week 3, pin 3

Week of September 23rd:
 Blue "Crystal Meth" Rock Candy (Breaking Bad)
Pin Rating: Excellent for novelty
Cost: $20 (if you have to buy a  $10 candy thermometer, which I did)

Tonight is the series finale of Breaking Bad, so Panda and I decided to give BrBa a proper send-off by trying to make some "Blue Meth" of our own (out of granulated sugar and corn syrup, of course!) for our series finale party.

Our first cook didn't turn out as we hoped.  The recipe instructs you to remove the sugar mixture from heat when the thermometer reaches 285 degrees, but we did not quite do this in time, and within seconds we had over-cooked our candy. 

Even just slightly over-cooking it produced yellowed (or carmalized) candy, so when we added the blue food coloring, our candy turned green. Knowing Lydia would not be pleased, we decided we'd better try again.

For our 2nd cook, we removed the mixture from the heat a few degrees before the recipe called for us to in the hopes we wouldn't have the same green problem.

When we added the food coloring it looked a little green at first, so we added several more ( 5-7) drops of Betty Crocker's blue gel coloring.  We then worried it was going to be too dark, but thankfully it turned the perfect shade of blue!

After pouring the sugar mixture out on the lightly greased cookie sheet, we let it harden and cool for about an hour, it was easy to break apart. We put the broken pieces in a ziplock bag and pounded the candy with  a meat tenderizer until getting the right look.

Over all, I am SUPER PLEASED with this pin!   It was fun, easy, and a great way to send off Walt and Jesse.

newsroom

Admittedly, I'm late to the party. Newsroom has been getting a lot of acclaim from critics and fans alike, and yet it was only last night I saw my first episode.  I love much of Aaron Sorkin's, work (the West Wing is one of my top 10 favorite shows of all time), but after watching the pitiful Studio 66 on the Sunset Strip and re-watching SportsNight about a year ago only to find that it did not hold up, I was afraid my love for Aaron Sorkin might be forever tarnished if Newsroom fell flat.Would it meet and exceed the perfection of The West Wing? Or, would Sorkin revert to his SportsNight laziness?  I feared the worst. I resisted the show. I didn't have HBO.  So, I'm late to the party.

Whoa, did she just say SportsNight  was lazy and did not hold up?  Why, yes, I did. I love everyone on that show, but when I re-watched it, I noticed a huge problem:  any of the rousing speeches spoken in the show could have been said by any character at any time. These speeches were never written in the voice of the characters who said them. It was almost as if when a speech full of righteous indignation was written, the character to say it was picked out of a hat.  Perhaps I'm being overly harsh, but I challenge you to watch SportsNight marathon style and not agree with me.

With the West Wing, Sorkin had fixed this problem.  Yes, at one time or another all the main characters gave their best shot at leaving their opponents speechless, but they all did so in their own way, using the tone, humor, language of that character's personality.

My verdict: I love Newsroom. It certainly doesn't hit West Wing perfection (a tall order), but it does seem to be the show that SportsNight should have been. The characters are all developed, and when they get mad as hell and they aren't going to take it anymore, they do so in a way that make sense.

Newsroom is a win in my book. I love it!

map wars

This is one of my favorite scenes from The West Wing.  CJ has a meeting with cartographers who want to change the map we use to be a map that more accurately shows the size of land masses. It will BLOW.YOUR.MIND!

By all accounts, the Gall-Peterson map projection and the traditional Mercator both distort parts of the globe (Gall-Peters distorts angles, but preserves land mass size; Mercator distorts land mass size, but preserves angles). What's their problem? Why distort anything at all? Well, of course it is difficult to make something round flat with out any negative affects.  Read more about it (and other mind blowing map projections) here.

Gall-Peters Map

netflix instant!

I lived in darkness, but now there is light.

score!

Hercules: The Legendary Journeys was at my local used record store for only 15 buckaroos. Jealous? It's okay, you can admit to it.

true story

I have a kid in my class who looks exactly like The Greatest American Hero.

top 20 shows (of my time)

It's hard to rank sitcoms and dramas together...the criteria for judging them is a bit different, so I made two top ten lists. They are not perfect, but here they are:

Top Ten Sitcoms:

10. Corner Gas
9. Ellen (also called These Friends of Mine)
8. Family Ties
7. The Office
6. Scrubs (season 1-4)
5.How I met Your Mother
4. The Simpsons
3. Sienfeld
2. The Golden Girls
1. Soap

** edited because I can't count, and had 12 sitcoms not 10. And because of the omission of the G-girls, which I thought I put in my list.
(removed: Sports Night, Two Guys and a Girl, and Malcolm in the Middle...that last one was particularly hard to remove from the list.)**

Top Ten Drama/Action

10.Lois & Clark: The Adventures of Superman
9. Veronica Mars (especially season 1, which is sheer perfection...television at its best)
8. Dexter
7. The Wire
6. Picket Fences
5. La Femme Nikita
4. The X-Files
3. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
2. West Wing
1. Twin Peaks

This blog post brought to you by "T.V. Tuesdays"

new shows during rerun season

Oh how I love you. You are the only thing keeping my Tivo alive in these horrid summer months. Here' s my take a on a couple of shows:

