Category: Television

woe is -aaack- me

So I completely blew the interview yesterday – fell apart during the test.  I solaced myself with beer and lobster afterwards, so thoroughly downcast was I, and my Lumosity score fell like a rock this morning subsequent to me having two beers, so, note to self – alcohol does make you demonstrably dumber, please avoid (yesterday’s score was one of my highest ever, so it seems germane to mention the difference).  No I did no driving yesterday, for the safety minded among you.

The stye has come to its fruition and no longer hurts; it’s just making me look like Margot with the ludicrous amount of eye gunk it is producing (which is actually impacting my ability to see out of my left eye.  Very glad it’s in my left eye, my right eye doesn’t produce enough tears so I’d be in a very sad way.)

Margot fell off some boxes in my closet and trapped herself in my clothes.  I have never heard her make that much noise in that short a space – she really is getting more noisy, which means she’s just barely audible.

Amazing science / health news.

He only posted it yesterday and I’ve already set it to music.  OH GOSH HOW I LOVE THIS POEM. Mind you I wrote the choon two days ago.

I love the show ER so much I want it to be in space. Yes, Trauma 3000, in which our fearless surgeons and internists rotate between a mother hospital on the ground and a microgravity trauma unit in orbit, including tours of duty with trauma units at the front lines of an alien war.  And I want an alien social worker.  I want it to be ER x Babylon 5 x Battlestar Galactica. w00t!~

My fave Hollywood badass does his thang.

Shredding

Is done.

Tried to watch Supernatural.  Lousy script, lousy acting, no charisma.  I know the show’s been running for a decade so it obviously has die hard fans, but Jeff and I, thinking of Stargate and ER and the Wire and Deadwood and Breaking Bad and Huff – think that someething has gotta be good before we want to commit.

2020 SAYS JEFF NEVER WATCHED IT BUT I SURE DID. IN 2017 I STARTED WRITING DESTIEL FANFIC AND IF YOU ASK ME NICE I’LL TELL YOU WHERE TO FIND IT 

So instead we’re onto S4 of ER, which is definitely a drama worth watching.  SO many nice touches, the best nice touch being how the writers and actors make silence effective.  The loudest noise is silence.

Jerome told me about a kitchen for rent so I contacted them.  They haven’t written me back.  I have also been applying for jobs, but I am not surprised or hurt that there’s been no response so far.

 

One thing and another

There are kestrels nesting across the alley, and DARWIN’S BEARD do they make a lot of noise when they are peeved.

Jeff is an evil, evil, man; without much effort he got me addicted to ER, and there’s ONLY 15 seasons of that. (Keith, sitting in for a while, “Clooners gotta Cloon” with respect to the unholy young looking George Clooney, who takes three facial expressions and plays them hard.) So far my fave character is Haleh, with Drs Greene and Carter in rapid close order.

Jeff, Keith and I are catching up in Breaking Bad and should be caught up to the new seasons (they are calling it seasons 5 and 6 even though it’s two lots of 8 episodes each, coming out at different times). What an intense show; but when it’s funny it’s truly gutbusting.

Hosting a housefilk on Saturday. SO looking forward to it!

Everytime I think there can’t possibly be another sign of the apocalypse, Eris run amok in my metaphors & slimes the goalposts.

New Baddies in the Midnite Moving Co. universe. The Nosoi! The demonic embodiments of human illness.

“Like a human plague!?”

“Cue comment about all your ex-boyfriends.”

I’m thinking of offering Atheist Tarot Readings. Would anybody buy that? How about Steampunk Tarot readings? Well, sheesh, forget I mentioned it.

Gotta go outside and turn the keys over and spray the other side of them now. Got a lovely assortment of steampunkin keys.

I hope you all have a lovely day, it looks like it’s going to be a good one.

