mumbling and grumbling

I have some gripes. They're not particularly serious, but I'm feeling mildly frustrated. I'm going to blame the fact that it's October, and I'm away from home and, well, everyone goes home in October. And, you know, argh. Plus I think this might actually have been the first time I've missed Tiptoe's birthday? I'm not sure, and it's certainly not a big deal especially when you factor in that she's missed mine several times because mine was always in half term. I think it's just that the reality of the fact that I'm away has finally pervaded my fogged up brain. I'm still not homesick, but I'm perhaps a little disoriented? It's late October in the northern hemisphere, but it's still warm and the leaves are still green; and now I understand why Giles was complaining about the relentless sameness of Sunnydale weather. I never thought I'd miss British weather. You can take the girl out of London, right?

Ok, so. First off, Ruby left. That wasn't a surprise, since she'd been planning it for a while. She's gone to be with Bo (boyfriend of excessive lameness), and is probably heading back to Canadia soon to study. It just sucks that she left with more of a whimper than a bang, because she had a load of dental surgery just before leaving. It would have been nice to get to say goodbye properly, rather than wince at her attempts to talk through the pain. The thing is that while she's a really nice person who I got on with very well, and had a lot of fun with, I don't think that she would have ever become one of my very close friends. She wasn't a soulmate/non-person/race that knows Joseph kinda gal. And that's not meant to sound judge-y. Some people in your life are people who you just enjoy having fun with, and they're not supposed to be anything more. And yet it still sucks a little that she's gone. Ami has this theory that in a situation like ours all your friends become imbued with more importance than you might afford to them 'back home' because you're likely to feel more attached to them. There's something to that, without roots and without the language of your host country it makes sense- plus people are always coming and going so while they're here you just want to enjoy them.

I am really sad that Aryan's left though, and so's Ami. He wasn't supposed to go, his contract's not up and he stoically refused to explain what 'family emergency' dragged him back to the UK. He's seriously one of the most awesome people I've met, and I'm going to feel the lack of my necessary quotient of British bantering sorely. The fact that people can slip in and out of your life in a job/situation like this is both good and bad. It's nice to constantly be meeting new people, and there's generally a real sense of camaraderie- people are very friendly and helpful. If I ever want to go to the States, Canadia, Aus or Kiwi-land I've got a wealth of people I could hit up for a place to stay too. I've just never really adjusted to my favourite toys being snatched away, is all. Scotty's fucked off back to Chonto too now, it;s like other people read Keourac or something. Jeez.

And the worst of it? Elica got her stupid arse fired. We may have had a somewhat debauched night a couple of weeks ago, and she didn't turn up for work the next day. She didn't even call in. She texted me and told me to tell Daryl that she was ill, which isn't in line with company protocol or any version of common sense- especially since she knows that Daryl doesn't come in until later than her own start time. Head office apparently got mad and headed straight into action (although there's a slight possibility that Smartie may have been complicit in fucking her over, but I don't really believe it). It's maddening, because she could have prevented it. It's also stupid because she's probably the most popular Korean teacher, and things are slow enough at our branch. This also happened at Yeouido, Yo got fired because they wanted to get rid of one Korean teacher apparently- yet again she was the popular one. It's possible that it was because her secret relationship with Patagonia came out, just as he was leaving. Work just doesn't feel the same without Elica shrieking, and with Ruby gone. Ruby's been replaced by Newbie, who's nice enough but very staid and proper. Freemason doesn't even have a partner, and just knocks about doing nothing. And it means that Newbie and I are picking up the slack a little, instead of having two lessons I have around six- which isn't very much but I could be enjoying doing even less. This company is completely idiotic, I'm actually a little worried that they're going to go out of business.

Also, I have to move apartments again. It's kind of ridiculous. Basically the landlord doesn't want to re-sign the contract for my flat or Tanky's. I think it's a mix of his hatred for idiotic foreigners and his hatred for idiotic companies. Everyone at HQ who was capable of independent thought has now quit because they weren't getting paid, so the entirely unintelligent M is in charge of finding me a new place to live. Not only is he dimwitted in the extreme he's also incredibly untrustworthy. He's come up with this plan to oust Tanky from the organisation, which I broadly support because I can't stand him- but his method of doing it isn't exactly laudable. He's ordered Daryl to inform Tanky that a new apartment cannot be found for him or me, which seems premature and suspicious even if you ignore the fact that Daryl's privately assured me that I will be given an apartment but that I have to act like I won't so that Tanky doesn't cotton on. In part I think that M was doing this in a bid to get Tanky to move to a different branch, but I have it on good authority that a large part of it was because everyone hates Tanky. I did feel a little bad though, because Tanky's actually put some effort into trying to sort me out with alternative housing. Apparently L (awesome Scottish dude from HQ who "trained" me) would try to sort me out with a job at his new company too, which is pretty nice. I might need it, because not only do I suspect the company of floundering (especially now that they've fucked themselves up with immigration and have won a temporary ban on new foreign teachers), I really don't trust that they (or rather, M) will find me a new apartment as promised.

God, I really don't want to pack everything up again. On the other hand moving to a building which doesn't house Tanky and his wifey would be excellente. I don't really like living on the ground floor either, and it would be nice to have an apartment with decent air con, a large window, no dog hair, a bathroom light that doesn't short out every few weeks... etc. And it will still be in Hongdae, so it shouldn't be too much hassle. I just hope that it does all work out fine. Please.

This is what I get for feeling so deeply at one with the universe. It was so comical though. I complained about being cold and not having a book to read for all of about three seconds, and suddenly post arrived- containing jumpers and books. My karma was kicking, so of course everything did have to come crashing down. Bah.

Asides from that the main thing that I have to complain about is: me. I need to stop being an idiot. I know that I state this with worrying regularity, but really it's a serious concern. I need to stop running outside to throw out the trash half-naked for one, but I think my main problem is that I do stupid things when drunk. So from now on no drunken motorcycle shenanigans or money wasting poker. (Unless it's five card stud, because come on). I also really need to switch my brain off, or learn to be a bit more productive. I keep having all these brilliant ideas for things that I want to write, and my mind darts off down random paths like a hyperactive child, but I'm not actually putting pen to paper (or fingertips to keyboard as the case may be). I most definitely do not have time to keep up with my ambitious plan of writing up what I think of each new episode of all the shows I'm watching. Was I smoking crack when I came up with that plan? Even just doing it for one show (Supernatural) is proving to be a challenge, hell even watching everything I want to watch is complicated enough. I'm not feeling motivated to do it either, especially since the last Supernatural episode, Monster Movie, was incredibly awesome but was aired out of sequence so I can't exactly say anything meaningful about the brothers' interaction. Bah. Probably I need to read less fic too. Dammit, the J2 love has been strong lately though- especially after interviews like this. The thing is that fandom and the internet actually hold seriously important places in my heart- I love the celebrating of freedom of... something along the expression/stealing/porn nexus, but it's more than that. I'm deeply impressed by the intelligence and creativity in fandom in general, and specifically in the ones that I hold most dear (Buffy, Harry Potter, Supernatural, West Wing, Firefly...). Obviously there are mind numbing fourteen year old fangirls too, but the intelligent fanfiction and commentary that exists is actually breathtaking. That's why I get pissed off when I'm unwittingly exposed to something less than wonderful. I know that it's hypocritical because of course mistakes sneak into what I'm writing all the time and so I really ought to be more forgiving, but I just read something about a 'minuet of tension' and wanted to throw things. A lot.

Anyway, I'm getting love from every bloody angle right at this moment, which I suppose is the multiverse's way of telling me to shut the fuck up with my whinging. I'm going to read some almost-definitely-guaranteed-to-be-buff fic. Stupid world showering me with nice things and making me grin. Bah.

Wake me up when September ends.

Book post time again! Strangely enough I think I said all I wanted to say about The Unbearable Lightness of Being already, except that I forgot to mention that I'm assuming that the bowler hat thing was a Magritte reference.

