Flicker with an ‘e’
I’m falling off the airwaves about once every ten minutes which is very boring. The lights flicker and whammo, bye-bye broadband. The thing that is INFURIATING* however is that the lights just come back on again** but the broadband nooooooo, I have to close everything down, go into Peter’s office, unplug the magic box, hang around, replug the magic box, hang around some more, restart the computer and . . . sometimes I have to do this twice. I assume this interesting evening’s entertainment is something to do with the weather.*** At a guess it might have something to do with the fact that we’ve had the beginnings of an almost-thaw today which means there’s loose delinquent water around looking for cracks to seep into and crucial connections to coat which, as tonight it freezes again, are in position to do maximum mischief. Arrrgh.
So tonight would be a night that I want to hang photos. Which means I have to stay on line long enough to drag them off my (failing—uh-oh) memory card and punch them in here. But what photos! What! Photos! A few nights ago Black Bear posted a terrific photo of a snow critter† she’d made and I was deeply envious because we never have such cool stuff around here.†† And then, lo, hellhounds and I rounded a very ordinary bend of a very ordinary little road through a very ordinary little housing development this afternoon on our car-free town hurtle and . . .
These photos, by the way, are brought to you courtesy of a hellgoddess repeatedly cranking in hellhounds from investigation of said Superlative Snow Critter which they clearly found Very Fascinating, while she attempted to take photos with the other hand. I know what’s on your little furry minds! You think it’s a thing! Therefore it needs to be peed on! All things must be peed on!†††
The toadstool is such a nice touch too. 
* * *
* Yes, I infuriate easily. This isn’t news to you or anything, is it? Oh, this is your first time reading this blog?
** Even the television just comes back on again. Yes! I have been watching television again! I have seen at least one half-hour of ANGEL^ since the STARGATE UNIVERSE^^ the other night! Tonight I was watching MEDIUM which I would have liked if I’d ever seen it more than twice, and I hadn’t realised this one was a frelling two parter. It ends with this bloke we’ve been set up to like chopping through the wires that have him connected to all this hospital machinery with nail scissors. In the first place, them’s some nail scissors. You could probably hold up airlines with nail scissors that will cut through hospital wiring that keeps people alive. In the second place EVERY ALARM BELL ON THE DASHBOARD back at the nurses’ station is going to be going off like the last trump when those wires are not reading life signs and producing little electric dohickeys and so on. Grrrrrrr. I’m now trying to decide whether or not to bother to try to see part two. The decision will be taken out of my hands by forgetting.^^^
^ Was Cordy unscheduledly pregnant in the fifth (I think it’s the fifth) season or anything? She used to be mostly knockout gym bunny bare skin and suddenly it’s above-the-neck shots and big baggy jumpers.
^^ Which I have seen no sign of since, sigh, no, no, just as well, I have watched way too much of the original. Trying to make up my mind whether my crush was on Richard Dean Anderson or Amanda Tapping.
^^^ But speaking of no sign of further episodes or episode, every station break for MEDIUM ran the trailer for season five of SUPERNATURAL. Season five? That’s another one I’ve managed to see exactly once, thought it looked interesting, and, especially after a couple of people have recommended it, have been under the impression was looking out for it. I have never seen it anywhere again. And I will probably not find season five either.
*** At present everything has something to do with the weather. But I don’t care! I have yaktrax! I even said here on the blog that yaktrax has eliminated about 80% of my winter claustrophobia by the simple expedient of allowing me to go outdoors and walk around, didn’t I? Hellhounds aside. Yes, hellhounds must be hurtled, but I have hellhounds because I must be hurtled^ and I might as well have company.
I grant you that two hours a day is a little extreme^^, but I have an extreme personality. And walking is good plotting time.^^^ Today in the Observer there’s an article entitled What’s the alternative to joining a gym? http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/10/lucy-siegle-green-alternative-gym
—in which Siegle extols the virtues of the outdoors (‘think of [it] as a huge health club, without the joining fee’). And mentions in passing the well-known fact that average physical activity rates have dropped like bricks in the last fifty years. But the statistic that made my eyes stand out on stalks is ‘walking declined from 87 hours per year in 1975 to 57 hours in 2005.’ Eighty-seven? Fifty-seven?^^^^ Errggghmmmph. I get claustrophobia/insomnia/twitchy just thinking about it.^^^^^
^ Even though if it were strictly up to me the verb ‘hurtle’ would not be the verb of choice.
^^ Which means I spend a little over a month every year walking. This is scary. Gods. I ought to have the heart and lungs of a . . . person who spends a month every year walking. Also however the knees of that person.+
+ I actually do have a pulse rate in the low 50s when I’m not full of caffeine.
^^^ Except when you have to spend too much time scraping hellhounds out of the trees and repelling hairy, multi-fanged boarders etc.
^^^^ Note that two hours a day is 730 hours a year.
^^^^^ Also given that even on two hours’ hurtle a day I subsist on lettuce and broccoli aside from the carefully monitored necessary injections of Green & Black’s, I don’t know why at least us post-menopausal crowd aren’t all the size of Hubble telescopes.
† There may be a way of posting a link to a specific forum comment, but I don’t know what it is. It’s under ‘Snow Day’ if you want to look for it.
†† No I am not going to take up snow sculpture.
††† Male Dog Owner-itis.
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