The Closer

I'm not sure if The Closer is beginning its death spiral, or if they're setting up for some major shit to go down in Brenda's life, because this year so far she's been acting weird and treating Fritz like crap. The show itself is still really well written and acted, but one of things that I love, love, love about this show is the character of Brenda Lee Johnson. Kyra Sedgwick plays her brilliantly. And I mean that. If you lined up a whole bunch of diamonds and had Kyra as Brenda stand next to them, she'd outshine them like the sun does the moon.
But, as much as I adore this show, I have to wonder why we haven't been given the least crumb of resolution from the ep when Brenda totally mislead Fritz on a case and screwed him over royally. We've been left hanging on somebody's petard for the last two weeks! Sure, the ep with Jennifer Coolidge was stellar (loved the bit with 'idiot', 'bigger idiot', and the bit with 'this is very bad for you, but very good for me!'), but c'mon...How much is Fritz supposed to take before he walks? I would've walked after the betrayal of trust thingy. I have severe trust issues that spring from my emotional neediness, so I couldn't even have shrugged that whole thing off if Atlas himself had stepped up and offered to carry my load.
So, either the show is veering off into a horrid direction, or we're being set up for Fritz to take a walk. It's the only two scenarios that make even the least amount of sense.

Beijing Olympics Coverage

Like a large portion of the world, I've been watching a lot of the Olympics. Not living on the U.S./Canadian border, my choice for viewing is limited to the coverage provided by NBC. And believe me, I'm using the word 'coverage' loosely. Sure, they learned their lesson with the Sydney and Athens games and now go ahead and show events as they happen, as opposed to taping shit and then hyping it like it's not already been decided and showing it in primetime (although, they are still pulling these hijinx on the west coast, which is just idiotic). The games themselves are great, even if the Chinese chick gymnasts are like, 8 yrs old, and get judged on a different learning curve than the rest of the world. That Bolt guy from Jamaica is probably the best sprinter ever, and Michael Phelps has eclipsed the meglomaniacal Mark Spitz for future generations. Plus, the Women's Beach Volleyball is a pleasure even guiltier than Dorothy Snarker's Tank Top Tuesday to behold.
Yes, by and large-ish, I'm enjoying myself. Except, of course, for one thing: The total lack of local Beijing coverage. NBC could be shooting this whole thing from a soundstage, for all the feel of the city, and indeed the whole country of China, that we get. Infact, my sister summed it all neatly by observing, "It's all like China Disneyland. It just feels fake and staged." Thank you. My brain had been grasping at straws to try and make some sense of this. And when they, NBC, do try and show some local flavor, we get an insipid cooking demonstration on the Today Show. I have watched the Today Show since I was a young child, but now I find myself not tuning in. I can't stand the lack of substance, and no, talking to emerging Chinese fashion mavens does not constitute substance, nor does an Olympic makeover for the US softball team.
When, exactly did they, the network Powers That Be, decide, exactly, to dumb down every goddamn thing into utter irrelevance?

Ebay Madness

Spurred on by a yard sale purchase, for $.50, of a Minox C subcompact spy camera, circa 1950-60s, MK and I have started selling our shit on ebay. The whole snowball started when I found that spy camera. I mean, it was a 'real' spy camera, not one of those junky things one (me) could get with enough Bazooka Joe wrappers and a quarter for S&H. No, this is like James Bond real-deal stuff. I did a little cursory research and discovered that my modest purchase could haul in some serious cash, so we took some digital pics and posted that puppy. Now that it's all said and done (meaning: the auction is closed and the money is sent), we've become drunk on our own success and have started scouring our closets for more to post.
Now, let me just say that I've been down this road before - thinking that I too might have a haunted crutch used by a beatified soul as they hobbled from one hospital charity ward to another administering to the seething masses with boundless energy and empathy. So, I told MK, "We need good product, honestly described, accompanied with snappy copy/text."
And that's where we are right now, in the middle of a bunch of ebay auctions, most bid upon, a couple of bidding wars, and already scheming on what to put up for sale next. It's fun, but you can get so caught up in the whole giddiness of making money and getting rid of something that you don't want anyway, that it's easy to lose focus of: a) What you are selling - and b) whether it actually has value or if you're just addicted to obsessively tracking your auctions. It's a sickness, trust me, I tell you.
Not that online selling is anything new to me. I've been doing it for almost a decade, but ebay is just different. Tracking how many pages views you've had, whether a couple of bidders are driving up the price, how much time is left and whether a price is going to go through the roof...it's like gambling, only you're the 'house', sitting behind a one-way mirror observing it all and waiting...
I'm just going to post a few more things and then I have other things I have to get done and can't devote this kind of devotion to something that makes me feel obsessed and stressed, and kinda high.
Of course, I still have all of this Daguerreotypes, so we'll see what happens...

