Lucky Coincidence

It's the middle of the summer and there's still nothing on TV. Or is there!? This is what I'm watching...





Burn Notice I think this is the best season since the first one. Action and good-looking guys (and girls), this show is fun for the whole family (okay maybe not the kids).


Wilfred is new this Summer. I thought it would be funny and it's actually better than I expected.

White Collar. Just looking at Matt Bomer, why wouldn't you watch the show?

Switched at Birth is of course a little cheesy, I mean it's on the ABCFamily channel, but it's cute and I love it and it stars grown up April Nardini.


I've talked about Pretty Little Liars before and I probably won't stop. It's the best crappy show on TV.

What I'll Be Doing All Summer

Summer's great right? Sunny and warm. Awesome movies. Concerts. But all the TV networks are like "yeah, time for a three month vacation." I HATE it. BUT! Thank you cable network original programming! Some of my favorite shows are actually on cable networks that like to air their shows when the other ones are on hiatus.

Brand new! Looks interesting and I'm excited for it because Lea Thompson is awesome and April Nardini (Vanessa Marano) plays her switched daughter. Hopefully she doesn't ruin everything like she did on Gilmore Girls.

June 6 9PM Switched at Birth

I think this is the one I'm most excited about. Action-packed, fun, and how cute is Matt Bomer? I mean really? Also who wouldn't want to watch the new(ish) show with Kelly Kapowski? White Collar is a must-watch!

June 7 9PM White Collar

If you're not watching this show yet, you're missing out. Unless you're a dude. It's only in it's second season so you can catch up quick. They're running a marathon of season one leading up to season two's premiere so there are no excuses.

June 14 8PM Pretty Little Liars


This is another best-show-nobodys-watching. I don't even know what to say about it with out sounding repetitive, just trust me it's awesome. Especially if you're a Bruce Campbell fan.
June 23 Burn Notice


I guess Psych isn't coming back until fall but I wanted to include it in this cable network show post anyway. I don't have a start date or current promo for you, so here's the "webisode" that inspired my car's vanity plate.

Fall Psych

A Musical Monday

Today (actually several weeks back, but then stuff that was time-sensitive kept pushing it back) I decided to feature some awesome frickin' music. According to me. And if you don't agree, I don't care, this is mostly for me. I just like them and am posting them with no agenda no matter what anyone thinks *cough* crazy stalker *cough*.

First up: I was supposed to be going to see Sister Hazel in concert but then, luck have it, the one I was going to was canceled. But I'm going to post one of their songs anyway. Now if you're saying "never heard of 'em," I call bullshit, (a few of you may actually not have and to you, I apologize), because you have ALL heard this song. And once you play it you're going to say, "you're right, Lauren, I do love this song and I thought it was Blues Traveler." Everybody does.

I absolutely love Sara Bareilles' newest album. I hadn't listened to it in a while until I was going through my CDs for music for my brother's wedding video. But it's still awesome. I wanted to post a different song but I don't want to use some random person's homemade music video so I had to pick from those that are singles. I really like this one too :)

Next: Kate Nash. <3 her! A different song of hers was featured on Community and I immediately downloaded (legally of course...) all her music and fell in love with her. I discovered this video when Stacey posted it on Facebook. I believe it's fan-made, but it's just adorable so I had to share it!

Also featured on Community,  The Fratellis. Also awesome except this is the real music video. It's on my mind because it's on the mix CD I have in my car right now. Great musicians but frankly I liked hearing it more when Joel McHale was on screen. Yes I'm saying Joel McHale is pretty and Jon Fratelli, (I swear that's his name, I just looked it up), is not. Oh well. [Side note, Fratelli means "brothers" in Italian]


Also on my mix CD, (way too many "also-s" in one post), is P!nk! SUCH a good song. I'm so glad she kept making music and people keep listening to it. Unlike Britney. That shit needs to stop. Funnily (okay is "funnily" really a word? Cause Firefox thinks it is...) enough, this song too was featured on one of my shows! This one was in Pretty Little Liars. If you're a girl you should watch it cause it's sooooo good. If you're a girl.


All I have to say about this is: Why is Paramore so good? :P


Lastly, you guy's may have noticed that I am a bit crazy about Greg Behrednt. I can't help it, he's hilarious and amazing. Anyway, he has a band so what-the-hell I'm gonna feature them here:  The Reigning Monarchs.

That's it for today. Not too painful right? In other music news, I want to update my collection so if there's an album/artist from the past year or so which you can't stop listening to, leave me a comment so I can check it out!

