Why I Like the Disney Channel

Up until a couple nights ago, I had only really recorded things (shows, movies, etc) from the Disney Channel on my new VCR/DVD-Recorder. But then I wanted to record The Mask of Zorro onto DVD, so that I'd have it. I only had The Legend of Zorro, since my parents were the ones with the first movie before I moved.

Mask was on ABC Family a couple nights ago, and I wanted to record it without the commercials, so I watched it while it was recording.

Oh my gosh, it took FOREVER!

See, on the Disney Channel, no matter what you're watching, there's never more than 3 or 4 commercial breaks. And for movies, the first commercial never comes before the first half-hour is up. But ABC Family, while it was showing The Mask of Zorro, had commercials every ten minutes! It made a 2 hour and 10 minute movie into THREE HOURS! That just made me all frustrated, because I couldn't even really go downstairs and do something else between commercial breaks--heck, I couldn't even read in my bedroom at that time, because a commercial break could come up while I was in the middle of a sentence!

GAH. That just made me appreciate the Disney Channel even more than I already do because of its good, clean, fun shows and movies.

Last night, Patrick J. came over to watch Smallville, and I forgot that I wanted to record A Cinderella Story (which was on ABC Family) while it was on, so I didn't get that movie.

I don't know whether to be bummed that I missed getting a copy of the movie for myself, or relieved that I won't have to worry about sitting through the commercials when I re-copy it later to VHS and then back to DVD without commercials, like I'm going to have to do with my recording of The Day After Tomorrow.

Before he left, Patrick and I got to talking about books and things, and he told me how he would try to read 7 or 8 books at a time (from the library) and then get all burned-out on reading. I told him how I tried that a couple Spring Breaks ago with the Dragonriders of Pern series and reading 8 books in 8 days. That experience pretty much ruined me for reading more than two books in a row. And I still can't read for hours on end like I used to be able to--I have to take a break from minutes to days in length between groups of 3 or 4 chapters before I pick a book up again.

Anyway, I told Patrick about the Song of Ice and Fire cycle by George R. R. Martin, and he thought it sounded cool, so I let him borrow my copy of A Game of Thrones. If he likes it, then I'll probably let him borrow the other books in the series as he gets to them. As soon as LibraryThing is back up and running, I'm going to make a note in the tags for GoT that Patrick is currently borrowing it.

2 down, 48 to go . . .

I finally finished Anna Karenina yesterday, around 3pm. WHEW!

The reason it took me so long to read it (two months, the longest it's ever taken me to read anything except The Book of Mormon--including the 2 weeks it took for Little Women) is because I sort of had to psyche myself up to read it every time I wanted to sit down and do it.

See, the whole book is set in 19th century Russia, and is about people in the Russian aristocracy. The customs, clothing, cities, and even the characters' thoughts were all strange to me, so to understand even a little bit of it, I had to concentrate really hard on what I was reading. So, I couldn't really read before bed or anything like that--I had to be mentally awake. That severely cut down the amount of time I could read, and I couldn't read more than 9 or 10 chapters at a time for the same reason--it all just started to run together after a while.

I posted a review of the book at LibraryThing which is more of a rant than a real review, but read it if you like.

I've got 48 books left now, to reach the 50-book challenge posted a couple months ago on the Lois & Clark Fanfic Message Board. So, yesterday I decided that for the next book, I was going to choose one that was shorter, and more modern. That way, it wouldn't require too much concentration and I could read it faster. Not to mention, my brain needs a rest from all that cerebral-ness.

Around midnight last night, I realized that I hadn't yet chosen a book, and since it was so late and I just wanted to go to sleep, I didn't go down to the computer to use LibraryThing to figure out what I had. I just chose a book that I could see just by looking at the shelves upstairs.

I decided I was going to re-read my Harry Potter books. That way, I'll have books 3-8 out of 50 in the bag, and I'll be prepared when book 7 comes out on July 21 (two days before my brithday, yay!).

