Three Things Titanic 3D Taught Me

Child of the '90s alert, folks: if you're already fed up with people talking about the re-release of Titanic, you should probably leave now.

Reginald Kitty would if he could.

Before we get started, we're just going to get this out of the way right now.

By the way, if you're ever in Canada, NEVER say anything about Celine Dion in public. I learned this from personal experience. Just trust me.

I was excited to see this film fifteen years ago, and I was excited to see it today. Of course, times have changed -- a realization I made in the car on the way to the theater -- but some things have remained the same.

Way back when the world was flat, and we paid for Internet access by the minute, my mother pulled me out of school during the lunch break so we could see the picture together; my sister was in school, and my dad was at work, so it was just the two of us on a special film adventure. We were hyped up to see the underwater footage of the actual ship, and to bask in the historical accuracies. Considering we paid $3.50 for a ticket, it was cheap at twice the price to see it in 2D. Price didn't matter, 'cause I ruddy loved this film. I mean, I went totally nuts for this film. I distinctly remember owning the soundtrack, a wall calendar, and one of those knock-off necklaces (which I did wear religiously, when I wasn't dramatically dropping it off the foot of my bed [all true stories]).

My love for Titanic was so great, I received the VHS for Christmas that year from two different people (because that wasn't a difficult situation for a six year old to navigate around); one was full-screen, one wide-screen (Fun Fact: Apparently, I have always been a format snob, since the full-screen version is still in its cellophane wrapper fifteen years later).

Today -- when we spend so much time on the Internet that we wish we could get paid by the minute -- was quite a different affair. For one thing, I wasn't forced to change into one of those terrible floral romper/jumper/one-piece-nightmares that my mother liked to dress me in. I distinctly remember the very one I wore that day, because I despised it the most of the several I had: blue and white plaid, with a fruit pattern, and fruit shaped buttons that were too big for the button holes, so you could never get them unbuttoned. I'm a big girl now, so I can wear whatever the hell I want.

This was what I wore to Titanic this time. And, before you even ask me: yes, I am walking a hairless cat. It's been a year, and this photograph still stuns me.

For weeks, I have been hopping up and down in anticipation for this film. Every time I saw an ad for it, I would internally fangirl scream. Of course, this time, the excitement wasn't all about the historical accuracies; they took a back seat to the nostalgia factor.
Another difference was the format.

Let me just say right now, I cannot see 3D movies (I was sixteen years old before I knew Viewmasters were supposed to be a single 3D image instead of two regular images). I would have much preferred 2D, because everything that was supposed to be 3D just ended up being fuzzy for no good bloody reason. I did enjoy the IMAX portion, though it wasn't worth the forty bucks our little family of three paid to get in the door. I didn't pay that much to see the Plain White T's, dammit.

Surely, you knew this picture would make its way back to the blog somehow. Today is that lucky day! (Don't even ask me: of course I'm listening to Big Bad World as I write this post. Of course I am.)

The main thing I had to keep in mind at the theater was that I had to be a good girl, and not laugh during the whole "I'll never let go, Jack" scene. By jove, I succeeded, too! Instead, I laughed while the ship was sinking, because my mother and I were throwing water at each other. We wanted to get the full experience, after all.


So, what three things have we learned from this jolly through time?

* Fifteen years later, my mother and I are still partners in crime.

* We should have guessed fifteen years ago that I would be really into period dramas. I mean, how the hell did we miss that one? That's just as bad as us missing the whole "help-I've-fallen-in-love-with-a-musician-and-I-can't-get-up" syndrome; the signs were there that early.

* I am still a format snob. Remember how I flipped my wig over the mono Ram? Again, the signs were always there, we were just to naive to notice them.

In the increasingly true words of Frank Turner, "time may change a lot, but some things, they stay the same".
Even Titanic.

Blog Casserole: "I Wanna Be The Tree!" Or, Buddy Holly's Philosophy

What a lovely spring evening it was. A small shower spat little droplets of liquid gold, the clouds were a dark gray, and thunder and lightning filled the sky. It was a beautiful sight; in fact, it was so purdy, I decided to take a photograph.

