More Random Updates and a little bit of television talk
So, not much going on here lately. I don't know if I've mentioned, but we seem to have acquired an outdoor kitty. He started showing up a couple of months ago, and Dad's been feeding him. He's sleeping in our garage, and Mom has named him Angel (I think, but couldn't guarantee that this is because he looks an awful lot like our Star, so Mom thinks he's an angel cat that Star sent to watch out for us).
He doesn't let us pet him, but he doesn't really seems scared of us either. He'll come closer if we talk to him, and he doesn't run away. He's scared of the dogs though, so I don't know that he'll be coming inside anytime soon.
Dad is working at some call center in town, customer support for Sprint. It's not his dream job, but the pay isn't bad, and they told him they'll work with his schedule when he starts college in the spring. He's all enrolled in his spring classes, and ready to go.
As for me, I'm pretty well exhausted. I'm taking a tax preparation class, and even though we only meet six hours a week, there's a lot of homework this year. It's not really hard, but it's tedious. I'm also doing about 4 hours a week tutoring a friend of Mom's on the computer. She literally didn't know how to turn it on, when we started. I'm getting paid for that, or I might have ripped all the hair from my head by now from the frustration. The good news is that if I make it through this class (which I'm sure I will) I will almost certainly have a job in January. It will just be for the tax season, but it's better than the big fat nothing that I have had, and when it's over maybe I'll apply where my dad's working. I hate phone work, but at least it's inbound.
So, I haven't been watching a lot of television. I have been watching The Big Bang Theory, but as much as I love it, I don't feel particularly fannish about it. The only thing I've really made any effort to see every week is Supernatural and The Mentalist, and I'm loving them both.
I don't really have a whole lot to say about them, because I didn't intend this to be a big in depth examine the episode type of post. Something I've really loved about both of them this season, is that they have put major characters in peril, okay so it's not really a regular on either show, but still. You generally think that the most well-loved recurring characters on a show are going to survive into old age. Then this week they killed Jo (who okay, I didn't love, in fact until this week she could have been flattened by my multi-fandom flaming, bouncing rock of doom, and I would have been perfectly happy) and Ellen (whom I adored more than any other female character ever on the show, though Missouri was a close second). And on The Mentalist they added a whole team near the beginning of the season. It was a team that we weren't supposed to like, in fact they were all kind of jerks, but week-to-week they gave us reasons to believe that the boss had depth and layers, and then they made everyone work together. There's the whole team-member in peril deal, and in the end, I liked them, and I'm sure I was supposed to. Then they killed them all. I like that, and I like it both ways it happened.
On Supernatural, they died and in the end, their deaths serve no grand purpose. The Colt didn't work, so the only thing their deaths did was to give them a way out of the building without getting ripped up by hell hounds. Given enough time, they would have come up with something if that was the only objective. I still like it. I like it because sometimes that's what happens. Sometimes we lose people for the stupidest reasons, and we don't have the knowledge that their death "meant something," to console ourselves with. I like it when even my fantasy/sci-fi fandoms reflect real life, and this did for me.
On The Mentalist, it did serve a grand purpose, just not a grand purpose of the protagonist. We find out in the final moments of the episode that Red John killed the team to get the case back in Jane's hands. There are all kinds of important consequences of their deaths. The big boss is retiring, which will almost certainly make all of their lives harder. Jane may or may not get the Red John case back, but if he doesn't then you can pretty well count on there being some kind of punishment. And we have the certain knowledge that there is at least one more person inside law enforcement who either is Red John or is working for him.
Oh, and I also have to just say how much I liked Crowley. I adore Mark Sheppard and I've seen a lot of him lately, but this was a much better role than the Russian lit professor/pimp on CSI.
I was going to include my Christmas Wishlist in this post, but I think it's getting a little long, so I won't. I'll post it either later tonight, or tomorrow sometime for those who are interested. It includes things that cost money and some that don't.
One last thing, if anyone on your Christmas list this year likes interesting one of a kind pieces of jewelry (mostly semi-precious stones with silver, copper, or colored jewelry wire) check out this site:
I'm particularly fond of the Tree of Life pendants, and there are a bunch of them on sale here for just $25 and free shipping. If you're shopping for me, I particularly like the Aventurine Copper, Peridot Brown Copper, Blue Lapis and Copper Pearl.
