Happy birthday to me! To celebrate, I'm having an Alias marathon. Pizza for lunch! And the cake I've been dreaming of for months: Smitten Kitchen's Big Crumb Coffee Cake

Oh, this cake is so great. First of all, I almost always find coffee cake to not have enough crumby topping. This cake has a lot of topping! Secondly, I almost always find coffee cake to be too sweet. This cake has a nice tangy rhubarb in the middle -- but even without the rhubarb to cut the sweetness, it's not all that sweet. And there's ground ginger in it, which cuts through the sweetness even more (but there's not any kind of overwhelming ginger flavor; just a nice hint of spice). It is my new go-to cake for everything, I think -- and I bet it would be amazing with strawberries, blueberries, peaches, whatever. Anything. Except watermelon. It probably wouldn't be very good with melon.

Day 20 - Favorite kiss

Meh. The shows I watch never have the right people kissing, so I don't always pay a lot of attention. Like, for example, check out White Collar -- Peter and Neal never kiss! Neal never kisses Elizabeth, either. On Alias, Anna and Sydney never make out in a hallway; on The Office Pam ends up with Jim (ugh) instead of Karen; on Stargate Atlantis there is no John/Rodney/Teyla/Ronon happily ever after foursome. Despite going off into the sunset together, Ray and Fraser never lock lips on Due South ("buddy breathing" decidedly does not count!) and even in that wonderful Anne of Green Gables miniseries, there's no Boston marriage, or even youthful experimentation -- and Diana ends up with boring old Fred instead of wonderful Anne-with-an-E.

I repeat: Meh.

Plus, what matters to me isn't the kissing, but the talking. The characters. The story. I'm not watching TV for the kissing, people!

But you know what? I did like Parker and Hardison, up against the emergency exit door, in Leverage, season one, "The First David Job" --
"We should pretend to make out!"
"Can we talk about the pretending? That was nice..."


click to embiggen


(Too bad Eliot wasn't there, too. Daaaaamn.)



Oh -- you know what? I went away and thought about this for a while, and have decided that I am also a big fan of Burke and Cristina's first kiss in the first season of Grey's Anatomy. I mostly hated Burke, and I 100% hated the way their relationship was written 99% of the time, but this is a pretty hot kiss:






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Day 02 - A show that you wish more people were watching

Gosh, I don't know! I would probably have to say Leverage. I really love Leverage -- I love the plots and the characters and how, as one character puts it, "Incredibly, chance does seem to bend itself to [their] bizarre machinations."

I'll be honest -- I didn't start watching until... um, I think it was fall 2009. I was really skeptical of it and I thought it had a stupid premise. But I wanted something to watch and I picked Leverage because of Christian Kane, who I adore.

I watched the whole first season and the first half of the second season (at that point, the second half of the second season hadn't yet aired), and until I started my second watching of the first season, I did, in fact, not know any character's name. I referred to them as "Christian Kane," "The Hot Blonde," "The Hot Hacker," "The Brunette," and "The Alcoholic." (And, of course, "Badger"!)

But about halfway through my second watching of season one, I found that I suddenly knew all their names! It was amazing.

I love Parker, Eliot, and Hardison. Love them. Together, separately, whatever. Nate and Sophie are okay; their will they-won't they push-pull bullshit gets on my nerves -- but I do think they are really well-written and interesting, so I can't really hold it against them.

The show is really well-written, really well-acted, and really well-directed. I appreciate that they don't offend me, and that the characters all have agency. I love their silly shenanigans -- and their more serious ones. I love watching the characters evolve and grow and learn how to talk to each other! I love their great one-liners, and also the running jokes. I love that Hardison is always cracking wise about the internet and science fiction -- and his jokes make sense! I love Eliot's glare, and how Parker is always literally jumping off buildings. I love watching Nate's downward spiral and Sophie's frustration.

And I love how they always get the job done.

I do wish that more people would watch this show, and talk about how much they love it -- and write me Parker/Hardison/Eliot fanfic. Of all sorts!

(Also good: Leverage/White Collar crossover fic! There's already a few out there on the Archive of Our Own, but there should be more!)

As far as real life goes, I really appreciate that the cast and crew post a lot of behind the scenes stuff on Twitter! That is awesome.

The third season of Leverage premieres on TNT on Sunday (the 20th) at 9 PM. Here's the official website.



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