I’m looking forward to 2012. I see good things happening around me. Mayans be damned.

Well, that’s it for me. Short and sweet today.

~C~

MOTIVATION : the condition of being eager to act or work : the condition of being motivated

Seems simple enough, yet I seem to have an incredibly hard time finding it. Maybe it’s because motivation is not a thing, it’s an idea, an abstract state of being. You can’t really lose something that isn’t really there. At least that’s what I’m telling myself today as I sit here on my arse at the computer instead of actually getting anything useful accomplished. Wait, scratch that, I’m writing, while not exactly useful it is getting something accomplished.

I know that there are things that I should be doing, things that I WANT to be doing, I’m just not. There is no concrete reason for not doing these things. I just don’t feel like it. That’s the kicker right there. If I continue to wait until I feel like doing something, I may never leave this chair again.

This year is going to be different. Like or lump it, things are going to change. I am going to make a conscious effort to reach the goals I am setting for myself. Rather than wishful thinking and then utter disappointment I am really going to try.  I think I might also keep a little pad of paper on my desk so that when I come up with an excuse for not doing something I will write it down. I’m guessing that after a couple of months it would make for a pretty amusing read.

Maybe I’ll post a few here and there.

~C~

It’s been awhile. I’ve wanted to come back and post a few times, but I always found an excuse not to. I didn’t want to fail again. I don’t like to fail, I’m a bit Type A about those kinds of things. I think I have figured out why I failed though, and knowing is half the battle (Yo Joe!) While the specific topic corresponding to a specific day of the week sounded great in theory, in practice….. not so much.

I have a new format. I’m just going to write about whatever strikes me when I sit down to write. It might be a rant, an observation, a new recipe I’ve tried or maybe a review of something I’ve recently read/watched. It might be just a stream of consciousness that doesn’t make sense to anyone but me. The point is it will be something. Every day. 365 days in a row.

Wish me luck.

~C~

I think it is perfectly acceptable to give a child a swat to the ass if the situation calls for it.

I will start off my saying I was in NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM an abused child. Quite the opposite in fact. My parents were brilliant, loving, warm, caring and tolerant of my shennanigans to a fault. My Dad never had to spank me… not because I was a perfect child that never needed discipline but because it was understood that he could do it if he so chose. That niggly little threat hanging in the back of my mind was more often than not enough to keep me on the straight and narrow.

I think it’s a shame that parents have lost that power. Now before all you arm chair child abuse experts get your nickers in a twist let me be very clear. NO ONE SHOULD BEAT THEIR CHILD. PERIOD.  That’s appalling and anyone that does it should be locked away from society.

Let me define a swat to the ass for you. It is open hand tap to the rear end, hard enough for them to take notice, not hard enough to leave a mark. Once.  The only thing hurt in that scenario is their pride.  Now I have been told that it is deplorable that I would make my children afraid of me. To that I say give me a break, my kids are certainly not afraid of me, but they think twice before they act like a jerk. Also a little bit of parental fear is not a bad thing.

I have been told that I should consider where the behaviour is coming from and address the underlying issues. Talk with the child, explain why the behaviour is wrong, use it as a learning experience. To which I say… the behaviour is coming from a pre-teen child who is pissy because they are not getting their own way, the underlying issue being that they are a pre-teen child who is pissy becuase they are not getting their own way, I don’t need to explain why the behaviour is wrong, they know it’s wrong, that’s precisely why they are doing it. They’re playing the odds that if they keep it up long enough I’m going to crack and cave. And I’m going to make it a learning experience alright. They are going to learn that MOM’S WORD IS LAW.

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the matter. Whichever side of this particular fence you’re on I’d like to hear it. We may end up agreeing to disagree, but a little discourse is never a bad thing.

~Cheryl the OCM~

Several months ago I was having a conversation with someone who casually told me that they always warn people about me before they meet me. At first I laughed, then it kind of struck me that I’d just been backhandedly insulted. “What?” I said. “No, I don’t mean that in a bad way, it’s just sometimes is hard to know how to take you, you can be kind of abrasive.” That was the explanation. “Oh” I said while in my head thinking gee glad you didn’t mean that in a bad way.

The conversation continued on with more explanations which all boiled down to essentially the same point. I’m a bitch.

That bothered me. I didn’t let on to the person I was talking to just how much it bothered me, but it really hurt. I never thought of myself as someone who required a “warning label”. I’ve always joked that I am a bitch, but deep down I never realized that that’s exactly what most people thought of me.

