Coping

I had a whole other post in mind for today, but came across some information that I think everyone should have access to in these troubled economic times. As I've said before, I don't want to call this a recession because it's really a depression. If you don't believe me, read up on what happened during the Great Depression. We're currently missing the dust bowl, but that's the only major difference between what's happening now and the Great Depression.

Anyway, I found a whole website devoted to dealing with the current depression. It's called Recession Wire, and the particular post I started with was this one, about how to deal with being laid off. Some of the information seems to apply to people who have lost a job, and anyone else who needs some extra income. Check out the link for Discounts for the Unemployed. At the bottom of the list, "Government Money for Your New Career" seems like a winner, but only contains some very general information, with no starting point for where to look, and no links to more information. 

And I just found another one of their Just-Laid-Off Checklists. This particular one is less about concrete steps you can do to make some money, and more about how to deal with the emotional impact of a lay off or being fired. And believe me, this part is every bit as important as making more money.

Each of those posts has a list of related posts at the bottom of the page, so there's a lot of information there.

If you belong to a subscription service like Google Reader, it might be worthwhile to add them to your list of blogs to read.

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I don't know if I mentioned this on my blog, but there's a sweepstakes currently happening on Twitter, and today is the last day to enter (moved up from the 10th). The final prizes will be awarded tomorrow at 10 am Eastern Daylinght Savings Time (I think). They are/were giving away 10 MacBook Pros, one a day. But they made such problems for Twitter that they've decided to give all the remaining ones out tomorrow. So, if you have a Twitter account, check here for more information.

And while I'm on the topic of something for nothing, check out the Family Dollar 50 Days of Giveaways. It's possible to win a car or an extremely large screen TV as well as many more prizes. And if you enter and don't win, it makes a very sad sound.

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I ended up my weekend pretty late last night after having spent most of Sunday watching movies on TV and knitting. Unfortunately for the knitting part, I noticed late in the day that I'd dropped a stitch early in the day, and it had ruuuuunnnnn! I'm a big one for fixing mistakes like that, but this was such a disaster that I wound up frogging almost everything I did yesterday and starting over almost from scratch.

The movie watching was fun, though. I saw: Live Once, Die Twice; The Avengers; and Independence Day.

Live Once, Die Twice was a good thriller to watch once. Unlike some movies that I want to see over and over, it was pretty much finished when it was over, but it was an enjoyable one-time shot.

The Avengers tried hard, but it had a lot to live up to, and just didn't manage to succeed. In the New Avengers, Joanna Lumbly wasn't Diana Rigg, but she was good, and she had Patrick MacNee to work with. But neither of the stars made me care about them or like them very much. I enjoyed the supporting cast much more than the stars, Eileen Atkins as Alice, a machine gun toting little old lady agent was the hit of the movie. And Jim Broadbent made an excellent Mother. I was especially interested in him because he'll be playing Professor Slughorn in the new Half Blood Prince movie. 

I guess Independence Day doesn't really need a review because everyone must've seen it by now.

Off the topic of movies, but still in a science fiction theme, don't forget that Warehouse 13 will be premiering on what will become (tomorrow) the SyFy Channel. This premise has the capacity for total failure or completly fabulous. I'm hoping for fabulous. And I'm prepared for a slow start. SG-1 was OK when it started, but it took a little while before it really hit it's stride. So did Babylon 5, one of the best thing that's ever been on TV. Blakes 7, however hit the ground running!

Well, my DVR is full, and I need to catch up on the knitting I flubbed yesterday, so I'm going to run.

Have a great week!

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Addition:

I found this great article about a newly-found black hole that's different from all the others, and I thought you might enjoy it.

Happy Craft Month!

March is craft month, as all the advertising sent to me has made perfectly clear. So, do some crafting in celebration, and don't forget to check those sales! Most of the craft stores are having special sales, and this is your chance to cash in on them.

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A brand-new episode of Reaper is back on TV tonight! I like Reaper, and I'm glad it's back, but if I had a choice, there is a long list of programs I'd much rather see back, such as The Dresden Files, The Middleman, Firefly, Blake's 7, Babylon 5, Red Dwarf, Probe, and lots more. Oh, well, we take what we can get.

There will also be a rerun of The Mentalist. I'd like to see some new episodes, but I'm very grateful that they're rerunning them. So many channels are showing a series, and then it disappears. I'd like the chance to watch them again and to catch up on ones that I've missed (such as the entire Middleman series, which Comcast managed to show entirely without closed captioning). Comcast is so inept!

The best thing on tonight will be an episode of The Universe on the History Channel (I think) about alternate universes. I haven't seen an episode of this series that I didn't like, but this is my favorite.

