Weekly update

[magnetic_pole]

I'm around a bit more this month, flist, though the universe is conspiring against me by wrecking havoc with my internet connection. For almost a week now I've had intermittent service for reasons I can't quite make out. My computer says that I have an "excellent" or "very good" wireless connection, but for hours at time I'll get messages that say my browser "can't find the server at www.allexamples.com." Does anyone know what that might mean?

Looking forward to following hp_friendship this month, though I may not be back daily quite yet.

The better half is away for work this week, and I'm amused that I've fallen into all my old temporarily-single habits. Whenever she goes away, I promptly stop cleaning up around the apartment, watch excessive amounts of netflix late at night (in this case, Wallander, both SE and UK, and the first season of Mad Men), and eat only cereal. Then the mess gets to me, and I clean up and start to consider protein and fruits and vegetables and balanced meals again. The netflix recovery usually takes a little longer, which makes sense, given that I'm doing things I want to do and don't have much time to do when she's around. The food and cleaning issues are more mysterious, seeing as I actually love a clean apartment and enjoy my food.

Anything you do when suddenly and atypically left to your own devices? (For folks living alone, do you have lapses like these for other reasons?)

Comments

[semielliptical]

Hi there - staying up late watching Wallander sounds marvelous to me! I had been watching the Swedish series, but took a break while we had visitors and I'm really looking forward to a quiet evening with Wallander tonight. I like the lead actor, and I'm enjoying the secondary characters quite a bit. I wish Netflix had the first series. And I recently learned that there is an earlier Swedish movie series, too. So many Wallanders! Did you start with the Swedish or the British series, or are you alternating?

When mr. semi is away I eat terrible things like instant stuffing and mashed potatoes, and put butter on the popcorn. Though I do try to balance that with a few veggies.

[magnetic_pole]

I really wish they had the first series, too! I started the UK version because I'd finished the second series and wanted more, and the UK version turned out to be creepy and violent enough that I didn't want to watch while alone. (It's also a little less...I don't know, bumbling? More heroic. Or maybe I'm just unable to see Branaugh as that character.) I got one of the books at the library, and they seem to have the bleak, hapless quality that I liked in the SE series. I enjoyed Isabelle and Pontus quite a bit--they were good foils to Wallender.

Eating terrible things seems to be a trend! So glad I asked--it makes me feel a bit better. M

[semielliptical]

Yes, I watched some of Branaugh's Wallander as they were shown on PBS, and I thought they were beautifully filmed but sometimes hard to watch, so I've never felt the need to go back and watch them all. The series with Henriksson seems like it was created so a viewer can watch an episode a week, or more often, and not be overwhelmed by the violence.

I read the books before seeing any of the filmed versions, and I liked the way Mankell showed Wallander's humanness, or haplessness, as you put it - eating a hot dog for lunch and getting an upset stomach, forgetting to do his laundry etc.

Did you know there is also a previous Swedish film series with a different actor? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Wallander#TV_and_film

[magnetic_pole]

The SE Wallanders are definitely easier to watch--much less violence, slower pacing. And they're much better at dealing with themes of estrangement, social and personal. As I was just saying to schemingreader at LJ, there're no charming shots of the Ystad old town square.

Ah, you've read the books! Our library only has a few, so ironically I had to begin with The Troubled Man. I may be projecting based on the tv series/films, but I thought the character was more than the "Norse Morse," as someone called him. The haplessness, the small failures-to-deal-with-stuff, the significant miscommunications and mistakes he and the department make--in a genre that's usually all about competence (personal/intellectual and institutional), these were interesting for showing how many gaps and failures there are in the process of solving a mystery.

I'll have to look for the other ones, thanks! Or just find the first series. Wish netflix didn't do that. M.

[via_ostiense]

I internet until my eyes fall out, which I generally don't do when I have company to save me from myself. It is satisfying in the same way that eating a giant bag of Cheetos in one go is satisfying--it is empty content (I can read the entire newspaper, but very little of it is going to stick, when I go into information-devouring mode) and what is satisfying is the indulgence more than the content.

[magnetic_pole]

*nods* Me, too. I didn't mention that, but I binged on the internet before making that post--in fact, making the post reminded me to turn it off and go for a walk outside. The internet seems to bring out something obsessive and cheeto-consuming in a lot of us, doesn't it? I'm sometimes so ready to lose myself in that particular way. M.

[out_there]

Lying around in my pjs, reading books. Living on sandwiches and mashed potatoes. Lying in bed all day long.

[magnetic_pole]

Sounds like the good life. :) Nice to know I'm not alone in my alone in my alone-time-hedonist ways. M.