Taskmaster, reading roundup (comics edition), that TV meme
Taskmaster s17e04 -- this was another fun one, and with more interaction between contestants in the studio, which I have also noticed (as Reddit pointed out) was kind of low this series until now -- there's a lot of great interaction between Greg and Sophie, and Greg and Nick having a lovely chat, and Alex and Greg torturing John, but other than Steve jumping in to help Sophie with her steak pie prize and John and Joanne collaboratively bulshitting about the symbolism of their epic movie, there hasn't really been much cross-contestant banter, which was particularly noticeable after the several series we just had -- Sue in particular was SO QUICK to play off the others in s16, and in s14 Munya was constantly entraining John in his shenanigans, and my beloved s15 sometimes felt like it was 80% studio banter, with its journeys into language and meaning, and I do think Ivo's choice to knock out Kiell in an early live task was partly to blame for setting the tone. Anyway, the absence of that was noticeable this series, but in this episode people were finally interacting a bit more -- SPOILERS for this episode Steve actually physically helped Sophie with her loo roll (for all the good it did either of them), John attempted to both argue his case and couldn't not praise Sophie's dot-to-dot art, resulting in both of them getting 5 points and giving each other a high five, and my favorite moment, which was Sophie celebrating Nick's great performance in the handshake task because they are usually both at the bottom and his victory feels like she's won something too. So cute!
Also, I'm happy John got another win, and without getting trolled/tortured this time, except maybe by the live task disqualification, the unexpected presence of horses he doesn't like, having to run around in the heat in a Freddie Mercury jacket (self-inflicted), and non-alcoholic rum. OK, John is still getting tortured, but in large part by the universe, and not by Greg and Alex specifically messing with him for the purposes of torturing him. (God, I hope he wins. It sounds like he needs a win, and would appreciate it properly XD) The super close series between the top 3 continues, although it does look like maybe Steve's dominance was a bit front-loaded for dramatic effect.
Studio outfit note: Sophie's sparkly earrings and silver cape thing are great!
Did Alex's part of the banter just get cut, in favor of the awkward shoplifting interrogation? (I did enjoy that segment; that was great!) ETA: Yes, it did, and the shoplifting convo was definitely better (on outtakes here, there's the extended version of the shoplifting chat and also Alex's prepared section, which was indeed quite shit.) Also, one of my favorite ad break intros from Greg: "When I was a little boy, my dad sat me on his knee and said, with every year that passes, son, I meet a new collection of arseholes that want my money. And that is genuinely true. He was right. Here are some of them." Also, the Alex-in-stuffed-animals-pile show segments thing is one of my favorites as well.
Prize task (best things for granny) -- poor Greg, alarmed by their collective madness and refusal to be heartwarming through and through XD I absolutely think John's sweet story of surrogate grandma Thelma and properly informed prize selection absolutely deserved the 5 points. I enjoyed Steve's first card (and Alex's stern correction of "pork!" for the misspelling), but the punchline, the second card, lost me as it did Greg (I'm amused Greg just decided to completely ignore it). Nick's went off the deep end quite quickly as he started talking about it, and Joanne's was funny but also awful ("oral pride" XD and Alex waving and smiling widely at "gappy and vacant"), so 1 point actually sounds about right. And oh my goodness, Sophie XD My mother is absolutely a granny (in the sense that she has grandchildren) who wold wear that outfit, but I also understand why Greg isn't going for it. But of course the most impressive thing from this round was Sophie demonstrating the slutdrop and just doing... all that on stage. Incredible!
Handshake task -- what a nightmarish setup XD Neat take on "identify weird things inside this item" task, and I'm relieved the health and safety alarm (which was presumably there in case someone tried to cut off the fingers of the glove with the real hand in it) did not need to get pulled. What the hell is non-alcoholic rum? I mean, I'm glad they did not present real rum to a man on the wagon, but it doesn't really seem fair, especially when John asked him if there was alcohol (four times!) and Alex said no -- technically true, but misleading. Anyway, John did pretty well even without getting that one or the full puzzle. Also, controversial call to allow Nick's Bandaid approach to not count as one of his cuts (that was a very sweet move by Nick, though). Speaking of Nick, Reddit pointed out the lack of Nick's reflection in the puddle when I was reading after my first watch, so on my second watch I was on the lookout for that (~8:30 most clearly, since you can see Alex's reflection but not Nick's) -- nice! :D Greg is right in pointing out that Joanne laughs maniacally at random, and her, "yep, fair" reaction is also hilarious. I like that Steve and John tried to interact with the hands as if they were actual people -- John greeting them, Steve giving his guesses names (which probably made it harder for him to guess "Alex Horne", even besides him getting the objects wrong a lot of the time). Steve thinking the pickled onions were "little lychees" (they don't... they don't even come that size, I don't think? XD) was indeed an amazing moment that I'm glad Greg pointed out, because I might' have missed the full implications otherwise. Anyway, great task, great contrast in strategy and behavior in the VT, great studio banter around it -- all around great time!
Dot-to-dot -- oh man, Nick's "happy snake" XD (I also thought it was a balloon or an oboe like a saxophone or something) On the podcast, Ed asked Nick what WAS he thinking way out there at the edge of the field, and Nick gives the most adorable answer -- he was thinking that he was like in Lord of the Rings, because it was green and there were horses and it looked like the Shire. I loved John's snail -- so cute! -- and of course Sophie's cow was amazing. Steve was indeed showboating with the frame and the signature and the red dot quip (very amused Alex/production gave him a yellow one instead) -- and lol at his hubris being punished by a pile of horse manure -- but that looked like other paintings more than it looked like the Mona Lisa, while the snail and cow looked unmistakably like the things they were meant to be, so I do think the points were very fair. I was convinced Joanne's was Fallopian tubes / some kind of uterus-related thing, just because she had sort of firmly established that as her thing in episode 1, and also it looks more like that than a mustache with nasolabial folds (?!?) Nice intro to the task, too, with the aerial shot of Nick striding in his billowing Dracula cape like a Gothic hero and Steve going "get off my land!", while John is just sort of out for a day of fun with his mate (maybe Alex + open green space = golf for him...) And very astute observation from Joanne that (to Alex) "I think you're just a fish out of water wherever you are." So funny that the wild horses were apparently a totally unintended and unexpected addition to the task XD Sophie talking to them throughout and Nick ("Are you OK?") were very cute with them.
Team task -- Reddit pointed out that the team of two looked like Steve was taking his son trick-or-treating, and, yep, spot on XD The two of them looked really cute rambling around from clock to clock, and interlacing their fingers together to hold hands -- truly the aww from the audience was deserved. (On the podcast, Nick shares that he decided to do Taskmaster because Steve was doing it, which makes the whole team of two vibe even more adorable. This is like the other side of a lovely team of two from Team of Sue, who met for the first time and became instant friends; this is two people who already clearly love hanging out with each other, getting to hang out and do silly things and eat cake.) Team of three was an interesting dynamic. So we got to see the carnage of their first meeting with the painting on blinds task, and we got to see the result but not much of anything else in the greenscreen task, so it was interesting to watch their dynamic in a full-fledged team task. Greg was correct in pointing out that John seemed to be in charge until they got to the cake, at which point he just completely switched over to the cake XD But actually the dynamic was interesting even before that -- Joanne and Sophie tapped out as soon as they saw the numbers on the back of the task (which turned out to be essentially meaningless), and John was out in front and leading the others physically, but... it was actually Sophie that got them to move on from the clocks (correctly identifying that as a red herring) and sort of routed them to the correct location and spotted the record with the task, I think because she was not getting lost in the minutia the way John was.
