An excerpt:

“And THEN Dean takes his shirt off. In a word, incendiary. My couch was still charred from last week, thank you very much, and I kept thinking I might want to disconnect all those fire alarm batteries just in case. Because it was hot, full stop. It was hotter than burning, it was seduction and skin and a whole lot of sizzle, and I was bought and sold by the images of Dean’s bare back. He’s got a beautiful one, made up of curved muscles and that dip of spine, and lord, you could see a little bit of his underroos, which just sweetened the whole deal. I about died. Anne Shirley who? Doesn’t matter who he was with, he was, at LAST, with somebody. For all we’ve gotten the message pounded into our heads that Dean is Romeo and Casanova all rolled into one, it’s about time we got some canonical proof. More like this, please.”

Pics…

Angels want to wear his red shoes

Sam doesn’t like plumber jokes…

But Dean does…

Sam in daylight

Dean in daylight 

Flutter of angels’ wings 

 Following Dean’s lead 

Never give up, never surrender…

Shouting at angels

Tawny boy

Trying to find the truth

What a waste.

So I called my friend Amalthia (the one who now lives in Alaska) and I talked to her about this for a bit. The TV was, we agreed, a mind suck, especially with all the commercials. I decided to take the plunge and vowed that I would disconnect myself from cable.

I even called the guy at the cable office on Friday, a nice man by the name of Mark, and he understood what I was going through. But here, he said, let me offer you a deal.

Here it comes, I thought.

But it wasn’t too bad. Here was the deal. For $15 a month I could get Basic Cable, which would come directly from the wall to my TV. This would provide me with local channels only, but seeing as that included the two channels I regularly watch “Supernatural” and ”Ghost Whisperer” on, I was good with that. What puzzled me was that the last time I wanted to downgrade, they never mentioned this particular option, so for the last two years, I’ve been paying $55 for the “Basic Starter Package,” which contains over a hundred channels (though not the one that has the ”Dog Whisperer” on it, sadly), and STILL nothing was on. I guess the cable company wanted to let me down slowly.

Then, Mark offers me a six-month special of 8 mg download speed for my computer at $32.95 a month. I took it. I’m not stupid. (After six months it goes up.)

Because now I’m paying 15 plus 32.95, which is, um,  47.95, which is what I’m paying for computer/internet service now. And in six months, when they up the price of the speed, I can just cut off the cable altogether.

You think?

On Saturday, I did chores, like I do, with the music going full blast, the scrub bucket out, and me singing along with my tunes. I was done by about 11 and the cable office was to close at 1 p.m. I looked at the clock, having been thinking all morning that there was NO way I was going to be able to finish and make it there in time and that the WHOLE plan was going to have to wait till, um, next weekend. Or forever.

Truth is, I just didn’t want to do it. I was hooked, addicted, attached to the teat, and I didn’t want to let go! But I took a deep breath and unhooked everything like Mark told me, and raced down to the cable office expecting to find (as I usually did) a line of angry people protesting their bills. Or, at the very least, a long line. I found neither. It was just me and three lovely ladies behind the counter. They were more than happy to help me, didn’t mind that the box I was returning was covered with dust, and promised me that my bill would be pro-rated and that my lower rate would start right away.

I went to the grocery store and then to home. Dinner was a lovely meal, but I kept thinking, what’s on, what’s on? And had the feeling that I needed to hurry for some reason. So when I went downstairs, I couldn’t help but check. Yep, I still had 100 channels and then some, so I sat down, for no reason at all, and began to surf. Nothing, nothing, nothing. There was nothing on. Really and truly. I turned off the TV and went to my computer, thinking of the 8 mg download speed that was now (or soon to be) mine.

Except my computer is seven years old, and some kind tech guy loaded XP on it, except the computer wasn’t designed for that. It’s always run a little clunky, and now, it’s like a snail. I open a web browser and honest to god, I sit there for a whole minute, sometimes more, waiting for it to draw a page that surely, surely it’s cached long ere this.

It’s not that I do much with it. Mostly I write, and download cool stuff, but what I use it for is to look stuff up. When I’m writing, and I have an idea, I want to look it up, like, yesterday. Trouble is, for the past year, I’ll have something I need to know, open the browser, and then have to sit there while the thing chugs and churns, and all the while my brilliant ideas are getting away from me! So I need a new computer. That’s next weekend.

