Doctor Who!

( The End of Time, Part One - shorter than my usual, with some Milliways-related whining for fun. )

So a couple weeks ago I threatened to said I would go through the run of The Thick of It and do reaction posts for each ep (and the specials) during vacation. I have no idea if I'm going to get through the whole thing, but I'm gonna try.

Oh, and: everything I know about the structure of the British government I have, in fact, learned from TToI (and possibly a little from Doctor Who). So if, in the course of discussion, I fuck something up, say something stupid, ask a random question, whatever, just let me know? Overall, this show can be followed pretty easily with the minimal knowledge I've got, since it's more about the characters and situations than it is about the nitty gritty of governmental operations, but some of the stories get a bit nittier than others, and any corrections/learnings you might care to share would be much appreciated.

And, of course, these are full of spoilers, for the eps in discussion as well as any future eps. If you wanna watch the show before you read these, then make sure I've friended you and click the tag below.

Since the episodes aren't titled, I'm going to use the most random bit of dialogue I can find in each ep for the cut text. And thus:

( The Thick of It 1x01 - sponge avengers )

Next up: 1x02. Which I will probably write up in the wee hours tomorrow while I'm back home for Christmas, because my sleep cycle is mutated and I will be the only one awake, but I won't be able to post it until I get home. This'll probably be my last post until Christmas (and Doctor Who omg) period, so I will wish you two things and you can pick one:

A: Merry Christmas!

B: Happy Chinese food and movie day!

Attention universe: Quit being an asshole and killing off people's pets. JESUS.

In other news, I spotted the following on the side of a truck for an odd jobs company, complete with quote marks:

"No job to small."

Except for proofreading.

Grades for the semester are coming in! I'd kind of forgotten what it was like to, you know, not be afraid of this occurrence. Last year was not so good, academically speaking.

But so far, I have an A- in the Oscar Wilde class, which means that both my research paper and final were better than I thought they were (I have the same professor for another class next semester, so I decided to pick them up from him then, mostly because I totally forgot to do the self-addressed envelope he told us to bring in). Which is a delight, because my research paper was a bit of a mess and could have used some streamlining, and the final consisted of three questions, one of which I kind of had to fudge because I never actually read Jude the Obscure, oops. I came up with some insane ramblings comparing Sue Bridehead to Algernon from The Importance of Being Earnest - yeah, I don't even fucking know. I was going "I don't even fucking know" while I was writing it, and only managed about two-thirds of a handwritten page. I guess the page and a half I wrote for the question about Dracula made up for it. XD

In Sociology, I got an A. And a perfect fucking score on the last test, which completely shocked me to learn, because I took it directly after I took the above test, and it was also an essay exam. I thought I'd just barely passed it, especially because my brain went on strike during the last question after I'd managed to get out a barebones response.

The other classes haven't come in yet, but I'm not looking for any more As - I didn't do too well on the WWI&II final, which I can say more definitively because it was a straight-up multiple choice test, and we have previously discussed how I was too pissed off about the Irish Literature and Culture final to do anything but vomit up a bunch of words, pad it with quotes, and call it a paper. Seriously, that class turned into such a fucking waste of time about a month into the semester. I'm going to be annoyed about it for while.

I'm looking forward to next semester, but for now, after having finished Yuletide? A few weeks where I owe no work to anyone anywhere suits me just fine.

Aaaand Yuletide is posted. Now it is time for laundry.

To others on the flist still feverishly working on their Yuletides, GOOD LUCK and I am (between trips out to the laundromat to move my laundry along) available for cheerleading and the like. ♥♥♥

Sitting in Starbucks, listening to a couple near me talking about the Wonder Twins and how their powers require them to work together to accomplish anything:

"You ever try playing with someone who doesn't quite get it? Like, I'm a whale and you're a tornado, thanks a lot. What am I supposed to do with that?"

Oh, thank god, I got a halfway reasonable amount of sleep last night. If I hadn't, it would not have been the first time I'd gone two days in a row with minimum sleep. My only guess on that is that sometimes my body just hates me.

But! I can has brain now, so! I'm gonna take a shower, go out for some lunch, and then plant myself at Starbucks and write my damn Yuletide already. Then tonight I will probably post properly in Milliways for the first time in a billion years. Also at some point I will have to do laundry. I'm in the "wearing everything uncomfortable" phase.

Tomorrow I shall brave the crowds at Walmart, for each year my workplace gives its employees Walmart gift cards for Christmas, which this year shall enable me to get gifts for my little brother and sister. Then I think I'll finally get started on watching and writing about The Thick of It, which I have not dared to get onto before dealing with Yuletide. Must not distract my brain!

So there that is, and I wish the fellow Yuletiders on the flist the best of luck.

We got a ton of snow this weekend. I'm guessing about 15-16 inches in the front yard. The back deck got more because of the wind. Rachel is intrigued by the "'no" but she didn't want to go play in it. She's very particular about where she puts her feet.