Due to this uncharacteristic lack I shall discuss episode 18 of Buffy's season eight, and not simply because I didn't have anywhere else to put comic babble but a book post, no sirree. I still haven't gotten on with checking out the Buffy Omnibus. I got as far as nosing around on amazon, and then got confused by the fact that it's split up and sold in individual parts. I think this is something that I need to sit down with properly and figure out, or I just need to discover if it's all up online somewhere. Either way. I do think that doing so would probably heighten my appreciation of the Time of Your Life storyline because, as Buffy herself pointed out, seeing the future-verse that's depicted here kind of presents a lot of spoilers for Fray. Buffy's "Wow, spoiler alert" comment was actually about just getting to see the future, but it totally applies. I also liked her disbelief that the term 'spaz' had stood the test of time, whereas almost all the rest of her lexicon seemed to have disappeared from everyday use. I thought it was a nice touch, since it was a reasonably oft-used word in early Buffy which I find a little jarring when I watch it, although in part because it's a much more offensive term in the British context.

Asides from Buffy's fandom-y comments I also really enjoyed the complete and utter rubbishness of the monsters that Dawn and Xander encountered in the forest. They were so obviously unimpressed by said creatures' cliché behaviour and I thought it was a nice touch. It showed that even these thoroughly "not special" Scoobies are battle-hardened and experienced enough to laugh in the face of danger (and not even need to hide until it goes away these days), and it was a nice moment that gently mocked Buffy's own genre- especially considering the move to the comic format.

The interaction between Willow and Saga Vasuki was interesting and compelling. It's kind of gratifying to see Willow keeping these big secrets from Kennedy, although the character of Saga Vasuki her-/it-self seemed to have been portrayed as a sort of New Age well of Lesbian Power, but I'll reserve judgement for now. Also although I generally love Willow, I have to roll my eyes at people who say 'frak'. I know, I know, I ought to check out the revamped Battlestar Galactica one day. One day, indeed.

Also it transpired that the evil woman in the future truly is Dark Willow, and not Drusilla. Oops. Hey, anyone could have made that mistake! Obviously I can see why Saga Vasuki told Willow why she mustn't "look" at where Buffy is, since she'd probably feel awfully angry, guilty and confused. Since I haven't read Fray I'm kind of confused though, is it cannon that Willow's going to go irretrievably evil at some point? Is this the "proper" Frayverse or an alternative one? Are there two (or more) Willows in this world/future? I'm hoping that these questions will be answered in the fourth and final part (the release of which I believe has been pushed back to November). If it isn't I'm definitely going to need to pick up Fray to answer these burning questions, and even if they are sufficiently answered I think that this storyline has piqued my interest enough to make me want to do so anyway.

So now onto the proper literature, which simultaneously might make me sound vaguely more intelligent and somehow less geeky. Here's hoping.

How could I not love Catch-22? It's been recommended to me endlessly by various people, and it's also constantly appearing on lists of the best books ever. However I'll admit that I was a little dubious, firstly just because sometimes these so-called classics aren't all that wonderful in my eyes (see The Catcher in the Rye and definitely Lord of the Flies for example) and secondly war books don't particularly appeal to me. That's not to say that I necessarily dislike everything in that genre, it just isn't a favourite of mine and thus I was almost a little wary of the Catch-22. All for naught though. Come on, it starts with a soldier waking up in a hospital and feeling vast amount of love for his chaplain, "It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him". After hitting a whole load of my literary kinks it all went, amazingly, uphill from there. It's just an absurdist romp, and I didn't feel that the plot, with all of its twists and turns, was any less entertaining because I was already au fait with a lot of it. It's written so wonderfully, and I think I was actually disturbing nearby lessons with my sudden giggles and snorts emitting from the staff room where I was snuggled up on the sofa furiously reading onwards.

I just loved the way that it was written and the dialogue- especially the circular (and circling) nature of the narrative, the back-and-forth of the ironic conversations and the sublimely ridiculous surrealism of much of the plot. Because that's war, it's patriotism, it's capitalism, it's sanity itself, and in a larger way that's life. Things don't make sense, and yet surely they should; surely there should be a higher authority somewhere to appeal to. I loved the fact that you had to pay attention to the book because it unravelled its secrets slowly and in a non-linear way. Specifically the use of déjà vu (and associated feelings like presque vu) really served to keep me interested. There were several events that it came back to time and again, from different people's perspectives, or from the same people but with a different focus which meant that more and more information was gleaned. This meant that my understanding was slowly added to layer by layer, and my attention was really grabbed.

But it wasn't only in this way that the technique was used. Although I really adore reading sometimes I rather dislike starting to read a book, if it doesn't capture me within the first couple of paragraphs then I have to get over a small hump before I'm drawn in. I know that fighting through the first chapter or so will almost definitely pay off (unless it's really the most awful chick-lit, or Adam Bede again) but nonetheless it can make me kind of resentful. Not only did Catch-22 draw me in straight away (literally from the very first line) and maintain my interest, it made me hyper-aware of details even if I didn't realise that I was. For example, Yossarian meets the chaplain in the first chapter and uses his name when he vandalised the letters he was supposed to be censoring. However, the chaplain didn't seem particularly important, but when he strikes up a friendship with Yossarian later I discovered that I'd catalogued every detail about him, apparently in case of such an eventuality. Returning again and again to the scene of Snowden's death was certainly a useful technique, and when it was fully explained it proved to be a truly disturbing story. I could see why Yossarian wouldn't ever want to wear a uniform after that. I think that it illustrated perfectly the way that such an experience would pervade someone's consciousness, whilst also straightforwardly pointing to the atrocities of war- making them realistic and personal.

Good God I hated Aarfy! Appleby too, but I just wanted to hit Aarfy. I could really empathise with Yossarian so much during those scenes in the plane in which he was basically being terrorised by Aarfy but couldn't explain himself to this lummox. Heller captured that frustration and resignation wonderfully. I simply adored Orr. And Major Major. And Nately! Almost without any reservations. Milo was a great character too, although I didn't love him unabashedly because he was such an amoral bastard. It was so surreal, but somehow fitting, to discover that he was actually a mayor; a vice-shah; a caliph. His whole trade was exhilarating and maddening in approximately equal measures (especially his ability to make a profit with those eggs), and managed to raise a deep philosophical question: what's more important, life jackets or ice cream soda?

At the beginning of the book Pianosa almost seemed like a safe haven, providing as much of one as somewhere can amidst the realities of death and war. The characters mostly seemed to exist so languorously, and threw themselves into their missions without much concern, albeit some grumbling. It felt as if they had existed in this stasis for all of time, and could carry on in much of the same way. However by the end this had been disrupted, and almost all of them were dead or gone. It makes you look back at this apparent safety, especially since by the end you're informed by many more of the experiences that Yossarian and the others had gone through before the book's opening, and question it. It seems as if that wasn't really an appearance of safety, but the reality of tension and imminent destruction tempered by camaraderie and desperation.

The thing about Yossarian being "Assyrian" didn't mean that much to me until Closing Time. It was an obvious marker of his Otherness, without Heller resorting to modelling him too much on himself and making him (particularly) Jewish. However I'm apparently embarrassingly ignorant about vast periods of history, and couldn't have told you when Assyria stopped being an official nation unless I'd just googled it (around 612BC apparently, so I think a little before Catch-22's scope). In this case little Sammy Singer was a lot more intelligent than me. Anyway I suppose the point is simply that names are significant, Yossarian was able to get away with a lot because he had access to this mystical national identity, that he'd basically created himself.

There was one thing which I found annoying about Yossarian and the book, although I'll admit that it isn't the fault of either. Basically I got the Clotaire K song Ya Saryan stuck in my head practically every time I read the name 'Yossarian'. It's definitely a good song, but having anything going on a loop inside my head (especially if it features a lot of Arabic chanting) gets on my nerves quickly. I am amused that Streetlight Manifesto came on when I started writing about Catch-22 though.

My mother posted Nanzo's leaving present to me which I'd had to dump from my obese suitcase along with plenty of other books and DVDs, Hokkaido Highway Blues. The book's sort of a travelogue, detailing Will Ferguson's experiences road tripping across Japan questing after the cherry blossoms. I was certainly in the mood to read both about road trips (thanks to recently reading On The Road, plus all my excitement about Supernatural coming back) and the experiences of a Westerner emigrating to an East Asian country.

