Last night as I was just getting ready to leave work, one of the faculty came in to tell me and my co-worker to come look out the window in his office, as a hawk had just caught a pigeon and was chowing down on it atop a kiosk out in the outdoor amphitheater my building surrounds. So we did, and it was. I ran back to my office and grabbed a camera and got a video and a few still shots. The quality isn't the best, I was fairly far away shooting through a dirty window, but I am still pretty amazed that this was taking place right outside my office!

After I got home I checked my birding books to ID the type of hawk, and I'm pretty sure it's a Cooper's Hawk though it could be a Sharp-Shinned, they look a lot alike. I think this is a Coopers because it doesn't have the rusty cheek-feathers that the Sharp-Shinned seem to have.

Warning! These shots may be a bit graphic for those of you who don't like to see things being eaten by other things.

( cut for the delicate )

There's a new version of Discover's 'The World is Awesome' commercial out -- and it's purt' near as cool as the first one. :)



Enjoy!

Wow, time gets away from me. I haven't posted in quite a while! We had two feet of snow last Wednesday/Thursday, but it was mostly gone by Saturday. Which does not explain why we had NO trick or treaters at all. Even with our porch light on and our decorations out. It makes me sad that the tradition appears to have mostly died out. Everyone's too scared they'll get a razor blade or poison in their candy, I guess, even though those things are pretty much urban legends. Here's a blurry cellphone pic of the jack-o-lantern my son and I carved:

You get a gold star if you recognize the source. ;D

I have a bunch of new pix up on my Flickr stream, mostly birds, including goldfinches, various woodpeckers, a hummingbird, a white-breasted nuthatch, and a bunch of photos of my thrilling back yard. Here's a preview of downy woodpecker:

and a goldfinch:

Hey, SPN fen-- or maybe I should say RHPS fen. Tell me if I'm wrong or right here- I'm having an argument with the kidunit about someone we see in the preview for next week's ep, "The Curious Case of Dean Winchester." That is ( slight spoiler behind the cut ) isn't it?

In case you want to see for yourself, here's a blurry Youtube copy of the preview because there isn't an official one up yet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HST0jF2ldrM

So, childhood idols are dropping like flies, I'm in debt up to my eyeballs, they've cut a position at work so I have to do twice as much work, the kidunit needs to see the dentist but no longer has dental insurance... the list goes on and on.

But hey, I haven't caught H1N1 (yet), my mom is doing well, and there's new Fringe tonight! I can immerse myself in fantasy-land and pretend all is right with the world.

I really thought we were past this sort of crap.

Gah.

eta: More.

New Project Runway tomorrow! Ok, well, sort of, it's an All-Star Challenge, but still, the first new one in forever! Stupid lawsuits ::grumbke::.

ETA: Oh, there's also a new REAL one after the challenge! Cooool!

Have I really not updated since July 23? Wow.

Has anyone else caught Defying Gravity? It's a Canadian-made SciFi show-- a little soapy but interesting so far. ABC seems to be trying to kill it, as I haven't seen a single promo for it. Ron Livingston, who played Nixon in Band of Brothers is in it, as is Cristina Cox (Blood Ties) and Laura Harris (who was the pixieish blonde in Women's Murder Club). And the guy who played Sherrif Andy a couple of eps of Eureka ago is also in it. You can stream it at ABC's website or on Hulu (I hear).

Our front porch and back patio have been sinking for years. This year, the only year since we moved in (1991) that we decided to plant some flowers around the back patio, the landlord decided to have the concrete leveled. That involved pouring concrete over the old porch and patio. Even after we specifically asked the concrete contractors to be careful with the plants, it was apparently too much trouble to do so. They stepped on them, knelt on them, dropped rubble on them, broke them, and in some cases poured concrete all over them. We are very not happy campers. I think they ruined or almost ruined over $100 dollars worth of plants. That might not be much to them, but it is to us! Here's one of the few plants that survived and seems to be doing okay, it's a mandevilla:


And here's our slightly-the-worse-for-wear clematis jackmanii (I keep wondering if it's named after Hugh...)


Speaking of things flying, we've had some new visitors to the feeders. Pix behind the cut. ( Read more... )

Wow, I don't post as much when I don't have bird news to share. Hm, what's new? My mom had a scare last weekend, she fainted in church and they called an ambulance and took her to the emergency room. Fortunately she's fine, they don't really know what caused the syncopy (that term always sounds so darned festive for just meaning 'fainting'!) but suspect a combination of factors including heat, low sodium, and hyperventilation.

I guess all the fun birds are off nesting, I'm mostly seeing finches, sparrows, starlings and grackles (#!@!!) at the feeder at the moment. Occasionally a jay or a flicker, but that's about it. The very fat suet-feeder-raiding squirrel hasn't been seen in some time, I suspect our fox may have gotten him, either that, or he had heart-failure from all the suet he'd snarfed. ;D Despite our having planted a bunch of flowers purported to attract hummingbirds to feeders, we've only seen two hummingbirds so far. They seem confused by the 'flying saucer' style feeder I have, so I think I may need to replace it with a more traditional one. We also are having to fight slugs and snails in our tiny flower garden for the first time I can remember. It's been weirdly humid here this summer. Beer didn't seem to be working, so I ended up getting a product that's basically granulated iron phosphate which apparently keels the snails and slugs ded, but does not harm other animals or plants. So far it seems to be working.

I've been trying some new recipes. Last night I made some hummus, combining 3 different recipes and it came out amazingly well, very lemony-garlicky-spicy, so I'm pimping the recipe behind the cut.( Read more... )

Monday I made a (new to me) curry- a red "Madras" style one which includes potatoes and chickpeas. I used chicken for the protein and it was tasty, but think it would be better with beef or lamb. If anyone wants that recipe, I can post it after I get home, just let me know. It includes a recipe for the Madras curry paste used to make it, which makes enough for a small jar to use on other occasions.

