Every year (for the past umpteen years) Wright State University‘s chemistry department puts on a chemistry magic show. They do this in December (near Christmas) and in March. I like to sign up for a date in December for my chemistry students to go to it, since it’s in keeping with Michael Faraday’s Christmas Lectures. Today was the day when I took the kids off to watch. And, as always, Dr. Fortman and Dr. Battino did a great job educating and entertaining the kids (and adults) in the audience. They have one and a half hours of chemistry demonstrations – and they do it five days a week! Amazing, really.

At the end of the show, however, Dr. Fortman made an announcement about there being an “academic chemistry grandchild” in the audience. I immediately buried my head in Mary Jo’s shoulder. (Mary Jo is the HS secretary and, due to her daughter being in my chemistry class, I asked her to be the chaperon for the trip.) Sure enough, Dr. Fortman started talking about the first graduating class from WSU (there were 7 who graduated from the Chemistry department). And that one of those grads had a daughter who later graduated from the chemistry department, who is now a teacher in the audience. “Trina, would you please stand up?” Folks applauded and my students all cheered. I turned red, but since Mary Jo and I were seated in front of my students, they couldn’t see that. 🙂

Last year when I took my juniors (and seniors that year) to see the show, one decided to show off his butt to the people behind him. I, thankfully, didn’t witness this, but one of the chaperons (and a number of my students) did. Apparently, he did the same at lunch. So I had to deal with that when I got back (and thankfully, had the support of the superintendent, to deal with the discipline). This year, thankfully, nothing untoward happened. We all enjoyed the show, then went out to eat across the street from the campus.

My goal for tomorrow was to return to the WSU area for my usual comic store visit & shopping spree. And first I would go to south Dayton for Indian Fud. But while we were across the street from WSU today, I saw there is now an Indian Restaurant north of Dayton!!!! Whoopee! So rather than drive out of my way for Indian Fud, it can be a part of my usual trip. I’m trying to talk mom into joining me for Indian Fud and shopping tomorrow. Guess I’ll find out tomorrow if she’s willing or not. And I’ll find out if the food is good at this new place. I hope so!

“When you can help friends and get revenge on enemies, isn’t that what Christmas is all about?” – Pepe, the King Prawn

I watched It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie tonight. It’s not as good as my favorite Muppet Christmas special, A Muppet Family Christmas, but it’s still highly enjoyable. And one thing that it has, which my favorite does not, is Pepe. I discovered Pepe in Muppets from Space and he quickly became my favorite Muppet. And that ain’t an easy task! But of all of the Muppet Show Muppets, he’s the one I now love best. (For the Sesame Street Muppets, Grover is still my favorite. And Ernie is my inner-Muppet.) He’s so romantic, okay? And he parties with Ricky Martin, okay?

This most recent of the Muppet Christmas specials spoofs so many Christmas specials, I lose count while watching. Plus it’s got the “Crocodile hunter” and the cast from Scrubs. Joan Cusack is great as an evil bitchqueen from hell, and her cat fight with Miss Piggy is worth it for the bad dubbing alone. But I probably still rank it third of the three Muppet Holiday specials that I have on DVD. (The only one I don’t yet have is The Rocky Mountain one with John Denver. Have the soundtrack to that one, at least.)

The Muppet Christmas Carol was the first post-Henson movie, and at first I wasn’t sure I liked the new Kermit voice. But the musical itself was enjoyable, and was partly responsible for my turnaround opinion of Michael Caine. (I used to really dislike his performances. Now I rather enjoy watching him in a production.) Gonzo and Rizzo did a fabulous job in carrying the Muppets through the production, and they continued this role during their next movie, Muppet Treasure Island. The music is very catchy (almost too catchy – becomes part of my Jungian radio, even when it’s not Christmas time). I’ll probably watch this one as we get closer to Christmas.

