Bringing Party Favors to Hell

Can I just say that I love Fringe? Walter is awesome, Peter is delightfully sarcastic <3 and Olivia wears sensible clothes. It's reminiscent of X-Files in all the good ways and so far, not the bad ones. ;D (Also, Astrid is one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. I think I have a girlcrush on her. )

The Chuck season finale rocked, and I'm not just talking about Jeffster (though I still have Mr. Roboto running through my head two days later...). I really hope they get a third season pickup because they deserve it.

The Heroes season finale was ... surprising. It'll definitely be interesting to see how that plays out.

Also still watching House, NCIS (the first spinoff pilot ep was interesting), Criminal Minds, and the Mentalist. Of those, CM is clearly the standout but the other two are still fun. I've pretty much given up on Dollhouse after falling asleep during it two weeks in a row. I will miss Sarah Connor Chronicles. It's a shame a good percentage of last season was so-so, because their last few eps really rocked.

And there's Murdoch Mysteries, a Canadian Victorian-era detective show I enjoy a great deal. Their latest ep featured Dylan Neal (late of Blood Ties) as a Mountie. Now, Dylan Neal has always reminded me a great deal of Paul Gross, so with him in red serge, I was having severe due South AU flashes!

ETA:

Tangentially related, I just saw this news blurb on the IMDB News RSS feed: Top-Ten Pirated TV Shows: The most-downloaded shows on BitTorrent sites have little in common with the most-viewed shows on television, according to a list compiled by the website TorrentFreak. Indeed, most of the top-ten downloaded shows, which also include those airing on cable, don't even appear in Nielsen's top ten. (The only one that does is ABC's Desperate Housewives) They are: 1. Heroes, 2. Prison Break, 3. 24 , 4. Desperate Housewives, 5. Family Guy, 6. Smallville, 7. South Park, 8. Gossip Girl, 9. Fringe, and 10. Supernatural.

Notice how many of those are "fannish" shows?

Any of you guys birders? I'm a very casual one, but I've just found a site where you can record your observations on a regular basis. It's My Yard eBird, and the data will be available to birders, ornithologists, and conservation biologists. Looks like it's North America only, at least at this point. I got a new feeder last weekend after rescuing another little finch that had gotten trapped in my old one. The new one is a Brome Squirrelbuster Mini, we'll see if it does a better job of keeping the squirrels off without being a problem for the birds than my old one! I can already tell the birds like it better, I've seen a gorgeous male goldfinch in full mating yellow plumage at the feeder regularly over the past two days, and I think I'd only seen one once in the whole time I had the old one. I also saw a female hairy woodpecker at my suet feeder twice yesterday, and that's the first time I've seen one there.

In TV news, Sarah Connor Chronicles kind of blew me away on Friday. Did Not Expect That!! Wow. Dollhouse bored and disappointed me. I actually fell asleep during it. Flashpoint was good, though. Supernatural... not sure quite what I think about this week's ep yet. Still mulling that. O.o (Though on the shallow side, I have to say Misha Collins is hot. ;D) On the non-US TV front, Primeval is back! Yay! Love that show. I'm a bit surprised, though that ( spoiler behind the cut ) Am also very much enjoying Murdoch Mysteries this season, though the tension between Murdoch and Dr. Ogden worries me a bit. The show is usually very good about not having any really obvious anachronisms, but last week's had a fairly glaring one. I really don't think they had full-color glossy mugshots in 1895. ;D

Anyone besides me and theamusedone watching Nathan Filion's new show, Castle? It may not be 'realistic' (anyone who thinks novelists live like rock stars needs a reality check!) but I love the characters and I've liked the show since the start. I thought this episode was particularly good, especially the way Rick absorbs what's happening in the A-Plot and how it affects his relationship with Alexis (his daughter). Really nicely done. The 'are you taking drugs' scene was really very moving.

And of course, I have to quote one of the first exhanges of the ep, one which had me LOLing.

Rick: "Anything I need to know?"
Alexis: "The 70's are back."
Rick: "They're like The Highlander, they just won't die."

::snerk:: SO true.

Okay, I know it could have happened to anyone (myself included since I speak no Polish), but this story really made me ROFL! "Details of how police in the Irish Republic finally caught up with the country's most reckless driver have emerged." ;D

In other news, I am fairly pleased with the Top Chef Final Three,( Read more... )

Being lazy and copying from my comment in rustler's journal: ( behind the cut for spoilerphobes )

In other news, I'm taking my mom in for her surgery (spinal/disc fusion) in a couple of hours. I've got all y'all's vibes stored up for use today, so I know it will go well.

I stopped at Panera this morning for coffee and some kind of nummy breakfasty thing, and this was in the parking lot:

Looks like The Doctor finally fixed that Chameleon Circuit. ;D Good job choosing a Prius. In this area they're as ubiquitous as a Police Box was in England 40 years ago.

