Update, a few recs and ruminations on TV
I've been quiet as a mouse recently, barely making a peep online or to my friends. I know I have been particularly remiss here. Blame the start of summer school, a sudden craving to read "real" books (I devoured twenty-three in the last four days) when I read something other than psych files or for school. Before that I'm pointing the finger at finals, which went rather disastrously due to my laziness and knack for procrastination, thanks for asking. I'm still waiting for grades in three classes. Keep your fingers crossed for Bs. I just have not been reading fic, only tagging for later to keep my inbox from being overwhelmed.
I'm at bat to rec John Sheppard, Teyla and Lorne at stargateficrec but have not been able to get down to writing anything the last few days even though finals are now over. I've been too consumed with school projects, a high profile advisory opinion for work and research for my other job. I only have the latter to do now so guess that means you'll see a bunch of posts coming at you rapid-fire in the last few days of the month.
Things will stay tense with summer school at night (started Crim Pro on Monday which finishes in time for Community Property in about three+ weeks, and then Adv Legal Research, if I ever get off the wait list, after that), my jobs and preparing for the bar, my morals application and the big unnamed for security's sake dream job application that I'll be doing in six to eight months. I'm looking forward to doing hearings at CMF, ASH, CMC, San Quentin, Pelican Bay, Corcoran, pretty much every institution I can get to thanks to the generous agreement of the attorneys I work with. Very psyched although its tempered by my sadness that my wonderful dream boss has been appointed a judge and left. She more than deserves it and I'm thrilled for her but I will miss her terribly. One of the best bosses I've ever had.
The weather is blazingly hot here and it's spectacularly beautiful out. I went shooting at my new gun club in the country this weekend with a friend and we both spent more time rhapsodizing over the scenery than working on our skills. We still managed to expend 200 of the increasingly scarce and hard to find .45 rounds. Everyone is hoarding due to the regime change. In the last three months 14 of the last 16 stores I have gone to have not only been sold out but told me that they cannot get any more. I wiped out the two stores with anything left. It's all calibers. Got to love the paranoia of my fellow gun nuts. Thanks to us, ammo and firearm manufacturers are the only sector of the economy showing growth. We also discovered that the reason I have been having so many misfires with my Kimber is because of my two non-Kimber (Colt made) extra magazines. The Kimber is sensitive enough that the difference in pressure is enough to cause about one round out of every fifty to misfire. Wahh, now must spend more money I don't have on name brand magazines. Expecting to get laid off with all the other state employees due to the major ineptitude of the Governator (What!?! Weight-lifting, steroid abuse, groping women and being a pampered movie star don't prepare you to run the fifth largest economy in the world?! Shocker.) any day now but could not resist buying my luscious and buttery gray Christian Louboutin bag. Just looking at it makes me purr.
Now for something a bit outside my fandom wheelhouse. I hope no one minds a few non SGA recs....
I did finally watch the last BSG "season" or season segment depending on whether you are a human being for a marketer eager to sell an extra dvd set, which everyone had roundly spoiled for me. I know it made my sister, Bristow1941, happy since she could finally vent all her Starbuck/Apollo shipper rage to a sympathetic ear. I was mostly fine with how things went down but I agreed as to how bitterly sad a position the series left Lee in. I suggested the following fic as panacea and closure to her and she reported that it helped her alot. The story is heartwrenchingly sad, yet somehow joyful and healing at the same time. I needed something just like this since the writers saved their cruelest treatment for Lee Adama, the most moral and unambiguously honorable in intent and deed character. I highly recommend Songs of the Open Road for even the non-shipper. It's quite gen and either the story of his path to enlightenment or madness, you decide which.
May 16 was Armed Forces Day and Monday, May 25, is my second favorite holiday (after July 4th), Memorial Day. Honor all those who have so unselfishly given their lives for us by watching my favorite movie of 2008 or 2009, Taking Chance. It made me unabashedly weep and unbearably grateful and proud. I've been haunted ever since by almost every moment. It's the rare movie that matches and maybe exceeds the power of its source material, which I read when it was originally posted, the journal entries of the real LtCol Strobl. Read them before you see it so you can appreciate just what a masterpiece of subtlety and film making this is. It should win every Emmy it meets the criteria for. Equally lovely is the soundtrack. I've been listening to it on endless repeat since I downloaded it, especially Greg Laswell's "Comes and Goes."
I only indulge usually in the SGA fandom but it's occurred to me that I should expand my horizons since the show's been off the air almost six months and the movie seems more and more unlikely. The problem is that TV's been failing me for the the last eighteen months or so.
