Takoyaki Journals

So at first I thought April Fools came early. But no, it's apparently true. The Discovery Channel is going to pay a million dollars an episode to let Sarah Palin host a show about Alaska. Screw you, Discovery Channel.

I went ahead and wrote to the Discovery Channel. The website is frustrating in and of itself, incredibly slow to load, and it has no location for general comments, or something about upcoming programming. So I ended up putting it down as a comment related to 'The Alaska Experience.' Palin believes in letting Creationism into public schools, and doesn't believe in Global Warming. I don't want her near my educational programming.

I live alone, I don't have a lot of expenses, so I splurged and got the nice big cable package when I moved to St. Marys. I've got Discovery and Science and Nat Geo...History International, BBC America... And I love nonfiction programming. Give me Top Gear, Planet Earth, Walking with Dinosaurs...The Daily Show, Mythbusters, Ancient Discoveries... But I'm getting sick of this constant slide into less and less rigorous programming. At first the History Channel was all Nazis all the time, and then they came up with History International, which was cool. But now History International is all Nazis and the History channel is all Monsters and Nostradamus. And now the Discovery Channel too. >__<

I think it might be time for me to look into Boxee, or AppleTV.

Yesterday when I left my company parking lot, I was behind one of my coworkers, the guy that taught my mom and me how to fire a shotgun. He drives a Monster Truck (yes, with the giant tires) and has two McCain/Palin bumper stickers. One of them has a target and says 'McCain hit the Bullseye with Palin.' And then there's, you know, me, right behind him. And as we left the parking lot and pulled out onto the street, he turned right and I turned left and I had to laugh.

I called my mom to tell her the joke to find out that she and my dad just got back from Cabelas where they bought their own Compound Bows. Blue for Dad and Red for Mom. I'm excited for them to have a hobby they can enjoy together. It's kind of funny about their bows, because I'm knitting scarves for them for Christmas (quiet twigcollins, they ASKED for them) and had my mom help pick out the yarns. And so when they go out to shoot targets they'll have their scarves, red and blue, to match their bows.

Because I like to try new things, and it seemed like a great way to get a taste without having to spend a lot of money, I signed up for a Women in the Outdoors event. The brochure said you'd get to try shotgun, handgun, horseback riding, canoeing, canning, dutch oven cooking, wine making, fishing...all kinds of stuff. My mom is brilliant at shooting things on the wii, (and also rubber band fights) and I thought she'd love the chance to try a real gun too. So I invited her down this weekend and we both went.

Oh my God, you guys! My mom is AWESOME.

When we did shotgun she hit 5 out of 9 clay pigeons. When we did handgun she hit a bullseye with her first shot. When we did archery she hit 5 balloons with 6 arrows. Whenever we went to a new event we would tell our instructor how she has so much fun on the wii, and they would laugh indulgently. By the end of the session they were all going "I need to get a wii! What game did you play again?!?"

( I on the other hand, could probably use some more practice. )

I had a ball, Mom had a ball, and if there's a branch of Women in the Outdoors in your area, I'd highly suggest it. Really fun day. Apparently there's one going on in the winter not too far from me where they do skiing and bobsledding and dogsledding! All kinds of fun.