Stream of Conscience

Well, I conked out of NaBloPoMo again.  Boo, me.   But that’s not to say I haven’t been blogging.

A few days ago I figured out how to bide my time until the new season of Supernatural premieres on Sep 10.  At the time, there were 81 days left, and 82 episodes.  So I decided to watch one episode a day.  Yes, I did attempt to do the same thing last year and sort of fizzled out towards the end.  With that fizzle and the NaBloPoMo fizzle, what’s to keep me from not fizzling out this time?  Not a darn thing.  The whole thing’s going to be a crap shoot.

If yer a bettin’ person, you could start a pool to see how long I’ll last.

I’ve been doing my reviews over at LiveJournal, because this blog is supposed to be classier than me gushing about a tv show aimed at 20-somethings.  Should I just go ahead and post them here?  Or, should I post them at Sci Fi Chicks in an effort to get some action going over there?  Decisions, decisions.

Oh, that reminds me, I need to finish my review of last week’s True Blood before this week’s episode airs.  Honestly?  I’m just not that into the show.

Remember my gushing about springpad?  Well, besides having given the wrong link (the correct domain name is springpadit.com, not springpad.com), I have done nothing on my lists.  This is one of my problems:  I’m great at making lists, not so great at completing them.

So, since the day is relatively new, I have a large cup of coffee at hand, and my mind is relatively clear despite being a tad tired from singing last night (hence the large vice medium coffee),  I checked my springpad to-do items.   Therefore, in an effort to make me accountable, I hereby list the things I want to accomplish this evening.

1. Fix my Sci Fi Chicks picture (it’s 2 baby chicks with laser pistols and alien hats) so that it will better transfer to merchandise.
2. Clean off/organize the bookcase in my computer room (which also includes loading pages for upcoming months in my DayTimer).
3. Cook dinner.  It’s a ginger steak salad recipe I found in a recent issue of Good Housekeeping.   I can cook it tonight because 1) it’s fast and easy, and 2) I’m talking tomorrow off to run some errands.
4. Create (maybe) and submit icons to the latest Jensen Ackles Stillness icontest on LiveJournal.  (I have one icon done and a couple half-assed ones half done.  Not sure I’ll submit anything other than the one, though.)  Yeah, the photos are old, but there wasn’t a lot of Jensen news this past week (to my knowledge).  I predict next week’s challenge will be a golf outing with Jensen sporting an argyle sweater vest (seriously!), white baseball cap, and season-hiatus semi-beard.
   [In related news, the Jared Padalecki Stillness community is back in session.  I've already submitted my 3 icons, even though I wasn't all that crazy about the photo selection—the Friday the 13th movie cast goth photoshoot.] *
5. Watch Supernatural; it’s “Monster Movie,” one my favorite episodes from a season of many, many excellent episodes.  Who else but the sick mind of Ben Edlund could come up with a 6′ talking teddy bear and a Vespa-riding, pizza-eating Dracula in the same season?

Well, if I can’t get them all done, I’ll skip #4 until tomorrow.

*No, I do not have a Supernatural actor obsession.  :þ

I think next month I’ll go with Ms. Pack Brat for NaBloPoMo.  That blog has a purpose, and I’m finding that when I’m spending my time here, yacking about nothing in particular, my attempts at getting my home and life in order are going unheeded.

Yeah, I know I only have 5 entries there so far.  That’s why I need to put my energies towards it.  I find that if I don’t have a reason to write about my accomplishments, there’s no reason to accomplish anything.  And I need something to keep me accountable.

At the beginning of the month, I’d started a list of things I wanted to accomplish.  They weren’t big things.  They were things like clear off the table, straighten the bookcase, clean up around the computer.  And how many of those items have I been able to check off?  That’s right.  Zip, zilch, nada.

Maybe if I start posting my plans at Ms. Pack Brat, I’ll be held accountable for completing the darned things.  Just like with the singing.  Please help keep motivated, readers!

And yes, I deleted yesterday’s entry.  Blah.

I tried blogging from the sofa again, but I obviously cannot multi-task.  Actually, I knew that before, but still wanted to try it.  I’m not sure my posts make much sense (let alone all the typos) and it’s too distracting to try to read the post with the tv going.

