TV Stuff:

• Man, how awesome is Survivor Stephanie? She’s tough and she’s optimistic and she eats bird fetuses and she’s got great abs and she Dutch-braids her own hair. (Mental note: Update goals in WW notebook to read “Become Stephenie.”) I feel like if I knew her in real life I’d probably hate her because we’d both be so competitive, but I love watching her kick butt on the show. Well, “kick butt” in the sense of “trying really hard in the face of relentless defeat.” Oh, and let us never speak of the bird fetuses again, because I’m still cringing. That is my ultimate, ULTIMATE nightmare. The Snook kept laughing at my horror. I was like, “You don’t understand. The notion of a Very Small Animal being in my hand scares the bejesus out of me, so the thought of having one in my mouth…” HORROR.
• I can’t believe I didn’t mention this, but what’s up with Days changing Belles on me TWICE IN TWO WEEKS? I never even realized how much I liked the first actress, but man, Belle #2 brought it home big time. She sucked. She was a bad actress, she had no chemistry with either Philip or Shawn, and – it feels shallow to admit it but hey, I’m talking about a soap here – she was really unattractive. A total minger. Within the space of one episode my interest in that storyline dropped about 500%. I started actively rooting for Jan to complete Shawn’s brainwashing and win him over. But just as soon as I’d resigned myself to the situation… they changed her again! Belle #3 is definitely prettier and less whiny, but she’s still no Original Belle. She has sort of a pinched, anorexic look about her. Gain five pounds, Belle #3, and you could vault to the top of my Favorite Belle List! And now I’m back to hating crazy psycho Jan.
• As far as I can tell it hasn’t aired in the US yet, so you Americans simply MUST watch Operatunity when it comes on PBS. It’s a documentary shot a few years ago in England where non-professional singers vied to be chosen to perform with the English National Opera. (“Opera Idol,” if you will.) I absolutely loved it, even though I totally guessed the ultimate winners really early. I still cried when they won though. There were just all these normal people who had a gift – albeit one with not a lot of practical use today – and most of them had given up so much of their dreams along the way. The big finalé performance was on Sunday and I’ve got it taped to watch this weekend. Can’t wait…
• We’re still gamely watching each episode of Desperate Housewives, but it’s really not catching on with either me or the Snook. Every now and then we halfheartedly make a prediction about the mystery, but mostly we just don’t care. I don’t predict we’ll be TiFauxing it much longer.
• Lost, on the other hand, has us and most of Australia hooked. We actually missed the last episode (since it conflicted with Operatunity) but it seems several the Snook’s co-workers were able to burn copies for him. I’m dying to figure out who whacked Sayid when he was triangulating the signal.
• Oh, and in case you haven’t visited our house in the last month and been personally subjected to a viewing, the Snook and I are officially obsessed with Arrested Development. We’ve watched the entire Series 1 DVDs (Thank you Kel!), like, three times now. I must admit, my favorite character of all is Buster. I say “Hey, Hermano!” at least once a day. Unfortunately we’re going to have to wait til Season 2 airs here, I think. The Snook’s been nosing around on the torrent sites and apparently only the more recent episodes are available, and we don’t want to watch them out of order. Damn!

*wink* I’m looking for a copy of WWCalc, if, uh, anybody has one. *rubs nose meaningfully*

Oh my god. EXTREME CUTENESS ALERT! The Silly Sleeping Pose Olympics. It’s all pictures people have sent in of their cats sleeping in weird positions. We make fun of Dr. Amy Jones for this stuff all the time. She likes to splay on her back with her legs spread out in a very lewd fashion. She’s a bit of an Aussie hornbag, I think. (Link courtesy of John.)

The Wisdom of Gadgetgirl: “No matter the question, metallic shoes are NOT the answer.” So true. I’d also add this: “Especially if you’re already wearing a metallic dress.” Call it the Mischa Barton Corollary of Metallic Fugliness.

I’m only sorry we got married too soon to put the Triumph the Insult Comic Talking Doll on our Bridal Registry. That is GENIUS. (Link courtesy of Max.)

