I very rarely throw caution to the wind. I like to pretend that I don't give a damn about consequences, but it's all just a facade. I'm pretty rigid about most things, but I tend to break my own rules. Not even break really, just change the rules. I'm almost OCD about having to live my life by a set of rules. It's why I like Gibbs rules so much.

Along other lines, I hate the mall. I was going to go last night after work and then hopefully have my dad pick me up. However, my mom and dad decided to take my little brother to the home and garden show. I still would have gone to the mall, but they told me that Colin was going to be out with his friends so the house would be empty. The lure of an empty house was too much. I thus decided to go home. Where I got 40 minutes of alone time, before Colin came home. I then had to spend my entire evening in the family room or else he would swoop in and steal the TV to play XBox 360. I rewatched the good parts of ER and then I watched The Office and Breach. Then I re-rewatched ER just for caution. The upshot of this longwinded story being that I didn't get to the mall until today. I thought I'd have to take the bus both ways, but my dad dropped me off and then my parents met me later in the day.

It was pretty dead when I first got there at 10:30, but boy did it get busy fast. And I wasted all the empty bits window shopping. By the time I left the Clinique counter, the mall was really busy. I hate shopping anyway, I mean sometimes I like to look at stuff, but crowds make me freak out. I don't know if that claustrophobia or agoraphobia, but whatever it is, I've got it.

As a bonus, my Twilight DVD arrived today. If I'd checked the mail last night, I could have watched that instead of watching Breach. That was not as good as I thought it was going to be. I thought it would be more edge of your seat than it was. It was mostly just boring. And Ryan Phillipe is not that hot.

( ER )

Title: Snapshots of an Unintended Life.
Chapter: 8 - The Second Scare
Fandom: NCIS
Characters: Tony and Ziva
Word Count: 1,687
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Tony and Ziva deal with a life they never planned on living. A story in 10 parts.

( Chapter 8 - The Second Scare )

Why are some men such jerks? I go to bible study on Sunday morning. It's held at a coffee shop around the corner from the church. It's a nice relaxed atmosphere for the college and careers group, with the added bonus of not having to listen to boatloads of screaming children. Unfortunately, there is a guy that attends (he's actually our youth service coordinator at the church), and he is a complete jackass. He never shuts his trap. He's really rude about women. And he thinks because he's both a man and a cop, he's better than everyone else. He's always making inappropriate comments that I don't think are acceptable for a leader in our church. How do you make that known without being a total jackass yourself?

Oh well. At least Celebrity Apprentice is on tonight. We've never watched it before. It's really good.

Snagged from leobrat:

Give me a character from any fandom you know I know and I will tell you:
a. My favorite thing about that character.
b. My least favorite thing about that character.
c. One person I would ship them with in their own universe.
d. One crossover ship for them I think would be neat.
e. One crossover universe for them I think would be even neater.
f. Their nightmare ship.
g. Their song.
h. The title of their biography or autobiography.
i. The last bad dream they had.
j. How they're gonna shuffle off the mortal coil, if they haven't already.

I'm actually very excited about this meme.

I've read some NCIS spoilers. Let's just say that again the Powers That Be are going to have me in a panicked state until the season finale, and then onto September. It's terrible! Ditto the writers over at Lost.

I'm not a big fan of Law & Order. I don't like Special Victims Unit, because usually it involves horrific sex crimes against kids, but I've been known to watch it. Munch amuses me. I used to watch Criminal Intent, but I don't like Chris Noth. I've seen a few episodes of the original, but it's probably the one I'd be most interested in. I like Linus Roache. I like spotting the times that he really looks like his dad. I loved Conviction, mostly because of J. August Richards, but that's a different story entirely.

