Giving Xenophobia a bad name since 1992

Aww!

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 12:05:56 GMT

Two snowflakes! Thank you, anonymous and thimble_kiss! it's as if you knew that I was embarking on the week from complete hell! (Which is not quite so hellish as it might have been, now that the antibiotics are helping Spartacus, but still is pretty crazy.)

ha ha ha, or maybe ho, ho ho

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:54:52 GMT

So I had this idea that now that I am back to working part time, I would be able to get back online more. I would update here! Maybe I would do some memes! Maybe I would even write something! What I forgot was that the nature of part-time academic work is that you are in fact doing almost all the work in only half the time (because of childcare) for roughly a quarter of the pay. So what has actually happened is that since starting work, I haven't updated at all. I often don't check my personal email now for whole days. I owe people mail like you wouldn't believe.

Of course as I type this, (while Spartacus naps) I really should be writing a lecture instead.

Needless to say, I will not be doing yuletide this year. Although that may be for the best, because I keep hearing rumors about how Yuletide has been taken over by the crazy this year. That seems so bizarre to me -- I mean, yes, of course it drives everybody crazy, but not usually in the anonymous flaming and trolling kind of way.

In other news, I will probably watch Spooks, although this week I had to dodge in and out of the room because I have a low tolerance for violence against children these days, and by low I mean pretty-much nonexistent, and thought that this episode was particularly heavy-handed and exploitative in that line. On the plus side, Ruth! although she spent quite a lot of time screaming -- did she used to do that?

Actually, I often feel that I shouldn't comment about Spooks online, because other people seem to think it's a good show (I wouldn't disagree), and I never know whether that means that they think it's a quality show (to which I say, in exactly the same way Alias was.) Although I must admit that Harry's secret stash of weapons-grade uranium (or was it plutonium) totally puts Jack Bristow's lockers of guns and cash to shame. He has his own secret supply of uranium, guys! And only he knows where it is! Hahahahahaha! That was priceless. He and Crazy Uncle Arvin should totally hook up.

At this point, I am kind of hoping I remember how to code for LJ, to avoid spoiling everyone in the world.

In other TV news, regarding Strictly, my hatred for Craig Kelly cannot be textually rendered. And although I have no idea who is voting for Anton and Laila, I'm glad that they are.

Anyway, Spartacus will be waking up any minute now, so I think I will go ahead and hit post!

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:50:09 GMT

Recently things have been very stressful, but here are two things that amuse me:

Spartacus continues to babble to himself lots and lots, and one of his current favorites is something that sounds suspiciously like "ogi-ogi-ogi-ogi." And I haven't even told him about SurveyFail!

Also, while we were away he finally started to get teeth. Now he has four, two at the bottom and two at the top -- but the two at the top are the ones next to the front teeth. I have taken to calling him my little vampire baby!

This is it

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 18:30:43 GMT

Status report: the office is packed; the shipping container is packed; the car is going to be sold tomorrow. I am giving up the keys to my office once I finish typing this.

We're having a three-day vacation in Iceland on the way home, so I'll see you all on the other side.

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 15:38:32 GMT

I realized just now, as I sat there trying to fill out the insurance valuation, that this is the third time I have moved over the Atlantic, and the fourth time I have moved from one country to another, and yet I have still not realized that the most sensible way to handle this kind of thing is to burn all your possessions and start from scratch in the new country.

And why does the valuation form have only a single item for books? Most of the value of what I'm sending is books.

Some quick links

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 09:58:44 GMT

cidercupcakes is hosting a female character deathmatch thingy here: Home Team 2009. Please go there and make sure Miss Piggy doesn't beat Marion Ravenwood in the first round. (Also: making me choose between Uhura and Sam Carter, or between Bones and CJ was very, very unfair.)

I happened across this BBC story about Islamic superhero comics a while ago, and thought other people on my friends list might find it interesting.

And finally, an academic work: The Aftermath of Character seems to be about the divergence between fanfic and other forms of fiction, except in the 18th century.

Any suggestions? (parents and Canadians, this means you!)

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:18:26 GMT

(Otherwise known as, "surely my friends list knows everything...")

OK, here's my problem. We're going back to Halifax next month, so that I can pack up my office, arrange for shipping to the UK, say goodbye, all that stuff. And obviously, we are taking Spartacus with us.