Our office is open today but not one person of the six in my department is actually going in. Keith and I managed to dig one of our cars out yesterday but the other got the double whammy of being at the bottom of a steep embankment (so snow slid down onto the top of it, about 2 feet worth) and having the snowplow push the street's snow up behind it. So Keith took Rachel to daycare in my car this mornign and I'm working remotely. Keith actually fell on the sidewalk out to the car- thank goodness for small miracles, I was catering to my OCD child by preparing to take her out to the car myself instead of handing her off to Daddy. So we got to watch him fall rather than me watching him fall with her in his arms. Scary! He's OK, thank heaven.

So today I'm goinkg to try to work rather than clean, even though my mom is coming tomorrow evening. We'll see how that goes.

I liked this one from fannish5:


Name the five things you loved the most about your fandom(s) in the last ten years.

I just chose the first five things that came to my head, so these might not be the only five things or even the top five things that I've loved about my fandoms.

1. Daniel Jackson (Stargate SG-1): Possibly my favorite character ever. I hated what the show and the character became in later seasons of the show, but I loved him so much. I was completely obsessed and he made me happy for nine seasons.

2. Joshua Jackson (Dawson's Creek, now Fringe): He is made of awesome in a variety of ways. JJ can bring on the angst like almost no one else.

3. Boy kissing: A few of my fandoms had actual boy kissing. Mmm... I know some dislike when slash becomes canon or don't consider it slash at all, but I have quite enjoyed those moments on a few of my shows.

4. Music: Fandom has broadened and expanded my love of music over the past many years. Sometimes the music came from the shows, sometimes from vids, and sometimes from other fans. Supernatural is the only show that used music that was maybe 90% music I already had and loved, but it also reminded me of some old favorites that I'd long since forgotten. Other shows introduced me to entirely new (to me) music. My tastes are eclectic, and I love different songs or artists for reasons that probably make sense only to me.

Sometimes I like a particular song because it is from a particular moment in a show or movie or because it's associated with a certain character, but other times it's just the music itself that draws me in, but it's music I might not have been exposed to otherwise.

Music has become a primary fandom for me lately (in addition to other fandoms, not instead of them). My first two online fandoms were Battlestar Galactica (the real one) and Boston (the band). I was on the fringes of those old email lists in my early internet days, and I was aware that music fandoms existed, but just not involved. Since then, I've kept tabs on some of my favorite music artists online here and there, but it was a chance viewing of the American Idol season 7 finale that brought music fandom to the forefront of my life. It's not even just David Cook or other AI alums, but I've realized even more that there are ways online that I can find new music and new artists and keep track of things I like. I've learned a lot from other AI and other music fans.

5. Fan fiction: This is just a general answer, but it's true. Ten years ago, I barely knew what fanfic was. I go through phases when I read it a lot--especially if I'm new to an active fandom--and phases when I don't read much fanfic at all, but even when I'm not reading it, just knowing it's there makes me happy. Being introduced to that genre has changed the way I interact with what I read, no matter what I'm reading. It's changed my view of literature in a lot of ways, too.

In some ways, fanfic has been like candy to me, because I don't always like the good stuff. *g* I would not give up the time I spent reading some of the most ridiculous stories along with some truly moving and well-written stories and the jammy fics or the shower stories and my first slash... It was all good, even all the horrific grammar errors and poorly written stories that I read in the Dawson's Creek fandom. If I could go back and do it all again, I would. ;)

Honorable mention to Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Saved by the Bell. That show was so cracky and ridiculous, but, as I've mentioned before, it was exactly what I needed at the time. I saw it as so innocent and my love for that show was also completely innocent.

Getting two hours of sleep, then failing at napping (I CANNOT take naps, you guys, no matter how tired I am, it just never works) = not conducive to Yuletide. The story is in my head, I just can't get it ooooout. *whines*

Good thing I didn't have anything planned for tomorrow that can't wait till Tuesday.

Dear Bosses,

When you tell me to drop my Current Project and do Emergency Project A, I will.

When you tell me that Emergency Project B is actually a higher priority than Emergency Project A, then I will work on B.

When you tell me that "Previously Considered Low Priority" Project C has suddenly been upgraded to "Top Priority"- I will drop A and B and take care of C.

Because I am ridiculously good at my job (not that you have noticed this), I can even get A, B, and C done in time to satisfy everyone who is howling that their project is The Most Important.

But seriously- SERIOUSLY- do NOT get in my face about why my Current Project is late.

No love,
Seriously pissed off and demotivated formerly-super-employee, Me


(Between being sick, having a sick kid, and working basically every night this month, I have not put up my tree, my house is a disaster, and I haven't bought my child any Christmas presents. I'm really, really at the end of my rope).

Yesterday was my last day of the semester! I talked to my WWI&II prof about possibly minoring in History (I keep taking history classes, so I may as well, right?), for which I need an advisor in the History department, and he said he'd be happy to. :D

NOW NO MORE DISCUSSION OF SCHOOL OR SCHOOL-RELATED THINGS.

Today I played a bunch of demos from Big Fish Games. Now I am having a movie marathon. So far I've watched:

* Good Hair, a documentary about black women in America and their hair, and how natural black hair is considered undesirable and the industry for chemicals, items, weaves, etc, to achieve "white-looking" hair is RIDICULOUS and okay we discussed this a bit in my Soc class and it was really interesting. Plus Chris Rock is the - I don't even know what you call the guy who runs the documentary. The host? The narrator? The David Attenborough?

