Today, I just want to rummage through the storage bins of my cobwebbed brain and see what's lying around. Come join me, why don't ya.
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Doctor Who returns
OK, I really don't need to go into a lot about that here since I cover that ground on Saturdays and Sundays under the heading of Doctor Who Weekend. But I will note that the El family saw Deep Breath again Monday night at a movie theater here in Greensboro. And great Gallifreyan gooseberries, that place was packed! The crowd was warmly receptive of this episode and of Peter Capaldi as the Doctor. Also the field report from Strax at the beginning and the making featurette at the end were very much appreciated.
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Rising Star ends
As I noted in a earlier post, somehow the El family got into the habit of watching Rising Star, the singing competition show on ABC. Well, somebody had to watch it. The finale Sunday night saw (no surprise here) Jesse Kinch win the competition and win a record contract with Capitol Records. Excuse me, the LEGENDARY Capital Records (as host Josh Groban kept reminding the viewers.)
This much could be said of Rising Star: the right person won even if that victory felt like a fait accompli since the first episode. Jesse Kinch would just blow everybody out of the water. Some of the contestants, with coaching and training, may make viable music stars. But Jesse with his old man's howling vocal and his young man's wavy brown hair, he jumped out ahead of the pack fully formed.
The likelihood of this show getting picked up for a second season aren't good based on the ever dwindling ratings. (Sunday night's competition from MTV's VMAs and the series finale of True Blood on HBO did not help that at all.) But I have to say I kind of enjoyed watching this series if only to watch Kesha get loopier with every episode. If the show does come back, keep Kesha. Every singing competition show needs its Paula Abdul and Kesha is the Abduliest.
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School returns
My daughter started 8th grade this year which can't be because it means she's getting older and if she's getting older, I'm getting older and that just can't be because I am opposed to aging. It's against my religion. My battered belief system aside, she's back at school and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that. When my daughter was much younger and first starting school, she had a vast joy of learning. Well, after 8 years, the public school system has managed to cure her of that notion. Maybe its just the natural cynicism of a teenager but if it is, that cynicism is fueled by an education system that seems more intent on prepping kids for tests than for life.
Part of me wishes we could have swung private school not that I'm convinced that's a much better alternative with the inherent elitism of privilege that tends to settle over such programs. At any rate, the last two years in middle school have been difficult for my daughter after she did so well in elementary school before that. I'm hoping 8th grade marks a change for her and she has a good year. After all, high school is next. (Yikes!)
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Summer ends
Well, summer is not over yet. The calender says summer has a few more weeks left. I don't know what it was about this summer but the El family did so little to fully enjoy it. Other than our beach trip at the end of June, we've only been to a pool twice this summer and two of our favorite pools have closed with the start of the school year.
We didn't go to the movies nearly as much as we used to. I will say that it was worth the wait to get to the best movie of summer for 2014, Guardians of the Galaxy. I actually saw that one twice, once alone and once with the family. But overall it feels like the summer of 2014 is going out with a shrug, a sort of "eh, what you gonna do, huh?" type of thing.
Maybe it was the constant drumbeat of bad news: ebola in Africa, death and destruction in Ukraine, Gaza, Syria and Iraq, the protests in Ferguson MO over the death of an unarmed African American teenager. Can we but hope things will cool down with the weather? Well, we can hope. It's all we have sometimes.
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OK, that's all I've got for today. Y'all take care of yourselves and be good to one another. I'll see you back here tomorrow.
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