Top Five - With a Vengeance
Top Five Books I Am Currently Reading
5. His Dark Materials, by Philip Pullman. I actually read the first two books rather close together, but the final one is like pulling teeth, I swear.
4. Rubicon, by Tom Holland. I've been reading this for almost a year now, but I'm okay with that since it's better suited to take in only a small bit at a time.
3. And Four to Go, by Rex Stout. You know how some people read romance novels as comfort food? Mysteries are my comfort food of choice when it comes to books. I need at least one in rotation at any given moment (right now I have at least three)
2. The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood. I started this book months ago, but I couldn't bring myself to continue reading it while I was feeling even a little bit distracted - which I was at the time - it deserved my full attention. This will be my next commute read, because on my commute right now I'm reading...
1. The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger. It really is the perfect choice to read on the subway, because it is so engrossing that I'm completely focused on the story and the travel time just flies. Good thing I get off at the end of the line.
Top Five Prettiest TV Seasons EVER!
5. Life s1
Maybe it's just because I had forgotten how damn pretty it was until I started capping it this weekend on a whim, but as soon as I started I just knew it had to take Dexter's place on this top five list. (Sorry, Dex, please don't kill me.)
4. Ugly Betty s1
Whoever designed the set for Mode deserves a freakin' award! That's 90% percent of the reason I watch this show, right there.
3. My Name Is Earl s1
When I thought about this particular top five, MNIE immediately sprang to mind, but I started to wonder if I'd perhaps exaggerated the prettiness of this show's first season, but once I started capping I realized OH HELL NO! I'm of a mind to move this up a notch on the list actually...
2. Pushing Daisies s1
I'm not sure what's going on here, because for some reason I can't make these caps as pretty as I know they can be. I get a sneaking suspicion I chose the wrong caps for this, too fiddly and all that. TV prettiness is really best illustrated with clean, colorful caps, not once showing off the intricacy of the set design. I guess you'll just have to take my word for it - it's extremely pretty.
1. Veronica Mars s1
Yep, still the prettiest season EVER!
And bonus - I could just cheat and use the caps I used for the top five prettiest VM caps. Score!
And if you think that reusing caps means I'm lazy, here are the episodes I capped for this particular picspam (in case you're wondering what's taking me so long to do these lists, this would be why):
Life
1×01 - Merit Badge
1×02 - Tear Asunder
1×03 - Let Her Go
1x04 - What They Saw
My Name Is Earl
1×01 - Pilot
1×02 - Quit Smoking
1×03 - Randy’s Touchdown
1×04 - Faked My Own Death
1×05 - Teacher Earl
1×06 - Broke Joy’s Fancy Figurine
1×07 - Stole Beer from a Golfer
1×08 - Joy’s Wedding
Pushing Daisies
1×07 - Smell of Success
1×08 - Bitter Sweets
1×09 - Corpsicle
Rome
1×02 - How Titus Pullo Brought Down the Republic
1×03 - An Owl in a Thornbush
(Yeah, I know, I didn't use it in the picspam. But I needed to remember how it looked, so I took the opportunity to cap a couple of episodes while re-familiarizing myself with the cinematography.)
Ugly Betty
1×01 - Pilot
1×02 - Queens for a Day
1×03 - The Box and the Bunny
1×04 - Swag
1×06 - The Lyin’, the Watch and the Wardrobe
1×08 - After Hours
I also capped a couple of movies:
Heart and Souls
Night of the Comet
I mentioned it earlier on in this entry, but I don't think I've really said anything about it around these parts - I've started working in the office three days a week. It wasn't something I was really gung-ho about doing, but there really needed to be more of a presence there, so now I go into work Monday through Wednesday.
I don't think I'm really cut out for working in an office anymore, but thankfully I like the people I work with, and it's given me an opportunity to buy desk toys, like my new binary clock. Money well spent, in my opinion. I can distract myself with that thing for HOURS.
