Bearshorty's musings

For the first time in maybe half a year I actually watched Monday’s TV live. First “How I met Your Mother (HIMYM)” and then “House.”

I have been keeping up with “HIMYM” online but I was mostly bored with it and in the first half of this evening’s episode I switched to HBO and Harry Potter during the commercial and didn’t care to go back. The show seems to mostly stay in place and it is just not interesting anymore. I don’t think I’m coming back for it next season.

I need to catch up to about 4 episodes of ‘House’ and I don’t really care. I do like House and Wilson interaction in the latest storyline but that is about it – the rest, the patients just leave me indifferent. I will watch the finale, of course, and I will probably catch up to the episodes I missed by having them run in the background while I’m doing something else but I’m glad the show is ending. It used to be a must watch for me but I really stopped caring.

In fact, this TV season has the lowest number of shows that I follow or that I watch live. There are only three that I watch as they actually air and that I get excited about: Glee, Community and Grimm. I’m still surprised by how much I got into Glee this year after two years of indifference and occasional watching. Community is the funniest comedy around and Grimm is my favorite new show and I adore it to pieces and it just keeps getting better and better.

Modern Family and Grey’s Anatomy are shows I like that I usually watch online after they air. HIMYM is the show I do watch online but reluctantly. And House I kind of watch online now, but not really. I gave up on Bones in April when I realized that I just didn’t care anymore and I don’t miss it at all. But that’s it.

At least summer is coming up with the crack that is True Blood, SYTYCD and Burn Notice. I’m done with Leverage and I don’t even remember other shows. I haven’t even finished last four episodes of Dexter Season 6. (And I will watch Borgias all at once on Demand probably).

( Grimm S1E5-6 )

I’ve had a ridiculous amount of déjà vu today from teaching and music and conversations to story reading. Even stuff I know I never read before. This is really weird. Three, four times today at least.

Turns out there is a new edition of Expos book this year! Good thing it came to my attention today. I basically figured out my readings from next semester after I borrowed the department’s book. I need to make my way to the main campus next Friday and pick up a copy for myself. I think I will start with Carr article on how Google is making us stupid – something for students to respond to.

Since my writing students started their day one of two of their final exam, I just graded history papers at that time. I caught some plagiarism in one paragraph and borrowed an iPhone from one of the students. And it was Wikipedia. Sigh.

After office hours, I made my way to the other campus, got tea and a Boston crème donut and caught up on some TV on the computer. Why did TNT and USA no longer want me to watch either “Leverage” nor “Burn Notice” online? That just seems so wrong.

( New Year/Yuletide holiday meme )

As usual on Fridays, I graded in morning from 7 to 9:30 and then had office hours. My students are actually showing up today because their last paper really counts. So it feels very productive. I’m very behind on their Paper 4 grading – I just can’t bring myself to do it except on Tuesday and Friday mornings. Well, I have exactly two weeks to finish everything.

I need to catch up on my TV – I made a list – at least 9 hours of TV I still didn’t watch like “Burn Notice”, “Dexter” and “Leverage” and the list keeps growing. Doesn’t help that “Burn Notice” still didn’t put some things online when I actually had time to watch. I did watch the third “Once Upon a Time” episode – it is still hit and miss for me but I do like it when it is on in front of me.

I watched “Mildred Pierce” Episodes 1 and 2 today. I know nothing of the story so it was not always going in the way I was expecting. Kate Winslet is amazing as always. It is a good miniseries. I like the portrayal of women’s choices in the 30s.

( Burn Notice S5E8 )

After Elton Torchwood in 10 minutes Episode 6

The beach fair was this weekend and we did all go in the evening especially since we had a guest. The weather was quiet cool, actually. I didn’t buy anything this time, though. I already have four ankle bracelets and I didn’t see anything else I was interested in.

I turned off my computer early and just read in the evening. In was nice. Maybe because we had an overnight guest since Mama’s friend Irina stayed over but I went to sleep at normal time so as not to disturb anybody.

