jlh | Some happenings in the world, roughly organized (Reply)

Real world stuffs first.
- I wore orange and maroon on Friday. At first I thought of the college I attended, but once I started hearing the stories of the teachers and the departments left to pick up the pieces and try to keep things going, I was even more affected, imagining such a thing on the campus where I teach.
- I flipped $25 to Planned Parenthood on Friday, too.
- Thanks to NPR's excellent coverage, I am totally obsessed with the French elections. I was on the edge of my seat for the first round!
- First Kurt Vonnegut, then Boris Yeltsin, and now David Halberstam dies in a car crash! WOE. Halberstam was one of the great journalists of our time and I always looked forward to interviews with him on the history show American Experience and on Charlie Rose's show.
- Schoolwork is going VERY slowly, but at least it's going.
General Fannishness
- Sooo much smut is sitting with betas right now. So much!
- I'm glad, myself, that Idol will be over before any of the HP happenings of the summer because if it was all happening at once my head would explode.
- One bit of HP-ness that will be happening sooner than that is Phoenix Rising, which will be awesome, and at which allysonsedai and I will step aside and yammer about Idol, which will be headed into the finals that weekend. Yikes!
Books for reading when May ends.
- The "friend shelf" in my bookcase has grown by two volumes, City of Bones by Cassandra Clare (cassandraclare) and Ironside by Holly Black (blackholly), and everyone should run out and buy them right now. Oh, and if you haven't read Tithe and Valiant, Holly's first two books, then get on that.
- The shelf will grow again in late June when Julia Quinn's new book comes out, her first one since finishing the Bridgerton series, and I have good hopes for it.
- And, she says mysteriously, it may grow yet again in some little while.
- Then I thought, yesterday, it will also grow with all the people I'm in graduate school with, not just my classmates but also calloocallay and kalichan and that is amazingly exciting!
- I might reread the HP books in July, immediately before the new book comes out. I haven't reread OotP or HBP yet, mostly because reading OotP was so traumatic the first time, but friends say it will be easier on a reread. No disrespect to those of you that loved the book, now!
- Z gave me a copy of Arcadia, which we duly looked up on ibdb and wow, it had a fantastic Broadway cast. Day-am.
- AND I have new Fruits Basket teasing me, and Antique Bakery borrowed from ali_wildgoose.
Movies watched and to be watching.
- Before we decided to stop breaking the bank (see below) ziggy1278 and I saw a billion movies, including
  - Blades of Glory, awesome in that Will Farrell and John Heder sort of way, and better the more you know about skating.
  - The Hoax, with a top notch cast and a really interesting way of telling its tale. I already knew of Clifford Irving and his fake biography of Howard Hughes, but the little period notes that brought you back to 1971 were fantastic, especially the Nixon touches.
  - Grindhouse, which we saw at a late night show opening weekend and which totally rocked and everyone should see it.
  - Reign Over Me, which was horrifically manipulative but at its core had great performances from Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle.
- Then with calloocallay I also saw:
  - The Lives of Others, which I seriously cannot recommend highly enough as it was fantastic.
  - Hot Fuzz, which was completely hilarious.
- I'm looking forward to
  - Order of the Phoenix, obv. I'm pleased that Dan Radcliffe has decided to get better as an actor in time for OotP, but I will still be watching this movie scrunched down in the seat, through my fingers, with tissues at the ready. I mean, I cried in the PoA film, so I'm sure I'm going to be just a mess.
  - Talk to Me, with Don Cheadle as a 70s DJ in DC.
  - Spider-Man 3, but mostly because Z wants to see it so much, and I'll have to rent the first two before I see the third one, eh?
Television I've been watching
- Idol Gives Back starts tonight, and I've been spoiled for the songs that some of the kids have chosen, and let's just say, love that Blake, but sometimes he is really literal. Hint: the three of you who have heard Kathy Griffin's hilarious story about Sharon Stone at the AMfAR fund raiser? THAT song.
- Ellen DeGeneres is hosting Idol Gives Back on Wednesday night. We've gotten a lot of hints that Ryan and Simon will be up to something that night …
- Z and I are watching (well, me for the first time, him decidedly not) Deadwood, two eps a night, and I'm so glad. It's amazingly good and there was even gratuitous shirtless Timothy Olyphant. I'd meant to get into it when it came out but I was overwhelmed by television at the time, I think.
- Despite all the Idol talk, there really isn't much I'm following—I'm not actually a SF/F TV fan, so I'm not on the Heroes/SGA/DW train. I know a lot of you are having fun with those shows, so good for you!
- I think CSI is going off the DVR after this season. My true love for it is gone with their continual raising and then dropping personal issues and I don't care enough about the procedural stuff to stick around. (Not, of course, that they need me for the ratings!) I'm intrigued by the miniature killer, and the last new episode with the lab rats running around trying to help solve it—lots of Hodges but where was Bobby Dawson?—was a clever way to remind us of that ongoing mystery. Also, I'm still worried about the ultimate fate of Grissom given that in the promotional poster, which last year was a hint about Brass's shooting, is a parody of the Beatles' Abbey Road cover, with Grissom as the barefoot Paul—back in the day, one of the key "Paul is dead" clues!
- Z also gave me the Firefly box set as an early birthday present because he felt I should own it. That was already on the list of shows to watch when the term and regular TV was over, so yay!
- And yes, due to the demand of Ely, Emily and S, and the enabling of S and Z, I will be watching BSG this summer. Totally.
- I can't wait for the return of Veronica Mars on 1 May! Paul Rudd! More Mac! Five episodes that hopefully aren't the last five!
- Speaking of on the bubble, I wonder if they'll even bring Studio 60 back for the final episodes; I've seen nothing on that. I do want to see it through to the end; I want to see Jordan have her baby and say goodbye to the gang and all that. I just wish it had been a better show.
- In Shows You Should Be Watching news, Marshall and Lily's wedding on How I Met Your Mother is going to ROCK. I hadn't realized that bhanesidhe was also a fan. It is such a great show; too bad TWoP, for understandable reasons, isn't recapping it so more of you can see its awesome glory!
- This past week's Ugly Betty was sort of a drag, wasn't it? A very necessary transitional episode (and my GOD I'm glad we've seen the last of Constance) but in itself, not fun. But this week looks like TOTAL AWESOMENESS.
- Another show I need the DVDs for is WKRP in Cincinnati. OMG the Johnny Fever/Bailey Quarters fic I would write about that show. Ooh, I should put that in as a request for Yuletide this Christmas.
- When is Sifl and Olly ever coming out on DVD OMG. Goddamed MTV not putting their shit out on DVD.
Music should go here, but there isn't any to go here, because I have filled my harddrive with the stuff so I'm waiting for my new external harddrive before I can even listen to the things that are in my house, like the new Shins and the new-ish Death Cab and a bunch of other things. Though now that Z bought a new DVD/CD player that he is storing at my house for Deadwood and other watching (since I'm the one with the TV) I can listen to the CDs. My DVD/CD player? Ded, my friends. Woe! So you tell me, what releases should I be looking forward to? Other than, of course, Donny Osmond Sings Love Songs of the 70s.