Never Mind the Buzzcocks

I'm lazing about my apartment this afternoon just watching Never Mind the Buzzcocks. I SHOULD go out for a run...and I might still do, but I've got a birthday party in a couple hours so I need to do it soon...

I bought this back in 2001, I've still never read/listened to it...

Over the winter I got into watching NMtB on YouTube (oh thank you, people that find happiness from uploading old episodes of a show I have no other way of seeing). NMtB is a bit special to me because way back in 2001 I lived in London for about three months for a study abroad program, and it remains one of the best times of my life. I often wish I'd stayed on longer, but who knows how that would've affected the rest of my life... Anyway, in that time there were two shows that I found and loved to watched. One was The Dave Gorman Collection (which maybe I'll post about another time) and Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Looking at the series dates, I believe I watched season 8. I totally developed a crush on Sean Hughes and ended up buying a couple of his novels. Once I found it, I didn't miss one for the rest of my time there, but of course I couldn't watch it anymore once I'd gotten home (I don't think torrenting TV shows was that big a thing yet...if even a thing at all...so that wasn't an option).

This is where I lived!! I take a walk by it whenever I visit London.

[Sort of related, I actually ended up getting to see We Know Where You Live, Live! hosted by Eddie Izzard on the last day of my time in London (I'd accidentally booked my flight home a day too late but being a HUGE Eddie Izzard fan, I was very happy once I'd see an ad for this show). Phil Jupitus, who is a team captain on NMtB performed that night and did the most hilarious impression of Eddie Izzard.]

Anyway, I'd mostly forgotten about this show until a few months back when I had some friends over to watch Doctor Who (yes, it's taken over my life), I wanted to show them some Who-related videos on YouTube and one of my friends saw a video in the "related" section that had Richard Ayode on it that he wanted to put on. It was an episode of NMtB that he was guest-hosting. And it was bloody hilarious. (Another side note, it's what got me to finally watch The IT Crowd which I ended up loving.) After they left, I decided to watch some more NMtB as I saw there were tons of episodes up on YouTube. Being me, I needed to start from the beginning. I blew through the first 5 seasons in the following week or so, but then fell off. I think because I'd started during rerun season and new TV had come back on.

"Have you tried turning it off and on again?"

So this afternoon, my Netflix was not connecting for some reason so I just put on YouTube on my TV and decided to watch some more. I think I'll finish season 6 today.

After all of that, maybe I should explain the show! It's basically a music quiz show, but points aren't always awarded fairly and no one actually wins anything. The first 17 seasons are hosted by this guy Mark Lamarr, who I think is a comedian but I don't know anything of him outside of this. There are two team captains, Phil Jupitus and Sean Hughes, also comedians. These three also have an amazing amount of music knowledge. Each episode has four guests, two for each team, sometimes comedians but mostly musical performers. Some guests include Suggs, Boy George, Billie Piper (omg she was around 17 at the time and ADORABLE and long before her stint on Doctor Who), Lemmy, Billy Bragg, Adam Ant and a ton of other mostly-British people I've never heard of, but many of whom are quite funny. (Eventually, Simon Amstell becomes the host followed by a bunch of guest hosts, also Sean Hughes leaves around season 10, replaced by Bill Bailey, who've eventually replaced by Noel Fielding, also from The IT Crowd.)

There are a bunch of different categories, like the one where they have to perform (without lyrics) the intros to famous songs or the one where the host says a lyric and the team needs to say the next line. There's another round where they show an old video focusing on a particular performer, then they bring out five people and you have to guess which one is the one from the video. (Ugh that description is so poorly written, I hope that makes sense.) Oh and the one where you have to figure out the lyrics to a particularly hard-to-understand song. That one is great and always makes me think of my mom who always talked about how she had no idea what the lyrics were to some of her favorite songs, particularly with The Rolling Stones.

The show is apparently incredibly popular over there and has made it to 27 seasons! So far there hasn't been any new episodes in 2014, but supposedly there's a new regular host in line for the next series. I would really like it if this show lasted forever. I've got quite a way to go to catch up though, so I'm not worried of running out just yet...

So that was all a long way to tell you, hey, I like this show called Never Mind the Buzzcocks. If you're a big music buff, or just an anglophile, you might like it. Check it out. :P

Weddings and Pull-ups!

So last post I mentioned that I got depressed trying on dresses for a wedding. BUT I didn't mention that I'd found an AWESOME dress for that wedding that fit pretty nicely! Thanks H&M! Granted I had to get a fairly large size...largest I've ever had to get...BUT I will comfort myself in the knowledge that sizes are weird there and I even had to go smaller on a different dress I tried on.

Anyway, I ended up buying a couple dresses in a similar style because they fit me well. Though I do hope to be losing a bit of weight eventually. Guess I'll just have to wear these dresses soon. :)

So here's the dress!

Totally sucking it in.

 Twas a very comfortable dress as well. This was the last wedding of the year for me (phew). I have seriously been to a minimum of one wedding a year for the last 10 years, with many years have 2-3 (I had three this year). Insane. But I do LOVE weddings (for the most part), so I don't mind. I mostly just mind how much money I have to spend, since as a woman, I have to double-dip with the bridal showers too. Being single, this shit adds up.

Standard wedding selfie. But with beer.

So today I did another 2 miles run/walk this morning. Yay! I did have Chinese food for dinner last night, which isn't the healthiest, but I didn't follow up with cookies or some other snack. Just another couple glasses of water. I've been doing really well drinking a lot of water the last couple weeks. Pretty much like two liters a day. Which makes me get up more often to pee, so more walking! haha

More like the alcohol.

I also am trying to do this pull-up thing program thing which started with 5 sets (though I could only do 4) of negative chin-ups (cuz I can't even do ONE real one yet). After the first time I did it, my arms were INSANELY sore for days! It hurt just to get dressed! So I waited like five days (instead of two like the guy on YouTube said), but then when I tried to do my second day, I felt a pain in my shoulder that hurt like a real pain, not like an exercise soreness, so I'm waiting a couple more days. But I've always wanted to be able to do a pull-up (or even a chin-up) so I really want to try to stick to this.

Trying

So recently I had to try on some dresses for a wedding and in the process became incredibly depressed about it. I swear dressing room lighting is the absolute worst in the world for feeling good about yourself.

I'm definitely the heaviest I've ever been in my life. (And to think, I thought I was fat back in college when I was 30 lbs. lighter. So dumb.) I know it's partially age, the older you get, the harder it is to lose weight. Plus you (or at least I) get tired more easily. But it's mostly the fact that I'm so god damned lazy! Too lazy to cook healthy meals, too lazy to burn off calories. Oh and I LOVE TV. I know everyone does but man, do I. One of my BFFs always jokes that I watch EVERYTHING (this is untrue of course but an indication of how much TV I watch). Even I don't understand where I find the time.

But anyway, that was a depressing week in dressing rooms but it's motivated me more than I've been in ages. A year or so ago I ran three days a week for at least five months, but I think more. Once that winter hit, though, I basically stopped. Now I run like once every few months. But no more!! (I hope.) Today I ran/walked for the third time since last Monday.

One reason to run. This view!

And I'm trying hard to cut back on the food intake. It's hard to say "no" to yourself. And when you're in a city full of delicious food all around... And when the main form of socialization consists of dinners and boozing... And when you've got one hell of a sweet tooth... More excuses. But I'm trying.

So I heard blogging helps. You tell people what you're up to and don't want to be embarrassed when you don't do what you say. So we'll see. But considering I'm too lazy to blog about FUN stuff, I don't know. But I'll try.


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Location:21st Ave,New York,United States