InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I'm walkin' on sunshine!"

bites_the_sun (bites_the_sun) wrote,
@ 2007-12-25 21:29:00

I know, I know; long time no post. the past three weeks can be summed up by a succession of ailments: 'flu, conjunctivitis, a disgustingly snotty, sinus-y cold and finally, bursting a blood vessel in my left eye. It's as if my immune system decided to get three years' worth of illness out of the way over the course of a single month. Hence, I've spent the past weeks feeling like a shambling corpse, and looking like a skinned one with fishbones up its nose.

However, after a total of about 20 hours sleep over the weekend, I'm more or less recovered and looking vaguely human again. So, on with some catch-up.

Work has been stupid, but I've been left in charge a bit which means I'm allowed to bitch people out when they fuck up and try to have our end take the blame for their totally fucking inexcusable mistakes (like diverting entire floors of phones to a collection of dead numbers then going out for piss-ups in Preston, for starters). I'm good at bitching people out. Yes, who'd have thunk? Getting grovelling apologies is quite satisfying. Whee!

Christmas so far has been fine. It's been low-key, without any family squabbles. My sister was in a superb mood for some reason I can't work out, but I'm happy to go with it. I got some nice presents: paperbacks of The Grifters, George Orwell's Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Pratchett's Thud!, Inside The Victorian Home (it's fascinating, I swear), Lindsay Clarke's The War At Troy, William Boyd's Restless; the collector's tin 5-disc edition Blade Runner DVD set, Shrek 2 DVD and a Kinks Greatest Hits CD. What the fuck did we do before Amazon wishlists? Were presents shittier or merely more surprising before the intertubes? Discuss!

I want to go to Eastercon - Tanith Lee and Neil Gaiman, two of my favourite people/authors are going to be there. I really, really want to go. I have the days off from work, but accommodation issues (hotel being all booked up) may prevent me. I need to email the organisers after Xmas and see if there's any room-sharing folks left.

The Xmas Who tonight was a turd and a half. I've spent the weekend, when not sleeping, watching DVDs of season 2 of The Shield. I know Who is a different genre and has a different target audience, but I'd like to sit the writers/producers of new Who down and make them watch The Ongoing Adventures of Vic Mackey and Co and other various American imports, such as BSG, just to get them to realise how woefully fucking inadequate a product they're putting out and how bloody awful the writing is. It's insulting even to kids at this point - just relentless, recycled mawk, gormless plotting, cheap angst and pointless running around set to orchestral bellowing. I just cannot understand what people get out of episodes like the one just shown - and it appears some people do get something out of it given the reaction on the LJ Who community. Did we watch the same episode? Maybe all some people want from a show these days is Kylie Minogue in a waitress outfit and fuck-me boots, fat women in comedy outfits committing suicide and David Tennant doing his by now standard 'Soooo sorry!' emo-gurn routine, but my standards are, unfortunately, a trifle higher.

Additional: I've been reading Charlie Brooker's collected Screen Burn columns for the past week and it has only increased my pure, untrammeled lust for the man, or at least, his sentences. There was a line about Ann Widdecombe having a 'face like a haunted cave in Poland' that had me practically soil myself on the number 84 bus last week. Now, that's entertainment. Who producers take note.

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ms_daisy_cutter
2007-12-25 10:16 pm UTC (link)

which means I'm allowed to bitch people out when they fuck up

Oooh! Merry xmas indeed!

It's insulting to kids at this point - just relentless, recycled mawk, gormless plotting, cheap angst and pointless running around set to orchestral bellowing.

Welcome to Amurkin telly. With some shining exceptions, it's been going further and further down that path for quite some time now.

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	bites_the_sun 2007-12-25 10:18 pm UTC (link)
	No, right, but when you lot get it right, it's awesome: The Shield (I have a huge crush on this show), Battlestar Galactica, Deadwood, Carnivale ..... SO FUCKING GOOD and there's nothing like them on Brit TV these days. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

(Anonymous)
2007-12-25 11:10 pm UTC (link)

I want to teleport into your living room and geek the fuck out with you right now.

Vic Mackey is one of my favorite characters ever. Didn't you once do a thug-off between him and Al Swearengen? asdlfkjsldfkjsa LOVE. So painful to choose that I blocked it out entirely and don't remember who I voted for.

Have you been watching BSG? Last time we talked I think you were going to steal the discs from your dad. I brought the miniseries home with me to Nashville last week and forced my family to watch. Half of them didn't really feel strongly about it, but Mary, her boyfriend Jeff and my dad all got hooked. The ambient family melodrama was all worth it as a result.

