Bah TV!

I have a few ideas for blog postings written down somewhere. I do that a lot, write things down. If I don't, then none of my story ideas would be put onto paper....er, the computer...not to mention the various activities in my life that would not be taken care of, but anywho... my point is this, I'm sitting here looking at my list of ideas for this blog (and yes, I have another list for my other blog) and I'm finding it hard to decide which one I want to do first. No good doing the one first in line, that wouldn't be fair to the rest of the ideas now would it? Just play favorites 'cus it's the first? No, I didn't think so. So... *closes eyes and points at screen*

Ahhh, we have today's topic...

I was thinking about this about a week or so ago and realized that I watch *far* less television than I used to. Seriously, I used to spend all day long with, at the very least, the tv on in the background. (FYI: I haven't worked anywhere but home in ages...and not by choice.) Not so much anymore. About the only time I do have the TV on anymore is 1) when I'm watching my nephew and he wants to watch his marathons of SpongeBob SquarePants and Dora, 2) when I'm in the living room with other people as opposed to holed up in the basement, 3) when it's late at night and I'm writing (but even then, I don't watch it, it's just background noise).

The only exception I make to the rule is Friday nights at 8 when I watch Smallville, which I NEVER miss an episode of. If I can't watch it when it airs, then I catch up on the DVR when I get the chance.

But my thoughts on the subject were more along the lines of why I don't watch TV anymore. Simple enough to answer that, I think most shows on TV suck now. I'll still watch an occasional episode of CSI or something along those lines, but not regularly like I used to. I've tried getting into new shows, but I just can't seem to do it. It could also be that, because I have full seasons of a few shows on DVD, I loathe having to sit through commercials now. This is where the DVR really comes in handy IMHO. The whole, I have to wait a week or more to see what happens, thing doesn't really bother me. I don't mind it so much. I like the show, I'll put up with only being able to watch it once a week. If I don't like it, then I don't even bother trying to watch it anymore.

Which leads me to a total of one show that is currently running on air that I watch. I have other shows like Charmed and Battlestar Galactica that aren't on air anymore that I still watch over and over again because I love them, but nothing new really. You can't consider Smallville "new" anymore as it's the 9th season.

So what the frak happened to all the good TV shows out there? Somebody please tell me, 'cus I wanna know where they went.

*pouts*

Forgetfulness.......and 80's movies

Alright folks, here's the deal. I had this idea in mind (with all these witty comments to boot) for a new post and figured I'd get the dishes done real fast before I sat down with the lappy to write my various volumes; blogs (insert shameless plug for my writing blog here), WiPs, beta (which I get isn't really my writing, just reading for a friend and correcting/advising, but still...) So anyway, I get the dishes done and wouldn't you know it, I can't even remember the subject I was going to post about. Sadly though, I'm more irritated that the witty comments I had planned out (can you call them witty if they're planned??) are no longer in my brain either. I can always find something to ramble about, that's not so hard. Being witty on the other hand...

So, what to blog about? Why even bother beginning a post when the original idea is already out of my head? It's not like I religiously update either of my blogs every day. Not even the writing one, which I should update daily as it is where I track my word count, but I'm getting off the point. I'm still posting because it's my blog and I'll do what I want. :-P

.......

(2 hours later :-O)
I was watching The Labyrinth the other day, for about the millionth time in my life I might add, when I started thinking about all those movies I used to love when I was younger that I haven't dusted off in a long time....mainly because I don't have a VCR anymore and I *refuse* to spend money on a newer version of the movies when I already own one copy. (As a side note, there are a few movies I would make an exception for like The Goonies or the Nightmare on Elm Street collection.) Now, you'll not see a reference to any intellectually stimulating movie here (or in any other post for that matter) because that's not how I roll. So let me just run down a list of some of the movies I used to love, love, love when I was younger; The Goonies, The Color Purple (in my top five favorite movies of all time),The Labyrinth, Bloodsport, Nightmare on Elm Street (1 and 5 being my favorites), Breakfast Club (watched a million times), Sixteen Candles (ditto for this one), A Christmas Story (duh, I still watch this every year), Adventures in Babysitting,  ..... crap, the list goes on and on and I shall not bore you with the whole thing.

