Things I have Been Watching That Are Not Movies

Jessie Spano looks on

We don't just watch movies at Signal Watch HQ.  If I'm being candid, re-employment and other things have reduced my time for movie watching.  But I'm also watching a movie or two per week for the PodCast, plus editing and posting, all of which takes time.  And I do write up stuff when I watch a movie.

This post is not your opportunity to recommend shows to me (please don't), and I am not telling you anything is essential and must be watched.  Sometimes we just say "hey, this is what we watched" when it comes to TV.

So what have we been up to on the TV side of the spectrum?

Sports

Chicago Cubs Baseball 

This is a mistake in 2022.  Since the Ricketts got their World Series win in 2016, burning through all the Cubs karma and possibly all of that for the Planet Earth to secure a win, the team has disintegrated in spectacular fashion.  They're usually 4th in the NL Central.  Which is like not being the absolute worst team in the worst division in baseball.  

Cubs gonna cub.

Austin FC Futbol

I was a massive skeptic of Austin's foray into Major League Soccer, but we got a team that started in 2021, and I've watched about 80% of their matches on TV or online.  I have not yet been to the stadium.  I now follow the team and try to make sense of a sport that I've struggled to grok in its complexity for my entire adult life.

It's still fun!  I'm kinda into it.

Travel/ Sports Report: Cubs at Astros May 29. 2019

The last two years, we went to Chicago for Cubs games, but due to a few shifting things this year, no can do.  However, The Cubs came to Houston for inter-league play (The Astros used to play them all the time when the 'Stros were in the National League before deciding to mostly just play The Rangers in the American League).  We'd lost two to Houston before this evening's game, and Houston is excellent this season, but you gotta believe!

Where in the World is The Signal Watch? Chicago 2018

the coolest kids you know.  I am moping because my Cubbies just lost, 3-2 to the Reds.

This is our second year in a row to travel to The Windy City to take in some Cubs games (and rumor has it, we're doing it again next year).  It's no secret I don't just cheer for The Cubs, but quite like Chicago.  I also happen to work for a university in Chicago (from home), so I'm up here a lot.

Cubs Win 2016 World Series

Wednesday night, November 2nd, the Chicago Cubs broke their 108 year streak and won Game 7 of the 2016 World Series.  At this point, you have no doubt heard about this win and cannot have missed the jokes and media bits surrounding the long drought for the Cubbies over the past, oh, fifty years or so.

The Cubs' 2016 season was one for the record books, with individual players earning honors and a win record that's going to be discussed for a generation or more.  At some point, books and movies will memorialize this team and this season, and those adaptations will end in what will seem to be hokey, melodramatic fashion as the series stretches to seven games, then feature a Game 7 that ties up with an outstanding hit by Davis of the Cleveland Indians, then is delayed from going into the 10th inning by a rainstorm.  A speech will be given in a players-only meeting by Jason Heyward, a phenomenal outfielder who had a terrible batting slump, but who never, ever gave up.  And, the final play will be a showcase for the same meticulous defense we've seen all season by Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo.

As was being joked about on social media with some friends, it could have only felt more like a Disney movie if they'd needed to sub in a charming 12 year old girl as the closer with her golden retriever behind the plate to catch.

I didn't grow up watching baseball - our family sport was basketball when it was anything.  But I've followed the Cubs since middle school, more off than on, thanks to the broadcasts of WGN out of Chicago.

Cubs Win!!! Clinch 2016 National League Division Series

Javier Baez pic from Chicago Tribune

If my movie and TV watching has slowed, the Cubs have been playing the San Francisco Giants for the National League Division Series, and that's taken up some time.  This evening they won the game 6-5, winning the series in four of five possible games.

I'm tired as I stayed up to watch the Cubs lose in the 13th inning last night, giving up in the middle of the 13th as it was past 1:30 AM.

But, tonight, when it looked like all was lost, in the 9th inning they came back with 4 runs and won the game!

I've selected a pic of Javier Baez, 2nd base for the Cubs, as he's been a superhuman this whole season, and his powers seem to just be growing in the post-season.  The guy is incredible on both offense and defense.

All right. Bed time for me.  Go Cubs!

Here's the link to the Tribune story on the game.  The game was one for the ages.  Seriously.

This was about an hour after the game ended in San Francisco...

Most of this crowd still here cheering. pic.twitter.com/i9DcbhnAhX

— Colleen Kane (@ChiTribKane) October 12, 2016

Baseball Season Begins! For Some Reason I Now Care About This.

