contact has been made

I celebrated my geekitude tonight by seeing the Doctor Who episode “The Pirate Planet” on the big screen. Yes, it’s a double dose of nerdiness since Douglas Adams was the one who wrote it. The Brattle Theater had a Doctor Who fest this weekend, showing key episodes Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. The Friday and Saturday shows were sold out, so I had to make due with this one, with guys in yellow togas going around moaning “life… force… dying…” and people getting killed with a robotic parrot. At least it gave me the opportunity to show off my sexxxy Dalek t-shirt.

Alas, today was Saki’s last day in this country; I won’t see him again for a while. Last night we celebrated by seeing Pineapple Express, which was pretty funny. There were exactly 3 people in the audience of our generation; you could tell because they all laughed at the 2 semi-obscure Gen-X references: 227 and the Rancor. Kids these days just don’t get subtle humor involving Jackée.

I’m evolving– I’ve been slowly getting rid of all the archaic pieces of technology that I’ve cleaved to for reasons that are 1 part sentimentality and 3 parts cheapness. Saki gave me his surround sound stereo receiver DVD player thingie. Thus I was able to get rid of 2 ancient stereo components (my receiver & CD player) and 2 more (8-track player & dysfunctional turntable) are slated for removal as well. I just relieved my table from about 30 lbs of 20th century equipment! Out with the old! Plus, it comes with 5 tiny little cute speakers & a giant subwoofer so I can jettison my giant faux-woodgrain piece-of-furniture speakers which didn’t work that well anyway. I have a newer pair of nice bookshelf-sized speakers that I bought 6 or 7 years ago– maybe I can get $10 for them on Craig’s List or something. Next on the list of obsolete electronics due to rot in a landfill for eternity: Pad’s former TV that is now 26 years old.

It’s officially summer now because I took a long bike ride today and put on sunscreen to do so. Yay, my bike is fixed! It had some problems, but now it is perfect again… except for the cheap-ass purple handlebar streamers that I bought at Target the other day and didn’t last an entire bike ride. Oh well. Luckily I have a backup pair someplace in this house.

Speaking of this house, I cleaned the kitchen-area! The micro-organisms living in my microwave had evolved and developed warring civilizations. I think one of them was close to inventing the atom bomb… but I committed a major act of germicide and nipped those in the bud. Wouldn’t it suck if the universe was just a scum that developed inside some alien’s jam jar? For millions of years (a couple of weeks to the alien), we’ve been evolving, but we’re just the grime about to be washed down the alien drain…

Anyway, the kitchen is clean, and it’s nice. I was able to cook some dinner, something I’ve not been able to do in a while since the one burner was buried under several strata of crap. I improved upon my Lazy Person’s Spaghetti Method– I have these metal bowl-plate things that are the exact size of the stock pot I use to make noodles. I heat up the water and cook the spaghetti, but all the while put the sauce in the bowl and use it for a top. That way you don’t have to heat up the sauce separately. Then you can eat the spaghetti right out of that dish and you’ve only dirtied one pot and one bowl. How’s that for philistine behavior? Works for me!

While out riding my bike I stopped at the store to pick up some milk and ended up buying some Fancy Cheese– it tastes like Brie, only a little sharper, and has MUSHROOMS in it. I love mushrooms! I love cheese! Finally they put the two together! It was kind of pricy, but I like to splurge on good cheese like twice a year when I’m feeling decadent.

I’m feeling celebratory today because not only did I find a hidden stash of brain-drugs left over from a previous prescription, but I CAN HEAR AGAIN!!! I went to the Cambridge hospital and they put drops in my ears and then squirted them out with this hardcore spray-bottle with a little tiny hose on the end. It hurt like a freaking motherfucker, but they managed to squirt about 1/2 teaspoon of crap out of each of my middle ears. The good things is, my phobia of putting things in my ears is completely gone now! After putting everything I could think of in my ears for the past 2 weeks, I’m completely blasé about it all– bring on the mind-controlling bugs like on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (I think that’s what started it all). It’s because of that movie that whenever anyone uses the phrase “I just wanted to put a bug in your ear…” I cringe inwardly. It’s a stupid phrase anyway, who came up with that?

Then there was the movie Mountains of the Moon about finding the source of the Nile, and one dude got a boll weevil or something in his ear, and he’s stabbing his ear with the point of a compass and finally the other dude drips candle wax down his ear canal ::SHUDDER:: that movie gave me nightmares for decades…

Anyway, I can hear, completely and in stereo!

I just have to go back to the Cambridge Hospital with 2 pay stubs and proof of citizenship within 10 days in order to maybe be able to afford to pay for the “cebatious impaction” removal…

but I can hear!!! Go ahead– whisper something! I can hear a pin drop!