I’ve been watching My Bloody Valentine 3D (but not 3D) all weekend.  I started with a quick run-through, fast-forwarding through many scenes.  I don’t remember why I did that.  I think I had something else to watch that night.  Oh yeah, it was the So You Think You Can Dance elimination.  (I fast-forwarded through nearly all of that, too.)

Next night I watched the whole movie at normal speed.  I could identify many of the 3D gags, even though my version was 2D.  Then, the next night I watched it with the director’s and co-writer’s commentary.  Of course, I watched the commentary primarily to see what they had to say about Jensen Ackles.  One of my favorite parts is where the director says Jensen is “dreamy, and Jensen knows he’s dreamy.”

I got a kick out of all the references to Supernatural.   Like “40% of the Supernatural fans hate me now.”   And the fact that no company would give permission to use their cartoon (for the scene where the housekeeper winds up in the dryer).

And then I watched with the close-captioning.  I’m always amazed at how much I missed on previous viewings.  Next up?  Commentary with close-captioning. 

My summation?  The movie should be subtitled “How many ways can you kill with a pickax?”

I spent most of the day in bed, so I figure the best way to get my daily blog post in is to blog from the sofa while wathing Harper’s Island on my tiny littie pink netbook.  If nothing else,  it’s agood way to get used to the keyboard.  Actually the keyboard is neary full-size, but the”‘L” key seems to be a bit stiff.

Uh oh, Harper’s Island just finished and the sheriff has become the prime suspect.  Which probably means it’s a red herring.  Which could be a red herring in and of itself, which would mean it really is the sheriff.

Personally, I’ve been thinking the killer is Jimmy. I don’t want it to be, because I like him.  But then I don’t want it to be the sheriff, either.  Of course, I didn’t want the killer in My Bloody Valentine 3D (but not 3D)  to be Tom, but that didn’t happen.  With the previews for  next week, it looks like Jimmy will bite the dust.  Or, it could all be a ruse to keep the suspicion away from him.

How many more weeks do we have?  And will Gigi the dog survive?  (Or was she a casualty of last week’s fire, too?)

I think I finally figured out how to use springpad.  What is springpad, you ask?  It’s one of those “organize your life” web applications, sort of like Evernote.  Evernote is more established and well known, but I started using springpad before Evernote, so I’m more comfortable with it.  (Which isn’t a whole lot, because I just created a whole bunch of new springpads by accident and can’t figure out how to delete them.  Ugh.)  Plus, Evernote appears to be blocked at work.  So springpad it is for me.

I’d been creating folders and “springpads” (heh) for awhile, but they were really just an amalgamation of junk.  Finally this week things started to gel.  I made one pad to keep track of the things I want to do online, including ideas for Sci Fi Chicks, things I should do while on the computer (instead of getting sidetracked with various forms of solitaire), and what to tackle in my great effort to get my home (and life) in order.   Springpad comes with a several templates to address some of life’s everyday and not-so-everyday tasks; like moving checklists, budgets, pet information, and daily chores (I’m so not using that one!).  The one I do plan on using is the weekly meal planner.  Yep.  It’s time to get back on the meal planning and better eating bandwagon.

But none of that “get myself organized” crap tonight.   Tonight I’m going chill out and watch My Bloody Valentine 3D, only not in 3D.  3D or no 3D, Jensen Ackles is still one of the seven wonders of the world.

Yeah, yeah,  I missed a day of NaBloPoMo again.  I was actually working on a post yesterday (on my adorably cute little pink netbook) while waiting for an appointment.  I even found a WiFi connection, but it was a private business, and I was reluctant to piggy-back off them.  So I just wrote the post offline with the intent to transfer it later in the evening.

Yeah, that never happened.   It’s probably a good thing, because it was nothing more than an internal debate about whether to return to  the chorus rehearsal I went to last week.

My counselor was all over me about returning to the chorus.  It sort of irritated me because I’d finally gone, but apparently the fact that it wasn’t particularly enjoyable wasn’t enough.  She says I need to give it until… December.  December?!?  Good grief!  Isn’t that changing the rules in the middle of the game?

