Solar Orbit

Due to the bitter cold and resting the knee - haven't done much today. Outside of a few knee exercises - need to do a few more.

Moseyed onto yet another episode of Buffy S7 - Lies My Parents Told Me. It's written by Drew Goddard and David Fury, and directed by Fury (who has a bit of a mean streak and wrote Helpless). ( long and rambling )

1. Ah, protest songs throughout the ages that are still relevant today and we've all been rediscovering out of..I don't want to say desperation?

This one was written in 1941 by Irving Berlin and it works just as well today for ahem, someone else (albeit someone who is basically the same guy - Berlin wrote about, just in the 21st Century).

"When that man is dead and gone" by Irving Berlin


And here's When that Man is Dead and Gone as sung by Mildred Bailey in 1942.

"The world is hell for you and me, but what a heaven it will be when that man is dead and gone, we'll go dancing down the street and kissing everyone we meet...When that man is dead and gone, what a day to wake up upon, what a day to smile upon when a certain man is dead and gone."

It's kind of on the nose? But it made me happy listening to it five to six times. (Honestly, I'd like to go ONE day without hearing anything about that man, at all. I get emails about him. He's in the news. My Boss mentions him. Right now he's threatening to withdraw Federal funding if they don't put is name on Penn Station instead of the name Penn Station. Sigh. I really despise fascism.]

2. Started watching Buffy S7, Episode 16 (?) - Storyteller - it does NOT improve with age. ( Read more... )

3. It's going to be bitterly cold this weekend. Dropping into below 0 territory with wind chills. Which is kind of dangerous in NYC. NYC doesn't have the infrastructure for the lower temperatures. Lots of above ground trains. Homeless population. Ferries. Etc. Also, there's a lot of apartment complexes that don't have great heating.

I'm fine. Although...I'm very happy that I cancelled my hair appointment on Saturday morning - and rescheduled it for President's Day (it's supposed to be warmer on that day.)

Today was a better day than yesterday for various and sundry reasons. ( Read more... )

***

I finished the Angelica Huston Memoir - "Watch Me" - which isn't that memorable, outside of a bittersweet ending, wherein she makes the point that of everything she's done, it's her connections with family, friends, and others that meant the most. ( Read more... )

Currently listening to Twelve Months by Jim Butcher - narrated by James Marsters. Not Marsters best voice work but still rather good.
And still reading The Botanist's Assistant by Peggy Townsend- which is basically a mystery with an autistic sleuth, whose six foot tall, and middle-aged. It's okay - I got it as a Xmas present. But it's slow moving.
[Note to self- stop picking up books rec'd by Smart Bitches. This one was - looked great and I asked for it for Xmas.]

***

Buffy S7 Rewatch - Get it Done, Ep. 15

Doug Petrie, God Bless Him, is not a good script writer. His dialogue, ugh. Cringe. Yes, I know he was credited for writing both Beneath Me and Fool for Love, but I also know both those episodes were heavily edited and rewritten by the show-runners and executive producers (Marti Noxon and Joss Whedon). Whedon and Noxon wrote all of the Spike and Buffy scenes in Fool for Love, taking turns. While Petrie wrote the Riley scenes. (He states this in the commentary for the episode, that's how I know. Petrie told us.) Whedon also rewrote and refilmed, and directed himself the second half of Beneath Me. Petrie's script was so awful, Whedon rewrote it, and directed it, and brought everyone back to film it over the weekend. And you can tell the difference. The dialogue in the first half of Beneath Me is cringe inducing in places.

Petrie wrote As You Were and Get it Done, and they have the same problems. He doesn't know how to write for Spike, Willow, Anya, or Dawn. Buffy is okay for the most part. Also he sucks at plotting, there are plot holes in this episode that you can drive a truck through. You can tell they didn't plan it out.

