Spring Forward | All of Time and Space.

This week, amirite guys?  It hasn't been a smooth one for me (#workproblems), and spring still isn't sure it wants to commit to an appearance in Chicago (we woke up to snow and/or rain and 30 degree weather most of the days this week), but all of that makes me even more excited for the getaway road trip C and I have planned for this weekend.  We're headed down to Louisville, KY after work today through Sunday, where it will be warmer and greener and filled with Southern Hospitality!  

We will also be nerding-it-up (technical term) at the Wizard World comic con convention in Louisville, where we will actually be meeting Matt Smith and Karen Gillan from Doctor Who.  Yes, fellow Whovians, you read that right :)  Everybody else: you probably don't know who they are.  That's ok, just know they're fabulous.  I'm already nervous.  C and I JUST finished catching up on all 7 seasons of "NuWho" this week (it took us almost a year!), so we are extra excited.    

Have a wonderful weekend.

xo. di.

*image by Evans Adventures

Netflix Gems | Better Off Ted.

Notwithstanding the constantly growing catalog of available content on Netflix Instant, I know there are a lot of people out there who feel like they can’t find anything to watch.   With this periodic series – Netflix Gems – I aim to introduce you to movies, tv shows and documentaries you may not know are hiding in there.  While Netflix is still lagging behind where I think it should be on new releases and current seasons of television, there’s a whole bunch of awesome there as well, so let's talk about it right here.

Going through Arrested Development withdrawal?  I have your solution: two 13-episode seasons of Better Off Ted, ABC's bizarre workplace comedy (2009-2010) that so did not belong on this network, but I'm glad we were given even this abbreviated run.  

Jay Harrington (ladies: eye candy!) is Ted, single dad and head of research & development at "evil" corporate conglomerate Veridian Dynamics, who has to tow the moral line between his executive boss Veronica (Portia de Rossi) (ladies: gorgeous work wardrobe candy!), his 2 head scientists Lem and Phil (Malcolm Barrett and Jonathan Slavin) and his will-they-won't-they romantic interest Linda (Andrea Anders).  

A fairly run-of-the-mill premise that is anything but.  If you want absurdist, surrealist, joke-piling comedy ala Arrested, make your way through this show.

Did you laugh at this?  No?  Well, watch the show anyway.  You will :)

xo. di.

*image 1,2,3,4,5

Party | A Feast of Thrones.

So this past Sunday's Game of Thrones was pretty intense, yes?  I'm still not over it, and I read the dang book over 2 years ago now!  We had a couple of fellow book readers over for the big event (we didn't want to torture any newbies ala this compilation), and leading up to it, I purchased this cookbook to make ourselves a very authentic feast.  The cookbook was written by two huge fans of the books and show who created the foodie blog Inn at the Crossroads years ago, where they posted recipes inspired by the feasts detailed with loving care by George R.R. Martin.*

*Though some of their recipes remain on the blog, you'll understandably have to purchase the book for most.  

I was most impressed with the cookbook for 2 reasons: (1) for most recipes, there is both a medieval and a modern version (we made a mix of both), which is a really helpful touch; and (2) each recipe begins with the quote from the book where the food was mentioned.   

The recipes are also broken up based on their region of origin.

{Special GoT-related decor, of course!}

{Iced Mulled Wine - Summer is Coming, after all!}

{Aurochs with Roasted Leeks}

{Baked Apples}

If you're a fan, with the finale coming up this Sunday, I'd say you have the perfect excuse to try some GoT-inspired dishes of your own!  Sift through the recipes currently on their website, grab the cookbook, try Tom Colicchio's Lemon Cakes recipe (which I made 2 years ago for the series premiere - they are delish!) or invent your own twists on medieval recipes (think turkey legs, shepherd's pies and mead!).

xo. di.

*images property of Diane Crary

Netflix Gems | Arrested Development.

Notwithstanding the constantly growing catalog of available content on Netflix Instant, I know there are a lot of people out there who feel like they can’t find anything to watch.   With this periodic series – Netflix Gems – I aim to introduce you to movies, tv shows and documentaries you may not know are hiding in there.  While Netflix is still lagging behind where I think it should be on new releases and current seasons of television, there’s a whole bunch of awesome there as well, so let's talk about it right here.

