Stuff I Like

It has been a while since I did a "Linking Around" post here on the blog.  I need to rectify that, but don't have time right now.  Instead, here's a scaled down version, centering on three things that I like:  soap operas, comic books, and Emmylou Harris.  Consider this your "Eddie's gonna talk about soaps and/or comics" warning.

I'm pretty psyched to read that Emmylou's new project is a re-release of her seminal work, Wrecking Ball, with extra material, including a "making of" DVD.  While it's odd that they decided to do it this year, instead of waiting to do a 20th anniversary reissue next year, this is one to look out for.  Even this far down the line, it's impossible not to look on that album as a career-defining moment for her.  It rattled long-time fans' cages and set her loose on a new, introspective career path, where she's still mining gold.   It's a classic in every sense of the word.

I'm excited about the upcoming reissue.  She'll be doing some touring with Daniel Lanois, who produced Wrecking Ball,  but I don't know if it's going to come near here.

I hope this will help people think about more than this, when they hear the words "Wrecking Ball."  Not that there's anything wrong with Miley Cyrus' song.  It's a little overblown, but it's not a bad pop song.  The video isn't so much scandalous as it is cheesy and overly literal.  I do think this version is a hoot!  And this will be the last time I ever mention Emmylou Harris and Miley Cyrus in the same post.

The always awesome Roger Green (Check out his blog!) left me a link to a vote that chose Days of Our Lives as the greatest soap opera of all time.  It's really interesting, because it was done as a bracket, tournament-style.  The match-ups and outcomes are quite interesting.

While I totally appreciate the inclusion of the great soaps of the past, the outcome of those early rounds is not surprising.  Some of those shows have been off the air for decades.  While they'll always be fondly remembered, there are soap fans who have never even seen an episode of them.  I have been able to see at least one episode of most of them, thanks to YouTube.  My grandmother used to watch Edge of Night, and I saw a few eps with her.  I really got into Ryan's Hope when they were airing it on SoapNET.

The real surprise in the first round was ratings powerhouse The Young and the Restless (which has been the top Nielsen-rated soap for decades) losing to As the World Turns, which went off the air a few years ago.  I guess that cancellation still stings. ATWT is an old fave of mine.   It was the first soap I got into heavily.

All of the soaps that got axed most recently did well in the voting, it seems.  Three of the final four shows are not on the air any more.  All My Children defeating General Hospital makes sense, I suppose, even though GH is the only show left from ABC's once-venerable afternoon line-up (which included AMC).  It seems right that Erica Kane would defeat the juggernaut that is Luke and Laura.

I was really happy with the Final Four.  I was really getting into One Life to Live when it was cancelled.  I was never that much into AMC,  but Guiding Light was another one of my early soap faves.  (I was a CBS Daytime boy for ages!)

These days, though, my heart belongs to Days, although General Hospital  is just about unmissable for me.  In other words, I totally agree with the outcome and thank Roger for sharing the link with me.

Laying aside the not getting paid part, one of the nice things about having no work snow days was that I got to catch up on some comic book reading.  One of the things I read that I really enjoyed was the final Courtney Crumrin series, which I picked up out of the quarter boxes at Half-Price Books a few weeks ago.  I was unaware that creator Ted Naifeh had brought the Courtney franchise to a close.  It was one of my favorite series of the last decade.  I thought he wrapped everything for Courtney up quite nicely.

Courtney is the story of a misfit teen living in a snobbish, elitist community who discovers that she has inherited magical powers from her great-uncle.  Think Harry Potter, but sullen, withdrawn, and sarcastic.  She makes unbelievable mistakes along the way and hurts as many people as she helps.  She's actually about as anti-Potter as you can get.  She's also incredibly funny and has a charm all her own.

It was a real pleasure to read the finale to Courtney's story.  All of the various Courtney comics have been collected into book form, making the series easy to try out.  Also, the first issue of this last series is going to be part of the Free Comic Book Day giveaways this year!

There you go.  Three things I like!

Days of Our Lives Quickie!

I am waaaaay overdue for another Days of Our Lives post, but I am also in a huge hurry because I have to go to a really important training this morning, so it ain't happening right now.

This will have to do instead:



That's Jen Lilley (Theresa), Meredith Scott Lynn (Anne) and the incomparable Alison Sweeney (Sami) on the mike and, cheesy rap posturing aside, this is a pretty good summary of the plots for the last year or so.

Plus, it's fun.  I love it when folks don't always have to take themselves so seriously.

Anyway, Days is still my show and probably always will be.

Monday Rambles

Monday?  Again?  Already?  Are you sure?  Oh well....

Last week pretty much kicked my ass.  The chemo may be over, but the bricks are still here and they were really dragging me down last week.  A couple of nights, I hit the bed as soon as I got home from work.  Heck, Saturday I crashed in the car on the way home from yard sales.  I foresee no marathons in the immediate future.  I am so impatient to be 100% again!

My schedule eases up this week, as my summer gig ends today.  That will change me from having to be at work at 9:00 am to having to be there at 12:30 pm.  That shift will really help in terms of the extra rest.  Also, I'll be able to get some things done at the house before I go, when I feel like it.  I've kind of been a lump for too long as far as the house is concerned.  I can hardly keep up with just the booth stuff.  Keith has been so good about picking up my slack, but I'm feeling a little bad that he's had to do so much for me.

Speaking of the booths, I am really discouraged right now.  For the first time in my junker career, I feel like I do not know what I am doing.  I went to work the space on Wednesday and just ended up sitting and staring and feeling sorry for myself.  July sales were just about the worst I have ever had.  I cannot seem to sell any large items right now to save my life.  That would be okay if the smalls sales weren't in the toilet too.  I've had way too many days lately of less than 10 dollar sales, sometimes less than five.  I seriously wanted to cry on Wednesday.  I just don't know what to do.

Part of it is my fatigue, I know.  It makes me a lot more dramatic about things, but there is an element of hard reality here smacking me in the face that I don't like.  I need to be going in twice a week to tend to the space, but I just don't have that in me right now.  I'm paying the price for that, so I feel like a failure.

Things did pick up over the weekend.  I had a killer day in smalls on Saturday--over 50 bucks--and sold a glass-topped table on Sunday.  That's left me feeling a little better, but I also know that it's August, which means State Fair and Back to School and traditionally low sales overall.  I know it's all ebb and flow.  I know that I have to get better to do what I need to do.  That doesn't stop me from feeling down and upset over this.  My confidence is really shaken right now.

Oh, geez.  This is another one of those whiny Monday posts, isn't it?

Sales were so-so this weekend.  Threatened thunderstorms, which did not happen, really cut down on the participation in one of my favorite neighborhood sales.  What was there was pretty mediocre.  I had to put up with one seller telling me that the plate she was overcharging for was "selling on eBay for that."  Someone hasn't read the rules!  I barely caught myself before I told her to go put it on eBay if she wanted that price for it.  I did find a couple of things and have a couple of stories to share, but I'll do that later in the week.

