Hummingwolf at Home

Which of the myriad demons of marketing had to possess someone to create a commercial featuring The Burger King, Spongebob Squarepants, and "Baby Got Back"? Was the world not full of pain enough before this monstrosity was released into the wilds???

The weather was remarkably warm for late December, the kind of day that makes people wonder what Mother Nature is up to and why she's smiling that way. Tomorrow should be even warmer (till the next cold front comes in). Time to make sure there are clean, lightweight shirts for me to wear!

Spent entirely too much time in a bookstore, which, since I had cash on me, meant that I spent entirely too much. Was quite happy to find those books, though.

Saw a sunset with colorful combinations of clouds and contrails.

Via one of the LJ communities (possibly linguaphiles), discovered the existence of a site devoted to the Buffy musical--en français. I don't know much more French than the average ignorant American, but this makes me happy all the same.

First of all, a game people of any political persuasion can enjoy (if they care about U.S. politics, that is): Truth Invaders! Choose to shoot down the opposing party's deplorable lies! Heck, choose to shoot down your own side's regrettable exaggerations! Have fun either way! (Link via hai_kah_uhk.)

This next link is more biased, yet educational: Preview of the Third Presidential Debate (video), or: Life Imitates Old TV Shows. Link via compostwormbin. I'm voting for the Batman.

While I wait to find out if the drugs will chase this headache away in time for me to enjoy the lovely spring day, here is a fairly frivolous survey-type thing all the cool kids are doing which will show you just how out of the pop-cultural loop I've been.

Empire Magazine has revealed its list of the "50 Greatest TV Shows" ever. Below is the list and here be the rules.

1. Bold the shows of which you've watched every episode
2. Italic the shows of which you've seen at least one episode
2a. Star the shows you consider "the best" (Addition by tidesong)
3. Post your answers

50. Quantum Leap--Might've seen a fraction of an episode once? Not sure.
49. Prison Break
48. Veronica Mars
47. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine *--Best of the Treks, IMO.
46. Sex & The City

45. Farscape
44. Cracker
43. Star Trek--I'm reasonably sure I've seen every episode. It's not as if the reruns weren't on the air all through my childhood.
42. Only Fools and Horses--Never even heard of this one.
41. Band of Brothers--Nor this.

40. Life on Mars--Have I heard of this? The David Bowie song running through my head isn't helping.
39. Monty Python's Flying Circus--Watched parts of episodes.
38. Curb Your Enthusiasm
37. Star Trek: The Next Generation--May have eventually watched every episode in reruns, but I did miss most of season 2 when it first aired.
36. Father Ted

35. Alias
34. Frasier
33. CSI: Las Vegas
32. Babylon 5--Watched seasons 2-4, but missed much of season 1 and all of season 5 (no cable).
31. Deadwood

30. Dexter
29. ER
28. Fawlty Towers--Not sure if I've seen this, but possibly.
27. Six Feet Under
26. Red Dwarf ( Read more... )

... but I just can't help myself. After only two episodes, and seriously against my better judgment, I feel myself getting sucked into a new fantasy-type TV series on FOX. This can only end badly.

On the plus side, the lead actor on New Amsterdam is definitely easy on the eyes. I intend to enjoy that aspect of the show as long as possible.

For fellow fans of House, M.D.: The Metaphorical Medicine of House. Includes bits of interview with the technical advisor for the series.

The 2007 International Privacy Ranking from Privacy International. According to this report, the U.S. privacy record isn't the worst in the world: in 2007, this country actually ranked better than Singapore, Russia, China, and Malaysia. Woohoo! We only did worse than nearly everyone else on the planet. On the plus side, as about half of you lot have already noticed, "A telephone company cut off an FBI international wiretap after the agency failed to pay its bill on time, according to a U.S. government audit released on Thursday." While one must admire the elegance of the checks and balances set forth in the United States Constitution as well as the nobility of much of the Bill of Rights, one sometimes suspects that the greatest guardians of freedom in this country are general laziness and incompetence.

On an entirely different note: Ghee Happy, "a brand that celebrates Indian/Hindu mythologies and culture thru design and storytelling in a fun and charming way." Do check out the free Kali desktop. (This is one of those links where it's hard for an outsider to tell just how serious/reverent/etc. the artist is being. That odd Spiderman Ganesh photo going around a while back was from an actual Ganesha festival, was a serious attempt to meld East and West, even as it seemed to so many people that it must have been blasphemous. So I at least feel compelled to reserve judgment about the cute little deities, just admiring the cuteness.)

Last and probably least, a link for my own reference, though it could be useful for anyone else with an analog TV: The US Government's TV converter box coupon program.

There was going to be more to this post, but I decided I was too sleepy to say it.

First: If you are a LiveJournal user and you don't follow news, you probably should. Anyway, the most important bit is that LiveJournal now has new settings & flagging tools for "adult content," which you can read more about here. Note that by default, your search settings are "Use Moderate Filtering"--filter out explicit adult content. My guess is that many of you, when you do use the search feature, don't want to filter any results out at all, so it's a good idea to go to your viewing options (settings) page and change that.

