The Rollercoaster Ride

Next year on BBC2

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 14:37:11 GMT

A fabulous formatted show in which 6 'famous' artists (like Cornelia Parker) demonstrate how they have been influenced by Marcel Duchamp, somehow. 6 x 60 minutes.

Oh, yeah, that's going to really bring the viewers in. After all, Cornelia Parker's practically Sienna Miller these days, in fact I can barely tell them apart. Well done you, random woman sitting opposite me. Have you actually ever watched television? Or do you think it's beneath you?

Oooh "Let's take conceptual artists and make them do life classes". No one's ever come up with that one. I certainly have not heard that from everyone who has ever walked through the department. Not at all.

Yes, it's definitely time to get out of development.

I'm just as embarrassed as you are

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 18:02:27 GMT

The sorting hat says that I belong in Ravenclaw!

Said Ravenclaw, "We'll teach those whose intelligence is surest."

Ravenclaw students tend to be clever, witty, intelligent, and knowledgeable.
Notable residents include Cho Chang and Padma Patil (objects of Harry and Ron's affections), and Luna Lovegood (daughter of The Quibbler magazine's editor).

Take the most scientific Harry Potter Quiz ever created.

Get Sorted Now!

Pointless quiz meet lj, lj meet pointless quiz.

Mphhh

Wed, 03 Jan 2007 23:52:27 GMT

So, um, Torchwood, yeah. Bloody hell that was good. And really, really fucking gay.

OK, it's not massively original plot-wise - I mean what's the Rift if not a Hellmouth by any other name, and I'm pretty sure that there was a Buffy episode in which a big fucking demon was defeated by a distinctly sexy bloke who happened to be essentially immortal (or undead?). But what is amazing about Torchwood is the way that everything that's subtext in other shows is actually text.

I mean, with any other show, there would be a fuckbunch of Jack/Ianto slash and no acknowledgment of their chemistry on-screen. But in Torchwood, everything you wish would happen in other shows (if you're into that sort of thing, obviously) actually takes place. Hot boy on boy on girl on girl action in virtually every episode. And a bisexual hero, who, y'know really does swing both ways, and is totally cool about it. And that? Is awesome.

If only it didn't take alien technology and a boss from the future to make everyone realise that sexuality is a fluid thing.

Excuse me, I now have a burning need to read some Jack/Ianto fic.

Canning it for you - Warhol style

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 12:24:14 GMT

rstevens has been running this competition called Secret Satan, the deal is that if you mention him, or Diesel Sweeties, his awesome web comic, you could win a prize. And I really wasn't going to enter, because - although I love DS - I'm not really the shilling kind. But then today's comic has three absolutely perfect panels, with some of the best writing I've read in a comic. So that pretty much sold me on the idea of posting about it.

DS, alongside Scary Go Round and Questionable Content (by qcjeph ) is one of my daily webcomic reads, and it was the first webcomic I read with any regularity. In fact it's probably the webcomic that introduced me to the medium, as I think even Cat and Girl came later to me.

And in fact, I'm pretty much in debt to rstevens to introducing me to comics, because beyond the Peanuts collections in the attic, I'd never had much exposure to comics. So I don't feel so bad about shilling for him!

Whoa

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 12:41:32 GMT

An astonishing thing has happened. Well, it might not be astonishing to you, but I was pretty surprised. The OC got good again. And I don't just mean that it got average, it got brilliant. Seriously, it's back to season one levels of wonderfulness. And I'm so happy, because I was about to give up on it.

It's honestly a tie between The OC and Heroes for my favourite show of the season. Veronica Mars has been good, but not great (until that last episode, which was amazing). Gilmore Girls, um, I've got two episodes waiting to be watched, and I just can't bring myself to do it. I can't really explain why, but I feel like the characters aren't really the people I've liked for so long - Lorelai just seems dumb and Rory seems indecisive. Ack.

But The OC.... I must have watched this clip twenty times, and Oh. My. God. I just climbed aboard my first heterosexual ship (Ryan/Taylor <3).

I am such a fourteen-year-old sometimes. But why have a livejournal if you can't use it to squee.

Oh. God. No.

Thu, 16 Nov 2006 13:29:13 GMT

Me (trying to be tactful): As a geek, I probably wouldn't use Comic Sans for this proposal.
My Boss: Well, as someone who's been [in this industry for a long time], I think it's very readable.
Me: /head asplodes.

Comic. Fucking. Sans.

insignificant, much?

Thu, 09 Nov 2006 09:41:52 GMT

We're having a bit of a revamp in the office today, and one of my colleagues was asked to move desks. Her response: "This is the sort of thing that makes me want to leave [insert name of large media corporation here]". And we're in a hotdesking area. I almost wish she would leave, but she's the one that has all the ideas...

meme #1

Sat, 07 Oct 2006 23:37:36 GMT

My thanks to baddidodo, who's having some serious troubles with her computer. gah!