Day by Days:  Sami had a bail hearing and Marlena was not there?  I call foul!  At least Hope is showing up more and more.  They need to make up their minds about the extent of Rafe's injury.  Does he have trouble with simple sentences or can he spit out monologues?  It seems to vary from scene scene.  I love the dressing down he gave Nick though.  This was a good week for Nick, with scenes with Rafe, Maggie (yay!), Kate, and Vargas (yum!).  I think they're maneuvering him for new story.   The show does need to decide what they're going to do with Vargas.  Right now his story and back story are a mess.  I thought it was a clever set up for Stefano was to deal with Chad and not lie to him.  That'll tied the story up for a while.  By the way, I still don't care for the increasingly dull Chad-Abby-Cameron triangle.  I'm also not excited about Chad's would be brain tumor.  Oh well.  Still, any week that gives me Lucas and Sami together is a good week.  I also loved when Anne cornered Theresa.  Yes,  I was rooting for Anne to do something besides get hit by a bus.

Stuff got away from me last week, so I didn't get posts all week long.  I think I'll have the fixed for this week.   See you around the internet!

Monday Rambles

Last week was kind of rough, post-chemo.  Lots of nausea.  Little appetite.  Mucho fatigue.  I didn't work at all after the infusion.  I did try, but I either got out-voted by Keith or I showed up and got sent home.  I owe my sub big time for all of this.

I'm really excited to be out of the cycle of chemo--drag bricks for three weeks--more chemo!  I'm still dragging, but it's nice to know that will definitely be coming to an end.  I'm making plans to celebrate.  Don't know how for sure, but there will be thrifting and eating and bike riding involved.  It won't start until I am able to do all of those things again, but it will probably go on for a while after that.  Chemo went on for six months, so I figure celebrating the end of chemo should go on for a while to.  I got a lot of regularity to get back to, you know.

Since I was pretty much out of it all last week, I don't have much to ramble about this morning.  I did get out to some sales on Saturday.  It was a cool, rainy day, so we didn't go to many, but that was probably just my speed.  I did find some nice things, so I'll do a post about that this week.

This week may be kind of weird.  I have a ton of catching up to do, so I don't know how that's going to go.  We'll see.  I know I have to get to the booths.  They've been pretty busy these past few days.  Not enough to make up for the mid-month lull, but a welcome pick-up anyway.  I'll let you all know how things go next Monday.

Day by Days:  For the record, I wasn't able to catch up with the show until the weekend.  Last week started so well, then fizzled. There just should have been more play for Sami's arrest and less of the other stuff.  Up until Wednesday, everything was firing, but after that we got back to the woes of Dan and Jen and everything stalled.  There were a lot of good moments in the Sami story, including lots of Marlena (who of course disappeared by the end of the week--arrgh!).  I just wanted lots more, especially a Justin/Adrienne confrontation and a Sonny/Adrienne blow-up.  Everything else could have been pushed until the beginning of this week, for real.

In the meantime, to make up for the lack of content today, please enjoy this video of a young girl taking her llama to the dentist.



Sesame Street was really wacky back in the day, huh?

Day Dreams: What I Wish Would Happen to Days of Our Lives

 Any soap fan worth his salt has a wish list of fantasies for his show.  Here to wrap up my look at Days of Our Lives, is mine.



Meaty story for Maggie and Victor.  They are only like the best pair in town, but they just support everyone else's plots these days.  What fun it would be to see them stirring the pot on their own again.  Maggie's illness could come back.  Or Victor could be ill.  What if Maggie expanded her restaurant to a chain and all-of-a-sudden had less time for Victor?  What if some business rival of Victor's set his sights on Maggie as well?  The possibilities are out there.  Some clever writer just needs to find them.

More action for Lucas.  I promise not to turn this into just demands for more stories for under-utilized characters, but Lucas has stood in Sami's shadow for years and his mother's for even longer!  What will it take to get the dude a righteous story of his own, particularly with a new love interest.  Wouldn't it be wild if Daniel, whom Lucas cannot stand, has a sister, whom Lucas falls hard for?

Marlena!  Just one more, I promise.  Look, the lady is the linchpin of the town, and she's offscreen for weeks at a time.  This simply will not do.  Play on her career or something!  What if Marlena started counseling a severely disturbed individual who turned out to be responsible for many unsolved murders over the years?  What if she fell for him?

Beef up the Hortons!  Bring back Mike and Jeremy.  Recast both, if needed.  And Nathan.  What about Bill?  Wouldn't that put a new spin in Kate's orbit?  I've always felt that he was her one, true love. Nick needs his mother and grandmother right now, even a short-term return would be welcome on that front.  This is Salem's first family we're talking about, after all.  Do Doug and Julie even live in Salem any more?

And the Bradys!  Shawn and Belle, anyone?  Seriously, Jason Cook and Martha Madison are available and they were the best S/B combo, in my opinion.  Bringing in Kim's daughter Teresa was a nice start.  A cousin from Ireland?  Bring back Frankie as a law partner for Justin, and then spin a Jennifer-Daniel-Frankie triangle out of it.  Hell, throw Julie Pinson's Billie into the mix and make it a quadrangle.  Wasn't Daniel originally supposed to be a love interest for Billie?  Yeah, I know he dated her daughter, but this is a soap, people.  He's also been with her mother.

It's time for Abe to move on.  Imagine a nice, high-profile casting as a new romance for the old police commander.  Wouldn't be nice to see him slowly coming out of his shell and learning to love again?  Not to mention, Theo learning to cope with the situation?  James Reynolds could so do that story justice.  It's been so good to see him in a larger police role lately.  Now it's time for a real story.

More romance.  The overall problem with every soap these days is a lack of romance.  There seems to be plenty of time for corporate intrigue, crime waves, and strange adventures, but romance?  The last romantic montage on Days was weeks ago.  The only really happy couple on the show right now is Will and Sonny.  Jennifer and Daniel went right from Chloe drama to JJ drama, with no break to be happy.  We never see Maggie and Victor in a scene together.  John and Marlena are circling the drain.  Hell, Hope is trying to carry on a marriage with someone who isn't even on the damn show any more!  I'd love to see one whole show where everyone went on a date and nothing awful happened to anyone. 

How about a location shoot?  I know the budget is tight, but I'm not talking Antigua, here.  How about a shoot at a beach in LA instead?  Use a local spot and call it somewhere else.  I don't care.  I'd just love to see the show go out of doors for a change.  Of course, a big trip would not be unwelcome...

A big, splashy wedding for Will and Sonny.  A boy can dream, can't he?  C'mon!  Two legacy characters in a sensitive, realistic gay romance?  I want tuxes and wedding marches!  Pronto!

Sami and Rafe reuniting.  Every fan has their favorite pairings.  This is one of mine.  Rafe is not my preferred mate for Sami.  That would be Lucas, but even I can see that there is too much water under the bridge for this one, even if both characters do sizzle together more than any of the other possible Sami pairings.  If I can't have my real preference, I'll settle for Rafe.  I hate Rafe as a character, but I love him with Sami.  Alone he's dull.  Together, they click.  He brings out a side of Sami that I like--lighter, less intense.  She becomes someone who can learn from her mistakes, even if she'll repeat them again in time.  He softens her edges just enough for her to actually exist in polite society, and I like that.

Clearing up the Bo Story.  If there is one item on this list I would love to see happen above all others, it would be this one.  Peter Reckell has been gone for months.  Hope has gone from pretending that he is in the other room to having one way phone conversations.  Kill him off.  Kidnap him.  Recast him.  I don't care.  Just do something.  This is ridiculous!

I could probably go on some more, but that's enough fan entitlement for this soap nerd.  What do you all wish would happen?

