Donna’s Neighborhood

Oops, haven't posted in a while. Well, there wasn't much to say, honestly, until this week. We did indeed have a bit of a shake as a 5.6 earthquake rocked the South Bay. It was a good shake and roll, but nothing more serious. My favorite part was the local news breaking into It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!: "We're interrupting this program to tell you about something you're probably aware of." So true.

I've been meaning to post all week, but it keeps not happening. I've been enjoying the return of old television shows and the debuts of some new ones. Verdicts on the new season thus far:

Heroes: Entertaining.
Bionic Woman: Not good, but it has Starbuck being awesome.
The Office: Excellent!
Stargate: Atlantis: Better than expected! I'm hopeful.

The week's most exciting event, however, was my acquisition of a dining table and chairs. Sure, it took me four months, but it's not like I've felt a need for one, other than to fill the wide-open floor space. I could afford to be choosy! We have a large network of mailing lists at work, including one on which people sell their stuff, which is where I found this:

Woohoo! Of course, what you can't see in the photo is the middle section of the table. Rather than being removable, it folds up and tucks in underneath the tabletop. While it's a clever solution, it makes the tabletop that much heavier. I couldn't figure out how to dismantle it, either, apart from removing the legs. The guy who sold it to me helped get it in my car, but the other end was a lot less fun. I spent a long time trying to figure out the proper leverage just to shift it out of my trunk but eventually had to give in and ask a neighbor for help.

What could be more fun that reading my reactions to the mediocre Emmy awards as I thought them?

Here goes:

Red carpet was nice. Clean lines and jewel tones were clearly on top this year, which I am all for. WTF was up with Kate Walsh's hair?

I'm only going to talk about categories I care about, which does not generally include the comedy shows or the miniseries stuff.

-Best Supporting Actor - Drama: I don't watch Lost and I'm all YAY HEROES so I was rooting for Masi Oka. Terry O'Quinn looked like a pimp. That shirt was horrible!

-Best Supporting Actress - Drama: Awwww Katherine! I love her and I bet her mom is going to kill her for calling her out like that. :))

-Best Writing - Variety or Comedy: All the candidate intros were hilarious. Obviously, I was rooting for my Comedy Central boys, but I love Conan too, so I can deal.

-Christina and Tony - She looks lovely, but I'm kind of bored by this number.

-Oustanding Guest Actress - Drama: God, how gorgeous is Hayden Panettiere? And Neil Patrick Harris wins for his "patriotic yet sleazy innuendo". :D Love!

-Directing - Variety Comedy: Oh god, Stephen Colbert's going to have it in for Tony Bennett like he did for Barry Manilow last year.

-Oustanding Variety/Comedy/Music Show: I am a little bit in love with Steven Carrell. OMFG YAY JON STEWART FOR THE MOTHERFUCKING WIN! I <3 him so much. Something else Stephen can be bitter about.

-I could have totally done without that musical number for the Sopranos. :)) Are they doing that because it's over now? Or are they going to do that for all the drama nominees? Maybe they could play Adrian Pasdar's YouTube videos together with "You're So Vain" as the soundtrack?

-Blah blah blah, I don't care about miniseries or made for TV movies.

-Oh man, MASI OKA! he's too freaking adorable. And dear old Al Gore. He's really found his niche and seems happy.

-Oustanding Performance - Variety, Musical, Comedy: Man, Stephen Colbert has a new nemesis. He's going to get SO MUCH MILEAGE out of this. I hope Tony will be as good a sport as Barry Manilow was last year.

-I love how Ryan Seacrest totally embraces his Gay. He embraces it, plays with it and totally gets mileage out of it. Henry VIII indeed.

-AHAHAHAHA STEPHEN! LEAF BLOWER! WIN! IT RUNS ON AL GORE'S TEARS! I LOVE THEM! WHO CARES ABOUT THE AWARD!

-OH GOD THAT IS THE MOST AWESOME THING EVER. They should run around the stage and hug more often. Steven Carrell, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert could be the best things about this show. Ever.

