get me off this crazy thing

Day 20 - Favorite kiss

I think most of what I would consider a "favorite kiss" have occurred in film, not television. I'm thinking of the great kiss in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang or Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth Swann.

But, here are a few kisses (and not kisses!) that stay with me. ( kisses! )

So, I was gonna complain and whine, and groan, and point fingers and cry and stomp my feet, and wail, and generally have a pissy fit, but then I suddenly realized I didn't care (total lie, btw *g*) and I'm much more dignified than that (another lie) so I made a cup of tea and I'm going to watch an hour of Fry In America.

(ack! He just did a segment in Kentucky with Thoroughbred breeder Tom Van Meter. haha.)

(eta: aawww. Stephen is terrified of riding. *hugs him*)

Also, Lost in Austen is equal parts wonderful and ridiculous, with a good healthy dash of absurd thrown in. It's rather scandalous but I think I would love to read hot Amanda Price/Fitzwilliam Darcy porn. *facepalm*

Back in the day, when I used to work wardrobe crew for theatre in NYC, I had a stage manager friend who said he always wanted to work on Miss Siagon so he could say "cue the helicopter." :D

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I have finished rewatching 24 from the beginning, through to the end of the most recent season. :( What am I supposed to do now? :::panic:::

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As a result of finishing 24, I watched TW's Children of Earth, finally. I figured if I ever wanted to, I'd better before VVC. Anywho, I'm very glad I spoiled myself beforehand, not because I cared all that much, but because it allowed me to be more analytical. I was gonna write comments behind a cut, but why kick a fandom while it's down. Suffice to say, I thought it was leaps and bounds better than series 1 and 2; not necessarily darker than previous, imo (TW was pretty dark to begin with, I might even say pointlessly dark); and reinforces my opinion to stay the hell away from anything and everything to do with Captain Jack Harkness.

I also finally got around to watching Hillsborough, which is about the tragedy that occurred in 1989 at Hillsborough Stadium. I remember hearing about it as a kid. Watching this soon after CoE really puts that show into perspective. Talk about tragedy brought about by human weakness and failure.

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Is anyone else confusing "The Waters of Mars" with The Waters of March? Anyone? Just me? I keep singing the song each time I see a reference to "The Waters of Mars." It's quite fitting!

"A stick, a stone, it's the end of the road. It's feeling alone. It's a sliver of glass. It's life, it's the sun. It's night, it's death. It's a knife, it's a gun."

I love the Susanna McCorkle version, but there are many others.

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In other news, I tried to bribe merryish into finishing my story for me. SHE REFUSED.

18,000 words so far.

*facepalm*
*drowns*

I think we might be on the homeward stretch. maybe. hopefully. My two Immortals are breaking my heart. *pets them*

Layoffs will happen today. Honestly, I'm dying from the suspense.

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And so I talk about some fannish things.

I watched the new version of Persuasion earlier this week. I loved it. I'm in love with Captain Wentworth all over again. I adored the older movie with Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root, as well, and both of these adaptations differ just enough to make each really enjoyable for their own sake.

Some comparisons:

The newer version had some bizarre shaky hand-held camera action going for some of the earlier sequences, which was odd and distracting. I mean, this isn't Homicide. But I either got used to it, or it lessened as the story progressed.

The newer version has Anthony Head as Sir Walter Elliot. Gotta tell you, the older version's Sir Walter was better casting. I mean, I loved Anthony Head. He's great, but a foppish buffoon he is not. He was rather more primly menacing. Or maybe I was just channeling Uthur? LOL. He was very good, though, just not at all how I picture Sir Walter!

