The power just went out in Warner-Robins, Georgia and so the Internet is now not functioning in the place where our fellow i-chatter is now located. Lights back on. Well, that was exciting. See what passes for excitement here – pathetic. Oh well. Watched Breaking Bad tonight – episode 4 – and I really wish this show had been on for a couple of seasons so I could watch one after another on DVD. It looks like Walt will be having chemotherapy and cooking more crystal meth. In the preview, Jesse was complaining that it wasn’t as clear as the first batch. Perhaps this is because Walt does not want to have his meth be the same all the time so the cops won’t think it is from the one source. Or maybe I am wrong.

Last night I tuned into AMC and started watching Letters from Iwo Jima – so far, so good – then I remembered why I had not seen it before – it is in Japanese with English subtitles all the way through the movie. I read well and fast, but shoot, it’s a pain in the neck to have to flick your eyes off the actors to read what they are saying for around two hours. Look somewhere else, blink, realize the subtitle is obscured by the scenery in the film and it is all over. I didn’t make it for the two hours; I fell asleep and woke un during the encore presentation. I turned the TV off.

Would it be such a crime to have the dialogue dubbed in – or at least read as in narration? Mr. Eastwood, sayonara.

I think writing thoughts down, just not thinking them, is a good exercise for your brain. At the very least it can be an indicator of mental decline: Whoa, this sentence makes no sense; AmeliaJake is losing it. Of course, you yourself have to notice this if no one reads the damn blog. But that’s another plus for writing; nobody reads this stuff but it looks okay in a nice template and kind of makes you feel that you have done something.

Ideally, you should only write when you have something worth expressing. However, it is fun to see the little posts pop up on the computer screen, so you write about something – anything. That doesn’t make it interesting, but it does make your mind scramble around. This wouldn’t be a problem if something happened everyday to you that people might be curious about: falling off a roof, meeting a wolf, getting your foot caught in a register, meeting the Queen. But here you are in your dull life and so you just get your kicks from putting a noun and a verb together with an adjective and, if you are daring, an adverb. That’s okay. Nobody reads this stuff.

No, I don’t mean her real picture, the ones you see occasionally on her blog, such as the night she went out for date when she was 17. And I don’t mean the one you see on the still CNN screen video. No, I am referring to the little caricature drawing on the upper left sidebar. She looks friendly in that one and happy and cheerful. I don’t get that feeling from her real face. Now, I know this is probably just me, but there it is. And don’t be mad, but I think she looks kinder in the little image.

That’s my mother’s address. When I would call home from college, I had to spell it for the operator: Ship-she-wana. Now if I still called through an operator, they would recognize it immediately because Shipshewana is a huge flea market/auction in Amish County. I knew I should have invested money in the place. As it is, maybe I will reclaim my old address for the anti-panache of it all.

I have an Apple computer; I am typing on it right now. I am going to tell you about my research into Netflix which I have forever identified with $4.99 a month. Well, guess what? At that price you get a limit of two rentals a month and two hours of watching on your PC. In these $4.99 commercials, I kept hearing the word “unlimited”, but that only applies if you pay at least $8.99 a month. There most popular plan is $16.99 per month for three DVD’s at a time, unlimited rentals and unlimited PC viewing of the much small PC available list.

Of course,  you have to have run Windows Vista or some other Windows product.

So, Netflix . . . Flix Off.

With the boost the Internet has given to the interest in genealogy, a lot of people are scrolling through names looking for ancestors. I have done it. Then one day it dawned on me that all those people in the 1880 census book for the county in which I had interest were dead; actually, all the people in the 1880 census were dead. Even the ones listed as being 1/12 years old. That is a lot of dead people. Obviously, I knew generations came and generations went; I don’t think, though, I ever thought too much about the sheer numbers that “everybody” indicates. I’m here now, but I’ll be dead. Everyone living now will one day be dead. It is like shift work; for a while you are young and in first shift, then day shift, then, if an accident or disease hasn’t claimed you, late shift.  Then you’re gone.

It’s not like everyone here is gone tomorrow, but sooner or later, the world will done with us all.

I washed my face and somehow got the sleeve on my turtleneck wet, so now I have it hanging from my shoulder while my arm nestles inside the body of my shirt right next to my body, but sticks out from the wrist so I can type.  As if anyone needed to know that, but every little bit of practice helps my typing.

When I stopped by this site, I noticed that a few people have been stopping in at a post titled something along the lines of sturdy shoes and warm socks. Why is that I asked myself and then I noticed  the short paragraph contained a reference to Valley Forge. So, people who were looking for information on Valley Forge, I apologize for causing you a detour.

I think I’m going to research the cave painting in France now, so I can answer my mother’s questions – she is reading a book that is set in that area and a diver reaches them through an underwater passage. Our question concerns an entrance that does not go underwater, if there is one.

That makes me think of tourism and it fascinates me to think that so many places whose major industry is now tourism once had real day jobs – for instance, Greece.

Well, this is the place that has vampire caskets:

ABC CASKETS FACTORY – LOS ANGELES
Family Owned and Operated Since 1933
1705 N. Indiana Street, Los Angeles, CA 90063

And here’s a picture of  the “Count Dracula” :

And this is what they say:

This solid poplar casket is made primarily for TV and motion pictures. It is stained red mahogany. This type of casket is called a toe-pincher. It is widest at the elbows and narrowest at the feet. Floral beading is placed on the lid and the base molding. The one-piece lid is highly polished. The special gold colored handles are over 50 years old. Other colors and styles can be custom made.

The interior is a full shirr in thick red crepe. It has a full shirr pillow shaped to match the contour of the casket and a full lining.