Ah, Sunday

I forgot to put some paper in my bag so that I could write down the scriptures again, and I got there too late to get a program, so I didn't write any down. However, I did manage to write a quote on one of the blank pages at the beginning of my hymnal. I'll type it in later.

The two talks during sacrament meeting were about modesty of the women (and young women) of the stake, and about the relationship between husbands and wives. Sunday school was a lesson on the Beattitudes from the Sermon on the Mount, and the teacher focused on Matthew chapter 5 and 3 Nephi chapter 12.

In Relief Society, the lesson was on prayer.

My roommate, Kayla's mom and two of her brothers, Garret (6) and Nathan (8) are staying at our house for a few days. Her grandma is also in town, but she's staying at Kayla's uncle's house. Garret and Nathan are adorable, and Sister Miller and her mother taught me a new card game called 13. We also played The Settlers of Catan a couple of times this weekend.

Dinner tonight was Indonesian Chicken--YUM! I taught Jason how to play 13, and then we played a bunch of other games like Checkers, Backgammon, and Mormon Trivia. We both managed to get six spires, but we had both been in and out of the "cloud" a few times by nine pm, so the last time I got the question wrong, we decided to just call it a tie since Jason had to go to bed and I had to go home.

Here's the quote I liked from sacrament meeting:

Good friends should never embarrass you, demean you, or exploit you.
Neither should your clothing.

~Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

The only problem I see with that is that many people have been wearing demeaning clothing for so long, they're no longer embarrassed by it. Otherwise, it's a great guide for modesty.

The Target Thing

Heather,

If only it were that simple.

The target I got is actually a 3-inch-thick square of hard foam. It's not paper or anything like it, so it can't really be pinned to anything. It's got two metal legs that you're supposed to stick into the sides and then lean the target with the ends of the legs on the ground.

I just need some sandbags or bricks or something to keep the legs in place, and to put in front of/behind the target itself, so that the force of the arrows going into the target (it's a compound bow, so it's pretty powerful) doesn't knock the target over.

On a side note: the only thing I don't like about BlogSpot is that there isn't a "reply to the comments" feature, like on LiveJournal. I either have to post a comment to my own entry, or make a new entry if I want to answer comments posted by other people.

Busy Week

Monday was the usual craziness--I had to get my allergy shots after work, and then I had to wait until Jen R. was done with the machines so that I could do my laundry. I didn't get dry jeans until Tuesday.

After work on Tuesday, I stopped off at Fox's Sport & Bait store to get my bow re-strung. It was pretty cool. The guy there had this machine with four wheel things on it. Two of the wheels went on the outside of the bow, at the ends, and then the other two went in the middle of the bow, right where the arms join the handle. The two wheels in the middle got pushed down as the guy turned a crank, and that bent the bow enough so that he could get the string into place.

I also bought half-a-dozen Venture carbon arrows, and got to watch while the guy cut them to the right length (26 inches, as opposed to the 29-inch arrows I got before) and put in the inserts to hold the tips. I bought tips, of course, and a target.

It was about 6:30 when I got home, so I got some dinner and sat on the computer for a while. Then, a couple sisters from the Relief Society presidency came to welcome me to the ward and give me a list of all the sisters in the ward.

Yesterday, I actually managed to get home on time and managed to get in two rounds of archery practice before I felt hungry enough for dinner. The target kept jumping around whenever it was hit though--I think I'll grab a few bricks from my parents' back yard to help keep the target steady next time.

A while later, Anna showed up so that I could look at and beta read the next chapter of her story. But first, we went to Auto Zone so she could buy some new wiper blades, and to Wal-Mart so she could get a few other things.

When I was almost done beta reading the chapter, Kimba called Anna asking if she wanted to go to Kohls and get some new shirts. So, Kimba came over, and the three of us then went to Kohls. I tried on about five shirts, but none of them looked right, so I ended up just getting a new set of black sheets, so that I could put them on my bed when I wash the red ones.