Both Captain Wentworths are lovely. But Rupert Penry-Jones is probably closer to Captain Wentworth in the novel than Ciaran Hinds. However, they're both smoldering and intense and dreamy and yummy. Although Ciaran Hinds brings with him the remembrance of all his other roles, while Rupert Penry-Jones is just very very handsome. :)

And, alluding to Rome, the newer version's Mr. William Elliot was played by none other than our favorite sniveling betrayer, Marcus Brutus! Now that was good casting. The older version as the ever charming Samual West in the role, who of course did a great job, but it was easier to see the slime underneath the facade with Brutus (I'm sorry, that actor will always be Brutus to me, forever).

Both versions were more or less true to the book, with some slight changes here and there that were mostly insignificant.

I think I need to own both versions.

meep.

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I also watched Fingersmith -- it's like costume drama week, or something -- which I really really liked. I'd like to read the book, too. You know, you just don't get good gothic horror lesbian love stories too often these days.

Large Fireball over Edmonton

By triangulating fireball images from several simultaneously recorded sources, astronomers hope to find an approximate orbit from whence the object came, as well as the likely place(s) on Earth where large pieces would have impacted, were they to have survived reentry. In the best case scenario, pieces would be recovered from a known deep space comet or asteroid, giving humanity an unprecedented look at an ancient object that likely holds clues to the early years of our Earth and the Solar System.

This is the part where TorchwoodPolice and Army personal approach the burned out pieces of asteroid out in some field somewhere and release some sort of deadly sex pheromone alien, or a bacteria that makes us all pod people, or the asteroid is really a signal from above for the large dormant metallic aliens below the ground to awaken and cause havoc, death, and mayhem, only to be brought down by the common cold. Or possibly its a family of four on the hot trail of a skinny Time Lord.

:D

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In other news, I called in sick yesterday because I have a teensie tiny cold. It felt decedent. I did not, however, do any laundry, which is SAD, because I could barely carry all of my dirty clothes, that's how much laundry I have. I was very close to dropping it off at a laundromat to do for me, but it would have cost me a horseback riding lesson. :(

What I did do was work on my hlh_shortcut story (YAY), read source for Yuletide (YAY) and watched several hours of State of Play, the UK version obviously, and also watched 24: Redemption.

( My very erudite comments on State of Play )

( Jack Bauer on my TV. I started to believe it would never happen. )

It's been a while since I bored you all with horsey talk, but really I have not much to say other than it's AWESOME. I had my weekly lesson this morning and so now I'm sleepy and pleasantly sore. Rode the very go go go Idaho. My instructor started me on flying lead change on figure eight cantering which I pretty much completely failed at, hahah, but it was fun still. Actually we didn't really start on flying lead changes, but rather going down to a trot and picking up the other lead, but Idaho had a mind of his own about all this. He wouldn't drop down to a trot and then just did the flying change on his own and I was like, hello! so that's what that feels like.

Every week I have all this weird anxiety over my upcoming lesson, but usually on the day of I'm thrilled to pieces and then the lesson is always ten times awesome. It has gotten better, in any case, and at least I'm sleeping pretty well the night before.

Last week I had a horse who can't go in the x-ties, so I had to tack in the stall and that was new. That was Maryland, and she likes to turn her head and bite you (although, well, I'm sure she'd bite if she could, but it's mostly just a nip) and didn't want me to pick her hooves or anything, and hated being brushed, but she was great on the flat. Whatever, lady. I just kept pushing her head away.

yayz, fun, so ti ti now, zzzzz.

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Is anyone else following this major brouhaha over at the BBC regarding Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross prank calling actor Andrew Sachs, he who was Manuel on Faulty Towers? Not that I'm really that big a fan of either comedian at all (although I admit they both make me laugh), seems like it's blown way out of proportion. I mean, people are quiting, investigations by Ofcom, politicians are demanding apologies, the public has sent in a ton of complaints, Ross's show is suspended and may be chucked, heads are flying. Except that, you know, it's Manuel! How do you make fun of Manuel, man? That's low.

Here you can see Russell Brand's apology. He kind of skeeves me out, but hey, he's a comedian, I feel like he's done worse than this. Ross should have known better, though, he's been around forever.