-Actress in a Comedy Series: Awwwww, Sally Field, you still look amazing. We really do love you! She's so flighty though.

-Yay America Ferrera! I don't watch that show, but I really like her.

-I second <a href=http://ckc.vox.com>Carrie's question to me in chat: Who even watches Boston Legal? James Spader? Okay!

-Oustanding Comedy Series: Wow, 30 Rock won? I've only watched an ep or two, but it's funny, so whatever. Meta about the industry, so I'm not really surprised. I would have wanted the Office and expected Ugly Betty to win.

-You know, they should have "contingent commercials". Half price, and they get cut if the show's running over. I know there's no way in hell, but I'm just saying. *drums fingers*

-Oustanding Drama Series: COME ON, HEROES! I know the Sopranos will probably win...

-AND, I was right. Whatever. Last time they can get it, I guess.

-I will still be wanky and say HEROES WAS ROBBED! *shakes fist*

-Aaaaaaaannnnnnnd we're done. That was a mediocre show. The round thing was ridiculous, and I really hope they don't do that again next year. Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart presenting was probably the best part of any of it.

After a few fairly low-key weeks, I was busy again last weekend, and for very good reason: I was in Atlanta, GA, for Dragon*Con! From the website, it's "America's largest, multi-media, popular arts convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film." And it was huge. The official word is 30,000 people, but most of us who were there think it was higher but they won't admit it due to the problems they already had with the fire marshal. It was spread over three hotels and featured just about everything you can possibly imagine being at a convention, including an amazing array of costumes.

I can't recap the experience in its entirety here, mostly because it's a big blur. There was so much going on every day, I hardly had time - or desire - to stop for food and a quiet break. Lest you think I spent my whole Labor Day weekend indoors, I assure you I spent several hours outside waiting in lines. ;-) I've been to individual days at Comic-Con before, but never the entire weekend for a con on this scale, and overall, I give a big thumbs-up to the experience.

Pictures, you ask? I don't want to upload them to Vox, so here's a link to my Picasa album for the event: Dragon*Con 2007.

The indoor pictures mostly suck, except for Monday, when we had front row seats and therefore decent lighting. The parade on Saturday morning was the highlight of the event, watching a major downtown street be taken over by Klingons and Stormtroopers and every other crazy thing. Enjoy!

Nothing can really be as exciting as last weekend was, but this weekend had a little bit to offer. It was the annual Mountain View Art & Wine Festival, three convenient blocks from my apartment. It's your standard craft fair gig, but larger than I expected. I wandered around for a few hours yesterday; didn't buy anything, but I enjoyed looking around.

I wish I could say I'd be having another adventure next weekend, but my car's developed a new "quirk" that might take over next weekend if it keeps up. Oh well.

I've seen both of these movies this weekend, and it's only Saturday night. It might've only been one, actually, had Bourne not been sold out when we tried to see it last night. Since Vox still doesn't have a jump feature, these reviews will be spoiler-free and therefore short, although I suppose if you really want to go in blind, you should skip them. Complaints can be sent to Vox.

The Simpsons

I'm not a huge fan of the show, but I enjoy it on a casual basis, and I enjoyed the long-awaited film. Your sense of humor probably has to align properly to appreciate it; I've been laughing at the "Spider-Pig" commercials since they started airing them, so I figured I'd be set. Anyway, it's a fun film. There are parts where you can tell they were taking advantage of having this venue to do things for the hell of it, but it's The Simpsons, so who really cares?

If you miss this one in theatres, I think the experience will be just the same on a TV (hopefully minus the kid behind you repeating every joke), but if you're looking for a laugh, I recommend it.

The Bourne Ultimatum

Unless action films have spaceships and aliens, I usually give them a pass. I like them all right, but there's other things I'd prefer to spend my ten bucks on.

Not so with the Bourne series. Based as they are on books (that I haven't read), they don't follow the standard action movie pattern or rely on its tropes. Some elements make it in, sure, but they're only means to an end in the strong underlying story. These movies keep up the intensity in a visceral way, rather than going with a smooth, detached fantasy approach. In other words, your brain gets to do a lot of the walking, and you still get explosions and car chases. It's good times.

