The Rabbit Hole

I got disconnected from my mother for all of about one minute, not longer, and in that interval, she scheduled a haircut for me with the lady she and I both adore. For tomorrow morning! AWESOMESAUCE.

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Last night I dreamt an episode of House. There was a case going on in the background and stupid Cameron kept showing up to be like "See, if you could be wonderful like this in your personal life, I would totally do you" to House all the time. I think there was a sex scene, but I'm not working too hard at remembering that because, for the last time, I HATE CAMERON.

The most awesome thing though? Right at about when the show throws in the obligatory curveball, it also happened in my dream that the case took a sudden turn. Usually, on the show, this happens about twenty minutes from the end and they spend ten minutes dicking around until House solves the case. In my dream, the curveball came, and House (and the camera!) whirled around to look at the clock. Then he turned around to face out at the audience and held up his thumb and index finger about an inch apart while wearing a shit-eating grin as the show went to commercial. WAY TO BREAK THE FOURTH WALL, DREAM TELEVISION!

Last night's House was made of win. For starters: NO COTTAGES! Alas, they will be back next week. I don't miss them. I don't miss Cameron (and I certainly don't miss whatever thing she's done to her hair since last we saw her). I don't miss Foreman. I do sorta miss Chase but only because he was a total ass-kissing suck-up and was a really cute Aussie boy.

But just House and Cuddy and Wilson? PRICELESS. Wilson seemed to have gotten about 100x better, too. It was awesome. This is why they don't need the "team." In fact, I am delighted that they're going to spend at least a few episodes auditioning for a new team. I hope the new team sticks. Because House talked to one person in last night's episode that he was going to consider for his team and she was already fifteen times more awesome than even the least-worst old team member (that would be Chase).

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I am getting Earth 2 from Netflix today? That's....odd. I mean, I don't deny that I put the show on my queue. Yes, I know it's not great, but I still want to see it anyway. I just don't remember it being anywhere near the top. This is what I get for rearranging the queue too much. Usually, I just leave it as it is and let things come as they may. Unless of course I get obsessed with a TV show (Prison Break, Dexter, Doctor Who) and have to watch all of it nownownownownow and move it all up to the top. Clearly, higgedly-piggedly rearranging leads to odd things at the top.

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Speaking of things on top, though: I am finally going to get to see the second season of Rome. Come to think of it, my hasty rearranging to put the rest of that series up close to the top now that I've finally gotten past the huge wait for the first disc might be why I'm getting Earth 2 today. Whatever.

Rome is still ridiculously good. I'd like to know how come it is that the ladies can be so fucking vicious. If you'd put Servilia and Atia together on the same side somehow, they'd have decimated every man, woman and child in Rome and Western Civilization would have been a lot different, let me tell you. Ah, me. Looking forward to finishing this one.

Oh crap it all, I missed the season finale of House, too while I was cleaning the bathroom last night. No marvelously pristene floors are worth the loss of Hugh Laurie, I tells you.

Well, okay, I really do like that our bathroom is only 1/10th as grody as it was, but still. Sanitary bathroom vs. Hugh Laurie. It's a toss up.

The problem with finishing TV shows at this time of year is that there are no more new episodes until fall, which sucks.

( Whine! )

One thing I will say? Despite being THE MOST RIDICULOUS SHOW ON TELEVISION and being a crazy sausage-fest, Prison Break has one of my favorite girl characters ever. The chick who plays the doctor is super-awesome. Yes, she totally gets conned by the hot lead guy (dude, there are girls waiting on line for that privilege), but she totally sticks it in his craw later. She's smart, competant, flawed without being TWAGIC, and just awesome. I really like her. It helps that she and the lead guy have this crazy chemistry which isn't premised on flimsy rom-com antagonism. In terms on another show I watch? She's the Anti-Cameron (fuck you, Cameron!).

She's also really unconventionally pretty in this real-person way, so I girl-crush hard on her. It makes it harder to accept what I know fandom must be doing to her character.

Still haven't watched Heroes yet. Maybe tonight?

Wow, I just don't have anything to post. I don't think, except for the stupid post-doc thing, I posted anything yesterday.

Random things to talk about:

-Last night, I ripped CDs to mp3s and watched episodes of House I'd missed. Say what you will about the show being basically an excuse to have Hugh Laurie be awesome and naughty and just have everyone else go "What crazy thing will he do next?", at least he makes it interesting. In one ep, he took a wheelchair down stairs. He actually did that himself. That's cool. Also, while the characterization of everyone else changes, it's nice that House is consistent. It's why it's fun to watch him be mean--he's the only one smart and ornery enough to stick by his irrationalities.

