Yellow Dog Consulting

Sales & Marketing Consulting for solo-preneurs.

Top 10 Shows I Watched in 2023

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Welcome to the end of the year my friends. For the past 3 years I have kept a running list of everything I watch. Fun fact: I don’t include news or late night shows, but I do watch Maddow most Mondays and catch up on Seth Meyers while eating lunch most days. 2023 had some great entertainment to keep us distracted from the news. Here’s my Top 10 for the year…

10. Ted Lasso – Maybe it should be higher up the list, but this final season wasn’t their best. I am so happy with how the show wrapped up but each episode could have been tighter. Everyone had a great ending, the Roy & Jamie bromance may be my favorite though.

9. The Power – I loved this book and was worried the show wouldn’t live up to the expectations, but it was fantastic. I will always love a not to distant future where unexplainable things happen. Especially when it makes women more powerful. I thought the multiple story lines did a great job of weaving together and it sets up for a great season two.

8. Acapulco – If you miss Jane the Virgin I have your next favorite show. Acapulco is so sweet and funny and PINK and 80’s. It’s a hit of nostalgia and a very fun story. I am so excited it’s returning for season three. If you miss Ted Lasso and/or loved Jane the Virgin I highly recommend this show (and I think a good fit for the holidays with other adult family members).

7. The Bear – This show is amazing and stressful and brilliant. I will have PTSD from the Fishes episode for years to come. The commitment and passion to food each character has is inspiring. I loved the character growth and adventures this season took. (Honorable mention goes to The Menu which takes the restaurant world in a different, but not as different as I’d like to admit, direction.)

6. Primo – I don’t know why you haven’t watched this hilarious show yet but you need to fix that ASAP. A teenager being raised by his single mom and five uncles who are each their own very specific vibe. I laughed way too hard at each episode and will maybe do a rewatch over the holidays, it’s that good.

5. Succession – I stand by my theory that Succession, Yellowstone, and The Righteous Gemstones are all the same show. Wealthy single father, daughter who can do no wrong, incompetent son(s) who make a lot of assumptions about their lot in life. Succession wrapped up the series well by answering the title of the show. No one was happy about it, but it’s what they all deserved.

4. Shrinking – Part of the reason for the struggle in the final season of Ted Lasso was the the show creator for Shrinking (Bill Lawrence) left Ted for this fantastic new show. I didn’t realize we needed a Harrison Ford comedy, BUT WE DO. I’ve always liked Jason Segel and the sweetness and ridiculousness of this series is a great reminder of his talent.

3. Barbie – I don’t go to the movies, and I don’t go see the same movie in a theater three days later but Barbie did that to a lot of us over the summer. What a smart and funny and sweet and empowering movie. I loved it, I own it, and I bought Barbie Uno for many a friend and family member this past year to keep the party going.

2. Reservation Dogs – I will think about this group of kids and their adventures in Oklahoma and across the country for a long time. I always appreciate stories that take me to communities that I haven’t had much experience with. This show is a hilarious and sweet and thoughtful gift. From the elders to the clinic staff to the kids just getting by, this was a wonderful world to live in for three seasons.

1. Somebody Somewhere – This show is so sweet and wonderful and wildly raunchy and hilarious and I once again need to apologize to the people on the train when I couldn’t control my laughter. I avoided the show for a while because I didn’t think I was a fan of Bridget Everett but holy crap she gives one of the best performances I’ve seen in a long time. Trust me, watch this wonderful show so we can have more seasons of it. Please.

What were your favorite shows/movies this past year? What are you excited for in 2024? (Please bring us a new season of Loot!)

November Pop Culture Round Up

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I had a pop culture FILLED November my friends! I saw Broadway (& NPR) stars, I went to New York and saw a show, I ate great food, and I got to stay at the TWA Hotel at JFK Airport. The next time you find yourself flying through New York, do whatever you can to stay at the TWA Hotel. It is a VIBE. You are immediately transported to the 60’s and it is an excellent time! Okay, here’s the rest of the pop culture I loved this month…

Live Theater

A friend invited me to join her when Och & Oy! A Considered Cabaret with Alan Cumming and Ari Shapiro recently performed at the Reser Center and it was such a fun evening! I didn’t realize that Ari is from Beaverton, and Alan Cumming always has crazy fun stories. It was a wonderful evening of music and stories and a lot of laughing!

When I was in New York I finally got to see Some Like it Hot and it was even better than I expected, and I expect a LOT from Amber Ruffin! When the show tours and comes near your town, make sure to go. It was such a fun theater experience, the music was fantastic, it was funny and that mid-show/early second act lull never arrived. I loved it!

Reading

I have officially completed my 2023 Reading Challenge which I don’t hit every year. If you are a social media addict like most of us, and even if you aren’t, Extremely Online by Taylor Laurenz was an excellent read (ok listen). She deep dives into the beginnings of social media and how it got to where we are today. It was fascinating. I learned a lot and remembered many things I had shoved way out of my mind.

I also listened to Britney Spears memoir The Woman in Me and I LOVED it. It was an excellent audiobook (Michelle Williams will be winning her Grammy here!) The amount of people who failed this woman from early in her life up until a few years ago is devastating. I’m proud of her for not reading the book, not doing interviews for the book, and not sparing any love for her family and the people in her life who put her through so much pain.

I finally picked up Did You Hear About Kitty Karr? and I loved it! It is a quick read and the story is fascinating. It wasn’t what I was expecting the story to be, and I thought it was excellent.