As for Sunday, I slept in, made myself some tea (Irish Breakfast is my favorite), and then sat down at the computer to write up this week’s review for Supernatural. Long about noon, I got stuck on one part of the review (as in, how to describe the sex scene without coming across as totally pornographic), and sat down on the couch, grabbed up the little clicker that was just for the TV, and turned it on. Scrolled, and within short order discovered that, yep, I only had local channels and guess what? There was NOTHING on! At least as I surfed, I wasn’t wasting my time going through 100 plus channels, I only had 10 or so. Mostly football, so I wasn’t missing a thing. Oddly, I still have the sci-fi channel, so well done, me!

I think it will take me some time to get used to the whole TV-less living. On the one hand, I will have no mind candy to disctact me. On the other hand, I do not have some metal box dictating my daily schedule. I don’t have to work around what’s on TV because nothing is. Ever. Except Thursdays at 9 pm (Supernatural) and Fridays at 7 pm (Ghost Whisperer).

All I can say is thank God for Netflix. (Which I decided after all to keep, since they’ve got this nifty new “instant” watch feature, with lots of things from my orignal queue!)

An excerpt:

“Sam is a mess, and while it was most assuredly the script that indicates this, it’s Padalecki who stomps perfectly through the squalid squat where Sam is holing up, his slightly unfocused and bleary eyes not seeing the peeling wallpaper or the scuttle of cockroaches or the moldy, lead-based paint, nor even his own lack of grooming and self-care. All the time Padalecki is making Sam stare into the middle distance, at the wreck of his Dean-less world, I had the comfortable feeling that Padalecki gets it. That he understands his character so well that the ramifications of Sam’s loosing Dean come out through every pore, every twitch, every sideways roll of his eyes; every breath Padalecki takes contains the litany of Sam’s ever-present and suicidal grief. “

Suits and ties are nice

Against the ecclesiastical purple

Spit for me, baby

First aid!

Aaaaaaaaaand more first aid!

Resistance is futile

Stuggling with demons, both internal and external

Sinking under the weight

Struggling with angels

An excerpt:

“Sam snapping open his laptop has been a comforting recurring theme this season of which I heartily approve. Whenever the plot prescribes him to be at the laptop, and whether he’s at a desk in a motel or, as he is here, pushing the food aside, I get a little thrill of “oh, yes,” and imagine, somehow, that the Sam I know and love and that the Sam SAM knows and remembers has returned and all is as it should be. Seeing Sam with his laptop is like seeing James Dean behind the wheel of a Porsche 550 Spyder, which, even if you know that things are going to go to hell in hand basket really fast, looks iconically brilliant at the time. Because laptop or no laptop, Sam’s still headed down that slippery slope; I just hope he sees what’s coming at him head on.”

Sam in check

Sam in green 

Do we kill teddies?

I hope not!

Dean in green check

Trying not to laugh

Brotherly pose one

Brotherly pose two

Nothing is forgotten

Nothing is ever forgotten

The Colbert Report

The Daily Show

silkmoth101

amothea

silkmoth101 also assured me that even though it was the wee hours of the morning, people in Germany were up, people in Denmark were up, people in France were up…You get the picture. Everyone was UP because this election mattered. I guess I get so wrapped up in my day to day concerns, writing and chores and bills, feeding those metaphorical fish, that I forget how connected everything is. I’m not saying that this election is going to cause me to turn over a new leaf, I’ll still not be watching the news on TV, I’ll still not get the paper; I can just feel good and proud for paying attention to THIS moment in history. I saw McCain’s speech and Obama’s, and I thought both of their speech writers did an excellent job; I even believed what McCain was saying about Obama, and I loved what Obama had to say about where we were headed.

I went to check Ebert’s movie reviews this am, and got this little snippet instead, which I rather liked, because it seemed that he felt like I did, that color was almost not an issue. The day that it really isn’t an issue, no one will even notice, because it WON’T be an issue. Won’t that be grand?

Ebert says:

“As the mighty tide swept the land on Tuesday night, I was transfixed. As the pundits pondered red states and blue states, projections and exit polls, I was swept with emotion. Not because America was “electing its first Black president.” That comes a little late in the day. It was because America was electing the right President.”

and

“President Obama is not an obsessed or fearful man. He has no grandiose ideological schemes to lure us into disaster. He won because of a factor the pundits never mentioned. He was the grown-up. He has a rational mind, a steady hand, and a first-rate intelligence. But, oh, it will be hard for him. He inherits a wrong war, a disillusioned nation, and a crumbling economy. He may have to be a Depression president.What gives me hope is that a great idealistic movement rose up to support him. Some say a million and a half volunteers. Millions more donated to his campaign. He won votes that crossed the lines of gender, age, race, ethnicity, geography and political party. He was the right man at a dangerous time. If ever a president was elected by we the people, he is that president.”

