No rambling tonight, I’m just too tired. I just had my own West Wing marathon, and I know I have mentioned it before, but it is just crazy how much watching the show has me fired up for this election. I’m still crushing on Donna, and it has nothing to do with her appearance, because I’m not a big fan of blondes. I just love the dialogue between Donna and Josh. Now Toby’s ex-wife, on the other hand- you want me to do anything, have a redhead with blue eyes ask me to do it. The other thing that amazes me about the show is how many great performances they got out of people- Ron Silver was particularly awesome.
On an unrelated note, I was never a big fan of Whitney Houston. Just not my kind of music. Having said that, this piece with just her vocal track is pretty amazing.
Night.
arguingwithsignposts
I had a west wing marathon a coupla months ago via amazon streaming. I think that show may have had more dialogue per minute than any in the history of television. Awesome show.
Mike G
More trouble in London for Australia’s Worst Export as the five most senior journalists at The Sun newspaper are arrested as part of a bribery investigation. Rupert may also be vulnerable to US prosection under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Grab the popcorn:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/feb/11/sun-journalists-arrested
The prophet Nostradumbass
I have never actually ever seen an episode of The West Wing. I didn’t avoid it or anything, I guess I was watching something else, though I can’t think of what that would have been.
freelancer
Ron Silver has one of the most quotable scenes of the entire series.
Bring on the culture war you shriveling mass of morally emaciated Right Wing theocrats! You’ve already lost. At this point you’re the Japanese soldiers that anthropologists were fishing out of Pacific Islands deep into the 50’s, 60’s, and even the 70’s.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Mike G: This cover from Private Eye from last year is totally awesome, and absolutely appropriate.
ETA: The Wiggles are a strong second in the “Australia’s Worst Export” department.
Hill Dweller
Just watched Three Days of the Condor, which I’ve seen before. Solid movie. Dunaway was still beautiful, and Max von Sydow was great(as always).
Hill Dweller
I happened to see the video of the speech FLOTUS gave for her Let’s Move campaign this morning in FL. She is an impressive lady.
Chuck Butcher
Addiction is a stone cold bitch.
ulee
Just finished watching the first season of The Walking Dead on AMC. It was pretty entertaining, much better than the second season episodes I’ve seen. Too bad about Whitney Houston. We were just talking about her at work two days ago. I blamed Bobbie Brown then and I blame him now.
Froley
I just finished reading “Unbroken” by Laura Hillenbrand. It put my puny daily complaints in perspective (to quote David St. Hubbins, “too much fucking perspective”).
sixers
West Wing. Wow. The Giants won the super bowl, FYI. In 2007.
JGabriel
John Cole @ Top:
Well, Cole, I guess I’m a sucker for marketing, ’cause your constant “I’m watching The West Wing” refrain finally persuaded me to start watching it too. This isn’t a re-watch, I’d never seen it before.
Anyway, I was a little underwhelmed at first, but it finally picked up around the ninth episode. Is it just me, or did something happen — a new director, consultant, producer — around then? It seems like there’s a marked improvement, like something changed and started “clicking”, in a way it didn’t for the first few episodes.
.
The prophet Nostradumbass
Soon I’m going to go to bed and read some more of “The Reationary Mind”. Have the ‘Book Club’ posts on it been abandoned or something?
Cliff in NH
@arguingwithsignposts:
you had me all interested till I searched it on amazon prime, and I gotta pay for it. f’that.
know anywhere to stream it free?
Yutsano
Blah. That is all.
arguingwithsignposts
@Cliff in NH: Yeah, I should have mentioned that I paid for it, because it’s one of those shows I knew i’d watch several times (after I got several seasons from the library).
I don’t know anywhere you can stream free (cough). but i’m sure you’re a resourceful gentleman of means who could solve that problem.
hamletta
Film blog Some Came Running has a YouTube of Whitney Houston singing a song by Soft Machine, of all things. It’s pretty amazing.
I’m watching The Rocker, a a goofy comedy with Rainn Wilson as a drummer that I picked up at Goodwill this evening. It’s hilarious, but was a total flop.
wobblybits
sad, exhausted, can’t sleep, not able to write anything of worth. i’m hoping after a good night’s sleep (thank you meditation and allergy meds –they make me ever so drowsy), i will be a writing machine tomorrow. until the meds kick in, i’m going to watch something silly on netflix.
Samara Morgan
lulz, a wannabe poetess.
sadly, im blocked from tweeting Sarah.
but this is what i would have said.
Samara Morgan
@freelancer: they are not morally emaciated. i think…you wanted this…
btw, the Right is also intellectually impoverished.
Since Culture 11 and TAS are now defunct, where will new conservative intellectuals come from?
Redstate?
Johannes
@The prophet Nostradumbass: However, to be fair, Australia gave us Leo McKern.
ETA I admit that Leo doesn’t on his own make up for Rupes and the Wiggles, but he goes a long way.
piratedan
@Johannes: and Farscape and INXS and Icehouse and the Split Enz as well as Men At Work and Aussie Rules Football and Foster’s commercials.
Johannes
All good points, piratedan. Really, if you add in koalas (they’re cute and bear like! They’re drunk on eucalyptus!) forgiving Oz is almost an imperative.
