(Cross-posted to LiveJournal)
[...]
Anna's acting aside (and I know a lot of people will disagree with me on this point), my sole complaint with the series was the [perfectly canon] possibility that Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis) would not see the second series. He was my favourite character in the first series, and completely independent of his role in the book universe. Amazing actor, amazing character, just really entertaining and fun to watch.
Lafayette wasn't a major character in the books, and Charlaine Harris killed him off (in the first book, if memory serves me); but in the show, I think he has been much too well-loved by the audience to just get rid of him so carelessly. If the intro is anything to go by, perhaps Alan Ball has thrown that out the window. Fine by me ... [Edit: Still watching (10:31) ... am I writing too soon? Is he going to die in this episode? If he dies in this, I am going to FLIP.]
I can't help but feel a bit sad that it appears Jason (Ryan Kwanten) is going to be turning into a Jesus person Fellowship of the Sun member this season. He was such a fun little man-whore in the last series. Ah, well. Character development. C'est la fiction.
Also, if the YouTube BloodCopyCom viral campaign is any indication, we might see the second Great Revelation (weres and shifters making themselves known) sooner than the pace of the books would have it. In the books, it didn't happen until Dead and Gone.
Showing posts with label television. Show all posts
Showing posts with label television. Show all posts
15 June 2009
True Blood S02E01 -- teletalk and spoilers
01 June 2009
cool guys don't look at explosions
(Cross-posted to LiveJournal)
MTV can still die in a fire, for many reasons--this time for excluding Best Villain (Heath Ledger as The Joker) from their televised broadcast of the MTV Movie Awards--BUT! I did enjoy this:
01:55 and 02:09 -- LOVE.
19 May 2009
Writer's Block: Space Wars
(Cross-posted to LiveJournal)
Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Serenity, Alien, 2001—there is a long list of movies and TV shows that take place in space. Which is your favourite?
I think the honour goes to Star Trek: TNG, and I might've said Star Wars once upon a time. But the prequels seriously damaged my fondness for Mr. Lucas and his universe. I still love the OT (and I mean the real OT, not the souped up re-released versions of those films), but ST:TNG ... I stayed up much later than I should've last night because Sci-Fi was playing reruns all evening until 23.00. It's probably fortunate that I don't own the series on DVD, because I'd sit around watching it all the time.
Sure, it's kitschy and self-righteous--but, honestly, the "do the right thing" message always appealed to me as a kid, and the possibility that people with power might do the right thing. And now, it's more a nostalgia for considering matters in a simpler light. Wouldn't it be great if planetary issues could be cleared up by some moral high-ground in the course of an hour (not even an hour, really--45 minutes)? That might be very dangerous in reality, actually, but it's [usually] done very neatly in TNG.
Also, we return to one of my favourite toys (I could call it "recreational equipment," but it's just an over-sized, expensive toy) of the future: The Holodeck. Sure, the crew are always getting into trouble on the holodeck (trapped in the Wild West with a dozen Data look-alikes, or a Sherlock Holmes novel with Professor Moriarty on the loose, etc.); but without the crazy and dangerous glitches, how brilliant would that be?
(ETA: Comments from LJ)
Susan: Geek.
Yeah, I think that I would pick Star Trek, too, actually. It's been consistently entertaining. I remember watching it on TV with my mom and brother and being just so excited and enthralled by what it had to offer ... new worlds ... new technology ... and, yes, the holodeck.
I must admit that my love for Star Wars has lessened--not that I don't love it, but my interest has been put into other things. Yeah, there are really annoying things in those films ... all in the prequels. LOL.
I was tempted to say Battlestar Galactica, but the 70's version was laughable but entertaining. And the recent series was just frakken brilliant, but the ending kind of disappointed me.
And yes I too was watching ST:TNG on Sci-Fi last night. :)
It never fails to draw me in. I was watching the episode with the Romulan spy, and I thought, Oh, I'll go to bed after this is done. And then I caught the teaser for the episode with the militant revolutionaries (well, terrorists, really), and I couldn't turn off the television without knowing what happened to Beverly--because I couldn't remember how the episode played out at all!
21 April 2009
yesterday's fake-holiday activities
(Cross-posted to LiveJournal)
Yesterday was good for nothing. I should've done laundry. Instead, I watched most of Season 2 of Dexter. I'd forgotten many of the subplots, so it all felt sort of new and interesting. I still strongly dislike Lila--which makes sense, I suppose, as we're not meant to like her. Still. What a skank-ho'.
