krickets | Recent Entries

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: sharpening knives

I don't know about you guys but there are times when I go through reading frenzies, and then there are times where I barely read anything all year. Last year was a MAJOR dry spell for me. But now I'm finding myself back into the groove.

I recently finished Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot. I understand why its getting so much praise but I personally didn't like the POV. The author addressing "You" all the time.

I'm currently reading The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin. I'm about a third of the way through. I wonder if it's going to end up having a real supernatural twist (apart from the very obvious) or if it's just a drama in disguise. Although I would be OK with both. It's very engaging.

Apart from that, I'm reading a bunch of books on my "Literary Disco" to-reads list.(Books that they reviewed or talked about on the podcast that sounded good.) I currently have the following checked out:

Sabrina by Nick Drnaso
The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang
There There by Tommy Orange

See it's not too many! One of those is a graphic novel.

Is anyone out in DW/LJ land reading anything good these days?

Crossposts: https://crickets.livejournal.com/589414.html

Haven't done one of these in a while.

What I've been watching. Despite my crazy hectic schedule. (I watch TV on my lunch breaks, when I'm babysitting after the kids to to sleep, and when I get a spare few hours, I cram as much TV into it as I can. This is rare. Maybe happens once every 2 weeks? Haha.)

→ Riverdale. Oh. Em. Gee. It's bloody fantastic. I am finally all caught up with season 1 and I'm shocked at how much I love everyone. Even Archie, to an extent. I need to find a way to catch up with season 2 so I can start watching the new episodes. Is anyone else watching this? I feel like this is a show that anyone who loved PLL would also love. And BARB from stranger things is in this! Anyone else watching?

→ The Gifted. I am digging it but not as much in later episodes as I was the first three. We will see how it goes. I'm actually liking Amy Acker here. I never really disliked her but I was mostly Meh about her roles after Angel. I haven't seen the latest episode.

→ The Good Place. I mentioned this in my last post but this show is fantastic and we all should be watching it. I've wanted KBell back in a show that I loved and this fits the bill, even though I kind of want her in something a bit more dramatic. I mean, I'll take it though! This show is fantastic in all ways.

→ Superstore. Just fun but don't take it too seriously.

→ Grey's Anatomy. I don't know how but I still watch this show.

→ Will & Grace again. I actually need to go back and watch the original. I did watch the original for most of its run but only here and there. I never ever watched week to week and probably have only seen 25% of the episodes. Blasphemy, I know! I am loving the new episodes. It's making me nostalgic for simpler times, lol.

→ Stranger Things Two. Really loved this season. I took a full week+ to complete it. I wish I had been able to hold out longer because I know it's going to be at least a year or more until the next season. I'm glad I didn't binge it all in one day. I had a few issues with the season. One was that standalone ( spoiler ) episode. Just was waiting for it to end. I'm pretty sure Steve is my favorite character still. But there are so many good ones to choose from. #justiceforbob

→ Younger. I know the season ended a while ago but I felt it was worth mentioning here. Really fun show and worth the watch.

→ The Sinner. I tried to watch this when it first came out, but since I don't have access to USA I have been watching some onDemand whenever I babysit. Not sure I'll be able to finish that way! It was pretty dark but I enjoyed the few episodes I saw. Definitely a tonal change for USA since they did Mr Robot. (I never did watch season two of Mr. Robot. Liked season one but had no interest in season two for some reason. Same thing happened with Dexter.)

I think that's it. That's enough isn't it? (Not pictured: SYTYCD.)

Crossposts: https://crickets.livejournal.com/588020.html

Posted this to LJ yesterday, I always forget to crosspost. Eventually I'll get used to it.

I adopted a dog ~~today~~ yesterday! (Officially adopted -- she lived with me for a trial period for a little over a week.)

So she's a 6 year old wire haired fox terrier and she has the unfortunate distinction of having a name that rhymes with Finn. Her name is Erin. When you call Erin out loud (or scold her for stealing food for example), Finn has a REALLY hard time telling the difference. And he thinks you're calling him. Or scolding him. (It was HIS food she stole by the way, so here he is, thinking I'm correcting him for eating his own food. He was very upset!)

(In case you forgot!)

Erin, for her part, doesn't seem super confused. I think it's because she is hearing the "Er" part of her name and not paying so much attention to the "in" part.

So I need to rename her.

I know what you're thinking. How heartless and cruel! She's had that name for 6 years. Well I've looked into it and most experts say you can rename a dog and they will be fine with it in as little as a week, possibly two weeks. And an often cited great reason to rename a dog is that the new name sounds too much like the name of an existing dog in the household. So I'm gonna go with that.

