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shadowkat1. "Do you keep livejournal a secret?"
Yes and no. Example - I told my friend on Sat that I have a livejournal, but I did not provide her with the link. And my parents know and I have on occasion sent them entries from it or links. My family knows I have one, but not the link. So, the link is the secret, the fact I have one, not so much. Friend and I were discussing internet social media on Sat after seeing Contagion. Her view was that doing livejournal with "pseudonymes" or "aliases" and not under your real name - provides an outlet for malevolent intent (aka trolls or nasty bloggers). I stated - while that is partially true, the lj community does to a degree police itself. Trolls aren't tolerated and malicious posts are either banned out-right or exposed. It's a somewhat protective community. And unlike Blogger and other services, it is interactive. We do read each other's journals and do comment on them. We just have the ability to screen who responds, block content, and protect content - which you don't necessarily have elsewhere. Also unlike Facebook or Twitter - it's for lengthier writing. I prefer LJ to Facebook and/or Twitter because I like to write reviews and discuss television shows, books and movies with people in an in-depth manner. I also like to write personal essays. I am a letter writer and this is sort of an online international correspondence club. It can be an excellent source of information - as long as you question it, and realize everything should be taken with a grain of salt. My friend was expounding on the virtues of Google+ which she adores - Google+ appears to be an enhanced version of Facebook, where you can better control who sees what. Personally? I don't like Facebook that much and am only on it to keep in touch with my family members, friends from college and ex-co-workers as well as people from Church. It works for that. But I don't post all that much on it. Also it's awfully buggy. Twitter? I see as a marketing tool and little else. Linked-in? Business networking tool. Meetups? - a way to meet new people and do fun stuff with others, when you can't find anyone to do it with. (ie - you want to see Moneyball? There's bound to be a movie meetup group of 50+ people who want to see it too.)
At any rate, I don't tend to advertise my blog on either lj or dw, because I can't write what I do in it - if I did advertise it. If that makes sense? I can let my inner culture geek go nuts here and I can't do that elsewhere. I also can play more here. No one really understands that outside lj, I don't think. If you are on lj you get it. If you aren't, not so much.
It's like what I do for a living, no one outside of those who do the same thing - understand what I do. No one who doesn't have or read lj, could possibly understand it.
2. Doctor Who been reading some of the Doctor Who Season Final reviews on my flist. Still not sure what I think about it. Will have to ponder it some more. Not sure the plot quite works. It does and it doesn't. Just as the romance works and it doesn't. But to be honest? I've always felt that way about Doctor Who. Felt the same way about last week's episode - which didn't quite work for me either.
Actually this plot arc works for me better than the Rose/Doctor arc did or Donna Noble/Doctor arc. The Donna Noble arc was a bit offensive, and don't get me started on Rose. So...that's not a problem. Also I like clever twists.
I think what bugged me was, and this has been mentioned elsewhere, was how the Rory character feels a bit under-used or dropped. Which I found odd, because there's so much foreshadowing and metaphor regarding his role in previous episodes, yet he doesn't do much of anything in the finale, and seems to be bewildered through most of it. (I have a kid? I have a wife?
Wait, the Doctor is marrying my kid? Okay...if you say so.) This would have worked better, I think, if he had less strong a role in previous episodes. It's almost as if Moffat lost track of him. And I'm not so sure Moffat knew what to do with Rory and Amy after The God Compex...they feel a bit like extras in this story. Amy gets to do a few things and I did love her final confrontation with Korvakian, but that too felt a bit anti-climatic - as if I was missing a chapter or two. There was an abruptness to the proceedings that made me wish, this had been a two-parter or longer, it was almost as if too much was crammed into one episode.
While wonderful for meta, it lacks something in emotional satisfaction. I could probably have a blast analyzing the metaphors in it - and most likely will at some point...since I'm a sucker for that stuff as you well know,
but as chewy as metaphors can be - they don't always translate into a credible or satisfying tale. It felt cluttered. That's the word I'm looking for - too cluttered. I wanted to remove bits and add other bits. Almost as if the writer was too interested in the cool plot twist (which is all very well and good) and not interested enough in the character's individual arcs. Don't get me wrong - I like the plot twist and think the plot twist did work, but it also...didn't.