-shell524 deserves a hearty thanks. I made her recipe of mac and cheese this weekend and it came out fairly well! It'll take a bit of practice to be able to do it blind without the recipe and get the consistency/timing all together, but for a first time, it was easy and delicious. I hate wasted food, which is a good part of why I don't cook more (because I mess up too easily and would burn, therefore waste, food). That's two out of seven meals to make for my new year's resolution goal. Only five more to go. I might count re-learning how to make my mom's meatloaf and beef stroganoff as two, too. That requires the new grandma to be on the east coast long enough to tell me how.

-Speaking of the resolutions, I worked some more on my cross stitch last night. It's all in fits and starts with this thing lately. Last weekend, while feiran and I had a day at home together, I stitched for about five hours straight, and that's how I got the last one done, mostly--by relying on long stretches to get significant portions done. This past week, I've either meant to work on it and not done so, or I've managed a couple of hours here and there and that's it. Shameful. However, I would guestimate that it's maybe 5/8 done at this point. What's left is going to be super annoying (lots of blended colors and back-stitching). Oh well, I have two disks of Spooks arriving today.

( Ooh, and while I'm on the subject of 'Spooks' )

::grumble::

Really, after last week's stellar episode, I was seriously pissed at last night's House. I think they're trying to milk the angry cop thing way too long. Also, you don't develop phantom pains because your conscience is broken, okay? House isn't that guy with the birthing sympathy pains. And if Wilson doesn't do something, he's not sympathetic. He can't let House walk all over him and his life like this. And the the fuck, Cuddy? You should have threatened to sue the cop for malicious prosecution or persecution or something! He does nothing to House, but harasses his friend to the point where he can't get money, his car is towed, and he's going to be out of a job? On the grounds of risking the lives of Wilson's patients at least there should be a way to go to the cop's precinct and point out that this is going too fucking far.

I swallow a lot of bullshit because House can't be bothered to make medical logic actually interesting (or even to present interesting medical logic nine times out of ten). This is not acceptable. TV viewers are raised on a steady diet of Law & Order and C.S.I., so they know there should be about three hundred billion legal roadblocks or alternate routes of appeal that would keep half of this crap from ever happening. What kind of monkey-shit lawyer has Wilson got that he doesn't try to fight malicious acts like this cop is perpetrating and instead tells Wilson to rat out House? I especially don't like it because it completely ruins the cop's ability to be the check on House. He oversteps his bounds like this, and why should House listen to him?

::grumble::

I was updating my checklist of movies and television I'd watched and I found something fairly startling: until this past Sunday, I hadn't seen a new movie--in the theater, on DVD or on TV--in about a month and a half. Given that my family has a billion movie channels at home, I have Netflix, and I borrow stuff constantly from friends, this is amazing. I even went over my LJ posts and my Netflix history to be sure, and found that this was indeed the case. Netflix history might have explained it though: for about a month and a half, all I watched was Red Dwarf, so there you are. Now that I've got two discs at a time, I've even less space for movies because I'm trying to rape the account to get through TV shows I can't watch on actual TV (no access to HBO, shows are already on second seasons, etc).

If anyone has TV show rec, I'm all ears. Currently, I've got The 4400, Carnivale, Dr. Who, Rome, and I think Prison Break (I can't help it! TWoP really liked it, and I tend to agree with that reviewer, so I'm gonna give it a chance).

*****

House was terribly cute last night, especially as House was juggling an underage stalker (ugh, why do they make him do clinic when the guy who shot him is still on the loose!?) and trying to annoy Cuddy into replacing the new carpet for the old one (because it has the blood stains still on it from when he was shot, and House is morbid as all get out). I barely remember what happened that was unrelated to either of those two stories.

But, of course, the great rescheduling--ALL HAIL BASEBALL, FUCKERS--means there will be no new House episodes until after the World Series. This? This is why I hate sports. Well, not entirely, but it's a large fucking part of it. I hate hate hate that because some asswipes being paid millions need to mostly stand around scratching their asses for three-four hours, I have to wait an entire month for new House. I'll wither without more Laurie! Come on, Fox, don't do this to me!!

