I just dropped in to say "Hey", but then it became a post.
Hey! Long time, no... anything! Happy Thanksgiving! Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Happy Halloween? Has it been that long? I am too lazy to check. I lurk around not posting, but reading and going, "I need to comment on that!" and not commenting. It's not the best system, but it seems to be the one I've settled on.
Hmm... once I got started, this got long.. so I will cut some things out, leave the biggest part (TV. It's always TV) and reassemble the rest into a new post. Two posts in one month? Imagine that! Things I will not be talking about this time include work, things like work, politics, babies (not mine, don't be crazy) and books. Spurred on by a friend who mentioned that he's going for it, I'm trying the "read 100 books in a year" thing again this year. So far I'm at 3 with few in progress. Will I be (finally) talking about We Need To Talk About Kevin (the book and the movie)? Yeah, I will! I have not forgotten. Also up for discussion Room and Under the Dome (AKA: really really big Stephen King Book that makes people go, "You're reading that? For fun?!") It will be a fun adventure! Or a lot of words. Probably the second one.
TV: Everything remains on hiatus... I think. I started out with this grand list of things to watch, and by the end I had whittled it down to five. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is between seasons, but no one watches that, so let's move on to the other shows.We'll start with the pleasant stuff and work our way down.You know, like Dante's Inferno only with less lakes of boiling oil.
Misfits: You don't watch it, but you should. This last season was in some ways the worst, but it was still good. (Also, amazing soundtrack.) I was worried because a major (some would say the main) character left, and I've never been a fan of "Hey, it's a new guy!" scenarios, but this one worked. By the end of the first episode I was alright with the change. The new guy (Rudy) was enough like the old guy (Nathan) that it didn't leave that big of a whole in the group, but he was different enough that he wasn't just New Nathan. Nathan was my 3rd favorite character, Rudy was a thiscloseto#1 #2. As far as what was wrong with the season: without getting too spoilery, let's just say that whenever you saddle a character with a relationship they are always way less interesting. If this happens to more than one character it just magnifies the issue. If one of them wasn't that interesting to start with...
Survivor. Until I remembered Misfits at the last minute this was "only the most pleasant because it is actually the thing that sucks the most". I had mid-level hopes for this season, but it all took a turn for the worst when Cochran switched and we had to watch one team get voted off one by one. That is always the worst part. Then, when we got to the end it was all people who I did not want to win. And the one that did win was the one I wanted to win least of the three I did not want to win. Ugh, I am getting angry again just thinking about it. Let's move on.
Glee: This should really be the worst of the worst, but there is something tv-related that makes me even madder than the fact that this show seems to be terrible. I feel like I did back during the second season of Prison Break when I suddenly realized that something had gone wrong and things were bad. I stuck it out for one more season and then I gave it up before it totally ruined any good memories I had. And that was a show where I liked a lot of the characters! The more I watch, the more I realize that not only do I not really care about 90% of the Glee characters, what they do or what happens to them... now even the music is bad. Nine (I had to look that up) episodes in and I can name 2 songs I like. And they are both from the same episode. And one of them was sung by teachers. I'd say "I'm just sticking around for the handful of characters I actually still care about", but let's be honest, how many characters have to go before there's an Artie storyline? Does he even sing? Exactly. When during the Christmas episode, someone with two Christmas trees actually says to the screen, "This is making me hate Christmas!" things are bad.
Community: They say it's not gone, yet it's not on my TV. And they don't know when it's gonna be back? This, like Britta, is The Worst! I don't even know what they took it off for (like, what is replacing it), but I know that there is only the slightest chance that it is Community funny. And a really big chance that I will not watch it.
Enough complaints! How about some new Shows. Let's see what I will be complaining about being terrible this time next year! I ran through all but the latest episode of Suburgatory, and so far it is a keeper. This could be because I would watch Jeremy Sisto in almost anything (except, it seems, a Law & Order where he was paired with Anthony Anderson), but I think it is actually because it's pretty funny. Everyone on there is such an oddball,except the two "normal" ones, but because they are not-odd, the end up kind of being the oddest of all. So far, so good!
I am also slowly starting to watch Once Upon A Time. As of right now, I am only an episode and a half in, but I plan on catching up with the rest this week. I fact, let me go load up Ep 2 now.
On the heels of my Misfits love, I checked out the movie and miniseries(es? What's the plural?) "This is England". At first I was like "maybe not" because from what I read it was about "British skinheads in the 80s", but it seems that British 1980s skinheads are not quite what American skinheads are, so it wasn't what I though.First there was a movie ("This is England",set in '83), then two follow-up miniseries(es?) ("This Is England '86" and "This Is England '88") It was a really interesting, and sometimes disturbing, look at a bunch of misfit kids who just hung out, doing what friends do. Good people doing bad things, bad people doing good things. And, like Misfits before it, an awesome soundtrack.
Mad Men comes back on March 25th! I have been doing a "random episode here, random episode there". I was internet-free for a few days last week, and checked out the last few episodes of season 3. Everything from Roger's daughter's wedding through the season finale. So, so amazing. "Shut the Door. Have a Seat" is probably in my Top 10 episodes of any show ever. Sometimes I just watch it for no reason. The week after Thanksgiving, Season 4 was on sale for 8.99. I did not buy it. I am still mad at myself and my stupid, "Don't buy anything for yourself between Thanksgiving and Christmas!" rule.