And the River/Doctor romance did work and didn't work - it worked in some respects on an intellectual level but not emotional one or maybe that's vice versa? It's like the Buffy/Spike romance in S7 Buffy - which did and did not work for me. (In stark contrast to the Buffy/Angel and Rose/Doctor romances which did not work for me at all. Much for the same reasons Stefan/Elena doesn't work for me or Bill/Sookie or for that matter Bella/Edward. Those types of romances tend to for lack of a better phrase - make me cringe. No, Buffy/Spike and Doctor/River in principle do and should work very well for me, but they lack something ...they don't quite have, I guess the best example I can use is John Crichton/Aeryn Sun - where both characters appear to support the other as equals, and one isn't necessarily "superior morally or in any other way" to the other. The difficulty with Buffy/Spike and Doctor/River, is you get the feeling in both relationships that Spike and River are "beneath" the Doctor, that they have to "redeem" themselves. Former sociopaths and all that. They have to come up to his or her level. And there's something about that in a romance that feels a tad off. Granted John/Aeryn are far from perfect, but I think that's the best example I can think of off the top of my head, the other ones may be Juliet and James Ford/Sawyer on Lost or Olivia/Peter Bishop on Fringe.
I may have to write a more lengthy review to truly figure out what worked and what didn't work for me. In short, still percolating in the brain.
3. The Good Wife continues to entertain me. I'm loving Alan Cummings. And finding Will to be ...interesting and a bit, I want to say...creepy? But in an oddly attractive sort of way. Doesn't make sense to me either. Diane continues to rock. Also Julianne Marguiles is quite good as always. Only weak points are the cases of the week, although I did like this week's case better than last week's - and the guest stars were cooler - with Eddie Izzard as the plaintiff's attorney and John Dormand (The Wire) playing the plaintiff. People from The Wire keep popping up on this series. But I fear Alicia is falling between a rock and a hard place...regarding her career and romantic life. Peter and Will appear to be about to screw her out of her job. Makes me want to kick them both. Hoping Eli and Kalinda ride to the rescue. Or maybe Michael J. Fox. (The only relationships I ship in the Good Wife are friendships such as Kalinda/Alicia, Diane/Will, and Alicia/Eli. The romantic entanglements are interesting, but hard to root for. But that's partly because like everything else in the show - it's all about the poltiics. Polticis of relationships, the law, etc. Best show on politics that I've seen since maybe West Wing. But a lot darker and edgier than West Wing.)
4. Read that Tiger Beat Feminist Rant about GRR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire novels? And it made me realize that rants tend to make you look bug-shagging crazy, no matter how well-intentioned. Sad, but true. So apologies for all the crazy rants I've written in this journal about books, tv show, writers, etc. I don't know what came over me. Thankfully it was only temporary or at least I hope it was.
After reading the Tiger Beat rant, I'm half tempted to go back through my journal and delete all rants regardless of what they are about. (Although I'm guessing I probably already did that on a couple of them. The problem with me and rants or whines, is I come to my senses, read the thing, get horribly embarrassed, and delete it - along with all the comments. Which may not be the most mature way of handling it, but what the hey. ) I was deeply embarrassed for the poor woman. She sounds insane.
I mean, hello, if you hate the books that much - why did you read four of them? You'd think she'd stop with one, but nooo, she actually read all four. And they aren't exactly short books. We are talking the equivalent of 2000 pages with tiny print and not exactly skimmable (you'll get confused because Martin has a nasty habit of hiding future plot points in the weirdest places). (First book is about 876, second 996, third 1500 and some, fourth 696 or thereabouts). That's a heck of a lot of time to waste on something you hate, deeply offends you and makes you unhappy, don't you think? I mean granted I read the Buffy comics, but I did get a great deal of enjoyment out of some of them, not to mention loads of enjoyment out of snarking and making fun of some of them, and the one's I disliked? Were only abut 40 pages tops, mostly pictures, and cost less than 2 dollars a pop. And took less than an hour to read. Not quite the same thing. So this begs the question - why invest that much time in something that makes you miserable? And so what if other people love it? I mean people love tv shows I find offensive and despicable, but I'm smart enough to realize that they most likely don't see the same things I do when they watch them, so it really doesn't matter. Well, I'm smart enough to realize this when I'm a)not hormonal, and b) not irritable and therefore fairly sane. (In short not thinking with my emotions.)
