#the 100 levitt

[male-beauty-sfw]

#male beauty #Joseph Gordon Levitt #Mysterious Skin #joseph gordon levitt edit #mysterious skin edit #actor #film #celebrity #2000s #gif #100+ notes

[forbescaroline]

MELISSA'S 225 FAVORITE SHIPS OF ALL TIME ranked by my followers 224. octavia blake and levitt - the 100 “Until you I didn't have a life.”

#octavia x levitt #the100edit #the100daily #octavia blake #levitt #the 100 #** #235ships #mine: the 100 #mine: octavia and levitt

[doortotomorrow]

GABRIEL + OCTAVIA - The 100: 6x10

#The 100 #Octavia Blake #Gabriel Santiago #Gabtavia #the100edit #Gabriel should have been Octavia's endgame relationship #it wouldn't have felt so last minute compared to her hooking up with Levitt #because the foundation for a potential romance between them was built in the sixth season

[bittersweetremains]

#the 100 cast #the 100 #levitt #jason diaz #my gifs

[laufire]

last night when I tried to watch Vampire Academy’s pilot:

*naked butt appears for a few moments*

*link crashes*

smh. I gave up because it was late and I wanted SOME sleep, but in the very few seconds I got to see her I was optimistic about Rose and her actress and that’s the most important part so. fingers crossed!

#also. NOBODY SPOIL ME OF ANYTHING. i want to judge this one on a vacuum as much as possible xD #if i finish with some prerequisites from my ST* today i'll try again #*senior theses. i'm tempted to add a ''d'' there Just For Kicks #oh also. it took me a while to place who it is the butt was attached to: jason diaz aka levitt aka octavia's simp in the 100 #talking to the void #my thoughts #vampire academy #va thoughts

[surprise-emporium]

#surprise #more zither please #so woodblock #classicalish #music #biking on a sunny day #i dont know how i know this but i am 100% sure this song summons joseph gordon levitt #Spotify

[kellysimventures]

I knew this looked familiar

#the 100 #the 100 sims 4 #octavia blake #levitt #marie avgeropoulos #jason diaz #levitt x octavia #levtavia #the sims 4 #recreation

[thoughtportal]

Eli Lilly cuts the price of insulin, capping drug at $35 per month out-of-pocket 

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/01/1160339792/eli-lilly-insulin-price

Eli Lilly will cut prices for some older insulins later this year and immediately expand a cap on costs insured patients pay to fill prescriptions.

The moves announced Wednesday promise critical relief to some people with diabetes who can face annual costs of more than $1,000 for insulin they need in order to live. Lilly's changes also come as lawmakers and patient advocates pressure drugmakers to do something about soaring prices.

Lilly said it will cut the list price for its most commonly prescribed insulin, Humalog, and for another insulin, Humulin, by 70% in the fourth quarter, which starts in October. The drugmaker didn't detail what the new prices would be.

List prices are what a drugmaker initially sets for a product and what people who have no insurance or plans with high deductibles are sometimes stuck paying.

Patient advocates have long called for insulin price cuts to help uninsured people who would not be affected by price caps tied to insurance coverage.

Lilly's planned cuts "could actually provide some substantial rice relief," said Stacie Dusetzina, a health policy professor at Vanderbilt University who studies drug costs.

She noted that the moves likely won't affect Lilly much financially because the insulins are older and some already face competition.

"It makes it easier for Lilly to go ahead and make these changes," she said.

Lilly also said Wednesday that it will cut the price of its authorized generic version of Humalog to $25 a vial starting in May.

The cost of a prescription for generic Humalog ranges between $44 and close to $100 on the website GoodRx.

Lilly also is launching in April a biosimilar insulin to compete with Sanofi's Lantus.

Lilly CEO David Ricks said in a statement that it will take time for insurers and the pharmacy system to implement its price cuts, so the drugmaker will immediately cap monthly out-of-pocket costs at $35 for people who are not covered by Medicare's prescription drug program.