To begin with I was starting to get convinced that I ought to up sticks and head to Japan, if not now then at some point. I'm not insanely enamoured with Japan; I think saying that I know what otaku means but that nobody would ever, ever think of applying it to me sums it up pretty well. When we had to choose a regional specialisation in the second year of the Social Anthropology BA I picked Japan. This was mostly because we hardly ever studied anything to do with Japan or East Asia in our more theory-based courses so I figured that it'd make a nice change, plus I thought that a favourite teacher of mine would be the lecturer (as it turned out she wasn't, but I got her for a third year course so it was all good). The only other region that I'd considered was Southern Africa, and not only was that only a half unit I was pretty sure that there'd be far too much dry stuff about kinship and not nearly enough anime. I went on to write my dissertation on Japanese pornography, mostly because that's a sentence I like saying. I did consider applying for the JET programme and got as far as getting references. However I changed my mind about it because they have a policy barring you from re-applying for a few years if they reject you, and I knew that my application wasn't put together particularly well, and it was just before the deadline. I figured that it would be better to wait until I could hobble together a better one, and instead ended up targeting much less selective hagwons in Korea a year later. So it's not that I think that I really ought to be in Japan, it's just that I have more interest in Japan (both from an academic and pop cultural point of view) than in Korea. I'm going to try not to point that out to nationalistic Koreans though. Plus Ferguson kept going on about eating squid there, and I love squid. He should have stopped whinging about Japanese delicacies so much. I get plenty of seafood here to be fair, and trying to find something that I won't eat has become some people's favourite game. It works out pretty well for me, hopefully I'll get to try dog in the next few weeks.

Anyway the fact that I can't speak Korean soon reminded me that I can't speak Japanese either. I'm kind of useless. At least I did understand the whole carrot/person confusion and I'm prrretty sure that Ferguson either purposefully mixed them up again in the book, or my Japanese is just even worse than I thought. Even if I was in Japan, I don't think that I would go hitchhiking alone. Sometimes being a woman can be a bit rubbish, still I'm sure that I was telling the truth when I responded to a student that yes if I get to choose in my next life I'd like to come back as a chick again. (I didn't have an opinion on skin colour, as long as it's at least a tad darker than my current transparent state, and I couldn't decide on a nationality but I definitely had a preference for being brought up in a polyglot or diglossic setting and eventually figured that I'd probably plump for somewhere in South America.) I don't know if I should blame an ethereal fear like Susan Brownmiller or something else, but I don't think that I would feel comfortable hitching by myself. One thing, though, that certainly was interesting to me about the book is that I often recognised things that Ferguson was describing from Korea which I think illustrates that a lot of the Japanese myths about uniqueness and inscrutableness can certainly be ignored.

He certainly had a very enjoyable writing style, so it was fun to read about Ferguson's experiences but I think that I may already have turned into one of those tiresome Kerouac fans. There just is a Dean Moriarty shaped spectre harassing anyone who writes about road trips, and it wasn't possible for Ferguson to meet it (even if he is Canadian). The book also frustrated me a little, it contained so many truly arresting thoughts and moments of analysis and yet I'd feel that I was wandering down a really interesting path only to discover that the author had broken off (in a drunken stupor more often than not) and the next chapter would begin with a new dawn, a new day and completely unrelated musings. I really feel that several chapters in and of themselves could have been plundered and expanded into academic articles. Obviously it is supposed to be a good little earner for Ferguson, he pretty much admitted that he aimed to write something that would sell. That's fine, but I just feel like I've been cheated out of something more. Also compared to the light-hearted, jocular tone of most of Hokkaido I felt that the ending was rather stark and feel that it would have been nice to have that tone developed more rather than just cutting off as things were really starting to get interesting.

Ferguson trying to explain to people that he was Canadian not American did resonate for me. I suppose it must be more difficult for Canadians to get the point across because their accent generally sounds fairly American. In Korea there are a lot of Canucks so they don't have much of a problem, I often get asked "So are you American or Canadian?". That whole sequence with the elderly father who'd been a POW in America and learnt English as a result was so painful to read and so well rendered. I'd imagine that the experiences of WW2 (not particularly Yossarian's, but hey it's a nice way to relate everything) that still seem to pervade and almost haunt Japan, at least according to Ferguson, must present a stumbling block for Westerners in Japan- especially if they're North American, older and male. Well I'm none of those things, and while I do have the added bonus of being Jewish I'm unlikely to develop an understanding of nuclear physics or a desire to bomb Japan specifically. So that's alright then.

One thing that did kind of bug me about the book was all of Ferguson's waffling about the desire of men in general, and him in particular to 'save' women and his somewhat smug feeling that he was making an original point. I just wanted to pluck him out of the book and tell him, "darling, there's already been reams and reams written on this subject I promise, so save yourself the ink". Aside from that there wasn't anything that really got on my nerves. It was certainly a very enjoyable read, but I kind of wished that I had had it with me to read on the plane as a light-hearted travel book when my brain wasn't engaged much. Since I didn't I think that I was plumbing its depths for something more than was actually included and finding minor foibles that I could have otherwise ignored.

Thanks to HarperCollins making Neverwhere available online for free I finally got around to reading it. The main character, Richard Mayhew, seemed to be a bit of a Neil Gaiman stand-in, with a rumpled, just woken up look and a mop of messy hair that's strangely attractive to women. (I too know this pain, seriously.) It was delightful to read something set in London, especially one so close to "my" London not only in terms of being a contemporary one (as opposed to a Dickensian one) but just in terms of the resonance that the description had for me:

"filled with colour... It was a city of red brick and white stone, red buses and large black taxis, bright red mailboxes and green grassy parks and cemeteries. It was a city in which the very old and the awkwardly new jostled each other, not uncomfortably, but without respect; a city of shops and offices and restaurants and home, of parks and churches, of ignored monuments and remarkably unpalatial palaces, a city of hundreds of districts with strange names...and oddly distinct identities; a noisy, dirty, cheerful, troubled city which fed on tourists, needed them as it despised them, in which the average speed of transportation through the city had not increased in three hundred years... a city inhabited by and teeming with people of every colour and manner and kind"

I liked this book for the same reason that I liked the television series that preceded it, and maybe it is because I'm a Londoner, it takes the London Underground- something that on the surface seems like a proud symbol of the triumph of technology- and turns it into something wonderfully whimsical. Even the commonplace capitalisation of the word Underground makes it look some surreal alterna-world full of mystical creatures, rather like the world of Holly Short et al in the Artemis Fowl series. Plus it's a word that starts and ends with the same three letters, and everyone knows that repetition features a lot in the casting of spells. Furthermore while the Tube is a symbol of something ultra-modern it has retained an inextricable link with the early nineteenth century railways of London, perhaps in part due to the fact that the service hasn't noticeably improved. The "handy fiction" of the Tube map hasn't altered its design all that much since 1933 either. (Harry Beck was from Finchley, you know.) There's also the allure of the closed stations, such as the British Museum station, York Road, "The Bull and Bush" station (North End), Down Street etc, which bring with them the connotation of hidden and secret locales. I think it's a large part of most Londoner's repertoire of trivia about their city, as well as the way that some stations have changed their names- sometimes because the area's name has changed too. There's a suggestion of mystique, and I think a feeling that these stations somehow hold the key to London's not quite tangibly accessible past.

I suppose this is particularly pertinent to me, since I hail from a teeny little area of the 'burbs called Mill Hill East. Not only does it have a ridiculously small local "Underground" over ground with a single platform that looks like it could have come straight out of a village postcard, there are tracks leading away from it that abruptly stop. They were part of a plan to connect MHE tube to stations other than Finchley Central, which actually would have been helpful to my life, but even when you know the explanation tracks that lead to nowhere just seem somewhat mysterious. There is this slight sensation that they really ought to lead to somewhere, and perhaps would if only one knew how to make them. It really always did seem like something straight out of a fantasy novel to me, and perhaps one day it will be. So I'll shut up about it now.

