rusty_halo

Common Rotation released a trailer for their upcoming DVD. It looks good. I love their mix of sincere underground ethics and cheerfully straight-faced morbid humor.

Oh yeah, and

10zlaine and I saw them in Boston two weekends ago. Wonderful show. Who knew that folk music could send an audience into such hysterics? Their shows contain by far the most laughter of any band I like. And some of their songs are really beautiful. And their lyrics are smart!

Okay, I'll stop raving. I know lots of people avoid this band because one of the guys was on TV, but seriously, they're good. The opposite of a vanity project in every way.

Oh yeah, and the vegan pizza at TJ Scallywaggles? So awesome. Oh my god. If I were to move to Boston, it would be 90% because of this restaurant.

My last post was an April Fool's joke, btw. I actually got a number of sincere condolence messages, so, yeah, just wanted to clarify that. I thought the "chronic incontinence," "slice of Kraft cheese found on the sidewalk," and, oh yeah, "cheese made from human man milk" would make the "joke" part pretty self-apparent... (not to mention the April 1 date).

Google's prank was one of the funniest things I've seen in a while. Free internet through your toilet, complete with endlessly cheesy double entendres.

Google TiSP ensures reliable throughput through the power of fiber, which has been proven through extensive research to effectively facilitate consistent data flow with minimal latency. And you can rest assured that under no circumstances will the TiSP system ever expose your privates.

Yes, I'm 12. Shut up.

And probably even funnier is the Google Group devoted to it, complete with outraged posts from idiots who thought it was real.

I'm really enjoying the posts at

grave_watchers. Although strangely it's making me want to go back and re-watch season one. I forgot how good Veronica Mars originally was. Really, if you just pretend it only had one season and ended, it actually stands up really well. (I'm so glad I never bought the second season!)

Current Mood: amused

Man, I don't read LJ for a few days and I totally miss Veronica Mars fandom exploding into a giant wankfest!

I've been catching up by reading

grave_watchers. I have to say, it's pretty impressive for a show to suck so badly that it inspires its own fans to start a campaign to get it canceled. (Of course, that's mostly hyperbole; the community is basically a place for fans to snark about the show, not waste their time actually campaigning to end it when 1) there are many more important issues going on in the world and 2) everyone knows it's going to get canceled anyway.)

Anyway. I spent an inordinate amount of time reading that community today and I found it highly entertaining. And, I admit, cathartic for the part of me that still held out a tiny bit of hope based on how awesome VM's first season was.

Actually what I'd really like to see is a campaign for 1) less offensive portrayals of strong women on television and 2) the immensely talented Jason Dohring to get a job far, far away from the VM writers.

There also interesting conversation about male writers and their clueless attempts at "feminist" protagonists going on at

gendervision. I'm not participating, because I think I pretty much got that rant out of my system during Buffy, but it's good to see the conversation continuing.

Other thoughts on the world of television...

* I keep seeing that baseball video game commercial that uses the Nirvana song "Breed." I think I can actually hear Kurt Cobain turning over in his grave every time the damn thing airs. I really want to track down everyone who was involved with making this happen and slap them across the face. HARD.

Surely someone out there is organizing a boycott against this company and every product it's ever been involved with, right?

* South Park is having a good season, although I thought last night's episode was the weakest so far. I loved the plot around the kids, but nearly fell asleep during the lice part. Clever idea, boring execution, maybe?

* John Bolton is an unbelievable asshole! I mean, I knew he was widely regarded as an asshole, but I was still mindblown by how horrible he actually was on The Daily Show the other night. He wouldn't even let Jon end the interview! (And it's his fault that the interview ran long and they didn't have time for Stephen!!) And also, dude, facts don't stop being true no matter how vehemently you deny them. And it was awesome that Jon brought Doris Kearns Goodwin on the next night to back up his argument about the diversity of Lincoln's cabinet.

* I would say The Colbert Report is on a roll lately, but I think it's been on a roll since it premiered, actually. Still, it seems that nearly every night I watch it I am struck by how brilliant it is. This week's Willie Nelson episode was particularly classic. Between the hilarity of the comedy and the stunningly incisive and biting wit of the satire, I regularly think that this show is one of the greatest things I've seen in my life.

Hmmm. I should try and get tickets again. And I never did write up a report last time. Let's see... the highlights:

* I got there at 3pm; it was snowing so they let everyone wait inside.

*

jaydk and

drujan joined me and we were seated in the front row.

     * Stephen ran along the front row giving everyone five from both directions; both of my hands touched Stephen's!

     * Someone asked him about his ice cream flavor and he said he gave a pint of it to Jon Stewart who "ate half and had sex with the other half." The slashers went insane with laughter and squee.

     * He kept screwing up The Word and having to do it over, but he remained hilarious and good-natured the whole time. You can actually see it jump a bit in the aired episode where they had to cut it together to get it to run continuously. At the end he apologized to us and thanked us for remaining enthusiastic despite his mistakes.