I also messed around with my iPhone some more; and, on that topic, two more good and useful applications that also happen to be free:
Wikipanion, because it's about as close as we're going to get to an actual Hitchhiker's Guide. It's Wikipedia in a more iPhone-friendly format than you'd get browsing through Safari.
Stanza, because I don't want a Kindle, but I like the notion well enough. Hand-held electronic books (plenty of them for free if you're meaning to play catch-up with the classics), with changeable fonts and background contrast. It pulls from a variety of sources, including but not limited to: BooksOnBoard, Project Gutenberg, Feedbooks, and Fictionwise. And while I definitely prefer physical books, this makes for a good alternative if I run out of space in my bag or just forget to pack one.
And I discovered that it was much better for reading in bed when I'm cold (good grief, I was cold last night). I can burrow under the blankets and I don't need a light to see the text.
Mainly, I just keep thinking of little things that interest me and inspire me to seek out applications that correspond to them. Really, anything that deserves a button on my bookmarks toolbar has been given a search in Applications.
The one I've been avoiding downloading is Facebook, though it's in the Top 25 on the App charts. I think I probably share enough of myself as it is with LJ and Twitterrific. LiveJournal to satisfy my verbosity while maintaining a relative privacy (hello f-lock), and Twitter for the more public and more meaningless bits of life (Stephen: "twitter's right - every little thought that pops into my head is worth sharing"). Facebook still feels like giving and receiving much unwanted information. I'm okay with checking in at my desk, but I don't especially need it at my fingertips constantly.
What else? I started making icon bases for Disco Pigs. You can see them over at phantasm_bunny. Cillian Murphy's character Pig is a careful combination of adorable and creepy, which, by the end of the film, slides in favour of scary. I enjoy Cillian like that though (see: Red Eye and Batman Begins). The images, so far, come from The Cillian Site, but I think I might do some of my own screen-caps for my next part in the icon base series to see if I can't up the image quality a tick or two.
Other fun things to do: beating up lawn gnomes and flamingos (or being beaten up by lawn gnomes and flamingos) in the ZOMG! game on Gaia. The wasps found on Rancho de Bill frighten me, though. They're no more difficult to fight than the gnomes or the flamingos, but--they're giant frackin' wasps! BLEAH. Oh, well. My virtual purple sari and Colbert also make me happy.
... Is it wrong that I'd like to wear an actual sari? It feels somehow socially and ethnically incorrect--but they look so nice and vibrant!
17 April 2009
thank you, Mr. Oliver
(Cross-posted to LiveJournal)
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M - Th 11p / 10c | |||
| Tea Party Tyranny | ||||
| ||||
Taxation without representation? They don't even understand what that means. They may not like their current representation--but at least they have the opportunity to vote and change it. I really wish this "movement" would inspire some of them to crack a history book and learn something--but I doubt it.
01 April 2009
everyone's a comedian
(Cross-posted to LiveJournal)
Getting much better at headstands. Why are you doing headstands? I dunno, just felt inspired to improve the quality of my headstand (having full carpeting in a room helps, because who wants to do a headstand on a hardwood floor?). Jon Stewart and Aasif Mandvi--yes, they're just as funny upside-down. On a related note, laughing while you're doing a headstand is not something I recommend. Also, whenever I do my craptastic headstands, I think of this:
Must stop staying up when I know I'll just want to die in the morning when the alarm goes off in the dark.
I just really wanted to get my laundry done--because everything that I should've done over the weekend is getting dragged out over this week's evenings. It's the same thing with grocery shopping. There's no reason I couldn't have gone on Saturday or Sunday. I just didn't--and then had a wonderfully anxious time driving there and back through rush-hour sunset traffic (a million cars and pedestrians that you can't see with the sun in your eyes: AWESOME).
On a positive note, I have clean clothing and food, so life can't be all bad ...
It was dark and overcast this morning, whatever Weather.com has to say about it. Oh, it's 29° and sunny! No. First of all, it was in the 30's. Second of all, it was not sunny. Weather.com should be above April Fool's (though that's probably giving them too much credit--knowing what the actual weather is and deciding to say something else in an attempt of [albeit dull] trickery).
The cover of weeklydig is pretty good. It's an apology from AIG that begins: "We're really, really sorry!"
Gmail's April foolery is one-upping itself from last year:
Autopilot by CADIE: The easiest email could possibly be.
YouTube thinks they're brilliant, too. And they are, sort of. When you're on the main page and you click on a video link to watch, it sends you there but everything's upside-down. Go look! I'm not kidding (that would be a lame April Fool's, anyway--"made you look! I'm so clever! I can lie on the internet!").
