Random Stuff Iz Random

[azziria]

• It never ceases to surprise me how a group of fans can all watch the same TV show and yet clearly actually all see something quite different. People hate episodes I loved, adore episodes I didn't think were all that great, complain about things that I hadn't even noticed, diss my favourite characters... I'm not complaining, it adds variety (so long as people remain civil to one another, that is), it's just... interesting.
  
  
• The proposal I was working on so hard last week (the deputising up a grade thing) has come good - the client has signed it off. Which means that I now go from having slightly too much work to do over the next couple of months to having a verging-on-the-insane amount of work to do. Which I'm told is a good thing...
  
  
• Just tried to do my crew registration for the RORC (the Royal Ocean Racing Club, who organise the Fastnet). Got all the way through, hit 'save', and it threw me an error message in DUTCH. Gah!
  
  
• Went into Hollister with DD this evening with DD (her favourite store). Bizarre and daft. Very dark (not sure how the staff stand working in there!), feel more like a bar/nightclub than a store (clearly the intention), and seriously, surfboards? Surfing magazines on sale? Please. This is Cambridge, the nearest surfing beach is 250-odd miles away, and any serious surfer isn't going to waste money on Hollister gear... Yes, it's brand marketing, I know. At least DD can actually stand up on a surf board.
  
  
• My brain is fried. Hopefully it's not terminal.

Comments

[portraitofafool.livejournal.com]

I agree that it is interesting about shows. I for one did not like this week's H50 at all, but I am sure more than a few people did. However, on the same ticket... well, similar, but it's a different ticket... okay. I'm exhausted and starting to ramble. Moving on. lol... What I am attempting to say is that with all of the Soulless Sam episodes of SPN, I was one of a minority that absolutely LOVED them. I like discussion and such, but that was a rabid thing there, so I steered clear lest I be eviscerated in text.

Gratz on your proposal being signed off on. It's always awesome when things go well after working your ass of on them.

*snort* Dutch? Oh dear. I got an error message in Chinese (or Japanese... I'm not really sure) one time. It's a very wtf?? type of deal. Also, finishing something only to get the dreaded error message of doom sucks so hard.

A gloomy surfing store nowhere near a beach... I'm curious... How does that even work?

I have Fried Brain, too, atm. Maybe it's not terminal, but it's definitely going around, I think. :|

[azziria.livejournal.com]

Soulless!Sam is a good example (you know how much I loved what they did with Sam in those episodes). I think that even before then people didn't understand what was going on with Sam, and the Sam-bashing did annoy me a bit. He had that perhaps-the-end-justifies-the-means thing going on before that already spoke of logic ruling emotion in him, but all people could see was 'poor Dean!'.

I didn't hate this week's epi, nor was it one of my top five. Diddy can't act, which was no surprise. However they gave me wet!Steve within the first five minutes, and it's already been proven that that's the point where my brain switches off and the hormones take over, rendering any truly objective viewpoint or reasoning unlikely from there on in... shallow, I know, but right now I just want to be entertained.

The episode lots of people liked that I didn't really care for was the one with Rachel getting carjacked and Steve in the jungle. And then I came across someone saying they absolutely hated the tsunami episode, which I loved. So we all see something quite different.

There's also an interesting line of thought here about how much our watching is coloured by our involvement in fandom, and the fanfiction we read and write. I'm quite sure that that the way I watch and what I see (or how I interpret what I see) is strongly affected by fanon etc. It makes the show much more for me than it really is, and probably means that it would be hard for someone who doesn't know about the whole fandom thing to understand why I'm so obsessed with this show right now - because if they watched it, they wouldn't see what I see.

As to Hollister, it's all about image - lots of people who want to think they look like cool Californian surfer dudes even though they've never surfed in their lives. Ho hum, it's a free world I suppose... DD and I had a long and I think useful conversation about how much extra the clothes in there cost because you're paying for a brand name.

[portraitofafool.livejournal.com]

The Sam bashing really started, to me, in about S4 and it's only gotten worse and more annoying to me. I love what he does, what he brings to the show and the "logic rules over emotion" thing is awesome. I also get sick to death of the Poor Dean camp and fml, but this season when Lisa told Dean he pretty much "saved the world". Um... WHAT? Last I checked, it wasn't Dean who threw himself into the Pit for the greater good of mankind, it was Sam. Needless to say, color me annoyed and well... Have you ever noticed that no one ever credits Sam with the things he does? Dean gets all of the pats on the back and then Sam gets called a monster and a bastard. Just. HUH? It makes my eyes cross so bad.

I actually did ah... hate... this week's episode. It's the first one I have genuinely disliked. There were things I enjoyed and one of those was being surprised that Mr. Can't-Pick-A-Name wasn't as bad of an actor as I thought he'd be, but he did overdo it. He brought way too much "thug" to the role of an F.B.I. agent. In fact, I have a lot of questions about that in general, namely about how what he was doing--going after the bad guy and therefore doing his job--was going to be something that landed him in prison.

Also? Steve is not psychic. I love the man, but some of the stuff he comes up with makes me wonder if he's checking a crystal ball when no one's looking.

