Bright lights, big city

Magnet #921 - Times Square, 1939

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I love Times Square. I love the way it's grown and changed over the years, and bright lights have been its only constant.

It's why I love seeing these images of old-time NY - either in books or on magnets, like this one from my magnet guy in Union Square.

It's definitely a far cry from where I grew up, where the most lights we have are downtown, when the Christmas star goes up. Also, I use the term "downtown" loosely, given that we have maybe four square blocks of a downtown.

Still, there's something to be said for living in the sticks.

At night, you can look up and sometimes, your only light source are the moon and stars.

Raccoons come up on your backporch to say hello! In broad daylight!

Bunny rabbits hippity-hop to get out of the car's way. Every single time you come home! That's not even counting the deer that live in the woods in front of the house.

Hummingbirds flock to your backyard.

And, aside from the wildlife, you get to speed like a freakin' demon on the backroads.

You get to pass cop roadblocks on the backroads. (Thankfully, I wasn't speeding, but it's actually kinda awesome, they had me show my license. Dude didn't even tense up when I reach into my [albeit cartoon] giant totebag for it.)

And, if you're me, on the way to the highway, you pass what's totally a biker gang hang-out, complete with the Rebel flag and American flag, next to an auto collision shop.

Oh hells, yeah, there's some Sons of Anarchy action going on there. (Awe. Some.)

"Pace yourself. It'll come together."*

Magnet #920 - Pensacola!

My sister brought this wooden magnet back for me from her trip to her hub's family reunion down in Florida. I haven't a clue if I've been to Pensacola before, but I really love the supercute design!

Using it for today's magnet, because after last night's Emmys, I decided to do a midsummer dance card check-up. The list way below confirms that I still watch almost 40 hours of scripted television in any given week of the year.

For real, my docket is seriously overfull. And that doesn't count any premium cable shows I no longer get, or the soaps I no longer watch, any of the Brit reality shows I get sucked into, and none of the Disney shows that I watch.

How is it, that I don't watch a good 75% of the shows that won Emmys last night? Weird.

So what's the tenuous connection back to this magnet? The newest favorite show on my docket below, The Glades, on A&E. Little known, especially with a modest ad NYC transit ad budget (that pulled me in), and nicely done website.* It's really undersung, methinks.

The lead is superdupercute Aussie Matt Passmore, with an odd accent that's probably supposed to be Midwestern, playing a rough-around-the-edges detective with an attitude who left Chicago and moves down to Florida. He reminds me of like a modern-day Humphrey Bogart, running around in jeans and T-shirts down in the Everglades.

As per usual, I could care less about the procedural/case of the week - I mean, really, how many murders can they have in one county?

I'm really all about the will-they, won't-they romance between the guy and my favorite sister from Related, Kiele Sanchez. Plus, it doesn't hurt that Clayne Crawford's got a little recurring role as well. (He's been my "Country Pacey" since his two Roswell episodes, where he totally was Maria's Dawson, but had an attitude like Pacey and an accent to match - hence the nickname, didjagetthat?).

Yep. Trust me to watch a whole show based on a hot guy with a favorite heroine and a bit of my Pacey mixed in. What? It's what I do!

And, in keeping with such, now I have to find either bootleg episodes of Related, Roswell, or throw on some Dawson's Creek, or, if I really want to add something to my docket...maybe I'll find some of Passmore's episodes of McLeod's Daughters. Oiy.



TV Dance Card
ABC (5)
Private Practice, Brothers & Sisters, Grey's Anatomy, Castle, V

CBS (4)
NCIS, Flashpoint, NCIS: Los Angeles, The Good Wife

NBC (3)
Chuck, Friday Night Lights, Parenthood

FOX (3)
Fringe, Bones, Lie to Me

The CW (6)
90210, Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill, Supernatural, Vampire Diaries, Life Unexpected

TBS (3)
The Closer, Saving Grace, Rizzoli & Isles

USA (5)
Psych, Burn Notice, In Plain Sight, Royal Pains, White Collar

BBC-A (3)
Doctor Who, Merlin, Being Human

AMC (1)
Mad Men

ABC Family (2)
Greek, Pretty Little Liars

Syfy (2)
Warehouse 13, Haven

FX (1)
Sons of Anarchy

Lifetime (1)
Army Wives

A&E (1)
The Glades

Total: 40

eta:
Huh. I forgot to add in Life Unexpected, which pushes The CW into my most-watched network. Really? And yet, not surprised.