As I was taking the picture, I heard the dreaded call: "Would you come help me? I wanna map out where I'm planting some trees!"
Have you ever stood outside in the rain, arms spread out, pretending to be a tree?
I have.

Personally, I think our Monday nights have been really sucky since The Bachelor went on hiatus.


It's stories like this that make me wonder if the people at the college are right in thinking I'm the weird one of the bunch (come on, we all know they're right); but, in particular, the lady that sits next to me knows I'm just plain bonkers. I seem to prove her right every week. For blogging purposes, we'll call her Left Lady from now on.
With the "spring forward", I have to wear my sunglasses far longer than in the winter; if I don't, I tend to run into things, like brick walls.

I, being the forgetful little tulip I am, forgot to put my glasses case in my bag (side note: have I mentioned I'm the only moron out of a class of seventeen that has a bag they keep everything in? I also have extra pencils, which, for reasons unknown, people think they can borrow), so my incredibly flamboyant vintage cat glasses were conspicuously present on my desktop. Left Lady looks at them, and comments on how unusual they are. As if I haven't had this conversation ten thousand times since I started wearing cat glasses twelve years ago. This time was different, though; she just kept talking. Eventually, it was my turn to speak, but I had nowhere to take the conversation. That's when Real Me picked up the receiver and started blabbering. I said to Left Lady, and I quote: "Well, it was Buddy Holly's philosophy that if you're gonna wear glasses, you wear glasses".

She gave me a look not unlike this...

...and hasn't spoken to me since.

Fast forward about a week.
Since the class lasts from 5:30 til 9:00 (someone shoot me, please), people tend to bring their dinners with them. At the beginning of the fifteen minute break, someone in the back of the room loudly announced "I'm gonna go walk my burger off". Someone else obviously misheard what he had said, asking him, "you're gonna go walk your weird off?"
So what did stupid over here say before she could shut herself up?
"I tried the once, it doesn't work."
As if that wasn't bad enough, the only person that heard my stupidity was Left Lady.
I think she'll probably pick a different seat next semester.
And I'm OK with that.


College seems to give me the best anecdotes these days, simply because you would never think an institution of higher learning could be so publicly daft.
This email arrived in my inbox the other day:

Subject: Fire

A fire has been reported in Building B on the West Campus.
The Fire Department is responding and the building is being evacuated.
Updates will follow when more information becomes available.

Really? Now they're sending out mass emails about a fire?

More to the point, where the hell is the West Campus? I guess I should put that on my list of things to memorize, right under 'learn the names/faces of people in the class who call you by name when they want a pencil'.

By now we've all seen the major announcement that one of my favorite albums in The History Of Ever has been remastered, and set for release May 22nd, right?
At first, I was more-than-mildly excited by the announcement. After all, the rumor mill accurately predicted the release date, but we didn't know full specs on what the Super-Dee-Duper-Deluxe-Edition would have; and we all know I need the Super-Dee-Duper-Deluxe-Edition to go with my other Super-Dee-Duper-Deluxe-Editions.
It was all fun and games, until I hit the part where it said Ram was going to be released in mono -- that was when I completely lost it. It looked sort of like this.

Mixed with Howard Dean up there, just for unexpected flavor.

I mean, I have tried to refrain from posting my mono/stereo comparisons here for a very long time, but I may have to break my rule.
After all, it was fun when I posted my fangirl notes, right?

Reginald Kitty is not amused.


So, what has this edition of Blog Casserole taught us?

* Pencils are in pretty high demand.


* Only the awesome-est people wear glasses.


* I am officially dead to Left Lady.


* There is something seriously wrong with the college I attend.


* Mono remasters make me go all High Fidelity. And I'm OK with that, too.

My mother said she didn't understand the meaning behind the "homo recording". I guess she didn't see the "HOME" part. I showed her tumblr recently, so I think I may have diluted her mind.

* And this song should be re-recorded for the sole purpose of retro girl-dom. "Lost In Mono" has a nice ring to it.

Look, Ma! I'm wordplaying with songs now! What do I win?

