Chez Letha

I’m so happy!  I finished my taxes and sent them in yesterday!  I feel so accomplished!  I even filed my paperwork.

I’m gloating, I know, and I don’t want to bring anyone down.  If you haven’t done your taxes yet, you’re in the majority at this point.  I received the last of my W-2s last week, and money is really tight for me.  So, I just set out to see if I would be getting money back or paying.  Since I found out that I would be getting money back, I decided to go ahead and complete my tax returns and send them in.

And how did I do it?  Did I use a tax program or one of the on-line sites?  Did I go to a professional?  No, as I said, money is tight.  I just pulled out last year’s returns (which I completed with the help of TaxCut) and used them as a templates for this year’s returns.  I went to the federal and state websites and downloaded the forms and instructions I needed and just followed them.  It took several hours but was relatively easy.

You might ask, why would a computer geek like me not use a tax program or a tax website?  There are two answers for that:  I’m broke and I’m cautious.  I didn’t use a tax program because I do not have the money to pay for them.  I didn’t use a tax website because even though some of them offer free returns (at least federal), I am wary of entering my personal information, including my social security number, into an online site.  I know that at least the one I looked at claimed they would never do anything with the information, but what if they are hacked, have a disgruntled employee, or simply change their mind down the line?  I just didn’t want to chance it.  Besides, the being broke issue decided things for me, anyway.

I now just have to sit back and wait for the refunds.  Since I mailed my returns in, I assume it will take longer than e-filing to get my refunds.  I am hoping that since I sent in my returns early that I might get my refunds within a month.  We shall see.  I could really use them.  My car registration and insurance is due soon.

Yesterday was another fun day here in the land of cats.  Even in the dead of winter, with snow on the ground, my cats have managed to keep their fleas no matter how often we call Terminix, put on flea-be-gone, or bath them.  So, yesterday, mother and I once again summoned Terminix, put the cats in their carriers, and set out to abandon our place for the requisite 2 to 4 hours acompanied by our very vocal furry companions.  We drove to Terre Haute to while away the time amid the chorus of protests from our feline friends.

Once we determined that it was safe, we return to our home, aired it out, brought the heat back up to an acceptable level, and the real fun commenced.  Yes, I’m talking about cat bathing.  If there is a cat out their who likes to be bathed, I haven’t met it.  But I was determined to get rid of our current batch of fleas, so no matter how much they protested or squirmed, my cats got flea baths.  Anyone who has bathed a cat can tell you that it is not only a battle of wills, but a musclar work out to keep a cat in a sink with running water while trying to apply flea soap.  Even though I outweigh my cats by 20 times, I still have a problem giving them a bath.  They may only be 10 to 15 pounds, but almost all of that weight is muscle and bone of an animal that HATES water.  Add water and soap to the mix and you have a squirmy, slippery critter who is constantly testing your determination.  And to add to the fun, I have 3 of them.  Needless to say, mother and I were tired by the end of the day.

Did it work? Have I gotten rid of the fleas?  Well, judging by the fact that one of my cats was scratching herself last night, I would say no.

Ah, it’s that time of year again.  The holidays are over, we’re already breaking New Year’s resolutions, and we are anticipating receiving the paperwork that we will need to do our taxes.

Amid all this not so festive time of year there is one bright spot: our TV shows are returning.  Not only are the normal network shows coming back, but those shows on USA, SyFy, TNT, etc. (at least most of the ones I watch) are coming back as well.  Nathan and team (Leverage) came back last week; Kate and Rick came back on Monday (Castle); Neal and Peter came back Tuesday night (White Collar); Michael, Fiona and Sam (Burn Notice) will reappear tonight along with Sam and Dean (Supernatural);  Olivia, Peter, and Walter made an early comeback a few weeks ago (Fringe);  Kate, Jack, Sawyer and company will be back next week (Lost); and Clark and friends will also be back next week (Smallville).  I am also planning on giving Caprica a try when it starts tomorrow.

Of course, not all of the shows I really enjoy are back: V and FlashForward are not reappearing until March; Stargate Universe will be back in “Spring”; and I have to wait until summer to see Eureka.  But still, most of the shows that I find very entertaining are either already back or soon will be.

Of course the show that I am most anxious to see return is Supernatural.  It is by far my favorite show and I can’t wait for tonight’s episode.  Of course, since this will probably be the final season, that will bring me one episode closer to the end.  I am both looking forward to this and dreading it.  I am looking forward to it because I want to know how Kripke (Supernatural’s creator) and company will wrap up the story; I am dreading it because their will be no more stories of Sam and Dean.

Anyway, whatever you watch, I hope it helps entertain you through all of the ups and downs of this time of year.