I think that this romanticism towards trains might be a uniquely British thing. Ian Hislop has apparently been going on about trains and hating on Richard Beeching, as he should. I know that railways played a crucial role in the histories of many other countries, and their importance for American expansion was emphasised in Atlas Shrugs. Although there was a lot of focus on the role of railroads in the book, and certainly they aroused passion in some of the characters, it was with a sort of calculated, organised ideal in mind if not in practice. The reality of rail building in Britain was completely slap-dash in contrast. The image of steam train pulling into a village station seems quintessentially British, and unquestionably storybook-esque. There's a reason that Beckonscot model village is filled with working model trains and has a miniature version of Enid Blyton's house, and there's a reason that I love the place. I think I'm too tired to articulate that reason very well, but basically: whee, trains! Guv'nor. Cheers. Cheerio. Innit.

I really don't feel that the novel was at all ruined by the fact that I knew what was coming almost continuously from first watching the show, which is a testament to how well it's written and how magnificently it maintains the tension running through it. I think that the novel was obviously able to be a lot richer and more detailed than the show could be, and it won't age as badly or as obviously as the show already has. There was also a lot more freedom in terms of locations and how they were decked out. I think the idea of the markets in Harrods and the HMS Belfast was a brilliant one. I also really like the names in Neverwhere, the names of Door's family delighted me and I especially loved the Marquis de Carabas because I've always loved Puss in Boots.

I could understand why Richard felt that he ought to go back home towards the end of the book, but I was so glad when he did decide to return to London Below. I suppose I needed a taste of that after the bleak ending of Hokkaido Highway Blues, I think I simultaneously believe that people are altered by their adventures and remain in the realm in which they happened and that this in no way applies to me. I'm sneaky like that. I'm also really glad that he didn't end up with Door, especially because I think I'd reached the point at which I'd happily pay someone money if they could hand me something good in which the two leads don't either end up together or being tragically separate from each other and being filled with yearning, longing and quiet desperation. So thank you Neil Gaiman.

Considering that I devoured Neverwhere over only two days at odd intervals that I could snatch when I could get a glance at a decent computer screen, I read surprisingly few books this month. Mostly I'm going to blame that on Closing Time, the sequel to Catch-22, because it took me a long time to get into and therefore to complete. I think the clue as to why that was the case is in the description, I'm still not sure exactly why Heller decided to write a sequel to the absurdly popular and wonderful Catch-22, and after completing it it's still hard for me to work out how I feel about it. While it was nice to revisit characters such as Yossarian and the Chaplain, it was really jarring to see these favourites as old men. If it was weird for me who only read Catch-22 a couple of weeks before embarking on Closing Time it must have been more shocking and disorienting for older fans of the book and its characters.

Maybe in part that was what Heller was commenting on though. It was certainly weird to read about Yossarian as a somewhat successful businessman with understandable worries about his children, in a way that it wasn't strange to think of the Chapman as an old man or Milo with an heir. Yossarian was this amazing anti-hero of a character, who was compelling because he was splendid and strong. Obviously it's realistic that if he wasn't killed then he might well have become the man that he did in Closing Time, but that doesn't mean that it's something that I want to read about. It feels as if Yossarian ought to have been left as a symbol unsullied by life during peacetime, let alone by the ravages of old age.

I don't particularly want to read about beloved characters getting old and dying. Heller forces the audience to face that, largely in part because he was an old man by the time he wrote this sequel. Maybe if I ever get old I'll appreciate this book more, but for now I just found it more depressing than anything. The whole storyline with George C. Tilyou et al "living" on under the Earth was incredibly random. It certainly had the potential to be a captivating sub-plot but I feel that it was never properly explored. Catch-22 didn't really dabble in the mystical or fantastical, and yet its sequel appeared to matter of factly include the possibilities of eternal life, as well as Hell. Mr Gaffney's connection to this place was never investigated satisfactorily, and certainly Yossarian's wasn't either. Maybe Heller just wanted to write a bit about Hell so that lame people like me would make crappy jokes about his name. Well I shan't give him the satisfaction, so there.

I found the stories of both Lew and Sammy to be fairly interesting, although initially it was difficult for me to work ought why I ought to care about them. At least Sammy was well tied in because it transpired that he'd been the kid in the plane fainting when Snowden had died. I liked that that pivotal scene remained important in the sequel, and that it had never lost its significance for Yossarian or Sam Singer; that it had stuck with them as something which made the war "real" to them. Sam's resonance and importance slowly interested me in Lew, and Michael Yossarian and M2 were somewhat intriguing simply because of their paternity. The Chapman was isolated from everyone else for almost the entire novel because he'd been producing heavy water accidentally. It was a ridiculous storyline, of course, but it played out entertainingly I guess. I quite liked the character of Mr Gaffney, his behaviour certainly amused me as did the other PIs and the utterly bizarre nature of the society wedding being held in the bus terminal.

A couple of minor characters who you might recognise where inserted too, Joey Heller and Kurt Vonnegut, which struck me as a little odd. I have a feeling that Heller was trying to create a much more Jewish-tinged version of Catch-22, doing this with the inclusion of Lew and Sammy, and with minor characters like Joey Heller. Also Yossarian mentioned that he was of possibly Semitic descent. If Heller wanted to write about his Coney Island youth he ought to have done that, if he wanted to write about old age he ought to have done that, if he wanted to write satirically but a little too bluntly about stupid politicians he ought to have done that but I feel that he didn't need to drag Yossarian and the others into it. There were a few self-referential comments from some of characters too about both the actual Catch-22 itself and about the film of Catch-22. I can see what Heller was trying to do with such references, but I don't think that it quite worked. If the entirety of Closing Time was mostly a send up of Catch-22 it could have succeeded, but it was this sprawling mass that was just trying to be far too many things at once for it to really be anything at all.

I've just started reading Howl's Moving Castle, which I'm liking quite a bit so far. I guess it's providing welcome a relief to Closing Time since it's a reasonably straight forward fantasy book, and while it does definitely deal with the theme of aging it does it in a much more light-hearted way that's eminently more engaging for me. I had a feeling that I didn't like Diana Wynn Jones, but I'm not entirely sure from whence that nagging emotion came.

I know that when I was younger I was always eager to get my hands on any books I could, especially those that came from genres I knew that I liked such as fantasy, and this led to me becoming a sort of garbage disposal bin for the written word. Several relatives and family friends thought they could fling any books at me and I'd enjoy them, even if they really didn't appeal to me or were very, very bad. My aunt used to do it too, since she's a school librarian by trade she used to like using me as a booky guinea pig. Sometimes this had positive effects, I never would have read the first Harry Potter, at least not so early, if it hadn't been foisted on me. The cover art was so ugly and I was so bored of books about troubled boys who became wizards that I stuck it right at the bottom of my to-read pile, and even did my fractions homework inside (in pencil at least). At other times it just annoyed me though, I think I have my aunt to thank for the fact that I can't quite stand Michael Morpurgo or Phillip Pullman (maybe I just don't like alliteration as much as I think I do), but I'm not quite sure I can blame her for DWJ too. Maybe I just mentally listed her with the other semi-insipid fantasy writers who just produced something standard that wasn't overly-appealing after reading a dull introduction or something.

Either way I feel a little bad about it, as I am definitely enjoying the book. It seems to gently mock the conventions of the fantasy genre it belongs to, while not violently breaking away from it either. The sibling switcheroo amused me too, since it reminded me of Alanna and Thom doing so at the beginning of The Song of the Lioness quartet (three years earlier, might I add). I think that actually I'm already preferring the book to the film. While the film was enjoyable, it had a slightly incomprehensible quality to it- as if there was more to the myth of it which I just didn't have access to. The book is simpler because it is more straight forward, and thus the characters are more understandable and likeable. I think this is a simply fun fantasy novel which I can definitely see myself enjoying but ultimately it probably won't become a solid favourite. You never know though, stranger things certainly have happened.

here, it's almost like we're blessed...

