Tag Archives: Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge

May 22, 2019 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Books I Love That Became Films or TV Shows

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

I recently did a Top Ten Tuesday post on a similar topic, so it’s going to be interesting to see how many other shows I can come up with. My best guess is that the first two items on my list will be on everyone else’s lists, too!

Lord of the Rings

With all of the 1980s and 1990s remakes coming out these days, I hope that this trend ends before anyone decides to remake the early 2000s Lord of the Rings films. They’ve aged wonderfully in my opinion. I’d rather see studios take a chance on something new than remake these films even though I do love this story.

Harry Potter 

There are certain things that work beautifully in a novel but won’t feel the same in a film (and vice versa). Overall, I was quite pleased with how the Harry Potter films depicted the Potterverse. The first few movies in particular will always feel magical to me.

The Martian

This film did an excellent job of explaining how the main character used science creatively to get himself out of all sorts of life-threatening predicaments when he was accidentally stranded on Mars. My first experience with Andy Weir’s style of storytelling came from this movie, and I’ve been a fan of his ever since.

Room 

Emma Donoghue’s original version of this drama about a young boy who had lived his entire life in the same room because his mother had been kidnapped by a violent stranger a few years before the boy’s birth made me stay up very late at night to see how it would turn out.

The film version of it was just as intense. Even though I already knew how it ended, I still found myself holding my breathe at certain key scenes.

Still Alice

Lisa Genova’s book by the same name was about a woman named Alice who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. I was so excited when it was turned into a film.Both versions followed Alice from shortly before she was diagnosed until well into the progression of this disease. They were tearjerkers and I’d reread/rewatch either of them in a heartbeat.

My great-grandmother had Alzheimer’s disease, so it was especially meaningful to see what this illness might be like for the person experiencing it. The gif above is from a scene where Alice forgets how to get home again early on in the course of her disease. It was the moment when I realized just how amazing this story is.

Hidden Figures

Where there were a few fictional tweaks to the film version of Hidden Figures that I wasn’t a big fan of, the true story that Margot Lee Shetterly wrote of how these women made the calculations that sent humankind to the moon is still something well worth checking out.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question. The image below is the list of upcoming prompts for this blog hop.

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May 15, 2019 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Favorite TV Shows and Why

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

I wish this prompt had happened in January or July! I tend to watch lots of TV when the weather is freezing or unbearably hot. Spring and fall are when I cut back on shows and spend more time socializing with friends and visiting the great outdoors to soak up the mild weather.  With that being said, I will follow the prompt and talk about television instead of going off on a tangent about how much I want to go wander off into the woods for an afternoon.

These are my current favourite shows for reasons I’ll explain underneath the photo of each program.  If I were going to go out to dinner with any of you, I’d light up if you mentioned being fans of them as well.

The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t on this list because it won’t be out until later on this summer. Mindfulness is important to me, so I’m doing my best to wait until the first episode is out before getting excited about it.

Anne with an E

One of the things that always bothered me a little bit about L.M. Montgomery’s  Anne of Green Gables series was how much it brushed over Anne’s difficult childhood. She mentioned some pretty serious moments of child abuse and neglect to her new foster parents, and then the plot pretty much skipped over the trauma of those experiences for her. To be fair, these weren’t things that were discussed in too much depth in children’s books back then, and people living in the 1800s also had a much murkier understanding of how adverse childhood experiences could affect someone years later.

The cool thing about season one of this remake is that it hasn’t been afraid to explore how being abused, neglected, and abandoned by multiple caregivers had a serious emotional impact on Anne. I know some fans have criticized it for being too dark, but I think it’s going to be interesting to see how this more realistic approach to her story affects the person she becomes as she grows up.

I still need to watch season two. I’m so behind on shows!

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

I love the fact that this sitcom has a diverse cast but doesn’t fall back on stereotypes in order to make their jokes or explain who their characters are. All of the main characters and even some of the secondary ones are three-dimensional individuals. They feel like real people, warts and all.  It’s amazing to see how they’ve grown and changed over the years.

The running jokes are great, too. This isn’t the sort of sitcom I’d recommend watching out of order. There were things that happened in season one that are still being brought up by the characters years later.

Stranger Things

This was the show that taught me that people used to smoke everywhere and let their kids wander all over town without any supervision at all in the 1980s! Yes, I’m mostly joking there, but I was shocked by some of the cultural differences between that era and our own.

