Must be the weather...

Currently Reading: Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman

So much to blog about and no idea where to start. I'm feeling rather indecisive today. In fact, I just typed all this in a chat window with CC. Must be the weather. That's my theory anyway. We've gone a few days without seeing the sun much. Might be the problem.

Lots and lots going on here despite my inability to focus on anything in particular. As you know, I had the week off. Enjoyed that. Unfortunately I now face that feeling you get when your vacation is over and you have to go back to work. It's a sort of positive and negative one isn't it? I mean, yeah it'll be nice to get back to a routine and see the folks at work and play around with the dogs and learn how to be a groomer but at the same time, sure was pretty damn fun not having to wake up until I was done sleeping and to not have to get out of bed until I was ready to.

Did a bit of shopping last week. I finally got an overcoat on Friday. Didn't realize I needed one until just recently. You see, if CC and I go out to a fancy restaurant or to the symphony or any of the shows at the performing arts center and we decide to dress up, even if it's just khakis and a jacket, well, I can't just pull out my Mickey Mouse coat or my Incredibles jacket can I? I need a coat that's more fitting. Fortunately this time of year is great for coat buying. Everyone is putting them on clearance so they can drag out the bathing suits. Let's face it, stores always stock what you're not going to need for 3 months. That's why you can never find a swimsuit in July.

Anyway, last year at about this time I picked up a great leather jacket. This year I picked up a great overcoat. It's not fancy or anything like that. It's your basic black trench coat but it looks great worn with a suit. Looks like something out of the 40's I suppose. I showed it to CC and she said, "Now all you need is a Fedora." And she's right. Looks good though and it's very comfortable and warm. Even better, the lining zips out for when you don't need quite as much insulation, like in the spring or fall. Best part, it was about 75% off :-) I even picked up a scarf and pair of gloves to go with it :-)

I also got the rest of my grooming tools ordered (they arrived today). So now I've got all the tools, I just need to learn how to use them properly. I'm sure I'll need to pick up one or two things along the way though. I haven't found a really good grooming book (one with good descriptions on the fancy cuts, etc.) and there are always new tools coming out that make the job a little easier. In fact, right now my boss has her eye on a vacuum that hooks directly to your clippers which A. keeps them WAY cooler than normal and B. sucks up all the hair before it hits the ground. No mess, no cleaning.

Our weather is very English today. If someone were playing a soundtrack it would probably be classical. It's too cold for this to be jazz weather. And the sky is just this flat gray matte. Makes me sleepy just looking at it :-)

I finally managed to win an autograph auction over on eBay. Up until yesterday I really sucked at those. What normally happens is that I make my bid then someone comes in right before the auction closes and buys if for like a dollar more than I bid. It's called sniping. Yesterday though, I won an autographed picture of Gong Li. We'll add that to our Asian Cinema theme wall that we're sort of working on. Actually it more just happened on its own. Anyway, that picture will go up with the Zhang Ziyi and the Chow Yun Fat and the posters of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Memoirs of a Geisha, and the soon to be added Curse of the Golden Flower. I didn't win the one for the Michelle Yeoh though. Someone came in and bought that one in the last minute. Ah well, at least I won ONE of them.

Speaking of Curse of the Golden Flower, we saw it on Saturday. Our whole weekend was one big cultural experience I guess you'd say. You can read about it on CC's blog. Anyway, loved the movie. Love all of Zhang Yimou's movies really. They don't always have happy endings. In fact, they SELDOM have happy endings, but they're very well done. After seeing Curse, I said to CC, it's too bad the Chinese and English didn't meet sooner. Imagine what Shakespear could have done with THIS sort of material. It's true. Lots of people dying, lots of people sleeping around. All the great elements of a Shakespearian tragedy. I'd like to think it'll win many Oscars, especially for costume and cinematography but I doubt it will. The Academy never seems to want to reward foreign films for anything other than being a good foreign film.

