My Week in TV 9-25-09
Best One-Liners: Modern Family and How I Met Your Mother
“Haley had her first boy over today. Phil shot him.” – Claire (MF)
“No, they don’t realize that they weren’t lying.” – Lily (HIMYM)
Best Thing I Watched: Grey’s Anatomy
I was a little nervous how they would handle the death of George. We knew he died, we knew he wasn’t coming back so it got off to kind of a rocky start with Lexi claiming it wasn’t him, but overall I was very impressed with the two hour season premiere. I thought they handled the transition from last year to the lead in to this year very well. I also especially liked how they had each of the characters show how they were grieving. It was good also to see Meredith crying in the locker room at the end because her character hasn’t always been good at dealing with things and it seemed like a breakthrough to have her deal with this almost normally. I’m interested to see what they do with this whole Seattle Grace/Mercy West merger. I might have to do some online searching to see if there are people leaving the show.
Worst Thing I Watched: SNL Weekend Update Thursday
Wow, I just don’t think the whole SNL on Thursday idea works as well without a major election going on. I was pretty disappointed with it this week. I really don’t like the bits with the NY Governor – I feel like it’s old and overdone. Let’s stick to Saturday guys.
Worst Thing I Didn’t Watch: Beautiful Life
I saw the pilot a few months ago and declared that it was the worst thing I had ever watched on TV ever. I wasn’t exaggerating. Luckily most of America agrees. In week two of the new season, it becomes the first casualty of the 09/10 season. Well played CW, well played.
Most Interesting thing I got sucked in to: That’s Impossible “Weather Warfare” on The History Channel
Very fascinating facts and some conspiracy theories about the governments using technology to harness weather and use it as a weapon.
An Ironic Choice
Sometimes a song can make you happy. Sometimes this means you will play it on repeat a few (hundred) times before you move on. Sometimes it will make sense. Other times it won’t and you just can’t explain it.
Today that song is “Sad Eyes” by Josh Rouse. It’s not a particularly happy song, but it is beautiful…
My week in TV 9.17.09
My week in TV may become a weekly thing, but we’ll have to wait and see if I can live up to that…
Best One-liner: Parks & Recreation
“He told me that he was going to Kansas to climb mountains, so I don’t really know where he is” – Ann Perkins
Best thing I watched: Vampire Diaries
I haven’t been into the whole vampire craze – True Blood/Twilight, etc, but I am loving Vampire Diaries on the CW. I saw the first episode a couple months ago and watched it again last week. I was looking forward to this week to see if the second episode lived up to the pilot. It definitely did – the series recording will stay on my DVR. I don’t know if it’s the journal keeping aspect of the show or the smoldering good looks of Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley, but this week it even beat The Office. I am a little confused about how the whole vampire thing works though – is Vicki supposed to be a vampire now that she was bitten and lived? Also, what about Caroline?
Worst thing I watched: Glee
I’m a fan of music and I’m a fan of TV, but not a big fan of the combination. I decided to give Glee another shot this week, and that’s it. I cannot think of one thing I liked about the show. The characters have no depth, the men aren’t good looking, and it still appears to be lip syncing. I admit I watch some pretty cheesy stuff (usually on the Disney Channel) and this probably has a better shot at survival than say Viva Laughlin did a few years ago, but come one, I just don’t get this show. Why is everyone raving about it? The best part of the show was the preview for Monday’s episode of House, and I don’t think that’s an exaggeration.
Watching the rain and counting the minutes
It is a crummy day outside. Add that to the fact that they have changed our buy specs AGAIN (exactly 10 minutes before I was going to turn them in) I have been completely unmotivated to touch any of my work today until we get final word on the changes. So, I did what I always do when I can’t find anything else to do around my office – I updated the quote on my whiteboard…
“I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this.” — Emo Phillips, Neuropsychology: Clinical and Experimental Foundations
Need a laugh?
One of my friends on FB did and this little gem popped up in the comments by a guy I don’t know (C.F.), but I thought it was pretty funny (granted it was 2 in the morning)
“People said that the day Obama is elected president will be the day pigs fly, three days after the inaguration……. Swine flu”
So, I know H1N1 is pretty serious, but I couldn’t help but laugh, and I needed to last night.
Memories
So… Patrick Swayze died today. My mom loved Patrick Swayze. If I remember correctly, I think she even had a poster of him up in the laundry room for a while. Anyways, that got me thinking about my mom and well, here’s a little late night glimpse into my mind.
