Television and FB postings

[shadowkat]

1. Old college friend has been posting her journey through South Dakota on FB. She's been hiking a South Dakota national park trail for her friend's 50th birthday. I tell this to my mother over the phone.

Mother: South Dakota?
Me: Yep.
Mother: There isn't anything in South Dakota except Mount Rushmore and the Badlands.
Me: I guess they are hiking the trail to Mount Rushmore.
Mother: Your grandfather was born there...why would anyone?
Me: I don't know. Just that it's really cold there and they got snow, so it go adventurous.

Admittedly this is the same college friend who thought we posted something about tourists boycotting Iowa.

2. Finished watching Victoria on Masterpiece finally. It was okay, I liked the acting. But the writing..and pacing had problems. Frankly? It drug. We spent a lot of time watching people walk through hallways, cross-stitching in silence, wandering about the countryside, and staring at each other. I kept falling asleep. Also it made me aware of how frightfully irresponsible the aristocrats were...there was poverty around them, and here they are wandering around bored in this huge castle or palace with hardly anyone in it. Made it hard for me to feel sympathetic to their plight. I think they should have gotten rid of the downstairs bit, which was hard to follow or care much about.

It should have been closer in structure to The Crown and less like Downton Abbey.

3. Big Bang Theory made me laugh hard for the first time in a while. That ending was precious.
And I adore Mayim Balik's Amy. Her facial reactions are perfection.

4. Another college friend on FB posted that she was shocked that Alan Cummings had come out that he was gay. And how disappointed she was, because she'd been crushing on him forever.

Posters: Are you serious? I mean, it's sort of obvious...
Friend: yes, I thought he was just being British.

Me: How could you not know this? (I mean it's not like he hid or anything, and he came out ages ago.)
(Also as an aside, what does being British have to do with it? LOL!)


See? FB can be rather entertaining if you avoid the politics. Right now everyone appears to be. It's either a slow week, or they got burned out. Probably the latter.

5. Riverdale -- on the fence. I like Jughead, and find Betty weirdly interesting...so hanging around. Actually I love the cinematography. This thing is well shot. I mean it's just beautiful in places. The writing and acting unfortunately don't quite do it justice...but it could have just been a bad episode. (I've about 6 or 7 episodes behind.)

Comments

[cjlasky7]

Hee.

Do you how many dudes in my neighborhood were shocked, SHOCKED when I told them Freddie Mercury was queer? (See: music video for "I Want to Break Free.")

"Freddie?! No man, not Freddie!"

And how many young Jewish girls--including my sister--dreamed they could be the one for Barry Manilow?

Dreams die hard.

Sheldon's cross-country proposal was totally adorable. The BBT writers can be incredibly lazy (see: Raj and Stuart), but that was perfect.

[shadowkat]

See, this always puzzled me. When people told me ...oh, now that they are gay I can no longer fantasize about them. Or watch Rock Hudson or Richard Chamberlain, or etc...in an on-screen romantic relationship with a woman.

And I'm thinking:

1. yeah, right, even if they weren't gay, it's not like THIS was ever going to happen. Are you deluded? I mean, seriously?

2. Hello actors and singers, performers, why does it matter that they are gay or not? I can find George Michael and Freddie Mercury hot even though they are gay. But then, I don't have delusions of grandeur.

People are weird.

[shadowkat]

Or actually, a better response is...I never understood why it mattered. I mean, it's not like they were going to date you anyway. Come on.

[oursin]

Contrarywise, I once knew an American woman (from NY, and possibly something of a stereotype of a native New Yorker), who when she first met the man who became her husband assumed that he was gay, and only later went, Oh, British (and, speaking as a Brit myself, think probably issues of class, educational background, and so on went into that particular confusing mix).

[shadowkat]

People have an odd take on what makes someone gay. You can't tell unless they tell you or by who/what they are really into. Mannerisms tell you very little. I had a relative, who was definitely not gay, who was very effeminate in his manners, and I knew guys in college who were macho who were gay.

[ex_peasant441]

I fell asleep quite a lot during Victoria too. But it had something, though it's hard to say exactly what. I suspect a lot of it is I really like Jenna Coleman.

Also it made me aware of how frightfully irresponsible the aristocrats were...there was poverty around them, and here they are wandering around bored in this huge castle or palace with hardly anyone in it.
An unrealistic portrayal. That generation and their parents had had the spectre of the French Revolution and the Terror hanging over them all the time. They did a lot to ensure it didn't happen to them. And there certainly wouldn't have been hardly anyone around. The way to think of an aristocratic household is not as a private home but as the headquarters of a huge national corporation. The Royal household was a multi-national.

[shadowkat]

The Crown did a better job with this, I think. In that presentation, there were people always around, and no privacy. Victoria made it seem like they were living in an empty palace.

What kept me going was Tom Hughes...and Rufus Sewell. ;-)

[ex_peasant441]

I haven't had a chance to see The Crown yet, I'll have to wait for the DVD release and see if I'm sufficiently interested to fork out, but I've heard very good things.

Rufus Sewell is always worth watching. It is such a shame he never really got a big series of his own.

[cactuswatcher]

Hiking in South Dakota? Hmm, I'd immediately think of the Badlands before Mt Rushmore, unless they were hiking beyond the park. Mt. Rushmore park is rather small, almost cozy, but I suppose they could hike there if they wished. You could certainly go for hikes in the surrounding Black Hills National Forest. I don't know where it would be worse to be caught in a snow storm the Black Hills or the Badlands, both are pretty rugged. It would be easy to get lost either place.

[shadowkat]

Apparently it was The George Mickleston Trail or something like that, through Deadwood, and circling down through the Black Hills, ending in Mt. Rushmore.

Never heard of it. Found it odd that this was on the woman's goal at 50. But I'm admittedly an Eastern gal, not a Midwesterner...so there's that.