Hot hot hot

[outsdr]

I've finally dragged myself away from rage comics and Star Trek reviews and made it to LJ. So, where to start?

The paper office was closed today, although my "day off" was, once again, not much of one because I still have my Friday night shift at the hotel. I spent my waking hours working on Bonnie & Clyde photos, played a smidgen of Skyrim, sorted some Doctor Who videos I've been meaning to watch, and now here I am at the hotel. To catch up ...

Remember the deal with the medical clinic and the Check That Has Never Been Cashed? Yeah, still hasn't. This is really pissing me off. If I didn't need the clinic for getting my meds filled, I think I'd be done with them right now. As it is, I think the next time I have a medical issue, I'm going somewhere else, and I'll just have them take over my general care. Depends on how it goes Monday when I go back to the clinic for another talk.

On Christmas Day, I asked Andy what he would like for our Holiday Feast. I gave him two options- baked ham and pie, or a bucket of hot dogs. He choose the hotdogs. I also made a graham cracker cake.

And you know what? It was awesome. We ate food and watched a movie, and then things happened and I had to fix something remotely for the hotel, and couldn't watch Doctor Who. But, we recorded it and we watched it the next night. While charming, I thought the episode was pretty shallow. On a mailing list, one friend referred to it as a "gentle adventure," to which I responded:

I like the way you put it; that it was a "gentle" episode. And I understand
that, for an episode being shown on Christmas Day, that it needed to be gentle.
But a little more excitement wouldn't have hurt. I don't know if I missed some
of the opening scene (I'd also seen the web preview a few weeks back) but it
really didn't make sense to me. And as we were watching the Doctor fall trying
to grab the spacesuit, Andy turned to me and said, "So ... he can breathe in
space now?" For an episode that features a young boy who is obviously
intelligent and excited by science, I felt this was a lapse. Discovering that
this exploding ship was apparently happening over England in the late 30s and
the Doctor somehow not only managed to survive a fall from space that left a
crater in the ground (granted, he did mention that the suit was healing him, I
think ... his voice was muffled by the helmet) but fell in the same village
where he had parked the TARDIS was really a stretch for me.

There were some really nice bits between the Doctor and SuperMum, but I felt
like the whole "Father Christmas" aspect of the Doctor's presence was
over-rated. And honestly, I really would have preferred the father to have
remained dead, just to give the episode a little more emotional weight, but the
way his death was prevented was acceptable to me.

Mostly though, I just wish Moffat would move on from his ongoing theme of
"Parents and their children have a Very Special Bond." It was played out the
second time he used it; he's done it to death now. I would have found it far
more acceptable if it had been just used for the special; but heck, every other
episode this season was permeated with it.

I felt like I was watching what was going on while the real, better, more
exciting episode was happening off screen. I really wanted to learn more about
the obviously flawed soldiers in their yellow armor. I wanted to know why the
spaceship was attacking Earth. I don't mind that an episode showed the Doctor
repaying a favor for someone and showed some of his "down time" so to speak, but
don't do it while also blatantly hinting that there's far more interesting
things happening elsewhere at the same time.

All that said- I didn't dislike the episode. Matt Smith continues to amaze me as
the Doctor (I just wish I could understand his speech better.) But the episode
certainly was not a classic.

One bit of potentially exciting future news: the Wyoming Press Association's conference is coming up in two weeks; this is where the annual Press Association awards are announced. Remember, last year, I won two? This year, the requested a mug shot of me from my editor. They only do this when giving an award. She and speculated what it was for, and we can only guess that it's for the columns I submitted, because when an advertisement is submitted, it's submitted under the name of the designer (me) and the salesperson (which is stupid, but whatever) and the only other person's photo being requested was my editor's. I guess we'll know for sure in two weeks.



Ike is just keeping on keepin' on (as well as moving right when I take a picture of him being super cute.) He had his monthly shot of adequan Wednesday, as well as getting his nails trimmed. My vet mentioned the possibility of a thyroid test, because of Ike's "tragic look" as she put it, which is apparently a symptom of thyroid problems. He had a test a number of years ago, and it was fine, and I had to laugh, because it's not that I don't think there's a possibility there could be problems with his thyroid, but if we relied on a "tragic look" as a symptom, how would we ever tell? He always looks the same- tragic! I pulled down a photo from the wall showing him five years ago, and he had the exact same "tragic" expression. There's a reason we call him the saddest dog in the world!

She also mentioned a medicine called Neutricks, which helps the brain functions of older dogs. I told her to get the prices for everything, as well as how long it takes to see any results from the medicine, and I'd decide what to do. Turns out the thyroid initial test is $40, and if that test is positive, a more indepth test is an additional $60, and the overnight shipping is $50. Ouch. The medicine, which she didn't have a price for yet, can show results in as little as three days. Since she was going to order some of it anyway, I told her I thought we should start with the medicine and see how it does first, before moving on to the thyroid tests. (Taking their initial orientation survey, Ike scores a 14 out of 49 on the "disorientation scale" where lower is better. If the pills at least make him poop outside even 50% more often than he does now, I'll be ecstatic.)

So. While it's now technically New Year's Eve, I think I'm going to wait until my next shift to write up a recap of 2011 and what I hope to get out of 2012.

As for the title of this entry, when I woke up at 6 pm, it was 34F outside; it's now 40F after hitting a high of 50F around midnight ... the snow and ice are melting furiously outside!