bop_radar | De-hermiting

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De-hermiting

I once had someone on my f'list who wrote all their posts as numbered lists. I could say that this post was an ironic tribute to them, but actually it's also a convenient way to precis a great deal into a short space. :) This is all the stuff I could have posted about recently, but didn't.

1. I went hermit-y for a while. It's a thing. It happens periodically and unexpectedly and usually for no specific reason. Sorry. It's not personal. But I haven't read my f'list for days, so if important stuff has happened you should let me know.

2. BSG's 'Revelations' has NOT settled well with me. I'm fronting up about that now in case any of my BSG friends wonder why I'm not much interested in engaging about the show at the moment. I enjoyed the adrenalin rush of the episode in the immediate moment, but I have some major, probably insurmountable issues with the direction of the show and I've heard a couple of things recently that make me think that I (will soon) have had it with the whole show, forever. This is not an abandonment of the fandom or my friends in it: you guys rock! But yeah. Better to be honest.

3. On the advice of

mskatej and

radioreverie I have been mainlining 30 Rock and loving it. I have watched most episodes at least twice now! It is so very charming, and Liz Lemon is awesome. Even though I know everyone who likes the show relates to her because the show is constructed that way (and there's a Liz Lemon aspect to all of us), I feel like she is very much 'me'--in the workplace, at least. And especially me-how-I-was-last-year when I was in a temporary middle management position. Ah, middle management: how I do not miss you!

4. I read Stephanie Meyer's 'Twilight' and declare it to be the most insipid and disturbing Mary Sue I have ever read. I hear that the series only goes from bad to worse in the subsequent novels.

5. I have the 'blahs' about a lot of things these days: TV, books, movies, LJ, even vidding... I'm hoping that will shift soon, but I'm finding it means I don't know what to post about.

6. I've been browsing a lot of non-LJ blogs recently, semi-obsessively, and kind of want to share my finds, but does anyone care? What are your favourite blogs? Should I be reading them?

7. I'm in a post-'Paranoid Android' vidding slump, which is probably not unexpected. However, the good news is I submitted two vids for Vividcon: 'Southside' for

bradcpu's Action panel, and 'Paranoid' for Nearly New. The Vividcon schedule is up, so I can stare enviously at all the sessions I'd go to if I was going.

8. I've started yoga again. I learnt that I should NEVER STOP IT AGAIN because the first week absolutely killed me. I was practically narcoleptic after two 6am starts, and my whole body ached. But I'm finding my way back into it.

9. Doctor Who's not bad at the moment, eh? I was surprised how much I enjoyed an episode that included the Torchwood gang: I thought that was impossible for me. I still have Issues with the show, but it gets points from me for entertainment value for the last couple of eps.

10. I am de-hermiting at a very foolish time. We're about to have (yet) another houseguest, so I may have intermittent net time. Ah well! So goes life.

So what's up with you guys?

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hey there boppy. Welcome back from the cave. Tis okay, I think we all go through that at times.

3.) I need to see more 30 Rock. There was just SO much tv on thursday nights that this show got lost. I've seen maybe half of the series. My sister is hoarding season 1. I may just have to make the 300 mile trip to get that and my other dvds back. lol.

4.) OMG!! thank you so much for saying this. It's brave when everyone around you loves it. I know my friends will hate me but I was just not that into it. I enjoyed the first 350 pages or so and read them pretty quickly. I like reading young adult books cuz they're really quick reads. But I had to stop and it took me 6 months to read the rest. The whole ending continuously made me want to throw the book against the wall. I'm known to be a feminist at times and was just sick that Bella couldn't take care of her own damned self. All the vampires were constantly carrying her around. grr. And she couldn't be trusted to not get herself killed. I read the 2nd book and actually liked it better, relatively speaking. And I'll probably eventually read the 3rd one cuz even though I'm not terribly fond of the series I do enjoy talking to my friends :)

5.) blah blah blah. kind of feeling it myself though my lj would not be evidence of it.

7.) good luck on your vids. I enjoyed them a lot.

9.) I'm starting a Dr. Who marathon with my friend. I've already seen half of season 1 some of season 2 and the vast majority of season 3. We'll see how it goes.

anyways, glad you're back

Edited 2008-07-05 07:51 (UTC)

Boppy! Not much else to say but Hi! Everyone's a hermit once in a while. Glad you are taking care of yourself with yoga. Not much up with me, just in vid-watching and Gaeta-fic reading haze.

