Not overly a fan of the original Star Trek but like anyone over the age of say, 30 I’ve seen an episode or 12. Enough that I understand about the general storyline and characters but not enough to know all the little geeky details. And I never could stand William Shatner.

I must say this new James Tiberious Kirk is much easier to handle. As is Spock. Yummy Spock. I want me some Spock.

*ahem*

No spoilers, but there are very few No Fucking Way moments for this average viewer. I’m sure more scientific people might find faults. Beautiful graphics, lots of shots of the Enterprise for the die-hards, and plenty of the old show’s catch phrases. And plenty of action.

I will say the guy (Ginnie calls him Ceasar from his old Xena role) playing Bones completely over hammed it. Almost cartoonish. Like he was doing a parady of Bones for some SNL skit. Every time they flashed on his goofy face it took me completely out of the movie.

We saw it at the Cine Capri, on Arizona’s largest screen, from about 5 rows back. Not the greatest thing when there’s a close-up of the characters’ dirty and bloody faces.

I still recommend everyone see it. It was a great movie.

——–

So Ginnie went with me to the movie. We met CJ and Dan, Steve, Heather, and Jack and Melanie for dinner before.

After the movie we were walking out the side door and there was a large crowd outside. I laughingly told Ginnie we should say really loud that the movie sucked, just for fun. A second later I’m tripping over something on the ground and to keep from sprawling face first on the pavement I do one of those weird flying flailing tumbles four whole steps before slamming right into her back. I’ll just bet the crowd was amused. I think I wrenched every muscle in my body but I didn’t hit the ground.

Oh, and as the Hummer parked next to us pulled out, I realized right on the other side of it was CJ’s car. How weird is that? This parking lot is HUGE and we’re parked two spaces apart. Freaky.

This is no reflection on the very nice lady who hosted the party. I think her name was Sherry. I’m so bad with names though I’ve met this woman once or twice before. She apparently does daycare during the day so there’s toys and kids stuff everywhere, which completely clashes with her husband’s empty liquor bottle collection as decoration. Not to mention the dead dear staring balefully out at us all.

So, Slumber Parties by Shauna was the event of the day. Okay, Shauna was polite and pretty and after telling us how she got into the business, she had a run-down on her private vocabulary for our private parts. What’s wrong with words like clit, vagina and anus? We got headlights, front door, doorbell, and back door.

After transporting us back to 1952, she started describing their products. Lubes and mists all including this mysterious thing called pheromones. Just Like Me Lubricant, Nympho Niagra, X-Scream, and Lime flavored Lickity Stiff. Coochy stuff? Like a Virgin to tighten your front door and Anal Eaze to deaden your back door, but don’t mix them up! Funny how the tubes look exactly alike.

OMG every time she mentioned anything anal you’d think anyone interested in THAT STUFF was crazy. Yet her most animated sales pitch, complete with hands and knees on the floor and wriggling, was in describing when you might need Anal Eaze. And nobody thought I was serious when I asked if the dildos were dishwasher safe.

Yes, I bought some non-silicone lube, something called Diva Dust so I can get sparkly when I go out, and a non-sex gift for my friend.

That was fun. I just wish I could have tweeted more. It was funnier as I went along but every time I started texting I made the poor girl nervous.

1. Would it be tacky to twitter during a Slumber Party? Sex toys!
2. The big hair girls are here.
3. she’s using code words for private areas.
4. This one woman is fascinated with the Tickle His Pickle book.
5. Wet spot dehydrator in a can.
6. Spread it around the edge of his helment and down the back of his soldier. Who writes this script?
7. She didn’t think my dishwasher safe question was all that funny.

I used to love going out every Saturday morning to yard sales with the kids. We’d talk about all kinds of stuff and they each got to take turns being navigator. We’d get breakfast out and if the morning went long, we’d stop for Hawaiian Ices. Sometimes we found treasures, DVDs (or rather VHS tapes back then) in good shape and a decent price, clothes but not too often. Used closed are seldom a bargain. Sometimes we’d get junk and jewelry and costumy stuff just for fun.

They don’t want to yard sale with me anymore. It’s too early on a Saturday morning after a Friday night. *I* barely want to go out but I did today.

Let me say, for all you who don’t live in AZ, there’s a small window of decent morning weather here. In what we call winter, it’s too chilly in the mornings to sit outside so few people have yard sales. And in summer it’s already 100 degrees at sunrise so you know, nobody really want to go out then either. NOW is a good time, the mornings are nice and breezy. So I went.

There was one sale where the woman had tagged every single piece of clothing with individual hand-written price tags with sizes and descriptions, as if you didn’t have the item RIGHT THERE. Can you say anal?

Directly across the street, there was a sale more like I’m used to where everything is thrown on a blanket for people to rifle through and everything was one price. I hate those. I’m not crawling around on the ground unless I get laid after.

At another sale today, the reek of cat piss and mildew was like an invisible wall about halfway up the driveway. The guy had a look like he couldn’t figure out why people would stop and walk back to their cars. Duh!

Not a lot of luck today. I came away with one really nice outfit for Kira and a plastic weenie whistle. Better luck next time.

Seriously, I’m going to try to start this conversation without the intention of offending anyone. I just really want to understand a little bit of someone else’s world.

I’ve had one long-term Internet friend who is gay, and another newer twitter friend @lezzymom. I can’t remember the last person I knew in real life who was gay. That I know of, mind you. It’s not like I avoid these people, it’s just not something I ask people right off.

Both of these people are very in-your-face, pro-active gay people (which is fine with me BTW) and I just wondered something. Does being pro-active take up your entire life or is that just the side of you tend to post? My old friend Grey_Bear often posts stories of his snarky and cutting remarks to people (who I sometimes don’t believe deserve them) and @lezzymom tends to post (exclusively) every link to every gay rights/groups/story she comes across. Is there more to these people than what I see online?

