Blog

We got home yesterday mid-day from Chicago, and we’ve been hanging out and relaxing. We ended up not going to Ikea on Thursday — we sat in traffic for 3 hours, and finally ended up giving up and going directly to the rink so Stephanie could prepare for her show. We went on Friday instead — and again due to traffic, it took a long time and we skipped coming back Friday night and came back Saturday instead so we could at least make one trip where we weren’t both ready to fall asleep.
We met some of our neighbors at a garage sale down the street, which was neat. And we took a tour of our neighbor’s gigantic house. Pretty cool. We went to MacNiven’s on Massachusetts Avenue for dinner — that was nice. We both had big salads and wings. I’d like to go back there; it was fun. Lots of Scottish foods, big vintage golf advert posters on the walls.
We went to our friend Mike’s last night to see his band play — the same band that played at my house two years ago. They were great; much more polished. Today we’ve puttered around, put together some of our furniture from Ikea and unpacked, got caught up on our e-mail and blog reading and watched a ton of TV.
I still haven’t uploaded my pictures; I’ll try to do that tomorrow.
I forgot to shut off the recordings of Degrassi: The Next Generation, so we maxed out our DVR space while we were gone. Oops. Here’s what I’ve been watching lately —
Degrassi: The Next Generation — I never heard of the show until I read about the current version on AfterEllen.com, where they reviewed the positive treatment of gay characters on the show. Stephanie was familiar with the original series from back in the 1980’s, but I was a bit too old for that version and never saw it. We’re now addicted to this version and have been watching the re-runs this summer on The N. For those who aren’t familiar; the original was set in Degrassi Junior High, then Degrassi High School. The current series is about the kids of the original characters, set in the same school, which is now a combined junior and senior high. The show tackles some edgy subjects in a very educated and non-preachy manner, which they can do because it’s a Canadian show, set in a Canada, where people don’t freak out about showing realistic issues on television. In fact some of the episodes were censored when they originally aired here. There are six seasons of DTNG, so we’ve been doing a lot of catch-up on the storylines, and they’ve aired shows from all the seasons in re-run. We’ve seen a lot of the episodes where Dylan and Marco (the boy gay couple) have a relationship, but we’re still waiting for the episodes where Paige and Alex (the girl gay couple) get together.
Deadwood
Entourage
Lucky Louie
Rescue Me
Saved
The Closer
Big Brother
Windfall (although we’re way behind on this series)
I seem to have an overly testosterone-driven viewing schedule. I wish Sex and the City was still around to balance it out.
Obviously, there’s a lot going on in the news, but I’m not sure how to even comment on it. Bush’s behavior at the G-8 summit makes it pretty clear that American foreign policy is pretty much fucked, and our ability to influence events in the middle east or with Korea is pretty much meaningless at this point. I’m praying that we can make it through the next few years without World War III spiraling into the end of civilization. Although there are quite a few people who are cheering for that to happen, and there’s some question about whether Bush is one of those people.