I was guest blogger today on Christmas TV History's "Animation Celebration" for Christmas in July:

The Small One

Labels: animation, blogs, Christmas

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:31:00 PM

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One last hurrah before Fourth Quarter.

Hurrahing included eight hours of sleep, of course.

I sat down after breakfast and finished my contribution for Joanna Wilson's "Christmas in July" salute on her blog. The theme is "Animation," and, having missed out on commenting on Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, I chose instead to write about another old friend, The Small One, which I first remember as a radio tale. I've been struggling with writing it all week, not certain whether to address it critically or personally. After consulting the instructions, I said to myself, "Just tell your story," and I did. It took all of a half hour.

I had a letter to mail, so I went out. Our little contretemps with TruGreen has taken a new wrinkle. We had two treatments last month that were not completed properly; the front yard was done, but not the back because, again, no one bothered to ring the doorbell so I could go out and open the gate for them. I called them up that Friday to say I would not be paying the bill until they finished the job properly. The woman got all flustered and said of course, we will call you back and arrange an appointment (one of the appointments they missed was a make-up appointment) and never did. So I pulled out TruGreen's latest bill at lunch yesterday and wrote them a letter about it and put it in the mailbox for the postman to take. When James came home, he had a letter from a collection agency...guess who. So once I'd finished work—I was going from 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. yesterday—I wrote the collection agency a letter and this afternoon I posted it.

Stopped at the library, too, and took out Mrs. Daffodil again. This is one of Gladys Taber's fiction books, but it's based on her real life living in Connecticut, sharing a home with her best friend. I'd love a copy, but the cheapest one I can find is $125.00. I like the book but not that much. :-)

On the way I stopped at Publix for twofers. Got lucky and Chex cereal was one of the BOGOs. I mix wheat Chex cereal into the Chex snack mix I take to work to cut the salt and stretch it. I had coupons for it, too, so I got $14.76 of cereal for $5.38. Not bad. Also bought a surprise for the Fourth.

Came home to put up the things, and then sat down, and, at a loss, put on Alistair Cooke's America. Not sure why; guess I just wanted something warm and safe and familiar.

We had supper at Giovanni's, brought home leftovers, and America marched on.

Labels: animation, books, Christmas, events, food, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:05:00 PM

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Dammit, what has gotten into my sleep cycle? With a chance to sleep late this morning for the first time in five days, I'm restless and can't. I didn't get up when James left for work, but I was awake not long afterwards. What a PITA.

So I had nothing planned for today, although I'd either wanted to go to Office Max or Bed, Bath & Beyond, and got to neither due to stomach cramps. However, I did get some things done that needed to be done, including one thing long delayed. First I had to go to all the sites where I use my main credit card and change the expiration date of the card, since my new one arrived in the mail a few weeks ago. I think I got everyone but SiriusXM, and I don't remember our account number, especially since I don't use them anymore. I also ordered some books from Hamilton Books, mostly for gifts, but also a book by Agathe von Trapp and the third Nikki Heat book.

I also did something I put off last year: updating the copyrights on my web pages. I usually do it New Year's Day. But not only had I skipped this New Year's, I did so last year, too, so everything still said 2011. That has not been amended.

And I finally worked on some crafts, back to putting together my "shelf" project, from the parts I bought from Country Pickin's at the Yellow Daisy Festival. Today I painted part of a couple of the miniature books, and painted what is going to be a tablet. I also turned some multicolor string into "embroidery skeins" and made a drawing pad and a pencil. Once the books are dry I can paint the other sides of them.

We had bought soup last night and James had a veggie burger, so we ate in and watched Doctor Who: rewatched "The Crimson Horror" (still giggle at the Tegan jokes), and then "Nightmare in Silver," cueing up finally for "The Name of the Doctor." I've watched it twice so far and my mind is still pretzel-shaped. So who is John Hurt's "Doctor"? Is it the Doctor of the Time War? (McGann's Doctor grown old?) Or someone else? Rodney turned up on chat and for about an hour we were batting around the ideas that were being tossed around on the Digital Spy website.

Then I went back to watching The New Adventures of Kimba the White Lion on YouTube. This is a recently updated version, not the 1980s version that took the original cartoon and put new voices and music to it. It's in Japanese with English subtitles, but you can keep up with a lot of what's going on without them. And the credits are adorable, showing "Leo" and "Liya" (a.k.a. "Kimba" and "Kitty" here in the U.S.) as tiny cubs (even if they don't meet in the series until they are adolescents).

Labels: animation, books, computers, crafts, food, health, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 12:00:00 AM

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James went off to Hair Day alone today; I wouldn't risk it with so many people there. Slept a little, tidied a little, watched Alakazam the Great (why? I dunno...I was just thinking about it, that's all).

James got home about three and we decided to go out for a little bit to see if I could stand it. (We'd gone out to supper at Panera last night, but it was a dead loss: the place was too hot, I was in miserable pain with my sinuses and couldn't taste what I was eating, and when I got home my fever was back up.) We had a cold front come galloping through this morning, and it was not only cold out,  but the wind had a blade edge. I washed my hands thoroughly and then took care not to cough while I was inside, and I guess it was all right. I tried to take deep breaths to clean out my lungs and my nose and it was downright painful, though!

James needed some flat white spray paint for his modeling, so we stopped by Hobby Lobby for some. Nothing much I needed, so I bought some tape with this week's coupon. James got a [mumble] as a gift for someone. I was still ambulatory by the time we got out, so we went to Barnes & Noble with the Valentines Day coupon. I picked out Eric Weiner's new book, but by then was feeling a little wiped out.

