5 teachers balk at posters for gay students / Signs mandated in San Leandro to ensure safety on campuses: "Five teachers at San Leandro High School have refused to comply with a
school district order to display a rainbow-flag poster in their classrooms that
reads, 'This is a safe place to be who you are,' because they say homosexuality
violates their religious beliefs, Principal Amy Furtado said."

Tunnel Found on Mexican Border: "LOS ANGELES, Jan. 26 -- U.S. and Mexican authorities have discovered an elaborate tunnel that stretches the length of eight football fields connecting Mexico and the United States and was apparently used for drug trafficking, authorities said Thursday."

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...

Homeland Security!

Still feeling a bit like the crap, but have to go to work today for my dinosaur program. (It's not that it's not planned out, so somebody else could do it, but it would actually take too much effort to explain what needs to be done. Easier for me to just go and do it, and as long as nobody has any expectations of me doing much else besides sitting behind the desk and not falling over, I should be okay.)

Yesterday morning, I watched the first episode of Shakespeare Retold, a recent BBC series featuring--as you might imagine--modern-day retellings of Shakespeare plays. This one was Much Ado About Nothing, starring Billie Piper and Sarah Parish, set in a modern-day newsroom. I'm not as familiar with this one as I am with some of the other plays on the set (Midsummer Night's Dream, MacBeth) but it seemed to preserve the pace and feel of a Shakespeare comedy, as well as all the themes, but updated to a modern setting and modern language. Definitely looking forward to the rest.

Oh, and Penelope's vet called today to see how she was doing. Which is more than my own doctors ever do. What does that say?

Britain, UK news from The Times and The Sunday Times - Times Online: "VILLAGERS who protested that a new housing estate would "harm the fairies" living in their midst have forced a property company to scrap its building plans and start again."

So, been home sick two days in a row. First Penelope, then me. She's doing better, by the way. She hadn't started pooping over the weekend, even after coming home post-micro-enema, so we went back to the vet on Monday. She prescribed some medicine, which I have to give to her by filling a syringe and injecting it into her throat, then holding her until she seems to swallow, and then making sure she still doesn't spit it up after that. I discovered this morning that, on at least one occasion, I missed that last bit, finding caked bits of medicine in the living room carpet.

So, basically been watching TV and trying not to pass out, or sneeze so hard my brains come out my nose.

Watched the first episode of Eleventh Hour, the new British TV series starring Patrick Stewart. So nice to see him actually acting again; Star Trek must have been so frustrating for him. And Ashley Jensen, her from Extras, is yet another cute Scottish actress for me to have a crush on. The actual story was pretty entertaining, though the sort of thing that feels sort of slight once it's actually over. What carries it through is the mood of the direction and the quality of the acting.

And, for some reason, I thought it was going to be six hour-long episodes, but it's really only three 65-70 minute TV movies. So a short-term committment, then.

And TV is once again working to thwart my attempts to watch Veronica Mars this season. Fox has moved Bones into the Wednesday 9 pm time slot, which it now shares with Lost and Veronica Mars. I get ABC and Fox in high-definition, not so UPN. And I can only watch, or record, or whatever, two shows at the same time on my HD cable box. Since I pay for the HD service, anything on those channels gets priority over stuff on other channels, if it's something I want to watch. So Veronica Mars gets relegated to the VCR on the upstairs TV. Considering that I have a whole season's worth of unwatched Gilmore Girls on VHS that I don't have time to watch, I expect to fall behind on Mars as well...

Speaking of Mars, I'm really enjoying the new BBC show Life on Mars. While I'm certainly intrigued by the mystery of just how Sam Taylor comes to be in 1973, I'm really just enjoying the juxtaposition between 21st century policing and the 1970s. Between a fairly accessible premise and Patrick Stewart's international fame, I think there's a fairly good chance we'll see Eleventh Hour reach these shores sooner or later. I certainly hope Life on Mars turns up over here as well, although with a less-portable, more-Britain-centric concept, it's probably a more comfortable fit for something like BBC America than anywhere else...

Adventures of Pete & Pete, The - Season 3 cancelled?!

First Once & Again season 3, and now this... Sigh...

NEWSARAMA - DAN DIDIO ON PAUL DINI & RAGS MORALES ON DETECTIVE: "Part of Paul's own agenda on the series is to go in and tell single-issue mystery stories. Every issue is a standalone mystery. There may be an overarching story that runs underneath everything, but every issue has a beginning, middle, and end of a detective mystery. That's something that we haven't seen in a while, and it takes someone of real talent and ability to be able to pull that off on a monthly basis."

And it's entirely possible that DC may have found what it takes to get me to buy Detective Comics again...

CBS, Warner to form new network - Yahoo! News: "CBS Corp. (NYSE:CBSA - news) and Time Warner
Inc.'s (NYSE:TWX - news) Warner Brothers on Tuesday said they will close
their respective UPN and WB television networks and jointly
launch a new network in fall 2006."

Today's Snapple fact: A male kangaroo is called a Boomer.