Here’s more proof that I’ve been watching too much MI-5: I spent today re-planting a ton of plants in the window area at some back downtown, and the hot janitor kept coming by and sweeping stuff up. My instant thought was “he must be a CIA operative; he’s way too cute to be a janitor.” He was this Latin dude that looked a lot like Gael García Bernal, but with a bowl cut that only he could pull off. It looked kind of artsy on this dude, and not dorky like you’d normally associate with this particular hairdo. Anyway, I kept watching him to see if he tried to contact his home base from his pen or something… but… he was probably just an exceptionally cute janitor.

Did I mention that I can hear now?

I think I’m going to go listen to Beethoven now.

I’m having a bad week. I’m in a cranky mood. Allow me to indulge in some more whining…

1. I worked 10 hours straight today with no breaks or food. The plants on my accounts are suddenly all getting bugs of various sorts. Plus, all the lawyers at the law firms I had to service were mean today and didn’t want me touching their plants because they were busy. The lawyers that is, the plants weren’t busy. Plus, I cut myself 3 different times today on various plants and bled all over my clipboard.

2. I went to the Cambridge Hospital to see about my ear on the suggestion from someone at the Somerville Referral Line. Unfortunately, the free care clinic is only open from 8:30 to 4:00, and I have to work usually from 8:00 - 4:00. Maybe I can try to work something out tomorrow.

3. My shrink is on vacation for another week, so even if I could find some way to pay for drugs without insurance, he isn’t around to prescribe them. So, I have a splitting headache and am prone to bursting into tears at inopportune times. Oh yeah, the constipation isn’t terribly fun either.

4. Lard Ass peed on my brown pants, but I didn’t realize it until I got to work and smelled myself. I smelled lovely today.

ON THE OTHER HAND…

-Lard Ass hasn’t been peeing on forbidden things since I set up another cat box. Now he has one all to himself.

-I’m even more addicted to MI-5 and I discovered that season 2 is also available for “instant watching” on Netflix.

-It’s the perfect temperature for hot cocoa, and I actually have some.

-All Lard Ass and Jarvis do is sleep together and fight. They’ll fight, and then the next moment they will be curled up together snoring. They’re kind of like most of the couples I know!

-The new Indiana Jones movie comes out this week.

-I have a ticket to see Jamie Lidell next month

- Athena and I went for ice cream sundaes yesterday and mine was exceptionally tasty. Ice cream (at least temporarily) solves all my problems!

- I bought a new battery for my camera so now it works again.

- I just watched the movie Gone Baby Gone and it was actually pretty good.

-My bike will be fixed by tomorrow! I got new purple handlebar streamers just for the occasion!

I’m not seeing Cut Copy and the Mobius Band right now because I figured it would just be frustrating with hearing in only one ear. Out of desperation, I tried all the methods of removal everyone has suggested (warm olive oil, warm water, hydrogen peroxide) to no avail.

You see… the wax has built up in my middle ear, which is blocked by the eardrum:

So, anything I put in my ear doesn’t actually get to the wax, it just gets my ear canal nice and clean. I think I must have the cleanest right ear canal of anyone on the planet right now– go ahead, check it out! I bet it’s so shiny you can see yourself in the reflection!

Now that I’ve gotten all the whining out of the way, I can go onto other topics, such as how I am currently addicted to the show MI-5. I don’t even know if it’s still on. Apparently in the UK it’s called Spooks, but they can’t call it that here because that’s apparently a racial slur. Spook? Maybe I’m just ign’ant of racism, but I have never heard that one before. Anyway, this show is pretty rad! Just what I need, right? Another TV show on a channel I don’t have to be addicted to!

My job is awesome when it’s sunny and warm out, but when it’s cold and rainy it can be kind of a drag. Today I wasn’t doing the normal plant care routine, I was helping deliver plants instead. Dragging them through endless dirty corridors and service elevators (deliveries usually travel through delivery entrances and back staircases which are usually pretty grim looking) while you are freezing cold and wet isn’t the most fun thing on earth. Next time I will bring a raincoat and an extra extra-sweater!

However, last weekend I bought a George Foreman grill at the Goodwill, and it has revolutionized the way I make grilled cheese sandwiches. It was nice to come home to a warm sandwich that I can make, with the intervention of modern technology, in about 55 seconds.

I got this TV show from Netflix called Space Academy. It is the most amazing piece of cheesy low-budget sci-fi I’ve seen in ages! It’s so corny– a crew of ethnically diverse teenagers and a wise old teacher in a space college who hang out with a little space orphan kid and a snotty robot with a Lite Brite in its chest.