Tonight, Smallville is a new episode, so I'm going to watch that. Other than taping two episodes of Phil of the Future though, I don't have much else to do.

Maybe I'll actually take some time and type up one or two of those fanfics I've been meaning to write. Or I could use the time to get even closer to the end of Anna Karenina, because seriously, it's taken almost two months for me to get through the first six parts, and that's just ridiculous!

It's Official!

As of about ten minutes ago, I am now officially moved in!


Seriously. All the bins are un-packed, my books are on the shelves and catalogued, and everything has its place--even my bow, which I need Dad to re-string for me.

According to LibraryThing.com, I have 514 books total. I know I'm missing at least four though, so it's more like 518. I'm missing the Chronicles trilogy of DragonLance, and Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. And, yes, I'm certain I had them before.

I promised Patrick J. that I'd take pictures once I got my books all shelved and such, so here they are. The picture to the left is the white book case in the first-floor TV room.

The picture to the right is the book case on the right-hand side of the third-floor nook, and the final one is the case on the left-hand side.


On the top shelf of each book case are only either Harry Potter books or books written by Orson Scott Card. The Orson Scott Card books are there because he's my favorite author, and the Harry Potter books are there because they're pretty much the only series with books that are all the same size that would fit on the top shelf of the right-hand book case.

For those interested, the "cloud" of words on the right-hand side of my main blog page will take you to my "library" of books at LibraryThing.com. It's a great online book database, and it's got all these nifty quirks and perks.

It's free for up to 200 books if you catalogue your own. After that, a yearly membership is $10, and a lifetime membership is $25. I decided that a lifetime membership was definitely worth it to be able to keep track of all of my books without hassle, so I forked over the $25 last week.

Snowed In . . . Yet AGAIN

I got snowed in again today. That's all I've got to say about that.

Over the last week and two days, I've managed to get five more bins over (actually, Uncle Andy brought them over for me last Sunday, because my car was at Fitzgerald for a recall). Today, I just finished cataloguing the last of the books in those five bins. I even shelved 3 bins' worth of books! I've got my own, special location codes that I use at LibraryThing in my tags.

I've added a widget at the side of my blog so that people can see a list of random authors whose books I have.

Gabe at work told me about this place called Demonoid.com where people can download stuff using BitTorrent. He had to e-mail me an invitation to Demonoid, so I gave him my e-mail address. We've been e-mailing back and forth, and we both agree that a certain other person we work with is a bit creepy. Talking in the office at work is kinda weird--it's just so quiet, and it kind of feels like talking is taboo, even though it's not.

Yesterday, I went to lunch at Beans, Bagels & More with Gabe. It felt good to actually TALK in the middle of the day like that. We might go bowling on Saturday.

Gabe's cool and all, but I hope he's not expecting much more than friendship. I mean, he's fun to talk to, and we have a lot of the same interests, but I don't have any physical attraction to him at all. And although that's not the first (or even second, third, fourth or fifth) thing I look for in a guy, for anything more than friendship, it's still pretty important.

My bow is still at my parents' house, and so are the last two bins of books. I'll probably get them all on Sunday.

I should probably shovel the sidewalk and the back path today if I'm going to get out tomorrow morning, but my back hurts from lugging the bins up the stairs so that I could catalogue and shelve them.

Bored Again

My VCR/DVD player was kind of on the fritz--whenever I taped something on the VCR, it would always have places where the sound cut out, the picture was fuzzy, the video sped up for no reason, etc. So, I bought a new one. Only this time, I got a VCR/DVD-Recorder.

I decided to start over with the Phil of the Future taping, so that I'd get a better quality. It's a good thing that imdb.com lists all of the episodes, plus two weeks' worth of future air dates, or I'd be screwed until my TVGuide subscription got processed.