Days of Our Lives: What Went Wrong

 Bear in mind, as always, that this is one long-time soap fan's opinions on things.

For me, Days of Our Lives went off the rails in 2005-2006, when James E Reilly was brought back in as head writer.  Reilly could write a big, splashy story (Marlena is a serial killer!) but crafting a soap takes more than big, splashy stories.  His outrageous plots drug on forever, often without any form of adequate resolution.  He islanded characters in their stories.  He brought back Carrie and Austin only to stage a repeat of the whole Carrie-Sami-Lucas-Austin stories of the 90's.  Weeks of episodes went by without anything significant happening.  Worst of all, on a show known for its solid, romantic couplings, he split characters up for no reason whatsoever.

It was a dismal time to be a Days fan, let me tell you.  I started watching One Life to Live and All My Children just so I could see soaps that actually looked and acted like soaps are supposed to.  Considering the disgust that some AMC fans have for this period in the show's history, it says a lot that I found it better than Days during that time.

When they finally booted Reilly, I was cautiously optimistic, especially since his replacement was Hogan Sheffer, who had done some very good things for As the World Turns.  At first, it seemed like things were going well.  Leftover plots got quickly wrapped up, and promising new stories started.  The show started focusing on the Brady-DiMera feud, always a good source of story.  They even did some really daring things, like killing John (a move that I heartily approved), then bringing him back (a move I wasn't too wild about), then making him Stefano's brother (a move that has never been adequately explored).

A lot of good stuff happened during this run, but somehow, overall, the show felt off.  Something was missing.  It wasn't quite Days.  Maybe the show needed longer to get back on its feet.  Maybe Sheffer had too many constraints put on him.  Maybe Days wasn't his bag.  We'll never know, because he was out.  Then John and Marlena were out, and the show got really weak.

This was a time of heavy budget constraints for the show, so story was built around what I considered to be B-level characters for the most part.  Sami still had active story, but otherwise, it was Molly, Stephanie, and Chloe day in and day out.  For the most part it was really dull.

When it wasn't dull, it was incomprehensible.  Chloe is engaged to Lucas, but has a quickie with Daniel and falls in love.  She marries Lucas anyway, but runs around on him all over town, something he doesn't seem to notice.  Kate finds out and plots to kill Chloe.  Plan fails and Kate marries Stefano to avoid jail, despite the fact that Stefano had Phillip shot.  Need I go on?

The only high point of this time was the Maggie-Victor romance.  In fact, both characters were busier than they had been in years.  As a Maggie fan, I loved that part.  Most of the rest, not so much.  Several unnecessary returns came next.  I really could have gone years without ever seeing Vivian or Carly again.  Seriously.  Bo and Hope broke up.  (What?)  Kate turned Chloe into a prostitute.  (What?)  The show was hurting. Bad.  I began to think the ghost of James Reilly was walking the halls.

So, the show decided to do a "reboot" complete with a big, splashy new set and lots of returns.  Some of it was good.  The Horton Square is versatile and quite nice, giving the show a needed visual boost.  Marlena and John were certainly a welcome return.  Will finally came out.  And Lucas came back to town.  That's about the extent of it, however.

Honestly, so many of the choices they made were baffling.  Bringing back Patrick Muldoon and Lisa Rinna?  Really?  Turning both Gabi and Abby into man-crazy stalkers?  I'm still trying to make sense of the whole Rafe and Carrie thing.  For me, the train wreck moments pretty much overshadowed the high points.  It's a good thing it was over so quickly.

And that leads us to the present, and a show that is slowly but surely rebuilding itself.  There's a new writing team that seems to have a handle on what it's doing.  I'm feeling better about the show than I have for a long time.   Judging from the show's recent Emmy wins, I'm not the only one that thinks so.  Here's to better Days ahead!

Days of Our Lives: What's Not Working

 
Nobody's perfect!  Even a show that's going well still has some weaknesses.  Here are the things that I would like to fix about the current run of Days of our Lives.

Hair, Make-up, and Wardrobe:  I wish that the look of the show were as strong as everything else is, more specifically the look of the characters.  Practically every woman on the show has had at least one (and usually more) really bad looks.  It's hard to make some of these women look bad, but they seem to have found a way to do it.  They put Sami in a topknot, for gosh sakes!  Jennifer's wardrobe bounces between totally frumpy and way too young all the time. It looks like she is either raiding her mother's closet or her daughter's. Jen and Kristen have both sported unwieldy, scene-stealing hairpieces that made them look like pumpkinheads.  They had a scene together in those awful do's and there wasn't enough room onscreen for both their heads!

Really, Chad?

It's even worse for the guys.  EJ pretty consistently looks sharp, but he's about the only one.  Sonny's hair often changes from one scene to the next.  It also seems like he only owns four shirts, and two of those are butt-ugly.  JJ only has one pair of jeans.  Daniel and Brady only have a couple of shirts between them.  I am so sick of Brady's purple shirt I could scream.  The men of Days are too hot to settle for mediocre wardrobing!  (We won't talk about Chad's current hairstlye.  Yeesh!)

Father Eric:  I would love to have been on that story planning meeting.  "Let's bring back a hot dude from the past who happens to be Sami's twin brother and Nicole's first love.  Lots of story potential there.  Just to mix things up, let's make him a priest, even though no one ever mentioned anything about seminary."  Really?  It doesn't really help matters much that Greg Vaughn's way of sounding "solemn and serious" is to deliver most of his lines in this gruff "I am Batman" voice.  Just not working.  I have to admit, though, that it is a valid excuse for him to wear the same thing every damn day.

Marlena/John:  The only really major complaint I have with the writing is the way that John and Marlena have been handled, or mishandled as the case may be.  I can't buy John turning on Marlena the way he has and purposefully hurting her.  There was a time when they would have faced a problem like Kristen together, which would have made for a much more interesting story.  As it was, she is the one who exposed Kristen in the end.  Why couldn't they have slowly built to that?

The story wasn't helped by the fact that we barely saw Marlena through the whole thing.  She was a recurring character in a story that was ostensibly about her!  Worse yet, it's happening again as Kristen plots her revenge.  Days needs Marlena on several days a week, if not every day.  I get that she is expensive talent, but the way the show should be dealing with that is by getting their money's worth out of her.  Play the hell out of her!  Stop the sidelining.  Just imagine if she moved in and out of all the other stories as easily and frequently as the other characters do.  It would enrich the entire canvas.

The other thing that's not helping is Drake Hogestyn's acting.  Admittedly, he's never been a powerhouse, but he at least used to try.  In the last half of the Kristen story, he was barely phoning it in, whispering all his lines in a monotone.  He hasn't been on for a few weeks now, so it would be a good time for the show to cut their losses here.  Marlena doesn't need John to have a good story.

Dangling plots:  Will anyone ever find out what Gabi did to Melanie?  Maybe now that Camila Banus is leaving the show...but I'm not holding my breath.  I think the stuff with Nick, Will, and the baby has partially redeemed her, but only partially.  It's a plot point that just hangs out there and dangles.  At least it's not alone.  There's also Kate's shenanigans against Chloe.  Somehow, Chloe managed to come back to town for months, and only minimal mention was even made of that whole unpleasantness.  When was the last time any mention was made of the fact that Theo has autism?  So many good story opportunities with Abe as the widowed father of a special needs son and show basically passes them all up.  At least Caroline's Alzheimer's gets a little more play than that.  Finally, they had such a neat story going with Hope trying to be a single parent to Ciara while Bo is gone (another dangling plot in itself), but they've let it go. That turns it from a good story for Hope as she tries to deal with her daughter acting out--a completely character-driven action for a young girl--into a mere plot point designed to advance the Nick story.  It's always a shame when character-driven drama gets cast aside for plot-driven stories.

