catching up
This won't mean much to the non-Canadians, but I was terribly saddened to learn of Jack Layton's death this morning. I don't love everything about the NDP (though I'll take it over the alternatives, for sure), and I admit I've made gentle fun, over the years, of his used car salesman-ish 'stache and manner. But I can't think of another politician at that level--in this or any other nation--who has been a better model of what a politician ought to be: he stood up for his principles, he acted in the open, he treated his opponents with dignity and respect, and he kept believing that we really could change the world.
**
In less grave news, I keep feeling inspecifically homesick. It's not that surprising, given that I've only lived here a month today, but it's not like I'm homesick for some other place, exactly. I miss friends and family but don't exactly want to move to where they are. I suppose that partly means I want them to be here, and partly means that I want to skip the long and painful process of making new friends and just already have them here. It's the nature of moving.
But the dangerous part is that I've gotten it into my head that all my problems would be solved if I got a dog. Which...is really not what I need to be doing right now, at all. Maybe in time, but not yet. Especially since the local(-ish; apparently Alberta now counts as "local") greyhound adoption place won't let people who don't have fenced-in yards adopt, and I'm not sure this climate would be fair to a sighthound, anyway. But I'm way too breed-picky to take my chances at the local humane society, unless they happened to have an adult dog with a sighthound-ish personality, with enough hair and fat to survive the winter, but not the kind of hair that would shed all over my house. Oh, and must be extremely intelligent. I'm vaguely considering a standard poodle as a sighthound alternative (very smart, hairier, no shedding), but mostly: I am not allowed to get a dog right now. Really, really not allowed.
**
Fannishly, it remains to be seen whether the process of vidding will make the process of clipping worthwhile (or whether the satisfaction of having vidded will make the whole thing worthwhile). Because right now this is going exactly as I suspected it might: badly. I have a shit visual memory. I never know what happened when, or where in what episode certain things happened, and this is combined with this sense that maybe there are clips that are much better than the ones I'm thinking of, because there's so much I don't remember. Which means basically going through every episode in something only slightly faster than real time. I'd hoped to make this vid by the end of the summer, but at this rate I'll be lucky if it's done by the end of the year. Bah. (There's also a lesson in here about NOT making your first vid about the protagonist of a show you don't actually know that well and that ran for five seasons...)
**
I don't have much to say about shows I'm watching. The Babylon 5 rewatch continues apace, interrupted slightly by stopping the actual watching to spend a few days reading ever Susan/Talia fic I could get my hands on. They make my soul all achey. Still loving Rizzoli and Isles like a burning, and still enjoying Leverage, though its increasing implausibility--even by its own standards--is getting in the way a bit. I admit, though, that I had to pause last night's ep after "Mr. Kirk Picard" so that I could stop laughing before continuing, and that hasn't happened in a very long time, with any show.
**
And there are a couple of memes going around that I've been meaning to do:
If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach.
- Alfred Hitchcock
When I write a story, what do you immediately look for?
**
And the one where the shows are exes:
The one who seduced you, screwed you over, broke your heart in a million pieces, and laughed about it: Battlestar Galactica, obviously. Fuck you, Ron Moore.
The old flame you don't see very often any more but whom you still really enjoy getting together with for a few drinks and maybe a pleasant nostalgic romp: This one's a near tie between Stargate: SG-1 and The X-Files, but I'll give SG-1 the edge because I almost never want to scream at the characters to run the fuck away while they still can, whereas I do that with Scully a lot.
The mysterious dark one whom you used to sit up with talking until 3 AM at weird coffee houses and with whom you were quite smitten until you realized s/he really was fucking crazy: Bones
The one you spent a whole weekend in bed with and who drank up all your liquor and whom you'd still really like to get with again, although you're relieved s/he doesn't actually live in town: Perhaps Slings and Arrows, which I adore in every possible way, except that it's all rather too much, most of the time, because King Lear makes me weep uncontrollably, too.
The steady: Farscape, with Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles getting an honorable mention.
The alluring stranger whom you've flirted with at parties but have never gotten really serious with: Doctor Who, though honestly, it was runner-up in the secretly crazy category, so I suspect that flirting is really as far as it needs to go. (Now if River Song had her own show, on the other hand...)
The one you hang out with and have vague fantasies about maybe having a thing with, but ultimately you're just good buddies: All Star Treks. Okay, I love DS9 LIEK WHOA, and I've read embarrassing amounts of bad Janeway/Chakotay fic, and Jean-Luc Picard's voice always makes me a little swoony. But ultimately, I don't think I'll ever love this 'verse--even DS9, though it comes awfully close--quite like that.