I know I have been mia lately and some of you might have wondered why.  It’s not that I haven’t been working on my computer, it’s just that I have been having the joy of doing a complete reinstall of the operating system on my PC and all that that entails.  Needless to say, I have been feeling pretty cranky lately and since my internet access was sporadic at best, I didn’t feel updating my blog was a high priority.

I am back now, and I have moved most of my internet activities to my new Ubuntu machine.  We shall see how this works.

I have also been messing with my blog and have added Google ads in my right sidebar.  Right now they are all looking like ads for Paris and French hotels.  Hopefully in a few days, they will become more relavent.  It doesn’t really matter, though.  They are just an experiment to prove that I can create Google ads on a blog page.

I hope all is well with everyone out there.  My next update should note take as long.

For most people who do holiday cooking, the holiday season means that they will be making roast turkey/ham, some favorite side dishes, a pie or two, and maybe some Christmas cookies.  For me, it’s fudge season.  Specifically peanut butter fudge.  I have made four batches of peanut butter fudge so far and I will be making another batch today (Mom has requested a batch for the New Year’s Eve party that she will be attending).

But this year, I decided that I needed to expand my horizons.  What inspired me?  On a recent trip down to Vincennes, my sister, my mother and I stopped at a roadside fruit stand/gas station that sold homemade fudge.  I sampled their maple walnut fudge and was not impressed.  My sister sampled their peanut butter fudge and said that it was pitiful, not anywhere near as good as mine (of course).  My mother was happy with her chocolate fudge.  I was looking over their offerings and got to thinking how I would go about making these fudges myself.  And so, I decided to make 3 new kinds of fudge this year: chocolate, maple walnut and pumpkin.

For the chocolate fudge, I decided that the recipe that I use for peanut butter fudge would not be a good start, so I opened up my Betty Crocker Cookbook and used their recipe for chocolate fudge.  It was a success, although it was a lot more work than peanut butter fudge.  Mom really loved it. I think I had 3 or 4 pieces, I gave 4 pieces away, and Mom ate the rest.

My next experiment was maple walnut fudge. The maple walnut fudge had a great taste, but it turned out a little grainy. I think that is because I used a grinder to grind up the walnuts. I will use a blender next time and make sure I get it to a creamy texture. I will say, the flavor of this fudge was fabulous, so I will definitely do it again. I made it the same way as the peanut butter fudge, but I substituted walnut paste for the peanut butter and used maple flavoring.

The pumpkin fudge wasn’t quite as successful. The flavor was good, but the fudge never set properly. I made it the same way as the peanut butter fudge, but I used a can of pumpkin pie filling in place of peanut butter (I squeezed as much liquid out as I could beforehand by using a clean dish towel – I need to get cheese clothe). I also cooked it 10 degrees higher than I normally do (I had tried to make this fudge before and it did not set then either). It still turned out to be pumpkin sludge, not pumpkin fudge. The good news is, it makes a nice topping for ice cream and tastes great on toast. I am determined to succeed with this recipe, so next time I will cook it even longer. I will not stop until I succeed!

I also made a batch of cookies.

I have not sent out Christmas cards this year, so I thought I would at least send out a Christmas greeting on my blog.  It has been a very busy week since I have been working, dealing with a hacked email account, a virus infected computer, a new computer to set up and configure, and all the normal holiday preparations.

Christmas came early for me this year.  I would like to thank my friend Paul for sending me a new computer.  I am loving it.  The computer is a Unix Ubuntu machine and I am looking forward to diving back into Unix.

I know most of you received a spam email from my email account, and I would just like to say I am sorry.  I have sent a message to yahoo about this.  Let’s see if they have any answers.  In the meantime, I have changed passwords on a lot of my accounts.  I am going to do a complete reinstall on my PC in case that is the root of my problems.  But that is going to take a few days, so I will do that next week (or the week after).

As for holiday preparations, presents have been bought and wrapped and fudge and cookies have been made.  Mom and I are going to have Christmas Eve dinner with my aunts and then have our own Christmas tomorrow.

However you plan on celebrating Christmas, I hope you have a wonderful holiday.

It takes awhile after you move to a new place before you find what is available in your new area.  You find the chain stores right away, but it takes a little time, and usually luck, to find the fun places.  I have lived in Indiana for over three years now, and I am finally feeling like I have found the necessary places.  You know, the right shoe store (I’m picky), a place to buy used cds and dvds, a good bookstore, etc.  Those special places that you like to go to when you are out and about that make your trip fun.

I recently found one of those stores, it is unique to this area, although I’m sure that there are similar places elsewhere.  The name of the shop is Pop Around the Clock and it is a popcorn shop in Vincennes, Indiana.  They make all sorts of flavored popcorn.  Some of my favorite flavors are grape, cherry (and I don’t like cherry), carmel, butter pecan toffee, and cheese.  I think my favorite flavor right now is root beer.  I know, most of you are not in this area, however, the good news is that they are on line and they will ship anywhere in the country.  Their website doesn’t list all of their flavors, but if you give them a call ((812) 882-0882), I’m sure you could get any flavor you want.

