BBC News | Health | How stress triggers heart attack

BBC News | Health | Cocoa 'cuts heart disease risk'

The eagles have landed!

Well, actually, they've hatched. Take a peek: Bald Eagle Cam. There are two eagle chicks being looked after by momma eagle.

Mind games

Johari Window - the good.

Nohari Window - the not so good.

Will wonders never cease?

I walked into the house tonight and had to step outside to make sure I was at the right one. The Prodigal Son and his friend cleaned - and I mean cleaned - the house. They didn't wash the windows but they scrubbed the floors, the kitchen counters, the bathroom. They even scrubbed the mud room where the cats' litter boxes are. It was like walking into someone else's home . . . until I looked behind the sofa. The Prodigal's dirty laundry is still piled behind the sofa in the living room. But, hey, this is the cleanest this house has been in a really, really long time. I'm an exhausted but happy camper.

I know I've been scarce

But work is a real bear right now. My boss has quit and his last day is the middle of next week and I'm trying to catch up on all sorts of things that I've not had any responsibility for just so I can fill the void until his replacement is hired. Needless to say, I've been very busy so I'm very tired when I get home. I don't spend a lot of time on the computer. I'm not really working on anything crafty. I just sort of sit in front of the TV like a zombie until it's time to go to bed. I can't even tell you what I've been watching.

And things won't improve for quite a while. Aside from my boss quitting, things are actually starting to gear up at work so I was busy from that to start off with. Gearing up should last through June, maybe July. And then things should settle down and I should be able to breathe again.

I've just sent the Prodigal Son off to find food. I'm going to park in front of the boob tube and read. There's really nothing on tonight that I want to have on as background noise.

Snagged from nipperknits

One of those lists of must see movies. There are some omissions, but still intersting.

[ ] Citizen Kane
[X] Casablanca
[X] The Godfather
[X] The Godfather Part 2
[X] Gone with the Wind
[X] Lawrence of Arabia
[X] The Wizard of Oz
[X] The Graduate
[ ] On the Waterfront
[X] Schindler's List
[X] Singing in the Rain
[X] Ben-Hur

Total: 10

[X] Seven Samurai
[X] Magnificent Seven
[X] Three Amigos
[ ] Yojimbo
[X] Fist Full of Dollars
[ ] Last Man Standing
[ ] Hidden Fortress
[X] Star Wars
[X] Empire Strikes Back
[X] Return of the Jedi
[X] Ran
[ ] Dreams
[X] Rashomon

Total: 9

[ ] Psycho
[X] Vertigo
[X] North by Northwest
[X] The Birds
[X] Rear Window
[X] Dial M for Murder

Total: 5

[X] Blood Simple
[X] Raising Arizona
[X] Millers Crossing
[X] Barton Fink
[X] Hudsucker Proxy
[X] Fargo
[X] Big Lebowski
[X] O Brother Where Art Thou?

Total: 8

[X] Alien
[X] Blade Runner
[X] Legend
[X] Black Rain
[X] Thelma & Louise
[X] Black Hawk Down
[X] Gladiator

Total: 7

[X] Time Bandits
[X] Brazil
[X] The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
[X] The Fisher King
[X] Twelve Monkeys
[X] Seven
[X] Fight Club
[X] Primal Fear
[ ] American History X

Total: 8

[X] Spartacus
[X] Lolita
[X] Dr. Strangelove
[ ] Point for knowing the full title of Dr. Strangelove
[X] 2001: A Space Odyssey
[X] Clockwork Orange
[X] The Shining
[X] Full Metal Jacket

Total: 7

[X] The Pianist
[X] Rosemary's Baby
[X] China Town
[ ] Easy Rider
[X] One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Total: 4

[X] Unforgiven
[X] The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
[X] The Searchers
[X] Rio Bravo
[X] Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
[ ] Assault on Precinct 13 (2005)

Total: 5

[X] Halloween
[ ] Nightmare on Elm Street
[ ] Friday the 13th
[ ] Chainsaw Massacre
[ ] The Exorcist
[X] Silence of the Lambs

Total: 2

[X] Pee-wee's Big Adventure
[X] Beetle Juice
[X] Batman
[X] Edward Scissor Hands
[X] Ed Wood
[X] Mars Attacks!

Total: 6

[ ] Reservoir Dogs
[X] Pulp Fiction
[X] Kill Bill: Vol 1
[X] Kill Bill: Vol 2
[X] Sin City
[ ] Four Rooms
[ ] From Dusk Till Dawn
[X] Desperado
[ ] El Mariachi

Total: 5

[ ] Gates of Heaven
[ ] Vernon, Florida
[ ] The Thin Blue Line
[ ] Fast, Cheap & Out of Control
[ ] Mr. Death
[ ] The Fog of War

Total: 0

[X] LOTR: The Fellowship of the Rings
[X] LOTR: The Two Towers
[X] LOTR: Return of the King
[ ] Forgotten Silver
[X] Heavenly Creatures
[ ] Braindead aka Dead Alive
[ ] Meet the Feebles
[ ] Bad Taste

Total: 4

[X] King Kong (1933)
[X] King Kong (1976)
[ ] King Kong (2005)

Total: 2

[X] The Sixth Sense
[X] Unbreakable
[X] Signs
[X] The Village

Total: 4

[ ] Pi
[ ] Requiem for a Dream
[X] Memento
[ ] Insomnia
[X] Batman Begins
[ ] Following
[X] The Virgin Suicides
[X] Lost in Translation
[X] Being John Malkovich
[ ] Adaptation
[ ] Eternal Sunshine or the Spotless Mind

