More stuff

Matt Roush has a preview of Dr. Horrible. Sounds like it's gonna be fan-freakin-tastic.

Also, Grace Park floats the possibility of the Battlestar movies being greenlit... assuming the rest of the cast hasn't already moved on to other jobs, seeing as how none of the actors have been contacted about a movie.

Quiet week?

Who knows... they've reached a tentative agreement on the budget, so it's possible that this week might not be crazy hectic. Of course, school code negotiations are still going on, so who knows. At least it's a short week - yay 4th of July!

I had kind of a busy weekend, with going home Friday night (Patches was friendlier than ever; she must have been lonely), and then rushing back here Saturday morning so I could get to Jenn's beer fest/barbecue. That was fun, and I got a bit of a sunburn, but it's already starting to look tan. I was on call on Sunday, but Teresa didn't need me, so I just cleaned my apartment a lot in preparation for my parents, who might be dropping by today on their way home from NY.

I also managed to get caught up with the last couple episodes of Doctor Who. Steven Moffat rocks my world. I'm pretty happy that he'll be taking over for Russell Davies, because he writes the best episodes. Of course, he also comes up with the freakiest shit, so thanks, not only do I have an irrational fear of statues, I am now even more terrified of the dark than I was before. But the Doctor says I have a good reason!

We finally have premiere dates for Dr. Horrible - or you can read it straight from Joss himself. Word on the street is that, despite today being the deadline and no agreement has been reached, SAG doesn't plan to strike, otherwise who knows, we might've gotten a Dr. Horrible sequel. :)

Psych is coming back soon - yay! Check out what James Roday and Dule Hill have to say about the new season.

Is it over yet?

Holy crap, I can't wait for the budget to be over. I've been driven to drink 3 nights this week (and that'll be 4 by tomorrow - Jenn is hosting a "Beer Fest" at her house this weekend). I have to go home tonight, because my parents decided to go on vacation and need me to check in on Patches. Someone in work said, "Don't they have any neighbors or friends who live less than 2 hours away that could do that?" which is a very good point. Eh, parents?

I do appreciate the complete disregard for my schedule. /sarcasm Setting aside the fact that I had plans this weekend (so I'm now going to be rushing back on Saturday to get there in time), this is budget week! Teresa needs us to be around. Fortunately, John could take Saturday, so I'm working Sunday. There's a reason they told us not to plan vacations for this time of year. And my mother even asked me, "We're thinking about going away this weekend. How is that for you?" and I said that it was a very bad weekend and could they please wait until July. And they said, "Tough, we're going anyway." Nice.

Anyway, I'll stop bitching now. Mad Men is coming back soon, isn't that exciting? The link's got pics from season 2, and this feature talks about the Mad women. There's also a trailer up for Dr. Horrible, which looks like classic Joss. Neil Patrick Harris was, like, born for a Joss show.

Meanwhile, the threat of an actors' strike is still looming. Weird to think that the writers' strike actually helped TV shows by facilitating early filming for next season, meaning they'll be better prepared in the event the actors do strike. Also, this is a handy feature to keep track of who's coming and going on all your favorite shows.

*sigh of relief*

You can stop freaking out now. Fox has come out and said that 22 hour thing is not true. Robert Carlyle, you and I are starting out on the wrong foot.

They'll have to change the name to "22"

According to this dude's interview, the 24 prequel movie isn't so much a prequel movie as it is the first two hours of the season. Because even though the show's called "24," there will only be 22 actual episodes this year, and the two hour movie is being counted towards the 24 hours.

That's dumb.

It can't be possible for the movie and season 7 to all be on the same day, unless Jack is going to spend several hours of the day on a plane coming back from Africa (in order to immediately be put on trial). So it shouldn't count as part of the 24 hours. Boo!

Monday morning

Well, I hope you all had a good weekend. I went to dinner on Friday with Christi and some med school people, and then went out to Ceolta's with Christi and a LOT of med school people. They just opened up their smoke-free second floor, and it was totally empty, so we just took over and basically had a private party. The music was awful, though - it was like the DJ totally dated us and only played stuff from the early-mid 90s. Seriously, Boyz II Men? Vanilla Ice? That's not even the fun old-school.

Saturday, I saw Christi again (making up for all that time she was studying for boards and wouldn't leave the library), when she and her friends came down to Harrisburg for the Brewer Fest. Christi volunteered to be the designated driver, but they were out of DD tickets, so she couldn't get in. (Yay, Harrisburg, encouraging drunk driving!) So Christi hung out with me while her friends drank beer.

