Sunday Round-Up

[handful_ofdust]

Loved both Rubicon and Mad Men tonight, both of which left off in very interesting places. We spent much of Saturday looking after my Mom, who's on antibiotics for something, and much of today shopping for winter clothes for Cal. We also got him a media plan for the iPad, which has still to be set up. Then I made dinner while Steve watched Cloverfield, got pretty drunk, watched my own share of TV, etc. And on Monday, I start Chapter Fifteen.

This week is going to be all about moving toward Saturday, which is the SpecFic Colloquium: Hopefully getting a haircut and my eyebrows done, putting together an outfit and an argument/lecture notes, etc. Meanwhile, I find myself thinking at least a bit about Hallowe'en, which was once my favourite holiday, and has since become as negligible as every other damn holiday to me--the type of thing where you occasionally look up, say: "Oh shit, is that today?", and do...nothing much. At least we've already bought Cal a costume, though he hates it: "No monkey." Yeah, whatever, kid: You'll wear the monkey, go to school and out trick-or-treating, and then we're damn well done. Like it or don't, it's happening.

Still--he's been pretty negotiable-with overall, which is all I ask for. Earlier today he started covering his ears and reciting the intro to Law & Order: SVU over and over ad nauseam, until I said: "Man, just do something else. I don't really care what--anything's good." And he immediately switched to reciting The Cat in the Hat, which was acceptable. Communication.;)

Otherwise: I notice that Unpopular Fandom Opinions meme is making the rounds once again. Unfortunately, I think most of my fannish opinions are pretty consistently unpopular: Finding all Stargates dog-puke boring except for Universe, for example. Hating Due South and Merlin equally. Not hating on Supernatural for being the bad, bad women-and-POC-killing thing that it is. Not letting the end of BSG retroactively poison every other thing about it. The fact that BNF chicks are finally beginning to recognize Fringe as an extensive piece of goodness surprises me greatly, as does the fact that hey, I really do like A: TLA, like everybody told me I would. Still, I certainly more than make up for it by continuing to like horror movies and not give a fuck if there aren't "enough" women attached to something to make it "interesting", since the mere fact of my possessing a vagina doesn't really necessitate the inclusion of somebody with comparable genitals in any given narrative before I can find said narrative worth my time/attention.

In other news, last night Space got up to pre-Hallowe'en speed by showing The Mist, followed by The Fog (not the Carpenter version); this afternoon, they ran The Fog, followed by The Mist. And I'm really starting to look forward to The Walking Dead.

And that was my weekend, in a nutshell. You?

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

And he immediately switched to reciting The Cat in the Hat, which was acceptable. Communication.

He's a champion, in a uniquely *him* sort of way.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

He really is! He's totally obsessed with those stupid Koodoo "El Tabador" ads, these days...a tiny luchadore telling you which cellphone provider to switch to. He keeps announcing, an inopportune times: "Loads of fun and no commitments...just the way El Tabador likes it!"

Loads of fun and no commitments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Hey, I think *I* could get into saying that over and over again.

...For some reason it's reminding me of a skit my older son and I were laughing at--it's a Japanese comedy duo (the skit's in Japanese), and they have this schtick of pretending to be foreigners learning Japanese. They stumble upon a Japanese language-learning book, and they start reading it, and it starts with oddish but normal things, and then, as they're reading along, the instructional phrases become,

"I don't understand ... I don't know... I think it's flour or something like that ... I don't understand ... I don't know ... I've never seen that syringe before .... those marks are just mosquito bites .... those plants just grew there on their own ... I photocopied that 100,000-yen note by mistake ... I know the photo looks nothing like me, but this is my passport."

[(Anonymous)]

How did you like the Fog remake?

- jackal_lies

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Not much, gotta say. Tom Welling was a stump, and the denouement to Maggie Grace's character had to be the single dumbest reveal I'd ever seen--like "but how the fuck would that even work?"-type dumb. Reincarnation I could kind of grasp, but what was she, a damn ghost-baby? And grew up thinking she was human all this time,only to melt back into the ether? What about her mother?

[sovay]

Finding all Stargates dog-puke boring except for Universe, for example.

