Home Sick

Slight fever and raw throat. Watching A Haunting and UFO Hunters all day, and trolling hte internets.


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What's that smell?

That's the burning rubber of my wheels trying to catch up with my life. Or the flinty smoke from my rotundus maximus trying to wedge itself through the door.

Haven't gone to H2O aerobics in 3 weeks due to: covering someone else's class, attending a department meeting, having my period, getting ready for the conference last weekend, grading, and getting a sinus infection. I am going tomorrow if I have to shoot down and stomp on my students' dead bodies and bloody scripts to get there.

Did manage to get to Yoga tonight, and that felt good, although clearly my abs have forsaken me.

I'm behind on everything but that's only going to last a few more days, then I'll have a chance to catch up.

Cleveland and the in-laws were delightful this past weekend, though as usual I ate too much bad stuff there (though not as much as usual; I was being careful). Only one piece of pie instead of four. Not so shabby eh?

A successful visit to Half Price Books gleaned me the first season of Night Gallery, a Twilight Zone Companion, a book on belly fat, a new journal, and...something else I can't recall at the moment. Best part was that, unbeknownst to me, there was a 20% off educator discount going on. Of course I had no college I.D. on me, other than a business card, and I more or less bludgeoned the clerk into giving me a discount anyway. She got her vengeance by "forgetting" to put the DVDs in the box for Night Gallery. I had to go back, wait in the damn line again, etc. But did get a coupon for 15% for my troubles (which I promptly gave to my sis-in-law since it was only good until the end of the month and I live 2 states over).

Ah, but now I have tons of grading to do and Night Gallery to distract me. Who could ask for anything more?

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Land of the Lost

We watched a slew of these episodes during the marathon on Sci Fi Channel and it was fun; I was getting into the story line (yes, there was one!). I remembered a lot from seeing it as a kid, but of course grown-up eyes see much more. Like Holly grew up between Seasons 2 & 3 but they kept her in pigtail braids. There were only 3 Sleestack at a time because they only had 3 costumes. Will looked suspiciously like David Cassidy (turns out they had him lined up to replace Cassidy on the Partridge Family but then the show was canceled). The Sleestack aren't really that scary - they're dumb, move really slowly, and can't throw nets very well.

I'm saddened that the new movie coming out will be just a Will Farrell goofball vehicle, with none of the mystical science fiction element that made the old show so much fun to watch. Just another reason to despise Will Farrell.

A Haunting

The other thing I watched today while on the couch, clutching my roll of T.P. and my box of cough drops, was "A Haunting" which is a show that dramatizes supposed true stories of haunted houses. I'd seen the ep. before but I didn't remember that the demonologists in the case were Lorraine and Ed Warren, of Amitiville Horror fame and now enjoying TV fame on "Paranormal State."

I wonder what possesses someone to become a demonologist.

GET IT? I couldn't resist.

We are now watching "Destination Truth," which I usually don't watch, but they're ghost hunting in a Javanese cave. Josh Gates has the most annoying voice on TV, and he seems to enjoy disrespecting the native peoples he visits in search of his mythical beasts. But he is occasionally funny, in a self-deprecating annoying kind of way. One thing's for sure, he really gets himself into some dangerous spots in search of whatever (truth?).

I will say that he scored points with me when he guest-starred on Ghost Hunters International and taunted the ghost by saying "Whip a rock into Andy (Andrew)'s face." Now that is something I'd like to see.

Sick on the couch

Today was my 2nd day on the couch. I watched a 2-hour program on the history of UFOs in America. I remember when the History channel was all about Nazi battle strategy and tanks. Now we have UFOs, USOs (Unidentified SUBMERGED Objects, for those who don't follow such things), and of course, cryptozoology (how many "o"s in that word? Anyway it's the study of mythical creatures like Nessie and Bigfoot).

I did learn something from the UFO show, though. I learned that the secret air force stuff out at White Sands began with a crop of German scientists who were brought here after WWII to divulge all their rocket science and propulsion research. Basically Area 51 started out as a research facility for a bunch of ex-Nazis to help us build the space program. So in one way, you could argue that Adolf Hitler funded (albeit unwittingly) the U.S. space program. Sweet.

I am facing a trip to the grocery store this evening, which I am not looking forward to, because I am about out of everything necessary for the sick or the healthy, including tissues (been using a roll of T.P.) and non-drowsy sinus stuff.

Ostrich Feathers

As we are all painfully aware, the election season is in full swing with the Democratic National Concruption and Republican National Confuscation. I choose to stick my head in the sand. I choose, instead, to think about blather like The Paranormal Research Society.

These guys have it made - college kids with digital equipment and a keen interest in the paranormal who go to people's homes to research their potentially paranormal problems and come up with possible solutions. Although Ryan Buell is cute and seems to have his heart in the right place - I wonder if it's A&E's programming people who are controlling the type of stories that are included - there seems to be a predominance of evil/demonic spirit stories lately.

I watch it every week because 1. I'm interested in the paranormal, 2. I love the idea of a student group doing this kind of work and 3. Chip Coffey ROCKS. His antics are very entertaining. Supposably (that's a nod to rival paranormal researcher Jason Hawes' terrible grammar, as heard on GhostHunters), Ryan B. doesn't believe in mediums/psychics and is not one to take Chip's word (or any medium's) at face value. That might explain why he often wears a quizzical expression for most of the episode. Hell, he doesn't even seem to believe his own staff when they go to the library and turn up research that supports a medium's claims. I have a feeling that A&E doesn't allow a lot of his skepticism to come through because it wouldn't be as exciting to the audience (and they might tune out).

These ghosthunting groups like TAPS and PRS get picked up by cable TV and turned into a commodity like everything else, though, complete with formulaic programs and cheap knock-offs and "if you like X, you LOVE Y" from lesser networks' daytime programming (I'm thinking here of "A Haunting" which has to be the MOST ridiculous piece of shit I've ever seen glowing out of my cathode ray tube).

(Edited for snark-rant content on 9/3.)

Blingdom

O Mighty Isis (Isis...Isis..Isis)!

Nick at Knight

This past weekend I allowed myself for the first time in months to completely shut out the real world and just chillax in my pad. Me and Bizarro sat down to watch the entire first season of a show called Forever Knight, a cult vampire show from the early/mid-90s. I remember staying up til 1 in the morning to watch it with my Mom. She had a nickname for the evil bad guy of the show, LaCroix: Blondie. The main character is Nick Knight, a vampire with a conscience who works as a Metro homicide detective while his coroner gal pal concocts a program for him to physically regain his humanity. That shit lasted 3 seasons! The stories were campy and fun, the acting was often awful but it worked within the cult campiness of the whole arrangement. And when I was 24 I had a crush on the actor who played Nick, Geraint Wyn Davies, as well as his vampire love Janette, played by Deborah Duchene.

Ah, those were simpler days... staying up until 1:00 a.m. to watch syndicated cult TV shows.