I don't think I can say anything about Arrested Development that the Internet hasn't  already covered since the show first went off the air in 2006.  C and I are currently five episodes into Netflix's revived season 4, and I can't decide how I feel about them yet.  They are...different, but not necessarily good or bad.  We're doing an episode or two each night to savor them a bit, and I'm more on board with each one.  

In case you're a big fan of the show like me and haven't come across it yet, Recurring Developments is a seriously impressive fan-made website documenting all the recurring gags in the series.  And then there's the Arrested Development Documentary, released at the beginning of May, with great cast interviews and insight from Mitch Hurwitz and Ron Howard and the rest of the team who made the first three seasons all they were.  I really enjoyed it.

If you're just now coming to the series, I highly recommend starting from the very beginning, with season one, episode one.  Jumping in with these new episodes would be confusing :)

xo. di.

*images via The Huffington Post

Nostalgia is Seductive.

{inspired by The Office's series finale last week, I spent a couple of hours this past weekend sketching, calligraphy-ing and watercoloring the above.  
It's not as great as I'd imagined in my head, but what are ya gonna do!}

Have you ever seen or read an interview with an actor best known for a television role talk about how because he's in our living rooms every week (on tv, I mean!), people seem more likely to approach him and equate him with that character?  That can't go very well for King Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) of Game of Thrones, but I get it.  You grow-up with certain shows, they can inspire or provoke change in you, they make you laugh and cry and feel like you are a part of a world that is built, piece by piece, over years.  And when you think back on them or go back and watch a show all over again, you remember little bits of who you were during that time so powerfully, it's like a rabbit hole of memories.  

Here's a few for me:

• The Office first, in honor of its recent ending: "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." "You must be PMS-ing pretty hard right now, huh?"  And of course, "That's what she said."  All substituting for actual conversation for like 2 years.

• Texting my law school roommate/best friend (who now lives in a different state), "do you think we're really going to meet The Mother tonight?" - and all those times we've discussed Ted Mosby's search for his future wife over the last few years.

• Throwing a four-course Westerosi feast for Game of Thrones' season 2 premiere.

• CryingOpenly sobbing at "I got off the plane" sitting next to my college roommate on our awful futon during the FRIENDS series finale the last night of sophomore year.

• Having friends over to watch Dawson's Creek almost every Wednesday night senior year of high school; Team Pacey!

• Friday Night Lights.  LOST.  The Vampire Diaries.  Harper's Island.  I could keep going for way too long on this.

One last quote from 9 years of watching The Office, a good summation: "I wish there was a way to know you're in the good ole days when you're in them." -Andy Bernard.  Or as I prefer to look at it: all days are the good ole days; you just don't realize why until they're over. 

xo. di.

*image property of Diane Crary

Season 6.

Now that we're just barely over 3 weeks away from the Season 6 premiere of Mad Men, it's about time I start naggingreminding my dear readers to watch one of the best (and my personal favorite) shows on television.  Let's start today, with the just-released Season 6 poster with a very cool backstory:

But as the show prepared for its new season, which begins April 7, its creator, Matthew Weiner, inspired by a childhood memory of lush, painterly illustrations on T.W.A. flight menus, decided to turn back the promotional clock. He pored over commercial illustration books from the 1960s and ’70s and sent images to the show’s marketing team, which couldn’t quite recreate the look he was after.

“Finally,” he said, “they just looked up the person who had done all these drawings that I really loved, and they said: ‘Hey, we’ve got the guy who did them. And he’s still working. His name is Brian Sanders.’ ”

Which explains how a 75-year-old illustrator living outside of Cambridge, England — highly regarded in his own country but little known in the United States — came to create the image that beginning this week will be emblazoned on buses, billboards, magazine pages, websites and TV. The ad, depicting Don Draper, the show’s lead character, in a vertiginous pose on a New York City street corner that seems to be collapsing on him like the decade he is living in, looks as if it has time-traveled from the pages of an old copy of Reader’s Digest.

