the mermaid cafe

Things, and also, stuff:

= I maybe kind of started a new remix this morning because I hate the one I wrote, and there's time! Um. I already like the few hundred words I've got now way better than what I had before. And since this is the first time that I haven't had a pinch hit in the history of remix (though I suppose that could change the closer we get to Sunday), I felt a little weird not panicking over everything. It's nice not being a mod.

= My nephew is watching Friday Night Lights. We were talking about it in the car on Sunday when he took me to the train station, and he was all enthusiastic about Coach and Mrs. Coach and Tim Riggins and Smash and Matt Saracen. And he was excited about Michael B. Jordan joining the cast later. I warned him about season 2 but said that in the end, Tim Riggins and Mrs. Coach save the season, and then it gets excellent again going forward. Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose! <333 Maybe it's time for a rewatch.

= Apparently there are Star Wars fans on tumblr who don't believe that Leia is force-sensitive. I don't understand how you could have sat through the Original Trilogy and come away believing that. That is some serious inability to comprehend a text. I mean, aside from the part where Yoda says, "There is another*," which I knew, when I first saw ESB when it came out and I was a couple months shy of my tenth birthday, that he meant Leia (despite the boys in my class thinking he meant Han. Boys are dumb.), because when Luke is hanging off that exhaust pipe, he's thinking, "Leia" and Leia, sitting in the Millennium Falcon, is like, "Luke?" and then she rescues him, there's Luke's whole little speech in RotJ: "The force is strong in my family. My father has it, I have it, my sister has it." (emphasis mine, also quoted from memory. And jesus, that is one terribly convoluted sentence. Fitting, I suppose, for the subject matter.)

I mean, you have to let slide that Vader never recognized it in her in Star Wars (or even her resemblance to Padme; whatever else you say about Natalie Portman in the PT, she looks like she could absolutely be OT-era Carrie Fisher's mother despite looking nothing like Debbie Reynolds), excuse me, ANH, because Lucas hadn't come up with him being their father yet (my sad about Star Wars is never getting a scene of them interacting where either of them - or better yet, both of them - are aware of the relationship), but having watched TCW, I like to pretend that Ahsoka taught her to camouflage herself so as not to be noticed by him or the Emperor while she was in the Senate, even if she didn't get any other kind of training. I mean, that could probably just be done in the guise of meditation, which surely Leia, with her temper, probably could have used.

Also, excuse you, she's Princess Fucking Leia, so shut the hell up. She can be force-sensitive if she wants to be. I will fight you.

*Though I freely acknowledge that Meryl Streep probably *is* force-sensitive, she was not in play at the time Yoda made his statement.

***

I got my period yesterday and it was one of those times where it felt like my ability to think had ground to a halt. Just a really bad case of the dumb. Today I feel so much more alert and able to function.

I did manage to write a cute little Arrow story though:

We'd take a limousine 'cause it costs more (@ AO3)
Arrow; Felicity, Oliver, Diggle; g; 855 words
In which Felicity and Diggle introduce Oliver to the wonders of Kraft macaroni and cheese.

So angelgazing says to me, "there should be an Olicity vid to 'If I Had $1,000,000'" and I say, "yes! And also the story of how Felicity introduces Oliver to the wonders of Kraft macaroni and cheese." This is that story. Sadly, we'll have to rely on the universe to get the vid. So if you decide to make that vid, please let us know!

*

Links:

chaila has written a great intro/recruiter post for Wonder Woman comics. Go read it! And also read The Hiketeia and JLA: A League of One if you're interested in standalone Wonder Woman stories where she is AWESOME. I also enjoyed the Wonder Woman/Batman crossover "The Gods of Gotham" where the Wonders and Bats team up. I haven't read the Azzarello run because I am still upset about the changes he made to the Amazons and I didn't want to give DC money, but I'll probably end up reading it in trade, because Cliff Chiang's art is amazing. I don't have high hopes for the movie, because DC, but maybe they will surprise us. Anyway. ALWAYS BE WONDER WOMAN. (the most popular tumblr post I've ever made is the one with the link to the New Yorker article about her from September.)

