Favorite TV: PLURIBUS, THE PITT, SLOW HORSES, ADOLESCENCE, THE LOWDOWN, THE STUDIO, MR. SCORCESE, THE GILDED AGE, PLATONIC, TASK
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Cannot remember a colder, snowier period this early.
Reading John Updike's letters and Lily King's new novel.
What are you up to?
22 comments:
I must try to watch The Pitt, Patti. I keep hearing it's a good show, but just...haven't watched it yet.
Loved THE PITT. Still have two or three episodes of PLURIBUS to go. Jackie hated THE LOWDOWN so have to get back to it. TASK was very good. Haven't started SLOW HORSES yet.
Of course, haven't seen any of the movies.
We're nearly halfway to Florida (southern North Carolina). Will be there tomorrow. Weather cooperated - it's been dry - and it's warming up now. November and December was pretty unrelenting at home.
I think either fewer people are traveling from the Midwest or they're all going to the west coast of Florida, as I haven't seen one license plate from Michigan or Minnesota. No Ontario either, for that matter. Plenty of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. Not much from Canada, but what there is is all Quebec.
Everyone from the Midwest goes to the west side of the state. Naples, Sarasota, Fort Meyers, St. Petersburg, Sanibel Island or even the panhandle. I think your side get those driving south from the east coast. Canada isn't coming much at all, thanks to you know who. Yes, The Pitt was very good, Margot.
Western NY is getting bombed with snow. Of course, the ski resorts south of Buffalo are ecstatic but it's no fun snow blowing and driving on icy roads.
Patrick is headed for Phoenix and a computer conference. Katie will be driving Diane's car home from Boston this weekend to attend a baby shower (she'll fly back to Boston the next Sunday.
Both Diane and I are play catch-up after all the entertaining in December. I'm behind on reading and writing. Last week, with the Pool invaded by kids on Christmas vacation, I stayed away. This week I'll return to the Pool and its relaxing water. I always feel better and sleep better when I work out at the Pool.
Happy New Year everyone!
It's about 70 degrees in north Georgia. What a pleasure! We did see one Michigan plate, finally, one Ontario and a couple from Minnesota, but it's been mostly New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Maryland and Virginia. Also, half a dozen from West Virginia., which seems weird.
The best spot: a Hawaii on the NJ Turnpike! Maybe it was Todd.
After my kids were National Merit in high school they had tons of college mail. One of them had mail from places in both Buffalo and Rochester. I mentioned the annual snowfall in Buffalo to Boy #2 and he was not impressed.
Meanwhile the snow here is mostly gone from melt. High of 38 today and rain forecast for Friday. That screws up the library's plans for a outdoor Story Walk in the snow.
I've been avoiding the news. I expect most news from the White House and Pentagon to be lies. In the best of times it is always best to be skeptical of those official statements. Now were are sliding through the worst of times and I guarantee the Orange Rapist is lying in every statement.
Speaking of liars and rapists, I'm listening to James Ellroy's 2022 WIDESPREAD PANIC. Plenty of both liars and rapists in the Ellroy universe. Nice narration by Craig Wasson. I need to rewatch BODY DOUBLE.
I heard DEATH AND THE FINAL CUT by G.M. Malliet. Started out fairly blah and greatly improved as the English cops start investigating murders at a film set filled with Hollywood film people.
As far as TV goes I've been rewatching THE GOOD PLACE. What a fantastic cast that show had. I'm in the third season and secondary characters are getting more scenes and interactions and more development. If you've not seen the show, it must be kinda hard to develop the Jason character who is already established to be dumber than a box of rocks. So dumb he counts as dumb in Florida. I've never been to FL so I'll leave that discussion to the rest of you.
Loved THE GOOD PLACE. In trying to find Fox last night, I heard some of what Trump was saying on FOX NewS last night. I do not understand why anyone would believe a word he says. And yet they ask him questions as if he might tell them the truth. I remember Wasson from a TV show too. I wonder what happened to him
I think we watched five Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes in the last week. Not all for New Year's Eve or New Year's Day. The ones I remember are OUTLAW (a fantasy, based on the Gor novels, with Jack Palance but no one else recognizable), TEEN-AGE STRANGLER, and PRINCE OF SPACE, a 1959 Japanese science fiction invasion movie (my favorite). Last night we watched the recent Christmas episode for BEYOND PARADISE.