Right then. In news unrelated to LJ, but related to the late great TV show Firefly: "I, Malcolm" by Nathan Fillion. Oh, Captain! (Link via musesfool.)

Unrelated (or at least not directly related) to any Joss Whedon show, nancylebov links to The Fantasy of Being Thin. The essay begins with this quote:

Obese patients are often encouraged to believe that weight loss is an appropriate way to combat depression, save a failing marriage, or increase the chance of career success. The irrationality of hopes pinned on weight loss is so striking that dieting might almost be likened to superstitious behavior…. Passing from childhood into adolescence, leaving home, marrying, starting a new job, having a baby, experiencing marital difficulties, adjusting to children leaving home, and growing old — all these life situations may become unexamined reasons to diet. In other instances, concerns over weight mask even more serious problems.”

-Wooley and Garner, from “Obesity treatment: the high cost of false hope,” published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, vol. 91, no. 10, 1991.

Many of you will recognize that the essay applies to more than just dieting. "Because, you see, the Fantasy of Being Thin is not just about becoming small enough to be perceived as more acceptable. It is about becoming an entirely different person – one with far more courage, confidence, and luck than the fat you has." Replace "being thin" and "fat" with, oh, "having a college degree" and "being a college dropout" or whatever other combination of words applies in your life.

You know those anxiety dreams everybody has? The dreams like the one where you're in school, say, and you've just found out that you have an exam in five minutes in a class you'd forgotten you were supposed to be taking and if you don't pass it you will FAIL at LIFE with no chance of repentance, no opportunity for clemency? I don't have those dreams. Not a single one. Ever since sometime in the nineties, I have had, instead, dreams in which I suddenly realize that tomorrow is the last scheduled day of classes, I haven't been to class since the beginning of the semester, I don't even know who all my professors are--and it doesn't matter. All of the professors are kind and understanding, they all recognize that circumstances have made things difficult, and they all are willing to wait as long as it takes until I am finally able to do the work that was supposed to be done. No matter how stressful my life has been on the outside, in my dreams, at least, there has been acknowledgement that patience is necessary.

Since the latest diagnosis, my dreams have taken a different turn. I have had one dream that I remember clearly and another half-remembered one where it's been made clear to me that some assignments will be due soon and I need to get working. This still isn't the standard hectic anxiety dream, but it is a dream involving a deadline and an implied threat. Is this my subconscious mind's way of saying that it believes my limitations will be reduced soon and I'll be able to tolerate the levels of subconscious nagging everybody else has to deal with? If so, that's kinda nifty, in a perverse sort of way.

One of my other recent dreams was a rarity for me--a nightmare. This one involved people being tortured and small, furry animals feeding off the--
no, you're quite right, you really don't want to know. Anyway, the man directing the torture was Detective Tritter from this last season of House, M.D., though he seemed to be working for the Initiative from Buffy season 4, which means that one single dream managed to combine pain, adorable animals, and really crappy story arcs from two otherwise entertaining TV shows. Buffy the Vampire Slayer did recover from that one substandard season (though I know some of you think some later season was worse); but I have substantially less faith in the writers of House, possibly because the writers of House are the folks trying to convince us that a character who is in genuine, chronic, incurable pain for perfectly valid reasons; has been prescribed pain medication in accordance with best practices (at least as far as anyone on staff can tell); and has proven that he functions much better when he's got some kind of pain relief, is somehow a bad person because he wants to keep taking the drugs rather than go cold turkey and endure more pain for no good reason. (The previous sentence did not spoil the latest season of House, by the way, since the writers have apparently been compelled to pull this stuff every half-dozen or so episodes since the series began.)

I really do miss the Joss Whedon shows. I said as much in comments at house_md recently, mentioning that I'd like Charisma Carpenter, J. August Richards, and Alexis Denisof to appear on the show. "I don't think they should be ducklings, necessarily, but people House can bounce ideas off of who are capable of restraining him when he loses his soul is about to do something stupid..."

Speaking of bright doctors doing stupid things, I was looking through some of my old medical records and saw in a neurologist's notes in early 1995 that "She [me] will have an EEG for possible partial complex seizures." This never happened. After my father died two months later, the doctor decided that all my health problems must be related to my reaction to Dad's death--in spite of the fact that my health problems had begun several years earlier and my father died from meningitis, which isn't exactly what you'd call a chronic disease of long duration. I do wonder how different life would be now if the neurologist had listened to me after that point. Maybe nothing would have shown up on the EEG back then anyway; maybe nothing major would be all that different now. I still have to wonder, though.

Because I am full of antihistamines and no deep thoughts can survive in my brain at the moment.

So, is everybody who ever had a role on Buffy going to show up on House eventually? If so, can we have more who play basically the same character on the new series that they did on the old one? Because I would dearly love to see Faith the Vampire Slayer getting treatment at Princeton-Plainsboro.

Is it spoilery to say that this was a great episode for House/Wilson? That's not spoilery, not really. But it may be spoilery to mention being so amused by ( spoiler )

Like I said, no deep thoughts at all. Now I need to go to bed. With any luck, the antihistamines & decongestants will help me breathe well enough to get some sleeep.