Also about awesome ladies: The Cult of Connie Britton:

And the way we understand Britton's demeanor is as an extension of Tami Taylor, who spent five seasons negotiating her way to power from the stereotypically subservient position of "coach’s wife" in a football-obsessed town.

Instead of forcefully critiquing the cultural infrastructure from the outside, she works within its existing boundaries to change it. Her beauty, her smile, that nice-lady voice, all of it is a way of getting what she/the high school students she counsels want or need, especially when dealing with apparatuses of power (the boosters, the school board, Joe McCoy). She kills not with kindness, but with y'alls.

Tami's power is negotiated, but it's also a realistic rendering of how women in much of America are able to fight and win battles on a daily basis. Instead of busting balls, attempting to engage in conversation. Instead of insulting another's way of life, trying to inhabit it. Tami's mix of the soft Southern exterior with steely drive emulates a form of activism wholly recognizable to anyone who's attempted to effect change in an environment wholly resistant to it.

And another link that may be relevant to your interests: It's Sesame Street Week at the AV Club. Though they don't seem to have an index page up for links to each day's articles.

*

Teevee in brief:

The Good Wife ( spoilers )

Brooklyn Nine Nine ( spoilers )

Gotham
I actually dozed off and I didn't see last week, so I wasn't going to say anything about how terrible what parts I saw were, but ( spoilers )

Sleepy Hollow
Man, after such a fun first season, this season is bobbling on core levels. From the AV Club review this week: The basics are still here—the monster kills, the cool special effects, the great quips, the creepy twists—but there so many other unfortunate decisions being made that it feels like we're on a terrific ship that is somehow, despite our best efforts, deeply in love with icebergs. I don't think that Sleepy Hollow has completely fallen apart; I still look forward to the show each week, and if somebody ever managed to bottle Mison and Nicole Beharie's chemistry, you could probably save the world. But man, things need to get tighter. Bring back Jenny, stop trying to push empty romances, and come up with better reasons for our heroes to stress out. Seriously why are we stuck with Hawley while Jenny and Irving are sidelined? No one is interested in an Abbie/Hawley/Jenny love triangle, least of all Abbie and Jenny!

( spoilers )

Star Wars Rebels
( spoilers )

While I was never involved in any organized fandom for it, I have a lot of deep ~feelings~ about Star Wars - I was 7 when it came out and it was one of the very first things I got super-obsessed with as a kid (as I think many, many people in my age group did), and I still feel that pull sometimes, though I never got into the extended universe beyond the Han Solo novels and the Thrawn trilogy. But it consistently makes me want more, even when that proves to be a giant mistake. *cough* And one of the things I think this show has going for it is that it is set in such a large universe with a long history, even if the majority of the previous ancillary materials has been moved out of canon. And so far I think it's done a better job than Gotham about being a show that takes place years before the main action starts, though I'm still wondering when they're going to get to the fireworks factory Rebel Alliance.

*

Normally I would just post about yuletide reveals and then, later, my year in review write-up but reveals haven't happened yet and last night, my spur of the moment NYE decision was to finally watch the final two episodes of Friday Night Lights, which I hadn't, because I didn't want the show to ever end.

( spoilers for Texas Whatever and Always; if you don't click, just assume there was a lot of ugly crying, because there was )

I feel like this is one of those shows that people evangelize about, which makes other people not want to watch, and there's the whole "I don't even like football" aspect, which is - liking football is completely irrelevant to loving the show - but if you want a show that is going to sink its claws deep into your heart and rip it out from episode to episode in new and interesting ways, a show where you'll forgive the poorly conceived, network mandated melodrama and a handful of dropped plotlines, because it's emotionally resonant on levels few shows ever reach, well, I think you should give it a shot. I don't think you'll regret it. Stock up on tissues, though, if you're a crier.

Oh, and the show's greatest moments, a list by Alan Sepinwall. There are things that should be on there but aren't, but I can't argue with any of the ones he chose, either.


***

Some links:

⋄ The Inspector Spacetime page at TVTropes. I love that Community gave us Inspector Spacetime and fandom ran with it. There is even an Inspector Spacetime Secrets tumblr.