Those of you actually paying attention will notice that these movies are pretty much all from the 80's. I suppose I could include some from the 90's as well, but why? I'm an 80's child and damn proud of it. Never mind the horrid clothing and bad hair styles. The movies and music made in the 80's, to me anyway, are some of the best. Well, the music not so much in a lot of respects, but even I have to admit, the 80's did sprout some kick ass tunes (including the ones we don't want to admit we like so much). :-D *makes mental note for another posting*

How many times have I watched each of these movies? I can't say. Let's just say that all together, plus combined with the huge number of movies I didn't put up here, equals quite a bit. Is it obvious that I've wasted much of my life away watching movies? Yes, but who cares? I sure don't. We all have a few things that we enjoy doing more than others and watching movies is one of mine.  I appreciate a good piece of film, and I've watched quite a few that I wish I never would have heard of. For some reason though, the ones I watched when I was younger stick with me more than later ones. Maybe it's because I've watched them for so long, or because I've put them in so many times and vegged out on the couch to once again enjoy them, I don't know.

One thing I do know. I'm sure not the only one who they still captivate so many years later.

The Musings of a Bored and Browsing Girl

Bored.

Browsing the net.

Chatting with folks on AW, laughin my ass off to be honest. But it's not fast enough to keep my ADD (or so I call it) in check, so I do other things at the same time.

The point?

I've been sitting here listening to some music on my new MP3 player (shush, I'm broke), and so I decided I needed some new music. I make up this whole list of songs that I want to find and someone says they'll do it for me. Sweet!

Yeah, not so much. They said, "I'll do it right now." But it's not done....and this is three hours later mind you.

Next subject:

I was wondering why, when I'm typing something like this I can go fast, faster than a hot rod. My fingers just fly across the keys. But then when I go to type something from something that's handwritten, I slow down. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I am already Queen of the backspace key, but it only gets worse when I'm typing from something longhand.

And finally:

Are you completely bored with my nonsense already? I don't blame you. I can't believe you're still reading this to be honest. I probably would have given up already. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz That's what this post brings to my mind, but oh well. As I'm the one who's writing it, and not stopping, I can't really say much on that subject. Anywho, so my last subject is on.... crap, I got nothin.

So what was the point of this post?

There wasn't one.

Haha, made ya look. :P

Battlestar Galactica

Yes, I know the show is not on anymore, and yes I know that I'm a bit late in putting this up here, but I have a reason for it. Over the past few weeks I have enjoyed watching all of the episodes of the series, beginning with The Plan (which in hindsight might not have been such a good idea because of the changes made either to the movie or show, which one I'm not sure as I never followed it before now.) and continuing until the series finale. This I will say they did an amazing job on and I thought they could not have ended the show better. That includes the deaths and disappearances that occurred. Just wouldn't have seemed right any other way I don't think. But here's my deal. I FRAKIN LOVE THE SHOW!! And if you've ever watched BSG (Battlestar Galactica) then frak is not a new word to you. It is now my favorite word in the world, replacing culdesac... hmmm this gives me an idea for another posting.... but anywho, back to the subject at hand. This show is excellent and I recommend that anyone who enjoys the Sci-Fi genre check it out.

So here's the scoop, a very much abridged version of it anyway.....

Twelve Colonies (planets) form the basis for the story. (Each one is named after an astrological sign actually, with a little change to the name itself such as Caprica and Picon.) The Colonies are attacked and the majority of humanity is decimated by the Cylons because of a Six obtaining information from the defense system. The only survivors were people (also some Cylons who blend in, but we'll get to that later) who managed to get onto battleships like Galactica and those few known as "The Resistance" who managed to survive the attack on Caprica. Somewhere around 50,000 people survived in total and all became part of a fleet led by the Galactica.


One interesting thing I'd like to note about the show is that during the title sequence the number of survivors changes from week to week to show deaths, births, and the finding of others.


And so the show begins. It's all about humanities ability to survive and find a new place to exist, all the while running from constant Cylon attacks. Eventually you find out that they plan to find Earth and recreate humanity there, but the journey is long and much happens. Too much to get into in one post here as a matter of fact.


