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Hi folks.....

We are freezing here as well! Brrr...Woke up to five degree weather. It didn't get much better today. Tomorrow should be better. Next week...mid-fifties...

Sande...Did I give you the impression Chris had no video games. Puh-leeeze! He has had a Play-Station II for years now. I have no interest in that thing. I can't keep track of his games. I bought him an Army Man Game once. Hey, he actually liked it! They are a take-off on the little green plastic army men we played with as kids. He bought me a Soprano's game when the show ended. i don't think the package is unwrapped. I hate trying to figure out how to play that stuff. No patience...



We don't play board games because Chris is not interested in that. I guess things don't blow up on board games..not nearly enough half-naked woman either. There is a very good reason Chris has no children. He makes for a very lousy family man. This he knows.

OK...maybe Ruby would think otherwise. He does love that dog.

Sande...I can so relate to your parental relationships. Without having to get the violin's out...my Mother never did anything girly with me. So much crap to dredge up. My father in those days was only interested in my Mother who basically treated him like a nat. That relationship hasn't changed since they are thirteen. My Dad just turned 70. It is what it is. I felt like an unwanted burden the 21 years I lived there. We can't change the past, Sande. We sure do hold onto a lot of resentments though, don't we. Not healthy...so many times ingrained and unconscious. You can't pick your family. You.just.can't.

It is not bad to live in a snow-belt. Then again..there are lot bigger snow-belts than where I am. I guess I like my area for the amounts of snow we get. It could be so much worse. Of course, when it happens during rush hour...not a lot of fun...unless you can stay home...or, leave way earlier....or, go in way late. I have the flexibility to make it work for me...

Chris and I saw Ratatouille last week. It was very cute. I had to bring it back before I saw what extras were on it. I hate that...

Angie...My Mom health wise...you would not at this point realize she has cancer (lymphoma) a semi-mechanical heart..and, diabetes. Everything seems to be in remission or currently managed. She has been like this for sometime. She just needs a major personality adjustment sometimes. I haven't met a doctor who could fix it.....

When I do find the magic pill for that fix Chris will be getting the same magic bullet. He's another one who needs a good kick in the a$$. He is just to big for any of us to do it and live to tell about it! I hope you get to feeling better once the kids are back to school and things calm down. Pretty soon you will have the house to yourself for a good chunk of time. That got to feel good. At least I would think so. I rarely get that. Chris spends way more time with the house to himself than visa-versa.

Where the heck is that Melissa hiding. Being in a funk is no reason for not being here if that's her problem. Heck, you people helped un-funk me....

She better get her butt back here pronto! I hope she has some nice work that she is interested in keeping her pre-occupied.

Oh..did I tell you guys I just got my Clay CD's and DVD of the West Point Concert I attended last year. They arrived on New Year's Eve day It is so much fun. This is a little piece of Christmas that is all mine. No one can take that from me. I am still listening to them. It is amazing the quality these clack gatherer's achieve. This year's concert was so different. Last year was a gabfest with lots of laughs and that voice. This year...not a lot of talk from Clay. More solemn....equally effective. I can't wait to get this years to.

Do you guys have any of these? I also have the play he did. I love them all.

Night buddies...

But I would also like to see the Kite Runner. It looks like a Great movie. And it's true...(right?) I know the book was a fave of Clay's...did anybody read it?

Sande...I read the book. The book is excellent. Why don't you read it first. A true story you ask. I think it is a fictionalized account of a jumble of things that were quite possible. I am sure the author took occurring things and wove them into a story to grab the readers attention. Like The Titanic. I really do recommend reading it. One of those I can't put this book down stories...

I do get stuff out of the library. I just borrowed Season Two of The Wire...and, All 13 episodes of the British John Cleese comedy Faulty Towers over New Year's. Ya gotta love Basil!

Angie...Wow! about the great car deal! Now that is what I call a bar-gooon!!! Good going. That is a lot of moo-lah to save...Yea!!

I wish I had extended time off to put my house in order. Maybe fit some good workouts in. One can dream.....but, I wonder if I would be constructive with my time. It would be a shame if I just wasted the time and played on the internet. God did give me a lazy bone....

I hope all your organizing for your new session is going swimmingly, Katherine. We are having exceptional weather also. Great for driving. Long may it last!!!

Melissa, Melissa...Oli Oli Oxen-free!!! (Oxen-free..it is what we used to say..not quite sure of the spelling) OK...Come out, come out...Where ever you are!!!

HBO's The Wire.....

One of television's most critically acclaimed programs, the Peabody Award-winning drama series 'The Wire' continues to challenge viewers with a "cop show" unlike anything on air.

The fifth and final season of 'The Wire' centers on the media's role in addressing - or failing to address - the fundamental political, economic and social realities depicted over the course of the series, while also resolving storylines of the numerous characters woven throughout the narrative arc of the show.

Explains series creator David Simon, "It made sense to finish 'The Wire' with this reflection on the state of the media, as all the other attendant problems of the American city depicted in the previous four seasons will not be solved until the depth and range of those problems is first acknowledged. And that won't happen without an intelligent, aggressive and well-funded press."

