DVD Revolution

The golden age of the DVD revolution is upon us brothers and sisters. It has been slowly building momentum and has finally broken through that mystical barrier we call the 80's.
About a year or so ago, Amazon started selling Jem and the Holograms DVDs. I was thrilled. I loved Jem as a child but I really hate the price of the things as an adult. (They're over $100 here in Canada). But it brought hope that more shows I loved as a child would come out. I wasn't wrong.

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Vol 1. appeared. I did like He-Man but I LOVED She-Ra...and lo and behold the Best of She-Ra was released this past July. Season 1 Vol. 1 is supposed to be released sometime this fall.

I have since found DVD's for Rainbow Brite, Popples, Wuzzles (I vaguely remember them), Ducktales, etc. It's an exciting time for those of us who have grown up in the 80s.

But last night I discovered the holy grail of 80's cartoons was being released on DVD. This is a cartoon series that ensured my entrance into the geek hall of fame because I owned the toys and I watched the series relentlessly as a child. I even tried watching the horrible remake in the late 90's. Which show am I referring to? VOLTRON SEASON 1! It's coming out September 26. I've resisted the siren call of the other DVD's...I'm 27 years old...I don't need to buy DVD's of old cartoons I used to watch. But this one...THIS ONE....might break my will power.

For you poor souls who are wondering what Voltron is (and I shake my head at the lot of you), this is the one about the 5 robotic lions on Planet Eris (Arus?) who would merge together to form Voltron: Defender of the Universe (insert echo-y voice here)! This is where Power Rangers came from! PR totally ripped Voltron off! There were 4 male "drivers" and one female (the Princess of course) and they were great friends who cared for their lions that were somewhat "alive". The Black Lion was the statue in front of the castle, the Red Lion came from a Volcano, the Green Lion came from the Forest, the Yellow Lion came from the Desert, and the Blue Lion came from the lake.

What's even sadder, is that I remember who drove which lion. Man...I am going to be named Geek of the Decade for this....

RAGE AGAINST COLES/CHAPTERS!!!!!

I am so bloody ticked off at Chapters/Coles right now that I can't even think! A few days ago I bought a couple of books and received a promotional ticket that said if I spent $50 or more in store during the month of September that I could win anywhere from $5 to $1000 gift certificate. This seemed like a great idea so I decide to go into Coles and get them to order $50 worth of books for me and I'll be able to use my new coupon when they come in.

Well, wasn't I in for a surprise. First I have to pay upfront (this has changed since the last time I ordered books instore) and I didn't have my coupon with me. I tell the sales girl this (who has a trainee tag on...) and before she can respond the Idiot Manager (I've dealt with her before and she is an Idiot worthy of Idiot Island) tells me that the coupon only works when I buy the books in September...not if I pick them up in September. Before I can say that I will wait until Friday, September 1, to make my order the Idiot Manager than tells me that ordering books through the store still counts as an online order.

THEREFORE MY ORDER WON'T WORK WITH MY COUPON!!!!!!

I couldn't believe this. It's not my fault that the pitiful stores in Saint John don't carry the books I like. I can't use the coupon online and I try to give the business to the store and then they can't help me because of some hidden disclaimer! What the bleeping bleep?! At first I'm pretty ticked and I say, "Cancel the order. The only reason I came in here was for this coupon." But the poor trainee looked upset and I didn't want to take my rage out on her so I let her convince me to finish the order. I didn't even get an apology from the Idiot Manager. Then the trainee gives me ANOTHER coupon. "What's the point?" I ask. I can't use it. I tried doing it by the book and it blew up in my face. She says I could give it to a friend. "I doubt they'll have much better luck," I mutter.

This is the second time in 4 months that they've burned me with their coupons. I HAVE to use them instore. When I complain to the staff that the books I like aren't sold here they tell me to order online. I do that and my coupons STILL AREN'T ANY FREAKING GOOD!!!! I wrote a complaint to Chapters head office the last time they burned me but got nothing back.

I want to be done with Chapters/Coles. I can get the same prices at Amazon.ca. And I don't have to spend $20 a year on an iRewards card that gives me coupons I can't use.

I should've cancelled the order and tore up my iRewards card in front of them....I'm so bloody mad I'm getting a headache.

Bloody electricity!

Before I tell my stupid moment story, you have to understand that I've had some power issues of late. First there was the electrical storm that played havoc with my computer, then this past Saturday there was a fire on my block and they cut power for nearly the entire day. Needless to say, I'm a little paranoid with power outages mainly because of the problems it causes my 'puter and, therefore, me.