The bits we don't see:  The current writing team likes to cut in and out of scenes, often leaving elements unseen by the viewers.  We might leave a scene as a character is about to drop a bombshell, but revisit it moments after said bombshell is dropped.  The reactions get played out onscreen, but the actually bombshell dropping is not.  It took a bit to get used to, but I kind of like it.  They're putting a lot of trust in their viewers when they do something like this.  Sometimes, though, what doesn't get shown is kind of important and really would have made some good drama.  Sami leaves to go to her arraignment at the end of one episode, but the next one she is out on bail.  I would have love to have seen those scenes, given that she did just kill a man.  Sometimes a technique works.  Other times, it bites you in the butt.

 Indiscriminate/Indeterminate Passage of Time:  It certainly exacerbates the hair/wardrobe problems when it takes a week or more for one day to pass, so we have to see the same terrible looks over and over and over.  I know soaps have always played fast and loose with time, but someone has at least got to pay attention to what they are doing.  It's been several weeks in real time since Rafe was put into a coma, but only a few days on the show.  Recently, however, characters started talking about the "long weeks" he's been in his coma.  They can't have it both ways.  In fact, Rafe's beating, Nick's kidnapping, Will's shooting, Gabi having the baby, Sami shooting Bernardi and being acquitted, and EJ's corporate takeover all occurred within a very short period of time, according to the storytelling.  That's a little much.  This is the one major weak spot in the writing.

Bo:  Everyone and their Aunt Tilly knows that Peter Reckell left the show last year (!), yet Hope is still having one way phone conversations with an inexplicably absentee spouse.  It's time to do something about this one.  The more they drag this out, the more contrived it gets.

Roman:  The man has not had a decent story since he was married to Kate and that was a decade ago!  Nowadays, all he does is wring his hands over Sami and moon over Marlena.  I get that Josh Taylor is not the strongest actor on the show, but some of the surely must stem from lack of material.  He's been a spy and a police officer, yet they cannot think of anything for him to do.  I think it's about time to cut their losses on this one.  Work him or cut him free.

Budget limits:  The root cause of many of these issues is the show's budget.  The network has clamped down hard on spending for Days over the past few years.  I get that.  They can only do so much with the dollars they have.  The problem is that the way they've been dealing with it only serves to make the problem much more obvious.  Maybe there's no other way to do it.  I'm not a soap exec, so I don't know.  I just can't help thinking that there has to be a more creative, less obvious, way to do it.

The past four or five years have been rough for soaps.  I'm grateful the show is still here to enjoy and that it is as good as it is right now.  I still can't help quibbling a little and wishing some things would get cleared up.  It's part of being a fan, right?

Next week, I'll try to recap where the show went wrong and why it's been climbing out of a hole for a long time.

Days of Our Lives: What's Working

 Days of Our Lives is on a roll these days (sorry), as witnessed by their recent Emmy win for best soap opera.  Of course, one could argue that, with only four soaps left to pick from, their chances of winning were pretty good.  I think it was well-deserved, though.  Lord knows, there have been plenty of years when the show wasn't so great.

Soap fans are worse than comic fans, when it comes to their opinions, but I've been wanting to share some of mine ever since I got re-hooked on the show after my surgery.  I'm not one to hang out on forums or peruse news sites very often.  The sub I have for Soap Opera Digest on my Nook is about the limit of my soap fandom involvement.  Still, I am very excited for the show right now, for the first time in years.  I look forward to watching it every day, something I haven't done in a long while.

This essay will be part of a four part series of posts on the show.  This time around I want to talk about what's working on the show.  Obviously, these are my opinions, and there are many others who may very well disagree with me.  I'd welcome the comments. 

The Writing:  It's not perfect, of course.  There are all kinds of things I could quibble about, but I also have to admit that the show is better than it has been in ages.  Years, even.  In a couple of days, I'll have a post about when things went wrong, but for now I want to talk about what's going write.  I mean right. 

Kristen:  She is so much fun to watch.  Eileen Davidson is obviously having so much fun playing this role.  Kristen is both very crazy and very broken.  The way those two characteristics get blended together creates a character that we hate and feel sorry for at the same time.  Davidson can turn on a dime from scary psycho to soapy campy to heartbreaking emotion, making it absolutely compulsory to pay attention when she is on screen.

Nicole:  She's has been on the show since the mid 90's, but I never warmed to her until now.  Part of it is Arianne Zucker's maturing into a confident actress.  She takes more chances now with her scenes and that makes her more watchable.  Another part of it is the humor that the writers have brought out of the character.  Nicole has a lot of tragedy and pain in her backstory, so it makes sense that she also has this rich vein of humor that she taps into as a coping mechanism.  Zucker is an excellent comedic actress and can deliver a funny line like no one's business!

EJ/Sami:  This is not a couple I've ever been able to get behind.  My dream would be for Sami to be with Lucas, but that's not going to happen again.  If I can't have that, then I want her with Rafe.  Thing is, the show these days is really selling me on the Sami/EJ pairing.  I'm enjoying the vibe between them and their easy chemistry.  They're kind of like a twisted Nick and Nora Charles or the anti-Jack and Jennifer.  Those scenes where they were doing the deed and plotting to stop Nick at the same time were this awesome mix of hilarious and hot!  For the first time, they're actually fun to watch.  It's not enough to make me forget their sordid history--she shot him in the head, for gorm's sake--which means that I can't root for them, but I can certainly enjoy them together.

Kate/Rafe:  I am so totally grooving on this idea, mainly because it came out of left field, totally unexpected.  Plus, they are hot together.  I think that they are ultimately doomed.  Rafe is who he is and Kate is who she is.  Ultimately, that's going to kill them as pair, but until they crash and burn, they're smoking!  Plus, it gives Sami and Kate something new to fight about.  It also provides Kate with some much needed redemption.  As long as Rafe gets his memories back pretty darn soon!

Will/Sonny:  Gay romances and characters are nothing new for soaps these days.  A gay romance with two legacy characters is.  Both these guys are rooted in the show, its families, and its history, and they're taking it into the future.  You simply cannot get more Salem than a Horton/Brady and a Kiriakis!  Plus, they're the only truly happy couple on the show right now.  I love their dynamic and chemistry and like that they communicate with each other and work together to face their challenges.  All soap couples should be this way.

Humor:  Nicole's not the only one getting the funny on these days.  There's plenty of it to go around.  Even Victor gets a laugh line every now and then.  I know that soaps are about the drama, but it only make sense when a show as full of comedic talent as Days uses it.

Unexpected Twists:  Chad has a video of Sami attacking Bernardi.  Nick's prison tormentor gets an early release.  Rafe and Kate hook up.  I've been watching soaps for decades now.  It's kind of hard for one to surprise me, but this one does.  More often than I would think possible, in fact.

Overarching Stories:  One of the worst things a soap can do is isolate or "island" characters in their own stories to the point where they never interact with anyone or anything that doesn't relate to their primary storyline.  If you watch any episode of Days, you'll see characters moving around each other and interacting across storylines in ways that make you want to watch.  Characters have friends and families beyond their primary arcs.  They're part of a larger community, and we see that every week.

The Little Beats and Bits:  One of the best things the show does right now are these little moments between characters that really don't advance the plots, but do serve to remind the audience of the connections between these characters.  Hope visits Jennifer or Maggie for advice.  Eric spends time with Caroline.  Victor spends time with Sonny.  Nicole comforts Brady.  Every little scene with EJ and Kristen totally rocks out!

Recurring/Supporting Actors Get Used:  Okay, I'm not saying they get used enough, but at least we do get to see them regularly.  Yes, I would love to see anyone of them stirring up their own stories, but it's still nice to see Kayla, Caroline, Maggie, Victor, Justin, Adrienne, Lucas et al on a regular basis.  There was a time when being recurring meant invisible.

History:  This show is almost 50 years old.  That's a lot of water under the bridge.  I've heard more references to that history and seen that history informing current history more since the first of the year than I have in a long, long time.  Let's be honest here.  Soap fans are big old nerds.  When you make use of and reference history, it makes us happy.

Pacing: The days when a soap could play out a story for weeks and weeks on end are over.  So too the era when show after show could go by with nothing major happening.  Modern soap story telling demands more for its viewers.  Days has figured out how to unfold its plots slowly, yet still keep things moving regularly.  For the most part, they succeed, with a few stumbles here and there.  The main thing is that something happens every day to move at least one of the plots forward.  Usually, it's more than one.  Every day also ends on a "hook" that drags you back for the next day.  Even in the middle of all this, you still get tantalizing elements like Ciara hiding the picture of Kristen that play out for a few weeks before coming to a big climax.  It works well.  I'm glued to hulu just about every night!

Integration of New/Returning Characters:  One of the worst mistakes soaps make is bringing on a new character, playing them every day, and letting them suck up all the air on the show.  One of the things Days is doing really well is slowly integrating its new characters and tying them to people on the show that we already know and love.  We may not like JJ too much (which is what the writers intend right now), but he spends a good part of his time with his family and we do like them.  Bringing people on through people we already know is much healthier for the show.

There is probably a lot more that I could go on about, but that's enough for one post.  Next time, we'll talk about the things that aren't working quite so well.  Nobody's perfect!

Monday Rambles

I'm definitely feeling better right now.  No nausea. No tin foil.  Just lots and lots of bricks.  Thanks to the 4ht, I got a four day weekend, which was nice.  It gave me a chance to rest up, yet still do things.  It rained most of the weekend, which meant no yard sales, which meant  really good sales at the Peddler's Mall for the first time this month.

I took a good load in on Wednesday and straightened up quite a bit.  I discovered that, despite slow June sales, I had some pretty bare shelves.  Four totes later, most of that was taken care of.  Now, of course, I have new bare spots to fill.  We're having our fourth anniversary fling this coming Saturday, so I'll be taking more stuff in to get ready for that.  I think I'm bringing in mainly larger items, but haven't decided for sure.  I'm not going to be in town for the shindig (more on that in a bit), but I have high hopes for some good sales.

We went to the big flea market on Saturday, as mentioned previously.  We started the day with a traditional family breakfast at my dad's favorite restaurant.

 

 

I was well-armed with my granny cart.  (I actually have three of them.  I'm really wanting one of the newer models that has a drink rack on the back.)

 

I wasn't looking to do any serious re-sale shopping.  I'm pretty well-stocked at the moment.  The main goal was to look at stuff, have some fun, and celebrate my mother's birthday.

As far as big flea markets go, this wasn't one of the better ones.  The variety that's typically there was lacking.

The Fiesta people were there.

The T-shirt people were there.

The banana box people were there.

Also, the fashion belt people, the leather purse people, the dip mix people, the flavored coffee people, the "As Seen on TV" people, and the dollar jewelry people were all there.  In fact, dollar jewelry seemed to be the theme for the day.  It seemed like there was a vendor in every row with boxes of jewelry to sort through.  Some of it looked to be older, but I don't know jewelry and don't really have the patience to stand there and jostle with people rooting through boxes.  So, I passed.

What was missing were the secondhand dealers that are always there.  There were a few, but mainly book dealers.  There were some higher end antiquers there, but not the kind of folks who have a wide variety of stuff at good prices.  Normally, there are a lot of these "mom and pop" sellers there, right alongside the "pros."  I'm not sure what the deal was, but it was a little disappointing.  I'll be writing more about the big flea market and the way it's changed over the years later this week.

We still had fun, and I did spend a little money.  I bought a couple of games for resale and a nice pic of the 23rd Psalm for a dollar.  I got some comics and books for me, plus a couple to sell.  The Kentucky Proud kettle corn folks weren't there, which was a bummer.  I did get some snacks and some stuff for the house.  It was just a relaxing, no pressure, shopping for fun kind of day--just like I used to have with Mom.  Sometimes, it's nice not to be "working."

It was still pretty tiring, since the bricks came along too.  I took a several hour nap when we got home and spent Sunday lazing around and resting up.

One of the things I picked up was a flower arrangement for Mom's tombstone.  When we were there for the funeral, I noticed that the flowers at her grave were getting kind of ratty.  We're going to take a road trip this weekend to go and spruce it up a bit.  We're also going to hit a couple of flea markets and antique malls on the way.

I've found a couple of new niches on YouTube that have me tickled:  old Disney cartoon shorts and soap opera broadcasts from the fifties and sixties.  I caught an episode of Secret Storm from the late fifties that I totally got into.  Great, classic soap opera like they don't make any more.  I also found a classic As the World Turns featuring several of the performers who were still on the show when it was cancelled a couple of years ago.  It was pretty cool.

Of course, as a junker, I have a hard time watching vintage TV without being distracted by all the background set decor and props!  So many vintage goods!  So much that I could sell!  It's a sickness, I tell you! 

Monday Rambles

I'll warn you in advance, this is one of the rambliest rambles I've put down in digital ink in ages.  Get ready for a wild ride!

Another chemo week is down the pike and I'm slowly crawling out of the pit.  I've figured out that part of the problem during chemo weeks is the extra pills I have to take to accommodate my shots and stuff.  The Benadryl beforehand makes me so sleepy I can't stand it, so I end up going home after my shots and going to bed.  By the time I wake up, the chills from the shot are setting in, so I have to take more pills.  I think all the extra meds contribute to my nausea problems.  I know I start feeling better by Sunday, when all of the extra stuff has filtered out of my system.  Then I can start dealing with the bricks.

One more to go!  One more to go!  I'm filled with an equal measure of anticipation and dread.  Sometimes, just thinking about going back to the cancer center makes me reflexively retch.

My grandfather passed away Saturday morning.  They said he had a really rough couple of days and then passed on.  I'm really glad that we went to see him week before last.  He was alert and talkative then, and that's a good final memory to have.  He was 94, and kind of just gave out.  The last few years were pretty rough on him.  Besides his own declining health, one of my uncles passed away in 2009 and then Mom died in 2010.  I cannot imagine being in your 90's and yet having to bury your kids.  No one expects that.

His funeral will be Tuesday, which is going to make for an odd sort of week.  The Fourth was already throwing an extra day off in there, and I'm still trying to recover from missing a day of work last week due to chemo.  It's going to be a short week, but one with lots of commotion, apparently.

For some reason, my sales decided to pick up over the last week and a half.  That was a bright spot during the week of chemo blight.  All of a sudden, I started selling large items again and making my sales targets.  I finally made rent, and now I'll be getting a (very small) check.  But it will be a check.  Now I've got to get busy and replenish my stash of larger items.  About half my floor stock of small furniture is gone.  Luckily, I kind of made up for that with some weekend shopping.

I did get out to one church sale over the weekend.  We actually went to two, but the second one wasn't happening until Sunday. What kind of church does that?  I mean, besides the Adventists?  We did end up going back on Sunday, but it was a bust.  We found enough stuff at another Sunday stop to more than make up for that minor irritant.  More details on that tomorrow.

Speaking of church stuff, week before last when I was working my booth, there was a woman there seated on the floor in front of my religious wall.  She was going through all the pamphlets and booklets very carefully, like she was looking for certain particulars.  At one point, she asked me where I found all the older Catholic resources.  I kind of gave my usual hem and haw answer (junkers don't reveal their sources easily), so she asked if I was Catholic.  My answer to that is always "I'm not, but my father was."  She asked if I was raised Catholic.  I told her that I was raised Southern Baptist.  (The "Southern" part is very important--even all these years later.)  I didn't mention my conscious lack of a religious affiliation these days.  That seems a bit too personal for a casual conversation with a stranger.

Anyway, in the middle of all this, she says"  Well, you know those guys in Rome right now aren't the Catholic Church.  It's been nothing but anti-popes since 1958."  OMG!  I have a real-life sedevacantist on my hands!  I knew that Louisville had an SSPX chapel, because I had been to an awesome yard sale there one time, but I had no idea that there was anyone in town who was so anti-Vatican II that they went to the extreme positions.  Wow!  Now I realize why she was looking through everything so carefully.  She was checking for publication dates and imprimaturs!

She told me that she appreciated the stuff I had for sale and that it was a great resource for her and others, then left.  Wow!  I'm supplying goods for extreme traditionalist Catholics!  Who knew?  For the record, I find church politics almost as fascinating as church articles.

Day by Days:  It was another solid week, for the most part, but not a spectacular one.  The show was more about laying groundwork for some of the bigger action to come, as Sami prepares for trial and EJ moves ahead with his plot to take down Stefano.  I'm beginning to wonder if Kate wasn't the one who swiped the razor from Rafe's room, to bog down Sami's defense.  Judi Evans was excellent this week as Adrienne tried to keep her fears in check and keep from alienating her family.  Sonny and Will and the baby are so cute together.  Nice little moments with Nick/Will, Gabi/Nick, Kate/Sami (loved how Sami's hand kept hovering over Kate's shoulder, inches away from giving a little comfort, yet totally unable to reach out to her worst enemy), EJ/Chad and Adrienne/Jennifer.  JJ continues to annoy me.  The Cameron/Abby/Chad triangle looks to be boring as grass growing.  Who is the rooting couple supposed to be?  Durned if I know.  And, we got a Lucas scene!  Not enough of those these days.

Kim Thompson died recently.  I was going to mention here it last week, but I forgot.  He was co-publisher of Fantagraphics, which was one of my favorite comic book companies.  Towards the end of my comic book days, most of what I was reading were Fanta titles.  He was responsible for, among other things, bringing the works of Lewis Trondheim and Swedish artist Jason into print in English.  He brought wonderful things to an impoverished American comics market, and had a tremendous impact on my own reading habits.  He will be missed.

Finally a political note.  (Those of you who don't really want to read this sort of thing can skip the next two paragraphs.  I probably should have said that about my Days paragraph too.)

Like a lot of folks, I am celebrating the Supreme Court decision last week in the DOMA/Prop 8 cases.  At the same time, I am only cautiously optimistic about the eventual results of the decision.  For one thing, Keith and I still cannot get married under the laws of this state.  The decision changed nothing about that.  We cannot go to a state where same-sex marriage is legal, get married, and have that marriage recognized here.  That part of DOMA was not in the challenge.  My parents were married sixteen yers before they split.  Keith and I have been together 23.  My mother was able to get an increase in her Social Security when my dad died, and they weren't even married then!  Me?  It's not totally clear yet.  That's what I get out of the decision.  Not entirely clear yet.

I'm not downing the decision.  It was the right one.  It was a strong challenge to an unjust law.  All I'm saying is that looking at the aftermath and the meaning has to be done with a careful eye.  To go further, there is no federal law protecting LGBT folks from discrimination in housing or employment.  Unless someone lives in one of the cities or states that offers such protection, then they can be fired or evicted simply for being gay.  It's 2013, and this is still reality.  It's unconscionable.  We won a big deal last week.  There's no doubt about that.  We also still have a long ways to go.

From chemo to yard sales to soaps to Catholics to comics!  From the personal to the political!  I've hit the rambling gamut today, haven't I?  How about that?  About the only thing that didn't make it in was an Emmylou Harris mention.  And now you have that.

Despite everything that's gone on this year, I have managed to stay on track with my posting goals.  We are halfway through the year, and I am just a little over halfway to my posting goal of 200 posts for 2013.  Blogging has helped me cope with the stress of chemo, and I appreciate your reading along with me.  This week is already plotted out and pre-published, so keep checking in.

Monday Rambles

Chemo is tomorrow and I am dreading the whole thing.  It was such an ordeal to find a vein last time, that I am not looking forward to going through it again.  I just keep telling myself that by the end of July it will all be over.  I hope I don't puke this time.  I hate throwing up.

I did get out to three church sales on Saturday.  I didn't get anything really spectacular, but did have a couple of interesting experiences.  A lady nearly ran into me at one sale.  She was walking across the room right at me, while looking over her shoulder in the opposite direction the whole time.  I, of course, had my arms full of stuff, so I moved to get out of her way.  She, still without looking in my direction at all, adjusted her course so she was still heading right at me.  It was kind of creepy.

Finally, when she was about to barrel right into me, I said "Excuse me, Ma'am!" and tried to step around her.  She snapped her head around and gave me the nastiest look.  I don't know, maybe I was supposed to just let her walk right into me?

At another sale, I found this little guy.

He's clearly marked $5 on the top, but being in church sale mode, my mind interpreted this as five cents.  Heck, most of the other stuff I was grabbing was 10 cents, so it's kind of a natural assumption.  I didn't realize my error until I was checking out and I looked at the price again.  Doh!

I was on the verge of telling them that I didn't want it, when one of the check out ladies asked the other one if that price was right.  The second lady said that was the correct price "because it's an antique" but I could name a price if I wanted.  I offered two bucks, and they accepted.  For the record, I'm pretty sure it's a reproduction, but I am also sure I can turn it over in one of my booths pretty quickly.

Speaking of the booths, I finally made the damn rent at the Peddler's Mall over the weekend.  It's never taken this long before!  This has been an agonizing month! I'd have a forty or fifty dollar day, followed by a string of four dollar days.  Early last week, the sales were so low, I was suicidal.  One day, I said "It can't get any worse than this."  The next day was a dollar less than that, so I decided I needed to keep my mouth shut.

