We choose to go to the moon...

I just caught up on this week's SPN. *loves* Why doesn't the whole world watch this show?

I commented on last night's BSG here but I have more to say about the show. ( Read more... )

I have to go into work today for 2 or 3 hours and I need to make it to the gym. I'm trying to work out the perfect timing so I get back to my house just after a 2:30pm showing ends.

I had far too many margaritas with my Mexican food Friday night so my date and I sat in a Starbucks, drinking coffee and sobering up, until nearly 1am when we were both finally comfortable getting behind the wheel. It made for a slow, lazy Saturday. Then, last night, my friend Anne came over for dinner. I made baked pasta with sausage, tomatoes, and cheese. Success! I really need to start expanding my cooking repertoire, though. My friend's partner is just starting to cook and I might suggest we take a cooking class together.

I caught up on CSI, SPN, and SGA yesterday morning which seems to be a new, relaxing, Saturday morning tradition. There was so much controversy on my friends list over SPN and SGA but I enjoyed both.

( SPN )

( SGA )

timberho always finds the good crack. Today it was in the form of photos of Zac Efron and Leonardo DiCaprio at a Lakers game. See? And one more.

For my reference: The standard model of physics got it right when it predicted where the mass of ordinary matter comes from, according to a massive new computational effort.

Sally has been super needy all day. I don't know what's going on with her but I don't mind the attention. I had very few ambitions for the day but I just woke up from a 2 1/2 hour nap and decided even the gym can wait until tomorrow. Lazy, lazy day!

Back in February, on the recommendation of two friends, I took Dan Simmon's sci-fi novel, Hyperion, with me on my cruise. I read the book, a story told well in the future in the model of The Canterbury Tales, and enjoyed it but I didn't love it. My friends encouraged me to keep on reading - at least giving the 2nd book in the series, The Fall of Hyperion, a chance. Six months after reading Hyperion, I finally picked up The Fall of Hyperion in August and devoured it. At the end of September I made my way through the third book, Endymion, which is set 274 years after the end of the 2nd, and, today, I finally finished the fourth book in this series, The Rise of Endymion.

All of that is a round about way of saying: I LOVED THIS SERIES.

It's an investment - probably 2200 pages in all - but totally worth it. The Hyperion Cantos is about science, technology, morality, religion, and love. It's about the danger of unchecked power, ambition, and greed and the destructive force of blind faith in pursuit of those aims. It's about living in a universe more expansive than we can imagine and, at it's core, it's a love story. About 3/4 of the way through the final book I was sure I knew what was coming (and I mostly did) and that I wouldn't cry (of course I did).

There's also kick ass time travel in the story. Having just finished the fourth book, I'm overwhelmed at the unexpected threads that carried their way through all four books.

I actually didn't start this post as a book review/rec but there you have it.

Has anyone else read the series? Come talk to me!

This weekend was so productive. Even reading 400+ pages of The Rise of Endymion, I still took care of everything on my list. \o/ That leaves time to watch some CSI tonight. Next up...Pirates of the Third Reich (which I just watched on my iPhone two weeks ago but could watch endlessly).

A few more things:

Dean/Castiel is my new, shiny pairing of choice. I'm pretty picky in the fic I read but if I see it's Dean/Castiel I'll give anything a shot. Kripke makes it so easy to want more.

The Viggo movie promo train continues: Viggo Mortensen's history lessons: The actor, who stars in 'Good,' a film adaptation of a play he saw more than 25 years ago about 1930s Germany, sees parallels between the movie plot, the real world in 1982 and the world now.

I rarely, if ever, see comedies but "Role Models" looks HYSTERICAL. Not as good as Quantum of Solace, though. I wasn't a Bond fan until Daniel Craig came along.

It seems that lilysaid and I are the only people I know who watched last week's House. Anyone??? ( Cut for spoilers and video of the final scene )

What the heck is General Hospital: Nightshift? And is that Robin Scorpio back in Port Charles?

