What's Making Me Happy this Week

Friday Night Lights

It took me awhile to get around to watching this show. I'm sorry I waited so long because holy crap, it's great. I didn't grow up in Texas and I know Texas people think they are the only ones who love and understand high school football, but Midwestern small towns revolve around football, too. When I was a kid, in small-town Iowa, Friday night was about football. I remember when my cousin was on the Homecoming court (I don't remember is she won or not). I wanted to be both a cheerleader and a football player. The stands, the game, the lights... everything about it, I loved. As I got older and after my parents split, I'd still go to the small-town games. Instead of watching them from the stands, I watched them from an ambulance. My dad was a fireman and at the time, the fireman were also EMTs. And since there was always an ambulance at the game... well, it was warm in the ambulance.

I also hung out in the ambulance because it wasn't my town. I knew a few people, but they weren't my people. I did sometimes go to the football games at my school, but I went to the big well-funded school. Out team played home games in the local university's dome. And we were good. We regularly played state. We had multiple football coaches (they also taught PE).* We regularly won state. (And state playoffs were played on our home field but we always had to be on the visitors side because somehow that made things fair. So, yes, my high school football team played indoors. It was fine and I still have fond memories, but it wasn't the same.

So Friday Night Lights and all of it's small-town football worship? I get it.

The other great thing about the show? The music. It's amazing.

Drunk History

I stumbled on the second episode on Comedy Central, the one about Chicago, and I almost hurt myself laughing. Then I looked into it and found out Drunk History has been a thing for awhile. And then I watched all the online versions and I began DVRing the Comedy Central shows. Because holy shit, it's brilliant.

Drunk people describing an historical event and actors acting it out, including all the drunk ticks. It's like someone recorded almost every drunken conversation I had in college.




*We also had multiple wrestling coaches because it was Iowa and wrestling is huge in Iowa. And the wrestling coaches taught driver's ed.