Mysterious Amazon package arrived in the mail today with $50 worth of my wish list gifts. I got “Book of Mormon” CD, “The Painted Veil” DVD, Neil Gaiman’s “Adventures in the Dream Trade” and Bryan Lynch’s last “Spike” comic book. I went on Amazon Chat and asked them to check who sent it and it was Marianna like I thought. She is awesome! This is my belated birthday gift.

SYTYCD Top 8 Results. Mark performing with Lady Gaga – best thing about the show. Jordan and Jesse went home today – not that expected since I thought they would leave next week. I’m actually glad that Ricky got in the safe zone and that Nigel actually went with America’s vote for the girls.

Burn Notice S5E6 I really like this season, it is really good. I don’t like Sam in danger even as I know the show won’t really kill him.

Mama and I spent half a day in Costco. It was a while since I had my eyes checked and I’ve been feeling for a while that I need a new subscription and glasses so we went to Costco today to take care of that. My eye exam was fine and my new prescription is only a little bit stronger, which made me happy. I ordered new eyeglasses with reddish frames with sparkling stones on the side. I’m still keeping my old glasses for computer and for use at home.

( SYTYCD )

( Burn Notice S5E4 )

I barely got out of my pajamas today – I get days like that occasionally – it is one of those depressive days where I don’t want to get out of bed. And since I’m home by myself I could just do that today.

I finished rewatching “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part I” in preparation for the last movie. I do love cinematography in this movie, and this time Dobby’s death was more affective to me.

( SYTYCD 2 out 16 go home )

( Burn Notice S5E2 )

This morning, right before I woke up I had that sensation of holding an object in my hand while I knew my hand was empty. This time it was a phantom apple. My brain knew logically that I was still sort of sleeping and there wasn’t an apple but I felt I had one in my hand down to the curve of the top stem. Only when I flexed my hand that illusion faded, just like I knew it would. This happened before occasionally and that is always a weird illusion.

( Leverage S3E14-16 )

( Burn Notice S4E17-18 )

There were riots with police in Minsk today because of people protesting fraud in the latest election. Not that it would do any good. (Watching “Leverage” episode about elections and riots was a bit surreal.)

Library book saga – so with the deadline to return the recalled library book that I can’t find on the horizon and wanting to avoid $5 a day library fees, I went to the main campus this morning. First, I went to check my office and then library stacks since it happened before that the book I couldn’t find was already in the library. No such luck this time. So I went to speak to the guy at the check-out desk. He gave me a name of his supervisor who was in another library all day. I had to go to work and didn’t have the time to track him then but I resigned myself to the idea that I would just have to replace the book. After my afternoon office hours were over, I went back to the other library on the main campus to talk to the supervisor guy. He actually was very professional and knew what he was doing, which I appreciated. He looked everything up, made the calls (one of the people he checked the price with did not know about the old catalog that all librarians used to use to price a book. He was a bit thrown by this lack of knowledge). In the end, I have to pay $63 - $21 for the book that the library will order and $42 for the processing fee. A bit cheaper than buying the book myself on line with a smaller processing fee. I have the last chance to look for the book this weekend or bring in the check on Tuesday. This is annoying but I did lose this book somewhere. At least I won’t have to pay any late fees since I’m taking care of this in a timely manner.

I was tired this morning, so I was a bit sluggish in my classes. I did manage to talk to most of the students about their papers. Most like the assignment – they are writing about remittances (immigrants sending money back to their home village) and what it means for the home community. I’m trying to get them to complicate their thesis.

I did buy tickets to Harry Potter for tomorrow since Bear and I made plans to go and I didn’t want to worry it would be sold out. That cheered me up this morning since I was having a crappy day.

“Community” continues to be hysterical. They are excellent on farce. I love this show.

( Burn Notice S4E14 )

Caprica will air the rest of the episodes in the US on Jan 4 from 6pm on as a marathon.

Fun brain teasers and optical illusions .