I like Fringe, Dollhouse and Flashpoint, all three of which I started out disliking but which grew on me. The Mentalist began as a cute Poirot update but has become grating except for VanPelt/Rigsby, which I adore. Life was smashing from start to finish and I managed to utterly addict my parents to it. 30 Rock and How I Met Your Mother (I do not know a law student who doesn't love this show, "Lawyered!") consistently made me laugh out loud, rare for this sitcom hater. I can't help but feel while watching Law & Order that (1) Connie's totally banging Cutter as her no strings boy toy and torturing him in the process; (2) Cutter is a one-man demolition team for any political ambitions McCoy might harbor (no way McCoy wouldn't have fired him by now); and (3) the cops are such buffoons I almost need to fast forward through their parts. It remains the only show on the air where the law doesn't make me writhe with its wrongness. Chuck was fun but didn't make me bounce for joy like last season. I devoured The Girls Next Door, Dexter and Real Diary of a Call Girl. Eureka was ho-hum (mainly because I don't like Allison), I like Criminal Minds (I can't seem to break free of my serial killer fetish), Eleventh Hour (miles better than the UK version), TV junkfood Primeval and Torchwood (both of which are so cartoonish and broadly acted that I can watch on mute). I really like Reaper, Greek, Medium, The Closer and Pushing Daisies. Lie to Me, Castle and Better Off Ted are cute but nothing more. Generation Kill was my favorite tv show of last year. Burn Notice and Stargate Atlantis close seconds (I love my action, one liners and beautiful but lethal men).
In fact my viewing habits were more notable for what I didn't watch. Shows I dropped in 2008 or 2009: Desperate Housewives, The Hills, NCIS, Cold Case, American Idol, My Name is Earl, Dirty, Sexy, Money, Parks and Rec, CSI, True Blood, CSI Miami (oh the shame, that I ever watched it, even to mock), Secret Life of an American Teenager, Southland, Kings, Psych, Monk, The City, In Plain Sight, Entourage, Heroes, Privileged, Army Wives, Valentine, Private Practice, Damages, Eli Stone, Lipstick Jungle, Cashmere Mafia, Breaking Bad, Nip/Tuck, Damages, Beast, The Unusuals, Prison Break. I have been desperate enough to try anything and everything with no luck.
I'm thinking of quitting: Law and Order, House, The Office, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Gossip Girl (only stay for the deliciously evil Chuck and Blair), Bones, Numbers...
I like certain authors but there's just not enough source material to allow them to be more than microfandoms. I owe EvaFlack001 a list of favorite urban fantasy authors on that note.
Did I miss anything? Thoughts? Anyone else feeling tapped out by TV suckdom?
I'm at bat to rec John Sheppard, Teyla and Lorne at stargateficrec but have not been able to get down to writing anything the last few days even though finals are now over. I've been too consumed with school projects, a high profile advisory opinion for work and research for my other job. I only have the latter to do now so guess that means you'll see a bunch of posts coming at you rapid-fire in the last few days of the month.
Things will stay tense with summer school at night (started Crim Pro on Monday which finishes in time for Community Property in about three+ weeks, and then Adv Legal Research, if I ever get off the wait list, after that), my jobs and preparing for the bar, my morals application and the big unnamed for security's sake dream job application that I'll be doing in six to eight months. I'm looking forward to doing hearings at CMF, ASH, CMC, San Quentin, Pelican Bay, Corcoran, pretty much every institution I can get to thanks to the generous agreement of the attorneys I work with. Very psyched although its tempered by my sadness that my wonderful dream boss has been appointed a judge and left. She more than deserves it and I'm thrilled for her but I will miss her terribly. One of the best bosses I've ever had.
The weather is blazingly hot here and it's spectacularly beautiful out. I went shooting at my new gun club in the country this weekend with a friend and we both spent more time rhapsodizing over the scenery than working on our skills. We still managed to expend 200 of the increasingly scarce and hard to find .45 rounds. Everyone is hoarding due to the regime change. In the last three months 14 of the last 16 stores I have gone to have not only been sold out but told me that they cannot get any more. I wiped out the two stores with anything left. It's all calibers. Got to love the paranoia of my fellow gun nuts. Thanks to us, ammo and firearm manufacturers are the only sector of the economy showing growth. We also discovered that the reason I have been having so many misfires with my Kimber is because of my two non-Kimber (Colt made) extra magazines. The Kimber is sensitive enough that the difference in pressure is enough to cause about one round out of every fifty to misfire. Wahh, now must spend more money I don't have on name brand magazines. Expecting to get laid off with all the other state employees due to the major ineptitude of the Governator (What!?! Weight-lifting, steroid abuse, groping women and being a pampered movie star don't prepare you to run the fifth largest economy in the world?! Shocker.) any day now but could not resist buying my luscious and buttery gray Christian Louboutin bag. Just looking at it makes me purr.
