No Strings Attached

Posted By Kathleen David on July 23, 2011

I don’t even know if I will be able to post this but I figured I’d write it and post it once I can get the Internet working for me.

First my prayers and sympathies to everyone who was effected by the horrible incidents in Norway. I know we still don’t have all the details but that doesn’t help those who have lost love ones or may still lose them.

Yesterday Caroline and I ran errands and did some other stuff but we are lying low for today. The heat is already oppressive and we are in a calm so the breeze from the shore isn’t happening today. Only if I have to go outside will I. I do need to water the plants at some point.

So we started have some rolling brownouts which have been rather annoying. I have had to reset so many electronics a couple of times now. I am crossing my fingers that we don’t have a blackout.

Peter has checked in from the insanity that is San Diego Comic Con. Things are going well. Panels have been packed and signings have gone well. Today at 10 AM left coast time, he has the Activision panel which will be showing off the video game he wrote for Beenox. Then a couple of panels and a signing. Sunday is his slow day which is a good thing.

Mets won but it could have gone either way for a while there.

Football is a mess and I don’t see anything getting any better anytime soon. No, I don’t think the owners pulled a fast one. I think the owners are trying to make it look like any more delays are the players’ fault thus painting the players into a corner. My sympathy for the owners, which I didn’t think could be any less, is less than zero.

I can’t drink Iced Coffee. I tried but it is just wrong.

Did see Torchwood. I’ll be writing that up tomorrow unless something else comes up. Now we are moving forward after two episodes of set up.

I am falling behind on things so I need to catch up but some things take x-amount of time so I can’t catch-up on that. I have worked out a couple of costuming problems in my head.

Everyone stay cool except where it is winter then stay warm.

I am grateful for things that keep Caroline comfortable.

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Posted By Kathleen David on July 22, 2011

Yesterday was miserable outside even with a breeze coming up off the water. Outside was a place that you didn’t want to be and it is not going to be much better today.

Almost passed out at bowling last night. I haven’t been 100% for a couple of days. Been feeling a little off and walking around the city just jumped that quite a bit. I tried to stay hydrated but I think I didn’t do a good job of it. So today is going to be a lot about staying hydrated and cool.

Caroline has bounced back from our visit in the city. I have had her keep a sports bottle of water with her while playing and drinking from it. I can keep an eye on how much she drank by the numbers on the side of the bottle. She did pretty well.

Brain fog must go away. I have too much to do.

May have sorted out how I am going to do my prop for DragonCon. So the order of things is the uniform, the prop, and then everything else.

41 days to DragonCon! I am going to be posting this every day so I can really see where I am rather than keeping it an the abstract

I got my preliminary schedule from DragonCon. It’s busy but not overly busy. It does tell me a couple of things I need to bring with me for various panels. I am checking about a couple of panels I requested to be on. There is one I just might hop on if the panelists will let me.

I may take Caroline swimming today.

Football isn’t solved. Not by a long shot. I am seeing half a season if that.

Ok worked out where I need to go and when. I can do all the errands before noon.

Been listening to a lot of soundtracks and Broadway shows. For a while I wasn’t listening to music but I seem to be back to it.

Peter is having his usual adventures at SDCC. You can read about it at his blog. Someone asked me if I have a problem with my husband going off to SDCC without me. The answer is No. I go to enough conventions during the year that I have my convention fix. Also SDCC is a business convention for him as is NYCC. A lot of the professionals there are lining up work for the next year or so. I have done SDCC and know exactly what kind of animal it is. Also Caroline is not ready for a convention of that size. I told her we would re-examine the issue when she got to double digits which will be in 2012. Yes, you read that right. Caroline will be 10 next year.

I am hoping that we have new My Little Pony episodes soon. I am getting truly sick of the old ones.

I have two special presents happening on my Birthday this year. The last episode of the current season of Torchwood and the release of X-Men First Class on DVD.

I am grateful for “air cool” as Miss Daisy called it. I had a lot of fun stage managing that show a number of years ago.

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Posted By Kathleen David on July 20, 2011

This week we found out that Borders will not be restructuring but will be closing. Liquidation will start as early as this Friday. A large business failing is a sad thing. But this one is really going to affect a lot of businesses including the publishing industry which is doing a serious “circle the wagons”. The fallout of from this will be far reaching. Remember Barnes and Nobel isn’t doing much better.

Border and I go back to my moving up to New York. I didn’t know about Borders because, at the time, we didn’t have any in Atlanta. Oxford Books had already gone under which was a crying shame in itself. So we had Walden books and B. Daltons and I am not sure about the B. Daltons. There was the Science Fiction and Mystery Bookshop which had most of what I wanted to read.

Peter introduced me to the local Borders and I thought it was a very nice store. Shortly there after I got a job there in the Children’s department which I really enjoyed. Eventually I moved into management since I had quite a bit of experience between the bookstores and the comic books stores I work at. I took over the café and worked hard to keep it up and running and under budget. It was hard work but there were a lot of nice people to work with and a majority of the patrons weren’t jerks.

