Random Thursday: Bagels, Brainstorming, and Belgian Jazz

Random Thursday (ˈrandəm ˈTHərzdā):  the day on which Sarah plunks down all the odd bits and pieces she’s gathered during the week in an effort to avoid writing a real post, the assembly of which usually ends up taking twice as much time as actually sitting down and creating real content.

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With Friends Like These, Who Needs Pigeons?

This morning, a friend sent me an e-mail with Pigeon Impossible in the subject line.

For the record, this is a terrible thing to do to someone who just sent you a synopsis draft for a novel with Pigeon in the title.

When I finally opened the e-mail, I found a video link and a brief note saying, “Relax, I haven’t read it yet.  Paranoid much?”

With friends like this, do you blame me?

It’s almost as bad as having this guy in charge of the nuclear suitcase:

Thanks for the vid, Kev.  You stinker.

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 Save Sarah’s Sanity

Okay, seriously people—despite your dubious taste in blogs*, I know you’re all brilliant in ways I am not and it’s brainstorming time:

How can I catch the new Sherlock episodes on BBC One online without paying for an exorbitantly expensive service for a year—good God, what’s happened to the exchange rate—or without buying a plane ticket from Illinois to England  and throwing my obsessed self on poor Sarah P.’s mercy (I can cover a plane seat or a hotel, not both), since the Canadian Duchess has gone temporarily AWOL?

Sherlock isn’t arriving in the States until May.  May.  I can’t wait five months.  I’ll go insane** and take every single one of you with me.   By mid-March, I’ll be stationed below the virtual bedroom window of the whole Internet screaming “SherrrrLLLLOOOOCK!!!” in my second*** best Marlon Brando Streetcar impression.

“Scandal in Belgravia” starts at 8:10 pm on New Year’s Day, so we’ve got until 2 am EST on Monday (think Chicago), or a reasonable amount of time afterward (think hours, not months, pretty please) to make this work.

Comment below or e-mail me your ideas—I’d prefer not to risk being arrested or fined (the exchange rate again) or cash in my meager retirement fund to finance it.  And if it involves a procedure more complicated than plug-and-play, you’re going to have to dumb the instructions waaaaay down.

One of you must have an in with Stephen Moffat or Mark Thompson’s personal marker or something like that, right?  Anyone a friend of a school friend of a friend of the key grip?

Anyone?  Anything?

Don’t make me do the pouty Brando puppy eyes.  No one wants that.

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Docteur Qui?

One of the miracles of Boxing Day was the addition of BBCAmerica to our local cable provider’s offerings.

So even though BBCAmerica didn’t buy the rights to Sherlock, ^ at least I have Doctor Who, though a day too late for the Christmas Special—but a day’s delay for the rerun beats waiting for the DVD set (insert pause for pointed silence here).

And speaking of the good Doctor, and the length of time it takes to import BBC shows^^ I was watching Bill Bailey’s Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra^^^ the other day, and fell in love with his version of the Doctor Who theme, which also has Lyra’s stamp of approval:

Grace, you lived in Belgium for a while, right?  What’s the verdict?

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*Hi, there.

**Hush.  Y’all ain’t seen nothing, yet.

***Because I will be keeping my shirt on, thanks very much.  Even insanity has its limits.

^What were they thinking?  Is their marketshare so high that they can dismiss all the non-British fans of the show?  You can’t tell me it’s too expensive—PBS bought it, for heaven’s sake.  At a delay discount, sure, but c’mon.

^^ And clumsy segues, while we’re at it . . .

^^^Bill Bailey is nine kinds of cool and this program displays at least eight of those.  You can view it on YouTube here.  If you don’t have an hour to spare, you can’t miss to the explanation of the bassoon, which is two kinds all by itself.

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Secret Confession of a Sonic Screwdriver-Wielding Underrock Dweller

For a brief moment this morning, I assumed Cyber Monday was a Doctor Who anniversary.

Seriously.*

That’s what I get for watching the library’s copies of the first two Doctor Eleven seasons over the past week. Or that’s my excuse, anyway.

But once the True Meaning of Cyber Monday was explained to me, I managed to snag both seasons for a very good price.

Which kind of makes it Doctor Who Day after all . . .

Hey—when’s Torchwood Day?

 

What have you been watching lately?

 

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*I’ll turn in my Geek Card and pick up a Loser Badge  first thing tomorrow, promise.  I’m keeping my Nerd Card, though—I’ve earned it.

 

Random Thursday: TGIT Version

I hope it’s not wrong to look at the calendar and say, It’s Thursday!  I don’t have to come up with a cohesive blog post!  I can just throw bits and pieces at it!  No one can make me make sense!  Whee!

Not that I can claim to make much sense anyway, but I feel better about it on Thursdays.

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It was a record 92F yesterday, with about 89% humidity.  I don’t care if some of you in less temperate areas are snickering, we had a flippin’  freeze three days ago, and my personal temp-tolerance is taking a beating.

The library was supposed to have the AC working, but there was a bit of trouble that wasn’t solved until after everyone went home, which meant I spent the day carrying around my desk fan, unplugging it without turning it off and hoping the blades wouldn’t stop before I reached the outlet at my next destination.

I entered the oven that was my car, cranked the AC, picked up a limp Janie, who had stripped down—or perhaps up?—to her pinafore, and went home to find that the cat had melted all over the living room floor like a furry flounder.

Apparently, Captain Thermostat, aka, That Man I Married, decided that fresh air was more important than protecting his family from stewing in their own juices and preventing his wife from becoming a sweaty, cranky, exhausted Goddess of Doom.   I abused him disabused him of this notion, he turned on the central air, and things are now quite pleasant in the Wesson household.

Technology—it exists for a reason, people.

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But he made it up later by sending me the link to these:

 

 Yes, that’s right!  IKEA SciFi manuals!   Click the link, share the love! 

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Have I ever mentioned Genevieve Valentine’s blog?  Because her movie reviews and her analysis of red carpet fashions are snarktastic crack—or maybe cracktastic snark.  Whichever.

Her pre-review of the move Priest, based on the lobby cards and trailers, had my husband and I laughing out loud and reading lines to each other from our respective laptops.

And I quote:

“However, in this film [Karl Urban] is the chosen representative of the Ham-Off Delegation, and so he has Scenery-Chewing Immunity and must not yet be discussed as per the Curry-Walken Bylaws, which require the film to be viewed before the comparative cinematic value of the Ham-Off can be determined.”

I am in drop-jawed awe of the woman’s wordskills—even  if I occasionally disagree with her, I always enjoy how she states her opinions.

Ms. Valentine also just released a book, Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti, which appears from the description to be a dystopi -Cirque du Soleil-steampunk fantasy. I’m in!

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My reward for finishing the first Pigeon draft by my birthday—which I’m going to accomplish come hell, highwater, locusts, frogs, hallucinogenic-levels of sleep deprivation, caffeine poisoning, and Captain Thermostat—is going to be a Doctor Who Eleven marathon (and thanks to Lyra for the inspiration).

Hey.  Grim determination and borderline obsession is cool.

I currently have 37 days left.

Bring it.