And the rest...
Just wrapping up the weekend.
Following my previous post, I ended up getting a shower. I got into the shower thinking I was going to use it to relax and lead into a couple hours' sleep, but emerged from it deciding to just keep rolling.
Once I passed 5am I put on my MP3 player and went up to Genuardis for a quick shopping trip to a personal soundtrack.
I talked with a neighbor who was out on his porch -- four hours before he was to have a couple major extractions of diseased molars -- who was punchy from pain and lack of sleep. Wishing him well, I finally broke away and up to the store.
Knowing I was likely to be gone for the full day I wanted to be sure they were covered at home, so I made sure there were makings for salad, plenty to drink, and the makings of stew. I'd cooked steaks two nights prior and there were ample leftovers, so I had the meat already waiting in the refrigerator.
That set up in the crock pot, I napped for an hour before heading out.
The work went well, even though we were all sweating in the heat and humidity. Fortunately much of the work was done in and around trees, so between that and waves of cloud-cover we weren't stuck in the sun all of the time. Along the way I got to briefly meet the good neighbors (we won't talk about the ones on the other side) including the state trooper husband who's also a comics fan.
By early afternoon we had cleared the areas that needed clearing for Tuesday's fence work, along with helping a little with some of the weeding. A did some more planting while I sat in the shade with one of the dogs and talked with her and Eric. (CL was hitting the shower first since he was going to pick up pizzas, etc.)
A was holding on somehow. She's had a cough that overtook her each time she tried to lay down during the previous week, so she was anything but well rested. Hopefully she's had better luck since.
Once we'd all gotten washed and changed into back-up clothes we began the long slide of food and jibber jabber. We dipped into a low energy point by 4 - I even nodded off for a few minutes while we were listening to Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me - but we bounced back.
Conversation, tv and more food as CL christened the grill, then a slide back into tv and various video items CL had pulled off the web. An 8th Man cartoon here, a Gigantor there (and, boy, was that bad), the first episode of 1967's Captain Scarlet (an old favorite of Eric's, which I hadn't seen even though I was 6 when it came out and he wasn't born yet), a little of several shows from the '50s I didn't know had existed, and so on from there.
We'd all been somewhat sleep-deprived for this reason or that, and it's almost a little amazing that this went on until after midnight... but we finally gave up hit the road.
Sunday... a late start, as you'd expect. Some errands, shopping (including some things I need for a special project at work), roasting a chicken in the rotisserie as the main item for dinner, getting some laundry started and dealing with the email that had some in Saturday and early Sunday... and so the day flew. The most difficult of the emails was one where I ultimately had to admit that I couldn't realistically help a friend with a sudden project, mostly because handling it well would have required more time than I have available, and partly because I don't believe the intended move would have helped more than it would have harmed in the long run.
The penultimate episode of The Sopranos aired tonight, and as I'd predicted several weeks back some key characters were taken out. I'm going to miss the show when it's done. HBO's execs have to be having problems sleeping these days with such a tentpole show finally about to disappear.
They're desperately hoping that the debut of John From Cincinatti - which will have the Sopranos' final episode as a lead-in - will capture an audience. The commercials give me the impression they're hoping to capture some of the audience they had with Six Feet Under, and while they're touting it as being "From the Producers of Deadwood" they're not using Milich's name, even though this was his pitch. They're likely too worried at a predisposition from disgruntled Deadwood fans to hate a show that was given the nod by HBO execs in essentially the same move that doomed the highly popular Deadwood's shot at a fourth (thanks, Bunnyman!) season -- all the moreso following the generally disappointing finish to the third season and there being as yet no sign of the two Deadwood movies we were promised to help conclude the tale.
The return of Big Love for its second season June 11th is something we're looking forward to, but not with any certainty. The show was becoming a little thick towards the end of its first season, and I'm always on guard against shows that have lasted longer than they may have been constructed for.
Okay... time for me to try to get some sleep. It's going to be a long week.
Just wrapping up the weekend.
Following my previous post, I ended up getting a shower. I got into the shower thinking I was going to use it to relax and lead into a couple hours' sleep, but emerged from it deciding to just keep rolling.
Once I passed 5am I put on my MP3 player and went up to Genuardis for a quick shopping trip to a personal soundtrack.
I talked with a neighbor who was out on his porch -- four hours before he was to have a couple major extractions of diseased molars -- who was punchy from pain and lack of sleep. Wishing him well, I finally broke away and up to the store.
Knowing I was likely to be gone for the full day I wanted to be sure they were covered at home, so I made sure there were makings for salad, plenty to drink, and the makings of stew. I'd cooked steaks two nights prior and there were ample leftovers, so I had the meat already waiting in the refrigerator.
