EdTheRipper

Every challenge that I take part in usually sees people suffering through equipment failures or health issues. I've been lucky so far to not have any issues. Until now.

My wife hadn't been feeling well all week. She was having a tough time keeping food down. She ended up going to the hospital yesterday. they diagnosed her with a urinary tract infection, a kidney infection and discovered that she has a massive kidney stone, about 8mm. So, they admitted her. Hopefully, she can come home later today but no one seems to have any idea at the moment. I didn't have a chance to watch anything yesterday and am not really sure how much I'll be able to accomplish the remainder of the way. As it stands, as long as she is in the hospital, I am out of work because we have no one to watch our son. 2013 is just off to an excellent start.

Travis McClain

Well, I personally account for part of that track record! :P

Always fun. One of my Crohnie pals has been plagued by that same issue several times in the last year. Depending on the location and size, they can blast it into smaller, passable pieces. Hurts like a mothersmurfer, but then it's over and some antibiotics take care of the infections. Best wishes to her for a quick recovery.

Regarding bonus content, I ran into a curiosity about that with the BBC mini-series version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. All the bonus content was at the end of Disc 1. I waited until I had finished the series to come back to it. I don't think there were any spoilers, but it annoyed me all the same - particularly since the main content run time was the same on all three discs, meaning it's not like Disc 3 was too full of episodes to accommodate the bonus stuff. (Actually, almost all of the bonus stuff consisted of on-screen text material which could have gone anywhere, and a terrific 25 minute long interview with John le Carre.)

I'm down to the last nine episodes of the 1954-55 Sherlock Holmes series, which I hope to finish by tomorrow at the latest. The rest of the challenge I think I'll spend knocking off things like the Ewok TV movies and some single-disc TV show compilations. Maybe some TV concert specials, etc.

Oh, and of course Wednesday I'll be tuning in to the season premiere of Dallas!

shadokitty

I hope she'll be ok.

EdTheRipper

Thanks for the kind words. As of right now, they're giving her until tomorrow to pass the stone naturally. If she doesn't, the intent is to put in a stent and blast it into smaller pieces so she can pass them naturally. She's hoping to be home tomorrow evening, but I'm not holding my breath.

mrcellophane

So sorry to hear about your wife. Sending good thoughts her way and hoping she recovers soon.

Finished up the second season of Gilmore Girls which was just as good as the first. I love the addition of Jesse into the mix. I love it when shows do a good job of integrating the plot into character development. Often, it feels like the plot is just a series of hoops for the characters to jump through 'cause the writers thought it would be interesting.

I also watched the first part of the 1981 miniseries Brideshead Revisited which my parents gave me for Christmas. So far, it is awesome! I'm a huge fan of the book and the movie version with Emma Thompson so I know I'm in for a treat!

shadokitty

Hard to believe the month is nearly over and I still have so much I'd love to watch for this challenge. Just watched Knight of the Phoenix for the first time in quite a while, as I had been meaning to tap into my Knight Rider sets all month, as I have also planned to tap into my Dark Shadows Revival, Super Robot Red Baron, Ultraman, Ancient Aliens, and Tales From the Crypt sets.

elijahmagallon

I love GG. My wife used to watch it and I would leave the room because it just sounded like women rabbiting on about nothing (nothing against women by the way, it was the rabbiting on that I can't stand).

Then I gave one episode a go and was hooked, the writing was witty and the characters were like real people who I could care about. I insisted that we go back to the very first episode and watch them all and I'm so glad I did.

I even decided that I live in Stars Hollow for my location on my profile on this board. :-)

Ash Ketchum

This is quite a coincidence. I was feeling abdominal pain on Thursday morning and wound up not going to work and instead went to the hospital emergency room. I was in pain until they gave me morphine. That wore off after 3 hours and they gave me another shot and that wore off after an hour. After a CAT scan they diagnosed a kidney stone. I got home after 7PM. I was fine the next day right up until 7PM when I got hit with the worst pain yet. I took a percocet and it didn't do a thing until 9:30PM when the pain finally subsided. I called the hospital and they were no help. I almost called 911. I've been taking ibuprofen since. The stone still hasn't passed yet and it's been five days now. But I was able to watch a lot for this challenge on Friday during the day and all day Saturday and Sunday. (Check out my post in the list thread--link below.)

