No Strings Attached

Posted By Kathleen David on November 5, 2012

We have a Nor’easter heading our direction. Not a good time for it considering that the dunes have blown away and some places just started to dry out. Yes, I am a wee bit obsessed with the weather right now. I think with good reason. So I guess we’ll get ready again for more rain and wind. The nice thing is that it has been dry enough so the ground can take some more rain without being super saturated. This morning we have some sunshine peaking through the clouds.

Football was a mish-mash. There were some calls that reminded me of some of the bone-headed calls earlier this year before these refs were back. And I thought there was an excessive celebration penalty for showboating after a touchdown. I swear some of the players have practiced their victory dance more than the rest of their moves. Didn’t do well with my picks but not too bad. And don’t talk the Giants out of the picture. I would call yesterday’s game a bad game not the end of the team.

Word count 5538 so I am less than 500 words off the target for yesterday. I hope to make that up today and a little more. I also got the kitchen floor done which made me feel good. Today laundry and 2000 word and I’ll be all caught up. I do need to get some milk for the household and cat litter. The local petshop didn’t get their usual deliveries last week. A lot of places didn’t.

Gas situation is not any better. The lines were long and the police were keeping the peace. I hope this gets sorted out before the next storm comes through.

Heating Oil is something else that everyone is trying to make sure they have especially since it turned so much colder over the last couple of days.

Cats are draping themselves over the couches so that the radiator warms their bellies.

The sky is an ugly grey. Pending weather which means I should get done what I need to get done today sooner rather than later.

We were having an interesting discussion about safe swears (things you can say around children and not have to worry about them repeating it). Some of my favorites are carp, duck butt, and Good Grief. What are yours?

I am grateful for weather that doesn’t put us behind the 8-ball.

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Posted By Kathleen David on November 4, 2012

First off, I want to bring your attention and I ask that you bring others attention to this art sale.

JK Woodard Hurricane Relief Art Prints

JK and his lovely wife live(d) in Long Island City in Queens which is one of those places that got hit much harder than others in Sandy’s assault of the tri-state area. They have basically lost almost every thing and have to start from the ground up rebuilding their home and their lives.

So JK has put up prints of his art for sale to help them get back on their feet from the blow that they took. See the link for more details. Personally my favorite is Kirk in Carbonite. I think he is also selling some of his Doctor Who/Star Trek crossover original artwork which is just lovely.

Take a look and if you can help, thanks. If you can’t, if you could boost the signal through your social media forms, thanks. Hey just for reading this, thanks. I know there are folks in more dire straights right now. I know a couple personally.

Gas lines are being organized by the police right now in my area. The lines snake around the block and some. There is another line for people with gas cans which is probably about 50 deep at this point. Glad I gassed up earlier this week. We have about a week for every thing to get sorted out before we will find ourselves in those sorts of lines.

Most people have power back. There are still pockets that LIPA and other electrical crews are trying to get to. I have seen power trucks from Texas and Wisconsin and we are grateful for them around here.

There are areas out here where the water is still suspect and must be boiled. We have plenty of bottled water so we have been drinking that, but we do that all the time. We have a water cooler in the kitchen and another in Peter’s office. Our water supply has been declared safe so we can use it for tooth brushing and the like.

Cell phone service has been spotty at best and stinky for the most part. They are working as fast as they can on restoring service but a bunch of the towers came down or were damaged that are still being worked on.

Slowly things are returning to normal. And that’s a good thing.

Caroline wants to learn to sew on a sewing machine and her legs are long enough to do so. We are going to start with that old favorite, a pillow and then a skirt so she can learn about guiding the material. She has been working hard on learning how to play the flute. She is getting closer to getting a sound out of it. That’s the big hurdle for her. She is already pretty good a sight reading music and memorizes finger placement rapidly. It is just getting sound OUT of the flute that is stymieing her. She is up to sash in her kung-fu classes and is eager to continue to learn more. Her horse stance is a thing of beauty.

I am so far behind on the NaNoWriMo. I have 1535 words and I don’t think any of them are any good. I had a great idea but I really don’t know if anyone would read this. I might start over again with another idea and see if I can catch up. I am a little frustrated with the process.

I finished Imagination Illustrated: The Jim Henson Journal by Karen Falk. It was a quick read but there was so much to look at and process. I find myself just flipping through it just looking at the pictures. It is a lovely behind the scenes look at one man’s life and parts of the creative process. I will have a longer review sometime next week.

I finished Dances with Dragons. Wow that was a lot to absorb. I need to reread the last couple of chapters again because I think I missed something since I was so tired when I read them last night. However, I can wait for the next book whenever George wants to get it done. Yes, he did leave me with a lot of questions but I would rather he take his time and I get a great tome than rush and I get an OK book with more questions than answers.

I am grateful that I am going to be able to watch football today.

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Posted By Kathleen David on November 3, 2012

There may be spoilers in the comments. I am keeping my review spoiler free since there were some nice twists in this film.