I had plans earlier in the day and I'm doing dinner with friends tonight so I'm posting quickly and then trying to get in a run. The morning looked dismal but, all of a sudden, it's 60 degrees and sunny!

I caught up on SGA, SPN, and CSI yesterday. SGA didn't thrill me. SPN did thrill me just as much as I expected from all of the flailing about on my friends list. Jensen Ackles for the win.

When I watch CSI these days I'm very focused on how they're going to write out Gil. I still have a terrible suspicion that he's going to leave Vegas to be with Sara and I'm (naively) waiting for Lady Heather to swoop in and save the day.

The SYTYCD show was awesome. I could do without all of the dumb (and not funny) banter between dances but the dancing was spectacular. It was so much fun to see Chelsie, Courtney, Katie, Mark, Twitch & Joshua up close and in their element. I left liking Gev, Comfort and Kherington much more than during the show and I can still live without Jessica. Especially when she speaks.

My favorite numbers of the night were the Argentine Tango (Chelsie/Joshua), Katie & Joshua's contemporary, and Bleeding Love (Chelsie/Mark). Actually, I also loved Chelsie's jive with Gev, Courtney's latin number with Gev, the Garden Dance with Jessica & Will, and No Air. It would probably be easier to say what I didn't love: both Viennese Waltzes (because Danny & Anya still own that dance) and the jail break hip hop. I loved the rest of it!

Jenniferh2525 has 900+ So You Think You Can Dance tour photos. They're fantastic. Here's one of my favorites. It's from Chelsie's solo.



Run time!

ETA: Two college kids just came canvassing for Obama. It was so much fun to tell them I'm voting for Obama on the 4th.

Okay, I totally wasn't done with this post.

Here's a list of what I know I need to get in the mail this week. Am I missing anything for anyone?
Twilight calendar to timberho
Twilight calendar to lilysaid
The Friday Night Knitting Club and Knit Two to carta
Anne Geddes calendars to friend in FL
I also have an extra copy of Stargate: Continuum free to the first person who requests it. Just comment here and then send me your address at saturn92103[at]hotmail.com. ETA: Continuum is claimed.

In Viggo movie reviews/news:

Hollywood Reporter review of “Good”

An entertainment writer form The Kanas City Star shares my pov on the delay of “The Road.”

I just finished last week's episode of Supernatural which was SO GOOD OMG.

If you posted about the episode can you comment with a link so I can read what you had to say and flail with you?

Last night's date went well enough to last into this morning. He's smart, attractive and focused with a really great sense of style. He was also upfront about wanting to date for the future, not just for right now. (To be clear, that future didn't necessarily mean us - just that he's not into casual dating at this point in his life.) It's an interesting start with a guy who asked me out at a cheese counter. We have plans next weekend and I'm looking forward to it.

All of that said, I'm still pining for A even though it's looking more and more like that's a road to nowhere. We spend a lot of time together - like good friends do - but she officially knows I'm interested in dating women and has given no indication of the same. To think, at 15, I thought dating would eventually get easier. :)

Have a meme: Grab the nearest book. Find the 5th sentence on page 46.

I don't have a book right next to me but I do have the new issue of Scientific American: "Einstein's great insight was that spacetime is no mere stage on which the drama of the universe unfolds."

While on topic, the Large Hadron Collider is down for at least two months. How disappointing for all of the scientists involved.

Word is that Mary McDonnell will have a 3- 5 episode arc on Grey's Anatomy. I don't watch Grey's Anatomy but, at this point, I'll follow Mary McDonnell anywhere.

I didn't place the face until gdg pointed it out but Jen Halley, who plays Seelix on BSG, was the Demon Waitress on this past week's SPN.