Exhibit A:

This show has everything! It features gratuitous overacting, people stating the obvious at every possible moment, psychic twins, a love plot brewing, an adorable little kid who says precocious things, and Dr. Smith from Lost In Space. All it needs is a monkey and/or a dog, and it would be the perfect tv show!

I’ve only watched two episodes and already I’ve learned many valuable lessons!
Such as…

1. humans can only be happy with other humans, not with crystalline entities that turn into blobs of red light.
2. stop-motion dinosaurs that turn invisible can’t emit Godzilla-esque screams while invisible. You can, however, see their footprints.
3. Black people aren’t always jerks, it’s just the environment they come from. People can change!
4. It’s easy to fly in and out of black holes
5. the big red button between the two big yellow buttons is the only one you need to operate the shuttlecraft.
6. robots cheat at Tic Tac Toe.

Everyone is always yelling at me for not watching television. It’s not that I’m one of those rabidly anti-tv people who thinks that if I watched one little McDonald’s commercial my brain will turn to much– I just am out of the habit of watching TV. It sounds weird I know, but seriously, I didn’t have a tv at home from the time I was about 8 until I was 28 (1980-2000). In that time, tv changed a lot. In the Old Days of TV, a program would be on, and we’d wait with baited breath until, say, Monday at 8:00 so we could watch Little House on the Prairie. After 2:00 a.m. or so, the tv would go to static and nothing would be on until early morning. Cable tv existed, but only swanky houses had it, mine not being one of them.

These days you have TiVo that is constantly recording shows it thinks you will like, On Demand where you can watch anything whenever, 50 billion satellite channels, YouTube and other sites on the innernets that show re-runs, TV shows on DVD that you can either buy, rent or get through Netflix… Times is diff’runt. I’m addicted to Torchwood, but I’ve never actually sat down and watched it on TV when it was on air. WE get Doctor Who on BBC America, which shows the same episodes pretty much as what’s on in the UK. Back in the 80s, the episodes we saw were about 5 years behind the times!

Of course, I have sub-basic cable here, which means I get a couple of cable-access channels, the network stations (do those even still exist anymore?), a couple of channels in Spanish, the Catholic mass channel, and like 15 home shopping networks, which isn’t *too* far off from the olden days.

Anyway, I decided to watch some TV last night, because whenever I see an ad for the show Bones, it looks kind of interesting. I like forensic pathology and crime solving and all that good stuff… so I watched it… and it was incredibly meh. I mean, it wasn’t *bad* per se, but I don’t think I’ll try to remember the day and time it’s on (for some reason my brain can’t hold this kind of information) to ever watch it again. The same goes for House, which everyone says is like the awesomest hospital show out there. I have always liked hospital shows, so I gave it a try… I’m just not into it.

I guess I now know that I’m not missing anything! So… there’s my foray into the world of network television. The sight of local news on tv still makes me break out into hives, and I find it excruciating to sit through commercials, particularly the same ones over and over again. I think somewhere in those tv-less 20 years, and perhaps before, since up until I was 8 I was only allowed to watch an hour of tv a day and at least half of it had to be PBS, I lost (or maybe never gained in the first place) the groove of watching tv. Maybe I just have to train myself to be able to watch it. Until then, I can think of a million other unproductive couch-potato-esque ways to waste time! I don’t need TV, maaaaan;. I get sedated on life!

If you haven’t had enough bro-mance, here’s one more little clip:

It feels like someone decided to clean out my throat with extra coarse sandpaper. Every time I swallow, it sends a thin wire of shooting pain up my neck into my left eardrum. Thus, I stayed home from work today, which was a bad time to do so, because a couple of co-workers are on vacation, so finding people to cover me isn’t the easiest. However, I don’t want to infect the rest of the staff as well as a buttload of cutmers with my disease…

Saki said he’d take care of me, so I went to his place and crashed out on his couch. He has season one of Torchwood, which I watched I don’t know how many episodes of. I finished the whole first series (I had gotten the first few discs from Netflix), and am totally addicted. I am such a brain-dead drooling fangirl now! Torchwood is a Doctor Who spin-off that is made for grown-ups rather than “families.” There’s sex and blood and guts and swearing. There’s nekkid people and people getting mauled by aliens. What’s different is that instead of just the Doctor and a Companion, there’s a whole team of people, so there’s a cool group dynamic to see, as people get into fights, make up, make out, try to shoot/protect each other, get it on, insult each other and every other interpersonal interaction that can occur while fighting aliens and investigating weird phenomena. It’s kind of like the X-Files meets Buffy, only with some hot Welsh Dudes Making Out action (Maybe Buffy had that too; I didn’t really watch it that much). There are 2 chicks and 3 dudes on the team, and they spend all their time kicking butt and crying in equal amounts, which is refreshing. The chicks kick as much ass as the dudes, and the dudes cry as much as the chicks, because using alien technology to defend the earth is a pretty emotional task apparently.