     * After the first segment, when he talked about NYC-distributed condoms, he began throwing condoms into the crowd like parade candy. I now own three NYC condoms touched by the hand of Stephen Colbert.

Oh, and Tuesday was Stephen Colbert day in Oshawa. How awesome is that? Is there nothing that Stephen Colbert can't do?

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: the cruxshadows - dreamcypher

http://rusty-halo.com/wordpress/?p=2032

Jeordie White is a total Star Wars nerd. This amuses me immensely.

Also amusing is the latest Meathead Perspective. I think most of the reason I keep up with NIN these days is to make sure I won’t miss any of Meathead’s jokes.

Veronica Mars last night was stunningly bad. ( not really spoilery, but just in case )

I want the organizers of New York Comic Con to die slow, painful deaths. Preferably after taking off work, waiting outside in freezing windy cold for two hours, being treated rudely at every turn, and not being able to get the autograph of the person they wasted a vacation day to meet.

Seriously, I’ve been to plenty of conventions, and I certainly never had to wait in line for hours to get in at DragonCon or San Diego ComiCon, especially in freezing weather. And I never had to arrive hours early to wait in line and get some kind of special ticket to get into an event at a convention I’d already paid for. The whole thing is a fucking mess.

I skipped Saturday and Sunday, regardless of George R.R. Martin and Stephen King. I don’t care who their guests are in the future; I am never going back.

Huh. I haven’t ranted about anything in a while. That felt good.

Back to happier things…

I watched the last half of the Oscars on Sunday night, because I was channel surfing and came across Robert Downey, Jr. I always thought of him as a really good actor who was also cute, but somehow he’s turned into a really good actor who is drop dead gorgeous. I also realized that he has a movie opening on Friday that is directed by David Fincher (Fight Club!) and is getting great reviews. I’m very excited.

It was also cool to see Ennio Morricone get an award, since those Sergio Leone/Clint Eastwood Westerns are among my all-time favorite movies, in large part because of Morricone’s scores. Although, yeah, his acceptance speech was a little tedious. Whatever, he deserved the recognition.

And it was cool to see Lucas, Spielberg, and Coppola together. The Oscars are pretty interesting from the perspective of someone who is kind of fascinated by the film industry, although the movies it tends to honor are almost always the boring ones that I haven’t seen. I like fantasy and action, and “Lord of the Rings” was too pretentious for me, so, yeah. My favorite movies last year were “Pirates 2″ and “Pan’s Labyrinth,” which only got technical awards. I’m not really an Oscar person, but the ceremony itself was more interesting than I expected.

I’m re-reading A Game of Thrones. I really need to re-read the whole series and take detailed notes (there’s so many lovely bits of foreshadowing and characterization that I note in my head and then promptly forget!), but some of the thoughts that particularly stood out:

( thoughts on the Song of Ice and Fire series )

Originally published at rusty-halo.com. Please click here to comment.

Jeordie White is a total Star Wars nerd. This amuses me immensely.

Also amusing is the latest Meathead Perspective. I think most of the reason I keep up with NIN these days is to make sure I won't miss any of Meathead's jokes.

Veronica Mars last night was stunningly bad. ( not really spoilery, but just in case )

I want the organizers of New York Comic Con to die slow, painful deaths. Preferably after taking off work, waiting outside in freezing windy cold for two hours, being treated rudely at every turn, and not being able to get the autograph of the person they wasted a vacation day to meet.

Seriously, I've been to plenty of conventions, and I certainly never had to wait in line for hours to get in at DragonCon or San Diego ComiCon, especially in freezing weather. And I never had to arrive hours early to wait in line and get some kind of special ticket to get into an event at a convention I'd already paid for. The whole thing is a fucking mess.

I skipped Saturday and Sunday, regardless of George R.R. Martin and Stephen King. I don't care who their guests are in the future; I am never going back.

Huh. I haven't ranted about anything in a while. That felt good.

Back to happier things...

I watched the last half of the Oscars on Sunday night, because I was channel surfing and came across Robert Downey, Jr. I always thought of him as a really good actor who was also cute, but somehow he's turned into a really good actor who is drop dead gorgeous. I also realized that he has a movie opening on Friday that is directed by David Fincher (Fight Club!) and is getting great reviews. I'm very excited.

It was also cool to see Ennio Morricone get an award, since those Sergio Leone/Clint Eastwood Westerns are among my all-time favorite movies, in large part because of Morricone's scores. Although, yeah, his acceptance speech was a little tedious. Whatever, he deserved the recognition.

And it was cool to see Lucas, Spielberg, and Coppola together. The Oscars are pretty interesting from the perspective of someone who is kind of fascinated by the film industry, although the movies it tends to honor are almost always the boring ones that I haven't seen. I like fantasy and action, and "Lord of the Rings" was too pretentious for me, so, yeah. My favorite movies last year were "Pirates 2" and "Pan's Labyrinth," which only got technical awards. I'm not really an Oscar person, but the ceremony itself was more interesting than I expected.