I am, however, totally excited about Law & Order: UK. I'm just wondering how long it's going to be before we get it here. We seriously need ITV Canada. What the deuce? I love Bradley Walsh. He was so funny on Coronation Street. Of questionable morals, absolutely, but funny nonetheless. Plus I like British cops shows way more than I like American cop shows, NCIS, CSI: NY, The Mentalist and Criminal Minds being the exceptions. I do like Medium, but I mostly like that for Allison's family. Bridget is one cute kid.

I just got back from a youth retreat at Camp Arnes. It was pretty fun, but I felt super old. I was the oldest person there who wasn't signed on as a "leader." I use this term loosely, because there were people who were much younger than I was, that just made themselves leaders. Way to be guys.

But the speaker and the band were really good. Although the speaker went from fun and happy to fire and brimstone pretty darn quickly. But he had a lot of good thought provoking stuff to say.

I am extremely tired. I think I'll be going to bed very early tonight.

1. List 15-20 of your favorite old and new fandoms.

2. Have your friends guess your favorite two ships from each fandom.

3. Strike out the fandom when someone guesses correctly and put the name of the first person to get it right.

1. Stargate: Atlantis - dine7184 - Ronon/Keller
2. NCIS - dine7184 - Tony/Ziva & Tony/Kate
3. ER - dine7184 - Ray/Neela
4. Heroes - dine7184 - Sylar/Elle
5. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
6. Angel - leobrat - Angel/Cordelia
7. Gilmore Girls
8. Veronica Mars - leobrat - Mac/Dick & Logan/Veronica
9. CSI: NY - dine7184 - Danny/Lindsay
10. Bones - dine7184 - Booth/Bones & Hodgins/Angela
11. The West Wing
12. Ugly Betty
13. Lost - leobrat - Kate/Sawyer
14. That 70s Show - leobrat - Jackie/Hyde & Donna/Eric
15. Friends - leobrat - Joey/Rachel & Chandler/Monica

Name a character or pairing from a fandom I'm familiar with, and I'll give you a song lyric (or possibly a line of poetry) that I think fits.

So insanely busy at work today, I barely had time to catch my breath. But at least the day goes super fast. I have to cover reception tomorrow at lunch, which sucks, but then I don't have to do it again until next Friday.

Also, according to my brother and his dopey friend, this creepy guy at church who's been harrassing their girlfriends wants to date me. Greaaaat. Why can't I find a nice guy? Not some creep who asks girls about their underwear preferences. Guys suck.

I've had a pretty boring weekend. The weather yesterday was pretty crappy, so the fact that I had to be the responsible adult for the last bit of my mom's recovery (I use this term loosely, as recovery actually takes about a month) wasn't a huge hardship. She's been able to watch TV, which I didn't think she'd be able to do, so we watched a crapload of Stargate: Atlantis, Season 5. ( Stargate Rant )

Caught up on some General Hospital this morning. Gotta love Spinelli. And this new hot Australian guy, Ethan Lovett. He looks familiar.

I think we're gonna do some more Stargate watching this afternoon. Thanks to my mom's cataract removal, we get the tv downstairs because it's too hard for her to watch tv upstairs. Not that I mind watching upstairs, but there's only one place to sit and your neck gets sore.

The weather has suddenly turned very crappy. I'm extremely glad that I'm staying in all day.

Mom had her cataract removed today. Which I will go into further at a later date.

Work was pretty hectic. Sadly, I wish I could work tomorrow, because I just have too much to do.

Went to ladies book club for the first time last night. It was really good. The book was My Sister's Keeper. Our next book is called The Shack. I'm really looking forward to it.

I'm supposed to be watching Lost right now, but my parent's insurance lady is here. Eating into my Lost time.

I just discovered that I can get Season 5 of Stargate: Atlantis episodes free from Shaw On Demand. I love digital television. So that's what Mom and I are doing tonight while Dad and the boys are at the Curling. Awesome. I think we might even order in.

I stayed up way too late last night, and got up way too early this morning, to read New Moon. ( Rant )

I got my haircut today. It was a bit scary, this being the first time I've gotten my hair done since our move to Winnipeg. All things considered, I think it turned out okay.

