Monkee

All fair points made on AHS.

Also, just wanted to say thanks to LaGoosh for putting all this together. Not an easy feat, I'm sure, so I hope any sniping about 'should be higher' or 'you can't lump them together' or 'I don't agree with your synopsis' isn't taken as criticism or anything negative because I think this is my favourite thread in a while So thanks.

You can't lump all 3 CSI together so if it means they don't make it into the Top 50 then that's fine by me. Also, you definitely can't put both seasons of AHS together as they're totally different - different characters, premise, plot, etc.

Which CSI? You can't just lump them all together. CSI Miami is preposterous albeit shiny shit, but the early seasons of the original CSI were pretty brilliant. CSI New York was halfway between, and ended up being as good as neither.

Well, that was my quote used but taken out of context as I only meant season 1 but had voted for CSI: Las Vegas and Criminal Minds together so 'first seasons' was plural. I think both slowly lost their appeal after season 1.

Just realised that CSI: Miami is the image and the clips aren't Las Vegas either. Not what I voted for, I'm afraid. I never liked Miami or NY. And you mean David Caruso not Dennis. Who's Dennis Caruso?

I voted for AHS too.

I knew you would, in which case I love you. But I also know you voted for Lost so I equally hate you.

As you were.

Just wondering - can we see how many votes each show got compared to how many entries were received in order to judge just how popular they are? Only 1 of mine has shown up so far so I'm wondering exactly how 'obvious' (or not) my choices were.

Edit: I lied, 2 of my choices have come up unless you're doing AHS as 2 separate entries.

That. Is. Amazing.

How much did they cost? *checking bank balance*

I love Neighbours. I Sky+ it every day so I can watch it when I get home. Going on holidays is the best because I have lots of episodes to catch up on. I do have a slight obsession with Dr Karl too. Got tickets to see him in panto at Christmas

Also, re: The Walking Dead... I had to quickly scroll past that entry because of the picture. I'm terrified of zombies and can't even look at pictures of them. I feel a bit funny just having glanced at that picture. There's no way I could even contemplate watching it.

Can't believe AHS is so low... Should be higher.

Was going to post a recent pic on here but, looking at all you buff bastards, I think I'll just have another piece of cake and cry myself to sleep...

I tried a number of methods and nothing shifted a substantial amount of weight that the Docs said I needed to so I discussed the possibility of a gastric sleeve being fitted. I had that done on March 31 2012 and haven't looked back. The thing was, I HAD to lose at least 5stone between them agreeing to do the op and it being done (6months). Most effective method was the milk diet, which was horrible to do at the time, but hugely effective for short-term weight loss. 2litres or 4 pints of milk a day with something like bovril or stock cubes in water (or teaspoon of Marmite dissolved in hot water) and as much other drink as I liked....but no food! Christ I hate the taste of milk now, but I lost about 2 stone in 6 weeks on it!

You look fantastic. I had a band fitted last June and I'm insanely jealous of seeing before and after shots of people who've had the sleeve and RNY. My progress is very slow (made worse by the port shifting and having to have more surgery in October) but it's going the right way at least. I didn't do the milk diet, I had SlimFast-only for a month. I lost 2 stone on that in 4 weeks and found it really easy surprisingly. I sometimes wonder whether I made the right choice having the band rather than a sleeve...

I was at god-awful work do on Wednesday where we were subjected to musical bingo. I went because I'm making an effort to be more sociable at work but considering I can't stand 90% of them I'm doing well by attending 2 events this year. Anyway, the host of this musical bingo was an annoying squeaky 12-year-old red coat reject woman with ADHD. When you won a line or house in the bingo you either won a shit prize (giant sunglasses, a bird house, some cupcakes) you could gamble for the star prize of [/drumroll] a bottle of wine. But the gamble was that you had to do something cringeworthily embarrassing (at least I thought it was but all the other dickheads there thought it was great and did what was asked in a totally unnecessary OTT way) such as a dance-off, getting an After Eight off your forehead and into your mouth the quickest, etc. For one round the gamble was a rap-off where two people had 'won' and had to battle each other for the wine. One contestant happened to be black whereby the host announced that he had an unfair advantage because he was black! There was a big intake of air around the room but luckily the giddy woman saved the day but reassuring everyone that it was ok for her to say that because she's black herself.

She wasn't.