We humans, everywhere we go, we leave trash behind. Even on the moon. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter got photos of footprints and equipment left on the moon by the Apollo 14 mission. Hey, at least now maybe those conspiracy theorists who think the moon landings were faked will STFU!

Though more likely they'll just say the photos were 'shopped. :/

Or, was. Goodnight, Walter, we'll miss you. He was 'the news' for several generations, really. What a shame he didn't quite make it to the 40th anniversary of the lunar landing. I still remember how excited he sounded. It was the first time I ever heard him sound anything but calm and soothing.

Man, it's been forever since I posted! Between moving offices at work, losing one of my full-time staff to budget cuts, having a brief but very welcome vacation, a family gathering, and just the vagaries of living, I haven't had much time for online stuff until just recently, and I kept thinking I needed to post something and not doing it. So, now I am.

For those of you playing the home game, the young Flickers have left the nest. Yay for this year's brood making it all the way to graduation! We've been trying to attract some hummingbirds in back by planting flowers, but so far have only had one brief sighting.

bluster came to visit for a few days, we hung around a lot having actual conversations, went to a movie (The Proposal, very cute rom-com), went up to ardent_muses' place and watched some NASCAR (I just tagged along, they're the fans) and we had dinner at this new Moroccan restaurant called Tangier one night. It was a blast. The food was great (especially the b'stilla!), and they gave us honorary Fezes to wear and complimentary glasses of arak which was strong enough to strip paint.

On the TV front, The Closer and Saving Grace are good, and Leverage is about to start up again! Yay! Also, Eureka started tonight, which made me v.v. happy! Fun ep! Watched Warehouse 13 the other night-- I might give it another shot. The first hour was slow but it picked up in the second. I don't buy the chick as a comfort-eater, though. She's way too skinny. ;D (Yes, I know that's a false generalization.) I've been watching Top Chef Masters, which is pretty fun even if it's not exactly what I want out of Top Chef. Next Food Network Star is predictably bizarre, though, which makes up for missing some of that drama on Top Chef. ;D Finally, just finished watching the last ep of this series of Torchwood, and I have to say, ( not really spoilery but possibly in the comments... )

I won't inflict all the pix on you, but if any of you are interested in the ongoing saga of my yard, I have more photos of flickers and other birds and wildlife up on my Flickr photostream here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/52219858@N00/ and I have some videos of the flickers up on Youtube:

Dad feeds the girl: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yO1qKlcnYE

Boy Flicker sticks out his tongue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14IlkZJRyO4
(I've nicknamed him Gene Simmons!)

Mom & Dad Squabble: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P99sssPFs1g

Mom vs. the Squirrel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URbRKBvz1No

I've been catching up on series/season two of Ashes to Ashes, and there's something that's driving me nuts. I can't remember why Gene started calling Alex "Bolly" or "Bolls." I looked on Wikipedia and there's nothing about it there. Someone who watches it, please refresh my memory?

I was reading news on CNN earlier and ran across this article:

(CNN) -- Mr. Ravenblade, Mr. Xtreme, Dark Guardian and hundreds of others. Some with elaborate costumes, others with haphazardly stitched outfits, they are appearing on city streets worldwide watching over the populace like Superman watched over Metropolis and Batman over Gotham City...

I wonder if any of the folks involved have read Watchmen?

I thought my fellow "grammar-nazis" might appreciate this blog entry from Cakewrecks:

I am an American English teacher at a big elementary school not far from Seoul, South Korea. My Korean coworkers heard me laughing so hard that they came over to my desk to investigate. Clever as I am, I told them I was working on my next lesson, which I wasn't... until I realized that I WAS! ...

(You should definitely read the rest of the entry. And peruse Cakewrecks while you're at it.)

We got a couple of new loaner cameras for work (faculty and grad students often need them for archival work) so I borrowed one to check it out so I can answer basic questions about it. So now I am going to inflict photos on you! Cut to spare your journals.

( Our Fox )

( Northern Flicker )

( Finches )

After my grumptastic morning, celli just made my day by posting a link to this news story about how Tim Gunn is now going to be a Marvel comic-book character! How awesome is that?

How hard is it to tell 'smoked salmon cream cheese' from 'sundried tomato cream cheese'? I mean, really. ::sigh:: I'm eating it because it's all I have for breakfast but I really am not fond of sundried tomato cream cheese.

At least the coffee's good.

I'm grumpy. They finally told my receptionist-minion that she was being RIFFed on Thursday last week. Needless to say this week hasn't exactly been fun. We may have her through the end of June, but only if she doesn't manage to find another job before that, but I can't really wish that on her, and it's understandably hard for her to concentrate on work right now.

On top of looking forward to doing one and a half jobs instead of one, I am also now looking forward to an office move. We're losing one of the offices which make up our main office suite so they can give it to a faculty member. Which means we have to move everything in my office one door over into what is now the workroom, and then move my remaining minion into what's now my office. I'm trying to be positive about all this but it's tough. I am taking advantage of the move to ruthlessly get rid of a lot of crap that's been in my file cabinets for decades, inherited from previous holders of my job. I figure if I haven't needed to look at it since I've worked here, it can safely be tossed.

I am irrationally stoked about the news that a UFO remake might be coming to the big screen. I loved that show in all its cheesy glory. I bought it on DVD last year and rewatched the whole thing, and was surprised how much better the storylines were than I remembered, though the costumes were just as whack as I recalled. (If you want to see pix of a few of them in all their eye-searing glory go here.)