I mentioned at the end of my SOPA/PIPA post that I’d be talking these folks up, so here it is.

Syfy’s “Being Human” is run by GENIUSES.

Granted, it’s on the Syfy network, and they’re not always noted for having high quality material, though I’ll admit to having sat through “Sharktopus.”  And I’ll grant that the “Being Human” premise is borrowed from the BBC3 show of the same name.  But here’s the deal: it’s carving a niche, and not just on my Monday nights.

I first mentioned the endearing qualities of this show last year at about this time, when I reviewed a few of last season’s mid-season premieres.  Of the four shows I covered, “Being Human” was one of two that came back.  Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to watch the UK iteration, and I’m excited to see that this new season of the US version is taking a different tack.  I’m excited to see where UK goes as well, and if you’ve seen up through series 3, folks, you know why.  But that’s not why we’re here.

Syfy has set up a campaign for this show the likes of which I’ve never seen, and I’m unduly impressed by how much work they’ve put into engaging with their audience online as well as on the air.
Like most shows, “Being Human” has a Twitter feed.  Unlike most shows, they live tweet during their episodes, and respond to fan’s reactions.
Like most shows, “Being Human” has a Facebook page and a Google+ page. Unlike most shows, (*cough*cough* How I Met Your Mother *cough*) they don’t use their pages to discuss the plot. They avoid spoilers, instead focusing on “sneak peek” and “behind the scenes” videos and promotional and event photography. When a casting choice is announced, it’s not immediately obvious who that person will be playing (*cough*cough* Slutty Pumpkin *cough*). This is the right way to do it.
Like most shows now, “Being Human” has a profile on GetGlue.  GetGlue’s the newest social networking monster, and I like it.  If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you’re probably already tired of it.  Here’s the deal with GetGlue, though – it has the unique ability to aggregate feedback and discussions about shows into one place.  Rather than going to Twitter and clicking on a #BeingHuman hashtag, you can hit GetGlue and have a conversation about the show, spoilers and all, without cluttering up your feed with it.  And if you link your check-in, those that want to discuss with you can follow you over.  And if you miss the Twitter feed?  There’s a tab for that on GetGlue.

Here’s where the folks behind “Being Human” get crafty.  The show is rife with indie rock.  I’m a huge fan of that.  Playing real songs mixed in with the soundtrack lends some authenticity to the show (and I really like the soundtrack as well).  Like the songs they played that episode?
There’s a Spotify playlist for that.
You heard me. Each episode from season 2 has a Spotify playlist.   There have only been 2 episodes (2.01, 2.02), but they went back and created one for season 1.

So not only are these science-fiction marketing geniuses out there to get you to fall in love with their show, they want you to talk about it. And not just talk about it, but get to know the cast as people, and get to know the music separately from the show.  As a bit of a “test,” I looked them up on Klout, which is a fantastic way of gauging how one interacts with others via social media.  They’ve got a score of 63 today, which isn’t bad.  It’s higher than mine.  Their score has been steady all year.  But what I wanted to know is their “Klout Style.”  They’re listed as a “Broadcaster,” which means, “You broadcast great content that spreads like wildfire. You are an essential information source in your industry. You have a large and diverse audience that values your content.”  On the lovely little Klout style chart they’ve created, “Being Human” sits more near “Participating” and “Sharing” than “Creating” or “Focused.”  Same spot as my sister, actually.  Very interesting.

I think what I’m really getting at here is that “Being Human” has the right idea.  Rather than generating content the traditional way, they’re out there engaging with fans every way they can.  And you know what?  When you’re a science fiction underdog of a show, that’s the way to do it.  Because it’s the fans who will decide if your show lives or dies.

Just ask Chuck.  (Too soon?)

My sister and I decided last March that we needed to redecorate our mom’s bedroom.  Admittedly, there were a couple different motives at play here, not the least of which being our parents’ divorce, but also that the room had become cluttered and didn’t have a clear direction for what it should look like.  It was very clearly a room where two people ended every day.  After last spring, it had to be more than that.  It had to be a place to get ready in the morning.  It had to be a place to escape to after a ten-hour-day at the hospital and an evening of your kids coming over and yelling at the TV (we do that weekly).  And it desperately needs to stop being one of only rooms in the house that’s never been painted because, I mean, come on.  Never?

