By far, the largest amount of images of any one actor on my hard drive belong to the amazing and brilliant Aaron Paul. Sure, there are also plenty of Bryan Cranston, and when you consider that I have been writing the Rewatch Breaking Bad blog for almost a year now, this really is not very surprising.
Aaron Paul was almost not cast as Jesse Pinkman because Vince Gilligan thought he was too pretty. I forget exactly where I picked up that nugget of info – maybe one of the podcasts, I am guessing.
How does one even begin to talk about this character and the actor who brought this character to life?
We first meet Jesse as he flees the bedroom of a MILF while the DEA raids the house next door, where his cooking partner Emilio was cooking meth. Walter White is waiting in the car and sees Jesse fall off the roof, they lock eyes, and it turns out they know each other – Jesse was a former chemistry student in Walt’s class.
Walter turns up at Jesse’s house later that day and makes him an offer he can’t refuse – to become partners and cook meth. He can’t refuse because, as Walt says “Either that…or I turn you in.”
In case you have never seen Breaking Bad, here is one of my favourite clips from the pilot.
It was obvious to anyone watching the show that Aaron Paul was giving an incredible performance. Over the 5 seasons and 62 episodes of the show, the character of Jesse went on an incredible journey and we were all along for the ride. Fans of the show grew to love Jesse, and by extension, they also grew to love the actor who played him.
Aaron Paul won 3 very well deserved Emmy awards for his role of Jesse Pinkman, for the episodes “Half Measures” “End Times” and “Confessions”.
When the show ended, Aaron Paul decided he wanted to do something fun, and he took the lead role in Need for Speed. It was the first time I went to see a movie that involved car races, and both The Other Half and I truly enjoyed this movie.
Since then I have seen a few more movies that Aaron Paul has been involved with and I am looking forward to several that are coming out soon – most notably Eye in the Sky with Helen Mirren, Triple 9, and the 9th life of Louis Drax.
Sometimes I am well behind the times here in Snoskredland – I just discovered the awesomeness of SBS on Demand. I will like to point out two TV shows – one older show which I saw back in 2014 – one which is brand new and starts airing this weekend but will likely be available via On Demand – plus one documentary available via this service and highly recommend them to you.
Rectify
This show is one of the slowest paced shows I have ever watched but I have loved every single second of it. Aden Young is incredible as Daniel, a man who has served 19 years on death row and now DNA evidence sees him released.
How does Daniel return to the world after a 19 year absence? How does Daniel and his family deal with his return to the home town where people still think he is a murderer?
Click here to view Rectify via SBS on Demand. See Rectify on IMDB here.
Room 101
Starting this Saturday night, you can spend some time with the awesome Paul Mcdermott via this new SBS show, Room 101. I know nothing at all about this show, but if Paul McDermott is involved, I am totally THERE for it. The synopsis says –
Laugh out loud as Paul McDermott finds out what winds up your favourite Aussie celebrities, as they try to persuade Paul to banish their pet hates into the Room 101 vault.
I’m sure this will end up @ SBS on demand as well. You might want to just browse it and see if there is anything you want to watch there.
24 Hours In Emergency
This show currently airs on SBS at 8:30pm on Wednesday nights. It is worth tuning in to see it, and there are a couple of episodes presently available via On Demand. Each show in this series covers 24 hours in the emergency department of Kings College Hospital in the UK.
Hospital emergency departments can be fascinating places to visit. The show allows us to take a deeper look, get to know some of the staff and see the things they have to deal with on a daily basis, meet the patients and hear some of their stories and views on life.. this is a deeply touching documentary which will put a smile on your face and sometimes cause salt water to fall from your eyebulbs. BYO tissues.
Do yourself a favour and watch the episode titled “Boys Don’t Cry” – the nurses truly shine in this episode. Click here to view 24 Hours In Emergency via SBS on Demand
7/7: One day in London
Today marks 10 years since the 7/7 terror attacks in London. This documentary is utterly heart breaking. There are some quite graphic descriptions of what happened to some of the people. At one point there is the story of a handbag of one of the survivors – that was the most upsetting story to me, especially when it turned out the family did not know what had happened to their loved one for a full 7 days.