Speaking of Winnipeg - I hate winter here. When we said we were moving to Winnipeg, everyone was like "You're moving to Winterpeg?" My thought on this was that Edmonton isn't exactly Tahiti, but boy was I foolish. Edmonton got days where it hit -40 (-50 with the windchill), but generally just a couple of weeks, and then we were back to our regularly scheduled -20 (no windchill) weather. It might even happen a few times over the winter, but we always had some sort of respite. Not here. It has been almost solidly -30 (with windchill) since the beginning of December. We might get one or two days were the temperature rises above -20, but there's always a windchill making it feel worse than it is. I thought it was supposed to get warmer the further south you went. Long live Canadian winters!

This week's thefridayfive:

1. What would you do right now, if money were not an issue? I'd hop a plane to Europe.
2. What would you do for the next three years, if money were not an issue? I'd travel through Europe, build my book and DVD collection, maybe go back to school
3. What is bringing you the most joy right now that requires little or no money? Reading the Twilight books
4. What types of things do you find enjoyable that require no money? Reading, watching tv
5. Is there anything you've been meaning to do for a long time, but put off because of money? Travel

I'm so tired. I want nothing more than to take a bath and read New Moon. And then sleep. For hours.

I'm going to try to get a haircut tomorrow. My bangs are driving me nutty. I might also try to go see Twilight again. I just finished reading it and I feel it needs another viewing. Who cares if it will be the fourth time? That's not obsessive, right?

Post this in your journal and have your friends recommend things to you for the new year!

Recommend a...

Book I Should Read:
Movie I Should See:
Band/CD I Should Listen To:
TV Show I Should Watch:
Website I Should Visit:
LJ User I Should Friend:
LJ Comm I Should Join:

It was so hard to get up and go to work today. Especially considering that a) I've never had to work between Christmas and New Year's and b) my entire family was still snug in their beds. Work was heinously crazy. It seriously went by in a flash, and I still have a bazillion things to do. A girl I work with was sick today (considering that I think she's a major party girl - is in her 50s and hasn't outgrown it - I'm doubting she was actually sick) and I had to cover off her rush work. I didn't get my rush work finished because hers was rush rush. If that makes any sense. In my Abby-brain it did. You know it's bad when the weekly to-do list you create on Monday is almost full before lunch.

Also, Patrick and Robin's wedding. So cute. I love them.

Stolen from afteriwake: Instructions: List 10 different fictional characters from any fandom/s you like, and don't peek at the questions until you're done.

1. Tony DiNozzo (NCIS)
2. Ziva David (NCIS)
3. Don Flack (CSI: NY)
4. Penelope Garcia (Criminal Minds)
5. Neela Rosgothra (ER)
6. John Sheppard (Stargate Atlantis)
7. Donna Moss (The West Wing)
8. Josh Lyman (The West Wing)
9. Maxie Jones (General Hospital)
10. Claire McLeod (McLeod's Daughters)

( On to the Questions: )

When I was updating my iPod yesterday, I decided to do something totally crazy. I took all the music that I've been listening to recently and put it in a playlist. To that playlist, I then added all the music that I bought or uploaded yesterday and all the music I bought or uploaded a couple of weeks ago. I then went through my playlist and added all the works by every artist that I'd already added to the list. Then I added all the music that had a play count of 100 or higher, plus all the music that had no play count. As the playlist total was then over half of my entire total, I started deleting music from the playlist based on play count. Anything that had a play count of 1, then 2, etc. until was under 500 songs. So I've got some old favourites and bunch of stuff that I've never even listened to. Next time I update, I shouldn't have anything that doesn't have a play count, so then I'll try to bump songs from a play count of 1 to a play count of 2. It seems like a lot of work, but it was pretty fun. Plus I was getting really sick of my old music.

Everyone is out at curling and I have the house to myself. So happy!