I've just returned from an extended weekend away with Elica's family for Chuseok, which I've (probably erroneously) been describing as sort of a Korean version of Dia de los Muertos except in daylight and with soju. Whatever, a holiday's a holiday- and a holiday with huge meals, practical religiosity and a large amount of naptime is definitely good with me.

Asides from the fact that now I have to actually go back to work to earn my bread bibimbap I think I've found my way back to believing in the heady concept of pronoia (the idea of the universe is conspiring to shower you with good things), which really is a bit of a relief after the annoying twist that life was taking last week. Various things ought to have gone badly lately, and yet they someone haven't.

After the incident with Tanky, his Wifey and their poster I was a little worried about work, since I really didn't want to have to deal with him and his insanity. I managed to avoid him almost all week, often utilising some of my reserve store of extremely bitchy behaviour such as point blank ignoring him when he's speaking to me, but really what else can one do in response to a person who tries to maintain a conversation with someone who's in bed in the dark with the covers over their head, facing away and making conspicuously loud snoring noises? I was gratified to discover that basically everyone else at work hates him too, I didn't even have to whip up a frenzy of hatred (except with Freemason who has somehow magically managed to avoid conversation with the idiot, but he was willing to detest him vicariously) since his penchant for being inconsiderate and pompous converted everyone. Though when Ruby, Minievil (who was briefly back in Seoul, only to be shipped out to Japan and now LA on a visa quest) and I returned from lunch last Monday Tanky promptly presented me with a Homer Simpson doll of my very own! There's absolutely no way to respond to an "I'm sorry that I'm a complete weirdo, and that you got involved in a very weird dispute about a poster" gift, and it gets even more confusing when you're intent on maintaining a rude and discouraging attitude, so I just went to sleep instead.

I've had the opportunity to sleep at work a lot of late, thanks to a schedule shift which made Ruby my partner and brought her onto my (block) shift- meaning that she no longer has most of the students she had before. Since she sucks completely and utterly she's abandoning us next month to be with her annoying beau Bo in NY, and then possibly returning to "Chonto". This does mean that she's not angling for a sensible amount of students however, and she's willing to let her booking rate slide down to subterranean levels. I'm not sure what's going to happen to me next month though when I get another new partner- let's all just hope and pray that I don't get moved onto the split shift!

All this free time has been very beneficial for my well being, in that I can go out and get pissed and then spend all the work day recovering in bed at work instead of dying in my lessons staring blearily at my students and groping desperately for my can of Dr Pepper. Last Monday was great because Elica and I headed to noribang and sang, or rather screamed, all our troubles away! Normally I don't really like karaoke/noribang, but I think I finally understand the point of it after getting so frustrated by the existence of Tanky and his insaniac wife. It is great to have, in Elica, someone who lived in England (and for much of that time in London) around a lot. It sounds silly but it really does make a difference when the vast majority of the ex-pats/freeloaders are North Americans, and American English is the predominant vernacular taught, spoken and understood. I think that's part of why I immediately got on so well with Aryan and (Kiwi) Baker, as well as the Irish boys- it's a little thing but it definitely makes a difference. Elica and I have our own "code" of British slang and insults that puzzles the others- to our delight, and I break out laughing every time she accidentally calls Seoul's subway "the Tube".

She's also one of the few people I know here who'd chose Britpop (Beautiful Ones by Suede in this case) at noribang, and I have to say that our primal scream therapy session seriously worked- due in part to some of my inspired choices. Sadly many of said wonderful gems have slipped just past my haze of remembrance, but I do recollect Fernando by ABBA, Shout by Tears for Fears and Jambalaya (The Carpenters' version for some reason, but I persisted in doing a Hank Williams "impression") being fantastic. Later on that night at Bumpin' Bendy filled us up with booze which he alternated between gifting to us and getting other patrons to pay for. He then let me DJ again, which isn't necessarily something that a sane person wants to do. I was very happy to discover, and inflict, both Jambalaya (this time the proper version) and Mrs Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter (three guesses as to my mother's name, and the first two don't count).

Getting to work extremely hungover and sleep deprived only to discover you've got several hours before you're expected to do anything is a wonderful feeling. When it's accompanied by the slight annoyance of your MP3 player battery running low it is made a billion times better by your new (60GB!) iRiver having arrived in the office (thanks to a wonderful shiny boyfriend).



It left me feeling the pronoia vibe to levels pretty much beyond belief... Of course said MP3 player had to be a bitch and fuck around not behave (her/it/his?)-self properly but I've ironed out most of the kinks, and think I should be able to get everything working smoothly. Eventually.

I even had time to watch a film at work the other day (although in retrospect maybe I should have just collapsed into bed since the sleep deprivation hit me hard later). Although I did watch a good solid chunk of The Experiment (a German film based on Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment that seemed pretty good and I would like to watch it in full at some point, even if it did dredge up memories of an exceptionally dull A Level in Psychology) with 2.0 when he still worked there, and FYI my company really needs to improve its security- I can barely turn around without tripping over a former employee, the unreliable nature of the torrents and the evil interventions of Computer Guy means that actually getting to watch your downloads at work is by no means guaranteed. Wow, that sentence was way too long but I simply cannot be bothered to edit it. Ho-hum. Anyway I was pretty excited when I got to watch Slither.

Slither being a ridiculously cheesy horror movie from '06 (fun fact though: apparently it was only released in Korea very recently, so I'm actually kind of with the times, even if I didn't know it), which I think would usually be more Lyca's cup of tea than mine but James Gunn had obviously realised that if you want to get me to watch something there's a few ways that rarely fail- and one of them is a Buffy alum. Nathan Fillion not only fits that criteria but he's also obviously a graduate of the Firefly/Serenity-verse (and now of Dr Horrible's too, but that hadn't been made yet way back in aught-six), is generally just incredibly adorable and I totally have a voicecrush on the man. The film was somewhat preposterous, and I'm almost annoyed at Alan Tudyk for hyping it up, except that him doing so was seriously all kinds of cute so I'm having a problem getting appropriately angry.

It's a pretty standard plot- an alien (in this case, literally) entity has infected someone and this infection is spreading and taking everyone over, whilst a small band have withstood the attack and now have to save the world against seemingly impossible odds! The SFX were actually pretty cool (and unbelievably gross, but in an awesome way), I especially liked the ridiculous squid-Grant and the guy getting sliced in two. When did I turn into a fourteen year old boy? Oh, right. Well I'll pretend to be an anthropologista for a moment... This film did have one of the most redundantly explicit infestation-as-rape scenes that I've ever seen (although I suppose that's not saying much since I don't watch films), featuring the infected Grant visiting Brenda who's desperate to be his bit on the side. Grant unbuttons his shirt to reveal two unmistakably phallic protrusions- then pierces her skin while she struggles against him. The scene is clearly shot as a rape, and it was pretty disturbing- especially when intercut with Grant's wife Starla innocently dancing and enjoying herself with Bill (ah Nathan). I can't quite decide whether or not I liked it though- since this is a relatively tongue in cheek horror-comedy I assume that this was a "knowing" scene, nodding to and slightly mocking this tendency of horror flicks. All well and good, but it didn't exactly make pleasant viewing- not to mention Brenda's throes as the camera finally pulled away seemed more orgasmic than deathly which just... is actually something which could be brilliantly disturbing but since it wasn't developed at all and this seems like completely the wrong setting it was just mostly annoying. Unless they were in fact a completely different kind of shudder, in which case just chalk it up to me babbling bullshit as per.

Brenda comically ended up as brood mare for the aliens- Grant fattened her up with a variety of local pets etc to the point where she looked like Veruca Salt, or possibly Balthazar from Buffy (that suit was clearly re-used in the last episode of The Inside). She then exploded pouring a load of gross wriggling beings, all apparently controlled by a hive mentality. The wrigglers infect people via the mouth, and do so very quickly and effectively most of the time- although the lead characters must have very bad breath or something because they somehow withstand the attack. Plot devices don't annoy me too much though when they result in wonderful almost grope-y scenes between Nathan Fillion and Elizabeth Banks (who has a very nice arse, and was somehow incredibly hot in this film despite not performing her eye candy duty in Scrubs particularly well). The weird little aliens also brought about a completely ridiculous scene involving the teen aged Kylie choking on one of these suspiciously phallic larvae. These rape scenes deserve applause I suppose, if only for getting past the censors who would have frowned on any actual sex scenes. Funny old world.