Travis McClain

I just audited the List Thread to see if there were any participants whose lists have fallen behind since maintaining an active list is the sole criteria to be eligible to win a prize at the end of the challenge. This isn't meant to embarrass anyone or anything like that. I just wanted to nudge you to update your lists while there's still plenty of time. Some of those lists include a lot of content but just haven't been updated lately.

Dimension X (1/11)
LorenzoL (1/8)
Cronenbergfan71 No Activity
InnocentBlood (1/13)
Trevor No Activity
Corey31 (1/8)
Quake1028 No Activity
coyoteblue No Activity
Darkgod (1/11)
Bladz (1/11)
kstublen No Activity
Chad (1/9)
TheManInBlack (1/3)
That'sAllFolks (1/4)

EdTheRipper

I don't know what it is with kidney stones, but a friend of mine just had to deal with them a couple of weeks ago. Lots of people having this issue. Hope you feel better soon!

shadokitty

Hope you feel better soon

LJG765

Hope she feels better soon! And the same to Ash! Sounds painful!

Wanted to watch something else other than TV for a while, picked out a pack of 4 family movies. Found out that they're all TV movies so they count! How's that for luck!

Travis McClain

Though I've watched it once before, I felt the time was right for me to revisit the 1954-55 Sherlock Holmes TV series this year. One of the things that helped set it apart from other stage and screen adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle's literary sleuth is that producer Sheldon Reynolds elected to focus on the Holmes of the earlier stories: younger, more curious and less of a know-it-all going through the motions. A sort of Holmes Begins, in modern parlance. Most of the 39 episodes feature original stories, though there are a handful that draw from Doyle at least in part.

The real appeal of this series is Ronald Howard's earnest performance as Holmes, and the chemistry between him and Howard Crawford (as Watson). Crawford overplays the role of indignant fuddy duddy put off by Holmes's eccentricities but somehow, with Archie Duncan also overplaying the role of Inspector Lestrade, it works to create a milieu for the series that allows Ronald Howard to play a terrific straight man.

The cast is actually quite small, with several actors playing multiple roles. Duncan himself plays no less than three roles outside his recurring Lestrade, including his own cousin. Eugene Deckers appears throughout the series in seven different roles as victim, killer, falsely accused suspect and as a non-player simply caught up in someone else's drama. The finest of his seven performances is either the manic, Frank Gorshin-esque titular role in "The Case of Harry Croker" or as the seething, vindictive killer out to get Holmes in "The Christmas Pudding".

The lesser episodes are those that pander to mid-50s American TV tropes, particularly "The Case of the Texas Cowgirl". That episode trips over itself so hard to hit all the Texas/Cowboy stereotypes that it only makes sense as a sort of spiteful parody. Likewise, "The Case of the Careless Suffragette" features a group of women so completely dimwitted that I encouraged a friend of mine to watch the episode just so she could cringe. She's not yet taken me up on the recommendation, and it's probably for the best she doesn't. That episode, like "Texas Cowgirl", does feel at times to be a mockery of its own tropes and on that level I kinda dig it. Plus, there's something endearing to me about the absurdity of the bomb maker that reminds me of the 1966 Batman series and movie.

The highlight episodes include "The Case of the Shoeless Engineer" and "The Case of the French Interpreter", both of which feature some genuinely sinister villains and plots; "The Case of the Thistle Killer" (Holmes versus a sort of Jack the Ripper killer); "The Case of the Perfect Husband" (a young Michael Gough informs his wife of his intent to kill her) and "The Case of the Exhumed Client", in which a dead man's will requests that Sherlock Holmes be brought in to investigate his death because he distrusts everyone around him.

