Future Poltergeist

This week is the start of my new shift at work. I've switched from eight hours Mon-Fri to ten hour days with Thursdays off. The extra day off will be nice but I still haven't figured out my daily schedule.

I really like Ellen but she was pretty bad last night. She had a few nice moments of interaction with Clint Eastwood but her opening was painful and the brief in-between stuff was utterly forgettable. Don't know if she was nervous or just didn't understand the requirments of the Oscar gig. Bring back Billy Crystal! Seriously, we've tried other people but no one can fill his shoes when it comes to this. Or even Billy Crystal and Robin Williams... What's the difference between 'Sound Editing' and 'Sound Mixing'? And why aren't these part of the technical awards? Related question: 'Flags of our Fathers' and 'Letters from Iwo Jima' featured the same Sound Editing team. How did voters tell them apart enough to award them an Oscar? Would anyone else like to see the voting totals for these movies? Or what the next five 'Best Picture' selections would have been? Just me? If someone made a documentary about the enormous waste...

Yep, we got some snow. Before: After:

From the Strib found here . They set the odds like this: Babel 1-1 Little Miss Sunshine 2-1 The Departed 3-1 Letters From Iwo Jima 6-1 The Queen 10-1 I'll be greatly surprised if 'Sunshine' wins it. Haven't seen the rest so I don't have any personal observations on them. I'm predicting...that this is the year that they give it to Scorsese. He's too good of a director to be shut out for his whole life. And none of the movies are obviously head and shoulders above the rest. I probably have less rooting interest in these Oscars than any other recent year I can remember. Rooting for good montages mostly. And a good monolouge to begin with. And brief musical numbers.

So the FP Gal mentioned that Ozzie has found a new perch in the kitchen. He's taken to climbing up on a shelf that's on top of the refrigerator. This keeps him safely out of our reach and gives him a view of everything going on up there. At first we'd be surprised to see him up there but we've gotten used to it. But he's discovered a drawback to it. If he's up there we can't reach him to bring him down. We also can't reach him to pet his head! So now he can sometimes be seen trying to turn over in too small of a space, giving little mews and brrrs that mean Love Me! Poor guy. Wonder how long it'll take him to figure out the problem?

So I dragged myself back into work today and discovered that the plague had struck there too. On Monday alone, there were 30 people out sick (out of 150 or so). Several people were out multiple days. You could divide my coworkers into two groups: the obviously sick and those cowering from the first group. If I were in charge I'd have passed out hand sanitizer and biohazard suits. And maybe some orange juice. But I think those in charge were kind of grumpy with the whole situation. I can see their point because it's hard to staff adaquetly when huge portions of your employees are missing. (Not that widespread sympathy won't win them more loyalty. This is a point that is often lost at my work.) It's been kind of a tough few months for the corporate travel business. We've had a good half dozen winter storms severe enough to screw up travel all across the country. (The worst was the one that stranded thousands in Denver right around Christmas.) Everytime this ...

We're still filled with sickness. Day 5 for me and 7 for the FP Gal. I feel like I've turned the corner. Today, I just feel bad rather than miserable. So what have we been doing? Watching movies and bad daytime TV. We've also been trading off taking care of each other. The cats now think we never leave the house. Their sleep schedule is horribly off. They've been awfully cuddly. Enough sickness stuff? Sorry about that. We had our second doctor appointment last Friday. Everything looks good and we've been very happy with the treatment we've gotten. Pitchers and catchers reported last weekend. Real games start in just over five weeks. And yes, I'm very ready. Also wishing I could take a trip down to Spring training again. Arizona is mighty nice this time of year. That's it.

FP Gal here: My poor Peder can't even wear the badge of flu survivor. A visit to the doctor today confirmed that it is just a bad cold and we'll have to wait it out.

At least that's what I think I have. Going to see the doctor today. Yuck.

(Spoilers) This book tells the story of a young American man who joins the Italian army during WWI. He drives an ambulance and is wounded in the knee. While in the hospital he falls in love with a nurse. Their love grows and he eventually knocks her up. He recovers and is sent back to the front just as it collapses against the Austrians and Germans. He becomes disillusioned and desserts. The couple flees to Switzerland to await the birth of their child. Frankly, I didn't find this to be a great novel. The feel of it is more like that of a memoir as the protagonist describes in detail his daily actions. Part of this lends itself well to the story as you easily feel his comradarie with his fellow soldiers. The downside is that you kind of feel like you've been trapped into watching someone's vacation slides for 300+ pages. The worst part of this book is the heroine. She is completely subservient and intent on creating a codependent relationship. At one point she w...

For some reason I have much more problem putting posts up on days when I'm not working than when I am. No real reason why. The FP Gal and I decided to both get sick this weekend. She did it first and I (jealously) joined in. Regular posting to resume tomorrow (probably).

Three years ago today I met the FP Gal for the first time. We'd emailed back and forth (someday I'll tell about the Hulk joke that made her laugh out loud at work) but this was our first meeting face to face. Details are here if you're interested. Of note was that we discovered that our birthdays were only one day apart (actually 364 but you know what I mean). This was our first big connection. The second one was the real doozy. We'd been dating for a month or so and one night I was telling her about the companies I book travel for. Among them was Pillsbury. Very nice people and they gave us various Doughboy themed gifts. This brought to mind an old (Sept 19, 1999) column from James Lileks in which he wondered if the Doughboy was changing color. Lileks called Pillsbury to ask about it and a column was born. A very funny column obviously since it had stuck in my head strongly enough that I'd free associate to it while talking with a new girlfriend. The cr...