But by far, of all the Muppet productions (even surpassing The Muppet Movie, in my book) is A Muppet Family Christmas. This story resonates so well with my immediate family that it was a tradition to watch it every season. The poor off-air VHS copy that we have of it is particularly worn (but still watchable), so I was pleased when I found it available for sale. Only to be GREATLY disappointed to find that they cut out one of the songs and the “live action” Muppet Babies video. (Probably a rights problem, but dammit, I wish they’d get that sorted out.) I bought the DVD hoping that it was the full version, but it, too, was expurgated. Alas! Still, with or without the cuts, it’s a piece of pure magic. It’s less than an hour long, but it’s funny and touching and has lots of holiday favorites sung with glee. And the Fraggles and Sesame Street crowd all show up too! The final scene, of Jim Henson having to do the dishes with only Sprocket the dog (from Fraggle Rock) to help him, is especially touching now that he’s gone. Thanks Jim, for the magic you gave us all!

Leo woke me up¹ mid-dream this morning, so I remembered bits of the dream when I awoke. I was in an art room (like none I’ve been in before, but I *knew* it was an art room) and a group of us are working on a project and talking. The people are folks my age and some of my students. We’re talking about Christmas movies and one of my students talks about the song “The Best Things Happen While You’re Dancing” from White Christmas. Before I’m able to contribute the trivia regarding White Christmas being one of the first movies to be filmed in VistaVision, someone else tells about it. So then I talk about my most favorite Christmas movie, Miracle on 34th Street. I inform the folks in my dream that it was released in July and the trailer said *nothing* about it being a Christmas movie². But then I woke up before our conversation could continue.

So, having dreamt about Miracle on 34th Street, I decided to watch it tonight. And I enjoyed it as much as always (which is very much). It’s my ideal Christmas movie. Tomorrow, I’ll probably pick another Christmas movie from my DVD collection to watch. (Yeah, I turn into an Elf this time of year. My family’s pretty used to it by now. Thankfully, I have a kindred soul in judiang!) Since I’ve recently finished watching all of my DVDs of The Muppet Show, I’ll probably watch one of the three Muppet Christmas DVDs that I have.

1. Alas, he woke me up with the sounds of “impending yakking.” Since he was laying right beside me on the bed, I pushed him onto the floor so he could yak on the rug instead. Joy joy.
2. This is true, BTW. There are times when I dream facts. Very worrying, if you ask me!

Today, dad and I went to the SOITA Technology Conference at the Dayton Convention Center. We went last year, and I talked about it here. And this year, I took one of the workshops which last 2 sessions. It was over Pinnacle Studios 9. Since we purchased that for our Newton News crew when we got them a new computer, I thought I should take a peek at the program. Seems like a fun program for editing video. The one question that I really hoped the workshop presenter would be able to answer managed to stump him. That has to do with my video/audio synch problem which I have when encoding DVD videos through Nero. Maybe once I get the Newton News computer done, I’ll try encoding one of the videos and see. (I fear that it’s my processor speed. I wasn’t planning to upgrade soon.)

The first session was over Macromedia Captivate and another program whose name eludes me at the moment. Captivate and this other program do video captures of your actions on the screen, which is great for making short computer tutorials for online use. It’s a cool thing, but since I don’t even have our website done, it’s not anything we need yet.

The Pinnacle workshop was next followed by lunch. They treat the techs well by having a sit-down dinner starting with salad and rolls, then some sort of baked chicken dish with roasted potatoes & steamed veggies. Finally there was a choice of chocolate or lemon cake. (I went with chocolate.) Apparently for the teachers & administrators who come the next two days, they have a buffet. I like our sit-down dinner. Unfortunately we have to listen to the keynote speaker when we’re done. Last year, it was fun. The lady there showed us cool gadgets. This year, it was some Microsoft Monkey (who sounded *just* like Alan Alda, it was spooky!) telling us how Microsoft has the same goals as we do. Yeah, I wanna be a billionaire and take over the world, too!

The afternoon sessions were pretty bleak (two were by other Microsoft Monkeys, so I said “no” to those). I ended up going to Fortres Grand‘s session on their products. And I’m glad I went. (Most of the Miami County techs who were at SOITA also attended this session). Fortres has a new program out that will help with software & hardware inventory. Since it’s the same cost as Clean Slate, it’s a bargain. The only thing we don’t know about is if it works with NT4. If it does, we’ll probably get it.