(⋄ as an aside, I don't generally get fandomsecrets type posts, mostly because I don't think I've ever had an opinion I've kept secret *snerk*, but I am amused at how whenever I see one about Friday Night Lights, it's always, like, "Coach Taylor has ruined me for all other men" or "Connie Britton was robbed!" Like, these are not things that anybody would argue with, you know? They are not things you should be afraid to attach your name to. Note: I don't want to see people being mean about FNL! I'm glad they love it as much as I do. I just think it's funny.)

⋄ There's a bunch of new Avengers stuff at EW.com: this week's cover, and some cast pictures. I especially like the one of Black Widow and Hawkeye.

⋄ The AV Club interviewed Mark Hamill. He seems very gracious. I'm a little sad nobody asked him about AtLA, but it's an interesting interview.

⋄ Have some scans of Miles Morales from Ultimate Spider-Man #1. He's so wee! He looks even younger than Peter did. I'm hoping his story will be less depressing than Peter's.

There was something else, but now I can't remember what it was. I guess five things make a post.

***

OMG THIS DAY!

Bosses back from vacay, new VP starting, it has been wall-to-wall in terms of them actually calling my name to do stuff - normally, I am, as they say, self-directed, which means that they give me stuff to do and I do it in my own time (which is why everything is always a last minute rush; my time management skills, let me show you my lack of them), but not today. They're going out for lunch now though, so that should give me a little time to relax and write this entry look over the stuff on my to-do list. This is why even though I really wanted to take today off to recover from my birthday weekend, I knew I couldn't.

*

So I've been reading a lot this year, more than I have in a long time (I was going to say the number is artificially inflated by comics, except that past years have included all the Lucifer or Fables or Y: The Last Man trades or what have you, so it's not really an addition of type, just quantity; the number on Goodreads is inflated by the six books I tagged as abandoned, though), and probably the real change is that in having a shiny new iPad on which to read, I'm more excited about shutting down the laptop and reading books where normally I'd be online at that time. There are other factors - since I broke up with SPN, I'm reading a lot less fic, and there just isn't the same amount of stuff I am interesting crossing my path (if I were really into XMFC, I could be filling the empty space with that, but as much as I ship Charles/Erik, the fic hasn't really been sparking my interest).

The things I have been reading voraciously are comics and Discworld novels, which I will probably post about in more detail when I feel I've reached a stopping point (though you can see my reviews, such as they are, on Goodreads, if you like), and one of the things that's struck me, one of the things that these things have in common, and which is probably the thing that most makes me want to see a Batman/Discworld crossover (or many of them), is the strong sense of place they evoke.

What really crystallized this for me was, oddly enough, reading the paeans to Friday Night Lights, because Dillon is so clearly a character on the show, and possibly the character with the most power and influence over the shape of the narrative and the characters' lives - location as necessity and destiny - even though living in a town like Dillon is far removed from my experience, watching the show makes me believe it exists and understand how it shapes the people who live there. It's one reason I found Homicide and The Wire and Treme so compelling, because they so thoroughly inhabit the cities in which they are set, in ways most television shows don't (and, in a lot of cases, can't). I think it even might be, on some level, part of why I find the Ba Sing Se arc of AtLA so compelling - I think those are probably the episodes I've rewatched most. Ba Sing Se is an awesomely terrible city, but it's recognizable to me in ways most of the villages of the week just aren't.

I'm not a costumed vigilante or the commander of the city watch, but I understand the way Batman and Sam Vimes feel about their cities. The territoriality and possessiveness make sense to me. Do I think it makes Bruce a jerk sometimes, when people offer him help and he's all, "Get out of my city!"? Well, yes† (but not as much as, say, gassing one of his kids to get out of an emotional conversation [see, it's things like that that make me blurt out, "You're an asshole, Bruce!" in packed movie theatres]), but I understand it on various levels. I understand why Vimes feels all asea when he's sent to the Uberwald and has to learn the rules of a completely different place and a completely different location in the hierarchy of that place. Which is what makes it so awesome when he realizes that symbolically, the embassy is Ankh-Morpork. (When I used to travel fairly frequently for work, I was always amazed at how clean other cities were compared to New York. And that was back when substantial strides had been made to clean up the subways! Our clean is not the same as other people's. Otoh, I can probably count on both hands the times I've personally felt unsafe in the city in my entire life, and still have fingers left over, and the majority of them were when I still lived in Queens.)