I would not usually suggest a show to you which I found deeply upsetting but I feel like it is important to remember those who lost their lives and to hear the stories of the people who survived, the stories of the people who did not, and the stories of those who went in to help. I can guarantee you will need tissues for this one.
Click Here to view 7/7: One day in London on ABC iview.
Over to you –
If you do watch any of these shows or documentaries, drop back and let me know what you think. Also let me know what you are watching lately in the comments. :)
This week, I’ve completed the posts for episodes 507 and 508 over at Rewatch Breaking Bad, though the posts will not publish until mid-July.
These episodes were the last ones my very excellent work friend got to see. Cancer stole her from us in early 2013, just a few months before season 5b, as they called it, began to air.
Oh, how she loved this show. I think she loved it even more than I did, which is saying a LOT. Sometimes, in the wee hours of the night when we were working together, we would speculate, posit theories, imagine the most insane and crazy storylines, and consider the vastness of the Breaking Bad universe.
We would talk about the show that existed, moments that happened, what our favourite scenes and lines were. The two of us could speak many of the lines out loud from memory. I knew exactly which lines to say to her which would leave her giggling, and she knew which lines to say for me.
I remember one time when the phones were quiet, we spoke for an uninterrupted by phone calls hour, just about the clouds in some scenes, and the weather in Albuquerque, and how it always seemed to put on a show, for the show. We talked about how Albuquerque had become a character of the show and how it gave the show such a unique look.
I also remember we talked about Mark Margolis and how amazing his acting was, because his character Uncle Tio was unable to speak but you saw everything you needed to know in his eyes, and he had this bell that he would ring.
We both loved the character of Mike, especially the scene that began with him shorting out electricity with helium balloons. We talked about a spin off show that could involve him. There had already been some talk about a spin off on the podcasts – which we had both listened to.
We both loved Jesse as a character. We loved where season four had taken his character. We loved his involvement in the major capers of season 5a. We also loved his outfits.
The final eight episodes were so perfect, she would have loved every single minute of them. She would have loved to discuss each episode with me. How much I would have loved to discuss them with her!
How deeply thrilled she would have been to see Better Call Saul, the spin off show that appeared after Breaking Bad ended. She would have particularly loved the Mike Centric episode – Five-O – which will hopefully land Jonathan Banks a nomination for best supporting actor when the Emmy nominations are announced on July 16th, and hopefully he will win his first Emmy award at the 67th Emmy Awards due to be held in September this year.
My friend is greatly missed, by me, and by many others who adored her.
It seems from my internet readings that many people were left a bit disappointed by the Mad Men finale. Sure, not to the same extent that people were disappointed by the Dexter finale, but disappointed all the same. Sometimes people can’t find the words to express why, but I think I worked out what the problem might be..
Warning, there may be spoilers ahead, so I’m putting in a continue reading for those who have not seen the show – you’ll have to click through to see the rest of this post. Continue reading →
It has been an eventful couple of weeks here in Snoskredland. So what is happening around here? I’m going to do a quick rundown of a few things we’ve been up to..
Eating: Loads of vegies. The Other Half said to me that if I steamed Brussels Sprouts for him, along with some carrots and cauliflower, he would eat them. So we’ve been having a huge bowl of vegies alongside some of our meals these past two weeks. I’ve discovered that I love Brussels sprouts myself. We went through 1kg of them in the last two weeks. I also get to put in some of my faves, like broccoli and mushrooms which he will not eat..
Loving: Having our wall art back up again. It has been freaking me out a little, which is odd coming from someone who sits with a full size skeleton in her lounge room. But it has been so long since we’ve had these things on our walls that it is taking some getting used to. I’ll put some of our wall art pics through this post.
