Mountain Cabin

We did it…0% on the DVR. We watched it all.

0% - All Right!

It’s not exactly what I wanted but it’s better than being left with a cliff-hanger…

Pushing Daisies: Viewers to Get Closure in Last Episode After All

From tvseriesfinale.com:

Though writers on ABC’s Pushing Daisies TV show knew in advance that the fantasy show would likely end after its current season, the producers opted to end the series on a cliffhanger. Now that the axe has officially fallen and the cast and crew have completed filming the last episode, it seems creator Bryan Fuller is having some second thoughts.

[…]

The TV show returned for its second season on October 1st. The ratings had fallen in Daisies’ year one and they continued that decline in season two. ABC had ordered 13 episodes for season two with the option to order additional installments. Based on the ratings, the network execs didn’t exercise that option, effectively cancelling the show. The last episode was filmed to include a cliffhanger that would leave fans hanging.

Fuller suspected that the end might be near and said that he had a back-up plan; to continue Daisies in comic book form or even as a movie.

[…]

Fuller and his team have rethought their ending plans. They’re using post-production to create a completely new opening and ending for the last episode. As a result, it’ll no longer a cliffhanger. As Fuller says, “We’re doing a lot of work in post to shape it so that it is satisfying for the audience.”

It remains to be seen when the finale will actually air. After tonight’s installment, there’s one more episode on the schedule (December 17th) and that will leave three episodes unaired. It’s rumored that ABC may try to finish the run by airing all three installments on one night. At worst, they could be slotted on Saturday nights or released online.

This is amazing…and I hope never to be on the receiving end of this revenge tactic.

Speed camera ‘pimping’ attack highlights public identity weaknesses

Posted by Adam O’Donnell @ 4:41 pm

In a brilliant physical-world example of what happens when too much value is placed upon open identification systems for determining reputation, a group of high school students are setting off speeding enforcement cameras using fake license plates belonging to their enemies.

According to an article in the D.C. area Montgomery County Sentinel, high school students are generating photorealistic replicas of their enemies license plates, placing them on their vehicles, and blowing through speeding cameras. Obviously people who have been victimized by this attack are upset, but at least one anonymous individual hits the nail on the head:

“The practice of sending speeding tickets to faceless recipients without any type of verification is unwarranted and an exploitation of our rights.”

Using a publicly visible number rather than direct challenge and response verification as a means of identification for a financial transaction is a bad idea. Practically all of our purchases online are made via a semi-secret identifier that stays constant for years, and our accounts are protected by a combination of semi-secret lifelong identifiers, such as social security numbers and public information, like our home address.

We should all be demanding identification mechanisms that involve multifactor data for our electronic financial transactions, such as one-time password tokens. It may not be possible to create speed traps that use stronger authentication, but improving financial transactions is within reach.

Speeding

You know what would be my ultimate gift?

I want to be a dead body on CSI (the original, please). It would be my 15 minutes of Grand Guignol fame. So if anyone knows the producers of the show could you ask them if they’d like to make a Christmas wish come true? It’s not like I need to act…just lie there not breathing. And it would so freak my mom out. What could be better?

One Dead Body Coming Up

From Yahoo News:

Majel Roddenberry, ‘First Lady of Star Trek,’ dies

NEW YORK – Majel Barrett Roddenberry, the widow of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, has died. She was 76. Roddenberry, an actress who appeared in numerous “Star Trek” TV shows and movies, died Thursday of leukemia at her home in Bel-Air, Calif., her representative said.

At Roddenberry’s side were family friends and her only son, Eugene Roddenberry Jr. Gene Roddenberry died in 1991.

Her romance with Roddenberry earned her the title “The First Lady of Star Trek.” A fixture in the “Star Trek” franchise, her roles included Nurse Christine Chapel in the original “Star Trek,” Lwaxana Troi in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and the voice of the USS Enterprise computer in almost every spin-off of the 1966 cult series. She recently reprised the voice role in the upcoming “Star Trek” film directed by J.J. Abrams

I checked my final grade yesterday and I got an “A” in my final class. Now to get my hands on my diploma!