I'm re-reading A Game of Thrones. I really need to re-read the whole series and take detailed notes (there's so many lovely bits of foreshadowing and characterization that I note in my head and then promptly forget!), but some of the thoughts that particularly stood out:

( thoughts on the Song of Ice and Fire series )

Current Mood: tired

( general Veronica Mars thoughts )

( random personal babble )

I kind of miss Buffy fandom. It was fun having that kind of all-consuming obsession with something, and being able to share it with so many people. It was also so neat getting into the culture, learning all the acronyms and terms and references.... I don't know if I will ever get into a fandom the way I did with Buffy, and it makes me really sad to think that. I was so naive and clueless at the time, and now that I know so much about how TV shows and fandoms work, how could I ever work up that same level of investment and idealism about the story and characters? (On the plus side, I'm way less wanky now that I know not to care so much!)

Maybe I am just in one of my periodic "OMG life is so dull without a fandom" phases. Something come along and seize my attention, dammit!

Current Mood: whiney
Current Music: I'm listening to PIG again! Yay!

OH MY GOD I HATE MICHAEL DOUGLAS.

I really hate him. It's an irrational and totally visceral thing, I just absolutely cannot stand him. He is so smarmy and creepy and horrible. MAKE HIM GO AWAY.

Also, Sean Bean, WHY ARE YOU IN SO MANY BAD MOVIES???

Anyway, it's entirely Sean Bean's fault that last night I had to watch the monstrosity that is known as Don't Say a Word. *shudders*

Don't watch it. It's stupid, nonsensical, boring, and unbelievably irritating. Like Patriot Games it's got a disgustingly perfect all-American family (complete with a gigantic NYC apartment, oh how I hate them) threatened by an ultra-hot scary British guy (Sean Bean, playing a thoroughly one-dimensional version of the role he played in National Treasure, Essex Boys, and Fool's Gold). It's even got a threatened little girl, and between this, Flightplan, Silent Hill, and The Dark, I'm starting to think that Sean Bean chooses his movies based entirely on the fact that they feature threatened little girls.

He's such a good actor. And he's so gorgeous. SOMEONE PUT HIM IN A GOOD MOVIE. Meanwhile, I'll just be over here with my Sharpe DVDs. And this photo, which makes me happy every time I see it.

Oh and hey,

vm_fic just recced a bunch of hurt!Logan fic. I think my h/c kink is overcoming my VM distaste. There's some good stuff here.

Do you have any advice for vegans at Thanksgiving? Help me out, go post in the comments here.

Current Mood: weird

( Veronica Mars 3x07 )

( Seeing Common Rotation twice, and my trip to Boston )

Last night: two Sean Bean movies, mainly because they were both so awful that I wanted to get them over with quickly.

The Dark is another one of those horror movies about scary little girls, psychically intuitive mothers, and clueless-but-well-meaning fathers. The "scariest" thing in this movie was a bunch of rampaging suicidal sheep. I'm trying to figure out which is a goofier attempt at horror; these suicidal sheep or the garbage disposal spewing applesauce in In Dreams.

Sean Bean's role was pretty much the same as in Silent Hill, although happily he got more screen time. He looked hot, as usual, but mostly I spent the movie wondering why he's been in so many bad movies.

Fool's Gold was like a tame version of Essex Boys. Sean Bean plays a tough guy criminal who gets in over his head. On the plus side, he loves his kids, and we get some cute scenes of him playing with them. But mostly he's being tough and scary and angry, which he's good at, but it's kind of limiting for such a good actor. He does get some really good scenes near the end, though, when his character starts to realize just how utterly screwed he is. And he's young in this one, which makes him extra-hot, so I enjoyed it for the eye candy. But it's not a very good movie.

South Park last night was awesome. They're having a great season; I haven't seen a single lame episode so far.

Veronica Mars yesterday ... um, what did I ever see in this show? Wallace's plot was directly out of a "cheating is bad, mmmmkay?" after school special. And feminists ... faking rapes ... does not compute ... what the fuck? *sigh*

I've been seeking out Sharpe fic. I find myself gravitating toward slash, even though I'm not really interested in reading anything sexual. I just want good fic, gen even, but slash seems far more likely to be good. I know people are always fighting about how slash is no better than het, but really, at least when I open a slash fic I don't face a 70% chance of running into a Mary Sue within the first four paragraphs.

Slash fic is much more likely to explore a premise that I'm interested in, namely the relationships between the existing characters. I'd much rather read about the powerful emotional connection between Sharpe and Harper (which is canon), and if it happens to get sexual, so what? At least it's exploring something I'm interested in, unlike random Mary Sue fic. Maybe this is because there aren't many interesting canonical female characters. Though I wouldn't mind reading Sharpe/Teresa, if was actual badass Teresa and not lame author-insertion "Teresa."