Memory on Her Mind
She’s got a cup of coffee in her hand and a memory on her mind.
They said it would get easier, easier in time.
Such a minor truth for such major pain, and memories that just add up.
The tears she tries so hard to stop could fill that coffee cup.
Who was that girl, years ago, whose future seemed so right?
A family, a home, a place to go, fewer worries late at night.
To see the sorrow in her eyes, you have to look so deep.
She hides it well beneath a smile – that pain that she still keeps.
Flirting expertise
Last night while out in the highlands, a girl in the restroom started asking my opinion on whether or not a guy was flirting with her. She told me the whole story and asked for my opinion.
This is funny for two reason:
1. I don’t think I’m very good at flirting, and am probably the last person this girl should have asked. I usually have no clue either way. Pretty sure my friends agree because when I told them this story, one of them laughed – not so much about the girl asking, but about her asking me. So um, yeah…
2. Before going out I had almost the exact same conversation with SW asking her advice on on whether something was flirty or not – the only difference was the details. So clearly I am no expert and should not be the person to ask.
In case you’re curious I told the girl yes I thought it sounded like the guy was trying to flirt with her. Not so much because I knew, but I had no desire to ruin a stranger’s night and/or dealing with a crying girl in the restroom.
My love/hate relationship with Pandora continues
So I love having Pandora as an option when I get tired of the music I have on my iTunes at work. I can even get past the advertising issues I had with them on Mother’s Day. But I’m starting to think Pandora has it out for me. Not in the mobster kind of way, but in the it never does what I want kind of way.
I get licensing issues, I’m all for protecting the rights of the artists, but it really annoys me that they won’t play a song I type in immediately because here is what will inevitably happen:
Someone suggests a song to me that I should hear. I go to Pandora, type it in and create a station. I listen to the station all day. Then I decide to go talk to C,MFFW for a minute. I forget to hit pause. I end up being gone for 15 minutes because that’s what happens when I go talk to C. I get back to my desk, and sure enough that 15 minutes out of 6 &%#@ hours of listening is when they decide to play the song.
I get it, I could just go to iTunes and fork over the $0.99 or $1.29 or whatever for the song, but I might not like it and well, I’m cheap when it comes to stuff like that.
Well I guess I’ll try again tomorrow…
Hugs
I read this on SCL this morning. The following will make more sense if you read it first…
Apparently, I am a really awkward hugger. Jon Acuff’s post refers to hugs at church, but I feel like in my job, hugging comes up a lot also. Especially weird when a rep I’ve worked with for many years hugs me and then the salesperson with them whom I’ve just met wants a hug too.
I don’t particularly care for hugging anyways, unless I know you pretty well and/or like like you. I have tried to get past it and just go with the flow, so if you hug me, I will probably make some attempt to make it less awkward (unless you are my sister and then I like to make it as awkward as possible) Apparently I had no idea I was going about things all backwards and stuff.
Maybe it’s because I never went through youth group at church, maybe it’s because I’m not from the south, who knows, but let me just go ahead and apologize to anyone who has hugged me and felt completely awkward.
For starters, I hate side hugs – they are stupid and not worth the effort. I will play along, but if you go to my right side it will be pretty awkward – have you see the size of my purse. I mean really. I would much rather have a real hug than some half attempt. If you don’t like me enough to give me a real hug then really you don’t need to bother. I won’t be offended and will probably like you more for not making me hug you. This is definitely something I’ve noticed since I’ve started going to church, but never really thought about until I read the SCL post this morning.
Also, the whole let me tell you how I feel about you by either patting or rubbing circles just baffles me. My mom always rubbed and patted my back when she hugged me, so I associate both with a good hug – thus my hugs usually include both if I like you. If I really like you I’ll also probably linger for a minute if you smell nice (TMI?). This did come up once in a conversation with my guy friend DB. He said something about my patting his back being an insult and I was baffled. We worked it out, but thanks to this post I finally get it – apparently I’m hugging all wrong. I definitely won’t be hugging you and insulting you at the same time. If I hug you, you are not being insulted. If I wanted to insult you, I would turn around and walk away. I don’t like being fake 
Finally, unless the hug is incredibly awkward I probably won’t notice if you pat, don’t pat, rub, don’t rub, shake, don’t shake (well okay maybe I’d notice if you stood there shaking me). I just don’t pay that much attention so if you are trying to send me some kind of hug signal you might need to be a little more obvious…
