05.21.08
Posted in Geeky Stuff, SF/F, TV, Things That Suck at 5:50 pm by Jellyn
I wrote to Lifetime asking after "Blood Ties". Here's part of their response.
Thank you very much for your email regarding "Blood Ties," which will not be
returning to Lifetime.
Lifetime has heard your complaints in regards to the cancellation of "Blood Ties"
and we have never canceled a show without a great deal of consideration for you, the
viewers. However, "Blood Ties" did not meet the viewership requirements to stay on
air.
Okay, one, you only ran it once a week! Who does that anymore?
Two, you didn't even play the entire first season as far as I'm aware. Consistency and followthrough help.
Three, you totally would've had more viewers to start with if you'd kept Henry bi.
The letter then went on to say that they don't have the rights to make DVDs, but hey, you can purchase the episodes from Itunes! Or, you can watch the reruns on Lifetime Real Women (LRW), because doesn't everyone get all the random spinoff channels nowadays? And, whoopee, you can log onto their website to play games and stuphs!
And "There you can access the most up-to-date
information and read more about the show as well as participate in discussions with
other fans."
What up-to-date information? Why do I want to read more about the show? You cancelled it! There's nothing left to discuss except for the fact that you cancelled it!
I'm considering writing to the SciFi Channel. If they want to be more girl-friendly, then what better way than to revive a Lifetime show? :P
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05.08.08
Posted in Geeky Stuff, SF/F, TV, Things That Suck at 8:48 pm by Jellyn
I was thinking about making some quip about jumped sharks, but I'll just get right to it.
Spoilers behind the cut.
Read the rest of this entry »
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04.01.08
Posted in Food, Things That Suck at 12:04 pm by Jellyn
My favorite donut hole is a jelly donut hole. So when I get some Munchkins, I ask for 'mostly' jelly, and glazed and chocolate glazed. It never fails, however, that they ignore the 'mostly' part. They are downright stingy with those jelly Munchkins!
Today, out of 25 Munchkins, I got 6 jelly, at least 12 chocolate, and the rest glazed. Sounds to me like that was 'mostly' chocolate! Is that what I asked for? Nooo. It's like he knew that the chocolate was my least favorite of the three. I just like a little variety.
Are the usually running low on jelly when I go in there? Well, it looks like it, but you have no idea what they're hiding in the back. Does that mean they're trying to save some for the other customers who come after me? Well, they should've made more then!
Do the jelly ones cost more to make? Tough. You priced them equally, so you should treat them equally.
What if it's some combination of the two? They cost more to make, so maybe they don't make quite so many, so they're always running low. Or maybe they're not really running low, but love to make it seem that way so you won't be greedy and ask for a lot.
Well, I'm decided now. Next time I'm asking for half jelly and half glazed. I'll throw them a bone. They can (and will) give me 13 glazed and only 12 jelly.
Stay tuned, because if this 'half' method yields an even greater disparity, I'll let you know. And if they seem to run out, maybe I'll be bold enough to ask if they have more in the back.
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01.05.08
Posted in Geeky Stuff, Technology, Things That Suck at 10:16 am by Jellyn
I was browsing around, trying to see which stores might have something I'm looking for. Checked out drugstore.com, wound up on Sears.com, checked out Aubuchon hardware and Walgreens, because they're right downtown and easier to get to than Sears. Then I took a look at CVS.
Well, I tried to. But CVS is keeping secrets. Want to know if they sell something? They won't tell you. Want to know where the nearest CVS is? They won't tell you. (Though I guarantee you there's at least three within two miles of wherever you are right now.) Want to know if they have job openings? They won't tell you that either. They won't tell you squat.
Not if you're using Opera, or any number of other browsers they've randomly decided they 'don't support'.
Dude, I don't care if your website looks ugly. I don't care that it displays some things improperly. I don't care that this or that button or widget may be broken. I. DO. NOT. CARE. I doubt it works perfectly in any of the browsers you do claim to support.
You think every customer who walks in your store has a perfect experience? That they find what they're looking for right off, for the price they want? That they're able to purchase it speedily, with a minimum of fuss, and are served with a friendly smile?
Will you slam your door in the face of everyone walking up to your store who doesn't know exactly what they want and where to find it? Of everyone who doesn't have the money to buy it at the price you're asking? Of everyone who's going to frown and scowl at that friendly smile? Or are you going to take their business, because it's a for-profit enterprise you're running and their money is as good as everyone else's?
Because you slammed the door in my face. You didn't even give Opera a chance to show me your oh-so-wonderfully-crafted website. You didn't give me a warning that it would work imperfectly and then let me take my chances. You just said:
You have landed on this page, because we do not currently support your web browser and/or browser version.