My Needle and I

I’ve but one summer, I’ve more than one name
I can’t abide courts with their whispering games
My mind is ice and my heart is a flame
Loyalty kills you more swiftly than shame

Gods hear my cry
Traitors must die
Stone, steel and sky
We claim this vengeance, my Needle and I
We claim this vengeance, my Needle and I

Winterfell’s safety is now but a dream
Trapped among enemies, not what I seem
If they discover me they’ll have my head
Hatred befriend me and drive away dread

Gods hear my cry
Traitors must die
Snow, steel and sky
We claim this vengeance, my Needle and I
We claim this vengeance, my Needle and I

Winter is coming, I hear Father’s voice
Life is an accident, honour a choice
Jon gave me Needle and left for the Wall
Nymeria’s gone, I have no one at all

Gods hear my cry
Traitors must die
Stone, steel and sky
We claim this vengeance, my Needle and I
We claim this vengeance, my Needle and I

Creeping down a hallway – SG1

I also CANNOT STOP THE SIGNAL

In ¾ time

The stated goal of SGC is acquiring alien tech
For which we risk our hearts and minds
Not just our pretty necks
Woolsey and Kinsey on the earth
The Gou’ald in space to vex
But I know it’s true, and I know you do too
What’s going to happen next

In polka time

Creeping down a hallway x2
Creeping down a hallway, a P90 in my arms
Did you bring enough grenades (yes sir)
Did you bring enough C4 (indeed)
Blowing shit up real good always helps esprit de corps
Creeping down a hallway x2
Creeping down a hallway, a P90 in my arms

 

My name is Daniel Jackson I dig artifacts from dirt
My heart is soft, my head is not, I help the lost and hurt
My love life isn’t much these days, it’s mostly with Death I flirt
My newfound badass’ry fights Goa’uld asshatt’ry and so I stay alert

When I’m
Creeping down a hallway x2
Creeping down a hallway, a P90 in my arms
Jack did you bring more grenades, Sam did you bring more C4?
Teal’c blow up that mothership and make Apophis roar!
Creeping down a hallway x2
Creeping down a hallway, a P90 in my arms.

My name is Sheppard, look at all the troubles that I’ve got
I woke the Wraith and now my days are quite intense and fraught
Rodney saves my bacon though, his timing sure hits the spot
But I know it’s true and I know you do too, how we advance the plot

Creeping down a hallway x2
Creeping down a hallway, a P90 in my arms
Did you bring enough grenades, did you bring enough C4?
Don’t turn off the gravity, the ceiling’s now the floor!
Creeping down a hallway x2
Creeping down a hallway, a P90 in my arms

If violence is not the answer why bring Greer along?
He needs his CO (badly) to determine right from wrong
All he wants is guns to shoot and heads to beat like a gong
He wants to turn Rush into colourful mush, but he is holding strong

Creeping down a hallway x2
Creeping down a hallway, a P90 in my arms
Are you really there at all? Are you really who you say?
Pencil necks and aliens keep getting in my way!
Creeping down a hallway x2
Creeping down a hallway, a P90 in my arms

Ziva, you heartless tyrant

So, she’s in the shop again for two days while they address the fact that she went from being very well behaved to sounding like an emphysema riddled old drunkard and blowing through 25 percent extra gas overnight.  As always if it isn’t one thing it’s two things.  Paul’s been at me for the valve noise for ages; she needs a new timing kit, and there’s other assorted shit in there.

To misquote the Catalonian Catalunyan poet, “I want no pity for this pain I would trade with no other man”.

Work itself is okay but there are circumstances at work that are very tiresome and disillusioning and when Jeff picked me up yesterday (thank you!) we had a lively discussion of management techniques on the way home in the car, and calmed ourselves down with some more Stargate SG1, which continues to be excellent although I imagine eventually the show will get tired.  It just hasn’t happened yet.

And I hit – or will make an uncontrolled descent into – a milestone today.  I’ve never ever ever been to a Beacon choir practice.  I’m going to one tonight because I’ll be rehearsing drums for a single performance.  When I get asked why I won’t join the choir – and I know I will be asked – when I have one of the better singing voices in the congregation – and that is merely a statement of fact, not me getting uppity – I am going to look at them all and say, “I don’t have to say why, and I’m not joining.”  It’s the material.  Dirges, with a few exceptions.

