TV

Mother of the year

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Okay, so obviously I shouldn’t let Jack watch TV all afternoon, especially not on a warm sunny day.  I had a meeting, one I couldn’t just pretend to listen to (I don’t seem to have many of those anymore), so I got him his lunch, strapped him into the high chair, and turned on the TV.  He was happy, I was working, and all was well.  When my meeting ended, I cleaned him up and put him down on the floor. Before I even reached my hand out to the remote to turn off the TV, Jack ran across the living room, grabbed the armchair pillow, dragged it into the middle of the rug, and plopped himself down, giggling excitedly.

It feels cruel to turn the TV off when he’s so adorable and into it.  I mean, I did it anyway, and we all lived to tell the tale, but he was so happy.

Can’t watch any more

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I’m calling it quits on Call The Midwife.  I was enjoying it, and there’s plenty to enjoy (and how I will miss Miranda Hart), but I can’t take it anymore for two reasons:

  1. The narration is AWFUL.  It’s cloying, it’s saccharine, and it makes me want to punch the main character (whose story this is).  Vanessa Redgrave’s voice can’t save it.
  2. The lengths these story lines will go to impress upon us just how bad life was for poor mothers in East London are getting ridiculous, and we only just started season 2.  My final straw was the Swedish woman whose father brought her onto his cargo ship when she was young to, ahem, service the crew.  But you know, he loves her.

DONE.

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I get emotionally attached to my TV shows

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I’ve been watching Jane the Virgin (really enjoyable show on Netflix) when I’m on any sort of cardio machine at the gym, and today, the show betrayed me.  Something happened at the end of an episode in the middle of season 3, something awful, something SO FREAKIN’ SAD, and really truly shocking because this isn’t that kind of show, and I broke down bawling right there on the machine.  I had to go hide in the bathroom for a minute.

Let this be a warning to you: the show is funny and sweet, light, totally a telenovela, and so fun.  Right up to episode 10 in season 3.  Be ready.

Similarly, I love Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, but two separate episodes in season 3 of THAT show made me sob, too.

Huh.  The CW is doing some good work, I guess.

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This is what happens when I travel alone. It’s super exciting.

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Here’s a thing I do not regret: getting rid of cable all those years ago.  I’m sitting in a hotel room, having worked late at the office (gag), eaten too much takeout Indian too late in the evening, and I turned on the TV.  This hotel has DirectTV, and there are a ton of channels, and is anyone going to be surprised when I say that there is nothing on?  I should hope not.

I eventually settled on an episode of Friends, which is half over by now.  It’s the one where Rachel gets closure.  Except, you know, not.  Except, actually, maybe yeah.  Anyway.

Why did I turn on the TV?

The Good Place

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I can’t remember if I talked about The Good Place when we watched the first season (which I think was just earlier this year), but it’s a half-hour show on Hulu starring Kristen Bell and Ted Danson, and it’s SO GREAT.  We’ve been watching the first season over again this past week because I was sick and the show makes me happy.  Second season is starting soon, if it hasn’t already.

Love it!  Go!  Watch and love it with me!

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The Winchester boys are my heroes

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I love Supernatural, you know I do, but the season 10 episode we just watched about college kids dying via electronics possessed by a vengeful ghost was nearly as bad as the season 1 episode about the racist truck.

The show is going into its 13th season – every episode can’t be a winner.  Still, I’m happy to be watching the show again.  I missed you, Dean!

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Let’s get ready to rumble!

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If you haven’t watched GLOW yet on Netflix, go.  Watch.  It’ll only take you 5 hours.  I’ll wait.

It’s a lot of fun.  John and I have been watching nothing else all week, and we watched the last one tonight and moved went immediately to the GLOW documentary (also on Netflix).  Looks like the creators of the show watched the first half of the documentary and then made the TV show.

I’m not inspired to go out and wrestle or anything, but maybe I have a teensy bit more interest in all that wrestling stuff I’ve been ignoring all my life.

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Must start earlier

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It’s night #2 of not feeling the blog thing, and I think I can safely say that waiting until after dinner to write is not a great strategy.  Whatever energy I had during the day is gone, completely, and all I want to do is read and go to bed.