So the first thing we did was start to gather ideas.  I created a board on Pinterest as soon as Pinterest became an option.  It was one of the first boards I made, and we still update it regularly, posting new ideas and culling old ones.  We decided on a very simple motif: greys on the walls, muted colors and neutrals on the furniture, and bright pops of colored accents.  Mom has a pre-Depression quilt from her grandmother that we want to hang on the empty wall space above the bed.  There’s a big open wall in there, ready for a gallery.  The next step?  Convincing Mom.

So we did the next best thing, for starters: had her best friend weigh in.  I e-mailed her in April to say, “Hey, I know there’s a lot of change happening right now, but Mom deserves a room that’s HERS.  And we want to give it to her.”  And then she was on board.

We presented the Great Secret Project plan to Mom on Mother’s Day after a delicious dinner involving a whole chicken in a cast iron pan.  We pulled together magazine pages, paint chips, fabric swatches and sketches, and included a QR code for the Pinterest board.  I’d covertly downloaded a UPC and QR code-reading app for her phone the weekend before, so it worked out perfectly to include that.

After sharing our ideas, Mom started in on her own.  She moved a bookshelf out of there.  She reorganized the closet.  She installed a new shower head in the bathroom.  She cleaned out under the bed.  She rearranged furniture.  Then she went out of town.

Our turn.

We started with a rather modest “sitting area.”  One of the biggest complaints we had was that that table was hideous, and the drapey table cover made the room look shorter.  So we replaced it.  SCHWINK.

The new table is a craigslist find that I drove down to Prior Lake for.  It’s an oval shape, which is great, because, while Mom’s more into the straight lines of Mission-style furniture, we wanted to add some feminine curves to her room and soften the edges a little.  The other perfect part about it (other than the $40 price tag) were the feet.  It has claw feet, and I know Mom’s been wanting a claw foot dining table like her grandparents had.

One of the biggest complaints Mom has about her bedroom is that there’s not enough light.  I thought it was because the steeply-angled opaque lampshades blocked a lot of the light.  SCHWINK.

Thank you, 6 PM on Black Friday $5 lampshades for being the perfect fix to this horrible problem.  We’d been thinking drum shades, and when I saw these, my response was, “yup.  Have to.”  It was a subtle change that Mom didn’t notice right away, but it was definitely the right one.  Sometimes it’s the little things like making a room brighter that make the biggest difference.  But that wasn’t all.  SCHWINK.

We had to add some things to the table, too.  The curly willow is a craigslist free section find and adds the height and curves we were looking for.  The vase they’re tucked in to was a $12 craigslist find, and matches Mom’s style so perfectly that she thought we’d moved it from another room.  Nope.  It’s brand new.  :D

As Katie and I update more and more of the room, we’ll keep folks updated as to our progress.  And internet?  She’s gone for a whole week at the end of the month.  Who knows what we’ll be able to accomplish with that kind of time?!

Like many people out there, when the “news” (and by that, I mean my Twitter feed) started burning up about the House’s Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate’s Protect IP Act (PIPA), I jumped right on the “anti-SOPA” bandwagon.  I’m not ready to have the Internet I’ve come to know and love changed irrevocably by the government.  I’m not ready to have the government step in and regulate what we can and can’t talk about online.

And then I went out to dinner with my family for my grandmother’s birthday.  The subject of SOPA came up near the end of the meal, and I mentioned that I was against it.  My aunt immediately countered, asking, “Oh, so are you for piracy?”  I didn’t have enough brain power at the time, but I imagine the “No, I’m for Freedom of Speech” rant that followed made me sound like a college freshman extolling the virtues of legalizing marijuana.  It’s time I come up with a more articulate stand.