This was Chelsea's first encounter with a stranger (other than my parents, whom she met on the first day, when everything was pretty much terrifying). She did well - she was very friendly and played with Christi on Friday night, but was pretty shy on Saturday. I think it was because it was naptime and she wanted us to leave her alone.

Speaking of Chelsea, I think there must be some kind of "How To Annoy Your Human" handbook that all cats have to read in kitten school or something. She's picking up Patches' habits, and they don't even live together. Patches, in case I haven't mentioned, has developed this charming way of waking my dad up at 4am by swatting everything on his night table onto the floor. Cell phone, glasses, pens, wallet, spare change, you name it, it gets knocked on the floor. Well, now Chelsea is doing the same thing, except I have carpet (my parents have hardwood floors), so it doesn't make as much noise. So I just wake up to a pile of stuff on the floor, while Chelsea proceeds to paw at me. If the swatting stuff doesn't work, she moves on to poking me in the eye with her paw, or tapping my nose. It'd be quite adorable if I didn't want to sleep for another hour.

Anyway, lots of TV stuff today. There's a bizarre clip of Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku on Dollhouse, who appear to be interviewed by the stars of some other show, one of whom is Jerry O'Connell (omg, remember Sliders? I do).

Also, there's a trailer for Christian Kane's new show, Leverage. CK also has a podcast interview from some country radio station, where he plays three new songs. OMG, I love him so much, and I don't even like country music. I would totally marry him if James Marsters were unavailable. :)

This is a little weird - Jack Bauer will be the best-looking 52-year-old ever. 24 is doing another time jump this season, which puts season 7 at 17 years after season 1, where Jack was 35. Yikes.

I've never heard of this show, but I'm glad to see Janel Moloney getting work. She's pretty awesome (and I miss The West Wing!).

Picspam!

I finally unearthed my camera from the mess that is my desk, and took some pictures of Chelsea. Turns out she's somewhat camera-shy. I kept trying to take her picture, and she kept turning away from the camera. Anyway, here she is:


"Maybe if I don't look at her, she'll go away."


"Stop taking my friggin' picture."


"Why, yes, I am adorable."


Chasing the invisible string.

Help! There's a cat-toy-eating troll under my bed!

At least, that's the only possible conclusion I can make. Where do all the toys go???

The other day, I gave Chelsea a new mousie. It was gone by the time I went to bed. We've had a rash of disappearing fuzzy balls, so I opened up the sofa bed and found six of them. Within two hours, four were missing again. I checked under the sofa, and... nothing. The other two had vanished by morning. We're down two plastic balls, and at least three mousies, one with a bell.

When I was home on my lunch break, I gave her a new mousie. I fully expect it to have disappeared by the time I get home from work.

I've checked under every piece of furniture I own, behind all the doors, and between all the crevices. No toys. They just vanish into thin air.

The only place I can't retrieve toys is under the refrigerator. I'm sure there's at least one mousie under there, and I've stuck a coat hanger in trying to get it out, but came up with nothing but dust. I'd love to see the maintenance guys' faces if they ever put in a new fridge. They'll probably find a whole stash of dusty cat toys.

Or maybe Chelsea's the one eating them. Hmmm.

*cough*

Okay, so I completely just hacked up a lung while on the phone with a Senator's office. Note to self: bring cough drops to work. I've had this itchy scratchy hairball-in-my-throat thing for about a week now, and it's rather starting to bother me.

I did have an interesting weekend, though. I went home (again... why is it that whenever I go home, it seems to be two weeks in a row. Can't we plan better than this?) for my cousin's college graduation party. Always entertaining, given that my family is completely batshit crazy. The Craziest Quote of the Night award goes to my grandmother for this gem:

My mom was explaining to my grandmother, my great aunt, and my second cousin why Elaine's husband Bill wasn't at the party - because he met some woman on the internet and ran away with her to Arizona. They are more appalled by the fact that he met her online than that he cheated on his wife. My grandmother says: "How could you meet someone online? You don't even know who they are! They could be Chinese!"

Yes, of all the things that could possibly go wrong with someone you met online, the worst she could think of was that they could be Chinese. Not an ax murderer, not a serial rapist, not a child molester. Chinese.

I also got to endure the usual disapproving "you need to get yourself a boyfriend" from Aunt Rose, because apparently, at 24, I should be married and popping out babies by now.

ANYway, Saturday I went to a Philadelphia Soul game with my dad (and no, we did not see Bon Jovi). Indoor football is so cute! The field's so tiny! And the fans are so close to the field that "ball intercepted by a spectator" is an actual referee call that stops the play. Aww! (As it turns out, if a fan catches the ball and then throws it back to a player, it doesn't count.) I think half the fans went home with a football. The scores are ridiculous, though. I mean, the field's only 50 yards long, so it's not that hard to score, and the Soul won 62-61 (it was a nail-biter at the end there).