Whatever, clearly I'm bored to tears at work. ;)

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Manuel: Ohh, he hit me on the head.
Major Gowen: No! You hit him on the head. You naughty moose.
German Guest: However did they win?

Don't ask me why I'm quoting The Neverending Story. I have no idea.

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The current California fires, a series of pictures. Very dramatic and impressive. Not to mention kind of terrible.

The air quality sucks today.

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"Keating Economics: John McCain and the making of an ecomomic crisis." Very illuminating. And jeezuz, he looks exactly the same. I'd make an allusion to Dorian Gray except for the fact that Dorian was good looking. hah.

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In other news, last week Wednesday I thought it was Thursday and was very confused for most of the day, even to the point of arranging for Friday night plans that ended up being on Thursday. D'oh! And today all day I have been thinking it's Wednesday or Thursday or Friday or basically every other day but Tuesday. What gives, yo?

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In other other news, I finally started watching Life On Mars (UK) yesterday and I love it. Only seen the first episode so far but I think it's faboo and weird and bizarre, and I resisted so long because (well, because I lacked source) I didn't see how the premise could work, really, but I have come to realize that that assumption is totally dependent on my POV as an american television consumer. British TV is a whole other ball of wax.

(I'm well aware of the remake. Let's just hope it's better than Viva Laughlin. It gets a lot of points for scoring Harvey Keitel, though.)

So, I was going to write all this stuff about Blackpool, thoughts on the gimmick of the show and how successful/unsuccesssful it was, juxtaposing against a rather naturalistic portrayal of small town seedy life, the portayal of a womanizer and his ( does anyone care about v. general spoilers? )

First of all, I loved Sarah Parish and I'm somewhat gobsmacked to discover she played the Queen of the Racnoss! And jeez, I rather hope they use her again for a character where I can recognize her.

Second of all, despite whatever crits I have for Blackpool, I did actually enjoy it, found the characters interesting and stuff, and watched it all the way through (well, except for ffing through some of the dance #s). I spent most of the first few eps bemused more than anything else.

Third of all, I kept wondering how the pitch session for this kind of show would go, especially in Hollywood, and then I spent a few moments cringing at the thought of what an American version of Blackpool would be like, with the gloss of Hollywood sucking everything interesting right out of it.

And THEN, I remembered, months ago, nearly a year ago now, my friend B making me watch this clip from The Soup:



And then I laughed and laughed and laughed some more.

Okay, I'm watching Eyes. I don't know why this show managed to wheedle it's way onto my admittedly distracted and stubborn I-don't-really-watch-tv attention span, but it has. Actually, I know why, and that's because Tim Daly's doing a great job, and so is his totally gorgeous co-star, who's name I'm sure I'll eventually remember, and the rest of the show is interesting enough that I find myself engaged. Although, they can stop with the split screen thing anytime now.

So now, the number of tv shows I watch has expanded to 4! And luckily 3 of those are all on one right after the other, so I just have to stay prone for 3 hours on Wednesday. I think I can manage that.

And actually, I find myself watching more TV now that I've moved from my parents home, and spending less time on the computer. And this has led to my occasionally catching shows like Medium and House (and with House I may lose my Slasher's ID Card forever, since, after watching two episodes, I find myself only really interested in the House/Cameron relationship. I'm all about the Het these days. I also have a thing for teacher/student relationships...).

I keep telling myself that I should watch as much TV as I can, because it's all going to go away as soon as I go back to school.

Aside from that, my roommate S and I have finally finished watching all of the BBC's The Office, including the two Specials. I want to blubber and babble on about this show, but I find myself lacking words. It's the most excruciatingly, painfully, funny show I've ever watched. You're literally in pain and laughing at the same time. Ricky Gervais is my new hero. And all the actors on this show, I loved them. I loved every single one of them. ( And the ending! Cut for spoilery blubbering. )

( And now, I do the music meme. )