Pictures Of Lilly

There I was, standing at one of my bedroom windows yesterday, when I saw a most peculiar sight. As I pulled up the shades, my eyes were assaulted by a giant white something in our back yard. The mixture of the bright whiteness and the intense sunshine made me question what I was seeing.

Yet, plain as day, little white flowers had bloomed all over our pear tree; further investigation revealed that green had appeared in some patches of the lawn, birds were singing, and the general feeling of spring hung in the air. Also, it was so damned hot, I thought I was going to be reduced to a puddle on the floor. Any temperature over 77 degrees, and I start melting.


Now, this is still about two weeks too early for spring to have sprung, but I don't think nature is keeping track of the calendar anymore.
With that said, I went out and took some pictures.

While we were out there, Lilly decided that she wanted to model for me. Am I going to turn down the most beautiful girl in the world? No.

Did you enjoy the pictures of Lilly?
How about this, instead?


While we're on the subject of awesome music (because I can turn any conversation around to it, eventually), how excited are we for Miles Kane's Record Store Day EP?
Well, I am.
The first single was played on BBC Radio 1 yesterday, and it sounds gear.


So, here we all sit. Short pants, short sleeves, and -- quite obviously -- short attention spans.

It's the heat.

What's Wrong With Television, Anyway?

I don't watch much television. As a public schooler in the 90's, I watched more television than was probably good for me; once I made the switch to home education, however, I lost all interest in the medium. Unless it was Fox News, I really didn't care. Thirteen years later, I'm still pretty much that way; I don't know who or what is on television (except The Bachelor), but I like to make a stupid display of shouting Fox News anchors' names. Depending on what's going on that day, you can hear a wide range: "CAMPAIGN CARL!"; "YOU TELL 'EM, MEGYN!"; "SHEP! SHEP! SHEP!"; or, my favorite "IT'S THE SPACE COWBOYS!"

I officially have no life. Why? I watched this live. And I still think it's funny. Go, Karl!

If I watch anything on television now, it's generally from Britain. BBC period dramas, mostly, though I will watch films with my favorite actors in them...

But why isn't it non-fiction?

Either that, or the films are so old, talkies were still a novelty.
So, imagine my displeasure when my father asks "have you watched the cougar?" yesterday afternoon.
What the hell is "the cougar"? Is it some new show I don't know about? I had no clue.
"No, they played it after 'Arsenic and Old Lace' the other day, and it's about a cougar. They do some crazy stuff in it, so I want you to see it."
Hmmmmm. OK. That clears everything up.

So, he gathers my mother and I in front of the magical HD box, and we begin to watch.
As he starts to play the short film, I ask him the important question: "they don't kill the cougar, do they?"
"No," he said, "nothing dies in it."
'At least nothing dies,' my mental narrator said, 'because he knows I have a difficult time with animal violence. Although, he has difficult time remembering I don't eat meat. I hope there's nothing disturbing in this film. He wouldn't show it to Mama, either. After all, when you live with someone for thirty-six years, you're bound to remember that they don't like bad things happening to widdle animals.'
As I watched the first couple of minutes of the film, I remembered why I hate television.
Something about Little Surefoot having to herd sheep, while his mother sold baskets by the roadside. I don't even know. All I can tell you is that I was not pleased with how this film was turning out. The cougar was an ominous figure, ever-present when Little Surefoot made his rounds with his ruddy sheep. And then, Cowboy Jim has been called up to hunt down the cougar. Hmmm. This doesn't sound like a non-violet film. One dead calf (which, by the way, was an actual dead calf) and a lasso around the cougar's neck later, and I'm outta there like yesterday.
Long story short: the paternal unit and I still aren't speaking.


How many folks here watch Supernatural? What does it matter, I can't see you, anyway.
My mother and sister like the show, so I watch it for them. After the most recent episode, though, I realize that it truly is not my cup of tea. I don't mind when the show revolves around the monsters going bump in the night -- on occasion, that's even entertaining. When it steps into giving nutjobs ideas, though, I'm out. If you haven't seen it, SPOILER ALERT! OK? Any show that focuses on actual human stuff creeps me the hell out, and I just plain won't watch it. An actual serial killer? Really, Supernatural? One who wants to be possessed by the demon that had hold of him before so that they can kill together? Who tracks down and stalks his victims? And, most importantly, the son-of-a-bitch who KILLED THE DOG?

