Manda Mia - Chatter

Not Dead

nospam@example.com (Manda) — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 02:37:45 +0200

So, where have I been? Uh... discovering torrents. 8-)

My massive old CRT monitor began its slow and painful death immediately after the above happened. Coincidence? Maaybe. Mom offered to buy me a replacement (a shiny LCD which takes up perhaps 30% of the space as the old - technology is bliss!) as an "early birthday gift." Those three words were the worst thing she could have possibly said to me because suddenly I see potental "early birthday gifts" to myself everywhere. I've bought Hot Fuzz on DVD (R2, of course), Vic Reeves' book, a Vera Bradley Bowler bag - half price and in my favorite discontinued colorway, 5 sets of Brittany Birch knitting needles (love them!) to complete my set, a Harry Potter pattern book, and I have every intention of buying a swift closer to b-day. Plus, thanks to my newfound hobby, I'm eyeing a DVD burner and Divx DVD player. LOL. This must stop!

In less illegal and more ironic news, a month ago the landlord surprised me with a beautiful new (to me) mattress and box springs to replace the old squeeky one. The new set is considerably lighter than the old, but still, less than a week later the bed frame (which, solid American construction notwithstanding, had a good 20 years on me) crashed! In the landlord's usual slow-poke ways, a replacement has yet to come so I'm sleeping with the mattress on the floor for now. *sigh* I really hope the apartment is mouse-free at the moment...

Inspired by Crissy and Markie, I've started up my own Tumblr, and I must say I'm really digging it. Ever since I started up the knitting blog, this one has gotten less and less of my time. (Though the knitblog has recently been crying for attention too.) Most of the things I've wanted to blog (links, pictures, YouTube vids) didn't seem enough for a full blog entry, and that is exactly the type of content for which Tumblr excells. For those who may miss the old movie blog, I've started doing mini (very mini) reviews again. It'll also be connect to my Flickr account.. as soon as I photograph anything that doesn't involve yarn. I'm sorely tempted to switch to Tumblr full time. I just wish it had comments. Edit: I got Haloscan comments working!

Kentucky Basketball Drama

nospam@example.com (Manda) — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 09:07:41 +0200

The new University of Kentucky basketball coach is... Billy Gillispie, former coach of Texas A&M. Yeah, I've never heard of him either.

This past few weeks has been a strange trip for UK fans. Rumors came from various quarters that Billy Donovan and wife had been touring the Bluegrass last week (like he didn't have anything better to do such as, oh, prepare for the Final Four!), that they'd been house hunting in the area (why the rush? - did they expect to be chased out of Florida with pitchforks as soon as the announcement was made?), and that they were going to live on a horse farm, of all things. (Everyone knows that all Kentuckians live on horse farms, just like all Irishmen live in thatched roof cottages.) On the flip side, there was a particularly ridiculous rumor that Donovan didn't want to take the job because he'd have to play his former boss, Rick Pitino, every year. *snort* I didn't believe a word of it. There was no reason why he'd want to leave Florida; a respectable, winning program with money and sunshine - what more could you want?

I have to say though that I really didn't care who the new coach would be. My one and only choice was Pitino, and there'd be no way he'd admit he made a mistake in leaving back in 1997. The strangest coincidence in all of this is that it was Gillispie (Tubby Smith's successor) who ousted Pitino (Tubby's predecessor) from this year's tournament - and on UK's home floor, no less. Weird, huh?

Spring Cleaning

nospam@example.com (Manda) — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 17:58:11 +0200

This is our week for spring cleaning. Yesterday I threw out about 100 old taped-off-TV videos. (The rule of thumb: if it's available on DVD, toss it!) Today it was the bathroom. It's amazing how many different shampoos two women can collect!

While in this mood, I decided that my posters had to go. They were all theatre related (there was an Apollo 11 poster up a few years ago but it kept falling down), and as I haven't bought a cast recording since Thoroughly Modern Millie four years ago, I decided they didn't apply to me anymore. So off came all the Phantoms and David Campbell posters. When searching for poster rolls to stick them in, I can across a Rent poster, bought on tour in 1997, stuck on the back of my dorm room door for a few months, then stashed away soon as my brief love affair with that show ended. I thought of throwing it away, but it's still in pretty good condition so it avoided the first dumpster round. Today, for kicks, I hit eBay to see what it might bring in auction. I found a windowcard (smaller, on thicker stock) of the same design that went for $56. Pretty incredible, I thought, but surely a regular poster would go for less. A little more digging and I found an online store selling the exact poster I have for... $225! Wow... LOL. Frankly, I'd be happy to get $5 for it.

While all this cleaning has been going on, I've been taking stock of things that could be sold online: unwanted yarn, unwatched DVDs, VHSs (do people buy these anymore??), computer parts, every Nora Roberts book from 1992-1996, plays from my month-long period as a theatre major, theatre programmes, and about 150 cast recordings. I've been threatening to sell on eBay for years, but I've always been terrified by the shipping portion. Not even taking into consideration the buying/finding of packing materials, the post office is a 2 mile walk from here - not bad but still not exactly pleasant when carting boxes. Recently one of those eBay drop-off stores opened within sight of my house. That will be nice for large items (perhaps the poster..) but I can't imagine dragging a hundred little items over there. I think I've decided on Half.com for most of the media items. It shouldn't be too hard to stick a CD into a padded envelope. Once I get the hang of that I can branch out to eBay for the Playbills and such. Anyway, that is the plan... Hopefully I'll go through with it this time!

