it has something semi-annoying to people in the know like people using stirrups before they were invented. I mean people (Henry's illegitimate son) being born years too early, and then dying much younger (by about 20 years) than he actually did. I mean the wrong sister (of Henry) marrying the king of France. I mean putting a main character (Wolsey) in prison and having him commit suicide when he did NO SUCH THING. I mean the fact that they found a black haired-30 year old yummy-looking-drool worthy specimen to play a man that was 42 years old with reddish hair and - let's face it - the beginnings of a portly body. And didn't even try to disguise the fact that they look nothing alike, which in Hollywood is fairly easy to do these days. (probably because if they added 30 pounds of fat and some hair dye, most of the women swooning over the show would never have watched it in the first place). I think I can't watch it because I love the real story so much, there's so many shades of meaning and real-life dramas there - especially in Anne's story - and they've come close enough to touch the real thing - all of which centered on Henry's power, charm, charisma - and then WAM! They throw out something crazy. And I'll be honest - listening to The Professor yell at the TV takes something away from the whole thing a bit. I mean, what if someone wrote a series about the founding of the US, only they had George Washington winning every battle he set foot in? Or had Ben Franklin as the first president of the US? And why can't I turn off my brain and just be able to stare into JRM beautiful eyes for an hour?

Earth Hour 2008

From http://www8.earthhourus.org/: "On March 29, 2008 at 8 p.m., join millions of people around the world in making a statement about climate change by turning off your lights for Earth Hour, an event created by the World Wildlife Fund." Crunchy Domestic Goddess has some great ideas on how to spend that hour - and even if you don't have kids, don't think you can't use these ideas!

What do you get when you cross a yellow tabby with a green sneaker?

This is a video from The Original Redhead's birthday weekend. It's a long story as to why it hasn't made it up before now, and most of it involves error messages from various google services. But all's well that ends well. Unless you're a green shoe that's just been molested by a large male cat.