Also on YouTube, there's a new video from TheJokerBlogs--but it is also a prank (of course):
I need a haircut. Pronto.
14 March 2009
degree of extreme
(Cross-posted to LiveJournal)
The cover of the Spring 2009 BU Arts & Sciences reads:
"BU (extreme) South - Geomorphologist David Marchant and his team of students discover Antarctica's secret past"
But, of course, because I'm still stuck at the mountains of madness, "secret past" makes me think of starfish-headed tentacle aliens in a labyrinthine city ...
And then Professor Marchant's Earth Science class, but that was pathetically secondary in my thought process. Yeah, I had a 9 AM class with him in Freshman year, and it was about as stirring as Lovecraft's "Mountains" (unfortunate for a morning class and a morning read, respectively).
Marchant is like my very own Dyer, and because of this little morsel of information regarding his travels, I will now be imagining him in place of my original mental sketch of Professor Dyer (in spite of the fact that Marchant is actually much younger than Dyer is meant to be). Yay!
I've listened to about a half-dozen of these in the past two days. "About," because I downloaded the first six but fell asleep listening to one last night.
My original notion of Russell Brand came from that Andrew Sachs prank phone call business. I listened to the audio of the radio programme long after the fact, and it wasn't so much scandalous to me as it was blown way out of proportion. I heard about the VMA nonsense a bit later, but I didn't really care ... because, well, I don't care about MTV.
But after watching Brand's special from New York City on ComedyCentral, my opinion of him has improved. Sure, he's an eccentric little giraffe (and a manwhore, to boot), and a lot of his routine is specifically grounded in moments of personal embarrassment, but he also has this marvelous ability to slip into beautifully poetic rambles. Very entertaining overall, so I went in search of more--and, indeed, found more.
Then, today I was watching movies on the Instant Queue and picked Penelope, because I remembered that a coworker had suggested it. And who should make a very brief cameo in that film but Russell Brand? I wasn't even paying attention at that point, to be honest (because I tend to web browse all the time); but then I heard that voice, to which I've become quite attuned with the aforementioned radio broadcast .mp3s and falling asleep to it and so on, and my brain went: Russell?! And there he was talking to James McAvoy's character! Very, very brief cameo, but it makes me feel as though my subconsciousness is dragging him around with me.
25 January 2009
the word is Hyde
(Cross-posted to LiveJournal)
Whoa. I've been watching the Jekyll series all day on the Netflix Instant Queue, and just finished the sixth (and last) episode now. I'm a fan of the old story, so I was curious about this. ... You can certainly tell Steven Moffat was involved. Some of it distinctly smacks of Doctor Who.
Split personalities, cloning, reincarnation. It's one more head trip after another.
16 January 2009
LOL
(Cross-posted to LiveJournal)
Shawn Spencer: "Former lovers?! REALLY?!?"
I crowed and clapped.
It might be coincidence, but I do believe the Psych writers have been reading the Shassie (Shawn/Lassiter) fanfiction--or it's come to their attention, anyway--and they don't approve of this pairing either. (C'mon! Slash is great, but ... It's LASSITER! Tim Omundson is very talented, but--NO.) So clearly I don't ship them. I don't have a Psych ship, probably because there are no regular nasties on board.
I'm especially amused by this inclusion since my txt question to the show earlier this week was: "Do you know there is fanfiction about you? Have you read any of it?" Oh, they must know.
That was a relatively serious episode, though, all things considered. I mean Shawn was really slammed around ... And it looks like next week's is similarly danger-filled.
I did not successfully spot the pineapple (there's at least one in every episode). I'm so ashamed. And tired.
Good night.
25 July 2008
long wait
When I went back to re-read the email that Amazon.com sent me, I noticed the "shipping estimate" for my graphic novels ... September 4, 2008 - September 12, 2008?!
I get that they're low on their stock, but the new stock is coming in (according to the site) during the first week of August. Why the month-long delay? Did the order surge really take them by surprise?
It's not that I don't have other things to read. In fact, I can easily while away more than a month on the amassed unread books around the house. But sometimes you want what you want RIGHT NOW.
Eating wasabi peas is not one of those wants that you should satisfy whenever it springs. Especially not in the morning on an empty stomach.
Ugh.
I'm already all out of fanfiction this morning. There have been decent ones. There have been pretty awful ones where my suspension of disbelief has threatened to shatter and shred the authors with shrapnel (that's not quite alliteration, but it pleases me).