This morning I'm blow drying my hair and I have my bedroom light on and I have the space heater going because I'm too cheap to turn up my own heat to get rid of the dampness. And....the power goes out. I don't even think; I just react. I race to my spare room and unplug my pc from the wall before the power comes back on and fries something else on my 'puter.

So, I'm wondering how I'm going to get my hair dry when I realize I can still hear the humming from the fridge. I go to my kitchen and find that there is still power there. I go back to my bedroom to see if maybe the power was only off for a minute and that's why I still have power in my kitchen (I turned off all my lights and stuff when the power went off). Nope. No power in my bedroom. I have power in my bathroom and in my living room. Then it hits me. When I unplugged my pc, I heard the thump from the speakers that says I cut power without first turning off my speakers. Then I REALLY start to panic.

I blew a bloody fuse and unplugged my pc for no bloody reason!!!!!

I've never fixed a fuse so I wasn't entirely sure how to do it. I had an idea but no real concrete clue. I go to my box and see that all the rooms are labeled in a legend on a nice sticky note. Yay! Then I realize that the numbers don't correspond to the switches. Boo! I try logic. The bedrooms (yes, my computer room is half on the main bedroom circuit preventing me from having lights and the other half is on the living room circuit which lets me have computer power...old buildings) is #19 so I try counting down 19 switches. Nope. I don't know what that switch did but it didn't affect my bedroom. There was one switch that was halfway between on and off but I couldn't push it back to On so I switched it to Off and tried to put it back to On. I couldn't do it. So I was beginning to think I was going to have to do the old "trial and error" method when I decide to try my mystery switch again. This time I was able to push it back to On and I had power! Yay!

And I'm very proud that I was able to fix a fuse. I just don't understand why my space heater and hairdryer overloaded the circuit. My pc is on a different circuit so I can't even blame that. I didn't think space heaters (and it's a tiny one) could overload a circuit like that. I didn't think it was that much of a power sucker. Lesson learned.

The Greco!

I can't remember how it came up, but Colin and I were talking about car insurance (which is funny enough in itself considering I don't drive). I think we saw an insurance commercial on tv and were commenting on it.

Regardless of how it came up, we were talking about insurance when Colin said, "Maybe those people should just sign up with that company that has the Greco."

I'm a little confused. "Greco?" I ask. I'm thinking of the pizza company and I'm trying to figure out how pizza figures into our conversation.

"Yeah, the Greco. The little green lizard guy."

I start to laugh. "Do you mean the Gecko from Geico?"

It still makes me laugh...hee hee.

Further Adventures in Cat Sitting

Well, I'm done my first round of cat sitting. My sister and her family are back and I was able to regale them with my oh so hilarious adventures this past week. Donna thinks she will be able to use her steam cleaner thingy to get the cat pee smell from my suitcase. I certainly hope so cuz I love that little suitcase.

Since said cat pee experience, I've had to continue carrying Magic down to the basement to use the kitty litter. She fights me the whole way. I have claw marks all over my right arm from her...and this is unusual. Until this past week, she's never, EVER, scratched me. She really hates the basement. And we don't know why. The other two cats have no problem with it. Must be some smell down there she doesn't like.

And when Magic is behaving herself (sort of), it's Sasha (the oldest cat, she'll be 16 next month) show is having the hard time. Sasha I can understand. She's nearly 16 and she's showing her age. I have to give her a pill every day so that she doesn't poop all over the place. Even with the pill, some times she has accidents. Like on Friday. What a joy it was to clean THAT up. I won't go into details, but it was pretty disgusting.

As Colin said, "You might as well be taking care of small children." At least I have 2 days rest before I start the second wave of cat sitting. Donna was in NS on vacay this past week, and now she and the boys are going with Doug to Dallas on business. I'll only have them for a few days but that'll be fine. Hopefully I'll get to the lake on the weekend.

The Nosy, Spotted One Must Die!

First off, let me say that I love my sister's cats. She has 3 of them (Sasha, Sami, and Magic). And I've cat sat for all of them since they were kittens. I've fed them, brushed them, given them meds, cleaned the kitty litter, cleaned up furballs and cleaned up kitty puke. I've done it all...or so I thought.

