Emmy Nominations

So I know I've been complaining about being busy, and yet, here I go writing a big old blog post about TV. Yeah, the irony isn't lost on me.

Anyway, I've been meaning to do a quick post about the Emmy nominations and could use a break from Hawthorne. Overall, I am super-excited about some of the nominations, especially Connie Britton and Kyle Chandler. It's about time! Connie Britton needs to win this one. She just does. Did you see Friday's episode? Amazing. Also, check out this interview. Don't you just want to be her friend? Other thoughts:

All the love for Modern Family, the best new show of the season (yeah, including Glee, which I do love, but more about that below). But no nomination for Ed O'Neil? He really is fantastic on that show--a wonderful combination of funny and sweet. You buy him as a dad, a grandfather, and as Gloria's husband. Makes you totally forget Al Bundy, a character I never liked.

Nominations for more of my favorites: my beloved NPH, Michael C. Hall, Kyra Sedgwick, Glenn Close, Terry O'Quinn, Michael Emerson, and Rose Byrnne .

The nods to Lost: Matthew Fox really was a lead actor/heart of that show, so an Emmy this year would be awesome (but maybe not at Kyle Chandler's expense?). And hell yeah, Elizabeth Mitchell! Good thing I'm not an Emmy voter, because I'd have a heck of a time deciding between O'Quinn and Emerson (but would probably end up voting Emerson.)

Love that Burn Notice gets a bit of notice with the fun nomination of Sharon Gless. This isn't a superb show, but it's a lot of fun and she's terrific on it. These summer shows (including The Closer) are changing the way we think about TV. I like that.

Very happy for Julia Louis Dreyfus. New Christine was a show that was too funny to be canceled. (Ausiello's got an post-nomination interview with JLD here.) Too bad Better Off Ted didn't get any love either. Man, that show was hilarious--like Arrested Development with less of a mean streak.

Glee...well, I've been thinking a lot about this, and I am not sure how I feel about all the Glee nominations. Don't get me wrong: I love, love, love the show, but part of me doesn't believe it's superior TV. I think that what I love so much is the music. The writing can be so sloppy and cliched, some of the acting is pretty bad, and lots of times, you can't tell if it is a big old satire or serious. Lea Michelle deserves her nomination, as does Jane Lynch (someone needs to put together a gift book of Sue Sylvester insults), and Matthew Morrison's nod doesn't bother me.

The Glee nomination that intrigues me is the nomination for Chris Colfer. No one saw that coming. I'm not sure if it was his performance that was Emmy-worthy or the writing of his storylines, especially with his dad, played Mike O'Malley (who totally deserved his nomination). That was excellent stuff. A friend and I have had conversations about the character of Kurt: she hates him because he's so obnoxious and bitchy, but I think that makes him more realistic. What that portrayal shows you is that it is hard to be a gay high school boy (duh, right?) but instead of making him a sweet, always-victim, he's a bit of a brat at times. He makes a play for Finn even though he knows Finn is totally straight. That seems real. I don't know...it works for me. The same is true for Artie's struggles as a disabled person.

But other storylines (Finn's sadness over his absent dad, Rachel and Finn's on-again/off-again status, Ken and Emma's relationship early in the season) confuse me about the show's tone. It's like the show can't make up its mind about what it wants to be. (Kind of like Nip/Tuck, also created by Ryan Murphy.) Watch an hour of Glee and then an hour of Chuck. Chuck hits all the notes (seems like an appropriate metaphor): acting, writing, production, and has a sort of central theme/heart. Glee puts on a good show in terms of music and some laughs, but minute for minute, it seems to me to be the weaker show. Anyway, if any of you, dear readers, watch Glee, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this show--especially the whole satire vs. serious question.

Some snubs that bug me: No best drama for Friday Night Lights? No love for Chuck? No nomination for FNL's Zach Gilford? Nothing for John Noble on Fringe? Each of these is an absolute crime. But here's the deal: this year, it seems, there are far fewer of these types of crimes, and that's progress.

How I've been spending this Sunday...

...up in my office again, this time organizing and copying creative writing submissions for our second Sigma Tau Delta conference.

Up next, re-reading some Hawthorne (for my paper at SAMLA later this year), and after that, maybe some fall syllabizing...

I need a life, but can't find the time.

How I've been spending this Saturday...

In my office on campus, editing, editing, editing...

And now, converting my freshly-edited article from MLA to Chicago style. Three and a half pages done out of 19. Fun stuff. I need a break.

Mood lifters...