The drugmaker said the cap applies to people with commercial coverage and at most retail pharmacies.

Lilly said people without insurance can find savings cards to receive insulin for the same amount at its InsulinAffordability.com website.

The federal government in January started applying that cap to patients with coverage through its Medicare program for people age 65 and older or those who have certain disabilities or illnesses.

American Diabetes Association CEO Chuck Henderson said in a statement he applauded the steps Lilly was taking and called for other insulin makers to also cap patient costs.

Aside from Eli Lilly and the French drugmaker Sanofi, other insulin makers include the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk.

Neither company immediately responded to a request for comment Wednesday morning from The Associated Press.

Insulin is made by the pancreas and used by the body to convert food into energy. People who have diabetes don't produce enough insulin.

People with Type 1 diabetes must take insulin every day to survive. More than 8 million Americans use insulin, according to the American Diabetes Association.

Research has shown that prices for insulin have more than tripled in the last two decades, and pressure is growing on drugmakers to help patients.

President Joe Biden brought up the cost cap during his annual State of the Union address last month. He called for insulin costs for everyone to be capped at $35.

The state of California has said it plans to explore making its own cheaper insulin. Drugmakers also may face competition from companies like the nonprofit Civica, which plans to produce three insulins at a recommended price of no more than $30 a vial, a spokeswoman said.

Drugmakers may be seeing "the writing on the wall that high prices can't persist forever," said Larry Levitt, an executive vice president with the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation, which studies health care.

"Lilly is trying to get out ahead of the issue and look to the public like the good guy," Levitt said.

Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. became the first company to commercialize insulin in 1923, two years after University of Toronto scientists discovered it. The drugmaker then built its reputation around producing insulin even as it branched into cancer treatments, antipsychotics and other drugs.

Humulin and Humalog and its authorized generic brought in a total of more than $3 billion in revenue for Lilly last year. They rang up more than $3.5 billion the year before that.

"These are treatments that have had a really long and successful life and should be less costly to patients," Dusetzina said.

#tiktok #article #Eli Lilly #drug prices #Healthcare #health insurance #Health Care #price gouging #diabetes #insulin #tweet #tweets #twitter #bernie sanders

[tanktopgallavich]

🌛Weekly Tag Wednesday - Sleepover Edition!🌜

Thanks for coming up with this game @mybrainismelted! Thank you to @deedala, @lingy910y, @metalheadmickey, @transmickey, @suzy-queued and @such-a-barbarian

Ok pocket friends, tonight we are having a sleepover!  So grab your pj’s, your teddy bears, and your fuzzy slippers, and let’s have some fun!

Name: ri or sometimes ri ri

Location:  i'm shipping up to boston - the dropkick murphy

We’ll start with some easy ones! Is there a celebrity you think you look like?  If so, who:  i've been told i look a few celebrities, but that is irrelevant because if they ever make a biopic about my life, i want to be played by natasha lyonne

Do you still have stuffed animals in your bed?  nope, the few i have left are on a shelf in my childhood home

Who is your celebrity crush?  for the guys, i have accepted that i have a perpetual crush on pedro pascal. i think i only find him physically attractive 50% of the time, but damn, he has the best vibe 100% of the time. joseph gordon levitt is also a hottie. for the ladies, right now, it's ming na wen and natalie dormer 

Have you ever accidentally sent a naughty message to the wrong person? thankfully, i have not. BUT i once sent a super "fangirly" text to a coworker instead of my friend and it was very embarrassing.

Have you ever snorted your drink out your nose on a date?  i've only done this once in my life and happy to say it was not on a date.

Have you ever peed in a public pool?  maybe as a kid.

