It Started with a Journal

I am slowly surfacing from my Clint/Natasha coma, by which I mean I am able to once again do things and be interested in stuff that doesn't involve them. I still mostly want to spend all my time with them, but at least it's not an exclusive relationship anymore. *snicker*

I did watch GoT 2x8 'The Prince of Winterfell,' but I barely remember anything about it, other than that it's probably the last time I'll see one of my favorite characters. :/ My lack of memory is partly due to the BlackHawk haze, and partly due to the fact that I had a really bad tummy ache when I watched it. That, my friends, is the price of gluttony. I seriously thought I might have to go to the emergency room. The only thing that stopped me was the idea of telling people that I had done it to myself by eating too much. >< ( Cutting the shameful story, might be kinda TMI. )

I also finished The Good Wife, season 3. TGW is one of those shows that I shouldn't like. It's on CBS, which is like, the most boring network ever, it's a procedural, and it stars Julianna Margulies, who I don't particularly care for (and never have, even on ER). And yet. It is a REALLY good show. The case-of-the-week plots of the weekly eps are almost always interesting and well written, while advancing the non-case-based plots, and it's well acted. It helps that I love both Josh Charles and Matt Czuchry, but they're honestly not the defining reason why I like the show. The only other person I know who watches TGW is corianderstem, which is weird considering it has like 10 million viewers (if only so many people could have been cool enough to watch Community). Anyway... ( my thoughts on The Good Wife S3. )

Oh, and of course the Other TV Thing I had to shoulder this past week... Dan Harmon being fired as showrunner of Community. The first thing I did was scream and rage and call both NBC and Sony a bunch of frickin idiots. The second thing I did was very similar to the first thing. The third thing I did was feel glad that there's at least going to be a final 12 episodes at all. Here's the thing. I feel strongly that when you take a smart, funny show that appeals to a small, select group of people because they all share in and appreciate that kind of humor, to then remove the guy who brought that vision to life, in order to make it more "broadly appealing," all you're going to do is ruin what it is, alienate existing fans, and not succeed ANYway, especially if you also combine it with moving the show to Friday evenings. But whatever. They have their reasoning, and Vulture has been able to lay some of those reasons out objectively in these two articles. Because I am a reasonable person, and because it seems they're trying to retain some of the writers (like Megan Ganz), I can now see where the other side is coming from, and I will give S4 a chance. I want it to succeed. But I pretty much think that by getting rid of Dan they're changing what the show is, and I just don't know if I would enjoy Community-lite. I do hope they prove me wrong -- but again, even if the show maintains its quality and awesomeness, they're not helping it with its current slot, so in that way they're dooming it ANYway. In which case, they might as well have either canceled the show outright or brought Dan back to run the final 12 eps.

And because this would not be my LJ if I didn't include some Clint/Natasha prettiness, here we go:


From here.

Soooooo I finished City of Lost Souls. It's one of the best "middle" books I've ever read... and in YA, potentially the best. Middle books -- or maybe I'll even say, second books in a series -- tend to be some of the weakest. It's sort of treading water in between the beginning and the end, and consequently not much happens. TOTALLY not the case with CoLS. :D ( Major spoilers! )

Last night I went to a PCC Cooks class... except it was less a cooking class than it was that they served us dinner. It's the first time I've ever done anything through PCC Cooks (which K. loves), so I didn't realize the distinction, I guess. It was good, but not worth the $50 I paid, even with the recipes they gave us. :/ I mean, the theme was "Madame Butterfly," the cuisine was Japanese, and it was REALLY simple. Nothing I couldn't have looked up how to make elsewhere, and with it being so simple, there wasn't a ton of technique to learn either. We started with a lovely dashi soup, followed by seared ahi tuna and shrimp tempura, followed by teppan-style filet mignon (TWO CUBES, so it's not like the portions were all that generous), followed by cherry sorbet and an almond pirouette. Each course was also accompanied by a wine pairing, a teeny amount that was just right for me. When I realized there would be wine I took a Zantac, which helped me not turn into a total lobster. (There's a tip for those of you who tend to get the "Asian flush"!) In a way it was a good thing that there wasn't a lot of hands-on stuff involved, because I wasn't really feeling up to it. I've been dragging a lot lately. :/

Awesome news... Community's been renewed for 13 episodes. I'm trying not to be bummed that it's only 13 eps, but imho they'll only order more eps if ratings improve, and there's no reason to suspect that they will. Sigh. Everyone should be watching this fantastic show!