The Bourne Ultimatum is a strong successor to the first two, and if you liked them for the reasons mentioned above and more, you'll like this one, too. I don't know if I'm rooting for a sequel or not; there's two more books, but they wrapped things up in a very satisfying way with this one (with just the right smidge of "leave 'em wanting more").

I keep meaning to post but get distracted waiting for other bloggable events.

The first, of course, was the release of the final Harry Potter book last weekend. I went to the midnight release at the local bookstore last Friday night, which was fun after having gone to huge chains for the prior two releases, if disorganized. And yes, I came straight home, made tea, and didn't stop reading until I'd finished. I'd love to say more, but I don't want to throw spoilers around. I thought it was a fitting end to the series that paid off a lot of its promise. While specific concerns keep me from loving it as much as I did the third and fifth books, overall, I'm very happy with this last installment.

Work this week had a different spin with the building decorating contest going on. My product group, collectively, had the same attitude towards decorating that my high school class did towards school spirit ("Let's not and say we did"), but the decorating committee for our larger team was relentless, and in the end, we put on a great show. And lost. Bummer. Judgment day ended all right, though, with the company's annual summer picnic. They really go all out for these events, and we had a good time ending Friday early to enjoy the festivities.

Saturday was another day in the sun for me. My sister came from the heat of Davis to hang out for the day. After a few stops at yard sales (I now have a vacuum, hooray!), we went down to the Gilroy Garlic Festival. Traffic getting there was terrible because you lose lanes as you go on, so we were ravenous by the time we arrived and beelined for the many garlicky food stalls. We went with the Mexican one, which had an amazingly short line, probably because the sign didn't have the word "garlic" on it, though the food was on-theme. We wandered around the arts and crafts stalls for a while but went away with only pictures of the event - but not on my camera, so nothing to show here. Sorry! Maybe I'll come up with something to do next weekend that's more conducive to visual aids.

I'm settling in pretty well at work, now - still training, but there's routine. I'm getting to know my team a little better, too, and their dogs who occasionally visit. On Tuesday, we rode one of the company's two conference bikes to the main campus for lunch (and yes, we rode it back), for fun and hilarity. The best part is watching the people not on the bike as you go by. Sadly, the top speed is rather limited.

I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix last night and enjoyed it very much. I won't go into spoilery detail here, but while it was almost completely different in tone and style from my experience reading the book, the interpretation was interesting and will probably grow on me on repeat viewings. I'm curious to see how people who haven't read the book will find it, though.

Finally, and the family will enjoy this one, a list of less common cat ailments. See how many your cat suffers from. ;-)

To my surprise, the 7-11 on my way to work has become a Kwik-E-Mart (for The Simpsons promotion). I couldn't see the store front driving in, but they had people dressed up as characters on the corner, waving "Honk for Homer" signs.

Of course, I had to stop by on the way home. Ahahaha. So, not that I'm a great frequenter of 7-11, but that was the most crowded I've ever seen one. You could blame it on the concert up the road, but considering how many of the customers were snapping photos inside, I doubt it. People were wandering around, pointing things out, and then going "Oh, I guess I should buy something, huh?" They had big ol' character displays and stickers all over everything, the cashiers were dressed up, they had a shelf of movie merchandise, and there was a security guard at the door.

It was pretty hysterical. I bought a Squishee and some Americone Dream - in for a penny, and all that. :-D

1) Put people in a classroom and they'll act just like they always did in one. But you know what, if none of the rest of you are going to speak up, then can you blame me for giving all the answers? (Yeah, I'm that kid.)

2) Apparently, I've been doing this touch-typing thing all wrong. I got an ergonomic keyboard and keep typing "n" when I'm trying to type "b" because the keyboard puts "b" on the left hand side, and I don't do it that way. *wiggles dominant index finger of great reachitude*

3) Given the opportunity to have fish and/or salad at lunch every day, I will. This truth also applies to dessert.