Molto Bene
Today has been a series of frustrating schedule and chain-of-command misunderstandings and generally amusing but also annoying situations at work. I am looking forward to the weekend just so that I don't have to troubleshoot and explain anything for a few days.
January is nearly gone! I am not really sure what happened to it, other than the fact that I spent the first part of it with the lovely kjabernathy and persipone, watched a lot of television, and got buried under a ton of snow.
I watched most of Season 4 of Doctor Who with kjabernathy and persipone without really expecting to. I haven't re-watched more than a handful of season four since the episodes aired, mostly because the heartbreak of the end of the season spoiled some of the joy I felt at the early episodes. I did really want to see our guests' reactions to Partners in Crime, which still makes me laugh as hard as the first time and flail as much at the end, even after multiple viewings. But our guests had not seen any of the season yet, so it was easy to just keep watching, because Fires of Pompeii is so wonderful, and so was Planet of the Ood....and on and on we went. We watched all the way to Turn Left, though we did not watch two-parter end, which was probably for the best, because, while I do want to watch it again eventually, since Donna as a Time Lord is a beautiful thing, what happens to her in the end still really makes me deeply unhappy, and it's hard to love a character so much when you know that everything that made them grow into the wonderful person you've come to love gets taken away. Donna's still Donna, and she's still magnificent, but her travels with the Doctor were transformative and, ultimately, the most important thing is that they made her happy. And I don't believe the Doctor is the only source of her happiness, either, but it remains offensively unfair to me that she can be grand and important and save the universe and never, ever remember or she'll die.
While we're on the subject of heartbreak, I marathon-watched five episodes of Battlestar Galactica, up to the mid-season hiatus, in order to catch up to the show's return, and OMG. I stopped watching right after Callie was killed, because I was just so shocked and horrified at how brutal this show can be to its audience. And I was really enjoying the writing in Guess What's Coming to Dinner and Sine Qua Non (and the guest appearance of Nana Visitor in Faith!!), especially the suspense of Roslin's kidnapping. I also liked the emotional moment between the Six's before one kills the other, and, despite the fact that I couldn't believe they were going to kill ANOTHER Six, I still loved the tension of the scene where Athena comes to save her daughter from the perceived threat, and even moreso, the vision of the forest that Six sees before she dies. And then I very nearly gave up in the middle of Face of the Enemy because of the tragic end of Dualla's story. STOP KILLING THE WOMEN!!
I did love the shots on Earth and how bleak and sad everyone seemed without anyone having to say anything. Just the landscape alone was packed with angst. And Starbuck, oh, my dear, favorite Starbuck. Like she didn't have enough angst: she comes back from the dead/something like it with a new shiny viper, having faced her fear of death, and she leads her people to this desolate planet that had been their vision and their hope all this time. And she has the voice of the hybrid telling her she's the harbinger of death, and what she finds on the planet is evidence of her own death - her own body in her destroyed viper, and that's disturbing enough to make even Leoben turn tail and run away, leaving Starbuck to take back her own dogtags and wedding ring, make her own funeral pyre, and watch her body burn.
I have recently acquired:
- A ridiculously indulgent and super-high-tech (for me) new camera - it's lovely and takes pictures in light other than strong, natural light. Itt doesn't shut off randomly like my poor, now-retired camera, and it does all sorts of fancy, adjustable things that I have yet to fully explore. It also zooms like there's no tomorrow. Guess it's time to make good on my dreams of having a food blog. Are you guys on Flickr? I'd love to be inspired by the pictures you take!
- A snowblower (!!!) It's second-hand and 15 years old and has a pull-spark start that I have to pull really, really fucking hard on the first try or it floods the engine, but it is a glorious thing and I love it. I love it so much.
- The Vundo/Virtumonde virus, which I do not love one single little bit. I have no mercy for this thing, and yet I can't seem to get rid of it, despite some hardcore attacks. I would appreciate any advice from others who have suffered this affliction.
Tonight, I am going to see a man about some live rock, on behalf of the member of my household who is so boldly setting up a salt water aquarium. I hope that my Flickr stream will soon feature pictures of the set-up of the tank, as well as pictures of the nearly-fluorescent pink pickled beets in my falafel sandwich that is my delicious reward for running an errand that involves large buckets of biological filtration.