If the writers' strike here doesn't resolve satisfactorily (and I don't believe it will), maybe Ron Moore, Joss Whedon, Shawn Ryan and David Milch will move to the UK and make TV. The UK writers didn't have to strike to get a fair deal... and that climate is looking pretty attractive right about now. Embarrassing Anglophile side tangent: Holly and I have had half-serious conversations about leaving the US in the next ten years, too. Because of health care here mostly, but it's due to a lot of other things, too. I know it's so not easy to just move there, but we've already brainstormed some ways to get a specialized job, and therefore a work visa, in the UK. It's been a half-baked idea of ours for a little while.

-Heather

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bites_the_sun
2007-12-25 11:34 pm UTC (link)

Vic Mackey is like *insert incoherent noises* .. oh, just the best fucking character ever on TV. You (OK, *I*, own it, Helen) don't know whether I want to punch him, fuck him, have him arrested or given a title and his own island. So complex, such a compelling mixture of light and dark, so brilliant. Whoever writes that show s
deserves some huge writing award and possibly their own channel for life. Michael Chiklis is a marvel. And yes, I did do a thug-off between him and Al. I wasn't sure who'd win, but after Vic's psychotic turn on Armadillo the Drug Dealer with the hot plate I'm betting Vic.

Not watched any more BSG yet, but I am going to. I've just been a wet rag for the past couple of months (no wonder I got ill eventually) and haven't had the energy to tackle much new. My dad got the BSG soundtrack for Xmas though, so he's well into it.

If the writers' strike here doesn't resolve satisfactorily (and I don't believe it will), maybe Ron Moore, Joss Whedon, Shawn Ryan and David Milch will move to the UK and make TV.

Wow. Can we send you Russel T Davies in return?

Because of health care here mostly, but it's due to a lot of other things, too.

Go for it! The cost of living here is fucking stupid, but yeah, at least we have decent healthcare as these things go. I want all my US friends to come here every time they talk about getting fucked by the healthcare system. Truth be told, it's the one major thing that puts me off the idea of ever living in the USA, should I have the opportunity.

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(Anonymous)
2007-12-26 12:44 am UTC (link)

Which season are you on? See... there's this...scene. And I can't remember which season it's in. And it involves Vic Mackey and particularly rough, hot sex. And well, since seeing it, that scene is EXACTLY how it plays out in my Vic Mackey fantasies. *"incoherent noises"*

I hear you about the wet rag thing. We really need to hook up on the phone sometime so we can be all wet and raggy on the phone together.

How expensive is it there? San Francisco and LA are both about the same kind of unreasonably expensive, so I expect it'd be more of the same in the UK? (Half a million dollars for a deteriorating shack on 1/4 acre of concrete in gang territory = the going rate here)

BTW, have you seen Sicko (Michael Moore documentary). I continue to hate his methods, but it's still a really good piece about US health care. I watched it a couple weeks ago and got even more depressed (yay!). I recommend it if you ever crave some more outrage about privatized health care in the US.

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bites_the_sun
2007-12-26 01:41 am UTC (link)

Season 2. Vic's been getting it on with the woman from the domestic violence shelter.

We really need to hook up on the phone sometime so we can be all wet and raggy on the phone together

Yeah. You in next weekend?

How expensive is it there? San Francisco and LA are both about the same kind of unreasonably expensive, so I expect it'd be more of the same in the UK? (Half a million dollars for a deteriorating shack on 1/4 acre of concrete in gang territory = the going rate here)

basically, house prices have tripled in the past decade, making property out of the reach of most single people on average incomes and mortgages a hefty fucking burden even for ordinary duel-income couples. The average house price is now around the 230K mark ... (dollar wise that's what? 460K?). In London, 500K won't get you much these days. Rents are correspondingly high. Fuel costs are the highest in Europe if not the world, and that impacts on, wel, everything else, really.

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bites_the_sun
2007-12-26 01:43 am UTC (link)

Oh, and I haven't seen Sicko, although I'm sure I will at some point, probably when it hits TV here. I have seen clips from it and of course heard all the awful stories from both friends and strangers about the shockingly high costs even a simple ER visit can incur and how insurance companies basically look for ways not to pay your costs. It's downright appalling and scary to me.

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(Anonymous)
2007-12-26 01:56 am UTC (link)

Yes. The insurance companies actually have a team of lawyer-doctors (very highly paid, of course) who do nothing but conduct investigations into patients' pasts looking for evidence of "pre-existing" conditions. Anything's fair game -- credit card purchase history, doctor's notes from 20 years ago, employer records, any written documentation (hi internet blogs!) of symptoms that could possibly, remotely indicate future illness. I've thought about about deleting my LJ because it may contain complaints about cramps or vision problems, smoking, drinking, eating too much chocolate, who knows. That sounds all paranoid, I know. But after seeing the interviews on that documentary and hearing about people who died (died!) because insurance companies wouldn't cover their treatment, I'll err on the side of paranoia. At least until I have bullet-proof insurance or I move out of the country.