That set up in the crock pot, I napped for an hour before heading out.
The work went well, even though we were all sweating in the heat and humidity. Fortunately much of the work was done in and around trees, so between that and waves of cloud-cover we weren't stuck in the sun all of the time. Along the way I got to briefly meet the good neighbors (we won't talk about the ones on the other side) including the state trooper husband who's also a comics fan.
By early afternoon we had cleared the areas that needed clearing for Tuesday's fence work, along with helping a little with some of the weeding. A did some more planting while I sat in the shade with one of the dogs and talked with her and Eric. (CL was hitting the shower first since he was going to pick up pizzas, etc.)
A was holding on somehow. She's had a cough that overtook her each time she tried to lay down during the previous week, so she was anything but well rested. Hopefully she's had better luck since.
Once we'd all gotten washed and changed into back-up clothes we began the long slide of food and jibber jabber. We dipped into a low energy point by 4 - I even nodded off for a few minutes while we were listening to Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me - but we bounced back.
Conversation, tv and more food as CL christened the grill, then a slide back into tv and various video items CL had pulled off the web. An 8th Man cartoon here, a Gigantor there (and, boy, was that bad), the first episode of 1967's Captain Scarlet (an old favorite of Eric's, which I hadn't seen even though I was 6 when it came out and he wasn't born yet), a little of several shows from the '50s I didn't know had existed, and so on from there.
We'd all been somewhat sleep-deprived for this reason or that, and it's almost a little amazing that this went on until after midnight... but we finally gave up hit the road.
Sunday... a late start, as you'd expect. Some errands, shopping (including some things I need for a special project at work), roasting a chicken in the rotisserie as the main item for dinner, getting some laundry started and dealing with the email that had some in Saturday and early Sunday... and so the day flew. The most difficult of the emails was one where I ultimately had to admit that I couldn't realistically help a friend with a sudden project, mostly because handling it well would have required more time than I have available, and partly because I don't believe the intended move would have helped more than it would have harmed in the long run.
The penultimate episode of The Sopranos aired tonight, and as I'd predicted several weeks back some key characters were taken out. I'm going to miss the show when it's done. HBO's execs have to be having problems sleeping these days with such a tentpole show finally about to disappear.
They're desperately hoping that the debut of John From Cincinatti - which will have the Sopranos' final episode as a lead-in - will capture an audience. The commercials give me the impression they're hoping to capture some of the audience they had with Six Feet Under, and while they're touting it as being "From the Producers of Deadwood" they're not using Milich's name, even though this was his pitch. They're likely too worried at a predisposition from disgruntled Deadwood fans to hate a show that was given the nod by HBO execs in essentially the same move that doomed the highly popular Deadwood's shot at a fourth (thanks, Bunnyman!) season -- all the moreso following the generally disappointing finish to the third season and there being as yet no sign of the two Deadwood movies we were promised to help conclude the tale.
The return of Big Love for its second season June 11th is something we're looking forward to, but not with any certainty. The show was becoming a little thick towards the end of its first season, and I'm always on guard against shows that have lasted longer than they may have been constructed for.
Okay... time for me to try to get some sleep. It's going to be a long week.
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Comments
The new Iron Man is up in the AVENGERS figure gallery. A decent dial, if one badly hurt by a lack of multiple range targets. I'd be tempted to put a real Iron Man sculpt on its base if I got one and ever played it. The best part is, he's got three clicks of Super Strength! (Most will find his 'special power', a ranged B/C/F that does 2 points of unavoidable damage to him every time he uses it, to be the best part, but I likes me an IM who can pick up a car and hit someone with it. Pity Seth can't bring himself to give us a real Iron Man dial with SS on it.)
I remember CAPTAIN SCARLET fondly from early childhood, although I probably shouldn't. My memories are vague, fragmentary things, anyway.
DEADWOOD had a second season, and even a third; it's the fourth season that Milch's Sorkinesque abandonment of one show for another doomed to oblivion. The resentment you note is something that's very real for me; my initial response to seeing a promo for JOHN was exactly that -- "Fuck you, bitch, you SHOULD be writing DEADWOOD!" Of course, I used to feel the same way about NYPD BLUE and HILL STREET BLUES...
Captain Scarlet was, as best I can tell, the pinnacle of the puppets-as-actors storytelling for that outfit. It avoided the grotesque caricatures of all of their other efforts.
Thanks for the reminder on DEADWOOD. It seemed to all be over so quickly -- the 12-episode season format really speeds things up. I'll correct that in a moment.
Where are my DEADWOOD movies??? They PROmised!!!