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Jul. 20th, 2013 11:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatThis passing storm has lightened both the air pressure and my oppressive mood. I have no idea why variations in barometric pressure make me ill, depressed, and edgy. Just that they do. Wasn't always this way, just in the last couple of years.
I could not get cool. Felt over-heated and sick, even though my apartment is air conditioned. The a/c has been slugging along all day. At 6pm, it was 96 degrees outside with 100% humidity. I lugged a ten pound bag back from the laundry-mat, about two-three blocks away (a 5 minute walk without the boot, 15 minutes with the boot). The little laundress, a young Chinese woman who speaks broken English, asked with concern where I'd been. I hadn't been to the laundry-mat in 5 weeks. They missed me. I've been going to the same laundry-mat for 14 years now, we know each other by first name. She told me with concern, to be more careful. Made back home again before the storm hit. Will attempt to do a small bag of my delicates (work clothes) tomorrow - those can only be lightly washed and then hung to dry. So I have to do them, since they tend to over-dry things.
Thought I was going to throw-up when I got home - the air was so oppressively dense, it felt like twenty pound bricks on my head and shoulders. I was cloaked with a sheen of sweat, even with the a/c on. When it passed...felt so much lighter. Decided to wait until after it passed to fix dinner.
Finished watching the second episode of The Bridge - which is an entertaining, albeit depressing drama about the human condition. I'm not positive, but I think it may be a Mexican and American co-venture. In any case, it is definitely compelling. With some fine characters. As the Entertainment Weekly reviewer noted, you know a serial killer mystery is interesting, when the most interesting things about it are everything but the mystery.
Like The Killing, this series is based on a Scandinavian series, in this case the first Swedish/Danish collaboration, which was popular overseas. The Swedish/Danish version is entitled Bron/Broen. Entertainment Weekly's reviewer, Melissa Maerz, made me laugh when she wrote this bit comparing the two series:
The culture wars are so rich here [in the American version] that it's hard to imagine what issues the Swedish/Danish version explored. What could two relatively similar Scandinavian countries have to fight about? The length of their paid paternity leave? Whether Brigitte Nielsen is more famous than the Swedish Chef?
I mentioned this to my mother over the phone who has actually been to Sweden and Denmark, and has studied their culture and read various Swedish novels (albeit not in Swedish). She remarked that actually there are differences between the two, and they have similar illegal immigration issues (problems) with a lot of illegal Eastern Europeans crossing their borders into their countries. So, it is more similar than we might realize.
This episode was both amusing and horrifying. Definitely compelling. Sonya, the female cop, has a form of autism. Emotion is something she's not quite sure how to handle. But in this week's episode she goes out and has sex. It's rather amusing. She wants the physical act, not the emotional intimacy. The man she picks up has no idea how to handle it. Meanwhile the twists and turns regarding the mystery get more interesting. As does the two reporters who are investigating the crime along with the detectives. Not your run of the mill cop series by any stretch of the imagination. Am now somewhat curious about the original upon what it was based.
Apologies for the increasingly snarky/bitchy posts of late. Been rather depressed and irritable this year for some reason. And as you know, my sense of humor has always been quite dry, which alas does not always translate well. ;-)
I could not get cool. Felt over-heated and sick, even though my apartment is air conditioned. The a/c has been slugging along all day. At 6pm, it was 96 degrees outside with 100% humidity. I lugged a ten pound bag back from the laundry-mat, about two-three blocks away (a 5 minute walk without the boot, 15 minutes with the boot). The little laundress, a young Chinese woman who speaks broken English, asked with concern where I'd been. I hadn't been to the laundry-mat in 5 weeks. They missed me. I've been going to the same laundry-mat for 14 years now, we know each other by first name. She told me with concern, to be more careful. Made back home again before the storm hit. Will attempt to do a small bag of my delicates (work clothes) tomorrow - those can only be lightly washed and then hung to dry. So I have to do them, since they tend to over-dry things.
Thought I was going to throw-up when I got home - the air was so oppressively dense, it felt like twenty pound bricks on my head and shoulders. I was cloaked with a sheen of sweat, even with the a/c on. When it passed...felt so much lighter. Decided to wait until after it passed to fix dinner.
Finished watching the second episode of The Bridge - which is an entertaining, albeit depressing drama about the human condition. I'm not positive, but I think it may be a Mexican and American co-venture. In any case, it is definitely compelling. With some fine characters. As the Entertainment Weekly reviewer noted, you know a serial killer mystery is interesting, when the most interesting things about it are everything but the mystery.
