I often get the Day of the Triffids confused with the Nigh of the Lepus. Which I really shouldn't because one has Triffids and one takes place at night. A Thing in my Possession: A Doctor Who Scarf Yes I know his name isn't Doctor Who, but It's called that because it comes from the tv show Doctor Who. Or at least that's how I'm justifying calling it that. Because if I called it a Doctor scarf, or more specifically a Fourth Doctor Scarf, I feel like I'm being more accurate (I've been watching a lot of Um, Actually on dropout), but also feels like it's pushing the person I'm talking with to have to ask more questions in a feat of verbal entrapment. They can ask questions if they want to, but it's kind of mean to be intentionally obtuse just so I can talk more about the topic. And if they're already asking questions about my 18 foot long scarf, I've got them plenty trapped. Of course this is my newsletter, so I can opine on it at any length I find desirable. When I originally opined on length regarding the scarf, it was in the period of time where my sister had recently started knitting and let me know she'd be willing to make one of the iconic scarves worn by Tom Baker when he played the Doctor on Doctor Who. There were three different lengths of scarf he wore over the course of his tenure, and the longest one was roughly 18 feet in length. It was incredibly nice and giving of my sister to agree to make me this scarf and I selfishly took the opportunity to ask for the longest one. We worked together to find the right pattern and screen accurate yarn colors, by which I mean I googled the answers and gave them to her. (remember when google could find things?) Ever since she finished it while I was in college (she probably put hundreds of hours into it,) I have relished the cold days when I was also going outside and it was finally practical to wear this entirely unpractical garment. This is a long winded way of saying it's been cold lately and the scarf is in storage, which means I miss wearing it. Poorly Organized Thoughts on: Camp Songs I miss singing camp songs. When I worked at a scout camp for the majority of my teen years, and even into my early twenties, every time we got together we would sing songs. There are probably two dozen or more camp songs that I have permanently embedded in my brain from that experience. At least once a month we would have a meeting, and at every one we would sing a couple of songs. It was a very important part of the experience, so much so that when the camp actually started, the whole first day when campers were arriving, we the staff would sing song after song after song. Most of the time the campers were not at all prepared for this experience of 20 young men singing nonsense songs without pause, which was part of the fun for us, but also it set the tone for the whole week. We would back off a bit as the days went on, but there was never a time when the whole camp was together that we weren’t likely to break into song. It was wonderful to see these young scouts transform from confused and annoyed by all the singing to joyfully joining in on every song by the end of the week. I still know the words to almost all the songs we use to sing. There's something powerful and comforting about a community who breaks into spontaneously breaks into songs together.
Stuff I'm Watching: I was a real Glee-head back in the day. And to be clear it was from the jump. I watched the pilot on TV and then went and bought the episode on iTunes (ITunes was a place you could buy digital media. {Buying is a concept where you pay for something once, the you can use it forever instead of paying for it every month [it turns out forever is actually a bit misleading when it comes to digital media, but I didn’t know that at the time]}). I watched it probably three or four times on my computer and on my iPod video before the second episode had even aired. It was a great pilot. Maybe one of the best pilot episodes of all time. And the rest of the first season was pretty good too! I don’t know if it ever quite reached the Heights if that first episode, but it got close. The show was a huge hit even half way through the first season. I remember seeing a DVD for sale of Season 1: Volume 1 in the Sam’s Club DVD section even before the first season ended. I thought that was a little weird, even if the first 13 episodes did tell a fairly complete story. Which makes sense, because the network originally only ordered 13 episodes, and didn’t pick it up for the back nine until it was deemed a hit. I hesitated to buy half a season of a show that I liked this much, because it seemed like a money grab by the studio to make me buy the show twice. And even as much as i liked those first 13 episodes, I wasn’t even sure if I would like the rest of the first season, seeing as it hadn’t aired yet. I was torn between getting something I liked and waiting to see if it got even better. Someone told me I could always buy it later, when I better appreciated the rest of the series. So I held off on buying it then. The the rest of the series happened. I watched it for longer than it deserved, making all the way into the fourth season, after half the cast graduated high school and the writers had to find a way to keep them in the show even as they went off to do other things. I came back briefly for the start of the sixth season only to bail after two episodes because of how bad it was. I never got around to taking that friend’s advice and buying the first season (or even volume one.) I would see it in stores occasionally but it never seemed the right time. Until this week when I found The Complete First Season DVD in the library books sale for one dollar (Bob.) finally the price was right. For the same amount I originally paid for the pilot on iTunes I could now have the whole season. I threw on the first episode again, and I'm hapy to inform you, it is still pretty good.