This is the summer of binge-watching, so after we watched the entire season of The Crown (loved), we watched the entire season of The OA (disappointing), then all of Doctor Who season 9 (yay), and now we’ve moved on to Iron Fist, the next Netflix Marvel Comics show.  It’s…okay.  The main character is annoying in his naivete, and overall, it’s definitely the weakest of the Netflix Marvel shows.  Still entertaining, though.  I like how all of the shows are connected.

Oh, hey, we saw Wonder Woman last weekend.  The movie wasn’t great (although it’s the most I’ve ever liked Chris Pine in anything, and it was miles better than the other DC movies), but I felt this visceral enjoyment seeing Wonder Woman kick ass during the fight scenes.  I’d watch it again.

Hey, look, even tired I can babble about TV and movies.  Good for me.  Bed for me.  See ya.

He grew up okay

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Memory associations are weird.  When I came home from dinner with Christina tonight, John was watching the end of a Law & Order: SVU episode.  It was about pedophilia at a boarding school (aren’t they all?), and this guy was on it.

John asked me if I thought he looked familiar, and I was like, yeah, he was the TA in Road Trip.  (This was not a good movie.  If you haven’t seen it, don’t bother.)  So I looked him up on IMDB, and yes, I was right, he WAS the TA in Road Trip, but why was THAT my association when I SHOULD have recognized him as Daryl from Adventures in Babysitting?  I’ve seen that movie WAY more times and it’s a million times less embarrassing to reference Adventures in Babysitting than Road Trip.

Stupid brain.

Giggles

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I heard Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” on the radio today.  I’ve always liked the song (video at the end, if you need it), but since that one Friends episode, I can’t help but laugh when he does his signature vocal move.

I like the way she laughs at him.

Also, I’m totally jealous of his eyebrow raise. I can’t do that.

Here’s the song.  If you’re familiar with it, you know what I’m talking about.  If you’re not, he does it on the chorus, first time at 0:52 in the video.

Keeping a low profile

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Hi.  Sorry.  Still here, just fighting a cold or maybe allergies or whatever.  It comes and goes, but it’s enough to keep me off my computer once work is over.  Mostly.  Today, Mindy sent me a delightful Martin and Lewis video neither of us had ever seen, and the latest story arc on Agents of SHIELD is the best since they tied in with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and my third library book (the vampire one) was WAY better than the two before, so I’ve been pretty well entertained the last couple of otherwise miserable days.  (Seriously – yesterday was a 3-crisis, 10-hour workday, on top of feeling crappy.  I haven’t had a work day that stressful since I took the new position last fall.  Not fun.)

Anyway, I’m going to bed with my new book and hopes of less congestion tomorrow.

A lazy evening at home by myself

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer won’t be available on Netflix anymore starting April 1st, so today might not have been the best day to start a series rewatch.  I’ll just have to watch the best episodes and leave it at that.  I’ll start with the musical episode, of course.

It must be bunnies.  Heh.

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Faulty memory

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John and I started watching The Man in the High Castle (Amazon Prime) a few days ago.  We got hooked fast, and we basically binged it all weekend.  We started Season 2 today.

The thing is, I know I read the book, and I know I didn’t particularly like it (I’ve felt that way about every Philip K. Dick book I’ve read), but I don’t remember enough about the plot to have any idea just how much the TV show differs from the book.  I imagine it’s quite a bit different, but in what ways?  I have no idea.  And now that we’re hooked on the show, I don’t want to re-read the book (or even google a plot summary) because I want to avoid spoilers.

Maybe I do read too fast (as I have been accused).  Or maybe I just don’t remember details of books I don’t love.  Of course, since I’m so spoiler-conscious, maybe it’s just as well I don’t remember the book much.

I need another fluffy show

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You’ll all be happy to know that I haven’t locked myself out of the car OR hit myself in the face in a week.  I need a sign: 7 days since my last idiotic incident!

I have been unhealthily obsessed with finishing all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls, which I only even started because I was hearing about the reunion miniseries, and I figured it was about time I watched it.  I started watching it on September 16th with Christina (I know the date because I remember which gig John was at), and John picked up the habit later that weekend, so we have been watching this show for nearly three full months.  We sped through the last season in about a week (finished it yesterday), and we watched the first of the miniseries tonight.  We’re missing the nostalgia factor, of course.  For fans, it’s been nine years since the show ended.  For us, 24 hours.

