Friday Download before Bed...

[shadowkat]

1. The hardest thing - or so I've found - finding people who like the same things I do. More to the point? Enjoy analyzing the shit out of stuff.

It's actually why I'm on Dreamwidth and how I ended up online - on the Buffy Boards. I wanted to analyze the shit out of Buffy, and couldn't find anyone to do it with. The people I knew who watched it - didn't want to analyze it, or speculate. The rest didn't watch.

I've managed to kind of find a group to analyze the shit out of a soap, although...it doesn't always work. Soap fans or comic book fans for that matter, don't tend to be analytical by nature, or remotely rational. I think the comic book fandom is worse - at least soap fans will be interested in the characters and story thread. All the comic book fandom is interested in is whether their fav has enough power to win in a video game or RPG. Or snarking about the political correctness of ahem, the comic books. And slamning you for like characters who aren't politically correct. (I'm admittedly afraid of the online comic book fandom. I thought about engaging and ended up running screaming in the opposite direction. Okay, maybe not screaming. They are kind of like a weird hybrid of Xander, Jonathan, Warren, Andrew, and Willow from Buffy - scary-ass nerds. Analyze characters? No. Analyze story arcs? No. Tell me which issue such and such character first appeared in, their power level, retcons, and best story arc, and whether they can beat XYZ character in a fight? Yep.) Soap fandom? They are just deranged shippers who like to rant and attack actors who play characters they despise. But you can usually engage a few in a nifty discussion of process or story-thread or character analysis.


It's ironic, because I got into the X-men discussing it with friends in undergrad. They got me interested in it. We used to spend hours discussing and analyzing various character arcs and story arcs, and debating them.
But now? Eh, no such luck.

Sometimes I miss undergrad. But I don't miss the dorms.

Oh? Mother told me that now people hire interior designers to design their "dorm" rooms?? Apparently spend upwards of $10K to do that.

It's true.

"Considering the high price point — in 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported families paying professional designers up to $10,000 for dorm detailing — most parents unsurprisingly opt out of decorative assistance."

Parent Led Dorm Design - via People Magazine Exlusive

This is insane. I can't afford an interior designer - not that I'd want one. I'd feel like I was living in a hotel room.

2. Body aches, took a shower, feel slightly better. I had two charly horses in my upper calves today, and foot bothered me when I got home. But the shoes I wore today worked better. Still need to get X-ray, procrastinating, because it won't matter either way. Probably just a bruised bone or stress fracture, since there's no swelling or outside bruising to speak of.

3. Overall, I think I prefer DW to the other social media platforms. It's by far the kindest, easiest to monitor, manage, and calmest of the platforms. Also the least headache inducing.

Twitter - gives me a headache whenever I jump on it. Also it makes me aware of how many stupid violent people roam the earth. I'd rather not know this?
I really don't need to know that there are folks that would invite he who shall not be named to dinner.

There was a thread, where Mia Farrow asked: who would you invite to dinner?

Me: no one famous or remotely famous. I'd like to be able to eat and digest the dinner without nervous anxiety and awkwardness.

FB isn't as bad - just a lot of self-promotion and adds, unless you play in private groups. Same with Instagram - which is mainly positive sayings and platitudes, because I keep liking them. Although one or two a day is really enough, actually one or two a week is enough. I do not need to see 20-30 of them a day. That's a touch excessive?

4. Interesting...they are finally developing the Patricia Cornwell, Kay Scarpetta Mysteries - via Amazon. Except I'm leery of the casting?
I was thinking more Jodi Foster, and less Nicole Kidman. I'm getting Nicole Kidman as Scarpetta, Bobby Cannavale as Marino, and Jaime Lee Curtis as her sister (who I don't remember at all). Granted I read the books in the 1990s and early 00s. So it has been awhile. I kind of binge read mystery novels from roughly 1980 to 2010. Then I got burned out and haven't read them in a while.

Kay Scarpetta Series Greenlit by Amazon

I don't know if anyone but me has read these? I loved them. I told my mother about it - and she could barely remember them. She is 81, I should give her a break in that regard. Also I read more of them than she did.

I wish they'd do the Janet Evanouvich Stephanie Plum books as a series. Those are fun.

Hmmm, Detective Series - I'd like to see on television?

* Another attempt at the Dresden Files
* Stephanie Plum - Janet Evanovich
* Victoria Bliss - Elizabeth Peters
* Kay Scarpetta - Patricia Cornwell

What about you?

5. Saw this funky gal on the subway - she had spiked hair, sunglasses, a sleeveless t-shirt, long khaki pants, and was holding the cutest little dog - who didn't look quite real. Clearly recently groomed, and brown - you know those toy brown poodles? But are actual poodles? The dog was a puppy, pint sized. Fit in her arms like a kitten. And so cute. So I drew her when I came home, and plan on drawing her again tomorrow and doing a watercolor.

This is a rough sketch. The painting sketch will hopefully be cleaner. I usually do more than one. Sometimes get it right on the first round, sometimes not. It's harder to draw movement of hands, though.






I indicated on the sketch the colors so, I'd remember them tomorrow.

Comments

[iddewes]

I did also read a lot of the Scarpetta novels and am curious about the series. It has also been a long time for me but I agree Kidman doesn’t sound like the best person. But we’ll see I guess.

