Boppy's Journal

Revise, Wollongong, December 2010
Australian vidders and vid fans! Although we had to abandon plans for a formal Australian vidding convention this year, nushanakt has just announced details for Revise: The Art and Science of Contemporary Remix Cultures and we'd love to have an informal gathering of vidfolk there. Sing out if you are interested in attending and meeting up and we can organise some stuff around the conference. :)

Vidukon
If you haven't already heard, Vidukon is on the cards again in the northern hemisphere spring next year. A poll on dates and location and interest in helping organise over here.

Pilots Memorial/Revival Festival
Twitter results in some strange devlopments it seems... in a surprising (?!) turn of events, taragel, indigo419 and I are plotting some kind of Kara/Lee celebration/commemoration in the new year, probably around Feb 14 (pilots = love *g*). OK, I'm a bit foggy on dates (I wasn't in charge of that bit!), but stay tuned... Tara and Indi have it covered, I'm sure. :) Fics, vids, meta and squee will all be welcome but you'll have to answer to me if you so much as mention THAT FUCKING PIGEON.

I have pledged to make something for said festival... (IT'S WEIRD TO ME TOO! But they were very persuasive!) ... which brings me to the poll. I have recently, finally dug my BSG DVDs out of the closet of pain I shoved them into after the finale. And to my MASSIVE surprise, I actually have vids I want to make with them, but I am currently dithering about which to start with. Help!? ( cut for poll )

Recs
Where are the Friday Night Lights fans on my friendslist?! Get yourselves to this amazing, poignant and totally EPIC Songs for a Girl by jarrow. It's a Tyra/Landry vid in three movements, handling the nuances of their relationship--yes, even the part that made us think the show had jumped the shark--with exquisite restraint and delicacy. If you like the show and/or either of the characters AT ALL, watch it! Non-FNL-viewers: watch to see what you're missing. Some of the best vidding I've seen all year.

Also in my 'best vids of they year' category: absolutedestiny's Running Away, a gorgeous tribute to childhood imagination, friendship and shared dreams. The source is the movie 'Son of Rambow' but you do not need to have seen the movie to adore this. It is totally joyful.

Wow. This feels so weird. Posting. I haven't done so for so long.

Basically, this is a long-overdue apology/disclaimer. I more or less vanished from LiveJournal for the last four-five months. I should have probably been upfront about that but at the time I wasn't really aware it was happening or how long it would last. The short story is that from being a place of enjoyable escapism originally, LiveJournal became a Very Unhappy Place for me (for reasons not worth going into). And while I do miss my friends here, I'm sorry, but there's not really a lot of point in LJ when it makes you miserable. (I hope you'll agree!) I guess you could call it an extremely localised depression.

In fact, 95 per cent of my depressive symptoms in the last months have centred on online life, weird though that may seem. While it's meant I vanished from here, probably disappointing and pissing off a bunch of people in the process (sorry!), it's actually had an overwhelmingly positive effect in the rest of my life, since work, home life, health, friends, etc have been depression-free zones!

( some of the benefits of internet freedom! )

What does it mean going forward? I have no idea. I may still not be around for some time to come. I'd say expecting nothing from me would be a good idea. If I do come back, I probably will not be posting the way I used to. ( brief notes on status of current personal fandoms )

I'm still vidding, because vidding (the process not the fandom) is joyful. I may not show you the results though, I really don't know. I'm not very audience-oriented right now and haven't been bothered to update my BAM links though I did see that BAM went pfft.

One thing I feel I should do though is say that since I'm unlikely to be around, ANYONE is welcome to pick up the idea of 'vid chats' if they want to and run with them. This should hopefully be clear anyway--they were always free to be borrowed/adapted/done with as you will... but just in case anyone's hung back thinking I might be annoyed to be 'copied': no, man, I'd be delighted! I just probably won't be there. :) Apologies for dropping the ball--but please don't wait for or feel limited by my absence.

This may all seem very selfish. I'm sure it is. I have guilt and shame about it. I encourage you to defriend me. Really. No hurt feelings! Shoo! :) And I hope you are all as happy in your real lives, and by some lucky star in fandom too, as I am.

(Disabling comments because I'm not very interact-y these days. I assume anyone who really wants to talk to me will email or PM me, which you're still welcome to do.)

To the many people who told me to suck it up and watch Dollhouse... thanks! I actually enjoyed that ep as much as I've enjoyed any episode of Dollhouse. ( cut for brief thoughts, since I feel I owe my f'list that after the counselling session (spoilers for 2.1) )

In other news, I watched the first episode of Community and am completely charmed! ( cut, but not very spoilery--just squee )

And I've been reading! Joining the BSG crowd in reading Hunger Games (thanks, Tara!). ( cut for thoughts on the first book including the shipper issue )

It seems timely to update my things to know about me. It's been (gulp!) nearly four years since I wrote it. Most of it is still true but since my fannish activities have changed over the years and since I've recently been friended by a few people and we're about to enter the US TV cycle again, I thought people might like to know something a little more recent. ;)

It comes with a blanket defriending amnesty. I almost never mind when I get defriended. For realz. And if I do, well who cares? You don't have to hear about it anymore. :p My friendslist is getting to the totally unmanageable stage for me so I'll probably go through and defriend a few journals at some point based on diverging interests or not corresponding over a long period of time. As always, it's not an indication that I hate you. 95% of my posts are public so you're really not missing out on much.

