Category Archives: tv

How not to write a short story

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Last night, I watched a random episode of Friends that TiVo kindly “suggested” for me. The episode was “The One with the List,” which (if I’m remembering correctly) was early in the second season.

Setup: Rachel and Ross have kissed. Ross has a girlfriend, but is in love with Rachel. Joey and Chandler suggest that Ross make a list of pros and cons to help him decide what to do.

Chandler has typed the list on his new laptop. Rachel sees the list (only that is something about her) and insists that they show it to her. What happened next had me laughing so hard, I was nearly crying. I took it back and watched it again, and then made Rand watch it. I don’t think he thought it was quite as funny as I did. 😉

Rachel: Chandler wrote something about me on that paper and I want to see it!
Ross: Chandler isn’t that the short story you were writing?
Rachel: Short story? And I’m in it? I want to read it!
Ross, Joey, Chandler: NO!
Joey: Why don’t you read it to her?

(this is the part that had me in tears…)

Chandler: It was summer… and it was hot. Rachel was there… A lonely grey couch…”OH LOOK!” cried Ned, and then the kingdom was his forever. The End.

Is this as funny as I think it is? I’m still laughing. I think the next line was Joey saying Chandler was the worst writer EVER. 😀

Did you know…

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That Creed Bratton (that’s Creed from The Office) was the lead guitarist for The Grass Roots?

If you’re like me, and you click on the link for The Grass Roots and don’t recognize any of the song titles, hop on over to YouTube and check out some videos. I’ll bet you know them. Here’s one to get you started:

And that’s your random fact for Thursday. 😉

June? Seriously?

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Mind you, I’m not complaining. For one, it seems that the weather is finally starting to cooperate, at least somewhat. For another, it means only 11 1/2 days more of *classes* to go (they still have exams after that, but my life will be much easier).

By the way, it turns out that I’m going to be at this job until the official end of the school year. As long as they’re paying me, I can’t complain. 😉

I just don’t know where the time has gone is all. Finally, the fact that it is June 2 means that THERE ARE ONLY 40 DAYS LEFT UNTIL THE WEDDING.

40 DAYS!

I am excited beyond words. I am also mildly panicking about the things still left to do. I’ll post more about the to-do list over at the wedding blog…

I also need to do the TC newsletter, which I always, always without fail, put off until the last moment. Ah, procrastination.

We had a nice weekend, which those of you who follow me on Twitter already know included seeing Iron Man. I loved it! I also watched the Lost finale, which I thought was very good. (One scene in particular had me weeping tears of joy. Those of you who watched it know which one!)

Slowly but surely, we are ridding the new place of boxes and putting things away. It feels really good…

And that is all. One more class to go for me, and I’m outta here. Enjoy the rest of your Monday! 🙂

Can I have that half hour back?

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So we turned on the TV to watch How I Met Your Mother, and instead got live coverage of some sort of police standoff on the 190.

I have been watching this coverage for 20 minutes, and I STILL DON’T KNOW WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING.

They’re replaying (and narrating) how the police took the guy in the truck into custody. But you know what they haven’t done?

THEY HAVEN’T EXPLAINED WHY THERE WAS A STANDOFF IN THE FIRST PLACE.

You know what Channel 4? I haven’t been watching your coverage for the past three hours. I’m just saying, it might be helpful to clue your viewers in every now and then.

And then we join Two and a Half Men in progress. Thanks, Channel 4.

Oh my, so tired…

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So today was my first day at my new job. It went very well, but I’m beat. Not so much because the work was so exhausting, but because I didn’t sleep very well last night, and I got up way early so that I could get in and get settled. Other than some technical issues, which will hopefully be resolved tomorrow, all is well.

Over the weekend, we saw a couple of movies. Friday night, we went out to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which I found very funny. (there was that one moment when I cried, though…darn Kristen Bell…) Saturday, we finally watched Enchanted, which has been sitting here since it was released on DVD. Squee! Loved it.

We’ve also been (re)watching the third season of Arrested Development, which is always fun.

Traded in another box of CDs for store credit…we went to Record Theatre, then to FYE with the stuff they wouldn’t take. I got a copy of Duma Key out of the deal, which I hope to find some time to read, uh, sometime.

And since I’m barely focusing at this point (seriously, I keep getting distracted by shiny things. it’s taking me way too long to finish this lame update entry), I’m going to call it a night and go do something that involves, like, zero brain cells.

Later!

What I (will be) watching

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BufBloPoFo Topic for Day 13: When the writer’s return kicks back in and all the good TV comes back, what’s your viewing list going to be?

Ooh…it’s going to be way too long, as usual. At one time, I had a list of things that will actually be returning this season, and what won’t be returning until fall, but I don’t know where that is. So here is what I was watching, and what I will be watching whenever it returns:

Heroes

Despite the drop in quality from season 1, I just can’t seem to walk away. I’ll be watching Heroes whenever it comes back.

Dirty Sexy Money

This was my surprise new favorite of the small season. I can’t get enough of Peter Krause or the Darling family.

How I Met Your Mother

Oh, I am so in love. Rand and I watched both seasons 1 and 2 on DVD and have been watching the repeats as they’ve been airing. I think we’ll need to download one episode to be caught up before new episodes start up again. (Aside–what is up with Alyson Hannigan’s hair? Do not like.)

