Not a great day on black rock...
Sep. 30th, 2006 06:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatCable has been acting wonky since 12:43pm this morning. My high speed internet connection and the TV.
Both more or less unstable. The highspeed went out just as I attempted to post an extreemly long and involved response to a thread on a discussion board entitled www.teaatheford.com - which I hadn't visited in ages. It was all about the Television Business, Nielsen Ratings, TV shows, Sorkin, personal opinion and comedy. Also with intricate html. And no, did not back the baby up. So gone.
More annoying than anything else.
So took off for a walk to my area grocery store, before the weather got too gnarly. It's been threatening to rain since 2 pm. But doing zip. Had planned to leave earlier when it was sunny and clear blue skies, but got caught up in the post that well was eaten by time warner highspeed internet cable malfunction. (Am currently on dial-up, in case you haven't figure that out for yourselves). Anyhow, I go, stop by the local bakery first to pick up chocolat chip coconut macroons - the only things can eat at bakery, then two blocks down to the grocery store. Only to find my way blocked by yellow police tape. Fifteen cops. Three cop cars. And a bunch of bystanders. Not only is the grocery store blocked off, but about two blocks in both directs are. I ask an elderly man who appears to be of Middle Eastern or Mediterrean descent, what is up.
"Well, a cop killed a guy in front of the grocery store there."
"Really? Just now? Why?"
"The guy was holding a knife to a lady's neck and he shot him down."
"So have the closed the grocery store?"
"Yeah, it's shut down - don't know what they plan on doing there. Or if the guy robbed it. Or just
what happened."
I sigh, think okay, more information than I really want to hear right now - since, ahem, this is the only grocery store that has cheap veggies and meet and general grocery supplies within walking distance. So really sort of have to continue to go to it. I do my civic duty and inform everyone I pass headed in the direction of the grocery store and intersection that they can't get through, it's completely blocked off and to go around. Then I wander off to a discount meat market two blocks down to buy what I'd planned on buying at the grocery store. Oh well, suppose, I should count my lucky stars - gotten there much earlier - I could have found myself with a knife to the neck.
Came home, watched the rest of the BSG DVD's that I rented - I rented a DVD from netflix of the shows I missed last year due to the robbery/cable blow-out. Yes, I appreciate the irony.
Called time warner, who proceeded to inform me that although there were cable outtages in Queens and Manhattan my area was not affected by these outtages. I tried to inform them that every time my cable and/or modem goes out - they have an outtage in Manhattan on the East Side and that clearly the two are linked. They insisted this was a coincidence. Right, said I, a coincidence that has occurred more than ten times? I don't know but that's a pretty regular coincidence. So they set up an appointment for a technician to come out to my place on Monday between 2pm and 6pm. Apparently it is impossible to schedule an exact time - you have to give a range, since people tend to cancel at the last minute and forget to call in. Do know this - the customer service rep is not in Canada, he is in Queens, which would explain the Queens accent.
At any rate, after talking to my mother about her woes with Time Warner Cable in Hilton Head, I'm starting to wonder why no one has found a way to drive these folks out of business yet by creating a better service? Apparently they refused to install close-captioned cable tv service in my Granny's apartment at her assisted care living complex, because their computers stated that a man was in her room and getting the service. They refused to believe my mother, the assisted care staff, or anyone else who told them otherwise. Because as we all know, computers are infallible and computer database administrators and customer service reps never make stupid mistakes. Fed up, my mother went to the Time Warner office in her area, in person, with the information, and made the request. They stated that according to their records no one was getting cable in that room and they'd be happy to help and had no idea why the customer service people refused to oblige. Sigh. And we wonder why we haven't blown up the world yet? Actually don't answer that, I know why, we are too bloody stupid to find the right button.
Sooo...have gotten zip done today. And oh, cable modem appears to be working again - all four lights are on. We'll see how long it lasts. Seems to go up to four, then back down to one every 2 hours.