Did I mention the h0tt dude-on-dude make out action?

OH yeah, and HAPPY PI DAY! Eat lots of Pi(e)!

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I hope the magnitude of nerdiness in this post upped your charisma points.

While I’m being a giant geek, let’s pour out a drinking horn of honey mead in honor of Gary Gygax, who recently lost his saving throw against an abdominal aneurysm. R.I.P.

I almost hate it when I’m reading a really good book, or watching a really good tv series on DVD. On the one hand, I want to devour it all at once and see what happens. On the other hand, I want to make it last as long as possible so I can savor it for the maximum amount of time. When a book is really good, I read it in small bits, like I’m currently doing with Stones from the River. I only read it on the train, except recently I’ve been reading it on my lunch breaks too. This has been working really well, except that I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS!!! But once I know, the book will be over, and then what will I read? It never seems like anything will be as good as what I’m reading in those chapters before the book ends.

i’m doing the same with Doctor Who season 3. However, I’ve kind of been cheating. I watched a 2-part episode today, but I had already seen the second part of the episode, so that didn’t count, and I got to watch another one. So, that’s three down. There are only 14 episodes, and I’ve seen seven so far… that’s 1/2 of them. Darn it, I know I should make them last, but I’m such a junkie. Oh well, I’ve got Torchwood coming from Netflix soon. I won’t be able to watch all the spisodes at once, because I’ll have to send back the DVD (which takes 2 days) and then wait for the next DVD to arrive (2 more days), so that’s about one a week. That should last me for a while.

In the mean time, I’m thinking about getting another cat. I think I mentioned this before– I’m in contact with a lady who runs a cat shelter, and I’m going to check out some kittens, hopefully this week. Lard Ass is getting really weird– he just developed another strange habit. He’ll clean his back paws, and get to a point where he starts growling and snarling as if his toe jam is some kind of ferocious enemy invading his territory. I checked out his feet to see if maybe he had a sore spot, and he’s snarling out of pain when he accidentally hits it or something. He seems to be fine when I poke his feet, though.

He’s such a weirdo! Maybe another cat in the house will calm him down. I hope so– his clinginess is getting out of hand! He’s definitely the most eccentric cat I’ve ever had. He takes “quirky” to a really freakish extreme sometimes, like how he spends all night trying to sleep on my armpit and has to be touching as much human flesh as he can whenever possible. Some cats like to sleep in patches of sunlight, in papasan chairs, on sofas or on special rugs. Lard Ass likes nothing better than to sleep on my hand. It doesn’t matter if my hand is resting on the kitchen table, on my lap, or poking out of the covers while I’m asleep– Lardy Boy will find it and instantly start snoring once his butt touches down. I wish I could sleep that well! Maybe I should just get a giant hand-shaped mattress or something.

Sunshine– The one directed by Danny Boyle with Cillian Murphy. Although, I really liked the Sunshine that was about the Hungarian Jews with Ralph Fiennes. Anyway, the more recent Sunshine was really super duper awesome. It contains pretty much everything I like in movie:

• The earth in peril
• science fiction gadgets & visions of the future
• stuff blowing up
• suspense
• disasterous events and people having to deal with them and each other
• malfunctions happening to transportation vehicles
• space
• character development
• interesting plot
• beautiful photography
• Cillian Murphy

  It sounds like a rip-roarin’ Schwarzenegger movie from my list, but it really wasn’t at all. In fact, it starts out as a kind of slow character-study and evolves into something of a psychological thriller and throws a little bit of philosophy in at the end. Visually it was really interesting too. I want to watch this movie over and over!

  However, since I have the DVD on Netflix, I dont’ want to hold onto it that long because Torchwood is next up in my queue and I can’t wait for that, since I’ve been obsessing (even more than usual) about Doctor Who. Saki has seasons 2 & 3 of the new series on DVD and I just started Season 3. Doctor Who’s been dropping a lot of pop-culture references lately, which I’m not used to–it’s kind of funny. The last episode I saw mentioned both Harry Potter and Back To The Future. Since when does the Doctor have time to read books and see movies? He doesn’t even eat or go to the bathroom! I guess he *is* a Time Lord; I suppose that means he has all the time in the universe to do stuff… anyway, I’m liking the new series a lot. I guess I’m still the obsessive fangirl that I was when I was a kid– I never really stopped! now I just have new material to feed my decades-long obsession… maybe this isn’t a good thing. At least nobody is going to send me to welfare camp where I will have the opportunity to re-name myself Tegan or Nyssa any time soon… (yeah, still kind of embarrassed about that)