ria_oaks

What the heck, let's start this challenge and see if I remember to update the post...

2012 : 500 episodes in one year
As the title suggests this is a challenge to watch 500 episodes of TV shows in one year. The only rule is that if you watch a certain episode more than once in a year you can only list it again if you haven't already listed it for that month.

Rewatches are in blue.

For my sanity's sake, I'm not counting episodes of The Daily Show/Colbert Report... not sure if they'd count anyway. Just assume I'm watching most episodes of both every week. :)

( Under the cut )

Rewatched the first ep of Sherlock tonight via Netflix on my shiny new flatscreen TV (which btw I am somewhat torn about, because on the one hand DVDs and such look great, especially my shiny new Lord of the Rings Extended Edition Blu-Ray set, but regular TV looks worse than I expected it would... I should probably upgrade to getting HD channels, but then I'd have to trade in my poor old beloved TiVo (damn the lack of new TiVo in Canada!) and get a shitty Shaw PVR. So, conflicted. But it's nice and big and shiny at least!).

Anyway. Right, Sherlock - am preparing myself for the upcoming second season premiere on Sunday by rewatching the first season, since it's been almost a year and a half since it first aired (wow!). It's neat watching it again having just seen the new movie, since it's fun to compare the two adaptations. So different in so many ways, but they both work. I mean yeah the movies are pretty silly, but they're fun and the characters are basically recognizable even if they differ from the originals quite a bit. I'm also making it my goal to read more of the originals - I've only ever read the first story collection (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes), and none of the novels. Dropped by the library last week and they only had Hound of the Baskervilles, which I picked up and finally got around to starting tonight. I forgot how funny the stories actually can be - I can definitely see where both new adaptations got various bits of characterization from, even as they changed the character as well.

Will probably re-watch eps 2 and 3 on Saturday and/or Sunday. Tomorrow night is Doctor Who Christmas special at Fontana's, woo! Already watched it the other day of course (very much enjoyed it!) but it'll be fun to watch with the gang.

Speaking of Christmas, it was great overall. ( Christmas ramblings )

ALSO, for my birthday my awesome Grandma made me this awesome Battlestar Galactica-inspired hat that I asked for since it's knitted and I only know crochet. Love it. :)

Anyway, on a random completely separate note (the actual reason I started this post, then I got side-tracked): meme time! Gacked from a few places.

( Meme under cut )

Ok, time for bed now...

White Collar season 3 tonight! Woooo! Just in time, because all my other American shows are over and DW just finished on Saturday. WC is all I'll have for awhile... well, until Torchwood starts in July. I'm psyched for this season. I'm not really spoiled at all, just some general stuff about whose backstory we're getting/what character-centric eps there will be, all info that was in interviews right after s2 ended. But that info's got me excited. :)

Other TV stuff: I'm finally watching Castle. Yeah, been meaning to for awhile. Am in season 2 - just watched the Halloween ep with the infamous Firefly shoutout last night. I'd seen that clip online already ages ago, but it was still hilarious. I'm really enjoying it so far, anyway. Nathan's entertaining as hell, and Beckett is awesome and sexy. :)

Other general stuff... went to see "Midnight in Paris" with mom last night, which was excellent. If you have at least some familiarity with early twentieth century writers/artists/etc then it's hysterical. I know enough to have recognized most of the references/people, at least to some extent. It's very well done and worth seeing. We went to a restaurant beforehand and watched the game over dinner. Had to leave for the theatre at the end of the 2nd period, but well. That was really all we needed, anyway, by that point. (they were losing 3-0 when we left, and then we walked to the theatre and I overheard someone say it was 4-0. Then I checked my phone partway into the movie and my jaw dropped because really? 8-1? That's just pathetic. I have co-workers who went to Rogers Arena last night to watch it on the big screens they have set up for the away games, and they said people were steadily leaving during the 3rd period.)