The core value of SOPA makes sense.  Please don’t hate me, Internet, but it does.  Copyright infringement is out there, and yes, it should be illegal.  Intellectual property theft is a thing that happens, it’s not okay, and yes, there should be real and tangible consequences.  And yes, there are some websites out there that enable copyright infringement and intellectual property theft by offering them a voice.

But here’s the deal.  It used to be the case that if, say, you were going to be gone on a Thursday night, it was easy as pie (well, for my generation) to just set the VCR to tape that landmark episode of “ER” so you’d be able to watch it the next day.  It used to be the case that if you heard that your favorite song was coming up on the radio, you could pop a blank tape into the cassette deck and press that round red “Record” button just as it was coming on and hope your mom wouldn’t fire up the vacuum and wreck the recording.  When the Internet came around, VCRs and tape decks were replaced by a digital recorder, and sharing an episode online became just as easy as bringing the tape to work or school and passing it on.

And I don’t see anything wrong with that.  If it’s a show I love, you better be sure that I’ll be there to buy the next season on DVD.  If it’s a show I used to love, it’s a show I’ll go out and spend money on.  But if it’s a show I love, and I’m not, say, on my couch at 7:00 on a Monday night because I want to go to yoga, I should be able to go to the CBS website after “How I Met Your Mother” has aired from here to Hawaii and be able to watch it online.  Because you know I’ll be spending my hard-earned taxable American dollars on it at my local Best Buy as soon as I can.

I think this bill is indicative of a broader issue: availability.  The companies who have sponsored it (and I won’t even get started about how wrong that is) are making it clear that they have the power to limit the availability of their content.  That’s not the way the world works anymore.  We now live in a world with a short attention span and a “GIMME” attitude.  It’s annoying, yes, but we have the tools to make things happen and we’re not afraid to use them.

Here’s the thing: we also have MONEY.

What if your favorite television show had a Kickstarter-like project, where you could pre-pay for that season’s DVD at the beginning of the year, and over the course of the season, have exclusive access to streaming online content like episodes a week before they air, or interviews with the writers, crew or cast?  What if the Disney Channel went back through its archives and offered digital copies of its older shows like “So Weird” and “The Famous Jett Jackson” for $1 an episode?  What if Nickelodeon did that with “Hey Dude” and “The Adventures of Pete and Pete”?  And I’d definitely pay $1 an episode to have access to Neil Patrick Harris and Tony Shaloub’s short-lived masterpiece of a show, “Stark Raving Mad.”

My thoughts on this are simple, really, and I know that this long-ass post hasn’t done a great job of making it look that way.  For that, I apologize.  I feel that SOPA and PIPA are backward-thinking articles of legislation.  I think they’d view my “where do they go from here” post about Firefly from a while back as copyright infringement, even though that wasn’t the intention at all, and this whole site would be censored as a result.

The government and the television, movie and music companies behind SOPA and PIPA need to be forward-thinking.  The world has changed around them, and it’s time to figure out new ways to get their content to the masses.  It’s time to step up and give the people what they want – and what they will find a way to get whether you help them or not.  I’m not for piracy.  I’m for availability.  And I’m for moving media forward.

To that end, the White House has proposed a new piece of legislation as an alternative to SOPA and PIPA, called the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act, or OPEN.  To give you a picture of the differences, SOPA and PIPA are supported by media conglomerates, and OPEN is supported by Google and Facebook.  OPEN is a start.  To learn more, check out KeeptheWebOpen.com.

And that ends today’s rant.  Tune in later on this week, when I’ll be discussing what I perceive to be the television show that is best using social media to its advantage: Syfy’s “Being Human.”

I know I don’t post a whole lot about my personal life on this blog, and honestly, I like it better that way.  I’d much rather post about my travels, my favorite television shows, and my crafting and renovation projects than post about what’s going on with me, but the end of the year warrants a little bit of personal reflection of what all happened over the past 365 days. Read more »

I recently read a really great blog post on My Entertainment OCD called “To All the Television I’ve Wept Before.”  Erin from Salem, Massachusetts, has quite a lot to say about TV episodes that make her cry – dubbed by herself and her friends on the Twitter as #cryisodes.

