Skating and Martians and really really cold weather

Today was cold. I don't think I really need to go further than that. I had good intentions of going to the CVS writing marathon at Panera. I must have just missed a bus at the Metro station. After a bitterly cold wait for nearly an hour, I opted to go home to warmth as I was having trouble feeling hands, toes and face. Very frustrating experience.

I came home to work on laundry and watch US Nationals. My skating comments are over in mad_season. I was mostly happy with the results with a few disappointing exceptions. Worlds should be interesting anyway. They're being held in Dortmund, Germany this year.

And clearly I am my father's daughter. The NASA channel is one of his favorite ones, watching mission briefings and Q&A sessions all the time. I've replaced my desktop background with one of Mars. I read an interesting article about the science fiction reaction to the Mars exploration. sailormac had mentioned that she hadn't seen any signs of little men in Roman armor wandering around the surface. And alas, I didn't seen any fuzzy red aliens with sneakers either... poor Gossamer.

The Eyes Have It

Sunday was extremely dull. I didn't get a thing done, especially not writing wise. I mostly watched some football. With the Redskins out, I can watch and cheer for whoever. When the season comes back around, then I can return to old form. I haven't seen Washington this excited about the upcoming season since... hmm... ever? I cheered for the Colts, but was sad to see Green Bay lose in OT. I remember a time when I would have been horrified to find myself rooting for an AFC team, mostly because of a certain Raiders Super Bowl in my memory.

I found myself engrossed in A&E's Biography on Paul Newman. Now there is someone who has aged extremely well like a fine old wine. Sometimes Newman seemed so serious and other times they'd show him cracking jokes, like the footage from "Towering Inferno" with him and Steve McQueen.

Then A&E did a "behind the scenes" feature on "Return of the King". They messed with my head quite nicely by showing an orc strumming his sword like an air banjo and singing "Rainbow Connection". And of course Orlando Bloom talking about "elf envy" because the movies seemed to have the running joke that humans were these smelly muddy sorts while the elves were these pristine perfectly coiffed sorts.