Been a busy week, although the first part of it was composed of innumerable messes at work that would just not get straight. When things I could do finally came pouring in this afternoon, the system slowed to a crawl and I never did get the final two things I wanted to get accomplished done. Most of the time answering e-mails and composing purchase orders took my mind off how wretched I felt: sneezing, coughing, and sinus headachy. Flu? No, just my wretched allergy.

We've had an enjoyable time watching some new DVDs this week, after the Ratatouille feature on Tuesday. For Valentines Day I bought James a set called "NASA: the Ultimate Collection." These are different documentaries from NASA's archives. No attempt has been made to "digitally remaster" (oh, that buzzword!) these, so they are scratched, color shifted—and fascinating to watch, although they are typical of the 60s, male narrator, all very serious, simple animation and drawings when needed. Alan Shepard's groundbreaking first flight and John Glenn's first orbits of course were covered, but there is also a documentary about Gordon Cooper's "Faith 7" flight (narrated by Alexander Scourby, so long the "voice" of the National Geographic Specials), and two Gemini mission documentaries.

Wednesday night (after my trip to Borders during lunch) we watched One Hundred and One Dalmatians. I love this movie. It's fun, suspenseful, occasionally tender (such as the scene where Roger revives the stillborn puppy), and, best of all, full of dogs! We watched most of the extras, too, which included two songs that were deleted from the story. The part where they talked about how they animated the automobiles was fascinating.

Been finishing my library books this week—more about that in Cozy Nook—and am now sorry I did not buy either America 1908 or Wait Till Next Year (or both) with the 40 percent off Borders coupons from a few weeks ago. Maybe some more will come up soon (near Easter or Mother's Day????). I also want to get Adam Gopnik's Through the Children's Gate.

I had some bids on e-Bay items sold by a friend and won them all, most purchased at about 99¢ each, like A Pictorial History of Radio and a British book of television series, also a copy of the DVDs Hollywoodland (about George Reeves) and Good Night and Good Luck (about Edward R. Murrow), and (ta-da!) the second season of Sergeant Preston of the Yukon.

James was off today due to working on Sunday and one of the things he did was go to the bank to establish a savings account. He would be taking advantage of a Wachovia system in which every time you use your debit card they put $1 into your savings, plus they will match the first $300. I asked him when he got home if he was going to do what I do, which is when I get paid, anything that is left from the previous paycheck I transfer into savings via online banking. He said, "I can't." Huh? If he wants to transfer money from his checking to his savings, he has to do it at the bank. If he wants to deposit money into savings, he has to deposit into his checking and then transfer it to his savings (again at the bank). Then what in the heck is the use of having online banking besides for bill pay? That is absurd.

I started to load some games on my computer today and discovered the Around the World in 80 Days homage I bought took up half the game space! Maybe I'll uninstall it. I'd rather have Jeopardy back on.

I was amused to discover that the squirrel has already made his assault against our new seed bucket. In frustration at not being able to get into the nice galvanized steel, the little wretch pee'd on it instead. Nyah!

The weather is still bouncing up and down like a rubber ball. We went from 73°F one day to 38 that night; it was in the high 60s today and it's supposed to be in the 40s on Saturday, which is fine with me. All the 60° days have been sticky. I hope it keeps raining regularly; maybe it can't make up for the drought loss from last year, but hopefully we can keep even.

Labels: animals, birds, books, DVDs, weather, work

----------------------------------------------------------------
. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 8:23:00 PM

Comments: Post a Comment