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shadowkatI have to go to the Optometrist tomorrow. I thought it was next weekend, but apparently not. They confused me. It's at 2pm - so I can sleep in at least. It only takes fifteen to twenty minutes to get there. I'll probably leave around 1:30 - because sciatica.
[I met yet another co-worker with sciatic nerve today - hers is also going down her right leg from the mid-back. Wanted to know how I was managing to sleep? (Not well.) We discussed how our nutty workplace is trying to kill us amid the chaos. She used to work in the military. I asked which one - US Air Force, which is actually kind of cool? I asked if she'd been a pilot. She was a psychologist - which would have been more difficult actually. I don't know what she's doing at crazy org. I should ask the next time I see her? I think we're around the same age, and we're both single women close to our mothers. I like her - met her in the break room. I met everyone in either the break room or the restroom. Basically the common areas. I have no idea what half of them do, and have learned not to ask - no one wants to talk about it. If I didn't know any better - you'd think I worked in the CIA or something? No, just infrastructure or transportation infrastructure.
Optometrist requested I wear glasses to the appointment and bring my contacts. (I'd rather do the opposite - since it's hard to get to and from places wearing bi-focals, it kills depth perception and makes going up and down steps a nightmare. NYC subways are basically steps. Add to that, DOT has decided to slowly replace all the curbs in my neighborhood, and being the incredibly incompetent organization that it is, it's also screwed up on how to create temporary pedestrian go around. I've worked with DOT via Crazy Org and am aware of how insanely bureaucratic and incompetent they truly are. Not helped by the selfish car owners who feel this need to park their cars or huge mini vans in front of the narrow pedestrian walkway that DOT provided, blockmaking it impossible to get around them to the sidewalk. In short - I have an obstacle course for the next five weeks, due to governmental incompetence and stupid selfish entitled asshole syndrome.)
[Ack. I think I saw a little mouse dart out from under one of my armchairs. But I'm not sure where it disappeared to. And whether I imagined it. It's the downside of living in an old pre-war 77 unit apartment building - there's mice often from other tenants apartments, and living in the walls between. I'm going to have to put down more mint. To date mint works the best at fending off mice. They hate the smell of mint - I think they are allergic. It's also the most humane. I am not comfortable killing them. And mice traps are gross.]
***
Buffy/Angel Rewatch
Picked up on something that I'm not sure I saw the last time I watched the two shows together? In S4 Buffy and S1 Angel - the writers all of sudden decided to expand on their world by making the humans the bad guys, and the demons kind of...ambiguous?
The other thing I noticed is how they are paralleling Spike and Angel in the two series - which is kind of odd, and interesting at the same time.
In Buffy S4 episode 14: Goodbye Iowa - Spike is shown going into a demon bar and he gets beaten up by the demons for basically beating up demons.
In Angel S1 Episode 15: The Ring - Angel gets beaten up by a demon (Trepkos), and fights demons. They have different results of course.
The way the Buffy S4 episodes are written - the audience feels sorry for Spike. I'm not sure that was the intent - but it's how it plays out? I think they were trying to make Spike the new Cordelia, which didn't quite work out the same way? Mainly because Cordy was popular, human, and not pathetic in Buffy. She was who Buffy wanted to be and who Buffy was prior to becoming the Slayer.
It's obvious they wanted him to be the new Cordelia, because he actually has some of the same lines that Cordelia had.
Cordelia: "Do I need to remind you? That I hate you all?"
Spike: "Do I need to keep reminding you all - that I hate you?"
Cordelia: "Why would I help you again?"
Spike: "Why would I help you? As I keep reminding you? I'm evil!"
And Cordelia is doing that on Angel, and Spike on Buffy - and well, both work as a better love interest than either of the love interests the writers are currently throwing at Angel and Buffy. Because, you know, friction that is internal banter is more entertaining than friction that is external circumstance.
At any rate, I think, unintentionally, they were making Spike more relatable than most of the characters to a good portion of the audience? He was the outsider, he had no where to go, no friends, no lover, and struggling to belong. Also he kept trying to make things work and failing miserably at it. There's the scene where he's hiding behind a corpse in a rundown crypt, while Forrest and company march around it in an angry military temper tantrum, find nothing and destroy poor Spike's old television set - the only piece of furniture that he has in the crypt, the only entertainment, and the only enjoyment. (Gotta love the old television sets in this series - I had television sets like those, once upon a time).
