vilakins | What I've been watching

Only minor spoilers, I hope.

Chuck
After the many TV series recs I got from you lovely people, we've been on a Chuck spree (via our equivalent of Netflix) while still keeping up with the current series we watch. I think we're just about through S1. I like Chuck! I wasn't too sure about the relationship stuff that came up recently, not being a shipper but they handled it fairly well. I love the nerdy characters at the Buy More, and in fact I could just about watch a whole series set there. The show needs more Casey (Adam Baldwin) though. There's nowhere near enough, and I could do with more Anna too.

Big Bang Theory
I've seen about three eps of this one, and I really like the geek conversations, esp the ones about physics, having a degree in it myself. Their objections to that scene in Superman 1 where Lois falls and is caught? Exactly what I thought! I found myself yelling YES! and punching the air at times. However I don't like the girl in the apartment opposite whose characterisation implies that women are just not intellectual or interested in SF or geeky stuff. WRONG. Where are the female nerds (one of my major objections to Eureka which admittedly I'm behind on)? OK, they briefly showed us one in her lab, but there should be at least one in the group. And re that scene, which was otherwise gold? A laser would not heat noodles like that.

I will watch more. I also want to get hold of Defying Gravity.

Stargate Universe
I've only seen the first ep; more tonight! I found it rather confusing with a large cast of characters, but it seems promising. I like Eli a lot, esp him asking for a new pair of trousers, and his joy at the camera balls. I am puzzled though about how the series is going to handle being so far away from any civilisations seeded by the Ancients (as the explorer ships aren't crewed) that there won't be humans. Or maybe there are, and people were left with each stargate? At any rate, I can bet they all speak American. :-) So far the only characters who have made an impression are Eli and Rush; the military types are rather blurred. I'm looking forward to seeing how they manage on the planet they've arrived at.

Electric Dreams
This is a British doco series about a family living through the 70s, 80s, and 90s at a year a day. I usually loathe reality shows, but this sounded very cool, and it pretty much was. Their house was converted and decorated to match each decade, and each "year" (day) they were given new devices. I thought the 70s were the most interesting, forcing the family to live in quite a different way, and the 90s less so, probably because the pace of technological advancement was so great, deliveries happened several times a day and it was hard to see how they affected the family's lives.

Resident expert Greg gave an interesting home commentary, and has been playing simulated Commodore Pet games online since to relive his childhood. :-)

Things that struck me:

The kids actually adapted quite well; it was the parents who were frustrated and often angry.
The father was a right berk, sexist and arrogant. The gender divide that formed over the technology and computers really annoyed me.
Surely the 70s weren't that ugly? The decor must have been a parody. or maybe the worst never got here. My childhood homes were very tasteful compared to that. The worst I can think of is Mum having a brick wall covered in wallpaper with vine leaves on it, and the glittery pink wallpaper in our bedroom which she put up without consulting me or my sister, and to which I responded by choosing lime green curtains. The rest was pretty much standard off-white. No brown or orange at all, now I think of it.
Only 25% or British houses had central heating in the 70s and almost all do now. [hollow laugh] Only 25%? I'd say it's less than 5% here even now, and probably 0.05% for double glazing. :-( One place I lived in as a child had central heating, but that was a new and experimental house so advanced for the time, strangers used to take photos of it.
I don't remember the 80s having a lot of floral crap and Laura Ashley here either, though I admit the family had lounge suites disturbingly like the ones my mother had.
I had no idea that Mario and Sonic went that far back. Perhaps things were slow to get here. We did have a massive import tax.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

As I recall the 70's if you got new kitchen appliances, you wound up with avocado, harvest gold, or a muddy chocolate (rare, mostly it was avocado or gold). (Oh, wait, there was also a yellowish cream they called Almond, which was confusing as heck, because they also had an off-white they called Almond.)

I remember being sent on some brief holiday to visit relatives and coming back to discover that mom had *proudly* redecorated the 'girls' bathroom using peel and press carpet squares in mottled dirty sky blue (the texture was like soft Brillo) and peel and press wallpaper *squares* in yellow, orange and gold (I think it was some sort of scribbly floral). I spent a lot of time in that bathroom with my eyes shut.

Edited 2009-10-19 05:16 (UTC)

I do remember going to a friend's house, in the late 70s / very early 80s going by approximate age (I knew this girl for years) and her mother had lacy orange-and-yellow cafe curtains in the kitchen. :-P They were blinding. We just had off-white venetians, but they were those really wide ones which for some reason seem to be back in.