We don't have a car in the UK; we have a borrowed carseat, but Spartacus has just outgrown it, so we won't be taking it with us. I have a car in Halifax (which I'm planning to sell). My usual practice is to take a taxi from the airport to the city. Now, as far as I can tell, taxicabs are actually exempt from childseat laws in Canada (at least, they are in Ontario -- as so often, it's harder to find info on other provinces), but I am a little nervous on two counts -- first, that it's about a 20 minute trip, and second, that I have serious doubts that a taxi driver will take us without a carseat. Does anyone have advice or suggestions?

I've emailed a child stuff rental company about renting a carseat (and some other stuff) while we're there, but they don't seem to do airport dropoffs. I'm going to phone my usual cab company (if I can find their card!) and ask them for advice. I think I'll also email former colleagues with children back in Halifax to see what they suggest (and hope that someone would offer to come pick us up! but that seems unlikely). In the worst-case scenario, there's a shuttle bus to downtown hotels that I can take -- after all, we'll be taking a bus to the airport here, and that's a much longer trip. But generally, by the time I've arrived in the airport, I just want to get the rest of the way, and I suspect that Spartacus will feel the same.

(And yes, I know he'll be on the plane in our laps, but air travel is statistically much safer than car travel...)

food and a book

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:20:24 GMT

Last night Spartacus' dinner included a roast beet, which I had just dug up from our garden a couple hours before I cooked it. For someone with as black a thumb as I have, that is a major accomplishment! It was huge! It looked like a real beet! He seemed to like it well enough, although it was not Spartacus' ideal meal; that would involve us leaving his food scattered all over the floor, preferably for about a day, so that he could crawl around and pick bits of old food up and eat them. In a really ideal world, he'd be naked.

The other thing about beets is that they let you know exactly how fast your child's digestive system is working.

* * *

Over the weekend I finished Anathem, by Neil Stephenson, and must have really liked it, because it was very long, and was about 80% taken up with the discussion of epistemology and ontology, with a side order of mathematics and quantum theory. And it was heavily influenced by Platonism, which I hate. And it was very much about the ideas, not the people in it. And yet I finished it and enjoyed it!

I also found it interesting in light of NS's gender issues -- because it really seems to me that he knows he has a problem with female characters, and is trying really really hard -- but he still gets caught out by his own presuppositions. So for example, he could have made all the avout male, but chose not to -- and his female characters are as well-drawn as anyone else in the story (which isn't saying much, because this is very much a novel of ideas rather than characters) and do many interesting and important things. But none of the advanced theoretical work: they do practical, organizational, mechanical things -- the heavy lifting on the theoretical side is all done by male characters. And there's no plot-related reason for this, I think; it would be just as easy for Fra Paphlagon or Fra Jad to have been written as women, not men. Or even Fra Orolo. But I think that NS really believes that the female mind is just not that interested in (or good at) theory -- that abstraction isn't a female strength. And in a novel in which it is implied that increasing abstraction is the key to approaching the Hylaean Theoric World (the Forms, in the platonic terminology), that's kind of an issue -- and even more so within the (not very articulated) Platonic framework in which theoretical understanding leads to The Good.

I haven't read The Baroque Cycle, but BH tells me that in that, the original female character, Eliza, is clearly brilliant -- but brilliant at finding practical uses for the theories developed by the male characters. And that he does a good job with the historical female scientists. (And really, I feel that in a historical novel, you have to cut an author some slack on what women can and do accomplish -- but in speculative fiction, you don't.) But still, I'm fascinated by how NS is trying, and how he still has this huge gap in what he can imagine.

Torchwood, day 5

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 09:34:06 GMT

Well, I have to say that mostly, that felt like a giant "fuck you" to anyone who really liked season 1 and 2 of the show. I am not part of that fandom, so I don't feel personally betrayed by the way all that ended, but I totally sympathize.

That said, it had moments of really great drama and emotion, and I did really enjoy it, despite feeling that it was unrelentingly bleak just for the heck of it, rather than for plot-or-character related reasons. And I am still confused by all the plot holes.

So for example, I totally bought the idea that Jack, still in shock and grief over Ianto's death, would sacrifice Stephen, and loved the final scene between him and Alice: that's all there is, that's all there's ever going to be, because he did the most unforgivable thing, and he'll never be able to come back from it. And I buy that, having essentially destroyed his own world, he would run away. But I also feel that all that last-minute rushed research into how to defeat the 456s should have happened earlier in the story, because yes, it was dramatic, but it only happened because all the characters were too stupid to do it earlier, when it might have made a difference (like, for example, being able to walk in to confront the 456s with more than a bluff and a couple handguns, you know? But Ianto (and the whole of MI5) might have survived that scene.

