What is keeping you entertained?

Hey everyone! I thought it might be nice to have a casual thread going where we can share any books, TV shows, movies, podcasts, videos, etc. that we are enjoying or have recently enjoyed. It doesn't have to be anything novel - just something that you don't mind sharing!

This topic is actually something I'd thought of making a few times in the past, but hadn't been sure if anyone would be interested. But after seeing pof Firouzeh's thoughtful thread about OOC community building, and with pof Otty's mention there of making something along the lines of book/cooking/etc clubs, I thought, maybe...? We'll see if this sticks! :)

I've been watching King of the Hill for quite a while now (there's a lot of it to watch! I'm nearly to the end), and really loving it. It absolutely bears the hallmarks and baggage of its era, and you can 100% tell it's early 2000s media because it very consciously refers to issues of the day regularly, but underneath it's so genuinely wholesome and timeless in its portrayal of interpersonal relationships. I love all of the characters, even if they make me cringe regularly. They're all just so real. They feel like people that you know in your own life, whether as part of your own family or community or through stories you've been told. They're all deeply flawed and they make a lot of mistakes, but it always comes back to the way that in the end they'll have each other's backs, in whatever odd form that might take.

As a side note, has anybody ever based a character off of a TV show character? Because I'm deeply tempted at times to craft my own ode to Dale...

Reading-wise, I've recently picked up the Murderbot Diaries and I'm really enjoying them so far, but I'm not far in. Any other Murderbot fans in the chat?

A friend gave me the first muderbot book and said "this sounded like you," but I did not care for her tone! She was right though. I haven't moved on but it was great and a quick read. You might enjoy Set My Heart To Five, which I loved very much - it's set in the near future and about an android who is on the run and determined to write the great american screenplay. It's not really hard futuristic scifi but it does have that exploration of like what it means to be artificial.

Right now I'm reading Roland Rogers Isn't Dead, which is about a dead movie star who can manifest as an orb of electricity who hires a ghostwriter to publish his memoir before anyone figures out he's dead. It's wild and I'm expecting the author and the orb of electricity will fall in love by the end? So far highly recommended. Before that was a reread of The Golem and the Jinni which is a very cool early 1900s New York story about a lady golem whose husband dies and a jinni who gets accidentally released - the author wrote a follow-up that I didn't love anywhere near as much, so instead I just reread the first one every now and then.

I sold books for 25 years before moving to my current profession so I could do this all day!

Ahhh! I loved The Golem and the Jinni! I also give this book a hearty +1 for anyone who is thinking of picking it up. :) I did see that Helene Wecker wrote a follow-up, but haven't felt a strong desire to read it, partly because I felt that The Golem and the Jinni worked so well as a standalone novel.

On my end, I am a latecomer to watching Ted Lasso, and absolutely loved the first season! So incredibly heartwarming! I'm most of the way through season two right now, and adore how endearing and very human all the characters are in their various ways. What a great ensemble cast. <3

Pof Otty, I can't say that I've ever based my own character deliberately off a TV show character, but I always felt like it would be so fun to see or make someone who channeled a similar energy to Chrisjen Avasarala from The Expanse series, whether inspired by the TV show version or book version of her! I'm not so great at being witty and excoriating on my feet, though, so any attempt by me would fall short, haha. But one can dream! :)

Pof Alun, your former career sounds amazing!