An Arizona Cheesehead's Thoughts

I was already a prolific consumer of content from my TV before getting locked down in my house thanks to COVID-19. It's even worse now. Or, better. Depends on your point of view. Besides my usual shows, here's what I've been watching. Schitt's Creek I'm late to the party that is Schitt's Creek. I started watching right before the last season began and it was all I could do to force myself to go to bed each night instead of watching "just" one more. The rich people go broke theme has been done nearly to death. This was done exceptionally well. The characters not only redeemed themselves from their selfish, out of touch with reality ways but they learned they were capable humans and worthy of being loved by others. Superb casting and fun to see many Canadian actors that I'm used to seeing on SyFy shows. I've been pushing this on everyone I can. It's that good! Watch it and thank me later. Tournament of Champions I lo...

Here's what I've watched since I posted my first set of reviews . These are all Netflix Original Movies. The Kissing Booth Best friends from birth, literally, have several rules one of which is that they can't date each other's family members. After a fund raising Kissing Booth, Elle hooks up with Lee's older brother Noah and tries to keep it secret. There was little I liked about this scenario. Noah had a hair trigger anger issue, got into a lot of physical fights, Elle's Dad 100% didn't approve and lots of lying. Did I mention the anger issue? I fear young women will watch this and think "See, I can fix my boyfriend" when they should run away as fast they can from a controlling anger monster. I did like that they showed safe sex being utilized. Coin Heist Kids at fancy prep school develop a plan to create misprinted coins to sell as collectibles after one of the kid's Dad (head of the school) embezzles all of the endowment...

I've been filling some of my recent free time with catching up on some Netflix material I'd been meaning to see. Once I realized how much of it was composed of their original content, I focused in on their movies. In short, some are good and some are terrible. Below are my thoughts on what I've watched. To All The Boys I've Loved Before Based on a YA novel I had actually never heard of, this is the movie I've been telling everyone to watch. Lara Jean is too afraid to share her feelings with her crushes so she writes them letters. The letters get sent and she has to deal with the consequences. So. Much. To. Love. The boys aren't stupid caricatures. The young lead isn't flighty nor does dangerous things. The featured parent is loving, involved and smart (and played by the still delicious John Corbett). The romance develops as the characters actually get to know each other by (gasp) spending time talking and sharing their feelings. If you aren't a...

I'm slowly cleaning out my desk at work taking an hour here and an hour there. While I know  I'm a packrat, I still surprise myself with how long I keep things so this could be a very long process. For an example of how ridiculous I am, last week I found printed emails from 1999. No lie. This week's find was one that took me on a journey to the past. Yes, turn of the century past. (Am I the only one who hears "turn of the century" and think it refers to 1900?) Back when I lived my life on paper. And, on a school calendar schedule. While these planners did go into the garbage, it was not until after I read through them. What did I learn? I used to go to a lot of meetings. I go to even more now. Man, that Mark Mulligan must be one heck of a great performer because I saw him dozens and dozens of time. Not only on weekends but on lots of school nights. Probably when my poor sleeping habits started. That guy owes me. My range of establishments I frequent...

I rarely wear what I call "real" shoes. I usually pick one favorite pair of sandals then wear them out by wearing them every single day. Literally. I once actually wore a hole in the sole of one of my sandals and only discovered it when I investigated why the asphalt was so hot on my foot. Recently, I acquired a pair of Rocket Dog canvas shoes. I used to live in those back in the day but they don't make them like they used to. This new pair is cool but just a little loose so I wear shorty socks with them.  As I was sitting down one morning to put on my Rocket Dogs and shorty socks, I remembered this bit from the late, great, All In The Family, because I was putting them on sock, shoe, sock, shoe and it felt off. Yes, I'm old.  Yes, weird stuff often comes to my mind. Much as I hate to agree with Archie Bunker, sock, sock, shoe, shoe just feels right.

Today celebrates the 50th Anniversary of Star Trek's first appearance on US television.  It's a big deal if you're in the nerd and/or geek community. The influence and endurance of Star Trek is nothing short of amazing. Yes, I judge people who blithely, or sometimes proudly, say "I've never watched it". For reals, you don't know what you're missing. I grew up watching The Original Series in reruns. Yep, I'm too young to remember them when they aired. Yay for me being too young for something. BTW, that's TOS to us in the know. It wasn't a perfect show. There was a lot of overacting, cheesy sets and sexist costumes. The plot points were sometimes predictable, you really didn't want to be on the security away team - that was a dead giveaway. (See what I did there?) How many hours did you spend with the crew? They weren't perfect characters, either. I mean, anyone who slept with Kirk died and if that's not a major defec...