I’m heading to the coast this weekend with friends and hoping to get some reading in, although we have a lot of games and cult documentaries to get through too…

Listening

This is weird, but if you’re like me, maybe it’s helpful. Last month while reading Real Simple I discovered that I could setup Background Sounds on my iPhone and it’s been a game changer. On the plane or in a waiting room, or even when my husband is watching sports and I want to read on the couch, having the sound of the ocean instead of the sniffling and coughing of people has helped me to tune out and enjoy my book or meal or watching the train roll along the Columbia River.

As far as music, the new Chris Stapleton album has been playing around the office a good deal lately. I’m still working my way into the Christmas music season though.

It wasn’t a crazy month for podcasts however, I did listen to two audiobooks which doesn’t help. I finished listening to The Dream about coaching which was good (not great). The usual podcasts kept me sane: What a Day, Vibe Check, OPB Politics Now, some episodes of The Daily, but the best podcast episode I listened to was from Think Out Loud and it was a day in the life with the Oregon Zoo veterinarian Carlos Sanchez. I’ve been a zoo member for years now (both in Seattle and Oregon) and this was SUCH a fun interview to hear about his relationship with the animals and all the caregivers at the zoo. When the Oregon Zoo announced a few days after this podcast that both a black rhino and one of the elephants were pregnant I was even more excited knowing who’s taking care of them! This could be a fun family road trip podcast listen.

Watching

As a Hillsboro Hops fan we were thrilled to see the Diamondbacks make it to the World Series, and even more fun that 11 players were former Hops. So when the Hops invited us all to watch one of the games live (on TV in a local restaurant), it was a super fun sporting experience with a large group of people who all love the Hops and Diamondbacks!

I finished The Morning Show and Big Mouth earlier this month but it’s been a weird TV month. Some reality TV is back but we’re starting to feel the effects of the strikes from earlier this year. Combine that with travel and Thanksgiving, it’s been a weird TV month.

I enjoyed this season of Upload but feel like it’s a show better binged (I did appreciate 2 episodes a week at least!) We finally started Lessons in Chemistry which I wanted to save up to binge and it’s off to a GREAT start.

What pop culture kept you sane over the holidays? What are you looking forward to as we hurtle towards the end of the year? Next month I’ll be back with some year end top ten lists for you…

October Pop Culture Round Up

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Fall has arrived in the northwest, and this year that includes some nice end of the month sunshine and cold weather (perfect for trick or treating!). With the Diamondbacks in the World Series it’s baseball, the return of SNL and staying warm anyway possible around here. Check out a few things that have kept me going this month…

Reading

When the weather changes and brings us inside, my reading habits dwindle. Luckily more audiobooks in my life are helping me push towards exceeding my Goodreads goal for 2023. I had really enjoyed Anderson Coopers book Vanderbilt a couple of years ago so was excited when he was going to write a book on the Astor’s. Astor was almost as interesting (Cooper is a Vanderbilt so he had a bit more of himself/family in it) but I still really enjoyed the storytelling style and learning about this fascinating family that had drama up in till very recently. I had no idea.

I finally read Yellowface which I wanted to enjoy more than I did. It was great and deserves all the praise it has received. The incredibly vain and self absorbed main character was a bit abrasive for me. Still a great story even if I might have liked it better in third person than first person.

I just finished We See Each Other: A Black, Trans Journey Through TV and Film on audio and loved it. Tre’vell Anderson is on a podcast I listen to regularly so I know their voice well and was excited to check it out. The book was a great way to learn more about trans visibility, and my favorite part were the recommended viewing list at the end of each chapter (see more notes below!)

I get on an airplane and a train in November which should lead to some good reading time, I promise. And I’m hoping that Britney’s memoir is finally ready for me from the library on audio…

Listening

I am devastated that Into It has wrapped up as a podcast. I talked about the pod a lot in my roundups, I checked out so many books and shows thanks to Sam Sanders. I’ll continue to listen to Vibe Check which he hosts with two friends but I really enjoyed Sam Sanders in my ears three times a week and now I’m down to one.

I plowed right through Grapevine which was a fascinating podcast about what happens when conservative Christians are elected to school boards in Texas. Teachers leave, kids aren’t allowed to be who themselves and communities are torn apart. You know my feelings on getting involved in local politics (do it! I’ll help!) and this podcast is a microcosm of what’s going on in towns all over the country. Read it, be scared, get involved. It’s only 6 episodes.

Multiple friends have sent me Say More with Dr? Sheila and I have it saved but haven’t started it yet. I promise it’s up next, getting through an audiobook first.

The new season of The Dream came out last month and a newsletter I subscribe to reminded me of it. I enjoyed the first season on MLM’s and this season is all about coaching, which I find fascinating (fun fact, a lot of my clients are coaches/consultants) but this… this is different.

Watching

Thanks to We See Each Other, my to watch list is out of control at the moment with shows and movies I missed over the years. A great starting place however, was the Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness episode on the binary. I found it fascinating and helpful.

I really enjoyed the ridiculousness of the latest season of Only Murders in the Building. Paul Rudd can do no wrong in my book and he was all in with his character this season which I loved. We finally binged the final season of The Wonder Years reboot. I loved the reboot concept for this and think it could have played for years in different iterations, I’m bummed that the strike (and BTS drama) caused it to end early.

I took my friend to see Little Shop of Horrors in the theater this weekend, she’d never seen it before and it’s one of my favorite musicals. It was the directors cut which I hadn’t seen before and WOW is it different! The directors cut models the musical ending, which test audiences HATED so they completely changed the ending. The original version is currently on MAX so I came home and had to rewatch those last 20 minutes to remember what happened. If you haven’t seen it in a while, or have never seen it both versions are great.

I really liked the Pete Davidson episode of SNL, especially this. However, the Nate Bargatze episode is one that I will happily rewatch on a regular basis, it was fantastic.

What pop culture is consuming you these days? What are you looking forward to?