Lost Girl and Canadian Television
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Fun, NaBloPoMo
Katie recently introduced me to Lost Girl, a show that is very obviously NOT an American show. It’s exotic and amusing and sexy—especially sexy. But then what do you expect of a show about a succubus? I knew it wasn’t American as soon as I heard some of the banter, which wouldn’t fly on broadcast TV in the U.S. (it’s on Sci-Fi, though! Watch it! But do try to do it from episode one.)
While cable television in America has produced plenty of shows that couldn’t be shown on broadcast TV, they’re largely the same kinds of things that are already being shown there. If they were edited differently, most of them could probably be shown in prime time. I’m not so sure that Dexter and Breaking Bad would be that shocking any more.
But Canadian television has been willing to do shows about telepaths, vampires, and now the fae. I’m sure there are far more shows that I’ve never heard of, but the ones I can remember right away are an argument for greater latitude.
Maybe It Isn’t the Flu
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Family, Fun, Health, Reading, Relationships
Katie seems to be feeling a bit better. She slept through most of the day, and just got up a few minutes ago (right at the end of my and Sam’s date) feeling like she could eat something. Solid food, even! That’s progress. Since she didn’t have any antivirals, I don’t think this was really the flu. She should still be much sicker if it was. I’m not at all unhappy about that. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Books, brain fog, date night, Katie, library, Reading, Sam
“Go ahead, America. You don’t need us.”
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Fun
“Watch all the topsoil go down the Mississippi. Transport your children in baskets on top of your SUV deathmobiles. Keep playing with your cute and cuddly pal, the atom. Press your nose against the TV screen for even more educational 3rd Rock From The Sun enjoyment. Use plentiful gasoline to burn book- readers at the stake. Don’t eat anything but sugared pork lard. Do whatever you want.”
Nation’s Experts Give Up: ‘From Now On, You’re On Your Own,’ Say Experts
I needed that laugh, so I figured you might enjoy it too.
Tags: experts, Humor, The Onion
Vacation?
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Fun
You’re packing for vacation. What are you most likely to forget? What do you wish you’d packed after you get to your destination?
Dollhouse Fans? TV stuff
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Fun
Do any of you maybe record Dollhouse? We don’t do cable, so Katie and I have been watching it streaming on Hulu. This coming Friday’s episode isn’t going to be streamed, though, and we don’t want to miss it. Any chance of some help? Pretty please?
It’s fairly amazing how much you can find to watch online now. Legally! I used to get the CSI DVDs from Netflix when they were released each year, and watch the whole season in a marathon. Now we watch all three CSI shows on the CBS web site. The same goes for NCIS and Numb3rs. While the site says you can see full episodes of The Mentalist, I haven’t found a way to do it. ABC has The Unusuals and Castle streaming. Burn Notice, Chuck, Bones, and Lie to Me are all on Hulu.
There’s another show we watch once every few weeks, um, Legend? Legends? Something about a Seeker. I can’t handle more of it than that, because the plots rely heavily on stupidity. That’s too annoying, and while there are pretty people running around in nice scenery, it isn’t enough to make up for the stup.
Comcast keeps sending more and more plaintive offers, trying to get us to subscribe to their cable TV and telephone service. When we did subscribe to cable, we didn’t get around to watching much. We don’t channel surf or just leavve the set on for noise, so it was wasted money. I suppose if we’d also gotten a Tivo or something similar, we would have recorded the shows we watch. But we didn’t, so we still watched them online when we did watch them.
We can still use the television to view shows, thnks to a nifty cable Sam procured. That’s better than watching on a computer monitor, and we can watch together. (It isn’t much fun watching alone.)
Tags: Dollhouse, television
Plinky: Three Songs I’d Sing at a Karaoke Bar
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Fun, Music
Their text actually says, “If you pay me enough, I’d sing these songs.” I wouldn’t have to be paid, though. I’ve never actually been in a karaoke bar, but I love to sing, so there are plenty of songs that I would be willing to sing!