Something rather funny came up this weekend. CC and I were sitting down to lunch on Saturday and she noticed that all the things she wanted to do were old people things. Sunday it was even worse. Let's go over the list. Ok, symphony was FILLED with old people. Yes, there were a few younger folks but they were either clearly music students or kids dragged along against their will. Then after that, lunch at a cafeteria. MAJOR old folks there. Yes, we did see the movie but that was my choice rather than CC's. And while just about everyone in the theater was either asian or accompanied by an asian, the age range was pretty broad. Sunday was brunch at the museum and then walking the museum. Oh yeah, old folks galore. Now, in all fairness, towards mid-afternoon many more young people showed up. Mostly they were academic types, art students, that sort of thing (I told CC I felt out of place because I wasn't wearing a turtle-neck). So it wasn't ENTIRELY old people but there was a definite old people feeling about the place :-)

And now it's Monday. Last day before heading back to work. And it's gray outside, and cold and raining.

Hey, great TV on this weekend wasn't there! Kind of annoying at one point though. I hate it when two shows I want to watch are on opposite each other. That hasn't happened in a LONG time which made it even worse. Last night 24 started it's new season with Fox running two hours of it on Sunday and another two hours tonight. Jack is back from China and naturally all hell is breaking loose. At one point it caught me by surprise. We'd just flipped the channel over and what's on the screen? Something about a bomb going off in San Antonio. "A bomb went off in San Antonio? Seriously?" No, just part of the show. I guess they started a couple minutes early or I was slow in switching over.

Last night was also the start of the new season of Rome. Love that show too. Last season pretty much showed everything leading up to and including Julius Caesar's death. Last night we started the aftermath. Not sure how much ground it'll cover. Probably up through the whole Antony and Cleopatra bit.

Katya is dreaming about something good. Her tail is wagging VERY fast. She's not twitching her feet though so I guess she's not chasing something. Just wagging that tail in her sleep. She's such a happy dog :-)

Hello 2007

Currently Reading: Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex: White Maze by Junichi Fujisaku

And so here we are, 2007. Can't say that it feels much different from 2006. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I made the same observation last year at this time too. But you know, last year at this time I had just started working at Petco so there were some pretty big changes on the horizon for me.

This year's changes don't appear to be quite as drastic. I'll be starting groomer training in a few weeks but fortunately that will happen at my current store. The only big change will be in going from a mostly night schedule to a mostly day schedule. It'll take some time to get used to but once I've adjusted, I'll be ok with that. I'll actually be home on a regular basis during prime time for TV. Hell I can actually watch my favorite shows when they first air instead of catching the replays on cable. That'll be a nice change.

I switched over to the new Blogger format tonight. Can't say I've noticed a difference but that's mostly because I'm lazy. See, the real changes for the new blogger assume that you'll be changing the format of your template. They have new templates and there are some pretty neat little tools you can use. The problem is that if I wanted to do that, I'd have to save a copy of my current template and then do a lot of pasting into the new one so I'd have all those videos on the sidebar and my reading list. I'll get around to doing that but it's not something I'm going to rush to switch over.

Boxed up Christmas this morning. CC and I pretty much follow the rule that the decorations stay up until after New Years but then they really need to be taken down. Looking around the living room it seems a bit empty. CC says it looks cleaner now and I suppose that's true. It's not nearly as cluttered in here as it was before and it feels more open. But you know, I kinda miss having all that stuff up on the mantle and the tree. We had everything decorated for almost a month so I guess it'll take a few days to get used to the old layout.

We've been doing some after Christmas shopping on eBay. Ok, some of it was before Christmas too. CC mentioned in her blog that she's already bought autographed pictures of several people. I've put in a bid on a movie poster for Curse of the Golden Flower. There are a few other odds and ends that I've got on order as well. I'm expecting two from eBay, one from Amazon and another from HBO. Who knows, maybe I'll get some of these things on Wednesday. We haven't had any mail delivery since Saturday. Bet the mailbox is going to be stuffed tomorrow.

Still finding it hard to go out to the movies. Every time we see previews for a movie that looks like it might be good, we find out that all the best material was shown in the preview. And while there have been some decent films released in the past month, there isn't anything showing right now that we just HAVE to rush out and see. We had the same problem last year as well. We'd see several movies in a row then nothing for months. To emphasize the point, we haven't bought many dvd's lately. The movies on sale now are the same ones we didn't want to see when they were in theaters. Well, it's a new year, maybe we'll get something better. I'm not holding my breath though :-)