Me arsing about at Abbey Road today:

Abbey Road was absolutely fantastic. We saw a lot of vintage equipment as well as video footage from different musicians who have played there. It was brilliant to learn about the history if the studios and the innovation to sound recording and music that were brought about as a direct result of the people there. It was one of the men who worked there who invented/developed stereo (binaural) recording. It was such a privilege to be in a space where do many great musicians have been. And I had a photo on the crossing outside

EDIT:

Some photos HERE but here's a comparison showing Studio 2 when The Beatles recorded there and today:

I get this when listening to stuff ripped from Beatles' CDs. It's to do with the mixing - you only get certain bits through certain headphones. For example, on Eleanor Rigby you get the music through one ear but the singing through the other. Is it a mono/stereo thing? Strange for that to happen on a radio station though, you'd think it'd all be the same.

On another note, I'm going to Abbey Road tomorrow. Woohoo!

Those both sound obscene! A Welsh guy at my work said that when he was at school (he's 40 odd now), so many of the children had the surname Jones, that it was really hard to keep track of who was who. Resultantly, the kids surnames were informally changed by the teachers to the occupation of their fathers.

 

Could this be some sort of hangover from that

Please tell me there's a Mick the morgue, a Johnny the jobcentre and a Becky the brothel as well

Probably. Remembered a couple more: the woman who delivered the milk was called "Lynne the milk" too and a bloke who used to have a mobile fish & chip van was called "Viv the fish".

In "The Dam Busters", the dog was called Nigger. A few people, the usual idiots, went all PC gone mad when the looney left BBC edited it out when showing it on TV.

The CEO of a company I used to work for was drunk at a corporate function once and we were playing the "What's your porn star name?" He got really excited and after the usual "Fluffy Smith" and "Fido Jenkins" he piped up with "Nigger Gasworks"... EDIT: My mistake, this wasn't the one where you take your mother's maiden name but the name of your street instead. He used to live on Gasworks Lane or something. My examples therefore don't work unless you like on Smith Road and Jenkins Drive of course.

Also, on the subject of certain words being censored on forums. I used to be on one waaaay back in the day that was US-based and censored "snigger" and changed it to "snicker" instead.

I've never heard of this before. I gotta say it's pretty odd.

It's a Welsh thing. We're all odd.

I think they're deemed offensive regardless of shortening the name. I remembered this story from the BBC last year about a woman who had one in her window and the neighbour reported her to the police - LINK

My mum has on occasion used "half caste" which makes me wince. She also used to refer to the two blokes who owned a local pub as "Darren the queer" and "Ray the gay". Lovely. She doesn't do it malisciously though (not that that's an excuse) but coming from Wales most people have a "the something" after their names.

My mum's friend is still known as "Linda the cafe" despite her not owning a cafe since 1986. There's a family known as "the coals" because the father used to deliver coal so he's "Lyn the coal", his wife is "Sandra the coal" and the kids are Ross and Ryan the coal respectively. There's also "Betty the shop", "Wilf the shop" and "Brenda the shop" although it gets confusing as they all relate to different shops... I digress.

There's also a "Helen the lesbian" we know.

I remember when I was in Hawaii a couple of us had hired a jeep for the day and drove around Oahu. We went to Pearl Harbor, a pineapple plantation and some stunning beaches. On the way back into Waikiki after a very long day we came to a sudden stop as some Japanese tourists just walked into the road in front of us. One of my friends had fallen asleep in the back of the jeep sprung into life and shouted, "Run them over! I've been to Pearl Harbor and I'm ANGRY!" As this was a jeep then they obviously heard him. We just cringed and then drove on with our heads in our hands - except the driver of course.

Lastly, this:

My Step-Mother recently stated that there's no such thing as homosexuality, they're just doing it for attention.

really made me laugh!

After going to Jamaica in 1996, my mum's friend asked if she'd enjoyed herself. My mum replied with "Oh yes, it was lovely. But I didn't expect to see so many black people."

Good question! I genuinely can't remember though.

My dad's a drummer and my uncle was a guitarist and they played in the same band together when they were younger. They would tour a lot and even supported names such as Joe Cocker and Bonnie Tyler back in the day. So I've always been around music from a very young age. My brother is 6 years older and plays guitar so I was always listening to him play The Beatles, Buddy Holly, Jim Croce, Jimi Hendrix, etc. too. I can roughly pin-point discovering other music (being aged about 6 when I discovered the Beach Boys after watching Teen Wolf and my brother got me to sing harmonies while he played Surfin' USA or being around the same age when I first saw The Buddy Holly Story) but I can't remember first time I heard The Beatles.

I've seen Paul McCartney live twice now but obviously not in his hey-day. I might be old but I'm not that old!

I understand that Murder House and Asylum were two different entities dealing with differnt "horrors". But I still think it was all tied up too neatly in Asylum. I felt as if the writers were sitting there for ages trying to think of a way of ending Asylum with a 'wow' or a 'hmmm' aspect but couldn't think of anything so they just packed it all up in a lovely box and put it on a shelf. No questions, no what ifs, no wonderings. I just wanted something to keep me going that's all. It didn't detract from how great the rest of the season was though, far from it.