And we will close it out with some Shameless Characters Bang/Marry/Kill: Ian/Mickey/Kev: bang mickey, marry ian, kill kev

Fiona/V/Svetlana: bang fiona, marry v, kill svetlana

Frank/Kermit/Tommy: what a lose-lose-lose situation lol. ugh, i guess bang tommy, marry kermit, kill frank (no way i'd bang frank after all that we've seen him do 🤮)

Karen/Mandy/Sandy: bang sandy, marry mandy, kill karen

Jimmy/Sean/Gus: bang sean, marry jimmy, kill gus (pouring one out for jimmy-steve, the best guy for fiona)

Thanks for coming to my sleepover! Hope you had fun, we are having banana pancakes for breakfast. (adding chocolate chips to these pancakes to create my go-to weekend breakfast)

tagging some cuties: @juliakayyy, @francesrose3, @ian-galagher, @sleepyfacetoughguy, @heymrspatel, @michellemisfit, @mmmichyyy, @gallawitchxx, @gardenerian, @crossmydna, @whatthebodygraspsnot, @vintagelacerosette, @thisdivorce, @too-schoolforcool

#weekly game wednesday #tag game #about me

[gwendolynlerman]

Books I want to read in 2024

I was inspired by @fluencylevelfrench to write this post, so here are the 50 books I want to read in 2024, which is my provisional Goodreads goal. (I always set a lowish number and adjust it throughout the year depending on how my goal progresses.) Last year, I read 121 books, so I'm hoping to be able to read at least 100, but I have no idea what my year is going to look like.

1Q84 Book 1 by Haruki Murakami (currently reading)

1Q84 Book 2 by Haruki Murakami

1Q84 Book 3 by Haruki Murakami

Hamburg – hin und zurück by Felix & Theo

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

Die Verwandlung by Franz Kafka

Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language by Steven Pinker

Love, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

International Relations Theory by Stephen McGlinchey

You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws and the Power of Words by Robert Lane Greene

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt

Meditations on Diplomacy: Comparative Cases in Diplomatic Practice and Foreign Policy by Stephen Chan

Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich

Reflections on the Posthuman in International Relations: The Anthropocene, Security and Ecology by Clara Eroukhmanoff

In Cold Blood: A True Account of Multiple Murder and Its Consequences by Truman Capote

Haus ohne Hoffnung by Felix & Theo

Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane

Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer

Migration and the Ukraine Crisis: A Two-Country Perspective by Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska and Greta Uehling (eds.)

Writing Systems: An Introduction to Their Linguistic Analysis by Florian Coulmas

Nations under God: The Geopolitics of Faith in the Twenty-First Century by Luke M. Herrington

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell

Herr der Diebe by Cornelia Funke

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser

Park Statue Politics: World War II Comfort Women Memorials in the United States by Thomas J. Ward

The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

Restoring Indigenous Self-Determination: Theoretical and Practical Approaches by Marc Woons

Veronikas Geheimnis by Friedhelm Strack

The Sacred and the Sovereign by Özgür Taşkaya

1984 by George Orwell

Sounds of War: Aesthetics, Emotions and Chechnya by Susanna Hast

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Feminists Don't Wear Pink (And Other Lies): Amazing Women on What the F-Word Means to Them by Scarlett Curtis

Into the Eleventh Hour: R2P, Syria and Humanitarianism in Crisis by Robert W. Murray

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams

Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit

Life, the Universe and Everything by Douglas Adams

Women & Power: A Manifesto by Mary Beard

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams

The Sources of Russia's Great Power Politics: Ukraine and the Challenge to the European Order by Taras Kuzio

Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams

Women, Race & Class by Angela Y. Davis

Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity by Chandra Talpade Mohanty

I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

The “Clash of Civilizations” 25 Years On: A Multidisciplinary Appraisal by Davide Orsi

Making Space for Indigenous Feminism by Joyce Green

It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

#bookblr

[usafphantom2]

#onthisday in 1941, flying from Fairey's Great West Aerodrome and with Flight Lieutenant Christopher Staniland at the controls, the Fairey Firefly prototype made its maiden flight.