Do I love it?  No.  Have I enjoyed our binge-watch?  Most definitely.  And I will be a little sad when there aren’t any more new episodes.  At the rate we’re going, that’ll be Saturday.  Maybe Sunday.

I’ll have to find new characters on new shows to yell at.

What’s another hour-long show that has a ton of seasons?  Oh, I guess we’ll go back to The Sopranos…

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Can’t stop, won’t stop

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The downside of binge-watching Gilmore Girls episodes is that the theme song is constantly running through my head.  It’s a Carole King song, so it’s not bad (John begs to differ), but it’s too much.  And I can’t get rid of it.  And if the theme song is in my head, then the show is in my head.  Rory is too freakin’ cute, so that’s okay, but Lorelai – back off a bit, Lorelai.  Take your Carole King song and take a vacation.

This won’t stop me from watching more tomorrow, though.  I’m in season 3 now.

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The show where everything’s made up and the points don’t matter

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Last night’s show was SO MUCH FUN.  I can’t overstate it.  My whole face hurt from laughing so hard.  Nearly two hours of Whose Line Is It Anyway games, all improvised by Ryan Stiles and Greg Proops, who’ve been on the TV show FOREVER, Jeff Davis, who was vaguely familiar to us from later seasons of the show, and Joel Murray, who was a complete surprise to us.  He’s funny?  Yes, he is!  (I mean, we know who he is, but we didn’t expect him to be up for improv.)

We had great seats in the fifth row – close enough to be able to see everything, just barely far enough away to be safe from being picked to go on stage.  It was surreal being 20 feet away from these people we’ve seen on TV for years.

Also totally weird to remember (again – this is one of those facts I keep forgetting) that Joel Murray is Bill Murray’s youngest brother).  He said something last night that was dead-on Bill Murray.  And his impression of Dan Aykroyd was pretty good, too.

I’m not going to bother trying to tell you any of the funny things that happened because they won’t translate (and I suck at telling stories, as you all know).  I wish you could have been there.

The show is still touring, but they’re going to CO and then CA only, so they’re a bit out of reach for most of you (and us – I’d see it again in a heartbeat).  We’ll just have to content ourselves with YouTube.

It was so great.  And weirdly, it continued the pattern of reliving the 90s in Eugene.  I started watching the show in 1994, maybe 1995, after my academic team friends introduced me to it.  (Yes, I know, super nerdy.  To make it nerdier, it was at an academic team party, and we were playing games from the show.)  It was on Comedy Central all the time.  Seeing it live last night, with two of the comedians who were on it then, was oddly flashback-y.  And totally awesome.

I wouldn’t mind living in Stars Hollow

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I’d like to start by assuring you all that we did NOT watch anything scary Friday night, unless you consider Gilmore Girls scary.  Christina loves that show, and I had never seen it, so we started it from the beginning and watched five episodes before getting sleepy enough to quit for the night.  I like it, enough that I watched three more episodes this afternoon.

It’s funny – it’s somehow both exactly what I expected and not at all what I expected, and I am so far kind of surprised that it did as well as it did.  It’s not bad, I don’t mean that.  It’s just not a sweeping drama or a comedy or anything big.  It’s quiet, and it’s kind of funny, and Lorelai Gilmore is occasionally irritating (but I expected that because that’s mostly how I feel about Lauren Graham), and it’s hilarious to see Sam Winchester in baby form with his brother’s name.  And the town is ridiculously cute.

Anyway, my weekend has been at 30% Gilmore Girls, and that’s okay.  It’s been raining off and on all day today – perfect weather for watching some light TV and finishing my book.  Oh, I didn’t really like my book (Girls On Fire).  Too much over the top teenage drama: violent, emotionally charged, and trying to be realistic but carrying the plot points too far so that I couldn’t just treat it like a thriller and go along for the ride.  I’m glad it’s done, and my next book will be a silly novel about a woman on her 20s who protects the not-really-harmful monsters in NYC from humanity and sometimes has to protect NYC from the actually-harmful monsters.  Much more fun.