I'm finally on the mend after two weeks of bronchitis. Not the way I really wanted to spend the holidays! I've spent the last two weeks basically hibernating, feeling sorry for myself, and watching a lot of No Reservations on the Travel Channel, lots of true crime shows, and various other stuff like that History Channel "Nostradamus 2012" program Sunday night which should have been titled "Prophecy for the Gullible." Geez. It was really annoying. Kidunit and I rented a few DVDs over the weekend and watched Wall-E, The Golden Compass, and Wanted. Wanted was pretty much an exercise in pretty, stylized violence-- I didn't like it much. I was also very disappointed in The Golden Compass -- granted it would have been very hard to really do justice to the novel, but I found it choppy and overly expository, and also everything after they got to the North was really dark and hard to see. I think they were trying too hard to keep the Catholic Church from boycotting them. I doubt they'll do another in the series. Wall-E, however, was a delight. We both loved it. I also have to say I am loving Leverage. If you haven't watched it yet, I highly recommend it. I don't find it slashy (darn it) but it's a fun show.

Found an excellent new-to-us Thai place in town, they make the best drunken noodles I've ever had, and their spring rolls were so amazingly fresh they practically exploded flavor in my mouth when I took a bite. And their dipping sauce didn't taste like watered down peanut butter, either. To top it off, their mango sticky rice was fabulous. Must learn how to make it their way. Mmmmmm. It's also reasonably priced. The location's a bit eh... it's in a stripmall across from 29th Street, but the food's definitely worth it. (If you're local and want to try it, it's Chy Thai.)

Watched the new Top Chef. There are two chefs from Boulder in it this season, Hosea (bald/Amish beard) who did pretty well in the first ep, and Melissa (blonde, bad haircut) who didn't fare as well but is still in the running. It'll be fun to watch and see how the locals fare. There's also a guy named Jeff from Miami who's a dead ringer for Jesse Spencer (Chase from House). The resemblance is amazing, more so on the show than in the still photo. I can already tell I am not going to be liking either of the two European guys. There's ego, and then there's ego.

bluster came for a visit last week! Much fun was had, including a fantabulous Great Big Sea show at the Paramount. We were in the 8th row on the aisle and couldn't have had better seats. Before the show I was worried that the Paramount, being a large venue with actual seats, would repress the usual audience participation but fortunately that was not the case. The by'z were as 'on' as they get, and the audience was great, and a wonderful time was had by all. We came out half-deaf, completely hoarse, sweat-soaked and bone tired. Exactly how one should come out of a GBS concert. Though really, 'concert' is a misnomer. It's more of an interactive experience. ;D

The next night we'd gone to dinner at the closest Outback Steakhouse and on the way home saw the oddest thing... at the light, a large motorcycle was pulled off onto the sidewalk along with its trailer... a full size actual coffin. Not a fake Halloween-style coffin but a real, honest-to-goodness coffin, kind of silvery with chrome fittings. It definitely caused a few double-takes. On Saturday we went to Denver to see ardent_muses and her handsome and well-behaved Sheltie. bluster and ardent_muses showed me what NASCAR is like. I can now read the SGA "Fireball" AU and understand what's going on. I can't say I'm ever going to be a NASCAR fan but it wasn't as awful as I thought it would be. I had to laugh when I was the only one paying enough attention to the race to be able to tell them what they'd missed when they were busy fannishly squeeing over various drivers and crew-chiefs. And yes, bluster, Bootie is a cutie.

Watched House last night.... wow. That had to be the slashiest damned ep ever of a show that is often pretty slashy. ( Read more... )

Still liking Fringe, and pretty much all my usual shows, though my Bones love is kind of waning. They are really off their stride this season, and I am getting awfully tired of the Intern Shuffle. I wish they would just do whatever lame thing they're going to do to get Zach back and get it over with. Still haven't found a show I can really feel "fannish" about, though. ::sigh::

Okay, well. How shall I put this... ( Read more... )

In other RL news, I've seen this several places now so I chose this site's edition kind of at random: a view of Sarah Palin from someone who's known her a while. (Warning: if you're pro-Palin you probably wanna skip it.)

So right after seeing this week's Eureka and finding out some information that makes me think a certain event that happened during the ep might be more permanent than I had presumed, I find out that they're cancelling Stargate: Atlantis.

Not. Happy. Right. Now. :(

Every time I watch The Middleman, I get at least one unexpected guffaw and usually a whole lot more. Tonight's were, in no particular order. "Story of O!", "Agents Alexander Scott & Kelly Robinson," and "Just a canceled television show, I don't expect you'll get the reference." Heeee! A few eps ago the "Hear that noise? It's Simone de Beauvoir rolling in her grave." had me ROFL.

Seriously, if you're not watching it, you should be. The first episode wasn't so good, so I hope any of you who didn't tune back in after that one will give it a second chance. I don't think you'll be sorry.

eta: a couple of reviews in case you want more substance to the rec:
http://www.newsarama.com/tv/060816-MiddlmanReview.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/arts/television/23man.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

I've always liked Tom Colicchio on Top Chef- he has always seemed down to earth and intelligent. And after reading his finale blog for this season, "A Woman's Place" I'm even more impressed. Here's a quote from the blog entry: The bottom line is our society does not yet provide women in the workplace with the type of social supports, like high-quality subsidized child care or extended parental leave, that allows them to fully go for it, and the impact this has on the scope and depth of a career is profound.

Yes, it is. Still. Despite the idiot commenter 'Rob' who said Are we still in the Sixties???? Please, please, please, give this womens movement thing a rest.

Yeah, 'Rob', I'm still a feminist. And not ashamed to say so. And the Sixties aren't that far away.

Sentiments etc. ( cut for your protection. )