( cut for ten things to keep in mind about me in fandom )

I has it. Dreamwidth that is. I'm predictable: bop-radar.dreamwidth.org

I have a paid LiveJournal, though, so I don't plan on moving any time soon. I may eventually cross-post. Who knows?

Actually my LiveJournal is in need of an overhaul and I feel like I'm in a bit of transition time with many of my shows, my interests, and my focus in posting. Which may be why I'm procrastinating a lot about posting anything at the moment.

However my little vent about being stuck with vidding resulted in a burst of productivity, so maybe if I declare my journal in need of refreshing publicly, I will suddenly get off my ass and refresh it! *hopeful*

So my life is somewhat manic at the moment and will probably remain so until April and possibly beyond. I apologise for being behind catching-up on my f'list--point me to anything important! *g*

A few very fleeting thoughts on various fannish matters:
-Smallville: Season 9? I think I just feel exhausted. Do they actually have anything left they can ruin? Oh wait. Yes they do.
- BSG: WTFUCKITY fuck? Srsly that show gets more batshit by the week. I tried a new tactic this week and pretended I'd never seen an episode before. It still made no sense but the characters were slightly more sympathetic and I really liked the Cylons. The humans were shit though and I wouldn't have tuned back in. *BG* Which brings me to...
- Law and Order UK: Thank god Jamie has another show! \o/ A show that actually APPRECIATES him. OK, they do have him playing someone markedly less well educated than he really is, but at least they a) showcase his looks, b) let him do action, c) have him onscreen almost constantly (or it felt like that in comparison to BSG!) and d) gave him flirty moment with Freema, who, hi, is a total babe and I am shamelessly shipping them already. :D I don't give a toss about the plot. I may watch with the sound turned down. It will still be more interesting than that stuff RDM is churning out.

Tomorrow is another high alert day for fires and there are still many around Melbourne. I think we're all holding our breath hoping against another Black Saturday. Please no.

1. Haircuts!
I am getting one tonight and can't wait because I kind of left it months due to lack of cash. Meep! Hairdresser will not approve. My curls need organised.

2. Clois dreams!
Thank you, subconscious, for giving me a break once in a while from the usual nightmare or Lee-centric fare. Clois porn is FAR preferable!

3. Vidding
It would be even better if I had time but exciting new epic SV vid proceeds excitedly in my brain, if nowhere else, not to mention the ten other vid bunnies in various stages of gestation.

Things of a less-awesome nature:
- Haven't seen this weeks's Sarah Connor Chronicles and don't know when I will.
- Have much f'list reading to catch up on.
- Will be late for SV this week due to a friend's birthday.
But all this can be solved by a lazy Saturday at home, yes? Yes!

Ok, there is officially waaaay too much TV these days. And I want to talk about all of it! But clearly this is beyond the capabilities of my schedule. So. You get to choose!

You're not escaping my Smallville posts--it hurts me enough that I haven't posted a full 8.03 review yet! So they are non-negotiable. And I'm unlikely to have much to say about Mad Men or Pushing Daisies--and they may slip to my 'catch up with when I can' list. But I can't decided how to prioritise the following shows--so I thought I'd gauge the interest level from my friendslist to decide.

[Poll #1274643]

How surprisingly democratic of me! *beams*

Drive-by post from moi, as I am shortly off to see The Dark Knight at IMAX (having finally convinced their booking system to give up a seat).

Dr Horrible was kinda fun, yes? ( It made me realise something (spoilery) about my (very biased) taste in Joss-works. )

What else is news? I watched an anime so boring/mad that I started shipping one character with a duck. (Don't ask!) I downloaded Middleman but am hesitating to watch it because it seems like it's about to get canned (feel free to persuade me otherwise!).

And it's that time of year again... the Melbourne International Film Festival started yesterday. This year, I just got a mini-pass (10 flicks) so it won't be as manic as last year and my first session is not until the weekend. I teamed up with a friend to slice through the impenetrably long program and come up with some priority viewing material... it got easier to be decisive after a few glasses of wine, but the results could be ... interesting. I'll report back. :p

( random thing that made me LOL )

And finally, a shoutout/invitation to any BSG fans interested in running challenges during this here hiatus we're in. bsg_hiatusthon is yours for the co-opting!

I had one hell of a fucking bad day. I could do without fandom being fucktard-ish as well.

Kate says it better than I could.

I can't help seeing in this the sort of catty politics that teach women that you shouldn't ever put yourself forward, that you should be modest and wait for other people to notice how wonderful you are. Because if you DO put yourself forward other women will tear you to shreds for your audacity. How lovely.