DISCLAIMER

Posted on September 26, 2011 by thathobbitlady

I’m getting a little tired of seeing these disclaimers all over TV, you know the ones I mean: an advertisement for a new car driving down a curvy mountain road and in the small print below: “Professional Driver on a closed course. Do not attempt.” People riding bicycles…by standing up on the seat! A chef cutting chicken with a sharp knife to put in a taco: “Professional. Do not attempt.” Honestly.

Look. Some things are obviously dangerous. Do we really need to be told, over and over again, not to try something that appears ill-advised? Are people really so studid that…? Wait. Don’t answer that.

My problem is, it’s causing a lot of visual clutter. It’s almost like…nagging, wouldn’t you say? Why do we constantly have to be reminded of the blatantly obvious?

This is what I suggest: ONE TIME, the President gets on National TV and makes a statement more or less to the effect of “Hey! Listen up, people! TV and movies are NOT real life. If you see something stupid on TV or in a movie and then you try it and get hurt…oh, well, you’re on your own. From this point on everyone needs to take personal responsibility for their own actions. Got it? Okay.

“Oh yeah…and one more thing, people: hot chocolate….is HOT.”

Nuff said.

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“SWAGGA”

Posted on September 24, 2011 by thathobbitlady

It’s been a good afternoon for Alabama football. We beat Arkansas by a very respectable margin, and better than that, we played well. Last time I wrote about football, I noted that our new quarterback exhibited “poise.” Now I’m noting that not only our quarterback, but the entire team, seems to have developed that elusive quality of “swagga.” (By that I mean “swagger,” but Russ assures me that “swagga” is an acceptable representation of the term.)

Earlier in the week I was listening to Shaun Alexander, one of our former football stars, being interviewed on the radio, and he said “This team certainly has talent, they just lack swagger…they all need to believe ‘Hey! I’m the guy, I can get this done!'” Or something like that.

Well, I think maybe we are there. Or at the very least, getting there.

As Russ says, “I think we have a football team!”

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DOCTOR VISIT

Posted on September 22, 2011 by thathobbitlady

Went to the doctor the other day for the annual physical and got a “clean bill of health.” He told me my sugar, cholesterol, liver, kidneys and everything else was just fine. About the worst he could say was that my blood pressure is “borderline high.” But then he added, “But with that cholesterol, you’re at a low risk for heart disease, so I wouldn’t worry about it.”

All good news of course. I mentioned to him that I thought my cholesterol would be high, because the night before we had hamburgers for dinner, and with my birthday just three days earlier, it had been a week of celebrating—too much going out to eat, cookies, cake, and a bottle of wine. He said, “Ahh! Celebrate your birthday! You’ve got….what? 34 of them left….so enjoy your birthdays!”

I thought it was odd that he said 34. Not 30, or 35, which would be a nice round number. It gave me a little chill and made me wonder…does he know something I don’t know? Can he look at my blood work and my chest X-ray and my EKG and predict EXACTLY how long I will live?

Or is he just being a jokester?

I wouldn’t mind if he had some inside track on how long I’m going to live. Another 34 years puts me at 88…a good, long respectable time.

I just hope I can get my blood pressure down a bit before I get there.

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FUNNY CAT VIDEO OF THE DAY

Posted on September 18, 2011 by thathobbitlady

Very short and very funny:

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POISE

Posted on September 12, 2011 by thathobbitlady

The Crimson Tide has started a new football season, and so far, so good.  Saturday’s game against Penn State was NOT a “given.”  From what I hear, it could have gone either way.  But the Tide came through with flying colors, a respectable win.

What I mostly took away from the game this past weekend was the impressive performance by our new quarterback, A.J. McCarron.  He’s young (a sophomore) and relatively inexperienced.  This was only his second college start, and the first one on the road, in “hostile territory,” and yet for the most part, he made good decisions, and didn’t let himself get rattled.  (To say nothing of how strongly and accurately he was able to throw the ball.)  All the announcers keep saying he has “poise.”

Man!  That’s the word for it.  POISE.  Very impressive.  Now, I don’t want to jinx anything, but if he can play like this for the second game of his college career, where are we likely to end up?   Barring injury, we’ll have him the rest of this season and all of next season, and hopefully during his senior year as well.

I’m seeing a lot of good stuff ahead.

