I was very sad to learn that Mollie Sugden, who played Mrs. Slocombe on “Are You Being Served”, died today. She’d had a good run, but it’s still sad to see her go. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve seen all of the AYBS episodes over the years.
Mollie, you will be very missed but we have loads of great, fun stuff to remember you by.
If I wish really, really, REALLY hard, can I make it snow?
I’d give just about anything for a freak June snowstorm right now. (I was going to say “I’d sell my soul” but just in case there really is a Devil *and* he’s reading this blog, I don’t want to give him an “in”. Plus, he’d just make me suffer through even more heat when he finally got my soul and that would just suck.)
Trust me, if I had that kind of super power, you’d all be digging your way out of foot-deep drifts this morning. (Feel free to thank the deity of your choice.)
My hair hasn’t been dry in days and I’m having vivid flashbacks to my Paxil days. I haven’t slept more than a couple of hours a night in that same time and I’m punch drunk (and, believe me, I’m not a happy drunk). Even the office isn’t a respite — how can an air-conditioned office still be damp? Isn’t making it non-damp part of the whole “conditioning” thing? Granted it’s a step up from drowning in sweat, but clammy is still pretty gross.
And I woke up this morning with a summer chest cold, which isn’t helping the whole hot and humid or clammy thing.
Blah, blah, blah, whinge, whine, sniffle.
young guy 1: “Did you know Michael Jackson died?”
young guy 2: “Really?”
young guy 3: “We should start a vigil.”
young guy 2: “How are we expected to work after that news?”
LOL)
The Alarm’s “Where Were You Hiding When the Storm Broke?” is going through my head right now.
I wish I could get away from the Michael Jackson coverage, but it’s everywhere. And it’s going to be EVERYWHERE for days, if not weeks or months. Someone wrote that they’d remember forever what they were doing when they heard the news, just like they still remembered what they were doing when they heard that Elvis Presley had died. I tried to think if there were any celebrity or high-profile deaths I would always remember in that way. There aren’t many.
I don’t remember what I was doing when I heard that Jim Henson died, but I remember putting a black armband (left over from a Tienanmen Square solidarity march I’d attended in 1989) on a baby Kermit stuffed toy I had.
I remember what I was doing when I heard that Freddie Mercury (lead singer of Queen) had died in 1991. I was a majorly huge Queen fan for most of my formative years and seeing his obvious health decline culminate in his death was tragic and heartbreaking.
I remember I was watching “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman” in 1997 when news of Lady Di’s accident and subsequent death came through in a breaking news story. It was my first experience with that kind of massive news overload and that’s what I remember more than her actual death. If she were to have died now, in this age of extreme coverage, I don’t know that I’d remember it at all.
I remember what I was doing when 9/11 occurred. Given the 24/7 news onslaught, it’d be impossible not to. It was a lost work day as people were glued to online news sites and televisions. I channel-surfed for days, watching anything and everything about it. I think that’s where most of my jaded thoughts originate.
That’s pretty much it…and, except for the fact that it’s documented in this blog, MJ’s death would never be one of those that I would be able to recall later.
I was a little sad today to learn that cancer had finally claimed Farrah Fawcett. Whatever you might have thought of some of her odd turns, she was iconic. I loved her in “Charlies Angels” — and I so desperately wanted that hair. (I had to settle for Kate Jackson’s surf haircut instead.)
Then what the hell? I have a nap this evening and wake up to hear Nigel Lithgow on “So You Think You Can Dance” talking about Michael Jackson dying? That one’s just surreal.
Call me jaded (and I acknowledge that I frequently am), but can you guess which one will result in epic outpourings of grief and news coverage that will rival that seen for Lady Di? Complete with Elton John singing a song for him, apparently.
(As an aside, TMZ? WTF? “In the moments following Michael Jackson’s death — so many people rushed to the Internet, that it practically stopped the entire WWW in its tracks”?????? Like, ohmygod, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and AIM are so not the “entire WWW”.