Melting

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It’s 96 degrees right now, after three days in a row over 100, and you know?  96 doesn’t feel better.  Tomorrow should.  I hope.  In the meantime, this whole no central AC in Oregon thing is a PROBLEM.  John is in Salem for a gig tonight, outside, probably no shade, so he’s got it worse than I do, but that’s not going to stop me from complaining.  My problems are still real!  This constant sheen of sweat is pretty darn gross.

I’m going to beat it as best I can.  I’m inside with a big box fan pointed right at me (and NOT pulling hot outside air in).  My laptop is on the coffee table streaming tonight’s Olympic track and field events so I can see the 5000m final live (yes, I moved my massage appointment – priorities!), I’ll be ordering food soon, and I have chilled white wine waiting for me.  I’m not sure why I haven’t opened it yet, actually.  Let me fix that.

IMG_20160820_164252Better.  And I’m chilling my wine chiller so I can just leave the bottle out next to me.  Let’s face it – John won’t be home for HOURS, and I plan to read and watch the Olympics all evening.

Watching it “live”

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I turned on the TV so I could have the Olympics on in the background while I wrote, and the women’s 5K is just starting.  Good timing for me.  I mean, I’m sure it was hours ago, but the men’s 5K was the race that was so awesome at the trials, so I’m excited.

Ooh, this is like live-blogging.  And by “like live-blogging”, I mean it is live-blogging.  Except that this probably happened hours ago.  But it’s happening right now on my TV!

Okay, the Japanese woman in the lead (right at the beginning) is wearing sunglasses.  No one else is wearing sunglasses.  Maybe her eyes are super sensitive to light?  It looks a little weird.

They’re running in tankinis.  I noticed that for some of the races (running and swimming), the athletes have been more covered up than in the past, but apparently not this one.  I just can’t imagine running in underwear.

Aaaaannnnd I’m back to hating NBC TV coverage. They just cut away from the race for commercials.  It only takes 15 minutes!  I have a 15-minute attention span, NBC, and I WANT TO SEE THIS RACE.  We’re switching to the website.

Wait, they’re back.  Oh, and they cut away to an old race.  COME ON.

Back, and the leader (who is no longer the Japanese woman) is WAY out in front.  Let’s see if she keeps that kind of lead.

Oh, whoops, there goes her lead.  But MAN, she looks relaxed.  That’s my goal.  I don’t need to hit that kind of speed (sub 5-minute miles – like I’ll ever come close), but I need to look that comfortable.

DAMN they’re going fast.

Oh, they look so happy!  I’m avoiding say WHO looks so happy because SOME people like to watch their races without knowing who won.  I know I was complaining about the NBC TV coverage, but at least if you’re watching it on TV, they assume you’re watching it “live” and they don’t tell you who won.  Online, for any events that are over, you can’t avoid knowing the winner when you search for the videos.  Believe me, I tried.  Even the URLs for the videos have the winners in them.  And yeah, I’ll watch them anyway, but most of the excitement is NOT KNOWING HOW IT ENDS.

I’m seriously thinking about moving my massage appointment tomorrow so I can be home to watch the actual livestream of the men’s 5000m final and NOT know who won.  John will be away (gig), but then when he watches it later, I can safely search for the video and start it for him.  Yeah, I might do that.

Like a 5-year-old

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We’re watching (and enjoying) Stranger Things on Netflix, but last night I startled awake out of a really freaky show-fueled nightmare.  The show is eerie, mostly not scary, and while I’m watching it, I’m okay, but apparently one part of it got in my head.  In my dream, that part of the show was standing over my side of the bed, and – yeah, okay, I’m not writing about it anymore.  It’s creeping me out again, and it’s daylight outside.

John would like to know when I’m planning to stop having nightmares like a little kid.  The shot of adrenaline he got when I practically screamed my way awake kept him up for another half-hour in the middle of the night.  He can just deal.  At least he wasn’t afraid of the dark the rest of the night.  I made him go with me when I got up to pee.  He guarded the door.  (Man, I am acting like a little kid.)

I’m okay now.  I survived.  Of course, that was only last night, and it hasn’t gotten dark again since then…