My current work PC is just barely able to browse the Internet, meaning that I can't even get to most of the internal sites, let alone stuff like Weather Underground and LJ. So I'm still slogging around back on April 27th right now.

Cycling adventures: apparently, those ugly red dangling things over male turkeys' noses (snoods?) grow over time. On Monday, I passed what must have been a teenaged turkey who had more of a rhino-horn thing going on instead. I also saw the fluffy black cat I'd spotted the week before (probably visiting the parkway from a nearby house), and nearly hit a squirrel who was sitting right in the middle of the path working on a nut or something. I whistled and whistled, and it just sat there. "Hey!" I said as I went past, and it looked up like, Buzzuh? A few rides ago, someone kindly alerted me to the rattlesnake that I'd assumed was a twig (as usual). I gave it wide berth, and I could see the flat head and those telltale chubby cheeks. Honestly, though—the rattlesnakes in this part of the country aren't that recognizable if you're zooming past. They don't have that diamondback pattern, and if they're not sandy-camouflage-colored then they're blackish (the ones in Oregon are black with rings). I don't expect a rattler to look like either of those things! And how did I find this out, you might ask? From random fact-chasing at Wikipedia while I was looking up snake info for my blog-blurb on Snakes On A Train a few weeks back.

Re tonight's SPN, 2x20 ( Spoilery blatherCollapse )

Last night's L&O: SVU reminded me that I'm a slash-lover to the core. I'd never heard of anyone being THAT into pyromania, but the whole scene of Elliot pushing that kid's buttons with the matches and burning paper, and the sexual undercurrents in all of that... whoo! *fans self* I haven't seen Chris Meloni dial up the sexual tension on anyone like that since Oz and it woke me up in all kinds of places I didn't even know existed. I would seriously rewatch that scene at least 2-3 more times. Wow.

flashForward seemed to be hinting at pre-futures and possibly alternate-futures this week. Am I mistaken? All the back-and-forth gets confusing.

ETA: Ahnold is on Leno, and I really enjoy him. *waits for massive defriending*

Though I'm tempted to say "Drvvvvvvv" instead! Hope you're having a wonderful day, with appropriate caking and universal kindness and nothing remotely like suspicious breakins or the like.

If I can improve your day with a drabble, please let me know! ♥

~*~*~*~

I'm behind on my friends' page again (I don't seem to read it at all over the weekends these days), but I'm hoping to get caught up again.

Last Friday I was awakened by the sound of "RRRRrrrrrr... RRRRrrrrr..." and some construction equipment on the street. Someone's chainsawing a tree, I thought. When I opened the windows to my home office, I saw that it was OUR tree. Nuts. By late yesterday all three doomed trees had been removed. Now the yard looks weird and kind of barren (despite all the other landscaping). The foreman was photographing stuff on Monday, because it turns out that one of the County Supervisors drove by and read him the riot act about there being nothing wrong with the trees (Hah!) and them not being county trees (they are). So on top of everything, the guy has to protect his job. Whee. I'm still disappointed that all three trees had to go—couldn't even one of them have stayed healthy?

This weekend included biking with Christopher (who needs a bigger bike—jeez, the complaining and the stopping!), running on Sunday (too hot!), pruning trees in the backyard for four hours, and getting to Christopher's haircut on Monday night (Return of the Werewolf. What a mess...)

We got caught up on Fringe (whoever cast John Noble in that series gets my undying love—he's totally breaking my heart these days), and started S2 of The Riches.

I also have some minor thoughts on last week's SPN, 2x19: ( For I am not so easily bought...Collapse )

( SPN 5.17Collapse )

In other viewing, I realized late last night that I'd totally spaced out watching V, and tonight I discovered I'd forgotten flashForward was back. *kicks brain*

We DID finally see last week's Fringe, though, which was the episode I've been waiting for ever since the implications of the S1 finale. Great makeup job on John Noble, who looked and sounded genuinely youngish (he kind of reminded me of Sam!) And was it just me, or did his earlier assistant look an awful lot like the blond version of Astrid? Great storyline for this one, and very moving. *sniffle* Can't wait to catch up on this week's show too.