He doesn't let us pet him, but he doesn't really seems scared of us either. He'll come closer if we talk to him, and he doesn't run away. He's scared of the dogs though, so I don't know that he'll be coming inside anytime soon.
Dad is working at some call center in town, customer support for Sprint. It's not his dream job, but the pay isn't bad, and they told him they'll work with his schedule when he starts college in the spring. He's all enrolled in his spring classes, and ready to go.
As for me, I'm pretty well exhausted. I'm taking a tax preparation class, and even though we only meet six hours a week, there's a lot of homework this year. It's not really hard, but it's tedious. I'm also doing about 4 hours a week tutoring a friend of Mom's on the computer. She literally didn't know how to turn it on, when we started. I'm getting paid for that, or I might have ripped all the hair from my head by now from the frustration. The good news is that if I make it through this class (which I'm sure I will) I will almost certainly have a job in January. It will just be for the tax season, but it's better than the big fat nothing that I have had, and when it's over maybe I'll apply where my dad's working. I hate phone work, but at least it's inbound.
So, I haven't been watching a lot of television. I have been watching The Big Bang Theory, but as much as I love it, I don't feel particularly fannish about it. The only thing I've really made any effort to see every week is Supernatural and The Mentalist, and I'm loving them both.
I don't really have a whole lot to say about them, because I didn't intend this to be a big in depth examine the episode type of post. Something I've really loved about both of them this season, is that they have put major characters in peril, okay so it's not really a regular on either show, but still. You generally think that the most well-loved recurring characters on a show are going to survive into old age. Then this week they killed Jo (who okay, I didn't love, in fact until this week she could have been flattened by my multi-fandom flaming, bouncing rock of doom, and I would have been perfectly happy) and Ellen (whom I adored more than any other female character ever on the show, though Missouri was a close second). And on The Mentalist they added a whole team near the beginning of the season. It was a team that we weren't supposed to like, in fact they were all kind of jerks, but week-to-week they gave us reasons to believe that the boss had depth and layers, and then they made everyone work together. There's the whole team-member in peril deal, and in the end, I liked them, and I'm sure I was supposed to. Then they killed them all. I like that, and I like it both ways it happened.
On Supernatural, they died and in the end, their deaths serve no grand purpose. The Colt didn't work, so the only thing their deaths did was to give them a way out of the building without getting ripped up by hell hounds. Given enough time, they would have come up with something if that was the only objective. I still like it. I like it because sometimes that's what happens. Sometimes we lose people for the stupidest reasons, and we don't have the knowledge that their death "meant something," to console ourselves with. I like it when even my fantasy/sci-fi fandoms reflect real life, and this did for me.
On The Mentalist, it did serve a grand purpose, just not a grand purpose of the protagonist. We find out in the final moments of the episode that Red John killed the team to get the case back in Jane's hands. There are all kinds of important consequences of their deaths. The big boss is retiring, which will almost certainly make all of their lives harder. Jane may or may not get the Red John case back, but if he doesn't then you can pretty well count on there being some kind of punishment. And we have the certain knowledge that there is at least one more person inside law enforcement who either is Red John or is working for him.
Oh, and I also have to just say how much I liked Crowley. I adore Mark Sheppard and I've seen a lot of him lately, but this was a much better role than the Russian lit professor/pimp on CSI.
I was going to include my Christmas Wishlist in this post, but I think it's getting a little long, so I won't. I'll post it either later tonight, or tomorrow sometime for those who are interested. It includes things that cost money and some that don't.
One last thing, if anyone on your Christmas list this year likes interesting one of a kind pieces of jewelry (mostly semi-precious stones with silver, copper, or colored jewelry wire) check out this site:
I'm particularly fond of the Tree of Life pendants, and there are a bunch of them on sale here for just $25 and free shipping. If you're shopping for me, I particularly like the Aventurine Copper, Peridot Brown Copper, Blue Lapis and Copper Pearl.