Not that all the slash is good (not even close); it's just less likely to be bad. In this fandom. In my opinion.

I realize I haven't said anything about the election yet. Obviously I'm delighted (Santorum's gone! Rumsfeld's gone! Democrats got the House! and probably the Senate!) and I'm just praying that the Democrats won't screw it up too quickly. (*fingers crossed*) Yay democracy!

Plus The Colbert Report was to die for last night. Ah, poor Stephen in denial. And you know, anytime he sings the national anthem, it's bound to be a good episode. ;)

Things that are amusing me today:

* This wank.

My Personal Unbreakable Vow to Severus...
My Unbreakable Vow to Severus Snape

I promise to be always faithful in body and mind, and never love another man.

Don't miss the song parodies on page 22 of the comments.

* The fact that people are still sending me angry letters disagreeing with a Buffy essay I wrote four years ago. I guess it's kind of cool that it still occasionally strikes a nerve, but I should probably put some kind of warning up that I don't really care anymore and am not going to respond to a 20-page counter essay.

* I love fandom because it's the only place where Alec Trevelyan and Kronos work together to destroy London, James Bond, and Methos. And I so can't believe that I spent the last two days reading Bond/Trevelyan fic. For some reason, it had never occurred to me that there'd be fic about them, maybe because the movie came out so long ago (you mean there was fic before LiveJournal!? :P ).

My observations: there's a huge percentage of darkfic, presumably because the canon is so dark. Much of it reminds me of Spike/Angel, another pairing which blurs love and hate, villain and hero. Most of what isn't darkfic is straight up porn, and most of the porn reminds me that Repossession-style melodrama is not limited to Spander. There's very little pure crap (probably not too many 12-year-olds are drawn to writing fic about a ten-year-old Bond movie) but only a couple stories that I'd rate excellent. A lot of mediocrity, but most of its entertaining enough to read quickly. (I'm automatically skipping anything that says "OFC," or calls either man the other's "lover"). I am getting annoyed at how many stories were written apparently because people wanted to fantasize about Pierce Brosnan and Sean Bean getting it on, without acknowledging either character or paying any attention to the fact that Trevelyan is full of hate and plotting to betray Bond. Way to remove all the interesting stuff about the pairing. :P

Funny, I like Sharpe way better than GoldenEye (actually, I disliked GoldenEye), but I haven't been inspired to read much Sharpe fic. Maybe because the canon's already satisfying, whereas GoldenEye has great ingredients (deep friendship and devastating betrayal between two ultra-hot action heroes) that it doesn't do much with on the level of character exploration--it's practically begging for fanfic.

Also, what was up with Veronica Mars last night? (I had it on in the background, because I'm not Officially Watching it.) Veronica Mars: patron show for the "I'm not a feminist, but I sure love having rights!" crowd. Seriously, what's with this cynical POV that says it's great to have social justices, but that we'll incessantly mock anyone actually cares enough about these issues to try to do something about them? I suppose activists are easy to mock, because they're the type of people who care passionately about something and don't try to hide it, but honestly, have any of these writers ever met a feminist? Most of us are capable of logic--and some of us even have senses of humor (!!).

Anyway. But the Logan plotline was entertaining. You really can't have too much angsty Logan... if only those other characters didn't keep getting in the way. My favorite thing about the show is the Echolls family, and I'm highly annoyed that most of them have been killed off, so I'm glad the writers have brought in another, even through cheesetastic long-lost-brother means. Hopefully he'll show up again.

Current Mood: weird

Dude... insane hoyay in old comics.

And also, I just caught up reading

chase820's latest post of "The Man Who Sold the World," which is so dark and angsty and awesome. I've pretty much forgotten what happened on the actual Queer as Folk; Chase's story is so infinitely better that who even needs the TV version?

Go check out the New York City restaurant guide at SuperVegan. I built this whole nifty little mechanism for users to rate restaurants and post reviews, so if you've ever visisted a veg-friendly restaurant in NYC, please go there and share your thoughts. :) (And if you find anything that doesn't work or seems weird, let me know so I can fix it!)

I saw Depeche Mode at Jones Beach last Saturday with

jaydk and

drujan. It was freezing, but the band was good. I'm seeing them again this Saturday in Atlantic City at the Borgata (have I mentioned how much I SO don't want to go to Atlantic City again? Maybe I can get my mom to go with me...)

On Monday I'm flying to Boston to see Alice in Chains, because I couldn't get tickets to the show in New York. This does feel kind of insane, but whatever... you only have one "all time favorite band EVER," right? Even though it's not really the band I loved *sigh*.

Got a new roommate. So far, so good. I get the feeling she doesn't really like the place, though. I'm just waiting for bad news...

Real life has been so crazy and busy and stressful... ugh.

