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.  :(

J: Week 8 (The Amazing Race)

I actually came to The Amazing Race really late - I didn't start until season 10 after I got out of college. But I was hooked immediately and I've watched every season since then. Season 22 just started a few weeks ago but I'm a little behind so I don't really have too much to say about the current season yet except that I totally want to go skydiving in Bora Bora (I've done in New Zealand, so my next time has to be even more epic). Instead, here are my reasons for why I've stuck with this show all these years!

- Travel envy. Definitely my #1 reason. There are probably a handful of places that the show has visited that I'm not interested in but man, there are a lot of places in this world that I want to visit.
- Consistency. Sure, they've added some things over the years like the U-Turn and the Express Pass and such, but generally the show has remained pretty much the same. This can also be taken for predictability though...which is a valid point but not bad enough yet to make me stop watching.
- Creative tasks. Yes, there are lot of really stupid tasks. But they're still coming up with new and different things for the racers to do. Good mix of funny/physical/mental tasks too. I loved the synchronized swimming last season!
- Limited "reality" drama. This varies season to season - there are generally a few teams that are either really annoying or really mean, and then there are alliances and animosity between teams, but really most of the drama comes from the tasks themselves.
- All-star seasons. Always love seeing likable teams come back for a second chance. Really hoping that Jaymes & James from last season come back for the next all star season!
- Phil Keoghan. He actually doesn't do that much? But I just like him...

Next time I promise to cover a non-TV topic!

Mira: what i'm watching this fall -- sundays

Sunday has never been a big TV night for me in the past, especially since I don't watch any of the adult animation shows. In fact, Sunday night in the falls = NFL, but this year it will be quite different...

The Amazing Race (CBS, 8:00-9:00PM): I got hooked on The Amazing Race pretty late (last spring), but I loooooove it. I love traveling and trying out different activities on my vacations so this show is perfect to turn to for inspiration.  Plus the different pairs that work together can be quite amusing (and annoying, too, unfortunately)!

Once Upon a Time* (ABC, 8:00-9:00PM): I looooooooove fairy tales and happily ever afters. Good example of this: my love for the movie Enchanted! As such, I am super excited about this show that is based on worlds straddling fairy tale and real world.

The Good Wife (CBS, 9:00-10:00PM): This show is one of the best on TV by far in my opinion, and given how much I watch -- HIGH praise!  I love Julianne Marguiles as Alicia Florick and think she deserves to win the best actress Emmy (even over Connie Britt, who I also love).  There's just so much to rave about that I could go on forever, but basically I cannot wait to see where they will go this season!

Pan Am*(ABC, 10:00-11:00PM): Christina Ricci kind of scares me but regardless I think Pan Am sounds interesting. They've tried TV shows about airports (LAX) before with no success, but the idea of focusing on pilots and flight attendants? Fascinating and potential for so much drama!!

Also on our DVR, though I am not sure if I will watch:
Homeland* (Showtime, 10:00-11:00PM)

* New show.

Spoiled: Consuming media in the age of DVR, blogs, and wikipedia

I started really getting into television because of a combination of two things: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the internet. They came into my life at about the same time when I was in junior high and they really fed into each other. I had friends in real life that watched Buffy too but they weren't quite as obsessed as I was, so I turned to the internet. I became a regular at the official Buffy "posting board" (an early message board/chat room type thing) where fans from all around the world discussed and dissected the show and our obsession with it. In those days, I had a VCR that I could record episodes on but I generally watched the show live and got onto the PB immediately to see what everyone else thought.

Spoilers back then had a slightly different meaning to me...they were generally information about future episodes, gleaned from casting notices and people who were extras and stuff like that. I knew that reading spoilers in a lot of ways ruined the effect of the show, but I just wanted to know everything. I would occasionally go through these stages where I'd endeavor to remain "spoiler-free" and I'm pretty sure that I enjoyed the show more but eventually I'd go back to old habits because I so badly wanted to know what was going to happen next.

Then a few years ago, something else happened: I got a DVR. In many ways, this was one of the best things to ever happen to me (I'm not exaggerating). I wasn't tied to network airing schedules anymore, I could record two things at once, and I could fast-forward through commercials (and boring parts of shows like American Idol) among other things. I can't imagine my life without it.

But there's a side effect to the wonderfulness of the DVR: I now rarely watch shows "live" or right away. Depending on what day it is and how much I like the show, I watch most shows a day or two later, or in some cases, weeks later. Which means that spoilers now have a different definition: it's what happened on a show that's aired already but that I just haven't watched yet. And yes, I still read them!

It's especially bad with reality shows. For example, Top Chef airs on Wednesday nights at 10PM, which is past my bedtime (yes, I go to bed that early). So right when I wake up on Thursday morning, there are the recaps from various blogs in my Google Reader, which of course I have to read. I try to skim and just see who won and who was eliminated but I mean, what else is there? I then generally watch the show after work that evening and the suspense is completely gone.

Horrifyingly this behavior has now spread to movies and books, thanks to wikipedia. I've never been very timely with these...I rarely see movies in the theater and I generally wait for books to get to the library. I have been known to sneak a peek at the ending of a book before reading the whole thing (confession: I read the epilogue of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows because I was so afraid that someone important was going to die) but now I can go to wikipedia and read the entire summary of a book before I even have it in my hands. It's especially bad with books that are in a series, like the Hunger Games and Steig Larsson's Millenium trilogy. The same goes with movies. It's just too easy!

So I think I'm going to embark on another spoiler-free experiment. There is actually one TV show that I've already been spoiler-free on: The Vampire Diaries. I watch it pretty much live every Thursday night and because of the huge amount of twists and cliffhangers (VD has a cliffhanger practically before every commercial break), I'm always so glad that I didn't know what was going to happen beforehand. The few times I couldn't watch it live and read spoilers, my enjoyment was definitely diminished.

I'm not going to change my viewing habits...I'm just going to really restrain myself from reading recaps and avoid spoiler-y blogs and websites. A lot of scripted shows are on hiatus until April, so for now my two main challenges will be Top Chef and The Amazing Race. Wish me luck, and I'll report back in a month or so!

The Amazing Race: who knew marching was "musically and art-based"?

Even if you don't watch the Amazing Race, you must watch this video clip. This team, Dan and Andrew, are frat boys from Arizona who have been the most incredibly dumb and blundering and joyless team ever but yet they've managed to squeak out not last week after week. This week they once against survived thanks to it being a non-elimination leg but they had the hardest time with a seemingly easy task with HILARIOUS results. I could not stop laughing. And apparently, neither could the normally stoic Russian soldiers!