Hating: “It’s a Mitsi” – no, teevee ad people, saying one line over and over does not create a catch phrase. Plus, way to go on the research front. Apparently there were ecstasy tablets named Mitsi a few years ago.
Watching: The final season of Mad Men. Season 6 of The Good Wife. Veep – I LOVE Veep! The new season of Deadliest Catch. Australia’s Next Top Model – I am a huge fan of Brittany.
Preparing: 8kg of chicken, cut up, foodsaved, and frozen in the space of an hour on Monday afternoon. It was $5.99 a kg, which is over half the price we normally pay. I have 3 bags for chicken and bacon pasta, 8 bags of chicken pieces for stir fries or Honey and Mustard chicken, plus several bags of chicken steaks for pepper chicken or chicken and sweetcorn soup.
Snacking: on carrots, and many apples I have in the fridge. Dawn is right with what she said in this post – be prepared – I find that if I have snacks and other items already prepped, I’m much less likely to eat things I shouldn’t.
Planning: Menus on a fortnightly basis.
Mourning: the loss of photos and other data – A bad thing happened to our server box.. :( It is way too technical to explain how we have it set up but I will give you a quick and basic overview. The Other Half uses a RAID array which is essentially 5 hard drives set up to work together, storing all our movies, TV shows, and photos.
We do have a lot of DVDs and blu-rays, in particular a lot of tv shows. Rather than store them on the DVDs like many people do, we took to keeping them digitally because we have setups that allow us to watch them on our tv screens without having to handle the DVDs at all. Better for the DVDs, longterm, and better for us to binge watch.
It has been fantastic to have it as a virtual library where you can flick through and pick what you feel like at the time. The backup to the virtual library is, of course, the DVDs. Except the photos, which we usually back up to a DVD every so often.. and it had been a while. Since 2008. :(
So of course the universe would choose this moment to have not one, not two, but THREE of the hard drives fail. When they fail, they try to backup all the information to the other disks, and they managed to do that with the tv shows, the movies, but not the photos.
We’ve lost quite a lot of images, and The Other Half has been kicking himself for not having backups, etc. I don’t see the point in doing that – it is done, they are lost, we have to build a bridge and get over it. Most importantly, we need to make a new plan for storing photos going forward.
Last week I had the flu, and I spent a couple of nights staying up so the other half could get an uninterrupted sleep, so my body clock is all out of whack again. Even so, we planned a few things for Saturday. I wanted to go over to Berry to take some photos of the place I’m planning to go to in the event of the Zombie Apocalypse, and I also wanted to drop into haven and space and Candleberries – two great shops you should not miss if you ever go to Berry..
First we dropped into haven and space where we picked up a replacement coffee mug for one we had broken, and two new designs. These mugs are gorgeous and they last a very long time. Priced at $4.95 per mug, they are also great value. The candles pictured were $4.50 each.
As it was past two, we decided to get a snack as well. We didn’t want too much as we were going out to dinner at 7. haven and space have opened up a cafe behind their new store called Sakana and I’d eaten there before when family was visiting, so we dropped in for a bowl of chips and a couple of iced coffees.
The iced coffees arrived in these magnificent tall glasses with my favorite colour blue around the rim. If you are reading this post here on my blog, see how that blue matches my blue background colour? :) ——> over there?
We dropped into Candleberries and picked up some wax melts and a new candle for The Other Half. Why yes, that melt set is scented salted caramel popcorn, and it does smell exactly like that. There’s also Home Sweet Home which will stay here and Black Cherry which will go off to my aunt in the next package along with the salted caramel popcorn. By the time she receives it, her cancer treatment will be nearly finished.
On the way back to the car we spotted these cows in a window. It is lucky the shop was not open, is all I can say.
We went out to dinner at our usual Chinese restaurant with my parents, my Uncle and his wife, and two other friends my parents know from work. When we arrived at the bowling club there was quite an impressive band setup including a sound desk and a proper drum kit which said “The Villains” on it.. Little did we know at the time what an amazing performance would come to us as a surprise.