@classicwarbirds via X

Fairey Firefly | Classic Warbirds

The Firefly was designed by Herbert Chaplin and his team to meet Air Ministry Specification N.5/40 which called for a two-seat reconnaissance fighter to replace the Fairey Fulmar. This new aircraft had increased firepower and speed over the Fulmar and 200 Fireflys were ordered on the 12th June 1940 and four production aircraft would be used for testing.

On the 22nd December 1941 flying from Fairey's Great West Aerodrome, and piloted by Fairey test pilot Flight Lieutenant Christopher Staniland, the Fairey Firefly made its maiden flight. A second Firefly flew the following year on the 4th June 1942. Tragedy then struck the project when on the 20th June 1942 the second prototype crashed killing the pilot Flight Lieutenant Staniland, this led to minor changes to the third aircraft before it flew two months later on the 26th August 1942. By the end of 1942 carrier trials on the new aircraft had been carried out aboard HMS Illustrious (87).

The Firefly Mk I was at first powered by the 1,730-hp Rolls-Royce Griffon IIB although during the aircraft's production run a number of changes were made, including the removal of a two man dinghy in the rear fuselage and the installation of the 1,990-hp Rolls-Royce Griffon XII engine. This gave the aircraft a top speed of 316 mph, range of 1,300 miles and a service ceiling of 28,000 ft. Armament was four 20mm cannons and either 2,000lb bombs or rocket projectiles.

On the 1st October 1943 the Firefly Mk I started to enter service with No. 1770 Naval Air Squadron, based first at RNAS Yeovilton before embarking on HMS Indefatigable (R10), being the first to receive this new aircraft. It would not be until nine months later on the 17th July 1944 when the Firefly would become operational, taking part in the attack against the German Battleship Tirpitz based in Norway, known as Operation Mascot, where they would provide air cover. The first aerial victory for the type was achieved by Lieutenant Dennis Levitt of No. 1770 Naval Air Squadron when on the 2nd January 1945 he shot down a Nakajima Ki-43 'Oscar'.

A number of Fireflys also had ASH radar installed in a pod under the engine and were known as the Firefly FR Mk I. With the installation of A.I Mk 10 radar and the fuselage increased by eighteen inches the Firefly NF Mk II night fighter appeared although all 37 Firefly NF Mk IIs were converted back to Firefly Mk I specification.

The Firefly Mk III was to be powered by the Rolls-Royce Griffon 61 engine and only a prototype of this was produced during 1944 despite an order for 100 of the type placed. Instead thoughts turned to the Firefly Mk IV which featured a four-blade propeller, clipped wings and power supplied by the 2,100-hp Rolls-Royce Griffon 74 engine. With a top speed of 386 mph it was 70 mph faster than the Firefly Mk I, its range was 1,300 miles with a service ceiling of 31,900 ft. Armament consisted of four 20mm cannons and 2,000lb bombs or rocket projectiles. 160 Firefly Mk IVs would be produced but would not see service during the Second World War (1939 - 1945) with deliveries beginning in July 1946.

The Fairey Firefly Mk 5 followed and flew for the first time on the 12th December 1947. This was powered by the 2,245-hp Rolls-Royce Griffon 74 engine. Top speed was 386 mph, range 760 miles, its service ceiling was 31,900 ft. Armament was four 20mm cannons and either 4,000lb bombs or rocket projectiles. On the 23rd March 1949 the first production version of the Firefly AS.6 flew for the first time, the Firefly AS.6 and Firefly AS.7 featured a larger bulged canopy to house two radar operators. Powered by the same Griffon 74 engine as its predecessor its top speed, range and service ceiling were identical. Its armament was 4,000lb bombs or rocket projectiles. It would be No. 817 Royal Australian Naval Air Squadron, RNAS St Merryn who were first to be equipped with the Firefly AS.6 when they received theirs on the 25th April 1950.