I liked about half of the Rachel getting carjacked episode, but it was another of those disjointed and loosely written episodes with an anticlimatic climax that made me huff with annoyance. If you're gonna do drama then do DRAMA, not that. The tsunami episode made me want to bitchslap Steve, which was a first and a last, thankfully, but other than that I liked it.

I try to watch objectively, but also keeping in mind that it's just a show and it's entertainment, therefore not to be taken seriously. The hiccups in the writing will yank me out of that bubble really quick though and that is my number one complaint about the show--the loose writing at times.

I have my own fanon, which develops almost totally independent of other peoples' fanons simply because I can't participate in discussion and hang out on the comms where that kind of thing is prominent. My bad internet connection makes it very difficult for me to be around in that kind of capacity because if people start throwing in extra graphics/.gifs, I'll be there all night just waiting for the page to load. So, in turn, I kind of float around in my own fannish bubble and it's odd while also being somehwat alienating by and large (how many other people out there are thinking Steve could be bipolar? Show of hands? Heh... yeah) but it also frees me from the "influence" (that word is not right for this, but I think ykwim) of the fannish masses. It's a double-edged sword I suppose.

Hollister sounds like a pretentious ass store. It's like Hot Topic for the wannabe surfing set. We don't have much surfing down here, it's more wakeboarding if anything at all (bayous and rivers make it hard to surf as there are no waves, lol) so maybe we'll be spared a Hollister store in LA.

It's good that the convo seems to have been useful though. You are not your label and all of that.

And I am hushing... now.

[kare.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I hear ya on the episode thing. Normally I'm completely at odds with the general viewing audience with whether I liked an ep or not.

No brain frying! We need yours!

[azziria.livejournal.com]

As I said, I'm all for different viewpoints and discussion so long as people remain civil... unfortunately that's not always the case :(

I think the brain-fry is just a result of too much work and new stuff to take on board over the last couple of weeks. I don't think it's terminal!

[jendeana.livejournal.com]

I always seem to be in the minority these days, the characters I can't stand everyone else loves and pretty much the same with eps.

Congrats on the proposal.

[azziria.livejournal.com]

I think it's because we all bring so many different things to our watching of our shows. I just wish people would play nicely and respect others' viewpoints.

I'm glad the proposal came off, even though it means more work for me - after the Jan/Feb project and all the stress is caused, I needed something to go right :)

[alamo-girl80.livejournal.com]

I was in the "not impressed with this last ep" crowd, but hey, it's not like I didn't find stuff to LIKE in it either. I didn't hate it, just didn't particularly like it, and there were redeeming qualities.

OMG your Hollister is like a cave too? WTF is that? Not that I could wear anything in there anyway, its all made for rail-thin things that obviously don't live in my area, but still, why so dark? Maybe they don't want you to read the price tags...

[azziria.livejournal.com]

This episode started with wet!Steve, which pretty much switches off any capacity I might have for rational, objective thought. And it had that beautiful moment of a resigned Danny putting his seatbelt on, because he knows Steve so well that he knows nothing he can say will stop him :)

Hollister make clothes for people DD's shape - tall and lean with long legs and flat stomachs. I keep pointing out to her that she should be very grateful that I fell for such prime genetic material in the shape of her father (also tall and lean with long legs and a flat stomach the annoying b*st*rd...).

[alamo-girl80.livejournal.com]

Oh, there were high points, no doubt. Wet!Steve with a plastic bag on his cast? HEE! Plus Kamekono making him some brekky. And then anything with Steve, Danny and a cargument is always going to be my favorite moments.

Especially the "by the book" joke. "What book would that be, huh? How to nuke your enemy? War and Peace, minus the peace part?"

Just, there wasn't enough "good" in there for me.

Hollister make clothes for people DD's shape - tall and lean with long legs and flat stomachs. I keep pointing out to her that she should be very grateful that I fell for such prime genetic material in the shape of her father (also tall and lean with long legs and a flat stomach the annoying b*st*rd...).


Ah yes. Back when I was running regularly, I can remember fitting into leaner jeans - although I'm not long by any means. And my husband, bless the bastard, is built like a slightly taller Danny, all T shaped torso with 220lbs of pure muscle and it just makes me SICK! Course, he works out 5 days a week, so that may be part of it. Bummer.

[tailoredshirt.livejournal.com]

It seems like the last episode of H50 was very polarizing. People either loved it or hated it, loved P. Diddy or didn't. It's been interesting to see the different opinions. (I'm only guessing that you were thinking of H50 here, but maybe not.)

[azziria.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was thinking of the latest H5-0. I didn't love it or hate it, it had its moments. Of course it started with Steve in that wetsuit top, so from there on in I was pretty much watching with my hormones and not my objectivity! (Yes, I'm shallow, what of it??)

Actually, on reflection I spend a lot of my H5-0 viewing time watching with my hormones... works for me... *g*

[imkalena.livejournal.com]

LOL! I love that your Hollister is Hot Topic with surfboards. Hey, I was in Cambridge once! Twice. In 1982. :)

[azziria.livejournal.com]

Cambridge is a lovely place to live, if somewhat odd. It just needs to be 100 miles further north or further west - it's too far from any mountains or the sea.