Hmm... once I got started, this got long.. so I will cut some things out, leave the biggest part (TV. It's always TV) and reassemble the rest into a new post. Two posts in one month? Imagine that! Things I will not be talking about this time include work, things like work, politics, babies (not mine, don't be crazy) and books. Spurred on by a friend who mentioned that he's going for it, I'm trying the "read 100 books in a year" thing again this year. So far I'm at 3 with few in progress. Will I be (finally) talking about We Need To Talk About Kevin (the book and the movie)? Yeah, I will! I have not forgotten. Also up for discussion Room and Under the Dome (AKA: really really big Stephen King Book that makes people go, "You're reading that? For fun?!") It will be a fun adventure! Or a lot of words. Probably the second one.
TV: Everything remains on hiatus... I think. I started out with this grand list of things to watch, and by the end I had whittled it down to five. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is between seasons, but no one watches that, so let's move on to the other shows.We'll start with the pleasant stuff and work our way down.You know, like Dante's Inferno only with less lakes of boiling oil.
Misfits: You don't watch it, but you should. This last season was in some ways the worst, but it was still good. (Also, amazing soundtrack.) I was worried because a major (some would say the main) character left, and I've never been a fan of "Hey, it's a new guy!" scenarios, but this one worked. By the end of the first episode I was alright with the change. The new guy (Rudy) was enough like the old guy (Nathan) that it didn't leave that big of a whole in the group, but he was different enough that he wasn't just New Nathan. Nathan was my 3rd favorite character, Rudy was a thiscloseto#1 #2. As far as what was wrong with the season: without getting too spoilery, let's just say that whenever you saddle a character with a relationship they are always way less interesting. If this happens to more than one character it just magnifies the issue. If one of them wasn't that interesting to start with...
Survivor. Until I remembered Misfits at the last minute this was "only the most pleasant because it is actually the thing that sucks the most". I had mid-level hopes for this season, but it all took a turn for the worst when Cochran switched and we had to watch one team get voted off one by one. That is always the worst part. Then, when we got to the end it was all people who I did not want to win. And the one that did win was the one I wanted to win least of the three I did not want to win. Ugh, I am getting angry again just thinking about it. Let's move on.
Glee: This should really be the worst of the worst, but there is something tv-related that makes me even madder than the fact that this show seems to be terrible. I feel like I did back during the second season of Prison Break when I suddenly realized that something had gone wrong and things were bad. I stuck it out for one more season and then I gave it up before it totally ruined any good memories I had. And that was a show where I liked a lot of the characters! The more I watch, the more I realize that not only do I not really care about 90% of the Glee characters, what they do or what happens to them... now even the music is bad. Nine (I had to look that up) episodes in and I can name 2 songs I like. And they are both from the same episode. And one of them was sung by teachers. I'd say "I'm just sticking around for the handful of characters I actually still care about", but let's be honest, how many characters have to go before there's an Artie storyline? Does he even sing? Exactly. When during the Christmas episode, someone with two Christmas trees actually says to the screen, "This is making me hate Christmas!" things are bad.
Community: They say it's not gone, yet it's not on my TV. And they don't know when it's gonna be back? This, like Britta, is The Worst! I don't even know what they took it off for (like, what is replacing it), but I know that there is only the slightest chance that it is Community funny. And a really big chance that I will not watch it.
Enough complaints! How about some new Shows. Let's see what I will be complaining about being terrible this time next year! I ran through all but the latest episode of Suburgatory, and so far it is a keeper. This could be because I would watch Jeremy Sisto in almost anything (except, it seems, a Law & Order where he was paired with Anthony Anderson), but I think it is actually because it's pretty funny. Everyone on there is such an oddball,except the two "normal" ones, but because they are not-odd, the end up kind of being the oddest of all. So far, so good!
I am also slowly starting to watch Once Upon A Time. As of right now, I am only an episode and a half in, but I plan on catching up with the rest this week. I fact, let me go load up Ep 2 now.
On the heels of my Misfits love, I checked out the movie and miniseries(es? What's the plural?) "This is England". At first I was like "maybe not" because from what I read it was about "British skinheads in the 80s", but it seems that British 1980s skinheads are not quite what American skinheads are, so it wasn't what I though.First there was a movie ("This is England",set in '83), then two follow-up miniseries(es?) ("This Is England '86" and "This Is England '88") It was a really interesting, and sometimes disturbing, look at a bunch of misfit kids who just hung out, doing what friends do. Good people doing bad things, bad people doing good things. And, like Misfits before it, an awesome soundtrack.
Mad Men comes back on March 25th! I have been doing a "random episode here, random episode there". I was internet-free for a few days last week, and checked out the last few episodes of season 3. Everything from Roger's daughter's wedding through the season finale. So, so amazing. "Shut the Door. Have a Seat" is probably in my Top 10 episodes of any show ever. Sometimes I just watch it for no reason. The week after Thanksgiving, Season 4 was on sale for 8.99. I did not buy it. I am still mad at myself and my stupid, "Don't buy anything for yourself between Thanksgiving and Christmas!" rule.