The name of the show is Supernatural for a bloody reason. They need to go off and find their stupid Leviathans, so Castiel gets some justice for saving the Winchesters' asses from the Apocalypse they started.

If I want a story about screwed up humans, I'll just watch the scenes from Sybil that deal with her childhood. OK? Side Note: I just had to explain to my mother what exactly happened in Sybil. Dear God.

Even music videos make me scratch my head, sometimes. College keeps me pretty busy, so I have only just gotten around to watching the latest video from The Summer Set. They aren't my favorite band in the entire world, but I got to see them open for The Plain White T's back in October, so I was curious to see what they would put out. That, and I saw them perform the song live.
And then, this happened.

As the video unfolded, I thought it accurately depicted the mood of the song: young, reckless, stupid, doing things you'll regret later. I got that bit. It was the bludgeoning I couldn't wrap my brainbucket around.
Sure, you could put on your English major hat and read some sort of bollocks into the ending of this video. You could say that, just like a first love, you have to kill it before it kills you (am I alone on that one?); I get it, I dig symbolism like nobody's monkey.
But really?
I was fine with it until she dragged him behind the car.
To quote one commenter on YouTube: "Geeze, it's just a Volvo, lady".


What can we learn from this analysis?
Firstly, I'm just going to stick to watching Fox News.

We were actually evacuated from hurricane Rita. Remind me to tell you about it sometime.

Secondly, I really miss Candleford.


Thirdly, I don't remember Maggie Smith in this film at all.

What? I was looking for films with my favorite actors in them.

And, fourthly, if you're going to watch weird music videos, the British do it best.

Adventures In Supersleuthing, Or, It's All In What You Fangirl

I take it y'all have been watching The Bachelor.
Right?
You've been watching, haven't you?

Well, if you haven't, this past Monday was the (most-boring-episode-of-the-entire-season-why-do-they-even-film-it) "Women Tell All" special.

That's right, that episode that strings out the season for one more week, and no one actually cares about; yes, we still watch it, but do we really care? (Answer: no.) They generally just talk to the "ladies", show the blooper reel, and give us a look at the annual Bachelor/ette/Pad reunions.
Boring, right?
BUT WAIT.
I cannot find a video for this anywhere, but here's the gist of it:

The Bachelorette 5 winner Ed Swiderski gave an update on his life after his breakup with Jillian Harris. It was weird to see him at the reunion, since he’s not normally part of that world, and even weirder to hear a pitch that he should be on Bachelor Pad 3.

A pitch for Bachelor Pad?
It didn't sound like a pitch to me; it sounded like they were talking him up, just in case the ink on the contract gets smudged.
We've talked about Ed on the blog before (here and here, if you care to look over the posts), and I have openly discussed my rabid fangirl tendencies. So, if I tell you I had a small reaction to this, you wouldn't be surprised, would you? Good. In that case.
I may have reacted a little.

I spilt my tea all over my dog, and nearly choked on my home-made oatmeal raisin cookies. It was a good day.

Of course, I wasn't happy just with the little clip Chris Harrison gave us. Oh no. I got that familiar itch to, as I call it, supersleuth. Most people just call it Google-ing, but I want ALL information, dammit.

There is no possible way to make this activity sound innocent, or not creepy. I know, I've tried.

Fortunately, I have dealt with Mr. Swiderski's kind before; tech nerds tend to have their own websites, with those nifty little button things that link you to their Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, YouTube, etc. If you can find their website, you've hit gold.


He posted about the reunion, which is of help. This is my favorite part:

5 Things I learned at the Bachelor Reunion

1. If you judge people based on what you see on TV, then keep judging. You're right.
'Nuff said!

2. I still love my 3 favorite producers--you know who you are.

3. My mankini is not as popular as it once was. I saw several small children running
away crying at the pool.

4. We define the term "washed up". I think ET Honduras was on the red carpet.

5. The next Bachelor Pad is going to be awwwwwwesome.

Oh, it will, will it?
What say you, Chris Harrison?