James brought me home some of the pot roast from Hair Day, but my stomach was queasy and I had Cheerios instead. Watched Britcoms for the evening, including As Time Goes By. I like Lionel and Jean; they are so real, and funny without being juvenile, and just plain charming.

Labels: animation, books, crafts, friends, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:08:00 PM

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My gosh, eight hours sleep. My body's not going to know what to do. A restless sleep, though. Something is nagging at me, something unfinished. But I don't know what it is.

I remembered only after I didn't reset the alarm clock that I wanted to mail out a package this morning, so it was a bit of a rush to pack up the box and tape it to get it into the mail. We found what was practically the final parking space—they were having a run downtown today as well—and wandered about the Farmer's Market, for once not encumbered by heat beating down upon us. We bought cucumbers, grape tomatoes, and sweet corn, along with a barbecue pot pie (at last! finally something that doesn't have peas in it!), and James got some sugar-free strawberry jam.

We stopped at the bank, then went to the post office, which was, astonishingly, not crowded! Usually when we come here, even on Saturday, the line is out the door.

Came home, had breakfast, then went out for most of the afternoon: the hobby shop, of course, where I sat reading for an hour, then out to Betsy's Hallmark for the October ornament premiere. On the way there, we stopped at Whole Foods looking for low-carb food. Lots of gluten-free; not a lot of low carb at all.

I'm glad there aren't that many Hallmark ornaments I like this year, because all the ones I do like are expensive. I got the Nello Williams countdown to Christmas radio (nice Fifties retro look) and the cute Santa Claus in the airplane. James got the DeLorean (pre-Mr. Fusion) and the 1943 Jeep, which we think we can use with the Christmas village. Our soldier may have driven it home on leave.

Before we went home, we stopped at Trader Joe's. Bought some raisin rosemary whole grain crackers to eat with my goat cheese—astonishing this is because I really hate raisins. But they are so chopped up in the crackers that you only get a twinge of sweet.

It was almost dinner time by now, so James had the curry chicken he'd bought at Whole Foods and I started the chicken soup. It was lightly peppered and it just didn't do for my appetite.

Anyway, we watched a new Ask This Old House and then the season premiere of This Old House. They are taking what was originally a two-family house in Cambridge, MA, near the Porter T-station, and keeping the Victorian exterior (because of neighborhood regulations) and are gutting the inside to make it Swedish modern. Yuck! I can't believe they're getting rid of all that beautiful moulding in favor of stainless steel. Also finally got to see the fourth episode of Flipping Boston. I love watching these two brothers—such drama!

After James went downstairs to "the man cave," searched about and found some episodes of Anna dei Capelli Rossi on YouTube. This is the adaptation of the Japanese anime of Anne of Green Gables, originally entitled Akage no An, dubbed into Italian. This is the type of anime I wish they would sell at the anime stalls at DragonCon! The Japanese have done long series of stories like Anne of Green Gables, Pollyanna, A Little Princess, etc. One of the Little Women series played on HBO many years ago, but none of the others have made an appearance. I'd love to see them! Understood the occasional word in Anna, but basically made it through just by knowing the story.

Finally I just put on Alistair Cooke's America, which I haven't watched in a while. I usually watch "Making a Revolution" on Independence Day, but our Region 2 player hasn't worked for a while.

Labels: animation, books, food, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:39:00 PM

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"Coyote Falls"

Labels: animation

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 5:39:00 PM

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The Flintstones are 50!

Webrock - The Flintstones and Hanna-Barbera Page

Labels: animation, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 7:28:00 PM

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Speaking of Owly, check out the Owly animated short!

Labels: animation

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:11:00 PM

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It's Official: Futurama is Reborn!

Labels: animation, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:06:00 PM

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Here's a nice Guide to Animated Star Trek.

Labels: animation, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 1:44:00 AM

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If you get turner Classic Movies on your cable/satellite and are a Chuck Jones fan, tune in tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern for a Chuck Jones festival! There will be a new half-hour documentary, "Memories of Childhood" (review on Boston.com), followed by animated shorts—including my favorites "Duck Amuck" and "The Dot and the Line," plus "One Froggy Evening" and the classic "What's Opera, Doc?"—and then a repeat of "Memories of Childhood" until eleven. At eleven they will be showing the animated version of The Phantom Tollbooth, which is nowhere as good as the Norton Juster book, but has its moments and a couple of catchy songs. Then the whole shebang repeats again into the wee hours of the morning.

(What? you haven't read The Phantom Tollbooth? Yikes! One of the best books ever, especially if you love words.

Some various excerpts.

Manchester Guardian review.

And a whole cool Norton Juster interview!)

Labels: animation

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:40:00 AM

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The storm passed us by and I was finally able to get a copy of The Trouble With Angels on TCM. I've been waiting for it since they haven't shown it for a while and I do not want the DVD because it is pan-and-scan.

(Now if only TCM would have Good Morning, Miss Dove; If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium; and 23 Paces to Baker Street, all widescreen, of course. I have copies of them, but never have seen any of them widescreen. Belgium, especially, must be great widescreen, since it was filmed in Europe.)

There's only 10 minutes left on the disk, and I was about to finalize it when I remembered that TCM is supposed to show the cartoon "The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics," based on the little Norton Juster (The Phantom Tollbooth) book, in September. I hope I'll be able to catch it and put this at the end of the DVD.

It's not the same as a DVD, but here it is on (where else?) YouTube: "The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics."

Labels: animation, movies, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 6:53:00 PM

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Yogi Bear's Co-Creator Dies at 95

Not to mention the creator of what was the best kids' animated adventure series ever, Jonny Quest.

Labels: animation, obituary, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 8:08:00 AM

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