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We’ve discovered a great new program recently. The Starter Wife with Debra Messing. It’s a “dramedy” about a divorced mother of a Hollywood film mogul who is picking up the pieces after her divorce. The dream sequences where Debra envisions herself as a character in a famous movie are a lot of fun, and each episode has a few of the beefy male characters without their shirts on. The season is over with (it’s more of a mini-series) but I’m sure you can find the episodes in reruns. It’s on the USA Network.

The Starter Wife

The end of the week, that is. Yes, it is Friday!!! Finally!!! My lead has been on vacation all week so I’m the only person here. Our other server person has been coming in for only a few hours a day so as to use up his excess vacation time so even help from him is not readily available. Add to that our Cisco person takes days off without telling us so I can’t get ports set-up so some jobs of mine are on hold. It all adds up to a stressful week. If I got a lunch it was eaten at my desk working on a PC or laptop issue.

The only good news was me taking my final exam Monday evening. I know I got an A in the class…my final class. I am now a college graduate. But maybe I should wait until the paper is in my hand before saying that. It will soon be time to start getting my certs.

Weekend after next we are doing a fast run up to New York. It’s just for one day. Catch 1 or 2 shows, and then fly home early the next morning. Hubby needed one more flight to reach Platinum level so that’s why we are going. The good thing is there will be no checked luggage. We carry everything in one bag for each of us. I really want to go see the Christmas displays int he windows when up there.

Have a great weekend.

The weekend was spent mostly cleaning up the house from Christmas decorating. We did hit Lowe’s and helped clean out their Holiday isle – Everything 50% off! WooHoo! Hubby has gotten enough LED icicle lights to cover the whole house next year. And you can plug 25 strings of those suckers together…and they still use less electricity than other types of lights.

The pool filter popped its top – literally. I was off Tuesday, and I went to let the dogs out and there’s no water flowing in the pool, but the pump is running. I could hear it. Running out to the side of the house the ground is all wet (the pool water level was as low as it could go to the skimmer). The top of the filter housing had come off and I couldn’t get it back on. The hubby knew it was having problems and knew something would happen soon. Seems the threads are stripped from the pole that holds the top on. So we stopped by Pinch-A-Penny and Leslie’s yesterday to price the part and what each charged for installation. So far the water hasn’t turned green and the power bill will be lower for awhile.

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Warning: Massive rant ahead!

My mom is getting on our nerves in a big way. She’s been throwing attitude because she isn’t getting her way – something she thinks she is entitled to and I’m finally after many years getting really sick of it. It first started with her wanting to see the Candlelight Processional at Epcot. She wants the dinner package where you eat and get reserved seating. Well, she asks Hubby about this the weekend before Thanksgiving. She gives him dates she is free (she doesn’t work, just church volunteer stuff, so I can’t understand why she only had 4 days available). Hubby checks and says nothing is available. She is aghast. He tells her that bookings began around July and it’s incredibly popular. She still can’t understand why she can’t get in.

Of course, when you live in your own universe you don’t think ahead because you don’t think that there are others outside of your sphere who live and breath and do the same things. She just bought a $50,000 car because “I deserve a new car!” but will also complain that her husband doesn’t get as much work because the downturn in the economy. She’s retired from real estate, where she made her money. She often has told me she has earned her money and should enjoy it – said in such a way that comes out incredibly petulant.

She also wants to see the show when Hubby is singing in it. She acts as if she can hear him singing (despite the hundreds of others in the choir singing). And she always wants him to be at the dinner before hand, which he always tells he he can’t do because he has to be backstage at a certain hour. And she acts all disappointed. And she asks EVERY SINGLE YEAR the same things! She truly will not remember any info that doesn’t directly affect her universe.

