74: Vincent, aka @vincent monday.micro.blog
@vincent Hehe! I think I prefer that to me thinking I’m losing my mind while listening while tired 😀
@macgenie
If Micro Monday were a macrocast
😂 All the Micro.blog community members are too interesting! (Remember at the beginning when you thought the episodes would all be about 5 minutes? Good times! 😂) // @vincent
@macgenie When I was younger my favorite series was the Hardy Boys ;) I recall trading something for a whole set old Hardyu Boy Books and when the kids father found out made us trade back. What a bummer that was. Life was so easy then.
@donperreault I liked Nancy Drew a lot, but never read The Hardy Boys because boys. My family had a subscription to a series called The Happy Hollisters, the adventures of a family of five children who solved mysteries. We loved them. Two books came every month. My sister and I would fight over who got to read which one first. Now my sister and I find detective series for each other. And I'm addicted to British detectives on TV.
@macgenie It seems we are interested in similar books and TV series. I believe I tried reading one Nancy Drew book and it was written with females in mind and didn't bother reading any others.
I really love British and Scandinavian dective shows. Unfortuanely, I think I have watched all the shows that interest me that are available on Netflix and Prime. I have watched some fantastic shows. I really do enjoy TV, perhaps too much.
Do you have a favorite TV series, any category?
@donperreault It's hard to pick a favorite, so many in so many genres. When people ask my for recommendations lately, I suggest Vera, Shetland, and Doc Martin. The latter is pretty nice, amusing but not a comedy, and not dark. It's a good antidote for all my gritty detective series viewing. And it has a spectacular setting in Cornwall, where I must go visit now.
@donperreault There’s a tiny Hardy Boys fan club here on Micro.blog: @Ron, @bradenslen, @odd, and I. 👋
@jw @macgenie At my grandparents’ house, I used to read from the book collection when I woke up in the mornings; I started with the Bobbsey Twins and moved on to Nancy Drew, because five daughters. Then at home, I check them out of the public library about five at a time :-)
@smokey @donperreault I used to devour Hardy Boys books as a kid. Would get several from the library at a time. I really wanted to be Joe 😄. I seem to remember The Shore Road Mystery being a favourite.
@smokey I used to go to the bookmobile every week. Limit of 4 books per patron...always checked out 4 books.
It's kinda crazy that I could go into this bus lined with books and find plenty to interest me. Now I demand instant access to any book I might conceivably want to read and still have a hard time finding something new I want. I was more adventurous as a child.
@macgenie I wonder if it has something to do with they physicalness of the presentation, too? There’s something different about shelves full of volumes that lines in a database just doesn’t capture…. Our library used to be a small house just off the square, with towering shelves crammed everywhere. It felt cozy and “lived in” (for lack of a better term). Then they built a new one 5 or 10 times the size, with wide open spaces and regular, broad aisles between cookie-cutter shelves. There must have been a lot more books, and the reference materials were much more accessible, but the magic was gone.
(I’m not sure what our limit was, but 5 would usually last me a week.)
@smokey I was about to mention it but you beat me to it. 🔦😎
PS: I didn’t find a magnifying glass in the Emojis…
@smokey And on that note, having caught up with several days worth of Micro.blog…I yield the Timeline to everyone else this December Friday.
@odd Childhood memories 💭 I wonder if kids still read these books. I was trying to remember the first names of the Hardy boys and I came up with Frank as one but can't recall the other. I could Google it but that would take away the fun.
@strandlinesWas the other brother named Frank? My memory is horrible. I thought there was 52 Hardy Boy books, anyone know the actual count?
@macgenie Love Doc Martin & Shetland but don't remember Vera. I've watched so many I can't remembrt most names Shelock and Jack Taylor. I like all crime series but especially foreign series. I loved Suburra, did you watch that? It is a series based on crime in Rome. HBO Rome is one of my or possibly my most faorite series ever.
@JohnPhilpin I had Acorn but canceled it because i had so much to watch on Prime and Netflix at the time but that isn't the case anymore. I think i will give Acorn another look.
@donperreault @Miraz Vera has been likened to Columbo for her unassuming manner that causes criminals to underestimate her, but it is more gritty than comic. The landscapes are stunning. The lead actress Brenda Blethyn has been nominated for 2 Oscars (Secrets and Lies, Little Voice), and the supporting cast is top notch.
I wish there was something like Letterboxd for television. I forget all the time.
@donperreault @Johnphilpin I subscribe to most of these things sporadically. I usually do it through Amazon Prime channels which makes it easier to switch on and off. If I subscribe to anything new, I unsubscribe from something else so it doesn't get out of hand.
@donperreault Joe was the fair head of the two, he was a year younger than Frank, but they were in the same class, because Frank was sick for a year, because he had pneumonia (or something).
@donperreault yes it was Frank. And then they had a friend called Chet, who had a jalopy - which fascinated me as a kid as it’s not a word we use in the UK.
@macgenie am a big Vera fan. We have holidayed several times in Northumberland so when watching Vera we end up location spotting. And yes, the scenery is beautiful. Lots of empty beaches - in fact the beach in my mb avatar is one of my favourite places in Northumberland.
@macgenie I really like Vera, and Shetland is also a favourite. I lived in Scotland for four years, so I have an affinity for the Scots. Also, an episode is Shetland takes place in my native city (Bergen, Norway), which tickled me no end.
@helgeg That episode that was set in Norway was intense. (Though it was one of the few that I guessed who the bad guy was. I love watching mysteries, but I hardly ever try to solve them.)
@TheDimPause Thanks for the tip. I will check it out. It looks like they have been around awhile, which is cool.
@donperreault I like Acorn because the nature of the UK / NZ / OZ Shows have a different sensibility to the very US centric shows on the others.
Britbox is another you might want to check ... but I don’t think I would do it AND Acorn.
Oh - and name check to Brokenwood - an excellent Kiwi series
@JohnPhilpin Thanks for the advice. I will give Acorn another look, as well as check out the show you.
@JohnPhilpin @donperreault @macgenie If you like international mysteries try Mhz Choice these are all foreign languge series with well done English language subtitles. At $7.99 it's a good value. 4 series stand out for me: Maigret, Detective Montalbano, The Undertaker and Agatha Christie's Criminal Games. French, Italian, Swiss and French respectively. Of course they have all the Scandinavian series as well.
@bradenslen thanks Brad - added to my possibilities. Tight now im seeking to cut and consolidate - but the reality seems to be grow and diversify!
@strandlines Yeah, I think he named the jalopy “The Queen”. 😄 Although I wanted to be like the handsome and thoughtful Frank, in reality I was more like Chet.
@odd Damn, either you are young or have a great memory. I remembered Frank and one story when they were in a cave high above the ocean. It would be interesting to read one of these again after all these years.
@donperreault I’m young at heart! 😊
I wonder if that story you are mentioning is the one with the hermit, (#7 The Secret of the Caves), or maybe “The House on the Cliff” #2 in the original series.