Oh well...we're still ahead in the series. It's fun watching how crazy Vancouver's become, anyway - like renaming anything that has 'Boston' in it to 'Vancouver'. XD I definitely did a double take when I first walked by the Boston Pizza near my apartment last week only to see the usual banner replaced with one where 'Boston' is crossed out and replaced with 'Vancouver'. ^^ Also when I went to Tim Hortons the other day and spent about a minute or so trying to figure out what a 'Vancouver Cream' donut was and why the name was in Canucks colours, before it clicked...

And okay, since the time I wrote most of this post, I took a break to eat dinner and then watch White Collar. Yay show is back! Anything more is spoilery, and I'm lazy. It'll be interesting to see where this season goes...

Gah, I haven't exactly posted much recently, have I? Between work (publisher stuff, haven't actually gotten a travel job yet) and my last few weeks at school I've been pretty busy. I suppose I should make a proper update post (short version: finished school last week, got a bunch of deadlines so am really busy with work, and am theoretically starting to apply to travel agencies/tour companies), but really I just wanted to post this...

Gemini 2010 Awards - Vote for the best Canadian TV show of the past 25 years
http://www.favetvshow.ca/

Mom sent it to me and told me to vote for Degrassi, because her oldest friend (who I've stayed with when I visited Toronto a couple of times) is a Supervising Producer on the show. Thank god you can vote for multiple shows, heh, because both Due South and Slings & Arrows are on the list and I'm all for supporting a friend, but.. I've never even seen an ep of the show. And truth be told, while it'd be nice if it won for her sake, I so very much want Due South to win. It deserves it, dammit! Actually, Slings & Arrows probably deserves it the most, but that's not going to happen...

Anyway, you can vote either with a Facebook account or by quickly registering, and you don't have to be Canadian. So go, vote. :) The winner will be announced at the Gemini Awards on November 13th. First time I'll ever actually WATCH the Gemini Awards, heh, or at least some of it.

Lesse, other stuff. My one line summary above pretty much sums up my RL stuff right now, so let's talk about the new TV season! So exciting! (no spoilers here, no worries, just very general comments) Chuck season 4 premiere last night (and did we ever expect to see that, really?? So many near-cancellations...), which was muchly entertaining. Series premieres of Hawaii Five-0 and The Event last night, both of which I generally enjoyed. My familiarity with Hawaii Five-0 mainly comes from vague recollections of my dad watching it when I was a kid, and watching an ep of it a couple of months back because he recently bought one of the DVD sets. So I have some prior conceptions of it, but could basically enjoy it on its own terms. I enjoyed it, anyway, it was lots of fun. The Event was intriguing enough, so I'll tune in next week and see...

Glee premiere tonight, which was generally entertaining. That's about it for my Tuesday nights, other than a few new shows I might check out. Looking forward to Thursday for The Big Bang Theory! And Community. My interest in 30 Rock/The Office is waning, but I'll still tune in... then Friday's the big one. ^__^ Can't believe season 6 is already here. Sometimes I can't quite believe that we even GOT to season 6, especially considering that season 5 was always meant to be the last one. I know a lot of people have had reservations about s6, but based on spoilers and trailers... I think it'll be pretty epically awesome.

Oh, and in not-really-related news, anyone got one grand they can give me to fly to DC at the end of October? XD XD God I want to go so bad... I can get pretty cheap airfare from Seattle (like, $340 inc. tax, albeit in USD, and the roundtrip bus ride to Seattle is only $100) and could share a room or get a cheap hostel or something, but.. I can't really justify it unless I get an actual job in the next few weeks. Not sure if I'll be getting more work from the publisher after I finish this stuff, so I can't risk it. Butbutbut... it'd be SO freaking cool to go. And I could see DC, since I've never been there. If I actually had a decent amount of money and time I could do a proper trip along the east coast, go to New York again and such, but that def won't happen. Still... wish I could go to DC for the rallies, at least. Oh well. I imagine they'll air clips on their shows, anyway. And I can read live Twitter feeds.. woo hoo...