On a more serious note, I really like fantasy stories that are set in our world and feel as ordinary as possible. If not for the various supernatural stuff going on in this setting, it could have all really happened to my parents or other relatives who were teens or young adults back then. That’s quite appealing to me.

Black Mirror

I’m brand new to this show. It’s like The Twilight Zone in the sense that each episode is its own self-contained sci-fi or fantasy story. Of the few I’ve seen so far, there doesn’t seem to be crossover between any of them as far as characters or plots go.

I love the creativity of the episodes I have seen. The writers seem to take current trends and extrapolate what they might be like at a distant point in the future or in a version of earth where, say, a parent’s desire to electronically monitor her child is taken to the logical extreme.

I know I’m being vague here, but I really don’t want to give away spoilers. Let’s just say that this is a very thought-provoking program that I’m enjoying so much that I’m even willing to come home from the park early in order to watch it.

The same can be said for the rest of these shows, too. Ha!

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question. The image below is the list of upcoming prompts for this blog hop.

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May 8, 2019 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Books I Want Youth to Discover

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

I’d never tell a kid that they must read a specific book. Just because a story was meaningful to me at a certain age doesn’t mean every child or teenager would want to read it then. People grow at different rates, and we obviously all have different interests as well.

What I would do is leave copies of these books lying around where little, and not-so-little, hands can reach them. My hope would be that young people would eventually read these titles whenever they were ready for them.

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The full meaning of this story didn’t become clear to me until I was an adult, but I think it’s message about valuing love, friendship, and beauty over the mindless accumulation of material possessions is something that should be introduced to everyone early on in life.

The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

I’d like to confess that I’ve never been able to read this story without wiping away a tear. It’s such a beautiful, timeless story. When I became an aunt years ago, this was the first book I bought for our nephew. I wanted him to have the opportunity to enjoy it just like I did!

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

When I was a kid, I didn’t like the units my teachers had us do on World War II every year because of how much time we spent studying a war that I struggled to understand.  I had a great deal of sympathy for everyone who was killed in the Holocaust, but I had trouble condensing all of that horror into something my young mind could better grasp.

The wonderful thing about The Diary of Anne Frank was that it was written by a real child. I connected with her as I read her diary entries, and learning that she did not survive the concentration camps helped me to understand a very small piece of all of the suffering innocent people endured in that war.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

It amazed me to see how much I related to the characters in this book when I read it in the 90s. The characters lived in the 1910s, yet so many of their struggles were the same ones my family dealt with eighty years later. For example, both they and us were concerned with stretching out a food budget, dealing with social class prejudice, and finding creative ways to get good educations for everyone.

Some of the details of how daily life plays out have obviously changed over the last century, but I think a lot of modern teens could relate to this tale far more than they might have guessed at first glance.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

I had no idea who Maya Angelou was before I picked up this book as a teenager, but I loved reading about her childhood and how she learned to persevere through truly difficult circumstances including being separated from her parents at age three and later being sexually abused. This is definitely something I think mature teens should read.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question. The image below is the list of upcoming prompts for this blog hop.

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May 1, 2019 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: 5 Things I Wish More Books Talked About

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

This week’s prompt was a little tricky for me. How easy was it for the rest of you to come up with your lists?

1. People Who Aren’t Beautiful or Handsome

If a main character has average or below-average looks I get excited. This doesn’t happen as often as it should in most genres, but I really like reading about people who are wonderfully ordinary in this way.

2. Chronic but Nonfatal Health Problems

I’ve read about many characters who had advanced forms of cancer or other diseases that were going to kill them soon. It would be nice to read more stories about people living with diabetes, HIV, chronic pain, arthritis, or other illnesses that someone can live with for decades.

3. Failure

Of course I want every character I meet to succeed in the end so long as it suits the course of their plot, but I find it so interesting to see how people react when their hard work doesn’t give them the results they were hoping for. You can learn a lot about real and fictional people that way.

4. Happy Longterm Relationships

One of my literary pet peeves is how often characters who have been with their spouse or partner for many years are described in negative terms. I’d sure like to see more stories about couples who have been together for a long time, are still in love, and genuinely enjoy spending time together.

5. Intelligent, Sensible Characters

There are so many tropes out there that rely on characters ignoring the advice of others or their own gut feelings about a situation. I’d love to see more examples of characters who avoided danger by listening to these warnings.

Yes, this might make it a little trickier for the author to gently prod them into plot lines they’ll need to follow, but I love it when characters are as cautious and smart about new things in their lives as I would be in the same situation.

