Good Neighbors, Good Blogs

Deb tagged me and now I have to confess one of my deepest darkest secrets. . . Well, only sort of. Here's the breakdown:
(1) link back to the tagger which I did above, (2) name the character in a sitcom one would most like to be, and (3) tag three other people.

If I had to be in a sitcom, it simply MUST be as Barbara Good in the 1970's BBC series, Good Neighbors. I adore that show and she's so cute and perky! Tom and Barbara are trying to live off the land, without a whole lot of luck, though everything always manages to work out in the end, and they have the silliest quirkest neighbors and her sweet husband, Tom, reminds me of my beloved Stoney. Yes, it would definately be Barbara, with her nasty homemade wine, cheerful attitude and plucky dertermination! I could do a lot worse than be like Barbara and with some of the things we've gone through in the past couple of years, I've often thought of various episodes and chuckled, wondering just what would Tom and Barbara do?

Now, on to part three, the tagging. I've been out of the blogosphere for a bit, but three of the blogs I still read regularly are as follows: Indigoblog, ChastityCatt and the GardenWife.

All three have been tagged and I look forward to seeing the responses these ladies give!

Harry Potter Prophecies

In an excerpt from an interview, Rowling is quoted as saying, "the final chapter is hidden away, although it's now changed very slightly. One character got a reprieve. But I have to say two die that I didn't intend to die," she said. "A price has to be paid. We are dealing with pure evil here. They don't target extras do they? They go for the main characters. Well, I do."She hints that Harry will die but won't commit.

I half way think that Harry gets "the reprieve" but then I hope it's Snape that does. I've felt for some time that Snape will die for Harry "to atone" or what have you. I can't help but hope he doesn't have to. *notices husband roll his eyes but chooses to ignore it* Voldemort will die, I'm assuming.

"A price has to be paid," she says, and I interpret that as a price being paid for defeating the "pure evil". One I expect to die, that she "didn't intend to" is Draco. I don't know why, other than he's in too deep now. Unlike Snape, I don't see him being able to save Harry's life in a moment of grand unselfishness and thereby wiping his slate clean. (I don't see Severus doing that, either, to be honest, but I'm just trying to make a point here.)

She had better not mean that Neville dies. . . If Neville dies I will be SO amazingly angry at her. So angry! Something good had better happen to little Neville, my sweet little birthday-sharing favorite. He deserves some good. I still say, despite some more obvious facts against, that he could be the one the prophecy is about and when no one expects it WHAM-O, he'll kill Voldemort.

Of course, my real theory is that Hagrid will the one to kill Voldemort. Picture this: Hargrid over Voldemort, holding him down with a heavy knee to the neck, one huge arm holding both of Voldemort's hands still. The other hand holds his pink umbrella, pointed at Voldemort's throat; hatred, never before seen in Hagrid, fills his eyes. "I forgave ya, Tom Riddle. I forgave ya when I thought ya did it fer the school. I knew how much the school meant to ya; it was everythin' to me, all I had, so I understood. You turned in Aragog to keep the school runnin', so there'd be a Hogwart's ta come back ta. I could understan' that. But when I found out later, that ya knew all along that it wasn't Aragog, that ya'd turned him over ta die ta save yer self. . ." Here Hagrid will pause and clear his throat, blink back tears, and focus the even stronger hatrid back into the eyes of Voldemort. "I kin never fergive yer fer sending Aragog out ta die!" And with that. . Avada Kedavra! and the end of Voldemort forever. The end.

That being said, all that's left is to wonder when the last book will be published. I vote for 07/07/07. Wouldn't that be THE perfect day for the release of Book 7?! I'm not the only one to say that, as I've seen it around the web, but I will say I thought of it before I saw anyone else think of it. Go me!

An Apology

I noticed I was having a pop-up everytime I viewed my blog. I use Mozilla, so I actually only noticed that I was blocking a pop-up everytime. I finally got curious and investigated. It seems that the cute little clocks I had showed on a post, from the Portugese site, were coded (intetionally or unintentionally) to cause a pop up to a Portugese web hosting site. I am so sorry, y'all. I have removed the entire post.

