Wherefore was I Juliet?

Name change at the other blog!

medley rising

When I started this site I was in a place where a string of failed relationships left me too disheartened to even think of trying again. Therefore, TV and movie dreamboats became the objects of my affections. It just seemed easier. To be sure, it was less painful. IIRC, my reasoning was, “At least I KNOW that won’t go anywhere.”

Somewhere during that mindset, I surfed across Kidd Video’s song “Video Romeo,” and it became a kind of anthem for me, so much so that I opted to blog here under the banner of Video Juliet.

A few years passed and my jadedness was clearly ebbing away because I ventured back into the real-life dating pool with a great guy. [They do exist. Color *me* stunned. 😉 ]

Fast-forward to not so long ago, and that so-called video world has largely dropped off of my radar. Sure, those stars still…

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comments about Captain Marvel

SPOILER ALERT: some info here could spoil the surprise(s) if you haven’t seen the film.

OBSERVATIONS
* “With her hair like that, Brie Larson reminds me of Marcia Brady. Was that ‘Captain Marvel’ or ‘Captain MARCIA MARCIA MARCIA’?” a recurring thought, while watching the movie XD

* “Hm, there’s that actor. Doesn’t he usually play a bad guy?”
[continues to watch, finally nods to self]
“Ah, yeah, I thought so…”

* It was great to see Agent Coulson again… even if he did have shamefully little screen time.

* Since I’m from the vicinity of Huntsville, Alabama, my inner geek was thrilled to learn that is Nick Fury’s birthplace. [That was actually revealed in the trailer — and it made our local news! I suspected I wasn’t the only one here with an inner geek. 😉 ]

THE VERDICT
My disdain for the last two Marvel films I watched drove me to avoid the next few installments. Even though I decided to see CM, my expectations were very low.

I found CM a bit formulaic (and a tad self-righteous), so for me it didn’t rise to the level of oh-I-love-it-gotta-see-it-again. But it wasn’t fraught with loathsome, grating characters like Thor: Ragnarok, nor was it the unmitigated disaster of Avengers Infinity War, so I was quite pleased.

In fact, now I’m looking forward — just the tiniest bit — to next month’s Avengers.

QUOTE
“I have nothing to prove to you.” What I’d like to remind haters, shamers and other bullies. (Also, my Facebook friends who want me to repost something to show allegiance to faith, family, country, etc.)

a year in review – 2018

My theme for 2018 could have been “back to basics.” (In some cases, more like, “HOW could I have missed that??)

medley rising

1. What did you do in 2018 that you’d never done before?
got prescription glasses (and subsequently hated/refuse to wear them), went Christmas caroling in late January, saw a nesting Canadian goose, called wildlife control to remove a lizard from indoors, attended a work “lunch and learn,” followed a YouTube video for minor car repair (replace broken gear shift button), tried Florajen probiotic, tested the computer’s Read Aloud feature, used cardamom scented lip balm, polished silver jewelry with a baking soda paste, ate at the cafeteria at work, had a praying mantis set up camp in my window, watched “American Pickers”

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
For 2018, inspired by Psalm 119:37, my goal was to seek out and spend more time on what “adds value” to my life. My initial idea was that a small effort could…

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state of my projects, 2018 edition

Back in late February, I outlined some points for a state-of-my-projects post:

Lingering health woes have let me
depleted of both energy and motivation
So, I’m setting the bar low for projects for this year
But I do need to do something
my unoccupied mind wanders nowhere good
and it doesn’t help that aimlessly scrolling through FB and twitter
Although I’m setting the bar very low, I’m daring to list a few plans for this year.
THE NEXT DAY, after a FEW MINUTES of concentrated thought, I had several GOOD STARTS toward an AMBITIOUS PROJECT that’s been on the backburner.

Through the years, I’ve often repeated that “the more I *have* to do, the more I get done.” As hinted at above, my claim proved true yet again. Both energy and motivation returned with a vengeance because last month, I wrote the following to a friend:

I don’t know about you guys, but if I expected a slow down to catch my breath after the “holiday rush,” wow, was I sadly mistaken. Mom’s sudden downtime derailed not only my schedule but my emotions as well. Also in January, one of my two doctor visits spurred two other trips to obtain my new glasses. Plus, my car came due for an oil change, and then I returned to the auto place one week later because it was past time for the transmission service. Doing [my sister’s] and my income taxes took longer than any year in recent memory because [our state] added a new form that I had to research/learn. Since early April, my regular grocery store is out of commission for two months due to remodeling, so I’m going out of my way to another in that chain (Aldi). And on and on…

Lately, when I’m pouting over the burden of my never-ending plans, I remind myself that I could honestly skip quite a lot of those To Do’s… but then I admit that I *want* to do them. When I reframe from have to to want to I feel better. I’m prioritizing, and after I get those priorities done, I have such a sense of accomplishment.

