Pop culture fail

So as much pop culture as I consume, there are still lots of things that pass me by. And then I get that look I usually give other people. The one that says: "What do you MEAN you haven't read/watch /heard [fill in the blank]?!" I know, I know. So for every person who doesn't recognize Dan Stevens from "Downton Abbey" in that pic from the last post, there are just as many times when I can be just as pop culture clueless. So here, things that I need to get into but haven't yet. Go ahead, be horrified -- but don't let your face stick like that.

Web series

With the except of "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog," I don't watch web series. Which is ludicrous given how much time I spend with my laptop open. But I can't ever figure out their schedules, and the production quality isn't always up to snuff, which can drive me crazy. Plus, I have a total second-screen mentality, so what would I do if watching on my laptop? In truth, I can watch YouTube on my TV, but I'm going to blame my already busy TV-watching schedule for missing these two series especially: "The Lizzie Bennet Diaries" and "The Guild." Both seem right up my alley -- Pride & Prejudice! Geeks!  -- and yet, I can't sit down to watch them. Maybe it's that they seemingly have so many episodes already that, even though they're short, it'd be like me trying to watch all 10 seasons of, I dunno, "Smallville" or something.

Books

Y'all know I love my YA. Even before I rediscovered that genre, I generally read Austen paraliterature, mysteries and the occasional romance. As big a bookworm as I am, I just cannot deal with mainstream chick lit (inevitably the girl is late 30s, either divorced with a kid or longtime singleton and works in PR) or actual literary fiction (inevitably too depressing and/or Full of Meaning). So, no, I haven't read "Gone Girl" or classics like "The Catcher in the Rye." But I just finished Henry James's "Washington Square." And next on my list is the non-fiction World War I book "The Guns of August." They gotta count for something.

TV

This is the big one. The one that garners the biggest reaction when I confess: I've never seen "The Wire." Yes, I know it's amazing. Yes, I know it helped revolutionize television drama. Yes, I know it was filmed in Baltimore -- just up the road. I read somewhere that "The Wire" is like "War and Peace": Everyone says you should read/watch it, but hardly anyone actually follows through. I just don't know that I want to invest my time in several seasons of bleakness, so this one has moved down ... and down ... and down on my Netflix queue.