I get that there’s been a lifetime of discrimination and that Iwill never completely understand where they come from. I also get that sexuality is a big part of who you are. But my sexuality (or lack thereof, lately) is a big part of me and I still post about other subjects.

It’s kind of like marketing spam. If all you’re doing is posting links or stories about the ONE thing you’re pushing (obsessed about?) it tends to put me off. I want to know you as a whole person, not a gay person or a real estate person or a sales person.

Is there more to you than meets the Internet?

So I came home late from Gangplank after posting their podcast and a revision of last week’s Evo @ 11, and watched tonight’s American Idol decision show. Just a couple of comments.

Jennifer Hudson deserves every accolade she gets. The girl has talent coming out of her toenails. And the comparison between her performance tonight and Miley Cyrus‘ was telling. Jennifer sings from her heart with what, one backup dancer? A tiny distraction from her art? And Miley has flashing lights and sparkles, fog, a weird outfit, and musicians surrounding her so we don’t notice how mediocre she is? Yeah.

That guy, the one who should have gone home… should have gone home. He’s not good enough, so why bother saving him for another week? What’s the point.

I didn’t feel like rewinding, but was Lil even in the beginning movie montage thing?

I sure would like to see the numbers on the voting. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Adam were thousands of votes ahead of the pack, but making those numbers public would sure put a crimp on finishing the competition.

Oh well.

As usual, I had my twhirl going last night and @feliciaday was attending an event with Joss Whedon and Nathan Fillion. She posted a couple of comments about Nathan stealing her phone and posting to twitter, then Joss posted under @drhorrible‘s twitter account and pretty soon…

@nathanfillion/ is on twitter. And he already has more than 13,00o followers! I really hope he follows through and actually uses it. I love his sense of humor and I think he could have some fun with it. We’ll see.

It was fun semi-observing the process and being just a little bit of an insider.

Finally!

I’ve been bugging this kid for weeks to get decent pictures taken. She kept saying she’d get her friend to take them to save money. Fine, just DO IT!

And here’s the best of the bunch.

Click on the pic to get to the entire set. Lisa Nickle took over 100 pictures over the course of the day. She did a great job. I ordered business-sized cards from moo cards because I just couldn’t get the pictures to look good on mini cards like mine.

And Lisa and her sister are making beautiful hand-made announcements. All we have left to do is gather everyone’s addresses and get prints of some of these made.

I think of Joe quite often.

Joe Murphy, podcaster and XM Radio personality, passed away April 1, 2007 from the rare cancer leiomyosarcoma.

Jack Mangan asks that we make April 1st Joe Day and use pictures of Joe as our avatars and just generally take time to think about our old friend. Feel free to copy this one I made or make up one of your own.

Beatnik Turtle’s song Mason Rocket was dedicated to Joe. There was a sort-of contest on Wingin’ It to come up with a new nickname for Joe because he thought Joe Murphy just a little plain for podcasting. Mason Rocket was one of his favorite choices and when he died our friend Mur Lafferty had this song commissioned.

One of Joe’s favorite songs was Jonathan Coulton‘s First of May, so we podcasters recorded our own cover in memory of Joe. You can listen to that, too.

If you don’t know who I’m talking about, just know you missed out on a really funny, and really nice guy.

MUCH BETTER!

Second episode was way better then the pilot I talked about last week. In fact, you don’t even have to bother with the first episode as all the important points are covered in this one.

Everyone is much calmer and although there still is absolutely no chemistry between Castle and Beckett, she may eventually grow a personality.

I’m beginning to have real hope for this show. And that’s not just because I’m a huge Nathan Fillion fan. I don’t even consider myself a huge fan. I really like him both as a person and as an actor. I want him to move in next door and hang out. He’s not the Firefly actor I want to attack.

Really!

I’ve always preferred this store. Well, since moving to AZ. If I recall correctly it’s gone through quite a few corporate owners and store names over the years. Even so the same stores always seems to keep the same basic cleanliness and excellent sales no matter who’s name is over the door.

I’ve been broke a lot lately, so I seriously depend on Fry’s sales. I stopped in yesterday to stretch what money I had left and came out way ahead. I spent $31.27 and (between my coupons and the ones the store mails to me) saved $29.46. That’s a 48% savings. Everything I bought I both needed and was on sale.

I don’t understand the brouhaha over club cards. So they keep track of everything I buy? So? Gee, someone somewhere cares that I buy only stuff on sale, I’m not all that picky about which brand name I buy, and that I can’t resist Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie when it drops below $3.00. So they send me coupons for those items. Why is that a bad thing? AND they keep track of how much I spend and when it gets over $100 I get 10 cents a gallon off my next gas purchase. Oh darn those nosy marketeers!

Sure, when I need something and it’s NOT on sale it’s usually cheaper at WalMart. But Fry’s doesn’t carry the specific bagels I like so I have to go to WalMart anyway.

The only thing I don’t like – and it seems to be a trend in most stores anyway – is the whole do-it-yourself checkouts. Seems to me you should get a discount for doing it yourself, right? They’re saving money by not paying cashiers so some of that saving should be passed on. And that I use cloth bags and the do-it-yourself monitor person never seems to be paying attention and there’s no button on the machine to say you have your own bags. And it’s friggin’ impatient. I’ve never been a proficient bagger so it sometimes takes me a moment to arrange my stuff and the machine is nagging loudly at you the whole time for the next step. Shuddup machine.

But 1/2 gallons of milk were 88 cents at Fry’s last week. You can’t beat that!