Live task (toilet paper through loo roll) -- OK, that's mean of Greg to disqualify Steve, John, and Sophie because Joanne's tube was completely bald. I could see him giving Joanne an extra point or something, but that seems both unnecessarily harsh towards all the work the others did and like way too big a swing for a live task -- Joanne would've gotten 2 points vs Steve's 5, instead she got 5 and Steve 0, so that's a swing of 8 points in her favor compared to Steve -- and 7 points compared to John, although it's not quite enough to overtake him. As I mentioned above, the thing that makes me most annoyed about this is that Steve helping out Sophie ended up not mattering. Sophie's undwinding technique with the ribbon gymnastics approach was actually really good! Also, I feel like while Steve is arguing about the disqualification (justifiably if amusingly pissed), I feel like John's narrow-eyed expression is him consulting his mental spreadsheet to see what the effects of that call are on episode standing. And Alex did seem quite stressed time-keeping for this task -- they needed to have some individual timers or something.
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14. Bea Wolf (text/poem by Zach Weinersmith, art by Boulet) -- OK, this was delightful! Except I didn't realize that 1000 year old spoilers? it covers only the first part of the Beowulf story. I'm not even talking about the dragon bit at the end -- this doesn't even get to the fight with Grendel's mother, although it does introduce her. So I was watching the unread pages dwindle and wondering if we were just not going to do the mother at all, and then she was introduced, and then it ends essentially on a cliffhanger, which was an odd take (the afterword explains that the book would've been too long if it had tried to include that also). Anyway, I am apparently on board with weird Beowulf takes (I liked the 'Bro' one a lot, too), and this was such a cute idea. So the conceit is, actualy spoilers for this book the hero, Bea Wolf in this case, in a floral skirt and a bear hoodie (and she sleeps in a unicorn nightie and narwhal underpants), and all the other kings and warriors, are little kids, and the antagonist, Mr Grindle, is a very boring grown-up (teacher) whose powers are making the kids grow up -- either into screen-obsessed teenagers or boring adults who are fretting about taxes and fiber or whatever -- and so causing them to leave the world of childhood (toys, candy, poop jokes, etc.) behind, in a very clever PG-rated alternative to killing and eating them: "Underpants armor fell from faces, foreheads wrinkled, pockets peeled from dresses, dressed drooped, dark, unsparkling, capes clutched necks, became collars, clapped to clip-on ties. So Grindle ground on, begeezering that gathering." As you can see from that example, the immense charm of the story is that it mimics the Anglo-Saxon verse style, like: "So the war-princess and play-slayer pranced a hokey-pokey of pain, him craving home, haven of coffee and cauliflower, her reeling hard, knowing her wrists ruled Treefort's fate!" (from the Bea Wolf and Mr Grindle fight, wherein she snatches off his tie, which turns him back into a little kid) and "But below the hall, bad times wore blouse and bun. Grindle's mother, miffed beyond madness, prowling in puce pantsuit, primed for vengeance, for she'd thought her diaper-doing days were done." And there's also a delightful melding of modern details and archaic description, like "Heidi [the equivalent of Beowulf's king in this] got forth Eamglay, blade of legends, born before safety standards, blast-forged of asbestos and broken glass." I actually googled "Eamglay", like, is this a reference I'm missing? that looks like it could be an Old English word... and Google helpfully clued me in that this is Pig Latin for "gleam", which then helped me decode the name of the bike Bea Wolf receives as her reward for vanquishing Grindle: "the steel-spoked stallion, the suburb steed: Azeblay, baron of bikes, brakeless and rocket-boosted." Oh, and the "Hwaet" is rendered as "Hey, wait!", which I thought was also cute. (There are other references to the original, on some of which the penny dropped for me, like a kid named Roger being in the Hrothgar role (a closer phonetic match than I noticed at first), and some of which I'm sure I missed, because I don't remember too many other names.) I also thought it was neat that, even in casting Mr Grindle as a horrible killjoy grown-up, the story occasionally acknowledges that the kids are not blameless in their predicament -- Treefort (~Heorot) overhangs his property, and they're mooching off his electricity for their entertainments. That was a bit of nuance I hadn't expected in a Beowulf-for-kids. I have fewer opinions about the art, but I thought the art (B&W but with a lot of details) was fun, an appropriate mixture of cartoonish and epic, if that makes sense. (You can see some examples of the art in this article.) I hope we get a second book finishing out the story (it's in the works apparently.)
I would've been wondering whether, given the Anglo-Saxon style poetry of the text, an actual kid could really appreciate this book, but I knew the answer going in, because the first I'd heard of this book was actually when bearshorty's daughters (who are in elementary school) read it and loved it, so apparently the answer is yes. There is a neat afterword explaining the history of the original story, Anglo-Saxon verse, weird Old English letters, alliteration, etc., which I also enjoyed enjoyed skimming, and that are pitched at an interested kid to enjoy. I kind of wish I knew a kid who was the right age and temperament to be a good audience for this, but I'm not sure if I do... maybe my friend R' son?
This is also the first of the Hugo-nominated things I read after they were nominated for a Hugo, so:
Hugo roundup: graphic novel -- Bea Wolf, Saga 11 (2/6)
And then I was like, hey, I enjoy looking at books of comics apparently, more than I enjoy reading hard copy books of only words at the moment, and remembered about some I've been meaning to read through:
14. Randall Munroe, xkcd, volume 0 -- giallarhorn gave me this book (from 2009), which neither of us realized existed before he saw it at the library sale. Randall himself seems to think it's a bit weird to have a book collecting comics you can read for free on the web, per the foreword, and there's a Creative Commons page instead of a copyright page, but it is actually a neat object to own. Some of these are long-time favorites I'm happy to be able to show people not on my phone (the "You're a kitty!" intelligence vs proximity to cat one, and the "My normal approach is useless here" which I have on an icon, and the eBay bobcat one that I introduced B too and which we reference a lot, fields arranged by purity (one of the first I shared with B because math is way over on the right) and the "pretending to be an expert in their field" one, and of course "someone's wrong on the internet" which I also have an icon of), and some I don't remember at all, though I must've read them because I scrolled back through all the xkcd archives at some point and have been reading it daily since. The mouseover text, where it's present, is included in the book as small print around the comic. I didn't try to follow the ciphers or QR codes or whatever, but there are some additional cute doodles in the margins, and the part that amused me the most, some additional info about comics reception, like how long it took people to point out an error, or reactions from people the comic was about, etc. One of those notes led me to go looking for actual sung versions of the "Boom De Yada" comic on YouTube, and my favorite of the ones I've watched is this one for, like, production values, but also there's this verions featuring a bunch of interesting folks (full credits here; I recognized Neil Gaiman and Wil Wheaton, and Hank Green and Cory Doctorow on rewatch, but needed the credits to figure out where the Nielsen Haydens were. And around page 1100 I noticed that the page numbers were in -- I thought it was binary at first, and then that it was base 3, but googling explains that it's skew binary, which I didn't even know was a thing. Anyway, I'm glad to own this collection, and glad I sat down and read it so I know what's in there.
And this is not related to the book, but between me looking at xkcd animations/songs and I think Lyorn-induced searching for versions of "The Modern Major General", YouTube helpfully supplied Every Major's Terrible (and then to this choir/live action version, which is really fun).
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That very long TV shows meme going around. I tried to combine several branches of it I saw.
+ Bold all of the following TV shows of which you've seen 3 or more episodes.
+ Italicize a show if you're positive you've seen every episode.
+ Asterisk if you have at least one full season on tape or DVD
+ Exclamation mark if it's an all-time fave.
+ If you want, add up to 3 additional shows (keep the list in alphabetical order).
24
The 4400
911
911: Lone Star
A League of Their Own
The A-Team
Abbot Elementary
The Addams Family -- I watched whatever was available in reruns over the course of a summer, but I doubt it was all the episodes. (Also The Munsters, but I liked that a lot less.)
The Adventures of Pete and Pete -- this was not one of the Nickelodeon shows I watched on purpose, but it was on after/between shows I did watch, so I'm pretty sure I've seen at least 3 episodes -- but not much more than that.