In regards to recently read Batman fanfic:
Complaints about just one: Clubbing a suspect on the head when he's already apprehended is what is known as police brutality, and the victim of said brutality would probably walk on account. ... It's not up to detectives to determine why or if people are crazy. Change your character's motives, or change her profession. Or stop. Just full-stop. ... And nobody survives being a cop or a detective when they throw a temper tantrum every time a suspects says something unkind. Really.
Also, a general observation--there were apparently a lot of Mary-Sues at Bruce Wayne's benefit for Harvey Dent. Dozens, maybe. I don't know how Chris Nolan managed to dodge all of them, really.
In reading the fanfiction, I definitely get a better grasp of what others perceive about these characters. But, more than that, my own perceptions become a bit clearer to me--what works and what doesn't. What works in the illustrated universe of Batman is not necessarily what works in the animated series, Burtonverse, [then that odd gray period of Batman Forever and Batman & Robin that we like to ignore, though I thought Jim and Tommy did well with what they had], or Nolanverse.
For example, reading fanfiction based on the animated series and using Mark Hamill's Joker--if you try to read it and envision Jack or Heath, it might work. And it might not. Similarly, if you read the recent Nolanverse fanfiction, having Mark or Jack in mind can work some of the time. But if it's fangirl mooning of the PWP variety? Well, you get squicked. Or I do, anyway.
That said, I still can't take Bruce/Joker slash seriously at all. Even with the "you complete me" (which, even the first time around, made me think inappropriately, "I wish I knew how to quit you.") and the "I don't wanna kill you--what would I do without you?" lines. I get it. They're a yin yang, immovable object and unstoppable force, blah blah blah. But I can't see Bruce touching Joker unless it's to clock him silly. Joker/Scarecrow, I've read; and I think it sits better with me because they're both cold-crazy.
But, actually, nothing that paints the Nolanverse Joker as being sexually driven really works for me. The drama/romance/non-con/PWP just doesn't fly, and the writing always goes quickly out of character. Anarchy, the biggest shock, turning stuff on its head--that works, that's believable. And, reading people cite the Joker/Rachel interaction as proof of sexual motives? No. First, he goes after the old man in the scene because the old man sets himself apart by speaking out. He turns his attention to Rachel only because she too chooses to set herself apart by speaking out. The sexual innuendo is merely the sure-fire way to cause the most shock and horror; and he may recognise her as Harvey Dent's girlfriend, so it's also the quickest way to drag the DA out of hiding--which is why they're there, after all.
Tragic and abused? Some writers have taken the story that the Joker tells the mob boss (right before gutting him), as gospel truth about the character, using it to create a more understandable and wounded version of the character (that an OFC will obviously comfort, kiss, and make all better). Except--clearly he's telling stories, as we get an entirely different account of scar-origin during the benefit party. I'm with Michelle in thinking that he probably did this to himself, and just enjoys telling the most effectively horrifying story per whatever audience he has at the time.
OK, enough criticism for now ...
I recognise people on my commute. And they recognise me. It's a complacently good-natured community.
15 July 2008
useless productivity
"And why aren't you well-rested?"
Because I wanted to see the end of the Star Trek: TNG two-parter on Sci-Fi (in spite of the fact that I've seen the Spock-defects-to-Romulus episodes before). And because I was on the internets until midnight. And then messing around with my iPod for another half-hour for no good reason.
So I'm a walking wreck today.
On the other hand, I finally had a Lush day on Sunday, which was awesome. I put the sound-dock just inside the bathroom door, turned the volume up, and lounged and sang along to Coldplay for a good hour. Also kept thinking of Ford Prefect, shouting, "You're a load of useless bloody loonies!" Not a particularly kind bubble-bath reference, but it made me giggle.
Speaking of Coldplay, "Violet Hill" is getting an awful lot of play-time on my iPod lately. Considering breaking down and outright buying the entire Viva la Vida album, since I do like what I've heard of the rest of it ...
Movie things--The Quiet American and The Air I Breathe arrived on Friday, and I took my time watching them. I might be on a Brendan Fraser kick right now. They were both good, but I liked The Air I Breathe more than I had expected (more than Netflix expected I would, certainly--if you're unfamiliar with this feature, based on your reviews of films, Netflix guesses how much you will or will not enjoy films you haven't seen). Air is similar to Crash in that it examines how several lives intertwine, looked at separately and where they cross--except that here they really do cross, whereas I felt a few of the "crashes" in Crash were more like gazes across a crowded room. Which is more realistic? Well, neither is particularly realistic to me, but they are movies; is realism the point?