Scattered
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Family, Fun, Reading
Anybody else using LiveMocha? Especially to learn French? I just joined (as TechnoMom, of course) and would like to have “friends” there. I started with the beginner level, lesson one, and actually learned a few new vocabulary words. (My wee bit of foreign language instruction in high school sucked, to put it mildly.) You’re supposed to ask your “friends” for feedback on your lessons, but I don’t have any and don’t really want to ask total strangers about how badly I did.
Sam and Katie have been at Dragon*Con for the past few days. We had a house guest, David, but I didn’t really “meet” him because of the late con hours and having a really bad pain flare. Sorry David! He went home this afternoon. I’m glad Sam has the day off tomorrow to recover. I’m glad Hope got to come to D*C, but pouting because I won’t get to see her while she’s in town. I know that she has brightened Sam’s weekend.
I finished reading The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross last night, and started Phaedra Weldon’s Wraith. I liked Morgue, but it wasn’t quite as strong as The Atrocity Archives. The short story at the end of the book, “Pimpf,” didn’t do too much for me, but I’m not a video gamer so that probably has a lot to do with it.
I’m really liking Wraith. A lot. The fact that it’s set in Atlanta is nice, because I can follow along the geography as the characters move around. (Usually, such things go right past me, even if there’s a map.) Thanks to Good Reads, I know that there’s a novella, “Out of the Dark,” on Weldon’s site that takes place between this book and Spectre.
I’ve also been browsing through the archives at Two Lumps, thanks to a link from
Kyoshi is busy telling me that he still doesn’t want to cuddle with anybody but Katie, but he wants her home NOW! RIGHT NOW! And that we really have to stop letting the kitten out of the house without his personal supervision.
Tags: cats, Charles Stross, Dragon Con, French, Hope, Katie, LiveMocha, Phaedra Weldon, Sam, Two Lumps
Awwww! Puppy Lullaby
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Fun
Edit: Embedding is now disabled for the video. Foo. But you can watch it on You Tube!
That’s one of the sweetest things I’ve ever seen.
I Falled Into Lolcats Agin
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Critters, Fun
more cat pictures
Tags: lolcats
Sweet Saturday
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Family, Fun, Movies
Sam took Katie up to Republican land to pick up her new glasses lenses today–she went to the eye doctor while she was with my parents, because they were out driving and realized that she was squinting to read the road signs. Her eyes hadn’t changed much at her last few yearly check-ups, but they did this time. She says everything is very nice and clear. I need to go get my own checked, but glasses are so danged expensive!
We had a nice date and a delicious steak dinner. Sam’s been promising that he’ll make chicken fettucine alfredo since last weekend, but the girl was gone, then he had a pretty tiring week. That’s quite a meal to cook after a day at work. So I’m hoping he’ll feel up to it tomorrow. The steak was really good, though!
Katie got a long letter from her friend Josh, who left for Air Force basic training recently. Then she even got a phone call from him! Apparently his group1 is doing really well, so they got access to a sort of recreation area with vending machines and pay phones after just two weeks of training. Another friend of theirs who just got out of training said they didn’t get that until after five weeks, which is apparently pretty standard.
I worry about Josh–this just isn’t a good time to be going into any branch of the military, as far as I’m concerned. But I’m sure he’ll be a good airman, and it’s what he wanted to do.
Thanks to Elizabeth Bear (
The girl saw Mamma Mia with my mother, and said she thinks we’ll enjoy watching it together. I don’t pay much attention to what’s in the theaters, so other than thinking it might have some connection to Abba I was clueless. Bear also posted a link to an interesting review that finally gave me a clue as to why Katie liked it so much.
1 It isn’t a platoon–what do they call them in the AF?
Tags: Elizabeth Bear, Franz Kafka, Katie, Mamma Mia, Movies, Sam