Harry Potter and the Case of March Madness

nospam@example.com (Manda) — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 07:31:46 +0100

Emma Watson reportedly quits Harry Potter

Yay! I mean, I didn't really expect to get through all 7 films without a change of cast, and if it's anybody, I'm glad it's her. Daniel Radcliffe is signed up through the end of the series, and Rupert doesn't sound like he has any intentions of going anywhere. I will miss Emma's slightly snooty accent in Hermione, though.

*sigh* I've turned into such a horrible blogger this year. My knitting blog is averaging one post a month and it's not much better here. I am coming up with new blog ideas in my head all the time but laziness sets in, and they never go any futher.

An example would be March Madness. I'm a sports agnostic 11 months out of the year, but in this state it's tough not to get sucked in. All three of my alma maters made it into the field of 64. Plus, my high school's boys team made it to the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since 1990. (When I was there it was always the girls team that made it to championships.) I was going to write a blog post about how watching Louisville this year made me really miss the good ol' days when Pitino was at UK. How remembering the scrappy, full court pressure of The Unforgettables makes Tubby's school of play look almost pedestrian. But just when I decided to jump ship and root for UofL this year, they lose that blasted game yesterday. GT is already out (first round). I have every expectation of UK following suit this afternoon vs. Kansas. And, frankly, I really don't care about high school ball. So now I'm back to where I started: I can safely ignore the sports section of the newspaper for another year ...excepting the Derby, of course. ;-)

(By the way, did you hear? The Queen is coming! I'm strangely excited.)

Guess I managed to write some semblance of a blog entry after all, eh? Heh.

Maintenance Day

nospam@example.com (Manda) — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 15:25:01 +0100

So far I've managed to thoroughly not repair a lamp and to disassemble a heater a little too well. The heater is now clean, which was the original intention, so at least it looks its best even if it is now destined for the junkyard. I wonder what else I can break before sunset...

V-Day

nospam@example.com (Manda) — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 14:15:16 +0100

I have found my new favorite spam e-mail phrase:

"Is your pet red-carpet worthy?"

Heh. Another says "Spend more time on nature, less with pc." Well, it's nice to know they have my own best interests at heart, eh? ;-)

Happy Valentine's Day, all! Unfortunately I am sick as a dog so it's unlikely I'll be able to comsume much chocolate and sweets, but I'm trying to make the best of it. Luckily, I got a head start last week with SweetTarts Hearts and Tart Sweethearts. Alas, it's been hard to find regular Sweethearts around here this year, or at least I haven't seen any of the single-serve boxes. That new Tart variety is pretty nasty!!

Back

nospam@example.com (Manda) — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 12:58:50 +0100

No, I haven't moved the blog again....

What I've been doing instead of blogging

Setting up my new computer The easiest thing would be to keep the same software used on the old computer, but since I'm not under the restrictions of Win98 and limited hard drive space anymore, I searched for new and better proggies than I could have used before. And then of course I had to figure out how to use them. It's still a work in progress.
Playing with my new TiVo And playing is the correct word. I had my fun in loading up with 60+ Season Passes and Wish Lists. Thanks to parades and special holiday marathons, my TiVo was stuffed to the gills in a manner of days. Don't get me wrong, it's a wonderful bit of technology, but now the challenge is paring TiVo use back to a level I can live with without feeling overwhelmed. After all, I need to leave some time in the day for reading, watching DVDs (I just rejoined Netflix), and, you know, chores and important stuff.
Kicking up my heels at 221b Baker Street In November my library got in a huge batch of mystery DVDs - Marple, Poirot, Cadfael, and more Sherlock Holmes than you can shake a stick at: the complete Jeremy Brett collection, several Basil Rathbone films [I didn't much care for these - too Americanized], and even Billy Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (starring Robert Stephens who can't fail to remind me of Steve Coogan). I've also been reading the original Conan Doyle stories. Great stuff!
Trading frying pans with Vic Reeves & Bob Mortimer My R&M watching has taken a hit since the TiVo arrived to steal the DVD player's access to the TV (switching cables around is such a pain), but I still love Big Night Out and The Smell of... as much as ever. Bang, Bang should be arriving any day now - can't wait for that. And whenever I get bored I troll YouTube for Shooting Stars vids. :-)
Wasting far too much time with Spider Solitaire I'm up to 'Medium' difficulty now. Ooh!
Frenzied last-minute Christmas gift knitting Not much of a success since Grandma's gift consisted of one sock!
A small amount of baking Cookies from pre-made dough (best thing ever invented!), Church Windows for the New Year's family get together.
Just generally being a postergirl for ADD I swear I got up no less than 20 times while 'watching' The Lion in Winter this past weekend. Check the mail box, how's my download doing, need a cup of tea, gotta set the TiVo for the Golden Globes, etc, etc
Composing this entry in my head a dozen times ..but never actually typing it out until now.