General chat: September

Over to Bobi for a new general chat thread, with thanks:

It’s spring, people, SPRING!! I’m a little bit excited and I could wax lyrical but my poetic hippocampus is still in hibernation.

The best part of spring is that is light enough at 5.30am – and may greyhound trainers rot in hell for this little piece of conditioning – for me to pick up his morning deposits. And, just softly, this would be the same place reserved for those who voted for daylight saving. I vote for karma.

The highlight of winter was the new bed bought for the grey. It was a hit.

Any resemblance to a pretzel is just coincidental.

He says it’s the best and I am the best for buying it, so, on his advice, I bought the terrier a smaller version. How could this go wrong?

Well, a bit like this. Obviously.

Yup. Nothing to see here.

In case you were wondering, the terrier is not unhappy with my puffy coat.

Which leads me to a little gem of a show, Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly (7Plus). Extra points for segue? It’s short and sweet, the dog trainer is a no-nonsense guy, the owners are well meaning idiots but all problems are easily fixed and we live happily ever after … and I feel good. It’s a lovely antidote to this season’s The Block (bleh), and The Bachelor (meh).

On a related note (excited face), the Dark Crystal (Netflix) is back. If you didn’t catch the original , DD used to watch it again and again. I always worried that it was a bit scary but she says that she always knew it would end well. I haven’t seen it yet but I am waiting for a rainy day. The reviews are good so I have incredibly high hopes. Happy dance.

And on a completely unrelated (to anything) note, my latest ear worm is Kiss My Fat Ass by Sheppard – with video. What can I say.



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65 Comments

  1. I loved the Dark Crystal as a kid. I showed Mr 7 the trailer for the new series and after 2 mins he announced “this is lame”. I will try again in a few weeks.

  2. Well, Bobi, you’ll always get me in with doggy pictures. My dogs’ beds were bought to accommodate the way they slept. Previous dog loved her bed, slept in all sorts of positions. Current dog sleeps sideways in his large bed, head hanging over the side, legs every which way. House sitting for friends with one large dog, one small dog, and my medium dog – large dog slept in small dog’s bed, my dog slept in large dog’s bed, and small dog slept on a lawn chair.

    Dogs Behaving Badly should be titled Owners Behaving Stupidly, but it is still entertaining.

    Television has been mostly shit lately. Tonight I watched MASH for an hour, and now have on The Proposal, to which I am not paying much attention. Thank goodness for my local library.

    • So true, Von. Anyone ever seen The Dog Whisperer?It’s about how the crazy dogs had useless owners and the DW fixes the owners.

  3. I watched some Big Little Lies, s2, on the plane today. I normally don’t like shows about women, but Merryls Streep was brilliant as the old, bitch cow, I like watching Reese Witherspoon talk and Nicole Kidman, who I usually find quite wooden, did an excellent portrayal of a woman who had no emotions.

    I am also having a read-up but haven’t anything I can recommend.

  4. Ah, Spring – what a lovely way to start the new season with much needed sun and warmth
    In Melbourne. Went to a charity lunch at the NGV this week. Fabulous. Have walked to the shops every day this week to get my groceries.

    TV is rubbish. Thank goodness for Netflix. Watching Iain Glenn in ‘Jack Taylor’ at present. The documentary series on ABC on older people paired up with 4 years old has been very good.
    Liked the first series of ‘Big little Lies’. Started reading the book by a Sydney author. Look forward to watching the second series when it comes out on DVD.

    • I can’t watch Big Little Lies American-style. As a huge fan of the author, one of her greatest abilities is to capture modern Australian society on the page. The book of BLL is classic Aussie schoolyard, and I really can’t understand why anyone allowed it to be taken and set in a foreign country.

      You may feel different having seen the show first, but if you enjoy the book, I recommend going to What Alice Forgot by the same author.

  5. Ahhh, fall. 😛

    I started with Carnival Row on Prime. It is… I am not sure yet whether I like it or not. It has some interesting ideas, the setting is fantastic, great costumes. And believe it or or not, Cara Delevingne actually does a pretty good job. And Legolas got old. 😀

    • It has mixed reviews. Fantasy can be like that tho’, it will either be your cup of tea or it will miss the mark.
      It’s like my favourite set of books by Terry Pratchett (I own every single one) gets a universal yawn from my family.