A Day in the Life

Despite my determination to post more regularly, I've been playing even more on GoPets of late, as I've been a part of the test server. Though I don't like all the changes they're working on, I'm trying to take a serious, active role in testing them so I can give balanced feedback and not just say "Yuck! I liked it the way it was!" It's not that I don't like change, because I generally do--unless it's change in a game. I have a hard time with game changes for some reason. I didn't like Zoo Tycoon 2 nearly as well, Dungeon Seige II was particularly noxious to me, I sold back my copy of Rome Total War after about 15 minutes of play and Unreal Tournament 2004 was just, well, wrong. On the other hand, I played through both of the No One Lives Forever games and adored both and I've not met a Lara Croft I didn't like (though I can't claim to have finished them all). It's game play I don't like changed I guess; once I get used to WAY a game plays I don't want to relearn it. I want it expanded, sure. Give me more and more levels, new adventures, harder enemies that sort of thing, but still leave it the same. Make any sense? I didn't think so.

In other life news, it seems that my doctors may have settled on the right medicine cocktail for me (thanks to me mate, Piquan, from Puzzle Pirates, for the phrase). A right combination of meds and shots seems to finally have the migraines, ruptured upper discs and lower back degenration under control. I've had less pain in the past 6 weeks than I've had in the last 2 years and have felt great. If this keeps up, I'll be begging for a transfer back to the classroom before to long. And OH how I want to do that. I could get up and do a disco down at the thought.

Ever since Stoney and I got to see Al Green in person last year (oh lucky day!), I've had my own personal all-Al-all-the-time music mix on-going, especially if Stoney's not here. I don't want to burn him out entirely you know. But, let me say, Al Green IS the World's Greatest Soul Singer. Period. I wouldn't go so far as to say I'd leave my husband for him or anything (John Lennon has that spot reserved), but let's just say that he maintains the number three spot in my heart. ;)

Czarina is asleep in her basket, General is sleeping at my feet, Patra is in the attic snoozing. I can't see Anne Bo, so she's either gone up with Patra or is on the bed in her favorite sleepy spot. Silly kitties. They make me want to go take a nap, too, but I slept late and am behind on my chores, so I really need to go and do some more work. I'd rather nap or read or play, though. Acting like a grown up is tough sometimes! I'll counteract it by having ice cream for lunch.

Living Snowflake

Stoney got this in an email this morning and it's so beautiful that I had to share. According to Snopes it's old news and is totally for real. I present the amazing albino peacock:



I wish I knew who took this photo originally so I could credit them. Rest assured, it's not mine and I'm not trying to claim it as such.

Did You Know?

• There are no snake native to Alaska! Now we know where St. Patrick spent his summer vacation


• It costs several ancient pirate's treasure chests to subscribing to the OED online. Well, though that is completely out of my price range (sigh--which is a shame as I need a decent dictionary and the OED is the only way to go when one is an avid 19th century British Lit fan), at least I can get the OED Word of the Day, which is always fun.


• Apparently no millipede has more than 750 legs. Either scientists thought we'd never find out, the original version had 250 legs pulled off before version 2 came out or whoever named it thought Sevenhundredandfiftyleggedscarycritter was too long.


• When my newest favorite actor, Rudolph Valentino, died at 31 (complications from surgery) some 80,000-100,000 mourners caused a near riot at the funeral in NYC. The family had anticipated this and feared that the fans would mob his body, so they had a wax effigy made for use at the funeral. His real body was buried later.


• Stoney and I have won the Gold Medal for Syncronized Sleep Turning for 5 years in a row in the annual Somnolence Olympics! We're hoping to bring home the sixth this summer. Well, maybe that isn't ENTIRELY true, but we are awfully good at rolling over together while we're sleeping and still managing to stay spooned.

Okay, enough trivia. . . Here's a photo of Valentino and I'm off to play, uh, work.

o

Snakes? On a Plane?

What do you know. . . maybe it isn't such a stupid plot idea after all.

