I need better TV

Yeah, I can't believe it either, Carter: I'm watching "I Survived a Japanese Gameshow." It's all your fault that "Eureka" doesn't start its new season until Tuesday.

I'm about to run out of "Dr. Who" next week. Besides the storylines, I'm going to miss David Tennant's hair and smile. (No smile in this photo, but the hair looks good and look -- Martha Jones! She's my alter ego.)
All that hair makes me forget he's got a Nutcracker nose/chin combo. Sometimes I even wonder what it'd be like to kiss an alien with two hearts. (It's not cheating if he's a Time Lord.) But at least Captain Jack and the Torchwood team will appear in the finale. Ah, Captain Jack: very hot, very prone to flirting with you and your brother.

At least "Stargate Atlantis" has started up again. The evil producers got rid of Sam and replaced her with... WOOLSEY. The asskickin' brainiac gets the boot, and the paper-pusher takes her place. Come on! He wasn't even a doctor on Star Trek: Voyager -- he was a hologram of a doctor! He can't lead a team off-world!

"Pushing Daisies" survived the writer's strike, but it doesn't come back until October first. (Good thing we don't watch much network TV anymore. It's mostly BBC America, SciFi, HBO On Demand and a few exceptions such as "My Name is Earl" and "ER.")

This should tell you something about my status as pregnant mother of a small boy who's rationing babysitter services: The closest we come to club-hopping is Saturday nights with "The Graham Norton Show." We watch other people drink and have clever conversation.

He cooks, he supports my habit -- AND he makes art for me!

Okay, this is a major first. You know The Husband is my personal Art Enabler. He's encouraged me to go to both Art & Soul last year, and Artfest this year. He waited patiently until I got up the nerve to sell my notebooks on Etsy, and at the holiday craft fair at work. He thinks my stuff is cool.

But this time he went beyond... and made art for me!

Sci-Fi Bride, by The Husband

As I said in the last post, we're both big sci-fi/fantasy fans. So The Husband created this piece to express our shared lurve, and love of sci-fi. The collage was created using six public domain images, plus one of our wedding photos. (I bought me some hair for the occasion.)

I look like the Creator and Destroyer of Worlds. With a veil and a pretty little bouquet. Cool.

He also made and framed another poster, this one to celebrate our adoration of "Little Britain". (Warning: major time-suck -- do not visit that site unless you've got time and privacy.) He used to hate the "We are Ladies" sketch, in which the two comedians play not-very-convincing transvestites who love Victorian-era dresses. But he found more public domain art of men in Victorian drag, so I guess The Husband couldn't resist.

Yes, he's wonderful. No, you can't borrow him.

Happy fifth anniversary, sweetie

Don't stand too close. It'll take a chunk outta ya.
I might've mentioned in an earlier post that I make art for The Husband each year for our anniversary. It's our fifth, so the traditional gift is made of wood. But really, who wants a wooden gift that hasn't been altered? Then, under the influence of Jane Wynn's Altered Curiosities, I realized I had the foundation of this anniversary's gift.

The Husband and I share a love of Terry Pratchett's Discworld. One of the recurring "characters" is The Luggage, as described on Wikipedia:

It is a large chest made of sapient pearwood (a magical, intelligent plant which is nearly extinct, impervious to magic, and only grows in a few places outside the Agatean Empire, generally on sites of very old magic). It can produce hundreds of little legs protruding from its underside and can move very fast if the need arises. It has been described as "half suitcase, half homicidal maniac."

So I started with a balsa wood box I'd gotten for another project. I painted it with bronze paint, then patina.
I cut "teeth" into the top and bottom, then painted the teeth off-white, then added more patina over the tooth paint. (Really should've cut them before I painted the box, but I was so excited about trying the patina!)

Oh, and then the Dremel cutting wheel comes out! Oh, yeah. There is nothing like the smell of friction-melted, amputated toy soldier legs.
Except for friction-melted, amputated fake Barbie legs, of course.

And you can add McDonald's action figurine legs for variety. I attached them with epoxy putty from the hardware store.
Again, try not to jump the gun with the paint... like I did... again. You'll need to attach one row of legs, then paint, then attach another row. Otherwise you'll need a really skinny paintbrush to get around the corners to paint everything.
I lined the inside with a textured red paper, and then collaged the tags.
The Husband immediately put it up on the mantle. He knew what I was making, but he still liked the way it came out. Oh, but you have to see the art he made for me!

Whoa, where's the fire?

No major flames in this episode, but it did get a little smoky in the village Hiro was expecting the samurai hero to save. Poor guy... he is just so unprepared for reality, in this time or in the past. But I love watching his face as he copes.

Speaking of faces, what's up with Claire's new "friend," in her face and then later floating outside her window... yeeeugghhhh. Well, he got the self-important "Robots vs. Aliens" metaphor for his fellow students right. And the first thing most teen boys who could fly would do is spy on the nearest potentially-naked girl. But he's. Still. Creepy. This is the guy I would've once mistaken for being Intense and Intriguing. Oh no no no -- there's a felony stalking conviction in this boy's future.

And now, Dead Black People. Hey, someone has to be the second banana who tells the important characters to "go on without me:"
Poor D.L. They actually made him say, "Go on without me" to Niki and Micah. Micah's gonna have to pick up the slack. 'Course, he'll have to work four times as hard, since he's half black and there are two Dead Black People's shoes to fill. (And why is NBC keeping their pictures up on the website? They're DEAD.)

I think Adrian Pasdar is hot, but geez, he's got a big freakin' head, and that beard only makes it more obvious. (Sorry, Natalie Maines.) Well, big-head peoples look better on TV. Can't wait to find out how he and Peter got back to Earth in their respective places.

I love, love, LOVE Mama Petrelli -- people should be scared of middle-aged women. They know things. How else does your mom know how to piss you off without saying a word? (As the comedian said, parents know how to push your buttons because they installed them.)

... And now on to Artfest...

I set off a firestorm, I set off a firestorm, neener neener neener...

It's just fine to swap classes as long as you update the changes with Teesha-may-she-live-forever. She said so herself, on the Yahoo! group and in response to an email I sent to her. (Not gonna show you.)

But Lord... the people who rose to Teesha's defense after all her hard work assigning the classes to everyone. "You should go with the flow and take what the Universe gives you." And then the people who retorted that it was okay to swap. "Hello, taking a trade offered is also 'going with the flow.' " Oy. Finally one of my future instructors, Bee Shay, suggested a trading database so that this madness could continue (or not) without annoying the hell out of everyone else who couldn't give a rat's ass about it.

I guess this is what happens when you have a virtual room full of opinionated women who have six whole months to obsess over something.

Ticktickticktick....

Can you hear it?

When last we saw our hero, Hiro was running his ass off trying to get away from the 18th-century samurai! At least, that's what I remember from the end of the last episode. Can't wait to see what happens now that we've saved the cheerleader. I like Hayden; she gives her character some depth in the midst of the teen angst. But I hope saving the cheerleader, saving the world includes getting rid of those damn hair extensions. And did you recognize Noah Gray-Cabey as brain-on-two-legs Franklin from "My Wife and Kids?" I can see what he's going to look like as an adult now. If he's not careful, those glossy curls are going to turn into a pimp 'do faster than you can say "Bitch better have my money."

Wow, there is just WAY too much going on on each webpage for "Heroes." But I guess that's what the kids these days.

See you after The Big Shew...