I reviewed the list and realized that it covered a few of my favorite cryisodes – Angel’s “A Hole in the World” and Bones’ “A Hole in the Heart” foremost among them.  (The similarities of the title and the fact that they’re both David Boreanaz shows are pure coincidence.)  The list also covered a couple I had forgotten about – primarily, “The Long Goodbye” and “…Must Come To An End” from Dawson’s Creek – and some I wasn’t aware of, simply because I haven’t quite delved into those shows.

After reading that, I know that there are a few on my personal list that I’ve got to add.  And I’ll go one further: series finales always make me cry.  So I’ll try to not include them at all and go for more “deep cuts” from some of my favorite shows.  (And yes – that means cracking open my Facebook “likes” to see what shows I’ve got on there…) I’d like to also note that yes – SPOILER ALERT. I will be telling you what makes me cry about these episodes. So if you’re going through the show from front to back, and you haven’t seen the one I’m talking about, SKIP IT PLEASE.

The 4400 – “Life Interrupted,” season 2, episode 7
This episode always gets me.  I’m a big fan of Tom Baldwin as a character, so to see this world develop around him is fantastic.  It’s that moment in the end where he starts at his desk and runs out to find Alana that brings me to tears.  It definitely pulls on the heartstrings, but in the best way.

Mad About You – “The Finale (3),” season 4, episode 24
Psych! This episode was originally written as the series finale, but NBC renewed the show after it was written, and it kept the original title. Besides the actual series finale, this one makes me cry the very very most. I think it’s a combination of the wonderful writing and the scoring of the episode starring a really beautiful violin line. The fact that their relationship has some struggle in it is what gives that show so much depth.

Scrubs – “My Philosophy,” season 2, episode 13
This episode was technically the first “musical” episode of Scrubs – and yes, they did multiple musical numbers on that show. What gets me about this one is that it covers a topic that comedies don’t always cover: What happens when you know someone might die? What happens when you try, but can’t save them? The use of Colin Hay’s “Waiting for My Real Life to Begin” is an added bonus, and that song has been added to the “To Be Played at my Wake” playlist.

LOST – “Do No Harm,” season 1, episode 20
It’s no secret that characters get killed off on LOST, and often in heartbreaking and unexpected ways. “Do No Harm” is the first one. The dichotomy in this episode is what makes it interesting: one character dies while another one is born. The raw emotion and the speed at which things happen are its greatest strengths.

LOST – “The Constant,” season 4, episode 5
I think, at this point, my “cryisodes” fit into two categories: “Death,” and “Heartstrings.” This one’s definitely a heartstrings cryisode, since it’s seeing Desmond search for his constant, all while flashing through time, that gets me. Actually, I take that back. It’s the phone booth scene.

Boy Meets World – season 6, “We’ll Have a Good Time Then…” (episode 13) and “My Baby Valentine” (episode 16)
Of all of the television shows I consider my favorites, this one definitely grew the most from its first season to its last. It started as a campy, after-school-special type of show, and grew into a show that could both make fun of itself, and touch on some really deep subjects. Season 6 has the most depth of any season, in my humble opinion. I have to put these two episodes together, though. “We’ll Have a Good Time Then…” is the episode in which Shawn and Jack’s father dies of complications from a heart attack. At the same time, Shawn and Jack discuss how they can or can’t fix the relationships they share, and this rift caused by Chet’s death causes Shawn to leave town. He doesn’t come back until “My Baby Valentine,” known to myself and my sister as “the NICU episode.” This one always brings tears to my eyes because of Shawn’s monologue to baby Joshua (“Don’t leave town”), and the reveal at the end: that the baby got healthy enough to go home. The heartbreaking part of “My Baby Valentine” is the clip they show during the credits of all of the parents in the NICU, watching their children, praying for them to get better.