Anyway, being the irrasible person I am, I didn’t go.  Had the counselor not been so emphatic about it, I probably would have gone.  But the little kid rebel in me surfaced.  So there.  :þ   I know, real adult of me.

Oh, and on top of everything else, I have a pimple on my eyelid.  And it hurts!  And it’s making my grumpy.  And the weather is crappy. 

One of the tidbits the blogging gurus give is to resurface old posts.  Well, I don’t have any old posts here, but I do them at the very first Stream of Conscience.  So I took a look at my first month’s posts (October 2006), and present (slightly editted) pieces from one of them.

One of the items I found at the grocery store was a “log” of mozzarella cheese (not the part-skim American stuff, the creamy mozzarella di bufala of Italy) wrapped in prosciutto. It didn’t have a price on it, but decided I’d take a chance and buy it anyway.  It was only $5.00, not a bad price for a little piece of heaven.

I thought back to my Navy tour of duty in Naples, Italy; and how a loaf of crusty bread, a “ball” of mozzarella di bufala, and a bottle of white wine made for an easy & tasty (if not well-balanced) evening meal. Good times.

Wow!  A Sea Story before I even had the category!  Here’s another one, also from Naples days:

One Christmas, four of us (two friends and a helicopter pilot from one of the ships in port) went searching for something to eat and a good time. The plan was to stop at a road-side rosticceria where-ever the afternoon took us. We even had the foresight to bring along a cork screw for the wine. Turns out we didn’t need it. All the wine bottles had screw tops.

Years later, I told this story to my friend Dave (not the same Dave from yesterday).  He owns part of a winery and has learned quite a bit about the business. (I also think he drinks most of the profits, but that’s another story. )   He told me the wine industry was finding that screw caps are just as effective as corks.  Indeed, tonight’s wine, 4 Emus shiraz, has a screw top. And it’s pretty darned good.

I just hope I can keep enough around for tomorrow when I get to play my Supernatural drinking game. (Gosh, I love that show!)

That last paragraph tickles me.  I still love Supernatural, but  I don’t think I’m as invested in it as I was back at the beginning of season 2.  Oh hell, who am I kidding?

Both my mother and father are on my list of heroes to write about this month.  They aren’t on the list because they were the best parents in the world, because they weren’t.  But they were two of the best people.

Ask anyone from the small town where I grew up.  (Just so you know I’m not being biased.)

My mother predeceased my father by a few years.  When we were planning her funeral, my father was so devastated (as was I), he was reluctant to have a visitation.  But the funeral director simply said, “Marge meant a lot to a lot of people.  This would give them a chance to say goodbye to her.”

When my dad passed away a few years later, I was hoping our church’s premiere tenor would sing at his funeral.  He and my dad had sung in the choir for many years, as had his son (and my classmate) Dave and I all throughout our high school years.  But Dave told me his father, who usually had no trouble, wouldn’t have been able to sing for Dad.  He was too close.

At the reception after the funeral, a woman came up to me and said, “Your parents were the best.  Your mother, too.”  The fact that she recognized how special they were, and mentioned my mother after the years had passed, validated my feelings.

Interestingly, I can’t remember the exact date either of them died.   Nor do I have any desire to look it up.  I prefer to celebrate the good times, their birthdays and wedding anniversary.

Yes, I did it again.  I forgot to post yesterday.  But unlike in other months, I’m not going to bail on NaBloPoMo.  (Well, I’m going to try not to bail.)

In my defense, I was here, on the blog.  But instead of posting, I was mucking around with the theme, trying to do something different with the sidebar.  Guess what.  It didn’t work.

I think I’ll just have to try making my theme from scratch.  I’ve done it before, with a theme tutorial by Urban Giraffe, although it had a couple glitches (my design, not Urban Giraffe’s, heh).  But now that I kind of know what I want, I think I’ll return to source and have a go at it again.  (And yes, I supported the guy by buying his book.)  The tutorial was written before the advent of widgets, but since it’s going to be my blog theme, I should know what I want to put in the sidebar, right?

Oh, that reminds me.  I need to add a few links in the sidebar, the Awesome Stuff.