It's impossible not to feel for him. This is the beginning of his redemptive arc - he wants to stay evil, but there's nothing really in it for him. He can't hurt humans, he can't really do evil things - because Spike was never into the evil of it - he liked beating people up and the violence, but he doesn't really care whether it's humans or demons for the most part. He's also, unlike Angel, a social animal. He likes to hang out with people, eat food, drink in a bar, chat.
It was very hard not to like Spike in S4. Riley - I struggled more with, along with the rest of the Initiative. Forrest is despicable. He reminds me way too much of S7's Caleb, and that's a disturbing but interesting trend in Buffy - there's a lot of misogynistic characters - all of which are villains that Buffy manages to defeat. They don't survive. I think it's the idea of female noire genre and the horror genre combined? Because misogyny is admittedly a heavy theme in both. Critiqued as well - no genre critiques misogyny more than both horror and noir, maybe romance? And I honestly cannot stand Graham. I don't remember disliking the Initiative this much? Also Riley/Buffy don't work - even though both actors are working over time to sell it? Part of the problem is Riley's reasons for liking Buffy are kind of twisted? Spike's work better. Riley's come more from...well Walsh? It's almost as if she programmed him to fall for Buffy, and then tried to kill Buffy when Buffy didn't fall in line? And while Riley respects Buffy - he kind of is in competition with her, and can't quite deal with her being stronger than he is and in charge. Even here, he has major issues with it. Riley reminds me a little bit too much of Angel, and not in a good way - he pretty much shows why Buffy/Angel wouldn't work if Angel became human (which we see rather well in IWARY).
The best bits about Angel S1 The Ring, much like Buffy S4 Goodbye Iowa, are the scenes with the supporting characters. Wes/Cordelia bonding over trying to save Angel - and succeeding in saving him, after Angel saved them in the last couple of episodes. In Buffy S4 Goodbye Iowa - it's the scenes with Xander, Anya, Willow, Buffy and Giles in Xander's basement, Spike struggling to survive on his own without the ability to bite humans and be the Big Bad, or his identity crisis, the first of many. Giles, Xander, Spike, Riley, Buffy, Anya, and Willow are going through their own identity crises and it's handled well here for the most part? Willow/Tara doing spells is a bit too much...tee hee doing spells, hint, hint...for my taste? The problem with it - is that they switch out the metaphor in S5-7, to magic is addictive and a drug, and that doesn't quite work from magic is sex? Particularly secret forbidden lesbian sex? (It's the late 1990s/early 00s, so yes, they had to do it that way back then - but I kind of wish they'd been a little bit more politically aware of what they were doing in the later seasons.) They are also playing with Tara being a demon in S4, but changed their mind in S5. ( She was supposed to be a wood nymph, which is why Whedon wanted someone thinner (similar to Amy Acker) and more nymph like for the role, but Marti convinced him to go with Amber - who had a maternal aspect, because it fit more with the maternal/sick mother theme. Marti was right.)
The Ring does the overdone gladiator/fight club trope which was admittedly popular then, and now, never quite goes out of date. There's a ton of movies and video games that play with it. I don't like it - but that's just me. the flick - Thor: Ragnarock - did it too. It did however show the slow shift from demons as villains - to humans as villains. Which, actually, not that slow - they began that shift in I Fall to Pieces (which I skipped over, because I do not like that episode, it gives me nightmares). Angel gets pulled into a fight club. A client hoodwinks him or sets him up, by pretending to have been beaten up and hunting his kidnapped brother - when in reality he is running a high-stakes demon fight club, that humans can bet on. This gets across that humanity knows about the demons, and the demons aren't necessarily the bad guys, sometimes the humans are, and it's not as black and white as we were lead to believe.
Once Buffy graduates high school - the Universe expands, and the rules change. It becomes less black and white - humans good, demons bad, now it's more...well it depends? And the writers become more interested in demonizing actions, and less interested in using demons and vampires as metaphors for high school pangs. The metaphors have shifted a bit and gotten a touch more complicated. The writers are now making the audience work a touch more. In short the target audience isn't tween girls and tween boys any longer.
[I met yet another co-worker with sciatic nerve today - hers is also going down her right leg from the mid-back. Wanted to know how I was managing to sleep? (Not well.) We discussed how our nutty workplace is trying to kill us amid the chaos. She used to work in the military. I asked which one - US Air Force, which is actually kind of cool? I asked if she'd been a pilot. She was a psychologist - which would have been more difficult actually. I don't know what she's doing at crazy org. I should ask the next time I see her? I think we're around the same age, and we're both single women close to our mothers. I like her - met her in the break room. I met everyone in either the break room or the restroom. Basically the common areas. I have no idea what half of them do, and have learned not to ask - no one wants to talk about it. If I didn't know any better - you'd think I worked in the CIA or something? No, just infrastructure or transportation infrastructure.