“What it did was take me right back, about 50 years,” said Mr. Sanders, who added that he was familiar enough with “Mad Men” to be in a bit of disbelief when the show came calling for his drawing board and brushes. The impressionistic image he created uses a scumbled acrylic technique that in its jazzy, textured effects instantly conjures 1960s illustration.

via The New York Times, full article here.

So we have 2 Don's: one holding a woman's (Megan's?) hand, the other a briefcase.  One heading the right way down the "One Way" Madison Avenue, the other fleeing from it, where police cars lurk in the back.  Dang it Weiner, what does it mean?!

Hurry up, April 7th.

xo. di.

*image via

J.Crew + The Creek.

The below images popped up on the far-flung corners of the internet last Friday, and I just wanted to make sure you all saw them cause it's the 1998 J.Crew Dawson's Creek catalog, people!!!!  

Yes, this is happening.  I kinda miss this side of J.Crew - anyone else?  Hello, baggy chinos.  

xo. di.

p.s. Pacey + Joey 4ever.

*images via Buzzfeed

the telly.

{via}

With the return of Downton Abbey season (or series, to be Brit-accurate!) 3 last Sunday, I can't be the only one with my Anglophilia flaring up.  Luckily for us all, their fantastic television extends far beyond the world of the Crawleys.  Below, some favorites and some on my to-watch list:   

{via}

The Hour

BBC America

Come for the Mad Men feel and costume eye candy, stay for the 1950s London 

cold war intrigue and the preciousness (Exhibit A) of Ben Whishaw.  

Seriously, this show is bloody brilliant (Britishisms!).  Only 6 episodes 

per season so you can catch up easily.  

Series 1 available on DVD

Series 2 available through XFinity On Demand if your 

cable package includes BBC America

{via}

Sherlock

PBS

I am dying to catch-up on this; I have heard nothing but amazing reviews.  

I mean I think I already love this show, sight unseen, based on the casting of 

Benedict Cumberbatch & Martin Freeman as Sherlock and Watson alone!

Series 1 & 2 available on Netflix Instant

{via}

Dr. Who

BBC America

If you've never heard of this 30+ year old scifi show, you honestly might not like it.  

C and I have been debating diving in to the Whovian world and catching up 

from the time Matt Smith took over as the 11th Doctor.  A big undertaking, 

but I have a feeling we'll fit right into the fandom.

6 series available on Netflix Instant

{via}

Coupling

The Brits' answer to Friends with lots of - ahem - Coupling.  

NBC tried and failed to make an American version of this show back in 2003 

(which I watched cause ugghhh), but the British version, also from the 

early 00's, is fantastically quirky and silly and witty.

All 4 series available on Netflix Instant.

This post could go on forever; the Brits just know how to do good TV.  Want more suggestions?  I've heard very good things about Being Human - U.K. version (BBC America - I actually watch the U.S. version (about 3 roommates who happen to be a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost, respectively) and really enjoy it.  The Brits claim their version is WAY better, of course!); Luther (BBC America - starring the effortlessly handsome Idris Elba); Torchwood (BBC America - If I understand my Dr. Who mythology correctly - and I know the Whovians will correct me if I'm wrong! - Torchwood is a spin-off series); and Call the Midwife (PBS - Casee Marie of The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower did a fantastic write-up of this show back in the fall.  Actually, I believe she's the reason I started watching The Hour last year as well!).

Enjoy!  if you end up watching any of the above (or have other suggestions!), let me know what you think.

xo. di.

wilderness man.

in honor of the return of parks and recreation on nbc tonight, one of my absolute-most-favoritest shows (watch it!), i bring you adam scott's recent editorial for maxim, of all places.  some great men's fashion on display here.  patterned sport coats are so much fun.  kinda digging their comeback.   

prec.

xo. di.

p.s. one last reminder that my paper menage giveaway ends today at 5 p.m.!