Mom and I stop by this shop every time we go to Vincennes now.  This last trip we decided to try the Mexican restaurant in the same strip mall.  And finally!  We found a good Mexican restaurant!  As you might suspect, Indiana is not the place you want to go to find Mexican food mecca.  We have tried several Mexican restaurants since moving here, and although we have found some okay places, none of them were the kind you can’t wait to go back to.  This place, on the other hand, had me planning my next trip to Vincennes before I even left the restaurant.  So, I am doubly thankful to Pop Around the Clock, not only for their wonderful popcorn, but for helping me locate some delicious Mexican food.

I thought I would review another series that is not yet on DVD, at least not in the US:  Spellbinder.  I am sure that not many of you have heard of this series.  I believe I saw it on the Disney Channel in the 90s.  I watched quite a bit of childrens programming back then, including Ocean Girl, Space Cases, and the Secret World of Alex Mack.  But my favorite was Spellbinder.

Spellbinder was a tale of alternate worlds.  It starts in our world, where teenager Paul Reynolds is playing a prank and accidently stumbles through a gateway to a parallel world.  This world has an agricultural society that is ruled by ‘Spellbinders’.  Spellbinders are people who use powersuits to manipulate electricity.  Paul is befriended by Riana in the Spellbinder world and together with his friends in our world, they work on a way to get Paul back.

I really enjoyed this series, but unfortunately, I did not tape it when it was on.  This series was only shown once in the US to my knowledge, so I have never had the opportunity to see it all the way through, since I missed several episodes while it was being shown.  There was a second series, Spellbinder 2: Land of the Dragon Lord, but it was not as well written and it had little to do with the first series so I soon lost interest in it.

If you would like to get more info about this series, check out these pages on Amazon, iMDb and Wikipedia.

Do you have a wish list of old TV series or movies that are not available on DVD that you wish were?  I know I do.  I though I might post about them from time to time.  So here is the first post and the series that I thought I would highlight is Star Cops.

I know some of my friends from the San Francisco Bay area have seen this series, but most other Americans will be unfamiliar with it, which is just a shame.  This series was made in the late 1980s by BBC, and it was a very well done and intriguing show.  Unfortunately, it only ran for one series of about 9 episodes.  The premise of the show is that it is set in the near future where there are many national space stations orbiting the earth and a multinational moon base.  And one of the things people have brought with them as they have moved into space is crime.  So there is a multinational police force set up to handle this.  In the first episode, a reluctant detective is sent up to as a possible candidate for the commander of the Starcops and is very disturbed when a spacewalk turns deadly apparently because of suit malfunction.  Turns out there have been several suit malfunctions over the years, and the question is, is this normal, have the suits been sabotaged, or has the Russian company who makes them deliberately overlooked suit safety for some reason.  The opening scene will give you the answer, but it will take a determined detective to come up with the truth.

I loved this series, for several reasons.  This series was made during the Cold War and it has that era’s tensions between countries.  No nationality was portrayed in a rosy light – each one had its own faults.  And although the setting was futurist, the crimes were what could come with the advancement of men in science and space.  Even though this series was made in the 80s, it still has a futuristic feel to it.

I made a recording of this show on VHS when it played on the local PBS station and I have since transferred it to DVD.  In fact this is one of the few recordings that I bothered to transfer to DVD.  If you want your own copy, you are going to have a hard time finding it.  This series was apparently put out on DVD in the UK, but there was never a region one encoding made.  So most of us in the US are out of luck.  But even those in the UK will have a hard time finding it since it is, to my knowledge, no longer being sold.  I would love it if they put this series out on DVD here so that I could replace my poor quality recording, but I am still glad that I have my recording so I can revisit this show every once in a while.

If you want to look into this series more, check it out at Amazon, on Wikipedia, and at this BBC site.

One more note, although I would love this series no matter what the theme song was, this is one of those shows that I find myself rewinding just to listen to the haunting theme song.  It was written by Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues and I wish I had a recording of it.  I think I have just inspired myself.  I am going to go to YouTube and search for it.  It has to be out there.

Hello, all!

I hope you are all enjoying your Thanksgiving.  We are currently in the prep phase of our meal and I have the easy part.  I only have to make the mashed potatoes.  I have already peeled and cut them and I am about to put them on to boil.  Very soon the mashing will commence.

Wherever you are in your Thanksgiving, I hope all is going well.

Thanksgiving preparations are not the only thing that I have done today, although that has gone the smoothest.  I have also tried to install a plugin that will help me twitt from this blog.  So far, no go.  But I will keep trying, but probably not until Sunday, since I will be working tomorrow and Saturday.

Anyway, go, enjoy your turkey or tofurkey or whatever else you are having today.