Eventually, I'm going to have to re-tape Kim Possible: So the Drama, A Valentine Carol, and Zenon: The Zequel too . . . but none of them are playing anytime in the next two weeks. I'll also have to get The Lizzie McGuire Movie. I found out today though that I can buy Kim Possible: So the Drama AND the other KP movie: Kim Possible: A Stitch in Time from Amazon, but I can't buy the others. Bummer. *shrug* It's not like I'm actually going to buy them anyway.

I also want a copy of Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century and the third Zenon movie (I'm pretty sure there is a third one), even though I haven't seen that one yet.

I need to check my DVD of Hook to make sure I got all of it. I'm pretty sure I did, but I want to be sure because the DVD says it holds 2 hours worth of video at standard speed, but when the movie (and the two "making of" things afterward) were finished, it said that the time was 2 hours and 40-some minutes. I'm not sure what speed it was recorded at though. If I didn't get all of it, I'll just fast-forward (on the tape) to the place where it stopped recording (on the DVD), put a 2nd DVD into my new recorder, and let it roll.

Gabe at work sent me an invitation to this one file-sharing program/group which sounds like it's a lot better than LimeWire. I'll have to check it out later.

While I was at Wal*Mart last night, I also bought butter (I was out), a 16-piece set of dishes, and a 20-piece flatware set. I got sick of washing one each of my two bowls and two spoons every time I had to eat breakfast.

Sheesh! It's only 3:30, and I've been out of stuff to do since noon!

Snowed in, Again

It snowed on Sunday, so Monday I was snowed in again. I did shovel the back way on Sunday though, so I could get out really easily today. Everything melted pretty fast this time--hopefully, we won't have any big March snow storms.

I think the whole Girls' Camp trip is pretty much off now, since I've had to take another day's worth of paid vacation yesterday. Ah well, at least I'll still be able to afford SEFF (or LAFF).

Saturday, I copied Sister Act and Hook to DVD--I had my dad's old copied-from-TV VHSs of those two movies. It took three tries to get Hook. The first time, Kayla and Cassie and Jason O. stopped it shortly after I started, and I didn't get RW discs, only recordables, so I had to throw that disc out. The second time, I forgot to rewind the tape back to the beginning before I started recording, but the third time, I got everything just right.

Since it snowed on Sunday, I didn't go to my parents' house for dinner. I think I had a bologna and cheese sandwich with grapes on the side instead--but it's been two days, so I can't remember if that was Sunday's dinner, or Saturday's lunch.

Also due to not going to dinner on Sunday, Anna hasn't had a chance to look at the car yet.

She did come over Saturday night just to say "Hi," and to give me a few "non-chocolate-chip" cookies, but it was dark by the time she got to my place. Non-chocolate-chip cookies are not to be confused with sugar cookies--they're two completely different recipes.

Saturday Plans

Tomorrow, I plan to transfer a few movies I taped from my tapes to DVDs--using my roommate's VCR/DVD-R machine. Sunday, after church and stuff, is the usual dinner at my parents' house.

This week, I'll probably be able to take another bin or two to my new place to un-pack, since the snow has melted enough not to be hard and slippery ice. And even if it is slippery, I can now stomp a hole in it to get my footing.

Another twist is that I'll have to have Anna (my younger-younger sister) look at my car before it gets dark on Sunday.

It seems that, in all the commotion trying to get it out of my driveway during the last week or so, I must've scraped it on the ice-hardened snow, so now there's a huge (i.e. about 3 inches tall X 7 inches wide X 1/8 inch deep) gash in the paint on the part underneath the passenger-side door. I discovered it this morning as I was leaving for work.

I need her to either a) tell me what to do about it (Anna's an aspiring mechanic/auto-body worker), or b) fix it for me--just not on Sunday. If she can't do either one, I'll ask Dad.

He may not be a mechanic (aspiring or otherwise), but he HAS worked on his own cars to make sure they can pass inspection and stuff before.

If Dad doesn't know, then I guess I'll have to take it to the shop. GAH.