"the price of gold"

i was RIVETED by ESPN's "30 for 30" special on the nancy kerrigan / tonya harding scandal of 1994.    if you didn't see it on thursday night, you should absolutely watch it the next time it comes on.  i was 11  years old in 1994 and only remember a sketchy outline of what happened.  hearing more of the details - and listening to interviews with tonya harding today looking back on it - was fascinating.

all i have to say about last night's breaking bad is OHMYGODDDDDDDD.

if you are not watching this show, start with season 1 immediately.  i may have to immediately rewatch it all once the series ends in (sniff) just a few weeks.


in related news, i haven't had cable since i moved to houston, and i've substituted with watching tv on networks' websites, my netflix subscription and by purchasing the current seasons of mad men (in june), project runway, and now breaking bad from itunes since i can't watch them for free online.  i don't miss cable much at all...and when did i have time to watch 10 or so shows a week?!  i will be getting cable again in november in time for duke basketball season (a necessity), but at the moment i don't miss it.

chocolate babka

a huge seinfeld fan, i love this scene, where jerry and elaine want to take a chocolate babka to a dinner party but an old lady in line in front of them gets the last one.  but as a southerner a "babka" was a foreign concept to me.  what is it?  a loaf of bread?  a dessert?  i have never known.

 

um, today i had some chocolate babka.  and it was IN. CRED. I. BLE.

a babka is like a huge loaf-sized croissant, filled with chocolate or cinnamon.  it is a dessert that isn't super sweet.  this is my favorite kind of pastry.

one of my professors this semester fits all my stereotypes of new yorkers.  she is jewish, wears crazy high heels every day, talks very loudly and with her hands, and is only 39 and is a super accomplished lawyer and a dean at the columbia law school.  she initially totally intimidated me and now i love her.  she has taught us to advocate for ourselves in negotiations and difficult conversations, and you can tell she cares about us as individuals and about our work as educators (her husband is the head of a jewish day school, so she understands our jobs).  today was our last class together, and she brought bagels...and chocolate babkas and cinnamon babkas.  WARM.  warm baked goods is the way into my heart.

and now this seinfeld episode makes even more sense.  a babka cannot be replaced by another item from a bakery.  a babka is worth the freak-out that jerry and elaine have when they don't think they can get one.  i am a babka convert.

if you watch game of thrones, let us have a moment of excitement about the season 3 premiere tonight! let us have an additional moment of excitement that for the first time in my life i have HBO (for free - thank you, teachers college!) and can watch it live.  yesssss.

if you DON'T watch game of thrones i hope you might still appreciate the show's GORGEOUS intro.  the time and energy that went into it are totally appreciated by me.

 

the end of 30 rock

goodbye, liz lemon.  what an incredible show, and thankfully one that is just as good in reruns - maybe better, because the jokes are so smart that sometimes i can't fully appreciate them in the moment.

i love this list of the 30 best liz lemon quotes, and i'm especially pleased that their number 1 is also my number 1.  i have such good taste.

busy girl makes time for homeland

with just under a week until i head home for christmas break, i'm a BUSY girl.  i've completed three final papers and have two more to go...one of which i'm in the middle of.  i'm spending lots of time in the very crowded library (turns out everyone is as busy as i am!) trying to crank out some quality writing.

i made the mistake - actually, let's not call it a mistake - to start watching homeland on netflix.  it's a tv show that won a bunch of awards last year so i decided to see if i liked it.  answer: ENORMOUS YES.  the premise: a prisoner of war returns home to the us after 8 years in captivity.  a cia agent thinks he's been "turned" and is actually a spy for middle eastern terrorists.  we as the audience don't know either way and there are little clues along the way to keep us questioning.  i got the first disc last weekend and after mike and kelly and other claire left i watched three episodes back to back on sunday night.  i got the second disc wednesday and watched all three of those episodes that night.  this weekend: the three episodes of the third disc.  because i only get three episodes at a time i can't TOTALLY ruin my life by being sucked into it and watching tv instead of studying.  i can say with certainty i would be watching far more than three episodes a day if i had the whole season in my dorm room right now.  thank you, netflix, for moderating my supply of this show i'm addicted to.

now, back to writing this ethics paper so i can finish this disc of homeland tonight.  tom walker!!

in case you needed more reasons to watch downton abbey: Why Americans Connect With Downton Abbey

the season 1 finale did NOT disappoint.  on to season 2!!

here is where i tell you that if you aren't watching downton abbey YOU ARE MISSING OUT.  i was missing out until about a week ago, when i started watching the first season on netflix (watch instantly - the best!).  the internet cannot stop talking about how amazing this show is, and the internet is not lying to you.  it is funny and so terribly sweet and there is romance and scandal and Bad Guys (capitalized to show that this they mean business with their badness) and pretty costumes and historical-ness.  it is amazing.  i knew i was hooked when the end of the first episode caused me to yell at my computer screen.

tonight i will watch the finale of season 1.  I CAN'T WAIT.  and then i can start right in on season 2, since it premiered a couple weeks ago.  (note: i'm behind, obviously, so do not tell me what happens!)