One vid in partcular made me like Revelations a lot better. Like I wanted to discuss the vid's interpretation of the episode more than the episode itself. Good for the vid, not so good for the ep, huh? Vid's here. (http://kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com/119273.html)

Oh, and I found this (http://www.vimeo.com/1211060) from More Joy Day yesterday. It's kind of cheery and touching, something about it warms my heart.

Hugs, dear and have fun with the houseguest!

I am curious about the BSG things you've heard that you don't seem to like so much!

Non LJ blogs? sounds interesting, I think I read too much LJ and have closed myself off from other communities, by habit rather than by choice.

Glad to see you've resurfaced! With all the work that went into Paranoid Android I am not surprised you went hermit mode for a while.
Re #4 *winces* Oh dear.....you may want to defriend me when you find out that I love this series. *peeks through hands at you* I ran off and looked up "Mary Sue" for the first time when I read your comment here, and this is the definition I have for it
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Mary+Sue
Please excuse the ignorance of not being aware what a Mary Sue is (I thought I had some idea but I didn't according to this definition). I am (unlike most of the Twilight fandom) quite nonpartisan when it comes to these books - and know that ppl will either love or hate them. But I am curious to know exactly what inspires the dislike hence the search for the Mary Sue definition. Can I ask is this what you meant?

Hermiting can be good.

4. I read Stephanie Meyer's 'Twilight' and declare it to be the most insipid and disturbing Mary Sue I have ever read. I hear that the series only goes from bad to worse in the subsequent novels.

Thank you! I am baffled by the huge popularity of these books. And slightly creeped out by the Twilight Moms. I really shouldn't judge though. My own tastes can be quite suspect at times.

OMG YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY. I am so over the moon that you love 30 Rock. Do you ship Liz/Jack out of interest? BECAUSE I HARDCORE SHIP THEM. The last episode? With the phone messages?!

I'm just waving hello :)

#2 has me nervously intrigued. I've been skipping back and forth about BSG stuff too. I think at the moment I'm making a deliberate divide between fandom and show in my mind so I can at least enjoy fandom. Though I sorely miss that confident feeling when canon and I were heading down the same path :)

#10 have a great time with your house guest.

I love 30-Rock too, along with the Office (which i really love), but I've only ever watched it on NBC's site or hulu.com the next day since there's too much else going on to catch it live.

And I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks Stephanie Meyers books are crap, i know they're for teens, but geez the main character becomes unbearable.

*hugs*

I have been feeling very BLAH about LJ and IJ myself lately. I keep telling myself it's a pre-summer vacation slump, and I will come back in September all obsessive about reading and commenting and posting. I hope it goes that way, because feeling indifferent to LJ just SUCKS. I'm still reading lots of fic though, so I guess I'm not really out of the loop yet.

Would love to hear about good non-LJ blogs!

All I ever read about the Twilight books is that they are one big Mary Sue but isn't the lead guy a Mary Sue as well? A goodlooking vampire who is all righteous and "sparkly"? That screams Mary (or Marty) Sue to me.

A lot of the blogs I frequent are dancers' blogs. Swan Lake Samba Girl (http://www.tonyaplank.com/tonyaplank/swan_lake_samba_girl/) is by a former Assistant District Attorney turned full time writer who blogs about her forays into amateur dancing. She also reviews various performances. I find her to be both charming as well as shockingly naive for a woman who used to work with criminals in Brooklyn.

The Winger (http://thewinger.com/words/)The Winger: lots of dancers blog here from all over the world. They often post short videos of pieces that they are working on as well as rehearsal pictures. The woman who started the blog used to dance with the New York City Ballet but had to stop due to an injury that has not healed sufficiently well enough for her to resume ballet dancing full time.

Ranting Details (http://thewinger.com/words/): Matt Murphy. Poor guy, he used to dance with ABT but came down with a nasty case of Epstein Bar Syndrome and he had to also step down from professional dance. I'm looking forward to see how his path turns out now that he's pursuing writing as a career.

It's Me Julia (http://itsmejulia.com/): A non dance blog She'd love to be thought of as a Gen X Carrie Bradshaw but she has her own charms.

I still haven't seen "Revelations" because they didn't put it up on the show's website. (That is completely made of fail!!!)

And I wanted to watch 30 Rock, but my local video place doesn't carry it. I am foiled in my fannish aspirations, foiled I say!

Glad to see you de-hermiting.

