Reign, Bates Motel, The Maze Runner

Jade and I watched the pilot of Reign. It is completely ridiculous but... watchable, in a guilty pleasure way. I don't know what is with their decision to layer soaring music over every scene, sometimes forcing you to strain to hear conversations, but... at least the music is good?

Mary, Queen of Scots has always been a figure of fascination for me. I did several reports on her in school. I'm pretty sure history didn't go down the way it does on the show. :)))) The girl they cast to play young Mary (Adelaide Kane) was Cora Hale on Teen Wolf; so far she's very likable. The problem with that, of course, is that history tells us it's probably not going to work out.

Right off the bat, I have to say that her intended, Francis, does nothing for me. But that's okay, because it's so obvious that she's going to have a love triangle with him and his bastard half-brother. <3 That actor is much better than the Francis actor, but he's no Theo James.

Another show we've been watching that I really love is Bates Motel. Vera Farmiga is so awesome in it. It's hard to explain why I like the show, because the plot isn't very strong, but the characters are great (if not necessarily likable). As with my ship preferences in Breaking Bad, I'm totally into the mother/son relationship between Norma/Dylan (her normal older son from another relationship). Her baby is Norman, and their creepy relationship is a cornerstone of the show, but Dylan is the normal guy who represents the viewer, and I just want him and Norma to get along. <3 I also sort of romantically ship her with the sheriff of the town, played by the guy who was Richard on Lost.

I finished reading The Maze Runner, and while the world is for the most part interesting, the way the plot plays out and the conclusions that it comes to are kind of WTF. I'm not crazy about the main female character (who spends 2/3 of the book in a coma), but I like the protagonist. I have zero idea where the author is going with the ultimate "big bad," but more than that, I don't have much confidence that it's actually going to turn out to be any good. I'm interested enough to continue on to the sequel, but I feel like the strings holding the universe together are incredibly tenuous.

self control is for wussies

In this next installment of "As the Credit Card Swipes" we have my biggest ticket purchase of not just this recent insane shopping tear, but probably ever, in terms of something that wasn't a practical item, but was just something I wanted rather than needed:

Nikon D800 with 36.3 Megapixel, FX Format, Full HD 1080p Video



AND

Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G AF-S VR II Nikkor ED-IF Lens



At the time, I'd been talking with a new coworker of mine who has a great passion for photography and video. He has many side projects, including making his own documentaries, which he is really good at. He's self taught in video editing, and seems to have boundless energy. His other projects include certain popular podcasts, interviews/videos with Hollywood directors and actors, film reviews, etc., and all this has made him quasi-famous.

Anyway. All this is not to say that I have ambitions toward even a fraction of that. But it did inspire me to want to take my own high-quality photos and maybe make an amateur vid or two of my eating adventures, or whatever.

What was shocking (at least to me, in retrospect) was that I barely gave any thought to the purchases. Usually when I buy things, I spend a lot of time hemming and hawing over whether I should get it, whether it's for a good price, etc. I don't remember going through that thought process with this purchase at all. That right there should have given me a hint that perhaps all was not right in Sarea Brain Land.

Now that I've had a few months to cool off, I rather regret getting the D800. I'm totally unused to its controls, so I haven't even used it much, and besides, I had gotten a D5100 not that long ago, which for my purposes probably would have sufficed. All I really "needed" was the lens, but oh well, what's done is done.

By the way? Both items are incredibly heavy. The two together weigh over 5.5lbs!