So if, like me, you find yourself feeling frustrated or even slightly, to quote my nephew, "yucky" today, try one of these to lift your mood:

1) Rep. Mike Weinstein's awesome campaign ad. This catchy little tune was stuck in my head for a hour or so yesterday.

2) Six thing from history that everyone pictures incorrectly. My favorite line (about what Greek statues really looked like): "Ancient Greece looked more like someone crashed their LGBT pride parade into a Mardi Gras Festival."

Technological difficulties

I am doing my best to finally get this darn Poe article done and sent out for review. Lately, though, it seems that the universe (or at least the technological universe) is conspiring against me. First, my most recent, heavily revised version of the file simply vanished from every place I thought I had saved it. I suspect that this was actually my fault, that in an effort to copy the folder with the article and all my notes from my university network drive to my flash drive, I actually did the opposite--copied from flash drive to network drive and somehow deleted the article.

Major crisis, right? Well, it was, but thankfully, I had a print-out version, which my awesome friend David passed on to my awesome friend Aaron, who scanned it for me and emailed it to me yesterday. Yay! I shudder to think of the labor I would have had if that print-out had not existed...I still have my scribbled on, earlier drafts, but they are a mess. Plus, what makes it to the next draft is never an exact replication of those scribbled annotations, etc. So yeah, David and Aaron are awesome.

Next step: clean up the scanned version. As you might know, when you convert a pdf to a Word document, things get slightly messed up. Characters get switched, certain formatting gets lost, etc. Fixing the errors is a time-consuming process, but obviously less time-consuming than having to retype the whole thing. Plus, it makes you re-read everything again--and closely--which is always a good thing at this stage of composition.

Yesterday, after the end of Day 2 of Session 2 of Freshman Advising and Registration (more about that later, maybe), I spent about an hour cleaning up the document. It was actually kind of fun work. Yes, this is because, neat-freak that I am, I even enjoying cleaning documents. Plus, it was cool to see the progress in front of my eyes. Then the student I was doing an independent study with showed up, so I had to stop for awhile. She actually showed up about 15 minutes early, so I saved my work on the network drive, and only the network drive. This is okay (theoretically) since the network drive is super-secure and backed up every night, etc.

When an hour had passed and the independent study meeting was over, I turned back to the computer, which was displaying some pop-up messages about "network connections" being lost, etc. No big deal--this happens, then things get fixed. The document was still on my screen so I thought, "just in case, I'll save a copy on my desktop," but then Word crashed (don't know why) and that didn't work. And when I restarted my computer, the network drive was unavailable. Email wasn't working either. I eventually went home, where my Shepherd email was working (in web form) and there was an from IT explaining that there were all kinds of server problems, etc. "No big deal," I told myself, because I know that document is okay--just sitting on the network drive waiting for me to get back to it.

But now it's almost 11:00 on Friday and the network is still inaccessible. So much for getting those revisions done today. Very frustrating.

End of my technological venting session.

Yeah, it's hot out there, but I want more summer...

I am already not looking forward to the (short!) walk to my sure-to-be-a-replication-of-what-hell-might-feel-like car, and am hanging out here in my nicely air-conditioned office just a bit longer. I want this "historic heat wave" to be OVER. Yet, I am also fighting off a bit of a freak-out about not getting nearly enough scholarship done (yet) this summer. Because--honestly--this darn summer is flying by and I feel like I've wasted some time. Ugh. Talk about yucky, conflicting emotions. With all that said, how about some mindlessly fun links before I get a bit more reading done and then head home?

1) From Gawker, "How to Survive the Heat Wave with No Air-Conditioning." Fortunately, I have AC at home, but I am such a mega-cheapskate that I use it pretty sparingly. Anyway, the tip about using a regular old electric fan made me laugh: "Park the fan nice and close to your face and it's double the pleasure. Pretend you're Tyra Banks at a photo shoot and your weave is just blowing in the wind." I also like their tips about losing your socks. That one is so absolutely true (right down to making sure your feet aren't all stinky!).

2) A fabulous new blog: Catalog Living, which imagines those perfect yet slightly "off" catalog photos from Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrel, etc through a couple named "Gary" and "Elaine." I will admit to doing some serious coveting while looking through these sorts of catalogs (or for that matter, houses in movies like It's Complicated), but then I always think, "Do people actually have houses like this?" No one I know. And when do we cross that line from "cool conversation piece/decorating element!" to "huh?" My sister Tara is actually pretty good at this. Her house is kind of amazing. I did once scratch my head at her purchase of a ball of twigs for her coffee table. "What will you do with that?" I asked. I don't think she ever answered.