Fun fact: I've never named any of my dogs even though I've lived with dogs my entire life. I have only named one cat (Dodger Fitzgerald).

Anyway so I'm trying to decide on names for her and this is what I've got. Help me pick between them:

- Sunday (maybe spelled Sundae)
- Zelda (as in Fitzgerald)

I considered naming her Po/Poe after Poe Dameron (Finn and Poe, since Finn is named for the Star Wars character) but unfortunately it sounds too much like the word "No." And I think that's a no-no. Haha. I could maybe be convinced otherwise, however. I'm sure Bo Obama got over it.

But right now it's a dead heat between Zelda and Sunday. I love them both equally although I do look forward to calling her "Queen Z" as a nickname. Haha. (But Sunshine would be really cute too. Omg!)

See? I am just like Chidi on The Good Place. Cannot decide anything. (Also if I name her Zelda, Sunday could easily be her middle name... Lol. I'm the worst.)

Crossposts: https://crickets.livejournal.com/587748.html

So what do you get for a 10 year old girl who has gotten bit by the theater bug?

She's been in 2 plays so far and is in her first musical this coming December and she loves it. What should I get her for her birthday in 2 weeks??

I know I haven't been around much this year, and I should make a post explaining what I've been up to, but I'm hoping that some of you are around and might have an idea for me!

She's also a total bookworm, if that helps!

Crossposts: https://crickets.livejournal.com/587092.html

Wow, first fic in like a year? (I'm guessing.)

title; rating: gum wrapper; pg
fandom, pairing; count: Shameless (US), Lip/Karen; ~460
notes: written for stainofmylove for her fic meme

Trying to post fic under a cut, anyone know how to do it?

Crossposts: http://crickets.livejournal.com/586141.html

So I guess what I'm doing is not leaving LJ.

I have made a concerted effort to post more there this year, and this whole TOS-change has a lot of people running scared/angry. I don't really count myself among them. I don't really like the TOS of any site I use, and I tend to take them with a grain of salt. I'm sure that the the folks who run the site are just trying to keep it alive. But because so many are probably going to make the jump, and this is probably the death rattle of my little group of people still posting, I've decided to at least make DW my "main home."

As in... I'm in the queue to transfer over all of my most recent entries to DW and what I plan to do is just use DW but I'll still continue to cross-post to LJ. I'll still check my flist at LJ as long as people are still posting. (I only do this like once every two weeks though, so that's not saying much, haha.)

If you're leaving LJ and you're moving to DW please let me know in the comments here or there. I'll still be around at both places, I'm krickets at DW and crickets at LJ.

Current Mood: indifferent
Crossposts: http://crickets.livejournal.com/585732.html

Ugh, this show. (Spoilery-ish but super vague so not really.)

So it's 2 episodes from the end and now I'm an emotional wreck.

I'm sure there's 40 billion reasons why I should not/should never have rooted for Hannah and Adam, but logic doesn't really play into these kinds of decisions. That last scene between them was so heartbreaking and yet wonderful at the same time. Reminds me of the scene between them in the hospital. Maybe nobody will know what I'm talking about when I say that but I hope someone does. I love wordless moments like that. They are phenomenal together, Driver and Dunham. I feel similarly about Emmy Rossum and Justin Chatwin from Shameless (a show I haven't watched for many seasons). The chemistry and partnership between them is just unmatched. I haven't seen anything with Adam Driver in it except for Girls and The Force Awakens, but I can only hope that he continues to do good work.

The one thing I've disliked about this season is how backburnered Shosh has been. They still have two episodes to give her something to do, but I'm not super optimistic.

Not a superhero/x-men fan at all (the movies generally bore me because the overloading of SFX puts me to sleep!), but I'm going to see Logan tonight at six! Has anyone seen it? It definitely looks more like a drama than any other superhero movie that I've seen advertised.

I was supposed to see Get Out (still really want to!) but the friend I am going with couldn't wait and saw it without me, haha. So he picked Logan as our back-up.

On that note, has anyone seen Get Out yet?

I lost track of this show last year because I did not like the format with the kids (8-13 year olds) and it just didn't hold my interest. Partially because of the kids (sorry kids!) and partially because I find judges Jason Derulo and Paula Abdul about as interesting as watching paint dry.

A few days ago I read that they were going to bring back the old format with 18-30 year olds in the competition, and today I read that they're bringing back Mary Murphy with a yet-to-be-announced third judge! Yay! I'm so excited!

Anyone else?

