calliopes_pen

A Cyberman Swimming Cap.

Peter Jackson is currently resting after undergoing emergency surgery for a perforated ulcer. Best wishes and a speedy recovery to him, since I know something about what that’s like.

Comic Con registration opens February 5th.

Den of Geek looks back at The Monster Squad.

A Doctor Who clip filmed just for the National Television Awards. Even if you’re like me, and have never seen most of the people who cameo before in your life, it’s still funny.

According to the local news, today is the 2nd anniversary of the ice storm. Anyone who wants to get a taste of it can watch this Youtube video, which goes so far as to film down my street around 1:02. You don’t get the side with my house—meaning you don’t get to see the tree split down the middle and shattered.

To see my house in the aftermath, just look back at this old post. This Youtube video has better footage of a guy starting from the opposite end of Lone Oak Road, and then driving to a house that was not very far from us. It is the best view of things. The house he’s at? At 7:23, you can just make out a house across from them--there was a 101 year old lady (she's since passed away, but it wasn't because of this) living there at that moment. She was trapped in her bed, slowly freezing to death, unable to reach her wheelchair or get help, and too weak to move. The lady at the house he’s at is the one who remembered her. That’s most likely where she was, since he couldn’t get her when he knocked.

First, some nostalgia. Who remembers Please Don’t Eat The Pictures? The only thing I really remember about it is that there was an Egyptian prince that had his heart weighed, and everyone was trapped in a museum. Well, I found it on Youtube if anyone is interested in watching it. Part 1 is here. Parts 2-8 can be found on this page.

Thanks to the Dalek found in a pond article, there’s now a fic challenge related to it.

For those interested, stubbleupdate and rabican agreed to an interview by Comicmix, over everything going on with scans_daily. You can read it here.

Robin Williams was hospitalized for chest pains, and is currently in ICU.

If anyone wants to vote in the fairy tale RPG poll, and they haven’t done so already, please go here. I’ll be closing the poll at 6 PM, CST. That’s around 6 hours from now.

In other news, after the people dragged away all the limbs and tree trunks that were in Nellie’s yard, her yard was a complete mess. She’s out of town to go to a sick relative again, so Dwight went over and raked her entire yard. When he finished that, he brought over a leaf blower, and got rid of all her leaves. When he was done with that, he mowed her yard, and then straightened anything that might have fallen over while the others worked.

The local news keeps showing the shelters where people who are still without power are staying each night. One man looks exactly like Wilf, and he’s shown every single time they mention the shelters.

Nellie got into her backyard, and was able to see that a tree limb did indeed land on her pick-up truck. And the tree-cutters are going to charge her $2000. Because of just how much stuff there is to clear away, apparently, because now that the ice has finally melted it’s easier to see how much worse it is than originally thought. Some of the men in the neighborhood want to go and haggle it down a lot for her, so hopefully that will work when they come around again.

Oh, and on a lighter note, the curfew was lifted for Paducah, but for McCracken County--what isn’t Paducah--it’s still 11 PM. Around here the lights flickered for a little bit this morning because the 30 mph wind was messing with stuff—that should die down tomorrow, and then the temperature will climb from 7 degrees (with a wind chill of 0) back up to 40 degrees on Thursday. As the lights flicker, people scream “No--not again!” pretty much everywhere.

And away from the topic of the damage for a little while, there’s a love meme that’s going around my friends list. My entry is here.

A tree-cutter came by (he's been here a few hours now, going from house to house) and gave us an estimate. For removing the two trees in the front (what's left of them) and the two in the back? It will only come to $1500, not counting the $100 gift certificate they gave us. Impressive. We'll let the neighbors know a bit before we do it, so they can move their cars. When everything was falling the first night, Dad warned them and they moved their cars moments before another branch fell down.

Oh, and Mom finally got through to church. Actually, Chris (Youth Director) was slowly going through the directory and calling everyone to find out how they were, and we were first on the list. Turns out the power wasn't restored there until yesterday so when we were looking for shelter it wouldn't have done us good to go there. And when everything was going on, a tree fell through their front hallway, (almost everyone uses the side entrance instead) and also pretty much destroyed the nursery. We don't know how the older people are (there are a lot of them in their 90's) but he'll let us know. Church will be held on Wednesday night and Sunday morning, so long as nobody goes in those two areas.

Their phone lines were somehow connected to the fax machine, and currently doesn't work, so everyone's now using the phone number they used to use before doing that.

And the reason the power isn't back on at the other house would be because the power lines were most damaged on that street, and four others. They're slowly being repaired. Oh, and another tree fell in the back yard of that other house, and took down the rest of the fence.

ETA: Oh, and for those interested, there's a Doctor Who marathon (season 3--Blink just finished) on the Sci-Fi Channel. I'm watching that as a break from the drama.

ETA 2: Forgot to mention that the tree cutters are from Georgia. They came to help out.

ETA 3: Heh. Dad feels guilty about using the gift certificate, since it's so much cheaper than he thought. In other news, Hardee's is giving free double cheeseburgers to everyone helping out with the damage--meaning relief workers, EMT's, etc.

I just want everyone to know that I’m alive, first of all. People at x_journal, due to the following drama (it’s long, and I’ll put it behind an LJ cut) I won’t be around the game for a while. Of course, I have a feeling everyone probably knows, since it’s apparently made international news.

What happened is as bad as Hurricane Katrina, says the governor.

( Read more to find out everything that happened from the time that the tree almost went through the wall, until now. It includes near frostbite, and no heat or power, or phones. Little food and water. )

ETA: I might withdraw from the second half of the OT3 ficathon, just in case things get bad again. We haven't even begun the clean-up.

While I still have power and internet, just thought I would mention this. The tree in the front yard just now pretty much split in half at the top because of the weight of the ice.

The entire yard is basically littered with broken limbs at this point.

ETA: Ha! We got a con man (he really did look incredibly shifty) knocking at the door, saying he could come by after this was over and drag it away if he got paid now. Dad shut the door in his face.