 

Nuff said

I watched the helicopter video of the assault on the Oakland OWS folks Gas.  Un fracking believable.  And oh look.  http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2011/10/26/oakland-police-love-kittens-teargas/

So instead of showing the veteran who was injured by the assault by the police on peaceful protesters, they show an Oakland cop petting a kitten.  If you see the video, you will be amazed and appalled.

Not impressed, Mister Mass Media.  Not one whit.

Saturday round up with extra moose

Considering that I think marriage is a crock I don’t know ‘zactly how to feel about this.

Disturbing pic of a kid done up Clockwork Orange style.

I’m only posting this in the hopes that pOp will forward a story about his childhood, maybe with an optional explosion.

Man, I didn’t know there was a floor show for the ferry line up. Ocean floor, that is. You can all tell me what a crappy pun that is later.

Very happy to have her back.  Jeff and I were worried about her.

Moose go back to school, get edumacated.

Moose, go away

I ignore the dog and play with the ball, for I AM MOOSE.

I make weird noises, ’cause I am a MOOSECALF.

SMG is back on TV. We’ll see.  I’ve started watching Lost Girl so I don’t know if I’ve room on my TV plate.

 

I HAVE UPDATED the Red Deer link… check out the pics.

 

When dinosaurs roamed the earth

… and I lived in Ottawa, somebody came door to door asking my parents what they thought about contemporary television.  My parents said they hated Disney stuff because parents were characterized as idiots, and preferred The Addams Family because the parents were actually parents, and there was love and affection and mutual support in the household.  Further to that theme, a little somethin’somethin’ from the intarwebs.  Happy Saturday, nautilus3 and Loki!

Point form updates

  1. Katie got the job, she starts today at 9:30 am.  It is ONE 20 minute bus ride from her house.  Unless the traffic is bad, then it’s about half an hour.  Commuting in the GVRD is hellish, so Katie well knows what a good deal this is, especially since her last interview was in North Van.
  2. My emotions as a consequence may be best summarized as vigilate et orate.
  3. Miss Margot is being very grumpy about having her hair done.  I may have to haul her off to the “professial Persian hedge trimmers” and get her done, which I’d prefer not to as winter is coming.  I tried trimming her myself but her fur is so very fine that it slides through the guide without ever coming near the shears.
  4. My attempt at soup making (chicken with rice) had one heart stopping moment during which I accidentally added rather more paprika than I expected.  Once tasted, however, the soup declared itself happy, and even Keith had some.
  5. This house is not a dude ranch for misfits and unemployables.  The rest of this paragraph I deleted out of deference to the feelings of him what this is in regard to.
  6. It has never gotten quite warm or dry enough for me to cut the grass one last time before winter starts in earnest.  I will when I can.
  7. I have done some more unpacking, and found some bedding which I probably can’t use as it looks doublish as opposed to twinnish or queenish..  However, it’s pure cotton, so I’m thinking of giving it to Paul, if he can stand having something in screeching lilac stripes.
  8. I carved out a pumpkin in the shape of Lafayette’s face.  I’m thinking of cutting up a white sheet I found to make wee ghosties.
  9. Jeff has posted the pinball instructions AND the high scores list.  Let the high score smackdowns commence!
  10. Homicide Season Seven is OUT THERE.  But when Munch starts spouting off (again, again) about how the government is storing information on law abiding citizens, he sounds quite prescient.  The whole show happened before 9/11.
  11. There is biscotti dough in the fridge.
  12. I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart my mother, Unca Barry, Ontie Mary, and the other relatives who assisted with a newly published family project. Barry’s preface in particular choked me up… we can never know what really happened, but we can preserve and think about what we have left, and be grateful that our relatives left us something to go on.
  13. I am reading through the family letters of, and with respect to, Bootlegging Mary.  Long time readers of this blog will hazily recollect that I went to a family reunion and heard about a relative who ran a corner gas station in Saskatchewan (I am at a loss to understand HOW this could be a more Canuckistani reference) and was, possibly, likely, a bootlegger. I wrote a song for her and begged for more detail.  The wheels of family genealogy have ground slow and fine, and to my wonderment and edification, the letters have been translated and published.  Words cannot express my gratitude.  Now I’m reading what it was like between the two World Wars for my Mennonite kin back in olt contry, and I’m amazed and humbled at the crap they lived through – all the while trusting and praising God with an deep and consistent piety. (Even as they got into it hammer and tongs about a disputed legacy… may we all take suitable notice of this falling out, which had tragic consequences for some).  In one letter there is a third hand account (as it’s a letter to a relative from another relative about a third relative’s doings).  The recently married daughter walked through her mum and dad’s village with her husband, and every last person in the village was gone.  They had fled across the frozen river from Siberia to China, with nothing but transportation, food and clothing.  She had seen her father the night before, and while he looked downcast he hadn’t breathed a word of the flight to his daughter.
  14. She is alleged to have said, in describing what she did when she walked through her parents’ deserted house, “I took the cat in my arms and the guitar down from the wall.”  I got chills when I read that.  She went straight for the two things I would have dealt with first.  The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree…..