I said "maybe".

Monty Coles lands plane with snake in cockpit.

On radioing for emergency landing the pilot is quoted as saying:

"They came back and asked what my problem was. I told them I had one hand full of snake and the other hand full of plane. They cleared me in."

(my apologies if you've already seen this a million times already)

Wahini

Though Death (or one of his Minions) has already visited my house once this week, he (or. . . see above) decided to make a return trip today. When I bought Wahini 2 1/2 years ago at WalMart, I actualy brought her and Calypso home to die happy. They looked like they wouldn't last through the night. Calypso is still swimming along happily, but Wahini has been ill off and on for about a year, requiring her own fish condo, a low level of water and a Momma that loved her--all of which she got of course. This afternoon she went to sleep with the humans.

Here's a photo of my pretty girl, shortly as she came to live with us, 18 January 2004. You too will be missed, little surfer girl.

A-B-C, baby, it's 1-2-3

I borrowed this some time ago from the journal of laerry at deviantArt. She's an awesome Harry Potter fan artist. Go take a peek at her stuff!

A - Available?: Only for my hubbie. ;D
A - Age: 33 for a few weeks longer
A - Annoyance: Phew. . . where to start. Road construction; books that look good on the cover and turn out silly; bad drivers; mean people; not enough chex pieces in the chex mix bag; saggy bra straps; crud in the bottom of the sink drain; the hubbie's ex-wife; hot weather; loud people; white hairs waving on top of my head.

B - Best Friends?: The husband and my Mom
B - Bar: No thanks
B - Birthday?: July 30

C - Crush: Rudolph Valentino, John Lennon, Severus Snape (book only, NOT movie verson) and my husband
C - Car: an Escort nicknamed R2
C - Cat(s): yes, please--four: General Patton, Cleopatra, Anne Boleyn and Czarina

D - Dead Pets Name: recently my little Sgt. Pepper; Captain Wentworth April 21, 2004 and Dusty and Dixie (cocker spanial sisters) that were my constant companions from childhood well into my twenties.
D - Dad's Name: Daddy
D - Dog(s): None at the moment, no fenced in yard. We've talked about getting one eventually, but may opt for a goat instead.

E - Easiest person to talk to: Mom
E - Eggs: Not on their own, please, but fine in stuff.
E - Email: Sing with me please, "spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spamidy, SPAM, sapmidy, spam!". I like REAL email a lot! But I'm not the world's best at responding.

F - Favorite color?: Greens, especially lime(!!), followed by blues
F - Food: Heck, yeah! I became vegetarian again in Novemeber and am happily rediscovering long lost favorite veggie foods.
F - Foreign Slang: I have a few British-isms I picked up from British friends in college and from reading British authors.

G - Gummy Bears or Worms: Bears please, the worms are a wee bit too real.
G - God: Yes, I do believe.
G - Good Times: I'm rich with them!

H - Hair Color: Right now it's brownish-black. If I can find somewhere to get lime green highlights or a bottle that will give me the same, I shall add some green to my hair. Otherwise, I may bring the red out again this summer, or go Elvira again. Who knows!
H - Height: 5'6.5"
H - Happy: Nearly all the time.

I - Ice Cream: Oh yeah! My addiction! I gave it for Lent and let me tell ya, it was HARD!
I - Instrument: I played violin and viola during middle school and high school and also sing a bit.
I - Idol: Eh what? Do I have one? Um. . . No, I guess not.

J - Jewelry: Earrings, wedding band, belly button ring; occasionally a necklace or stack of bracelets if I remember. My nose will be pierced just as soon as I loose some more weight (I'm so excited!!!!) It's a deal I made with myself to help in the weight loss department.
J - Job: I am the assistant, jill of all trades, and general dogsbody assigned to the office that tests preschoolers to see if they qualify for Special Education preschool services through our county school system.
J - Jokes: I like 'em pretty good, as long as they are jokes I can repeat to my Mom or step-daughter. *gives hubbie the meaningfully raised eyebrow*

K - Kids: 12 year step-daughter which is more'n enough for me
K - Karate: No thanks
K - Kung Fu: Again, I'd better pass

L - Love: I've got it!
L- Longest Car Ride: Rode to FL once and up to NY once (both from NC). Both trips seemed to take weeks, but I'm sure they didn't.
L - Lipstick or Chapstick: Both and lipgloss.