I've had trouble sleeping since the Daylight Savings Time shift, and that was what, a month ago? I love "fall back," but not so much "spring forward." The curse of being a night owl!

We enjoyed our trip to Santa Cruz/Capitola for Spring Break, despite the rain. The kids had a couple of good beach days, a little time at the Boardwalk before the downpour came, and Christopher especially enjoyed exploring the tidepools (he's never done that before). We saw a crab, 3 starfish, a hermit crab on the move, and countless sea anenomes. Funny how I rarely see jellyfish at Santa Cruz—on the Oregon Coast they're everywhere. I also got the kids hooked on stomping the seaweed "grapes," which is pretty much like naturally-occurring bubble wrap. ;)

There was too much eating (Denny's French Toast will be the death of me), and we watched a LOT of ESPN Classic and grumbled about the Women's NCAA games only being on cable—and airing the day after we checked out. I read a lot of books, faithfully worked the recumbent bike in the gym (it kills my back), and did very little writing. I was expecting more takers on my offer of birthday drabbles!

While we were gone, I managed to once again record Grey's Anatomy instead of The Mentalist (our local CBS and ABC affiliates swapped channels a few years back, and I've never recovered). I downloaded The Mentalist via Torrent (still haven't seen it or Fringe), and also SPN, which we finally saw on Sunday.

( SPN 5.16 (Dark Side Of The Moon) spoilers...Collapse )

No idea what's in store for tonight, but I like it that way. Unspoiled is the way to go! Now just please let me program the DVR correctly for a change...

I managed to get two weeks behind on my f-list, to the point where the "go earlier" function stops working. I'm only about a week behind now, but damn. Too many weekends filled with chores, too much craziness at work, and too many fics to write that I fall asleep in the middle of anyway. :0

Finally caught up on Supernatural too. First, there was ( Sam, InterruptedCollapse )

We finally watched 5x12 last night, which I had to download from the Internet. Last Thursday's airtime featured "No Signal" on the converter box, no matter how many times I went back. Stupid local affiliate! We watched Fringe instead, and had to come back to SPN later. About which I have to say ( thisCollapse )

For random funniness, I have to pass along stuff my KIDS tell me about. How lame is that? From Christopher, I got the vid link of The Ultimate Showdown Of Ultimate Destiny (with some seriously unlikely "ultimate" participants. Why the hell is Abraham Lincoln in there? Although Abe IS awesome, so I'm kind of glad). Lauren linked me to The Sham Whoo-Hoo! commercial, and Christopher pointed out that the same guy also has a bunch of "Movies In Minutes" videos, which essentially are low-grade "Sweded" movies like this Harry Potter thingy, or pseudo-Twilight. In most of the early ones, Ryan's friend plays the girl (with beefy shoulders and bad wigs), and there's a stunning lack of concern about "sets" in virtually all of them. I could swear the Harry Potter one was filmed in a classroom. :0

First, the birthday explosion-- for huggenkiss on Friday (writing your drabble now), angstpuppy on Saturday, and dawnstarrising today! I hope all of you had lovely birthdays, and that the coming year will be good to you! If you'd like a birthday drabble, please leave me a note in the comments below. ♥

Also, the Fall Fandom Free-For-All is still going on. Lots of unclaimed things on people's wishlists that I know someone among you could do a great job with. My list is here, and there are a lot of people in the last pages with nothing so far. This year, I've been blessed with a ficlet from happywriter06: Jensen/Jared RPS, all-dialogue, both funny and cute, Where There's Smoke (PG-13). \o/

Speaking of SPN-related things ( Spoilers for 5x04, The EndCollapse )

The end of the work-week went berserk. It's time for ratings, so you have to prepare your Yearly Statement Of Personal Accomplishments And Awesomeness. This was interrupted by a surprise need for said awesomeness, to help a co-worker figure out how to meet lofty customer needs with the crappy resources he's been given. \o?