You know what they say however, the truth hurts. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I realize just how true it is. I have a tendency to call it like I see it. I don’t sugar coat and I don’t pull punches. I am in no way, shape or form a tolerant person. Stupid people irritate me and I don’t hide it. For clarification, I don’t mean that someone who is lacking knowledge on a given subject, I’m talking about a person who wouldn’t know common sense if it slapped them. To me that is what stupid means.

I will occasionally give people the benefit of the doubt, but only once, and not for any extended length of time.

I think I might start up an advice column. Call it “The Truth Hurts”, I mean I might as well play to my strengths right. People can send me their situation and as an uninvolved third party I will just call it as I see it.

The Doctor’s Wife

First let me say that this episode wasn’t what I was expecting at all. I thought for sure, given the title, that this episode was going to centre around the mysterious River Song. I wasn’t even close. The episode had the Doctor receiving “mail” in the form of a small glowing cube which it was explained was a distress call from another Time Lord,  this in and of itself was explosive as it alluded to the fact that we were going to encounter another living Time Lord. I was hooked less than 2 minutes into the episode.

Neil Gaimin crafted an amazing hour that was fast paced, witty, dark, sad and exciting all at once. The episode had the soul of the Tardis being pulled into the empty shell of what appeared to be a human female.  The actress Suranne Jones , who played Idris, the living embodiment of the TARDIS, was brilliant. The chemistry between Jones and Smith was almost tangible. It is a shame that we will likely not see this character again.

My favorite points of the episode had to be the nods to the past. There was the appearance of an Ood, my favorite Whoniverse aliens, the console room from the 9th/10th Doctors, and the mention of visiting the Eye of Orion, which was last heard of in The Five Doctors.

The big nasty in this episode was  “The House”, a creature that survived by devouring TARDIS’s (or TARDII, not really sure how to pluralize that) When I first heard the voice I immediately thought we were about to see a re-emergence of The Beast Below however at the end of the episode I can say that I’m still not entirely sure what “The House” actually was. To be honest, I don’t care, I loved it.

The cryptic line of the episode is one of the last lines spoken by Idris, “The only water in the forest is the river”. This got me thinking and trying to figure it out. Here is what I’ve come up with. I believe that the forest is referring to the library from the 10th Doctor’s time. The place in which River Song dies. I think that this means when we finally get the big reveal of who River Song actually is, it will likely be the end of her part in the Whoniverse.

This episode set the bar pretty high and I hope the rest of this season (or series for you UK’ers) lives up to it. Here is a look at the preview for next weeks episode.

Looks like a good one!

Thanks as always for stopping by, hope this Sunday has been a wonderful one for you and yours!

~Cheryl the OCM~

Doctor Who – Curse of The Black Spot

This week The Doctor, Amy and Rory found themselves on board a pirate ship that had been stranded on the ocean and was being accosted by a beautiful but deadly ghostly mermaid type creature. In my opinion an excellent premise right off the hop. Unfortunately the episode didn’t quite live up to the build up. I enjoyed the atmosphere (pirates are cool) and the acting was quite good but the story itself just never seemed to quite take off.

At about the one third mark there was a re-appearance of last weeks Eye Patch Lady, who as luck would have it, has an eye patch that as far as I can tell has nothing to do with pirates. She seemed to almost to be crooning to Amy as she slept. It was an odd and distracting moment in the episode. I spent the next 30 or so minutes trying to figure out what she was instead of focusing on the current episode. While I do like the fact that there was a nod to the burgeoning story arc, it seemed a bit random.

I have heard alot over the past week about people not liking the darker turn the Whoniverse seems to be taking and that this is going to cause a loss in viewership. I whole heartedly disagree. I for one love this new direction and am more engaged already this season than I was for most of last season.

The trailer for next weeks episode made me absolutely giddy. My first thought was “Holy crap, it’s an Ood!” I was supremely delighted. I love the Ood, they are by far my favorite aliens in the Whoniverse.  Here is the official trailer for next week.

So what did you think of Curse of the Black Spot? Do you fall in the Take It or Leave It camp?

For those of you who may not be familiar with Doctor Who, I’d like to share some links that will get you started (and no doubt get you hooked) on this crazy man and his impossible blue box.