      • I hopped onboard the Pratchett bandwagon back in the day, on the recommendations of quite a few of my nerdy friends. I liked some of them (particularly the Death and Susan-centred books), but I found they were very hit and miss, with me. Too many of them, Prachett had a habit of getting on his soapbox and lecturing the audience, and sometimes, I found that off-putting.

        Having said that, “Hogfather” is one of my favourite books like, ever.

        “HAVE YOU BEEN NAUGHTY, OR NICE? HO. HO. HO.”

      • I loved the Wyrd sisters – and Margrat.
        But I agree (a little) with WS. I think as his dementia took hold his books suffered. He forgot to stop writing. Poor joke but it had to be said.
        And as an aside, some of his books were truly disturbing. I’ve never been able to think about the tooth fairy the same way again. Still gives me nightmares.

  6. Hard to understand the complaints about TV above with Days Of Our Lives and Young And The Restless returning. Catch ups today at 1.30 on Gem.

    What’s wrong with you people?

    • Are they the really old Days of Our Lives, with MacDonald Carey and Bill and Susan Seaforth-Hayes?

      Good lord, I didn’t even have to look up those names. I use to watch DooL when I was in school. It would be hilarious if they started the eps from the beginning.

      • I think it’s current versions of the shows, Von. A lot of sands have passed through the hourglass since I watched. An hour is a bit too long to, dare I say it, waste.

    • I’ve always wanted to live in a house with 5 bedrooms, a study, and a genuine honest-to-goodness conservatory.

      But even with those first few photos, I was thinking to myself, “It’s lovely and spacious … but it looks like the kind of house where people get murdered, after-dark,” and then I saw the photos of the cellar.

      Nope.

      • It starts off so well. It looks like the kind of place where an intruder could live in the ceiling for two years and the family would never know

        • Aw, thanks, Juz. I’m sitting in the dark, watching Don’t Look Now, so I’m already a little jumpy. After touring that freak show of a house, I am completely creeped out, and listening for noises in the ceiling.
          ,

      • Yeah, that’s what caught my attention too. Even in the normal photos, there’s just little creepy elements on the fringes, that are disturbing enough to be *really* freaky.

        Still, you could market it as an adventure bed-and-breakfast destination. Survive the night, get half your money back!

        • Even the video is creepy. You’d want to have a priest bless the house and fling lots of holy water around before moving in, wouldn’t you? I wonder what the history of the place is.

  7. I am watching Dead Pixels on iview.
    I fell across it accidentally and it is turning out to be a surprising delight.
    Please note that it is not recommended for those under 15, meaning language and sex references, but I have been laughing out loud which is always a good sign.
    And, if it is your cup of tea, it will be gone at the end of the month.
    How come I am only just finding it now? How many other shows have I missed? Here I have been complaining about nothing to watch and the ABC has been keeping all these shows a secret from me. I despair.

    • A friend of mine just discovered Dead Pixels, he was telling me about it the other day, he reckoned it was really good.

  8. Mr Juz and I just finished watching The Fall. The end was a bit meh. Recommendations for another gritty British series? Already done Broadchurch, Luther, Collateral and Marcella and some of the Thin Blue Line I think it’s called.

    • Did you watch River? I can’t remember where but it was really good.
      Shetland is good, mostly. I preferred the books.
      Which brings me to Vera. They have just restarted the series from the beginning on ABC. I am all in.
      But you are talking to someone who has a preference for Miss Marple, so therefore Agatha Raisin. It’s not in the same category as the above.

      • I might hunt down river – I loved Broadchurch, loved The Fall (mostly), and would love some others. Couldn’t seem to get into Thin Blue Line, even thought theoretically I SHOULD like it.
        So I immediately went to look for it, which reminds me of a public service announcement I should make about the JustWatch app. You can search for shows and it lets you know where to get them – e.g. stream on netflix, SBS on demand, buy it from apple, etc. It is SUPER handy.