Gotham is not New York, and Ankh-Morpork is not New York, but they both feel familiar to me in ways a lot of fictional places just don't, and that makes them places I enjoy visiting despite their rather dire reputations.

(Interestingly enough, Bludhaven didn't ping that way for me, possibly because I never got a real sense of the city except that it was even worse off somehow than Gotham, without any of the tattered and tarnished glamour that Gotham tries to wrap herself up in. It's, like, Newark or something. I don't really have a good read on Metropolis‡ - it's got the aspirational qualities, but I'm not familiar enough with it to know if it has that "in your bones" feeling to it that certain cities inspire and which Gotham and Ankh-Morpork recreate so faithfully.)

It's why I think the best stories I've written are often inextricably linked to the places in which they're set (which also usually happen to be places I'm familiar with).

--
†Because it's just a "keep it in the family" ethos writ large. Which reeks of problematic paternalism that leads to imperialism - especially in terms of Batman Inc. No one can interfere in Gotham, but it's okay for him to go out and create Batmen in other people's cities, rather than letting them develop their own heroes suited to their cities' particular needs. That's the other side of the coin.

‡"Metropolis is New York in the daytime; Gotham City is New York at night." (Frank Miller) Also, "Batman's Gotham City is Manhattan below Fourteenth Street at eleven minutes past midnight on the coldest night in November." (Denny O'Neil) - huh two guys I would not normally quote.

***

Just called Dom to wish him a happy birthday. He was like, "This is the only time of the year when we speak to each other twice in two days." Heh. True. When we were kids, even when we had joint birthday parties, my parents made sure there were always two cakes. I would have fussed, otherwise.

I feel like there should be a clever segue here, so pretend that there is.

seperis made a great post last night about These Old Shades and Devil's Cub by Georgette Heyer. Devil's Cub is my favorite Heyer, bar none, for all the reasons seperis lists in the post, but mostly, and I feel this cannot be stressed enough, because ( AWESOME spoiler ). I think that explains a lot about my pairing preferences (I first read it at an impressionable age and still find it a comfort read). You know, a few years ago when Yuletide had that snafu with the assignments and we all got reassigned? My original assignment that broke my heart to give up was for Devil's Cub. I comforted myself with the fact that I would probably have found it difficult to write porn about a character with my brother's name (see, there was the pivot on which the clever segue should have turned) but I guess we'll never know, unless I ever get assigned it again in Yuletide.

Anyway, I didn't read These Old Shades until much later on, so the big twist there was already spoiled for me, and also, it doesn't quite push my buttons the same way, though I enjoyed it. But Devil's Cub always gives me a thrill and a lot of laughs, despite some of the problematic things in it. (I would say currently, my second favorite Heyer is probably The Grand Sophy, though I'm exceedingly fond of The Talisman Ring, as well. There are still a whole bunch I haven't read, though, and I'm working on that.)

I am incredibly envious of Heyer's ability to juggle romance, action, and comedy so deftly. I wish I had that ability. I can usually manage the romance and sometimes, the comedy, but the action? Not so much.

Another thing - when I write fic, I don't really see myself as writing things that could or should happen onscreen in canon, so much as I write things that might have happened while we weren't looking, the kinds of things that will never be shown but aren't contra-canon. It's not so much compliance as it is consistency of characterization, maybe? Anyway, there's nothing like being in the middle of writing a story that is really pushing even that sort of flexible view of canon (and characterization) and having canon suddenly render it that much more difficult to make believable. *growls and shakes tiny ineffectual fist*

In other book news, some of you might find this post about the evolution of female characters in Discworld interesting.

Another link that might be of interest: a brief post by Richard Roeper about Friday Night Lights.

Lastly, Deathly Hallows at midnight tonight with a group of fangirls. Yay! I have a feeling I'm going to bawl like a baby. Fellow fangirls, don't be too alarmed if I start sobbing!