I did want to touch on one more subject while I'm on the ramble about the show and that is the Cylons themselves. They were created by the people of the Twelve Colonies, essentially machines that evolved and began to blend into human society. There are 12 Cylon models which were made (which actually turns out to be 13 in total), with thousand or even millions of copies of each made. When one Cylon dies, its memories are downloaded into another copy and they return to living the life of the original. There are some confusing aspects to the stories of the Cylon individuals if you don't pay attention to the show, but if you do it's not so hard to figure out which copy is which. Anyway, the ones in the show that you pretty much know are Cylons the whole time are One through Eight. The last five only come out in the last season and one of Cylons doesn't even have a personal role in the story other than the various mentions of him being a defective model which was "boxed" (put into cold storage).


There's so much more detail and information that I could include about the show but that would turn into the longest post I have ever created.... which I will not bore you to tears with. Not today anyway. I might just end up writing about them again some day in another post, but who knows. I just felt the need to write about the awesomeness of the show and give a very general view of the storyline. There's so much more to it though and you'd have to watch it to get it all.


Suffice it to say, I think the show is amazing and well worth the time it took for me to write this, which wasn't long so....


I hope you enjoy it if you get the chance to check it out. Clickety click the linky above if you wanna check out one of the many sites dedicated to the show. It's the link from the Sci-Fi...oh, my apologies, the Scy-Fy (why they changed it I haven't a clue) channel so I figure it's the best one.

Elephants...come on people, don't act so surprised

So I've never really touched on the subject with most of you as to why I just simply adore elephants as much as I do. I get asked all of the time why that animal above any other. Usually the reactions I get from people when they find out my favorite animal is an elephant, and in fact that I have two elephant tattoos with plans to get at least one more, is laughter and a weird look. Both of those I'm used to though. People laugh at me because I'm weird, it's no secret. It's one of the few things I actually take pride in.

Alright, here's the story. And it's not a very interesting one at all so don't expect anything special here. It was merely by chance that I started my now massive elephant collection which includes some in the form of stuffed animals, necklaces, rings, knickknacks, pretty much anything elephant I can get my hands on. I've always thought elephants were totally cool animals. The size alone is enough to make me look at them with my mouth hanging open, but I have to say my absolute favorite thing about elephants is the way they use their trunks. Now, don't get me wrong, that's not the only thing I like, not even close. For instance I love the difference in the shape of the ears and head of an African elephant as opposed to an Asian elephant (see pics below for visual :P). I love the fact that they've evolved over thousands of years from the mammoth. I love everything about them. Except for the fact that people poach them for their tusks, but that should probably be saved for another day's ranting.

 African Elephant

Asian Elephant

So back to the story, I was probably 15 or so when I was given my first elephant. One of my high school friends had a little brother who was going to his aunt's house for the weekend and said that he would make me a knickknack if I wanted one. I told him absolutely, surprise me. What he brought home to me was an elephant sitting on his big ole rump, light blue in color, porcelain, handmade by himself and his aunt. It's about a foot in height so it's not just some tiny little thing. It's freakin awesome and absolutely adorable and I loved it the minute I set eyes on it. Well, from then on my collection spiraled out of control. If I have the chance to buy something in the shape of an elephant, with an elephant on it, anything remotely relating to an elephant I'll do it. And it also seems to be the gift of choice for people to give me, which I am SO NOT complaining about. Every year for Christmas for instance I get at least one elephant, it never fails. Just when I think I'm going to be elephantless, I open one and I always love it the most out of all of my presents. (Hope nobody takes offense to that.)

See? It's like I said, my collection was just something that happened. Some day I hope to be able to dedicate a whole room in my house to nothing but elephants. I'm obsessive, what else can I say?

There is one other thing I would like to note about elephants and it's something I have a link for up on the side of my page, and have had for a while now. It's called The Elephant Sanctuary and it's located in Tennessee. What I wouldn't give to be able to go there some day and spend time with people who take care of these animals on a daily basis. If you check out their web site http://www.elephants.com/ you will see what I mean. The place is amazing and the elephants are, of course, cool as hell. I've frequented this site for years now and I love going there to check out the pics they have up of the various elephants who live in the sanctuary. One elephant in particular I have fallen in love with just from watching her progress on the site and seeing the pics they have of her. Her name is Tarra and she's an Asian elephant that has been at the sanctuary since 1995. Before that, she was a circus elephant, but was born in the wild. At six months old she was taken from her mother and was privately owned until she retired and became the first elephant to reside in the sanctuary. She is awesome. You've all seen, or at least heard of, elephants that paint, well she's one of them.

