Three things on Sunday
1.
I am done with my release, except for the things I have to take care of tomorrow. I have been determined not to let those things make me cranky until at least a minute after I walk in the office door tomorrow morning. So far that plan is working.
I'm also back on the train tomorrow, which is good for many things, including but not limited to the environment and my sanity, but shifting to the earlier schedule will suck in the short term. I made myself get up early this morning and have been sleepy all afternoon, but I expect I'll be staring at the ceiling come midnight. But since the plan is to be cranky a minute after walking in the office door tomorrow morning, I see things coming together beautifully. It's all part of the plan!
And right now I'm catching up on Doctor Who and trying to ignore the GALE FORCE WINDS that are turning my neighborhood into a scene from Twister. I guess summer is here.
* * * * *
2.
Friday Stargates:
SGA 3.18 - "Submerged"
I'll admit that at this point I'm watching Stargate Atlantis out of a bizarre combination of can't-look-away-from-the-trainwreck, fondness for the overall franchise, and anticipation of certain upcoming casting changes. But this week's episode, with its rampant, blatant stupidity, actually managed to actively annoy me.
toysdream has a theory that the show is much more fun if you view Atlantis as the dumping ground for the Stargate program, that the Air Force sent their future Darwin Award winners to another galaxy to get rid of them. It certainly makes the show more understandable to view it through that lens. After last night, though, I have a theory. There's something in the water in Atlantis that's causing brain damage. It's the only way to explain how people who started out with such questionable decision-making skills have ended up getting so much dumber over time.
Like the brain trust that heads the Atlantis expedition thinking it would be a great idea for Teyla to establish a mental link with the Wraith. Apparently they all forgot about the incident two years previously, which ALL OF THEM EXCEPT FOR RONON WERE THERE FOR, when Teyla was taken over by such a link? Brain damage is obviously hard on memory, since none of them seems to consider that this might happen again. And then Sheppard actually wanted to keep the Wraith alive so that she could help them. This expedition cries out desperately for the presence of Scott Evil. At this rate, in another two years they're going to be flopping around on the floor in puddles of their own drool.
Other things that bugged: no acknowledgment of Carson's death (and I don't even care much one way or another about Carson, but what does it say about all these people that they're entirely unaffected one episode later? What does it say about how the writers treat these characters' history and experiences?) and Rodney's inexplicable regression to his beginning-of-Season-1 personality. Rodney's the closest thing they've got to a real character arc on this show; they really shouldn't blow it off so casually.
I will also admit to being a little disappointed when the camera panned down underwater and didn't come to rest on a giant pile of golf balls on the ocean floor, but I don't actually expect the writers to cater to my own wierdness there.
My post on Stargate 10.18 - "Family Ties".
* * * * *
3.
A Los Angeles Times reporter talks about the time she spent working in Saudia Arabia: "I spent my days in Saudi Arabia struggling unhappily between a lifetime of being taught to respect foreign cultures and the realization that this culture judged me a lesser being."
And Fred Clark talks about Jericho and Lost.
I am done with my release, except for the things I have to take care of tomorrow. I have been determined not to let those things make me cranky until at least a minute after I walk in the office door tomorrow morning. So far that plan is working.
I'm also back on the train tomorrow, which is good for many things, including but not limited to the environment and my sanity, but shifting to the earlier schedule will suck in the short term. I made myself get up early this morning and have been sleepy all afternoon, but I expect I'll be staring at the ceiling come midnight. But since the plan is to be cranky a minute after walking in the office door tomorrow morning, I see things coming together beautifully. It's all part of the plan!
And right now I'm catching up on Doctor Who and trying to ignore the GALE FORCE WINDS that are turning my neighborhood into a scene from Twister. I guess summer is here.
* * * * *
2.
Friday Stargates:
SGA 3.18 - "Submerged"
I'll admit that at this point I'm watching Stargate Atlantis out of a bizarre combination of can't-look-away-from-the-trainwreck, fondness for the overall franchise, and anticipation of certain upcoming casting changes. But this week's episode, with its rampant, blatant stupidity, actually managed to actively annoy me.
toysdream has a theory that the show is much more fun if you view Atlantis as the dumping ground for the Stargate program, that the Air Force sent their future Darwin Award winners to another galaxy to get rid of them. It certainly makes the show more understandable to view it through that lens. After last night, though, I have a theory. There's something in the water in Atlantis that's causing brain damage. It's the only way to explain how people who started out with such questionable decision-making skills have ended up getting so much dumber over time.
Like the brain trust that heads the Atlantis expedition thinking it would be a great idea for Teyla to establish a mental link with the Wraith. Apparently they all forgot about the incident two years previously, which ALL OF THEM EXCEPT FOR RONON WERE THERE FOR, when Teyla was taken over by such a link? Brain damage is obviously hard on memory, since none of them seems to consider that this might happen again. And then Sheppard actually wanted to keep the Wraith alive so that she could help them. This expedition cries out desperately for the presence of Scott Evil. At this rate, in another two years they're going to be flopping around on the floor in puddles of their own drool.
Other things that bugged: no acknowledgment of Carson's death (and I don't even care much one way or another about Carson, but what does it say about all these people that they're entirely unaffected one episode later? What does it say about how the writers treat these characters' history and experiences?) and Rodney's inexplicable regression to his beginning-of-Season-1 personality. Rodney's the closest thing they've got to a real character arc on this show; they really shouldn't blow it off so casually.
I will also admit to being a little disappointed when the camera panned down underwater and didn't come to rest on a giant pile of golf balls on the ocean floor, but I don't actually expect the writers to cater to my own wierdness there.
My post on Stargate 10.18 - "Family Ties".
* * * * *
3.
A Los Angeles Times reporter talks about the time she spent working in Saudia Arabia: "I spent my days in Saudi Arabia struggling unhappily between a lifetime of being taught to respect foreign cultures and the realization that this culture judged me a lesser being."
And Fred Clark talks about Jericho and Lost.