The wall between the bedroom (aka „my room“) and the living room is kind of hollow. We guess there was a door there somewhen and they just made it disappear with as little effort as possible. One side effect is that I’m overly sceptical when it comes to hanging pictures on that wall in fear that the whole thing might just crack and cave in or something.
The other side effect is that we can demand attention from each other by just knocking on the wall. We haven’t invented any kind of codes so far. Knocks on the wall can be roughly translted into „Come here, please.“ with the occasional „Get your sorry ass in here QUICK!“ in between.
It’s kind of cute. Also, it’s really annoying. But still cute.

We just came back from one of our best nights ever. Friends of us took us out to Cologne for dinner and some big fun. So we had what was most likely the most expensive dinner I ever had (which doesn’t tell much, but I still don’t want to know how much they paid in the end) and after wards went to two different jazz bars with free live bands and took a quick peek into a karaoke bar before we left around 1 am.

See the pictures for more impressions and allow me to go to bed now.

I’m a sucker for this store. Luckily (or unfortunately… depends on how you see it) we have one right in this town, so I bring my hard-earned money there on a regular basis, mostly for bed-linen, tablecloths and candles, but lately also for clothes. At the moment they have The Cutest Coat Ever there and I don’t know how long I can refrain from buying it. The store in Cologne is a lot bigger, which naturally means an even wider variety of bed-linen, tablecloths and candles and makes me hate/love it even more.

If you want to see all the good things, click on „Filialangebote“ and marvel. This store is not good for me. Or my savings account.

Regular readers of my blog might have noticed my â?? some what call it unhealthy â?? obsession with TV shows.
So, to make a long introduction short: Hi, my name is Jamie and I am a TV show addict.

I am not, to make that clear, a TV addict. Yes, there is a difference and it is an important one for us TV show geeks, or at least for me. Because being a TV addict somehow invokes the image of a fat person slumped on a couch with a coke in one hand and a bag of potato chips in the other staring mindlessly at the TV. This is so much different from what I do.
Okay, I sit on the couch as well. Often in my pajamas. Often with potato chips (oh my, this is really going in the wrong direction). But not so often with a coke. More like with lemon iced tea. Which I suppose has twice as much sugar, so you see the difference here? And Iâ??m not slumped. More like comfy. Which looks a lot like slumped but really is a whole different thing. Or so I tell myself.

But more than that, I think the real difference is that I care about what I watch. And I choose carefully. Which doesnâ??t mean that I donâ??t choose a lot of things. When I last felt challenged to name all the TV shows I watched last season I came to a total of seven that I watch when they are broadcasted (only about two days later) and some additional four or five that I watch on DVD but usually am pretty far behind. So, yes, that adds up to some hours of TV a week just not to lose track or let movie files and DVDs pile up unwatched.

Over the past few years Iâ??ve grown quite sensitive and now have a few ground rules for my TV behavior that I hardly ever break:

1. Watch in order! Order means first season first, first episode first. Thereâ??s no way around it.
2. Give a show a try. The pilot usually isnâ??t what a show is all about. It might give you an idea, but thatâ??s it.
3. Then again, for the sake of having some time left to spend with the living, if itâ??s not your thing, drop it. Thatâ??s how I sacked â??Jack & Bobbyâ? after just the pilot. Itâ??s quite a contradiction to the second rule, but since itâ??s my times and my rule you have to live with that.
4. Networks are ruled by idiots. Thatâ??s not as much a rule as it is one of the things I had to learn the hard way. And yes, Iâ??m looking at you, FOX. In fact, Iâ??m not only looking Iâ??m pointing and screaming in your direction. Also you, CBS. Just saying, that I donâ??t forget so easily. The resulting rule is: Never trust a network. And keep your energy to dance on your desk at work for when you read the networkâ??s official confirmation that show X has been ordered for a full season. Everything before is gossip and believing in it might just as well break your heart.
5. Dubbing is bad. Subbing is good. Thatâ??s a rule for us people not living in an English speaking country. Itâ??s an important one though. And it has funny words like subbing.
6. The premise of a show? Screw it. Itâ??s the writing, the cast, the producers. A lot really is the writing. Veronica Mars has the worst possible premise and itâ??s one hell of a show. The premise is nothing.
7. Donâ??t argue with other people who donâ??t get your obsession with TV shows. Most of them are biased jerks who are firm believers of TV being crap and French movies being good. And while a lot of TV is crap and a lot of French movies are good (give me Truffaut anytime), there are a lot of shows that are great and a lot of French movies that are crap. An open mind is the key. And people who obviously donâ??t have that shouldnâ??t judge anything. You wonâ??t change their mind anyway.
8. That said: find the right people to talk about TV. I mean it. I have Andreas and I ramble on my blog and talk in the TWOP forums. Talking, writing and reading about TV shows is what makes the ultimate difference. It takes the often solitary event of watching your show out of its solitary and into the open space of discussion and opinions. Of subtext and the reading of it. Of character development or the lack thereof. Of mysteries solved and unsolved.
9. This is a spoiler-free zone. Avoid spoilers at all risks.