American Dad
American Dreams
America’s Next Top Model
The Americans
Angel* -- more than 3, but I stalled out in season 2. I do own at least one season on DVD, though.
The Andy Griffith Show
Another World
Arcane: League of Legends
Are You Afraid of the Dark -- similar to Pete & Pete, not a show I watched on purpose, and not my kind of thing at all, but I know I've seen several episodes, and pretty sure it was at least 3.
Are You Being Served?
Arrested Development -- one of those shows I'd watch whenever I came across it on TV and enjoyed it, but never made a concerted effort to follow.
Avatar: The Last Airbender (animated) !
The Avengers
*Babylon 5 ! -- watched in full, own the full set, one of my favorite TV shows of all time.
Babylon 5: Crusade -- pretty sure I watched what there was in full.
Batman and Robin
Batman: The Animated Series -- one of the shows I watched after school, but I don't think I've seen all of it.
Batman Beyond
Battle Creek
Battlestar Galactica (the original series)
Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Baywatch -- one of those shows that I've seen a few minutes of, then turned it off because I couldn't stand it
Beavis & Butthead -- see above
Beauty and the Beast
Beverly Hills 90210 -- my friend M was a huge, HUGE fan, and this was one of the defining shows of my generation, but I've seen a couple of scenes and a lot of ads, and avoided anything more
Bewitched -- not a lot more than 3, but I watched this when it was on Nick at Nite
Big Love
The Bionic Woman (1976)
Black Books
Blackadder -- I was introduced to Blackadder during my summer in Oxford and watched the whole thing immediately upon my return. It's not an all-time fave, though.
Black Harbour
The Brady Bunch -- I've watched an episode in full, I think, but not more than that.
The Brittas Empire
Blake's 7 -- a show I came to only recently, but watched in full, and am glad I finally did.
Bob's Burgers
Bonanza
Bones -- L has gotten into it, and I have read the books, but have never watched this beyond the ads that were on during House.
Bosom Buddies
Boston Legal
Boston Public
Boy Meets World -- never a big fan, but I watched this causally whenever I came across it, so doubtless more then 3 episodes. Topanga was cute!
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
*Buffy the Vampire Slayer ! -- no italics because I haven't watched "Seeing Red" or anything past that, but I think I can consider it a fave, and I do own the show in full.
Bug Juice
Burn Notice
Caitlin’s Way
Carebears
Carnivale
Catweazle
Charlie’s Angels
Charmed
Cheers
Chicago Medical
Chuck
The Closer
Code Black
Columbo
Commander in Chief
Coupling (UK)
Covert Affairs
Cowboy Bebop
Criminal Minds -- another thing L is a fan of that I've not tried
Crossing Jordan
CSI
CSI: Miami
CSI: NY
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Dallas
Dancing with the Stars
Dangermouse
Danny Phantom
Dark Angel
Dark Matter (2015)
Dark Skies
Davinci’s Inquest
The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd
Dawson’s Creek -- another thing that was huge in my generation that I never watched beyond the omnipresent ads
Dead Like Me
Deadwood
The Dead Zone
Degrassi: The Next Generation
Designing Women
Desperate Housewives
Dexter
Dharma & Greg -- this was one of those shows that I'd keep watching if I came across it, and I'm pretty sure I've seen at least 3 episodes, but not much more than that
The Dick Van Dyke Show
Digimon
Dinosaurs -- I was SO baffled by what the hell this was when we first encountered it, right after coming to the US. I don't think I've watched even a full episode though, let alone three.
Diff'rent Strokes
Dirty Jobs
Doctor Who (1963 - 1986)
Doctor Who (2005 - present)
Dollhouse
Downton Abbey
Dragnet
The Dresden Files -- I prefer the books to the TV show (and even the books I would say I'm only a grudging fan of, by this point), but I did watch the show. Holy cow, was that really as long ago as 2008! O.o
Due South
The Enemy Within
Entourage
ER
Eureka
Everwood
Everybody Loves Raymond -- watched some opening scenes because it was on after something I followed, but never bothered to sit through a whole episode
The Expanse -- I watche
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
Facts of Life
Fame
Family Guy -- not a fan, though
Family Ties
The Famous Jett Jackson
Farscape -- need to get back to watching it
Father Ted
*Fawlty Towers ! -- watched and rewatched this multiple times with the rodents -- it's one of my favorite comedies. I'm pretty sure we own some of it in some form, although I think it's CDs burned off old tapes that we got out of the library back in the day.
Felicity
*Firefly ! -- wishe there was more of it to watch and to own
Flash Forward
Fleabag
The Flintstones -- I've seen a handfl of episodes at least, despite not really being a fan
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
Forever Knight
Fraggle Rock -- oh man... I've watched some of it for sure, not because I was a fan but because it was on after/between other things I wanted to watch, but I doubt I've seen 3 episodes in full
Frasier -- I was briefly following this, mostly for Niles
Freaks and Geeks
Friday Night Lights
Friends -- I've seen a whole bunch of friends (it was another defining show of my generation), but stopped watching before the end and have never seen the last couple of seasons except in random snatches on airplanes
Fringe
Futurama -- I like it a lot, but stopped watching at some point, and have never seen the new episodes
Game of Thrones -- watched all of season 1, as a fan of the books, but lost interest after that. I have bought a DVD of it, but I think only as a present for my friend
Get Smart
Ghostwriter
Gilligan’s Island
Gilmore Girls
The Golden Girls -- I've watched an episode and bits of others, but don't think I've watched 3
Green Wing
Grey’s Anatomy -- O had watched the whole thing with/for a friend, but I've never seen any of it...
Grimm
Growing Pains
Hannah Montana
Happy Days
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe ! -- this is one of my all-time favorites for sure! But it was in the days before VCRs or TV recorders or any of those things, so while I watched this as religiously as I could, I'm pretty sure there are episodes I haven't seen.
Hercules -- assuming this is Hercules: The Legendary Journeys to go with Xena down below
Heroes
Highlander
Highlander: The Raven
Hogan’s Heroes
Hillstreet Blues
Homeland
Homicide: Life on the Street
House (M.D., I assume) -- watched several seasons religiously, got off the wagon in season 5
I Dream of Jeannie
I Love Lucy -- I watched an episode or two on Nick at Nite but won't swear to 3
Instant Star
Inuyasha
Invader Zim
Invasion
Invincible -- O is a big fan, but I haven't checked it out
JAG
Jackass
Jeeves and Wooster
Jericho
The Jetsons -- I've watched at least one episode, but not sure how many
Justified
Killing Eve
Knight Rider
Laverne and Shirley
Law & Order
Legend of the Seeker
Lexx
The Librarians
Life on Mars
Life With Derek
Line of Duty
Little Britain
Little House on the Prairie
Lizzie McGuire
Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
Loki -- watched the first season
Lost
The Love Boat
The Lucille Ball Show
Luther
M*A*S*H
MacGyver -- have seen parts of episodes, but never watched in full
Magnum PI
Malcolm in the Middle
Mama’s Family
The Man from U.N.C.L.E
Married... With Children -- I enjoyed this one, despite the very lowbrow nature
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
Melrose Place
MI:5 / Spooks
Miami Vice
The Mighty Boosh
Millennium
Miracles
Mission: Impossible
The Muppet Show -- I've not watched the actual Muppet Show, but I watched a lot of episodes of Muppet Babies
My Mad Fat Diary
The Mythbusters
Monk
Mork & Mindy -- I feel like I've watched 3 episodes on Nick at Nite, but not much more than that
Murphy Brown -- I've watched an episode or two, but I don't think I've seen 3
My Life as a Dog
My Little Pony
My Name is Earl
My So-Called Life
Mystery Science Theater 3000
NCIS
Nikita
The Nanny
North Shore
Northern Exposure
Numb3rs
NYPD Blue
The O.C.