Beagle Update

Yesterday Bela turned 6 months old. She is a holy terror, chewing up half the house, when not humping a stuffed loon that is now wrapped entirely in duct tape. She drags poor loonie around by its neck, periodically humps it, then moves on to bite us or shred something important.
Nothing but an endless joy for all concerned! Just when we think that we can't tolerate one more second of her puppydom, she falls asleep, and looks so innocent and angelic and precious that all of my previous dark thoughts concerning her future seem so alien and brutish.
Sigh. Soon, I keep thinking, soon she will stop biting the tender flesh on my inner thigh and ripping up the newspaper before I get a chance to do the crossword.

Buffy #17 & Fray

I'll admit that I was a little tiny bit apprehensive about the Buffyverse colliding with Frayland. First off, the time travel bugaboo. It can be the whole' jumping the shark' can of worms, and no one wants to see that, right? But I'm a loyal fan, and nothing if not open minded (except with Republicans...with them I'm as closed as a steel trap left out in the rain and rusted shut), so I gently went into that storyline hoping for the best.
Issue 16 was good, a proper set up for what's to follow, with lots of stuff happening. But it's 17 that blows you away. Gotta say that I'm just lovin' the cover art by Jo Chen. Guys at Dark Horse (and you are mostly guys there): DO NOT LET HER GET AWAY!!! Her cover for the final episode in the Faith arc, No Future For You, should win awards and stuff. Her cover for the current issue is equally as brilliant. The twist on perspective perfectly reflects what is going on in the pages inside.
Oddly, I'm not going to give a lot away in this post, unlike usually when I just spill all of the beans and then make bean soup. No, instead I'm going to encourage everyone to go out and buy the comic, and then find someplace, here even, to go and obsessively discuss it.
One other thing: I finally got the Fray series and read the entire thing, just so that I could be fully caught up on Frayland. When it first came out in serial form I'd read maybe one or two issues, but I was dedicated to it, so there were huge gaps in my knowledge of what happened with Mel and why. It's not essential that you read Fray to keep up with what's happening in the Buffy arc, but it helps to know what happened to her twin brother and the price Mel has had to pay to be a slayer.
I even let MK read my copy of Fray, but she had to promise to be extry tender with it. I want it to stay in pristine condition, so we handle it with surgical gloves and I don't smoke around it. Now that's dedication, or just garden variety obsession. One or the other, but never both.
Anyone have any thoughts on Willow? Anyone?

Online Stalkers

Have an online stalker? I don't, never have. I'm just not that interesting, or I'm scary (damn my Precious Moments collection!). But the thing that I've been thinking about, is what constitutes an online stalker? Is it someone who simply responds to a lot of your posts? Or is it someone who follows you around and trashes everything you say? I think that example A is kind of a friend, and example B is an asshat. But stalker? Get over yourself. There's a HUGE, ginormous difference between someone who chimes in and says something like 'Hi! Great to see you online!' and someone who flames and challenges every keystroke. And then threatens to show up at your house. NOW that's a stalker!
I hate cliches, I really do, but cliches are cliches for a reason. At times you have the lonely who lock themselves into their own way of thinking and they can imagine any number of things happening that to an objective observer are, well, not happening at all. I don't even know what to compare it to. It's like the Bush administration. Lies being bandied about as truth to forward an unknowable agenda.
I'm actually speaking from experience. I do have a friend who believes that another friend is stalking her online. I just don't see it, and I think that every word is over scrutinized to the point of lethargy. It's exhausting how over analyzed this has become. A nonissue thrown into an arena is still a nonissue. Only it's got light thrown on it, and exposes the lonely person as being lonely and desperate for any modicum of attention.
Actually, what it all is, is sad. And I've said enough.

Let's Do Lunch

On Saturday MK and I got to have lunch, and meet in person (finally!), one of our online friends, Carrie. Over the years I've met a dozen or so of the friends I've made online and I think the whole experience has been nothing but enriching.
Since Carrie is a Cleveland native, we let her pick the restaurant. She chose a wonderful Tuscan grill, Brio, in Crocker Park, not far from where we were staying with MK's sister in Bay Village. I'm also grateful to Carrie for taking time out of a hectic day to have a nearly three hour lunch with us. Once you get me talking, it's hard to shut me up! Not to mention that the food was delicious and none of us felt like rushing through it. Although I probably rush a bit through the bolognese lassagna topped with a cheesy cream sauce. I've never had anything like it. I'll try to replicate it at some point, just to try and figure out exactly how they concocted this fabulous dish!
Well, my sister's here, so more later :)