50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time

Really? I haven't even heard of about half of them, haven't seen a single episode of most of them. But I can't disagree with #21, #14, #2 or even #1 for that matter. Probably not the order I would have put them in but nobody asked me. Three in the top 50 isn't bad. Especially since he's only had three shows. My imaginary soul mate rocks!

And for the record, any Top-whatever-number-TV-show list that does not include My-So-Called-Life is just wrong. A million kinds of wrong.

#21 Joss Whedon's Angel

#14 Joss Whedon's Firefly

#2 Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I lied

I guess I am feeling patriotic after all. Macaroni and I are off to Washington D.C. tomorrow night for a quick weekend visit. Jboy won't be joining us, which is stupid because his E-ticket that expires in May is the whole reason we started looking at doing a trip.

Turns out his ticket is only worth about $125 after the change fee. And airfare to D.C. is up to about $1,200 this weekend. I'll never understand how those last minute packages work. Macaroni and I are both flying Northwest and staying at a rather nice hotel for a lot less than what it would take to fly Jboy out there. Dumb.

It did take a lot of refreshing the computer and just missing out on several packages before I scored this one. Macaroni doesn't even know yet. We tried last night and every time I tried to check out we would get a little error message saying that they just sold out. We started looking at packages to Orlando, LA, Tucson and even Chicago. Macaroni's only question was "do they have a pool?" Poor kid just wants to swim. I'm glad we didn't settle.

I'll finally get to see those cherry blossoms!

etsy.com

So my etsy store is up and running. Well, not so much running as limping, but it's a start. The banner really needs work but techno-art is not my thing.

Let me know what you think.

Hallelujah!

Dear Jboy,
Congratulations on being admitted to the College of Liberal Arts (CLA) at the University of Minnesota!

Full of Egg Salad Sandwich

Spent yesterday at mom's, eating and playing with Ruby. And then eating some more.

We were supposed to have a birthday party for my nephew Jacob but they never showed up. I'm not sure what happened but we had way too much ice cream cake left over. I should never, ever eat that again.

I finally finished Ruby's jacket and she looked adorable in it! Instead of an Easter basket I got her a pink butterfly "packpack" because she'll be starting daycare next month. At the first daycare center Macaroni went to, where my friend Bridget is a director. I'm excited.

Off to finish the two jackets I'm doing for my etsy.com store. Hope nobody else accidentally ate glittery eggs for lunch today. They're giving me a bellyache.

Photos from Easter...

I'm bowling again

Want to sponsor me?

It must be Alzheimer's

Holy crap, I can't believe I forgot to mention how busy Joss is. Auditions have started for Joss and Eliza's new show, Dollhouse, and production is expected to begin April 23rdish. If you recall me gushing about it before you already know that Joss had lunch with Eliza to give her some career advice and they ended up creating an entire TV show.

Well, now Joss has gone for coffee (he had tea!) with Felicia Day (who had a smallish role in Buffy Season 7 and who I walked next to for hours at the writer's strike) and he came up with a musical. For the internet! Starring Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie!), Nathan "Makes Me Drool" Fillion and Felicia. He wrote the show during the strike, specifically for the internet...side stepping studio involvement...and they started filming this week!

I'm so super excited for this, not just because it's Joss, not just because it's Nathan in a musical, not just because Felicia is so funny but because it's a little bit revolutionary. Joss isn't the first writer to use the internet to go directly to the fans, but I'm pretty sure he's one of the first "big names" to do it.

I'm plopping all the links here because I'm lazy. Really lazy.
Dollhouse

Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog, and more here and then fun Dr. Horrible's actor related-y stuff: Neil Patrick Harris (and the cast of How I Met Your Mother) with singing!, NPH flashback, Nate looking hot, goofy & yet still hot, being Nathan, Nathan as an evil preacher, Felicia photos, Felicia's webisode-"The-Guild"-that-gave-Joss-the-idea-for-Doctor-Horrible's-Sing-Along-Blog. I really recommend clicking on that last one. No hot photos of of Nathan but so worth it!

Very beige

So it's been five weeks and we're still waiting for the final towel bar and knobs for the cabinets. I really like 99% of the work they've done so I'm trying not to get irritated, but come on already. I want the lock box off my house so I can sit around in my underwear again.

Love the lights, medicine cabinet, toilet, paint

Hate the teeny tiny sink and ginormous faucet

Love, love, love the tile and my shower bar
Hate the midgety tub and the unpainted trim on
the window...that you can't even see in the photo.
Guess it's not a big deal


Love the storage

Love, love, love my built in

Love that they left Macaroni's Superman sticker

Here's what I got done this weekend at Heather's parent's house. Not much, but I guess it's a start. And it's way more than I would have done at home.

