?!

It may be a while yet though. Pooky has had the flu for more than a week now. He's missed a lot of work as well as Halloween. I've been busy filling in at work for him (one of the FEW advantages to my so-called position) and have not had much time for the sort of exciting fast-paced living that you the esteemed reader have become accustomed to.

There WILL be pictures of autumn..and there WILL be new recipes, funny videos, Hugo quotes and ubiquitous orcs...soon.  Just give my household a bit more time to recover.

Until then, I hope you all are safe and well and happy. *hugs*

Sometimes I kind of forget about checking in here to see what (if anything) is going on in my Coms or what my friends here are up to. It's been a busy week between work, Pooky-with-the-flu and a fair bit of playing-tag with our contractor, but we've got some things done, put a few projects to rest, and we are both looking forward to a nice relaxing next-month.

First...no more estate sales..which is a real relief to me. We decided to let the liquidators handle what is left so we can get down to the business of selling the house.

Second, got a LOT of repairs done around here, including hanging a new pair of French doors and correcting several small electrical issues here. Now just to sort out the HVAC and plumbing ..and the floors...and the driveway...and the ... ahhhh HERE IT GOES!

Third, I think I have become a second-time godmother. One of the ladies I work with and her family have both become close to me and mine..and her son (who I'll call Little Juanito) is Pooky's new best buddy. Juanito's father works nights and I suppose his folks see Pooky as a good alternate male influence ..*shrugs*...so Pooky and Juanito have taken to reading and collecting comics and those little clicky comic game characters.

Fourth, I turned up an old friend from highschool on Facebook. This sort of thing makes me glad..even if I still can't quite get used to how people change over the years. I have to remind myself often, lest I accidentally "out" her as the teenager she used to be now that she has two kids of her own and is a fine upstanding member of the community.

Fifth, Pooky has the flu...boo-hoo-hoo

Sixth, my friend's-li'l-brother Mikey and his football team made it all the way to the championship game, in which they placed second. Congrats to them on a great season. "Next year could be the year."

Seventh, the Quasi-quest contiunes. I found a community on YouTube with dozens of uploads of every version of HoND ever made...and learned there's yet another in the works...a "remake" of the Lon Chaney version...with ..(are you ready fo rthis), Johnny Depp.    ... Umm....okay?

Eighth, I promise eventually a camera-outing. I would have last week, but job happened. The leaves are gorgeous here...especially the "McDonalds tree" down on MLK street.  Pics soon, I pinky-swear.

Okay...so we've all had this happen. You're hanging out with your friend at the pub, you have a mandolin and he has a banjo. You have a copy of Hunchback, a real thing for good eighties rock-and-roll, and WAY too much time on your hands.

Okay..so maybe not.  But show me one real Hunchback fan that can't listen to The Cult sing She Sells Sanctuary and not think of Quasi.

Seriously, these two blokes must've been REALLY deep into their cups.

Sweet sugary Jeebus I'm sooo sorry about the last video I posted that I felt I had to make it up to you.

Here is "Belle" from Notre Dame De Paris...in Russian.  Even if you don't speak Russian nor care a damn for Hunchback, it's a danm well-produced piece.

It seems yesterday was Blgggers take action day  ... ?? ....and we as a blogging community were meant to post all about climate change .... ?

Well, I'm all for it. It's what Mother Earth likes to do. Let her do her thing, dammit!  It's not like this is something new. The Earth has been through numerous climate changes (not counting ice ages) that have been just as drastic as what we are experiencing now and gotten on just fine. One particular example is in the 17th century during the 30 Years War, there came a summer so cold that it snowed in Berlin in June, crops failed, and amidst the ravages of war, Europe experienced massed starvation...so much so that there is even recorded instances of people eating the dead from the gibbets.

So..... people...shut your bitching about how friggin' hot/cold/rainy it is. It's not THAT bad.

Besides, who are WE as a community of armchair activists to think that we can blog this "problem" away or even really make it better. Mother Nature is a badass, ans not one to be negotiated with.  Meanwhile, do as the Boy Scout book says. Leave the land better than you found it...and pack extra socks.