  9. Yay, spring! And bring on the last weekend in October, then summer is here.

    I had a tv experience last night watching “102 minutes” (about the World Trade Centre attacks). I didn’t want to watch it, and have never watched a doco about it, because I was so traumatised on the day. However, last night DD started watching and it was almost impossible to pull our eyes away from it. I decided to stay with DD as she watched because I didn’t want her to have no-one to ask questions about it.

    The surreal thing for me was that she was a four-month-old on that day, and she kept me sort-of sane by just needing my attention. Now I sat with her and tried to explain the feeling of the day, and who did it and why, which was made extra strange by realising that she doesn’t remember a world without serious terrorism (or mobiles for that matter!). I am glad that I was able to explain how further life experience has helped me to put it in perspective in relation to how the world works now.

    • Wow – Fijane – we were having nearly the same experience. Our DD was interested too and we were explaining about the times then and now. She was also a baby (just over 3 months) and I was up tending to her and idly turned on the TV that night. I thought it was a movie and Sandra Sully had some gig narrating it.
      I was in that sleep deprived kind of zone anyway so the whole thing was surreal but I didn’t leave the house and just watched what looked the world ending. Terrible times.

      • My goodness, remember when you could just about waltz through aeroplane security with shampoo, conditioner and scissors. We used to take scissors and a fruit knife in hand luggage.

    • And me too. I thought it might have been because I hadn’t loaded the latest Apple software ( I try to resist for as long as poss. ) but maybe it was something else?

        • I don’t think so, Juz. I tried to open it a little while ago, waited 30 seconds with no result, then opened a new tab for another site. When I clicked TTV site again 2 minutes later, it was open but took a long time again for this thread to open.

          I’m on desktop computer, using Chrome.

          • Looks like my web host is experiencing performance issues. Fingers crossed it will be fixed overnight. If we ever go dark for a long time I will post updates on Facebook Talking TV page (I know some of you aren’t on there but should only ever be temporary)

          • So far resisted the bail/enabling. It’s a bad idea alao because of the system here. It could go worse for him in a court case if they deem the farang to not have suffered.
            We are learning a lot about the multi levels of Thai corruption.

            He claims to not have stolen petrol. Who knows. Police can target you so you’ll pay bribes. He has to plead guilty anyway. If he doesn’t plead guilty, it’s insulting the arresting police and the govt system and he will get a harsher penalty.

          • Well, Daisy, good for you. It must be very difficult seeing him in jail, as well as trying to negotiate a justice system about which you know very little. Is the support lady still helping?

  10. Saw “It: Chapter Two”
    There’s some graphic horror but it really wasn’t all that scary. Funnier and sillier than scary and it was also predictable for the most part, IMO. With a run time of 2 hrs. and 50 mins. it was too long. If you go see it watch for the Stephen King cameo. Now that was creepy. 🙂

    • I was watching IT Chapter 1 on hbo here. Quite good, I thought. I reckon they bounced Stranger Things from it. It even has one of the same actors. I wasn’t scared, but good clown. Well done I thought.

    • Oh, I hate when that happens when I am teaching, and it happens really often.
      It’s even worse when it’s the same spelling but different pronunciation and you get told by an exasperated child, “It’s MIA not MIA”. Sigh. As in MYA not Meeah. Or is that vise versa. I always forget.
      There is Ava and Avah. Maye and May. Aleesha, Alicia and Aleisha. Are parents insane?

  11. Uff, had my first day back at school today. Thankfully my worst fear of being the worst student was unwarranted for.^^ Even though they started a few weeks before me, I could directly work along. Me so smart! 😛
    13 weeks to perfect my French, I am not worried too much at the moment.

  12. Did anyone else watch The Twinning Reaction on SBS tonight? It was so disturbing and horrifying that I can’t yet make an intelligent comment about it, but would like to know other people’s reactions.

    This gross experiment did not happen in the 1920’s, but started in 1960. I was so repelled that I couldn’t even cry, but could only shake my head in disbelief.

    • I knew about this one so couldn’t watch it.
      If you didn’t know differently, it sounds like one of the experiments that would be done by Nazis.
      It’s awful to think how cruel humans can be. And, wait, wait, we haven’t changed much.

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