The other difficulty with Get it Done is...the writers want to be color blind? ( Read more... )

I get what they are trying to do and the power metaphors are interesting on a certain level. And Buffy's refusal of the power at whatever cost - is interesting as well, and direct demonstration of how she is different from the First's take on her or Caleb. But, the execution is clumsy at best, and it doesn't totally make sense? ( Read more... )

**

This is more about S7 as a whole, not just this episode - when Buffy moved over to UPN, UPN let the show-runners and producers know that they had to fulfill a diversity quota. ( Read more... )

Get It Done - unfortunately didn't have a strong enough writer to handle the world building, the cultural stuff, and the large cast. That said, there's a few isolated moments in there that work however. Spike's fight with the demon does. I spent some time trying to figure out why soulful Spike would have issues fighting demons or taking a demon life? ( Read more... )

I also wondered why he needed to get the coat to be able to do it? And realized finally that it's clarified in Sleeper or the song, Pavlov's Bell - "trading coats and ringing Pavlov's Bell is how I nearly fell" - that's what Spike has been doing all along. ( Read more... )

Overall - an interesting but deeply flawed episode. S7 like all the seasons has some clunky episodes in the middle. This is one of them.

Make of that what you will...just my own mutterings for my own amusement.

Off to bed.

My father used to tell me I had a bad case of the February Uglies. And alas, I do. February is a tough month. It's dark. It's gloomy. It's cold. Snow is usually on the ground. Everything looks dead. It has an annoying holiday (aka Hallmark Card Holiday - Valentine's Day), although at least it's paired with a bank holiday (President's Day).

I can't figure out if I need to bundle my Disney + and Hulu subscriptions yet? I don't care all that much about the Disney one, it's the Hulu that I don't want to lose. Apparently Disney is slowly phasing out their Hulu app and combining everything with the Disney + app. I wish they wouldn't do that, but I get it. It's probably cheaper if I bundle them. But I want to keep my shows on Hulu - and they aren't available on Disney yet.

Confused? So am I.

Between work, Physical Therapy, the internet, church....I live in perpetual state of confusion. Work confuses me on a daily basis - after five years of this, you'd think I'd have gotten used to it? Maybe just resigned.

Tortured myself by looking at trips to warm places that I can't afford to physically or financially visit at the moment.

Also tortured myself by looking at this thing - which is cool, but I can't afford it nor do I think I could get it to work effectively. (Facebook likes to throw stuff at me that I can't afford and don't really require.)

Enuf whinging.

At least I got my exercises done. (Although he didn't manage to send me the revised ones yet, so I did last week's program to the extent that I could. There's one that I think we discontinued, because I can't do it correctly at home.)

Need to make dinner, just don't know what I want to make. Thinking mac and cheese - the gluten free version. Although probably shouldn't.

***

1. What’s your favourite hot beverage? How do you make it?

Currently - matcha latte. Get a small teaspoon or two of matcha powder, a little hot water, then add almond/coconut milk, then head in microwave. (OR get it from a coffee shop with steamed milk of your choice.) (I also like cold matcha latte.)

Also, dark organic unsweetened chocolate, milk, steamed over a stove, add cinnamon and vanilla. Serve with whipped cream.

2. When was the last time you saw an original hand-painted painting?

Now? I'm an artist and there's one on my watercolor easel in process.
Also if you been following my journal at all regularly? You've seen one fairly recently as well. I've been posting my original hand-painted paintings.

If this means in person? Again for myself? Now. It's in the corner next to the windows, along with a stack of recently painted watercolors. I'm a painter? Specializing in watercolors.

3. Is there a book you’ve seen made into a film and been disappointed with the result?

Too many to count. The problem is what I see in my head is rarely what the film maker or adapter is viewing in theirs - so, obviously it will be different? There are exceptions but they are rare. I've learned from experience to put as much time as possible between when I read the book and when I see the movie. Or not to read the book first.

That said? I've been pleasantly surprised by a lot of adaptations. Particularly fantasy and sci-fi adaptations.

I remember being annoyed by the first film adaptation of Interview with the Vampire. Tom Cruise was horribly miscast in that role.

Disclaimer: Good news as always is in the eye of the beholder. [i.e. - If you don't think it is good news? I really don't want to know.]
( Thirty Good News Items )

My subject heading sucks - I blame it on the brain fog.

1. Buffy S7 Re-Watch - this season is a whole lot better than I remembered it?

( vengeance is a bad bad thing )
When I first watched S7, my enjoyment was tainted by reading the responses of those watching it along with me on various posting boards. Many of which I knew fleetingly or saw once or twice in person, if at all. Looking back, I find myself pondering why I cared what they thought? Or why they cared what I thought? I suppose we wanted to connect somehow, as impossible as that may seem, and to an extent we did. Also, it is interesting to see variant views. So perhaps tainted is not the right word? So much as colored my enjoyment or enhanced and undermined?