This one turned up in my questing for more of the previously mentioned stage musical Notre Dame de Paris.

......  *sigh*

"Why was I not made of stone.."

No..seriously...why?  Then I would not have been unlucky enough to stumble upon (or should I say step into) this one on YouTube.q

It is kind of a tradition among our friends to get together sometime in October and put on a huge feast of beer, sausages, pretzels, potato salad and whatnot.

This year, however, Pooky decided to take advantage of the special on shriimp and polish sausage at Kroger, so we're having a low-country boil today. He's got five pounds of shrimp, three dozen potatoes, two dozen onions, five links of sausage, and sixteen half-ears of corn ready to boil. There are four three-gallon stock pots on the stove coming to a boil.  There is a brocolli salad chilling in the fridge, a pan of brownies and a pan of lemon bars ready for dessert, and a  mini-fridge chock fulla sodas, green tea and kosher wine.

I'm all excited. This is the biggest party we've had in about twelve years or so. I just hope the weather holds out for the evening so we won't all be cooped up inside. So far, so good.

_______

In non-cookout-related news, I (being the rube I am) keep discovering neat features about my laptop. Today I found out that if my battery runs out while I'm working in Photoshop, Windows "hibernates" and gives me a chance to find an AC source without losing my work. I also found out that my laptop has a far superior sound card to my old klunker and works great with my old PC speakers..unlike the afore-mentioned klunker.

Now I just need the klunker to sprout legs and betake itself to Pooky's studio where all good dinosaurs go to be with their own kind. I need the desk space.

There's not much going on here yet in the way of leaves turning or other evidence of climate change. In Georgia, that usually happens in November.

But for a lot of folks here, Fall is short for Football.

I got to take a bunch of pictures of my fried Dan's little brother's team, the Cartersville Middle School Hurricanes, this past thursday as they wrapped up the regular season.

Here they are (on the right), in the final quarter, facing off against South Central Chieftains

Canes1

I was not thrilled with the brightness or saturation, so I adjusted both in Photoshop. I also used the Curves window to bring the green up just a tad.

Canes2

I was pretty happy with this one, but then decided to be a bit creative.I used the Color Select function fo isolate just the purple, inverted the selected area, and then desaturated the rest of the image. Since the Cartersville 'Canes call themselves the Big Purple, this seemed appropriate.

Canes3

My friend's brother Mikey is the second from the front on the 'Canes' line.

They won the game by two touchdowns and will be going to the playoffs next Saturday.

In non-Quest news, Mikey's mom is sending the whole load of pics I took to the team coach, the cheerleader squad coach (since I got a few of the cheer squad too) and to the school newspaper. Sooo...I may have just become a sport-photographer! :D

Slightly out of season but NEVER out of style, a monarch butterfly buttering my lantana.

Mariposa

About two years ago, I started looking seriously at buying an Amazon Kindle reader. I've seen them in stores and heard lots of nice reviews and liked the thought of having a library of portable literature that could fit into my hypothetical purse. Not to mention I had just discovered Project Gutenberg, and had an almost limitless stash of classical literature free 24/7/365

My boss' husband has one and is dying to show it to me. So I've been looking at reviews. It seems the Kindle 2 falls way short of what the K1 delivered. Page contrast is poor, it's fragile, the buttons are fiddly, the battery and memory are both fixed (as in cannot be replaced by user so you have to send away the whole unit when it goes kaput), and numerous customers have complained about issues getting their online content.

And then something dawned on me. 

I have a new laptop.

I have wireless internet capability.

I have a buttload of disc space and stacks of CDRs to boot.

I have Project Gutenberg...which I recommend highly.

My laptop (Unlike the K2) still has text-to-speech capability, even though the speech sounds like a robot.

My laptop, unlike K2, has limitless display options

My laptop only costed me $200 more than the newest Kindle.

So if my boss' husband asks, I'll telll him I already have one.

...

  ...

I'll tell him it's the "large print" edition. :D