Like The Killing, this series is based on a Scandinavian series, in this case the first Swedish/Danish collaboration, which was popular overseas. The Swedish/Danish version is entitled Bron/Broen. Entertainment Weekly's reviewer, Melissa Maerz, made me laugh when she wrote this bit comparing the two series:
The culture wars are so rich here [in the American version] that it's hard to imagine what issues the Swedish/Danish version explored. What could two relatively similar Scandinavian countries have to fight about? The length of their paid paternity leave? Whether Brigitte Nielsen is more famous than the Swedish Chef?
I mentioned this to my mother over the phone who has actually been to Sweden and Denmark, and has studied their culture and read various Swedish novels (albeit not in Swedish). She remarked that actually there are differences between the two, and they have similar illegal immigration issues (problems) with a lot of illegal Eastern Europeans crossing their borders into their countries. So, it is more similar than we might realize.
This episode was both amusing and horrifying. Definitely compelling. Sonya, the female cop, has a form of autism. Emotion is something she's not quite sure how to handle. But in this week's episode she goes out and has sex. It's rather amusing. She wants the physical act, not the emotional intimacy. The man she picks up has no idea how to handle it. Meanwhile the twists and turns regarding the mystery get more interesting. As does the two reporters who are investigating the crime along with the detectives. Not your run of the mill cop series by any stretch of the imagination. Am now somewhat curious about the original upon what it was based.
Apologies for the increasingly snarky/bitchy posts of late. Been rather depressed and irritable this year for some reason. And as you know, my sense of humor has always been quite dry, which alas does not always translate well. ;-)
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Date: 2013-07-21 06:18 am (UTC)Well, we were at war almost constantly for 6-700 years or so, so there must have been something... ;) To be perfectly honest, that quote makes me wonder what the journalist considers a large enough difference between two countries to make conflict justified.
ETA: Obviously the various Scandinavian countries are very similar in a lot of ways, at least from an outside perspective. The thing is, though, from our perspective, we've spent 1000 years defining ourselves as "not like those idiots on the other side of the border", so we tend to emphasise the (real or imagined) differences, both in fiction and in real life. (Compare all the Canadian jokes on How I Met Your Mother.) It can basically be summed up as this (http://satwcomic.com/sweden-denmark-and-norway) (or this (http://satwcomic.com/the-nordic-fellows), if you want to get the lunatics in Finland and Iceland involved).
Also, the bridge is just a bridge. SO THERE. (http://satwcomic.com/first-love) :D
no subject
Date: 2013-07-21 03:05 pm (UTC)I made the mistake of reading the plot summary of the Swedish/Danish version and so far it is almost exactly the same as the American/Mexican version. You'd think it would differ a bit more. That they wouldn't copy the plot to that extent. Maybe it still will. Did the Swedish/Danish version have a tunnel? Can't quite imagine a tunnel working - with all that water.
ETA: I should admit that I keep confusing Sweden and Denmark. I keep thinking they are the same country and have to remind myself, no, two separate countries you nitwit.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-21 03:31 pm (UTC)There is actually a kind of United States of Scandinavia in the Nordic Union, but a thousand years of experience has taught us that it's best to keep it very loose - it basically just means that you never have to show your passport when you travel between countries. (Which makes the border patrol on the bridge a bit weird. There's a telephone kiosk on the bridge where you can stop and phone customs if you have anything to declare, and they'll show up as soon as they find the time...)
no subject
Date: 2013-07-21 09:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-21 03:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-21 06:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-21 07:10 pm (UTC)The second murder is of 20 Mexican refugees...who were smuggled across state lines. The killer set out several bottles of poisoned water beneath a skeletal statue of the Virgin Mary in the middle of the desert.
Only their female leader escaped.
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Date: 2013-07-21 07:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-21 09:02 pm (UTC)Is there a rancher's wife who has just discovered that her husband was involved in smuggling illegals through a tunnel on their property? The poisoning is weirdly linked to it. In the tunnel she sees a shrine to someone who died, with a virgin mary statue, while outside the water is planted around a skeletal virgin mary shrine/statue.
I have a feeling this remake may be slightly better than the original, or work better - while it may well have been the opposite with The Killing? Having not seen the originals of either - I can't be certain. The US version of The Killing - I found to be a bit slow and convoluted.
This is better paced and less convoluted. Also The Bridge at least has a sense of humor, albeit a dark sense of humor...
no subject
Date: 2013-07-21 12:36 pm (UTC);)
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Date: 2013-07-21 01:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-21 02:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-21 02:56 pm (UTC)It is interesting that US/Canada has less movies and tv series about this. Although we do have border issues - people are smuggled between the countries, much like Mexico.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-21 08:26 pm (UTC)