seryn

It was an interesting drive home from alterno-knitting tonight.

( alterno-knitting explained )

It was interesting because of the musical selection. P!nk's "Raise Your Glass" then, due to a station switch, "Truly Madly Deeply". One of the reasons I rarely listen to music is that it's an unfiltered external emotional influence. Meaning that I can be dramatically depressed by the music or uplifted, depending on what plays and my interpretation of it (which isn't filtered by current emotional state; it's fixed, often upon first experience of the song.) "Raise Your Glass" is one of the songs I added to the list that should be played at my memorial when I die. If there is any sort of memorial, which I can't honestly imagine needing since I don't know anyone locally really. And all of you who are far away shouldn't fly across the country after I'm dead. The other song says love can be killed by the sky falling. Even metaphorically extreme love that sounds really creepy to me now and probably should have sounded terrifying when I first heard it but did not.

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I'm attempting to wade through an episode of Body of Proof. It improved after the first few episodes. We see a lot less of the main character obsessing on the idea that motherhood should trump being a brilliant surgeon and saving people's lives and we've mostly gotten past the idea that she deserved the lame things that happened to her for being a crappy mother. I won't argue whether she was a crappy mother, but the girl had a crappy father too... they were both totally obsessed with careers and one wonders why they had a child neither of them appears to like very much. Most of the whole first season was devoted to ironing that issue out. Now that they actually share custody, and the daughter chided them on being a lot less mature than she was being, it's almost gotten back to being about the science. But it's not as logical a progression nor do we see the intuitive leaps they make to formulate a new theory to investigate. It's obvious that the plot is just there to allow the show to be a soap opera for the characters. I prefer my "science is awesome, look what science can do!" shows to actually show the science, like have smart people writing them and actors who can pretend to be smart ( (read the continued Bones related rant) ) So it's hard to want to watch the show even though it's not awful. There's this huge potential for it to be amazing and I keep watching in case it becomes so.

I'm still watching Glee, but I'm having trouble imagining that it's not supposed to be entirely tongue-in-cheek. Everyone fits so specifically into a stereotype that I'm wondering if Jungian psychologists are spooging themselves during every viewing. I'm nearing the end of the first season when the dim but loveable football hero sings "Jesse's Girl" in response to an assignment to find a song that expresses their feelings. That was when I realized the whole story arc where the main girl's paired with a competing love interest... the whole thing was a setup from the get-go. Otherwise they wouldn't have named the character Jesse. The entire point of the character, the whole love triangle/pentagon stuff, everything we've seen about this, it was all leading up to the dim dude singing Rick Springfield's "Jesse's Girl". It's a shaggy dog story. It took 7 episodes and there were a lot of red herrings but in the end the whole thing is a humorous punnish punchline that should have been obvious so everyone watching then groans. Only no one who watches Glee seems to realize it was a joke. I'm ashamed to be enjoying this because no one seems to be laughing, it's like Glee fans are too stupid to get the constant joke build-up. So what does that make me? Normally I take all humor as serious, because I've missed the hook or I don't see why we should be laughing at someone who is socially disadvantaged. Normally most people think I have no sense of humor. So why am I the only one who sees that the writer's naming the new guy Jesse was intended to allow them to springboard into using "Jesse's Girl"? Why am I the only one who was laughing her ass off about this having been designed into the show?

I've been watching Finder. It's okay. I'm still a bit freaked about the Willa actress looking so much like the Zoe Carter character from Eureka. (They are different women. I checked.) I was so glad when they got rid of her because the actress looked too old to be the actor playing her dad's kid. When I checked the Eureka actors' bios, that was actually true. So now when I see someone who looks like one of those actors, I'm still thinking "underage" and "irresponsible". Which isn't fair since Finder has a completely independent cast.

I am horrified by the whole "virginity is awesome" slant that too many shows and books and movies are taking. I admit that I'm skeeved when I read about 13 year olds having sex in novels, and even when they're 17 year olds because I've met 17 year olds in recent years and they're like the 13 year olds were when I was 13 because no one seems to expect their children to actually bear up under any sort of responsibility so they don't get to make any decisions or live with any consequences, which means, honestly, I'm skeeved when they make decisions that have consequences. But I don't like the idea that women should be pristine. Too many shows on Fox have this slant. It's enough to keep me from watching things on that channel.