Borders and I parted ways when I got the job at Del Rey, but it was my go to store for books, music, and movies. If I was in another city, I knew what I could find at the local Borders and the layouts were pretty much the same so I knew my way around the store well enough to be asked at least once, no matter where I was, “Do you work here?”

I can remember being back in the Borders I had worked at and a couple of the regulars saw me and asked what I had been up to. I told them that I was at Del Rey now they congratulated me but said that they missed the heck out of me at the store because I could find anything if it was in the store. But I digress.

Time past and I started noticing some changes that didn’t sit well with me. The music selection was getting slimmer and slimmer. DVDs were less diverse. Best Buy rapidly became the place to go to if you wanted something that was more than 6 months old. That a third of the store was now paper goods didn’t fill me with warm fuzzies either. Then I started to notice that there were few new books on the shelves. They could order it for you but it wasn’t just there. I would end up at Barnes and Nobel or Amazon to get what I needed.

I kept up on the Borders situation through Publishers Weekly and the news was getting worse and worse. I saw the handwriting on the wall Christmas of last year when I went to my local Borders and couldn’t get even a 1/3 of what I was looking for. Borders tried to change but really didn’t want to change. They always seem to be behind the trends rather than in front of them which they were at one point.

I feel sorry for my friends who are out of jobs and the patrons who no longer have a local bookstore because Borders was the local bookstore. The publishers are out an entire chain which must have the numbers guys eating a lot of Tums.

And I am sorry for all the readers and writers out there. Good places to find books are becoming harder to find. So support your local bookshop especially if it is independently owned.

I am grateful for my time at Borders.

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Posted By Kathleen David on July 19, 2011

So yesterday I went through my supplies and, much to my astonishment, am out of the pink fleece that I use for many puppets. I found a bunch of other fabrics I am using for other projects but not the basic puppet fleece that I have been using for years. Now I am concerned that since I need it, I won’t be able to find it which would not make me very happy.

It is off to the cloth store today for that and some cheap fabric to make a mock-up of the X-Men uniform so I can create the pattern for the final version.

I did find that lost roll of foam that I couldn’t find last time so I am good on foam for this round of puppet building.

This week is going to be a bit tricky because Peter is off to San Diego as of tomorrow so I become the sole parent. Also Wednesday we have tickets for the Marvel screening of “Captain America” that will take up a chunk of the day as well.

But I hope to get puppet bodies done, the rocket pack for Granny, redone hands on Nicky, and a few other repairs and clean-ups done on a couple of pieces before jumping head first into the next phase of the big project.

I did find a can of adhesive so I think I am good to go on that.

I haven’t checked the eye-ball box but I think I have what I need for the Firefly puppets. I do need a little more hot glue.

Hair is sorted out. I am trying to find some doll wigs that will fit the puppets that aren’t made for newborning baby dolls. I may have found them. I did find the Sarah Jane wig again.

Assembling the pieces that I need can almost be as time consuming as doing the actual project. Especially when I know I have to find one piece to complete the project which will be at a dead halt until I do so. My mind is more comfortable knowing I have everything I need so I can just start and go forward.

Going over the list of what I want to do, I have a majority of what I need. It is now to those fiddling bits that seem to take the longest to find.

I also need to remind myself to take pictures of the process since I tend to work through things and then go “Ya know I really should have taken a shot of that.”

So I leave you with a shot taken by Chad Smith during our rendition of “It’s Ok to be Takei” from Shoreleave 2011

(For the VI: on the left hand side of the photo is Meg dressed in black with a round hat on her head. In motion (so he’s rather blurred) is Nicky the puppet. He has green skin, an orange nose, black hair and is wearing a Star Trek red shirt. Meg’s right hand is in his right hand. My hands are in his head and his left hand. I am standing in the middle wearing a black cap with a red choir robe with black trim which approximated the first costume we see Q in if you squint. To the right of me is Rod the puppets. He has blue skin, a green nose, white hair, blue antenna and is wearing a blue shirt. He is a hand and rod puppet. To the far right is Ariel in black with a round black cap on her head.)

I am grateful for what I found yesterday.

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Posted By Kathleen David on July 18, 2011

Now the same rules apply as the Doctor Who reviews. Spoilers are behind the cut and in comments. However we are only discussing the first two episodes of this season. I am also putting what happened at the end of last season behind the cut because there are a couple people I know who are still catching up.

So we are two episodes into Miracle Day. This one probably had a bigger budget than the previous seasons combined. And, in some ways, it shows. It looks slicker and they have more going on in the scenes because they can afford more people.

The first episode was mostly set up for the rest of it but that’s how it usual goes when you have to introduce new viewers to the idea of the series. RTD did go against the trope and left what Torchwood is or was kind of in a grey area which makes sense because what Torchwood is exactly has always been kind of a smoke and mirrors thing. But we have the usual wacky thing happening that shouldn’t be happening which will, in the end, cause the world as we know it to end. You know a typical day at Torchwood.

The second is much more action packed and moved better but by this point we have our main characters in play and RTD is laying the threads of what will be happening.

Acting is good across the board. Nice to see old faces and some new ones as well.

After two episodes, I am along for the ride.

I am grateful to be able to watch Torchwood again.
(more…)

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