PROJECT RUNWAY ALL STARS! YAAAAAY!!!

So school started today and it was pretty painless despite a young Phd taking advantage of his captive audience. I have a feeling the sheer poverty of grammar got to him, but I could have summed up the hour in a line: "teaching you how to think, not what to think." There, I saved you fifty minutes. Next time, actually bring the fucking syllabus.
Meanwhile, tom & lorenzo are dishing on both Project Runway All stars and Downton Abbey 2. I downloaded all of the latter last weekend (could and couldn't wait), and it's pretty trashy besides the Christmas Special.
Two easy reads I'd recommend for mindless fun, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, which I knew nothing about (may be a necessary thing for me any more) that is now going to be a movie or some such(?) Thoroughly enjoyable, creative, light and readable. Possibly YA. Not so YA but as easily delightful, I Am Not Myself These Days by Josh Kilmer-Purcell. I guess he has a tv show with his boyfriend and a book about it, but this (also to be made into a tv show or movie) is about his time as a drag queen in the 90s with goldfish in his plastic boobs and a day job at an ad firm. I guess I am lucky to have chanced upon the at random before they hit the screen without knowledge or baggage.
Oy, so share the fun bits that make the rest bearable, as you purge that which you must endure.
I've just discovered by tip that I can watch all of ANTM All Stars online via sidereel, despite the fact I can't get everything by instant satisfaction from netflix.
So share, share, share.
Gas prices, commuting, getting up early, or how garlic salt on corn is pretty tasty. Have at it.

On preview, yeah, I like Elisa, and as much as that outfit was crap, Sweet Pea's dishrag thing was abysmal. Someone's really got to screw up if she is not next.

I restarted classes today too. Got up and nice and early (alarm went off at 5:20) to catch the 7:00 bus for my 8:30 Biochem class, only to have it end after two minutes because the projector system wasn't working. Great. Totally worth it.

My animal nutrition class looks interesting though. So at least there's that. And I got quite a bit of reading for fun done during my downtime. Huzzah?

First day of classes for me, too. I'm teaching a class I've never taught before and one that I haven't taught since around 2005 or something like that. At least I slept well last night. I usually have an absolutely terrible night before the first day of classes. I enjoy the quiet of breaks but I enjoy the bustle of everyone being back at school again, too.

2 weeks 'til my next class starts, but broke in advance in order to pay for it. AT least I can rest. Terrible head cold now, which was going around at work, and I curse those who thought "eh, I'll just go in to work anyway!" Now we have some kind of office superbug.

This Downtown Abbey is like swine flu or something. I hear about it at every turn. Maybe when I bother to put my Netflix back on I'll look into it.

Plus side, the house is clean thanks to a chore-filled weekend, and if I have to be sick at least it's a quieter sort of week to do so. And at least I don't have to go back to school sick.

Fire! Ok, fire.
Fire is out, but, motherfuck, when you leave water on to boil, you do not expect to walk back to a raging plastic fire.
I turned on the wrong burner and the one that was on had a half melted plastic strainer with a handle in a little pot on it. Cue raging plastic fire.
Sooty. Smoky. Completely melted oven dial and scorched oven fan. It seems we have no smoke alarm, which is good, because there was no smoke until I got it out.
Well, fuck. That was almost exciting. Now it's just messy. Gah.
Part of me thinks I should have taken pictures. It was quite the scene.
Fuck.

Ok, back to your regularly scheduled thread.

DA:

Thomas is SUCH a dick. He needs to have skulked away in the middle of last season. Blecch.

All Stars! Can't wait!

Project Accessory was a total let-down.
1. I should be on that show and I would win.
2. The woman who is supposed to be Tim Gunn has no authority, no screen presence, bad advice, and clearly isn't respected by the people she should be guiding.
3. The winner? TOTAL BS! AS IF!

Anyway, I am hoping Runway All Stars makes up for it.

I've been enjoying the return of Portlandia and The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret.
Can't believe New Girl, that piece of utterly unfunny trash, is up for a golden globe. They might as well just draw a cute but ill-fitting dress on a puppy and give it to that instead. That is the entire appeal of the show, I am sure.

I totally missed Project Accessory. I like that they have new judges and mentor for All Stars. As much as I like Tim, I don't know if his sensibility works anymore, and no editor as a judge is good.

I am resisting spoilers for DA.

Soot. My god, soot.

I mean making spoilers. Get dropbox and I will fix you, Christmas Special and all, which is much better than what happened with season two. Oh, you will watch it, like the last season of Gilmore Girls or the Wire, but, but--
--hang on for the Christmas Special. I am hoping for more with season 3.

Ok, can I say, plastic fire is just-- I mean I don't know why my roommate was keeping a half melted plastic strainer on the stove anyway but--
--fire. Always impressive. Plastic. In my nihilistic days, I played with a lot of melting plastic. Worth seeing, I guess, but I'm sure all this soot in my nose is worse than the occasional tobacco puff.
Gah. Wuh wuh gah.

As much as I like Tim, I don't know if his sensibility works anymore

TIM GUNN IS CLASSIC

Sure, classic. Ok.

What what what, Project Runway All-Stars? Where when? Even though I watch mainly because I am hopelessly devoted to Tim Gunn, I want info.

Started last Thursday. All episodes available on MyLifetime.com. The evil KENLEY is part of the season. I love to hate her.

Duuuuuude. Obviously did not program the DVR correctly.

Also, yes! Kenley is EVIL!

Austin's mustache may be evil.

I need to put a sort of 'fencing' around my working time so I have time to fully sleep, work on other parts of my life, and even (gasp) do extracurricular social/outside stuff. The thing is though it's mostly my fault, it's not like I genuinely have such a chokehold-style workload I just mismanage my working time so it's always an emergency. In a way I'm having the same epiphany with money management, it's better to spend nothing and then make purposeful big spends than pointless small spends and wonder where it all went. Same with time; be tight-fisted with distractions during work time so then you have a block of non-work time open.

Austin's mustache needs to go. I still love him, though.

Austin's mustache is on a vacation from Male-Dressed RuPaul.

I know I shouldn't be so fond of Anthony's flaming flamingness on stereotypical grounds, but if you're going to inhabit such a particular niche, the least you can do is work it the hell out. He has more two-snap retorts in one episode than I have all year.

Personally, Michael Costello is my least favorite. He's whiny and so incredibly un-self-aware.