I didn't say, but what really upset me was the pink feature wall in the bedroom with ballerinas on it. I chose curtains to fight them with great abstract splodges of lime and yellow. :-) I think my sister liked them though.

Pink ballerinas? I'd have gagged. Mind you, I did have three little kittens painted on my bedroom wall for years, but my father had hand-painted them when I was tiny. And they weren't pink.

But that would be cool!

My mother probably got the wallpaper as old stock and dead cheap. She used to buy clothes she didn't like just because they were bargains, she had three food processors from garage sales and other duplicated stuff because "Look how much money I saved". And you'd have saved more if you hadn't bought them, mum.

Edited 2009-10-19 19:00 (UTC)

I admit to buying stuff I don't immediately need because it's on sale. Which is kinda why I have tons of fabric. I am trying REALLY hard to only buy what I actually need... but sometimes sale priced books or craft items do win me over.

Sorting through what I've already got does help me restrain my impulses. :^)

The Seventies were absolutely tasteless looking back on them. Mind so was every other decade this house was decorated in judging from the layers of wall paper I peeled off the kitchen walls, the 70s were represented by a geometric design in shades of orange,but at the time we loved them. The 50s/60s were a small climbing rose in pink and mauve. I give thanks that Mam and Dad didn't get a coloured bathroom suit the plain white one I still have is still fashionable. My friends in Newport that I cat sit for are stuck with a suit put in by the previous owners of their house. It's called Inca gold and would have gone very well with the 70s wall paper in the kitchen here.

Our bathroom fittings are original and white. One place we looked at had a yellow toilet. Bright yellow!

They didn't show the bathroom in the Electric Dreams house. Perhaps they left it alone since not much would have changed.

our home was pretty tasteful in comparison too, with only the odd thing that screamed 70s. Everything was painted cream, the carpet was a dark gold throughout (to hide marks and dog hair) etc etc

Oh yes, the dark gold carpet! I can't remember our carpets; they must have been fairly muted, but that colour was very popular here back then. My first flat had that, and I still come across it. I always called it mustard though. :-P

I think most places I lived were cream (like this house which has a 70s dark brown carpet in this room, yuck) or "magnolia". People said it was overdone but I still like it: plain walls you can show pictures on and have any coloured furniture with.

I'm a little bit ahead of you in Big Bang Theory, but I'm only watching an episode a week, so you will probably get ahead of me soon. And that's pretty much my reaction to Big Bang Theory, too - I love the geeky conversations - they feel exactly *right* to me, and remind me so much of actual conversations I've had with other people (and honestly, I can't get over how often they actually get the science right. Not always, of course, as you mentioned, but often enough to make me happy. You just don't expect them to get science right on TV shows!) - but I hate the implication that only men can be geeks, and I often don't like what they do with Penny. Also, a few of the episodes rely a bit too much to stereotypes that make me deeply uncomfortable.

I've heard that this does get better in later episodes, though, starting with the end of Season 1 on. I can't wait! And for now, I'm just enjoying the geeky conversations so much that I think I can live with the rest. *g*

That's pretty much how I feel: i'll try to suppress my annoyance at the sexism amd enjoy the geekiness. :-)

I'm enjoying SGU, it's nothing like SG-1 or SGA (which I think is why so many people don't like it) but it's not supposed to be. I just watched 'Darkness' ep 1.04, so I'm a little bit futher along. I'm fairly sure Eli and Rush will be my favorite characters, I never like the military characters.

I've seen them on the planet now, and it was very different and quite alien compared to all the medieval villages of SG1 and SGA. I hope we get the three back who went to one of the other planets (bad idea; surely they wouldn't support life as there's only a narrow band in each system that does). We need a few more woman on the ship and she seemed competent and useful.

I see a lot of people in the background like the red-haired woman who presumably are a pool for various plottiness. But yeah, a lot of the military guys all look the same to me, esp with short hair and those caps and sunnies on, and I keep getting confused between the commander and the lieutenant. Chloe doesn't exactly grab me; I have hopes for the medic being an interesting character.

So I'm liking it too. I might get to "Darkness" tonight. :-)

I like the icon!

I'm glad to hear you're enjoying 'Chuck'. And completely agree with you that they needed to show more of Casey. :o)

I must get back to Chuck and order more DVDs. The other characters are fun too, but Casey rocks.

What I've been watching

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject