an assorted bunch of ramblings
MONEY!
Moneymoneymoneymoneymoney!
Forgive me for sounding like Colin Matthews, but after waiting and waiting for my taxes back and finally reconciling myself to the idea that I might not get them until autumn and I'll have to borrow money from my parents to pay my bills, it's quite lovely to call the bank and find out that I'm almost 4500 SEK (about $600) richer than I was yesterday. (As a comparison, yesterday I had 270 SEK. Yeah. Not gonna last the month.)
Wow, that was a long sentence. It's the excitement, I guess. I even called up the bank again to be positive it wasn't just wishful thinking that made me hear the new sum.
*hums* Money makes the world go around, the world go around...
***
You know, it's weird, but sometimes when I've been reading an author for a while, I can only think of really mean feedback.
I don't mean to say that I stop enjoying her/him - though obviously that sometimes happen too. I mean that I can read the stories, enjoy them, squee inside whenever there's a new one, but somehow when I start thinking about feedback what turns up in my head is: "Not bad, but it has absolutely nothing in common with canon," or "Wow, half the story was just exposition. Did you want your readers to scroll down to the good parts?" or "Could you at least try to write a story you haven't written twenty times before?" or "Your soapbox is pastede on yey!"
I don't know why that is. Maybe after a bunch of nice happy feedbacks I feel a need to get my snark out - but it's not like I never post negative feedback, because I do. I don't get that mean even with writers I've never read before (okay, in 95% of cases I don't), so why this desire to bitch at people I know I like?
I suspect that it has to do with fannishness - I'm becoming a fan of these writers, rather than a casual reader, which means I develop fannish pickiness: It's not good enough to be good enough. Every story has to be perfect.
I mean, I do spend more time bitching and moaning about BtVS/Angel than I do about Smallville, because I don't care about Smallville and it doesn't bother me if it's crap. (Well, it does sometimes, like when I try to watch it. *g*) In every new fandom, at first there's squee, but after a while I take the squee for granted and go, "Is that it? That's the best you can give me? Improve, you bastards! *cracks whip*"
Which is kind of tragic on its own, and even more tragic when I extent the attitude to people I care about.
***
On a happier note, I keep educating myself with old Who eps. (Will watch new ones with Padma tomorrow - still haven't seen anything after Age of Steel.) I took Tammy's advice/ramblings and watched The Caves of Androzani.
And bless her soul, because of the eps I've seen so far, this is definitely my favourite. Before this, I suspected that people who bitched about how much better the old show was than the new one were just being confused by their childhood memories, but I'll be damned if this isn't better than... well, some of the new series, at least. (Come on, like I'd betray the Moffat so easily. *g*)
The pacing was much better than in the other eps I've seen, and the show managed to be suspenseful even though I knew how it was going to end. Unlike the turbulence in the TARDIS in Castrovalva, each cliffhanger felt organic to the story, not just a way to tack on some extra excitement. (Yeah, okay, so I knew they wouldn't be executed. I didn't know how they'd avoid it, though, which is more to the point.) The end of the third episode really worked for me - poor Doctor, he's so very dead whatever he does.
The fifth Doctor is very much growing on me. He reminded me of someone in this episode, and I realized after a while that it was Lord Peter Wimsey - not that they're carbon copies or anything, but they have this pleasant facade that makes people underestimate them, while beneath it there's both sharp wit and strong emotions. (Of course, I might be reading into things, but boy, how I enjoyed Desperate!Doctor.)
Peri really had the most awful accent. I don't know that I necessarily thought she sucked any other way, but since I wasn't particularly impressed either I'll just leave it at that.
Sharaz Jek was a better Phantom of the Opera than Gerard Butler - which isn't saying much, I admit (especially since he didn't have to sing), but yeah, I enjoyed him. Good villain-with-a-heart, the conflicted motivation really came through.
I liked the officer who caught them, too (can't remember his rank): he gave a very strong impression of having no good options and knowing it. A guy who's not necessarily a bad guy but who can't find the strength to be a good guy either.
