I'm not the biggest fan of the new Doctor Who, which seems to get almost universal fan and critic praise, so I quite enjoyed this Io9 article:

Why Steven Moffat isn't all that
(contains spoilers for aired episodes)

The authors position doesn't entirely reflect the problems I have with the Tennant seasons of Doctor Who, although this sentence about some Doctor-female schmoop could've come from my brain: "It's pretty jarring, if you're used to watching a show about a time-travelling maverick who values his companions above all else, who never has sex, and whose one prized possession is his TARDIS."

And considering what a chauvinist Moffat comes off as in this interview, I suppose it's a relief his female characters are just two-dimensional bores, not something worse.

--Ace

--Ace

Last summer, my mom asked me if I was watching "that new Bruce Campbell show" and I said no, because although I dig Bruce Campbell, I don't find spy shows interesting. We were talking about Burn Notice (link to USA network) which premiered on June 28th, 2007, on the USA network. My mom really loves her some USA shows.

Somehow, my mom talked me into giving the show a chance, so I tuned in somewhere in the middle of the twelve episode season.

Despite my general disinterest in the spy genre, I was pretty quickly hooked by Burn Notice (link to imdb). It had a lot more humor than I expected, mostly of the snarky and bleak kind, the Miami locations were gorgeous and a nice change from the usual LA or Vancouver locations on the shows I usually watch. And yes, I must admit, lead actor Jeffrey Donovan is both fun to watch as Michael Westen, the "burned" former covert operative, and he is damn easy on the eyes.

Sweet little TiVo recorded the pilot episode of Burn Notice (link to wikipedia) for me the other night, and I decided to re-watch it while folding laundry. After getting sucked into the middle of season one last summer, I had caught up on all the episodes I missed either in reruns or on-line, so I had seen the pilot a few months ago out of proper order.

While I was rewatching the other night, however, I noticed for the first time that as well as being the good introduction to a fun summer show, it’s a really great pilot in and of itself. The characters, plot, art direction and humor are all very consistent with the episodes that follow and the script does a great job of intriguing you about the story to come.

There's also some exciting casting news for season two:

Details if I've tempted you to check out this show:

Pilot episode repeats: Saturday April 26th, at 9:00 am on USA
Season One DVD release: June 17, 2008
Season Two premiere: July 10th on USA

--Ace

Sep has inspired me to start posting again as well, so I just wanted to pop in and dip my toe in the water. For anyone out there on Ravelry, I have a newish account under "AceHansen." Stop by and say hi!

I'm struggling with re-learning all of LJ's quirks. Why, after all this time, no link button? Why no tag drop-down on the posting or editing window? Je suis puzzled.

--Ace

... of things that are currently annoying me about this move.

1. Our movers came to deliver most of our things yesterday. I say most of because some things were left behind in our storage locker at our old house. (My precious books!) And other things never left the warehouse in San Diego. (Our bedding. Our COMPUTER.) I don't think they could have deliberately chosen two things that would be more inconvenient for us than our blankets and our computer. Bah.

2. The toilet seat of our new house. It is damn cold. All last night I was tossing and turning trying to convince myself I could "hold it" until morning because I did not want to plunk my bare ass on that toilet seat. Brrrrr. I am coming from one of the most pansified California climates and I cannot handle a porcelain on my delicate tush.

3. The owner of the house we are renting "has plans" for the bare garden beds in the front yard. The owner is in D.C. and thus will not be planting anything anytime soon. Meanwhile I am here and I have an itchy green thumb and grand plans. It's gorgeous weather today and prime planting season. Grr.

-- Sep

Today I have a new house to explore. We signed the lease this morning and all our stuff will be delivered tomorrow.

I really love our new neighborhood -- lots of stately older homes and many trees. It's so amazingly quiet even though we're just a few blocks away from the high street. In fact, it's so quiet that today is the first time I've been able to hear the fan in my MacBook running.

I hope to be able to post pictures soon. I just have to find what I did with the camera cable.

In other house-related news please keep your fingers crossed for us. We may have found tenants for our place in San Diego. If all goes well they should be signing a lease tomorrow.