also tonight?  jeopardy online test.  one of my life goals is to get on jeopardy, so here is attempt #3 to make that happen.  eeee!

like every child of the '80s, i loved the cosby show.  LOVED.  it came on at 8pm, if i recall, which was a good thing since for a while my bedtime was 8:30, meaning i had to miss the second half of murder, she wrote on days that it was on, a tragedy i remember well.

fast forward: during college, at a duke basketball game, the student section spotted bill cosby in the best seats in the house, sitting next to the president of the university.  maybe we were playing temple?  at halftime he came down to the court, someone handed him a microphone, and the first thing he said was "hey hey hey!" in his fat albert voice.  we may or may not have gone crazy.  it was amazing.

this is a pretty cool collection of bill cosby moments throughout the years.  i did some reminiscing.  you can, too.

last night i watched the first two episodes of HBO's game of thrones with andy and a bitter willis (willis did not want to watch this show and was forced to by me and andy.  willis hates fantasy.  willis needs to get over it).  yes, this show aired LAST spring, but andy just finished the book and i haven't had access to HBO until recently, when a little (awesome) birdie made it possible.

people, this show is amazing.  i may or may not have been on the edge of my seat (literally) when watching the crazy-beautiful opening credits.  also, i definitely had to clutch willis's arm with my germ-y paws* during the opening scene of scariness.  he is a good friend for letting me do this.  also, he had no choice.

the books are so addictive and now this show is even more so.  I LOVE IT.  and...since i'm watching with andy whenever we can get together, i can't just plow through the whole season in one 24 hour span, which is absolutely what i would be doing otherwise.  ugh!  it's like waiting for christmas morning.  which is very fun.


*i'm a little sick.  boo.

ohmygod.

try not to cry your way through this whole program. (i was unsuccessful.)

20/20 with gabby giffords & mark kelly

things liz lemon has said that apply to my life, part 2*

jenna: "liz, that guy wanted to buy you a drink!"
liz lemon: "really?  but i already have a drink.  do you think he'd buy me mozzarella sticks?"

i may or may not be giggling uncontrollably.


*yes, part 1 was in february.  deal with it.  this is a very occasional series on this here blog.

new addiction: mad men, available to watch instantly on netflix.  i, um, watched a lot of episodes this weekend.  not as many as my sister watched one day of summer vacation when she was making her way through the west wing...  what's your record, becks?  19 episodes in one day?  please confirm.  love, claire.

things liz lemon has said that apply to my life, part 1

from season 2:
jack: "lemon, you're here early!"
liz lemon: "well, i gave up caffeine, so i've been going to bed at 5:30."

sometimes i have trouble staying up long enough to not make my bedtime embarrassing.  fortunately, this happens to my roommate, too.  we have a rule: you can't go to bed before 9pm.  any time before 9pm is embarrassing; any time after 9pm is acceptable.

note: we sometimes break this rule.

i did not think 30 rock was funny when it first came out.  i watched the premiere and was like "that sucked."  then every cool person thought it was a great show.  so i tried the premiere again (on netflix).  it still sucked.  then cool people continued to love it.  so i watched more than one episode and guess what?  it gets much better!  now i am fully on board and am slowly making my way through past seasons on netflix (thank god for netflix's "watch instantly" feature).  30 rock takes some getting used to (but i recall that the office did, too), but it is hilarious and i enjoy it very much.

the end.

friday night lights

let's talk about my newest obsession.

it is embarrassing.

becky has been telling me to watch friday night lights for pretty much forever.  it is one of her favorite shows.  it is about a high school football team.  LAME-O.  i have been putting off her recommendation for a long time.

until a couple weeks ago, when i was up in new york visiting her.

friday night lights is available to watch instantly on netflix.  so we watched the first episode.  i made fun of it the whole time.  vocally.

then she fell asleep and i watched another one.  i didn't tell her.

the next day, i watched another.

and now i am obsessed.

I DO NOT WANT TO LIKE THIS SHOW.  but i do.  curses!  when i was at home for christmas i watched a bunch of episodes and i kept saying to becky, "smash williams annoys me" and "tim riggins needs to get his life together" and "ohmygoodness julie taylor and matt saracen went out on a date!!"  i am officially obsessed and i can admit that it is a good show and BECKY WINS.  but i don't want to like it because it's about football, which interests me not at all, and high school, which i live through my students every day and is too much drama for its own good.

i'm nearing the end of season 1 and it just keeps getting better.  don't ruin any plot lines for me, readers.

claire's best of 2010, part 1

first of all, merry christmas!  mom woke us up (the exact opposite of the events of my childhood) at 9:30 to open presents, and it started snowing at 10.  hooray!

now: regularly scheduled programming.  i've discussed my love of lists before...in the coming days i'll give you some of my "best of" lists for 2010.  here's part 1:

the top 6 (i couldn't narrow it to 5, okay?!) movies and tv shows i rented from netflix last year:

6. the first three seasons of the big bang theory.  i rented the first disc of the first season when becky came to visit in september and then i went into a dead sprint of watching the first three seasons so i could catch up to the current season, which i successfully did.  i miss watching several episodes a day.  i miss sheldon and leonard.  i love this show.