The Office (UK)
The Office (US)
Once Upon a Time
One Tree Hill
Orphan Black
Out of This World (my addition) -- my friend R got me into this sci-fi sitcom. I won't swear I watched all of it via reruns, but I think I probably did. And it is, very indirectly, where my username comes from (the protagonist's high school sports team were the Hamsters)
Oz
Perry Mason
Person of Interest -- another one I need to get back into
Phil of the Future
Pokemon
Popular
Power Rangers -- oh man, I disliked this show, but I know I've hate-watched at least 3 episodes of it XD
The Pretender
Pretty Little Liars
Primeval
Prison Break
Profiler
Project Runway
Psych
QI -- a very recent addition to my list
Quantico
Quantum Leap
Queer As Folk (US)
Queer as Folk (UK)
The Real World
Red Dwarf
ReGenesis
Relic Hunter
Resident Alien
Rizzoli & Isles -- I read some of the books, though
The Rookie
Rome
Roseanne -- I have watched an episode or two but not more than that I think
Roswell
Sapphire and Steel
Saved by the Bell -- a show I watched religiously after school for a while, but I won't swear I have seen all of the episodes -- and definitely not all of the college ones. But a lot!
Scarecrow and Mrs King
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? -- I watched so much Scooby Doo... might even be all of it, between the random reruns, but I wouldn't swear to it
Scrubs
SEAL Team
seaQuest
Seinfeld -- I'm not a fan, but I know I've watched at least 3 episodes, just because it was on a lot on the channels I watched
Sex and the City
She-Ra: Princess of Power (1985) -- never watched the original one, but I did watch all of the recent version, which is great
Six Feet Under
Skins
Sliders
Slings and Arrows
Smallville
The Sarah Connor Chronicles
The Sentinel
The Shield
The Simpsons ! -- probably my favorite show of all time. I've not watched all of it, because at some point in the later seasons I stopped watching. But for a long time it was a weekly tradition, and we caught up on all the early seasons we'd missed. I don't think we ever bought DVDs of it, but we definitely own Simpsons swag, and books about the show.
The Six Million Dollar Man
The Sopranos
So Weird
South Park -- emphatically not my thing
Space: Above and Beyond
Spaced
Spongebob Squarepants -- I was exposed to this via the rodents and cousin D (who was a big fan), and have seen parts of episodes, but never watched it on purpose, so I don't think I've seen any full episodes
Sports Night
Star Trek
Star Trek: Discovery
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Enterprise
Stargate Atlantis
Stargate SG-1
Starsky and Hutch
Stumptown
Superman
Supernatural
Taxi
Teachers
That 70’s Show -- I was a low-key fan in the early seasons
That’s So Raven
3rd Rock from the Sun
Torchwood
Transformers
The Twilight Zone
Twin Peaks
The Umbrella Academy -- I watched two episodes of this, I think? and apparently never wrote anything down about it, but that's what Netflix's "Next Episode" record implies
Veronica Mars -- I watched one episode (in Belgium of all places) but didn't really click with it
Voltron (the original one from the 80s) (my addition, because Veronica was looking lonely) -- I watched a bunch of this in high school, and enjoyed it a fair bit despite having zero interest in anything Japanese or mecha. (Admittedly, I was basically in it for Prince Lotor.)
WandaVision -- I liked it a lot!
Weeds
Wellington Paranormal
The West Wing
Wheel of Time
Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? -- the game show, right? I might have even seen all of it, between reruns, but I wouldn't swear to it.
*White Collar -- I watched, chaotically, like most of four seasons of this? And ended up buying a full set of DVDs so that I could watch things in order instead of being at the mercy of what my library has, and then never watching it again. I should get back to it!
Wonderfalls
The X-Files
Xena: Warrior Princess -- I was following this dedicatedly for a while (and Hercules: Legendary Journeys) but then fell off the wagon in later seasons
X-Men: Evolution
Young and the Restless
*
Fannish goals check-in:
1.2 Submit at least 10 poems somewhere -- done but continuing to keep track. Currently at 14. I submitted a poem to a Grimm fairy tales anthology. I don't think anything will come of it as it's less horror than they're looking for, I think, but it was too close a match in subject matter to pass up without trying.
1.3 Submit at least one chapbook (or micro-chap) length manuscript -- Done, and accepted, and now I'm keeping track of progress towards publication (targeting early June). I've made no progress since last update on this (except inasmuch as getting a bunch of rejections is a kind of progress because I don't need to worry about how to juggle accepted poems that also appear in the chapbook), but I'm actually going to introduce a stretch Goal 1.3b:
1.3b Publish a children's book -- because my parents' friend R the artist has finished her physical art project and is now back to working on illustrating my Cricket poem, which we want to turn into a children's book (for fun/experience, not because it will make any money). To that end, we met at a coffee shop this past week to look at the set of sketches she did, and I really like the idea she's hit on for illustrations -- one of those things that are perfect but never would've occurred to me as a non-artist, and her critters are fabulous (and sounds like she watched a lot of YouTube videos of critters as research). Now that I have sketches, I need to actually refresh my memory on how to do layout and all the KDP stuff. And I think I can say I've done some "market research" by looking at a bunch of picture books on Amazon to figure out what number of pages is reasonable and what these things can retail for in full color, etc., and I watched a bunch of videos on children's book design, cover design, etc.
4.2.1 Read something from the "backburner" series where I'm still actively thinking "oh hey, I should catch up on that" -- Done, but continuing to keep track. Currently at 3. But I'm also reading The Thousand Eyes, the conclusion of ?duology? that starts with The Unspoken Name. I got to the second part, after the time skip, and got kind of distracted, and then the library wanted it back, so now I'm waiting for my hold to come in again.
4.2.3.1 Read a book I own in paper copy (physical TBR pile) -- In Progress. I'm reading Solutions and Other Problems, which I bought late last year. It's definitely not grabbing me / making me laugh as much as Hyperbole and a Half, but I was kind of expecting that based on other people's impressions.
4.2.5 Read a non-genre book (non-fiction counts for this) -- Done, but continuing to keep track (currently at 1= Bitch (nonfiction)). Reading Solutions and Other Problems, and also checked out Once Upon a Prime, a book about mathematics in literature, which I spotted at the local bookshop and was not quite intrigued enough to buy it, but enough to look it up at the library.
5.1 Read/watch at least 3 things from the updated "to try" list -- Done, but continuing to keep track. 4/3 complete, and now my progress is that I've checked out Vespertine, which I'd been looking to read for a while, and even read a few paragraphs. Still no progress on Leech or To Shape a Dragon's Breath.
6.1 Learn how to solve a new sudoku type or a new trick -- done, but continuing to track new rulesets/tricks: currently at 41. I solved this puzzle, which is sort of like sandwiches but with different enough logic that I think I can definitely count it as a new ruleset. I solved this puzzle, which involved masyu puzzle rules that I'd never even heard of before. I solved this doubler snake puzzle, and while I've done snake puzzles and puzzles with doublers before, I do think the combination of the two can count as a new ruleset, because I think in all my previous doubler puzzles, there was a limitation on the number of doublers, but not here. And this was a GAS puzzle with a new variation on equal sums. I don't necessarily enjoy these kinds of directional pointing variants, but I do think this puzzle with tritabs counts as a new rule, and the flow is a bit different from the variant where it just gives you clues to stuff around the edges. this puzzle is a combination of arrows and (reverse, kinda) slow thermos that proved to have some very fun logic, except that I kept invariably assuming the bulb of the invisible thermo was in the circle and pencil marking my arrows wrong and having to go back. Just how much trouble I had properly remembering how these worked I think allows me to count this as a new ruleset, lol. And I think this puzzle from the Sandra and Nala spring pack was my first time solving a Mobius strip puzzle onmy own. And this puzzle (parity counter line) I was able to solve on my own, without learning any tricks from CtC first, which is always neat. That's definitely not something I could've done even a year ago, I think. Solved this "kropki road" puzzle, which was a really neat variant on the kropki rule (making use of the negative constraint).