The heat over the weekend turned the tide for sales, because it drove everyone inside to do their secondhand shopping.  I'm hoping for a scorching summer.  I don't ask for much, just thirty dollars a day.  That's a pretty reasonable goal.  It makes the rent, covers the expenses, and gives me a nice check.

I did a YouTube soap opera binge over the weekend.  I found a CBS special from 1994 called Fifty Years of Soaps.  Two hours dedicated to the TV broadcast history of the soap opera.  Tons of stars.  Tons of flashbacks.  Man, those were the days.  In fact, those were the tail end of the glory days of the soap.  In a couple of years, the decline would start.

There were ten shows on the air at that time, as opposed to four today (not counting the really lame online versions of All My Children and One Life to Live).  I guess I got a little nostalgic over the whole thing.  These are tough times to be a soap fan.  It's tough to be fond of an artform that might be on its last legs.

I've got posts put together for the whole week, so keep checking in,  If anything happens with chemo, I'll update that on Wednesday.  Other than that, I'll probably be low key for the rest of the week.  Take care!

Day by Days

Thoughts about this past week's Days of Our Lives

First off, how nice to see Marlena loaded for bear, after so many weeks of basically serving as John's doormat and whipping gal.  Those scenes with Adrienne were excellent!  It's also really nice to see more of Adrienne and Justin this week.  I look forward to more of this as some of these stories unfold.


I do hope that part of the unfolding includes someone, say Maggie, sitting down and giving Adrienne a chill pill by reminding her of her own history.  She hardly comes from a sterling bunch herself, and she definitely didn't marry into one!

I love a good, out of left field twist that starts a story spinning in a different direction, and the reveal that Chad has video of Sami fighting Bernardi certainly fits that bill!  Wow!  When he said a little while ago that he had "vintage psycho Sami" on video, I thought he meant that he had filmed her fight with Kate at the coffee shop right before they found out Will had been shot.  What he's actually got is a whole different kettle of fish.

What I like most about this twist is the layers it adds to the story.  There are others who now know that Sami lied to the police and her lawyer about not knowing the man she shot.  It also puts Will's secret back into play.  Best of all, it expands the reach of this story, since Abigail is now involved.  Well done!

What I really can't wait for is the scene when Adrienne realizes that she has this fight video too.  It's pretty obvious (to me at least) that Sonny did not send her a video of the baby.  He just thinks he did.  The question is how long will it take her to find out?

Brady and Nicole hopping back into bed on the heels of his break-up with Kristen is so totally in character for both of them that I really liked those scenes.  Brady is making what Maggie would call "an impulsive, self-destructive decision, typical of an addict," while it's just plain nice to see Nicole do something besides wring her hands over a priest.  I don't think this will be the resurrection of them as a couple.  There's been way too much water under that bridge!  I like their dynamic and chemistry as friends much more, even if they do boff each other from time to time.

Speaking of Kristen, I like watching her unravel.  She's so much fun when she's psycho.  Eileen Davidson looks like she's having so much fun with the material!  I just don't get what her plan is.  She drugs Eric so she can sleep with him?  Unless she's recording it so she can ruin his standing as a priest, there's no way that's going to have an impact on Marlena.  There's no indication she's doing that, however.

I'm more than a little annoyed with the JJ story at this point.  I think it's a good thing that I can't stand the character, because that means something is working right.  He's a despicable little brat, so he should be disliked.  I have always liked the idea of the bad seed offspring from the upstanding, core family.  It's worked for 20 years with Sami, and she has become a pillar of the show and a core character.  I'm pretty sure that fans really hated her when she first arrived on the scene.

The problem with the JJ story is Jennifer.  I've been cutting her some slack on the way she's dealing with her son, because I can understand why she wants to be sensitive,  The problem is that she's starting to appear both dumb and in denial.  Maybe she'll catch on when he causes her to lose her job.  After all, if Anne had found JJ with the scrip pad instead of Daniel, she would not have stopped until Jennifer had been booted out the door.

All in all, it was a good week.  There were some nice little moments--Daniel and Jennifer checking on Brady--which I always like to see.  The little interaction between Kate and Maggie at the coffee shop was nice too.  I don't always get to see my two favorite characters play together.  The Sami/Eric sccenes were extra sweet.  Plus, Vargas is back!  The only onscreen clunkers for the week were the overly-contrived and purely plot-driven hassles that Nicole had trying to reach Eric with his papers.

I do have a bone to pick about what wasn't shown this week.  Sami is choked into unconsciousness in her cell, and we don't get to see someone finding her there?  Think how much more dramatic it would have been for EJ to discover her like that.  How exactly did Sami make bail anyway?  I'm extremely annoyed that there were no scenes from her arraignment at all.  My only real beef with the current writing team is that they sometimes choose to leave out moments like these, which should be pivotal scenes.  It's a decision I don't understand, since it undercuts the drama.

Linking Around

I haven't done a link post in ages.  Not sure why that is, so I thought I would rectify that and do a post of a bunch of quick shots and links.

When I was a kid, I had a collection of pennants from states that we had visited in our travels.  For the life of me, I don't know whatever happened to it.  Luckily, Magpie Ethel knows where hers are.  Mine were in the style of the Texas and Oklahoma pennants in one of her pics.

Congratulations to Days of Our Lives for winning "Best Show" at the Daytime Emmys!  I guess I really do need to finish those Days posts I've been working on.

I thought this was funny.

You all know how I feel about cancer.  It's not so hot for other people either.  Please show Heidi and her family some love.  They need it.  I should warn you that this is a three hanky link.

Fear the thrift horrors!  God knows, you see a lot of this kind of stuff when you're junking.  An awful lot.  Heck, you sometimes see a lot of it in other booths in your vendor mall.  Flee!

Curious about what you can send via media mail?  Ignore their really poor understanding of comic books and graphic novels.  That link comes courtesy of the fine folks at Yard Sale Queen.

Speaking of thrifts (and I do have a long post about thrifting planned for next week), did you know you can get your junk on even when you're not on your home turf, thanks to ThriftShopper?  I've used it more than a few times and found it to be pretty accurate and helpful.

Roger writes about writing.  I've always admired him for his ability to turn out thoughtful posts day after day after day.  His thoughts about excuses people use not to write are interesting.  Wonder where chemo-induced fatigue and nausea come in on that list?

That was kind of fun.  I need to make a point of doing that again sometime!

Day by Days

I've recently started watching Days of Our Lives again.  It started when I got out of the hospital and looked up the Christmas eps online.  Even if I haven't been watching the show regularly, I've kept up through the soap mags and online clips from time to time.  The Horton family ornament hanging is something that I never miss! 

One of the reasons I haven't been regularly following the show for a while (besides lack of time and a general disinterest in TV overall) is that it hasn't been very good for a long time.  It hasn't been awful, mind you.  Just kind of mediocre.  Bad decisions.  Bad writing.  Focus on the wrong characters.  Just not the kind of compelling every day watching you want from a soap.

Watching the 2012 holiday episodes, I could see that something was different.  The dialogue was better.  The character interplay and intermingle that I like to see was there.  They took time for the little "extra beats" (smiles, side glances, winks and nods) that add so much to a scene.  The show's not perfect, but it's much, much better than it was last time I watched it, during the much vaunted "reboot."  Thanks to the wonders of hulu and YouTube, I've been a daily watcher again for a couple of weeks and I have been enjoying it immensely.