The possessed people tended to become inexplicably stupider, less aggressive and shockingly incompetent when faced with Kylie, Starla or Bill. Consistency is clearly for the weak! They also quickly took to resembling zombies, I'm always a little miffed when a movie sneakily turns into a zombie flick- but nowadays that just reminds me of Dean getting all excited about them in Time is on my Side, so I can cope. They served the story well enough, but whenever they turned into complete idiots around the lead characters I had to roll my eyes. A lot.

This film did have some of the lamest exposition ever. Case in point: instead of clunkily discussing the grenade that Bill later decides is the key to saving everyone when grabbing weapons to go Grant-hunting and sagely deciding to leave it behind for no reason whatsoever, why not include the confiscation of the grenade at the beginning of the film, or randomly include the (pretty funny) anecdote about people trying to fish with it? When a devout Supernatural fan is chiding your exposition you know you're in trouble, Time is on my Side actually has a scene in which Dean waves a bottle of chloroform at Doc Benton and tells him slowly and carefully that the knife he just stabbed him with was dipped in the bottle. It's almost brilliantly absurd in its majestic move of beating the audience over the head with the point, but anything delivered by a maniacally grinning Jensen Ackles somehow works.

Similarly I could forgive Slither many of its worst faux-pas because Bill was simply so endearing. In part I suppose it's because it's always nice to hear Nathan get to swear angrily, but this was coupled with a truly likable character:

Wally: I'm surprised you're able to lift a mug, you've been carrying that torch for so long.
Bill: Oh, that reminds me. There's something I wanted to tell you.
Wally: What's that?
Billy: Fuck you, fatass.

I have retained an unabashed love of Nathan Fillion, even though he's no longer exactly the Captain Tightpants of yore. He was never exactly conventionally gorgeous (although I'm not knocking the nekkid scene from Firefly), so I'm not too fussed about his recent change to going around being puffy eyed and scruffy- especially as he's almost working it.

One thing I did love about the movie was the women. With the exception of Brenda they were pretty kickass. Kylie was great and managed to be pretty funny under pressure, which is always a bonus. She managed to save Bill from an evil deer, and even let him take the credit (although not all that enthusiastically). I especially loved Starla trying to lure Grant by being all sweet to him, just so she could get close enough to whip out her mirror from her underwear and try to stab him. I'm glad that Starla and Bill got their happy ending, and I liked the call back to the whole running away to Hollywood idea. In short, a reasonably entertaining movie- especially if you actually like Nathan Fillion or these kind of horror films.

The latest thing (asides from the distinct lack of crowds on the subway) which had me beaming with pronoic joy was Supernatural. I was a little bored (and had finished my book) when I wandered downstairs and found that everyone was up from their nap too. What came on television to entertain me? That's right, a subtitled (not dubbed!) episode of Supernatural, in fact the very one I'd wanted to watch after seeing the finale of Carnivale- Scarecrow. Season one of Supernatural was apparently even cheesier than I remembered, but it was also chock full of man pain. Nicki Aycock as Meg was way more of a sex kitten than I remembered too (which is odd, because I certainly recalled that she was pretty darn coquettish). The (classic) brotherly moments were brilliant too:

Dean: So what made you change your mind?
Sam: I didn't. I still want to find Dad. And you're still a pain in the ass. But, Jess and Mom- they're both gone. Dad is God knows where. You and me. We're all that's left. So, if we're gonna see this through, we're gonna do it together.
Dean: (pause) Hold me, Sam That was beautiful.
Sam: You should be kissing my ass! You were dead meat, dude.

And Jesus Christ, I always forget but Jensen has a ridiculously deep voice. I suppose it isn't really Jensen's voice since it hisn't his "natural" accent, but is the pitch put on as well? Has someone got some comparative data from his other roles and interviews? Fandom has just about everything, so I wouldn't be surprised. Here have a link to an essay about trauma and PTSD in Supernatural to prove my point. I didn't feel too bad about perving on baby-Jared, since he didn't look as young as I feared. I'll cleanse my palette with very recent pictures from the charity soapbox derby, in which Jared is clearly the hotter of the two. I don't quite know what's going on. (Actually wandering off into another fandom- if it really can be classed as that- proves that it really does have everything. Someone wrote fanfic about Neil Gaiman's webelf. Did I mention that I love the internet?)

I seriously can't wait til I get around to rewatching Supernatural (although I have no idea when), it's going to be so fun and you just know I'll have far too much to say about it (although never as well or as succinctly as kroki_refur's ten expressions). I'm sure that after watching all of The X-Files I'll find a lot of new little things to be amused by, since Supernatural has filched quite a few of The X-Files' cast and crew over the last couple of years. In Scarecrow I realised that the supposedly nice professor was clearly a bad guy straight away this time- because he was played by the Cigarette Smoking Man. There was also a brilliant rainy-umbrella-Vancouver moment. Significant for reals.

Alright I plan to write a little something about vampirism and identity soon, but before I toddle off allow me to share some important/amusing links with you:

*A science writer's (Jenny Oullette's) take on the US election which I found interesting and informative
*Neverwhere, which I've not read but have wanted to for a while especially since watching the original show, is available to read online for a short period
*It turns out that there is a reason for leaf blowers after all
*Christian Bale and Kermit have more in common than you might realise... seriously, don't you think it's weird that you never see them in a room together?
*Juliet Landau directed a film about Gary Oldman directing a video for a Jewish hip hop group with a mobile phone. True story!

And, goodnight.

How do I feel, what do I say? In the end it all goes away! (Sugar!)

Sometimes I worry that I live in a completely different reality to other people. I'm pretty sure that it's other people who are the insane ones though. For example,

Scotty: You were so funny that night!
Me: Hwha?
Scotty: I can't believe you slept on the floor!
Me: What are you talking about? I slept on the bed!
Scotty: Really? Oh, well I can't believe you offered to sleep on the floor anyway.
Me: What? That was you!
Scotty: Hwha?
Jojo: Would both of you idiots shut up?

My current uneasiness with FB is stemming from mild confusion too I think. First off I'm not comfortable with the idea of being liked. Being adored, admired and appreciated is all good, but I can't think of anything more creepy than the experience of having some sycophantic person telling me that I'm "so cool". Shudder. FB isn't likely to do something like that, thankfully. However he has the irritating crush thing going (although it's Friday now, so perhaps he's over it by now, who knows?), which wouldn't be as bad as it is if it wasn't for the moony eyes. I'm completely incapable of dealing with other people's emotional lives, I just avert my eyes and talk about food or something. I could just ignore him (and thus the whole thing) quite successfully, but the problem is that he is fairly awesome (when he isn't gazing, or annoying me on purpose) especially when bitching- and the five year old in me can't understand why I should have to give something up when I didn't do anything. He's the stupid one, why should I have to deal with the consequences?

Anyway, we had a lengthy (and highly amusing) conversation at some point on Friday (when we were somewhere along the drunk-hungover axis), which climaxed (heh) with:

Him: My ex-fuck buddy's supposed to coming over later, but I really don't want to have sex with her again cos it'll just confuse things even more. I think I'm gonna have to go for a run and then masturbate [*].
Me: *gigglesnort* Have fun!

[*]Who actually uses the word 'masturbate'? I decided to produce this verbatim and not edit it to 'wank' (which is a wonderful and versatile word) because I think it adds to the ridiculousness.

My interpretation of the thrust of the conversation was something along the lines of "look, I know that you know that I like you, and I know that you know that I know that you don't like me like that and nothing's going to happen so I just want things to be cool between us and not awkward". When I explained the whole thing to J however she looked at me aghast and claimed that the correct translation was "I turned down sex for you! Love me, love me, say that you love me...", whilst I'm hoping that she's just being paranoid and insane I'm now a little disturbed. I'm giving FB a fairly wide berth, and accepting the challenge of being as unlikable as possible. If anyone can do it, I think it's me.