It also helps that I know what happens next - some of the nervous anxiety and anticipation is gone.

There's some interesting takeaways.

( Spike )

( Giles and Wood )

( how different Spike is with a soul )

There's a few interesting questions posed by the episode, some answered, some not.

* Why does Anya tell Spike that Giles is the First, when she knows he isn't? (Does she want to play a joke on Spike and Giles?)

* Why doesn't the First use Spike to kill the Girls - what is the First holding Spike back for? ( Read more... )

Interesting episode, better written than I originally gave it credit for. Even the Xander bits are kind of fun. Poor Xander - he keeps going for the demons. He and Buffy seem to have that in common. Actually I think everyone Xander has dated was or became a demon at some point, with the exception of Willow? Cordelia does in Angel S3. Buffy similarly has gone for mainly men who have well issues? Riley was on super-serum, when she fell for him. Spike - vampire. Angel - vampire. Only Willow doesn't appear to do that, and well Giles.

My favorite exchange (it's a hilarious episode in places, the lines in these series are wonderful):

Xander and Buffy at the same time: I have a date!
Xander: Wait, I have a date - way to upstage me, Buff.
Buffy: Sorry. Would it help if I said, it's not really a date - it's with the Principal? My boss? Who is either evil or promoting me? It could be a promotion? Or -
Xander: Isn't he at least 10 years older.
Willow: Yet a 100 years younger than the last two.
Buffy: And fingers crossed, less with the wicked energy. We're hoping I don't have a type. And he's not evil, even if his office is directly above the hellmouth.

Buffy's dating choices would put anyone's to shame.

2. My knee is doing better. I've been doing the exercises - there's about ten of them? And I have an app now - that I can go into, see how to do it, how many sets, reps, and holds, and once I finish, click complete, and it takes me to the next one. So I do them in order. There's one that the PT wants me to do five times a day (but it's lying flat on the bed pushing a towl into the bed or floor) and that's impossible to do five times a day. (I commute into the city daily to work at a desk in front of a computer in a cubicle.) But the exercises are making the knee feel better. So I'll make sure I do them as often as possible this weekend. I've done them diligently yesterday and today. It helped getting the app. My difficulty is I can barely see the wording on the PDF print outs, and can't keep track.

3. Discovered a few nifty IBS aides.

* Kiwi and Magnesium Citrate really help with constipation. So does Miralax.

* Baking Soda and lemon juice helps with digestion, heart burn, and gastric reflux.

* Peppermint tea settles stomachs.

4. Discovered there might have been a General Strike today via social media - my sister-in-law posted about it on Instagram. I saw it after I got home from work today.

(It's easy for her to go on strike - she owns her own fashion business, doesn't have to travel anywhere, nor does my brother, neither work for anyone, and they are flying to Hawaii for free on Sunday due to credit card points).

At least I think it was today? It's hard to know for certain. Maybe it's tomorrow? Although why would anyone go on strike on Saturday? I don't think it happened - because, ahem, not everyone got the memo? None of my co-workers knew about it. And people were traveling on the trains. Granted not quite as many - but it was also 10 degrees - so....

You know you can't exactly have a General Strike if you don't tell everyone about it. If people don't know the specifics - such as date, time, and what they are expected to do - they aren't going to be able to comply and go on strike. It's not personal - they just don't know.
( Read more... )

Sharing...

A rough pencil and watercolor of the confrontation that I saw ages ago between an old woman with her walker and a truck at an intersection. I made it bit political - to get across a statement. Two actually. It's not perfect, kind of rough.

( watercolor and pencil )

Bruce Springsteen has released a new single on the Minneapolis protests.

Streets of Minneapolis

And Lady Gaga released a new cover of Won't You Be My Neighbor

And they've been singing and chanting Holiday by Green Day - and Green Day performed American Idiot and Holiday for Minnesota. [I love Green Day].