This season of 'The Wire' is based in large part on Simon's experiences in 13 years at The Baltimore Sun. Simon decries recent trends in the newspaper industry that have conspired to make high-end journalism vulnerable: out-of-town chain ownership, an economic climate in which the share price of media companies matters more to industry leaders than the product itself, and a newsroom culture in which prizes, personal ambition and the cult of the "impact" story has replaced consistent and detailed coverage of complex issues as the primary goal.

The first season of 'The Wire' (2002) concentrated on the often-futile efforts of police to infiltrate a West Baltimore drug ring headed by Avon Barksdale and his lieutenant, Stringer Bell. In Seasons Two and Three, as the Barksdale investigation escalated, new storylines involving pressures on the working class and the city's political leadership were introduced. Season Four focused on the stories of several young boys in the public school system, struggling with problems at home and the lure of the corner - set against the rise of a new drug empire in West Baltimore and a new Mayor in City Hall.

Katherine....I am addicted to The Wire on so many levels. The acting is brilliant. The writing is brilliant.

'The Wire': dissects troubled city as HBO series heads to conclusion.

NEW YORK - In last week's season opener of "The Wire," a street-smart youngster is duped into confessing to a murder the detectives know he committed, but can't prove. They attach him to a "lie detector," which is in fact a copy machine.

It spits out a pre-loaded sheet of paper that says "FALSE" an instant after the kid has denied the crime. Seeing this, he falls apart and spills everything.

Detective "Bunk" Moreland, savouring his triumph, pronounces a sweeping assessment of humanity: "The bigger the lie," he chuckles, "the more they believe."

And with that, viewers were alerted to the theme that will carry "The Wire" through its fifth and final season - escalating lies and misplaced faith in Baltimore.

"The Wire" is a series that has been hailed with almost tiresome consistency as TV's best drama by anyone who watches it, and - no lie - this season is the best yet. The HBO series is shown in Canada on Movie Central and The Movie Network.

It has always been a study of intertwined and often clashing institutions in a troubled town: the police, the politicians, the labour force, the failing schools, the drug gangs in Baltimore's squalid projects (the series title refers to surveillance by the narcs).

It's a world where, too often, people focus on their narrow self-interest, where doing the right thing is no path to success.

No wonder in this system, lies become the currency with which most business is transacted.

But this season the dilemma is worse than ever. The city is in economic crisis, with budget cutbacks crippling an angry and demoralized police department. Police vehicles aren't being serviced and cops aren't paid their overtime.

"How are we ever gonna pay the bar tab?" grumbles Det. Jimmy McNulty as he orders another round.

"We could always knock off a liquor store," says his bar-mate Bunk (Wendell Pierce).

"The Wire" is a drama crisscrossed by numerous story lines and a crowd of powerfully drawn characters (24 actors are listed in the opening credits). But McNulty (played by Dominic West) is at its core, particularly this season. His roguish, arch indifference masks a righteous streak in full force now.

For a year, he was part of an investigation into the murders of 22 vagrants whose bodies were found abandoned in city housing. It's a serial crime that points back to one of the city's most notorious drug kingpins. But now the probe has been shut down due to budget cuts. McNulty is beside himself over the wasted effort, and the likelihood that those killings might go unavenged.

But things are tough all over. This season, an institution of the media is feeling the pinch. The Sun, Baltimore's foremost newspaper, would seem poised to be an invaluable beacon. But as depicted on "The Wire," it, too, is compromised by economic woes.

Talk at the paper dwells on looming cutbacks, layoffs and buyouts. Under new conglomerate ownership, the mandate has become: do more with less.

"Someday, I wanta find out what's it feels like to work for a real newspaper," cracks one of the reporters, knowing full well that, whatever a "real" newspaper is, it's an endangered species all over.

"The Wire" was created by David Simon, a former police reporter for The Sun who clearly loves the newspaper tradition, but hates the growing trend of papers as commodities. In a media culture where public service is forgotten, mischief routinely goes unchecked. Soon, a big lie will take hold and take over, undetected, right there in the newsroom.

Meanwhile, McNulty devises a lie of his own - a scheme to kick-start the "rowhouse murders" investigation. However well-intentioned, he is playing a dangerous game, even as he justifies it as a logical response to the misplaced priorities of the powers-that-be.

"Wonder what it feels like to work in a real (expletive) police department," he says bitterly.

Masterminded by a cop and a reporter, here are two deceptions far removed from one another. But each will feed on and inflame the other. As the season unfolds, a city continues to sabotage itself.

But however bleak, "The Wire" packs an ample measure of bitter humour.

For instance, the drug dealers have their problems, but - unique among the groups depicted on the series - limited funds isn't one of them.

"I got TOO much money," says ruthless gangster Marlo Stanfield (Jamie Hector), who just can't launder his cash fast enough.

"Proposition Joe" Stewart (Robert F. Chew) understands: "Ain't enough mattresses, is there now?" he chuckles.

Devotees of "The Wire" know how engrossing, rich and downright addictive it can be. The rest of the TV audience, after letting the series slide by unacknowledged for four seasons, needs to know it's not too late to get on board. And while the experience of watching "The Wire" is cumulative, this final season is largely self-contained - newbies won't be at sea.

The rewards from the writing, the actors and the potent story line are almost beyond measure.

I don't know if you would like it, Katherine. The show is gritty and realistic. I am completely fascinated. Shakespeare in the urban environment.....

I am going to check The Book Thief out....