Meanwhile K and S are involved in some convoluted and highly disturbing courtship ritual as far as I can tell. This mostly consists of them winding each other up, trying to involve me in their dramas and occasionally getting drunk and nuzzling while they reminisce about past nuzzling incidents. Somehow though it was me who ended up sprawled out on top of K in the street whilst S rolled his eyes. It's a funny old world.

Instead of dealing with said world, how about a dram of escapism? I love the fact that I didn't come across this until I'd actually read Atlas Shrugs: if famous authors wrote fanfiction. It features Anne Rice's take on LOTR, Nicholas Sparks on Star Wars (although it could easily be Mitch Albom instead!), David Sedaris on Harry Potter and, best of all, Ayn Rand on Buffy. Can you imagine anything more perfect? It doesn't contain any spoilers beyond the most basic premises (so if you didn't want to know that there's vampires in Buffy...well oops, it's too late now). On the subject of fanfiction, I discovered Neil Gaiman's explanation of slash which was great, especially this part "It's normally written by extremely nice ladies. I have several very sane, respected, and respectable friends who write slash fiction, and do not try to make me read it". I've also been feeling quite a lot of love for his song I Google You. I recommend reading through the interesting comments on that post, and not only because NG popped by to post the lyrics. I now really want to read The Physics of the Buffyverse, yes a book about the science of Buffy has been published. Ask me again why I love fandom. It sounds like such an interesting book, as does Oullette's other book Black Bodies and Quantum Cats. I love science, especially biology and physics, and was semi-seriously considering dropping out of SOAS in my second year to go and study physics somewhere (not that I'd be able to with no appropriate A levels). I think that was probably fuelled by reading The Science of the Discworld, which is a wonderfully eloquent (and passionate) book. The fact that Oullette was actually an English major who accidentally ended up doing science writing makes it all the more interesting and appealing to me. I think I might actually end up ordering The Physics of the Buffyverse, I haven't ordered anything to my new address yet. Fun, fun fun!

Speaking of the interwebs (see how this all, sort of, inter-relates seamlessly?) Lifehacker's top 10 Youtube hacks actually looks pretty useful. I haven't had a chance to implement their ideas yet but their Better Youtube Firefox Extension sounds pretty good (having the option to turn off the autoplay is a brilliant idea) and their filegrabbing suggestions sound good. My geeky side is also hoping to sort out the last.fm blogger widget properly, but in case that takes a while I can at least post it in an entry. Hopefully it won't fuck up!





My sister (AKA Sib) was a little derisive as to the extreme nerdiness of my entries. She just wishes she was cool enough to understand it all. Harrumph like a hippo. The Park Bench is a pretty fun nerdy-lady blog which I've been enjoying. It also furnished me with the link to the 10 geeky movies that should have been great but weren't. I'm in broad agreement with most of it, the Hitchhiker's film was incredibly disappointing (except for the parts which involved Neil Hannon singing) and the Matrix sequels were a pile of wank. I haven't actually seen any of the others (being as I don't watch films) but I feel this vindicates my choice not to watch the third Mummy film (I haven't actually seen the first two either, but I wouldn't be entirely averse to the idea if I could just get through the opening sequence of the first one), A.I., The Time Machine remake and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (of course no one would be foolish enough to want to watch Waterworld). I'd quite like to see the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory remake though, it sounds fun although probably not über-amazing or anything.

On the subject of awesome blogs I simply have to pimp the Saved By The Bell Quote of the Day blog, could there be a better idea for an online journal ever? Then, mixing my segues like others blend metaphorical cocktails, I'm going to wax poetical about a couple more lists. I always love those lists of the sexiest wo/men because they combine some of my favourite things: hotties, listing and the opportunity to get annoyed by something irrelevant. Often these lists include some really great irreverent commentary (I assume because I'm the only one who actually reads it they can get away with some brilliant randomness). The UGO.com (who, and also what?) 50 hottest women on TV list managed to throw in what I'd have to literally call bon mots, for example on the subject of America Ferrera:

"Yes, this sure is a big, funny world, isn't it? Throw some braces, bushy eyebrows and bad outfits on a beautiful young woman, and by Hollywood standards, you've got someone "ugly". Of course, we all know that Hollywood is the perfect arbiter of female body images. After all, they've done a bang up job in the past, so why should now be any different? ... it's about time the rest of the industry picked up on just how sexy those curves are."

Their choice for number 1 also made me very happy (a rare occurrence indeed when it comes to these lists). Mary-Louise Parker is indeed a buff ting, and Weeds is awesome. 'Nuff said.

The other list that I wanted to link to was this one of potential good directors for Batman 3 if Nolan steps down (beware of some spoilers for The Dark Knight). Sadly I didn't make the cut, but it was full of sensible suggestions nonetheless. I can't imagine why The Sib was accusing me of nerdiness, alright I did just download a comic but it took me longer to work out the viewing software. I think the geekdom initiation (and secret handshake lesson) are a ways off yet. The comic I downloaded was episode 17 of Buffy season 8 so beware of spoilers for it.

Episode 17 carried on the Fray crossover, which was interesting but a little bit confusing for me. I do want to get around to reading Fray at some point. The introduction stating that 'Buffy's fresh from another doomed relationship' kind of irked me, it's not as if she and Satsu had a (serious) relationship, and what I liked about that storyline was that Buffy finally had a chance to have a fun fling without their being despair and doom. I was pretty certain that the crazy dark haired seer being talked about was Dru (after all, who else could it be?) but the reveal at the end left me a bit dubious, this is where photorealism (or indeed real actors!) would come in useful, otherwise it isn't that easy to be certain that it actually is Drusilla. In fact I thought that image looked a bit like dark Willow... I'll just have to wait for episode 18, dammit! I loved the fact that Buffy actually got to time travel (that's something that never got explored on the show, although there was a time loop), and that little moment where ever-capable Buffy suddenly realises "this is really happening" was wonderful. I liked her whinging about the fact that future-English makes no sense, and her claim that she should have treated the English language better. There was also a hilarious moment where she realised that her stance in that flimsy dress meant that she was flashing her (orange polka dot) underwear, quite a departure from her behaviour in seasons 1 and 2.

I felt a bit like they were trying to at least vaguely set up the idea of Xander moving on and getting into a new relationship, although I could be reading too much into it. He just seemed a bit grabby with Rowena (and we all know that Xander has a Slayer-fetish so that would make sense). Whilst he wasn't acting at all inappropriately with Dawn I thought that perhaps the 'riding' set up/joke (combined with incidents in previous episodes, such as him falling into her giant sized camisole) might be an attempt to foreshadow something. Then again that's what's so fun about Buffy, it encourages viewers/readers to BYO subtext. There's always the possibility of having Xander end up with Dracula I suppose, but somehow I don't think there's going to be a triage of bi-/homo-/alternative sexuality for the main Scoobies, and Xander does really have to remain as the Everyman (and avatar of Joss). Right at the end Harth's speech about his twin sister being his 'true love' suggests there's going to be overtones of wacky vampire incest coming up. Oh the hilarity! Here endeth the season eight spoilers.

The letters page also introduced an excellent concept to me- pronoia. It's the opposite of paranoia, and apparently is the sneaking suspicion that the whole world is conspiring to shower you with blessings. Honestly that is sometimes how I feel when I get to feed my obsessions, yay there are shiny, pretty things! I did get around to reading Sugarshock! the other day too. It's up on myspace but I don't think the transitions are made very clear, so if you want to check it out here's part one, two and three. It's not the deepest thing in the world, but it's a really fun comic and you don't have to get too invested in it. I'd definitely recommend it (especially to you Nanzo!) and can see why it won awards.

It's getting so exciting

The Bonnie Tyler cover of Getting So Exciting never fails to make me giggle. Maybe it's because I spent most of my childhood dancing on my parents' bed to the original.