Another Homicide: Life on the Street fest

We’re blasting through Season 7… Keith is watching with us when we can.  Ten reasons I love the show:

  1. The writing.  It’s true that the Season 7 stories get more and more oddball, but the writing all the way through is top notch; each character is differentiated and given ample scope.
  2. The location work.  Baltimore is a character in the show; its history, people, architecture and skyline are unspeaking presences throughout the series.  The show that broke my heart was the one where Meldrick (Clark Johnson) shows another cop the Underground Railway museum.
  3. The actors.  I am trying to think of a bad actor in the show.  With the exception of some minor casting issues on a show by show basis, all is good.  And the actors were able to direct if they wanted to in later episodes.  You can’t tell.  You can’t tell who directed which show.  It’s all really, really good.
  4. Lynn F. Kowal’s theme music.  She’s in a band called Starfish Lily now, I just listened and she sounds like a filker.  I know, weird.
  5. STELLAR/amazing/properly cast guests: Joan Chen, Neil Patrick Harris, Eric Stoltz, James Earl Jones, Moses Gunn, Robin Williams, Steve Buscemi, Alfre Woodard, Marcia Gay Harden, Lily Tomlin, Peter Gallagher, Chris Rock, Pat Hingle, Wilford Brimley, Steve Allen, Joe Perry, Bruno Kirby, Charles S. Dutton, Kate Walsh, Edie Falco, Vincent D’Onofrio, Kathryn Erbe, Christopher Meloni, Luis Guzmán, Steve Burns, Elijah Wood, Fisher Stevens, Jake Gyllenhaal, Lewis Black, Bruce Campbell, Paul Giamatti, Terry O’Quinn, David Morse, John Glover, Terry Kinney, Tony Todd, Charles Durning, Isaiah Washington, Jeffrey Donovan, Jena Malone, and Jerry Stiller.  Not to mention John Waters, twice.  And Austin Pendleton became a semi regular as a Medical Examiner.
  6. The set decoration.
  7. Yaphet Kotto as Giardello. Yes Andre Braugher was the breakout actor, but Kotto demonstrates such breadth and subtlety that he deserves a special mention.  Jeff says, “Everything I know about managing people I stole from Gee.” You could do much worse, even if he is fictional.
  8. The subject matters covered.  In its construction and deconstruction of – and wilful assaults on – American concepts of identity, race, class, gender and sexuality, the show is, ten years after its death, still able to kick cultural doors in.  A bisexual male character with some nuance?  Mixed race and white characters debating race issues without going for the cheap shot?  How many women were involved at senior levels of the show? zow.
  9. The use of and references to drugs and alcohol in the show.  From the Waterfront – the bar across the street owned by three characters – to Munch (as played by Richard Belzer) continually raving about the war on drugs, it’s all unsentimental and accurate.
  10. Special mention must be made of the use of music in the show.  I saw this series after I saw Buffy, and I have to say that Homicide did a better job of integrating both new and old pop tunes into the fabric of the series.  The background music is also great.