We missed the beginning of the game, though, because there was a Jimmy Buffett concert at Citizens Bank Park, and so the entire sports complex was PACKED. I've never seen so many tents and RVs in one place in my life. Apparently, people come just to tailgate. It was ridiculous - aside from the obligatory Hawaiian shirts, leis, grass skirts (some worn by men), and parrot hats, people brought SAND. Actual sand from the beach. And inflatable pools! I mean, seriously, people! It was the most insane thing I've ever seen. And you should've seen the parking lot when we came out. It had rained, of course, washing the mounds of sand all over the place, and the entire parking lot was a vast wasteland of trash and the remnants of tents and portable grills. It seriously looked like a hurricane had come through.

We also watched The Other Boleyn Girl this weekend, which was good (although not my dad's first choice for a Father's Day activity).

It's been a busy day in work today, as we are minus one secretary. Our temp, who has been here since Charlene left, had her last day on Friday, but the new girl doesn't start until next week, so we're on our own. Consequently, I haven't had much time to catch up on my usual sites and blogs. I should, however, mention the very sad news that Tim Russert died. I still can't believe it. He's been such a fixture in news and in politics that it's hard to imagine it without him.

Mixed bag

I think it's going to be a pretty slow day in work today - which is a nice change from the hectic/crazy/chickens-with-our-heads-cut-off mentality of the week so far. There's such a difference when they're not in session...

Anyway, nice article on why Obama should address sexism in this country. I think it's very true that Hillary, ironically, wasn't in a good position to make a "sex speech" the way Obama made his race speech. Being reduced to the woman candidate would have weakened her position - which is precisely the reason why we need the sex speech. But the thing is, we've had enough of women saying, "We can do it" - hell, Hillary's very presence in the race said that much. What we need now is for someone to address sexism say, "This is unacceptable," but for Hillary to say that herself, it looks like she's whining because she's getting beat up by all the men in government and in the media. So, here's Obama's chance to really make me a believer - let's talk about sex.

Kind of silly and self-indulgent, but I found it entertaining - what's so frightening about liberals (aside from the "ravaging the virgins" thing)? Also notable for this: "Conservatism could handle Stalin and Lenin, but is too fragile a thing to survive Joss Whedon."

This does not fill me with warm fuzzies - Sarah Paulson has been cast in the Paula Marshall role in Rob Thomas' new version of Cupid. In case you don't remember, Sarah Paulson was the thing I hated MOST about Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (and there were a great many things to choose from).

And finally, what the hell have they done to Strawberry Shortcake??

Random summary of everything

In case you live under a rock, Hillary endorsed Obama on Saturday. Also, Dennis Kucinich wants to impeach President Bush. There seems to be hardly anything in the news about it, but Daily Kos has some info.

In the world of TV, Heroes may be staging a Veronica Mars reunion, as Francis Capra (Weevil) is set to guest star next season. Yay! There's also an interview with Jane Espenson about last week's Battlestar Galactica, which I haven't read, because I was away all weekend and didn't watch the episode yet. Steven Weber is going to be guest-starring on Psych, which is awesome. And finally, a fun feature on what it's like in the writers' rooms of your favorite TV shows.

I watched the second episode of The Mole last night. It's not quite as good as the Anderson Cooper years, but I'm still enjoying it. There are definitely more people on there who do the reality TV thing - like "I'm on TV so I have to act obnoxious to get noticed," but less so than on other shows - possibly because this game is all about behavior and trying to be suspicious or throw the others off. I think Nicole is pretty much crazy, concluding the episode with this stellar threat to Paul: "I'll kill you in your sleep...I can do it and not leave any forensic evidence." Mark is either the mole, or he's taking this shit way too seriously. Also, Bobby is a whiny little bitch.

Is that English?

Some people find any law to be tedious and difficult to decipher, but dealing with legislation all the time, I don't really have a problem with it. But today I had to work with an act from 1799 and I was like, "WTF language is this?"

I quoth:

"And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That there be erected, and hereby is erected and established, in the town of York, in the county of York, a county school or academy, for the education of youth in the learned and foreign languages, the useful arts, sciences and literature, the style, name and title of which said school or academy, and the constitution thereof, shall be, and are hereby declared to be, as is hereinafter mentioned and defined..."

And to that I say "huh?"

No, for real this time

Word on the street is that Clinton will be officially bowing out tomorrow at noon. She met with Obama in D.C. last night, and is starting to squish talk of accepting the V.P. spot. Honestly, I think that's a good idea. Blah blah blah dream ticket and all that, but really - I don't think they work well together.