Thanks for introducing this to me, love!

The FP Gal and I have adopted a (hit or miss) tradition of matching movies with certain holidays. New Years - When Harry Met Sally Groundhog Day - Groundhog Day Valentine's Day - The Man with Two Brains Opening Day - Bull Durham Fourth of July - Forest Gump Halloween - Young Frankenstein Thanksgiving - (The FP Gal wants Accidental Tourist but I don't agree.) Christmas - The Christmas Story , Love Actually , It's a Wonderful Life , Elf Anyone else got anything?

One of my innocent workplace passtimes is to browse Wikipedia. It's not completely accurate, especially if the entry is political in nature, but you can find lots of interesting stuff out. Their main page has a daily featured article as well as what's happening in the world and historical events from each date. Usually something (or several things) catch my eye and I can hop from subject to subject finding out little bits of stuff here and there. Cheap infotainment. This morning's featured entry was on ' Make Way for Ducklings '. This is one of the FP Gal's favorites and she tells a charming anecdote about little drunk ducks. I clicked on it eagerly and...wow. Go on over and read it , especially the Critical Reaction. I'm not sure which is my favorite sentence. This one: More recent critics have stated that the illustrations cause the strength of the plot to suffer. Or this one: Critics also find the characterization of the waterfowl lacking, that...

Details here.

This is a fun quirky road trip movie. It highlights suburban angst as it follows a screwed up extended family. The grandfather is a junkie, the uncle survived a suicide attempt, etc. They all pile into an old VW bus to take an 800 mile roadtrip to a child beauty pagent. They run into problems and learn some things about themselves. They push each other away and end up closer than ever. (They also push the bus several times.) This was a good but not great movie. Quirky and fun but not much more. I'm surprised that it got a Best Picture nominee. (BTW, I'll accept that this might have been a better movie to see in a theater than in the comfort of our own home. Still don't see this as a great movie.)

Hans, did you know she had a new(ish) album out?

Pure comedy gold.

Missing Thai Woman Reappears 25 Years after Boarding Wrong Bus

Advice found here . And it's good advice indeed. (My thoughts on last night's show? Not bad. We got another big clue as to what's going on. We learned that there is more conflict amongst the 'Others' than we knew of before. We learned that surgeons aren't always good with anestethia. I am starting to wish that they'd thin the herd a bit and focus on about half as many people. But they know what they're doing and I'll certainly keep watching.)

I'm calling Shenanigans on the weather service. I don't think it's two degrees outside. It feels like mid-teens. I thought yesterday's temp was higher than they're admitting too. Shenanigans!

Enjoyed the game yesterday. I wasn't as bothered by the Colts winning as some people . You don't see a lot of bad weather Super Bowls, so that was interesting. Best commercials? CareerBuilder.com. And yes, I often concentrate on surviving the work week. Only 32 hours left of this one. My past favorite? This one right here . If you can't beat them, join them . (I'm not applying, Mom, don't worry.) MOA fun fact: They don't heat the darn thing (except near the doors). They rely on sunlight in the middle and the hustle and bustle of tourists. I'm sure it's just a coincidence, but every time a report on global warming is released we seem to go through abnormaly cold weather. A request from the powers that be, if I may. Could someone book Al Gore to the Twin Cities in July? The FP Gal would appreciate it. Cruise update, it looks like I can't do much more until April. More details to follow.

I'll start with the sports stuff. I'm rooting for the Colts for various reasons, the biggest of which is that I'm a big Dungy fan. I'm expecting the Bears to win for one simple reason, the bye week. That extra week means that this comes down to coaching and I think that Lovie Smith is a better X's and O's guy. If I was putting money on this, I'd take the Bears. (Especially if you gave me the 7 points that the Colts are favored by.) Of the four major outcomes of this game (Colts blowout, Bears blowout or close game won by either squad) none of them would surprise me. Cirque de Soliel did the pregame. I looked for the Malaka-Laka board of peace but I didn't see it. Non sports stuff? Everyone should have a nemesis and I seem to have found mine. It's the wandering Menace-at-the-Mall, the shark mascot. Don't let his cheery look fool you. If he could he'd eat you and your entire family. That's it!

(This is rough, but I enjoyed writing it.) “Ugh. Here comes that really long bridge. I’d forgotten about that.” Mark craned his neck to look around the cars that were in front of him to try and gauge just how long it really was. “Do you want me to drive it, hon?”, Jane offered, never expecting that he would take her up on it. “There isn’t a good spot to switch drivers. Don’t worry, I’ll handle it.” And she could see him set his shoulders a bit more and hunker down. She really wished that he would let her ease his burdens more but she also knew that that wasn’t his way. Twelve years of marriage (and three of dating before that) had taught her quite a bit about her man. He could be the most stubborn and driven man she’d ever met. Loving too, when it came around to that. She reached over and put her hand on his knee to reassure him. “It’ll be fine. Just focus on the car in front of us.” He grunted under his breath and then said, “Good idea. I’ll try it,” a...

Every February, Turner Classic Movies specializes in Oscar films ( full calendar found here ). This is a great way to catch some of those 'ought to see' movies. It looks like they've tried to run some more modern films, including 'Poltergeist' (on 17 Feb), this blogs namesake. Note to the FP Gal, I'll try not to fill the DVR.