I didn’t think it had been quite so long since I updated here. Guess it’s time for another round-up.<\/p>\n
Work<\/b>
\nThe new library is almost done being built. It’s really exciting, but a bit worrying at the same time. Organization for the move does not feel very organized — we’ll see how smoothly it manages to go off.
\nI’m getting to work some extra hours until the move is over, which has been lovely and done much to improve my morale.<\/p>\n
The Economy<\/b>
\nSo far we haven’t been hugely impacted by this, thank god. Knock wood we won’t be, but it’s really frigging scary. Especially considering the economy wasn’t exactly going gangbusters for us non-rich folk in the first place.<\/p>\n
Republicans<\/b>
\nAsshats.<\/p>\n
Democrats<\/b>
\nNot doing so hot either.<\/p>\n
The Restaurant<\/b>
\nI got copies of the first two seasons of this UK reality series. As with many reality shows, the first season is much better than what came after, when they tweaked the format and got slicker production values. The premise is that pairs (they constantly refer to them as couples, but it is more two people with a pre-existing relationship ala Amazing Race, not all romantically involved couples) will be given a small restaurant to run. Each week Raymond Blanc and his sidekick judges pick out three pairs whose restaurant did not perform to the standard they would prefer and those people perform an additional food business related challenge to see which team will be eliminated. I found it hard to get into the show for the first few weeks, mostly because there were too many people still and it was hard to get a sense of what was really going on. By the second half of the series, though, things had improved a great deal. With fewer restaurants to cover, there was more information given about the individuals and we could really see what was going wrong and going right. The second season seems to have less interesting restaurant concepts (to me) and the people are duller. Plus, the format changes (the contestants do not all live together in a communal house, for instance) are not for the better.<\/p>\n
Victorian Farm<\/b>
\nThe description for this series made it sound like 1900 House\/Frontier House\/Colonial House\/etc., documentary style reality shows that were all over PBS a couple of years back. But as it turns out, it had a different aim entirely. The former series focused on taking average families and plunking them down in the past. They were forced to use the tools and wear the clothes of the age, but generally they attempted to use these things to recreate their usual lifestyle in terms of food and entertainment. The participants in Victorian Farm, on the other hand, were archaeologists and historians, who were excited and eager to really try to do things the way the Victorians had and quite revelled in being history dorks. They did not whine or freak out trying new things. They were also allowed to consult experts in the various tasks they were trying to do, giving the series a feel far less like Survivor and more like a documentary. After the series was over, I discovered that the same presenters had been involved in a similar series a few years ago about a Tudor-era farm. I am still looking for copies.<\/p>\n
Law and Order: UK<\/b>
\nI never thought this would ever come to anything. I’m so happy it did. I’ve read enough detective novels based in the UK that I feel semi-comfortable with their police system, but I’m completely at sea with their courts. Watching shows like this (the rare remake where the US version is the original) really brings home how much essential cultural information most series rely on their audience just knowing without even thinking about it. Information that won’t be and shouldn’t be explained because to do so would be stupid.<\/p>\n
Vesper Holly<\/b>
\nDid I talk about her yet? How did I not read these books 20 years ago? I was reading Lloyd Alexander; I got all the Prydain books in 5th or 6th grade, and I know I saw the Westmark books in the school library (I couldn’t get into them). But I don’t remember seeing these AT ALL. Why not?! A smart, fearless female character who travels and has adventures in the manner of Indiana Jones — all written by an author who won a Newbery medal. You’d think this would have been recommended all over the place. What happened and why are most of them already out of print now?<\/p>\n
Nintendo DS<\/b>
\nWe gave in and bought another one, and I think it was the right decision. We still don’t end up playing at the same time very often, but it was annoying to have to keep remembering to swap the games out, and I was always afraid the little games were going to get lost somewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I didn’t think it had been quite so long since I updated here. Guess it’s time for another round-up. Work The new library is almost done being built. It’s really exciting, but a bit worrying at the same time. Organization for the move does not feel very organized — we’ll see how smoothly it manages […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,1,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=847"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":849,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847\/revisions\/849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}