Day in the Life of an Idiot

Last night, Shawn and I watched the season finale of "Victoria" in which it is revealed that Prince Albert invented Christmas.  I was actually surprised to discover that was mostly true (obviously the pagans did it first, but)--he very much popularized the Christmas tree and some of the other traditions we tend to think of as eternal. 

I have to say that [SPOILER!] I'm going to hate to see Albert go. I like the actor a lot, and he's managed to make an historical character I knew almost nothing about (beyond the fact that Victoria never stopped mourning him and that he's apparently 'in a can'*) and made him very engaging and interesting. It's funny, too, the extent to which history acts as a spoiler/tension builder. Shawn and I are forever trying to count how many children Victoria and Albert have, because we know how many they manage before Albert dies.  So, we're like, "ARGH! They already have five!!"

I found myself talking to the cats in a bad German accent in the middle of the night. I blame PBS.

Also, I've learned way more about syphilis than I ever wanted to know. Albert's brother, Ernst, suffers from it in "Victoria" and then, by chance, Shawn and I also started watching a new Netflix show starring Sean Bean called "The Frankenstein Chronicles" and his character also has it.

I despair that we'll finish that one, however. Shawn is even worse at binging TV than I am. She'll start out strong and watch three episodes in a row, but then she almost never feels like going back to things. We left "Fortitude" right when( actual spoiler ) was getting started and haven't been back. I think maybe she decides she doesn't like the show, but doesn't want to tell me. I'm actually fine quitting "Fortitude," but I'm weirdly intrigued (kind of despite some bad, repetitive writing) to find out what's going on in "The Frankenstein Chronicles."  I suppose I could finish watching it on my own, but I don't like watching shows during the day when I should be doing housework or writing--with the only exception of anime while I do the dishes. (In case you're wondering, I'm still working my way through Natsume's Book of Friends, though I'm thinking about checking out the Ancient Magus' Bride, since there's a limited number of those and I'm pretty sure Natsume goes on forever.)

What's funny, of course, is that Shawn watches a ton of TV without me.  She'll watch dozens of episodes of things while sewing together her strips of fabric for rugs.  She's seen most of "Stranger Days" and "The Crown"--both of which are the kinds of shows everyone I know is watching and talking about, but which I've seen none of.

Ah, well.

How about all of you? Are you watching anything good lately?


---
*this comes from a childhood phone prank in which you'd call a store and ask "do you have Prince Albert in a can?" (some kind of tobacco product, apparently. Even as a kid, I had no real idea what this was,) and then, when they said they did, you were supposed to say, "Well, let him out!" and hang up.

We were very sad before the internet and had to entertain ourselves in ridiculous ways.

 Normally, I would tell you that I'm not very capable of binge-watching.  I don't have the stamina for it, normally, or the hours.  But, Mason has been talking me into late night binging of a volleyball anime, Haikyu! --which we'd seen most of before, but hadn't gotten to the end. We still haven't, but we've exhausted all that's available on Hulu. If we want to watch the last ten episodes, we'll have to switch over to Crunchyroll.  

Haikyu! is weirdly addictive. 

I can't entirely explain its appeal.  I mean, it's a SPORTS anime.  About volleyball.  None of those words excite me in the least in most situations. And, it's actually really BROADLY shounen.  I mean, there are moments when the characters get super-imposed by their representative animals.  It should be so dumb as to be unwatchable.  

YET. I was up until almost 1 am last night, muttering, "Mo ichido, onigaishimasu." (Which is basically "Again, please" or "one more time, if you would.") Which is extra funny since the characters in the anime are constantly yelling this exact phrase whenever they need to make another score or just want to KEEP PRACTICING. It's also a phrase often taught to students of Japanese, because it's an easy way (moderately polite) to ask someone to repeat themselves.

That was the other fun thing about watching Haikyu! for both Mason and me: language lessons. Mason is learning Chinese at school. He's in his second year, and there's been a lot of work on learning the Mandarin characters.... which are, in many cases, the similar in Japanese Kanji. (It's not one-to-one of course, but you can read about the connection more here, if you like.)  But, every once and a while, when the credits are rolling, Mason will perk up and say, "Oh! College Student A! I can read that!" Which is super-cool, IMHO.  

For me, it's tiny little phrases that are common and repeated: "Ohisashi buri desu!" (Similar to: "Long time, no see.") Or "Daijoubu?" ("You okay?) or "Mo ikiai!" ("Go again!") and the ever popular, "Mo ippon!" ("Another point!")

Not that I see myself ever saying these things in Japan.  But, they do apologize a lot for missing shots, and I'm certain to say, "Summimassen."

The other thing that all this led me to be curious about is: what are other people binge-watching right now?  (Popular at my coffeehouse, "American Vandal," "The Newsroom," and "Godless.")