The big dance

Magnet #919 - Norman Rockwell's Woman at Vanity

Though I'm sure I'll make it down for the latest Norman Rockwell: Telling Stories exhibit in DC, my sister picked up a couple of magnets for me, just in case.

This piece appeared on the October 31, 1933, issue of The Saturday Evening Post, and is of a woman sitting at her vanity, wearing the latest in fashion - a copy of a dress that Joan Crawford wore in the movie Letty Lynton.

I love this, because you wonder, where's she headed? What's the occasion? Is it somewhere glamorous? Dinner? Or, is she just dressing for dinner? And don't you just love the little girl in braids and her little puppy watching her mom primp. So cute!

I picked this magnet for today in honor of tonight's Primetime Emmys. There's something really cool knowing that all of Hollywood has been in a flurry for weeks, leading up to this day and night - all to put on a big show...

...so I'm gonna stop typing up this magnetblogpost to watch that big show. Though, I'm not gonna lie, there's a really big part of me that's waiting for a shot of (OMG, what's he doing, OMG, what's he doing here) David Tennant, plus George Clooney and maybe Jon Hamm and good gravy. It's a room full of my cuteboys!

*dies*

Heroes with hang-ups

Magnet #918a, b, c & d - Fantastic Four

So, when I packed up my office a month ago, I rediscovered a whole boxed Marvel superheroes magnet set, that I bought in the Cincinnati airport a couple of years ago. The box set had the whole stable of Marvel folks, including the Fantastic Four, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby back in 1961.

If you read the wiki I just linked to above, you'll learn more than you ever wanted to know about the Fantastic Four characters, including the special "Marvel method" of creating comics - which I'm sure all the people who were going to the comics panels of SDCC know about, but I didn't. I do love that Stan Lee called them "heroes with hang-ups" because in the end, most superheroes do have their hang-ups, foibles and neuroses.

I won't lie, I've never picked up a single FF comic before, though I did go see the two movies. What? They were somewhat entertaining!

Really, I'm just using these four for today, because it's STWsis' birthday, and I was supposed to be in Washington, DC, today and round out the foursome, but I agreed to stay at home and chauffeur the parents around. It's what I do.

Now. We just have to figure out who of the Fantastic Four my two sisters, BIL and me are.

I call dibs on the Thing.

Puzzle me this

Magnet #917 - Declaration of Independence

I've magnetblogged on our national papers several times by now, but I stumbled on this magnet that I got from either the National Constitution Center or the National Archives, and realized it was a good choice for today.

My sisters and I used to be huge into jigsaw puzzles. Like a puzzle done every Christmas - the harder the better, the more historical the better. Some very cool puzzles out there, given that jigsaw puzzles were created in 1760 London by a mapmaker to use as an educational tool.

Last week, I got sucked into my dad's doctor's waiting room jigsaw puzzle. It was a giant collage of about nine lighthouse images...and it took about four trips to that waiting room to get through the majority of it.

By then, of course, I ended up having to leave the hardest bits behind. Basically, nine different sections of sky. Just sky. In about a dozen shades of blue. Oops! So, good luck with that eye doctor patients!

So since that puzzle, I've been mentally doing puzzles in my head. It's ridiculous. I was in a Barnes & Noble ready to buy a puzzle, and I had to force myself to stop. I would look at various places along the I-95/85 corridor and think, hey, that'd be a great puzzle. I mean shoot. You can't tell me this Declaration wouldn't be a good puzzle to do, too!

When we got home, I was milling around my room, when what did I spy? A jigsaw puzzle! Woot! I mean, a hard one, and dudes, it hadn't even been opened yet!

I'll confess, that's what I've been doing in between the job search, eating my parents out of house and home, and running around visiting museums - a giant 24x36, 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle.

That mapmaker from long ago would be so proud, though. It's all about the history of America (through 1997), and it's this huge collage of historic faces and places and factoids, surrounded by several small history museums around the U.S. It also includes a giant section of the Declaration surrounded by the Founding Fathers.