Man, what show were you watching?

 

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Happy ending? Who actually lived out of the enormous cast -- Lana Banana? Kit got sucked up by the aliens, but he was terminally ill, and both the women he loved had died horribly. Sister Jude got a happy ending of sorts, but it doesn't exactly balance out the years of torment leading up to that. And she did die, like pretty much everyone else.

 

I thought the finale was spectacular. It's such a consciously wacky show, and most of the time, that's what it's all about, the HOLY SHIT stuff where it's just wall to wall craziness. But the final episode had moments in it that were genuinely very, very moving. Jude's scenes were so beautifully shot and acted, it's hard to believe the same show that gave you Ian McShane as a crazy Santa, or a Nazi war criminal climbing into a furnace with the corpse of a dead nun who'd been possessed by Satan could move you to tears.

 

The Name Game sequence from earlier in the season is one of my favourite things for years.

 

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Well...

 

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I didn't actually mean 'happy ever after' as I know no-one was actually 'happy' for the reasons you pointed out. I meant that nothing left you wondering what might've happened.

 

In the first series, you were left wondering about the Harmons in the house as ghosts. What happened to Tate and Constance? It could've had a second series purely on this storyline rather than taking it to the asylum. They were great characters and there was scope.

 

The ending for Asylum though just wrapped everything up and you weren't left wondering about anything. If Kit had just disappeared and they'd not show the bright lights then that could've at least saved it a bit. If Johnny had turned out to be Kit's son rather than Lana's and her son had actually died because she didn't feed him or whatever then that would've been a good twist. I know no-one lived but there was nothing to keep you wondering. There was no-where else for the story to go and it was definitely a one-off series unliked the first one.

 

However, having said that, I totally agree with everything else you said. Every other episode was just brilliant. I didn't even recognise Ian McShane at first and kept wondering where I knew him from. And the whole experi-mental Nazi doctor storyline was brilliant too. I think the AHS writers have a great knack of weaving so many stories together without losing the plot and de-characterising (a term?) the characters. I mean, you don't lose sight of who's who or feel like the character development is lost. You both love and hate Sister Jude, you actually feel sorry for Arden towards the end, you empathise with Grace even though she's a pyscho axe murderer, etc.

 

And yes, The Name Game episode was my favourite too. I'd love to have seen than being filmed.

 

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Also, while writing that I had to look it up it up on Wiki as I'm really bad with names. I love that Jessice Lange, Evan Peters and Sarah Paulson have all been confirmed for season 3 as well as Lily Rabe and Frances Conroy (I love her, I think she's great!) and that the girl who played Violet will be back as well.

 

Really looking forward to seeing what they do with season 3!

 

 

EDIT: I Sky+d Nashville last night as I thought it looked really good and then had a dream involving Hayden Panettiere - I was in a prison choir and was signing Dirrty by Christinas Aguilera while slut dropping with Hayden. Randomly weird.

SoC: I think the problem with the CD swap is people actually being arsed to burn the CDs and post them then Royal fucking Mail will undoubtedly lose the CD anyway so it causes stress and disappointment. The only problem with linking to download sites is that you need to buy the tracks. I want some new tunes too but I can't be arsed paying for them. What about just doing an online album swap? Rather than burning CDs just swap them as MP3s - or is this naughty and contributing to piracy or illegal downloading? I never know what the rules are with this. If it's all good then rather than sending 1 CD and getting 1 back, people would create 1 set of MP3s but have access to everyone else's taking part too. Does this work or am I talking out of my arse? I often do...

Lefty: I'd potentially be up for this but I'm notoriously crap at finding time to sit down and watch an entire film. I've got a LOVEFiLM subscription and I'm sure I'm not getting my money's worth as I never get around to watching the DVD. However, if I could dip in and out of a thread where everyone's discussing the same film then I think it's a good idea.

I loved 5ive, but I haven't got much time for a reunion without the best one. I always got told I looked like Big J when I was about 19, and even today I can do most of the raps on karaoke without looking at the screen. They made him out to be a prick on The Big Reunion, but I remember him coming across as a sound guy in the jungle a few years back. He was a bit of a misery, but in an endearing way, like Jason from the Jungle Cats.

You need to post a pic so I we can judge the resemblance. I also thought he came across as really nice in the jungle and was surprised watching The Big Reunion when they all said he was a bully and stuff. Would've been nice to see him defend himself and give his side of the story but if that's what they were going for then I'm not surprised he refused to appear.

Also, adding to my earlier comment about The Last Leg - I have 2 tickets spare for tomorrow night's recording so if anyone fancies it then let me know.