Monday, December 10, 2012

It's Not That I Want To Hide...

I just, at this moment, think I'd be more comfortable if I just crawled under my desk and continued to work from there for the last hour of the work day. It'd be so cozy.

Is that weird?

Well, yes, even I can see that.

Stop rolling your eyes at me.

Let's take a few steps back: Mondays are, believe it or not, my favorite work days. Because they're the busiest! So much to do! But, on 90% of Mondays, it's okay if you don't get to everything else... that's what Tuesday through Friday are for.

At least for me.

Most of the time.

Today is one of those times.

But today is also one of those Mondays where so much kept coming up that it's now 53 minutes from the end of my work day and I have not taken my lunch hour yet.

And, of course, we're not really allowed to take lunch during the last hour of the day. So, rather that leaving and getting food (which would be my first meal in over 24 hours, yikes. Stupid forgotten pouch of carrot-applesauce in my apartment), I feel justified to take a break to type a completely wordy post to blogger.

Because, to be honest, I'm torn about sticking with blogger. Tumblr has some very nice features. But also is a bit douchey. To the point where things quickly wear out their welcome once you follow a blog, I'm realizing. And I don't really like the thinner columns. I kind of like a classic blog, don't you? I'm not so much a micro-blogger as a macro-blogger, I guess.

But I do like Tumblr in some aspects.

The point is that I just think the floor looks awfully comfortable right now. And then less people would see me. And the lighting would be darker. And I can just listen to Tears for Fears and update spreadsheets to my heart's content for the next few hours.

Did I say few hours? When I now have just slightly over 45 minutes left to my work day? That's because I just found out the movie night happening at my apartment has been canceled due to one of the guests puking her guts out and needing to go to the ER. So, I guess my brain has already decided that I'm staying late now.

Except I have to come in early tomorrow. Crap. Do I want to do both?

Wait, that's not the point. The point is that my chair sucks and hurts my ass.

Especially when I've been sitting in it for almost 9 hours straight.

Monday, December 3, 2012

Thrilling Adventure Gateway Drug:

The folks behind the brilliant Thrilling Adventure podcast and staged radio-style show have been doing some behind-the-scenes specials. If you've ever wanted to test the waters on their twist-on-old-school-radio-plays, these are the episodes to do it on.

My favorites are always Beyond Belief. Paul F. Tompkins and Paget Brewster  are amaaaaaazing as a tipsy pair of married mediums. And hearing Paul and Paget talk about their characters makes me love it all the more.

One day, I'll make it out to L.A. to see it live. Hopefully.



Sunday, December 2, 2012

My Favorite Tumblr Of This Week:

Jen Kirkman's MA'AM: Men Against Assholes & Misogyny is such a brilliant addition to the world. Thank you, Ms Kirkman. And thank you to the men that have already added their statements to it. I spent most of last night going through them on tumblr and having my faith in humanity restored by each one.

Kirkman created the tumblr around the same time she decided to quit Twitter- finally fed up with how her male colleagues (Kirkman is a great comedian- a field super dominated by men but also by people of all walks of life that are the masters of comebacks) would direct message her with sympathy about the amount of misogynist and hateful tweets she received from men but would not take a public stand against the other men. So, she decided to leave twitter until things had changed enough that men would see that if they don't like the way other men treat women then they have to say something as well.

Equality needs to be fought for on all sides.

Think of it as bullying. The best bullying prevention overviews for schools these days bring in the role of "the by-stander" that witnesses an inappropriate interaction between two other students. It's not enough to teach kids to be nice to each other and to tell adults if someone is not being nice to you. You also have to know that when you're the by-stander in a bullying situation that you need to either step in and stop the interaction or be the one to go get a teacher.

This is bully prevention for adults. You can't "go get a teacher" in the adult world. But, you can stand up for those that you see getting bullied. Be it for gender, race, sexuality, or so on... don't just turn a blind eye anymore.

One of my absolute favorite movies is Bill Wilder's The Apartment. In the movie, Jack Lemmon's character learns the hard way to, as his neighbor puts it, "Be a mensch".  Standing up and being a man. The character was always a really nice guy- but he almost loses someone dear to him because he didn't take a stand when he was the by-standing third party in a sucky situation.

So, dudes of the world, are you ready to be men and take your role in shutting down bigotry and mistreatment when you're a by-stander to it? And will you declare it on MA'AM?


Saturday, December 1, 2012

Twilight is to Women in Fiction as Leela is to Women in Blernsball

I adore the ladies over at The Mary Sue. A couple years ago, it quickly became my first stop for geek news, as they got all the newest info on stuff I was interested in without falling into the, er, let's say "sticky pit" of poor-man's-Kevin-Smith-style editorializing. If you get what I mean. The Mary Sue keeps it classy without losing any fun. Also: they cover basically any time a smart lady person does good. And that's always a happy thing!