Not been sleeping well - last night was a combination of digestive issues and a weird vibrating noise. The apartment complex next door - from as well as I can figure - had turned on some sort of ice melt machine or generator that was generating a high pitched vibrating hum. At first I thought it was my window air conditioning unit - it wasn't. Took me a while to figure it out - the Super's wife coming outside into the courtyard in her winter coat, cloves and boots - shouting at the folks in the complex next door went a long ways towards explaining it. (This was at midnight. And they had the light on for a bit.) It didn't stop. So, I put on my noise cancelling headphones and some music, and that helped for a while. Finally around 6 or 7 am, I think, it stopped. It had been going on since 8pm last night. Was making me crazy and from the Super's response, not to mention the lit windows across the way - I'm guessing I wasn't the only one? The noise cancelling headphones were the only thing that helped. Earplugs weren't enough. The multitude of things people do on a daily or hourly basis to benefit themselves that unwittingly injure or hurt others is mind blowing.
Anyhow, I'm grateful for the noise cancelling headphones - they aren't cheap but worth every penny. I have to update every three or four years.

Took a personal day or snow day - today. And since I slept abysmally due to the above, I'm grateful for it. Accomplished a few items - I did laundry, including a comforter sitting at the foot of my bed (and no one was down there until I'd finished my last load - the comforter). Also got the blood sugar doctor's visit out of the way. Wants to see me again in May - via video chat. We spend five to six minutes chatting - so it really makes no sense not to do it virtually.

Came home - watched more Buffy S7 and Angel S4, and even with lowered expectations, Buffy S7 is so much better than Angel S4. (It's the Cordelia arc - the actress isn't selling it. ( Read more... )

Buffy S7 works better when the potential slayers aren't on screen. I think it suffered from the same issues that S6, and to a degree S3 did. Too many characters, and group scenes. S4 also had that problem. Some television writers/directors can do group scenes well - the Mutant Enemy writers weren't among them. And S7 had the same problem with extraneous characters that S6 does, which is they aren't well developed, with a few possible exceptions. The potential slayers - I don't care about, with the exception of Kennedy. They are more annoying than interesting. S7 has one too many annoying characters for its own good. And at this point? I'm about ready to send Dawn, Andrew, and Anya off together with the potentials.

I did notice something this time around that I hadn't previously - which is that Giles actually does touch things. ( Read more... )

With lowered expectations and anticipation - the series is more enjoyable. (Also helps if you are no longer invested in any of the romantic entanglements and just enjoying them while they last and how they further the story-thread. This is not a good show to become invested in romantic relationships - the writers are kind of brutal to them?) The difficulty with becoming overly obsessed with a television series - to the extent of writing essays, meta, or fanfic about it - is wanting it to play out the way it is in your head? Or have high expectations regarding it. Or getting to caught up in minor details. And forgetting at the end of the day, it's a television serial with a limited budget, produced/acted/and written in an abbreviated amount of time, and writers who may have a different story in mind. After all, it's their story not ours? They are just sharing it with us.

That said? The Killer in Me, Buffy S7 - is a really interesting and good episode. Much better than I remembered. And I actually really like the Kennedy/Willow pairing (better actually than her previous pairings, just because it feels like the characters are on equal footing, and Kennedy isn't judging Willow) and I like Kennedy, who is the only potential who has a personality and has been rounded out as a character. (I think the fandom hated the character because they were too invested in the Oz/Willow and Willow/Tara pairings - again this is not a good show to get invested in romantic pairings.) ( thoughts on Killer in Me )

Another takeaway from this episode and the season? The writers go out of their way to make it clear that Willow is "Gay" not "bisexual". ( Read more... )

***

Also watched Supersymmetry through Awakening. There's some good episodes in Angel S4. ( Read more... )


****

Question a Day Meme

24. Have you ever knitted a garment or had one knitted for you?

Yes. My mother knitted me a vest once - it was ugly. But I wore it for a while anyhow. I've also knitted hats (poorly), scarves (okay) and two blankets (expensive).

25. It’s Burn’s Night – a night to celebrate Robert Burns and all things Scottish. Do you like Scotch whisky or do you prefer Irish Whiskey?

No. I don't drink or like Whiskey. It plays havoc with my body. I'm gluten intolerant/ceiliac - and can't drink anything made with wheat, rye, or barely, apparently the glutens are still a problem - even if they are fermented.

26. It’s Australia Day! What do you think of when you think of Australia?

I love Australia. I visited Australia for about a month around Christmas and New Years in 1990. ( Read more... )