One of our complaints the past couple of years at the SOITA conference has been that they don’t have the vendors until the next two days. Well, this year they decided to have a Vendor Sneek-A-Peek at 3:30pm (lasting about an hour). Most of the vendors were set up (or nearly so) and dad and I got to talk to most of ’em. We weren’t sure we could do the room in an hour, but we managed it. And got some new ideas and some freebies. So, YAY to SOITA for making headway here. (Unfortunately, the WorldWise company was back, selling crap software for $10 a CD. ARGH! Those poor unsuspecting teachers are REALLY gonna be screwed when they buy that crap and find out it won’t work on their computers cuz it’s too damn old!!!! I mean, that stuff doesn’t work on our machines and we’re still using Windows 98SE!!!)

All in all, a fun tech day. I hope that my students didn’t kill the sub today and vice versa. Guess I’ll find out tomorrow. 🙂

Leo and I began decorating the house for Christmas yesterday, but today we did a lot more (and are, pretty much, finished now). Yesterday I needed to purchase some things, so that took up a bit of my decorating time. I had lunch at the Night Sky Cafe (1/2 of a reuben & a cup of cheesy broccoli soup), which I followed with an egg nog steamer (anyone surprised?) After my shopping was done, Leo and I did some cleaning up and got out all of the decorations and stuff. But at 6pm, I headed out with the folks to see the Cincinnati Men’s Chorus in concert at St. John’s UCC in Dayton. I wrote about this gay men’s chorus last year, so you can read up on them there.

One of the cutest things they did was during their opening number “Winter Wonderland.” For those of you unfamiliar with the tune, there’s a bit which goes:

In the meadow we can build a snowman
And pretend that he is Parson Brown
He’ll say “Are you married?”
We’ll say “No man,
But you can do the job when you’re in town.”

When the guys sang it the second time around, they replaced “town” with “Massachusetts.” Got quite a laugh from the crowd. 🙂

So today, Leo and I decorated in earnest. And of course, I took photos to document our progress.

Leo helps get out the boxes from the basement.

Now to put the tablecloth on the dining room table.

Patting down the runner on the table.

The table is now done. Notice the bare bit to the left. Leo insisted I leave that free so that he could lay there.

Leo let me decorate the exterior myself. You can’t really tell, but I’ve got those tube-lights on the fake pine boughs in the window box. Looks cool in the dark.

Leo gets the last of the stuff out from the box.

Time to make sure the tree tastes OK.

Leo rests after the hard work of decorating the tree.

Leo is still sitting underneath the tree. I think he really likes that tree skirt.

As gregmce and warinbabylon have mentioned in their journal entries today, it is World AIDS Day.

Back when my mother was in college to train at being a Microbiologist, she first learned about AIDS. She came home to dad and said “I just learned about the scariest disease ever!” And dad’s comment was, “Oh yeah, I’ve been reading about that in the journals for the past few years.”

Well, we’ve come a long way from a disease that’s only known about in the science journals to a disease that pretty much everyone has heard of. But there’s still no cure for AIDS. No vaccine. And still, not enough known about the disease. Awareness is a start, but we’ve got a long way to go in the study and research for AIDS and HIV. It’s good that we have days like today to help bring that fact to light.

In a more amusing turn, I’ll tell you a story about the time I taught communicable diseases to the 4th & 5th grade. Dad told me about an activity that he used to do with his biology students (and I don’t teach biology, so I didn’t have activities like this one to hand). Each student has a test tube with a clear liquid in it. They each have an eyedropper. They are allowed to “trade fluids” with their friends. Each basically takes a dropperful of liquid from their friend’s test tube and puts it in their own.

After a few minutes of trading fluids, I pick one student at random and say that we need to have a random fluid check. I add a bit of another colorless fluid. And every time that I did this, the test tube fluid turned pink. “Oh no!” I said. “You’ve tested positive for ‘HIV’. Who have you traded fluids with recently – we need to check them as well!” Now the student needs to remember who all he/she traded fluids with. We call the students forward and inform them that their friend has tested positive and we should probably check them as well. Sure enough, this student is pink as well.

Eventually, we test all of the students and usually they’re mostly all pink with a few non-pink ones. That’s when I’ll admit who the first student with “HIV” actually was. And usually the ones who tested negative are furthest from this person. But the students realize that many kids get “HIV” without actually ever sharing fluids with the first person. And that’s the real eye-opener of this activity.