Fandom, and in fact just the world, is making me excited about various upcoming happenings. Amongst them:

1) The Coraline movie. I'd heard that it was being made but I thought that that was probably meant in the vague way that films of books I like are often being made, but no- this is actually happening! It looks pretty good- how can an animated stop-motion version directed by Henry Selick go too wrong? I do like The Nightmare Before Christmas (which he directed), although not as much as some people. Probably I'm hampered by not watching it at the correct stage in my life, I never saw it as a child so I first watched it in my first year of university. Admittedly I can kind of understand why people rolled their eyes at my main gripe (that it's lodged in a very specific American and Christian worldview, as evidenced by the other holiday tree/portals that exist), but it doesn't mean that it's completely devoid of validity. Apparently Coraline makes use of the new 3D technology too, which I've heard mostly encouraging things about, perhaps it's going to bring back the importance of the cinema if people actually have a reason to not just download/wait for the DVD?

There are five promos (of sorts) up if your curiosity is piqued. Gosh darn it, it's making me want to re-read Coraline now since I read it so long ago, I think it may have been the first of Neil Gaiman's work that I ever encountered (unless that honour in fact goes to Good Omens). It's wonderfully whimsical but also manages to be deliciously creepy too, and in a much better way than something like The Spiderwick Chronicles for example (although to be fair I only saw the film, and that wasn't bad, especially since it had Mary-Louise Parker in it). I quite like the look of the casting and think that Teri Hatcher is a good choice, and Dakota Fanning doesn't seem as excessively annoying as I thought she would be. It does seem a bit weird to hear Coraline speaking with an American accent, but not excessively horrible. I just love the way that Neil Gaiman speaks during interviews, he sounds like a deliberating maniac who might just offer you some tea.

2) Dollhouse. Obviously I was hella excited the moment I heard about a new Joss Whedon/Eliza Dushku project for various reasons, but the more I discover the better it sounds. It has a very interesting premise, people who can be imprinted with any persona (and associated skills, memories, languages etc) which are then wiped clean when their task is completed. The main character, Echo (played by Dushku), basically starts to become self-aware. I think it's an idea which allows the writers to explore a lot of really interesting material, as this interview discussing the nature/nurture debate makes clear, as well as create some great stand-alone scenarios for a series that by it's very nature doesn't need to be overly self-referential. I think it'll be great to see Eliza (or rather Eliza-as-Echo) playing all these different characters, and in some fabulous outfits I imagine! Also Tahmoh Penikett seems insanely adorable, and apparently Amy Acker has a recurring role too.

3) The Internet finally surpassing Hollywood/the movie industry. Apparently it's going to happen any moment now, for real this time. Alright, probably not at exactly this moment, but the media promises me that it's coming! It's obvious that people's viewing habits have been irrevocably changed by Web 2.0, and eventually film and television executives are going to have to take these trends into account far more than they have been doing. In their absence, it's the writers and producers who are starting to take note instead. Why wouldn't they, in a world that no longer has an expanding television industry and instead a weird trigger-happy response to most shows? It's not just Firefly and Wonderfalls, myriad good shows are constantly being cancelled prematurely, in fact getting a second season practically makes a show sound like a break-out success these days. Even shows with decent ratings like Supernatural are threatened, especially by idiotic executives like Dawn Ostroff who's precariously playing around with the fate of the entire CW network. There are a lot of interesting articles on the topic of digital media at the moment which are talking about the success of Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, I especially liked this one and was intrigued to see it discussed from a more business-oriented perspective on one of the Harvard Business blogs.

4) New seasons of pretty much everything in the next few months: Bones, Supernatural, House, Pushing Daisies, Gossip Girl, Californication... If I manage to get stuck into (and assuming I enjoy) How I Met Your Mother and Dexter by then I'll need to add them to the mix too! My life really needs more hours. I need to finish watching Carnivale before I get started on either of those two, plus I really do want to finally watch Life on Mars (which is sitting on my computer pouting for attention) soon too. Of all the shows the one that I'm most excited about is definitely Supernatural, and so I rather enjoyed this essay on A Very Supernatural Christmas (despite not feeling appropriately festive currently). I'm also fervently hoping for the (re-)return of the Ghostfacers to Supernatural, because they're adorable and awesome. Actually AJ Buckley and Travis Wester are wonderful in and of themselves, but especially when they, in-character, messed with Jared and Jensen's panel at Comic-Con. Here's a link to a video of said brilliance.

5) Not just Dollhouse, but pretty much anything Joss Whedon's involved in. Basically I've realised that I really need to check out more of the comics, I'm sure that I'm going to get drawn into the new Angel ones eventually, as well as Fray and the old Buffy (and probably Angel) ones too. In addition to that there's the Serenity ones, which I'm even more interested in now with the news that they're going to finally explain Shepherd Book's back story. Outside of the Jossverses that already have my love there's also the lure of his run on Astonishing X-Men (which will probably swiftly lead to what comes after), and I've heard good things about Runaways (not just his stint) and Sugarshock!. Sadly the blog which I was using to read comics scans is down (but will hopefully be resurrected in a new form soon) so I'm unlikely to get on with any of that at the moment, although Sugarshock! is available on myspace so I really have no excuse. With all the books/films/comics/television shows I'm trying to imbibe at the moment I'm quite glad that Monsieur Whedon doesn't have a load of films coming out right now, but this list of five movies that he should direct was fun, and actually pretty convincing. The article evilly made me want to read King Dork, and a load of books about the Civil War. I really want to be able to clone myself so I can comfortably keep up with all my obsessions.

6) The future of DC Comics superhero movies. I'm excited about the potential of a new Batman film (even though they probably won't let me ghost write), the next Superman film (cos wow did Superman Returns suck) and Wonder Woman (even though Joss is no longer involved). There's a brilliant article here which I really wish the appropriate people would take note of. I suppose that I do grudgingly support the idea of giving Bryan Singer another chance with Superman since I did really like the first two X-Men films, but I'm still pissed off at just how meh Superman Returns was. Also Supermax sounds brilliant, and there really do need to be some more superhero films launching (or re-launching) the story in a way that isn't just (or isn't at all) an origin tale. I'm going to end up reading the script for The Plastic Man now, aren't I? I really do seem to have a DC bias, I must be the only person in the world who is yet to see any of the Spiderman films, as well as Iron Man. I'll get round to it. Eventually.

7) More and more analysis of the Buffy season 8 comics. There's a really thoughtful and thought-provoking article about discussing the possible end of (lesbian) identity politics on AfterEllen.com which provides some great commentary. Beware it does contain spoilers for (and images from) the comics.

8) My possible descent into the heady world of RPF, although I'm not sure that that will actually happen. I've discovered real person fanfiction on my livejournal flist occasionally, using actors from the Weeds, Angel and West Wing fandoms, but I've never actually been able to get stuck into it and give up quickly. Somehow it just doesn't really appeal to me. However, I will read basically anything regardless of how ridiculous or potentially squicky it sounds, I know that basically anything can be turned into a good, and crucially, believable story in the hands of a great writer. I think the reason that the J2 fandom is so sizable is that Supernatural presents two (and only two, especially in the earlier seasons) ridiculously good looking characters with obvious chemistry. However, they're brothers. Obviously not everyone considers fraternal incest to be wackily hilarious, and so a lot of people would prefer to write (and/or read) about the attraction between their real life counterparts instead. Also when people write about (W)incest it tends to be dark and heart wrenching rather than light and fluffy for some reason, so the fictional tangled love lives of two actors become light relief by contrast. What I'm bowled over by is the fact that J2 + Sandy AU fic actually exists. It's not particularly well-written (in fact I can summarise it succinctly: "cock. arse. tits.") but I'm just enjoying the fact that it was created at all.

Also I've never really understood why fics like that are described as 'genderfuck' (or 'genderswap') since the characters genders don't change at all, it's merely their physical sex which has been altered. I suppose describing something as 'sexfuck' could be a little confusing however.

Here, have a video of Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk being amusing just because.

Pardon my overly revealing linking behaviour, and Young Americans misquoting.