Our site currently supports the majority of Mozilla-based and Internet Explorer browsers on Windows and Macintosh systems. However, we do not support Opera, Beta versions, or recent releases of some browsers. We hope to remedy this in the near future.
You slammed that door with a polite "Thank you for visiting!" Well, thank you for nothing.
Plus, you have the nerve to call the DENIED webpage upgrade.htm. Sorry, going from Opera to Internet Explorer is not what anyone in their right mind would call an 'upgrade'. I have lots of other names for it. I won't share them here.
You know what? I think ranting about this on my blog isn't quite enough. I think I'm going to make use of one other sentence you included on this ill-conceived page.
If you have any questions or require additional assistance please contact us by email at customercare@cvs.com.
You know what.. I do have questions. And since you won't let me see your site, I require additional assistance. I am going to bug you at this address to ask my silly little question. Do you have the product I'm looking for? And if you answer that, or even if you don't, as long as I know you've received the Email, I'm going to ask you another question. I'm going to ask where my nearest store is. When I'm done with that, I'm going to ask what that store's hours are. And after that, I'll come up with some other silly little question that I could presumably have found on your website in 10 seconds. And I'm going to keep doing it until you let me into your site.
I urge anyone else gets redirected to upgrade.htm after following this link -- http://www.cvs.com -- to do the same.
It may not save the pygmy chinchillas starving in Africa, but it will give me satisfaction.
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11.15.07
Posted in Food, Pointless Ingredients, Things That Suck at 12:31 pm by Jellyn
I went to buy some Tylenol Cold. They've changed the active ingredients, because it's just too dangerous to let us have pseudoephedrine anymore, so I looked over the package more carefully than I might have normally. And among the inactive ingredients, I found sucralose.
What the heck?
This is a pill that I'm going to swallow. I'm not going to suck on it, chew it, savor the wonderful flavor of a Tylenol Cold pill. If I even could taste it if I had a cold. I don't need it tasting all sweet and wonderful.
So why are they trying to dose me with fake sugar? I don't like the taste of sugar substitutes and I don't quite trust them either, so I try to avoid them. If they're going to randomly put them in my drugs, though, they're making it difficult!
(I bought a slightly different variety of Tylenol Cold - Rapid Release - which didn't seem to list sucralose. We'll see if it's effective when it comes down to it.)
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11.03.07
Posted in Food, Pointless Ingredients, Things That Suck at 4:46 pm by Jellyn
Wheat Thins - Multi-Grain. Sounds super-healthy, doesn't it? "Excellent Source of Whole Grain" "0g Trans Fat" "May help reduce the risk of heart disease" "16g whole grain" "good source of fiber" "no cholesterol"
Except it contains sugar and high fructose corn syrup.
Which starts a new category for my blog: Things that have high fructose corn syrup (h-f corn syrup).
Edit: I changed the category to Pointless Ingredients, because it's broader and looks nicer.
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10.01.07
Posted in Geeky Stuff, SF/F, TV, Things That Rock, Things That Suck at 10:06 pm by Jellyn
New shows you should watch:
Big Bang Theory (geeky sitcom -- funny)
Reaper (f dramedy -- amusing)
Kid Nation (reality -- interesting)
New shows you shouldn't bother with (because with any luck they'll soon be cancelled):
Bionic Woman (sf drama -- boring)
Moonlight (f drama -- lame)
Shows I'm undecided on:
Journeyman (f drama -- eh)
Chuck (sf-ish drama -- double eh)
Shows I haven't seen yet:
Pushing Daisies
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09.28.07
Posted in Geeky Stuff, SF/F, TV, Things That Suck at 8:59 pm by Jellyn
I don't have high expectations for this show. I mean, it's a freaking vampire detective show! Tanya Huff makes fun of vampire detective shows! And does it very well, by the way, so you should totally go read her books. Plus, her vampire is bi, which is so much cooler than when they're not. Anyway, back to Moonlight.
I'm blogging this while I'm watching it, because it started so badly that I wanted to write about it before I forget.
Spoilers below.
Read the rest of this entry »
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09.07.07
Posted in Geeky Stuff, SF/F, TV, Things That Suck at 8:01 pm by Jellyn
Doctor Who season 3 is playing now on SciFi channel. Sometimes they break it in very bad places to squeeze in a commercial. You'll come back and it feels like they're in the middle of a scene and you've missed something. And maybe you have. I've also heard they've rearranged scenes, but I haven't gotten proof of that for myself.
The SciFi closed captioning sucks. One line was 'That scarecrow is all askew.' and the closed captioning turned it into 'That's certainly true.' I don't know if they're using a computer or a real person to do their captioning, but whichever it is, they don't understand British accents, British slang, science fiction terminology, or Dr. Who words in particular.