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I read the Amazon customer reviews of the Touchstone series after I read the third book. I'm really offended by the reviewer who said that the series improved after _____ happened. 1. It was a massive spoiler that couldn't be hidden---- it's one of the blatant reviews on the page and the spoiler is before the normal cutoff for blurbing--- 2. I completely disagree and thought the whole ____ was a plot device the author pulled out of her ass because she couldn't find a happily ever after ending within the framework set up by the first book so she had to force the entire alternate world she'd built to conform to what Earthlings would expect a HEA to resemble. 3. the _____ was honestly the result of a completely appalling situation so liking that as a plot element was sickening.

If you want to know what the ___ was. ( Read more... )

It doesn't jive with our introspective main character who philosophically argues herself into helping people fighting a war. It was the philosophy and the thinking that interested me in the first book of the series. I was interested in the philosophy and the thinking in the second book too, but the more the main character was able to communicate with her new language skills, the less thinking she appeared to do.

Let's see.
( Books I didn't like and streaming media stuff. )

There really must be something wrong with my taste in entertainment lately.
( I go from TV to obscure fanfic. )

I watched the Veronica Mars pilot episode this afternoon.
( Read more... )
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I'm almost done with season three of Doc Martin. I've seen most of these already because they were on PBS. But I was missing 2 of 7 (non-consecutive episodes) so it's been vaguely helpful to listen to them while doing something else.

Unfortunately I was attempting to do some complex knitting and had to pull it all out again plus some that had been good before. I shouldn't have assumed I was awake enough for that.

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( Kate Daniels #4 or How I hate Goober Peas )

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( tv tivo cable broadcast... all making me unhappy )

I finished the second book in the Lackey & Mallory trilogy To Light a Candle. It was decent but a little disjointed in the plot thread transitions.

I half-watched my third episode of Valentine. I didn't bother beyond skimming and canceled the season pass to record more of it. The final nail was the woman screaming during the fight she's witnessing and being the crucial distraction. Also the writing is terrible. I gave it a real chance because the first one I saw was only a little trite. Unfortunately that one was actually better than average.

I also did not watch the new HP film. Probably won't bother. I think they forgot that these films are supposed to tell a story. The films have never really captured the magic of the books to me. Of course later books stopped capturing any magic for me either.... imagine they have an entire magical world, children are learning magic... and a whole book is about a sports event. Then the next book where children at a school for magic have to teach themselves. It's not reasonable for me to suspend my disbelief while reading. I'm sure as hell not spending the cost of the whole DVD for a ticket to see the movie in a theater. I did hear that Tom Felton doesn't suck. So at least one of the children learned to act after 6 films. Hopefully someone will find him a real acting job with actual professionals writing and directing and producing something worth watching instead of the half-assed trash the films have been compared to the books which started to read like they were pulled from someone's ass anyway.

Watched another Eureka, still squicked by how the main character's daughter meant he knocked up his wife while he was 17-- no freaking way that should be shown as a role model. And I'm really tired of the clueless dude stumbling through his professional life and accidentally making good... Mr. Magoo was offensive 40 years ago, we don't need to replicate it again.

Still watching Castle. I like the ultra short intro (5 seconds, just an animated logo). I like the writing too. I really wish it wasn't set in NYC.

Oh. we watched something new that was supposedly set in San Francisco. Everyone was all kissy-face when they meet new people. That's very East Coast formal or Hollywood. If a couple is meeting another couple for dinner, they don't kiss cheeks. At least not around here. And San Francisco... I cannot possibly imagine they would do gender separated cheek kissing... f-f m-f, m-f, then nothing for the m-m. I really really don't imagine that working out there. So a) not for anywhere outside the Hollywood crowds b) not gender-specific only c) looks really NYC. I found that it seemed really unbelievable. There have to be people who know stereotypical actions that signify regionality. NYC-set productions always look really NY. Hollywood-set things always look Hollywood. Miami things look Miami (though that's largely the scanty costumes). Movies set in Chicago always seem populated with the kinds of people I met living there. It really bothers me when they take NYC people and tell them they're somewhere else, but don't bother explaining that we don't kiss strangers like that here. --- Yes. you can tell I double dated with a couple from NYC, once. If it had been a blind date, I would have been hard pressed to tell you which one was my date.