The club was absolutely packed with people – I think it is the last weekend of School Holidays here and it is always packed in school holidays but not usually to this extent. My uncle reported back to us after one of his smoke breaks that he was talking to someone outside and that they had said this particular band had people coming from places somewhat far away – they had groupies following them.
Who knew Darth Vader was also a musician?
After dinner we could not get a seat out in the club, every seat was taken. We ended up in their function room off to the back, and we could see the band members in costume. They took to the stage a little after 8:30 and we all headed out into the room to see the band kick off with a performance of an Icehouse song called Walls which sounded more like a Pink Floyd song, it was just amazing. The sound setup was brilliant, the music was incredible, and the band was engaging and captivating.
The singer was dressed as The Riddler and he had a microphone stand with a question mark in it. I believe we had The Penguin as the keyboard player, The Joker as the bass player, The Devil as the drummer, and the most notable mention goes to Darth Vader as the lead guitarist. His costume must have been a total sweatbox, but he never removed any part of it, and he played in it for over 2 hours – with a short break in the middle. Plus instead of heading directly outside on his break, he took off into the crowd to let them pose for photos with him – and his lightsaber.
I have for you a short video clip of the Darth Vader guitarist. :) This was taken during Down Under by Men At Work. You will notice he is marching, despite being wrapped in much quilted fabric. This is some serious costume dedication right here.
When they took a break, we talked about leaving because one or two had an early morning the next day, but we all decided this band was too good to leave. And in the latter half of their show, even The Other Half got up and danced which happens so rarely I cannot recall another such incident!
I completely understand why they have groupies following them, and I could see myself doing the same thing. They are due back at our club in August and we will definitely be there. None of the videos on their website do true justice to this band. You have to be there in person.
When they left the stage we were among the very vocal crowd shouting for an encore, and they came back on with two band members in white coats and performed “She Blinded Me with Science” – a bizarre choice but we all loved it.
The final song they played was Underneath the Radar by Underworld, a song I have always disliked, but they made me love it. And that speaks many volumes. Most of the music was songs from the early 80’s and music I had on records, back in the days of records, music we played on Saturday mornings to clean the house, and music my friends and I used to create dances for.
They played music from bands like Depeche Mode, Madness, Split Enz, the ever wonderful and unforgettable “don’t you forget about me” by Simple Minds made famous by The Breakfast Club movie, and even a song from The Cure! It was one of my favourites too, Inbetween Days. There were a couple of newer songs, most notably Pretty Vegas which I knew from Rockstar: INXS and Mr Brightside by The Killers.
By the time we got home, I was so tired I went to bed at a reasonable hour for the first time this week. And can you believe, entry to the bowling club is free. We pay the tiny amount of $11 each year to be a member, and that allows the member many benefits, such as using the boat ramp, the courtesy bus, and various other awesomes.
I got sucked in by the Facebook games. Seriously, who the hell am I, and where did Snoskred go? :)
It isn’t that bad – I really love Farm Heroes Saga but I flat out refuse to pay for anything. If I can’t get through the level with my own talent and skill and the occasional extra they give me just for visiting every day, then I’ll keep trying until I can get through. Sometimes it takes me several days to pass a level. I don’t usually play it during the day – I like to play is around 9:30pm during my mind wind down time..
Bunnings Bits
Today we went to the local Bunnings store to pick up some plasterboard. The Other Half is going to make a ceiling in his man cave shed this weekend. We picked up the ute from my parents place and I saw rain off in the distance but it looked like it was going in another direction.
So we drove over, parked in the trade bay next to the plasterboard, locked the car and went off to find assorted sundries like Liquid Nails and gap filler. Having got those, we paid for everything we wanted at the trade desk, and wandered over to load 15 sheets of plasterboard into the ute, while a staff member stood there watching us instead of helping.
This loading job seemed to take a very long time and by the time we’d loaded all the sheets in, suddenly it was raining outside. So I was tasked with finding a tarp. Several more unhelpful staff members sent me off to incorrect places. The very worst was the bloke I asked who sent me right down to the other end of the store – only to discover that we were standing in the aisle where the tarps lived when I asked him! I did find an excellent tarp in the end.