I love it! So much fun! You'd be surprised by how much history you can learn, how much you already know, and whose faces you recognize...and whose faces they opted to include in the puzzle.

Also? I've found out, jigsaw puzzles are way easier to do when you're by yourself!

Sorry, sisters!

"This is the church"*

Magnet #916 - Rodin's The Cathedral

A friend and I went to visit the North Carolina Museum of Art, which opened its new wing earlier this year, moving its collection from the old bricks/mortar building into a shiny new glass and steel one, with a huge open (ish) plan.

It's a small museum, and as my friend says, we get spoiled by London, Paris, New York and even DC. Even so, it's still a good museum, with notable names such as Botticelli, Rembrandt, Monet, Copley, and a myriad others.

There were several pieces that I really liked, but the two things I loved - the Rodin collection. I could probably just sit and look at these pieces all day, really - apparently, they have the largest Rodin repository in the southeast. I believe it. We were surrounded by them.

This one was a pair of clasped hands, in the shape of a Cathedral arch. You have to walk around it to get the sense of the arch and how strong the hands are. It's really fabulous.

The other piece I loved was a random piece called Landscape in Ecuador, done by Mignot, the assistant to Fredric Church, whose work Andes in Ecuador I just saw last week! And down the street no less! It's awesome when that stuff comes together for the bigger picture.

Oh! Here's something I've never done. We went to the museum, and then did a little mini-hike over the museum park grounds, where they had art scattered throughout the paths and trails. It was pretty remote, and though we could hear cars, and we had a paved path for much of it, it was still a hike through nature.

Though, ya'll know, I am no fan of the outdoors. In mean, being in the woods always makes me hella nervous, just because you never know what can happen, and hello, who hasn't seen that movie a dozen and a half times. And it's always the openings in half a dozen procedurals - innocent hikers in the woods stumble over a dead body, scream, and seconds later after the opening titles, the police tape's up and the silent police lights are going, with cops milling around with pads in hands, interviewing the innocent hikers.

And, it dawns on me that one puts a lot of trust in one's companion when they go into the woods with them...though, I suppose if he didn't kill me when I was his account executive for five years, then I was definitely safe in the woods with him. Hahahah.


*"...Here's the steeple. Open it up, and here's the people." C'mon. Tell me ya'll haven't done that one.

Will you still love me?

Magnet #915 - Family Guy

Ok, ya'll. I thought I'd already mentioned my newest cuteboy crush, but I'm guessing I've just Tweeted the bejeepers out of it, instead.

I'm totally late to this bandwagon, I know. I first noticed Seth MacFarlane in his weirdo Hulu ad a while ago, and passingly thought, huh, that guy's kinda cute. But the ad was way off-putting, not to mention just confusing overall.

But at Comic-Con, I had to sit in Ballroom 20, through the Animation block of Family Guy and Cleveland Show (and Futurama and Simpsons) to get to @televisionary's V panel (and then Fringe and Vampire Diaries), and by the time my two compadres tried to run over to Hall H, not get in and come back, I was soooo charmed by Seth. Like for realz, yo. Like, more than (now-married) Dave Price. I mean, dudes, this guy's even cuter IRL!

He's cute. He's funny. He has a fabulously deep voice. He's got the cutest damn smile. He sings. (He's one up on Clooney, there.)

No. Seriously. On top of sitting through the Hoff roast (and Seth's intro 3 times), I even went and Netflixed a few Family Guys and American Dads just to give them a chance, and see if I've missed a whole phenomenon that I would be interested in. And because you know the second I discover a cuteboy, I have to watch his whole oeuvre.

Sadly, the answer is that I'm not missing anything. While I respect the work (animation's great, voices are awesome and hello, it's Seth and Seth Green!!!), it's really the 12-year-old boy humor that I can't find funny.

So the question is now...will Seth still like me, if I can't watch his work?

eta:
Heh. It's been awhile since my last fluffyOMGSqueeHe'ssodreamy post. Dave Price got married. David Tennant's been busy doing stuff I can't watch stateside yet. George has a movie coming out next Wednesday, but his GF is obviously keeping him occupied. Same with Joshua Jackson, especially since I proved unworthy by missing Pacey-Con. And poor John Taylor's been in the recording room, from what I can tell.

Yeah, it was time for some new cuteboy blood.