Not much to say other than we missed you and I'm still wishing you were coming to VVC. :(

Nice to hear from you! Welcome back. :)

I'm sorry you're having post-Revelations angst. I understand, believe me.

I read "Twilight" and didn't hate it, but didn't love it either. Way too melodramatic for me. However, I completely understand why it makes teens and pre-teens batshit insane. I don't understand it as much with adults, although, the book actually has a lot in common with romance novels (it now occurs to me that this is almost a teen version of "Outlander" in terms of melodrama), so I guess I can understand the appeal in that respect.

I'm glad you submitted Southside to Vividcon as I still think it's one of the best vids I've ever seen.

I'm liking Doctor Who quite a bit at the moment, but that's mostly because I am a pathetic Doctor/Rose shipper. And I'm okay with that. *g*

3. Ack - I just had a choice between a free first season of The Office or 30 Rock, and I picked The Office. I'll have to get into 30 rock at some point, though.

4. The best thing I've heard about Twilight is that it's the one fandom where it's not wanky to say that a fanfic is better than the source, because it's probably true. You might enjoy this rant. (http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_rant/114445.html)

6. Oh, definitely share. My blogs tend to be focused on American politics, and often stuff that I violently disagree with; I read them in the morning to get the old blood-pressure going. ;) So I'll spare you.

9. I've caught a few of the recent episodes on Skiffy and really enjoyed them. Before that it was always a little too kiddy for me, but now I'm getting swept up in all the excitement.

Hi! I haven't seen the new BSG series yet, but it seems I have much to look forward to :( Oh well.

30Rock is brilliant, despite being the sort of thing that sounds only average when you describe it to someone. I just had a marathon with two friends and one of them fell off the sofa every time someone said "Dr Spacheemen". Mind you, he was On Drugs at the time.

i'm feeling the malaise, too. and the hermityness. what's up with that, i wonder? i've tried jump starting my squee by going back and watching large chunks of SV, and i even rewatched BSG 1.1, but nope. nothing is helping.

i think i might make a recs post. those usually seem to help. like a swap meet of recs, where i ask for others to rec me stuff, too. sharing fan-made fun sometimes can do the trick.

Hey, Boppy!

1. I completely understand. Hermit is the way to go sometimes. :)

2. I haven't done a review or even watched 'Revelations' a second time for that very reason. I just don't know what to do with it, and I have no will to contemplate where the show can possibly go from there.

4. Ahh, Twilight. I agree with you about the Mary Sue aspect 100%. I just read all the books, and going in (and from the first page) I knew it was crap, but I got sucked in anyway, dammit. *shrugs* I think knowing that it's crap and that the female characterization would bother me from the get-go let me just not think and enjoy the story (I actually changed the wording or scenes in my head as I went). I dunno. I'm usually horribly snobbish about reading genre novels (with the exception of young adult stuff, which I enjoy with no shame, which may be my problem here), so though I rolled my eyes a lot, I liked it. And now I can mock it and have fun with it.

5. Same here. I have no incentive to write or do much of anything. It's depressing.

Anyhoo, hi again! Maybe we will break out of this funk soon? So say we all. :)

I was wondering where you went. Welcome back.

#2. I'm curious as to what's nagging at you. For myself personally I feel that there are too many plot holes for them to wrap up in the time they have left and do it well. I also think that the long wait we had to suffer through before the start of S4 really hurt the show and I can only imagine that the ridiculous wait we have till S4.2 is going to hurt the show and fandom even more. I have a lot of questions but not necessarily good ones. We'll see.

#4. 'Twilight' is totally a Mary Sue isn't it. But it's vampires and I love vampires so I'll read it and secretly love every minute of it.

#6. It's not really a blog but if you love movies you should definitely check out the site of the only reviewer I trust: http://flickfilosopher.com/

#8. It's so great that you're getting back into yoga. I know that starting back up totally sucks but after a few classes it'll be old hat again. And pretty soon getting up early for class will get easier I promise. You just have to make it such a part of your routine that you don't even think about it, you just do it. And I'm happy to get out my pom poms and cheer you on if you need it. Just let me know. :-)

#9. I'm totally doing a Dr. Who S1 and 2 marathon because I love Rose and S2 with her and 10 is just so wonderful. I really need to catch up on this season.