( See? )

Also, in exciting guest cast news, this week's SGA preview reminded me that next week is Daniel Jackson week on SGA!! Daniel! On Atlantis! I know he was there before but it was part of an SG-1 team mission. This is his and, therefore, so much better. \o/

I stole this from bethbethbeth and am now seeing it everywhere. It's perfect.

Ever wonder what a meeting between Jed Bartlet and Barack Obama would be like? Columnist Maureen Dowd of the New York Times actually called Aaron Sorkin to ask him, and here's what Jed had to say:

( Full text )

I've actually been looking at parallels between Governor Ritchie of FL and Sarah Palin with that, "aw, shucks, I don't need to be intellectual or informed to lead" shtick. Which leads me to this bit of inspiration:

"In the future, if you're wondering, 'Crime. Boy, I don't know' is when I decided to kick your ass."

Or, even better, on video here.

Lazy weekend! I was sad to see it end! I woke up Saturday with a dutifully earned hangover and lazed about for most of the day. My evening included "A History of Violence" which remains one of my favorite movies. Sunday was equally lazy. I slept until after 10am, canceled dinner plans, and then napped from 2- 4:30pm. My big ambition was making it out for a run.

So, running...my favorite part is when I pass by other runners and we do that little hand wave, head title acknowledgment. Runner solidarity! I love it! I'm averaging about 10 minute miles on the road and 9.5 minute miles on the treadmill. I'm still at 3.5 miles/run and that's about where I plan to stay for the foreseeable future. It's long/far enough to be a substantial workout but not so far that I need to carve out an unreasonable amount of time to fit it in. What I really do need to do is get weight training back on my schedule.

I'm not through talking about RENT. Actually, I'm pretty surprised at the intensity of my reaction to the show's closing. Here are two more videos:

( minni0612 pointed me this video of the final curtain call. Give it to about one minute in and then cast members, old and new, come out for one last emotional performance of Seasons of Love )

( And timberho directed me to this video of RENT fans performing La Vie Boheme at the real Life Cafe the night before the show closed )

I'm sure everyone has seen the J2 pictures from the Red Bull Soap Box Derby but here they are, in my journal, too, so I can come back to see them again and again and again. Quite honestly, I rarely find Jared good looking but he totally does it for me in these pictures. I think it's the sunglasses.

Many thanks to lilysaid, carta, and beatpropx for putting a smile on my face today. The power of memes!

It's two days until my England/Wales extravaganza with kiffle! I'm so ready!! Now it's just a matter of packing. (Kiffle - I'm bringing a casual dress for one night of the show and I plan to wear pants and a top the other. I'll be very casual when we go to Wales. And please tell me you'll want to nap when we get to Stratford!)

This post is getting longer than intended but I have to rec a fic I read last night: Kissing Lessons by dotfic It's a Supernatural/Some Kind of Wonderful crossover and it's Watts/Dean and it's spot on perfect. I'm flailing over this fic.

So, my nephew has this tape that holds the NAM in place. You can see it in this picture. Anyway, the hospital doesn't provide the tape in a ready to use form. My sister and brother in law have to create the tape strips with steri-strips and rubber bands and it's a long, involved process. They taught me how to make the tapes when I was visiting over Labor Day weekend so, when I got back to MI, I called the hospital and had them send me materials for 100 of these strips. I spent a good part of last week making them and the finished product arrived at my sister's house today. Surprise! \o/

Rather than coming into work early, as planned, I took those 45 minutes to watch last night's Supernatural. GOOD PLAN.

Which is to say, ( I love Supernatural so much )

I fell for Torchwood hard and fast. Here's a 10 page article from the newest issue of DeathRay featuring Q&A with all of the cast members.



Download the article here - 12.4mb, right click/save, please do not post this link anywhere else

( Or view 10 pages of scans here )

I'm so excited for the rest of this season!

apieceofcake posted picspam for Jensen's birthday and good lord he's hot. He does the sexy photo shoot like no one else but this simple shot of Jensen in profile with the water bottle stopped me in my tracks. HOT.