For example, I love paranormal stories.  I do not enjoy tales about characters who do silly things like ignore a neighbour’s stern warning about the violent history of the spooky house they just bought or knock over headstones in a graveyard for the sheer fun of it. It’s so much more interesting to me when a protagonist accidentally stumbles into a haunting through no fault of their own.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question. The image below is the list of upcoming prompts for this blog hop.

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April 24, 2019 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Books I Discovered on Social Media

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

This week’s prompt had me doing some digging! The books I’m about to talk about come from many genres because I hang out with all sorts of writers. I discovered all of these books on Twitter, and I follow and interact with all of the authors often there.

I could have easily made this list much longer, but I tried to keep it short and sweet with a representative sample of books six of my buddies have written. A lot of them are Indie reads, so it’s great to give them more exposure.

Storytellers: A Novel by Bjørn Larssen.

I mentioned this friend of mine in a previous Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge post. He recently released a historical novel about a man who rescues an injured stranger and, as a result of that decision, slowly begins to uncover all sorts of secrets in his community.

I’ve really been enjoying the tiny bit of this book I’ve read so far, but everything I want to say about it might give you all spoilers. There is so much more going on in the plot than what the blurb reveals…in a good way!

The Matrimonial Advertisement by Mimi Matthews.

Mimi is a lovely person. It’s always interesting to read her tweets and blog posts about her new historical romances, although I must confess that I haven’t had the time to read any of them quite yet.

How to Best Optimize Blog Posts for SEO by Rachel Thompson

Search engine optimization is something I’ve been trying to get better at this year. This has been quite the informative little booklet so far.

The Lady of Dawnzantium: A Trace & Mikhail Story by Berthold Gambrel

Technically, this is a short story instead of a novel. It’s a humorous take on the sci-fi trope of exploring a faraway planet and discovering an alien there. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

 

The Letters by Satya Robyn.

This is another book written by a friend that I haven’t had a chance to read yet. I will be changing that soon! The story is about a woman who moves to a new home after a divorce and begins to receive some unusual letters from a young, pregnant woman that had been written fifty years previously. It seems to be a blend of women’s fiction and a mystery. Those two genres are always interesting to mix together.

Duality: Poems, Essays, and Reflections by Shykia Bell.

I snapped up a copy of this collection of poems and essays less than twelve hours ago. I can’t wait to read it!

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April 17, 2019 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: 10 Unusual Things About Me

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

It’s going to be so interesting to read how you all respond to this week’s prompt. This was one of the topics I was looking forward to the most out of the whole year!

1. I’ve Never Been Hospitalized

My mom had a (planned) home birth with me, so I wasn’t even hospitalized on the day of my birth. Home remedies and the occasional visit with a doctor for minor/temporary problems have been all the care I’ve required so far in life.

This is something that’s surprised more than one health care worker when they were taking my history. I have multiple relatives who lived or are living long, healthy lives while not necessarily following their doctor’s orders about exercising and eating a well-balanced diet, so I suspect some of my good luck with my health is due to genetics even though I try to take care of myself in general.

Photo credit: Peter Salanki from San Francisco, USA.

2. I’m Demisexual and Bisexual

Being demisexual means that I need to bond emotionally with someone before I become interested in escalating our relationship on a physical level. So I’ve been on dates with men and with women, but kissing and other things are reserved for folks I’ve gotten to know well.

3. I Have Unique Spatial Skills and a Not-Super-Accurate Sense of Direction

As much as I want to help, I may accidentally send you to the wrong place if you ask me for directions. You see, I use context clues like a big tree or that pretty, blue house on the corner as reminders of where to go next instead of remembering the name of that street or whether it’s north or south from my current location.

This system works well for me, but since it can be confusing for people who don’t live in my brain I try not to give directions to folks unless I’m sure I’m sending them in the right direction.

4. I’m an Animal Magnet

Animals love me, especially cats. The funny thing is, I’m terribly allergic to cats.  Maybe they’re so interested in me because I give them a lot of personal space instead of rushing over to pick them up and coo over them like a non-allergic person might do? All I want to do is avoid wheezing and sneezing, and all they want to do is be my new best friend. Ha!

5. I Started College Before Finishing High School

My high school had a dual-enrolment agreement with a few local colleges. I absolutely loved spending most of the day at college with adult classmates during my final year of high school. It was refreshing to meet so many other students who genuinely wanted to learn the stuff we were studying there. I’d heartily recommend this option to any high schooler who enjoys learning and has good time management skills.