*images via tom & lorenzo

joey potter.

don't worry, this post has nothing to do with tomkat's "shocking" divorce (though: thank god); this is all about the girl from the other side of the creek.  i've been rewatching dawson's this summer on netflix instant (just hit season 3), and i am loving it.  i thought a rewatch would make the show seem silly, and sure it has a bit, but it has also transported me back to a very specific time in my life with very specific angsty/melodramatic tendencies (dawson's forte).  i realize now how influenced i was by this show and how much i expected my high school experience to be just like it.  and when it wasn't?  well i'd put on the patented joey potter pout/scowl face (spot it below!) and pretended it was.   

other observations:  pacey was the best from minute one.  joshua jackson has too much charisma; it's unnatural.  kruger is a lucky lady.  and since i finished the series (spoiler alert!) very satisfied with the pacey-joey ending, i was surprised to remember just how much i loved him with andie in season 2.  and ya know who was le worst?  dawson.  has there ever been a more annoying and sanctimonious protagonist on a tv show?  gees, he was tedious.  but i can't totally hate on him, because i see pieces of high school diane in there (back to that whole when expectations didn't meet reality thing, ugh).   

but back to joey.  i used to try to copy her varying hairstyles, all of which seemed to include little tendrils/flyaways pulled down around her ears.  this summer, i've been revisiting that well to perfect late 90s results.       

if you also decide on a rewatch, let me warn you right here: paula cole's i don't want to wait has been replaced in the opening credits. something about music licensing rights (lawyers, amirite?!).  the show and the song are so intertwined that it bums me out at the beginning of every episode.  i'll get over it eventually ;) 

i also appreciate this dawson's vs. vampire diaries analysis - if you've watched both shows, you'll really enjoy it. 

were you a dawson's fan? 

xo. di.

*images via: from l to r, 1st row 1,2,3; 2nd row 1,2,3; 3rd row 1,2,3

until next year.

game of thrones ended last week and perhaps the best season of mad men yet ends this week.  safe to say my sundays are going to be pretty dreary for awhile (at least there's the ridiculousness of true blood to see me through - and c and i have just entered the world of breaking bad, hoping to catch-up before season 5 premieres in july).  have you been enjoying the antics and sharing in the heartbreak of the members of sterling cooper draper pryce this season?  like the bourbon on their bar carts, this show gets better with age.  can't wait/am slightly terrified to see what the finale has in store for us.

"people tell you who they are, but we ignore it.  

because we want them to be who we want them to be."

- don draper

xo. di.

*art by david downton, images via small shop studio

style icon: cat deeley.

the 9th season of so you think you can dance premieres tonight on fox (i'm obsessed with this show btw - 1 of 2 reality shows i watch religiously!), which means i get a weekly dose of one of my favorite style icons: sytycd's host cat deeley.  

she's not afraid to try new looks each week on national television, but two things never change: her gorgeous, envy-inducing hair and her infectious smile.  seriously, infectious.  try not to smile back at the tv.

xo. di.

*images: top row - 1,2,3,4; middle row - 1,2,3,4; bottom row - 1,2,3,4

the codfish ball.

are you all enjoying the long-awaited season 5 of mad men as much as i am?!  so much of the character work of the early seasons is really paying off.  it's also the funniest season - perhaps unintentionally?  i mean everything out of roger's and pete's mouth has me loling, particularly "i know cooler heads should prevail, but am i the only one who wants to see this?" - to date.

anyway, last sunday's episode, at the codfish ball, had some of the greatest fashion of the season as well.  janie bryant is a genius.  

 {julia ormond, who i grew up loving in sabrina, as megan's mother.  i would wear this dress in a second}

 {sally draper, all grown up and 60s a go-go}

{mrs. megan draper.  i mean stunning in everything.  reminds me of eliza doolittle at the embassy ball for some reason here}

look at those faces.  i think the exchange at the very end of the episode says it all:

glenn: "how's the city?"

sally: "dirty."     

xo. di.

p.s. tom & lorenzo's mad style posts are still absolutely the best way to appreciate each episode.  they just kill it.  if you're looking for more, following janie bryant on twitter is a fantastic supplement as well.

*images via tom & lorenzo

who's ready?

me! me! me!  will be enjoying the 2 HOUR season 5 premiere of mad men tonight, with an old fashioned in hand.

xo. di.

*image 1, 2-5