Monday (today) is the opening day of the 2016 season of Major League Baseball.  In many, many prior years, I have not noticed or cared.  But in the past few years, I have paid a lot more attention to baseball, and it hit a tipping point this year for some reason.  As I type this, it's the bottom of the 6th and the Cubs are up 5 to the Angels' 0.

I didn't grow up watching baseball.  It's still kind of new and novel to me, and I suspect it always will be.  My family was not a family that spent a lot of time watching sports on TV, and I don't think anyone in my house ever tuned into a baseball game.  We did go see the Houston Astros back in the 1980's, but I had no idea what I was looking at.  

I was, however, a college and pro basketball guy, and I have a huge amount of fondness for the pro basketball players of the 80's and 90's, including the Lakers, the Pistons, a couple of Hawks players, some random guys like Ewing, and the 90's Rockets, absolutely.  But at some point, I've lost interest in most of the NBA except for The Spurs (and as long as Pop is coach, I'll always like the Spurs).

I never cared about college football much until I was in my last two years at UT.  I liked watching bowl games, but giving up a Saturday for football wasn't my thing.  But I kind of liked yelling at the TV when the Oilers were playing during the Warren Moon era, so that kept me somewhat invested in the NFL when the 49'ers lost a bit of their sizzle.  Something about college football clicked for me in the mid-90's, and by the time I graduated, I really did care.  And still do, at least about the mighty Texas Longhorns, but I don't give up all day on Saturday to game-after-game the way I did a few years ago (and I don't stay up watching ESPN until 12:30 AM to catch all the highlights).  But, you know, never say never.  It could happen again.  But these days I'm having a harder time watching the NFL than ever.  It's the head injuries and ridiculous stories that keep circulating the whole league.

And, sorry my Northern friends:  I watch hockey when (1) I go to a live game which has been maybe twice, or (2) the Olympics.  It's Texas.  We don't have ice, so there's not much hockey down this way.

Sports Watch: Chicago Cubs and UT Longhorns

Well, this weekend and today have turned out to be just an amazing few days in sports-watching.

This is the first time I have seen Coach Strong smile in a calendar year.

Cubs Win!

I didn't grow up watching baseball.  I started watching it with Jamie's mom.  I think we started watching ball when Jamie was in the hospital and then just because, hey, baseball.  It wasn't my Old Man who taught me the rules of baseball, it was Jamie's mom when I was 20.  They were kind of the team I liked, anyway, because as a kid I'd watch them on WGN mostly because I thought Harry Caray was hilarious.  I was an adult before I found out - literally everyone thinks Harry Caray is hilarious.

Later, when the Cubs played the Diamondbacks when we lived in Phoenix, we'd always go to at least one game, and I really regret only ever making one Spring Training game, because it wasn't all that far from our house.  And, we did make it to a Cubs game or two at Minute Maid Park before the Astros changed leagues.  I'm still trying to plan a vaycay in Chicago next year to make it to a couple of games.  I've only been to Wrigley once, but it was incredible.  I like the new mega-stadiums, too, but seeing the Cubbies at Wrigley was just a blast.

Anyway, the Cubs have been just entirely terrible for most of the last 100 years.  The fanbase, as near as I can tell, has some weird, masochistic thing going on where you learn the virtues of patience and eternal hope, because you never know when this year might be your year.  And, for Cubs fans, it just never is.  

"Revolution" Sci-Fi Fail: Wrigley Field Will Never Be Overgrown with Shrubbery

In watching the Olympics on NBC, every third commercial break or so they're running ads for an upcoming big budget program, trying to capitalize on the Lost audience and grabbing some of the Y: The Last Man aesthetic without actually going there.  Plus: swords for some reason.

The premise of the show seems to be that for some reason, the world has lost the ability to have electricity, and possibly all modern conveniences.  Except for make-up and hair-care product.  This is NBC, after all.

I won't go into too much of what I think looks a little dippy from the commercial, but it was already enough to tell me I wasn't all that interested in the usual network attempt at sci-fi that always feels like a frat-dude trying to put together a sci-fi idea from the bits and pieces they liked on some other show, but, you know, where the chicks aren't all weird or dogs or nuthin' and we're not going to make it all lame.  Oh, and the new lantern-jawed lead is now the all-purpose 20-something-haunted-girl-Mary Sue.  Check and check.

What struck me as a sign of failure (and this is based on a show I haven't seen and don't really understand the premise) was that, to try to earn some sign of how bad things have become in the wake of us having to live like it's 1915 or so again, the commercial shows Wrigley Field has become barricaded by trees and overgrowth, with vines crawling up the front of the building.

their sci-fi premise is, of course, that the The Cubs could get into the playoffs this year

Here's the thing:  No.