- - - - - - - Your Life: The Soundtrack - - - - - - - -
So, here's how it works:
Open your music player (iPod, iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, etc).
Put it on shuffle.
Press play.
For every question type the song that's playing.
When you go to a new question press the next button.
Some songs will fit perfectly. Some songs won't. That's life.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Opening Credits: Bitter Tears - Magnetic Fields
Waking Up: Richard III - Supergrass
Falling in Love: You Can't Catch Me - Chuck Berry (um, OK)
Fight scene: The Henney Buggy Band - Sufjan Stevens (it's a very chilled out fight)
Breaking up: Stephanie Says - The Velvet Underground
Getting back together: Somewhere My Love - Frank Sinatra
Secret Love: Democracy Coma - The Manic Street Preachers
Life's okay: The Sound of Settling - Death Cab for Cutie (heh)
Mental breakdown: Stubborn Stitches - The Duke Spirit (yeah, that's pretty good)
Driving Flashback: Like Dylan in the Movies (Live at the Barbican) - Belle & Sebastian (yeah, that one too)
Partying: Monday Morning - Pulp
Happy dance: I Get Around - Langley Schools Music Project (nothing says happy like children singing Beach Boys songs slightly out of time)
Regretting: Hard to Explain - The Strokes
Final Battle: June on the West Coast - Bright Eyes (oh yeah, that's the emoest battle evar)
Death Scene: Past, Present and Future - Jens Lekman (cover)
Closing credits 1: I Say a Little Prayer - Aretha Franklin
Closing Credits 2: The Black Angel's Death Song - The Velvet Underground and Nico
Closing Credits 3: Turn a Square - The Shins
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
That's a nice note to end on. There are some definite choons in there too!

New season, woot

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 23:05:48 GMT

So, one of the things i wanted to do with this LJ was to post about the TV I watch. I'm never in a million years going to manage to post about every episode of every show, but it would be nice to do it at key moments. Obviously, the season's just kicking off over in America, and I'm lucky enough to be able to keep up with my favourites thanks to the magic of illegal downloads. So here's what I think of the first two shows I've watched from the new season... Oh and they're spoilerific, so don't read them if you're waiting for the shows to air over here. Also, they're probably not that interesting if you're not interested in the shows.

God, after the end of the last series, things were so incredibly, horribly bleak for Lorelai. And they didn't really get much better. I do admire her for standing her ground when Luke finally came around to her way of seeing things. But... I mean, Christopher is so far from being my favourite partner for Lorelai. I'd take Max Medina over him any day (and I don't care that he's Rory's father - he was a rubbish father to her for years anyway!)

And Rory. I'm hoping that Logan's moving to London will finally break Rory out of this cycle of co-dependency she's been in. After six seasons, I feel like we need to see Rory when she's not in a relationship with some boy (and I don't mean that she and Paris should re-create that Spring Break either). It seems like Rory is a girl who doesn't seem to be able to cope without a partner there to back her up. She pretty much careered from Dean to Jess to Logan (with Tristan and poor Marty somewhere in the middle there). She's hardly been promiscuous, and while it would be completely and utterly out of character for her to suddenly start sleeping around, I still feel like she should maybe play the field a little bit.

I do think that DR seemed to have done a good job with the writing. It must have been hard to take over from the S-Ps, and on their pet show too. I liked his Paris (just the right side of insane), and L&R chatting on the squash (racquetball?) court. I really could have left Sookie and Michel arm wrestling, and Kirk's crash was too zany for my taste (I liked seeing Lulu though, it's been ages!)

Probably the main thing that annoyed me was the references to moments that weren't ever actually seen on screen (the spatula!), when you've got six years of history, you might as well use it.

From the Gilmore Girls themselves to a GG alum - Milo Ventimiglia - who I always liked as Jess. In fact I liked him so much that I watched the truly horrific Bedford Diaries, which is probably the worst TV show I have ever watched by choice.

Heroes might be called Smallville meets Lost. In fact, that's exactly what I'd call it.

A group of strangers discover they have superpowers. A cheerleader is indestructable, a nurse thinks he can fly, an artist paints the future, an otaku can mess with space and time. And so on.

I think the main trouble with this was that - being the pilot - there was quite a lot of backstory and setting up going on, and not enough plot for my taste. In fact, I felt like I'd seen most of what was in the ep on the YouTube previews for the show!

I'm looking forward to more, though, that was quite a cliffhanger at the end of the episode.

Torchwood, damnit

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 15:18:14 GMT

5 Things my father has called the new Dr Who spin off:

Woodstock

Brushfire

Smokescreen

Threepwood

Timberlake

testing, testing...

Tue, 12 Sep 2006 20:22:55 GMT

this is, i believe, what the kids call an lj. i'm slightly unsure why it's taken me so long to get one.