Hard to believe, I know.)
The alleged* death of Neda Agha-Soltan in the Iran protests reminds me yet again how much I just don’t understand humans as a species, despite being one (last time I checked, anyway). The instantaneous and excessive grief shown by people in the news, in blogs, and on social networking sites is mind boggling. If this video really did show the final seconds of this young woman’s life, ultimately she was just one woman, just one death in a world that sees thousands of deaths daily. Why should the circumstances of her death make her more grief-worthy than someone else? Being at that spot at that time does not make her a hero; it makes her at best an unfortunate victim. The fact that this is becoming an Internet phenomenon makes me a little bit sad for the future of the human race.
How did the 2000+ Hurricane Katrina deaths in 2005 completely overtake the sheer horror of 230,000 lives lost in the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake? Why did the 3000+ deaths on 9/11 merit more grief and global histrionics than the other estimated 150,000 people who died worldwide that day. (I understand the global effect of 9/11 — war, retaliation, etc. I’m talking about the immediate visceral sorrow people expressed.) Even if you’re American and more hard hit by the loss of Americans, why do the roughly 2600 Americans who die every day not matter as much? You could say you don’t know them, but most of you didn’t personally know someone who died on 9/11 or in Hurricane Katrina. It reminds me of the outpouring of weepy sentiment when Lady Diana died. Forget the thousands of other human beings who died that day.
This is the same confusion I experience when I ask why the world thinks baby seals are worth fighting to save but cows, rabbits, and other food or nuisance animals are not.
I’m beginning to wonder about this species we’re all a part of.
Mayo, can I be a robot, too?
* I say “alleged” because, having seen the video, I can’t say that I believe that the video shows a woman actually dying. That’s not to say that I know it doesn’t, merely that I’m not convinced. The camera work feels too much like something Cris Angel would try to pull. And the timing is convenient, occuring just when a martyr was needed to spur the protesters. Even if it turns out to be a real death, the hoopla surrounding it still reeks of propaganda and that makes me a little suspicious.
I seem to have the attention span of a squirrel these days so long posts are out of the question. So, instead, here are some bite-sized nugget, twitter-like posts. (I have some “real” posts partially completed but just don’t feel like finishing any of them right now.)
All Youtube videos return an “An error has occured, please try again later” error message.
Rogers says, “Oh, it’s not us.” An hour and half after the problem starts, Rogers finally gets notified by Youtube that the problem is on Youtube’s end. (I’m guessing someone at Youtube accidentally blocked Rogers IPs.) It’s supposed to be fixed within 24 hours.
As a former tech support agent, I feel a little bad for the Rogers techies (who are probably working in the call center I used to work in) who were expecting a relatively calm afternoon and have suddenly been swamped by frantic users jonesing for their Youtube fix. At least now they have something concrete they can say instead of “It’s not on our end.”
Found via Isabella Rossellini’s appearance on Graham Norton this past week, everything you ever wanted to know about animals (insects in particular) having sex.
There’s something decidedly surreal (and yet great fun) about Isabella Rossellini saying “penis” and “vagina” so often while dressed up as (generally the male of) various insect and animal species. (The photo above shows the death of the male bee after his penis breaks off in the queen bee.) Season 2 features whales with six-foot penises and Isabella walking through a veritable garden of penises explaining why she loves her vagina.
Good times.
see more Lolcats and funny pictures
Bonus for the kitty? After you’ve gone to the light, he’ll have loads of fresh meat to nom on. It’s a win-win.
Come on, you know you all do it.
Remember that community that I left a few months ago? Turns out someone created a celebratory blog a couple of days after I left. “Celebratory” as in celebrating my leaving and urging me to stay away. It’s right up there with the forum threads dedicated to how big of a bitch I am.
Can you feel the love? 
Kind of makes me want to return, just to screw with them, whoever they are.
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