Okay, suppose I should go to bed now. Up early tomorrow to... work some more. Yawn. And then quettalinde's birthday dinner in the evening, so yay!

bleh, annoying day... not feeling that great, and I had to go get new glasses because mine broke on Wednesday (woe.). I've been holding them together with duct tape, but... anyway, long story short, I ended up having to get an eye exam late this afternoon to update my prescription, which was a pain in the butt. Have nice new glasses now, though, so yay. :) Still feeling kinda icky, though... sorry I couldn't make your party, garran - by the time I was done getting my glasses at about 5:30 I was kinda pooped and it was getting late... figured I would prob be missing dinner, anyway. Happy birthday, though!

Anyway, other than that... had lunch out then went to the North Van City Library which has moved to its new building since I was last there. I was running because I had to catch the bus to get to my eye appt at 4, but I managed to grab the two things I went for (Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns which I've been wanting to read because I know it's a classic and I want to read more Batman, and WOW they have an entire graphic novels section and it is pretty sweet - much better than at the Vancouver City Library, which you'd think would have a good selection... anyway, also picked up Anderson Cooper's book to read because dammit fakenews fandom is eating my BRAIN this past week and I'm slightly obsessed now. -_-) And trying to imagine the look on my mom's face if I told her I've been reading Anderson Cooper porn. XD XD Yeah. Could be funny, anyway... But yeah, this fandom is addicting. ^^ Though I've discovered, much to my disappointment, that I don't get MSNBC unless I get Shaw's Digital TV package, so I can't watch Keith Olbermann. :( :( Why get me addicted to a new fandom when I can't even watch the shows?? *pout* So yeah, I'm sad. On the plus side, Anderson was on Leno Thursday night and it was pretty entertaining (I LOL-ed when they were talking about that reality show that he's watching right now, and they showed a picture of his favourite girl on the show and Leno was all "I can see why you like her" (referring to her... assets), and Anderson so totally did not react or even really acknowledge it. So much for not openly admitting that he's gay, lol. Anyway. I was amused.). Oh, and Bill O'Reilly on The Daily Show the same night? Pretty hilarious. He and Jon were fairly civil at first, then it totally devolved into a near-yelling match when they started talking politics. XD (also, he seriously honest to god thought that stuffed bear was a panda? Good god, what planet is this man living on?). Gotta say, I'm glad we don't get Fox News up here - that man is scary. o.o

...yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm a bad, bad person. I'm going to the Special Hell. ;) I haven't even watched half of my shows this past week because I was too busy reading fic (so on that note, don't tell me what happened on Supernatural!! Or PB, T:tSSC, or Grey's).

ON ANOTHER NOTE.

( Christmas Wishlist )

Oh, and a completely separate and random request.. does anyone have a copy of/a link to the episode of The Colbert Report with Keith Olbermann as a guest? Can't find it anywhere... it aired March 14th, 2006 if that helps.

*happy sigh* I'm getting to the end of Babylon 5 season 2, and yeah, I'd almost forgotten just how damned good this show can get. Just finished watching "The Long Twilight Struggle" and cried my way through the last 20 minutes. ;) (seriously, G'kar's "we will be free" line as he leaves the council chambers at the end... breaks my heart every time. And Londo's little cough in that same scene - foreshadowing ftw!) Also whimpered my way through "Confessions and Lamentations" and "Divided Loyalties" last night - "we'll meet again in the place where no shadows fall" gets me every time. I love those two... Next episode, "Comes the Inquisitor" - sweet. Always loved that episode. Some good J/D stuff, too. They're definitely one of my favourite canon pairings out there... not in an "I want to read fic" type of way, more of a "theirloveissoepic!" type of way (I feel similarly about J/A in Farscape, but for different reasons).

Anyway... almost up to s3! S3-early s4 is probably the absolute height of the series (I love the first 6 eps of s4; after that, when it moves to the Earth conflict storyline, I'm not as into it until the end of the season). I didn't go into this really expecting to rewatch the entire series, but... it just kinda happened. ;) Once I'm finished with it, and once school is over and the rest of this season of TV has returned and gone, I'm going to do some catch up. There's a place on the island that rents TV shows for $2/disc/week, and he's got quite a lot. Course, he's missing the stuff I really need now, like Scrubs s6... -_- Oh wells. But I'm thinking of renting Homicide: LotS from him (though he's missing s5, damn) and finishing that off. And maybe Arrested Development, which I've been vaguely meaning to watch for ages.