-- Sep

This morning I was awakened by Zebedee yowling up a blue streak. This is unusual because Zeb is a gentle, sweet, quiet kitty and not the howling, banshee brat that is Latch. Zeb does not meow. Not for food. Not to go outside. Not to get me to stop making that godawful racket with my flute. For Zeb meowing is used in one situation only -- to tell us that we are doing it very, very wrong and need to let her out of the darn carrier. Please. When we get a moment. It is an exclamation of last resort. So I thought it was kinda strange that she wouldn't shut up this morning. I got up. Verified that the cats were not in imminent danger of starving (as defined in the Cat Constitution as having no food in the bowl) and went back to bed. For five minutes. Until she started up again. This went a few more rounds until finally I gave up and started my damn day already. I mentioned this to Yimmy because we don't have children and so have plenty of time to talk about the odd behavior(s) of our cats and he said that he had instructed Zeb this morning to not let me sleep too late because then my sleep cycle gets all out of whack and I get unhappy and make life miserable for everyone. He had suggested 9:00 a.m. as an appropriate time. Instead of getting all freaked out that maybe my cat can really understand us and if that's the case I should probably up my level of discourse I huffily inquired as to if he was going to teach her to TELL TIME ACCURATELY because she woke me up TEN MINUTES EARLY. See what he means about the sleep patterns?

- Sep

Two things:

1. I did not die. Although you would be forgiven for thinking this as I have not updated here in, oh, 61 weeks or so. Oops. Recently I was fixing to start updating again because we MOVED all the way to Seattle and consequently I am having a lot of observations about my new home. However a nice, introductory, "Here's what's been happening" post was cut short because...

2. IT IS SNOWING. (Well, it was when I started writing.) I had never seen snow falling before. Rain falling on your hood makes a sharp plip sound. Snow makes a nice muffled splop. When the first few flakes fell I would see them hit the grass and then quickly run over looking for them as if they were asteroids or something. Every time I tried to go inside I was completely unable to make myself leave. Until I got the bright idea of riding the elevator up to the 25th floor of our building and looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows. I felt like I was in a snow globe. Every time I close my eyes now I see snow. I want more. Also I want snow that sticks. Based on some very unscientific collective temperature taking I am the only person in Seattle who feels this way. Everyone else is tired of winter.

-- Sep

This morning on the way to work I saw the signs that tell me <i>Veronica Mars</i> is filiming in my neighborhood again today. I mentally run through past locations they've shot in North Park -- Cho's Pizza, Vinnie's office, the Noir film festival theatre or River Stix.  I pass directly by Cho's on the way and the signs are pointing the wrong way for the bar so it's either Vinnie's office, the theatre or an entirely new location. I'm tempted to swing by on my lunch hour but as I've learned from spending lunches nosing around when they're filming by my office, it's really kind of boring. I enjoy the finished product much more.

True story. Before I started watching the show I came home one day to find a local, Italian restaurant apparently under new ownership. "Peking duck pizza?" I mused.  "That sounds like something I'll have to try."  I was incredibly excited because this restaurant is just... bad. Okay, it's been around for 40+ years and it supports three families and normally this would be all it would take to set my liberal, power-to-the-people heart aflame.  But this place has one completely unforgiveable flaw -- Canned. Mushrooms. On. Their. Pizza.  So I came home jabbering excitedly about the new fusion pizza place.  The next day it was all gone and I was crushed and confused. I think it was worth it though for the shriek I let out when I first saw Kanes and Abels.

-- Sep

Today our friend Gina is coming to visit because even though the weather is still far off what locals would term nice it's still a lot nicer than where she's coming from.

We have told the cats that they are getting an English governess. We hope she doesn't teach them British swearwords. Zebedee is particularly excited because she sees guests as people who have nothing else to do but devote the majority of their time to playing laser pointer with her. I wish I had a better camera (or reflexes) so I could get a picture of her mid-air. It's a sight.

-- Sep

The Noir film festival was playing right in my neighborhood. I wonder if Vinnie Van Lowe went? His office is on the next block.

I tried to find a good picture of our opera house but this was about all I could come up with. Too bad they didn't film inside. It's been recently restored and is fantastically beautiful.