I mean, I know that if you can only get to your Big Dramatic Scene by making your characters act like idiots, you need to replot. And I feel that if I know it, people who write TV shows for money should know it too.

I also would have liked to see the follow-through from the scenes of the soldiers taking away children from their parents, especially when they went into people's homes to do so (completely unnecessarily, as infinitemonkeys pointed out, since the obvious thing to do would have been to move up to the next tranche of schools until you had your 10%, but sending soldiers to chase Gwen et al. is more dramatic, see my point above). If you're going to be all gritty and realistic and claim that civilization is coming to an end, then show me some of that! What's the social and political fallout? I probably care more about that than I do about Jack's manpain, actually.

(And I would have liked to see some dissent among the soldiers, as well -- sure, their own children were at risk, but (a) would that lead to a mutiny? I mean, who was going to come get them? all the other soldiers? and (b) a fair number of men in the armed forces are in fact childless. Again with the great, dramatic scenes that fall apart if you think about them too much.)

IMHO, the non-Torchwood stuff was the best part of the series, especially Frobisher and his horrible, tragic ending. Wow. I kept thinking of those girls on Day 1 (or 2?) chanting, "we want a pony," at their parents, and then that, shot in cold blood by a father who could see no other ending. And the dreadfully plausible COBRA scenes, and the Prime Minister falling, only to be replaced by someone just as horrible.

I'm guessing that this is the end of Torchwood as we know it (or of Torchwood, full stop) and that if there is a new season it will have all new characters. But honestly, the reset button in this universe must be getting stickier and stickier. Will they reference any of this the next time we have a new Dr. Who?

Torchwood, again

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:55:15 GMT

OK. FLAILING NOW!!!!

Ianto! That was very unfair! I don't want Ianto to be dead! (And I'm sure the fandom is about to erupt, isn't it?)

...but when I'm not flailing, I'm thinking well, really, what did they expect? that the 456s would just back off after being given a good talking to? It doesn't seem very smart to start threatening an alien power before you can figure out how to attack it. I feel that there was a missing part to Torchwood's plan, there. (I'm also thinking hey, did they just kill more members of MI-5 than the whole run of Spooks, so far? That takes some doing!)

But mostly, I am FLAILING. With a side of WIBBLING. And some distinct CONCERN. That was some good TV.

Also, the Cabinet decision regarding which 10% to send was all too plausible. What are league tables for, indeed? When the chips are down, anyway.

Torchwood and TV

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:48:56 GMT

It is quite nice to be watching a fannish TV show in real time again, since the closest I've come to that for the past year has probably been Primeval, and I only know a couple people who watch that. Whereas lots of people watch Torchwood! And I can read their posts! Yay! (My other appointment TV shows are things like Timmy Time and In the Night Garden. OMG, you guys, CBeebies is TOTAL CRACK! I think I enjoy these much more than Spartacus does.)

And not only that, but this Torchwood miniseries is really good. I haven't seen much of the show itself, because I didn't like the first few episodes, but I am definitely enjoying this season. I mean, some of what I found irritating is still present -- like the random and often inappropriately-timed sex-talk, and yes, I know that's what everyone else watches for, but I just think it's silly -- and the issues about security and secrecy, but other things are much improved -- I now think that Gwen is awesome beyond words, whereas I did not like her much at first. And Ianto's lack of a personality is not an oversight, but part of his character (and I guess he must have acquired some kind of personality over the past two seasons anyway.)

And there is a plot! A scary plot! With twists! Some of which (like Jack's complicity) were kind of obvious (and a nice reminder that Torchwood were not always the good guys), and others which completely surprised me (like the doctor's betrayal and death). And I want to know more about Jack's daughter, and Ianto's sister and her husband -- I really like the way this series is handling people who are not part of The Team -- taking them seriously and letting them contribute to the story, and not just hang around to be rescued. Even the villains are well rounded, aside from the PM.

And the five-night miniseries format is working very well, too -- lots of tension and the promise of a relatively quick payoff. All in all, two thumbs up!

Actually, my icon reminds me that Being Human was also watched by other people -- and it has been funny watching Merlin eat through fandom. But watching TV in more-or-less real time with other people is still one of the things I like best about fandom, and a lot of my disengagement and frustration over the past year have come from not being able to participate in that -- and only being able to read meta, not fic (because of spoilers), is a pretty horrible way to experience fandom. Not that I'll be requesting Timmy Time fic at Yuletide or anything, because I know where that would lead...