[shadowkat]

That's my attitude as well. I really wish they'd cast someone like Kate Winslet or Jodi Foster.
Kidman just...doesn't work for me. But I admittedly don't remember them that well, it was a while ago.

[oursin]

I read quite a few of the Scarpetta mysteries and then stopped - can't remember if this was because I went off the series (sometimes series take a dip and then pick up again)/it was when the import crime bookshops in London closed down so they became harder to access/or I was put off Cornwell by her Jack the Ripper theories.

What is this trend of decorating and designing everything? - have you come across fridgescaping? I cannot even!

[shadowkat]

Yeah, I read a few of the Scarpetta then stopped as well. I can't quite remember why I stopped? Just that I had - and I think it had something to do with the serial killer trope (which I got tired of, everyone was doing it in 1990s. No matter the series, sooner or later the writer would do that trope.) I forgot about her obsession with Jack the Ripper. What is it with mystery writers and Jack the Ripper? They all get obsessed with him. He wasn't that interesting. That's another overdone trope. I think I got turned off from her for the same reason.

What is this trend of decorating and designing everything? - have you come across fridgescaping? I cannot even!

Agreed. I don't understand it either. I can barely find stuff in my fridge as it is. That would just confuse me further. Plus, the money involved. I mean not only do you have to buy the food to fit into the containers, you have to purchase the containers, then you have to clean both the containers. I guess it's easier cleaning the containers than the fridge itself? But some food is better left out of a container? Although, it probably is better for the environment than using plastic bags to store stuff?

Idk. I can't do it. I suck at that sort of thing. I'm an artist not an interior designer/organizer. It's not how my mind works.

[oursin]

Yes, the serial killer thing gets old very fast. I am still reading Jonathan Kellerman who also goes in for murderers with bizarre psychology, and I do wish one of these days Alex Delaware would be stuck in a country house party with a locked room mystery and motivations to do with money, love or reputation, and see how he'd make out with that.

[shadowkat]

It's why I gave up on mystery novels after a while. Also lost interest in the locked room/parlor mystery. Prefer the hybrids - sci-fi/mystery, fantasy/mystery, romance/urban fantasy/mystery, etc.
Mainly because they are usually a mystery about something other than the dead body. Police procedural mysteries - unfortunately fall into serial killer territory.

True Detective : Night Country - was interesting because it looked like serial killer, but it really wasn't at all.

[yourlibrarian]

That is insane about dorm rooms. I was pretty happy with my dorm room and actually surprised students were allowed to paint the rooms. Still remember my freshman room had been painted a dayglow yellow and the first task my new roommate and I had was to paint over it.

[shadowkat]

I suck at painting walls - and never had to do that thankfully. But we did paint the walls of the lounge and hallway of our Freshman wing. We did it as a Beatles theme. Basically a mural of Beatles album covers or songs. It's the 1980s, everyone in the 1980s was obsessed with 1960s and 70s music. Now, it amuses me to no end that folks are obsessed with 80s and 90s music. While I am not a mural artist, my Freshman roommate was and she painted most of it.

I can't imagine paying 10,000 dollars to design a dorm room that I'll have for one year? Maybe they don't change dorm rooms? We entered a lottery each year to get a good room and dorm, and since I suck at lotteries, I inventively hunted ways around it.

[yourlibrarian]

As I recall in our case we had a lottery for rooms too, but returning students had priority in keeping their rooms (and roommates). I was able to be in the same room for 3 years despite having different roommates each time, but the fourth year I was moved to a different room in another dorm. I suspect this was partly because I knew the person I was rooming with though I hadn't asked to room with her.

[shadowkat]

You only kept the same room in our system if you got reasonable accommodation for a single. I got reasonable accommodation for a single Sophmore year, but in my Junior year opted for the roommate and a theme house. (The roommate moved home halfway through that year - to save funds, she lived in the area.) And Senior - everyone got a single if they were a Senior, unless they requested something else or lived in a house off-campus.

[yourlibrarian]

Ah, interesting. In our dorms there were only 2 single rooms per dorm and they were generally assigned to the RA and the RS (who was mostly responsible for organizing social events). However as in your case people sometimes changed rooms or moved out entirely during the year, so some rooms ended up being solo by default. I graduated early my senior year and my roommate didn't want to have to live with someone else her last quarter so she ended up staying solo.

[shadowkat]

We had this weird lottery/points/seniority system? But each wing of the Freshman, Sophmore, and Junior dorms had two single rooms. One for the RA and one for whomever got accommodation or managed to get it in the lottery? There were a couple of houses and apartments, also one or two dorms that had mainly single rooms. One dorm had single rooms - and all the Seniors got into it.

Frats were live-in on campus, but Sororities weren't live in at all.

[slaymesoftly]

I remember reading a lot of the Scarpetti books, but not sure how many. I tend to burn out pretty quickly on series and rarely feel a need to finish them. But I am having a hard picturing Nicole Kidman in that role.

[shadowkat]

For some reason, I always saw someone more like Glenn Close or Meryl Streep or even Jodie Foster in it?
Kidman seems too....

Had the same reaction to the books that you did - read a lot, can't remember how many, and I tend to burn out pretty quickly on long-running series...