5. the young victoria made me love victoria and albert, as well as emily blunt and rupert friend, and i could not stop being gushy about their love.  there was lots of dramatic sighing from me while watching.  i really like historical quasi-fiction, and this is an excellent example of that.

4. the first five seasons of weeds, which i also watched at a dead sprint, because THAT IS WHAT I DO.  a dead sprint because you can't wait to find out what happens next...coupled with a sadness because every episode you watch means there is one less episode to watch.  i am such a dork.  netflix made it so easy to watch these quickly because all five seasons were available to watch instantly - no waiting for the next disc to be mailed to me.  i had been hesitant to watch this show because i thought suburbia + pot dealing was not something i'd be interested in.  I WAS SO WRONG.

3. the hurt locker - i was cheering for this to win best picture and i'm so happy that it beat out avatar.  do you see how i'm still talking about that nine months later?  because i am.  i will be happy for a long time about this little film.  again: war movies aren't a genre i think of myself loving, but this film really hooked me, even though parts of it were very hard to watch.

2. (500) days of summer - i love films with an easy premise, so this goes into the same category as slumdog millionaire - in (500) days, we find out very quickly that we're going to see some of the days in the life of this relationship.  in slumdog, we're going to learn about this guy's life through the questions on a gameshow.  i think this is brilliant - it lets me know what the basic framework of the film is going to be, what to expect, where we're going.  joseph gordon-levitt, whom i've loved since third rock from the sun, and zooey deschanel are awesome in this film.  and parts of it are so HAPPY.  the emotions aren't subtle here.

1. and the winner is: the first season of gavin & stacey.  absolutely in love with this show - the music, the characters, how understatedly funny it is.  only season 1 is available in the US, so right now i've been left hanging and waiting for the other seasons to be released.  i love this show so much i bought it...the first DVD i've bought in a LONG time.  this must mean something.

gavin and stacey

i am newly in love with the BBC show gavin and stacey.  i discovered it through netflix before i left for england, and it's one of those shows where you laugh because there are ridiculous parts (the deadpan/awkward british humor of the office) and you make "aww" noises because there are really sweet parts.  the first season was only six 30-minute-long episodes, so of course i watched them in two days and am now really sad that season two isn't available on netflix (yet).  gavin and stacey, i love you!

"run," by stephen fretwell is the theme song for the show and it definitely deserves a listen.  i clearly purchased it immediately after watching the first episode and i've been listening to it frequently ever since.

"nice comeback for the drill"

back story: as in most ballparks, at braves' baseball games there are little games between innings to keep the fans interested - guess which cap the ball is under after it gets scrambled around on the big screen, answer braves trivia questions, etc.  my favorite game, which used to be played on the big screen, is now played live!  by real people in costumes!  the game is the tool race (sponsored by home depot): four tools race in the outfield, and people in the stands can pick a tool to cheer for.  the four tools are the paintbrush, hammer, drill, and saw.  i typically choose the hammer.

here's a picture i found online so you can see the cute tools:

[from http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3346/3552759425_4b2f5e1da9.jpg]

i'm watching the braves game on tv this afternoon and they come back from commercial and show the tool race before the first player comes up to bat.  what ensued was hilarious.  many thanks to tivo for allowing me to rewind to get the exact wording:

commentator #1: "what's this all about with this drill thing?  look at the brush just [paintbrush pushes the drill over and runs past] - every day they just pick on the poor guy. i wanna wear the drill thing - [as they cross the finish line the drill has caught back up and jump-kicks the paintbrush, causing both to fall over] oh, a little drop kick there - i love it - nice comeback for the drill - but i wanna wear the drill outfit one day, just surprise the other costumes.  is the same people all the time or do they let people go out there to run it?"
commentator #2: "i think it's the same ones - but it's the same result every day!  when's the drill bit gonna have somebody fight for him?  so predictable.  BULLIES."

i laughed a lot.  i love these commentators - these grown men - being so incensed by the injustice they see when the drill is targeted by the paintbrush every game.

and the braves are up 9-1.  so life is just good all around.

boo hiss

"i hate duke like i hate the nazis."
-- kurt's dad on glee


seriously, folks?  even glee hates us??

not cool, glee, not cool.

paul simon + lee dewyze = happy claire

perhaps i should be embarrassed to admit this, but i just spent 5 minutes continuously calling in to vote for lee dewyze.  on american idol.  because i love him.  i mean, he sang a version of simon & garfunkel's "the boxer" last week.  and it was gorgeous.  how can i not love him?

this week the contestants sang shania twain songs, and i love me some country music.  happiness.  i was quite pleased with lee's performance again, but all the contestants were good this week.  so i had to (wo)man up and get out my cell phone and call in for lee.  because i need to keep hearing him.  i need him to win this thing.