Hmmmmm. Are we taking bets? I'm not.


Fangirling itself is just a fun thing, of course; that is, until someone else does it. It's creepy when other people do it, like the right to fangirl is yours, and yours alone.

Last week, an entire class was subjected to listening to a teacher fangirl; she got her photograph taken with so-and-such, who's fame has not gone to his head, and another one with so-and-such. I don't really remember all of it, actually. She said "I've got your picture", and my brain immediately went to this...

Tell me I'm not the only one that thinks performance video containing guitar swings should come with some kind of warning attached.

...and I kind of stopped listening after that.

It's a rather sad moment when you realize you've become a multi-faceted version of Penelope from The Amanda Show (90's kid moment, shut up).

I guess it's all in what you fangirl.
Speaking of which, apparently this happened.

It seems as though I have some supersleuthing to do.

I can't help it, it's a fangirl thing.

I have been these people. You either scream, or one of your lungs collapses; I generally pick screaming.

Hey! That Sign Just Blew Off! Hey! That Sign Just Blew Over!

Today is Leap Day! Hooray!
While the Earth has been busy catching up on those 0.04327 seconds of daylight we miss during those pesky three years prior to election year (Super Tuesday is next week, folks), I've been busy putting up with stupidity of all manner. It's like the extra day in our calendar year decided to also us catch up on the never-lacking stupidity ratio; well, it was decided for me, anyway.
Would you like to hear about it?
Just nod and smile; it'll be over soon.

Reginald Kitty is not amused.

Yesterday, I went to the dentist for some fillings. It was an innocent thing to do; all I wanted was for the doctor to make my teefies stop hurting. Instead, my brain hurt.
I was called back, and taken to a private room at the end of the hall, where I was adorned with a fabulous little fluorescent green paper bib (which was of no use; my Up And Coming Tour shirt was soaking wet, because someone lost control of the water squirty thing).
As the nurse-lady took my blood pressure, she struck up a conversation; somehow, it got turned around to the upcoming Leap Day. This is sort of how it happened.

Lady: I was looking at the calendar the other day to see when Christmas was going to be this year, and it said it was on Wednesday. But last year, it was on Monday, so it threw me off, until I was all, 'oh, it must be leap year'!

Me:


Lady: Hey, do you know how often leap year happens? 'Cause I don't.

Me:

Umm. It happens every election year. That's a pretty good indicator.

Lady: Oh! I'll try to remember that!

Do I have to tell you who lost control of the water squirty thingy? Or who was responsible for me nearly choking to death on my own saliva right in the middle of a dental procedure because she refused to use the little spit-sucker tube thingy?



What about the email I got from my college? I mean, an institution of higher learning allowed this to be sent out. Read it, and try not to lose faith in humanity.

Subject: Officer Mister Dude

Officer Mister Dude's father passed away Monday evening!
His name was Man-Man Dude and his services are pending in Nowheresville, Oklahoma!
We will keep you updated on service arrangements!
Thanks everyone!

For those of you who are maybe a little rusty in the English language specs department, English is your second language, or maybe to feel a little better about my AP Language Arts standing, let me tell you folks something. Listen closely, now, everyone. You must not over-use exclamation marks! I had an entire workbook every year on proper use of the exclamation point. You cannot use them this way, people. If you read that email as it is written, instead of how it was intended (I'm assuming surprise), it sounds slightly morbid. Are you expecting a big fat inheritance from Man-Man Dude? Why should you be so excited he's dead?
I could understand if it was just a random email sent out to friends and family, but that wasn't the case; it was sent every-frickin-body, from a college.



My mother, the escapades of whom we've talked of extensively, had a Nanecdotes moment today.


There she was, flipping through some junk mail (you know, real paper, Thomas Brown shoved it through our government-property-but-we-still-paid-for-it-letterbox), saying random words from the selection of drivel. Here's how that went.

Mother: Pickle. Chicken. Cheese. Spice. Delicious.