In one 5th grade class that I did this in, I had only one student who tested negative. Apparently when he got home from school, he bragged to his mom that he was the only kid in his class that didn’t have AIDS. He went on to explain the activity to his mom, who is the high school secretary. She said she had to laugh when her son told her that – after the initial shock.

To do this lab, you start with all but one of the test tubes containing water. And in the remaining test tube, put a very dilute solution of a base like sodium hydroxide. (I had my students wear their lab goggles for this lab and anyone who got liquid on their hands had to wash it off, regardless of which test tube he/she had.) The liquid that you use to test for “HIV”? The chemists in the group are saying “phenolphthalein.” They’re right. 🙂

I won’t have those students again for another couple of years yet, but I’d be interested to see if any of them remember the unit they did on communicable diseases. It was certainly memorable for me!

I was talking with warinbabylon on IRC last night about Christmas stories & fan fiction and I admitted that I’ve got an itching to write a 7th Doctor/Ace Christmas story. (I wrote a Doc7/Mel Christmas story a few years ago called Miracle on 23rd Street – it’s got the sort of Christmas schmaltz that I enjoy. But now I wanna write one with Ace in it.) She then suggested that I post a fiction challenge on LJ about it. Thinking, perhaps, that it will cause me to write said story. Well, I don’t know about that, but here’s the challenge:

Write a holiday-based fan fiction from one of your favorite fandoms (or least favorite fandoms if you’d rather). You pick the holiday, the length, the characters, etc. But it must be done by January 1st. Post it in your LJ when you’re done. Give it a try – you know you want to!

So, um, prizes? Well, perhaps your reward will be the joy of knowing that you’ve written a holiday fan fiction piece… 😉

PS: Pass the challenge along, if you want!

PPS: Amy, if you’re reading this, I wanna see a Holiday V fan fiction with Willy’s Magic Bathrobe making a return visit! 🙂

Ah, the joys of owning a fluffy cat… I’m sitting here at my desk (pondering what to write about on LJ tonight) when he jumps up, covered in little lint balls. Yup, my little furball has been playing in the basement (probably near the clothes dryer). He has NO idea, of course… He’s so nonchalant. 🙂

The good news, as my subject states, is that judiang is doing better today than she was last night. As I type this, she’s probably asleep in her apartment (and if she’s not, then she’d better get herself back to bed PRONTO!) I just got home about 20 minutes ago or so and Leo is very happy to see me. (He was waiting in my front window for me and when I drove up, he met me at the back door. For a cat, he has many dog-like tendencies!)

Last night, miz_em and hergrace offered elsaf and I the use of the hospitality suite which they rented for the McGann Fan gathering. Thinking that Judi needed to have a monopoly on the bathroom all evening, we took them up on the offer and slept there instead of in our room. It had a lovely king sized bed that Elsa, Lance and I could all fit on with room to spare. I got up this morning at 6:30, showered, and checked on Judi. She assured me she was feeling much better in the morning and I even got a few smiles and laughs out of her. Lance was happy to see her as well. (He was such a good dog on this trip!)

We got everything out of the two rooms and down to the lobby where I checked out, got a hug from Lynn (I swear I’m not contageous! At least, I’d bloody well NOT be), and hugged Judi goodbye. The shuttle to the airport was departing and I got on it in time. And then saw Elsa walk by, so I asked the driver if he’d stop for a second so that I could hug my friend good-bye. He obliged and I hugged Elsa before departing for the airport. Thankfully, everything was uneventful for the airport stay and airplane trip. And here I is, ready to start decorating for that thing we call Christmas!

I’ll have to sort through my photos that I took in order to get a page together for this convention, much like I did for the Gallifrey Convention in Feburary. Stay tuned to here or the PMEB mailing lists for the eventual link.

I had a blast at the con, met many wonderful friends, made some new friends, and enjoyed myself immensely. Thanks to all of you that I got to see while at the con – it was fun! Let’s do it again sometime. And for those of you who were unable to attend, maybe you’ll be able to join us then. 🙂

India Fisher and Paul McGann at their panel.

Photo of Paul.

Paul McGann signs Lance’s t-shirt.

Paul signs a photo for dark_pheonix while holding her surrogate.