So tell me about Stargate Universe. Anyone in it I'd like?

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Robert Carlyle makes most things better. I also really like the actor formerly known as Justin Louis, who's now reassumed his given name of Louis Ferreira. Carlyle plays the main scientist on board the Destiny, a massive, ancient alien ship that's currently travelling a ridiculous trajectory with no fixed course in mind through the (ta da!) universe, trapping a combined scientific/military team, plus some civilians, as its reluctant passengers. Ferreira is the military leader, while Ming-na (once Ming-na Wen) is the civilian leader. Nobody trusts anybody else, for good reason--resources are scarce, politics are brutal, every technological step forward they make seems to come with a quirk that sends other things two steps back. At the halfway mark in Season One, Ferreira and Carlyle's dislike for each other erupted into open hatred/war; Carlyle tried to frame Ferreira for "murdering" one of his own crew, so Ferreira beat Carlyle up and marooned him on a desert planet. How he got back on board the ship is whole 'nother story, but I love Carlyle's portrait of a man under incredible pressure who nevertheless just can't bring himself to cultivate normal human relationships--ie, the kind that might win him friends and influence people on his behalf. Whereas Ferreira is moral yet conflicted, a man used to having the bully pulpit to fall back on, just as damaged as Carlyle, but with a completely different machine behind him. Oh, and Ming-na is gay and married to the very lovely Reiko Aylesworth, and nobody bats an eye; she's also a massive, Machiavellian corporate bitch. People shit on Universe because another of its characters is a nerd selected for space duty on the strength of his theoretical skillz, in true Last Starfighter style--but you know what? I like Eli a lot, so fuck 'em. Oh, and people screw up on this show constantly, and bad things result--I also like that. As you know.;)

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

One of the main kinks for people who like the other Stargates seems to be "competency porn". The problem with that on Stargate: SG1 is that A) it often makes the protags seem infalliable, which comes off as B) a bit politically skeevy, considering almost every protag is military or military-related. Stargate: Atlantis is slightly better in that regard, especially since a few more of the protags are alien and females and/or POC (SG1 has Christopher Judge and a million guest-stars), and it also makes some effort to explore things from the main villain-species' POV, which SG1 usually doesn't, preferring to split them into bad (the Gua'ould) v. good (the Tok'ra). But in both cases, there's just something about the shows' execution that screams "oh God no, please change the channel" at me. It's almost physical/chemical, like how I can recognize Jeff Bridges is a great actor, and yet still want to chew off my foot to avoid having to watch anything with him in it.

[sovay]

Carlyle's portrait of a man under incredible pressure who nevertheless just can't bring himself to cultivate normal human relationships--ie, the kind that might win him friends and influence people on his behalf.

That would be the someone I'd like, yes.

It's almost physical/chemical, like how I can recognize Jeff Bridges is a great actor, and yet still want to chew off my foot to avoid having to watch anything with him in it.

Interesting. I don't love him instinctively, as my parents do, but I am very fond of The Fisher King and it was to my immense surprise a couple of weeks ago that I found I enjoyed the hell out of The Big Lebowski.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed Lebowski, although one of the things I liked best about it was the fact that everybody in it seemed to have as much contempt for Bridges as I do. ("OW, man!")

[benet.livejournal.com]

"competency porn"

Dude, thanks for this phrase: it describes a phenomenon I have long noted but been unable to put a name to. It explains, for instance, why I don't love Lois McMaster Bujold as much as some other people do - I mean, I do really like her stuff, but it does get a bit wearing that all the characters we're meant to sympathize with are so awesome at what they do. They screw up, sure, and bad things do result, but they screw up like an annoying guy in a job interview: "My flaws? Well, sometimes I'm so focused on my task that I don't take proper care of myself, and neglect the people close to me! I don't always think through all the moral consequences of the shit I'm getting accomplished so well!" Nobody's screw-up is ever "Man, I just wasn't feeling super motivated that day."

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Good lord, I wasn't aware there was a Stargate that wasn't dog-puke boring.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

It's more by comparison, I guess. But the fact is, I've watched SGU voluntarily--that alone sets it apart from the rest.