Thought I'd get some writing done tonight, but I got sleepy instead, so I caught up on my f-list, dating back to about Thursday. Tomorrow will feature more basketball (Christopher is on a competitive team, and has another game), and possibly some yard/painting work. The 100-degree forecast does not bode well, though.

( Supernatural 5x03 gabbingCollapse )

Outside the spoiler-space, I can rant about the WTF-ness of transmission problems across the country for this episode. In my area, it was a prolonged blacked-out screen for about 3 minutes. For other people, it was a frozen commercial having a similar effect. Thank goodness for Torrent, because apparently I need rescuing from the fabulousness of Digitial TV on a regular basis now.

Speaking of which... we got our coaxial cable splitter (to install tomorrow, since HSH did not understand the urgency of buying it on Thursday). I've since learned that if I'm going to depend on Hulu for a show, it had better be on the Fox Network, because NBC and CBS will not allow replaying of their episodes. Even at NBC.com, all you can get is a two-minute "recap" of an episode.

Which means I downloaded The Mentalist last night via Torrent, and I need to hunt down Law&Order: SVU too. I should have watched L&O live and used Hulu for Glee, but who knew? I may be doomed to watching Fringe that way for the coming season, which I wouldn't mind so much if there was a volume booster for PC speakers so I could actually HEAR all the dialogue. *grumps* Never thought I'd be thinking things like, "Oh god, now is not the time to resort to the "velvet" voice, Lance! Speak up!"

On the other hand... I now know which episodes of Better Off Ted to recapture, and which ones I can get off of Hulu if I'm fast enough. Love that show! I seemed to have missed everything after episode 5, due to unpredictable summertime airing, but I plan to remedy that. :)

I made it safely home via bike-commute last night, obviously. Had to stop on the pedestrian bridge over I-80 to change a flat (staple! Augh!), and I took a wrong turn on a street inside a neighborhood < 1 mile from my house. Heh. Not bad, considering, though. Looks like (with the revised route I decided on last night) both directions will be right around 18 miles.

Last night's Supernatural was a huge relief, which I really wasn't expecting. Don't want to spoil anyone for the ending, but if you've been dreading it then you most likely will feel major relief when it's over. Regardless of whether you like where S4 ends, trust me—things on the Sam&Dean front are better than we expected.

Got some birthdays coming up this weekend! aeroport_art is tomorrow, and girlmostlikely is on Sunday. Li and Ginger, I hope you both have a great birthday (the weekend is SO much better than the work-week, so you're off to a fantastic start). If either of you would like a birthday drabble, please leave me some prompts in the comments below! Might even be able to get started early, for a change. ;)

Supernatural 2x21: Why, Kripke, why? I'm pretty sure hardly anyone in the Supernatural audience really wants to see the show go there. And how are you going to get it out in S5? WILL you?

Also, as I cracked to Halfshellhusband, if you go to the Apocalypse (or nearly so-- I remain permanently unspoiled), how do you follow THAT up? Everything after that's going to seem anticlimactic, so from a writing strategy standpoint why hit that peak when you've still got another season left? Leaving aside the whole issue of it seeming excessive and overwrought to begin with... :(

In other TV news, we finally saw the Chuck finale on DVD. Adorable, as always, though I feel like Scott Bakula is one step away from rehashing Quantum Leap somehow (except in the Dean Stockwell role this time). I really hope Chuck gets renewed. It's such a sweet show, and the combination of sweet and entertaining is far too rare. Plus, the antics at the Buy More crack me up.

Randomly, Lethal Weapon is on TV and I'm watching with the sound off. Haven't seen it in years, but I tell you, the homoeroticism still leaps off the screen-- even moreso without sound. That was one of the big reasons I first loved the movie, other than Mel Gibson being gorgeous. Too bad he's become such an unquestionable ass. :(

ETA: Late-night infomercials are SO bizarre. The other night it was people making evil vegetable juices (with things like potatoes and beets). Now it's some twisty-turny exercise machine that you kneel on, and just watching it makes my back hurt. No thanks!