Miss Cellaneous

I love my sister so much that I just watched Germany's Next Topmodel with her.

I come back, and the world's tilted just a little:

1. Hillary is back in the race, and I haven't gotten much further than "oh?!" in my reaction. Of course, after her little statement of sorts, I yet again ponder the Clinton/Obama '08 ticket.

2. ( SPOILERS FOR THE LATEST Buffy the Vampire Slayer COMIC )

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From me, for the fans of my SGA icons. ( Look don't touch. )

From the flist, for the ones interested:

How to Inoculate Your Children Against Advertising

One comment says, "or you could just ban tv and/or internet from your home." As much as I believe children's access to either needs to be both supervised and limited--suggesting that total prohibition is an alternative to teaching your kids to think, question, and use reason makes me laugh (and not with the person).

thassalia has thoughtful thoughts on female role models, the dearth of 'em, and how some of us react:

"I get a little angry when I put forth my "if there are no women" in the story hypothesis and get the "it's about the story not the gender" argument in return because the truth is that we as a society constantly strip women from the story. We as storytellers strip women from the story, and as viewers and readers, when we accept that, we're complicit. We allow mothers to be absent, lovers to only exist in context with the men in their lives, women to exist at the edges of the story and not at the heart."

life_on_queen then made a good point, and I, uh. Went off on a tangent.

Now, because the 14valentines Life batch didn't have a single one of Dani smiling, I took grimorie up on her offer of iconising the caps from her and when she smiles picspam post. La la la crush, what crush? I have no idea what you are speaking of. & :-P

Seriously, grimorie's lj is a one-stop shop for a lot of your Life needs; just click here, and you'll see ep reviews and links to comms, commentary, tv scheduling news, and so on and so forth. If you like off-beat crime mysteries with plot arcs and a strong focus on characterisation as well as powerful dynamics between the two protagonists, Life is the show for you. Oh, also if you like Damien Lewis. That seems to happen often. (Ten would be totally envious if he met him, I'm just sayin'.)

ex.1	ex.2	ex.3

( 7 Life icons - Dani Reese smiles )

Back from Important Errands and drinking Keemun Gongfu from the tea store, but in these dark pre-Exam days, I had to share

a) with all you fellow lovers of Atlantis that SGA seems to have been re-newed for a 5th season. & :-D

b) with all you fellow lovers of tv the Hey Nielsen! site where you can leave opinions and vote for your favourite shows, actors, musicians, and media miscellanea. I have no idea what an impact this will actually have, but yes, this is the actual Nielsen company, and if I know one thing about y'all, it's the fact you're not exactly averse to communicating your ideas and perspectives.

Back to the books now; lessons at 4pm today.

Briefly surfacing after studying and comment-answerage to talk about tv, namely Life.

At first, I thought ciderpress was recommending Japanese high school drama to me, which had me go, Oh? ...hey, wait, looks intriguing, let's check it out! before I realised that no, she'd meant this cop show-cum-thriller.

( More about Life The Show(s), not mine )

I'm tired after this all-day seminar, and also just a little buzzed: Cutie trailed after me when I went home, and as I still owed him a bottle of wine -- foolish bet; don't ask -- we opened the 2003 Les Grandes Haut-Médoc I'd gotten for my birthday. That was around, uh, 6:30pm?

Alas, second seminar day tomorrow, and he left again. After I logged on, it sunk in that Summer Hiatus is almost over -- that our shows are about to start. And while I think I won't quite find the energy to comment at length about each show, I may at least jot down a few lines about the shows I polled you about.

Damages (pilot):
( aka The Devil Wears Pantsuits )

Reaper (pilot):
( The Show Where Everybody Looks Like Somebody Else. )

The Sarah Connor Chronicles (pilot):
( Road trips, the upcoming apocalypse, and two women -- well, one of them a robot, but we know since BSG that only makes it better -- against the world. )

(beadattitude, I haven't forgotten....)

New flavour of tea. ( Cut-tagged for those who privately think only the coffee-intolerant & Englishfolks drink tea )

the_grynne, whose movie and tv reviews and previews are always worthwhile, made me laugh and mark The Bionic Woman on NBC down for fall viewing:

A bit like what you'd get if Dark Angel and Alias got together, got piss-drunk, and ditched their wimpy boyfriends in favour of femslash.

Also, as mentioned two posts before, I talked on the phone with a friend yesterday; you know what extended phone-time means:

( Icons. ROME, to be specific, some of them with captions, some without )

Half-watching this documentary celebrating the anniversary of the moon landing -- original German broadcasts from 1969, original voiceovers, interspersed with commentaries tracing back the scientific, social, and political developments leading up to it, featuring technological pioneers like Walter von Braun (whom they also interviewed) inspired by tales of space, by one specific book, in fact, in turn inspired by Jules Verne's "From the Earth to the Moon". Science-fiction, indeed. (Not that I ever really read any true s-f, despite the happy glint in my father's eyes when he talked about Asimov and Verne.)

Also, after my day of valiant professional efforts, I brushed past my counter...and knocked down the bottle of red wine I'd bought only an hour ago. ( *facepalm* )

Just finished watching an episode of this excellent Danish TV series and must conclude I'm just inordinately fond of Scandinavian crime investigation teams; at least the shows I've seen so far (Kommissar Beck and, now, Der Adler) have always struck a chord with me -- intricate plots, a darkly gorgeous mood, and complex interpersonal dynamics; the most prominent element are definitely the well-rounded characters, flawed and fierce, stubborn and resigned, everything in between.

***

May have found an apartment; if the Swiss boy still in it doesn't fold like a bad hand at poker by giving it to the next person who actually pays the original & outrageous price for the kitchen, I shall actually have a new home of my own come the new year.

***

In fannish news, folks are talking about female characters and their portrayal again, which had me nod (often) and shake my head (vigorously)...but always, always intrigued.

hesychasm "would really rather not have to rehash the whole "Is slash misogynist?" discussion, but apparently [...] now can't tell the difference between an unflattering portrait of a female character, and making her act out-of-character in order to push two boy characters together."

fox1013 asks a very simple but v. cool question, and you should all not walk but RUN to her LJ to answer: "What exactly would make an interesting female character?"

A propos, sort of: cathexys talked about ( learning to be a feminist )

...Well, if I were a male thus inclined, "for the outfit to wear, of course." Some spam header questions are so easy to answer.

Speaking of. Frustrated with our music television (yes, I know, a shame I even keep trying), I watched Papa in a Bikini?, a documentary about a French transvestite, his wife, and his children on arte last night-- not a simple story, but a touching one; all the conflicts and bigotry, but also the surprising instances at acceptance within the local community, the sense of hope and the absurd, with humour. What I loved best may have been the gentle, neutral tone, not interfering, just witnessing: letting Pascal and his wife and his children speak, argue, laugh, and touch with so much tenderness -- worlds apart from the glossy, over-the-top, sensational pseudo-documentaries on some of the commercial channels (Germans know what I'm talking about). And at the end, they tested the -- four! -- children for psychological abnormalities.

They didn't find any.

Now -- and actually quite a propos! -- a few thoughts on Farscape, ( Coup by Clam *plus rec* )

( As for Sci-Fi TV -- Firefly, Farscape, SGA -- and the sharing thereof )

stumbled across the promo pic (and others) answering lost2mercy's question about who the heck Will Tippin was.

( Bradley Cooper movie/TV info...because someone out there might feel the love as well )