First of all, despite having very similar platforms, their messages in the primary were totally different, and I don't think Hillary fits well with Obama's "hope and change" pitch that's earned him so much popularity. Plus, as others have mentioned, it will look like Obama surrendered. He got strong-armed into accepting Hillary whether he wanted to or not. And if he can't even take on the Clintons with a clear victory, how can he ever take on the Republicans, let alone foreign heads of state? It makes him look weak. There are plenty of other candidates out there who are strong in the same areas as Clinton, and if he picks a Clinton supporter (Wesley Clark, for example), I think he'll win over most, if not all, of the Hillary vote.

I also think that putting Hillary in the #2 spot is just asking for animosity - you're going to have an ambitious V.P. who's not going to just roll over and do whatever the White House tells her to. Not to mention you'll have Bill in there as a... whatever he is. He may not have power, but he has influence, and I can't see him taking orders, either. If you don't know what I'm talking about, watch the first couple seasons of The West Wing, and the conflict between President Bartlet and V.P. Hoynes, and you'll see what I mean. You need a good relationship with your V.P. otherwise you'll find the rug yanked out from under you.

I think Hillary has done well in the Senate, and I think she should continue on there. People are throwing around other positions - Cabinet, maybe, or this article in which a delusional NY representative thinks Obama should nominate her for the Supreme Court (what kind of crack are you on, honey?) - and that's okay, too, but I think she flourishes in the Senate.

I think my cat is mentally deficient

Seriously, what part of "don't walk on the table" doesn't she understand? Or rather, how many times am I going to have to scoop her up and deposit her on the floor, or push her little paws back onto the chair, before she gets the message? At lunch today it was *paws* *push* *paws* *push* *paws* *push* for the entire hour. She hardly ever walks on the table at night, just at lunchtime when I'm ignoring her because I have other things to do.

I'm pretty relaxed about her going anywhere she wants to, but we do have some boundaries. And I have issues with Chelsea nosing around in my sandwich or sticking her head in a bag of chips. (Mainly a "no eating people food" rule, but I also don't particularly enjoy cat hair in my ham and cheese.)

My mom suggested getting a spray bottle to squirt her with water when she does things she shouldn't, which I'm probably going to do.

Well, I'll show her. We're going to the VET today! How's that for punishment?

I think it's safe to say the honeymoon is over, lol.

Lots to talk about today

Let's start with the big news. It's finally over. Of course, Hillary hasn't actually conceded, but er... yeah.

In other elections, Rob Andrews lost his primary bid against Lautenberg. Which means I will not be asking him for a job next year. Still waiting to see what will happen with Camille - my mom talked to her, and she says she intends to be a placeholder, but "I'm not going to step down if they pick somebody terrible!" Doesn't sound like Rob will be taking his seat back, but who knows. It's cool, I could work for Camille, too.

Recount is coming out on DVD August 19th - mark your calendars. I'm really glad this is being released so quickly, since I really want to see it, and really don't have HBO.

Casting news for 24 - Sprague Grayden will play the President's daughter in the prequel movie thingy. Which is cool, because she was one of my favorite people on Jericho (second only to Jake and Awesome Hawkins).

So, did anyone watch The Mole on Monday night? I know I'm totally breaking my zero-tolerance rule for reality shows, but I actually really like this one. The celebrity editions were never as good as the regular-people versions with Anderson Cooper hosting (love!), but it's still a clever show, with challenging objectives and contestants who actually seem like real people.

Oh joy

It seems Chelsea has learned to open the bathroom cabinet, and when I went home for lunch today, I found tampons all over my bathroom floor.

Also, I've got new neighbors across the hall. My first introduction - two small children screaming in Spanish while (presumably) their father lounges on the sofa watching TV in his underwear. How do I know all this? Because they left their door open! Um, it's an apartment building. Who leaves their door open for anyone to look in? Especially if you're going to hang around in your underwear. I'm so sad Caitlin moved out (she lived next door to me). I'm dreading who will move into her place. At least the people on the other side of me have finally discovered the volume button on their remote.

And, for something random and fun, school pranks in Hershey. Found it in our daily clips this morning. The penis in the soccer field is nice, but I think my favorite is this quote:

"Then someone had to find the chicken a home," Hazen said. "I don't know what the final disposition of the chicken was. I know he wasn't eaten."

I am so stalking Amber Benson

She's filming a movie, "Another Harvest Moon," here in Harrisburg (and possibly Lancaster?), so I shall be on the lookout this month.