Yes and no. Example - I told my friend on Sat that I have a livejournal, but I did not provide her with the link. And my parents know and I have on occasion sent them entries from it or links. My family knows I have one, but not the link. So, the link is the secret, the fact I have one, not so much. Friend and I were discussing internet social media on Sat after seeing Contagion. Her view was that doing livejournal with "pseudonymes" or "aliases" and not under your real name - provides an outlet for malevolent intent (aka trolls or nasty bloggers). I stated - while that is partially true, the lj community does to a degree police itself. Trolls aren't tolerated and malicious posts are either banned out-right or exposed. It's a somewhat protective community. And unlike Blogger and other services, it is interactive. We do read each other's journals and do comment on them. We just have the ability to screen who responds, block content, and protect content - which you don't necessarily have elsewhere. Also unlike Facebook or Twitter - it's for lengthier writing. I prefer LJ to Facebook and/or Twitter because I like to write reviews and discuss television shows, books and movies with people in an in-depth manner. I also like to write personal essays. I am a letter writer and this is sort of an online international correspondence club. It can be an excellent source of information - as long as you question it, and realize everything should be taken with a grain of salt. My friend was expounding on the virtues of Google+ which she adores - Google+ appears to be an enhanced version of Facebook, where you can better control who sees what. Personally? I don't like Facebook that much and am only on it to keep in touch with my family members, friends from college and ex-co-workers as well as people from Church. It works for that. But I don't post all that much on it. Also it's awfully buggy. Twitter? I see as a marketing tool and little else. Linked-in? Business networking tool. Meetups? - a way to meet new people and do fun stuff with others, when you can't find anyone to do it with. (ie - you want to see Moneyball? There's bound to be a movie meetup group of 50+ people who want to see it too.)
At any rate, I don't tend to advertise my blog on either lj or dw, because I can't write what I do in it - if I did advertise it. If that makes sense? I can let my inner culture geek go nuts here and I can't do that elsewhere. I also can play more here. No one really understands that outside lj, I don't think. If you are on lj you get it. If you aren't, not so much.
It's like what I do for a living, no one outside of those who do the same thing - understand what I do. No one who doesn't have or read lj, could possibly understand it.
2. Doctor Who been reading some of the Doctor Who Season Final reviews on my flist. Still not sure what I think about it. Will have to ponder it some more. Not sure the plot quite works. It does and it doesn't. Just as the romance works and it doesn't. But to be honest? I've always felt that way about Doctor Who. Felt the same way about last week's episode - which didn't quite work for me either.
Actually this plot arc works for me better than the Rose/Doctor arc did or Donna Noble/Doctor arc. The Donna Noble arc was a bit offensive, and don't get me started on Rose. So...that's not a problem. Also I like clever twists.
I think what bugged me was, and this has been mentioned elsewhere, was how the Rory character feels a bit under-used or dropped. Which I found odd, because there's so much foreshadowing and metaphor regarding his role in previous episodes, yet he doesn't do much of anything in the finale, and seems to be bewildered through most of it. (I have a kid? I have a wife?
Wait, the Doctor is marrying my kid? Okay...if you say so.) This would have worked better, I think, if he had less strong a role in previous episodes. It's almost as if Moffat lost track of him. And I'm not so sure Moffat knew what to do with Rory and Amy after The God Compex...they feel a bit like extras in this story. Amy gets to do a few things and I did love her final confrontation with Korvakian, but that too felt a bit anti-climatic - as if I was missing a chapter or two. There was an abruptness to the proceedings that made me wish, this had been a two-parter or longer, it was almost as if too much was crammed into one episode.
While wonderful for meta, it lacks something in emotional satisfaction. I could probably have a blast analyzing the metaphors in it - and most likely will at some point...since I'm a sucker for that stuff as you well know,
but as chewy as metaphors can be - they don't always translate into a credible or satisfying tale. It felt cluttered. That's the word I'm looking for - too cluttered. I wanted to remove bits and add other bits. Almost as if the writer was too interested in the cool plot twist (which is all very well and good) and not interested enough in the character's individual arcs. Don't get me wrong - I like the plot twist and think the plot twist did work, but it also...didn't.
And the River/Doctor romance did work and didn't work - it worked in some respects on an intellectual level but not emotional one or maybe that's vice versa? It's like the Buffy/Spike romance in S7 Buffy - which did and did not work for me. (In stark contrast to the Buffy/Angel and Rose/Doctor romances which did not work for me at all. Much for the same reasons Stefan/Elena doesn't work for me or Bill/Sookie or for that matter Bella/Edward. Those types of romances tend to for lack of a better phrase - make me cringe. No, Buffy/Spike and Doctor/River in principle do and should work very well for me, but they lack something ...they don't quite have, I guess the best example I can use is John Crichton/Aeryn Sun - where both characters appear to support the other as equals, and one isn't necessarily "superior morally or in any other way" to the other. The difficulty with Buffy/Spike and Doctor/River, is you get the feeling in both relationships that Spike and River are "beneath" the Doctor, that they have to "redeem" themselves. Former sociopaths and all that. They have to come up to his or her level. And there's something about that in a romance that feels a tad off. Granted John/Aeryn are far from perfect, but I think that's the best example I can think of off the top of my head, the other ones may be Juliet and James Ford/Sawyer on Lost or Olivia/Peter Bishop on Fringe.