The one your friends keep introducing you to and who seems like a hell of a cool person except it's never really gone anywhere: Fringe. On paper, it has everything to make me love it (awesome female protagonist! weird paranormal stuff! the recommendation of people whose taste I trust!), but I've not been able to do it.
The one who gave you the best damned summer of your life and against whom you measure all other potential partners: Farscape. Hands down, nothing else even comes close.
The one you recently met at a party and would like to get to know better: Probably Nurse Jackie, though it's my own damn fault that I'm rewatching B5 instead of watching this.
The one who stole your significant other: Leverage? Though it's not like I don't watch, too. I'm just not as invested. :)
The old flame that you wouldn't totally object to hooking up with again for a one night romp if only they'd clean up a bit: This is more a flame that never was, especially since it was cancelled, but I continue to be annoyed that V did such a piss-poor job living up to its potential.
The one you should have broken up with before they got arrested for stealing your TV and selling it on eBay: I think it's completely legitimate to list Battlestar Galactica in this category, too.
The one you're glad you broke up with early enough that you can still remember her fondly rather than as the subject of that embarrassing tabloid story with which her name is now irrevocably linked: This is cheating a bit, because it's not as though I made this decision, but I've always thought that Firefly works so much better as the show of unrealized potential than it could ever have worked had it not been cancelled. There were fundamental problems in the worldbuilding, actual and potential race and gender skeeviness, and the characters I liked best were not the focus of the story (and vice-versa). But hey, there was no train wreck, and I remember it fondly as a result.
The one you had a torrid and exciting group thing with that was fun and interesting and exciting...until it just got old and a little boring (but you still look back on fondly): SG-1. Sorry! (See, I'm still so fond I must apologize to it!) But I loved, loved, loved, and then I watched other stuff and discovered what television could actually do. Nevertheless, my team! I do love you.
Your hot new flame: Does Alias count as a hot new flame? It's (relatively) new to me, anyway.
**
And now I think I'm going to go attempt to wash my car with mop buckets of water carried out from the kitchen because NOTHING has happened quickly in this province so far, and it's apparently going to be yet another week before they fix my outdoor spigot. And my poor, gorgeous car (who, incidentally, has been christened Kezia) is looking at me all mournful and dust- and insect guts-splattered, and I feel like we can't even wait until I'm next in town with the car wash. This might be a disaster... :)
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments. Comment here or there.
**
In less grave news, I keep feeling inspecifically homesick. It's not that surprising, given that I've only lived here a month today, but it's not like I'm homesick for some other place, exactly. I miss friends and family but don't exactly want to move to where they are. I suppose that partly means I want them to be here, and partly means that I want to skip the long and painful process of making new friends and just already have them here. It's the nature of moving.
But the dangerous part is that I've gotten it into my head that all my problems would be solved if I got a dog. Which...is really not what I need to be doing right now, at all. Maybe in time, but not yet. Especially since the local(-ish; apparently Alberta now counts as "local") greyhound adoption place won't let people who don't have fenced-in yards adopt, and I'm not sure this climate would be fair to a sighthound, anyway. But I'm way too breed-picky to take my chances at the local humane society, unless they happened to have an adult dog with a sighthound-ish personality, with enough hair and fat to survive the winter, but not the kind of hair that would shed all over my house. Oh, and must be extremely intelligent. I'm vaguely considering a standard poodle as a sighthound alternative (very smart, hairier, no shedding), but mostly: I am not allowed to get a dog right now. Really, really not allowed.
**
Fannishly, it remains to be seen whether the process of vidding will make the process of clipping worthwhile (or whether the satisfaction of having vidded will make the whole thing worthwhile). Because right now this is going exactly as I suspected it might: badly. I have a shit visual memory. I never know what happened when, or where in what episode certain things happened, and this is combined with this sense that maybe there are clips that are much better than the ones I'm thinking of, because there's so much I don't remember. Which means basically going through every episode in something only slightly faster than real time. I'd hoped to make this vid by the end of the summer, but at this rate I'll be lucky if it's done by the end of the year. Bah. (There's also a lesson in here about NOT making your first vid about the protagonist of a show you don't actually know that well and that ran for five seasons...)