Following up on my website plans from the previous post (February of last year), I accomplished all of the numbered items… at least to some degree. 😉 In a week or two, I plan to watch the next episode of The Young Riders and type up my comments, but most of my website work for the near future will be focused on a certain layout redo.

For the Real-Life items, I continue to work on this:

* assessing my belongings, decluttering, and rearranging to optimize storage options

…and it seems like I do this every two months:

* restructuring my computer files to better outline upcoming projects

On some level, I must believe that if I can put my computer files in order, organizing my thoughts will surely follow. XD

Alas, between — frequently unexpected! — new undertakings and my so-called recurring To Do’s (described on the page below), my thoughts rarely remain “in order” for very long!
http://www.rusted-crush.com/eclectic/todo.html

 

as seen on TV

A past co-worker revealed that her childhood love for The Dukes of Hazzard more recently inspired her to purchase a Jeep. (IIRC, she said it was her obsession with Bo… I opted not to nitpick that the Jeep belonged to Daisy.)

For me, ever since the loft that Laura moved to in season 2 of Remington Steele caught my eye, I seek lots of natural colors and texture – brick! :hearts: – in my décor.

a year in review – 2017

Looking back at 2017…

medley rising

1. What did you do in 2017 that you’d never done before?
been classified as “IT support,” changed careers with no time gap between, climbed more stairs than ever before, found myself in the vicinity of a possible active shooter situation — thankfully a false alarm, memorized the list of books of the Old Testament, occupied an office (i.e. cubicle) not on the ground floor, participated in a digital interview, removed a lizard from indoors, saw a show at the new Cineplanet theater, used predictive text, watched a snake travel from limb to limb five feet off the ground, witnessed NASA’s Super-Guppy in flight

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
For 2017, I planned “to look for something positive in my real life situations.” I did that… but not nearly enough. I repeatedly lost sight of the positive altogether.
For…

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all roads lead to spoilerville

After abandoning broadcast television in favor of re-watching DVDs of beloved shows from the past, spoilers became a non-issue for many years.

When I began to want variety and branched out to DVDs of series I hadn’t seen, I found myself in uncharted territory. My previous experience following a new show on the Internet involved waiting after each airing for some industrious fan to write and post recaps, reviews, etc. Now, extensive episode guides are already available online… and I need them more than ever, because I usually watch with my family, and we tend to miss critical exposition because one of us is talking.

The big disadvantage — as you may have guessed from the theme of this entry — is spoilers. Of course, I know to avoid common sources, such as summaries and commentary for episodes I haven’t seen. But I’ve found spoilers lurking where I never suspected, to the extent that viewing an entire series unspoiled is proving to be quite a challenge.

If you, too, are discovering a show after its original run, be aware that spoilers can pop up in seemingly innocuous places:

• Fanfiction. When I’m concerned about spoilage, I diligently avoid fanfiction for the topic in question. Fanfic writers are often inspired by key events, and synopses of the fics can be very revealing: “This scene takes place after Jojo’s death at the hands of Zulu.”
• Fan videos. The montage could contain pivotal scenes, such as the main guy character proposing to the main girl character.
• Facebook. A double threat, not only from friends’ comments, but also since Facebook might recognize the series as one of my interests and supply commercials for the current season — even though I’m several seasons behind.
• Overambitious “wiki” episode recaps. In an effort to be thorough, they cross reference to future events: “We see Susie again in season four when we learn she has a long-lost sister.” Even their link designations can share too much. For example, I knew a character’s amnesia wouldn’t last long when my options included, “For the character briefly known as Jezebel, click here.”
• Google image search. I was looking for a screencap of a fight between three characters, and displayed among the search results was a fan-made graphic of one of them, captioned with “R.I.P.” and the year.
• Actor biographies. The dossier could reveal the character’s exit or return by providing appearances by year, season, or specific episodes.
• Articles about the stars. A photo of a smiling couple is captioned “Sylvia out on the town with her TV husband.” But — d’oh! — their characters’ marriage is a very recent development. Hope all of that website’s viewers are caught up on their TiVo!
• The main page of major news websites. If I watched Game of Thrones, it would be maddening that so many “news headlines” rehash the happenings of the latest episode. (No doubt those sites aim to up their link count using GoT‘s popularity.) Even if they warn of plot talk, very often there’s a telling screencap with the headline.
• Amazon product reviews. I was about to place an order, and the featured review began with, “This was my least favorite of all the seasons.” Maybe that’s not a true spoiler, but such a verdict might predispose me to dislike it before even I’ve seen the first episode.
• DVD covers for later seasons. When a would-be cliffhanger has a main character in jeopardy, I’m anything but on edge: “No worries. They’re still pictured with the cast for the final season.” (Okay, I confess. I actually like this bit of foreknowledge. My life’s hard enough without having to fear for the safety of my fave characters!)
• Episode descriptions on DVD packages. Having written similar summaries myself, I understand how tough it can be to strike a balance between providing details for those who are looking for a specific scene, and ruining key surprises for the rest of us. As a public service to DVD Blurb Writers, here are two examples that, IMHO, land solidly in the latter category:
  (1) “After a failed battle with Xolor…” If the opening scene is a battle, we know how that will end. :thumbsdown:
  (2) “The team falls victim to a smooth-talking con man, and Sam must save the day.” … manages to give away the entire episode in one sentence! :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown:
• Forums about other shows. Curious to know what fans of Program A had to say, I ventured to read one short thread, and I spent the next several seasons dreading the series finale of Program B because of one of the comments. Happily, in said finale, the plot twist that commenter condemned played out extremely well, in my opinion. Even more happily, I learned that exposure to TMI doesn’t necessarily negate any future enjoyment… although I’d still prefer not to take any chances.