7.2 Cast a Hugo ballot -- Milestone: Voting has opened!
7.3 Read/watch at least 5 Hugo-nominated things I have not yet read (from any year and of any length -- Milestone: this year's nominees are out. Some things that would count that I either already have in my TBR pile or am otherwise looking forward to reading: Translation State (TBR pile), Amina al-Sirafi (would also count for book I got stuck in the middle of), Kingfisher's Thornhenge (meant to check out anyway), Bea Wolf (have been meaning to read, this was my reminder to put a hold on it), Unraveller (stuck in the middle), To Shape a Dragon's Breath (TBR pile). In Progress: 1/5 (Bea Wolf).
Also, I'm happy John got another win, and without getting trolled/tortured this time, except maybe by the live task disqualification, the unexpected presence of horses he doesn't like, having to run around in the heat in a Freddie Mercury jacket (self-inflicted), and non-alcoholic rum. OK, John is still getting tortured, but in large part by the universe, and not by Greg and Alex specifically messing with him for the purposes of torturing him. (God, I hope he wins. It sounds like he needs a win, and would appreciate it properly XD) The super close series between the top 3 continues, although it does look like maybe Steve's dominance was a bit front-loaded for dramatic effect.
Studio outfit note: Sophie's sparkly earrings and silver cape thing are great!
Did Alex's part of the banter just get cut, in favor of the awkward shoplifting interrogation? (I did enjoy that segment; that was great!) ETA: Yes, it did, and the shoplifting convo was definitely better (on outtakes here, there's the extended version of the shoplifting chat and also Alex's prepared section, which was indeed quite shit.) Also, one of my favorite ad break intros from Greg: "When I was a little boy, my dad sat me on his knee and said, with every year that passes, son, I meet a new collection of arseholes that want my money. And that is genuinely true. He was right. Here are some of them." Also, the Alex-in-stuffed-animals-pile show segments thing is one of my favorites as well.
Prize task (best things for granny) -- poor Greg, alarmed by their collective madness and refusal to be heartwarming through and through XD I absolutely think John's sweet story of surrogate grandma Thelma and properly informed prize selection absolutely deserved the 5 points. I enjoyed Steve's first card (and Alex's stern correction of "pork!" for the misspelling), but the punchline, the second card, lost me as it did Greg (I'm amused Greg just decided to completely ignore it). Nick's went off the deep end quite quickly as he started talking about it, and Joanne's was funny but also awful ("oral pride" XD and Alex waving and smiling widely at "gappy and vacant"), so 1 point actually sounds about right. And oh my goodness, Sophie XD My mother is absolutely a granny (in the sense that she has grandchildren) who wold wear that outfit, but I also understand why Greg isn't going for it. But of course the most impressive thing from this round was Sophie demonstrating the slutdrop and just doing... all that on stage. Incredible!
Handshake task -- what a nightmarish setup XD Neat take on "identify weird things inside this item" task, and I'm relieved the health and safety alarm (which was presumably there in case someone tried to cut off the fingers of the glove with the real hand in it) did not need to get pulled. What the hell is non-alcoholic rum? I mean, I'm glad they did not present real rum to a man on the wagon, but it doesn't really seem fair, especially when John asked him if there was alcohol (four times!) and Alex said no -- technically true, but misleading. Anyway, John did pretty well even without getting that one or the full puzzle. Also, controversial call to allow Nick's Bandaid approach to not count as one of his cuts (that was a very sweet move by Nick, though). Speaking of Nick, Reddit pointed out the lack of Nick's reflection in the puddle when I was reading after my first watch, so on my second watch I was on the lookout for that (~8:30 most clearly, since you can see Alex's reflection but not Nick's) -- nice! :D Greg is right in pointing out that Joanne laughs maniacally at random, and her, "yep, fair" reaction is also hilarious. I like that Steve and John tried to interact with the hands as if they were actual people -- John greeting them, Steve giving his guesses names (which probably made it harder for him to guess "Alex Horne", even besides him getting the objects wrong a lot of the time). Steve thinking the pickled onions were "little lychees" (they don't... they don't even come that size, I don't think? XD) was indeed an amazing moment that I'm glad Greg pointed out, because I might' have missed the full implications otherwise. Anyway, great task, great contrast in strategy and behavior in the VT, great studio banter around it -- all around great time!
Dot-to-dot -- oh man, Nick's "happy snake" XD (I also thought it was a balloon or an oboe like a saxophone or something) On the podcast, Ed asked Nick what WAS he thinking way out there at the edge of the field, and Nick gives the most adorable answer -- he was thinking that he was like in Lord of the Rings, because it was green and there were horses and it looked like the Shire. I loved John's snail -- so cute! -- and of course Sophie's cow was amazing. Steve was indeed showboating with the frame and the signature and the red dot quip (very amused Alex/production gave him a yellow one instead) -- and lol at his hubris being punished by a pile of horse manure -- but that looked like other paintings more than it looked like the Mona Lisa, while the snail and cow looked unmistakably like the things they were meant to be, so I do think the points were very fair. I was convinced Joanne's was Fallopian tubes / some kind of uterus-related thing, just because she had sort of firmly established that as her thing in episode 1, and also it looks more like that than a mustache with nasolabial folds (?!?) Nice intro to the task, too, with the aerial shot of Nick striding in his billowing Dracula cape like a Gothic hero and Steve going "get off my land!", while John is just sort of out for a day of fun with his mate (maybe Alex + open green space = golf for him...) And very astute observation from Joanne that (to Alex) "I think you're just a fish out of water wherever you are." So funny that the wild horses were apparently a totally unintended and unexpected addition to the task XD Sophie talking to them throughout and Nick ("Are you OK?") were very cute with them.
Team task -- Reddit pointed out that the team of two looked like Steve was taking his son trick-or-treating, and, yep, spot on XD The two of them looked really cute rambling around from clock to clock, and interlacing their fingers together to hold hands -- truly the aww from the audience was deserved. (On the podcast, Nick shares that he decided to do Taskmaster because Steve was doing it, which makes the whole team of two vibe even more adorable. This is like the other side of a lovely team of two from Team of Sue, who met for the first time and became instant friends; this is two people who already clearly love hanging out with each other, getting to hang out and do silly things and eat cake.) Team of three was an interesting dynamic. So we got to see the carnage of their first meeting with the painting on blinds task, and we got to see the result but not much of anything else in the greenscreen task, so it was interesting to watch their dynamic in a full-fledged team task. Greg was correct in pointing out that John seemed to be in charge until they got to the cake, at which point he just completely switched over to the cake XD But actually the dynamic was interesting even before that -- Joanne and Sophie tapped out as soon as they saw the numbers on the back of the task (which turned out to be essentially meaningless), and John was out in front and leading the others physically, but... it was actually Sophie that got them to move on from the clocks (correctly identifying that as a red herring) and sort of routed them to the correct location and spotted the record with the task, I think because she was not getting lost in the minutia the way John was.
Live task (toilet paper through loo roll) -- OK, that's mean of Greg to disqualify Steve, John, and Sophie because Joanne's tube was completely bald. I could see him giving Joanne an extra point or something, but that seems both unnecessarily harsh towards all the work the others did and like way too big a swing for a live task -- Joanne would've gotten 2 points vs Steve's 5, instead she got 5 and Steve 0, so that's a swing of 8 points in her favor compared to Steve -- and 7 points compared to John, although it's not quite enough to overtake him. As I mentioned above, the thing that makes me most annoyed about this is that Steve helping out Sophie ended up not mattering. Sophie's undwinding technique with the ribbon gymnastics approach was actually really good! Also, I feel like while Steve is arguing about the disqualification (justifiably if amusingly pissed), I feel like John's narrow-eyed expression is him consulting his mental spreadsheet to see what the effects of that call are on episode standing. And Alex did seem quite stressed time-keeping for this task -- they needed to have some individual timers or something.