When looking for rope in the ute, I discovered two octopus straps. I thought these had been outlawed and banned years ago. But today they were perfect for our purpose – it wasn’t until we undid them that we nearly killed ourselves.
Book Bobs
My e-reader ran out of battery the other day. It has been a long time since I have picked up a physical book. I picked up one of the heavier books that I own – Aircraft Accident Analysis: Final Reports by James Walters and Robert Sumwalt – and almost right away I remembered why I love my tablet book reader so much now. It is light. I just tap it to turn the page. It can stand up by itself due to the case I own, and I can read in the dark.
Blogging for Books
One of the bloggers I read linked to Blogging for Books. I headed over to check it out and discovered that Aussies can participate via ebooks, so I signed up. I also joined up over at Netgalley.
You might see the occasional – or even regular – book review(s) here on the blog. My first book from Blogging for Books is Trapped Under the Sea by Neil Swidey. I am really looking forward to reading this. As the weather for the weekend looks not optimal, I might spend some serious time reading.
I am not a diver myself but I have read several books about diving now and find them to be oddly fascinating. There are two I would strongly recommend if you want to give a new kind of book a try. The first is Diving into Darkness which is also known as Raising the Dead in some places..
I picked this book up at the $5 book store purely because the cover grabbed me, then I turned it over and the blurb made me want to read the book right then and there. I took it home and read it from cover to cover, only stopping for necessary bodily functions when they could no longer be ignored. That is the kind of reader I am. This is also why I limit the books I read at bedtime if I have to be somewhere the next day. :)
Australian Story did a show “To Boldly Go” about this diving story back in 2005 but truly, the book is amazing, and I would recommend reading that first if you can source it. I especially loved how the author explained diving so I – a non diver – could understand it.
The second diving book I would recommend is Shadow Divers – which in researching for this post, I discovered Peter Weir is involved with making a movie about it, though it is still in development.
While I was creating my profile at Netgalley, I wrote something which I thought I would share here with you as well. Here it is :)
The story of Snoskred and books –
I have been reading books for over 35 years now. Favourite books when I was a child included
– Enid Blyton – in particular the Faraway Tree books
– Elinor Brent-Dyer – the Chalet School books
– E.L Konigsberg – From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler started me dreaming about running away to the local Museum.
Favourites now include –
– Jane Austen – these are my relaxing books, I read them when I have to get up on time the next day.
– John Grisham – The early works, not such a fan of the newer stuff. I have good (but lengthy so won’t bore you with that here) reasons.
– Stephen King – The favourite would be The Dead Zone, followed by The Stand, and then a multitude of books fight it out for 3rd place.
– John J Nance – His aviation thrillers are amazing, can’t put down rollercoaster rides, I *highly* recommend this author if you have not read anything by him.
Other names that appear often on my bookshelves and in my e-reader include – Michael Crichton – Robin Cook – Anne Rice – Michael Connelly – Jeff Lindsay – Agatha Christie – Jodi Picoult – Thomas Harris – and many, many more.
Non fiction my interests are biographies, aviation – in particular crash investigation books – true crime as long as there are no scary photos – books about science or going to the moon, and other books which have come to me as a surprise eg- books about diving, submarines, interesting history books..
My book tastes are wide and varied. I’ll read anything once but if I like it, I’ll read it again and again, and seek out other books by the same author.
This post has been sitting in my drafts folder since November 2014 and I finally got around to completing it. I love me an internet generator! Here are some of the more awesome ones –
Goth-O-Matic – my all time favourite generator – create your own darkly gothic poem! You get to choose from drop down options.
Recently here on the blog, we have seen a lot of very serious scam posts. However, I will like you to know that baiting the scammers can be a fun thing as well..
Today I have a blast from the past to share with you – please click through and read this blog post from October 2007 –