Still needs little flowers behind the heart, will
be offered on my store with "free" personalization


Still need to finish the face cards

Wow, typing all those words has really wiped me out. So exhausted that I need another vacation. Macaroni's trying to talk me into Mexico, which might be a lot cheaper than Washington DC.

XOXO

I wasn't feeling patriotic anyway

Airfare to Washington DC just went up more than $200 a ticket. Guess the boys and I won't be running around the capitol looking for treasure. Or smelling those cherry blossoms!

Poo, with a side of Oop!

What time is it?

Wow, daylight savings time has totally kicked my ass. I'm always sleepy but this is ridiculous. And poor Macaroni. His dad is skiing in Colorado so he's not getting his two early bedtimes this week. And it's showing, crabby kid.

I painted until almost midnight last night. Trying to finish Ruby's jacket before she outgrows it...and so that I can take photos of it to upload to my etsy store. I'm going to Heather's parent's house this weekend and will hopefully get a couple of jackets done so that I can "open" my store. And I think I'm going to look into buying a small silk screening set up. My friend-via-friend Carlo has a side business silk screening so I might talk to him. It would be nice to have several design outlines that I could silk screen and then hand paint. Would certainly make things go faster.

On a cool note, one of my photos from Scotland has been selected for possible submission to the latest version of Schmap, which I had never heard of before getting an email from them this morning. I'm sure that I jinxed myself out of the running just by mentioning it but I still think it's pretty cool. It's this photo of the MacKenzie tartan on the loom at the Tartan Weaving Mill on the Royal Mile.

And now I really want to go back to Scotland. Come on lucky numbers.

I wanna pick your brain

Last night Shayne asked me if she could auction off one of my hand painted jackets for KK's music school fundraiser, and of course I said yes. Anything for that little girl. Anything for that big girl for that matter.

So this morning I signed up for an Etsy store. Not linking to my direct store yet as there's nothing in it, but I'm pretty excited to start painting again. I figured I'd start out by painting a couple of jackets with just one image as well as offering custom orders. And I'm going to have to figure out how to put photos of Wes and KK's jackets on the site too.

Lisa, have you done this already? Any recommendations? I've sold stuff on eBay before but never sold or purchased anything off Etsy. I'm going to have to start hitting the second hand shops for jackets. I like the "recycled" aspect, plus the paint just works so much better on a jacket that has been washed a few times. And who knows, if things sell maybe I'll do bags or other stuff too.

I think I'm going to start with a koi fish, maybe a "daddy's girl" banner with swallows and an Iron Giant inspired robot. I heart robots. Any other ideas for designs? My shop name includes the word tattoo...so that's where I'll be coming from.

Edit to add:

I'm not going to make any money on Etsy. Look what I just found! I'll be lucky just to spend what I make.

There's never anything good on the interweb anymore

It's almost midnight. I'm killing time waiting for the last of my photos to upload for ordering. Not that I'm going to stay awake long enough for that to happen, but at least they'll be there tomorrow when I've got some high speed internet to work with.

Hung out at my parent's house today, we had a little "welcome home" party for Macaroni. Who ignored everyone and watched all the cable tv his little eyeballs could absorb. And holy cow is Ruby ever freaking big! First she comes through the door with one of those lickable toddler ponytails sticking straight out of the top of her head, a mouth full of teeth and then she proceeds to be all adorable with her "down" and "Bobby?" and "baby" and "babblebabblebabble" talk. Too cute, I love when she reads books out loud. She's totally reading, just not in English.

And everything and everyone that moves is "Bobby?" Not Bobby. "Bobby?" Except for daddy. She'll point at everyone and say "Bobby?" but if you point at Randy and say "Bobby?" she'll turn her head really slowly and stare at you, like she's waiting for your brain to leak out of your ears. "Duh, that's not Bobby, that's his evil twin. My daddy."

Nothing exciting going on. Counting down the hours until my bathroom is finished...and then will start counting down to the back porch construction. It'll be way easier to go without a kitchen than a bathroom since I don't cook. Although I'm not sure I can afford the whole makeover that I want. We may just be enclosing the porch and putting in a laundry room.

Ooh, and nobody won the lottery. I so have plans for that money, gotta remember to buy a ticket. Off to bed now.

Almost finished. I hope.

Macaroni took this next set...my future photog?

I'm pretty sure I've already bitched about the miniature tub and sink, the window and the paint job so I'll just mention what I love about the bathroom.