*peers through her 4 B5 icons and tries to decide which to use* I was split between my G'Kar icon and my Londo icon, both of which are so appropriate for the ep I just watched, but settled for G'Kar. They both broke my heart in that ep, though - I have so much kudos for that show for being able to make me cry for both the victim and the perpetrator, and for blurring those lines between them in so many ways. As sorry as I felt for G'Kar watching that ep, as I watch what Londo is doing and think of where his character will go... yeah, forget it, I'm gone. XD

So... computer's been taken to a guy on the island who fixes computers; hopefully will be done by tomorrow... will probably cost ~$180. ;__; He'll have to backup my harddrive then reinstall Windows. Le sigh. So far now, using my iPod and my parents' computers to check email and such. On Dad's computer right now because it's too damned hard to write a long post on my iPod (I tried and gave up). Alternating between Oscars and FFXII right now; v. exciting... FFXII is on in the background level raising in the Nabreus Deadlands. I've got my gambits set up to pretty much automatically kill a ton of spawning skeletons; I just have to pop in occasionally and move the characters around to get more skeletons to spawn. Trying to get everyone up to level 60, then will go complete the hunts needed to open the bat-level-raising area of Henne Mines (already have 10 Espers). Oscars have been typically not that interesting, same old same old... yet oddly compelling and entertaining. ^^ I got a bit choked up seeing Heath's name in the 'In Memorium' segment.. sigh. Anyway, I really wish I could have a split screen for this - instead I'm just switching between the Oscars and my video input to check how my characters are doing and to poke them around. Up to a 500+ chain so far. :) And aaalmost level 60 for all - got my first 3 characters up to 60, and almost there for my second three.

Kinda bored, really... least the interesting awards are coming up. And soon as I hit level 60 for my lats 3 characters I'm saving. So sick of watching my characters level in this area. o.o Least I don't have to do much of anything; yay for the gambit system!

Spent the evening watching Farscape with garran... 2.19-2.22, Liars Guns & Money pts 1-3 and Die Me Dichotomy. End of s2 are among my favourite eps in the series. Some brilliant stuff in those episodes, and some fantastic acting by Ben Browder (as usual). ( Spoilers only up to end of s2 )

I want to watch 3.1 now.. I'm blanking on how some of it went down, and I'd like to see it again. Fortunately I now own s2 and 3, so can watch anytime. ^__^ (okay, I had burned copies before, but now I own them legally. Yay!) I also want to watch the Die Me Dichotomy commentary with Ben, Claudia, and David Kemper. Since I own the DVDs now I want to enjoy all the extras. ^__^ And might re-watch "Won't Get Fooled Again" then watch the commentary for that, too. I'd like to do a semi-rewatch of s3, maybe... like, 3.1, 3.3-4 maaybe, 3.6, 3.8, 3.10-11, 3.14-15, 3.17... yeah. And then straight to the end of the season. Dammit, that's like the entire thing, isn't it? I was trying to think of the best eps, but they're almost all good lol. So much for "highlights of s3". ^^;; Anyway, not sure if I'll bother. I've seen them all several times, and not that long ago (last year) and I'm a bit Farscape-d out after tonight (is that blasphemy? But I've seen 2.19-21 quite a few times and I was starting to get a bit twitchy by halfway through 2.20 even though I enjoyed them overall). Anyway, for now I'm going to stick with rewatching Babylon 5, and rely on my memories and maybe some carefully chosen re-watches of FS for my paper. Which I'm still looking forward to - I got "Investigating Farscape" by Jes Battis (who, incidentally, teaches English at SFU! How cool is that? Makes me wish I could go take a class at SFU. If I had another year to go on my degree, I'd seriously consider it, but no point anymore) out of the library and have been greatly enjoying it. Total geek fest for my inner academic and TV fan. XD XD Yeah, I get a ridiculous amount of enjoyment out of reading about and discussing the gender politics and shit of Farscape and whatnot.

