Question a Day Meme and other things..

[shadowkat]

January Question a Day Meme

15. If you could, would you like to be a little bit taller or a little bit shorter?

I'm okay with my height. But if I could get rid of the slight curvature of the spine, and the rounded shoulders - I'd be happy. Genetic curse.

I'm 5'11 and 44 inches or 6 foot, when I can stand up fully straight. Most of it is in my legs, I'm all limbs.

16. Do you have a favourite genre of music?

Not really? My taste in music as in all things is wildly eclectic and moody? And changes at will. It's easier to list the genres I'm less fond of? Anything high pitched, with a lot of amp feedback - doesn't work for me. Also, I need to understand the lyrics? So most opera doesn't tend to work for me either - I don't like high soprano. Nor do I like to be punched in the face with music? So a lot of rap and heavy metal tends to give me a headache, I do like some of it though. (I like Nine Inch Nails for example).

17. The US celebrates Hot Buttered Rum Day today! Have you ever tried it?

Yes, not a fan. Too sweet.

18. It’s Sunday – what was the best part of last week?

Saturday. I'm a fan of Saturdays. Today, I felt guilty for not doing anything. Saturday? I never feel guilty for not doing anything. I think it's the pseudo-religious upbringing? Or that usually I go back to work on Monday and get the Sunday scaries.

***

As mentioned in the last post, I finished the much-maligned Buffy S6, which is still among my favorite of the seasons. While there are weak episodes in it, most of the season is rather enjoyable. (There are weak episodes in every season? The weakest episodes are actually in the earlier seasons ...because the writers struggled with high school, possibly because their high school years were in the 1980s and the show took place in the 90s, and 98% of the cast was in their 20s and 30s.).

I like it better upon re-watch than I did originally. I also like Seeing Red through Grave better. Fandom can sometimes, without quite meaning to, rip the enjoyment out of things? I realized after re-watching Seeing Red that I don't agree with the fandom's assessment of the episode, or the characters actions within it. Also I think it works. The things that happen in that episode had to happen in order for the characters and plot to move forward, also what happened was built up to well, and organic to the characters and story. I just wish they had filmed and changed the local of one scene. But I get why they didn't.

Almost done with Angel S3 rewatch - and this season is actually much tighter plot wise than Buffy S6. Like Buffy S6, it does have a handful of weak episodes (mainly featuring the Grooslaug). But overall - it's better than I remembered it. It does help that I don't remember most of it at all.
I really have forgotten most of both series.

What's interesting in Angel - is how everyone enables Angel. And how isolated Wes became. Angel and Cordelia were so self-involved that neither knew Gunn and Fred were dating leaving Wes out in the cold. Nor did they realize that Wes was spending too much time with the scrolls and not talking to anyone. He didn't feel he could trust Gunn and Fred, or even Angel. And Cordy took off with Groo at Angel's urging. They cater to Angel. Take payments for helping people. And Cordelia has less visions, and her visions center more on Angel or the gang and not the helpless - indicating that they've been hacked into, and aren't necessarily the PTB any longer?

This series is very noir trope - which works for me a great deal actually.
I like the trope, and I like how closely the writers follow it, and often make fun of it. With commentary like: Angel to Lilah, "it would be nice if you stopped playing the femme fatal all the time, it's getting old". Angel is an anti-hero who doesn't see himself as an anti-hero nor do his friends. Wes is convinced Angel is noble and good, and Holtz is like, yeah right, keep believing that. It's not that Angel is evil, he's not, he's trying to be good. The Don't Give Up theme is still prevalent here - if more so? Because unlike Buffy - the odds are stacked against Angel. And perhaps they should be?

Comments

[cactuswatcher]

I would not have minded, being a little taller.

There is nothing more amusing and at the same time annoying, than as a teenage boy being a head taller than the random girl you are talking to, and having her pointedly talk longingly about *tall* boys, obviously not including you. In my case, it was the daughter of a friend of my mother's, who I spent an hour or so playing with, shooting a basketball outside with a hoop on the front their Kansas barn. Okay, I was never going to play center on the school basketball team, but... She was a few years younger than me, didn't come up to my chin, but gave me the *tall* boys lecture most of the time we were playing, then ran in the house and back out to give me a picture of herself as we were about to leave for Missouri.

[shadowkat]

It's hard to find the tall boys. Particularly in NYC. I've dated mostly boys between the heights of 5'6-5'10. I think maybe two were close to six foot.

And they get taken by short women - my brother who is 6'5 is married to a woman who is 5'6 in heels. Not that I'd want to date my brother - because eww. Actually it's why I haven't gone for very attractive tall men - they look my brother. I think it's why David Boreanze did nothing for me, he reminded me of my brother.

Nice story though, thanks for sharing. Oh, I sucked at basketball (tried it - sucked at it -played on a team in the fifth and sixth grade, it did not last long) - I suck at all ball sports, spatial orientation issues. (Dysgraphia).

[cactuswatcher]

Honestly, I thought girls her size should leave the tall boys for girls your size. Unfortunately, the tall boys don't always go for the taller girls. My oldest niece here in Tucson is average height at best and her husband is 6'2 or 6'3. The Kansas girl may have just been bragging to me that the boys on her small town local high school basketball team were plenty tall to be on the team, but it didn't quite sound like that. She was a sweet kid, none the less. Come to think of it she was like her mother, very pleasant to be around, but possibly prone to babble on about things no one was interested in. I remember one evening at their place, the mother went on and on about how they'd had their well water tested and how wonderful the results were. Good for them, but...

[shadowkat]

Yeah, my brother dated women who were much shorter as well - although average height for a woman in the US is 5'4, believe it or not? My father didn't understand my brother - my father preferred tall women with long legs. My mother was 5'9.

People like to talk about what they are doing, themselves - their pets, their vacations, their families, their house repairs, their gardens, their kids, their health, their romances, their sex lives. I prefer to talk about movies, television shows, books, occupations, jobs, politics (well not so much now), the weather, food, culture, theater, history, world affairs and views on all of that. I personally find a conversation about superhero movies and the history of comics far more entertaining than one about someone's house repairs. But alas, it's the house repairs we're going to talk about or the well treatments. That said? I have learned a lot about house repairs over the years - not that I own a house or even care to, but it does help if I ever choose to write about it.

The plus side of being over 50, is I no longer have to discuss folks sex lives or their dating or failed romances. I really don't want to know nor necessarily care. And I don't want to share mine.
God, I really don't miss that. It's kind of freeing not to have to discuss it any longer.

[ionelv]

Speaking of NIN, I really love Johnny Cash's Hurt cover.

[shadowkat]

Oh, so do I. Although that was originally written by Kris Kristofferson.

[ionelv]

Are you sure? wikipedia or google mention nothing about KK and the song Hurt. Do you have a reference to that connection? Did Kris call the song something else?

[shadowkat]

No, you're right - I confused it with another of Cash's songs by Kristofferson (who actually wrote a lot of Cash songs so many that I thought he basically wrote all of them - so not surprising), "Woke up Sunday Morning". Trent Reznor wrote Hurt.

I looked it up finally.

"When Reznor was asked if Cash could cover his song, Reznor said he was "flattered" but worried that "the idea sounded a bit gimmicky." He became a fan of Cash's version, however, once he saw the music video. A few weeks later, a CD shows up with the track."