possibly pathetically made of fail

I fell asleep before Hillary Clinton's speech last night. Originally, I was getting angry ("Why is it on so late? This is ridiculous! Oh, wait, different time zone, yeah..."), but my anger quickly burned off, and I was out like a light. Thank you, news blogs, for catching me up.

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I have a suggestion for Heroes fans: don't watch the official season 3 trailer that was posted on heroes_tv if you don't want to be spoiled. It's a fantastic trailer - very edge-of-your-seat - but personally, I think it spoils at least one great line from the premiere that really should have stayed a surprise for people. If you've seen the trailer already, you'll know the line I mean, and it's a great comedic moment in the episode (one of several, actually - it really is a great episode).

Eh, spoilers are funny things; I hate watching movie trailers to movies I plan on seeing because they use parts of the film which would otherwise have been great surprises. One of the best movie experiences I ever had was watching Jurassic Park on the big screen during its opening week. I hadn't seen a single trailer for the movie before my dad said, "Hey, do you want to go see a movie about dinosaurs?" It remains one of my all-time favorites.

I studiously avoided watching any trailers for The Dark Knight this time around, and I felt the same way.

Long story short, trailers that are just teasers are great fun, but I think you risk too much in the way of surprises by watching the full trailer. That being said, I loved the premiere episode of Heroes when I saw it at Comic Con, and I'm definitely excited to see it again in September. Had I not seen the first episode at all, I'm sure that I'd cave in and watch it. But I'd be mad at myself later if I did.

Take a deep breath... now hold it... no, keep going...

So we've battened down the hatches here at my house, not because of any threat of a hurricane (though we desperately need rain here - a rain shower has become something of a hazy memory around these parts), but because they're spraying for mosquitoes tonight.

Yeah, we're in the middle of a drought, and they're spraying for mosquitoes.

The reason is because our neck of the woods has been inundated with cases of West Nile Virus, which, while possibly deadly for the very young and the very elderly, is not something we generally need to be worrying over. Most people who become infected don't show any symptoms, and for those who do, it's somewhat flu-like.

What's more worrying is the fact that we've had to cover our vegetables and our tiny fish pond because the chemical they're spraying is very toxic. Granted, the dosage is a very small quantity, but it's extraordinarily deadly for bees (and our whole nation is in danger of losing our native bees) and, apparently, it's toxic to fish. Poor little guys. :(

Whatever happened to not letting your infants and grandparents sit out among the mosquitoes? Is it really necessary to be spraying toxic chemicals over us via airplanes? Really?