Public Housekeeping

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:57:46 GMT

1. Warnings, since I see people posting their warnings policies.

I view this as mostly a "don't be an asshole" issue, so I try not to be an asshole; I checked my fic page and discovered that I did warn for the most obvious potential trigger-thing, an offscreen rape in an early XF story. My webpage has notation for sex or violence next to story listings. But I also do try to warn as little as possible, and I do expect my readers not to act like idiots. My feeling is that if you are reading an Alias story with a Syd/Lauren pairing, and the summary does not explicitly promise you fluffy bunnies, you should probably not be too surprised if the material contains skeevy power dynamics instead of fluffy bunnies.

I am really, really torn about warning for character death. Sometimes I have, and sometimes I haven't. Sometimes I want that warning as a reader, and sometimes I don't. These two statements are related.

So in short: I try not to be an asshole, and I hope that readers will not act like idiots. If you, the readers, feel that there's something in a story that ought to have a warning, let me know. I promise to listen to you. If you want to know before reading a story whether it contains something that will trigger you, you can always ask me.

2. The one thing I miss about Microsoft Outlook is the todo list function; I relied on it to keep organized at work. Now I need something like that, ideally an online service that I can keep open in a tab. I'd like it to prioritize by date and if possible to have tags for different categories of tasks. Does such a thing exist?

3. I suspect that the level of my irritation with the universe is directly related to the amount of sleep I've been getting -- or rather, not getting. But really, what happened to that hot, dry summer we were promised? The news was full of dire sunstroke warnings, until June hit and it became clear that we were actually having a warm-but-not-too-warm and moderately rainy summer. So much for global warming! I become more of a skeptic about that with every passing day, but see above re: lack of sleep.

4. I feel like I should say something about Farah Fawcett and Michael Jackson both dying, but I'm not, because I can't think of anything. Is this post very grumpy? If so, I'm sorry. The internet is making me cranky these days.

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:33:48 GMT

I forgot to renew my paid LJ subscription, and am now wondering whether I ever will. The thing I miss most are my icons, of course; if I renew my paid subscription with the additional icons, will my old icons come back? Or have they been lost forever? (I think not, because they appear on my old posts, back when I used them all.)

OMG, I had all kinds of things to say, and now that I'm sitting here with the screen before me, I cannot remember what they were. This is so dumb.

One of them was that I received an irritating response (by a third party) to a comment I left somewhere. I have decided not to reply, because picking a fight with another LJ user in someone else's post about something totally irrelevant to the post itself is rude and tacky, but I totally want a cookie for not acting like a jerk. ::rolls eyes at self::

Oh, I know what else it was! Guys, I won a fanfic award! I was a runner up! I don't think I have ever won a fanfic award! Look, the proof is here at the bottom of the post! And it was for Like love we seldom keep, which honestly, I expected about eight people to be willing to read, because Marita Covarrubias/John Winchester is just never going to be a big crossover pairing. So I am very pleased about that.

That may be enough excitement for the moment.

primeval, series 3

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:24:32 GMT

Now that it's all over bar the wailing and gnashing of teeth...

My random impressions:

1. I really hope that Stupid Former Cop remains stuck in the past, because I do not care about him. But I fear that Sarah's comment to Becker that she has an idea means that she will figure out a way to track him and Abby and Connor down and rescue them. I am all in favor of rescuing Abby and Connor, but I think that Stupid Former Cop would make a tasty meal for our primate ancestors.

2. Helen Cutter really was bug-fuck-crazy, wasn't she? I did think I would be more annoyed about her eventual death, but there was something so very, very silly and yet deeply suitable about Helen being killed by a raptor that followed her through an anomaly. And since I never really wrote for the show, I never really invested the effort into making her character make sense that would make me resent her random characterization in this season -- I mean, one episode she wants to stop the ARC from creating horrible bat-creatures which will destroy humanity in the future, and the next she wants to destroy humanity herself? Although I guess the super-bat-predators et al. wipe out all the animal life as well, so maybe that's what she was focusing on. And she had developed the bad habit of making long "Before I kill you, Mr. Bond," speeches.

And really, with both Nick and Stephen dead, there was no reason to keep her around as a villain.

2a. I am amazed that I still have such a suitable icon, though. Actually, I'm not amazed at all.

3. If I were plotting the show, I would make next season's villain Stupid Former Cop's Missing Brother.

4. What was that "Don't go without me!" exchange between Sarah and Stupid Former Cop? Did they have sexual tension while I wasn't paying attention? No, they did not. This show is now sadly lacking in sexual tension of any sort, but the closest they come is Sarah and Becker. And a Sarah/Becker/Stupid Former Cop triangle will not have the same glorious messed-up manpain that Stephen/Helen/Nick did. Or Nick/Claudia/Jenny. Heck, even the Stephen/Abby/Connor triangle from season 1 was more interesting.