M - Milk Flavor: 1% white milk, occasional chocolate milk, sometimes Ovaltine and sometimes Hershey's syrup-made chocolate milk; mostly plain ol' white milk though.
M - Mothers Name: Momma
M - Movie Last Watched: completely: The Sheik with Valentino; partially: Brideshead Revisited

N - Number of Siblings: None, I'm happily an only
N - Northern or Southern: Southern Belle
N - Name: You'd never believe me if I told you

O - One Wish: Well, jeez, if I can only have one. . . could it be for unlimited wishes? Hmm. . . well, if not, I guess world peace--though about a million dollars wouldn't be a bad one either.
O - One Phobia?: ANTS!!!!!!!!!
O - Otter Pops?: I just vaguely remember the commercial for those--don't think I had them much as a kid though. Mom made homemade freezer pops, mostly. Yum!

P - Parents, are they married or divorced: married--I'm lucky!
P - Part of your appearence you like best: My eyes are probably my best feature, then my hands
P - Part of your Personality you like best: I'm generally good natured.

Q - Quick or Slow?: That all depends on the situatation, acutally.
Q - Queer or Straight?: Straight girl
Q - Queen or King?: I share my queendom with three kitty queens. :D

R - Reason to smile: I have so many reasons to smile!
R - Reality TV Show: I don't watch TV (no realy, I don't. No antenna, no cable, no joke--my choice!)
R - Right or Left: Right

S - Song Last Heard: Listening to "Ride On" by AC/DC right now.
S - Season: anytime it's cool
S - Series: The Prisioner, Monty Python, the Avengers (the orginal; I've heard talk that it has been or is being remade), MTV's the State, Connections

T - Time you woke up: today? Uh. . . I'm on vacation, okay, don't make me tell!
T - Time Now: 9:45 pm
T - Time for bed: it's Friday night without the step-daughter--there is no bedtime!

U - Unknown: I love to dance, though I'm not the best dancer.
U - Unicorns: They're pretty cool in their early incarnations, not in their silly, girlie incarnation.
U - You are?: Putting off doing house work

V - Vegetable you hate: mushrooms--do fungii count as veggies?
V - Vegetable you love: Asparagus, peas, corn, tomatoes, broccoli, brussels sprouts, and SO many more!
V - View on Politics: lately, I'm just not sure WHAT my view is!

W- Worst Habit: I don't have any habits that I can think of, my bad things are character traits
W- Where are you going to travel next: nowhere this summer, other than to see my parents in Asheville. I <3 my home town!
W- What's up?: Chicken butt?

X - X-Rays: Yup. And MRIs and CAT scans, too.
X - X-Rated: Naw
X- XYZ: I'm not wearing a zipper!

Y - Year you were born: Year of the Rat
Y - Year it is now: 2006
Y - Yellow?: Pretty enough, usually

Z - Zoo Animal: Any as long as it's NOT simian
Z - Zodiac: Leo
Z - Zoolander?: I'm not really sure what it is, but from other peoples answers, I assume it's either a TV show or a movie. If it's the first, well, I don't watch TV. If it's the second, Netflix hasn't mention it yet, so. . .

Sergeant Pepper

My little hamster, Sergeant Pepper, died today. We just found him as we went in for our nightly visit. To say I'm really sad is an under-estimate. How does one express sorrow over the loss of a pet? He was such a good hamster, loving, friendly, funny, cute.

Sergeant Pepper as a baby, asleep in my lap:


Eating a chip, also in my lap:


Playing in his play-pen, still as a baby before his "boy parts" fully developed--I couldn't have photographed him in this pose afterward!



Playing on our bed:


You will be missed, little ham-turd! Rest in peace. Momma loves you.