Oh yeah, I did see the Veronica Mars finale. I thought it was good, not great. ( VM finale spoilers )

I'm looking forward to a couple of media things: the new X-Men movie (please for the love of god let it live up to the Bryan Singer version) and the new season of Rescue Me (wasn't Denis Leary awesome on the Daily Show the other night?).

Oh, and

10zlaine is visiting soon and we're going to see Spamalot and Common Rotation. (Haha, look at the comment they left on my MySpace profile: "don't be afraid to list us as a band you like. we promise to growl more.")

AND early June (PIG TOUR!!!!) is coming up faster than I could imagine. I've got a one way ticket to Fort Lauderdale; now I have to decide whether to go to the Tampa show, too.

Damn, I need to get my hair cut. And dyed. Not enough time in the day!!!

Oh, and I'm working on THREE huge website projects, in addition to work (I now run the entire web department by myself.)

I really just want to go take a nap for about three months.

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: pig - sweet child

Wow. Veronica Mars was actually good again last night. I wasn't sure if that would ever happen again.

See, VM writers? All you have to do is write episodes that involve interesting things happening to the characters we care about, and not waste entire stories on random nobodies-of-the-week and zombie boyfriends. That wasn't so hard, was it?

I may post an actual reaction later. I'll have to download it and watch it again, because I was kinda half asleep the first time. (I didn't know it was going to be good!)

Oh my god. It's a Colbert Report/Harry Potter crossover. Awesome.

Veronica Mars. The last few episodes haven't sucked nearly as much as the beginning of the season, so I'll post some thoughts, in no real order. ( spoilers for aired VM episodes )

Other stuff...

* I had a strange dream last night, in which I was back in my 12th grade history class with Ms. Moran as the mean scary teacher. I didn't bring my books, because they were heavy and I thought we wouldn't need them, so she snapped at me and then handed out a memo to everyone which included a note about how irresponsible I was for not bringing the books. And for some reason,

ros_fod was sitting at the desk next to mine, and

kita0610 was sitting behind her. And then there was a fire drill, and I was in trouble because we were supposed to stash our books somewhere, but I hadn't brought any books to stash. And then

ros_fod was feeling faint, but Ms. Moran was mean and made her go to the nurse alone, even though

kita0610 offered to go with her.

Yeah, don't ask me to explain dreamlogic.

* I randomly flipped over to NIN's "Closer" video on VH1 Classics last night. I'd actually forgotten that Trent used to be skinny and fucked-up and leather clad and hot, instead of looking like your friend's uncle who works as a bouncer. *sigh* Wish I'd seen them live back then.

* South Park hovers in this weird territory between unbelievably funny and just ... stupid. The last two episodes were quite a contrast, as the return of Chef episode was fucking brilliant, and the San Francisco episode was just... so lame. As if those "heartland" folks proclaiming their superiority over the gays and atheists on the coasts aren't just as smug? Way to completely miss the obvious. But, whatever, it's South Park; if you get offended, you're giving them exactly what they want. (I think they mostly just get off on the "subversiveness" of offending as many people as possible, especially the groups that Hollywood usually overlooks.)

I'm too busy:

* Friday night - V for Vendetta with

drujan and

jaydk

* Saturday night - marathon of Jonathan from Guiding Light with

jaydk (and she's agreed to let me force PIG videos on her! Whoo!!)

* Sunday night - WriterCon meeting

* Monday night - I'm going to the Daily Show! I can't wait. :)

* Wednesday - I have jury duty. Yuck.

And somewhere in the midst of all this, I'm working on this other thing, a really cool, really complex project that is supposed to launch in a week. I have a feeling I'm not going to be getting very much sleep in the upcoming days. *deep breath* But I can do it. And it will be cool.

(And on top of it all--I'm still sick from San Francisco! Damn West Coast germs. :P)

Current Mood: sick

Dude! George RR Martin rocks!

From his latest not-a-blog entry, about the Hugo awards:

No doubt the Best Dramatic Presentation/ Short Form category will be dominated by episodes of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, STARGATE, and the other ongoing SF dramas. That's cool, but sometimes SF shows up in places where you don't expect it. On SOUTH PARK, for example. I am going to nominate the hilarious episode called TRAPPED IN THE CLOSET, all about the evil alien overlord Xamu and L. Ron Hubbard. Join me. If we get SOUTH PARK on the ballot, maybe Matt and Trey will show up at the con...

He's a South Park fan!

I suppose I should post about last weekend's convention. I'm still sort of in recovery (lack of sleep, plane delays), but here goes.

( Vericon report, with only the minorest of ASOIAF spoilers )

And in other news--WriterCon scholarship applications are open! You can apply from now until Feb 14, so if you planning to apply please do so soon. You can also help support the scholarship program by donating here.

Oh yeah... Veronica Mars. ( not very nice VM thoughts )

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: chemlab - suicide jag

Veronica Mars was so inane last night that it's not even the worth the effort it would take for me to comment on it.