I love how Ebert thinks. Here’s a LINK to the rest of his post. 

An excerpt:

“Although the demon wasn’t very light on his feet, I was worried about Sam, especially when he lost hold of the demon-killing knife. Yeah. Trouble ensues, because the demon is fairly powerful and determined and after waiting 600 years (which is when he was last cast into hell), this is his night. The relevant conundrum that Sam is confronted with is whether or not he will use his forbidden powers and save himself from Samhain. As a fangirl, this is a question that does not need asking, since the answer is so obvious, even though I know that Sam would be in SO MUCH TROUBLE should he do what he’s done before and lied about again, and again, and again. And then one more time after that. And then I became distracted by the fact that the lighting was such (oh, those lighting boys, ever on the job!  Big smooches for ya!) that Sam’s eyes glimmered a rather strange color as he raises his hand to exorcise the demon. I couldn’t figure out whether it was yellow or white, but there was something there, something so very WRONG that my breath stuck in my throat and I though, “Oh, poor Sammy.”

Researching

I got this one

Handsome Sam

Long legged boy

FBI agents and brothers

Talk about candy

Objects to smiting

If you smite them you have to smite me first

Quit fingering your bone, Sammy

Don’t hate me because I’m powerful

Watching the truth unfold

An excerpt:

“As Sam’s sitting there, he’s saying all those things that Dean has never wanted to hear. Saying them with dark tones in his voice and a finality that seems to be Dean’s biggest fear, that one day Sam will truly turn Dark and all this will be over, “all this” being the saving people, hunting things mantra that runs through Dean’s blood like, well, like blood. Because it is his blood and without it, I don’t think he can survive. Sometimes, I hate to think what will become of him when the last supernatural thing is laid to rest. Perhaps, like a gunslinger with no more bad men to kill, he’ll walk down to the streets of Laredo and wrap himself up in white linen and wait to die.”

Am I haunted?

Boys in suits

Dealing with Dean

Ew

Expressive eyebrows

Marvelous closeup

Sammy in a suit

Stealing the scene

That’s just crazy

Watching for snakes

Yellow fever

An excerpt:

“Dean and the vampire fight, which is when Dean discovers that the MOW is a shapeshifter. As the chase scene ensues (as they do, and it’s a treat because I like to watch Dean running), I was particularly impressed by the stunt over the gate. The vampire comes running, and flies over the gate, complete with cape flapping, while Dean struggles with it, looking through the bars like an abandoned orphan. I’d like to give the stunt team and this actor a bunch of gold stars, which they can put on their calendars to remind them how well they did. Look, I know full well and good there was some sort of device, a mini tramp or something, that the actor stepped on to enable him to fly over the gate, but it was COOL, man.” 

unlikely post from TV Guide

***
“Supernatural fans want to know: Did Sam hook up with his demon helper, Ruby? While series creator Eric Kripke thus far is mum on the subject, Jared Padalecki is willing to offer his own (albeit unconfirmed) opinion on the possibly sticky sitch.

Padalecki theorizes that the unlikely associates “have been lovers,” noting that ”from the first episode this season, when Dean returns and Ruby (now played by Genevieve Cortese) is in her underwear and Sam is coming out of the bathroom, it’s hinted that Sam and Ruby have a bit more going on than, ‘Hey, let’s study how to kill demons.’”

Padalecki, however, stops short of suggesting that any hook-up (if one happened) means anything. “Maybe she’s just being nice to Sammy,” he says, “since he thought he lost his brother.”

Rant follows!

There’s so much wrong with this bit of speculation that it makes my brain hurt, although I’m not saying that Padalecki’s not entitled to speculate, heck, fangirls do it ALL the time. It’s just that his speculations seem so…well, so weird! What he’s saying here gives me the impression that he has no knowledge about the guidelines that Show has set down for demon lore. To paraphrase Guy (Crewman #7), does Padalecki even WATCH the show?

So, either Padalecki is just being nice and trying to give TV guide an answer that he thinks they want to hear (which makes me roll my eyes and shake my head because you’d think after three years that Padalecki would have a bit more knowledge than this), or he’s saying exactly what he’s supposed to say in order to stir up as MUCH trouble as possible, although I wouldn’t think that Show needed to get publicity this way. Oh, Padalecki! Oh, Show!