Continuing development of the type led to the Firefly AS.7 which flew for the first time on the 22nd May 1951. Powered by the 1,925-hp Rolls-Royce Griffon 59 engine this would be the slowest Firefly variant with a top speed of 300 mph, range of 860 miles with a service ceiling of 25,500 ft, although most would end up as Firefly T. Mk 7 observer training aircraft.

The final two variants were the Firefly U.Mk 8 and Firefly U.Mk 9 which were both target drones.

By the time production ended 1,700 Fairey Fireflys had been built serving in a number of different roles including training and target tug roles and as well as seeing service during the Second World War the Firefly would also participate in the Korean War (1950 - 1953) and would serve with air forces around the world including the Royal Australian Navy's Fleet Air Arm, the Royal Canadian Navy and the Dutch Naval Aviation Service.

#Youtube

[xkcdbracket]

XKCD Bracket Retrospective

@xkcdbracket (no relation) on 𝕏 also held a tournament based on the same comic, so lets see how the results differ

Round 1 was remarkably similar, with only 11 of the 45 matches turning out differently.

In Round 2 we had our biggest sweep, Oscar Wilde vs Oscar de la Renta, with Wilde winning with a margin of 97.09% (100 to 3 votes). The analogous match was also a fairly big sweep on Twitter, with Oscar Wilde "utterly KO"ing Oscar de la Hoya with a margin of 91.61% (1517 to 139)

As the bracket is large, I'll be glossing over the middle rounds, to focus on the Sweet SixFourteen.

The top-left starts off identical, save for having a different Armstrong. The bottom left on the other hand, is totally different, with Jack Nicholson having beat Fats Domino, Joseph Gordon-Levitt having beat Colin Firth, and Mark Ruffalo having beaten Donald Glover.

The top-right is mostly similar, but Bill Murray had beat Phil Pullman, Jerry Lee Lewis had beat Jenny Lewis, and most notably, Chris Pratt, this tournament's round 1 punching bag, not only beat Chris Pine in Round 1 (with what is described as a "huge win" of 77.25%), but subsequently made it all the way to the quarterfinals. The bottom-right is mostly identical, except Van Halen had beaten Rip Van Winkle.

Going into the quarterfinals, Alan Rickman beat Oscar Wilde, and Van Halen beat Beyoncé. Otherwise it was the same or analogous to the actual Round 4

Going from the quarterfinals to the semifinals, things are mostly the same as our tournament (aside from the bottom left, which is totally different). Armstrong won, Spock beat Chris P, and Scallions beat a musical act.

And finally, the finale was the same, aside from a) having a different Armstrong and b) that Armstrong winning. In our tournament, Spock beat Louis Armstrong with 55.56% (52 to 70), but on Twitter Neil Armstrong beat Spock, with 67.14% (2,252 to 1,102)

It's interesting how the two tournaments were so similar, with the exception that the guy who won one was eliminated instantly in the other.

#xkcd #polls on tumblr #poll tournament #1529 #1529 announcements

[amostboringblog]

The Post-Blockbuster Millennial American Dream

You know you have issues when The Fat Jewish constitutes your daily morning Bible reading. Today, it dawned on me that I’m the (millennial) American Dream: I wake up at noon and spend the rest of my morning—afternoon, really—blogging like it’s a legit occupation. I’m Sex & The City sans the sex. Or the city. (Or the money.)

But I can’t complain; to be the child who uses “I’m trying to spend some time with myself” as an excuse for her unemployment at family reunions is a privilege—I’m now familiar with a wide range of judgmental stares. (Twenty-eight, to be precise.) Should my future teen daughter date a retired Jonas Brother, I will have twenty-eight looks to pull from.

I had a feeling I was uncool, but yesterday, when my music teacher said I’m naturally good at singing opera, my worst fears were confirmed. Uncoolness runs through my veins. This could just be the thing to make me 100% repelling to the male kind on Tinder. (I have finally cracked the code!)