Yesterday Caroline, Peter and I went to see Wreck It Ralph at our local theater. Peter had bought the tickets on Thursday so we knew we had seats, however when we walking into the actual screening room, we weren’t sure if we had seats together. Fortunately a nice family moved their coats and we had three seats together. The audience was full of children of all ages, which made for a fun group to see the movie with.

My short review is that this is a movie for anyone who spent any part of his or her misspent youth in a Video Arcade. It is sort of Toy Story for Video Gamers.

Ralph is the villain of a 16-bit arcade game called Fix-it Felix Jr. He destroys the building and Felix comes in behind him and fixes it. If the player gets Felix to the top of the apartment building avoiding the bricks and building parts raining down upon him, Felix gets a medal and Ralph gets tossed off the building by the residences into the mud below.

After 30 years of this, Ralph questions his place in the gaming world and decides to do something about it. It is the something that changes things for a number of characters in a number of games.

It was fun to see various games that I remember from over the years being used. Some of them are in the background. I want to go back and see things that I missed. There were very good uses of Pac-Man, Tapper, Street Fighter, and Q*bert.

The voice casting was solid over all. John C. Reilly was great as Ralph. Jane Lynch was funny as Sergeant Tamora Jean Calhoun who has “the most tragic backstory in gaming history”. Jack McBrayer was Fix-it Felix and was basically Kenneth as the video game character but it worked well. Sarah Silverman was wonderful as Vanellope from Sugar Rush which is an insane racing game with cute characters and enough sweetness to rot your teeth. Alan Tudyk is King Candy and his voice bothered me almost the entire film because I knew I knew that voice but I didn’t figure out who it was until I saw it in the credits. I should have known since he is such a good voice artist.

The story is good. I wasn’t quite sure where it was going about half way through but by the end they told a solid story and they didn’t cheat. All the pipework was laid before we got to the climax of the film.

Good movie for the children. There are some scary parts but no scarier than a video game. And all the characters we care about make it through their adventure.

So I do recommend it. I can’t say that 3-D will add a whole lot to it but there are some video sequences that would looking seriously kicking in 3-D.

I am grateful for films like this that can be seen by the whole family without concern for content.

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Posted By Kathleen David on November 2, 2012

The problem is not a lack of gas, which is happening sort of, but the lack of power. With so many areas without power, those with power and gas are overwhelmed. Also people with gas generators need to refill them so that one car driving off with about 20 to 25 gallons of gas, which crunches the supply even further. There has been honking and some angry words among drivers especially when someone tries to come in a sneaky direction for an empty pump and cuts the line. I lucked out at one station and was able to drive right up to the pump as a Hummer exited the pumps. So we have gas in both vehicles, just going to be conservative for a little while as to where we go. There have been a couple shootings at gas stations for various reasons including cutting in line. I don’t think anyone has died yet.

My personal view about the Marathon? Move it. Work with the airlines and hotels and all the other parts of the government to come up with a new date say in about two weeks or 4 weeks. The people of the city need the taxis who’s drivers need the gas to get people around the city. The lower half of Manhattan looks like a war zone. They need power, food, and water. The bridges are barely up and trying to get into the city is a chore. This is a bonehead move.

Today Caroline still is out of school. We are going to the local movie theater to see Wreck it Ralph and pretty much staying home the rest of the day. I got the larder stocked yesterday so that’s done. Cats have food and water.

Got 895 words written on the NaNoWriMo project. Which puts me behind on day one. Let’s see if I can catch up today and get a little ahead. I figure if I put it here, I will keep myself honest. But if I go for the total number of words written, I would be ahead because of the blog entry I did yesterday. I find that the morning is best time for me to write.

Everyone stay safe and dry.

I am grateful for words that work.

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Posted By Kathleen David on November 1, 2012

All Halloween Eve passed with lots of kids getting comic books from us and candy from others. We had a bunch of teens running up and down the street egging houses and cars as they went. But the local constabulary caught up with them and that stopped.

Caroline doesn’t have school until Monday and that is still a maybe. She does have off Tuesday for Election Day. Most of the schools in the district have power but not all yet. There are also areas that the buses can’t get to safely and they want to give a couple of days to finish clearing the roads.

Today I am going to venture out. I have a dental appointment this morning that had to be rescheduled from Monday. We are out of milk, bread, and eggs among other things that we need. We also need cat food and other cat related stuff. Nothing dire, just want to make sure we have it. So that is going to be a trip out. I am also hoping to get some more gas in the car but not crossing my fingers on that one.

You can now get off Long Island but it will take you quite a while. Limited train and bus service will help commuters get where they need to go.

We seem to be in a bit of a holding pattern as we sort out what needs to be done but slowly we are returning to normal.

I ask that you think good thoughts for those who are going to have a much longer road to normal. I have a couple of friends who are rebuilding their lives from the ground up. They are fine and their pets are fine but their possessions are no longer. They have to sift through what reminds to see if anything can be salvaged.

I am really hoping that we have garbage pick-up today. It is starting to pile up around here.

Yes, I am going to give a go at writing a novel this month. Let’s see how long that goes.

I am grateful that Caroline had such a nice Halloween.

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