4a. As BH noted, Nick may have been annoying, but he was central to most of the relationships on the show.

5. I thought it was really, hysterically funny that it was Stupid Former Cop, with Connor and Abby, who sent giant bug-creatures back through the anomaly to try to kill Sarah and Becker. Own goal! Except, of course, that Sarah and Becker are not completely hopeless, and managed to slam one into a car window and electrocute the other two with a chain-link bug-zapper fence.

But still, ::facepalm::

6. You know, it appears that other people work for the ARC. It even appears at times that Becker has troops under his command. Why don't these people ever do anything?

7. I did like the scene with Connor and Abby in the tree. "Can I move back in with you?" It was sweet.

8. The thing is, I think I liked the world that Season 1 happened in better than the world the last two seasons have been in. Can we change to another alternate reality next season? That would be neat.

9. If I were writing, I would write the crossover where Sam Carter has to come in and sort the whole operation out.

In other media-related news, I am very sad that I have not seen the new Star Trek, and will not get a chance to do so in the foreseeable future, until it comes out on DVD. Of course, I also still haven't seen the last few episodes of the Sarah Connor Chronicles or any of season 4 of Supernatural, so it's not like Star Trek is special.

Mon, 11 May 2009 22:04:20 GMT

I am usually the last person to comment on lj about egregiously racist failures, so I am a little surprised not to have seen more posts about this; maybe I've been missing them. The archive is here, if you want to trace the discussion. Plenty of people there are far more thoughtful and eloquent than I could be.

If you're wondering, the short version, as encapsulated by me and my husband --
Me: Let's say you were an editor or publisher and were handed a novel where the Europeans got to the Americas and discovered that there were no humans there, but the megafauna had survived the Pleistocene dieout. Would you think (a) mammoths! saber-toothed tigers! cool! or (b) you know, wiping out all the Native Americans from your history and replacing them by literal wild dangerous beasts is deeply, deeply hinky.
Him: Hm. I guess the second thing.
Me: Yeah, you'd think, wouldn't you?

Or, more eloquently, by hermetic, Fundamentally, I cannot escape the idea that [writing such a book is] an act that results in real-world harm because it disappears peoples who have already been systematically removed physically, culturally, linguistically, and spiritually, from their own landscape. It completes their erasure.

Which pretty much says it all, I think. I have pretty high standards for "immoral" as applied to a work of literature, but this one is pushing them.

* * *

I have half-formed thoughts on alternate histories, and why I want to read them and almost always end up horribly disappointed; I guess it's that historical causality is too complex, and I end up waving my hands a lot and saying "but, but, but... once you've changed that, how do you end up there?" I don't have the same problem with fantasy, although most fantasy worlds don't work (historically, economically, whatever), but once people start playing with history my brain goes into overdrive.

I am also reminded of Robert Silverberg's Roma Eterna, one of those books where the Roman Empire never falls; I remember it only vaguely, because it wasn't very good as a novel. It was more a collection of historical sketches, I think -- actually, it turns out that the book is a collection of short stories written over an number of years, which makes sense. But it seems relevant in this context, because IIRC Silverberg decided Christianity caused the fall of Rome, and to ensure that there were no Christians he short-circuited the Exodus: no Jews, no Judea, no Jesus, therefore no Christians. Except that actually there are Jews, still in Egypt, still waiting for the Exodus, which actually occurs in the final story -- in the punchline -- in spaceships. Which is what makes this book an entirely different proposition, I think: history isn't erased but postponed.

* * *

Off and on in comments about this I see people looking for books which deal with America, and American myth, and in this context I keep thinking of Michael Chabon's Summerland, which I read again while in San Francisco. Has anyone else read this book? and if not, why not? People who like (or want to like) Supernatural but wish ithad more folklore and fewer race and gender issues should read this book. I think baseball is boring, but I love it. Which is not to say that it gets everything right; I mean, I'm not qualified to say whether it gets anything right, as far as the inclusion of Native American characters goes. My outsider perspective is that Chabon is trying here and is not failing utterly, but other people may feel differently.