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14. Bea Wolf (text/poem by Zach Weinersmith, art by Boulet) -- OK, this was delightful! Except I didn't realize that 1000 year old spoilers? it covers only the first part of the Beowulf story. I'm not even talking about the dragon bit at the end -- this doesn't even get to the fight with Grendel's mother, although it does introduce her. So I was watching the unread pages dwindle and wondering if we were just not going to do the mother at all, and then she was introduced, and then it ends essentially on a cliffhanger, which was an odd take (the afterword explains that the book would've been too long if it had tried to include that also). Anyway, I am apparently on board with weird Beowulf takes (I liked the 'Bro' one a lot, too), and this was such a cute idea. So the conceit is, actualy spoilers for this book the hero, Bea Wolf in this case, in a floral skirt and a bear hoodie (and she sleeps in a unicorn nightie and narwhal underpants), and all the other kings and warriors, are little kids, and the antagonist, Mr Grindle, is a very boring grown-up (teacher) whose powers are making the kids grow up -- either into screen-obsessed teenagers or boring adults who are fretting about taxes and fiber or whatever -- and so causing them to leave the world of childhood (toys, candy, poop jokes, etc.) behind, in a very clever PG-rated alternative to killing and eating them: "Underpants armor fell from faces, foreheads wrinkled, pockets peeled from dresses, dressed drooped, dark, unsparkling, capes clutched necks, became collars, clapped to clip-on ties. So Grindle ground on, begeezering that gathering." As you can see from that example, the immense charm of the story is that it mimics the Anglo-Saxon verse style, like: "So the war-princess and play-slayer pranced a hokey-pokey of pain, him craving home, haven of coffee and cauliflower, her reeling hard, knowing her wrists ruled Treefort's fate!" (from the Bea Wolf and Mr Grindle fight, wherein she snatches off his tie, which turns him back into a little kid) and "But below the hall, bad times wore blouse and bun. Grindle's mother, miffed beyond madness, prowling in puce pantsuit, primed for vengeance, for she'd thought her diaper-doing days were done." And there's also a delightful melding of modern details and archaic description, like "Heidi [the equivalent of Beowulf's king in this] got forth Eamglay, blade of legends, born before safety standards, blast-forged of asbestos and broken glass." I actually googled "Eamglay", like, is this a reference I'm missing? that looks like it could be an Old English word... and Google helpfully clued me in that this is Pig Latin for "gleam", which then helped me decode the name of the bike Bea Wolf receives as her reward for vanquishing Grindle: "the steel-spoked stallion, the suburb steed: Azeblay, baron of bikes, brakeless and rocket-boosted." Oh, and the "Hwaet" is rendered as "Hey, wait!", which I thought was also cute. (There are other references to the original, on some of which the penny dropped for me, like a kid named Roger being in the Hrothgar role (a closer phonetic match than I noticed at first), and some of which I'm sure I missed, because I don't remember too many other names.) I also thought it was neat that, even in casting Mr Grindle as a horrible killjoy grown-up, the story occasionally acknowledges that the kids are not blameless in their predicament -- Treefort (~Heorot) overhangs his property, and they're mooching off his electricity for their entertainments. That was a bit of nuance I hadn't expected in a Beowulf-for-kids. I have fewer opinions about the art, but I thought the art (B&W but with a lot of details) was fun, an appropriate mixture of cartoonish and epic, if that makes sense. (You can see some examples of the art in this article.) I hope we get a second book finishing out the story (it's in the works apparently.)
I would've been wondering whether, given the Anglo-Saxon style poetry of the text, an actual kid could really appreciate this book, but I knew the answer going in, because the first I'd heard of this book was actually when bearshorty's daughters (who are in elementary school) read it and loved it, so apparently the answer is yes. There is a neat afterword explaining the history of the original story, Anglo-Saxon verse, weird Old English letters, alliteration, etc., which I also enjoyed enjoyed skimming, and that are pitched at an interested kid to enjoy. I kind of wish I knew a kid who was the right age and temperament to be a good audience for this, but I'm not sure if I do... maybe my friend R' son?
This is also the first of the Hugo-nominated things I read after they were nominated for a Hugo, so:
Hugo roundup: graphic novel -- Bea Wolf, Saga 11 (2/6)
And then I was like, hey, I enjoy looking at books of comics apparently, more than I enjoy reading hard copy books of only words at the moment, and remembered about some I've been meaning to read through:
14. Randall Munroe, xkcd, volume 0 -- giallarhorn gave me this book (from 2009), which neither of us realized existed before he saw it at the library sale. Randall himself seems to think it's a bit weird to have a book collecting comics you can read for free on the web, per the foreword, and there's a Creative Commons page instead of a copyright page, but it is actually a neat object to own. Some of these are long-time favorites I'm happy to be able to show people not on my phone (the "You're a kitty!" intelligence vs proximity to cat one, and the "My normal approach is useless here" which I have on an icon, and the eBay bobcat one that I introduced B too and which we reference a lot, fields arranged by purity (one of the first I shared with B because math is way over on the right) and the "pretending to be an expert in their field" one, and of course "someone's wrong on the internet" which I also have an icon of), and some I don't remember at all, though I must've read them because I scrolled back through all the xkcd archives at some point and have been reading it daily since. The mouseover text, where it's present, is included in the book as small print around the comic. I didn't try to follow the ciphers or QR codes or whatever, but there are some additional cute doodles in the margins, and the part that amused me the most, some additional info about comics reception, like how long it took people to point out an error, or reactions from people the comic was about, etc. One of those notes led me to go looking for actual sung versions of the "Boom De Yada" comic on YouTube, and my favorite of the ones I've watched is this one for, like, production values, but also there's this verions featuring a bunch of interesting folks (full credits here; I recognized Neil Gaiman and Wil Wheaton, and Hank Green and Cory Doctorow on rewatch, but needed the credits to figure out where the Nielsen Haydens were. And around page 1100 I noticed that the page numbers were in -- I thought it was binary at first, and then that it was base 3, but googling explains that it's skew binary, which I didn't even know was a thing. Anyway, I'm glad to own this collection, and glad I sat down and read it so I know what's in there.
And this is not related to the book, but between me looking at xkcd animations/songs and I think Lyorn-induced searching for versions of "The Modern Major General", YouTube helpfully supplied Every Major's Terrible (and then to this choir/live action version, which is really fun).
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That very long TV shows meme going around. I tried to combine several branches of it I saw.
+ Bold all of the following TV shows of which you've seen 3 or more episodes.
+ Italicize a show if you're positive you've seen every episode.
+ Asterisk if you have at least one full season on tape or DVD
+ Exclamation mark if it's an all-time fave.
+ If you want, add up to 3 additional shows (keep the list in alphabetical order).
24
The 4400
911
911: Lone Star
A League of Their Own
The A-Team
Abbot Elementary
The Addams Family -- I watched whatever was available in reruns over the course of a summer, but I doubt it was all the episodes. (Also The Munsters, but I liked that a lot less.)
The Adventures of Pete and Pete -- this was not one of the Nickelodeon shows I watched on purpose, but it was on after/between shows I did watch, so I'm pretty sure I've seen at least 3 episodes -- but not much more than that.
American Dad
American Dreams
America’s Next Top Model
The Americans
Angel* -- more than 3, but I stalled out in season 2. I do own at least one season on DVD, though.
The Andy Griffith Show
Another World
Arcane: League of Legends
Are You Afraid of the Dark -- similar to Pete & Pete, not a show I watched on purpose, and not my kind of thing at all, but I know I've seen several episodes, and pretty sure it was at least 3.
Are You Being Served?
Arrested Development -- one of those shows I'd watch whenever I came across it on TV and enjoyed it, but never made a concerted effort to follow.
Avatar: The Last Airbender (animated) !
The Avengers
*Babylon 5 ! -- watched in full, own the full set, one of my favorite TV shows of all time.