I'm expecting Gotham Knight in today's mail--veering away from the Brendan Fraser bout of films, and prepping for The Dark Knight, which I'm seeing with
Books--Revenger's Tragedy. Still. Nearly done. Promise.
Next on the list? I should probably turn back to Anna Karenina. You can tell how excited I am about that, I suppose. Oh, well. I'll at least feel accomplished when it's over. Maybe.
07 July 2008
G.I. Joe, resurrected
OK, due to a brief glance at an icon, I had to check up on this (because it could have been like the journal layout for the supposed Outlander movie that doesn't actually exist--though, whereas G.I. Joe has been done to death and is more inappropriate than ever, I could do with an actual Outlander movie).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Joe_%28film%29
So ... is Christopher Eccleston going to be bald (and shiny)? No? That's sad.
Also on the list--
Heroes: Brendan Fraser (is Gung Ho?), Dennis Quaid, Ray Park, Marlon Wayans, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Lost's Mr. Eko)
Heels: Christopher Eccleston (is supposed to look like this), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (remember the love-sick kid from 10 Things I Hate About You? no? well, he's Cobra Commander)
Jonathan Pryce is the President, which is great, him being Welsh and everything--and an interesting contrast to whomever may be holding the office at the time.
But, I have to say, while I enjoyed the 80's cartoon--because I was 4 or 5 and it didn't mean anything to me on more than an entertainment level, like Teddy Ruxpin or The Gummi Bears, one of many in a long line-up of cartoon distractions--and still think of it with fond nostalgic feelings, it seems incredibly inappropriate for the age.
"Real American Hero" ... uh, yeah, about that. Nobody likes us anymore. The America-to-the-rescue theme just doesn't fly. At all. And that makes me especially curious about the plot for this movie and how they will or won't reconcile that reality. Maybe they'll all go somewhere and do something that nobody actually wants them to do.
Or they could play up the classic kitsch and ignore reality. But what with Destro having a receding hairline and no shininess, I'm guessing they're avoiding the kitsch.
On the other hand, it's G.I.-freaking-Joe; there MUST be kitsch--like the Palindrome Twins. OK, that's not what they're called, but still. Kitsch. Character disappointment is inevitable with things like this--like the absence of Gambit in X-Men. Still disappointed.
01 July 2008
True Blood - The Pilot
Due to BitTorrent's initial slowness, I tried to watch the pilot episode of True Blood on tudou.com yesterday evening.
For clarification, Tudou is one of the many Asian video-sharing sites out there. It one-ups YouTube by going mostly unnoticed by the lawyers responsible for pulling various materials from YouTube and GoogleVideo. The downside is that many of the videos you will find on Tudou or MegaVideo or Veoh will be titled with Chinese characters.
So the second part of the True Blood pilot was there and labeled 'B', but there was no part 'A' to be found. Thus, I watched the last half hour of the 90-minute pilot.
By the time I woke up this morning, BitTorrent was finished with the transfer. So I watched the first fifteen minutes with breakfast before I had to brush my teeth and leave to catch my train.
So I've seen forty-five minutes of the pilot--forty-five broken minutes with a major gap in between.
And, happily, I'm excited to see the rest of it when I get home.
Much like the books, I get the feeling I'm going to feel split between the guys and whom I want Sookie to end up with. The actors playing Bill and Sam are mostly spot-on. Sam's hair is meant to be a bit more ... well, more, but the rest of him seems right. The actor's name is Sam too--and I seem to recall him as one of Dexter's trophy serial killers. The actress playing Sookie's friend Tara was Whitney on Passions. Tara is much less polite, but, strangely, I get the idea that the character is a better person.
The theme music (well, it might be the theme music; occasionally what you hear in the pilot is cut or changed by the time the show actually airs) is fitting for the setting and the plot. If there could be a Dark-Country genre (ala Dark Wave and/or Death Metal), that's how I'd describe the sound and lyrics. Better similarity--Nick Cave's "Red Right Hand."
So far as pacing goes, it looks like they might be going two to three chapters per episode, but my memory of Dead Until Dark might be a fuzzy (it's been at least five years since I read it). Whatever the case, I think they could get a good cable-season out of each book, the events of which are fairly episodic anyway. Granted, the Writers Strike could land the show on the chopping block before it's had its day, since it was meant to be out in early Spring this year, and it was pushed back to September. Still, it suits the Fall season. They might be better off.
Likely to follow this up once I've actually finished watching the full episode.