Optometrist requested I wear glasses to the appointment and bring my contacts. (I'd rather do the opposite - since it's hard to get to and from places wearing bi-focals, it kills depth perception and makes going up and down steps a nightmare. NYC subways are basically steps. Add to that, DOT has decided to slowly replace all the curbs in my neighborhood, and being the incredibly incompetent organization that it is, it's also screwed up on how to create temporary pedestrian go around. I've worked with DOT via Crazy Org and am aware of how insanely bureaucratic and incompetent they truly are. Not helped by the selfish car owners who feel this need to park their cars or huge mini vans in front of the narrow pedestrian walkway that DOT provided, blockmaking it impossible to get around them to the sidewalk. In short - I have an obstacle course for the next five weeks, due to governmental incompetence and stupid selfish entitled asshole syndrome.)
[Ack. I think I saw a little mouse dart out from under one of my armchairs. But I'm not sure where it disappeared to. And whether I imagined it. It's the downside of living in an old pre-war 77 unit apartment building - there's mice often from other tenants apartments, and living in the walls between. I'm going to have to put down more mint. To date mint works the best at fending off mice. They hate the smell of mint - I think they are allergic. It's also the most humane. I am not comfortable killing them. And mice traps are gross.]
***
Buffy/Angel Rewatch
Picked up on something that I'm not sure I saw the last time I watched the two shows together? In S4 Buffy and S1 Angel - the writers all of sudden decided to expand on their world by making the humans the bad guys, and the demons kind of...ambiguous?
The other thing I noticed is how they are paralleling Spike and Angel in the two series - which is kind of odd, and interesting at the same time.
In Buffy S4 episode 14: Goodbye Iowa - Spike is shown going into a demon bar and he gets beaten up by the demons for basically beating up demons.
In Angel S1 Episode 15: The Ring - Angel gets beaten up by a demon (Trepkos), and fights demons. They have different results of course.
The way the Buffy S4 episodes are written - the audience feels sorry for Spike. I'm not sure that was the intent - but it's how it plays out? I think they were trying to make Spike the new Cordelia, which didn't quite work out the same way? Mainly because Cordy was popular, human, and not pathetic in Buffy. She was who Buffy wanted to be and who Buffy was prior to becoming the Slayer.
It's obvious they wanted him to be the new Cordelia, because he actually has some of the same lines that Cordelia had.
Cordelia: "Do I need to remind you? That I hate you all?"
Spike: "Do I need to keep reminding you all - that I hate you?"
Cordelia: "Why would I help you again?"
Spike: "Why would I help you? As I keep reminding you? I'm evil!"
And Cordelia is doing that on Angel, and Spike on Buffy - and well, both work as a better love interest than either of the love interests the writers are currently throwing at Angel and Buffy. Because, you know, friction that is internal banter is more entertaining than friction that is external circumstance.
At any rate, I think, unintentionally, they were making Spike more relatable than most of the characters to a good portion of the audience? He was the outsider, he had no where to go, no friends, no lover, and struggling to belong. Also he kept trying to make things work and failing miserably at it. There's the scene where he's hiding behind a corpse in a rundown crypt, while Forrest and company march around it in an angry military temper tantrum, find nothing and destroy poor Spike's old television set - the only piece of furniture that he has in the crypt, the only entertainment, and the only enjoyment. (Gotta love the old television sets in this series - I had television sets like those, once upon a time).
It's impossible not to feel for him. This is the beginning of his redemptive arc - he wants to stay evil, but there's nothing really in it for him. He can't hurt humans, he can't really do evil things - because Spike was never into the evil of it - he liked beating people up and the violence, but he doesn't really care whether it's humans or demons for the most part. He's also, unlike Angel, a social animal. He likes to hang out with people, eat food, drink in a bar, chat.