January is nearly gone! I am not really sure what happened to it, other than the fact that I spent the first part of it with the lovely kjabernathy and persipone, watched a lot of television, and got buried under a ton of snow.
I watched most of Season 4 of Doctor Who with kjabernathy and persipone without really expecting to. I haven't re-watched more than a handful of season four since the episodes aired, mostly because the heartbreak of the end of the season spoiled some of the joy I felt at the early episodes. I did really want to see our guests' reactions to Partners in Crime, which still makes me laugh as hard as the first time and flail as much at the end, even after multiple viewings. But our guests had not seen any of the season yet, so it was easy to just keep watching, because Fires of Pompeii is so wonderful, and so was Planet of the Ood....and on and on we went. We watched all the way to Turn Left, though we did not watch two-parter end, which was probably for the best, because, while I do want to watch it again eventually, since Donna as a Time Lord is a beautiful thing, what happens to her in the end still really makes me deeply unhappy, and it's hard to love a character so much when you know that everything that made them grow into the wonderful person you've come to love gets taken away. Donna's still Donna, and she's still magnificent, but her travels with the Doctor were transformative and, ultimately, the most important thing is that they made her happy. And I don't believe the Doctor is the only source of her happiness, either, but it remains offensively unfair to me that she can be grand and important and save the universe and never, ever remember or she'll die.
While we're on the subject of heartbreak, I marathon-watched five episodes of Battlestar Galactica, up to the mid-season hiatus, in order to catch up to the show's return, and OMG. I stopped watching right after Callie was killed, because I was just so shocked and horrified at how brutal this show can be to its audience. And I was really enjoying the writing in Guess What's Coming to Dinner and Sine Qua Non (and the guest appearance of Nana Visitor in Faith!!), especially the suspense of Roslin's kidnapping. I also liked the emotional moment between the Six's before one kills the other, and, despite the fact that I couldn't believe they were going to kill ANOTHER Six, I still loved the tension of the scene where Athena comes to save her daughter from the perceived threat, and even moreso, the vision of the forest that Six sees before she dies. And then I very nearly gave up in the middle of Face of the Enemy because of the tragic end of Dualla's story. STOP KILLING THE WOMEN!!
I did love the shots on Earth and how bleak and sad everyone seemed without anyone having to say anything. Just the landscape alone was packed with angst. And Starbuck, oh, my dear, favorite Starbuck. Like she didn't have enough angst: she comes back from the dead/something like it with a new shiny viper, having faced her fear of death, and she leads her people to this desolate planet that had been their vision and their hope all this time. And she has the voice of the hybrid telling her she's the harbinger of death, and what she finds on the planet is evidence of her own death - her own body in her destroyed viper, and that's disturbing enough to make even Leoben turn tail and run away, leaving Starbuck to take back her own dogtags and wedding ring, make her own funeral pyre, and watch her body burn.
I have recently acquired:
- A ridiculously indulgent and super-high-tech (for me) new camera - it's lovely and takes pictures in light other than strong, natural light. Itt doesn't shut off randomly like my poor, now-retired camera, and it does all sorts of fancy, adjustable things that I have yet to fully explore. It also zooms like there's no tomorrow. Guess it's time to make good on my dreams of having a food blog. Are you guys on Flickr? I'd love to be inspired by the pictures you take!
- A snowblower (!!!) It's second-hand and 15 years old and has a pull-spark start that I have to pull really, really fucking hard on the first try or it floods the engine, but it is a glorious thing and I love it. I love it so much.
- The Vundo/Virtumonde virus, which I do not love one single little bit. I have no mercy for this thing, and yet I can't seem to get rid of it, despite some hardcore attacks. I would appreciate any advice from others who have suffered this affliction.
Tonight, I am going to see a man about some live rock, on behalf of the member of my household who is so boldly setting up a salt water aquarium. I hope that my Flickr stream will soon feature pictures of the set-up of the tank, as well as pictures of the nearly-fluorescent pink pickled beets in my falafel sandwich that is my delicious reward for running an errand that involves large buckets of biological filtration.