Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Dear A&E

I watched your version of Pride and Prejudice Sunday night. You made me miss the first 7 minutes of the 4400. I love that show. It was a really good show, with just the right twists and turns that made it an enjoyable end to the season, but with just enough questions to have me longing for January. Not only did I miss the first few minutes of one of my favourite shows, but I also decided to watch the season finale of The Dead Zone at a later date. Here's why I chose a video of your program over the right now season finale of a show I enjoy very much.

The characters. I have watched the 1980 BBC only version of this movie, the 1940 version of this move, read the book and am finally seeing your version and I have to say that of them all, even against the Mr. Bennet in my head, you saw him best. He was awesomely sarcastic, condescending and loving. He made me laugh out loud several times. Elizabeth Bennet was perfect. I, at first, thought her too pretty for the part, because she was prettier than her sister (who had something of a superman jaw, which is very disconcerting on a woman). In reality, this did not turn into a problem because her acting, especially her prejudice against Mr. Darcy in believing every bad report of him was so well done, I started taking her side against him. Mr. Darcy was the best part though. In the 1980 version, David Rintoul made him very cold and didn't really make me believe his was struggling with love of Elizabeth. I believed Colin Firth was going to fence his way out of being in love with Elizabeth. There were so many things about the character portrayals that I liked better in this story. Lady Catherine de Bourgh was imminently more watchable although I think that Dame Judi Dench, (who will play Catherine de Bourgh in the 2005 version with Kiera Knightly ) may change my mind. And the vicar, Mr. Collins, made me laugh as well. He was perfect.

I had once thought that The Honey was very like Mr. Darcy on paper. Until I watched the A&E version, I had not seen my husband on screen as clearly as I did with Colin Firth. Unable to stomach Mr. Collins, he just gets up and leaves him talking to himself. Not willing to deal with Caroline Bingley's criticism of Elizabeth, he used well placed put downs, but was not flowery in any sense. He told it like it was and that was sexy. And that's why I like The Honey.

All in all, A&E, I must say that watching the entire 5 hours was a joy. Thank you.

This Girl

Thursday, August 25, 2005

New Computer

I did get the new computer and I love it. I sold my old computer to a friend for $50 and her digital camera. I had this crazy rigoramole I did everytime I went online that involved ignoring warnings that popped up, switching users, then ejecting the external wireless card, followed by further ignoring of warnings. I would then be online, ready to surf, but only shortly because if I did too much, everything would slow down.

When my friend took the computer, I walked her through my routine, then had her do it, but told her she could call me anytime. She did the smart thing and called The Geek Squad so that her computer could actually work the way she thought it should and the guy, Mr. Jason she called him, laughed when she told him the routine.

Well, Mr. Jason, I'm glad you could laugh and fix the problem, but I will have you know that, except for 2 weeks before I discovered the secret, I was able to get online every day. So you know what you can do with your laughter? Exactly.

Personality

I took a personality test today here and not really sure how the site worked, I took my outcome and just looked at the strengths. Pumped up and full of myself, I basked in the unintended glory. Suddenly, the thought to go to the weaknesses had me clicking and I walked away deflated. It would be easy for me to become melancholy (the test said I tend to do that) but then I begin thinking about the person I am.

How do you make yourself (or help yourself become, if you will) a better person. Last night, my husband and I were talking about how churched people say, "Jesus is the answer" but even when we have the answer, we seem to keep looking. John the Baptist, with direct vocal confirmation from God, still sent people to make sure Jesus was really the one. I mean, otherwise, he would have to continue being "the voice of one crying out in the wilderness" until the one he was to precede was really here, which meant his imminent death might not be so imminent. My least favourite saying is, "You always find (something) the last place you look". I don't know why this bothers me, but it does. So, out of sheer stubborness, I keep looking after I've found something. Dumb and laughable, but worth it to me. We can come up with intelligent answers as to why we do look after we come to know God, or better yet are known of God, but seeing how we are constantly plagued by lack of trust in anything, even in ourselves, I'm not surprised we mistrust "the answer". Do you remember when you used to do math homework and the odd numbered problems were answered in the back of the book? When you did a problem all the way through and got an answer, you would look in the back and if the answer was different, there was always the thought that, in this case, the book was wrong. I think that's how we look at Christ sometimes. We work so hard to come up with the answer and then when we check "the answer" it's completely different from what we came up with.