Really glad your back! :-)

Hey Boppy! Nice to see you around. I was wondering where you'd gone. :)

I'm really curious as to #2 and why you feel future episodes might make you abandon the show altogether. I know that I'm worried about where the show might be going, but I've tried to be really good and avoid spoilers as much as possible. So I'm a bit clueless as to the problems you're having. I'd love to know, though. I tend to agree with you when it comes to your opinion as to the show's direction so if you're becoming frustrated... Well, I'm now worried about my future enjoyment.

As for #4, my friends all love the Twilight series and keep telling me to read it. I'd already read some other people's thoughts on the books though, which match yours perfectly, and I've sworn to never, ever read one of the books. I'm glad that my decision is being justified by others.

Welcome back, boppy.

I couldn't get past Twilight being a YA novel. It TOTALLY WAS.

I've been catching up on the last few BSG episodes. Since I jumped into this series so late, I am very confused about so many things, but I'm still fascinated by this show.

I'm going to do a hunt for a site that will fill me in on the background a bit more.

Welcome back! Hermitting is an okay thing to do, and sometimes it's necessary for the mind.

Meanwhile, recs on non-LJ blogs would be really interesting! I know I don't venture much outside the LJ/IJ/JF-circles; it's so easy to limit yourself to certain environment only.

List,lol!

#2.Actually,I really liked Revelations,because,unlike most episodes this season,it was very tight and there wasn't any split of stories or characters in it.

But,overall,I agree with you about BSG.I feel the show is taking a different direction this year and I'm not sure I like it.In fact,I'm almost sure I don't like it.
Plus,the characters don't look like who the were in the previous years,the people whom I loved and connected with.
They aren't worse or 'uglier'.They're just...different.And I find it hard to feel them so close any more. *sigh*

If it all ends up with destinies and prophecies and supernatural stuff and an epic-in-a-cheesy-way finale...I'm going to HATE it.
I was more a fan of the 'simple,common,human people+their struggle for survival' part of the story,rather than the hyper-relegious,hyper-scifi,hyper-supernatural one.

So,the things you've read and made you go "mew"...spoilers??

#4.Oops.That bad?
I got it as a gift recently,and thought about reading it later in the summer...

And don't worry about the 'hermiting' thing.There comes a moment when it happens to everyone...Don't put pressure on yourself.It will end when it's supposed to.

6. I've been browsing a lot of non-LJ blogs recently, semi-obsessively, and kind of want to share my finds, but does anyone care? What are your favourite blogs? Should I be reading them?

*gasp* An extraLiveJournal affair! ;) You should share! I went off reading blogs some time ago when I realized I (and most of the blogs I read) just went looking for things to make me angry, so now I don't have any [non-LJ] blogs to read at all. Oh, and I've been hermit-ing away from LJ too lately. *crawls out from under rock*

raises and waves with hands!!!
I wanna know, what blogs you read!!!

me, 98% out of 100 non-LJ blogs are about software and web2.0 stuff :D
unless you like to turn into a software hobby tester like me, I don't think, they are that interesting to you!

but for political and other stuff, currently the site I follow, has two awesome debates , that I follow:

Blueprint for power
The German feuilletons spent the spring debating the relationship between architecture and morality.

After a visit to the Beijing Olympic Stadium by Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, Guido Mingels, writing for Das Magazin on 25.04.2007, described Bejing as an "Elysium for star architects." De Meuron told an interviewer that it would be stupid and cowardly not to build for China on the grounds that it has no democracy. Albert Speer, the son of Hitler's architect, who has years of experience building for China including the planning for two car cities, Antin near Shanghai and Chanchun, took an apolitical stance in the TV magazine Kulturzeit on 24.05.07: "I think of architects in general and our office is particular as service providers. (...)

http://www.signandsight.com/features/1721.html

-----------------

Notes on a post-secular society
Both religious and secular mentalities must be open to a complementary learning process if we are to balance shared citizenship and cultural difference. By Jürgen Habermas

A "post-secular" society must at some point have been in a "secular" state. The controversial term can therefore only be applied to the affluent societies of Europe or countries such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand, where people's religious ties have steadily or rather quite dramatically lapsed in the post-War period.

http://www.signandsight.com/features/1714.html

-----------------

or sightandsight has linked summaries to cool other countries articles:

The Disadvantages of
an Elite Education
Our best universities have forgotten
that the reason they exist is to make
minds, not careers

http://www.theamericanscholar.org/su08/elite-deresiewicz.html

from this issue:
http://www.signandsight.com/features/1718.html

Quick hello!

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