Handwritting.

I didn't have any ideas for what to post today but then Stacey tagged me for one of these memes I keep reading/seeing about so I figured "Why the hell not?" So I don't know if all of these are supposed to be passed along like chain letters but I did decide not to pass it along. Of my 20ish followers, I don't know a) how many really read it regularly and 2) of the ones who do, who would actually do the thing. So I'll have bad luck for 50 years for breaking the chain but oh well. Also I don't really get the whole "meme" thing... or how they work or where the word "meme" came from...? But to anyone who reads this, and wants to do it themselves, consider yourself TAGGED! or not, whichever.

So here's the deal: there's a list of questions and you answer them with pen & paper. WHAT FUN! I don't really remember the last time I hand-wrote full sentences. OH YES! It was last year when one or more assholes at my apt. complex were taking their dogs to get their mail and then letting them crap at the base of the mail box thingy. But I digress. Here's the list:

1. What's your name/your Blogger name?
2. What's your blog's name/URL?
3. Write "the quick fox jumps over the lazy dog"
4. Favorite quote?
5. Your favorite song?
6. Your favorite band/singers?
7. Anything else you want to say?
8. Tag 3-5 other people.

And here's a bad picture of my answers:

Yes, I do usually write in "small caps" unless I'm really rushing. Now that I look at it, a lot of my Rs look like Ls. The difference is subtle.

Some other stuff...

EXCITING NEWS: (this is another exciting-only-for-me situation but I'm ok with that.)

I made, what I found out is called a "favicon." Favicons are the little icon that shows up on your tabs you have open or, if you have Windows, in your bookmarks toolbar (or is it taskbar? I forget).  In case you didn't already know that. So now when you go to my blog your tabs will look like this:

Except your tabs probably aren't blue, unless you also have the Wall-e firefox theme or some other blue theme. And you're probably not watching Hulu, especially not Pretty Little Liars. And, I guess, unless you're reading this in a reader, you do have my new favicon showing RIGHT NOW as you read this. So me telling you about this is dumb except now you know what those are called or if you hadn't noticed and now are really excited about my new accomplishment. w00t. Yes. "w00t."

Last thing for today; this is what my neighbors and their dogs did.  The mailman didn't like it either. He tried to leave a note telling them to stop but he didn't have access to the Sharpies, paper and tape that I did.

I wish I took a picture of my note.


Update: I meant to post the procedure I used to make my favicon. I found the instructions here.

My Love/Hate of ABC Family

Turns out this topic is harder for me that I thought it would be. Maybe if I watched less shows my brain would be more focused but alas it is not. Here's the best I can do this week. Who knows maybe it will turn out better than I think.



ABC Family. It sure has some crappy shows and the two that I watch are no exceptions. The first one I started watching which, is to put it gently, dreadful: Secret Life of the American Teenager.

Easily the worst show that I watch regularly. It is about about a bunch of high school-ers, one of which (now two of which) gets pregnant, and the trials and tribulations of teen dating. It started out interesting enough and now I keep watching it just because I HAVE to know what happens. I seriously want them to make it go away so I can stop. Badly written/directed/acted/etc. it's painful to watch and it makes me roll my eyes every 5 minutes. And yes, I realize I'm not the demographic they're aiming this show at but I was in high school not so long ago and NO ONE was like these kids. I suppose they're trying to exaggerate with the characters a little but it's over done. And the parents/teachers in the show are just as bad. Sadly, for me, it is returning in march so I'm going to start mentally preparing to deal with the ridiculousness that is The Secret Life of the American Teenager. ::groan::

Much less painful to watch but with a far more ridiculous plot, Pretty Little Liars is a show I can't stop being excited for. I don't know what it is but I find every minute of it captivating and I know exactly where I'm going to be at 8pm on Monday nights.
 Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of eye rolling at this one but the ratio of pain to enjoyment is low enough that I can forgive the "what were you thinking when you wrote that line" moments. Compared
to Secret Life, the overall production quality is better in every way. Better writing, better, more believable characters, better acting. However it is annoying enough that most guys would probably hate this show. Also the main plot is getting a bit annoying but I find the sub-stories thoroughly enjoyable, aside from one character's rant about how some dude just 'doesn't understand' Justin Bieber. I guess I can't expect today's high school girls to like the same music as me just because they're probably my age in real life. So that's my guilty little pleasure, if you're looking for one of your own, I highly recommend this.

If you want real quality programming, look to the other networks. I hear that a lot of people like some show called The Office. And Conan.