6. I Was Homeschooled, and I Also Married a Fellow Homeschooler

This definitely wasn’t a requirement for dating me, but it was pretty neat to compare homeschooling experiences with my spouse when we first realized we had this in common. We both spent a lot of time visiting all sorts of museums, art galleries, and historical sites on homeschooling field trips. I still love learning and field trips to this day.

7. I Have a High Tolerance for Pain

Or at least that’s what a dentist told me once. Pain is such a subjective thing that it’s hard to imagine how my occasional experiences with it might be different from how others feel it.

8. I Like the Taste of Bitter and Spicy Vegetables

My grandmother sometimes makes an afternoon snack that consists of the following things:

  • White bread
  • Margarine
  • Thinly-sliced radishes

I believe she is at least partially responsible for the fact that I like eating radishes, spinach, and broccoli as an adult. Not every snack necessarily needs to be sweet.

9. I Keep a Digital Dream Journal

This is a pretty recent habit, but I’m enjoying the process of writing down all of the dreams I can remember. It’s interesting to go back and look for themes in them.

Lately, I’ve been having a ton of dreams about being back in school and studying for a dreaded biology exam on the anatomy of frogs and other various small creatures.  I wonder when people become too old for those sorts of dreams? My fingers are crossed that one of you will tell me it definitely stops at age X for everyone. Ha!

10. I’m the Only Person in Toronto Who Likes Pigeons

Yes, this is a little bit of an exaggeration. It’s based on the fact that pigeons have been nicknamed “sky rats” here and many people truly dislike them. I think they’re interesting creatures, and I enjoy watching them navigate our busy city and figure out where the safe places are to hang out, roost, and find food. Pigeons need to learn these skills quickly to survive city life, and in general they’re thriving here. That’s admirable in my opinion.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question. The image below is the list of upcoming prompts for this blog hop.

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April 10, 2019 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Characters I Never Want to Meet

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

My answer to this week’s prompt is going to be much shorter than it was last week for the recipes topic.

I’m the sort of reader who tries to find the good in every character I read about or watch in a show so there aren’t a lot of them that I truly wouldn’t want to spend time with under any circumstances.

With that being said, I was able to come up with five answers for this question.

Lord Voldemort

Voldemort. He’s honestly kind of self-explanatory. Who’d want to hang out with someone who would put a death curse on a baby among many other terrible deeds? No, thank you. There are plenty of other Potterverse characters who would be much more pleasant to meet.

Reavers. For anyone who hasn’t watched the sci-fi television series Firefly, these creatures were the violent antagonists in that  universe. If they stumbled across your ship, you were doomed to a painful death. I refrained from sharing a picture of them in this post because I know that some of you fellow participants really dislike horror stuff, and they’re not exactly cuddly-looking bad guys. If you want to see what they look like anyway, click here.

Sheldon Cooper as an adult and as a child.

Sheldon Cooper. This character is part of the reason why I stopped watching The Big Bang Theory so soon after starting it.  It’s one thing to set rigid rules for how you live your own life, but forcing others to follow them is something I have little patience for in real life as well as in fiction. I don’t think he and I would get along at all despite sharing many common geeky interests.

Pete Campbell

Pete Campbell. Pete was a smug and abusive character on the 1960s period drama Mad Men. He got away with the violent, awful things he did because of how manipulative and superficially charming he was to people who hadn’t gotten to know them yet. Anyone who scratched below that thin veneer, though, would know that he’s not someone anyone should be spending time with…especially alone.

Serena Joy. Anyone who has followed this blog for the past few years probably remembers the many references I’ve made to The Handmaid’s Tale TV show and book. There are many frightening villains in this universe, but I’d argue that Serena is the worst because of how unpredictable and volatile she is. One minute, she’ll act like your best friend, and the next she’ll begin hitting you for no reason at all. Scary stuff!

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question. The image below is the list of upcoming prompts for this blog hop.

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April 3, 2019 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Comfort Foods and Recipes and Whys, Oh My!

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

This week’s topic is “Favourite Comfort Foods & Why (& Recipes),” so of course I just had to play around with the wording of it a little in the title of this post in order to sneak in a reference to The Wizard of Oz. I will now proceed to answer the prompt (mostly) seriously.

Both of my parents grew up in the Mennonite community and have the same general ethnic origins: German and French.

In fact, all of the ancestors we’ve traced so far came from the Alsace-Lorraine area that was sometimes part of Germany and sometimes part of France depending on which century you’re looking at.

If your ancestors ever so much as glanced at that corner of the globe, we are probably third cousins or something.  Ha!

