Recent Series: The Newsroom

So I claim to be a TV series junkie though I rarely write about any of them here. Worry not, I still do spend a good amount of time watching them but I just don't know how to talk about series without revealing my nerdy side. :))

Anyway busway, ada satu series yang baru banget selesai saya tonton yang mau saya share disini (yah, mau nerdy ya nerdy deh).

THE NEWSROOM

Tersirat dari judulnya, serial ini bercerita tentang lika liku proses produksi acara berita TV yang dibawakan oleh Will McAvoy. Di awal-awal cerita, Will digambarkan sebagai karakter yang ignorant dan harsh, sampai-sampai nama asisten sendiri pun lupa melulu. Tapi seiring ceritanya berjalan, karakter Will pun makin kelihatan baiknya.

Saya paling suka bagian yang menunjukkan bagaimana susahnya memproduksi acara TV yang bermutu di tengah tuntutan rating atau bagaimana ribetnya para kru mengembangkan berita. Berita-berita dalam plot cerita pun merupakan berita-berita nyata seperti kebocoran minyak BP di Gulf of Mexico, kematian Osama bin Laden, dll.

Kalau saya perhatikan dari serial ini, sepertinya jenjang karir news anchor di Indonesia dan di US agak berbeda. Bila di sini kita sering melihat wajah-wajah muda sebagai news anchor, di serial The Newsroom, Will McAvoy ini digambarkan sebagai seseorang yang sudah kawakan di dunia jurnalistik. Oya, selain itu Will juga punya pengalaman sebagai District Attorney yang membuat adegan wawancara dengan narasumber seringkali seperti proses interogasi. Seru! Hehehe.

Awalnya saya kira serial ini tipe serial yang serius seperti Damage, tapi ternyata nggak seserius itu juga sih lantaran banyak adegan dan dialog lucu dan menggelitik diselipkan disana sini. Nuansa romansa juga diselipkan, biarpun not in a way that will make you go 'aaaww... cocwiiit'. Ada dua tema romance dalam series ini. Yang pertama adalah antara Will dan Mackenzie McHale, executive producer-nya sekaligus mantan pacarnya. Yang kedua antara Jim Harper, Maggie (something, I forgot her last name), dan Don (something). Saya sih lebih suka menyimak romansa yang pertama soalnya lebih lucu.

 Mac & Will

Tokoh lain yang saya suka adalah Charlie Skinner, bosnya Will. No particular reason but the fact that the character is played by Sam Waterston, yang main District Attorney Jack McCoy di Law & Order itu lho. 

Sam Waterston as Charlie Skinner

However, seperti layaknya berbagai produksi film maupun serial Amerika yang lain, ada juga bagian-bagian yang dramatis-dramatis ke-Amerika-an banget. Tapi tidak banyak kok, hanya di akhir-akhir season.

Serial ini setipe dengan True Blood yang hanya belasan episode per seasonnya. Malah The Newsroom tidak sampai belasan, hanya 10 episode di season 1. Season 2 nya baru Juni tahun depan keluar, so there's plenty of time to catch up.

Super Cook!

Needless to say that being married has brought several, if not many, new things into my life. One of the major new things is now I have to cook prepare meals think about what we're gonna have for dinner every day.

When you live alone you only think about yourself. For example, I don't mind skipping dinner once or twice a week just so I can linger in front of TV longer. Or I have no problem having eggs for 7 straight days for dinner. I can even leave vegetables out of my menu for weeks.Yeah, I happen to have a quite low standard for my daily meals. 

Now that I live with someone else, the husband, things get hmm... more complicated, if I may say. Because he happens to have higher standard for his meals. Luckily, he likes to cook too. More than I do, at least.

However, in my attempt to be a better wife, I started to learn to cook. You know, apparently, cooking is not as difficult as I thought it would be. Of course I'm not talking about any complicated dish, I'm referring to food that taste good enough and make you happy enough to go through the day. 

The problem, or at least my problem, is I don't know what to cook. I've lived 26 years and I only know about 20 dishes. I believe I've tried at least 50 dishes during my lifetime, but for some reason I weirdly understand (because it's so me) I can't recall those other 30ish dishes when I need them. To say I'm not knowledgeable about food is probably correct.

When I have eggs, onion, olive oil, and potato, I can only think of omelet or sunny side egg with potato. I have zero creativity in cooking.

I've been hoping for some application or program to help me and people like me, where I can easily input all the ingredients that I have and the program will tell me what fancy dish I can make with them.

Wishful thinking, isn't?

Except it's not.

Few days ago, out of desperation I tweeted if someone knew certain application. And one of the responses direct me to www.supercook.com, which is exactly what I mean!

I tried it yesterday, I input eggs, onion, olive oil, and potato and I got more than 20 recipes that I  work with! The husband and I ended up having Italian potato soup for dinner yesterday. :D

I think the website is basically only matching your ingredients with the recipes in other cooking sites. Because once I clicked on the recipe I got redirected to another site.

If you have the same problem as mine, you really should try this supercook.com. Great stuff!