Suit up!

So, I don't watch much television. Avatar: The Last Airbender when it's a new episode. Good Eats, Mythbusters, or Ninja Warrior are all good for the occasional viewing when we're not doing something else in the rare evenings I don't work. The last few minutes of a Timberwolves game (I gave up on watching the whole game after Yao Ming and the Rockets stomped us so bad, it was like the teachers vs. students rugby match in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life).

I do, however, like TV on DVD. Because making time in my schedule for watching something on a weekly basis is too much of a commitment, but all the episodes at once I can fit in as I find the time (often not even whole episodes at a time; it becomes a bit like how I read a novel - especially when I watch DVDs on my laptop, carrying it from room to room as I do chores. Then it becomes a lot like how I read a novel).

Hence Lost. Although I liked Season Three so much I'm seriously considering recording and watching Season Four episodes as they play. They said they would play them all in order without breaks or reruns. More importantly, my husband got hooked on the show, and it's easier to find time to watch things that he will watch with me. For those familiar with the show: feel my pain. He started watching at about disc 2 of the third season, with the only real intent to inform me at every opportunity that Sayid was not as hot as I kept saying he was (this from the guy with a total man-crush on Mohinder from Heroes). Then he started paying attention to things and asking questions. A lot of questions. This is not a show that welcomes jumping in at the middle. Luckily there's the pause button to allow me to explain all the back story in loving detail.

Another show I've watched on DVD but never actually on TV is How I Met Your Mother, which actually reminds me a lot of Lost. They're like drama and sit-com siblings. They both have a story that is telling up to a definite end point (it's just all the middle bits the writers are making up as they go along), which lends itself to a certain level of structure not often found on TV. How I Met Your Mother also has a wonderful way with nonlinear storytelling (like the episode where Ted wakes up next to a strange woman and with a pineapple on his nightstand and spends the episode trying to reconstruct what happened after he drank all of those shots that led up to that waking up scene).

But honestly, for me the show is all about Barney, and the slow revealing of fresh aspects of his character. Lots of shows have had the character who embodies the Id, and they often have a moment or two where it's revealed that they have a deeper side - they secretly do something sentimental or compassionate, or they suddenly speak with great wisdom for no apparent reason then go back to being the Id. And I've already given away why I generally dislike these characters: "no apparent reason", other than the quick laugh. The thing about Barney is that everything is true to his character in a terrifically complex way.

Of course this is a sit-com, not Dostoevsky; we're grading on a curve here. But I do like Barney. The episode where he gets on The Price is Right is my favorite: funny and sweet and very Barney.

On another note, the boy was indeed sick and not faking. We all learned this when he shared it with the rest of us. Much apoligizing for doubting him ensued, along with the general lying around and groaning from the muscle and joint aches. We're all better now, but what a start to the new year. Plus, our oven broke. Sometime in November, actually; I've spent the last month or so convinced I was somehow messing up every third or fourth meal by not setting the oven correctly. I do dumb things when I'm living in a fog; it's not inconceivable that I could bump the temperature knob or shut it off completely and not remembering doing it. But I really should give myself more credit; no one makes the same stupid mistake over and over for a month. We needed a new stove anyway, the one we have now was the best we could afford when the last one broke, by which I mean it was the cheapest stove Sears offered. On Thursday Best Buy will be coming by with my brand new, just-a-shade-higher-than-the-median-price stove. Very exciting. I might be able to make a pepper tart that cooks on time with an oven that holds its temperature properly.

And this is where any thought of this blog having a unifying theme go out the window: a collection of pics of our cats, taking turns sitting on the box. It's meant to discourage clawing up our door frames, and with a fresh sprinkling of catnip they really do shred the thing, but mostly they just sit on it. Which apparently is very exciting; we always know where at least one of our cats are:

(Valentine)

(Molly)

(Spike)