I Ain't Afraid of No Daleks

THE BOAT-CAR...AKA: THE early 1960'S "Amphicar". When I was 19, I knew a fella' who had one of these, used to drive it right down the boat launch, and into the water, and pootle around the lake. It really worked!

THIS IS LIKE THE ONE THE GUY IN TOWN HAD...

We're just barely missing tropical storm Hanna, here in the southern Adirondacks. Right now it's aiming for the South Carolina coast...still may become a category 1 hurricane before it makes landfall, but chances are it won't. It then track to the northeast, right up the entire eastern seaboard--Virginia, Maryland, Washington D.C., Rhode Island, New Jersey, Long Island, NY, and into Massachusetts, before it exits back out to the Atlantic again, making an arc to the eastward, possibly nicking by some of the Canadian maritimes.

The clouds are creeping in here, but still mostly sunny--but the tossing breeze definitely carries the hint of rain with it. My part of northeastern New York will be missing the worst of the rain, with Albany and points south, plus most of Massachusetts, a chunk of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, bearing the brunt of it...we miss the path of the storm by only maybe 50 to 75 miles--which considering the size of my country, is practically right next door.

We're just due for some showers and possible storms, so the big Hot Rod Nationals classic and hot rod car show this weekend in Lake George--literally hundreds of these fantastic cars on display all over the village, isn't a total bust..but I'm told far less people attending so far this weekend, due to weather concerns..particularly from people traveling from the coastal areas of New York and New England. I was sitting on my balcony, and saw old 1950's and 60's cars roll by, as well as a couple of "street rods."

HOT RODS AND CLASSIC CARS AT LAST YEAR'S EVENT:

...I like it...very handsome styling. makes him look much less like a skanky drunken street person...and you can hardly see his receding hairline.

(Uh-oh, now I'm really gonna' get it from the fan-girls...and fan-boys...and David Tennant. Ima' baaad old woman.)

Think I've done this one--sometimes I think I've done them all, but it's Friday night and I'm BORED. Nothing to do but make my bed and do the washing up.

1. What time did you get up this morning? 7:20am

2. Diamonds or pearls? Neither, perfer lapis, emerald, garnet or turquoise.

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Passenger 57

4. What is your favourite TV show? Doctor Who

5. What do you usually have for breakfast? either scrambed eggs and fried potatoes with either Polish sausage, bacon or ham---or, cold cereal--usually honey-nut cheerios, frosted shredded wheat, or peanut-butter crunch.

6. What is your middle name? Beth

7. What food do you dislike? Mushrooms--a abhor them.

8. What is your favourite CD at moment? The Ultimate Kylie Collection or maybe my best of Proclaimers...not sure.

9. What kind of car do you drive? Don't have a car any longer, but my favourite was a 87 5-speed Ford Ranger.

10.Favourite sandwich? Turkey, lettuce and bacon on toast with mayonnaise.

11.What characteristic do you despise? smugness.

12.Favourite item of clothing? my Ariat boots

13.If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Tie between Iceland and Scotland.

14.Favourite brand of clothing? None, but I have particular shops I prefer to buy from.

15.Where would you retire to? Friesland or the Scottish highlands, or maybe here in the Adirondacks.

16.What was your most recent memorable birthday? I honestly don't remember, it's been years since I celebrated a birthday.

17. Favourite sport to watch? Show jumping, golf, basketball..

18. Furtherest place you are sending this? Sending what?

19. Person you expect to send it back first? No one that I know of.

20. When is your birthday? End of October.

21. you a morning person or a night person? Morning

22. What is your shoe size? Technically, it's 8, but with my right foot injury I have to buy 8 /12 or 9's now--a USA size 9 is a 7.0, in the UK.

23. Pets? 3 cats

24. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with us? Just bought a pot of yellow mums for my balcony.

25. What did you want to be when you were little? Either a cowboy, an actress or a forest ranger.

26. How are you today? sitting here blogging and eating Indian food for lunch and bored as hell.

27. What is your favourite sweets? Chunky bar or Sky bar

28.What is your favourite flower? Iris

29. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to? Nothing. (without sound on my 'puter any more, can't look forward to the day I watch any new Dr who's )

30. What is your full name? Guess.

31. What are you listening to right now? My windchimes on the balcony, the wind in the leaves of the maple tree, cars on Glen Street, the low hum of my computer, flame whinging 'cos she's in heat.

32. What was the last thing you ate? I'm eating chicken biryani and peas paneer.

33. Do you wish on stars? Not any longer, when I was a kid, sure.

34. If you were a crayon, what colour would you be? Royal blue

35. How is the weather right now? Boiling hot, but pleasantly breezy

36. The first person you spoke to on the phone today? Some American freaky lady, who in mid-conversation--as I was trying to explain to her her club benefits that she had already, without any warning or preamble, decided to slam the phone on my ear as heard as she could, the uncouth witch.