Last night's Primeval

Sun, 03 May 2009 15:29:48 GMT

...and the scenes from next week, to which my reaction can be summed up with "OMG, have they gone completely mad?" (The answer being, obviously, yes: someone sat down in the writer's room and said, "Hey, this is a show about time travel. We have no limits!") And this is already a show which will make you turn to your watching-partner and say, in all seriousness, "If we were being hunted down by the private army of a power-mad civil servant, we wouldn't stop to have a random formal dinner in our poorly-constructed secret lair, would we?" The characters really are too dumb to live.

I am still enjoying the cracktastic nature of this show, although some of this season's changes sadden me. After all, I started watching for the following reasons:

1. Dinosaurs! In the Forest of Dean!
2. The one true love of Nick and Stephen
3. Stephen is pretty.
4. Nick's manpain is funny.
5. Helen Cutter fulfills many of my One True Character requirements.
6. Lester has all the best lines.

But now where are we? Lester still has all the best lines (he was great in last night's episode, and has been great all season, really. He gets to save the day, through vile cunning and backbiting!) There are still dinosaurs. Helen fulfills even more of my OTC kinks, now that we know that her opposition to Nick et al. is based on her knowledge that they will accidentally destroy the world in the future. (And what was the deal with Nick's response that you can't change the future? Of course you can -- he did it himself at the end of Season 1, when he created a world with Jenny rather than Claudia! What was that? If changing the past can alter the present, then changing the present can alter the future. Heck, for all I know, changing the future in Primeval can alter the past.)

BUT -- what makes a character like Helen interesting is her relationship to people she's opposed to -- to Nick and Stephen. (To give a different example: Irina Derevko and Arvin Sloane would be a lot less interesting if they didn't have ties to Jack and Sydney.) And now Nick and Stephen are both dead, and it's really hard to see how they'll integrate Helen into the cast now: in fact I wouldn't be surprised to discover that she was retrospectively killed off right after killing Nick (which, also, how dumb was he in that scene? To say, "you're not as smart as you think you are" while Helen is pointing a gun at him? To go back for Helen, the arch-survivor, in the first place?). Then she would fit even more of my OTC characteristics. ::sniffle::

I also feel cheated of a whole season of Nick's guilty manpain over Stephen's death. Their love was so pure! But mostly, I feel cheated of at least a season of Helen making cryptic comments supposedly aimed at keeping Nick from accidentally creating killer bat-creatures from the future, but really intended to make him fall back in love with her. My relationship kinks are totally predictable, aren't they?

On the positive side, we do have Sarah the Egyptologist, of whom I thoroughly approve. She hit a dinosaur with a 2x4! Her job now is to discover the truth behind all myths everywhere! She is smart and funny! Well, smart for Primeval, which means she still often acts as if she hasn't got two brain calls to rub together. Obviously, if I cared at all about how my own field and closely related fields are represented on TV, I would be sad, but I don't: so what if she can do cryptography and read (I assume) every language ever written? And understand Nick's wacky 3-D timeline? And no doubt will end up having many other skills, as necessary.

At least Connor and Abby have grown on me. Especially Connor: I rather wish Abby had more storylines focused on her, really, because you can kind of see how and why Connor has changed through the show. He's still awkward and geeky, of course, even though now he can do every kind of science ever. Losing Jenny-not-Claudia at the same time was also kind of disruptive -- at least they didn't kill her off! -- as I was hoping that someday she might have a conversation with another female character that wasn't about her non-relationship with Nick.

As for the two new guys, neither of them has much of an impact: neither seems to have much character at all, although I guess Former Cop has his missing-through-an-anomaly brother as his not-so-secret sorrow. Perhaps the brother will turn out to have teamed up with Helen? I am kind of hoping that New Soldier gets some character development or backstory, since Former Cop doesn't interest me much. [Disclosure: I missed episode four, which I guess is the one where Former Cop breaks into the ARC and joins the team. Maybe he seemed more appealing then? He seems an OK action guy, but no Stephen. I miss Stephen, even if he was pretty dumb, even by Primeval standards.]

I'll certainly keep watching, if only for the unbelievable crack-addled nature of the whole thing, and of course for Lester and Helen. But there's a big hole where there used to be a protagonist, right now.

I'm sure I had other things to say, but I've been writing this in dribs and drabs all day, so it's a bit disorganized. And now I must go see what kind of mashed food I can make for Spartacus.

Ob. Dreamwidth post

Sat, 02 May 2009 10:36:59 GMT

I now exist, lemming-like, over on Dreamwidth under the same username: vaznetti. I considered going back to my original pseud (Vanzetti), but I kind of like the new one (OK, more than 5 years old, but you get the picture) because of its total uniqueness.