Regarding the BSG DVD's - will say this "Scar" and "Sacrifice" - which I'd missed last year, really do explain Starbuck and Apollo's choices in the finale. If you've missed those two episodes, there's no way in hell that their actions in the finale make a whit of sense. Proving how much of a serial this show truly is. Also, there's a great podcast on the DVD about "Black Market", which I despised more than the episode that proceeded it. I saw both those episodes last year and felt no need to resee them, once was quite enough, but did watch the podcast on Black Market. And I have to say, I admire Ron Moore. He states how much he hated Black Market. What worked, what really didn't, what they wanted to do, and how it was his fault - not the fault of his writers, crew, actors, or director. The only writer I've heard state that. He says part of what bugged him about the episode is it is so conventional - it has the conventional television set-up and the coventional television solutions, which is against everything he is trying to do BSG - which is to attempt to break out of those boundaries, do something really new and different. And he does accomplish that in places in the episode - most notably at the end, where he has the hero blow away the bad guy without just cause (I mean not in self-defense), so that it amounts to an execution. He says the reason for this, is the other route gives the audience what they want - that vengeance, but emotionally lets them and the hero off the hook. It's not as interesting. This reminds me of a conversation I had with an online friend recently regarding a character killing a pet and her fear that the character wouldn't be redeemable. I told her not to worry about that. Worry about what you want to say through this character, how this character's actions change and effect him and how they propell the plot forward. Your reader will forgive you if the action makes sense, is true to the character, propells his/her story forward. They will not forgive you if took an easy way out, it was clearly out of character or did something gratuituous. Moore gets this. He understands the necessity for ambiguity. His problems with Black Market were mine - it tended to be cliche, the bad guy while played by an amazing actor was a tad too Mr. Big Bad, and they did a few cheap eye-rolling audience manipulating bits - but there are four scenes that work. His analysis of what worked and what didn't and how it was his responsibility as a creator not to fall down on the job again impressed me. He said, sure it's hard work doing this, but everything is hard - that is your job. Don't whine do it. And do it right.
Now, that is what it means to be a professional writer!
Both more or less unstable. The highspeed went out just as I attempted to post an extreemly long and involved response to a thread on a discussion board entitled www.teaatheford.com - which I hadn't visited in ages. It was all about the Television Business, Nielsen Ratings, TV shows, Sorkin, personal opinion and comedy. Also with intricate html. And no, did not back the baby up. So gone.
More annoying than anything else.
So took off for a walk to my area grocery store, before the weather got too gnarly. It's been threatening to rain since 2 pm. But doing zip. Had planned to leave earlier when it was sunny and clear blue skies, but got caught up in the post that well was eaten by time warner highspeed internet cable malfunction. (Am currently on dial-up, in case you haven't figure that out for yourselves). Anyhow, I go, stop by the local bakery first to pick up chocolat chip coconut macroons - the only things can eat at bakery, then two blocks down to the grocery store. Only to find my way blocked by yellow police tape. Fifteen cops. Three cop cars. And a bunch of bystanders. Not only is the grocery store blocked off, but about two blocks in both directs are. I ask an elderly man who appears to be of Middle Eastern or Mediterrean descent, what is up.
"Well, a cop killed a guy in front of the grocery store there."
"Really? Just now? Why?"
"The guy was holding a knife to a lady's neck and he shot him down."
"So have the closed the grocery store?"
"Yeah, it's shut down - don't know what they plan on doing there. Or if the guy robbed it. Or just
what happened."
I sigh, think okay, more information than I really want to hear right now - since, ahem, this is the only grocery store that has cheap veggies and meet and general grocery supplies within walking distance. So really sort of have to continue to go to it. I do my civic duty and inform everyone I pass headed in the direction of the grocery store and intersection that they can't get through, it's completely blocked off and to go around. Then I wander off to a discount meat market two blocks down to buy what I'd planned on buying at the grocery store. Oh well, suppose, I should count my lucky stars - gotten there much earlier - I could have found myself with a knife to the neck.
Came home, watched the rest of the BSG DVD's that I rented - I rented a DVD from netflix of the shows I missed last year due to the robbery/cable blow-out. Yes, I appreciate the irony.
Called time warner, who proceeded to inform me that although there were cable outtages in Queens and Manhattan my area was not affected by these outtages. I tried to inform them that every time my cable and/or modem goes out - they have an outtage in Manhattan on the East Side and that clearly the two are linked. They insisted this was a coincidence. Right, said I, a coincidence that has occurred more than ten times? I don't know but that's a pretty regular coincidence. So they set up an appointment for a technician to come out to my place on Monday between 2pm and 6pm. Apparently it is impossible to schedule an exact time - you have to give a range, since people tend to cancel at the last minute and forget to call in. Do know this - the customer service rep is not in Canada, he is in Queens, which would explain the Queens accent.
At any rate, after talking to my mother about her woes with Time Warner Cable in Hilton Head, I'm starting to wonder why no one has found a way to drive these folks out of business yet by creating a better service? Apparently they refused to install close-captioned cable tv service in my Granny's apartment at her assisted care living complex, because their computers stated that a man was in her room and getting the service. They refused to believe my mother, the assisted care staff, or anyone else who told them otherwise. Because as we all know, computers are infallible and computer database administrators and customer service reps never make stupid mistakes. Fed up, my mother went to the Time Warner office in her area, in person, with the information, and made the request. They stated that according to their records no one was getting cable in that room and they'd be happy to help and had no idea why the customer service people refused to oblige. Sigh. And we wonder why we haven't blown up the world yet? Actually don't answer that, I know why, we are too bloody stupid to find the right button.