So, this means I'm suddenly a commuter, after years of never stepping foot on public transportation. Strangely, it was one of the incentives for starting to come into the office, because I needed to start reading again, and fifteen minutes on a train is the perfect amount of time for my short attention span for reading these days.
Another positive aspect is that I pass by Dramaten (The Royal Dramatic Theater) every morning and am instantly cheered up because they have The. Gayest. Hamlet. Poster. Ever.
Yes, they're putting up Hamlet.
And that's their poster for it.
OMG, so hilariously inappropriate!
And the added bonus of seeing the posters all lined up against the gold details on the theater itself makes my morning Every. Single. Time.
Lost in Austen
I am so conflicted about this series, because I love that it's PRIDE & PREJUDICE, and I love Jemima Rooper, and it's British and period drama and, and, and...!
But then we come to the crux of the problem. I've read, and I continue to read, a lot of P&P fanfic. And this series is like badfic. There's a Mary Sue - She's awesome! Everyone loves her! Darcy falls for her and not Elizabeth! And there's canon cannibalizing - Wickham's really an okay guy! Georgiana is a little trollop! Mr Bennet's first name is Claude! (Okay, that one actually cracked me up, because fandom has pretty much christened him Thomas, so Amanda's reaction to hearing his name really felt like a fanfic reader - or writer! - finally learning the truth.) Mrs Bennet actually has a brain! Jane is forced to marry Collins!
It's a semi-interesting idea, but it's just trope after trope after trope. If I hadn't read so much fic, I probably wouldn't have had such a strong aversion to these events, but it's too late for that now!
Also, I really dislike the idea that Darcy would have just fallen for any unconventional woman he came across at that time in his life. He and Elizabeth belong together, and you can't tell me otherwise, so there! (I'm in total 'shipper mode right now, so I'm feeling extra defensive about this one particular thing.)
I still have to see how it ends, though.
I have to get up early tomorrow morning if I want to see HIMYM before I leave for work, so I'm off to bed. (HIMYM!!!)
5. His Dark Materials, by Philip Pullman. I actually read the first two books rather close together, but the final one is like pulling teeth, I swear.
4. Rubicon, by Tom Holland. I've been reading this for almost a year now, but I'm okay with that since it's better suited to take in only a small bit at a time.
3. And Four to Go, by Rex Stout. You know how some people read romance novels as comfort food? Mysteries are my comfort food of choice when it comes to books. I need at least one in rotation at any given moment (right now I have at least three)
2. The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood. I started this book months ago, but I couldn't bring myself to continue reading it while I was feeling even a little bit distracted - which I was at the time - it deserved my full attention. This will be my next commute read, because on my commute right now I'm reading...
1. The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger. It really is the perfect choice to read on the subway, because it is so engrossing that I'm completely focused on the story and the travel time just flies. Good thing I get off at the end of the line.
Top Five Prettiest TV Seasons EVER!
5. Life s1
Maybe it's just because I had forgotten how damn pretty it was until I started capping it this weekend on a whim, but as soon as I started I just knew it had to take Dexter's place on this top five list. (Sorry, Dex, please don't kill me.)
4. Ugly Betty s1
Whoever designed the set for Mode deserves a freakin' award! That's 90% percent of the reason I watch this show, right there.
3. My Name Is Earl s1
When I thought about this particular top five, MNIE immediately sprang to mind, but I started to wonder if I'd perhaps exaggerated the prettiness of this show's first season, but once I started capping I realized OH HELL NO! I'm of a mind to move this up a notch on the list actually...
2. Pushing Daisies s1
I'm not sure what's going on here, because for some reason I can't make these caps as pretty as I know they can be. I get a sneaking suspicion I chose the wrong caps for this, too fiddly and all that. TV prettiness is really best illustrated with clean, colorful caps, not once showing off the intricacy of the set design. I guess you'll just have to take my word for it - it's extremely pretty.
