The opposite of cold dog
We have our first freeze warning of the season tonight, and the wind is positively fierce into the bargain, so Xena’s spending a rare night inside with us. Too bad Evan was already in bed – he’d be delighted to see her. As much as he loves kitties (and he even says “kit-ty!” when he sees one of the cats), he gets so excited and forgets to be gentle. Olivia bears it up to a certain point and runs away; Oberon takes a lot more abuse, probably because he’s bigger and obviously not as “fragile” as Olivia, and will make a token “I’m gonna bite you” gesture before taking off and hiding. (He never actually bites. He just tries to psych the kid out.) With Xena, Evan’s not-so-gentle pats are par for the course. And since he’s learned to say “dog-gie” too, she’s perfectly happy. If he gets too overbearing, she just asks to be let outside – problem solved.
I gave the 30-second track-by-track previews for the Doctor Who series 4 soundtrack a listen today, and I’m much more excited about it than I already was – it’ll certainly be better than the series 3 soundtrack, which was heavy on stuff from Human Nature, which, while it was based on my all-time favorite Doctor Who novel, turned out to be far from my favorite episode. Now, the flipside of that is that there seems to be a notable lack of action music from the Sontaran 2-parter on the series 4 CD – at least if the track samples are anything to go by – including the repeated build-up to (and avoidance of) the nuclear launch, but I’m waiting for the CD itself to see if any of that stuff is tucked away somewhere. You can pretty much bet on a couple of selections from this working their way into what’s looking like it’ll be an epic-length year-end favorite-music podcast. With my recent lucky find of a very, very cheap (i.e. less than $3 – yay eBay) copy of Levinhurst’s House By The Sea album, as well as the final trio of Alan Parsons Project remasters, the Doctor Who CD is the last thing on my music want list for this year. At least soundtrack-wise, this has been a dandy year for music (Lost Season 3, Torchwood, Prince Caspian, Wargames, the Stargate direct-to-DVD movies, and new Indiana Jones and Batman music); I’m not complaining too much on the non-soundtrack front either.
How I made the leap from Evan and the dog to soundtrack music, I have no idea. Which probably means I need sleep.… Read more
Nothing much to report – here’s Evan all dressed up on Sunday (much more so than his daddy, at any rate), complete with a little tie with a velcro dealie at the back. And I wonder…why aren’t all ties like that? What’s the great stigma of the clip-on tie? I could go further and ask why the hell we’re still bothering with this piece of cloth around our necks anyway, but staying for the moment within the bounds of the idea that the necktie just isn’t going to go anywhere anytime soon…why is there this unspoken demand that it has to be a real tie, tied in a real knot? Is this some arcane test of skill whose use has far outlived its shelf life? Dammit, I want ties that close at the back of the neck with velcro. Then again, I also love ties that look like a big multicolored fish. Formal menswear and I do not play nice together – just be glad I’m clothed at all, society. That’s all I gotta say. … 
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Yesterday, Othello’s vet asked me to allow her to keep him and do an autopsy, more or less – she, like me, was disturbed by how suddenly we lost him, and wanted to find out what was going on.
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