It was very hard not to like Spike in S4. Riley - I struggled more with, along with the rest of the Initiative. Forrest is despicable. He reminds me way too much of S7's Caleb, and that's a disturbing but interesting trend in Buffy - there's a lot of misogynistic characters - all of which are villains that Buffy manages to defeat. They don't survive. I think it's the idea of female noire genre and the horror genre combined? Because misogyny is admittedly a heavy theme in both. Critiqued as well - no genre critiques misogyny more than both horror and noir, maybe romance? And I honestly cannot stand Graham. I don't remember disliking the Initiative this much? Also Riley/Buffy don't work - even though both actors are working over time to sell it? Part of the problem is Riley's reasons for liking Buffy are kind of twisted? Spike's work better. Riley's come more from...well Walsh? It's almost as if she programmed him to fall for Buffy, and then tried to kill Buffy when Buffy didn't fall in line? And while Riley respects Buffy - he kind of is in competition with her, and can't quite deal with her being stronger than he is and in charge. Even here, he has major issues with it. Riley reminds me a little bit too much of Angel, and not in a good way - he pretty much shows why Buffy/Angel wouldn't work if Angel became human (which we see rather well in IWARY).
The best bits about Angel S1 The Ring, much like Buffy S4 Goodbye Iowa, are the scenes with the supporting characters. Wes/Cordelia bonding over trying to save Angel - and succeeding in saving him, after Angel saved them in the last couple of episodes. In Buffy S4 Goodbye Iowa - it's the scenes with Xander, Anya, Willow, Buffy and Giles in Xander's basement, Spike struggling to survive on his own without the ability to bite humans and be the Big Bad, or his identity crisis, the first of many. Giles, Xander, Spike, Riley, Buffy, Anya, and Willow are going through their own identity crises and it's handled well here for the most part? Willow/Tara doing spells is a bit too much...tee hee doing spells, hint, hint...for my taste? The problem with it - is that they switch out the metaphor in S5-7, to magic is addictive and a drug, and that doesn't quite work from magic is sex? Particularly secret forbidden lesbian sex? (It's the late 1990s/early 00s, so yes, they had to do it that way back then - but I kind of wish they'd been a little bit more politically aware of what they were doing in the later seasons.) They are also playing with Tara being a demon in S4, but changed their mind in S5. ( She was supposed to be a wood nymph, which is why Whedon wanted someone thinner (similar to Amy Acker) and more nymph like for the role, but Marti convinced him to go with Amber - who had a maternal aspect, because it fit more with the maternal/sick mother theme. Marti was right.)
The Ring does the overdone gladiator/fight club trope which was admittedly popular then, and now, never quite goes out of date. There's a ton of movies and video games that play with it. I don't like it - but that's just me. the flick - Thor: Ragnarock - did it too. It did however show the slow shift from demons as villains - to humans as villains. Which, actually, not that slow - they began that shift in I Fall to Pieces (which I skipped over, because I do not like that episode, it gives me nightmares). Angel gets pulled into a fight club. A client hoodwinks him or sets him up, by pretending to have been beaten up and hunting his kidnapped brother - when in reality he is running a high-stakes demon fight club, that humans can bet on. This gets across that humanity knows about the demons, and the demons aren't necessarily the bad guys, sometimes the humans are, and it's not as black and white as we were lead to believe.
Once Buffy graduates high school - the Universe expands, and the rules change. It becomes less black and white - humans good, demons bad, now it's more...well it depends? And the writers become more interested in demonizing actions, and less interested in using demons and vampires as metaphors for high school pangs. The metaphors have shifted a bit and gotten a touch more complicated. The writers are now making the audience work a touch more. In short the target audience isn't tween girls and tween boys any longer.
no subject
Date: 2025-11-08 12:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-11-08 10:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-11-08 09:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-11-08 10:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-11-08 10:27 pm (UTC)We have this one mouse - he/she is not fooled by any of our humane traps. Well, I once caught him ON OUR WORKTOP in the kitchen by dropping a container over him, and we took him to some woods and dropped him there with a load of birdseed. I thought we'd taken him far enough, but when I checked the map, as the crow flies, it was only a mile. You're supposed to take them 2 miles, minimum.
He came back. If I can make him go elsewhere with mint I will be happy.
As you can guess, I really enjoyed "The Ring"! And weirdly, I quite like Graham though Forrest is awful.
Buffy season 4 has so many brilliant episodes.
no subject
Date: 2025-11-08 10:46 pm (UTC)Yeah, you have to take animals a long ways away. Or they'll come back. My brother had issues with a ground hog, he took it to the other side of the mountains (about thirty minutes by car away), but it found its way back again. So the next time he took it all the way to Maine. Maine is about five to six hours away from his house by car.
no subject
Date: 2025-11-09 10:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-11-09 05:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-11-09 06:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-11-09 10:34 pm (UTC)To them each place or area has a distinct smell. See, I think animals have cognitive abilities - that allow them to hunt and escape predators, and to find food.
no subject
Date: 2025-11-10 10:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-11-10 05:48 pm (UTC)