1. Veronica Mars s1
Yep, still the prettiest season EVER!
And bonus - I could just cheat and use the caps I used for the top five prettiest VM caps. Score!
And if you think that reusing caps means I'm lazy, here are the episodes I capped for this particular picspam (in case you're wondering what's taking me so long to do these lists, this would be why):
Life
1×01 - Merit Badge
1×02 - Tear Asunder
1×03 - Let Her Go
1x04 - What They Saw
My Name Is Earl
1×01 - Pilot
1×02 - Quit Smoking
1×03 - Randy’s Touchdown
1×04 - Faked My Own Death
1×05 - Teacher Earl
1×06 - Broke Joy’s Fancy Figurine
1×07 - Stole Beer from a Golfer
1×08 - Joy’s Wedding
Pushing Daisies
1×07 - Smell of Success
1×08 - Bitter Sweets
1×09 - Corpsicle
Rome
1×02 - How Titus Pullo Brought Down the Republic
1×03 - An Owl in a Thornbush
(Yeah, I know, I didn't use it in the picspam. But I needed to remember how it looked, so I took the opportunity to cap a couple of episodes while re-familiarizing myself with the cinematography.)
Ugly Betty
1×01 - Pilot
1×02 - Queens for a Day
1×03 - The Box and the Bunny
1×04 - Swag
1×06 - The Lyin’, the Watch and the Wardrobe
1×08 - After Hours
I also capped a couple of movies:
Heart and Souls
Night of the Comet
I mentioned it earlier on in this entry, but I don't think I've really said anything about it around these parts - I've started working in the office three days a week. It wasn't something I was really gung-ho about doing, but there really needed to be more of a presence there, so now I go into work Monday through Wednesday.
I don't think I'm really cut out for working in an office anymore, but thankfully I like the people I work with, and it's given me an opportunity to buy desk toys, like my new binary clock. Money well spent, in my opinion. I can distract myself with that thing for HOURS.
So, this means I'm suddenly a commuter, after years of never stepping foot on public transportation. Strangely, it was one of the incentives for starting to come into the office, because I needed to start reading again, and fifteen minutes on a train is the perfect amount of time for my short attention span for reading these days.
Another positive aspect is that I pass by Dramaten (The Royal Dramatic Theater) every morning and am instantly cheered up because they have The. Gayest. Hamlet. Poster. Ever.
Yes, they're putting up Hamlet.
And that's their poster for it.
OMG, so hilariously inappropriate!
And the added bonus of seeing the posters all lined up against the gold details on the theater itself makes my morning Every. Single. Time.
Lost in Austen
I am so conflicted about this series, because I love that it's PRIDE & PREJUDICE, and I love Jemima Rooper, and it's British and period drama and, and, and...!
But then we come to the crux of the problem. I've read, and I continue to read, a lot of P&P fanfic. And this series is like badfic. There's a Mary Sue - She's awesome! Everyone loves her! Darcy falls for her and not Elizabeth! And there's canon cannibalizing - Wickham's really an okay guy! Georgiana is a little trollop! Mr Bennet's first name is Claude! (Okay, that one actually cracked me up, because fandom has pretty much christened him Thomas, so Amanda's reaction to hearing his name really felt like a fanfic reader - or writer! - finally learning the truth.) Mrs Bennet actually has a brain! Jane is forced to marry Collins!
It's a semi-interesting idea, but it's just trope after trope after trope. If I hadn't read so much fic, I probably wouldn't have had such a strong aversion to these events, but it's too late for that now!
Also, I really dislike the idea that Darcy would have just fallen for any unconventional woman he came across at that time in his life. He and Elizabeth belong together, and you can't tell me otherwise, so there! (I'm in total 'shipper mode right now, so I'm feeling extra defensive about this one particular thing.)
I still have to see how it ends, though.
I have to get up early tomorrow morning if I want to see HIMYM before I leave for work, so I'm off to bed. (HIMYM!!!)