The tile.

The paint color.

The cutout shelf thingie in the shower.

The toilet doesn't run and keep me up all night.

The shower bar that I picked out actually fit!

The exhaust fan?

There's no mold or wicked draft from the hole going down to the basement.

It's almost finished.

Macaroni just got home from Mazatlan last night. Did tons of swimming, got a tiny little sunburn and brought me home the coolest skeleton ever. Kid knows his momma.

I think I've mentioned that I had signed up for this customer feedback thing a long time ago and earn frequent flyer miles by responding to emails. Well, booking those flights to San Diego, San Fran, London and home from Amsterdam have really paid off. I got at least double points plus I used their link when I reserved my hotels so I got extra points for that too.

I think I've got enough miles to take the boys somewhere. Well, enough to fly me and Macaroni...but Jboy still has a ticket to use from when he bailed on my brother's wedding last spring. So now we have to go somewhere before mid-May. Have to go somewhere. Sucks to be me, huh?

Any suggestions?

1,014

Okay, I think the link to my photos should finally work. I hope. Warning: I haven't deleted any of the unflattering self portraits, hundreds of duplicates of Big Ben and friends or done any editing at all. They're still pretty rough.

I made comments on some of them but then I got bored. Here they are. Enjoy, or you know, not.

The best part of my vacation?

I lost 4 1/2 pounds! Lbs not £. Now that could be because I was walking around for 6-8 hours everyday in London and even on my sickest day in Edinburgh I still did a three hour walking tour, or it could be because I couldn't afford to eat. Which is pretty much all I've done since I got home. Eat and sleep.

I did drag myself to Macaroni's field trip to the Art Institute yesterday. Even with jet lag I won't pass up the chance to go to a museum. And Macaroni was so cute, he had me, his grandparents and his dad there. Coolest kid in the class or the biggest geek ever? Little of both I think.

Goats and monkeys

I should have extended the vacation and gone to Hamburg. Ewan will be there signing autographs next week...check out how hot he is in this pic! Damn.

Speaking of hot photos, I found some publicity shots from Othello. Ewan was so freaking delicious as Iago. And Chewital? OMG! Amazing.

34% complete

I've been uploading photos to Flickr for about four hours now. And I'm not even half way through with London. Just London. I took way less photos than I thought I had because I have the setting on my camera for the highest resolution. Or something like that. Anyway, our computer is slow.

So, until the link to all of them is ready, here are a few of my favorites from London. Or a few that are uploaded already any how.

@ Gatwick Airport

a single @ The Russell Hotel

The Wellington Arch

@ Buckingham Palace

Tower Bridge

view of The Gherkin from Tower Bridge

Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament

Trafalgar Square lion

Trafalgar Square

My Happy Place

aka The Donmar Warehouse Theater

where I saw Ewan in Othello. Twice!

The Queen's Theater

...

Oh yeah, I haven't gotten a good photo of my new tattoo yet, but Morag posted one on her blog. It's gonna need more work, my poor lion is kind of lost in Scotland right now.

Why Scotland will always be better than England

My bathroom at the fancy Russell Hotel in London, very posh and clean:

My bathroom at the really old, slightly run down Tailor's Hall Hotel in Edinburgh, two words: Deep. Tub.

Well that, and Ewan McGregor.

Just finished my grocery shopping...from Edinburgh

Sitting @ the airport waiting for my flight. Finished reading emails, caught up on some Ewan and Joss news and just ordered groceries so the boys and I can eat tomorrow. On my way to Amsterdam now, should be back in Minneapolis around dinnertime.

Now I'm going to try to find out more about the writer's strike. Is it really over? Can I watch the SCC:Terminator episodes I missed on the plane? Maybe I won't just sleep all the way home.

One hour till a new tattoo

Sitting at another internet cafe waiting for my appointment for my new tattoo. I'm feeling a lot better today, although super stiff. I've taken more soaks in the tub this week than I have all of last year...but I've got a new tub at home! My parents stopped in and said the bathroom looks good so far.
Gonna do some shopping after my appointment and I think I've figured out how to get to the pub where my friend Georgia is working tonight. It's about an hour walk, which might mean an hour and a half with my knees. Just want to make sure it's safe to walk alone at night. I think I might do a ghost tour or go to the castle tonight too. I've already done both so won't be a big deal if I miss one or both.
Can't believe this is my last day here. The shuttle picks me up at 7:50 tomorrow morning.

Oh, and yes Shayne, I ditched the Americans at the coach station. Unfortunately the flu was a parting gift.