Then she also asks about getting into Epcot for New Years Eve for her and some friends who will be in town. We tell her that we can’t get people in on blackout days. She then asks the same questions: what entertainment do they have? When are the fireworks? Etc, etc. Hubby and I get exasperated telling her the same things. And this woman does not have Alzheimer’s. She is not some elderly woman who is forgetful. She asked about dinner reservations in Epcot for NYE and we tell her that everything is booked this close to the Holidays. She called last night while we had friends over and Hubby was still talking to her when they left, telling her all the same stuff about NYE and what price for tickets he can get her. He said she was angry over what he was telling her. You see, her perfect evening of taking her friends to Epcot and showing them a fun time, and bragging about her son and his partner doing this all for them are ruined. She can still go but will not be getting in free and eating at Chefs de France.

Her husband is a nice guy but totally lets her control everything. So she’s happy because she gets everything her way. When he moved in with her, very little of his artwork and furniture got brought in. Really only the pieces that matched the decor.

She is quick to criticize anything she does not approve of. And she doesn’t think she is criticizing or nitpicking. She honestly believes what she thinks and tells people are the correct way to do something. Ever the eternal mother.

Earlier in the year a good friend of hers wrote her a letter telling my mom she could not be friends any longer with her. I didn’t read the letter so I only know what my mom “told” me. I am thinking this was just someone who did not like my mom’s MO and finally had had it.

We told her we would put her Christmas lights up but Hubby has gotten so busy that all we could have done on the weekend was come over Sunday and get the lights on the house. She got huffy and said if we couldn’t wrap the tree in lights (what takes the longest and is the hardest part) then forget it. Fine. I am really to the point that all I want to do is send her a Christmas card and have nothing more to do with her. I know Hubby wouldn’t mind. He said the other day he told a co-worker that when he first met me he wanted my mom to like him. Now he doesn’t care.

She was upset during the elections that she at our birthday dinner gathering (4 Bdays in October happen in our family) that she didn’t want to talk politics. Before we left for the restaurant she told us her friends, who are Muslim, were so frightened that they would be attacked for their religious beliefs now(Thank you Obama Haters…all your anti-Muslim talk which you thought would damage Obama’s campaign had these people in fear for their lives). So what does my mom do? Hides her head in the sand and can’t give a consoling word to them, even though she is good friends (was?) with them. This led to her “no political talk at dinner”…in fact, she would not discuss politics around her worried friends. What a friend! We were about to explain our view to her (their fears were unfounded and she should tell her friend that) but my brother and his wife showed up and my mom was off talking to them and the awful subject of politics was over (I believe she acted this way because she’s Republican and was feeling guilty-but any way you view it it’s sad she could not comfort her friend).

Lately when she calls me the first words out of her mouth are “Where are you?” or “What are you doing?”. When I tell her she has to ask more questions about it. It is supremely annoying. She seems to be desperate for human interaction and I just don’t want to deal with it anymore. She called while we were helping decorate the front entrance of our community. After the obligatory “What are you doing?” she starts telling me about what she has planned for Christmas Eve. She then asks “Is the Hubby free that night?” I ask and he reminds me he is working as “Santa”. I say to her “He’s doing Santa that night” and she shoots back with “What does that mean?” What do you think it means? I rephrased it as he was playing Santa and she was still confused. See? Not part of her little world. She of course gets miffed that Hubby can’t be there Christmas Eve. She thinks her social gatherings are more important than anything, so therefore, they should be more important to everyone else.

And I still relish the time when Hubby told her what he really thinks about how she acts and treats people when she asked. Just priceless. Of course, she was in tears and contrite but it didn’t last long. I get involved with our neighborhood HOA. She seems to take pleasure in talking about how she refuses to get involved with hers. Part of it seems to be the Bay Hill neighborhood she lives in where I know others have the same attitude as her: ignore it and let someone else do the work, or throw some money at it and you can forget about it.

I have let her walk all over me for years. I have always been the meek and mild child. My brother just tells her no. My sister is almost the same but also doesn’t live in Florida. I am the one who always wants approval from others and she was the closest one I could try and get it from. But after 39 years I’m tired of it. I now see the patterns of her actions and they are starting to disgust me.

And to think I could have paid a therapist to let all this out.