All of the recipes I’m about to share were either printed in the Mennonite Community Cookbook that I’ve attached a photo of to this post or written on the blank pages of that cookbook.

To the best of my knowledge, they are all traditional German-Mennonite dishes for people from that group who live in Midwest portions of the United States.

 

This is what ground cherries look like. Photo credit: Pen Waggener.

Ground Cherry Pie 

If you happen to live in North America, your best best for finding ground cherries would be at your local farmer’s market during the summer or autumn. They’re a tomato-like fruit that’s less sweet than most other fruits. I sure think they taste good in a pie.

My grandmother makes this pie often. I think happy thoughts about her every time I eat it.

Ingredients

  • 2 cups water
  • 1 cup of ground cherries (rinsed off and with their husks removed)
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 tablespoons mini tapioca
  • 2 tablespoons vinegar
  • Yellow food colouring (as much as desired)
  • A pie shell

Directions

Begin by boiling the water. Add the rest of the ingredients one at a time, and allow the water to go back up to a boil before adding the next ingredient.

After you’ve added as much food colouring as desired, pour the mixture into a pie shell. Add the top crust (if desired), and then bake your pie at 400 F for 15 minutes. Then turn the temperature down to 350 F and bake for another thirty minutes. It should have a consistency similar to other fruit pies when it’s finished. Serves 6-8.

Kartoffle Kloesse (Potato Dumplings)

I don’t have a picture of this recipe, but it’s something one of my grandmothers used to make. It’s delicious.

Ingredients

  • 6 boiled potatoes
  • 2 eggs
  • a little salt
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • Croutons

Directions

Grate 6 boiled potatoes . Add eggs, salt, and flour. Beat this mixture until fluffy. Roll it into balls with 2-3 croutons in the centre of each ball. Dump the balls into gently boiling salted water for 10 minutes. Drain well and serve. A little sour cream on the side of your plate would do wonders with this dish if you’re so inclined.

Photo credit: Windell Oskay.

Soft Pretzels

I strangely couldn’t find any of the photos I’ve taken of my own soft pretzels over the years, so I grabbed one off the Internet. You could even make them in fancy ampersand shapes if you wanted to!

Ingredients

  • 4 teaspoons active dry yeast
  • 1 teaspoon white sugar
  • 1 1/4 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
  • 5 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
  • 1/2 cup baking soda
  • 4 cups hot water
  • 1/4 cup kosher salt, for topping

Directions

In a small bowl, dissolve yeast and 1 teaspoon sugar in 1 1/4 cup warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.

In a large bowl, mix together all of the ingredients except the flour.

Add in the flour one cup at a time. You might need as few as three cups of it.

Mix and form into a dough. If the mixture is dry, add one or two more tablespoons of water. Knead the dough until smooth, about 7 to 8 minutes. Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl, and turn to coat with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). Grease 2 baking sheets.

In a large bowl, dissolve baking soda in 4 cups hot water; set aside. When risen, turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and divide into 12 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a rope and twist into a pretzel shape. Once all of the dough is shaped, dip each pretzel into the baking soda-hot water solution and place pretzels on baking sheets. Sprinkle with kosher salt.

Bake in preheated oven until browned, about 8 minutes. Serves 12.

 

 

Bonus Recipe – Dandelion Salad

 I found this recipe in the cookbook mentioned above, and I know have ancestors who ate whatever they could find when food/money was scarce based on certain family legends. To be fair, that hasn’t happened in a few generations so this doesn’t quite count as a comfort meal.  I’d like to try it someday, though! Have any of you ever eaten dandelions or other wild greens?

Salad Ingredients

  • 4 cups chopped dandelion
  • 3 hard-cooked eggs
  • 3 slices bacon

Dressing

  • 1.5 tablespoons flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 egg
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 1/4 cup vinegar
  • 2 cups milk or water

Directions

Wash and chop dandelions

Cut bacon into pieces and fry until crisp

Remove bacon from drippings

To make dressing, stir together the dry ingredients, add egg, vinegar, and water. Stir until well blended.

Cook dandelions in bacon drippings until thickened and cool slightly.

Pour dressing over dandelions and mix lightly. Garnish with sliced or chopped eggs and the crips bacon. Serves 6.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question. The image below is the list of upcoming prompts for this blog hop.

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March 27, 2019 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Favorite Websites and Blogs

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

I don’t listen to any podcasts, so all of the items on this week’s list will either be blogs or websites. Long and Short Reviews is already a given answer to this question, of course, so I’ll focus on other sites I love to visit.

