My TV Schedule (And Two Gay Nays)

In the past I've talked about how I decide whether or not to watch a new TV show -- basically, I need something to pique my interest in it, or else I just happen to watch on a whim. So with the new fall TV season under way, I thought I'd update you on what I'm currently watching (or considering watching, or tried to watch). There have been a few changes in my schedule.

SUNDAY: I've still got "The Simpsons" (which, let's face it, at this point I'll never stop watching) and "Family Guy" (which I can't quite get rid of). With "Desperate Housewives" gone, though, I don't have another Sunday night show. I'm considering trying "666 Park Avenue," only because Vanessa Williams moved from Wisteria Lane to this address. Apparently (as you can guess from the number) there are devilish doings going on. I'll try it.

MONDAY: It used to be a quiet night until Fox moved "Bones" here. I also sampled the debut of "Partners," one of the two new shows with heavy gay content. It co-stars Michael Urie, one of my faves from "Ugly Betty," which is why I watched it. Urie's character is gay and his best friend (played by David Krumholtz) is straight. Their significant others are Brandon "I'm no longer Superman" Routh and Sophia Bush, respectively. I may watch another episode because I really like Urie, but I think they'd be better off if they ditched the truly dull Krumholtz and Routh entirely, and maybe Bush as well.

TUESDAY: At least "Partners" isn't the other big gay sitcom, "The New Normal."

My 2011 In Music

And now that we've moved into 2012, here's a look back at what I downloaded in 2011 -- some of it purchased, some of it, ummm, not -- and what ended up as the 25 most-played songs of my iTunes library.

There are only 271 new tracks in my iTunes since the beginning of 2011. That's down from 317 in 2010. Only 19 were Christmas songs, though, compared to 73 a year earlier. So if you take the holiday songs out of the mix, my musical acquisitions increased. However, a lot of those were downloads of individual songs. Part of the total also comes from a few artists I discovered through various means (such as Twitter or Facebook) who made albums available for free download:

Childish Gambino (a.k.a. Donald Glover) - EP (he's funny on "Community" but he has definite skills in the hip-hop arena; he now has a full-length album out, but I haven't bought it yet)
Loco - No Shade (Mixtape)
Simon Curtis - 8Bit Heart
DISCO PUSHER - Now You Know How The Story Ends (also a mixtape)

Then there were the records released before 2011...

Kings of Leon - Only By The Night
Brandon Flowers - Flamingo
Mika - The Boy Who Knew Too Much
Cee Lo Green - The Lady Killer
RuPaul - Champion
various artists - Christmas Remixed-Holiday Classics Re-Grooved (my only "new" Christmas album)

So that leaves just four albums I got that were actually released in 2011:

Weird Christmas

I was watching the NFL Red Zone channel, the one that switches between every game going on, and it dawned on me: it's Saturday. And it's Christmas Eve. And I'm watching NFL games. There's a bit of a surreal feeling to the day (although this has happened before, of course). And for me, the holiday season itself has been unusual.

Normally I'd be trying to get through my stash of Christmas movies or TV shows (as listed here). This year, I haven't watched even one. The only Christmas shows I've watched were new holiday episodes of "Glee" and "Community." The "Community" episode was excellent, as it basically attacked "Glee" all night. I have listened to every bit of Christmas music in my iTunes, but that was in part because for the last week or so I've been taking my iPod to work and listening to music during the day. Having a job and a commute that's over an hour each way has really cut into my time. Besides the holiday TV problem, and the difficulty I've had in finding time to go to movies, I only added 12 new posts to the blog last month and just nine so far this month -- and a number of those are quick "post a picture and add a brief comment" posts. It's really frustrating.

I think I'd have an easier time if I had bought an iPad or other tablet PC, and gotten a 4G data plan to go with it, instead of the laptop I bought in September. That way my time on the bus and El (at least before it goes underground) could be more easily spent surfing the web, reading Twitter, etc., and that would allow me more time at night to blog and such. The more I think about it, the more I want to buy a tablet, but now I have this perfectly good laptop.

But I digress.

Quick Review: What's Your Number

In "What's Your Number" Anna Faris is a woman who is horrified when she reads an article in a women's magazine stating that a woman who's had 20 lovers will most likely never marry. After all, she'd been with 19 men -- and then ends up having a drunken one-nighter with her ex-boss, a d-bag played by Joel McHale (speaking of whom, I really like "Community" even though I didn't begin watching it until Season 2), hitting the not-so-magical 20 plateau. She decides that one of her old boyfriends must be "the one" and, with the help of her hot neighbor, who has many one-night stands of his own (but no magazine cares whether a man has too many lovers), starts tracking them down. But it's a mostly predictable plot and we all know who ends up together at the end, don't we? But I love Anna Faris in almost anything. And Chris Evans, as the neighbor/man-slut, isn't quite as wooden as he's been in the past (plus, I assumed he filmed this after "Captain America" because his chest hair was starting to grow back in). My grade: C-plus.