With my eyes now opened to the plight of the “spoiler-phobic,” I realize that I need to post warnings with the episode information at my various websites. In the meantime, remember that, when it comes to having your viewing surprises spoiled, the only safe search is NO search!

website plans for 2017

Another February, another so-called maintenance weekend!

Actually, since I accomplished the re-do of the eclectic website layout last year, I’ve already been doing a bit of “maintenance,” such as:
* assessing my real-life belongings, decluttering, and rearranging to optimize storage options
* restructuring my computer files to better outline upcoming projects
* going through the contents of my work computer, purging my personal items in anticipation of finding another job 😉

As part of the aforementioned restructuring, I tried to realistically plan and prioritize my ever-growing list of to do’s, including defining my website goals for this year:
1) Add photos from missing years (2014 thru 2016) to the photolog.
http://www.neloo.com/chezanne/index.html

2) Write and then add information for the next episode (“Gunz ‘N Boyz”) to the MacGyver episode guide.
http://www.rusted-crush.com/macgyver/maceps.html

3) Continue to watch and then type my comments about season two of The Young Riders episodes. Although I generally keep these write-ups simple (a list of points instead of working my thoughts into whole paragraphs), I’m still not specifying a number of episodes to complete this year. I don’t need that kind of pressure. 😛
http://www.neloo.com/fannesite/yr1s2.html

4) Do links checks at the fan websites. Usually I do this as part of changing the layout, but since each layout is now years in the making, with many links checks long overdue, my aim is to put a dent in that this year.

That may seem like a short list for a year’s worth of projects, but as I said, I’m being realistic. My free time is very limited, plus there are always other distractions, as I’ve described here:
http://www.rusted-crush.com/eclectic/todos.html

P.S. As of this year, my on-going maintenance has been made slightly easier, because I no longer run the “official” Jack Bristow fanlisting. In late 2016, while I was involved in finishing the eclectic redo, I neglected to update the JB fl, and TheFanlistings.org happened to check and found “inactivity.” I’m sure they emailed to warn me, but the address they have for me is one I no longer use (whoopsie!), and so I never got the message. Ah, well. :shrug: The last fan joined in July of 2012; for that reason, I did not reapply to be reinstated. Plus, while I have been glad for it to be the Jack Bristow fanlisting … for the last 15(!) years…  it will *awesome* to not have to update that site every two months to keep some “signs of life.”

how to play all music on your computer

Previously, while using Windows Media Player, I’ve noticed that after I play a CD, it gives me the option to play all music.

I have a lot of music, and so this has proven to be a nice feature: it keeps playing (instead of me having to select a new set when the current set finishes), and since it picks from different folders, I get to hear an assortment of genres. It’s kind of like commercial-free radio that plays songs I know like. 😀

But recently, when my CD drive was broken, I searched on-line for a way to replicate this Play All feature. Alas, I couldn’t find one that didn’t involve categorizing each song, etc.

Also, in the search results, I didn’t see the Play-a-CD option, so I thought I’d post this FYI here:

1) I play a CD.
2) I have Windows Media Player on “Now Playing” (not “Library”).
3) I leave that WMP box open as the CD finishes. When I eject the CD, WMP offers the Play All Music option.

And I usually take it. 😉

a year in review – 2016

Another New Year’s Eve, another 40 questions answered!

medley rising

1. What did you do in 2016 that you’d never done before?
We opened our Christmas gifts on December 26. Also, I used “cloud” storage, although technically, I’ve done this for years with my email accounts.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
For 2016, I said that I would try to “bloom where planted.” My success rate was maybe seventy percent.
For 2017, I made an effort late in 2016 to focus on the positive; I achieved that largely through getting lost in a favorite song, movie or TV show, probably because, when I look at my real world, I don’t see much worth focusing on. But, knowing that we see what we seek, I plan to look for something positive in my real life situations.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No.

4. Did anyone close to…

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