37.Favourite soft drink? Coke Classic in a glass bottle

38. Favourite restaurant? Jake's Roundup

39. Real hair colour? dark brown, slight salt and pepper thing on one side.

40.What was your favourite toy as a child? Marx's Fort Apache playset

41. Summer or winter? Winter

42. Hugs or kisses? Hugs, definitely.

43. Chocolate or Vanilla? Twist, ha-ha. (referring to soft ice cream)

44. Coffee or tea? Coffee

45. Do you want your friends to Post you back? I leave that entirely up to them.

46. When was the last time you cried? Last night (I was in pain).

47.What is under your bed? Dust bunnies, and probably some odd socks and/or loose change.

48. What did you do last night? Went shopping at All for One Dollar, got some saddle soap for my good shoes at Tractor Supply Company, and bought a chicken quesadilla from Taco Bell.

49.What are you afraid of? Homelessness, spiders, mathematics, tornadoes, fire, passing out or falling here in the apartment alone.

50.Salty or sweet? salty

51. How many keys on your key ring? Two

52.How many years at your current job? 2 years this October.

53. Favourite day of the week? They're all the same to me.

54. How many towns have you lived in? 7 I think

55.Do you make friends easily? No, not really.

56. How many people will you send this to? No one whatsoever.

Well, it's blistering hot, but a nice breeze coming through my window.

I used the last of my food stamps to buy some frozen veggies and instant mashed potatoes, still had some left over so I treated myself to a ready meal of chicken biryani with basmatti rice, and peas paneer.

Treated myself again, with a dirt cheap (note the semi-pun) pot of flowers for the patio, as my ruffled pansies died off (don't worry, now one died--, they are flowers with frilly edges, not some gay men in a frilly shirts ). I got a little pot full of lovely little yellow mums, to cheer up my day every time I look out the window. Can't beat some live flowers to brighten up the place.
Well, you can beat them, with...money! Yes, money would go far to brighten up my life, but..hey, I'm simple, I settle for flowers and am content with that.

I wish I still lived near a lake or river, could do with a nice refreshing dip in the water...on further thoughts, I still kick myself for leaving behind my air conditioner when I moved...still at the time, it seemed better to avoid wrenching my back, than having to put up with being hot a few months out of the year.

I'd like to do something--there's a good film playing at the drive-ins this weekend...but, I rang them up and was told they have a new policy where on cannot sit outside one's car any longer--and having no car at all, and being to poor to be able to rent a car or limo for the night..well, if I could do that, I could blinking well afford my own car, ey? Seems some idiot was sitting in front of his car, with his legs stretched out in front of him, watching a film, when another car came down the row between the parking spaces, and ran over the bloke's legs. You have no idea how much I miss the drive-in's...besides the economy (two films for $9, and, you can bring your own food/treats if you don't want to give the snack bar your custom), there was just the pleasure of sitting in your car, watching the stars and the moon wheel through the heavens--if the film had some boring bits, and (usually) without the distraction of less mannered patrons.

Just not the same in some multiplex cinema, trust me.

There's two films, and the nice thing about this theater, is it's easy to switch screens--which I've done. Sometimes I'll like the first feature on Screen one, but not the second--so, after the first film, I will move over to the screen two side, and watch the second feature on that screen....which would be the case this weekend, as the second feature on screen one is Babylon AD, which I heard is pretty darn awful. The second feature on screen two is that comedy with ben stiller and jack black.

So, if anyone's in my area and reading this, and wants to take in a drive-in film this weekend, I'll fork over half your admission fee and throw in a couple of bucks for gasoline, if ya'll will just drive me in...I can sit in the shadows in my lawn chair after, and take a cab home, if need be.

1. Where are you right now?

In my living room.

2. Look straight ahead, write down everything you see

Front window, iron radiator under it, two model horses on the top windowsill, a little stained glass suncatcher in the top pane of the window. Also my antique Adirondack camp chair with boots sleeping on it, the end table with my tall table lamp, mum's photo, the DVD/CD player, my date book, a Proclaimers CD and an antique teapot on top of it...the edge of the corner knick-knack shelf with the blue lapis Egypitian cat, a family photo of my gran with my twin aunts, my little toy horse with a dressage rider on its back...on the opposite of my vision, my small art-deco bookcase with books, with the emerald green glass vase with the silk lilacs in it, the lace doily under the vase, my parent's pictures from when they were dating, and a toy antique car. The ratty old ugly brown carpet, the cat's nylon playcube, a furry mouse cat toy, the edge of the VCR that's sitting on top of the old TV set, the edge of my Adirondack rustic stand.