One of my favorite current era shows is Psych, and I see a lot of similarities between Sherlock Holmes and that. I had some playback issues with my Mill Creek DVD set (I've had to have it replaced twice now by them since I first bought it in 2009), but to their credit they've been more than cooperative about ensuring that I have a working set. The original masters aren't in particularly great shape, though they're watchable. I can't imagine anyone will ever spend the money to re-master the series, so this is as good as I expect it's going to get. Even in spite of the reliability matter of the discs themselves, I would heartily recommend this series.

ntnon

I saw an episode of Psych about two or three years ago, and thought it was awful. But almost everyone I've talked to since have told me it's a great show, so maybe I just got a duff one. If it's Holmes-y (or 1950s-Holmes-y, at least), perhaps I should give it another go.

I've just started Yes, Prime Minister, and found it interestingly timely in that it sets in straight away talking about Trident!

Travis McClain

I've had that experience with a lot of shows. The most recent glaring example is Big Bang Theory. I've watched two episodes and parts of others and I just cannot for the life of me fathom why so many people I know have gone gaga over it. I think the writing relies entirely on dressing up sitcom cliches with nerd culture buzzwords and the acting is embarrassing - particularly from the lead. I know he's supposed to be nerdy, but his performance and the entire series itself plays instead like bored people pretending at being what they think nerds are like.

As for Psych, I've fallen behind by two seasons now. The cast has begun to age out of those roles, but I haven't stopped watching because of anything to do with the show. I just kinda got waylaid by some personal life stuff and forgot to make a point to keep up with it. I can't say whether you'll enjoy it or not, but if you dig the '54 Sherlock Holmes, I think you can at least find the similarities between the two and enjoy those elements.

Giles

boot 'em I say! ...

BobO'Link

Yes, they *do* tend to utilize/overutilize certain sitcom cliches but I've heard many of their conversations from friends at the local comic shop, some of which are professors/instructors at the local university. A friend from my college days (many years ago) is a PhD and one of the biggest Star Wars geeks I've ever seen. I know people who act just like those guys right down to Sheldon's "spot" on the couch. Because I see many friends and acquaintances in the show I tend to find it very funny.

Travis McClain

When I was at C2E2, the comic book convention in Chicago, last year that show came up in conversation with some other attendees. The consensus among all of them was that actual geeks rarely enjoy the show at all, but people who are friends with geeks love it.

Speaking strictly for myself, I think Family Guy has just desensitized me to the novelty of geek culture shout-outs. I can't be entertained merely by referencing other things I like.

davidh777

Hope the participants are feeling better. I think the day-to-day pace of challenges kind of lend themselves to people talking about how their lives are going. The sharing is fine with me.

On a more trivial note, after I hit the 2/3 mark and was feeling good about my pace, I was completely shut out yesterday between work, evening activities, and scoring the Sci-Fi TV sheep game.

Quick, someone tell Trevor that he just needs to update his list for a chance at free stuff!

BobO'Link

Interesting... I don't think we've ever discussed BBT at the LCS so I don't really know how the other guys see the show. I was surprised when I saw my wife watching it. When I commented about it she said "It's funny because I see you and your friends in it". She's definitely non-geek although she *does* tolerate the comics, movies, collectibles, books, etc. so...

Travis McClain

Most of the BBT fans I know are outside the geek culture themselves, though I do know a few actual geeks who are really into it. Of course, there's also the distinction between geeks and nerds and I imagine that divide is even stronger over the show.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

I'm a geek but I watch it for the stories and less for the geek references, which I don't really care about.

The Monkees

I'm watching the season 5 finale of Dallas right now!

Travis McClain

A pal of mine shared a link tonight on Facebook to a blog post about "The Problem with The Big Bang Theory...." that I imagine will mean more to people who have actually watched the show than it does to me. Just something to consider for those who actually want to kick this around some beyond what little I have to say about it.

I was excited thinking the new season began last night, but alas it isn't until this upcoming Monday night. At least I'll get to count one episode for this year's challenge.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

I only managed to get through about half of what he wrote. That's a case of someone really overanalyzing something and not getting that you can like a show for different reasons, other than just what he thinks the show's about.

It also sounds like he's only watched a few episodes and then came up with all that or if he has watched more, he's too busy to listen and watch what's actually going on because he's too focused on being angry.