Me: Delicious Spice! It sounds like a good name for a Spice Girl; 'hello, I'm Delicious Spice'. (This went on for a few a little while longer, so I'll skip that bit.)

Mother: Were you saying something?

Me: Well, what was I saying?

Mother: Something about the Old Spice guy?

Yes, mother, because this...

...is so easily mistaken for this...

If she hadn't been busy raising me in the 90's, I'd ask her where the hell she was for those ten years.

We're going. McFly!

After the sheer volume of stupid (excluding my mother), you would think I would be tired of laughing at all of it; well then, you thought wrongly, sir. I left my favorite stupid story for the very end.
Can you handle it?

WORDPLAY!

My dad's mother in in her mid-80s. I think old age is getting to her brainbucket, 'cause there is no other explanation for this.
She was talking about the Whitney Houston funeral thing, and she said -- well, read it.

Her: Those black people just scream and hollar, they don't sing. I don't like it.

Me: Billie Holiday was black.

Her: No, he wasn't. He was white.

Me: Billie Holiday was white?

Her: Yes! He was white!

Maybe we were talking about two different people named Billie Holiday? (Answer: No.)
This was the one I meant.




Like I say, she's old. At least, that's what I'm hoping for.



Well, there we have it, folks. Such an analysis proves that Leap Day makes people crazy, just like that episode of The Golden Girls told us.



I'm just going to take solace in the fact that this video exists, and crawl under the covers for the rest of the day.

Fun Fact: Ten years later, I will still fangirl Rupert Grint.

Big Time Rush: The Long Awaited Rant

I sit here, at 4:34 in the morning, listening to Frank Turner, sipping my tea under the comfortable blanket of darkness. Most nights, this would be a beautiful moment; let's be honest, I wait all day for the house to go quiet so I can sit back here until all-hours in my insomnia-riddled stupor, but that is neither here nor there. It's been another busy day, and the next week is already planned out. With little time during my day to check the news I find important, I make the rounds in the wee small hours. Perhaps, though, I shouldn't check the news this late at night, because when something makes you mad, you tend not to sleep.

What has my dander up?
Big Time Rush.
Sure, I'd heard of them, but paid very little attention to them. After all, I've never been big on that aimed-toward-the-teeny-boppers pop 'music', devised by a certain branch of the record business to do nothing more than cash in on a vulnerable age group in need of an object to fangirl (yes, I've been there, AND done that, so don't look at me that way). The extent of my knowledge of this band is that they have a television show on Nickelodeon (as a 90's child, that sentence felt awkward to type). That, and there was somewhat of a fuss made about them semi-covering All Time Low a few months back (it was a big deal at the time; I even wrote out a blog post for it, but decided against releasing it to the wilds of the Internet). Personally, I wasn't too pleased about it, especially after hearing how they completely lost the meaning of the original song.

Original...


Cover...


However, when a band makes a statement saying that another band's cover is OK, then it must be so (even if the cover makes your skin crawl).
That being said, imagine my surprise when I see Big Time Rush in my Beatles news feed.
What have the industry big-wigs decided to destroy this time?

Um. What?
The article I read included a synopsis of the film: something about a spy gadget called "The Beetle"; shock of shocks, the film is set in London; and they named a character Penny Lane.
Really?
I mean, really?

Sure, calling something Penny Lane is OK in certain instances; my favorite doll, which was a present for my seventh birthday, was named Penny Lane.

A red haired doll I named Penny Lane. My mother should have known I would turn out exactly as I am.

After I had an internal fit about the plot points, I realized that there was going to be an EP of Beatles covers being downloaded by well-meaning nine year old girls to their little iPod shuffles. Covers of The Beatles, for God's sake, sandwiched between Justin Bieber, and Miley Cyrus. I mean, people cover The Beatles all the time; this one just really set my blood to boiling.
As my outrage started to flare up, I decided to see if I could find any previews or clips from this predestined disaster (you know, for those of us that can tell good music from... well, anyway). The furthest I was willing to take the search was found at the end of the preview for the film.


"Help"? How on earth can they cover "Help"?