* Hellboy, which was watchable enough as long as the movie was focused on the characters and boring whenever shit started blowing up. (You can tell where my priorities lie. I used to watch Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers for the plots, too.) Also, because I did just take that class on the World Wars, I found the Nazi origin story and presence of Rasputin to be hilarious.

OKAY NOW I'M DONE TALKING ABOUT SCHOOL-RELATED THINGS.

* The Invisible Child, which presents us with a nanny who is hired by a family in which the mother believes that there is a third child when there are really only two. The youngest child believes in this second sister, but the oldest and the dad know better and conspire to enable the delusion. It's a really interesting character study for a while as the nanny goes from weirded out to worried to actually accepting of the situation, and then it just takes this creepy-ass left turn. When the nanny is at the height of her concern over the situation, she contacts CFS. Then, as she gets sucked in and CFS finally gets around to checking up on things, she joins the father and oldest child in actively stonewalling and persuading them that the entire thing was a wacky misunderstanding. Which is all well and good, and could be a really intriguing study of Stockholm Syndrome and how people become convinced that an unsafe situation is perfectly okay - except that the movie tells us that this is all a GOOD thing. Preservation of the family at all costs! Oh, and the oldest kid is totally okay with having spent literally half her life pretending Maggie exists and it didn't damage her at all, and the youngest is gonna be okay because - check this out - Invisible Maggie conveniently takes ill and dies. Which is a logical presentation of the idea that the mother has stopped needing the delusion, but the movie insists that Maggie's "death" has tied up all loose ends and everyone is totally cool and won't need years of intensive therapy at all!

. . . yeah, it's a Lifetime movie. Surprise.

Next up: Jennifer's Body.

This weekend: Oh, yeah, I signed up for Yuletide, didn't I?

So hey, LJ promotion: Ten dollars off a year of paid time IF you don't already have a paid account.

I have two paid accounts and have sent coupons along to a few RP accounts I've been vaguely considering buying accounts for, which leaves me with sixteen coupons for anyone who's been thinking of upgrading. Let me know if you want one!

Have kicked the ass of Stupid So-Called Final paper. Did it a day later than planned, as I couldn't concentrate to save my LIFE yesterday. It's amazing, what having three and a half hours before a bullshit paper is due will do for my attention span. It's a crap paper, but I don't care, because it was a crap course. And doubly crap because it started out so well, thus raising my hopes and expectations before dashing them viciously upon the ground.

So, that's that over and done with.

Tomorrow is the final exam for my WWI&II class, and then I am done with having to be smart for a whole month. And I've loved the semester - hey, three great classes and one shitty class is still pretty damn good - but I won't mind the break one bit.

So, I suppose it would be remiss of me not to share some thoughts on a movie I've been dreading for almost a decade.

( Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day. SPOILERS LIEK WO. )

The Thick of Iiiiiit. I need to rewatch to catch nuances and shit, which is fine because I don't have time for a real post right now anyway, but I just wanted to say HNNNNNGH so goooooood.

I love this show. There aren't words for how I love this show. I just. I'M SO GLAD I HAPPENED TO START WATCHING IT OH MY GOD.

As things stand now, here are my plans for the next two days.

Sunday:

1. Shoot out of bed to download The Thick of It finale. That's been part of my routine every Sunday morning for almost two months, and I'm going to be sad to see it go. (Mind you, if anyone can get it to me sooner, I will owe you the firstborn I'm never going to have, or something.)
2. Judging from the reaction posts that I am currently forcing myself not to read (but still have tags and such), I will then fall down and die.
3. Perform self-resurrection.
4. Go for lunch and a movie with Mom, who has agreed to see the Boondock Saints sequel.
5. (optional) Facepalm quietly but repeatedly in my seat as this particular sequel proves itself to be every bit as unnecessary as I have believed it will be for the last decade.
6. Grocery shopping.
7. Preliminary work on Stupid So-Called Final paper - coming up with a thesis, picking the bits I'm going to use, and maybe write a bit of it. (My approach to papers is pretty casual; I'm only start anything at all on Sunday because of the seven-page minimum.

Monday:

1. Go to campus.
2. Spend day writing Stupid So-Called Final paper, because I can't focus on writing papers at home to save my life.
3. Hand in SSCF a day early, because Tuesday needs to be spent on studying for Wednesday's WWI&II test.

Which, by the way, my prof DID e-mail us on. I am vaguely proud of him.

. . . I am less proud of the part where he's going to teach a few last-minute things before we take the test, but eh, how else can he work it? That snow day was the worst fucking timing ever.

And after that, the semester shall officially be over. And I shall spend a week doing FUCK ALL before I pick up more hours at work for the rest of vacation.

Per Armando Iannucci's Twitter:

"Tonight's climax to The Thick of It sees the arrival of The Spinzopods, silicone-based politicans [sic] who battle the statesmen of Planet Earth."

♥

Between him and Misha Collins, I may have to actually use the Twitter account I created ages ago to start officially following people and quit it with this bookmark shit.