But, okay, ( just one thing )

In other news, I'm going to Boston this weekend for Vericon, a sci-fi con at Harvard which features George R. R. Martin as the guest of honor. Yay!

10zlaine is meeting me up there.

Boring life updates:

Last night I was doing laundry and suddenly my key stopped working. No matter what I did, I couldn't get my door to open--apparently something inside was out of sync. All I had were keys and laundry--I had to beg a neighbor to let me use her phone to call a locksmith. The locksmith came within 20 minutes and installed a new lock, which cost twice the amount of my round-trip plane ticket to Boston. *cries*

If it weren't for eBay, I'd probably be destitute on the street. I'm selling CDs, plus I spent last Sunday photographing and listing a ton of old Rolling Stone magazines. I've been saving these for ages (I have, like, 1995-2000), and they're taking up too much space in my apartment anyway.

My favorite coworker got engaged. I'm very excited for her--her girlfriend (fiance!) just returned from a month in China and surprised her with a beautiful jade ring. They're not getting married until her girlfriend finishes school (a year or two from now), but still, it's pretty exciting. Apparently we're all going to take a bus up to Canada for the wedding. I'm not really a fan of marriage in general, but if anyone should get married it's these two--they're the nicest and most drama-free people. And it was cool to see my coworker so happy yesterday. :)

I rearranged my bedroom over the weekend (moving heavy things by yourself is hard!). Then I had to rearrange it again, because the cats were unhappy (they had to take flying leaps to get to their window perch). It looks slightly less good this way, but their happiness is more important. And it's still nice--the whole room looks bigger and has more space the way I changed it. (And someday--theoretically--I may actually have people over to see it.) Well, when

10zlaine comes to visit, she'll have more space to sleep.

I also got frames for some of my posters, and hung them up properly. (Posters tacked to your wall with sticky tack are just so teenage, and I'm a grown-up now and all.) Alas, I'll never be a proper adult, though (and don't want to be): the posters are a Pig "Pigmata" poster, a KMFDM "WWIII" poster (signed by the whole band and Raymond, who drew his <PIG> logo), a signed Depeche Mode CD booklet (from when I met them), and a full page Village Voice ad advertising the "Meet Depeche Mode" event I went to to get the signature. I still need to get frames for my two Star Wars posters, but those are huge so I'm waiting until a more convenient time.

I've been listening to Pig again. I actually went something like three whole weeks listening to no Pig at all, because I was listening to Chemlab. Rediscovering Pig is a wonderful feeling. I've been listening to The Swining, and I'm just overwhelmed with how good that album is. I love the way he uses contrasts, louds and quiets, it's just so vivid. And god, I just adore the way he experiments with genre. His songs all have a certain consistency (his voice, his lyrical style, electronics and samples and heaviness), but they're also so incredibly diverse. I love that this one album, The Swining, has a gospel song (The Fountain of Miracles), a mambo (Black Mambo), a spoken-word piece (Ojo por Ojo), and epic multi-part symphony-style piece (Symphony for the Devil). Plus a bunch of excellent electronic rock songs. And his lyrics are so inventive and brilliant, too! It's amazing that one person can have this much talent.

Current Mood: stressed
Current Music: pig - symphony for the devil

NY Times article on George RR Martin. Neat!

10zlaine and I are going to see him at a convention at Harvard in January. Vericon.

It's freezing outside. My hair froze on the way to work this morning. Ugh. Coldest day so far. (And my apartment is also freezing. Poor kitties.)

I saw Depeche Mode again on Thursday night. I bought the ticket the day before--they must've released some reserved seats at the last minute--because I had an amazing view. Second row, elevated, to the left, right in front of the stage. Totally awesome--I'm so happy with it. And the show was really wonderful--they are such talented and charismatic performers. I think the only difference between shows was that Martin Gore sang "A Question of Lust" this time. Anyway--wonderful show, totally recommend seeing them.

I was sick all weekend, and alternated between working on various projects and huddling in front of the TV drinking hot tea and re-watching S1 of Veronica Mars.

Stuff I noticed in VM:

- Logan is SO COMPLETELY WONDERFUL. (Sorry. Had to say it.)

- "An Echolls Family Christmas" is my favorite episode. Every time the Echolls family comes onscreen, the show gets ten times better. And Logan/Weevil slashiness! Seriously, those two have awesome chemistry.

- Duncan had more facial expressions last year, didn't he? WTF is up with that? He really is a robot in S2.

- I really liked S1 Veronica. I totally, totally get the high school trauma thing, and the "covering your pain by being a badass" thing, and the rejection of a social group that you've realized is corrupt. I (*gasp*) identified with her, and liked her. I loved her anger, and the fact that she'd choose vengeance--she wasn't perfect, but was real.

