The Witching Well

Pity my poor nephew. He has managed to get poison ivy and consequently will not be coming up to visit this weekend. We had planned to take him and his younger brother to the USS Constitution, and on the tour of Fenway Park. But it was not to be. Worse, though, is the fact that the rash is on his face, and school starts next week.

Mood: sympathetic

Whovians have long been used to casting changes, and people started speculating pretty much the same day that David Tennant was announced as Christopher Eccleston’s replacement in the role of the Doctor how long he would stay and who would be next.

Well, looks like they may have picked the next Doctor: James Nesbitt. Personally, I’m thrilled. Jekyll is currently running on BBC America, and IMHO he’s amazingly versatile.

Also exciting is Steven Moffat’s taking over from Russell T. Davies (though I am sorry to see Davies go). The episodes that Moffat has written for the show are among my favorites. Plus I’m a huge fan of Coupling and Jekyll is also one of his projects.

Mood: bouncy

Dubya has always tried to portray himself as a Christian who values the sanctity of human life. That’s why, we’re supposed to believe, he’s against abortion: because fetuses are human and humans deserve to live.

That regard for human life, of course, doesn’t extend to any adult convicted of a capital crime. Even if there’s significant doubt as to whether the person convicted had a fair trial or might even be innocent of the crime itself. All he really cares about there is how much money it costs to keep people on death row while they appeal.

So, now we get to save some cash. Yay.

Fucking barbarian.

Via the nice folks at Small Beer Press.

Mood: nauseated

Yup. I finally finished reading it. Can I just quote the Doctor here (from season three’s episode The Shakespeare Code)? “I cried.”

What’s more, I cried in public: sitting in the commuter rail station last night, waiting for my boarding call.

But the series did have a pretty satisfying ending. Very sad in some ways, very happy in others. Revelations were revealed and questions were answered. I don’t know if I’ll ever really forgive JKR for killing [SPOILER] but, really, I knew going in that there had to be at least one heart-rending fatality, so it’s a good kind of non-forgiveness.

Mood: satisfied

Yes, this no-wireless thing may turn out to be a long-term problem. Ah, well. I managed for years on dialup before we got DSL. It ain’t pretty, but I’ll live.

We’re shuffling off to Buffalo this weekend to attend a wedding, so I won’t be around until at least Monday.

And we found the cutest gifts for a baby shower I’m going to next weekend! Which I can’t specify, because while I don’t think the mommy-to-be reads this, I can’t be certain.

Mood: busy

I’m a few chapters into Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows now, and what everyone who’s already read it has told me is pretty true. Intense. Right from the start. Important stuff going on already. Upsetting stuff.

And I’m not reading quickly enough to please my husband, who has already read it and can’t stand that he can’t talk about it with me. But I’m a slow reader. I tend to read not just to find out what happens but to enjoy the characters and the world as thoroughly as I can. I’m in no rush to finish, because then it’ll be over. Yes, I can always go back and reread any book in the series, but it’s not the same.

You can never read a book for the first time more than once.

Mood: thoughtful
Music: Shiny Toy Guns: Stripped

My laptop’s wireless card appears to have died on me. It did this suddenly, without warning, and of course right in the middle of an IM conversation.

I only hope the problem really is the card itself, which can be replaced pretty easily. It’s also possible — and unfortunately rather likely — that the issue is the computer. Poor thing is almost six years old now and dying by inches. The DVD/CD-ROM drive stopped working quite a while back. The battery hasn’t held a proper charge in at least a year. It occasionally likes to just turn itself off, pop: gone. Now this? I wouldn’t put it past the card slots (both of them) to have simply given up the ghost.

Since this reduces me to dialup or sitting in my husband’s office at his really uncomfortable desk, I suspect I won’t be dawdling online much for a bit.

Thank all the forgotten gods that I do have dialup to fall back on — I get it free from my employer, so it didn’t have to be cancelled when we got broadband.

Mood: frustrated