26 June 2008
telling me a story
My parents picked me up at the train station yesterday afternoon (the first sunny and non-torrentially-raining day in the week is the day they're there to give me a ride--of course). They're back from the Berkshires for a bit, as A Prairie Home Companion isn't until Saturday. Due to the thunderstorms that have been rolling through, they've been doing outlet shopping and scouting for furniture, and picked up a safe beige curtain for the door to the deck. The room is no longer on display--huzzah!
We went out to dinner at the Lyceum Bar and Grill, which was excellent and in walking distance of the apartment. Did an after-dinner walk around the Common, and then went back home again.
It was an afternoon for people telling me stories, by the way. My dad, who, on the way home, confessed to removing the door to the deck and hanging up a shower curtain to keep the rain out ... NO. And then the host at the restaurant. Big ol' story-tellers.
On a television note, The Riches can be embarrassing to watch with one's parents. I don't recommend it.
Commuting is coming easily. I always manage to get a seat, and I'm starting to recognise the usual suspects who share my schedule.
There is something weird though. Standing in North Station, one might suddenly see a herd of people rush out to a platform that hasn't been announced. I can't figure out how they know it's their train. Because the rest of us stand and watch the line-up for the track announcement, and by the time we get out there, there are already a hundred people on board. And there's no apparent rhyme or reason to the thing, as the track is almost never the same one as the day before.
Is there a secret society with a decoder watch that announces the track number ten minutes before it appears on the board?
Chalk it up on the list of things to find out, I suppose.
Hooray! My internet is being installed tomorrow! Time to get a wireless router.
For the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, visit: masquedbunny.livejournal.com.
23 June 2008
and kicking
My downstairs neighbors (at least, I think it was my downstairs neighbors, since I don't imagine anybody else could've come in the front door, and wandered upstairs) left me a welcoming present from their favourite neighborhood bakery--croissants and danishes and bread. I think they must have dropped it off some time on Sunday, but I didn't notice until I walked out the door this morning. I feel kind of bad about that for a few reasons. One, I don't know how well the goodies will be now when they're not fresh. Two, I still haven't seen my neighbors. And now three, I really ought to thank them, and wish I had done yesterday ...
Anyway, I put the box of baked goods in the fridge before I left, so I hope I didn't spoil them by letting them sit out there on the landing overnight. I'm putting my faith in the preservative properties of sugar.
Damn it. I'm already a bad neighbor, and I haven't even talked to anybody yet.
I was trying to get everything out of the cardboard boxes, and didn't leave the house at all. On one hand, good for productivity. On the other hand, it would've been nice to wander my new stomping grounds. Oh, well. There will certainly be time for that.
Saturday night discovery--the cable is still hooked up. On a whim, I plugged in the television just to see, and now I'm wishing I already owned a modem. Still... That will be installed on Friday.
Turned on AMC for a background--The Last Samurai and Alexander being heralded as "Future Classics," with which I take some umbrage--while unpacking and then having dinner.
I had intended to sleep in yesterday, and I had left my iPod in the Sound Dock overnight for a sense of familiarity. And then, at around 0830, I awoke to a strange blend of Lunasa coming from the speakers, and swinging big band music--coming from outside. Think more casual New Orleans big band, rather than rigid marching band, and you'll have a good idea of the sound. And it would've been irritating, except that it was actually quite good. So I opened more of the windows and the deck door to let the music breeze in and through the house.
Timed the walk from my door to the station. It's a little under ten minutes at a very leisurely pace. I left about fifteen minutes sooner than necessary for my 0627 train. I think I'm going to pick up a 12-trip pass for the remainder of the month this afternoon, just to save time.
It's raining now. I hope my leaving the windows open a few inches wasn't a mistake. Guess I'll find out when I get home ...
02 June 2008
Happy June!
We seem to have skipped Spring, as per the usual for Boston weather. Cold, cold, rain, cold--muggy and unbearable! Really, there ought to at least be two or three weeks where I can leave the windows open in the morning and come home to a pleasantly cool room. No such luck.
New-home stuff moves along. I need more boxes.
No, Turbo, I'm not still holding my breath ... but I'm not jumping for joy yet either. Because I'm afraid of jinxing myself.
Finished reading Part II of Anna Karenina. Anna and Alexei's marriage is going down the drain, so that Anna can pursue her relationship with the other Alexei--Vronsky. Kitty isn't depressed about Vronsky anymore, but latching on to a kind of Born-Again-ness inspired by her trip to Germany. Aaaannnnd ... Levin is being a surly farmer.
I know it's epic and fabulous, and I really was drawn in by Tolstoy's description of Vronsky's doomed race horse. But ... well, I'm bored. The only reason I even bothered to tear through Part II was because I knew I'd be reading Funke and Pratchett when I was done. And now I'm reading Inkspell.