3. What did you have to eat so far today?

2 scrambled eggs, 1/4 of a leftover fried ham (gammon) steak--reheated, a fried hashbrown potato pattie, and some diet lemonade.

4. If you have bookshelves, a DVD rack or CD shelves, list the first three titles on each shelf.

Wow, this will take a couple of minutes. Okay, not going to use proper grammar here, not enough time:

Books:

The works of oscar wilde, aristotle: rhetoric on poetics, the mastery of munnings.
Grolier's New Webster's Dictionary, roget's pocket thesaurus, Grammar
Sting of the Zygons, world game, players
After the Bugles, Six Gun Maverick, Mustang Man
How to Live with a cat, Origins of the American Revolution, Basic writings of thomas paine
raymond chandler: short works, the novels of dashell hammet, Law & Order: deadline
A murder on the apppian way, monday mourning, killing gifts
beowulf, the three musketeers, rebecca
rob roy, a day in the life of ivan desinovich, cannery row
dracula/frankenstein, tales from the arabian knights, the age of fable
the director's eye, one-act plays for acting students, marlowe: Shakespeare
cw anderson's favorite horse stories, native dancer, man on horseback

DVD's:

The Poisoned sky, the sea wolves, the five doctors

CD's:

The new pornographers: electric version
doctor who orginal soundtrack (S-1&2)
Robinella: solace for the lonely

5. Look behind you and to your left, what do you see?

The little antique oak dresser, my antique basket with my "fruit and flowers" arrangement in it, my DVD player headphones, my diabetes tester, my 1700's Spanish-Colonial horse bit, a small photo album, a small oak table lamp with a white shade, a clay figurine I got from a cairo bazzar of a n old man in a turban and robes sitting in a chair reading a newspaper, the picture of me on the camel at the Giza pyramids,--on the wall, part of a 1920's framed horse print, and two small family photos in a tall narrow frame--my great gran just before she died, and my grandfather standing outside with my mum, when she was just wee thing, my denim jacket with a sweater (jumper) arms/back hanging on the back of the door, the edge of the oriental throw rug in the doorway, part of my blue and white "folk-art" style winter jacket, hanging on the open closet door in my bedroom.

Not quite 8am here, and all I want to do, to be quite honest, is to go back to bed. Alas, I have to go in and make up my "holiday" day...required by the company I work for--their idea of a "paid" holiday off, is for you to come in and work on your normal day off that week. Basically, all a national holiday off for us is, just moving our normal day off to the holiday day, cheap bastards. Sucks being me, huh?

Have I mentioned that I have a slight dislike for cheap people?

I'm not talking about people who are cheap 'cos they are struggling and have no other choice, or people who are trying to save money for a specific purpose--college tuition, a long holiday, etc, or those who are simply being careful not to overspend beyond their means, or for some other, totally logical, practical reason.

I mean people who have quite enough money, thank you, and are only being grasping and cheap because that's...what they are. Saving money's fine, going out of your way to be a cheapskate when you absolutely don't have to be...very low brow, in my humble opinion. I once had a rich uncle who definitely wasn't hurting financially, who used to have breakfast at McDonald's--not because he liked their food, but because they gave him a break on the price of his coffee. Cheapskate. A man whose networth is over $250,000, going out of his way to save 20 cents on a cup of coffee...ridiculous.

I expect some of these people secretly shove pennies up their arse, 'cos they're afraid that they'll lose them.

Anyway...

Bad night's sleep. Pain, lots of pain...and probably too much caffine. I'm supposed to stay away from caffine, but I ran out of caffine-free beveragess, yesterday. Bought a one liter bottle of diet lemonade, but couldn't find it--stupid me stuck it in the cupboard where I keep the tinned veggies...what was with THAT? I'm over a month away from age 48, and already I'm going senile? That's not good.

My bad foot was hurting more than usual last night. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't--it's sort of like my limp...sometimes it's hardly noticeable-- only a slight shortening of my stride, and sometimes I walk stooped forward and the limp is extremely pronounced.

Needless to say, I'm going to work today on only about 4 hours sleep. That sucks.

Had a mosquito in the living room with me, last night...had a field day with my skin, and I've bites on my neck and upper arm that are itchy as hell...I hate mosquitoes. I should be used to them though, as growing up we had an overabundance of them, due to there being a deep ditch with standing water in it, right next to our property. Mum was never bothered by spiders, wasps, snakes, ants, flies, field mice...but God, she HATED mosquitoes! A mosquito was the only thing I ever saw, that could make my mum lose her usual calm...that and the time she saw a cockroach at a restaurant. That seemed to freak her out as well, for some reason.