I confess, I haven't watched local or national TV news in years. I bugged out once all of the stations were doing "death" teasers for their broadcasts. "This surprising item in your kitchen will kill you!" "There are unknown predators in your neighborhood!" "Find about the commonplace product under the third step of your stairs that can give you cancer!" "You MUST watch our broadcast or you're doomed!!!!" You get the gist. It was all about sucking you in to watch and the teaser segment was always buried somewhere in the broadcast so you had to wait through it all. Here's another thing that turned me off from TV news; reporters standing in front of a building hours after whatever action happened before. Seriously, you could put that reporter in front of a blank green screen and gotten the same amount of relevance. "What you can't see now because it's all cleaned up is that the bus jumped this curb and ran in...

This post could also be titled "They Pay Us To Have These Conversations". We have an IT team meeting every other week. The idea is to share any accomplishments and bring everyone up to date on your current projects or issues. This morning's meeting was off to a bad start with a conversation about the coffee tasting like "ass" so I should have suspected we'd get derailed. One of our colleagues started his update with, "I'm growing out my beard and I'm calling it Mr. French." A little background for you. This particular colleague grows facial hair like no one I've ever seen. He can have a fu manchu one day then muttonchops the next. So, it's not unusual for him to be doing something like this. A little more background for you. We have a lot of people under 40 and some under 30 in our department. They have no idea who or what "Mr. French" is. I said, "Oh, from A Family Affair. Brian Keith was the star." An...

Did you watch Dark Shadows as a kid? If so, you probably remember it as creepy and downright nightmare inducing scary. It aired from '66 to '71 and it's been interesting to hear people's memories of the show. Just a few years difference in age and it's a whole different viewing experience. I only remember seeing it one time after school when I was someone's house (not my usual babysitter's). It scared me so much that I watched it from behind a piece of furniture. My friends who are just a few years older than I, remember gathering every day after school to watch the latest episode and letting themselves get scared. Or, scared by someone like Jello-Shot Queen's Dad who would walk in and yell "Boo!" at them during the show. Some of that group either watched it with their parents' knowledge or snuck around behind their parents' backs to watch it. I haven't talked to many people who watched it in syndication. Probably because by t...

I was out with a group from work last night and one person asked the question, "What's your guilty TV pleasure that you're embarrassed to tell people you watch?" Some answers were The Hills and Maury Povich. I get those as being good answers to the question. When it came time for me to answer, I didn't have one. Not only do I think I watch good TV shows and quickly jettison the bad ones, I tell everyone about what I watch so there's nothing I need to keep secret. I think it helps that the only "reality" TV I watch is cooking shows. However, I started thinking about channel surfing and coming across movies that I've seen many, many times but I find I can't move the clicker off of them. Some of them are great movies like Die Hard, Ghostbusters, Caddyshack and The Princess Bride. Others, however, are not great movies. They are, in fact, really bad movies. But, something in me keeps me on the channel. The worst one that comes to mind: ...

I watched the season finale of The Taste last night and came away inspired with a really great life lesson:  take advice from those that know more than you do. Seems like it should be a given but we see it all the time. Someone is 100% sure they have the perfect idea, plan, process, product, etc. and ignores a more experienced voice who is offering up constructive feedback. For those who aren't familiar with the show, four famous and very skilled chefs (Tony Bourdain, Nigella Lawson, Ludo Lefebvre and Marcus Samuelsson) assemble teams of four contestant chefs each and mentor them throughout the contest. Two contestants are eliminated every week and each week features a guest chef who mentors the team who wins the first challenge of the day. The ultimate winners gets $100,000 and a big trophy. The mentor for the winner also gets a big trophy. The finale came down to three contestants, Lee, Marina and Louise. They were all very different cooks and personalities. Lee was the...

I watch a LOT of TV. Probably too much so I'm careful about what I add to the list. I read all the advance reviews I can find and record only what's getting good press or that I absolutely have to watch. Here's my two cents on what I added to the DVR this season. Considering how many new shows there were I think was judicious in my choosing. Spoilers alert. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. There was no way I wasn't watching this show. I'm a total Marvel movie girl and Agent Phil Coulson as portrayed by Clark Gregg is the coolest of the cool. Also, JOSS WHEDON. So far, so good. It's not perfect but it shows promise and improvement. I don't like the try to put Skye and Ward in a will they/won't they do it mode. Can't she just point out he's kind of an uptight dude and leave it at that? I do like Skye and Coulson's mentor relationship. FitzSimmons are underutilized and we need more of May's backstory to come out. But, all in all, I'm re...