The Office/30 Rock/Scrubs/My Name is Earl

NBC manages to rock Thursdays again. I don’t know what the current status of Scrubs is, to tell you the truth, and I’m just as annoyed by the whole JD/Eliot thing as the next guy, but I will follow it through to the bitter end.

Oh, and I *heart* Tina Fey.

Chuck

If I’m not mistaken, Chuck is a survivor of the strike, but won’t return until next season. I’ll be there.

Lost

Of course, Lost has been airing for the past several weeks. I’m sure I will be hungry for new episodes when this run ends.

*Possibly* Pushing Daisies. Rand and I still haven’t gotten through all the episodes that aired. I enjoy it, but it isn’t at the top of my list. I totally adore Chuck’s dresses, though. Love.

chuck dress example

Yeesh, that’s a lot of TV! 🙂

Weekend wrap-up

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The weekend was fun, mellow and relaxing. Here are some of the highlights…

Spend Friday afternoon with a couple of Rand’s friends up from Houghton. We ate lunch at the Village Grille (best. hummus. ever.) and went to see Be Kind Rewind. I liked the movie. It was very funny, and also very touching.

Later, Rand and I watched The Darjeeling Limited, which Rand had just bought. It was as quirky as you would expect, coming from Wes Anderson, but enjoyable. I don’t think it was as good as Rushmore or The Royal Tenenbaums, but I liked it.

Saturday…breakfast and discussion of weddingstuff. Then grocery shopping. We also watched Once, which we’ve had sitting around from Netflix, oh, forever. I liked it a lot. We immediately purchased the soundtrack. (One note, though…could not stop crying. Seriously. I cried for about ten minutes after the movie was over.)

Sunday, we went out and played at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, looking for items we want to include on our registry.

Other things we watched over the weekend…a couple of episodes of Freaks and Geeks, a couple of episodes of Sex and the City (in watching the early episodes, I remember that I was a Carrie-Big fan. It was later that I jumped ship.) I’m probably forgetting something, but oh well.

And as always, the weekend went by too quickly, and I am at work. Happy Monday!

Munchkin

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If you go to the Lost page at abc.com, you can have a genuine “Sawyer nickname” generated. Mine’s “munchkin.” I’m pretty sure my dad used to call me that. 😉

sawyer's nickname generator

Weekend wrap-up

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It was a pretty mellow one, so I don’t have a whole lot to report. 😉

Saturday morning, we went out for breakfast at The Original Pancake House. I knew it was going to be a good morning, because not only did we get seated instantly, we got a booth. Score.

Afterwards, we stopped in at Rite-Aid to pick up a couple of necessities, and then poked our heads in at Sarah’s Vintage and Estate Jewelry. And bought my wedding band. Ooh!

Later, we headed out for dinner and a little bit of shopping at Borders. Rand had a coupon for 40% off any DVD set, so he bought the Freaks and Geeks set. I picked up John Green’s book Looking for Alaska, which I blogged about on Saturday.

Sunday, woke up to no heat. Gah. This has been an ongoing problem. Frequently, the problem is that the pilot is out, which is an easy fix. Other times, though…well, I don’t know exactly what the problem is, but it requires a call to the landlord and someone poking around the furnace. It was fixed, though. Joy.

Over the weekend, we watched some Freaks and Geeks, finished up Season 2 of Extras, watched Lost (very happy to have Lost back. concerned about how the strike will affect the season beyond the 8 episodes that were filmed.)

I also did some…I hesitate to say “cleaning,” so I’ll call it purging. Went through old papers and piles to sort, organize, and trash. Always an exciting time.

And now it’s Monday. No early-morning phone call for me today, so I’m going to try and accomplish a bunch of things. Wish me luck!

Reading, watching, listening (Happy New Year edition!)

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Reading: This has been fairly well covered, but I did sneak in one more (short) book in the past few days–Abadazad-The Road to Inconcievable by JM DeMatteis and Mike Ploog. It’s the first in a series, and I found it very enjoyable.

Watching: It’s been a busy week!

In the theater: Juno, Charlie Wilson’s War, and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Three very different movies, but I enjoyed them all.

I adored Juno. Precious? Yes, but also smart and funny and very well done. I loved the cast. I first encountered screenwriter Diablo Cody through Eden’s blog, and I was a semi-regular reader of her blog for a while.

I have three words to say about Charlie Wilson’s War–Philip. Seymour. Hoffman. He was fantastic. The story was interesting, and I was entertained by the type of dialog I’ve come to expect from Aaron Sorkin. Rand and I both noted, though, that it wasn’t particularly dramatic…the story had very little drama or tension. Tom Hanks was likable as the title character (duh), and Julia Roberts did a fine job in her role as well.

And Walk Hard was simply hilarious. The songs (many of which were written by Dan Bern) were great. In fact, we downloaded the complete soundtrack from iTunes. The cast was great, too.

What else? Slums of Beverly Hills, season 1 of Buffy (not quite finished), more season 2 of Earl, random episodes of The Office, Styx: Caught in the Act (HEE! awesome.), random bits of various New Year’s Eve countdowns. Probably some other stuff that I’ve forgotten…

Listening: Walk Hard, the soundtrack. Styx (discovering some songs that I didn’t previously know…). Looking forward to listening to some of the CDs that I got for Christmas, including Veronica Mars (whee! thanks, Stephanie!!) and the mix I got from Samantha.

Happy 2008, everyone!