I know we have an excellent Defense, and that’s extremely important, but I’m new enough to football that I’m not really able to appreciate the efforts of the Defense as much as the efforts of the Offense.  Defense stops bad things from happening, but the Offense MAKES good things happen.   It’s easier to see and appreciate what the Offense is doing right…at least for a football newbie like me.

And so far, I like what I’m seeing.

Oh, and one more thing about McCarron…well, two really…he’s TALL (6’4″)… and cute as a bug! 🙂

I would still enjoy football even if all the players were ugly as sin, but when they’re not, that’s kind of like the icing on the cake.

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60

Posted on September 11, 2011 by thathobbitlady

I’m getting,  ready to have a birthday soon, and even though I am not yet going to be 60, I’m getting close.  I found this quote by Al Stewart, one of my favorite musicians (you may know him from his hit, The Year of the Cat, but I know his complete body of work) and here he reflects on what it’s like to turn 60:

STEWART: “Oh, I think 60’s easy. It was 30 I didn’t like. My whole
philosophy about it is it’s bonus-time. Once you turn 60, no one takes even the remotest bit of interest in anything you do or say. It’s carte blanche, really, to be 10 again or maybe 12. So it’s like a second childhood, in a way.

“At 30, you have a responsibility to live up to some sort of idea you have about
what you want to achieve in life. By 60, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

There is a sort of freedom in getting older. ♫

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LAZY DAY?

Posted on September 11, 2011 by thathobbitlady

Having a lazy day around the house.  We went out this morning for a quick walk around the neighborhood, because the weather has been more…shall we say…”temperate” than it’s been lately, but after that, spending the rest of the day indoors.

But “lazy…”  Well, not exactly sure on that.  Doing laundry, gathering stuff for a trip to Goodwill, going through paperwork, and we just spent a half hour cleaning the office (and it looks much better now, thank you very much! )  I’ve also been going through some old books and CD’s.  Some are going in that box for Goodwill, and others to be posted on our half.com account for sale.

I liked it last week when we had Monday off for Labor Day.  There’s something really special about a Sunday, when you don’t have to go into work the next day.  But for tonight, it should probably be early to bed for me.

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BODY AND SOUL

Posted on September 8, 2011 by thathobbitlady

C.S. Lewis said:

You don’t HAVE a soul.  You ARE a Soul.  You have a body.

 

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MORE PODCAST STUFF

Posted on August 28, 2011 by thathobbitlady

Well it’s been a while since I’ve posted here.  Life just seems to be so busy all the time.  Now, of course, lately, life really HAS been quite busy!  I wrote last time about the podcast that Russ and I are doing.  It was only about a month ago, and so far we’ve posted five podcasts!  It’s time-consuming, but fun.  The more we do it, the better we’re getting at it, I think, and we are both coming up with systems and routines on how to do it in the best and most efficient manner.   We may take a night or two off, but soon we’ll be back at it again, planning, recording, editing, posting.  Five is in the can, and six and seven are in the works!

Other than that, I’m hoping to get back to the gym this coming week.

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OUR PODCAST: THE DRAWING ROOM

Posted on August 3, 2011 by thathobbitlady

We’re so excited!

For the last month or so we’ve been contemplating the idea of doing a podcast on the Dark Shadows soap opera from the late 1960’s.  Russ and I are both big fans of the series, and when we recently began listening to a few podcasts, we looked at each other and said….”We could do this!”  So we settled on Dark Shadows as our topic, since we are currently watching the show through Netflix.  (Also in the “Plus Column” : we quickly discovered that nobody else out there really has a podcast devoted exclusively to the original series.  So much for the competition!)

We call our podcast “The Drawing Room,” because in Dark Shadows, the drawing room was the place where everybody would gather to talk about whatever was going on.  So that’s where we are gathering to talk about Dark Shadows! (Actually, we are gathering around our dining room table to record the shows—and that’s working out quite well!)

It’s been a lot of fun so far, and we’ve learned a lot about podcasting, recording, marketing, etc.  And we are still learning!  (Learning is NOT something that stops once you get out of school.)  At this point we have posted two episodes, and have two more in varying stages of “production.”  We’re getting the hang of it, and feel pretty certain we’re going to want to continue doing this.

So, without any further ado, I’d like to invite you all to take a listen, at our podcast website, Collinsport.net.  Even if you don’t care for Dark Shadows, you might get a kick out of hearing our voices on the internet.  Hope you enjoy it!

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