So, how do you change? I'm not ignorant of the things I should do. I have a list of them in just about every book of the bible. It's not hard to sort out what I personally should do in the list. Fortunately someone has boiled the answer down to two steps. Love God over everything and love your neighbor as yourself. Or, if you want to be technical, just the simple word Love. That's it. That's hard. I'm hardly a "love your enemy" person. I'm not even a "love your acquaintance" person. But I have come up with a few things that might help me move away from the person I have been to the person I am becoming.

1. Hug more
2. Laugh like I mean it
3. Act like I like people until I actually do.
4. Eventually love them.

I have no problem doing any of these things if I know someone well and like them. I just have a problem being nice to the rest of you. Here's hoping something works.

Monday, August 22, 2005

Act One

Details did an online article about the writing program I'm a part of. They are highlighting the executive program, but it was a job well done. Go check it out.

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Have you ever felt there was noone quite like you?

The other day:
"If I only had a picture of you like this right now," the Honey says, only just holding back a laugh.
"What?" I look up at him.
"It would explain so much," he says. I give him the look. The "illuminate me" look. "Right now, you're sitting on the floor in the living room, instead of on the sofa, huddled under a blanket, eating beanie weenie and drinking a glass of wine, all while watching Law and Order: SVU."
"What's wrong with that?" I ask. He just shakes his head and laughs.

Today:
"Are you looking at my socks?" The Honey has been pointedly staring down while we sit at the red light.
"Yes."
"You bought them for me."
"You picked them out." he says, trying to hold back a laugh.
"You knew what you were getting when you offered to buy them."
"Yes," he says, laughing outright now, "I did."

Monday, August 15, 2005

Dear Google,

Everytime I go online, my homepage is YahooSearch. This is not by choice or convenience. My husband is broken-hearted that Yahoo has exceeded you in the search department. Apparently, they search more resources than you do now. So please, Google, man up, because my husband absolutely hates yahoo and I don't want to hear it anymore. Thank you for your time.

Appreciate It,
This Girl.

Writing

I have so many posts sitting in draft hell waiting to be brought to light, that I thought I would throw something up until I can make my thoughts and writing line up. So I have a few questions for my 5 daily readers. So answer...the pressure is on! (Well, it's on me to prove I actually have 5 readers.)

Q: When is a good time for a couple to have children? Please include with your answer whether or not you are married, how many children you have and how long you waited to have children if you have them.

Q: If you are married, do (did) you or your spouse initially want kids?

Q: How much did you (do you plan to) talk about children with your significant other?

Q: What is your favourite colour?

If you do not want to answer in comments just email me with the subject Questionaire

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Happy Birthday To My Honey

Here's proving he always gets what he wants. Early even.

Monday, August 08, 2005

Calling my husband out

For my husband's birthday, which is Thursday, I bought him an Apple IPod mini. It was the cute silver model, just like he wanted. I bought it early from the Apple Store because I wanted to get just the right one. I hid it at the milk and cookie shop because if I took it home, he would have found it. One night on our vacation, I found my husband asking me questions while I slept, because I do talk in my sleep. He'd apparently been asking me question for a while and I was awakened by my subconscious because he was asking me if I'd gotten his birthday present already. Pretending to still be asleep, I answered "No." He was disappointed. I was elated. I'd been leading him down false mp3 player trails, pretending that I thought the sony mp3 would be better. I made it through the entire week off with high hopes that I would be able to keep the surprise until Thursday.

Then my husband decided during the middle of The Godfather that he should look through our bank statement. He saw it. He didn't say anything, but I picked it up when he had a question and realized that he was asking about something under the statement about the purchase from Apple. I was soooo mad at him. How is he able to ruin a surprise? He was so excited that I'd gotten it, he wanted me to get it right away so he could charge it and listen to it. So he got his birthday present 5 days early. So, yes, I did surprise him, but I'm more disappointed that I didn't surprise him the way I wanted to. Ah well, happy listening to my baby, right? But you're still a surprise ruiner and it's on the web now.