We’d been having a blast so far this convention, but unfortunately, tragedy has struck! judiang has fallen ill! 🙁 After the autograph session, she took ill and has been sick now for several hours. elsaf and I are worried about her and have done what we can to help her out (Elsa doing the most – wonderful woman). I’m sure she’ll lick it, but bleh, I really feel sorry for her right now! Poor baby!

Before this unfortunate happenstance, things were going well today. We breakfasted at Steak & Shake with hergrace and her family, Estelle & her son, and Mona. While there, Steph and I discovered they had Egg Nog shakes! Hmmmm, perhaps Steak & Shake might make a good lunch as well. I had the bagel, egg, cheese & bacon sandwich and a hot cocoa. Pretty good eats.

We returned to the hotel to sit at our “usual” table near the main ballroom and folks chatted. I did another run of the Dealer’s room and this time bought myself an MP3 CD of Death Comes to Time. I have the original CD, but wanted to check out the bonus features of the enhanced CD set. $38 was a bit more than I had planned on paying, but hey, it was my only purchase this con (other than the $2 PMEB button for charity and the $6 t-shirt that Estelle was selling for the McGann Library patrons). Oh yeah, there was food and drink that I bought, but that doesn’t count.

After wiling away the morning, Steph, Mona, Elsa and I returned to Steak & Shake for lunch. And as we’d pondered doing earlier, Steph and I had egg nog shakes with our lunch. Yummy! I picked up another egg nog shake and a chocolate shake for Judi and miz_em and then we stopped at Krispy Kreme so that Elsa could buy 2 dozen donuts for the PMEBers and McGann Library patrons. Our final stop was the liquor store where Steph and I picked up two bottles of wine and a six-pack of Guiness for the evening party. While on the way back, Mona played some tunes from Avenue Q, the Tony-winning musical in which Steph’s brother is a puppeteer.

The panel that we were all waiting for was the McGann panel which started at 3:30pm. Jason Haigh-Ellery, India Fisher, and Gary Russell from Big Finish were there, as well as Paul McGann and a late arrival Yee Jee Tso (who was stuck doing autographs). It was an entertaining panel, with Paul getting the most questions and the most laughs. I did ask Yee Jee a question when I wondered whether he actually got to meet the Muppets when he was in the recent Christmas special. The sad answer, no.

After the panel we headed off to the autograph session. Judi and I got a decent place in the line (thanks to the reserved seats) and Elsa joined us shortly as Official Photographer. Lance was very good in the line and got many pets from folks to-ing and fro-ing. We were in line for half an hour before we got to McGann and co. I bought 2 photos – one for me and one for dark_pheonix (surprise!). I also bought a photo of India for her to sign. Alas, I had nothing for Rob Shearman to sign – though he was entertained by Lance. India signed my picture and soon Judi was in front of McGann.

“I have something that really takes the cake here,” she said. “Will you sign my dog?” Paul laughed and said “You are joking, aren’t you?” But Judi had picked up Lance and pulled his shirt down tight. And Paul, laughing the whole time, signed Lance’s t-shirt. So, after that moment of silly, I didn’t feel bad at all for asking Paul to hold onto a small stuffed Penguin while he signed the photo for dark_pheonix. So there ya go – your surrogate has met Mr. McGann!

It was after the session that Judi started feeling poorly (and quickly!) I brought left-over donuts and the bottle of wine I bought to the Room Party room, where several ladies were already gathered. We decided to give Chinese food a try and I thought egg drop soup might be something that Judi could eat. (Turns out, no – she’s not eaten anything yet, but she’s not been sick lately, so there’s improvement!) Elsa got egg drop soup and I got pork lo mein. The entire order for all of us at the room party was over $100. Emily called it in and I collected money. We got a nice tip for the lady who delivered it (in a huge box on a little cart), too.

The party broke up when it was nearly time for the TV Movie to be treated to MST3K-style treatment. I headed down to watch, but they were waiting on the judging for the masquerade yet. So they were doing a Doctor Who-themed Match Game. Some funny stuff there. The masquerade winners were eventually announced and the TV Movie was finally started. I watched (as I often do) until we got to the “These shoes!” bit, and then I headed back to the room, where I am typing all of this up. Judi’s not been sick for over an hour now, so there’s progress! Get well soon, Judi!