WereBear
@Froley: Had the same effect on me! For weeks Mr WereBear and I were “well, it isn’t as bad as a Japanese prison camp.”
Cliff in NH
@arguingwithsignposts:
Um, I Know I Can, but I’m trying to stop that stuff.
huh. well…
Cliff in NH
On the subject of trying to change stuff, has anyone tried juice fasts or juice supplements as a change in their diet?
Any comments on results?
Latest:
2 cups Kale
2 cups Spinach
1/2 Cucumber
4 stalks Celery
2 Green Apples
1” Ginger root
Yummy, really!
Another Halocene Human
@hamletta: Thanks for that.
Bruuuuce
I just finished my first run through of The West Wing this week, and wow wow wow.
Donna’s wonderful, and so are most of the women in the series, but for me, I crushed on C.J. Cregg from the first episode to the last. I think it was just that she almost always stood on the right side of issues, and that she stood up for them. But hey, most of the women in that series would have a place in my life (including the sadly underused Elsie Snuffin (Will’s stepsister, played by Danica McKellar) — women with a sense of humor are awesome).
@freelancer: Yep. That quote is matched only for its awesomeness by the great quote about liberals from the debate:
Betty Cracker
I’ve been hearing how awesome West Wing is for years, and I finally broke down and started watching it too. It is pretty damn good. I’m more than half way through the first season, and I’m trying to pace myself so I don’t blow through the whole thing in a month. This is the way to watch TV series: no waiting around till they deign to produce new episodes.
geg6
While I have no trouble understanding why Cole, former GOPer that he is, never saw West Wing until now, I am shocked by the number of liberal commenters here who have never seen it. While I agree that the women are attractive, I am not about to crush on them since I am avidly hetero. But they are terrific portraits of smart, strong women. The type I have always aspired to be. Aaron Sorkin is without peer in writing dialogue. And Josh, however ambitious and damaged he seems, is, to me, the heart and soul of the show and I find him wildly attractive.
Bruuuuce
@geg6: I never saw it partly because I have worked nights for sixteen years, and partly because I watch little TV (I tend to get mine on DVD and/or via BitTorrent for shows I need to time-shift).
One excellent thing I can say about the series is that it passes the Bechdel Test from the word “go”. That alone makes it worth watching, given the state of US TV these days (much less movies).
wormtown
I went to see Whitney Houston, probably 20 years ago. I wasn’t a real fan, but went anyway. I was blown away by Whitney. Her voice was incredible. I didn’t really care for her choice of music, and the way it was packaged, but her voice was unbelievable.
Montysano
@Hill Dweller:
Excellent movie. It’s making its way up my queue for a re-watch.
On a tip from our son, we watched “I Love You Phillip Morris”. Jim Carrey and Ewan MacGregor were amazing, I love Leslie Mann also too, and the plot constantly takes twists and turns that you don’t see coming. Recommended.
Jennifer
Gee, I wonder why no one weighed in to accuse our host of “corpse-pissing.” Odd, that.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
Hey Cole – saw your post below about the anxiety attacks, and just wanted to say good for you, both for dealing with the problem and for being able to talk about it.
A lot of my family members have had to deal with depression, and there’s so much shaming and secrecy about it. It gets treated like moral failing instead of a health problem. As with a lot of things, the more people are open about it, the easier it gets.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jennifer: Mainly because he didn’t do it. Also too, I pretty much agree with his opinion of her work – and, for that matter, yours as well.
Rawk Chawk
Good god.
Thanks for sharing the link to that vocal track, John.
I was not a huge Whitney fan after the first couple of albums. The vocal gymnastics and theatrical, melodramatic runs became kind of obnoxious to me. Plus, she got attitude and the joy so prevalent in this track seemed to dissipate.
Plus, she dissed Madonna once and that pissed me off. :D
But Lord Almighty, this vocals only track breaks my heart. I am sitting here with tears in my eyes listening…I’m sad we’ve lost such a talent, sad that she suffered so much, but glad that she’s been released from whatever torments drove her to self medicate so heavily.
Seriously, bless her heart. She was one in a gazillion.
Rawk Chawk
@Jennifer:
There are a few, select commenters who will viciously shit on other commenters for the same observations they will completely ignore when offered by Cole.
Sycophants.
Rawk Chawk
@Omnes Omnibus:
Just curious: Do you ever not comment in a thread at BJ?
Omnes Omnibus
@Rawk Chawk: Why don’t you read them all and find out?
Rawk Chawk
@Omnes Omnibus:
Your question provides the answer. Thanks.
Betty Cracker
@geg6: My schedule is too erratic to allow me to commit to a series. I watch the yapping heads on MSNBC pretty regularly, plus sports and cooking shows. That’s about it.
Now that I can buy entire series and watch them at my leisure, I’ll probably get sucked into a few more good ones. I watched all the episodes of Breaking Bad that way a few months ago, and now West Wing. I’ve still never seen an episode of the Sopranos, so I’ll have to get around to that eventually.
RedKitten
Damn…and to think I haven’t taken advantage of this weakness of yours yet!
Okay, Cole. I’ll be sending you wire transfer information very shortly. Mama needs some shopping money…
xian
@freelancer: especially compelling when you know that actor Ron Silver is something of a right-wing nut bar himself.
Jennifer
@xian: He dead.