A couple of recent bits that show how much Days is improving are Chloe's return (which aired last week) and Nick and Gabi's busted wedding (from yesterday).  The initial episodes of Chloe's return to Salem played all the soap beats just about right.  Daniel opens the door to find her standing there (instead of an expected Jennifer) at the very end of an episode.

The next ep winds through the conversation, intercut with scenes involving Kayla and Caroline, to finally (again at the very end of the episode) spit out the reveal that Daniel really is the father of Chloe's son, Parker.  Bringing the Brady women in was a great stroke since, besides being so under-utilized these days, they were key players in the original paternity switch fiasco.

Unfortunately, two episodes do not a whole storyline make, and the way this story is starting out highlights a lot of the weaknesses the show still needs to overcome.  Did they really need to bring Chloe back?   Days tends not to make the best choices when it comes to character returns.  While there is a lot of potential to the story, watching Chloe using her child to play spoiler to Daniel and Jennifer is not the kind of thing that will keep me turning back in.  If they play out all of the potential beats to the story, it could end up being really good.  If they get lazy, it's going to be a cliched clunker.

A much better example of how good the show can be was the wedding episode.  Honestly, the whole Nick-Gabi-Will baby tale fell flat for me a long time ago.  But the blow up at the wedding was fantastic.  Not only did it pull in just about every character in the show, but it majorly shook up all the relationships in a way that will make it very hard for things to get back to normal.  This is the way it's supposed to be done, folks!

Rafe and Sami's reunion is derailed.  So is Chad and Abigail's.  Families are circling the wagons around their own.  There could potentially be Brady-Horton conflict over this.  Lucas has been jolted into action in his Dudley Do-Right mode, which is going to result in conflict with both Sami and Will.  And at the center of it all, Will and Sonny's budding romance has been shattered.  A big reveal should shake up the entire canvas and set things spinning in new directions, and I think this one did that in a big way.

And they didn't skimp on the little beats either, which helped to cement the tale.  Billie's line to Kate about being a great-grandmother, Victor's scenes with Sonny and Maggie, the look that passed between Hope and Kate after Kate fired Nick, and that sweet, sweet scene with Caroline and Eric at the end.  Those little bits are like little treats that pull the whole thing together.  Sure, they don't have to be there, but the show is so much better when they are.  So. Much. Better.

The only real clunker to the whole episode was that stupid deal with Doug and Julie showing up late.  Really?

I've been fooled before by this show.  It's hooked me with a good episode and then lost me a few weeks later.  I'm not holding my breath in anticipation of daily must see TV, but I am cautiously optimistic about things and want to see where the show goes from here.

Who knows?  If it stays this good, maybe I'll blog more about it.

Monday Rambles on a Wednesday

I don't have any action from the Part-Time Gig (PTG) going on this week, so I'm trying really hard to get some posting done and end up with several set to go over the next few days.  I've gotten used to blogging several times a week now, so I really hate lapsing back into old habits.  I didn't even do an April Fool's post.  Sigh!

Of course, I'm posting this on Wednesday evening, even though it was all written and ready to go, except for the links, on Sunday night.  Guess you can see how well that plan worked.  Sigh!

The one wrinkle in this plan is that I'm also cat-sitting this week.  I've got spotty wifi access in that location, which may throw me off a bit.  I'm needing to stop by the house on several days, though, so maybe that will help me overcome those issues.  I have some things at home I'm needing to get done, including a large booth load (more on that in a minute), and I'm hoping if I come home and spend sometime with Kosh, he won't be quite so panicked while I'm gone.  I'll probably just end up confusing him even more when I leave.  Who knows what goes on in that furry little head?

Okay, now that I've kept my promise from last week, here's the weather report.  Lots of cold, cloudy days last week gave way to a nice weekend.  We're supposed to be in for some warmer, sunny days this week.  I'm looking forward to it.

Expect the March Booth Report and March Book Report by the end of the week.  Both are quite different from previous editions.  There was a lot of drama and suspense along the way, but I did set a sales record last month.  That's all I'll say for now.

Nasty rumors are going around that ABC is going to cancel All My Children and One Life to Live.  I do hope not.  I've never quite gotten into AMC--Susan Lucci's appeal as an actress eludes me--but I do like to catch OLTL when I can.  If it happens, that will leave just four daytime soaps on the air, and ABC will join NBC as a one soap network.  NBC still has Days of Our Lives and General Hospital would be ABC's sole offering.

The budget restraints NBC has placed on Days and really taking its toll on the show these days (sorry about that).  I'm watching less than ever.  I'd hate to see GH go the same way, even though it's pretty well down that path.  The loops they had to twist into the story in order to keep Tony Geary out of recent scenes where Luke Spencer's grandson was dying were enormous.  But, if he'd set foot in the hospital, it probably would have driven the day over budget, so we had endless scenes with Geary and one other person begging Luke to go to the hospital and him resisting.  (There was some good acting from Liz Herbst, Jonathon Jackson, Steve Burton, and Laura Wright, throughout that story though.)

That's the huge catch-22 that soaps are caught in right now.  Fans of all ages want to see the veteran actors and characters involved in major story, but the shows can't afford to play them.  I'm not blaming Geary or Lucci or OLTL's Erika Slezak, mind you.  They've done their time and are part an parcel of what has made their shows last over the years.  They certainly deserve everything they make.  The problem lies with network bean counters who are demanding that shows increase their rating revenue, but don't give them the tools they need to do so.  It's only going to keep getting worse at NBC and ABC until someone takes a look at CBS and realizes that Young and Restless plays its major veteran characters in scenes with more than one other character, involves them in constant major story and the world doesn't end.

This Saturday is another special event at the mall where I have my booth.  They'll have hot dogs and stuff for sale, and vendors are encouraged to be on hand to make deals with customers.  I did pretty well at the last one in December, so I'm on board for sure.  I'm planning to spend Friday at the booth getting ready.  I'm going to let everything ride this week in the hope that a lot of stuff will clear out, then I'll swoop in and restock, foof, move things around and add some signs to point out some stuff I really want to see go home with someone.

Hit one of my favorite church sales over the weekend.  Got an overstuffed box o' goodies for about fifteen bucks. You can see the pic here and read a little more about it.  It's pretty much a given that I'll end up with a box at a church sale.  The real question is what kind of check out person I'll have.  There are two types.

Type One:  The "I really don't want to unpack and repack that whole box of stuff, so I'm going to make an offer of 10 or so dollars" type. I really like these folks!

Type Two:  The "I have to do my duty to this sale and check every item and total it" type.  This is the one I got and I think she ended up regretting her approach about halfway through.  I can pack me a box, folks.  In fact, at this sale, I had to upgrade to a larger box two times!  Plus, I have smallsphasia, which means I'm driven to sell lots of small items in the booth.  That means I have to buy lots of them.

Then, there was the presence of another church sale volunteer type throughout my box:  The volunteer who never gets the memo that it's easier for the checkers to add if everything is priced in increments of .25.  So, this poor woman had to deal with my box stuffed with smalls, many marked at prices like .10, .05, or .35.  I did feel sorry for her.  Not enough to put anything back, mind you, but enough to try and help her out.

There's a story that explains why this is one of our favorite sales, by the way.  And it's got nothing to do with stuff or prices.  I'll get around to telling it some time.

And on that, I'll say:  "Goodbye until next time!"