**
I don't have much to say about shows I'm watching. The Babylon 5 rewatch continues apace, interrupted slightly by stopping the actual watching to spend a few days reading ever Susan/Talia fic I could get my hands on. They make my soul all achey. Still loving Rizzoli and Isles like a burning, and still enjoying Leverage, though its increasing implausibility--even by its own standards--is getting in the way a bit. I admit, though, that I had to pause last night's ep after "Mr. Kirk Picard" so that I could stop laughing before continuing, and that hasn't happened in a very long time, with any show.
**
And there are a couple of memes going around that I've been meaning to do:
If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach.
- Alfred Hitchcock
When I write a story, what do you immediately look for?
**
And the one where the shows are exes:
The one who seduced you, screwed you over, broke your heart in a million pieces, and laughed about it: Battlestar Galactica, obviously. Fuck you, Ron Moore.
The old flame you don't see very often any more but whom you still really enjoy getting together with for a few drinks and maybe a pleasant nostalgic romp: This one's a near tie between Stargate: SG-1 and The X-Files, but I'll give SG-1 the edge because I almost never want to scream at the characters to run the fuck away while they still can, whereas I do that with Scully a lot.
The mysterious dark one whom you used to sit up with talking until 3 AM at weird coffee houses and with whom you were quite smitten until you realized s/he really was fucking crazy: Bones
The one you spent a whole weekend in bed with and who drank up all your liquor and whom you'd still really like to get with again, although you're relieved s/he doesn't actually live in town: Perhaps Slings and Arrows, which I adore in every possible way, except that it's all rather too much, most of the time, because King Lear makes me weep uncontrollably, too.
The steady: Farscape, with Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles getting an honorable mention.
The alluring stranger whom you've flirted with at parties but have never gotten really serious with: Doctor Who, though honestly, it was runner-up in the secretly crazy category, so I suspect that flirting is really as far as it needs to go. (Now if River Song had her own show, on the other hand...)
The one you hang out with and have vague fantasies about maybe having a thing with, but ultimately you're just good buddies: All Star Treks. Okay, I love DS9 LIEK WHOA, and I've read embarrassing amounts of bad Janeway/Chakotay fic, and Jean-Luc Picard's voice always makes me a little swoony. But ultimately, I don't think I'll ever love this 'verse--even DS9, though it comes awfully close--quite like that.
The one your friends keep introducing you to and who seems like a hell of a cool person except it's never really gone anywhere: Fringe. On paper, it has everything to make me love it (awesome female protagonist! weird paranormal stuff! the recommendation of people whose taste I trust!), but I've not been able to do it.
The one who gave you the best damned summer of your life and against whom you measure all other potential partners: Farscape. Hands down, nothing else even comes close.
The one you recently met at a party and would like to get to know better: Probably Nurse Jackie, though it's my own damn fault that I'm rewatching B5 instead of watching this.
The one who stole your significant other: Leverage? Though it's not like I don't watch, too. I'm just not as invested. :)
The old flame that you wouldn't totally object to hooking up with again for a one night romp if only they'd clean up a bit: This is more a flame that never was, especially since it was cancelled, but I continue to be annoyed that V did such a piss-poor job living up to its potential.
The one you should have broken up with before they got arrested for stealing your TV and selling it on eBay: I think it's completely legitimate to list Battlestar Galactica in this category, too.
The one you're glad you broke up with early enough that you can still remember her fondly rather than as the subject of that embarrassing tabloid story with which her name is now irrevocably linked: This is cheating a bit, because it's not as though I made this decision, but I've always thought that Firefly works so much better as the show of unrealized potential than it could ever have worked had it not been cancelled. There were fundamental problems in the worldbuilding, actual and potential race and gender skeeviness, and the characters I liked best were not the focus of the story (and vice-versa). But hey, there was no train wreck, and I remember it fondly as a result.
The one you had a torrid and exciting group thing with that was fun and interesting and exciting...until it just got old and a little boring (but you still look back on fondly): SG-1. Sorry! (See, I'm still so fond I must apologize to it!) But I loved, loved, loved, and then I watched other stuff and discovered what television could actually do. Nevertheless, my team! I do love you.
Your hot new flame: Does Alias count as a hot new flame? It's (relatively) new to me, anyway.
**
And now I think I'm going to go attempt to wash my car with mop buckets of water carried out from the kitchen because NOTHING has happened quickly in this province so far, and it's apparently going to be yet another week before they fix my outdoor spigot. And my poor, gorgeous car (who, incidentally, has been christened Kezia) is looking at me all mournful and dust- and insect guts-splattered, and I feel like we can't even wait until I'm next in town with the car wash. This might be a disaster... :)
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments. Comment here or there.