Speaking of Pratchett ... I have [ashamedly] been reading Teatime fan-fic. I blame Marc Warren and that neurotic part of me that falls for creepy men who probably smell nice.
Netflix delivered Tron and Turtles Can Fly. Tron was broken, so I've notified Netflix, and am mailing that back today. I still haven't sat down to watch Turtles Can Fly. It's not a movie you can watch while doing something else, because it's a Middle Eastern film with subtitles; and, yes, I could half-heartedly read every other subtitle while doing something else, but that kind of inattention will probably only lead to confusion and much rewinding.
Watched most of Season One of The Sopranos over the weekend on surfthechannel.com. Except that the second part of the season finale wouldn't load, so I'm left hanging. Maybe I can get it to work for me today. Tony's mannerism remind me much of my grandfather (who actually looked more like Paulie, but ...), except that Tony is actually more socially evolved than my grandfather ever was. Fear and distrust of psychiatry is spot-on, except that Tony moves beyond that and has a psychiatrist. My grandfather never got beyond that distrust--which was unfortunate for his kids, because more than a few of them have serious unresolved issues. Also, Junior looks a lot like my Great Uncle Pat.
It's fun to compare pronunciation of Mid-Atlantic Italian with actual Italian. Everything is a little mutated.
29 May 2008
distractions
I lied. I finished Twilight yesterday morning before leaving for work, and I'm not reading Anna Karenina. I picked up The Good Fairies of New York again. It's still fairly flat, but I'll finish with it tonight or tomorrow.
It's not even the story that I find flat. The plot is good, the character ideas are good. But the execution is wrong. It sometimes reads like a daily comic, minus graphics. Very choppy and not enough imagery by far. The characters' manners of speaking are also awkward and not very naturalistic. I feel like I know what Millar is trying to do with it--minimalism akin to the telling of classic fairy tales--but I just don't think it works, not when your characters are not recognisable archetypes.
Following Twilight with this is making me feel like a very fussy reader. I think I'll try to get through Part Two of Anna when I'm done with Good Fairies. But Anna is a lot like a soap opera, without the satisfaction of steamy sex or over the top violent and melodramatic moments. I think the suspicion of this very thing is why I've been avoiding Tolstoy all these years.
I also added Dickens' The Pickwick Papers to my Summer Reading List. I might regret that decision eventually too.
My book-per-week plan should be back on track by the end of June if I keep tossing a couple of shorter novels between Parts of Anna Karenina. I think Funke's Inkspell and Pratchett's Sourcery are two good candidates for my next Anna-break.
Netflix sent me Stage Beauty, largely to do with English theatre in the late seventeenth century and focusing particularly on Edward Kynaston, one of the last male leading ladies before Charles II outlawed men in women's parts. I enjoyed it very much. Billy Crudup has a remarkably angular face, and, yes, is a very pretty man--though, in my opinion, much better-looking as a man than, as the movie seems to suggest at times, a woman. The half-hour long behind-the-scenes bonus feature was interesting. Tom Hollander's good-natured griping about Billy Crudup--excellent.
I was also supposed to get Stealing Beauty, but that didn't arrive. And they emailed me last night to say that Tron is being sent from New Brunswick, so there's no knowing how long that will take to get here.
The Lost finale is this evening, but I don't know whether to be excited or wary. I don't see how this season can end well.
02 May 2008
skewed standards
I started watching Dexter this week on surfthechannel.com.
It's weird what becomes, well, fictionally acceptable after a point.
The pilot--especially the opening sequence--was downright disturbing; but it's the perfect introduction to Dexter Morgan. The voice-over tells us what he's about, explains what he's doing and why he's doing it, which is: stalking serial killers to satisfy his own need to kill people.
Because Dexter has a code ingrained in him by a terribly understanding step-father Harry--a police officer who discovered his adopted son's urges at a very young age. Oh, and we know that Harry rescued Dexter from a gruesome crime scene at the age of four, a crime that clearly has had its effects on Dexter's psyche. In order to quell these urges, Harry teaches Dexter to hunt and kill animals, to pretend emotions, and eventually how to spot other serial killers and how to cover his tracks when Dexter kills them.
It's important to note that Harry is the only person who knows what Dexter is. His foster mother and sister have no idea.
Flash forward to the present. Dexter and his step-sister work for the Miami Dade Police Department, Dexter specialising in forensic blood spatter. Wee.
