What Are You Waiting For?

A lot of people are excited about the beginning of college football season.  Not in my happy little world, where football season is just sort of a lull between basketball seasons.  In my happy little world, fall has nothing to do with sports.  It used to be about beautiful leaves and new jeans, but that will be different this year as I learn to adjust to being a resident of the land of eternal summer.   (I'm not sure how to process the sudden realization I had the other day that my mid-September birthday will hereafter be a "summer birthday.")

Nope, in my world, fall continues to be exciting for a completely different reason.  For me, the countdown is in effect because it's almost time for the fall season premieres on television!  One of my favorite technological developments of the past decade absolutely has to be the DVR.  I have a significant relationship with pop culture, and I can't deny my love for TV and movies, but I don't want to be the kind of girl who turns down real life just to catch certain shows.  The DVR and I bonded during grad school, because I almost always left home before 9am and came home after 10pm, which made normal TV viewing an impossibility.  DVR meant that prime time at my house could be 2am if I wanted!  GENIUS!!!  

Anyway, once I got used to the whole set-it-and-forget-it thing (yep, late-night TV reference), I could never go back.  I still like to have a TV night every now and then, but I prefer to record and watch on a delay because I find that fast-forwarding through the commercials keeps me from wanting a snack six times.  (Have you ever noticed how many food commercials there are?!?  It makes me hungry even when I'm not.)  Since the premieres are coming up, I had to spend some time deciding what I would deem DVR-worthy.  These are critical decisions, people.  Precious recording space must be allotted, and time conflicts must be considered.  Charts and graphs must be made.  Okay, okay... so maybe not.  Anyway, these are the shows that have made my cut so far, in no particular order:

How I Met Your Mother
Big Bang Theory
Bones
Grey's Anatomy
Private Practice
New Girl
2 Broke Girls

I also plan to record the season premiere of 2 and 1/2 Men, mostly to see how the show explains Charlie Sheen's departure and Ashton Kutcher's arrival.  I've heard rumors,  but I HATE spoilers so I won't share them.  I like to be surprised.  Entertainment is not nearly as entertaining if you already know the punchlines to all of the jokes and the outcome of all of the cliffhangers.  Incidentally, learning to avoid spoilers is a key to enjoying DVR use.  If you record a season finale or an NCAA tournament game and you want a chance to enjoy it from beginning to end, I have two words for you:  Facebook blackout.  Your 500 closest friends will ruin it for you every time.   

So, that's how I'll be distracting myself from academic pursuits as of late September.  What are YOU waiting for? 

A Girl's Gotta Eat... AND Get Her Hair Done

I don't know about other people, but I cannot possibly feel at home in a city until I know a few particular things about it.  For example, I need to know where the good coffee is.  I need to know which Target location has a better clothing selection than the others.  I have to know which restaurants are good (of course) but, specifically, I really want to know which ones have half-price wine night and which ones have 2-for-1 appetizer night and what sorts of special deal-of-the-night offers there are and all of that.  I mean, who really wants to pay full restaurant mark-up for wine??? 

I knew these things about Louisville.  60 West alternated half-price bottles of wine on Wednesdays and Fridays with half-price martinis on Thursdays and Fridays.  Avalon had an entire Girls' Night Out menu if you sat inside instead of on the patio... and that menu was just as yummy, at nearly 60% off the cost of ordering dinner from the standard menu.  These are the bits of wisdom that separate the locals from the visitors, and I just can't have that "I really live here" feeling until I know stuff. 

Discovering which salons are safe to go to and which ones you should run screaming from are definitely key pieces of information for any girl who doesn't love the troll doll look, and these things unfortunately must be learned from other women's mistakes.  If you don't actually know very many other women yet, you pretty much can't get a haircut without risking months of Fraggle-hair.  If the inevitable phase of new-girl-in-town-friendlessness doesn't knock one's self-esteem down a notch or two, Fraggle-hair will, and scaring people with an accidental K$sha impression isn't going to be conducive to meaningful socialization anyway.       

In other words, don't judge me for googling restaurant deals and asking strangers for the names of the hair stylists while I should be writing some deep dissertationy thoughts.  Research is research, and a girl's gotta eat... AND get her hair done.  ;)