Morgus was a bit too hammy for my liking, but nowhere near what the Master's like on a bad day, so he's okay too. And I quite liked that evil little secretary of his.
I really liked Stotz as a villain. Yes, he was hammy too, but it's a kind of character I enjoy, so I don't care.
The plot worked - I actually got interested in all the politics instead of just thinking of them as backdrop. Which is all the more ironic since the bottom line was that everyone died and all the different motivations turned out pointless in the end.
Even having so very many eps to choose from that I've never seen, I'm kind of bummed that the Doctor regenerated. Maybe that's just natural, seeing how I know more about Five than I do about Six, and people don't seem to like Six much. I'm not convinced they traded up, so to speak.
After that, I chose to see The Highlanders, because how could I resist an episode in which the Doctor goes back in time to Culloden and picks up a young highlander named Jamie? (A bit of googling showed that it's not a coincidence, either. Oh, Diana, you're such a fine example of magpie.)
Unfortunately, as it turned out the episode wasn't complete; what I saw was in large parts still images with audio and explaining text. As I'm sure you understand, that took away a lot of the fun. Since I like to sew while I watch eps, I also missed a bit of the text (it's harder to catch than actually seeing the action), which means I was sometimes confused about what was going on. (Then again, I've had that problem with other Who eps as well, so maybe it wasn't just the reconstruction.)
I quite liked that Polly was so assertive, though I suppose anyone would have seemed assertive next to that Kirsty - who improved in the end, so that was okay. I liked Ben's accent (yes, am shallow) and am very sorry that I didn't get a clearer shot of the Doctor in women's clothing. (Yes, am kinky shallow.)
As for the original Jamie, he had a rather downplayed part here, so I can't really tell what I think. (I've seen him before, obviously, in The Five Doctors, but that was an illusion.)
All in all, I'd quite like to see some other ep with the second Doctor, but I wouldn't want to sit through another "reconstructed" one.
And for those of you who are old school Who fans, I still very much want recs of episodes. I've had a few people help me, and I'm downloading like crazy, but more is always nice.
Moneymoneymoneymoneymoney!
Forgive me for sounding like Colin Matthews, but after waiting and waiting for my taxes back and finally reconciling myself to the idea that I might not get them until autumn and I'll have to borrow money from my parents to pay my bills, it's quite lovely to call the bank and find out that I'm almost 4500 SEK (about $600) richer than I was yesterday. (As a comparison, yesterday I had 270 SEK. Yeah. Not gonna last the month.)
Wow, that was a long sentence. It's the excitement, I guess. I even called up the bank again to be positive it wasn't just wishful thinking that made me hear the new sum.
*hums* Money makes the world go around, the world go around...
***
You know, it's weird, but sometimes when I've been reading an author for a while, I can only think of really mean feedback.
I don't mean to say that I stop enjoying her/him - though obviously that sometimes happen too. I mean that I can read the stories, enjoy them, squee inside whenever there's a new one, but somehow when I start thinking about feedback what turns up in my head is: "Not bad, but it has absolutely nothing in common with canon," or "Wow, half the story was just exposition. Did you want your readers to scroll down to the good parts?" or "Could you at least try to write a story you haven't written twenty times before?" or "Your soapbox is pastede on yey!"
I don't know why that is. Maybe after a bunch of nice happy feedbacks I feel a need to get my snark out - but it's not like I never post negative feedback, because I do. I don't get that mean even with writers I've never read before (okay, in 95% of cases I don't), so why this desire to bitch at people I know I like?
I suspect that it has to do with fannishness - I'm becoming a fan of these writers, rather than a casual reader, which means I develop fannish pickiness: It's not good enough to be good enough. Every story has to be perfect.
I mean, I do spend more time bitching and moaning about BtVS/Angel than I do about Smallville, because I don't care about Smallville and it doesn't bother me if it's crap. (Well, it does sometimes, like when I try to watch it. *g*) In every new fandom, at first there's squee, but after a while I take the squee for granted and go, "Is that it? That's the best you can give me? Improve, you bastards! *cracks whip*"
Which is kind of tragic on its own, and even more tragic when I extent the attitude to people I care about.