Fences: Okay so, Fences is based on a play, which I knew going into it. But I didn't do my homework because I definitely did not fully understand what I was walking into at 10PM at night (already a bit late for me!). Fences is set in the 1950s and is about a man (Denzel) who is so painfully suffering from depression. Only it's not called depression because it's the 1950s and (probably?) wasn't in the DSM yet, and he's a man, and probably a myriad of other reasons. This is a claustrophobic film. As it's based on a play, it's inherently dialogue driven, and much of that dialogue, while good, is in the form of monologues from the aforementioned lead character, who is miserable. The set pieces in a play are traditionally limited... unlike musicals. So you're basically stuck in that house (the front porch, the back porch, the dining room, the kitchen) with him for the entirety of the movie. And it's a long one. The performance is good. And you do feel what he feels. He's stuck. He's been stuck for 18 years. He's had a hard life and he was supposed to turn things around. But instead of feeling liberated and accomplished and like the world is moving in a positive direction, even when it is... he's just stuck, and in he has no more to give, not to his son who yearns for his approval, and not to his wife who he clearly loves. He's sinking. And you feel that. You are right there with him. It's not a bad movie. It's just a hard one. And definitely not one to re-watch. Once is enough.

Stray observation? Viola Davis (a powerhouse!) cries more with her nose than her eyes. It was somewhat distracting on such a big screen, that's all I'm saying!

Hell or High Water: This one I watched at home. I think this would have been better in the theater. I feel like I need to re-watch it actually. I enjoyed this but not as much as I think I would have if I wasn't so sleepy. I think the best thing about this movie is Ben Foster. I'm not sure if that's an unpopular opinion or not. He was great here. But everyone brought it. I still think I need to watch this again.

I still need to watch Moonlight and Manchester by the Sea. (I'll see Manchester tomorrow night at 10PM. Not sure I'll be able to squeeze Moonlight in. I might go see Lion tonight again!)

Here are my personal rankings of the 7 I've seen thus far. A couple of these could probably be interchanged but they're close!:
1. Lion
2. La La Land
3. Hacksaw Ridge
4. Hidden Figures
5. Hell or High Water
6. Arrival
7. Fences

So on Friday I decided last minute to buy the Regal Cinemas best picture film festival pass. You pay $35 dollars and get admission to all of the best picture nominees plus a really good deal on a drink and popcorn. ($5.00 for a medium soda+popcorn which is normally like 12 bucks, which is crazy!)

I'm not really in it for the popcorn, I'm in it for the movies. I'd already previously seen Hidden Figures and La La Land. So far with the pass I've seen Arrival, Hacksaw Ridge, and Lion.

Here are my non-spoilery thoughts on all of them:

Arrival: I get the impression I'm supposed to have really strong emotions about this movie, but the thing is that I kind of didn't? I thought it was really gorgeous and wasn't by any means bored with it, but I really didn't feel anything. Maybe I need to re-watch it? I don't know! Definitely my least favorite of the 5 I've seen.

Hacksaw Ridge: I remember initially seeing the preview for this and thinking that it was going to be good, but I wasn't quite prepared for how good it would actually be. Definitely exceeded my expectations on this one. By a lot! The one thing I didn't like was how (in my opinion) over the top some of the early battle sequences were. I GET what they were doing, but I honestly felt like if I was an innocent person who wandered into the wrong theater right at that moment, I would not have been able to initially tell if I'd walked into a war movie or a ZOMBIE movie. So those small moments were a little much, but taken as a whole this was a great picture. The actor who played his father was truly amazing in this. I'm surprised he wasn't nominated for supporting actor. I also found it funny that all of the military jokes about Andrew Garfield's physique totally mirrored my own thoughts about him. Sorry Andrew!

Lion: Wow. I went into this knowing nothing about the film and only watching the preview shortly before going into the theater. I did love La La Land which I know is favored to win, but in my opinion this movie is the TRUE best picture. So wonderful. Expect waterworks. Plus, I really love Dev Patel (thank you, Newsroom) and he was really wonderful here. (Plus he looked pretty good without a shirt.) Not sure why he's not nominated for Leading Actor as he's clearly the lead character. I guess he SUBMITTED for supporting? Is that just a sneaky way to potentially secure a win, or is that a humility thing? I don't know!

La La Land: I really liked this a lot. Very fun to watch and I actually loved the ending. I keep hearing people who just dislike this movie based on the ending but I don't really understand that. I won't say anymore, even though this is not a movie about the ending or spoilers.

Hidden Figures: So inspiring. I love this story and I LOVE Octavia Spencer. I really liked the turn for Kirsten Dunst's character, which was nice and subtle. All of that said this is just not a best picture contender for me. Still a great movie that I would highly recommend, and is probably a good one for re-watching too. Oh and this is the first time I've seen Kevin Costner in anything in a long time. It was great to see him in this.