The problem with living in the post-'00s generation is that it’s impossible to date someone if you’re a lazy person. You need to put in the work to ‘online date.’ Swipe left, swipe right, repeat. If this were 2002, I’d know the entire Blockbuster staff by name by now and would probably be dating the checkout guy. (My mom would prefer that I at least date the manager, but I’m not very ambitious, to be honest.) Instead, with Netflix, all I do is engage in wine-induced Twitter outbursts every time I watch a Joseph Gordon-Levitt film. Highly unattractive habit, I know. 

In a world where everyone is expected to brag about their lives on Instagram, I wonder what my lack of social media activity communicates: That I have nothing to look forward to? That I’m coping with severe depression? That I have died? Or worse—that I’m going through a divorce from a secret marriage? I now think twice before sharing anything, especially when most of my posting activity constitutes #ThrowbackThursdays, as though my present could never measure up to the joys of my past.

Oh, I can feel that wine-induced verborrhea coming. Be still, my dear heart.

#joseph gordon-levitt #milennial #blockbuster #adulting #unemployed #fat jewish #depression #comedy #fiction #fictional memoir #funny #funny memoir #publishers #los angeles #new york #chicago #heartbreak #love #romance #romcom #bridget jones #millennial #genz

[bittersweetremains]

#the 100 cast #the 100 #levitt #jason diaz #my gifs

[aninsecurewriter]

100 must-read books!

This is a list of books considered "must-reads" from various lists and online posters. I'll be reviewing them as I go but mainly keeping track of what I have and haven't read here.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Matilda by Roald Dahl

The Secret History by Donna Tart

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks

Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Frankenstein by Mary Shelly

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Norwegian Wood bt Haruki Murakami

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Lolita Vladimir Nabokov

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

The Harry Potter Series by J.K Rowling

His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Ulysses by James Joyce

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Wild Swans by Jung Chang

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Gulliver's Travels by Johnathan Swift

The War of the Worlds by H.G Wells

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt

Persuasion by Jane Austen

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Beloved by Toni Morrison

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson

Macbeth by Shakespeare

The Lord of the Rings (trilogy) by J.R.R Tolkien

The Outsiders by S.E Hinton

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami

Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally

London Fields by Martin Amis

Sherlock Holmes and the The Hound of the Baskerville's by Arthur Conan Doyle

My Man Jeeves by P.G Wodehouse

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Gladys Aylward the Little Woman by Gladys Aylward

Mindnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Tess of the D'Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy

The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas by John Boyne

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian

Dissolution by C.J Sansom

The Time Machine by H.G Wells

Winnie the Pooh (complete collection) by A.A Milne

Animal Farm by George Orwell

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

The Castle by Franz Kafka

Dracula by Bram Stoker

All Quiet on the Western Front by Eric Maria Remarque

Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

Misery by Stephen King

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S Lewis

The Shining by Stephen King

The Odyssey by Homer

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson

Tell No One by Harlan Coben

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

#books #reading #literature #100 -must reads #challenge

[twiststreet]

10 Random Recent TV opinions:  

1.  The “What if Christoph Waltz was your boss and also Satan from the bestselling book the Bible” show was fun anytime Christoph Waltz was on screen, but kinda corny the rest of the time because it could never explain why these people didn’t just quit working for Satan.  People quit jobs, all the time!  

2.  Plus, bless TV writers’ little hearts, but I know about lots of bosses who were way, way worse than TV’s Satan.  Oodles!  Satan seemed comparatively well-intentioned to other bosses I’m aware of-- Satan at least has a valid reason for being kind of a dick (souls is neat to own, or whatever).

3.  That second-to-last Servant, the last one directed by Shyamalan, Sr... Lauren Ambrose is great, but once you get past that, Shyamalan does this really gorgeous Hitchcock zoom in there  (the one in the car). (You know when you zoom in while also pulling the camera away, or zoom out while pushing in, they go either way). No one watches that show or I’m convinced there’d be articles about that zoom...  I dug that zoom so much...!!  Shyamalan mentions it in the behind the scenes footage (he calls it a zolly, which I’m not into) but only for like a second.

