One of my LA friends described Los Angeles as "a loose confederation of strip malls" and I've stuck with that.

I get a toaster! Upon my recommendation, a friend who was doing a long TDY in a boring place bought the Firefly DVDs to take with her, and is now another Huge Fan. I figured she'd be hooked by the "no sound in space" but she raved about the writing. Good taste, that one.

An ad I wrote is on the DVD extras and I can't even get my parents to buy them.

I'm constantly amazed at how easy it is for people to get other people to buy/watch them due to this experience.

Allyson, the only reason my mom watched was because they had French dubbing (that's her mother tongue, and she misses it).

Do your parents know about your ad, though?

Do your parents know about your ad, though?

I think so, that was my selling point. I even brought the DVD and they weren't interested in it at all.

Same thing with something else coming up.

Honestly? I think a lot of it has to do with them just not getting it. It's so out of the realm of their understanding. "My friend has a new show coming out on FOX," is greeted with a sort of, "oh."

I think maybe they just don't believe me.

It's sort of cute.

Well, if it helps, my DH was very impressed that I "know" the person who wrote the ad. So your work is appreciated in my house, by all of us!

that was my selling point

I think that my father would probably respond very similarly to your parents - it's completely out of the realm of the things he's interested in (the only good thing he can admit there is about tv is the news, and even that, only occasionally).

My mom likes this world much more, as well as making a point to at least try to take interest in what her children like.

"My friend has a new show coming out on FOX," is greeted with a sort of, "oh."

When I told them about the dinner I had we you and Kristen and Tim (one of the first things they jokingly asked was "did you see any celebrities?", to which my answer was "just the one, and he was the one I was most interested in meeting"), I think I was greeted with that same sort of "oh". I also thought it was cute.

I think my dad would've actually kind of liked Firefly. Although he wasn't much for science fiction, he maintained that all good stories were westerns, and he liked good writing. And if I'd had something on the DVD extras, he would've watched it.

Maybe your parents just expect you to be doing cool stuff like that, Allyson, and so while they are impressed, it's sort of status quo impressed. If that makes sense.

Conversation with my parents:

Me: I'm working on a show with John Malkovich.

Mom: Oh.

Dad: Who's that?

I think they're trying to keep us humble, Allyson.

Edit to note that Raquel has quoted the Dead Milkmen in her tag. That rocks!

Doubt it makes much difference, Allyson, but my parents are very impressed by your and Kristen's ad-making skills. You can pretend they're your parents, if you want. They're really great parents.

I have gotten to the point where I just buy the DVDs for everyone as gifts. It is my default go-to gift. This led to some explanation, though, when I bought them for my boyfriend -

"Before you open this, I want you to know I didn't get it because I didn't know what to get you. I got it because I did."

I felt a need to make this statement because whenever he asks "What should I get __________ for birthday/Christmas/mother's day/llama's day/YGGHMV?" my inevitable response is "Firefly." But he was very glad to have them, because he hadn't watched any of the commentary when he had mine in his possession. And the commentary MUST be watched. Unless you don't want to watch it, then you don't have to.

The Balticon masquerade had an entry called "Big Damn Heroes", with all of the main characters. Some of them were easier to recognize than others. Jayne, Inara and Book were pretty easy to recognize, but I wasn't sure if one person was River or Kaylee until Kaylee came out from the wings in a poufy dress...I later saw "Kaylee" in the coveralls-with-a-teddybear-patch.