But what's horrible is to realize that she didn't reject the '09ers because she realized that they are corrupt and not worth her time--she just rejected them because they rejected her first. Really, she was just pining to get back in with them. And now that she has the opportunity to do so, she's immediately given up all that "independent," "interesting" stuff and turned into just another '09er clone. Look at her HAIR for God's sake--last year it was all funky and neat, this year it's all pretty blonde princess. She's tolerating DICK and putting up with 100 times more bullshit from Duncan than she'd ever have tolerated from Logan. It's like she started out as Chloe, but she's turned into Buffy. (*shudders*)

And I've lost all respect for the character. And that SUCKS. I want to see her reject the '09ers, not because they were mean to her but because she realizes that she really isn't one of them and doesn't want to belong to their lame-ass social group anyway. Even if she could.

-Okay, another S1 thing--the MotW episodes kind of sucked then, too. I didn't realize it because I was watching so fast and most paying attention to the arc stuff, but if I'd been watching week by week I'd have been pretty frustrated. Seriously, plenty of those mysteries are predictable and lame.

In fact, I totally separate the arc stuff from the MotW stuff, and it's kind of startling to realize that those awesome scenes where Logan and Aaron are attending Lynn's funeral are actually spaced between some ridiculously dull plot of the week thing about a rap mogul's daughter. Who knew? "An Echolls Family Christmas" rocks because both the A and B plot are Echolls related. (Seriously, they should just make it "The Fucked-Up Echolls Family Show"--now that I'd love. Every time Logan or Aaron are onscreen, the show is ten times better.)

Anyway. Just some random thoughts.

As far as season two... last week's episode was ( VM 2xWhatever spoilers )

Oh yeah, and on Sunday I went with

jaydk to this play reading thing, because it featured her latest fictional obsession, Tom Pelphrey, who plays Jonathan on Guiding Light. (I've never actually seen Guiding Light, but from having Jane as a friend, I know allll about Jonathan.) So the play was decent (a bit Breakfast-Club-esque) and the acting was quite good. So that was neat.

And other than that, I've just been madly busy. Website stuff, holiday stuff, eBay, etc.

( ebay worries )

Current Mood: cold
Current Music: pig - my sanctuary (original version)

It seems that Pig has entered the 21st century and set up a MySpace page. Yay!

(Now I guess I have to keep my stupid MySpace account around... *grumbles*).

I saw Depeche Mode last night at Madison Square Garden. Totally awesome. They gave a great performance, and the stage setup was really cool (a bunch of huge fucked-up looking screens that alternated between showing the band and pre-recorded video stuff related to the song).

I love their 90s rock phase, so hearing "Walking in My Shoes" and "I Feel You" was great. I don't even need to say how cool "Personal Jesus" was, right? And seeing all of Madison Square Garden standing up and singing "Enjoy the Silence" was amazing.

I also really loved all the songs that Martin Gore sang. Dave Gahan is OMG SO HOT but Martin Gore has such soul and naked emotion when he sings. He totally brings out my "I want to pick him up and hug him" instinct (which normally only gets directed toward my cat).

I went with

drujan and

jaydk, and it was great to see a show with friends. (Although they kept sitting down! WTF?? This "sitting during a concert" thing is completely foreign to me.) Our seats were quite good, actually--kind of far back, but right in the center.

I'm going again tonight, because I checked Ticketmaster yesterday and I guess they released some reserved seats, because the seat it came up with for me was so good I had to take it. I'll just consider this my holiday gift to myself, I suppose. :)

So I missed Veronica Mars, on account of Depeche Mode (and my stupid VCR not recording). It's downloading, though, and I suppose I'll have to run home after work/before Depeche Mode and watch it. The opening band wasn't that good anyway.

I couldn't resist spoilers, though, so I read my FL's reaction already. And... well, I guess I'll wait until I actually watch it before I bitch about how much I hate Duncan (and Veronica with Duncan).

Real life stuff:

The new roommate moved in, and so far it's been fine. He's really nice and rarely around, and the cats like him. Cross your fingers that it'll continue this way.

I finished my part of the annoying freelance project. There's still a part two coming up (*shudders*) but hopefully that can wait until after the holidays.

Speaking on the holidays, I get a grand total of ONE vacation day (Monday, December 26). Lame. I have some of my own vacation days left, though, so I'm going to try to use them to take off that whole week.

Oh yes, and finally: Writercon! You can get your hotel reservations now. It's so going to rock.

Current Mood: happy

queenofthorns finally wrote her long-threatened Big Post of Jaime Love. Well, at least, she wrote Part 1. Check it out.

If you still haven't read A Song of Ice and Fire ... oh, c'mon already! It's perfect for Spike fans; I already got

drujan and

10zlaine hooked.

If only this fic by

lunasky had been the actual ending of Veronica Mars this week.

Speaking of VM, ( spoilers for 2x09 )

And speaking of nostalgia,

sophia_helix posted this poll about best and favorite Darin Morgan episodes of X-Files.

*sigh*

Remember Darin Morgan? Remember X-Files? Remember the cockroach running across the screen, or that time Mulder shrieked?