Babylon 5: Crusade -- pretty sure I watched what there was in full.
Batman and Robin
Batman: The Animated Series -- one of the shows I watched after school, but I don't think I've seen all of it.
Batman Beyond
Battle Creek
Battlestar Galactica (the original series)
Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Baywatch -- one of those shows that I've seen a few minutes of, then turned it off because I couldn't stand it
Beavis & Butthead -- see above
Beauty and the Beast
Beverly Hills 90210 -- my friend M was a huge, HUGE fan, and this was one of the defining shows of my generation, but I've seen a couple of scenes and a lot of ads, and avoided anything more
Bewitched -- not a lot more than 3, but I watched this when it was on Nick at Nite
Big Love
The Bionic Woman (1976)
Black Books
Blackadder -- I was introduced to Blackadder during my summer in Oxford and watched the whole thing immediately upon my return. It's not an all-time fave, though.
Black Harbour
The Brady Bunch -- I've watched an episode in full, I think, but not more than that.
The Brittas Empire
Blake's 7 -- a show I came to only recently, but watched in full, and am glad I finally did.
Bob's Burgers
Bonanza
Bones -- L has gotten into it, and I have read the books, but have never watched this beyond the ads that were on during House.
Bosom Buddies
Boston Legal
Boston Public
Boy Meets World -- never a big fan, but I watched this causally whenever I came across it, so doubtless more then 3 episodes. Topanga was cute!
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
*Buffy the Vampire Slayer ! -- no italics because I haven't watched "Seeing Red" or anything past that, but I think I can consider it a fave, and I do own the show in full.
Bug Juice
Burn Notice
Caitlin’s Way
Carebears
Carnivale
Catweazle
Charlie’s Angels
Charmed
Cheers
Chicago Medical
Chuck
The Closer
Code Black
Columbo
Commander in Chief
Coupling (UK)
Covert Affairs
Cowboy Bebop
Criminal Minds -- another thing L is a fan of that I've not tried
Crossing Jordan
CSI
CSI: Miami
CSI: NY
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Dallas
Dancing with the Stars
Dangermouse
Danny Phantom
Dark Angel
Dark Matter (2015)
Dark Skies
Davinci’s Inquest
The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd
Dawson’s Creek -- another thing that was huge in my generation that I never watched beyond the omnipresent ads
Dead Like Me
Deadwood
The Dead Zone
Degrassi: The Next Generation
Designing Women
Desperate Housewives
Dexter
Dharma & Greg -- this was one of those shows that I'd keep watching if I came across it, and I'm pretty sure I've seen at least 3 episodes, but not much more than that
The Dick Van Dyke Show
Digimon
Dinosaurs -- I was SO baffled by what the hell this was when we first encountered it, right after coming to the US. I don't think I've watched even a full episode though, let alone three.
Diff'rent Strokes
Dirty Jobs
Doctor Who (1963 - 1986)
Doctor Who (2005 - present)
Dollhouse
Downton Abbey
Dragnet
The Dresden Files -- I prefer the books to the TV show (and even the books I would say I'm only a grudging fan of, by this point), but I did watch the show. Holy cow, was that really as long ago as 2008! O.o
Due South
The Enemy Within
Entourage
ER
Eureka
Everwood
Everybody Loves Raymond -- watched some opening scenes because it was on after something I followed, but never bothered to sit through a whole episode
The Expanse -- I watche
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
Facts of Life
Fame
Family Guy -- not a fan, though
Family Ties
The Famous Jett Jackson
Farscape -- need to get back to watching it
Father Ted
*Fawlty Towers ! -- watched and rewatched this multiple times with the rodents -- it's one of my favorite comedies. I'm pretty sure we own some of it in some form, although I think it's CDs burned off old tapes that we got out of the library back in the day.
Felicity
*Firefly ! -- wishe there was more of it to watch and to own
Flash Forward
Fleabag
The Flintstones -- I've seen a handfl of episodes at least, despite not really being a fan
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
Forever Knight
Fraggle Rock -- oh man... I've watched some of it for sure, not because I was a fan but because it was on after/between other things I wanted to watch, but I doubt I've seen 3 episodes in full
Frasier -- I was briefly following this, mostly for Niles
Freaks and Geeks
Friday Night Lights
Friends -- I've seen a whole bunch of friends (it was another defining show of my generation), but stopped watching before the end and have never seen the last couple of seasons except in random snatches on airplanes
Fringe
Futurama -- I like it a lot, but stopped watching at some point, and have never seen the new episodes
Game of Thrones -- watched all of season 1, as a fan of the books, but lost interest after that. I have bought a DVD of it, but I think only as a present for my friend
Get Smart
Ghostwriter
Gilligan’s Island
Gilmore Girls
The Golden Girls -- I've watched an episode and bits of others, but don't think I've watched 3
Green Wing
Grey’s Anatomy -- O had watched the whole thing with/for a friend, but I've never seen any of it...
Grimm
Growing Pains
Hannah Montana
Happy Days
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe ! -- this is one of my all-time favorites for sure! But it was in the days before VCRs or TV recorders or any of those things, so while I watched this as religiously as I could, I'm pretty sure there are episodes I haven't seen.
Hercules -- assuming this is Hercules: The Legendary Journeys to go with Xena down below
Heroes
Highlander
Highlander: The Raven
Hogan’s Heroes
Hillstreet Blues
Homeland
Homicide: Life on the Street
House (M.D., I assume) -- watched several seasons religiously, got off the wagon in season 5
I Dream of Jeannie
I Love Lucy -- I watched an episode or two on Nick at Nite but won't swear to 3
Instant Star
Inuyasha
Invader Zim
Invasion
Invincible -- O is a big fan, but I haven't checked it out
JAG
Jackass
Jeeves and Wooster
Jericho
The Jetsons -- I've watched at least one episode, but not sure how many
Justified
Killing Eve
Knight Rider
Laverne and Shirley
Law & Order
Legend of the Seeker
Lexx
The Librarians
Life on Mars
Life With Derek
Line of Duty
Little Britain
Little House on the Prairie
Lizzie McGuire
Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
Loki -- watched the first season
Lost
The Love Boat
The Lucille Ball Show
Luther
M*A*S*H
MacGyver -- have seen parts of episodes, but never watched in full
Magnum PI
Malcolm in the Middle
Mama’s Family
The Man from U.N.C.L.E
Married... With Children -- I enjoyed this one, despite the very lowbrow nature
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
Melrose Place
MI:5 / Spooks
Miami Vice
The Mighty Boosh
Millennium
Miracles
Mission: Impossible
The Muppet Show -- I've not watched the actual Muppet Show, but I watched a lot of episodes of Muppet Babies
My Mad Fat Diary
The Mythbusters
Monk
Mork & Mindy -- I feel like I've watched 3 episodes on Nick at Nite, but not much more than that
Murphy Brown -- I've watched an episode or two, but I don't think I've seen 3
My Life as a Dog
My Little Pony
My Name is Earl
My So-Called Life
Mystery Science Theater 3000
NCIS
Nikita
The Nanny
North Shore
Northern Exposure
Numb3rs
NYPD Blue
The O.C.
The Office (UK)
The Office (US)
Once Upon a Time
One Tree Hill
Orphan Black
Out of This World (my addition) -- my friend R got me into this sci-fi sitcom. I won't swear I watched all of it via reruns, but I think I probably did. And it is, very indirectly, where my username comes from (the protagonist's high school sports team were the Hamsters)
Oz
Perry Mason
Person of Interest -- another one I need to get back into
Phil of the Future
Pokemon
Popular
Power Rangers -- oh man, I disliked this show, but I know I've hate-watched at least 3 episodes of it XD
The Pretender
Pretty Little Liars
Primeval
Prison Break
Profiler
Project Runway
Psych
QI -- a very recent addition to my list
Quantico
Quantum Leap
Queer As Folk (US)
Queer as Folk (UK)
The Real World
Red Dwarf
ReGenesis
Relic Hunter
Resident Alien
Rizzoli & Isles -- I read some of the books, though
The Rookie
Rome
Roseanne -- I have watched an episode or two but not more than that I think
Roswell
Sapphire and Steel
Saved by the Bell -- a show I watched religiously after school for a while, but I won't swear I have seen all of the episodes -- and definitely not all of the college ones. But a lot!