So, check it out and have a fun evening!

The Prisoner

I woke up this morning and turned on my phone, which promptly told me I had a text message. Holly wanted to be sure I knew that Ricardo Montalban had died yesterday. For Star Trek fans, he played Khan in the original series and in the movie The Wrath of Khan. He played every part with such dignity and verve. He will be missed.

I had some more sad news this morning when I checked Stuff on TV, a blog about stuff on TV. The particular post I'm talking about is the one where he says that Patrick McGoohan died. His post says it all.

For me, The Prisoner was on at a time in my life when I lived in a complex remarkably similar to Portmerion, while living through some strange and scary times in my own life that lead my co-workers to call my home "The Village" and call me "Mrs. Peel." 

My village was a fun place to live, but the events that lead to my nickname are the stuff of nightmares, and I'm glad they're over. I've wanted to go to Portmerion ever since the series, though.

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On other TV topics, the Lost series shown last night was fabulous! It was the last three episodes (apparently) of the fourth season, shown in preparation for the premier, which will be next Wednesday night. Check local schedules.

There were explanations of the action run across the bottom of the screen. Some were obvious, but some were valuable insights that I probably would have missed the first time around if I had seen these before. I hope you got to see it, even if you've seen these episodes before.

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On the home TV front, I have finally (after three or four days of requesting this) gotten Comcast to agree to send me an itemized account of what was charged to me and what they think I paid. They charge at the beginning of the month for the month of TV you're about to get, and I'm reluctant to pay up front for the upcoming month if they're going to cut off my service anyway because I seriously doubt that I'd ever get it back, not to mention that they've shorted me about a month of service already. I base that last statement on the fact that they were completely off the air for more than two weeks while they continued to expect full payment, and they've had so many malfunctions that have made various channels unusable for lengths of time up to four months, and have caused me to have to spend so many hours on my cell phone that I was charged an extra $72 for it, and made two full-day trips to their offices before they would straighten it all out.

They sound like they're doing me some great favor to send me that information, but they said that they will not freeze my account while it's getting straightened out, and I may be subject to having my cable turned off. I told them that if it's turned off, it will never be turned on again.

For all I know, somebody ordered cable TV with everything at another address, and told Comcast they were me,  and I'm getting billed for something else. 

I don't know. I don't know what's wrong, and more importantly, what's wrong with them.

Oh, and by the way, Google has put up ads for Comcast because I keep mentioning it. Their cable internet connection is good, although overpriced, but I would avoid their cable TV like the plague!

The good news on all this is that I got my DVD recorder hooked up yesterday, and have gotten some of the stuff recorded that I don't want to lose when/if my DVR goes back. The most important item was the pilot for The Dresden Files. The SciFi Channel showed it one time nearly a year ago. You can buy the DVD, but it doesn't include the pilot, which has only been shown one time, ever. It's not for sale or I would buy it, and so would a lot of other people. The Dresden Files has a large, loyal fanbase, and I'm sure that they could make money on a DVD of the pilot (Storm Front). 

Storm Front was eventually condensed from the original 2 hour pilot to a one hour episode for the series, but they cut out a lot. They also changed a lot for the series, too. In the pilot, Bob is just like in the books. He's just a talking skull with lights in the eyes. I don't know which way I like him better.

I've also been telling Holly about Blink, which is the Doctor Who episode with the weeping angels, and I got that on a disk. The other big thing is The Middleman episodes I have on the DVR. That's not out on DVD and I haven't even been able to find out if they ever plan to release it on DVD, and I really love it, so I want to get the copies that Comcast didn't ruin off there and onto DVDs next.

The stuff I really want to copy is stuff I would buy if it was available, but it's NOT, so I really don't see the problem. 

It makes me wish I had kept my Blake's 7 videotapes to copy. That link will take you to a place on Amazon where you can sign up to have your name given to the copyright holders to let them know that you want to buy the DVD, and to get Amazon to send you an email and let you know if it ever becomes available in NTSC format (will play in the US). You can get copies to watch in PAL format, but unless you buy a PAL DVD player and TV set, you can't watch it.

For those of you who don't know about Blake's 7, it was a science fiction TV show from England. They had a very small budget, so when they ran across the deck of a space ship, you could hear the wooden floors resound, and most of the special effects were terrible. But the stories were some of the best that have ever been on TV anywhere. You can find more about the series on Wikipedia here. This is something I would also put on DVD for myself if it were on TV again since it's not possible to buy it in playable form.

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I want to get some more stuff off of the DVR today since I'm afraid that Comcast will shut off my service and I won't be able to do it later.

Since Comcast may turn off my internet connection (it's six of one and half a dozen of another) but I'll say:

Be seeing you!