*gets all depressingly nostalgic*

That was back before I knew about internet fandom (I think maybe we had AOL, pay by the minute, and my dad let me have 15 minutes a week or something useless like that). But I was a fan, like in the fan club, and my best friend and I used to watch it together over the phone, calling each other at the commercials and screaming about whatever amazing plot twist had just happened. And we'd have sleepover marathons and we even kinda wrote fanfic--at least, Mulder and Scully parodies appeared as characters in original stuff that we wrote.

Stupid nostalgia.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: pig - no one gets out of her alive

I asked for VM fic recs the other day, and

amerella totally went above and beyond. If anyone else is looking for non-LoVe Logan fic, check out the recs she posted for me. My favorite would be That's Amore by

dark_roast (post 1x22). Well written, very disturbing, and totally Logan.

I've been so busy lately. Random life update:

Thanksgiving was fun.

jaydk and her mom were really accomodating, and made the side dishes using vegan margarine and soy milk, so I could eat the mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and green beans. And her mom bought me some frozen dinner type things, so I had plenty. Oh, and she made a yummy vegan pumpkin pie, using my favorite recipe. (Plus, they have a Trader Joe's, so I was able to stock up for the rest of the weekend.)

We watched 18 episodes of Veronica Mars, and

jaydk got into it and was totally a Logan fan, despite starting with a "I hate Logan, I'm so sick of everyone raving about him" attitude. Hee! And she shared my utter lack of patience with the boringness of Duncan.

We also saw Harry Potter again (it was better the second time, felt less rushed) and saw Rent (awful, but of course, it made me cry my eyes out anyway). And we took care of her mom's dogs (cute, but man, dogs are annoying) and visited Target (huge! and creepy! but I did get season three of Family Guy for $18, so not entirely bad).

It was good to get home, though. I missed my cats so much, and I could tell they missed me too. Lucifer still hasn't stopped following me everywhere I go, and he's been much more patient toward my whole "picking him up and hugging him" thing. (He totally loves being held, but he usually has to pretend to get sick of it after a few minutes, otherwise he loses his cat credibility or something).

What else? Oh yeah, Writercon! There will be another Writercon in 2006! Of all the Buffy-related conventions I've been to (and there are many), Writercon is by far my favorite. There's really a great community of people who run and attend that convention. And this year I'm helping out! So, please do consider going, if you haven't already decided. :)

Current Mood: weird
Current Music: pig - my sanctuary (original version!)

New Pig CD!!! It's mine!!!

It comes out November 8th, but they shipped it early and I got it yesterday.

I am so ridiculously happy. (I didn't really expect anything new from Pig ever.) This is a remastered version of his album from last year that was only released in the UK (Watts - Pigmartyr). The remastering makes a world of difference; it's really incredible how much better the songs are when you can hear them properly.

And it's got three new tracks!

Of the three, I LOVE the first two. God Rod is sort of like this Frankensteined together mix of Schwein's Crown, KMFDM's Fuck Me, and some kind of Latin dance thing. It starts off like another metal song, and it builds up to a chorus which you expect to kick in ultra heavy, but instead of raging guitars it suddenly takes a complete left turn and becomes this Latin dance type song. THAT is Pig. That's why I love Raymond Watts. This musical twist is clever, surprising, and once you get your head around it, it's so satisfying.

The next new song, On the Slaughterfront, is also amazing. It's like this cheesy, jazzy little lounge song from hell. Raymond's voice sounds amazing, and I love that this song really doesn't sound like anything else he's already done. (It's got maybe a bit of Black Mambo and a bit of Pig Orchestra.) The lyrics are striking, and sad--it ends with this haunting "My death's too slow."

The addition of these two songs takes this album from "Pig's attempt at straightforward metal" back to real Pig, like Swining-era experimental Pig.

The last track, Filth Healer, is kind of a disappointment in comparison. There's nothing wrong with it, it just doesn't stand out after following the two kickass preceding tracks.

So ... yeah. New Pig album. Awesome. Go buy it.

Oh yeah, and my Veronica Mars 2x05 thoughts: ( Read more... )

Current Mood: happy
Current Music: pig - on the slaughterfront

( Various thoughts on VM 2x02 )

Current Music: Pig - Sweet Child

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
			1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30	31

Common Rotation is awesome (as is vegan pizza, and Veronica Mars season one, and April Fools Day...)

Because I hardly ever talk about television anymore...

randomness: star wars, nin, veronica mars, oscars, asoiaf…

randomness: star wars, nin, veronica mars, oscars, asoiaf...

I'm BORED and the weather is so dreary and miserable and why can't summer be here already?!

DIE MICHAEL DOUGLAS, DIE!!!!!!

VM, Common Ro, Boston

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randomness, mostly veronica mars related

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vm fic, thanksgiving, writercon

Pigmata! ... and VM 2x05

Various thoughts on Veronica Mars 2x02

rusty-halo.com

August 2018

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