Glen is reading MURDER FOR CHRISTMAS by Francis Duncan, originally published in 1949. It is a country house mystery, which we both like, and he is liking it so far.
Last week I read I SEE YOU'VE CALLED IN DEAD by John Kenney. Glen purchased this book but he hasn't read it yet. It is about obituary writer who is having a very bad year. I liked the setting in New York City, and I like the characters.
Now I am reading Stuart Turton's THE LAST MURDER AT THE END OF THE WORLD, which is an dystopian mystery. I am enjoying it although I am very confused as to what is going on, but I read his first book and felt the same way, so I think it will be fine in the end.
We have way too many things to do this week and I will be glad when it is over. I will also be glad to hear when Jeff and Jackie safely arrive at their destination in Florida. I always worry about people traveling, especially cross country.
Speaking of THE GOOD PLACE... we finished the second season of MAN ON THE INSIDE, which did improve the last few episodes, though it was no GOOD PLACE even at its best.
Jeff, You're going south on 95? I would figure most Midwest people would come in on 75 or 10.
I've never been farther Southeast than Myrtle Beach in 1998 or 99.
Let me know about the weather, Tracy. I leave for San Diego on the 19th if my arm is okay. Jeff, it is pretty weak compared to THE GOOD PLACE. I tried the DOC MARTIN copy on Fox last night and that was pretty weak too. Do they have to copy the original in its entirety. I can't see any reason to watch it especially with 35 minutes of commercials. And although I liked Josh Charles in THE GOOD WIFE and SPORTs NIGHT he is no Martin Clunes.
I have never seen MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER. Will look for it.
Patti, I am always tracking the weather, so I will check it out and let you know as the time approaches. I had wondered when your trip was going to start. I hope your arm improves by then.
I haven't driven anything (non-rental) with a Hawaiian plate since 1984 (my mother's funeral at Punchbowl Military ceremony was the last rental), a still mostly OK mid-'70s Toyota Corolla (my only standard transmission car--it did take a quart of oil with every gas fill-up). It'd be an NJ plate these years, on the continent...but I've yet to become a snowbird...seems like a lot of effort. (I'll check back in when I hit my 70s.)
61yo moment--it was a Celica, not a Corolla.
I look at Drumpf statements in moderation to see how senile he is on that occasion and how blatantly self-serving he ?chooses to be...referring to him as a sack of excrement is way too kind...more a leaking box of pus from several plagues mixed with radioactive waste, which also might be insufficient to sum him, profoundly stupid malignant narcissist career criminal he is. A fan of THE GOOD PLACE as well, though I'm running through some pretty good series that Netfix is dumping this month, HOUSE OF LIES (we lost Showtime shortly after it began) and rewatching HIGHTOWN.
Some episodes of MST3K better than others, though the early seasons had a fairly "rich" field of terrible films to effectively heckle. The film based loosely on a "Gor" novel was a very amusing episode I remember, as the atrocity of the source novel was (almost necessarily) toned down (Gor novels are about male supremacist bondage and discipline set on a childishly-conceived sfnal planetary "counter-Earth"). Jack Palance was chewing every line of dialog in this buck-hustle with knowing gusto.
A few book/TV things I recalled. When my mother was in town Boy #1 and I went along to a couple local thrift stores. I picked out a John Creasey book at one place and it went in the shopping cart. Somewhere along the way - possibly at checkout - the book was waylaid. I've kept an open eye for Creasey after the many comments here.
I also learned the latest (final?) season of ILLEGAL ALIEN is on Peacock. I also found out we have a Peacock subscription. Netflix has the first three seasons and I've watched them through twice.
I tend to look at THE PITT as ER, to DOC's CHICAGO HOPE--an attempt at heightened "realism" vs. an attempt at "art/soap". Both improving on their predecessors.
I remember well the deluge of college materials after my NMSQT, SAT and AP exam results (there is a decent chance I had the highest NMSQT score in Hawaii for my year--I did at my high school, the very self-intoxicated Punahou School Academy). But since I was trying to pay for college tuition myself, $315 per year at U Hawaii Manoa (for in-state) in 1982 was hard to beat.
https://archive.ph/rYCA6 is a link around paywall for the NYT MAGAZINE's 4 January article about the second season of THE PITT, by Sam Anderson.
Todd, this was a fancy Jeep, so...
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