How I Met Your Mother – “Bad News,” season 6, episode 13
This is another one of those emotionally-dense television episodes that I just can’t get enough of.  The entire episode deals with the close relationship between Marshall and his father, and the fact that Marshall and Lily are having trouble conceiving.  In the background of every shot, there’s a countdown, so early on in the episode, you know something big is going to happen.  And it does – just when you think that the episode-ending reveal is going to be that Marshall and Lily should have no trouble conceiving from a health perspective, Lily delivers the real reveal: that Marshall’s father has died.  The final scene – and Marshall’s last line, “I’m not ready for this,” – was unscripted, and not revealed to the actors themselves until filming.

I find it very interesting that both Boy Meets World and How I Met Your Mother have the main character’s best friend lose his father on the thirteenth episode of season 6.  Curious.

And with that observation, I think I’ll call it a day.  I’m sure there’s more cryisodes out there, and as I think of them, I may add them to the comments, but these are the ones that jump out at me as real waterworks-inducers.

…he’s going to want a glass of milk, right?

Such is the story of my life.  And my sister’s, too, I guess.  It’s a hereditary condition, presumably from my Mom’s side of the family, where if you start one little project, it’s going to turn in to a massive undertaking in no time flat.  The condition is exacerbated by Dad’s side of the family, where every time you start a project, something will go terribly wrong.  Luckily, that’s not the case here.

This year, it was Christmas planning that has turned into a massive undertaking.  We’ve had a bit of a shift in the family dynamic this year – my sister and brother-in-law are no longer newlyweds and this is their second Christmas together, and this is the first Christmas our parents have been apart.  Mom’s got the house all to herself, and the Christmas decorations remain meticulously packed away until this weekend when she gets back from vacation.  But as for Dad…

He now lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in a first-floor walk-up with one bedroom and two cats.  And no Christmas decorations that we know of.

Growing up, it was a Big Deal to Dad that we have a real Christmas tree.  I figure, in that little apartment building, and with no car, that there’s little to no chance that he’ll have a real tree this year.  So I had to get him a fake one.
And since he has a little tree, he’ll need a little star for that tree.  (I picked it out because it’s red, classy, and the glitzy version of mine.)

And since he has a little tree with a gold-and-red star, he’ll need the ornaments he’d gotten from his grandmother.

But the tree isn’t big enough.  So he needs something to hang said ornaments on that’s big enough, and out of reach of the cats.  Enter garland – intended for the big window in the “office.”

The lights and cat toys are for good measure.  And I knew I picked out the right kind of cat toy when I got an e-mail of Dad’s sushi dinner, and a “thank you” card for the shrimp cocktail version I’d brought to a housewarming party.

Merry Almost Christmas, Dad!

I was a bridesmaid at my friends Laura and Joe’s wedding on 11/11/11. It was a great night on the Centennial Showboat. The photographers – Moments Shared Photography – set up a “come get your picture taken!” spot outside overlooking the city.

We all showed up separately, but it looks like we all planned our outfits to match. Looks like the photo shoot was planned. It wasn’t. Didn’t stop us from going outside, getting cold, and laughing until we didn’t care.

For years now, I’ve wanted my own steamer trunk for my home.  Growing up, my Mom had one that she used to keep blankets and other keepsakes like mine and my siblings’ baptism candles in.  I used to sit next to it in the basement of our old house.  It never made sense to me to buy new something that I could find classic and old elsewhere.  So I watched for them at antique shops, thrift stores and curb sides.  And I waited, patiently, knowing the perfect trunk would find me.
And as I waited, all of my favorite design blogs proved me right, posting pictures and pictures of trunks in people’s homes, used in exactly the same ways I wanted to use mine.

I have the heart of a traveler, even though I am firmly rooted here in Minnesota.  And so, over the past few years, I’ve amassed a collection of travel trunks and suitcases.

I have a hard bodied Samsonite suitcase that I found on the recycle bins at my last apartment.

I have what appears to be a World War II army trunk that I found in the back of the Almelund Mercantile for $20.  Great find.  And a fun trip!  The Almelund Mercantile in Almelund, Minnesota, is part antique shop, part soda fountain, part grocery store, part coffee shop, and part black market co-op.  I ended up picking up the trunk, a Mother’s Day gift (a little vintage butter crock!), a dozen ungraded eggs from one of the farmers up there, and an orange float.  Fantastic stop, and I still mean to make it back up there!  And, if you’re wondering – yes, the reason we went in originally is because the sign had “mercantile” on it, and neither myself, nor my roommate, had seen that since we used to play “Oregon Trail.”