And I included a few amusing gifs today for the sheer joy of it.

Snopes.com. Story time! When I was a kid, a classmate frightened me with the story of what happens when you say Bloody Mary three times while looking into a mirror in a dark room. It was a relief to discover Snopes a few years later and realize just how many urban legends had no truth to them at all.

A Hundred Years Ago. In 1911, a teenage girl began writing a diary about her life on the family farm. Her granddaughter, Sheryl Lazarus, started a blog in 2011 that shared all of those diary entries exactly a century after they were written. The diary stuff all ended in late 2014, but Sheryl has continued updating her site with recipes, newspaper clippings, and other fascinating historical stuff from the World War I era.

Nutrition Action. I love learning about the latest news on nutrition. This site shares unbiased, scientific information on food, supplements, and many different types of diets.

 

Geekologie. This blog is about the scientific study of all sorts of geeky and quirky things. If there’s a question about what’s really happening in a picture or video, they do their best to figure it out while cracking a few jokes along the way

Longreads. Read this site if you’re interested in long-form articles about current events, science & nature, sports, technology, sociology, or other serious topics.

Humans of New York. Every post on this blog is a different interview with an ordinary person. Some of the interview subjects lived through terrible things like civil wars. Others might share stories about what it’s like to have a specific, incurable disease or what their deepest fear is. I love getting to know so much about their lives.

Bird and Moon. I follow so many comic strip sites that I could have made this post about nothing but that topic. This is one of my favourites hidden treasures in this genre. I hope it becomes as popular as xkcd someday.

. This blog is written by a friend of mine who lives in Amsterdam and dreams of living in Iceland. He’s the first blacksmith I’ve ever known, and I find his posts on that topic mesmerizing. If you have any interest at all in history, blacksmithing, or writing, you should definitely check him out.

NASA. Science is such an interesting topic in general. My ears perk up even more if we’re talking about something like astronomy or space exploration, and NASA’s official tumblr site is full of cool stuff on those topics. If you ever meet me in person, mention this topic and I’ll talk your ears off about it if you want me to.

I’ll end this post with one final gif just for fun.

How many of the sites I mentioned do you all visit? I can’t wait to see what you all recommend in your responses to this week’s prompt!

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question. The image below is the list of upcoming prompts for this blog hop.

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March 20, 2019 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Characters I’d Like to Meet

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

All of the characters I’ll be talking about this week are from TV shows. I’m starting with the oldest show and ending with the most current one. Let’s see if any of you were or are also fans of them!

Lucy Lawless as Xena

My family didn’t have cable – or sometimes even a TV at all – when I was a young kid. As soon as that rule was gradually relaxed in the mid-1990s, I discovered Xena: Warrior Princess and fell in love with her campy plots and amusing takes on Greek mythology. It sure would be fun to hang out with her for a while and see what she thought of twenty-first century life.

Gillian Anderson as Dr. Dana Scully

Yes, The X-Files technically started a few years before Xena did, but I didn’t become interested in the adventures of Scully and Mulder until I was in college.

What I liked the most about Scully was her insistence that everything she and her partner investigated must have a rational explanation. As someone who was and is sometimes prone to worrying and leaping to conclusions, I always appreciated the reminder to stick to the facts until I know for sure what is going on.

COMMUNITY — “Intro to Statistics” Episode 106 — Pictured: (l-r) Donald Glover as Troy, Danny Pudi as Abed — NBC Photo: Chris Haston

Community is the funniest comedy I’ve ever watched. Troy and Abed were two characters in it who, among other hijinks, hosted a pretend morning show together for the sheer joy of using their imaginations.

Their personalities complemented each other beautifully. No matter what problems they faced – whether real or imaginary – they always found a funny way to deal with them. I’d be a guest on their pretend morning show in a heartbeat!

 

Simu Liu as Jung Kim

Kim’s Convenience is a hilarious comedy that’s set right here in Toronto and is still releasing new seasons. It follows the four members of the Kim family as the younger generation enters the workforce and their parents continue to adjust to the many cultural differences between Canada and Korea.

Jung, the oldest child and only son, dropped out of high school and got into some trouble as a teenager much to the chagrin of his parents. Now that he’s an adult, he’s working at a car rental shop and trying to piece his life back together. I love seeing the relationship between him and his family evolve in this show. He seems like he’d be a very interesting guy to meet, especially since the show writers have yet to go into a lot of details about what happened to him when he was a teenager.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question, and the image below is the list of upcoming prompts for this blog hop.

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