So, gonna' be a hot one here, today, 88 F (31 C). Yuck. We had autumn-like weather the last couple week's of August...now this. No global warming? Riiight.

I wonder if we'll get that tropical storm next week, that's supposed to work its way up the east coast, from Florida? There's tropical storm watches from Florida all the way to the New Jersey shore, from what I gather.

Anyway, have a good Friday all. Cheers. N.

Back when I was in common school (elementary school) back around 1971 or '72, the fire alarm sounded in the middle of the day. Fortunately, it was late May and the weather was warm. Only one fire truck from the village arrived, and merely parked and sat there, the guys from the volunteer fire department--I don't remember dad being one of them, just stood around talking, so we knew it wasn't a drill or a fire.

I remember a village police car and a couple of state trooper cars, descretly parking a ways off from the school, and police officers ducking inside the building. We kids were made to sit well back from the building, near the fence that bordered the woods which then still belonged to the former industrialist, Russell Sage's, estate. (Despite the heir's wish for much of the estate to remain intact, the people they passed it on to, sold it, and those people sold it, yet again, so now this once-lovely and wild estate, is now a massive development of million dollar homes.)

We speculated on the reason for our long (and boring, as I recall) stint on the grass, most of us agreeing that it was a rare bomb scare. As it happened, it was...the first of it's kind in our modest suburban village of around 3000 souls.

That was the day that mum came by to see us. In fact, several parents stopped by the car park, to check on their kids. Mum never said she was worried about us. She never showed the anxiety she must have felt--for, one of my cousins was a village police officer, and my dad ws in the fire department...and our street had only ten homes and was isolated from the village proper for several reasons--we had a very close-knit neighbourhood, as a result. Basically, ours was a small enough village, that word got around faster than a bolt of lightning hitting an electrical pylon.

So, mum came by in the cream coloured Chevy station wagon, carrying a cardboard box for us. Now, mum always encouraged us to love animals and pets were a part of life in our home. But...this time, the "pets" were REALLY different.

Sis and I were curious about the box. Mum sat on the grass with us, and let us look inside. Inside, were two baby lizards!

Well, both of us were surprised and delighted. Mum told us she was at Woolworth's, and she saw them in the pets department (our village's Woolworths sold fish, hamsters, guinea pigs, gerbils, mice, little turtles...and, apparently, on that week, lizards).

The lizards turned out to be two young dwarf chameleons. I was a bit put out, when I found out I'd have to feed them freeze dried flies (I kid you not). Sis was delighted however.

But, thinking on it now, I wonder what spurred mum on to make such an unusual purchase for us--without us begging her for it, first.

I think mum being mum, was anxious for us, and the purchase was one time when I think she made a compulsive buy. She wanted us not to worry about bombs, by turning our focus on lizards. At least, that's my theory. It could have been that mum had a secret love of lizards...who knows? Oh, and the bomb scare--the only one in my lifetime--turned out to be a phony.

There is a reason the people at Google make themselves virtually inaccessible to the public--No matter where you live, you can only contact them one of two ways: a long-distance call to California...where you'll likely be put on hold for a period of time, or, by post...which can take days or even weeks to reach the right party...with no promise of a reply.

Here is a copy of the contract you must sign, if you agree to use "CHROME:"

You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

11.3 You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this license shall permit Google to take these actions.

Sure, you retain copyright...but they basically can do anything they want with your webpages, blogs, etc. Does that sound right to you? Doesn't sound too good to me, and I think Google is riding for a fall with their continued disregard and disrespect for internet users.

Also, there's LOADS of complaints about how CHROME is handling visual aspects of the internet...it's gone INSANE with images--suddenly traffic to my blog via images as TRIPLED, ever QUADURPLED since the launch of CHROME...and, it is EFFECTING my computer's performance, even tho' I DON'T USE IT! Since the launch of CHROME, and the increased traffic to my blog, my whole internet is slowing down, and not working 100%. I read where other non-CHROME users are voicing similar complaints.

Oh well, we'll get the attorneys and goverment watchdogs sort it, I suppose, if enough people complain, that is.

"You look like a million dollars...Canadian dollars..."--Carson Kressley.

"If the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something to do with a shortage of flowers."--Doug Larson

The three children abducted by their father in Utah earlier this week are still missing. Last I heard the man is believed to be headed for the border with Mexico, or, perhaps to California or somewhere in western Canada. The father has a past history of child abuse.

On the good news side, a girl abducted this week in Wyoming, has been found, along with her abductor. She is safely in police custody at last report.

Thanks a lot, Gilraaen. I was all set to have a toasted cheese sandwich and some tomato soup for supper, and now, since you mention the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I have a hankering for some pasta!