Inane Television Ramblings

First of all, shut up Buffy. I wanted to be happy about her seemingly having feelings about Spike. She lets slip that she loves him, she staunchly defends him to Giles, they have a moment after they kill the Ashanti!Demon...but then she pulls that crap on the sofa. "I'm not ready for you to go, but I'll date other people if I want to, and expect you to hang around as my on-call lapdog. Okay?" Spike's trying to be a good guy, and is trying to keep his own feelings under control, so he does not need her jerking him around anymore. This is not the real world, where I would never say rape was the woman's fault, but since this is television, I'm going to flat out say that Buffy's "I want to do you / don't touch me" nonsense from last season is what led to Spike completely losing control and assaulting her. So...just stop it.

As far as the rest of the episode went, I really love Andrew. I don't know if it's just that I like Tom Lenk's performance so much, or if they're just giving him all the funny lines, but he really clicked with me last night. I actually enjoyed all the subplots, especially Anya's undercurrent of jealousy. Still, even though this was a far superior episode to the eighteen with the Turok-Han, it still feels like they're treading water. I want the First to do something; as much as I enjoyed Evil!Jonathan and Nikki visiting the Principal, it's not scary anymore. Months ago, when the First appeared to Willow in the guise of Cassie, that was frightening. I felt threatened. Now, I don't feel any menace whatsoever.

Moving on to 24, I'm getting confused by the Rolaide/LadyMac dynamic. Don't get me wrong, these two actresses play off each other wonderfully, and I like the concept of two women playing for power, but...I don't know what's going on, now. It's not that the writers are being ambiguous, which I wouldn't mind, it just seems like they're being far too oblique, to the point that I'm afraid they'll paint themselves into a corner. Now for the Jack storyline: I was really hoping he would have had that child killed. I would have loved to see how that would have changed his dynamic with Palmer, and I think it would have been incredible to see him go to those lengths after his concern for Kim this season and last. But, even if we didn't go there, and they went with the fake shooting, I wish they hadn't let Kate in on it. Then, she thinks Jack, whom she just heard incredibly worried about the safety of his own daughter, murdered someone else's child. All these things excepted, though, I still think it was a very strong episode.

School makes me tired. As does raining. I want to be sleepying all the time.

Weekend shooting went surprisingly well. We got some really great material, especially Saturday. The first interview was very moving; the subject had married his high school sweetheart, and after fifteen years of marriage divorced her because she didn't want to have children and he wanted to be a father. The second subject was an eighty-year old woman who decided she didn't want to have children because she lost her fiancé after Pearl Harbor. Just amazing, amazing stories from both. Afterwards, we went to a restaurant called Viva Madrid, which served something called tapas. They are tiny little appetizers served on a saucer. I ordered garlic bread, which was bread with what had to have been an entire clove of garlic minced on top. Luckily, I am single.

Today was a longer day, I think because we'd shot two days beforehand, but things still went well. One of the producers, Casey, and myself decided we were ridiculously out of shape and so we're dieting and doing an exercise thingamajig. Tonight was our first jogging outing. Ouch. But also, endorphins, fun. But also? Ouch. I'm going to be soooore tomorrow.

I hate when I lose things. I can remember song lyrics for something Ace of Base put out in 1993, but I can't remember where I put something five minutes ago. Stupid brain.

Allow me to whimper for just a moment. Not only did we shoot on a Friday, not par for the course, but we're having not one but two ten-plus hour days this weekend. That's right. All day Saturday, all day Sunday.

I'm tired in advance.

I love my Roman Civ professor.

"Romans built temporary theatres with wooden bleachers built upon scafflolding, which sometimes collapsed, resulting in much carnage!"

"If Moe walked up to Curly, poked him in the eye, scratched his cornea, and made him go blind, it wouldn't be funny any more. Well, maybe it would." (This was when lecturing about tragedy, and how even the humor in ancient comedies was based on the pain of others.)

Describing the apparatus Romans used to snag enemy ships: "Great bloody metal spike!"

Hee. He amuses me. Imagine all these delivered in an Agent Smith voice, and you'll know why.

Yesterday was swell at points, not so swell at others. The swell parts: We went up to Santa Barbara, about a three hour drive from LA, to interview a group called No Kidding as they went from winery to winery on a wine tasting day of fun. The group was actually very antagonistic and defensive, which made for uncomfortable interviews, but great material. We can so make them look like the biggest jerks, and it fills me with joy. More importantly, however, we just got out of the city for a change. It really is beautiful country up there; wide open spaces, wooded areas, rolling hills. The weather was perfect; it was around 60 degrees, crisp and cool, and it smelled like autumn.

We decided, after we were done shooting, to go to a winery ourselves. I have to say, I don't really like wine all that much. The white wines were okay, but the red wines were far too acidic for me. But it was still a neat experience. I'm really glad we went, even if we end up not using any of the footage.

Not swell stuff posted here