Now for something a bit outside my fandom wheelhouse. I hope no one minds a few non SGA recs....
I did finally watch the last BSG "season" or season segment depending on whether you are a human being for a marketer eager to sell an extra dvd set, which everyone had roundly spoiled for me. I know it made my sister, Bristow1941, happy since she could finally vent all her Starbuck/Apollo shipper rage to a sympathetic ear. I was mostly fine with how things went down but I agreed as to how bitterly sad a position the series left Lee in. I suggested the following fic as panacea and closure to her and she reported that it helped her alot. The story is heartwrenchingly sad, yet somehow joyful and healing at the same time. I needed something just like this since the writers saved their cruelest treatment for Lee Adama, the most moral and unambiguously honorable in intent and deed character. I highly recommend Songs of the Open Road for even the non-shipper. It's quite gen and either the story of his path to enlightenment or madness, you decide which.
May 16 was Armed Forces Day and Monday, May 25, is my second favorite holiday (after July 4th), Memorial Day. Honor all those who have so unselfishly given their lives for us by watching my favorite movie of 2008 or 2009, Taking Chance. It made me unabashedly weep and unbearably grateful and proud. I've been haunted ever since by almost every moment. It's the rare movie that matches and maybe exceeds the power of its source material, which I read when it was originally posted, the journal entries of the real LtCol Strobl. Read them before you see it so you can appreciate just what a masterpiece of subtlety and film making this is. It should win every Emmy it meets the criteria for. Equally lovely is the soundtrack. I've been listening to it on endless repeat since I downloaded it, especially Greg Laswell's "Comes and Goes."
I only indulge usually in the SGA fandom but it's occurred to me that I should expand my horizons since the show's been off the air almost six months and the movie seems more and more unlikely. The problem is that TV's been failing me for the the last eighteen months or so.
I like Fringe, Dollhouse and Flashpoint, all three of which I started out disliking but which grew on me. The Mentalist began as a cute Poirot update but has become grating except for VanPelt/Rigsby, which I adore. Life was smashing from start to finish and I managed to utterly addict my parents to it. 30 Rock and How I Met Your Mother (I do not know a law student who doesn't love this show, "Lawyered!") consistently made me laugh out loud, rare for this sitcom hater. I can't help but feel while watching Law & Order that (1) Connie's totally banging Cutter as her no strings boy toy and torturing him in the process; (2) Cutter is a one-man demolition team for any political ambitions McCoy might harbor (no way McCoy wouldn't have fired him by now); and (3) the cops are such buffoons I almost need to fast forward through their parts. It remains the only show on the air where the law doesn't make me writhe with its wrongness. Chuck was fun but didn't make me bounce for joy like last season. I devoured The Girls Next Door, Dexter and Real Diary of a Call Girl. Eureka was ho-hum (mainly because I don't like Allison), I like Criminal Minds (I can't seem to break free of my serial killer fetish), Eleventh Hour (miles better than the UK version), TV junkfood Primeval and Torchwood (both of which are so cartoonish and broadly acted that I can watch on mute). I really like Reaper, Greek, Medium, The Closer and Pushing Daisies. Lie to Me, Castle and Better Off Ted are cute but nothing more. Generation Kill was my favorite tv show of last year. Burn Notice and Stargate Atlantis close seconds (I love my action, one liners and beautiful but lethal men).
In fact my viewing habits were more notable for what I didn't watch. Shows I dropped in 2008 or 2009: Desperate Housewives, The Hills, NCIS, Cold Case, American Idol, My Name is Earl, Dirty, Sexy, Money, Parks and Rec, CSI, True Blood, CSI Miami (oh the shame, that I ever watched it, even to mock), Secret Life of an American Teenager, Southland, Kings, Psych, Monk, The City, In Plain Sight, Entourage, Heroes, Privileged, Army Wives, Valentine, Private Practice, Damages, Eli Stone, Lipstick Jungle, Cashmere Mafia, Breaking Bad, Nip/Tuck, Damages, Beast, The Unusuals, Prison Break. I have been desperate enough to try anything and everything with no luck.
I'm thinking of quitting: Law and Order, House, The Office, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Gossip Girl (only stay for the deliciously evil Chuck and Blair), Bones, Numbers...
I like certain authors but there's just not enough source material to allow them to be more than microfandoms. I owe EvaFlack001 a list of favorite urban fantasy authors on that note.
Did I miss anything? Thoughts? Anyone else feeling tapped out by TV suckdom?