3) Glenn Beck University. Just the title is funny...or horrifying. Whatever.

Youtube vs. the infomercial

So, I've seen the infomerical for the Water Jet a bunch of times and, like I always do with these kinds of commercials, I wondered, "Does that really work?" A quick google search gave me this video. How awesome is that? I love that people are doing things like this.

Maybe my mom is right...

...and academia is turning me into a crazy liberal, because (with the possible exception of the first play), I don't see anything inherently left-wing about these plays. Simply talking about race, the wars, etc. is not partisan. (You'll notice, I hope, that they are being hosted at Shepherd.) Anyway, check out this little blurb at the Corner...

The Corner - National Review Online

(I hardly ever visit the Corner anymore--I just went there today to see what folks were saying about the Byrd vacancy. Imagine my surprise at seeing SU front-and-center on the first post!)

Here's the NPR story...

And yeah, my mom isn't right on this one. Sorry, Mom.

RIP, Senator Byrd

One of the most interesting figures in the Senate has died and I could write (a lot) about his complicated legacy ("Senator Pork," the whole KKK past, his opposition to the Iraq War, real questions about just how long he should have served once his health declined), but what's struck me most today is how many of my WV-based Facebook friends are commenting on his death. And they are sad. ("West Virginia's Angel," "We'll never have a better senator," etc.) Simply put, this guy did a LOT for this state. This campus, for instance, features no less than three buildings bearing his family name. And right outside of town is the NCTC, a beautiful facility he brought here. I mention all of this quite objectively--no commenting on the appropriateness of it. It's just clear to me that this man really mattered to West Virginians, a state that has been so poor and so neglected for its entire history. Again--I'm not endorsing these appropriations or earmarks--just pointing out how much they affected people.

Also, here's a sweet little story I heard from a colleague at Shepherd: our most recent Shepherd Byrd-named building is the Erma Ora Byrd Nursing Building, named after the Senator's wife. who died in 2006. Anyway, Byrd showed up for the 2007 dedication. This colleague says that after the ceremony was over, she saw him sitting in his car, just staring at the building, a bit overcome with emotion. This image of an old, tired man, sitting in his car, missing his wife and proud of the building that bears her name, is a powerful one for me. So RIP, Senator Byrd.

UPDATE: Here's Shepherd's statement on Byrd's death, complete with lots of pictures of his legacy here.

New living room furniture...

It's finally here! And, as you can tell, it passes inspection from the important voices in this household.

Well that was fast...

I submitted final grades for my summer class earlier this afternoon. This summer session really flew by. I had fun with this group of students, too. They were smart, funny, and pretty talkative. Not a bad gig at all. Still, I am grateful for the extra time I'll have...I really need to get my scholarship-doing act together.

Temporary Tomato Disaster!

Sometime soon, I'll post some pictures from my un-freakin' believable vegetable garden. Seriously--it's amazing (but I can't take much credit...more about that later).

But just a short story for now: my tomato plants, which are now taller than me in places, collapsed! They were in cages, but the cages got pulled out of the ground...it was like a domino effect. The big one took the other two down with him. So picture me out there, in the 90+ degree heat, sun beating down, desperately trying to get them back up! After lots of twine, several expletives, and some prayers (funny how those last two can go together), things seem to be under control. Fortunately, I could just tie the cages and some of the really big stalks to the fence. There were some casualties--lots of snapped branches, lost teeny-tiny baby tomatoes--but I think, all in all, it could have been much worse.

Ahh, the stresses and joys of gardening!

Five minutes until class...

...is enough time to post two links.

1) Check out this interactive map of where Americans are moving. You could have a lot of fun with this. I checked out, for instance, where most of the people in Guilford County, NC (where I used to live) are coming from. No surprise--lots of movement from the Northeast.

2) As a somewhat intense coupon clipper/bargain hunter, even I was quite impressed with this guy.

StoryCorps

Things have been busy (I know, I know, get a new tune, Heidi...) and sad and stressful around here the past couple of weeks. Nothing I can go into any details on, but needless to say, it's been tough. But you know what always makes me feel better--even as it makes me cry? The StoryCorps podcast. Ordinary people telling their stories to each other. It's just wonderful. This morning I actually re-listened to one of them (I've linked to it below) and it was just as good the second time. Check it out. You won't be disappointed. And maybe make a small donation to their fund?

Sharon DeLevie and her mother Joan

Golden Girls Marathon this weekend...

Time for some serious Golden Girls watching. RIP, Rue.