Oh, and guess what else I did on the weekend? I went to my first ever Knitter’s Guild meeting. Yes, I’m joining an honest-to-goodness guild, like I’m some medieval blacksmith or something. The Inner City group seems pretty cool and I didn’t get too much shit for being a yarn store sell-out…

Okay, so I had my first official weigh-in today… and I lost two kilos! Dude, that’s like FIVE POUNDS. That’s insane. I was like, “Are you joking? That’s a lot, right?” And the weigher said it was, but that it was pretty normal and that my body would probably adjust soon so the rate would slow down. I’m still stoked though. I don’t want to sound like a dork, but I really think the “meeting” aspect is what’s going to get me through this. I always liked school stuff. For example, our leader was up there tonight talking about affirmations and visualization, and she kept asking people for examples. But nobody would talk! So I kept saying stuff, because if we’re all just going to sit there staring at each other then it’s just a waste of my time. Right? I might as well get something out of it. I don’t care if they think I’m a kiss-ass; I’m not paying $15/week to screw around. So I asked questions and made comments and generally spoke about 500% more than anybody else. Oh, and since you’re all waiting with breathless anticipation… I got my first Bravo star! She asked if anybody’d made any positive lifestyle changes and I said that I’d walked to work every day for the past week (which is 30 minutes), and on my day off I even walked all the way from the city to Newtown (which took me, like, an hour). Lemme tell ya, it feels pretty damn good to have that star sitting on my little “Progress Trail.”

Overall, I feel pretty positive about how it’s going. I went to our health fund on Friday to see if they offered a rebate and was surprised to discover that I’m eligible for $200 bucks back! So I went ahead and pre-paid for four months’ worth of meetings. (I also splurged on a couple of the “point tracking” books.) Other than that, emotionally Friday was the lowest point of the week. I just felt hungry and irritable all day long. It’s also my day off alone so I didn’t have anybody to talk to and keep me from thinking negative thoughts. I perked up on Saturday though, mostly because I’d saved up enough points to have our usual pancakes and bacon. The Snook’s being amazingly supportive about the whole enterprise, helping me figure out ways to make our favorite foods lower in fat and not complaining too badly about the switch away from “all meat, all the time.” He’s even agreed to my ultimate goal attainment reward: a trip to Warner Brothers Movie World on the Gold Coast!* Only eighteen kilos more to go…

* I totally got that idea from an adolescent fiction book that – strangely enough – I keep thinking about this week. It’s about a fat kid who gets to go to Disney World when he loses the weight at the end. He gets stuck with two pounds to go and gets mad but then discovers that he’s grown two inches, so he still qualifies to go. I can’t remember the title though. Can you? It definitely wasn’t Blubber, since the protagonist of that one is a girl. Hmmm…

Did you know that the formula for calculating Weight Watchers “Points” is actually protected by patent? On one hand that means that WW has a habit of litigating against folks who write Points calculators… but on the other, it means that the formula is publicly available on the patent documents and you can write your own. Which I am doing now.

Oh my God. And I thought having a leech on my foot was bad!

How excitement! A customer just called to ask whether it was going to be difficult to get into the shop today, as apparently there’s a movie – Superman! – filming down York Street. I had no idea! I’m going to sneak down at lunch and see if I can get a photo.

Update: Here they are! The two crappiest photos ever. (I only had my mobile and I didn’t want to risk getting too close for fear that I’d get, like, busted or something. I don’t know. I was paranoid.) They’d set up a big crane at Wynyard Station, not far from Krispy Kreme. It was holding a big roof-like structure over the area by the bus stops beside the Menzies Hotel. There were hundreds of people milling around, sitting on the grass and standing at the fences watching. This first shot is from up top in the little park-like area, looking down towards where all the lights were. At one point I heard a voice over a loudspeaker call “Action!” and then I caught a glimpse of a crowd of people start walking around that street. And then “Cut.” Hollywood in action is pretty boring, to tell you the truth. The second shot is down on Wynyard Street looking at the big crane thing. I didn’t see anybody that looked very important, though there were two swanky big motorhomes parked down one of the side streets.

Stupid anecdote: I was sorta disappointed not to see Lois Lane because I read in a magazine yesterday that she was going to be played by Mischa Barton from The O.C., and I had a crazy vision that maybe she’d be wearing yet another big ugly hat and I could yell something amusing at her. But then I got home and looked it up and it turns out that it isn’t her, it’s Kate Bosworth. Damn. That’s what I get for gleaning celebrity information from nine-month-old magazines at the doctor’s office.