What I don't understand is why. I'm sure the original when it aired in the UK had captioning.
In contrast, the Season 1 episodes airing on one of our local PBS stations has captions made in heaven. Who is speaking is attributed accurately. All the lines make sense, even when they're talking rapidly and over each other. When I can't quite understand something, I can rely on the captioning to straighten it out for me. It looks like they captioned it from a script, except that there's no wrong lines, missing lines, or extra lines like you'd get if it was straight from the script. So it's like they took the script, but made sure it actually matched what ended up on film. And I think they did change to American spellings. So I don't know if they captioned from scratch, with the help of the script, or if they used superior British captions and just changed the spellings. Whatever they did, they did it right.
BBC America has been running commercials on SciFi for Torchwood. Yay, Torchwood! One can hope BBCA won't chop it to bits, and will use good captions. I don't get BBCA, so I may never know. But if you get BBCA, you should totally watch it. Let us know if the sex scenes are intact. :)
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Posted in Books, Geeky Stuff, Manga/anime, SF/F, Things That Suck at 2:16 am by Jellyn
Got more books from the library. Picked up 'The World of Narue' because it was volume 1 and it said it was "A Sci-Fi hit". It was a little confusing and disjointed, it seemed to me. Which instantly made me suspicious that there were pages missing. I don't think that was why it seemed disjointed though. I think it just was. Though, later on, there was a page missing. And, surprise surprise, the guy is nosebleeding on the next page that's actually there. But I will never get to know exactly why!
And then I get to the end and there's a bunch of pages missing. Some of them would have been adverts, but I can't tell how many pages I actually didn't get to read. :P
Seriously, guys, is a manga-naked chick so exciting that you have to ruin it for everyone borrowing the manga after you? Borrow your parents' credit card and buy some actual hentai manga if you're so desperate.
I'm not going to bother reading the rest of this manga anyway. CPM Manga (Central Park Media) apparently doesn't know how to proofread. There's an "it's" that should be "its", a "loose" that should be "lose", a Japanese word broken up in the middle of a syllable to run to the next line, and a few other typos and misspellings. I might have lived with one or two, but there were too many and that 'loose' was just taking it too far. I HATE 'loose' and 'congradulations' more than anything!!!!
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03.14.07
Posted in Food, Money, Things That Suck at 5:22 pm by Jellyn
I remember when Girl Scout cookies were $1.75 a box. And I swear there were more of them in a box as well. Now they're $3.50, though not in all areas. Thought I'd do a bit of math.
Peanut Butter Patties (aka Tagalongs) | 15 in a box = 23.3333333 cents per cookie
Carmel DeLites (aka Samoas) | 15 in a box = 23.3333333 cents per cookie
Peanut Butter Sandwiches | 22 in a box = 15.909 cents per cookie
I'll update when I get a chance to count the other package my parents sent me, or if someone gives me figures on the other varieties. Feel free to leave numbers in comments. I believe the best financial choice is either Thin Mints or the shortbread.
Check this blog entry 10 years from now and boggle at how cheap they used to be and how there used to be more than 5 per package!
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02.14.07
Posted in TV, Things That Suck at 2:17 pm by Jellyn
Not the most current of news, but it's so horrible, I had to post it on my blog.
I've only watched two of these, but there's going to be a US version of: Vicar of Dibley, Life on Mars, Footballers' Wives, Blackpool, and Wild at Heart. You can read about the horror here.
Life on Mars might work. One of its major problems for me is being unfamiliar with 1970's British cop shows and 1970's Britain in general. Sometimes the slang can be hard to understand. And most of the US public is unfamiliar with the show.
But Vicar of Dibley? Come on. You can't improve on perfection. And you can't recreate it either. And you definitely cannot recreate it with Kirstie Alley!! In what way is Kirstie Alley remotely like Dawn French? I can watch Dawn French for hours. I can't watch Kirstie Alley for five seconds.
Stop recreating British shows! Buy the good ones, show them as they are. Then be original and create your own show about a female priest. Because, honestly, a female minister? Not news.
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12.30.06
Posted in Food, Things That Suck at 4:59 am by Jellyn
Introducing the creation, finally, of a new category called "Things That Suck". And first up is why Kellogg's Raisin Bran sucks.
I admit that Kellogg's Raisin Bran generally tastes better. Probably at least partially because of the sugar encrusted in the cracks of the raisins. But that is outweighed by its other suckiness.
There are bits of wheat husk or something that occasionally crop up. They're unchewable, and, one assumes, undigestible. Sometimes they float on the milk, so you can see them and avoid them.
Gritty raisins, so that there's bits of grit all in my teeth.
So that is why Kellogg's Raisin Bran sucks. Not that Post Raisin Bran is perfect, mind, but it is much better in the husk and grit department.
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