That leads us to the next question. Okay, thereâ??s really not much of a leading to, but itâ??s a question worth asking, so it might as well be asked now:

Why TV shows? I could watch movies instead (which I do). I could also watch documentaries (which I do). Or, say, the news (which I do). But Iâ??m not addicted to those.

Thereâ??s something about TV shows that makes them better for me than movies. Thatâ??s not to say that I think TV shows are better than movies. That, after all, is simply a matter of taste and maybe the amount of time you are willing to spend. TV shows are different than movies and they can do different things. I have a theory that movies are more plot-driven while TV shows are more about characters and â?? in some cases â?? dialogue. A movie has to tell its story in roughly two hours. A TV show might have years to tell the story. Which makes it all the more interesting for me.
Hereâ??s a fun fact about my strange media behavior: I love movie trailers. But I donâ??t show as much interest in the movies themselves. I think itâ??s the prospect, the idea, the concept of the story that fascinates me with the trailers. But I donâ??t necessarily have to see the whole story for myself. On the other side I enjoy TV shows although you would think that I could be content just watching the trailers for these ones, too. Well, I canâ??t. Because itâ??s not the concept that interests me in a TV show. The concept is the premise is, like I already pointed out, most probably the last thing you should pay attention to. Itâ??s the characters that drive the show, make it great or horrible. Therefore itâ??s always also the cast. And while a character of a movie stays with you for about two hours, the characters of a TV show can stay with you a lot longer and people like me get attached to them in a crazy, insane and yet strangely beautiful way. Iâ??m still not sure if Andreas knows that Stars Hollow doesnâ??t exist. Hell, Iâ??m not sure if I know.

Basically what I try to say is: I am a TV addict by some kind of choice, although it gets out of hand sometimes. That also means that Iâ??m not telling you how many shows I marked red and bold in that Word document I made with all the dates for the season premieres next fall. Thanks to some genius network decisions half of these shows will probably be cancelled a few weeks later anyway. That leaves me withâ?¦ whatâ?¦ fifteen? Go, do the math.

My list of men I would absolutely make a complete fool of myself if I ever met them, because I’d start to say idiotic things or talk backwards or something like that, because I would just be too amazed. In no real order.

• Alan Rickman
• Robbie Williams
• Hugh Laurie
• Hugh Grant
• Bill Murray
• Paul Simon
• Randy Newman
• Elvis Costello

Who’s on your list?

Apparently my husband hasn’t discovered my Blossom Dearie mp3s yet. Because he just asked me who that was singing… so my deductive skills tell me that he didn’t know.
I find a lot of female jazz singers plain boring. Maybe it’s because I can play those songs as well, so they gotta have damn style to impress me. Those who do I can count on the fingers of my hands, one hand actually.

Holly Cole, Silje Nergaard, Blossom Dearie and a little bit of Diana Krall… Katie Melua doesn’t count because she has her own songs (as does Silje Nergaard, I admit), so there’s a whole different criteria.

But Blossom Dearie does one hell of a great job.

Cause you’ve left me with nothing
But I’ve worked with less

Ani Difranco – Dilate

Hi Chinook, Montana.

Be nice to my cousin. He’s a great kid and after all he’s stuck with you for a year. So, do your best and make this year one of his best. It’s all up to you.

I’ll be eagerly awaiting his first impressions.

—

PS: Okay, I couldn’t help burst out laughing when my father told me where my cousin was heading. We knew his flight was going to Seattle, so I hoped for him to come to Washington or Oregon. I even made jokes about him ending up in Montana, believing that it was too far away from Seattle to be a real option. How wrong can you be?

And that’s when you knew the world can’t be saved
Only discovered
And you knew things could be different than before

Dar Williams – Arrival

One of my recent hobbies is finding strange animals on the web. Wikipedia, by the way, is an excellent resource for that kind of pastime.
My current star is the Axolotl which can grow part of his brains back. Once again reminding me of how underprivileged we human beings are. Mediocre sight, not to mention our hearing. The only thing we got going for us is that we can walk (well, biggie), talk and invent games like curling. Which is something, but still…
As for the sense of smell or other funny things you can do with your nose, we really are nothing. Nothing at all. Because we can’t do what these guys can. Again: we’re nothing.

I’m kinda happy, though, I wasn’t born as one of those. Although you get some motherly feelings for naked mole rats because they’re just so darn ugly. Poor guys.