***

Flist, you are going to be seeing a lot of questions like this from me over the next few weeks, I fear:

I downloaded a story directly from AO3 last night onto the iPad (which I have decided to name Robin. Shut up.) as an epub and neither Stanza nor iBooks could read it. Is this a known thing or am I already running afoul of the bad luck peculiar to members of my family, wherein nothing ever works properly out of the box? Also, is there a way to delete it from showing up as an unsuccessful download in Stanza?

Which leads to my next question - is there a file manager app you would recommend? Something like Finder or Windows Explorer?

I don't expect to do any writing on the thing (though I like the touchscreen keyboard way more than I expected), but I'd like to be able to manage anything I do put on there. Which as of last night was mostly a bunch of comics I haven't read yet. Stanza handled them fine, I thought.

***

So in addition to Batman: The Animated Series (Mondays) (ongoing since maybe March? They apparently plan to do the whole DCAU, which means at some point I should maybe try to get hold of Superman: The Animated Series?) and Avatar: The Last Airbender (Tuesdays), AV Club is now also doing Homicide: Life on the Street (aka The Best Damn Show on Network Television) (Fridays) (though the comments have already gone to the annoying "It's not The Wire" place, which, no, it's not, but it is great television in its own right), and, I discovered this morning, Veronica Mars (Fridays) (though the comments immediately went to the Logan-worship place, which, ugh; he's a great character, but a lot more interesting before the show tried to woobify him the way fandom did).

I've said this before, but I think the first season of Veronica Mars is an amazing season of television, and if you're watching it for the first time, I recommend stopping right at the end of the season finale. You don't need seasons 2 and 3, and you'll be better off for not having season 1 tainted by them. (Just pretend ( spoiler ) and it's all good.)

As always, there is a good amount of trollery and dickery in the comments, but I find it's mostly easy to skim past, and a lot of the other commenters tend to be thoughtful and interesting. And it makes for good reading about shows I love.

Here's an interesting essay about Friday Night Lights and Glee: How Football Players Got Trounced by 'Glee'.

I think it's generally a bad idea to compare shows like this, but it's interesting because in some ways, Glee and FNL do focus on the same kinds of stories - high school kids and the adults who have to guide them to adulthood, and the ways questing for glory deforms that guidance and how the kids handle the damage (via dreams of entertainment stardom in Glee and sports stardom in FNL), and if you take the reading of Glee where it's about losers who never will get out of Lima, despite their dreams of glory, rather than as a triumphalist narrative of misfits overcoming bullying with song and dance, the shows do have more in common than it appears on first glance.

For me, Glee never had the emotional heft and pull that FNL does (which is why it was so easy to stop watching). I think I've probably cried at some point or another on 95% of FNL episodes (some more than others, and some lingeringly after the episode ended), whereas before I stopped watching, Glee mostly made me laugh and applaud musical numbers or rage about how annoying various characters and narrative choices were.

Work keeps interrupting so I can't remember where I was going with this, so I'm just gonna hit post now.

***

Last night, I went to bed at 9:30, praying we'd get enough snow to close the office, because I was running a fever of 100.1 and didn't want to use a sick day. Sadly, the office did not close, but I stayed home anyway. The fever broke earlier, but I think it's back, mostly because my entire body is one giant ache. My skin hurts and I'm wearing a fleecy over my sweatshirt and under my blanket.

On the upside, that meant I got to watch last night's The Good Wife, which made me want to take a shower. Obviously, nobody is untainted in this little story. And I really do not like Blake and would like to see the back of him, which still kind of fills me with cognitive dissonance, because while he was never my favorite character, I was always fond of Jason Street.

Especially because then I watched the three episodes of Friday Night Lights I was behind on and ( spoilers for 5.06, 5.07, and 5.08 )

Now I think I have to go lie down for a while.

***

So many things I should have been doing today, but instead I watched the last three eps of Friday Night Lights.

Oh, show. I just want to give everybody hugs and cookies. Vince! Jess! Becky! MINDY! You guys, who knew Mindy had so much AWESOME in her? I mean, I guess we should have known, given that she's Tyra's big sister, but still!

And I just want to hug Jess and keep her safe and send her off to college. And Vince! I can't even... *flails* I am so terrified for him but he makes me so proud. ( spoilers )

Also, wow, the kid they cast as Buddy Jr. really looks like Buddy Sr. Good job, casting people!