This week, one of their contributors posted an essay on Twilight hate. And... had a rather valid, sensible, and good argument against hating Twilight. Yes: reasoning skills do exist on the internet!

Because I know I need to be reminded every so often that we don't need every story by a woman and with a woman lead to be a masterpiece. It would be nice- and we do need MORE masterpieces by women and about women- but we don't need Twilight to be that. As screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg pointed out, Twilight is like Transformers. Twilight is Independence Day. Twilight is Top Gun. Those films all had male leads but don't represent all men and their behaviors. Those were all very popular but were also clearly not art or masterpieces. Twilight is the same.

And, most importantly, it's popular and by a woman with a woman as the main character. Which shows naysayers that stories by women and about women are wanted and are giant cash cows- and money speaks. Which makes it so more stories of diverse quality about women by women can be made. Which is a win for everyone.

Actually, you know what the greatest analogy is? The Futurama episode called "A Leela of Her Own".

The Same. Really.


Where cyclops lady Leela becomes the first professional female Blernsball (futuristic baseball) player- not because she's good at the sport but because she's actually so terrible that she's a novelty that will bring in more money. In the end, Leela inspired other women to fight to also play professional blernsball... so that they could show that they weren't all as horrible at the game as Leela. It's a great and complicated episode. Go watch it!

At the very least, instead of wasting energy hating Twilight, we should be using that energy to create and promote books and movies that can follow in its footsteps as The Hunger Games already has done. And using our energy to make sure that all the future hits are of a quality we can be extra proud of. Creating strong and vocal fanbases so stories we DO like get sequels and films and television shows made about them.


The Terrible Things I End Up Watching Via Amazon Prime

Hey, remember the early 2000s?

For some reason, when I was desperate for something to play in the background while fiddling around with some electronics last night, I ran out of current shows on Hulu to catch up with and wandered into Amazon Prime Instant Watch.

And rather than watch a show I love but haven't seen in ages like, say, ALIAS. I decided to instead watch the two part Dawson's Creek finale.



For the record: I blame Fringe, Don't Trust the B-- in Apt 23, Cougar Town, the trailer for Oz The Great & Powerful, and all the tabloids at Walgreens that continue to feature Katie Holmes on the cover on a regular basis.

But... holy fuck, my memory was actually being really kind by thinking that the finale was kinda bad.

Because it is fucking terrible.

So bad that you'd swear that it was written by 12-year-old fanfic writers. So bad that it makes all other episodes (even the ridiculous later seasons) look like genius in comparison. Hell, it makes Growing Pains reunion specials look genius and subtle.

Some notes:

  • The first half hour is just meta-reference after meta-reference without a single one of them being clever or amusing. No, really. It's all horrible and incredibly lazy. Even if some of the uses of "soulmate" were self-mocking.
  • The second half hour is 26-year-old characters reminiscing way too happily about "the good ol' days" and bitching about how great and too perfect (well, except for Jen) their current lives are. 
  • Aaaaaaaand then they spend the second hour slowly killing off Jen. Only four seasons after they ran out of plot ideas for Michelle Williams. At least she has spent the past ten years proving to everyone that she had talent and potential to spare all along. 
  • Not to mention that, despite being on death's doorstep, Jen seems to care more about Joey's love life than about her death or what will happen to her soon-to-be-orphaned child.
  • And I'd complain about the Jack "Being Gay SUCKS!" stuff, but... that was always there. That was the same as ever.
  • Also... random Jeremy Sisto. Very small part considering... he's Jeremy Sisto. Did they originally shoot, like, six hours of this finale? Virginia Madsen also has a teeny tiny part.
  • Heh, they did their best to stay vague on the details of what life in the future would be like. But they did fuck up on thinking that The WB would still exist in 2007. If they really wanted to seem sharp about what the future would hold, Dawson would've realized that he needed to add vampires to his show.

And yet, in all that horribleness, someone at least knew to pull out the trifecta of heartstring-tugging songs from previous decades for one last hurrah: 
  1. "Have a Little Faith In Me" for Joey and Pacey re-connecting. There are few times that song doesn't get me, though.
  2. "Angel" by Sarah McLachlan the background of the terribly written monologue Jen records to her baby.
  3. Jewel's "Hands" for when Jen dies. Considering the time that I was most loyally watching Dawson's Creek was also the time where my CD of Spirit was constantly playing, it felt especially perfect.
However, the very end montage with "Say Goodnight Not Goodbye" was just trying too hard. Especially when they included a certain face in that montage...


In conclusion: Well, I think I at least managed to make it so I'm not likely to watch any more Dawson's Creek for another nine years. And I caught up on the last few gif additions to the brilliant www.jamesvandermemes.com I'm calling it a successful viewing!

What Arrow & American Horror Story: Asylum have in common...





Neither one is nearly as fun to watch as it should be. Boo.