June 2008 Archives

Patsy and I have started watching In Plain Sight. Score one for advertising. The clips they've been showing since January did the trick for us. Mary McCormack and Frederick Weller play US Marshals working in the witness protection program. The stories are fairly standard. It's the characters that make the show work. Frederick Weller's droll Marshall Mann is reason enough to watch. Really fun stuff. It's also good to see Lesley Ann Warren. I know she's done lots of other things but I still remember her in Cinderella.

So the old lawn mower is dead. Not really but I have no desire to put any more money into it. I found one online that doesn't quite break the bank and I ordered it. It comes with free shipping but someone has to be home to sign for it. No problem. That can be arranged. A few days go by and there's no email or contact of any kind with tracking info. I call the company. I'm told it will be a few more days and that someone will call before delivery. I'm also told someone has to be home to help the driver unload. Excuse me. The plan was for Patsy to be home and this item weighs nearly 600 pounds. She'll be of little use to the driver. I wouldn't be of much use, either. In my best heavy lifting days (Long in the past), 600 pounds would have been a struggle for just one other person and myself. The operator says, "Here's what I'll do. I'll request a truck with a lift gate. There's no extra charge for this service." If that's true, I wonder why they use any other type of service. I wonder how often they get to their destination with heavy items they can't unload.

Well, only because Charlotte sez. And that's a half hour I'll never get back. Thanks, Charlotte. :)

66 days until football season ...

Quote of the Day

He got those kids off the boat. He's in a better place now.

Eric Stone

Blog of the day here.

Quote from said blog: "Sleep with one eye open"

Cool pic. My Casey does that, too. -Rob

Anyone who has ever posted a comment at the Original CrabAppleLane Blog is familiar with it. I was never able to get a handle on it and it was very discouraging. The old server had something to do with it. I am fairly certain of that. It started happening here on the new server as well but only to the CrabAppleLane Blog. None of the other blogs here were encountering it. After exhaustive troubleshooting by me and by Movable Type's support team, we've all agreed that we don't know what causes it. Personally, I think it's something in the content like a piece of code out of place or " or > left out but I'll never know. The Original CrabAppleLane Blog will remain up as an archive and I'll start fresh on this one. The comment approval nonsense won't be required here. I was only doing that because I thought it was better than the internal server error message that commenters would have gotten instead. I'll be switching the domain pointers next weekend and I can do away with the current URL. Will be good to have CrabAppleLane in the URL again. On to other stuff.

Patsy and I went to see Get Smart yesterday. I was somewhat worried that it would suffer comparison to the original TV series. The filmmakers avoided that trap and I am happy to say that my concerns were unfounded. The film pays homage to the series in bits and pieces but the film is quite a bit different and stands alone just fine. That's definitely a good thing. Today's primary movie-going demographic probably never saw the series. Steve Carell is not bad as Maxwell Smart and Anne Hathaway is fabulous as 99 although she wasn't as demure as Barbara Feldon was in the series. That's OK by me. To be perfectly honest, the series was cheesy fun even by 1960s standards. The film is 2008 high tech fun. We liked it much better than we thought we would.

I offer one from the CrabAppleLane backyard today. I was outside all of five minutes when a horsefly bit me. Summertime in Louisiana.

Texas Star Hibiscus at CrabAppleLane - June 29, 2008

67 days until football season ...

Quote of the Day

No win's embarrassing

Blake DeWitt, Los Angeles Dodgers

Blog of the day here.

Quote from said blog: "and that I will without hesitation overrule the consensus if I feel like it, and that some people will be permitted to vote twice or even three times if I feel like it, and that I may in fact not feel like posting either of them because ew, drama, I nevertheless put it to you, most cherished and beloved and dreadfully sexy commenters:"