*****

I had a LOST dream about Jack, Kate and Sawyer (minds out of the gutter! I know viridian went there, and I'm reasonably sure deepredbelle might be in similar peril) being ( Season 2 SPOILER! ) So, basically, since my brain can't care about Kate, and Jack, though hot, was supplanted by Sawyer a long time ago as my favorite LOST-wubby, it was all about Sawyer (the other two were just there for some reaction shots). Very happy me. He had some information that (SEE SPOILER) wanted, and they weren't satisfied with his being a smartass about not giving it up (hey, once you've been tortured by a professional, I'm sure there's nothing that SPOILER! can do to you to scare you a whole lot).

Oh yeah, I'm ready for the new season to begin. Especially as ( SPOILER!!! )

*****

feiran and I finished the first three episodes of...okay, I have no idea what season this is really because in the USA we call it "the first season" but it's coming thirty years after they came up with the original concept, so I'm going to go with we watched the first three episodes of the Ninth Doctor Who. If not for the Doctor being fairly hilarious in his expressions (though if he finds everything either amusing or deadly tragic for the entire series, I'll be less forgiving) and Rose not being annoying, I'd be a little less enthused. So far, it's finding its footing, but it's doing a lot of weird "we don't have enough for a full episode, so have some filler" stuff. Not like extraneous scenes but really, really, really long pauses and rethinks in each scene. Balls to that.

I asked darkling1 if they were going to explain...well, everything, seeing as this is picking up from a long history of stuff, and he basically said they weren't gonna, which means that after I get through this season, I'm going to have to look it up (no spoilers! can't abide spoilers!)

I was about to post something about television shows, but dotsomething got there first.

Fortunately, I have a different slate of shows on my docket! ( Which you can hear about here! )

I'm sure I will stick with the shows I already watch, barring any of them sucking so hard I drop them (Smallville, I am looking in your direction), and not really take up with any other new ones, which is funny because TV shows are making up more than half my Netflix queue right now. I figured, so long as I have the two-discs-at-a-time plan I should make the most of it and rent the things that I would most benefit for having two discs of at once. I started it for Red Dwarf's last two seasons which aren't on just the one disc, but I chucked on a few series I had recommended to me (Deadwood's on there from my cousin raving and deepredbelle praising). It's such a strange turn for me because I've never liked TV as much as movies (animated series notwithstanding). I think it's the TWoP influence--they've been loving Prisonbreak in their newest recaps so very hard, I've been considering that, which is amazing. Hell, I could catch up with the phenom of 24, borrow my mother's set of the first two seasons (and, again, only because Kiefer Sutherland makes me ruin my chair with his hotness--ugh, that was TMI, my bad).

Oh, but speaking of Red Dwarf? The "lost" Cat-centric episode? I don't want it ever filmed. In fact, I wish they could ret-con the entire season out of being filmed just to have Chris Barrie narrate the storyboard stills. I noticed before that he does some wicked good impressions, especially in the Old West simulation where he had a perfect middle American accent going (meaning not accented at all, no Southern drawl or NE twangs, just blandly American, which is fucking hard to do--I can't even do that). Then I watched the episode where he narrates in his natural voice, which is different from his own voice as Rimmer, and then he did everyone else on the show perfectly. I wonder what the other actors thought of his impression. For a moment, I didn't believe it wasn't the guy who plays Kryten speaking. His Lister is almost as good, and his Cat, though not great, is still amazing. I would have loved him to do Holly.

And, my God, I get Kochanski for the rest of the season instead of Rimmer? I spoiled myself by reading trivia about the show on the IMDB, and apparently Chris Barrie only did four episodes of the eight for this season, which makes my brain hurt because it means I've only one more with him in it as he's been in all three of the ones on the first disc. Kochanski's reality--where Lister is the hologram and her the last human--sounds like HELL. If I had to put up with Lister and Kryten and Cat without Rimmer to difuse their boringness by mocking them all and being hilariously silly, I'd jump ship for the show's universe in a heartbeat.

Let's get together (yeah yeah yeah!) in front of the theater around 7:00 tonight and figure out where to go for dinner. Anyone not sure where to go, it's 34th St, between 8th and 9th Aves, the big frakkin' marquee that says Loews 34th.

We'll probably end up just eating at fast food or diner food, but let's meet up so we can go as a group. Stragglers can call my cell or anyone else's who is going.

bigscary, I have a ticket for you!

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darkling1 is awesome.
cagexxx is awesome.

darkling1 saved my butt and taped House and LOST for me, which I need to watch soon. All so I could go out drinking with theKathy. Really, awesome, dude.

cagexxx leveled Sora up like NUTZ (yes, with a Z) so he could then beat Sephiroth for me. And he spontaneously leveled up my summons. Sweeeeeeet. Have fun at the roast, dude!

I owe them both more cookies.