My biggest find?  A canvas-sided box trunk that I found in a friend’s neighbor’s trash the morning after a party.  From what I’ve learned on BrettunsVillage.com (a FANTASTIC resource for trunk refinishing services, supplies and instruction), it’s from the late 1800s or the early 1900s.  The paper on the inside was cracking, and the canvas on the outside has been damaged, so I’ve resigned to refinishing the whole thing.  But more on that later!

*drumroll*

Meredith@MakingOverMerbear!

Proving that meeting awesome people on the internet is a real thing.  Her winning comment?:

“My favorite hostess gift is wine unless that is inappropriate, then its food…I bake cookies, a cake, cupcakes etc
My favorite wedding gifts off registry are pretty/blank cards…that can be used as thankyous, invites, etc if I’m part of the “brides” side. If I’m part of the “grooms” side I like to give pint glasses that are from cool bars or breweries.”

We appear to be of the same heart – I’ve made Thank-Yous for brides twice now, and I try to customize them based on the wedding theme.  And for Thanksgiving, I brought a pie, biscuits, and two bottles of wine.  So YAY!  Okay, Meredith, whaddaya want?  Something to go with that snazzy new Halloween costume?  Or something more Yuletide-appropriate?

Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway!  FEAR NOT.  Here’s the deal: I know I don’t have my Etsy shop opened up right now, however, I’m tempted to reopen it and only post custom items.  I think that might be my wheelhouse.  If you liked any of the items in the giveaway post, and you’d like to order something, please feel free to contact me!  As you saw from the previous post, I’m all over the internet.  I’d love to custom make an item for you in time for this holiday season!

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People are shocked when they realize I don’t have pierced ears.  It’s actually a pretty hilarious reaction, and helps to reinforce why I don’t – if you didn’t notice by now that they’re not, why would you notice if they were? (And why should I be in charge of the upkeep? Come on, people.)

What I do wear, though, on occasion, is necklaces.  I love them.  But they’re hard to store in a way where you can see all of them, and you don’t get them all tangled up.

So I started to look out for jewelry storage ideas, but most of them were super-clever ways of storing earrings – pegboard, drawer pulls, ice cube trays… but I don’t wear earrings, so none of those would work for me.

And then I remembered that I had nabbed a few wooden boxes on craigslist from an adorable woman who moved here to Minnesota from Soviet St. Petersburg.  I’ve always loved the look of vintage boxes, and these were particularly lovely.  So I went to the pile and pulled out the perfect one for jewelry storage – I’m pretty sure it had been used to ship a bottle of wine at some point.

I started this project just before I moved.  I knew that I wanted to paint my bedroom grey, and that I wanted to put a little bit of a finish on the box to help bring out the grain and bring it into the room a little bit, too.  I mixed water with a bit of white primer I found over at my mom’s to achieve a bit of a “milk paint” look.  One pass over the unsanded pine proved that my instincts were dead on.

The grain popped immediately, and the color of the wood toned down.  Also, the box was so old that the water and paint soaked right in and made themselves a little home there.  I added layers and layers of the paint mixture until I was happy with the color I was seeing. I didn’t paint the back – it was going to go against a wall, and then I had a surface to set it on to dry.

Once the paint was dry, I screwed a few cup hooks to the bottom. That was the kicker. The cup hooks went on for hanging my necklaces. Then I screwed it into the wall – one screw in the middle towards the top, and one in the middle towards the bottom into a stud in my wall. I shook it a little bit to make sure it’d stay, and then got to using it for storage.  The jewelry box on top and the glass ring-holder have been Christmas gifts over the years, and my sister brought the carved wooden box back from South Africa for me.  Since these pictures were taken, I added a necklace bag my cousin brought back from a trip to China.  This display’s truly a world traveler!

And I’ve got to say – I’m pretty happy with the end result!