Last night, I watched SPN and there's an hour of my life I'm never going to be getting back. Ugh.

It meant that I saw the last five minutes of Smallville, though, and did my eyes deceive me or ( do I have to cut for Smallville casting spoilers? ) HOLY FUCK THAT IS AWESOME CASTING! ( more about casting spoiler )

Speaking of DCU things, I read the "Hush" arc of Batman last night, and wow, Batman's lucky no one can hear his interior monologue or no one would take him seriously. I certainly couldn't. I repeatedly laughed at his supreme emo-ness. No, really, he truly is the billowy coat cape king of pain and he should be grateful he has a family who loves him and puts up with his drama queen tendencies. I would just be like, "Cheer up, emo kid! You're filthy rich and you get to kick bad guy ass and make out with Catwoman! Your life is pretty awesome!"

Somehow I don't think that was what I was supposed to get out of that. heh.

Speaking of which - Batman getting to make out with Catwoman, I mean (OTP!) - verucawerewolf linked to Chase Me, which is an animated short that is basically five minutes of Bat/Cat foreplay. SO ADORABLE!

Anyway, back to "Hush." That wasn't actually Jason, but I did like that outfit a lot better than some of the others he's actually worn. (Of course, I think he should just dress up like Nightwing all the time, so what do I know?)

Now, I must do some of the things I've put off all day, like start baking and go grocery shopping. Sigh.

***

I have just one thing to say about Undercovers: ( spoilers )

***

Here are two FNL links:

Top Ten Most Emotional Moments
though I think they're missing Smash getting the news about A&M

The wit and wisdom of Coach Eric Taylor.

***

Three links to cool stuff! Three ah ah ah!

HOLY SHIT FRINGE PREVIEW

You can preview The Promise: The Lost Sessions: Darkness on the Edge of Town, the new album of previously unreleased Springsteen songs here (thanks to zvi for the link).

Vintage Star Wars travel posters (I think I like the Firefly ones better, but not by much.)

***

They gave me a new PC at work today, and more importantly, they gave me a huge-ass wide-screen monitor, which is big enough to use as a television set. I am not even joking.

It's still disgustingly, nauseatingly (and I mean that literally - I get queasy in the heat and have a hard time eating; I had ice cream for dinner last night at about 9 pm, when I finally wasn't queasy anymore) hot outside. (and I generally like heat! I am good to go up to about 95°F. It was 103° yesterday, and they think we might break 100 again today. Oy.) Last night, I made some espresso granita and some whipped cream, and this morning I loaded it into a water bottle with some extra milk to smooth it out (the espresso was a little stronger than I expected) and took it to work; by the time I got here, it was like an iced coffee, light and sweet (a little too sweet, actually; I need to cut back on the sugar, or possibly leave out the whipped cream and just add milk), and it was good. I will definitely be doing that again.

***

So I posted a story last night:

Two Weeks Out
Supernatural; Sam, Dr. Lee (from Croatoan); pg; spoilers through 5.19; 1,912 words
"The virus is coming in less than two weeks, and I'm the only one who can stop it. And I thought, I hoped you'd be able to help."

( a lot of blather about this story that nobody but me cares about )

Possibly you can tell I've had some caffeine and sugar, eh?

***

30 Days of TV meme

( days 1-20 )

Day 21 - Favorite ship

Serenity! How is that even a question? *g*

(Yes, I know everyone who does the meme does a variation on that joke, but that’s because it’s funny, and also true.)

I'm one of those weird fans who actually likes many canon het ships, so I can rattle off a list of old favorites here: Willow/Xander, Syd/Vaughn, Mulder/Scully, David/Maddy, Sam/Diane, Michael/Hope, O’Connell/Fleischman, Natalie/Jeremy, Luke/Lorelai; and new favorites like Jim/Pam, Peter/El (though I like Neal in the mix too), Booth/Brennan and Peter/Olivia, and though they’re not actually canon (though they basically vowed to be together forever in that Alaska episode), Morgan/Garcia.