I may have to write a more lengthy review to truly figure out what worked and what didn't work for me. In short, still percolating in the brain.
3. The Good Wife continues to entertain me. I'm loving Alan Cummings. And finding Will to be ...interesting and a bit, I want to say...creepy? But in an oddly attractive sort of way. Doesn't make sense to me either. Diane continues to rock. Also Julianne Marguiles is quite good as always. Only weak points are the cases of the week, although I did like this week's case better than last week's - and the guest stars were cooler - with Eddie Izzard as the plaintiff's attorney and John Dormand (The Wire) playing the plaintiff. People from The Wire keep popping up on this series. But I fear Alicia is falling between a rock and a hard place...regarding her career and romantic life. Peter and Will appear to be about to screw her out of her job. Makes me want to kick them both. Hoping Eli and Kalinda ride to the rescue. Or maybe Michael J. Fox. (The only relationships I ship in the Good Wife are friendships such as Kalinda/Alicia, Diane/Will, and Alicia/Eli. The romantic entanglements are interesting, but hard to root for. But that's partly because like everything else in the show - it's all about the poltiics. Polticis of relationships, the law, etc. Best show on politics that I've seen since maybe West Wing. But a lot darker and edgier than West Wing.)
4. Read that Tiger Beat Feminist Rant about GRR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire novels? And it made me realize that rants tend to make you look bug-shagging crazy, no matter how well-intentioned. Sad, but true. So apologies for all the crazy rants I've written in this journal about books, tv show, writers, etc. I don't know what came over me. Thankfully it was only temporary or at least I hope it was.
After reading the Tiger Beat rant, I'm half tempted to go back through my journal and delete all rants regardless of what they are about. (Although I'm guessing I probably already did that on a couple of them. The problem with me and rants or whines, is I come to my senses, read the thing, get horribly embarrassed, and delete it - along with all the comments. Which may not be the most mature way of handling it, but what the hey. ) I was deeply embarrassed for the poor woman. She sounds insane.
I mean, hello, if you hate the books that much - why did you read four of them? You'd think she'd stop with one, but nooo, she actually read all four. And they aren't exactly short books. We are talking the equivalent of 2000 pages with tiny print and not exactly skimmable (you'll get confused because Martin has a nasty habit of hiding future plot points in the weirdest places). (First book is about 876, second 996, third 1500 and some, fourth 696 or thereabouts). That's a heck of a lot of time to waste on something you hate, deeply offends you and makes you unhappy, don't you think? I mean granted I read the Buffy comics, but I did get a great deal of enjoyment out of some of them, not to mention loads of enjoyment out of snarking and making fun of some of them, and the one's I disliked? Were only abut 40 pages tops, mostly pictures, and cost less than 2 dollars a pop. And took less than an hour to read. Not quite the same thing. So this begs the question - why invest that much time in something that makes you miserable? And so what if other people love it? I mean people love tv shows I find offensive and despicable, but I'm smart enough to realize that they most likely don't see the same things I do when they watch them, so it really doesn't matter. Well, I'm smart enough to realize this when I'm a)not hormonal, and b) not irritable and therefore fairly sane. (In short not thinking with my emotions.)
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no subject
Date: 2011-10-04 03:11 am (UTC)In a nutshell - why I love lj.
++=++
why invest that much time in something that makes you miserable?
I always wonder why people spend so much time doing stuff that makes them miserable. Yeesh.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-04 11:28 pm (UTC)While it makes sense if you have to do it - ie. it's your job or you are getting paid or it was a class assignment (ie. reading a book you hate or puts you to sleep for an English Lit course), but for pleasure?
Just feels a bit like "whining" to me. If you hate it? Stop. Seriously, life is too short to waste personal time reading books or watching tv shows that you don't have to watch. And there's enough far more important things to get upset about than a bunch of best-selling fantasy books.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-04 03:16 am (UTC)And I sort of agree about the Doctor Who finale. There were things that worked and things that are rather wha-huh? It was enjoyable, but wasn't exactly fine tuned.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-04 11:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-04 03:23 am (UTC)I appreciated that we finally got to see why it's a bad idea to change a fixed point in time, but (cough) the Doctor DID change one of those fixed points in Waters of Mars (Adelaide dies of suicide on Earth, not of mysterious causes on Mars, and at least one other crewperson survived who didn't in the original timeline.) The universe didn't grind to a stop then. Ah well, this is Doctor Who - continuity is for wusses.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-04 04:22 pm (UTC)One goes too far one way, while the other goes too far the other way. There's an odd emotional detachment to Moffat's stories at times. Not always..
