"Words, words, words."

Movies: None.

Television/Streaming: Watched Episode 4 of Buffy, "Teacher's Pet." That's the one with the substitute teacher who turns into a praying mantis and she invites Xander to her house to work on a "project," which, ew, was bad enough without the Monster of the Week bit added into it. Willow calls Xander's house and his mom apparently knows he went to the teacher's house to do this project, but did no one find this odd? Scott said, It was a different time. The episode aired in 1997, we knew at least about Mary Kay Letourneau (although, now that I looked up when she was actually ARRESTED for her crimes, it was in March 1997, the same month that these Buffy episodes were airing. So maybe it was a more "innocent" time, at least for the public). Anyway, that aside, the episode was okay. Xander is annoying, as always; and obviously, what teen boy who finds his teacher hot wouldn't be flattered by that attention? But still, he irritates me.

Penultimate episode of Taskmaster. I will be sad to see this crew go. I say this every week, but it's true. Jason and Stevie are very funny working together, and I love how Jason has gotten former contestants to do things for him. I need ALL the outtakes from this season; I'm sure they're hilarious.

Books: I finished Eve's Hollywood by Eve Babitz. I quite enjoyed her breathless retellings of various locations and LA folks, even though I don't recognize some of them. I want to read some of her other books.

I also read North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud. I don't remember how this got on my list. One of the stories in the book (The Crevasse) was kind of familiar, so maybe it was posted somewhere and I read it and then added the collection to my TBR. That was the one story I liked, except for the animal death in it. It had a lot of atmosphere in the old Lovecraftian tradition.

The rest of the stories were - I'm just gonna copy from my Goodreads:

The good: what little there is of it. At first, it was interesting to see a collection, written by a man, where many of the men are garbage. Yeah, you get 'em, I thought.
[ . . .]
The bad: all of the women are garbage, too. Now, some fan is gonna come on this and say, You missed the point. All of the humans are the real monsters (with the exception of one of the stories where there IS an actual lake monster). But between that and the white supremacist story (S.S.), where only the Black characters speak in dialect, I'm side-eying Ballingrud here a bit. The stories are set in New Orleans; you're telling me the white kid they're trying to recruit for the Neo-Nazi gang doesn't speak in some sort of dialect, too? Come on, man.

There is also a lot of animal death across these stories, and one suicide (method is described, as it is part of the story).

Anyway, I don't think I'll be seeking out any more of his work.

So many folks singing this guy's praises and maybe I just don't get it . . .

Currently reading The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag, the second Flavia de Luce mystery by Alan Bradley.

Gaming: a bit of Pikmin Bloom, but I haven't been outside walking much lately, as it's too hot. I downloaded Steam so that I could get some of my games back on the laptop, and I played some Super Puzzle Platformer Deluxe, which I've obviously had for a LONG time (I think it came out in 2013?). Sometimes they have free games and this might have been one of them. It's like Tetris, but you play a little 2D creature that has to shoot the blocks as they come down and there are other pitfalls. So, short levels because once you die, you have to start again, but quite engrossing; I kept playing levels for over an hour yesterday.

Later in the evening, I finally fired up Virtue's Last Reward, the second Zero Escape game, for the 3DS. I had purchased it a while ago from eBay, received it, checked that it worked, and then promptly forgot about it, hah. I played 2.5 hours last night though and I'm going to pick it up again later.

Steam has a bit sale right now, until July 10. Stardew Valley is 7 bucks and change. I'm debating whether I should buy it . . .

Movies: None.

Television/Streaming: Watched episode 3 of Buffy ("Witch"). That's the one about the cheerleading squad and all the chaos that ensues there because of Amy - well, her mom. It was entertaining but I called that it was the mom doing this shit behind the scenes before any of the main characters did. Also, I was annoyed when they needed "eye of newt" for that one spell and they dissected a frog. For one, not the same thing, and for two, eye of newt is not a literal eye, it's a term for mustard seed.

Also watched Episode 7 of Farscape ("PK Tech Girl"). That's the one where they find the old abandoned Peacekeeper ship and the tech, Gilina, and she and Crichton have a "moment" (or really, a series of moments as they're all trying not to die, heh). I liked this one. I really like the otherworldly creatures on this show and how they look. The Sheyangs remind me of Battletoads dropped in a nuclear waste dump.

Taskmaster is almost over for this series; only two more episodes. I love this group. They are hilarious and Jason continues to be a chaos gremlin.

Books: I finished Persuasion. This is the second time that I have read this work that I recall. The first time I logged it was ten years ago. I really loved it then and I still do. Despite the time period being vastly different, I think there are some universal feelings there that could be extrapolated into the modern age. So many of us have broken up with folks we still had feelings for, and even years might have gone by and you see them again, and it brings up all of those feelings with a force to steal your breath. Anne's family ignores her even though she does have important things to say; her dad is a shallow man.

Currently reading Eve's Hollywood by Eve Babitz. I read a review some time ago comparing Joan Didion (who I really like) and Eve Babitz, who I had not heard of. Apparently her works are having a renaissance in recent years and she definitely has a more breeze style than Didion, but that's not an insult by any means.