Football season snuck up on me this year. I watched maybe 10 minutes of preseason games and did literally no Fantasy Football League prep except to download NFL.com's Fantasy Cheat Sheet and program in our scoring so it could rank players for me. But, I made it to through two drafts and remembered to set up the Club's Yahoo Pick 'Em game so I think I'm ready to go. Well, except that my FFL TV show, The League, moved to a new channel and I didn't get it. Football life is not worth living without The League! So, I happened to have gotten a flyer from Cox about prices starting at $99.99 per month for cable, internet and phone. That might not have triggered a call but needing FXX did. Of course, it was a lure. The free HBO portion of it was only if you didn't currently have HBO and it didn't include Hi-Def and DVR. However, after all was said and done, I was set to save $5 off what I was already paying and that included moving my phone from Century Lin...

The last in an exercise to feel more happiness. I posted 3 different things for 21 days for which I was grateful. The idea is that continued focus on the positive helps rewire your brain to feel it more often and more naturally. Joss Whedon's brain. There are a lot of very creative people out there whose work I enjoy but Joss is at the top. I'm grateful to him for his imagination and everyone who supported him along the way so that I could enjoy Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse (sorta), The Avengers, Much Ado About Nothing and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. The cherry on the ice cream is that his work has led to exposure to many great talents whom I enjoy watching in other shows and movies. One final bonus is that you can check nerd cred pretty easily if you drop his name. Most of us immediately start gushing. Born in the USA. I started life out ahead of billions of others by sheer accident of birth location. I share this good fortune with folks from many other countri...

Continuing on my quest to feel happiness, I'm going to post three things I'm grateful for for 21 days. I dig this kid! Connecting with the generations. Having nearly all of our family live in another state, it's hard to really get to "know" people. That's why the opportunities to connect are so wonderful. While we were having lunch at The Pfister, my phone rang and the theme song from Doctor Who rang out. That's when we found out that my cousin's youngest daughter is a big Whovian and led us into a long conversation. One of my other cousins and her husband and son came to spend the night with us and not only did we get to know her husband better, we got to hang with her son. I'm not saying Steven and I are immature or anything but we did color and read Superman last night. Card games. Kids in our family are taught to play cards at a very early age. Like as soon as they can hold them. Playing cards is a great way to pass the time, enjoy conv...

Continuing on my quest to feel happiness, I'm going to post three things I'm grateful for for 21 days. My Poker Chicks. I first met Stacey, Angela and Chris back when we all worked at Bookstar. We only worked together for a short time but those initial bonds have remained. Through the years, we've not only managed to maintain a solid friendship but have also added in Stacey's sisters, Cyndi and Beckey, and Angela's husband, Morgan. We go to movies, dinners, concerts and play poker, of course. Most of their poker play is maddening to me but they really enjoy my frustration so it's a win for them. I just don't know why I don't come home with their money each time. We played last night and did the math. We met in 1993 so this is our 20th year together. That makes me grateful. Now, if it would just not make me feel old. It's one thing when you add up the years with your grade and high school friends. But, when it's 20 years with people you met afte...

Continuing on my quest to feel happiness, I'm going to post three things I'm grateful for for 21 days. Yeah, someone actually didn't get it. My nerd herd. I have friends across the country who are into sci-fi/fantasy/tech as much or more than I am but they're far away. My work team is with me five days a week. I'm sure it's a byproduct of being in IT, but the nerd and geek quotients are higher than the mitochondria levels. We have group conversations nearly every day over a variety of topics. Which is our favorite IT Crowd episode? Our innate queasiness at the news that JJ Abrams was directing both Star Trek AND Star Wars. (It's just not right, for some reason.) How Joss Whedon is a genius who kills our favorite characters. And, of course the Mac vs PC discussion. Something related to that comes up nearly every day. We also share pics with each other. I send out the caveat, "If you don't get it, don't tell us because you will be mocked....

We had a request to display a message in our software to notify the user when something was canceled.  I put in the development request and said to display "This gift card has been canceled ." My developer wrote it as "This gift card has been cancelled ." I commented on the development request that I knew I was being nitpicky but I wanted the spelling with one L because that's the US standard. Another developer posted two web links explaining that one L is really wrong (though accepted) and we should be spelling it the way the Brits do. My reply? What country do we live in? I also replied that I, too, could go find links to support my preferred spelling. Seriously, you can find something to support any view on the interwebs if you look long enough. I took our conversation off the development request form to spare everyone one else from reading our comments and IMd my buddy who posted the links. The conversation started off with me calling him a foreign...