I'm seeing Fences tonight, Moonlight tomorrow, Manchester by the Sea on Thursday and I'm gonna try to squeeze in Hell or High Water at some point. (I actually have that DVD at home through the Netflix DVD service.) This will probably be the first year ever that I've seen all of the nominees. I say PROBABLY because I'm uncertain if I'll really be able to squeeze in a showing of Moonlight.

I see people on my flist posting The 100 fic and it reminded me the show is coming back. I'm gonna watch the episode and then read and comment on the fic.

You know...

...sometime this month.

Originally posted by

ariestess at The Friday Five for 3 February 2017

Pets!

How many pets have you had at one time?

What is the strangest pet you have ever had?

What is the coolest trick you have ever taught a pet?

Real animals: What animal have you always wanted as a pet?

Imaginary animals: Describe the ideal pet, an animal that doesn't really exist.

(sic)

Gonna talk vaguely about Riverdale, Switched at Birth, and Grey's Anatomy in this post. I'll cut anything that might be spoilery.

Anybody watch the pilot of Riverdale? I got PLL vibes in a way. I have many theories and most of them revolve around the Cooper family. It's like the Archie comics meets Twin Peaks kinda.

Switched at Birth finally came back. I thought they were going to cancel it on the worst cliffhanger, but they gave it a final 10 episodes to wrap-up thankfully. Although it's still just as cheesy as ever, I was glad to see these big dumb characters again. Somehow, even while they're trying to making him sympathetic, I'm still "so totally done" with Emmett. They've ruined his character for me. And it drives me crazy how Bay is swayed by it. I'm not supposed to see him as manipulative because he's depressed, but he still feels so emotionally manipulative and very childish/selfish. With Bay, his mom, Travis and Daphne. Every single person in his life that matters to him. I'm going to be so upset if the writers intend to pair him up with either Bay or Daphne (if she and Mingo don't work out, which... they better! It's the only Daphne related pairing that I've remotely liked since Wilke)! Travis is also acting a bit childish, but the idea that they can't fit 3 people in that gigantic apartment is completely ridiculous, so I kind of understand. Plus, while he could have acted like less of a baby about it, he's not exactly wrong. Bay is making the decision because of stupid Emmett, lol. It's so silly how much Emmett annoys me now when I liked him so much in the first couple of seasons. But I can't help it. He just drives me bonkers.

Did anybody watch Grey's last week? I knew I recognized this week's patient but I was really shocked to discover that she's the girl who played Taylor on Finding Carter. I always thought she was one of the weaker cast members on that show, but she did a really good job in the Grey's episode. And I BARELY recognized her. I knew I knew her but when I realized from where I was completely blown away that it was the same girl. I still haven't finished Finding Carter by the way, even though I really liked it. I need to finish it soon!

Just finished Westworld.

Who else thinks Somebody That I Used to Know would be a great vidsong for William and Dolores??

I mean, it would though!

So who's seen La La Land?

Oh my gosh I've missed this place. I mean it's not the same place, but I really miss it.

Talk to me. Tell me something good, something bad, something in between? What have you been watching/reading? What movies are you looking forward to? What are you currently obsessed with? Tried any good recipes lately? What are you doing for christmas???

MISS YOU LOVE YOU!

This election is just the biggest joke.

Watching Trump "debate" Clinton is just an insult to her intelligence. Part of me wants to compare it to an adult debating a 5th grader. But it's really not like a 5th grader. It's more like, a dumb high-school bully, who never really advanced beyond his 5th grade education. Which is SOMEHOW worse? I don't know why!

Someone wake me when it's election day.

When I realize that Supernatural is going into it's 12th season, and that I quit watching after season 3 (mentally quit after season 2), it makes me wonder if I should go back and catch up. It also makes me feel really old. REALLY old.

Profile

krickets

April 2025

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30

Syndicate

Page Summary

Style Credit

Style: Pink Panther for Lefty by sarken

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated May. 31st, 2025 03:32 am

life is a single skip for joy

congratulations on the mess you made of things

Recent Entries

Navigation

Complete Fic/Vid Listing

Reading Frenzy

TV Talk!!

Help me name my new dog!

Gift Ideas!

gum wrapper; shameless (us); karen/lip; pg

I mean...

Girls

Logan

So You Think You Can Dance!

Oscar-talk: Fences and Hell or High Water (2 to go!)

Oscar-talk

The 100

A day late friday (saturday) five.

Riverdale and other shows.

Westworld

La La Land

Hi hi hi!

Ugh

Supernatural