But I think the choice has to be between Josh/Donna, which I waited seven years for! And the expectation of it finally happening was what kept me watching through the less good bits. True story – when I first watched "In the Shadow of Two Gunmen," I was like, "So Josh and Donna are together?" (because I was still catching up on season 1 at that point – I started watching regularly in season 2, with ItSoTG), and my mother was all, "It really looks that way, doesn’t it? I think they had an affair on the campaign trail." (My mother, the shipper. No, really.) and Eric/Tami Taylor, because they are SO AWESOME and so married in such a real, vivid, believable way – they’re not perfect, not by a long shot, but they do the best they can with what they've got. Eric can be kind of a dick sometimes, but he always KNOWS when he’s being a dick and he usually apologizes and makes up for it, and is there anyone more awesome than Tami Taylor on television at this moment? I don't think so. Eric and Tami are awesome to each other, and fantastic to the kids who depend on them for guidance. So, you know, COACH AND MRS. COACH FOR THE WIN! ♥

( the rest of the days )

***

Day 01 - A show that should have never been canceled

Day 02 - A show that you wish more people were watching

Friday Night Lights. I have heard every argument against it, but guys, it's so fucking good. It's about football to some degree, sure, but football isn't the point. Football is the prism through which everything else is viewed, and the show knows how fucked up that is, the show uses that to show us. There's so much more going on. Season 1 is one of those nearly-perfect television seasons that come along so rarely, and seasons 3 and 4 have come close to matching it in intensity and emotional payoff (you can probably mostly ignore season 2; the show does).

FNL is a melancholy show, shot through with tragedy - it begins with the star quarterback being paralyzed from the neck down - and hope - we want these kids to get out of this dead-end town where high school football is the most important thing going on, get away from this machine that will build them up, tear them down and then spit them out, hungry for the next round of kids coming in - and we cheer when they do. The show's not without moments of triumph, moments of sheer transcendent joy. Plus, it's given us Matt Saracen, Tim Riggins, Tyra Collette, and Eric and Tami Taylor, one of the most awesome married couples to ever grace the screen - Eric and Tami are each awesome in their own right, and super-awesome together. And in season 4, it introduced Vince Howard, who is amazingly heartbreaking and awesome in his own right, and thus deserves mention all on his own.

I'm pretty sure there's nothing I can say at this point to convince people who don't want to watch it to watch it, but honestly, it's one of the best things on television, and you are so missing out by not watching it.

( the rest of the days )

***

there comes a time in a woman's life when she realizes that eating half a bag of potato chips for dinner is just not a good choice, and also when she's struck by a craving for macaroni and cheese (not from a box!) so strong that she heads out into the rain to pick up elbow macaroni and cheddar cheese in order to make some.

Man, I was that woman last night, and it was that time. I was so tired, and I was all "wah wah wah I don't want to cook, I just want to eat" but I wanted cheese macaroni so much that I pulled on a pair of jeans and ran to the grocery store around the corner to buy elbow macaroni and a bag of shredded cheddar (I didn't want it enough to grate the cheese myself; or, I should say,I wanted it more quickly than that). Of course, I forgot to buy a pan to bake it in, so I had to do it in the Dutch oven, but that worked out pretty well. That was about 7:10 last night. By 8:30, I had a bowl of hot, tasty, homemade macaroni and cheese with crispy breadcrumb topping in my hungry little hands.

I will be eating mac and cheese for the next week, but that's okay. I also learned, thanks to my handy dandy new oven thermometer that when I set the oven to 350° F, it actually heats to 375° F. Good to know. Explains a lot. So the macaroni was slightly overcooked and not as creamy as it could have been (and a little bland, tbh - I might up the amount of Parmesan next time, or add some garlic and onion or something), but still, tasty.

I had homemade chocolate pudding for dessert, so it was a night of comfort food, which I guess is necessary when it's a chilly and rainy night in JUNE. (I don't mind the rain, but I shouldn't be wearing a jacket in June! It just ain't right!)

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Sigh. I suppose I should do some work now. Can't it be 5 o'clock now so I can go home and eat cheese macaroni and watch more Fringe?

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Chuck = ♥

( spoilers )

*

Castle = ♥

( spoilers ) Esposito and Ryan remain adorable.