He's really an excellent antihero. The first episode's opening is repellent and typical--Dexter hunts down, drugs, butchers, and disposes of a serial killer of young boys--but the remainder of the pilot is a steady inward reeling in which I just become very attached to Dexter.
Dexter does not consider himself capable of "love," as such, but he does have intense loyalty to the good people around him. He has a girlfriend, Rita, and her two children by an abusive ex-husband. In another voice-over, he admits that part of the draw to Rita is her alike damaged nature and their shared dream of normalcy. And he is, in his own words, "very fond of" his step-sister Deb. I think it's these few human connections, and the bewildering moments of emotional disconnect, that make Dexter the most endearing sociopath ever.
Oh, and he's always eating. All the time. Gorey crime scene--and--a sandwich!
I've also been turning over in my head the similarity between Dexter and Lestat circa Memnoch the Devil. Both hunt down and murder other murderers to satisfy something inside them--not really as an act of justice, though an outside observer could make that judgment call, but because they need to kill somebody, and it may as well be somebody wicked. And they both have personal connections that make them more human, give them a chance to show a better side.
It's another reason for being okay with Dexter--prior experience in being attached to characters that are, well, not exactly all wrong, but definitely not right.
29 February 2008
unstuck in time
Michelle drove me to St. E's last night, and now my stitches are out.
Between going there and coming back, the whole process took about an hour, and by the time we got home, Lost was halfway through. So, rather than starting in the middle and rewinding later, I took a shower and waited for the whole episode to finish recording.
I really enjoyed "The Constant"--yes, sappy tearful ending and all (in fact, I did cry when Desmond finally got Penny on the phone). I took the whole as tribute to Kurt Vonnegut--Slaughterhouse Five particularly--except that the result (at present, anyway) seems much happier for Desmond Hume than for Billy Pilgrim. And I want Desmond's part of the story to have a good ending, though it doesn't appear that he's one of "the Oceanic 6"; I'm so sick of losing the characters that I actually like.
And then my VCR clipped off the ending (because ABC's schedule always seems to run a little off whenever they run two episodes of Lost back-to-back). So today I went in search of the last sixty seconds of the episode to find out what Daniel was reading in his journal.
"If anything goes wrong, Desmond Hume will be my constant."
The character Daniel Faraday is sort of adorable in a grown-up-stoner kind of way. The episode trailers always make whatever he says seem mysterious and vaguely threatening; but when I hear the lines again in the episodes' contexts, he just sounds dazed and confused all the time.
Also watched Torchwood's "A Day in the Death" before going to the hospital. I want to care about Owen, but ... meh? Next week's episode looks exciting.
On another topic, a realty agent sent me an email last weekend (I think my parents have been submitting my name and email), to which I responded at my leisure--with the full story of "taking my time, seeing what's out there, p.s. have a snowboard injury and indisposed for a bit." She's now sent me a list of properties and wants to know when I'd be free to see some of them.
This all feels far too grown up for me.
But I wonder if my aunt still wants me to visit this weekend; because, if not ... a few open-houses could be fun.
19 December 2007
saved by the UK
I love Hot Chip. Or maybe I just love Hot Chip's "Over & Over" ... YES.
I've loved this song since, oh, last Fall. And I still love it. I can hear it every day and it makes me happy. Kind of like The Automatic's "Monster."
Both songs make me think of Torchwood, which is maybe a good portion of the happiness--and, right now especially, the antici- ... -pation (who loves Rocky Horror? oh, right--I do). The new Torchwood season begins next month, and the Doctor Who Christmas special is right around the corner.
Hey, we all need things to look forward to. Me, I look forward to new David Tennant and John Barrowman fixes from the BBC during Hollywood's woeful dry spell. (PAY THE WRITERS NOW, PLEASE. KTHXBYE.)
What else is on my mind this morning? Politics.
Television and politics--well, it works for Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.
Mostly, I'm just a little irritated by a web site that I was invited to look at. They're polling the public for the 2008 Presidential race, but they've excluded Ron Paul from the polls, and make a big [highly animated] point of letting everyone know this up front. It's not that I even like Ron Paul. I'm not going to be voting for him, because I think he's an idiot. At this point, I'm so disgusted with all of them, I might do a write-in (that won't be counted, because individual votes don't really count for beans in the US Presidential race, if we're really being honest about it).
But I think the owner of the site is a bigger idiot for excluding Paul. If you're really interested in clean poll results, you won't exclude any candidate, no matter how much you dislike him or his followers. If you're not interested in clean poll results, why take the time to create a web site devoted just to the poll? Isn't it a waste of time and energy for something that doesn't really matter to you?
OK. End irritable ramble.
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