Anyways, speaking of Babylon 5 - I blasted through the end of s1 over the last couple of days and have watched the first 2 eps of s2... ( thoughts on end of s1/start of s2 of Babylon 5. inevitably will have spoilers for whole series )

Ramble ramble... okay, I'm done. :) Missed Prison Break and The Sarah Connor Chronicles tonight, but they're both taped and ready to go. Will watch them tomorrow night at my grandparents' place most likely - off to class tomorrow. How exciting. (okay, I'm actually quite enjoying the class... and hopefully will get to finally talk to my prof tomorrow about my paper). Also planning to go to the library to pick up a couple of academic books on Seinfeld cause I'm a GEEK ya'll. But I was watching it last night and thinking that I've never read anything on the show, and am curious what has been said about it academically. So of course I set off online to see what was available, and found two books at UBC about it. Yays.

Better head to bed now.. tired. *yawn*

I'm watching old music videos and getting nostalgic for various shows. First I'll watch an Oz vid and go "awww, Chris/Toby, I miss you boys and your sexy dysfunctional love...", then I'll watch a Farscape vid and go "wee, I can't wait until my DVDs get here so I can rewatch you and take notes for my essay on gender roles next term!", then I'll watch a Buffy/Angel vid and think "fuck I miss those shows a lot", then I'll watch my favourite B5 vid and think "oh my god that was a ridiculously good show, I should watch it again".

All of this has led to me being indecisive about what to watch right now (I feel like watching something I haven't seen in awhile). Which led me to making a post about how I'm indecisive, because I figure that's what Livejournal is for.

*ponders what to watch* I started rewatching Angel awhile ago, so I could watch ep2... or just skip to ep3, because it's better and has Spike in it. :) Cept now I randomly want to rewatch B5. I also started rewatching that last year, got to ep3... and was powerfully reminded of how much better the show was later. *sigh* Could skip ep4 and watch "Parliament of Dreams”, because that ep never gets old. :)

Oh, I also watched an old SV vid (Lex/Clark, back in the good ol’ days when they spent every episode staring longingly into each other’s eyes, and featuring various QaF clips with very obvious lightflares blocking out Brian and Justin’s faces. Amusing.) and it made me think that I should watch s7 over the impending TV hiatus. I mean hell, who knows when we’ll get new eps of anything, I might as well spend the time watching other stuff.

OH, and then I watched an oold Final Fantasy vid that made me nostalgic for like the entire series and made me want to replay various games.

And I still want to replay Xenogears. Better not watch that Xenogears vid I have on here. o.o

This is a pointless post. -_- I’m going to go have a cookie. And find something to watch.

Only a few hours left until the red carpet! Then Emmys at 8! Oh yeah. :) Am kinda ridiculously excited, considering that as usual the things I wanted to be nominated weren't, and as usual the ones that I want to win won't. But oh well, I'm still looking forward to it. If anything, I like seeing all the actors... looking forward to seeing the Losties (for the small part of me that still cares), the Heroes cast, evidently Wentworth is there even though he and PB aren't nominated afaik, Hugh and the other House cast, of course, and lesse... various others. The FNL cast (finally got my FNL DVDs and am enjoying finally seeing the rest of the series). Wonder if Jared and Jensen will be there? Dunno if SPN got any nominations, probably not.

Anyway.. before that, I have to do some work for Mom, joy joy. Sigh. So what am I doing? Sitting on the couch watching Friends and posting on LJ. Productive, no?

Oh yeah, and I watched the first episode of Reaper - very entertaining. :) Adding it to my list of things to definitely check out this fall.

Also, here's a sketch of J.D I did last night. Getting very addicted to Scrubs... and J.D./Cox fic. *cough* Gonna try to draw Cox next.

( Drawing under cut )