Sooo...have gotten zip done today. And oh, cable modem appears to be working again - all four lights are on. We'll see how long it lasts. Seems to go up to four, then back down to one every 2 hours.
Regarding the BSG DVD's - will say this "Scar" and "Sacrifice" - which I'd missed last year, really do explain Starbuck and Apollo's choices in the finale. If you've missed those two episodes, there's no way in hell that their actions in the finale make a whit of sense. Proving how much of a serial this show truly is. Also, there's a great podcast on the DVD about "Black Market", which I despised more than the episode that proceeded it. I saw both those episodes last year and felt no need to resee them, once was quite enough, but did watch the podcast on Black Market. And I have to say, I admire Ron Moore. He states how much he hated Black Market. What worked, what really didn't, what they wanted to do, and how it was his fault - not the fault of his writers, crew, actors, or director. The only writer I've heard state that. He says part of what bugged him about the episode is it is so conventional - it has the conventional television set-up and the coventional television solutions, which is against everything he is trying to do BSG - which is to attempt to break out of those boundaries, do something really new and different. And he does accomplish that in places in the episode - most notably at the end, where he has the hero blow away the bad guy without just cause (I mean not in self-defense), so that it amounts to an execution. He says the reason for this, is the other route gives the audience what they want - that vengeance, but emotionally lets them and the hero off the hook. It's not as interesting. This reminds me of a conversation I had with an online friend recently regarding a character killing a pet and her fear that the character wouldn't be redeemable. I told her not to worry about that. Worry about what you want to say through this character, how this character's actions change and effect him and how they propell the plot forward. Your reader will forgive you if the action makes sense, is true to the character, propells his/her story forward. They will not forgive you if took an easy way out, it was clearly out of character or did something gratuituous. Moore gets this. He understands the necessity for ambiguity. His problems with Black Market were mine - it tended to be cliche, the bad guy while played by an amazing actor was a tad too Mr. Big Bad, and they did a few cheap eye-rolling audience manipulating bits - but there are four scenes that work. His analysis of what worked and what didn't and how it was his responsibility as a creator not to fall down on the job again impressed me. He said, sure it's hard work doing this, but everything is hard - that is your job. Don't whine do it. And do it right.
Now, that is what it means to be a professional writer!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-10-02 03:40 pm (UTC)And I'd agree he did a good job playing with soap cliches. Anyone who decides to write a thesis or book on what influenced Whedon, should spend some time watching General Hospital, old cheesy Westerns, Slasher horror films, and reading X-men comic books - because he basically makes fun of the cliches found in those genres. Spike and Buffy/ Buffy and Angel are in some ways Whedon's twist on the "soap opera couple". He played with the guy gets redeemed by love cliche, just as he played with the guy sleeps with girl and becames an ass cliche - both taken from the daytime soap opera.
(Heck daytime soaps are still doing it. And Whedon was a huge fan of both Passions and GH. Having watched soap operas in my lifetime - I appreciated how he played with the cliche. Still do. Part of the reason, I own the latter seasons on DVD. It is hilarous in places and very subtle.) Whedon liked to make fun of the genre's he loved, while at the same time doing the opposite of what the formula asked for. In the Slasher - it's the cute blond girl who always dies in the alley, in Whedon's BTVS, it's the cute boy who gets it. And in his pilot - the cute blond girl is the monster, not her date.
In the soap opera - the guy and girl have a love hate relationship, he forces himself on her, she forgives him, they get married, she dies or disappears (Luke and Laura) - in Whedon's world - he is the one who dies, she forgives him but she's not going to marry him, and they go their separate ways, because in typical soap opera fashion he comes back from the dead to haunt her ex.
Then of course you got the kids - the rapidly aging kid from no-where. Angel gets Connor, Buffy gets Dawn. But unlike a soap, both are given a metaphorical purpose - for Buffy - it's her normalacy, the child, the innocence - the part of her that will never become a slayer, never get hard, and for Angel - same deal, the part of him that never becomes a monster, just a hero, super-strength intact.
Great idea. But, I think once it was accomplished, the writers weren't quite sure what to do with them. Connor in some ways played out a little better than Dawn.
Again, don't get me wrong - I enjoyed it. I own the last seasons of the series on DVD, when Dawn and Connor were introduced. But I can understand by the same token why it did not work for a good portion of the audience. It was enjoyable but flawed. I like flawed - for me, that's part of what tv is all about. It's too rough to ever be perfect. ;0)