Blogtor Who – A great blog that has been around the internet for quite awhile now. It gives some great overall information and fun facts about everything Doctor Who.

The Official Doctor Who Site – The BBC’s site for the series

The Whotennany: Showcase of a Timelord – This is a great video series on YouTube by DreadwindsGhost. The videos themselves are actually reviews of Doctor Who action figures, but with each toy review is a review of each of the 11 incarnations of the Doctor. This is a great way to get familiar with the world of Doctor Who.

Well that’s it for me for today, thanks as always for stopping by and a very Happy Mothers Day to all my fellow Mommy’s out there!

~Cheryl the OCM~

I’ve recently started a new job in the downtown core of my city. This means I am seeing a whole lot of people every day on my way to and from the office. Anyone who knows me even a little bit is aware of my general attitude towards John Q Public. I am a firm believer that at least 50% of the population is made up of obliviots and they irritate me in a way that nothing else is capable of doing. I heard a great saying not to long ago, don’t remember where but that doesn’t make it any less true….

YOU CAN”T FIX STUPID.

I’m not sure how I am still surprised by people’s actions, but I am left baffled and amazed at least once a day by a citizen that for all intents and purposes looks to be a normal human being but turns out to be a complete dumb a$$. Thought I would share my find for today.

The Great Cross Walk Mystery

In Canada we have handy lighted signs to help out those who are perceptionally-challenged (meaning they lack the ability to look both ways before crossing a street). It flashes a friendly walking figure when it’s ok for you to cross and a great big menacing orange hand when it’s not. Seems pretty straightforward right?

WRONG – I watched a cell phone chatting, latte-carrying, stiletto wearing twit go strolling out into the street (in direct contradiction to the big orange hand) right in front of a car. Luckily for this numbskull the driver in question was paying attention and just barely managed to stop.  Now for most of us this would mean we would have had the bejeebus scared out of us, then apologized profusely to the driver then slunk away in shame and embarrassment. Not for this awesome example of just how shallow the gene pool is getting, she proceeded to smack the hood of the car, flip the driver off and walk away head held high.

I wanted to chase her down and throttle her.  I didn’t of course… but I really wanted to.

How about you? What’s your best example?

Well that’s it for me for today, hope this post finds you well and happy! Thanks for stopping by

~Cheryl the OCM~

This whole “posting every day for a year straight” thing is NOT going to happen, not right now anyway. I’m still going to keep up most of my topics with the occasional rant thrown in when I’ve had a particularly bad day, but more along the lines of 2 or 3 posts a week. There is so much that I can’t wait to share, so many of you that I have missed and hope to reconnect with.

Well ok, enough of the chit chat, it’s Sunday and that means the weekly TV Wrap Up. For the next 6 weeks however it is all about one show – Doctor Who.  For today you’re just getting a review of last nights episode but at some point over the next little while I think I may do an expanded post for those of you unfamiliar to the Whoniverse.  That amazing man and his little blue box.  Ok, enough with the rambling, on to the review.

Doctor Who – Day of the Moon

Wow, Mr Stephen Moffat has set the bar high for this season! Day of the Moon was the second half of the season opener and I for one think it completely lived up to all the hype. The featured monster in this episode was the long awaited Silence. They were awesome. Creepy and spooky and unsettling, everything you really want from a good monster. To me it appears that this episode set the stage for a nice long story arc which I’m assuming is going to last at least until the mid season finale. Weeks worth of is she or isn’t she Amy Ponds daughter. Should make for some very interesting watching.

I was most impressed by Rory in this episode. The character is really coming into his own and the actor Arthur Darvill is really bringing his A game so far this season. I wasn’t completely sold on “Rory the Roman” last season but after last nights show I am now officially a fan. Watching his absolute sorrow while listening to the voice of his wife was absolutely heart wrenching. The honesty of his self doubt and his complete devotion to Amy bring a real depth to the episode.

My favorite moment of the episode was just after the Doctor/River kiss. The look on River’s face when she realized that to the Doctor that was their first kiss was such a look of misery that I actually got a little misty. Yes, I’m a sap, I’m aware.

All in all I think that this season shows great promise and I eagerly await next weeks episode – The Curse of the Black Spot.  Have a look

Well that’s it for me for today! Hope this finds you well and happy.

~Cheryl the OCM~

Cheers to the New Year and I’ll see you all in a couple of weeks!

Best Wishes

~Cheryl the OCM~