Reading, Watching, Listening

Reading
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot. Holy crap this is a good book. I mean grippingly good. Amazingly good. Read it. Right now. Go.

The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding From You, by Eli Parisher. I picked this up on my way to Wisconsin. I had started reading the copy we had in the library but decided I wanted my own because I wanted to underline stuff and make notes. It's an easy--and interesting--read but I keep forgetting it on my desk at work. It's a fascinating topic, though, how Google shapes what you see by basing results on previous results, location, etc. It's handy, in a way, but what's not handy is that people don't realize it's doing this is happening.

Watching
Reality Shows
Project Runway. Yes, I'm still watching, but by this point I don't really care. However, I am very much looking forward to Project Runway All Stars.

America's Next Top Model All Stars. Yeah, I'm still watching it. I have no clue why.

Specials
Prohibition. I haven't watched all of Ken Burn's most recent PBS series, but I have seen the first episode and liked it a lot. I knew the basic facts, but there were some things I had never thought of before.... Mainly women's roll in prohibition. I knew all about the Women's Christian Temperance Union, but in my mind it was made up of women who hated alcohol for alcohol's sake, but it was so much more complicated. I'm not sure why I never thought about that.... I just never had. Anyway, I have all three episodes on my DVR and plan on watching them all.

Sitcoms (non-new)
How I Met Your Mother. I've watched this show from the beginning. I really do like it. And Neil Patrick Harris is legen--wait for it--dary.

Community and Parks and Rec. I'm lumping these together just because I always watch them back to back. I adore, and I mean absolutely fucking love, both of them.

Modern Family. Yup. Still good.

Happy Endings. I caught this off and on last season. I don't love it, but I find it entertaining. I watch it because of Damon Wayans Jr.

Glee. Yeah... Still watching. It's like I need to know what happens. I'm too invested.

Sitcoms (new)
2 Broke Girls. I still think this is a litte formalistic, but I like it. I like that neither girl, while having some of the stereotypes for their type (bitter and crabby / blond and rich) don't fit all the stereotypes. The rich blond girl is book smart. The bitter girl likes bubble baths. There is potential.

Suburgatory. I've only seen two episodes, but it has potential.

New Girl. Okay, I'm not watching this. I watched two episodes and stopped. I hate this. I mean hate. Deep seething hatred. I hate it for so many reasons. The main one: Quirky and weird does not equal flighty and stupid. This quirky girl character, usually played by Zooey Deschenal, is as unrealistic as the Barbie image that has been shoved down our throats for all these years. I know this character is supposed to appeal to us "real girls" or us "real women," but she doesn't. Why? Because while I'm a little odd (some may say quirky) and a little (or a lot) flighty, I'm not stupid. And maybe the original version of this character wasn't like that, but she became that. And that is unappealing. Plus, the most interesting characters? The men. And the most interesting of them? The one played by Damon Wayans Jr. But when Happy Endings got picked up for a second season, they wrote him out of the script and replaced him.

Movies
Cedar Rapids. I haven't seen much lately, but I watched Cedar Rapids last weekend. And I loved it. Really loved it. During the movie, I liked it, but when it ended, I realized I didn't want it to end. I wanted it to keep going. I wanted to know what happened to these characters. I had wanted to see it since I used to live in small-town Wisconsin and I grew up in small-town Iowa. I'm not from Cedar Rapids, but I grew up north of there in Cedar Falls (yes, people get the two confused). Having spent most of my childhood shuttling between Iowa City and Cedar Falls (for lots of reasons), I have gone through Cedar Rapids, also known as the city of seven smells (it really stinks), more times than I can count. So... I wanted to see this. And I adored it.

Listening
Since I have been between computers, I haven't been buying/downloading much music, but first on my list will be the new Wilco, The Whole Love. I heard the first single and was hooked.

Pop Culture Happy Hour. Still listening to this and still loving it. I'm listening to it right now.