In this instance, imitation is not the best form of flattery. It cannot be, simply because The Beatles do not need to be flattered; they need for their catalog to be left the hell alone. Of course, this is coming from someone who boycotted the LOVE mixes for the first two years of their release (but later found her way to the promised lands). And, big surprise, newsflash of the day, I didn't care for "Across The Universe", either.

I may have been wrong about LOVE, but I'm not wrong about this. George Martin remixing the catalog to the satisfaction of Paul, Yoko, Olivia, and Ringo is far different from the cheaper end of the music industry taking iconic songs, and cheapening them for the notion of a few bucks. And, let's be honest, it's the record industry, not the band. The band is merely fulfilling their contract, and no one can blame them for that; we can, however, blame the narrow-mindedness of a continuously stagnating industry fighting tooth and nail to grab onto something that's left them behind, and that they lost sight of far too long ago.

It's reasons like this that Michael Jackson is swapping pineapples with Hitler.

"Hey, There's A Man In That Trailer!", Or, Sea Funk

You know what I just love about blogging? It doesn't matter if I'm a week late in writing a post. No one cares when something happened in relation to when it appears on a blog. Hell, this could have been a year ago, instead of a week; it just doesn't matter.

In other news, we went to Galveston last week. Oh boy, another tropical location. We all remember how much I love tropical places, right? So what better place for someone like me to go than a tiny little island. I have a bit of a history of going slightly bonkers on islands, and this trip was no exception. I spent almost the entire week whispering "sea funk" under my breath.

We still managed to have a somewhat decent time.
Would you like to hear about it?
Really?
Well, lie.

Reginald Kitty is not amused.

*I have traveled all over this great state -- except the Houston/Galveston area. That is, until now! The road from Dallas to Houston was just lovely, including the pine forest (which I had never realized existed). It was pretty darn neat to see those large, green trees, listen to Miles Kane, and devour a bag of Riesens.

I think I enjoyed the drive so much because it reminded me of driving in Illinois -- and I liked driving in Illinois.
Well, that and the Riesens.


*We had two lovely pic-nicks at the very end of the island. There were some birds there (see slideshow). I screamed a couple of times, because they decided they wanted to come into our car.

*The cemeteries there were beautiful. (What, you don't like to visit a cemetery or two on your holiday?) They were reminiscent of the ones in New Orleans, which was interesting.

*We visited a couple of mansions on the main boulevard. Surprisingly, they were magnificent on the outside, and plain on the inside. I don't understand it, either.

*Our hotel was built on top of Fort Crockett. When you walked the grounds, you were actually climbing on top of a fort.

Would you like to see the slides now?
Well, lie again.

Yes, it was a bit of a slow week. And, what's more, we missed two of the Six Nations Rugby matches on BBC America, because our DVR decided to ignore my programming prowess.

We'll get the February 25th game, and lament the fact that we didn't get to see Scotland play. Bloody technology.

Five Valentines, An Oscar, And Paul

Over the years, we've celebrated Valentine's Day in a couple of different ways.
Back in 2009, it was a rather modest affair; in 2010, we upped the anty, and passed out cyber-cards to some lovely people (and Carl Cameron); last year, we talked about showing people you love them every other ruddy day of the year.
So, all week, I've been asking myself what direction this year's Valentine's post should take (and, more to the point, why I write a post on this day in the first place). Wish me luck, y'all.



I kind of have a habit of playing a stupid little game. Don't tell me you don't play stupid little games, because it's how we all get through the day without violently assaulting innocent bystanders (or is that just me?).
My stupid little game (or, more accurately, one of many) is to pick out uncommon words, and see if I can find them in songs. It started with 'cellophane' in "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds", and I've been doing it ever since. With that in mind, here are five songs with the word 'valentine' in them. As an added bonus, 'valentine' is also in the title of each one!

I'm sure there are so many more, but these five were the first to come to mind.
In other news, I got this in my inbox yesterday. I wonder who it's from (can you feel the sarcasm in that sentence?).

Thanks, Ma. He'll always be Oscar to us.

Oscar may be my mother's valentine (or is it Mr. Bates/Timmons?), but we all know mine.

Have a good one, folks!