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The Bletchley Circle
Stephen King did me right a few days ago with Parker, so why not let him keep going. This British TV drama was one of his favorite TV shows of the year. It was more like a movie though, it consisted of three parts of 45 minutes each and Gail and I watched them consecutively. That’s not binge-watching by the way, too short. I don’t binge-watch TV shows because I don’t have the attention span. I can barely stay in a football game for three hours.
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The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
This movie blindsided me. Gail asked me what I wanted to see, giving me the choice of four films. I ranked them this way: American Hustle, Walter Mitty, Philomena, and Saving Mr. Banks. She disregarded my input somewhat and picked The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty and I ended up loving it. Great flick and proof that I just need to do as Gail says.
My sister read 76 books last year. If I’m going to try and keep up with that I’m going to have to read a lot short books. A good way to do that is to read classic, pop-westerns by the authors like Louis L’Amour. The man can pack a great story into less than 200 pages. This was one of those.
I used to watch football on New Year’s Day. So did my wife, in fact, but those days ended years ago for various reasons. Mostly, it doesn’t seem like there are that many interesting college football games on New Year’s Day anymore. Right? But also, we catch up on our consumption of screened entertainment in January and February. What better way to do kick things off then to read the Stephen King columns in Entertainment Weekly?
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W is for Wasted
Kinsey is the best. Any modern, tough, but caring female character stands on the shoulders of Kinsey Milhone. That’s my view, and I’m sticking by it. Luckily, you’ll probably never see her in film, so you won’t get a sexed up and more vulnerable Kinsey that Hollywood would surely desire. Grafton is not selling the rights to Kinsey to anyone.
I love a good food/drink documentary. This was a great one that Gail found on Netflix. As you can probably tell, I almost defer exclusively to Gail regarding what I watch on TV, save sports. Somm is a food documentary about a group of sommeliers who are studying to pass the Court of Master Sommelier certification test. It’s a hard test to pass. There’s about a 3% pass rate and around 200 Masters in the world as of the filming of this movie.
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[aside] Mexico 2013
Our friend found this great rental called Casa Mariposa in a small town about an hour south of Cancun. Dollar for dollar, especially if you can occupy all four rooms (each with an en suite bath), it may be one of the best off-season, warm weather deals going. There’s no sandy beach, but the waterfront is beautiful with a community tide pool right out front. Here’s the view from the Midnight Suite. Awesome. Here’s all the pics.
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Blackhawks vs Stars
I go to about one hockey game annually and always wonder why I don’t attend more. I’m only a fair weather hockey fan but it’s getting more ingrained in my psyche. Unfortunately the Blackhawks lost 4-3, but it was an exciting game with a Blackhawks comeback from a 3-0 deficit and a fun pull-the-goalie ending. My pics aren’t great, but at least I got a good shot of a fight (above). We were in the lower bowl in section 113 I think, above the glass.
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Catching Fire
I went to this movie during the Thanksgiving holiday with my mom, my wife, and two of my nieces, ages eleven and twelve. The movie is pretty cool stuff and comes with a lot of quality tension and anticipation. I didn’t leave saying, “Wow!”, but I was pretty satisfied with the movie-going excursion.