4.  I caught up on the Mandalorian because I was in the mood for outer space / I’m an old man who occasionally gets the bug to find out who’s winning the Star War.  It’s fine?  I like parts of it.  Plus:  I guess it’s an unpopular opinion but I didn’t really think Andor was anything at all--  I thought it was boring and middlebrow.  I liked the Mandalorian more because it was consistent with what a Star War involves as I understand it-- fart noises, animals shitting, booger jokes.  I mean this sincerely-- those things to me are hallmarks of the franchise, because Star Warring is for fucking kids. That is kid’s business.  Whereas Andor felt like it wanted to be for grown-ups who want to take a Star War seriously and explain the prison industrial complex to me or some shit-- that is ridiculous and nothing I can approve of.

5.  I think my favorite Mandalorian episode was the one that’s just about 80′s action legend Carl Weathers’s character being a bad-ass, directed by 80′s action legend Carl Weathers.  My second favorite was the 10 minutes where Boba Nott fought Cthulu Men on a boat.  

6.  Katee Sackhoff is in the Mandalorian though and she is terrible... Especially because the tragedy of the show-- I really think the best thing in it was Gina Carano.  People get really excited to mock that woman, since she “fumbled the bag.”  But even though she’s not a good actress, she’s fun to watch fight in a Star War and I don’t know-- I just think it’s really, really sad, that she blew up her life like that, or that she let down all those fans.  I don’t 100% get what people think is so funny there-- it makes me feel sad and tired.

7. Poker Face-- I’d say the Escape from Shit Mountain episode (the one with Joseph Gordon Levitt) is probably the best one, the one that’s a Phil Tippett tribute with Nick Nolte is pretty solidly good, and then the rest are varying degrees of i-mean-i-guess-I-had-nothing-else-going-on to highly-highly-skippable. 

8.  Setting aside the directing and production design, I take Will Trent over Poker Face because Will Trent doesn’t have superpowers and has to solve mysteries, which are difficult for him to solve and thus more satisfying to me to see him deduce, than seeing solutions magically land into Natasha Lyonne’s lap.  Her superpowered character could just shout “did you do murder” to everyone she met and each episode would be 10 seconds long.  Plus: I think it’s weird that Poker Face girl doesn’t have any friends.  Psych and Monk had friends; Columbo had a wife, I think.  It’s doing the Incredible Hulk TV show instead, but that show was (a) depressing because it was about a lonely man going town to town until being asked to leave after his emotions make him rip his clothes off-- that’s not a story we needed Rian Johnson to revisit, and (b) involved a Hulk who was Incredible, i.e. just not really the same vibe as a mystery show.

9.  Will Trent is just crazy because it’s a network TV crime show and those all went insane after young people stopped watching them.  Because they have to keep old people awake-- and network crime dramas do that by being joltingly violent.  The last episode of Will Trent I saw, Will Trent had to solve a mystery where a woman was killed in this horribly, horribly brutal way (like they explain it’s how hunters murder deer, except it happens to a human woman and there are unpleasant details I’m leaving out).  It’s a disturbing way to die which the audience hears about repeatedly... until the episode ends with Will Trent saying cute stuff to his (actually very adorable) dog, plus the b-story was a wacky mystery involving a dead magician (haha).  My point:  Poker Face would get letters if it was a tenth as nightmarish as the average show that a 53 year old aunt watches on network television at 10pm; Rian Johnson would have to apologize.

10.    I kind of want the final season of Barry to just be Barry stuck in jail for 20-30 years until being paroled back onto the streets, as a confused old man.  I don’t think that’s what it’ll be, but I just think that’d be clean and rad and powerful.

#All I Ever Write About on this blog is Television...