*

White Collar = ♥♥♥

Dear god, this show ships the OT3 as much as I do. ( spoilers ) They film around the courthouses, but I never see them! I walk by there every day, twice a day on my way to and from the subway! (Okay, I have seen the film trucks etc. more than once, but I always figured it was for L&O, even though I never have seen Jack McCoy on the steps.)

*

Friday Night Lights: I Can't.

Oh, my god, this show... I didn't even stand a chance at not crying at this one.

( spoilers )

I just... I love this show SO MUCH. It hits me in deep, visceral places that very few tv shows have ever hit. I wish more people were watching it, because it's truly fantastic and full of hope and heartbreak and just... ♥♥♥♥♥

Tomorrow night, Psych is back! Though I may tape it and save it for Friday and watch Leverage in real time. I haven't decided yet.

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I am really irked at UPS right now. Since when are you not allowed to change the delivery location of the package you've ordered and paid for? WTF? This means on Monday I have to go to the distribution center over by 43rd St and 11th Avenue, and that vexes me. I am terribly vexed.

I didn't mind the trip so much in the summer, but in this fucking arctic freeze, I am not looking forward to it. Fucking UPS.

Not to mention that I won't be getting my new surge protector or the dvds I had planned to marathon this weekend. Feh. Maybe I will catch up with Being Human, since the new season starts this weekend.

And then CHUCK is back on Sunday night (and also on Monday, its regular date/time). CHUCK! CASEY! JEFFSTER! CAPTAIN AWESOME! ♥

And various other shows are returning over the next two weeks, so it will be busy TV times again. See the countdown to Psych calendar (thanks to zvi for the link) - #21 is especially awesome if, like me, you are pretty OTP about Gus/Shawn. I love that the show ships them as much as I do.

I watched this week's The Good Wife and Friday Night Lights this evening. I enjoyed both, but don't have much to say. FNL was mostly a set-up episode, and I never have much to say about The Good Wife. It's not appointment TV for me, but I enjoy it when I watch it. Adults! Acting like mature people (mostly)! Also, ( I guess this technically could be considered a spoiler ) Anyway, it's a solid, engaging show with some fine acting, plus Josh Charles ♥ and Christine Baranski.

*

I'm kind of amused that most people who went to the grocery story today probably did so to stock up on food because the weekend is supposed to be even colder and ickier, but me, I restocked baking supplies. I haven't decided yet what I'm going to make there are a couple of possibilities.

Also, I am covetous of people's food processors. I can live with the hand mixer - it's pretty powerful, and I really don't have any counter space to put a stand mixer, but man, a nice food processor? I would be all over that. I've thought about ditching my microwave to free up the only counter space I have, but I can't quite bring myself to do it. Sigh. I really do need to reorganize my cabinets now that I actually cook regularly. *snerk* Possibly after I declutter my living room. *whimper* I'm tempted to just toss a lot of it into a giant garbage bag. Which may yet happen.

Now, I think I am going to take a shower and go to bed. Sigh.

*

I gave up on work about 3:45 this afternoon and spent my last 75 minutes redoing the food tags on my delicious, so now they are more specific and I can more easily find what I'm looking for. (Oddly enough, I don't have near the same problem finding stories with non-specific tags - I'm not sure why that is.)

So tonight I baked this raspberry buttermilk cake from smitten kitchen, and dear god, it is tasty. It took about ten minutes longer in the oven than the recipe says, but that's because I baked it in an 8" round instead of a 9". SO SO TASTY OMG! Maybe next time I will skip the raspberries and do lemon flavoring. Or orange. I don't know, but it's a good, tasty, easy cake that tastes really good. I don't think it'll be included in the Christmas baking, but I can definitely see making it on a Sunday night for breakfast for a few days.

Tomorrow I am going to attempt self-frosting nutella cupcakes, and if they come out as awesome as they look on that page, I will probably make a bunch for Mary and Sal for Christmas.

Mmm...baking...

Before I baked, I watched this week's Friday Night Lights. I thought I was going to make it through without crying for once, but then ( spoilers )

I probably should attempt to write, but I think I am going to go put the flannel sheets on the bed and then crawl into it.

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