Mental - this show is about the patients and doctors in a psychiatric hospital. Basically, a cute eccentric doctor becomes head of this psychiatric hospital and shakes things up. He humanizes the patents where others tend to think of them as lab specimens. Of course not all the old doctors act like that, some of them are just stuck in their conventional ways. So far, I kind of like this show. With each episode we learn a little more about the doctor and his sister, who - suffering from a mental illness (schizophrenia?) - is living on the streets, but calls into her brother every so often. He is desperately trying to find her. Anyway, it's not the best, but it has potential. I think I would watch it even if there were something else on.
Stars: lots of people, but you know Annabella Sciora. The main guy is played by Chris Vance. (Airs Fridays at 9/8C)

The Philanthropist - this show is about this rich dude who had a bit of a breakdown in the first episode after witnessing a horrible flood in Nigeria wherein he and a little boy (and surely many other people) almost died. He now tries to do good works. I assume (if other episodes are like the first) that he often faces challenges to be overcome, and he does so in a mildly amusing and heartfelt manner. Oh, and he had a son who died, so that adds to the drama. I've only seen the first episode, and although it stars James Purfoy (Marc Anotny from Rome) , Michael K Williams (Omar from the Wire) , my attention could not adequately be held, and I started doing laundry and cleaning the kitchen while it was on. Not a good sign as I can sit through most shows, and I am loath to ever do laundry.
Also stars: Neve Campbell and Jesse L. Green (Airs Wednesdays at 10/9C)

This blog post brought to you by "TV Tuesdays"

soap survey

soap opera fans, check out this survey. Data is being collected to study soap opera viewing habits.

this i know for sure...

If someone is watching a t.v. show on the "play all" option, there is no need for a "previously on.." Who do they have designing these things, anyway?

why do i let this happen?

I stayed up until 5 in the morning last night watching Dexter. I'm ruined for the day! Ruined. Ugh. Damn you, C. Michael Hall, for being so irresistible!

fall tv, how I miss you...

Shows I would watch if I got any channels:

How I Met Your Mother
Grey's Anatomy
Heroes
Ugly Betty
the Office
My name is Earl
Pushing Daisies

There are probably others, but for the first time in my life I don't know what the new shows are. I ususally have spreadsheets and highlighted schedules. This year I have nothing. I have no television, and am therefore denied access to the world! This sucks. I need a better antenna or cable or something. I can't live like this! I'm not an animal!!!

let me take a moment to say, "I was right!"

For years I have been saying that the law in Law and Order equals the police, and the order equals the lawyers. For years, I have been told I am wrong; I have been told that the police keep the order and the lawyers keep the law. I maintained that the police enforce the law and the lawyers enforce the order to the law. Well, ladies and gentleman, I am right! Yesterday I saw a commercial for Law and Order that identified the police as the law part of law and order. So there! This should be particularly interesting to a particular reader who was on the wrong side of this argument...

Tomorrow is SUPER TUESDAY!

I just went to electoralcompass.com and I scored closest to Obama and furthest from Huckabee. I'm really looking forward to voting tomorrow in my bell-weather state of MO! On a similar note, I got the chance to hear Obama speak last Saturday when he was in town. It was just amazing! He was so inspiring and so hopeful. I really feel that that he can make some positive things happen for this country. I, of course, was also happy to hear his plan to retain teachers and change No Child Left Behind.

Be my Guiding Light

Student teaching is exhausting. I spend most of my time planning lessons (and trying to learn all I can about each lesson so I don't teach misinformation or look like an idiot in front of my students). But the one thing that brings a bright-spot to my day is Guiding Light. There are some pretty good story-lines at the moment, and while they are somewhat botching the romance I'm interested in, I have faith the story will go the way I want it to.

listen to what i say; it will not be wrong

I spent the last week up at the farm with my folks. As always, I took plenty of tv on dvd to keep me entertained. This is even more important during the winter months when only an insane person would go out side in the blusteringly cold town that houses our family farm than it is in during the warmer (more pleasant) months.

I took with me:
X-Files Season 2
Twin Peaks: the series
Corner Gas Season 2

Despite her best intentions, my mom ended up getting sucked into X-Files. I'm pretty sure she's a Mulder/Scully 'shipper (as all good people are).

Despite his best intentions, my dad is now hooked on Twin Peaks; he actually made me start over from the beginning of the series after seeing about 15 minutes of an episode. We watched 10 episodes, plus the pilot, in 2 days. He now has all sorts of theories about who killed Laura Palmer. He is not going to be happy when the truth comes out!

Finally, it's unanimous: my parents and two sets of aunts and uncles love Corner Gas. They were laughing so hard, and watched a couple of the episodes more than once. They all love Squishy for introducing me (and by extension, them) to this show.

how bob came to be

David Lynch tells the awesome story of how Frank DeSilva and Bob came to be...

nikita and scarves

Pretty much all my spare time lately has been spent crocheting and watching La Femme Nikita. My roommate Timotio can often be heard saying, "You're sill watching this show?!" or "What are you knitting now?" (to this I reply, "I'm CROCHETING!," and he responds, "whatever." Anway, I started the show from the beginning a week or two ago, and now I"m in season 2 (I've skipped some of my least favorite episodes as I've seen them all a million times). The other night I put in a disc and crocheted this scarf as I watched Nikita and Michael kick ass. I'm pretty impressed with myself. Now...if only there were a covert anti-terrorist crocheting organization I could join...

Next up: Gloves!

duwayne wayne is alive and well

My morning was made a little brighter this Monday when I went to my school and saw this kid who was dressed just like Duwayne Wayne! It's safe to say, I'm glad I got out bed this morning.

even cooler

I have every episode of Flight of the Conchords on tape. How? On Demand, baby. On Demand. If you have Cable on Demand and you are not using it, you are a fool.