If all goes well, tomorrow there will be Boiling Point with adelagia, Tilth brunch on Sunday, and hopefully The Avengers w/ K. sometime during the weekend. Wheeeeeeee!

I don't really have a ship on Community, but if I did, it would be Jeff and Annie. They're just freaking adorable. I'm so glad the show got off the Jeff and Britta bandwagon, and I'm pretty happy with where Jeff and Annie are right now. In a way, if they actually got them together, it would "ruin" it. So yeah, they're great right where they are.

That said, this fanvid totally makes me squeeful. It makes me want to write fanfic. It makes me want to participate in Community fandom in a way that I don't right now. Isn't that what the best fan-made art does? Anyway -- Jeff and Annie. Enjoy the cuteness!

Starting to watch American Horror Story right before bed -- not my best idea. I love the show, but it is freaky. It's not scary, which I think I could handle better. It just takes your mind into these creepy corners that kind of freaks me out. I was dreaming about it all night.

I hate the stock market. I don't have the right personality for it. I'm unhappy no matter how things go. If I sell at a good price, I am bitter if the stock price goes higher. If I don't sell at a good price, I am bitter that they're so worthless. It's totally a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario. What's prompting this is that I have some stock options that are about to expire, and I'm totally stressed out over them. I sold some earlier, but am bitter because the stock went up after that. Now I'm bitter because the price is down from Friday. If I could be the sort of person who was happy at selling at a decent price, I could totally play the stock market. But I'm not. Thankfully my last set of options expire in July, so after that I won't have to worry about it anymore.

Now for more complaining. I don't know if anyone else has been through this, but it's REALLY annoying when you make a donation to a charity and they don't do all they can to maximize the funds they get. Example: Back in October, I made a donation to the Wildlife Conservation Society. My company matches up to a certain amount in donations per employee each year, and all the receiving organization has to do is confirm that the employee donated money to them and how much. Doesn't sound that hard to do, does it? No, and I know it's not, because of all the charities I've donated to over the years, not one of them has ever had any challenge in doing this. Until this year, with the Wildlife Conservation Society. In December, I received an email from the matching gift team saying that my donation still hadn't been confirmed. I contacted (by phone) the WCS, and spoke to a very nice person who said that they would get that taken care of and get back to me. I learned today that it STILL hasn't been done. And time is a problem, because if they don't confirm within 90 days of the donation being made, the matching gift request is closed -- they won't get the matching funds. In this case, they have 8 days. To do something so simple!! Which they haven't been able to do in the last 3 months!! If they don't confirm my donation so that they can get the matching amount, I'm never donating to them again. It's not like it was a huge amount or anything, but doesn't every little bit count? Especially when you can double it with very little effort? Plus, it doesn't exactly speak well of their competence, does it? If they can't do something so minor to get free money for their organization, either because they are too lazy or incompetent, what does that say about their efforts for wildlife? Obviously, I think preserving wildlife is a hugely worthy cause -- I'll just have to find another organization to make my donations to, one that I know will maximize contributions to its cause. I'll just regret that I gave money to them this year, since another worthy cause would have doubled it. ( This is the email I wrote the WCS today. )

I feel kind of bad being harsh with a charitable organization, but COME ON!

Other than American Horror Story, I've also seen everything that's aired of S3 of Community. God I love that show. "Remedial Chaos Theory" has to be one of my fave episodes of the show now. OMG when it was Troy's turn to get the pizza, rofl. I've watched the first episode of Misfits S3. It's weathering Nathan's absence fairly well, I'll give them that, but only because the new guy is interesting. Other than Kelly, the old characters have so far been boring/lame. Also! I've seen the first episode of the new season of Sherlock, "A Scandal in Belgravia." SO. GOOD. Even though I totally complained about how long it took them to get S2 to us, it's worth the wait. ( Some spoilery comments about Sherlock and this ep though. )

I've also started reading Deathnote, which adelagia recced ages ago. It started off really slow, but I'm in a groove with it now. I'm near the end of volume 3, and unfortunately I don't have volumes 6 or 7 so that's gonna suck. But wait! I have them on the hold list at the library! And now I'm #1! Oh I love being able to freeze holds. ( Spoilery thoughts. )