Tara Painting

Tara Playing

I really think you guys should check the site out and browse through some of the pics and stories they have. You might just find it more interesting than you thought it would be.

Expectations and Surprises

So check this shit out. Something happened to me recently that I was sooooooooooo NOT expecting and it's kind of taken me by surprise.... well, more than kind of. But that's not really a bad thing. Actually maybe it is, I'm undecided. Ask me one minute and I'll say goodness no, not bad at all. Ask me the next minute and I'll freak right the fuck out. :D

Seriously though, I rather enjoy unexpected surprises. Obviously not so much the bad ones, but the good ones are fun sometimes. There's something to be said for an incident or revelation that takes us completely by surprise, especially when the outcome is good. Now, I'm not sure at the present time if the outcome will be good or not. Truth be told I'm trying my damndest not to worry about the outcome. You know, enjoying the moment and all that tosh.

I was curious about what the people around me really think about unexpected surprises and what happens when they expect one thing, but get another. I was, once again, surprised by what I heard. Most of the people I asked said they didn't really like surprises. Goodness gracious, me oh my, who on earth doesn't like surprises? (That's what I was thinking anyway.) Some of them justified it as they'd rather know everything that is going to happen (BORING!) or that they would worry too much about the outcome of a certain situation (which to a certain extent I can understand). But really? Not liking surprises? Ridiculous.

No matter what the surprise is, (or if you ask some people only the good ones apply to this) how can you not like it? I don't know. Like I said before, one minute I have one opinion, the next another. Maybe if I'd waited an hour or so to write this it would have been a completely different post. :D

When We Get What We Want

As much as I try, I can't make this blog what I originally intended it to be. I set it up with the hope that I would wax poetic on all kinds of subjects and that it would be, to some at least, somewhat educational...to a very mild extento to be sure. But I never took into consideration, at that time anyway, how truly emotional and personal I really am. I can't make fun blog posts, I can't do witty comments and stories, I can't do educational information. Trust me, I've tried. Every time I go to write a post, which I haven't done since last year sometimes for various reasons, it turns out completely different from what I want it to. They usually turn into some emotional spew about whatever subject I'm rambling about. So, it's time to stop fighting the inevitable and just go with the flow. Because recently I have realized something I should have figured out a long ass time ago. And quite frankly something that everyone around me already knows about me as it is as obvious as the nose on my face. I am an extremely emotional person. At times sensitive to the point of ridiculousness, overreacting to a situation like I'm a child throwing a fit. What kind of 30 year old acts that way? Nevermind, that's another day's post I think. My point is that I'm done trying to make this blog, and myself, what it is not.

So, that being said I'm going to now rant, ramble, and spew emotion on a subject I've spent quite a lot of time thinking about as of late.

Because you see, I have some limited experience on this subject.

So here's my question to you...What do we do when we finally get what we want? Now keep in mind that I mean anything; new products on the market, houses, but even the friends and lovers we want. Rarely do we stand back and go, "Well, now that I have what I want, I can stop being such a pain in the ass and enjoy myself for a while." No, what we do is look at what we've been trying to get, then look for the next best thing after it. Is anything ever good enough?

When I got married I thought I'd finally had what I'd been wanting. For a while I was happy, but eventually I was looking for something better and different. Perhaps it was the situation I was in at the time, but one day I just ended it. I'm sure it was lots of things that finally just got to me, I don't know. I finally put a stop to the constant misery, sorrow, and heartache. That's not important though. What is important is that after it was all said and done and I got what I wanted, it doesn't really matter.

Though marginally more happy overall than I was a year ago at this time...as a few of you can atest to...there's still something, or rather a lot of things, missing. I want more. But at the same time I don't know what that more actually is. So maybe it's not the way I think. Maybe it's more of a what we *think* we want type situation and not really what we do want. I mean, lets face it, how many of us are actually truly happy with our lives and what we have?

Do I sound ungrateful or like the biggest pain in the ass? I don't try to. I just try to speak my mind...unfortunately when I do that, all those nasty and inconvenient emotions tend to surface and pop out.