Scarecrow and Mrs King
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? -- I watched so much Scooby Doo... might even be all of it, between the random reruns, but I wouldn't swear to it
Scrubs
SEAL Team
seaQuest
Seinfeld -- I'm not a fan, but I know I've watched at least 3 episodes, just because it was on a lot on the channels I watched
Sex and the City
She-Ra: Princess of Power (1985) -- never watched the original one, but I did watch all of the recent version, which is great
Six Feet Under
Skins
Sliders
Slings and Arrows
Smallville
The Sarah Connor Chronicles
The Sentinel
The Shield
The Simpsons ! -- probably my favorite show of all time. I've not watched all of it, because at some point in the later seasons I stopped watching. But for a long time it was a weekly tradition, and we caught up on all the early seasons we'd missed. I don't think we ever bought DVDs of it, but we definitely own Simpsons swag, and books about the show.
The Six Million Dollar Man
The Sopranos
So Weird
South Park -- emphatically not my thing
Space: Above and Beyond
Spaced
Spongebob Squarepants -- I was exposed to this via the rodents and cousin D (who was a big fan), and have seen parts of episodes, but never watched it on purpose, so I don't think I've seen any full episodes
Sports Night
Star Trek
Star Trek: Discovery
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Enterprise
Stargate Atlantis
Stargate SG-1
Starsky and Hutch
Stumptown
Superman
Supernatural
Taxi
Teachers
That 70’s Show -- I was a low-key fan in the early seasons
That’s So Raven
3rd Rock from the Sun
Torchwood
Transformers
The Twilight Zone
Twin Peaks
The Umbrella Academy -- I watched two episodes of this, I think? and apparently never wrote anything down about it, but that's what Netflix's "Next Episode" record implies
Veronica Mars -- I watched one episode (in Belgium of all places) but didn't really click with it
Voltron (the original one from the 80s) (my addition, because Veronica was looking lonely) -- I watched a bunch of this in high school, and enjoyed it a fair bit despite having zero interest in anything Japanese or mecha. (Admittedly, I was basically in it for Prince Lotor.)
WandaVision -- I liked it a lot!
Weeds
Wellington Paranormal
The West Wing
Wheel of Time
Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? -- the game show, right? I might have even seen all of it, between reruns, but I wouldn't swear to it.
*White Collar -- I watched, chaotically, like most of four seasons of this? And ended up buying a full set of DVDs so that I could watch things in order instead of being at the mercy of what my library has, and then never watching it again. I should get back to it!
Wonderfalls
The X-Files
Xena: Warrior Princess -- I was following this dedicatedly for a while (and Hercules: Legendary Journeys) but then fell off the wagon in later seasons
X-Men: Evolution
Young and the Restless
*
Fannish goals check-in:
1.2 Submit at least 10 poems somewhere -- done but continuing to keep track. Currently at 14. I submitted a poem to a Grimm fairy tales anthology. I don't think anything will come of it as it's less horror than they're looking for, I think, but it was too close a match in subject matter to pass up without trying.
1.3 Submit at least one chapbook (or micro-chap) length manuscript -- Done, and accepted, and now I'm keeping track of progress towards publication (targeting early June). I've made no progress since last update on this (except inasmuch as getting a bunch of rejections is a kind of progress because I don't need to worry about how to juggle accepted poems that also appear in the chapbook), but I'm actually going to introduce a stretch Goal 1.3b:
1.3b Publish a children's book -- because my parents' friend R the artist has finished her physical art project and is now back to working on illustrating my Cricket poem, which we want to turn into a children's book (for fun/experience, not because it will make any money). To that end, we met at a coffee shop this past week to look at the set of sketches she did, and I really like the idea she's hit on for illustrations -- one of those things that are perfect but never would've occurred to me as a non-artist, and her critters are fabulous (and sounds like she watched a lot of YouTube videos of critters as research). Now that I have sketches, I need to actually refresh my memory on how to do layout and all the KDP stuff. And I think I can say I've done some "market research" by looking at a bunch of picture books on Amazon to figure out what number of pages is reasonable and what these things can retail for in full color, etc., and I watched a bunch of videos on children's book design, cover design, etc.
4.2.1 Read something from the "backburner" series where I'm still actively thinking "oh hey, I should catch up on that" -- Done, but continuing to keep track. Currently at 3. But I'm also reading The Thousand Eyes, the conclusion of ?duology? that starts with The Unspoken Name. I got to the second part, after the time skip, and got kind of distracted, and then the library wanted it back, so now I'm waiting for my hold to come in again.
4.2.3.1 Read a book I own in paper copy (physical TBR pile) -- In Progress. I'm reading Solutions and Other Problems, which I bought late last year. It's definitely not grabbing me / making me laugh as much as Hyperbole and a Half, but I was kind of expecting that based on other people's impressions.
4.2.5 Read a non-genre book (non-fiction counts for this) -- Done, but continuing to keep track (currently at 1= Bitch (nonfiction)). Reading Solutions and Other Problems, and also checked out Once Upon a Prime, a book about mathematics in literature, which I spotted at the local bookshop and was not quite intrigued enough to buy it, but enough to look it up at the library.
5.1 Read/watch at least 3 things from the updated "to try" list -- Done, but continuing to keep track. 4/3 complete, and now my progress is that I've checked out Vespertine, which I'd been looking to read for a while, and even read a few paragraphs. Still no progress on Leech or To Shape a Dragon's Breath.
6.1 Learn how to solve a new sudoku type or a new trick -- done, but continuing to track new rulesets/tricks: currently at 41. I solved this puzzle, which is sort of like sandwiches but with different enough logic that I think I can definitely count it as a new ruleset. I solved this puzzle, which involved masyu puzzle rules that I'd never even heard of before. I solved this doubler snake puzzle, and while I've done snake puzzles and puzzles with doublers before, I do think the combination of the two can count as a new ruleset, because I think in all my previous doubler puzzles, there was a limitation on the number of doublers, but not here. And this was a GAS puzzle with a new variation on equal sums. I don't necessarily enjoy these kinds of directional pointing variants, but I do think this puzzle with tritabs counts as a new rule, and the flow is a bit different from the variant where it just gives you clues to stuff around the edges. this puzzle is a combination of arrows and (reverse, kinda) slow thermos that proved to have some very fun logic, except that I kept invariably assuming the bulb of the invisible thermo was in the circle and pencil marking my arrows wrong and having to go back. Just how much trouble I had properly remembering how these worked I think allows me to count this as a new ruleset, lol. And I think this puzzle from the Sandra and Nala spring pack was my first time solving a Mobius strip puzzle onmy own. And this puzzle (parity counter line) I was able to solve on my own, without learning any tricks from CtC first, which is always neat. That's definitely not something I could've done even a year ago, I think. Solved this "kropki road" puzzle, which was a really neat variant on the kropki rule (making use of the negative constraint).
7.2 Cast a Hugo ballot -- Milestone: Voting has opened!
7.3 Read/watch at least 5 Hugo-nominated things I have not yet read (from any year and of any length -- Milestone: this year's nominees are out. Some things that would count that I either already have in my TBR pile or am otherwise looking forward to reading: Translation State (TBR pile), Amina al-Sirafi (would also count for book I got stuck in the middle of), Kingfisher's Thornhenge (meant to check out anyway), Bea Wolf (have been meaning to read, this was my reminder to put a hold on it), Unraveller (stuck in the middle), To Shape a Dragon's Breath (TBR pile). In Progress: 1/5 (Bea Wolf).