I am slowly adding people over there, as I have time to look for and find them, but I really have no idea what I'm going to use that account for. Possibly backup, possibly for more fannish material, should I ever start generating that again. I may unsubscribe there from people who are just crossposting, because I don't need to see the same posts twice. I'm definitely not going anywhere -- there are too many people here who are sticking around -- and historically, I have had problems maintaining two different journals. I may crosspost, though.

Basically, I am a big mass of indecision, now in two places!

through the jet-lagged haze

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 20:37:47 GMT

...I am back from San Francisco, which was wonderful, and I will say more about all that later, I hope. But that is not the point of this post. The point of this post is that I have just started catching up on this season of Primeval, which started just after we left Oxford, and OMG! Best crack ever! Who else is watching this? Is it as hysterically crazy as I think? And when does Daniel Jackson make an appearance?

I really hope the rest of the episodes live up to the opener!

miscellany

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 22:37:48 GMT

1. Happy Passover! Chag Sameach! We will be trying to balance Spartacus' recently-established bedtime routine with the seder; I'm not sure how well it's going to work. We will also probably try feeding him gefilte fish, if he's awake at the right time for it -- heck, he's liked everything else we've tried him on, including beets (a triumph of ambition over common sense in other respects).

2. All of a sudden I see posts about Dreamwidth everywhere. What's going on? Do I have to move? Are half my friends going to up sticks and move off LJ? I need time to get used to this!

3. We've been in SF for more than ten days, and have yet to turn on the television, largely due to the abovementioned bedtime routine -- but I don't seem to miss it. At some point I'll post about the reading I've managed.

4. But back in Oxford I found myself watching quite a lot of Gilmore Girls on daytime reruns -- since I never watched it when it was on. Emily is my favorite, but what I really want to know is where is all the Paris fic? Where are the stories where she uses her OCD powers ~~for good~~ ~~for evil~~ to take over the universe? Where are the unlikely crossovers where she pairs up with characters like Temperance Brennan or Lex Luthor (hahahahaha! no, really, it would be awesome)? Please tell me all this stuff exists out there somewhere!

Being Human 1x1-6

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:34:05 GMT

This is the one about the vampire, the werewolf, and the ghost all ~~walking into a bar~~ sharing a house, and their wacky hijinks, complete with obligatory peasants with pitchforks (sort of). It was awesome, and has been renewed, and you should all watch it. My love for George cannot be textually rendered. Seriously. Also my love for Annie. I'm a little cooler toward Mitchell, because I feel that the vampire with a crisis of conscience is something I've seen before once or twice, and his relationship with Herrick was very Forever Knight -- except here Herrick is the cop, which I guess was a nice twist. So yes, although Mitchell and his issues drove the series plot, he didn't really interest me that much.

I think I want to see the last episode again, to figure out just how much George is faking, and where. Because I think a lot of his fear (for himself) was real -- at least, it was in character enough to be convincing -- as were his attempts to defuse the whole situation. Which is interesting in itself, I guess, because it seems like he didn't care much at all what Herrick was planning. Anyway, I look forward to George's nervous breakdown next season, especially since he seems to have infected Nina.

There's an interesting contrast to be made between what George does and what Mitchell does in this episode -- both of them kill someone -- and between George's sacrifice (if that's what it was) and that of Mitchell's old girlfriend (Josie, whose willingness to sacrifice herself seemed a little unconvincing to me -- plot-convenient, although I guess it was kind of character-rooted as well). Or is the comparison with Mitchell killing Lauren? or creating her?

I am a little surprised by how fond I am of Annie -- I thought she would be an "ordinary girl" character, which is a type I generally don't warm to in British shows -- but it may be that I actually believe in her niceness in a way I don't necessarily for other versions of the character type. I'm thinking in particular of how gentle she was with Gilbert, and of the scene with Owen's new girlfriend through the bathroom door, where she tries to persuade the girlfriend that Owen really is dangerous. Or maybe it's because she's supposed to be a bit wet -- I like that it takes her a long time to find her self-confidence, but I love her when she does. She was awesome in the finale. Awesome!

I am so looking forward to series two.

In other news, I let Spartacus play with the keyboard this morning, since he often grabs for it. He promptly his some combination of keys which crashed the computer. ::rolls eyes::

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 22:46:34 GMT

I have not been following The Great Cultural Appropriation Debate, round whatever this is, already, but you should all read this post, by nextian:

What we have are, essentially, four books. We have the Nevi'im and the Ketuvim, our prophets and our poetry and the history we remember. We have the Talmud -- the Mishnah and the Gemarah -- and the commentary that sprung up around it, those footnotes that pile on footnotes and ideas that pile on ideas, divinely inspired or not. And we have the Torah, our beating heart.