My sister moved to a new house a couple of months ago and the two oldest cats have adapted quite well. The youngest (Magic, the one pictured) isn't adjusting as well. The kitty litter is in the basement and she is afraid of the basement for some reason. So my sister and her husband have been carrying Magic down to the basement so she can go the bathroom and staying down there with her while she does. So, when I went to cat sit this week, I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to help a 5 year old cat go potty. (Worse than kids I tell you)

But she was doing well. I even saw her go use the kitty litter. So I started to relax. Everything was ok. One day I did screw up and left my faux-leather purse where she could reach it and she kind of clawed it up a bit. I was upset but it was my fault.

Then this morning. Well. I actually slept through the night in the new house and woke around 6:20 to the cats trying to get me up to feed them. I was about to do that when Magic jumped in my suitcase (more of a shoulder bag and it goes with me everywhere) and started acting silly. She's done this before so I didn't think anything of it. Then I realize she's sitting a strange way. I'm like, "Magic...what are you doing?"

And then I start to panic. She jumps out of my shoulder bag and the smell hits me. SHE PEED IN MY SHOULDER BAG! Thankfully my clothes weren't in it (THANK GOD!) but I had a pair of socks and underwear in there. I get them out and set them to soak in the sink...I then start to try to mop up the kitty pee. Ugh. That was nasty. But the smell is still there. Magic wisely took off cuz I might have sent her flying through the window. This is my favorite overnight bag. It goes with me EVERYWHERE. Fredericton, the lake, over night to cat sit. If I can't get the smell out of it, I'll have to throw it out and that will break my heart.

So, if anyone knows how to get the smell of cat pee out of a suitcase, please let me know. I don't want to have to put dress clothes (or any clothes for that matter) in a kitty pee smelling suitcase.

I could've killed the spotted one. I thought about it. Donna told me not to leave any plastic bags on the floor cuz she was peeing in them. But my bag is not plastic and I had been zipping it up all week but this time....it never occured to me. She was using the kitty litter and she hadn't even LOOKED at my shoulder bag all week....

Grrr....

Another One Bites the Dust....

Sigh. It's happened. Yet another one in my group (one of my groups) is getting married. Danna MacEachern is about to become Danna.....um...whatever Andrew's last name is (mental note: add that to the list of things I must learn before the wedding). Well, the really good news is that I will be well versed in buying wedding gifts by the time Danna's wedding rolls around, what with Lori's wedding next month.

As Danna was recounting her proposal, the only thing I could think of was that she should wear a red wedding dress. I remember watching General Hospital as a child and Lucy Coe married Alan Quartermaine in flaming red dress with a big red hat (it was an accidental purchase but the image stayed with me). I love this idea and I suggested it to Danna. Needless to say she didn't think this was such a hot idea (pardon the pun). But I am not one to give up. I just did a search on Google for red wedding dresses and...they are actually quite common in Europe and starting to become popular in North America. There are actually some nice ones as well...




I'm kind of partial to the 4th one and this is just a sampling of what I found. There are some nice red and white ones as well since Danna wants to go traditional with a white wedding dress (so daring since she's LIVING with her fiancee). Although the white wedding dress has only been common for the past 100 years or so and that's when Queen Victoria wore a white dress for her wedding to Prince Albert. Before that, women wore whatever colour suited them. So I say wear RED!

Ding Dong, the Idiot is Gone!

Yay! Zayra is gone from Rockstar: Supernova!

I hated the witch. She couldn't sing (she messed up Jenny - 867-5309, which I thought was impossible), she danced like a stripper, and she wore skintight, revealing outfits to stay on the show. Granted, the strategy worked but still! It irritated me to no end.

Now that the evil one is gone, we can enjoy the talented Dilana, Lukas, Ryan, Storm, and the adorable Toby.

Secrets...

Have you ever had a secret that you wanted to tell but, for wahtever reason, you couldn't? Or if you had a secret you wanted to tell, but were afraid or ashamed of it?

I recently discovered a website that allows you to tell a secret but remain anonomous. You write your secret on a postcard and mail it to PostSecret. The owner of the site then goes through the gads of amounts of postcards he receives and posts several every Sunday.

Some secrets are funny, some are sad, and some are really obscure/bizarre. PostSecret is the coolest website I've found in awhile. It's neat because you can see yourself in some of the posts, and some remind me how lucky I am to not have a secret like the one I'm reading. The only thing I wish was that the owner of the site would keep archives of the postcards. The post cards are only there for a week and then they are gone.

I also discovered that a book was published with all sorts of secrets and another one is on the way.