-- Sep

It's happened. Finally. Last night as I was standing outside at our building's Halloween display my neck felt a little odd. It was a strange sensation that took me a moment to recognize. My neck was actually chilly. It must have been no more than 60 degrees outside! Chilly enough that I went inside and grabbed the awesome stripey scarf that Jenelope knitted for me. At that moment a delightful thought tickled the back of my mind but I couldn't let myself take it seriously. After all it's not happened since we moved to San Diego. This morning I got up and made my way to on the patio to contemplate the weather and it happened -- sweater weather. It was cold enough to wear a sweater. I promptly did the sweater dance on my way back inside to peruse the neglected gems of my sweater drawer. A sweater hasn't been reasonable attire in three years. I've been waiting for my blood to become thin enough for sweaters since the first "winter" we moved here. (I alwyas feel odd referring to winter in San Diego. It seems more appropriate to call it 4th quater of the fiscal year or something.) I miss sweaters. In the grim north we moved from, most of my wardrobe was based on cute sweaters. Here they are mostly useless. Here the only time I get to wear cashmere is at home when I refuse to let us turn on the heater because I can't stand to let my cozy cashmere pajamas go to waste. But today I sit comfortably in a light cashmere sweater.

Still at lunch I had to pull up my sleeves because I was getting a little too warm.

-- Sep

p.s. The sweater dance, incidentally, looks a lot like a Snoopy dance.

Two more garden pictures:

( Beware the Monstera! )

-Ace

I fell in love with plumeria trees when Andy and I visited Hawaii in 2000. They grow on all the hotel grounds there, bushy trees full of beautiful and heavily perfumed flowers.

( Forward to the kind buds! )

-Ace

I haven't added anything here in so long because, basically, I haven't felt like I had anything to say. I'm not sure how the "writing, photography, knitting and other creative activities" switch got flipped in my brain, but it seems to be stuck on OFF.

Also, of course, my perfectionism has set in. Not wanting to update until I had something fantastic and fascinating to say, and so on. But fuck that! Ha.

Here's some news I frowned at:

"Jane (Espenson) is writing an episode of Battlestar Galactica and she couldn't be more thrilled!"

Jane Espenson is dead to me. She's been dead to me since the execrable, humiliating, mortifying, whoring piece of absolutely irredeemable garbage known as First Date.

Sorry. I really hated that episode beyond all reason. It soured me on Jane's writing (as at that point, I couldn't get any more sour about Buffy overall.)

BSG already has its share of prancing ninnies (hi there, Gaius!) so I hope Jane keeps her hands off Adama, Helo, the Chief, and the other interesting male characters (notice I didn't mention Lee there.) Also, Battlestar Galactica is not funny so it seems Jane's talents would be best used elsewhere.

But hey, look, since the hated First Date, and a subsequent smattering of terrible episodes of Buffy, Jane has also penned episodes I have not seen of Tru Calling, Gilmore Girls, and Jake in Progress (wtf is that?). I wonder if any of those episodes were any good.

Perhaps she'll do just great on Battlestar Galactica. Perhaps I should stop blaming her for being affected by the ills of Season Seven and circumstances beyond her control (why Ashanti? Why?).

--Ace

Not only do we live in a world in which an all-dwarf KISS tribute band exists, we live in a world where TWO all-dwarf KISS tribute bands exist.

No, really.

In other news Britboy's lump turned out to be nothing more serious than a blood clot. Hurrah.

-- Sep

Here's what I won't be getting Rusty for Christmas.

Rusty, I'm not even sure you'll want to click on that link. Roach related.


-- Sep

Possible TMI alert.

2003 was the year of the lump. I had a lump in my foot that had to come out; Latch had a life-threatening lump removed in the nick of time; and James had infected and impacted wisdom teeth which I am classifying as bone lumps for purposes of this post. Apparently the poor dear was worried that he couldn't be a full-fledged member of our lump club because his wasn't fleshy enough so he's decided to grow a new one.

Don't know a thing yet. Doctor's appointment today. I am doing fairly well at not running through cancer scenarios. by which I mean that I *am* running through them (Do I get a job with better benefits? Would we move to England where the cost of care is much more affordable?) but not running through them in exhaustive detail.

-- Sep

( Photo post: Strange and wonderful campus plants )

--Ace

Sep - don't read the comments on this one. We'll try to keep you spoiler-free.

I just watched the second season finale of Battlestar Galactica and !! Great holey moley! I almost blacked out at one point - honestly! I think I was holding my breath.

Genius. I did not expect any of that.

( I try to say more about the finale, but am still mostly speechless with surprise )


--Ace