Out of four books, you call three of them your own.

* * *

Every now and then, a well-meaning student or colleague will invite me to a Christian service -- evensong for the music, for example. And I will make some kind of excuse, which is nicer than saying what I really think, which is that sitting through a Christian service (for me) is like meeting someone who is wearing jewellery that belonged to your mother or grandmother, and was stolen years ago. Because that would make people uncomfortable, even though it's true: that history is there, it isn't dead.

notes in the place of a post

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 23:21:43 GMT

Hi! I am not dead. No, really!
I have been watching relatively little new TV, these days, although over the holidays we acquired the complete West Wing on DVD and BH gave me Seasons 1-3 of Bones for Hanukkah. We've nearly finished them, and I am very tempted to start over from the beginning when we're done. It's such a charming show; I really hope S4 is also charming, despite that somewhat distressing thing that happened at the end of S3.
Spartacus is 4 months old today! Amazing!
Despite not having written anything in about a year, and also not actually having a fandom, I keep seeing ficathons I'd like to join, or writing projects I'd like to take on, like halfamoon or purimgifts or that SPN crossover Big Bang (which would be totally insane for me). But it's more the vague idea of "writing something" than having any story I actually feel like writing. This saddens me.
There is a great deal of bureaucracy in my immediate future; this also saddens me. How nice it would be to live one's whole life in a single country! Or at least, to have other people to take care of these things for one. We filled out the forms to register Spartacus' birth with the US consulate, and really, if I'd had any idea what a pain they'd be, I would have figured out some way to have him in the US. And we still have to turn up in person to actually do the registering, which will be a great adventure. (I also have three separate Canadian bureaucracies to contend with, which does not bear thinking about, and yet must be faced, and soon.)
I do miss you all. Maybe I'll be better about posting -- I am around and reading, and, as I said in item 1, not dead. I have been reading some good books, and some not so good book, and some confusing books. I could write about those. Or I could do a silly meme. Or something.

Happy New Year! and scenes from the life

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 23:57:04 GMT

Happy new year! It seems that 2008 has been a hard year for a lot of you -- may 2009 be a thousand times better for you all.

* * *

I don't make New Year's resolutions, largely because I know I won't keep them, so there's not much point. But in the next year I would like to get back into the habit of reading fic, and leaving feedback, and even writing again. Who knows? It rather depends on Spartacus, who is at the moment celebrating the new year by screaming a lot.

* * *

True story: when Spartacus was born, the midwives handed him to me right away, but after a few minutes they wanted to take him so that they could help me out of the pool. So they lifted him up to hand him to BH, who was right behind me -- but he had a lock of my hair tight in both hands, and wasn't about to let go, so they had to wait and drain the water first, instead.

Pretty cute, hunh? Now, though, Spartacus is getting better and better at holding on to things, and guess what his favorite thing to grab is? Yes, mom's hair. Which unfortunately is not long enough to put back all the time, at this point. Short of shaving my head, I am not sure what to do about this, other than wait until it's long enough to wear in a braid.

Happy Hanukkah!

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 23:07:57 GMT

...Actually, that's pretty much all I have to say. And that I'm looking forward to the gradual increase in light, now that we've hit the solstice. And that I hope everyone being hit by that massive set of storms in North America is staying safe and warm.

OK, so, three things.

six weeks already

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 15:38:13 GMT

I am not dead, honest -- but small babies are very time-consuming, so I haven't had much chance to post. And then, I haven't been watching the fannish shows much, so I have been feeling out of touch as well -- I do scan my friends list, but it's full of posts I can't click unless I want to be spoiled! Plus, I'm often doing so with a squirming or crying baby on my lap, so I can't type anything anyway.

My TV habits seem centered around reruns of Top Gear and the daily Strictly Come Dancing (= Dancing w/t Stars in the UK) updates -- the latter being some kind of national obsession, as far as I can tell. I have managed to see the first two episodes of the new season of the Sarah Connor Chronicles (about which I have to wonder, is there anyone left in the future at all, or have they all relocated (retemporated?) to the present?) and the first episode of Spooks. But primetime has become prime sleep time for me, or at least, prime rest time, and I have a very short attention span, as well.

You can see just how dull things are from this post!

Spartacus is thriving, as far as we can tell -- although I think I hear him fussing downstairs, so I will go ahead and post this contentless update, and go see what's up.