Noulakaz

The blog of Avinash, Christina, Anya and Kyan Meetoo.

Family

Finished watching Modern Family and The War at Home

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Modern Family is a TV show which ran for eleven seasons, from September 2009 to April 2020. It has just finished airing and we saw the last episode a few days ago. Modern Family is fun to watch with the whole family and I liked how the kids in it grew up in front of us during the eleven years. I did a small survey with Christina, Anya and Kyan and, by consensus, our three favourite characters from the show were Gloria (Sofía Vergara), Phil (Ty Burrell) and Manny (Rico Rodriguez). Honorable mention to Lily (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons) for being so sarcastically funny. Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) and Claire (Julie Bowen) were sometimes interesting but not always…

The War at Home is a relatively old TV show which ran for two seasons, from September 2005 to April 2007. We hadn’t heard of it and I think it was Anya who discovered the show. We have just finished watching the last episode today. The War at Home follows the antics of a largely dysfunctional American family: the dad, the mum and three kids (the pretty one, the misfit and the cynical one). On the whole, The War at Home is not very good and received mixed to negative reviews from critics, scoring a 28/100 on Metacritic. Dave, the dad (Michael Rapaport), was way too caricatural, vulgar and immature. But Hillary (Kaylee DeFer) “the pretty one” and Mike (Dean Collins) “the cynical one” were quite funny. Special mention for Rami Malek who plays Kenny.

Neither Modern Family, nor The War at Home, are among our favourite TV shows but, having watched them entirely, something about them must have pleased us…

Maybe we liked Modern Family for being, ahem, modern and The War at Home for showing, ahem, the war which sometimes exist between parents and their adolescent kids.

My favourite artists for the past 15 years

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I have been using Last.fm for the past 15 years (yes!) to track all the songs I listen to. Each time I play a track, whether it’s at home or on my phone, the track is added to my Last.fm profile. As you can easily imagine, after 15 years, Last.fm knows more about my music taste than most people in the world. So, without further ado, here is a list of what artists (and bands) I’ve listened to during the past decade and a half.

Rank Plays Artist
1 4,782 Depeche Mode
2 1,193 Avinash Meetoo
3 907 Madonna
4 906 Michael Jackson
5 696 Radiohead
6 660 Duran Duran
7 649 Erasure
8 522 The Beatles
9 512 Moby
10 487 U2
11 479 Daft Punk
12 456 Air
13 343 New Order
14 324 Björk
15 315 Kraftwerk
16 314 Aphex Twin
17 287 Jean-Michel Jarre
18 272 Indochine
19 263 A. R. Rahman
20 247 The Human League
21 232 Lana Del Rey
22 229 Pet Shop Boys
23 224 Etienne Daho
24 220 Massive Attack
25 219 Fischerspooner
26 210 Amy Winehouse
27 204 Boards of Canada
28 192 Coldplay
29 190 David Bowie
30 186 a-ha
31 186 OMD
32 186 The Cure
33 179 Lorde
34 178 David Guetta
35 171 Bob Marley
36 166 Röyksopp
37 165 Kaya
38 164 Dave Gahan
39 159 Portishead
40 156 Autechre
41 151 Kanye West
42 151 Pink Floyd
43 148 Atoms for Peace
44 147 Nine Inch Nails
45 146 The Knife
46 142 The Chemical Brothers
47 138 Django Django
48 137 Leftfield
49 132 Morcheeba
50 129 Nirvana

As you can see, I am a massive fan of Depeche Mode (and me!)

The rest is a mix of electronic music (e.g. Radiohead (yes, it’s electronic music to me!), Moby, Daft Punk, Air, Bjork, Kraftwerk, etc.), 80’s (e.g.  Duran Duran, Erasure, New Order, etc.) and classics (e.g. Madonna, Michael Jackson, The Beatles, U2, etc.)

I don’t like thinking of myself as eclectic. I’m more of a completist. I like collecting music. For me, music is a supreme art form and every kind of music is worth listening. I also sincerely believe that there is no bad music. Every single artist must love whatever he/she has done (or, else, that track would not have been released). It’s only that anyone of us has distinct taste and what I like (e.g. me!) is not necessarily your cup of tea. That’s fine.

My favourite characters from Orange Is the New Black

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Christina and I have just finished watching Orange Is the New Black. After seven seasons and 91 episodes, I have to say that OITNB is one of the best TV series we’ve ever seen. There are many reasons for that: it’s original, it goes deep into each character, paints a bleak picture of private prisons and is not afraid to criticize the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE).

There are hundred of cast members (it’s a prison after all) but, for me, there are a number of standouts. Here are my favourite characters:

Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren. As the show progresses, she becomes one of the most “sane” ones even though society believes that she is crazy. I wonder how many Suzannes exist in prisons at this moment. Loads I suppose.

Tiffany “Pennsatucky” Doggett is dyslexic and, because of that, has had a life of decrepitude. At the end, she works hard and manages to pass her General Educational Development (GED) test which is generally taken by those, 17 years old and higher, who have not completed secondary school. Tiffany is yet another example (similar to Suzanne) of people who are just victims of the system. If she had been diagnosed with dyslexia when she was a kid, who knows what could have happened?

Joel Luschek is one of the prison guards and he is barely competent. Despite all his errors during the seven seasons, he manages to redeem himself at the end, just before getting fired. He drives a DMC DeLorean ’cause he’s stuck in early childhood. He’s not at all a bad guy but is so out of his depth in a prison that one can only imagine that his character has been inspired by some real prison guard, somewhere…

This is going to be controversial but I like both Linda Ferguson and Natalie “Fig” Figueroa. At the beginning, Fig is the bad one, while Linda is naive and gentle. As the seasons progress, Linda becomes the very mean one, not hesitating one second to sacrifice morality to increase the bottom line by a few percents. At the same time, Fig falls in love, get maternal instincts and decides that enough is enough. This shows that, in real life, people can change.

And, finally, Joe Caputo. Initially, he’s a bit creepy, then he becomes a great prison warden, then is taken hostage, then is fired, then becomes a sexual harasser, then a great teacher on prison reform and then, finally, seems to be heading towards having a normal life with Fig and that little girl:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=lvSrMLSC9BU

If you have not watched Orange Is the New Black yet, what are you waiting for? It’s on Netflix.