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	bites_the_sun 2007-12-26 02:40 am UTC (link)
	any written documentation (hi internet blogs!) WHAT? Well, I'm surprised Lj hasn't invent a new medical cyber-nark feature to help them at this point, frankly. You know, seeing as they're oh-so-corporate these days. God, I'd be so fucked over there, with all my childhood/teenage ailments, my chronic issues and my propensity for whinging all over the interwebs. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	(Anonymous) 2007-12-26 01:58 am UTC (link)
	YES - THAT SCENE. omg omg. This next weekend I'll be around! Saturday morning here means Saturday evening there, right? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	bites_the_sun 2007-12-26 02:41 am UTC (link)
	As Cher once said, it's in his kiss, that's where it is. Rrrrrrrarrr! (Reply to this) (Parent)

	bites_the_sun 2007-12-26 02:41 am UTC (link)
	You're eight hours behind, so .... yeah. (Reply to this) (Parent)

ms_daisy_cutter
2007-12-28 10:41 pm UTC (link)

The average house price is now around the 230K mark ... (dollar wise that's what? 460K?).

$459-thousand-something, per xe.com. I'd have figured that the fall in the dollar's worth would have made it more than that...

Fuel prices are high-ish here, but nowhere near UK/EU levels, because the government has long subsidized driving. Not the wisest of policies, in retrospect, but if they stopped, a lot of rural dwellers would be in trouble. The housing market in the "hottest" cities and in much of California to boot has been a lot like London's, and had even been creeping upwards in places like Cincinnati that nobody really wants to move to, but it's imploding spectacularly even as I type.

I don't have much hope that the U.S. will ever implement govt. healthcare, at least not during my lifetime. Nobody who's running for president right now really favors it, except for Dennis Kucinich, who's not going anywhere anyway. (He's kind of a nutball on a variety of other matters and is said to have pretty much run the city of Cleveland into the ground when he was mayor.) The three major candidates all support some form of forcing citizens to buy health insurance that will not necessarily cover all their needs, which is nothing but a boon to the parasite on the body politic known as the private insurance industry. And if socialized healthcare outside of the Medicaid/Medicare programs ever were set up, I'd bet money on its enemies sabotaging it, then telling the sheeple that it never would have worked anyway.

I haven't seen Sicko but what Heather is saying about the lawyer-doctor investigations into people's medical pasts doesn't shock me. Lots more horrendous stuff on U.S. insurance at dKos, if you've got the stomach for it. The most horrendous such diary in recent days is about a wingnut pundit who thinks that people should be able to trade their bodily organs for insurance. (Take a glance at her dubious opus on Amazon; her favorite co-author is rabid anti-feminist Christina Hoff Somers.)

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	You forum very nice nmbd (Anonymous) 2008-10-04 10:03 pm UTC (link)
	Hello. And Bye. Sex love for allr. Very sory from poland . Sex (Reply to this) (Parent)

	dangerjohn 2007-12-25 10:59 pm UTC (link)
	The only Who-related thing to look forward to is the fact that Steven Moffat has three episodes in the new series. I may only watch those. I got the 5 disc Blade Runner tin too. With the pretty moving picture block. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	bites_the_sun 2007-12-25 11:23 pm UTC (link)
	Yes, that perplexed me for a minute. I thought it was a coaster or something. I cannot wait to devour all the extras and watch the ultimate ultimate director's cut. Oh, and Stephen Moffat FTW. I wish he was writing the whole next series. Oh, and that Catherine fucking Tate wasn't in it. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	(Anonymous) 2007-12-26 12:08 am UTC (link)
	Have you ever seen Nip/Tuck? It's fantastically cracked-out and soapy and hilarious. The characters have no morals whatsoever, which always makes for interesting television. ~Anji (Reply to this) (Thread)

	bites_the_sun 2007-12-26 01:45 am UTC (link)
	I have seen bits of it and while I can see how some people may like it, as with Desperate Housewives, it doesn't really hit the mark for me. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	evillotte 2007-12-27 06:13 pm UTC (link)
	Re Who: I didn't hate it as much as I thought I would, but all the angsty emo bits irritated the hell out of me. Please, someone, tell Russell T Davies to stop writing episodes for a while. Steven Moffat does it so much better. (Reply to this)

	Ann Widdecombe ms_daisy_cutter 2007-12-28 11:13 pm UTC (link)
	I've heard of this woman. A real-life Mrs. Slocum. The Times of London took her to task for claiming that a "colleague" of hers had died and gone to "Pussy Heaven." They issued an embarrassed retraction when they found out she was talking about her cat. (Reply to this)