J: Catching up!

So, it's been over a year since I last posted! A lot has happened -- most notably, I got married and bought a house, which has kept me pretty busy and not terribly up on the pop culture, unfortunately...

TV
I haven't had cable or even broadcast TV in a long time, so my TV sources are solely Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus. My husband and I watched the first seasons of Orphan Black (so awesome, will season 2 ever come to Amazon Prime??) and Defiance (fun, also waiting for season 2 to hit streaming), and are slowly starting to go through Fringe from the beginning. We also got hooked on MasterChef Junior and recently started Agent Carter which we're enjoying so far. On my own, I'm keeping up with Downton Abbey, of course, and Jane the Virgin, which is crazy but really funny and addictive. I'd like to go back and catch up with Parenthood and Parks and Recreation and The Mindy Project and such, but just haven't had time...

Books
I really do wish I devoted more time to reading. Most of the time I borrow books from the library, renew them as many times as possible, and still have to return them unfinished. Some that I did manage to finish and liked were:

• The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman  - last book in the Magician's trilogy 
• For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund - crazy young adult dystopian retelling of Jane Austen's Persuasion
• Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami -  much shorter and "lighter" than his last book, 1Q84, but still very enjoyable.
• Wild by Cheryl Strayed -  listened to the audiobook. Want to watch the movie!

Music
Every once in awhile I latch onto a new band, but I just don't listen to a lot of music anymore. I listen to All Songs Considered every week, and that's kind of it. I don't think I've been to a single live show either. Do podcasts belong in this category? I too was obsessively listening to Serial and still keep up with This American Life and Pop Culture Happy Hour.

Movies
My husband is a movie fan, so I think this is the one area I've actually picked up on! For 2014:

• The last Hobbit movie - um, boring?
• Interstellar - A little overwhelming in true IMAX, but I thought it was very well done.
• The Hunger Games - Mockingjay Part 1 - Not much happened in the book, so not much happened in the movie...
• If I Stay - Watched this on the plane. Adam was perfect, but I liked the book better.
• Big Hero 6 -  Cute!
• The Maze Runner - Surprisingly fun, I'm looking forward to the sequel.
• Step Up: All In - Ha, of course I saw this.
• Guardians of the Galaxy - Should probably watch this again since I dozed off in the middle, but it was fun. Really like Chris Pratt and Groot. And Baby Groot!
• The Fault in Our Stars - I didn't cry like I thought I would, but it was cute. I'm not sure if I'm really a Shailene Woodley fan though.
• X-Men: Days of Future Past - I thought this was very smart.
• The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone are growing on me. I guess it helps that they're dating in real life...
• Veronica Mars - I streamed this day of release as a Kickstarter backer and didn't watch it in theaters. It was kind of just a long episode of the show, but it was satisfying. 
• Captain America: The Winter Soldier - I think Captain America is my current favorite of the Marvel universe. Scarlett Johansson was surprisingly likable here.
• Divergent - This was ridiculous, but pretty fun.
• The Lego Movie. Ummm this might have been my favorite movie of the year...

M: totally neglected... but i still like tv!

... and books and music and movies. :)

Though in truth, my TV watching has been sporadic at best in the past 1.5 years since I last posted.  The only currently airing TV shows I watch are The Amazing Race (though I haven't watched the finale of the most recent season which ended in December), Gotham (4 episodes behind), and MasterChef Junior.  I listen to the husband watch Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D., and Bones.  I recently obsessively watched all of season one of a Canadian TV show called The Next Step, I'll blog about that separately later, though.

I don't do much reading these days, or at least anything blog-worthy. I've discovered in the past couple of years that if I don't have the time to sit and read a book (or series) from start to finish in pretty much one sitting, chances are pretty high that I will never finish the book (or series). As a result I've been pretty bad about reading anything long and meaty, and instead tend to only read young adult or trashy books, which can be started and completed in one sitting.  However, last weekend I did binge-read two books that are blog-worthy -- Graceling and Fire, part of a 3 book series by Kristin Cashore.  I have the 3rd book in possession now to read, so I will blog about those 3 books soon, too!

I do listen to music and make my way to concerts when opportunity arises.  But truthfully, I have no idea what "new" music exists anymore and find myself listening very often to the same music I have always liked.  Notable concerts I have attended since I last blogged: Imagine Dragons on their Night Visions tour, OneRepublic at the Royal Albert Hall, Pentatonix, Download Fest in Derbyshire with headliner Linkin Park performing Hybrid Theory front to back, and Linkin Park on their Hunting Party tour.

I go to the movie theater for movies maybe once every other month?  Working backwards, I've seen: Into the Woods, Mockingjay, Part 1, The Maze Runner, The Fault in our Stars, and Captain America: Winter Soldier. I think I watch more movies on planes than in theaters... I could write about Into the Woods (which only just released in the UK and I watched yesterday), but I probably won't. :)

And so yes, that is the round up of how I still like tv and books and music and movies but never blog because I just don't watch/read/listen/watch much worth writing about.  That said, I of course have new year's resolutions that I'll probably forget about shortly, which includes writing more -- and so I will try to do so through blog.  I've started my own personal blog and the plan is to cross-post anything that is relevant to this long-standing blog on both sites in the coming year.  So stay tuned! (If anyone is still tuned in, that is, ha!)

Oh -- and I did totally kill the 2013 weeklies by moving overseas.  :(