Thanks to everybody who answered yesterday's question! I'd answer tonight, except I'm not all that coherent at the moment. See, on tonight's Supernatural was one of the scariest moments I've seen on television since the glory days of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Oh, yes, ( Supernatural spoiler here. )

So disturbing.

Also watched tonight's Smallville and there's something I'd like to know: When did that show become watchable again? I stopped watching it at a time when every episode was another flavor of Kryptonite providing another excuse for a bunch of people to get nekkid; and while the show certainly does have some attractive actors, I still like some decent storylines on my television. But each episode I've caught this season has been enjoyable, even if Lana Lang is still annoying as heck. Another question: I know everybody hates Lana, but am I the only one who likes Lois? There seems to be much Lois hate out there and I'm wondering how common that is.

In elementary school I tried hard to get into the habit of writing about my life in my diary every day, but all I ended up putting into it were random thoughts about the latest episode of Mork & Mindy. Fortunately I'm an adult now and have much deeper and weightier things to write about than TV shows. (Ooh, new House, M.D. episode on Halloween! I can hardly wait!)

In other news, I seem to be getting some of my energy back. Walked 2.5 miles yesterday and somewhere around two this evening. Still feeling a need for chicken soup, though.

I'm still reading others' journals and such, I just haven't had much to say these last few days. Well, I very nearly posted a deep and meaningful post yesterday, but the fit passed. Mostly my thoughts have been about boring, practical things: Is this a good day to go to the grocery store, or will my body decide to punish me if I do? If I go, should I buy chicken parts? I'll see if they're on sale; maybe I can buy one of the more expensive kinds of cheese for a change as well, since I've mostly been eating beans and rice...

Little things bubble to the surface of my consciousness. These jeans feel tighter than I'm used to--am I getting too fat? Look in the mirror while wearing both jeans and glasses and sanity returns. Not as skinny as I used to be, but "not as skinny" doesn't even come near the region of "too fat." Now that I remember that fact, I can consume my strawberry cheesecake ice cream with a clear conscience.

TV viewing next week: The Apprentice has a 2-hour finale! Oh, but can I stand to miss Tru Calling? Well, yes, though I do like that show too. I won't be watching the Dateline segment on the apprentice-wannabes though, not if there's a new Angel episode on at the same time. I do have priorities.

Little thoughts. Mostly I'm trying to avoid thinking about the Social Security hearing. I don't want to think about the possibility of things not working out well, since I really don't see any other ways for me to continue my existence without the help. How can anyone think I could get and keep a job when I couldn't even make it into DC to see the cherry blossoms in peak blooom? (I keep waking up with the song "Cherry Blossom Girl" running through my head.) Even making sure that I can get to the hearing means that I'll be spending Easter here alone to conserve energy. But I look healthy (my mother got so many compliments on her looks while she was dying of lung cancer) and I'm so used to people making assumptions based on that, or based on the fact that when I do have energy I like to be as active as possible. "If you could walk two miles yesterday, why can't you do X, Y, and Z today?" I'm so tired of this.

So I'm not thinking about my future. I'm looking at the trees putting forth small pale leaves, outlines of the branches still obvious and yet it seems as if you're looking at them through a green mist. Other trees, the ones blooming so profusely a few days ago, start to cast their petals away in favor of green as well. Everything's changing so quickly, new kinds of beauty replacing the old. Walking down some of these streets feels like walking into magic.

We were on a train rushing through a wonderfully detailed yet barren grey fractal landscape created in POV-Ray (obviously done on a computer much more powerful than the Pentium I 200 I've got here). I knew which program had rendered and continued to render this lifeless land, because I was the one who had created the scene file we were traveling through.

"We," by the way, were a group consisting of several characters from the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer and myself. I hadn't spoken to the others on the train yet, could only bring myself to quietly observe. Xander, impetuous as ever, demanded to be allowed to try to break the spell he was so sure enveloped the land. Giles, rather imperiously, told him no and proceeded to declaim rather useless phrases in Latin. I was still depressed and had yet to manage to find enough strength to click the program's "Stop" button so we could see where we really were.


No, I don't need an analysis of this one, I think I've got it.

Random questions from the new episode, "Never Leave Me." ( Spoilers here. )

According to Jamie Kellner, chairman and CEO of Turner Broadcasting, every time you skip over a commercial or take too many bathroom breaks during commercial time, you are stealing the programming, you thief.

In other news, three members of a Florida family received microchip implants on Friday, as you can read about here and here and here and various other places. So far, these chips are essentially high-tech versions of MedicAlert bracelets, containing information which hospital technicians can scan in an emergency in order to provide the best care.

One day, however, you know that these chips will be able to send information about your location and medical status to some central database. And on that day, if you are detected leaving the room during commercial breaks without a valid medical excuse as determined by a panel of experts, you will be fined accordingly. Additionally, your monthly bill for certain premium cable channels may be raised if your hormone levels are regularly found to exceed expected levels during late-night programming hours. Please plan your budget accordingly.

Just remembered: Last night I had a dream involving every regular character on the TV show Roswell--except Max.

What good is Roswell without shirtless Max?