Evidence Review Weekend...

For the first time ever (well...in the almost-2 years I've been investigating the paranormal) I am AHEAD OF SCHEDULE for reviewing evidence for our current case!!! :D

The last few times I have procrastinated until Sunday, then found I didn't have enough time to look at/listen to everything. But this weekend I spend a day celebrating the Toy Story franchise (which I blogged about), then I made myself a pot of coffee and some breakfast...

SIDEBAR:
I do not recommend Fettuccine and White Clam Sauce. I saw some in HEB yesterday and I'm thinking "I like white sauce! I like sea food! White Clam Sauce must be a culinary gift from God!!!"

It's not.

(By the way, I haven't tried the Red Clam Sauce, but I don't think it's the color that's the problem, I suspect it's the clam.)

I boiled up a big pot of fettuccine, baked a Michael Angelo's Eggplant Parmesan (always a winner, whether you bake it or nuke it!), and opened a package of Hawaiian Bread dinner rolls my li'l bro' bought for me, and I was fully prepared to be both entranced and delighted.

I had maybe 5 bites of the Fettuccine with White Clam Sauce before I had to give it up as a failure.

Now, keep in mind that I can boil up fettuccine, top it with butter and Parmesan Cheese, and enjoy it like it was fresh from Romano's Macaroni Grill! (Well...you know...maybe Olive Garden.) I've eaten fettuccine with every type of Alfredo sauce available in grocery stores, and thoroughly enjoyed the meal!

(I don't recommend Walmart's Great Value brand Alfredo sauce, though...it kind of sneaks up on you afterward.)

AND, on top of my love of pasta is the fact that I simply do not waste food. (If you haven't read my blog in a while, I don't really have tons of money to throw around.) So abandoning half my meal is simply not something I do easily. (I once made Kraft Mac & Cheese and dumped a bunch of Cajun seasoning on it, hoping to make it special. It was not special; it was painful; but I believe I choked a lot of it down. And a box of Macaroni & Cheese is about a quarter of the price of White Clam Sauce and a box of fettuccine.)

How can I describe this? Clam Sauce tastes, roughly, like the sea.

Not like seaweed, or salty, or like water...but like the sea. Have you ever gone out to the beach, run out into the waves, gotten pulled under by the undertow and swallowed half a lungful of water? That's kind of how Clam Sauce tastes.

Or if you've ever seen The Perfect Storm, those fishing boats those guys are on? Clam Sauce tastes the way those fishing boats look.

END OF SIDEBAR.

So I made myself a pot of coffee (which I'm drinking with Chocolate Mint Truffle creamer tonight) and a big breakfast of Italian (style) food, then settled into a night of evidence review. I listened to my hourS (notice the capital "S") of audio footage and a NotePad document (for taking notes) and listened.

And now I'm done! :D

Had I put it off until tomorrow (well, later today, but I haven't been to sleep yet) I would probably be wrapping up the evening with hurried notes to my teammates explaining how I would find time before or after work over the next few days to finish my listening.

But -- probably since I didn't procrastinate (much) this time -- I had time to review a bunch of pictures taken during the investigation, too!

Now I have a video camera angle to review tomorrow, and there may be some more audio that needs to be listened to. But for now, I can kick back and goof off until I fall asleep!!! :D

I just got this AWESOME audiobook: UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On The Record by Leslie Keane. (I bought the physical book a month ago, but haven't cracked the spine yet because the physical book I'm still reading now is Stan Romanek's Messages. I usually have one (or two) physical books that I'm working on and an audiobook. A like listening to the audiobooks while I'm playing videogames or driving or whatnot.) So I may listen to some On The Record for a while to relax.

I hope your weekend is going GROOVY!!!

:D

TOY STORY 3!!!

I FINALLY SAW IT!!!

:D

I wanted to see it in 3-D in the cinema, but I didn't have the money. :(

Still...AWESOME flick!!! Seriously powerful, whatever format you see it in, I'm sure!

So, I used to have this cool DVD set with the first 2 Toy Story movies, but I lost the set along with (literally) thousands of dollars worth of movies the first year Brian and I moved in here. So I haven't had a copy of either movie (well...I do still have a VHS copy of the first Toy Story from way back in the pre-DVD days of home video) for 3 or 4 years now.

And that was kind of okay, because I had seen Toy Story and Toy Story 2 several times each, and PIXAR kept putting out new flicks every year, and I was more in the mood to watch the new ones as they came out than to go back and watch the Toy Story films.

However...

Earlier last week I was grabbing some groceries at Walmart and saw The Toy Story Trilogy: The Ultimate Toy Box Collection!!! 10 discs -- the Ultimate Toy Box Edition of all three movies on Blu-Ray, plus all three movies on DVD, plus the Digital Download discs for all three flicks -- stored in a replica of Andy's toy box, for $70!

It's a bit expensive, and I might be able to buy the same set in 6 months or a year for half the price (maybe), but when I got paid Friday I simply could not resist collecting all 3 flicks (including the one I hadn't seen yet) in one fell swoop!

And I so don't regret it!

I bought Brian and myself some Domino's last night (I had the Chicken Alfredo Pasta breadbowl and the Sausage Marinara Pasta breadbowl, and the two lava-brownie things) and we watched Toy Story 3!!! It was awesome!

Afterward, we watched all the extras on the feature-film disc, then popped in Toy Story.

Brian has to work this morning, so I watched TS3 in my bedroom with the audio commentary, and am now working my way backward through the 2nd and 1st movies with audio commentary. (Those PIXAR folks are frickin' GENIUSES!!!)

BUT FIRST...

I had some unfinished SModcast business to attend to...

Back when TS3 was still in the theaters, Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier talked about in on episode #124: "Schindler's Toy Box", and at one point they announce that they will be spoiling the ending, and to stop listening to the podcast if you haven't seen it yet.

That episode has been sitting on my MP3 player ever since!

So it was with great joy and relief that I FINALLY got to finish listening to that episode!

It was cool, too. I re-listened to the whole thing, and it was cool to hear some of what they said before the spoiler alert now, having seen the film. And what they had to say about it was cool, too.

So I have had just a Toy Story-filled day today!

I should be reviewing evidence, though. I mean, I still have 2 days to do it (I haven't been to sleep, so right now is still part of my "Friday" since it's early Saturday morning), but in the past I have found that if I don't get to the evidence review early I may find myself staying up late Sunday night (which is really Monday morning, for the rest of the world) cramming until the very last minute.

Still...it's been a long week at work. I deserve some down time.

ALSO...!

My Genius Friend Dave gave me this really fascinating idea for a project. I'll probably go into it more soon, but let me just say that My Genius Friend Dave continues (yet again) to earn the moniker I've slapped on him here! (He could hang with the PIXAR folks, and not embarrass himself!)

Okay, the sun is well up this Saturday morning, which means that my night should really be done. But I still have some Toy Story audio commentaries I want to watch before I go to sleep, so I'll sign off for now and get to it.

A shout-out to the love of my life, who has been busy lately but still finds the time to make me feel all special!!! xoxoxo

May your weekend be DELIGHTFUL and delight-filled!!!

:D