Fires, MacGyver, eBay, NASCAR, and SG-1!

Top of the Mornin' to Ya!

Yesterday was a bit smoky around here again. These California fires have been just dreadful. Fortunately, I'm not in the middle of the fires, but the air quality here has been in the red zone for two weeks. I can't imagine what it must be like to live in the thick of these wildfires.

I've been watching the season 1 episodes of "MacGyver", thanks to a good friend who got it for me a while back. It's so nice to see the episodes complete and whole and without commercial interruption. Always loved to see Mac, especially that first year. The opening gambits that they did were wonderful. I hated that they had to stop doing them, but I remember reading at the time how the gambit that had nothing to do with the main plot actually cost as much as, if not more, than the main part of the show, so they had to stop doing them. They sure were fun, though.

My eBay auctions had a little bit of success; sold a few pieces of furniture and one of the coats (sable, I think it was). I'm completely anti-fur since I'm in animal lover, but it belonged to my grandmother or my aunt, and it's just been hanging in the closet for decades. It was time to do something with it. Have a couple other faux furs that didn't sell, unfortunately. There's always next time before they end up tossed.

Today is the beginning of another NASCAR weekend. The big rumor recently has been that Tony Stewart will defect from his Gibbs racing team and join up with the fledgling Haas team. That rumor heated up when Hendrick Motorsports announced that they weren't going to resign Casey Mears at the end of the season. As a result, everyone began talking about Tony joining Hendrick. Can you picture a team of Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmie Johnson, and Tony Stewart? Oh, geez.

More realistically, it looks like maybe Mark Martin is going to drive the 5 car after Mears goes. I really wish Martin would just go home and retire. I lost all respect for him the year he flipflopped from wanting to go truck racing to resigning for a full year again. I know he's well liked and such, but I'm tired of his whining and his flip-flop nature. Either stay home and be the husband and father you say you want to be, or just shut up and race full time.

Hey, gas was only $4.39 when I added some fuel to my car the other day. I was in complete shock -- that was a drop from the $4.52 it had been the last time I put gas in the tank.

Oh, had an email about a pathetic attempt by some of the Jack and Sam shippers to get that supposed 'romance' acknowledged in the third (if there is one) Stargate SG-1 movie. It's so funny. Years ago, there was a highly successful 'Save Daniel Jackson' campaign after Michael Shanks left the series. It was all very public. By contrast, this thing is underground, hidden in a forum that has a warning not to enter and to just go away if you aren't a Jack and Sam shipper. Ridiculous!

These folks are pleading with the producers for their acknowledgment, whining about their years of frustration. Geez, they should think how the Jack and Daniel fans feel. Talk about being brushed aside.

One thing is sure. I have little, if any, respect for the producers of SG-1 because they ruined a wonderful show with their soap opera attitude. However, ole RCC (Robert C. Cooper) has never quite crossed the line. Everything has still been vague illusions and alternate realities. Should he actually cross the line for anything more real, he will completely alienate the J/D fans, and that's a huge part of the fan base. He's not stupid.

As long as there is the hope of making more SG-1 movies, RCC won't cross that line. Doing so, would be the final and permanent end of the franchise. My fear is that if he ever knows 'this is the end' for absolute sure, that he might do it because he is a shipper, sadly, which, of course, is why he ruined a great show. However, they'll lose money if they do it. I know a slew of folks, including myself, who would never buy it if any 'ship' was done.

The one thing I take great solace in, is that everything from the end of Season 8 on is AU. By putting in a fish in Jack's pond, which by canon has never had any fish in it, and by having Jack himself say 'close enough', an acknowledgment that things weren't 100% in the supposedly restored universe, RCC gave us, and himself, actually, a big out. Considering what he did to Daniel after that, I hang on to fish with reverence.

It's all AU! Long live that fish!

That's it for right now. I'm about to revise my 'GPT Hints and Tips' slightly. Hope it's of help to anyone interested. I'm still having fun and thankfully bringing in some cash.

Have a good one!