***
On a happier note, I keep educating myself with old Who eps. (Will watch new ones with Padma tomorrow - still haven't seen anything after Age of Steel.) I took Tammy's advice/ramblings and watched The Caves of Androzani.
And bless her soul, because of the eps I've seen so far, this is definitely my favourite. Before this, I suspected that people who bitched about how much better the old show was than the new one were just being confused by their childhood memories, but I'll be damned if this isn't better than... well, some of the new series, at least. (Come on, like I'd betray the Moffat so easily. *g*)
The pacing was much better than in the other eps I've seen, and the show managed to be suspenseful even though I knew how it was going to end. Unlike the turbulence in the TARDIS in Castrovalva, each cliffhanger felt organic to the story, not just a way to tack on some extra excitement. (Yeah, okay, so I knew they wouldn't be executed. I didn't know how they'd avoid it, though, which is more to the point.) The end of the third episode really worked for me - poor Doctor, he's so very dead whatever he does.
The fifth Doctor is very much growing on me. He reminded me of someone in this episode, and I realized after a while that it was Lord Peter Wimsey - not that they're carbon copies or anything, but they have this pleasant facade that makes people underestimate them, while beneath it there's both sharp wit and strong emotions. (Of course, I might be reading into things, but boy, how I enjoyed Desperate!Doctor.)
Peri really had the most awful accent. I don't know that I necessarily thought she sucked any other way, but since I wasn't particularly impressed either I'll just leave it at that.
Sharaz Jek was a better Phantom of the Opera than Gerard Butler - which isn't saying much, I admit (especially since he didn't have to sing), but yeah, I enjoyed him. Good villain-with-a-heart, the conflicted motivation really came through.
I liked the officer who caught them, too (can't remember his rank): he gave a very strong impression of having no good options and knowing it. A guy who's not necessarily a bad guy but who can't find the strength to be a good guy either.
Morgus was a bit too hammy for my liking, but nowhere near what the Master's like on a bad day, so he's okay too. And I quite liked that evil little secretary of his.
I really liked Stotz as a villain. Yes, he was hammy too, but it's a kind of character I enjoy, so I don't care.
The plot worked - I actually got interested in all the politics instead of just thinking of them as backdrop. Which is all the more ironic since the bottom line was that everyone died and all the different motivations turned out pointless in the end.
Even having so very many eps to choose from that I've never seen, I'm kind of bummed that the Doctor regenerated. Maybe that's just natural, seeing how I know more about Five than I do about Six, and people don't seem to like Six much. I'm not convinced they traded up, so to speak.
After that, I chose to see The Highlanders, because how could I resist an episode in which the Doctor goes back in time to Culloden and picks up a young highlander named Jamie? (A bit of googling showed that it's not a coincidence, either. Oh, Diana, you're such a fine example of magpie.)
Unfortunately, as it turned out the episode wasn't complete; what I saw was in large parts still images with audio and explaining text. As I'm sure you understand, that took away a lot of the fun. Since I like to sew while I watch eps, I also missed a bit of the text (it's harder to catch than actually seeing the action), which means I was sometimes confused about what was going on. (Then again, I've had that problem with other Who eps as well, so maybe it wasn't just the reconstruction.)
I quite liked that Polly was so assertive, though I suppose anyone would have seemed assertive next to that Kirsty - who improved in the end, so that was okay. I liked Ben's accent (yes, am shallow) and am very sorry that I didn't get a clearer shot of the Doctor in women's clothing. (Yes, am kinky shallow.)
As for the original Jamie, he had a rather downplayed part here, so I can't really tell what I think. (I've seen him before, obviously, in The Five Doctors, but that was an illusion.)
All in all, I'd quite like to see some other ep with the second Doctor, but I wouldn't want to sit through another "reconstructed" one.
And for those of you who are old school Who fans, I still very much want recs of episodes. I've had a few people help me, and I'm downloading like crazy, but more is always nice.