My favorite secret is the one I've posted at the top...that one is just TOO funny.

Bloody computers!!!!

Technology is out to get me. I fought with my cell phone last week. It would send calls directly to my voice mail. Or it would drop the call. Or switch to analog mode. (I realize I can blame these problems on my service provider but I want to blame the techology).

This week it's my pc. Thanks to the electrical storm earlier in the week, my 'puter got zapped and I spent 3 hours one night just tring to coax my machine to turn on. Once I got it on, I was trying to get it to STAY on. It kept rebooting itself every 10 minutes or so and then freezing during the reboot process. For awhile, I got the 'puter to stay on and was actually doing a few things. But when I go to get on the Internet....it cannot connect!!!

I'm ready to tear my hair out at this point. So I call Rogers and the short story is...my modem is working but it looks like my Network Card isn't. Bloody hell. Last year, I replaced my motherboard, chip, power supply, and RAM because they'd all been friend. Now my NETWORK CARD is fried??? The only thing that hasn't blown up yet is my hard drive (knock wood).

So I send my pc to the shop. Turns out I need a new Power Supply (my third with this pc) and my Network Card isn't fried (thank the merciful lord) but the ethernet port probably is. So, I dig around in my emergency box and find a USB cable that I can use instead. That works.

I'm beginning to think my troubles are over (Oh, naive little child). This morning I get up and go to my pc (which now has new computer smell thanks to the new power supply) and find that my lovely pc has rebooted itself YET AGAIN during the night. I don't know if that is a fluke situation but it makes me nervous. I can't help but wonder if my pc is still planning on dying on me. I don't want to spend my more $$ on this thing. Although, if you added up all the money I spent last year and this year...I have a new pc. The only thing that isn't new in my pc right now is my hard drive (which deserves a medal for all the hell it's gone through) and my burner.

In closing I just have 2 words to say: BLOODY COMPUTERS!!!!!

Drowning Can be Fun!

(Dammit! I have a really cool picture of a cartoon drowning and I can't upload it!)

So, I went to the lake this past weekend. And the weather was really hot so I actually got to go swimming. When I was younger, I used to be a really good swimmer. But over the years, I went swimming less and less. I don't like swimming in oceans, pools or ponds. I only like swimming in my lake. (And, of course, there is the standard girl defense that I don't like myself in a bathing suit). But once or twice a summer it's hot enough that I can't stand it and must go swimming.

This time, Amber went with me. She also used to be a really good swimmer but for the same reasons I mentioned above, she doesn't swim much anymore either.

As it happened on this hot day, the lake was really wavy. Wavy enough that if we had boogy boards we could have body surfed. Amber and I are not this adventurous and are just happy to paddle around. So we get ourselves ducked and proceed to swim out past the buoys (I'm rotten at distances so let's say over 100 feet from shore). In our younger years, this was nothing. Now...it's a little more challenging. We swim out and then back. When we get back to the shallows, Amber gasps: "Because...pant, pant...we're swimming against the waves...pant, pant...it's a much more challenging work out..pant."

I agree. "Yes...pant, pant...that's it. It's not...pant, pant...because we're...pant...out of shape."

So we swim back out again. This time a wave hits Amber in the face and she swallows some water. She starts to cough and choke. I tread water beside her while she finishes. "Ummm...if I start to drown, can you save me?" she asks.

I think about it for a moment. "Well, I can watch you drown or I can try to save you and die with you."

She starts to laugh and another wave hits her in the face. This makes me laugh and then a wave hits ME in the face, which makes Amber laugh harder.

"At this rate, we're BOTH going to die. And then we can haunt the lake and lure innocent swimmers to their doom!" I giggle between coughs.

So we finally get far enough out (oh yes, we kept going), and then turn back. The second turn was no better, stamina wise. We get to the shallows and are still panting like we ran a marathon (the laughing probably didn't help). After we get our breath back, I look at Amber: "Wanna go again?"

"SURE!"

And so, the two morons went back out despite the fact that they nearly died. This time back I swallowed some water and started to choke. I ask Amber, "If I start to drown, can you save me?"

Amber keeps swimming. "No. You'll just have to save yourself."

This makes me laugh harder and then I start to sink. "Come on!" Amber cries. "It's just another 4 feet until you can touch bottom. No sense in dying now!"

Well, we both survived our swimming expedition but we decided we probably shouldn't go swimming by ourselves from now on. Way too dangerous.