Total: 5

[X] Better Off Dead
[X] Sixteen Candles
[X] The Breakfast Club
[X] Weird Science
[X] Ferris Beuller's Day Off
[X] Planes, Trains & Automobiles
[X] The Goonies
[X] Stand by Me

Total: 8

[X] The Shawshank Redemption
[X] The Green Mile

Total: 2

[X] Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
[X] Princess Bride
[X] This is Spinal Tap
[X] The Jerk
[X] Ghost Busters
[X] Animal House
[X] Blues Brothers
[X] Little Shop of Horrors

Total: 8

[X] Princess Mononoke
[ ] My Neighbor Totoro
[X] Spirited Away
[ ] Howl's Moving Castle
[ ] Akira
[ ] Steamboy
[ ] Ghost in the Shell

Total: 2

[X] Waiting for Guffman
[X] Best in Show
[X] A Mighty Wind

Total: 3

[ ] Night of the Living Dead
[ ] Dawn of the Dead (1978)
[ ] Day of the Dead
[ ] Land of the Dead
[X] Shawn of the Dead
[X] 28 days later

Total: 2

[ ] Bottle Rocket
[X] Rushmore
[ ] Royal Tenenbaums
[ ] The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
[ ] Snatch
[ ] Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
[ ] Trainspotting
[ ] Shallow Grave

Total: 1

[ ] Delicatessen
[X] Amilie
[ ] City of Lost Children
[X] Run Lola Run
[X] La Femme Nikita
[X] The Professional
[X] The Fifth Element

Total: 5

[ ] Mean Streets
[X] Taxi Driver
[ ] Raging Bull
[X] Last Temptation of Christ
[X] Goodfellas
[ ] Casino

Total: 3

[X] M
[ ] Metropolis
[ ] Nosferatu
[X] Diabolique
[X] Usual Suspects
[X] Double Indemnity
[X] The Third Man
[X] Manchurian Candidate (1962)
[X] Cool Hand Luke

Total: 7

[X] Raiders of the Lost Ark
[X] Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
[X] Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
[X] Jurassic Park
[ ] Color Purple
[X] Saving Private Ryan
[X] E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
[ ] Jaws

Total: 6

[X] Die Hard
[X] Lethal Weapon
[X] Mad Max
[X] The Road Warrior
[X] Braveheart
[X] Man Without a Face
[ ] Passion of the Christ

Total: 6

GRAND TOTAL: 144/205

What's your total?

Which crew would I fit in with best?

You scored as SG-1 (Stargate). You are versatile and diverse in your thinking. You have an open mind to that which seems highly unlikely and accept it with a bit of humor. Now if only aliens would stop trying to take over your body. Serenity (Firefly) 75% SG-1 (Stargate) 75% Deep Space Nine (Star Trek) 75% Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda) 69% Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) 63% FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files) 63% Moya (Farscape) 63% Millennium Falcon (Star Wars) 56% Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix) 56% Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica) 56% Enterprise D (Star Trek) 44% Bebop (Cowboy Bebop) 38% Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics) created with QuizFarm.com

BBC News | Americas | Cheney shooting delay under fire

So, not only did Cheney shoot a man, but it turns out he didn't have a license to hunt attorneys to begin with. ~ sigh ~

What candy am I?

discover what candy you are @ quiz me

Moon-Flash

by Patricia A. McKillip

If you're a McKillip fan and have not read Moon-Flash, you've missed out on one of the best primitive culture meets modern culture stories written. Tagged as science fiction, this book stands with the best of McKillip's fantasy. The two stories in this book, Moon-Flash and The Moon and the Face tell the story of a young woman wanting to find the end of the world and the young man who follows her. It is a tale of leaving home and of coming home again.

The book gets two huge thumbs up from me.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Dark matter comes out of the cold

Blah commercials

The Super Bowl has been on for about an hour and so far the commercials have been pretty blah. There has been one commercial that made me smile - the one with Leonard Nimoy for Aleve - and one that actually made me laugh - the one with the doctors pronouncing the fly dead for AmeriQuest (I think). So far, the ones I really dislike are the Pepsi commercials.

Oh, my god, I'm old

I'm sitting here watching the Super Bowl - the 40th one - and I was reminded just how ancient I really am. At the start of the show, the MVPs for prior Super Bowls were brought out and introduced. When they introduced Joe Namath, the MVP for Super Bowl III, I was suddenly reminded that I'd watched that game with my dad and that I'd rooted for the Jets just to be contrary. I actually don't remember anything about that game except the Jets won. I'm not even sure who the Jets were playing against, but I think it might have been the Cowboys 'cause dad was - and is - a Cowboys fan.

Neither for autobiography

"Discretion is not the better part of biography." -- Lytton Strachey

Thought for the day

"A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices." -- Edward R. Murrow

The shadow knows

Punxsutawney Phil popped out of his hole and got a gander at his shadow. That means there will be six more weeks of winter.

Gosh, I just don't know how much longer I can stand these sunshiny days with temperatures in the 70s.

;D

This is a taxing time

I finally mailed my amended 2004 tax return today. I actually remembered it when I stopped at the post office to check mail. I filed my 2005 return electronically on Sunday and I got the acceptance notice Monday. The refund should hit my bank account in a couple of weeks.