Silence in the Library/Forests of the Dead and A Good Man Goes to War - worked emotionally for me.
But I did notice this in his Sherlock series and at times in other Doctor Who episodes. He seems to get more interested in creating and solving the brain puzzle than doing the emotional arc.
It's like, he can put Amy through this huge trauma of having her kid turn out to have a time head and get stolen from her, but she shows very little emotional repercussions from that experience. Until the last episode, where I really liked what he did, but... it was kind of late, y'know?
Agreed. While he did address it a little with the whole "The Girl who Waits...Forever" bit in the last few episodes...and the Amy/Korvaskian show-down -it felt off somehow. She's lost her child. Sure she found out her child was actually her best pal Mels, who she sort of raised as a kid, but
it's not quite the same. And the Doctor was partially responsible for that loss. Same deal with Rory. I'd be a lot more upset. They seem merely bewildered by it.
Doctor/River veers between charming and creepy for me.
The whole bit about him knowing her - her entire life even as a little baby, and being the only one she falls for...is a bit off-putting. It's almost as if her mother "imprinted" him on her. So agree charming and creepy at the same time. It works but doesn't work.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-04 05:43 am (UTC)But yeah, it's a good idea to wait until it turns from gall to snark before putting it on the net.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-04 04:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-04 05:02 pm (UTC)I've never known any of them to save the link or remember my lj name....
(so my lj remains a total secret! LOL)
no subject
Date: 2011-10-04 11:31 pm (UTC)And my parents always forget the link, which is helpful.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-04 11:57 pm (UTC)It is kind of like hiding in plain sight: if we were all mysterious then probably people (friends and family) would be more curious and pay more attention).
no subject
Date: 2011-10-04 07:01 pm (UTC)She's screwed herself out of that job, literally, too. She's sleeping with the boss. If and when that comes out, every employee that ever got passed over for anything is going to be trying to determine if they have a grievance.
In reality, Will is the boss, and whether or not she slept with him - he ruined the firms professionalism once he started pursuing her. By sleeping with him, though, Alicia crashed through whatever walls she had left between work and private spheres and I wonder how much tolerance Diane would have for that. Either of them, really.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-04 07:33 pm (UTC)They don't. Since she's performed well. Be one thing if she lost cases or money for the firm.
But Alicia is a major rainmaker - she brought in Eli, she has won various cases including the last two. And has had various outside offers. You can't fire someone for sleeping with the boss - that's sexual harrassment. The boss has the power in that relationship - if he fires her, she can file a sexual harrassment suit and win.
To a degree it isn't anyone's business. But,
they are both playing with fire - sleeping with one's boss is dicey because of the "power" dynamics.
My sympathy's with Alicia. Will has clearly been pursuing her from the get-go, and
may have even given her that job because of that alterior agenda. While Alicia took the job for legitimate reasons.
Diane's also between a rock and a hard place - because Eli Gould is only there because of Alicia. They lose Alicia, they lose Eli.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-04 07:47 pm (UTC)Diane's also between a rock and a hard place - because Eli Gould is only there because of Alicia. They lose Alicia, they lose Eli.
And if Eli knows Alicia is sleeping with Will, they also probably lose Eli. Because she's now worth a lot less as both a candidate spouse or potential candidate herself.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-04 11:21 pm (UTC)Agreed. I thought when Diane said that Alicia was hurting them, that it is actually Will who is. Peter is gunning for Will not Alicia. Peter needs Alicia...
Also I'm not sure about Will or what his agenda or intentions are. He's been painted in an odd way since the beginning. Interesting character...but, in some respects I like Peter more, Peter appears to be more honest.
And if Eli knows Alicia is sleeping with Will, they also probably lose Eli. Because she's now worth a lot less as both a candidate spouse or potential candidate herself.
Well, yes and no. Eli was shown in this week's episode as being an expert at crisis management. And we see him teaming up a bit with Kalinda. So, my guess is Eli will manipulate the situation to his own advantage.
It's probably worth keeping in mind that everything in this show is about power plays and power dynamics.
Hee. I love Eli.