Hi, Mr Fourth Horseman!

PhD Word Count

Sun, 14 May 2006 10:10:17 GMT

I saw anr had word counts for her various fics, and I like the idea of keeping track of how many words you've written on that thing that's hanging over your head. For me, the hanging thing is my phd. So here it is:

15,100 / 70,000
(21.6%)

I'm also going to keep track of my projected finishing dates. According to my supervisor I should have it finished within 3 months. Since that thought makes me laugh hysterically (by hysterically, I mean with hysteria), I've decided to aim for 6 months. From 15th May 2006. And I'll give myself an extra 4 or 5 weeks on top of that, just in case. So, I'll be finished by Christmas, this year, which is why this entry is dated December 25th. Right.

Expected Completion Date: 14th November 2006

But I'll allow until: 25th December 2006

ETA: I've revised my word count down, because it looks like I'll be writing about 180 pages, which is more like 70 000 words. I think.

30/05: Just wrote my discussion and my brain is broken.

15/06: I now have (incomplete) drafts of 4 chapters. And no brain left at all.

I cooked dinner!

Sun, 14 May 2006 09:45:08 GMT

I have to brag, because it's so rare that I actually cook something, let alone get it right.

It's a running joke in my family and The Boy's family that I never cook and that I don't even know where the kitchen is. The Boy's family call him "Martha" as in "Martha Stewart" because he likes to cook when he has the chance, and he's more houseproud than I am (it has a roof and a bed, that's all I care about). They also joke about how I'm so bad in the kitchen I even burn microwave popcorn. Which, unfortunately is true. I put the popcorn in the microwave and then forgot about it, and only remembered when the smoke alarm went off and I had to take the bag outside and pour water over it to stop the smoking and semi-burning. I actually can cook, when I set my mind to it, it's just that I generally don't like doing it. To cook something nice takes time and effort and it's wasted if you're only cooking for one. The Boy plays so much sport that we only have 2 nights a week together (Tuesdays and Saturdays, sometimes Sundays). He doesn't usually eat much on the nights when he plays sports, so I don't cook.

This weekend however, we decided to cook dinner on Saturday night for my mother. She's flying to Amsterdam today, so I wasn't able to see her, but we still wanted to do something nice for Mother's Day. So, we made Steak and Guiness Pie with mashed potatoes and mixed vegies, and a cheesecake for dessert. About 10 minutes into making the pie, The Boy sliced open his index finger on his left hand, which pretty much put him out of action for the day, given that he's left handed. This meant that I did nearly all the cooking. I made a steak & guiness pie, from scratch, for the first time in my life. And my mum loved it! It really was awesome, if I can brag about my own cooking. I'm so proud that I managed to do that! And now I can temporarily stop The Boy's mum from doing her little passive-aggressive thing about how I don't take care of him as well as she does. Added bonus!

I have to confess, it took me most of the day to cook and get the house in good enough shape that I was willing to let my mother see it. It was totally worth it, though. That pie was yum.

random question

Mon, 01 May 2006 07:38:13 GMT

Question.

For anyone who has ever done psychology, sociology, ethnography or anthropology ... how do you state what the strength of your evidence is? I mean, when your evidence is qualitative, not quantitative, and you want to make claims about it, what's a reasonable measure of strength?

Argh, I can't even explain it properly!

In other news, I am going mad.

Gilmore Girls season 6 ep 20

Wed, 26 Apr 2006 13:38:01 GMT

I just watched the latest Gilmore Girls ep and oh my god.

HATE. HATE WITH THE FIRE OF A THOUSAND SUNS.

How can they take a fun, loving show about mostly positive relationships and turn it into "How to be Passive-Aggressive with your emotionally crippled abusive boyfriend"?

I read an interview with the makers, the Palladinos, and they swear blind that what they have done with the characters this season "feels true".

Seriously?

It "feels true" that Luke is an awful, selfish man who has belittled his fiancee for months? It "feels true" that Lorelai is completely passive and is totally willing to tolerate her partner treating her like crap for months?

That's the first time I've ever fast forwarded through whole sections of that show. I think that's one show I will take off my watch list - gives me room for tv shows that don't engage in complete character assassinations. Yay!

When I'm not so angry, I might try to pinpoint exactly what it is that has made me so angry. I think it's mainly that for the first time I found Luke incredibly unattractive. Like, I was so put off by what he was saying and doing, that I actually found him physically unappealing. And I would hate to have the same thing happen to Lorelai, who I think is played by an incredibly beautiful woman (Lauren Graham).

Sigh. So bitter.

well then.

Tue, 11 Apr 2006 00:33:45 GMT

So, here's my tale of misery and woe.

I have the mother of all colds. This is my fifth day playing host to this cold. There is snuffling, sneezing, coughing, headaches, all of it. I am also about to get my period. I can tell, because the crazy cramping has started. I look, feel and sound like shit. I have a meeting with my thesis supervisor in just under 4 hours.

Woe.

On the funny side, I just received an email from a friend from uni asking me if I had played the new Xbox 360 game Oblivion yet. She also said that she wasn't supposed to ask, because the dean of the faculty had told her that any question she had for me in regards to any computer or console game had to be prefaced with the question "how's your thesis?" (this is only funny if you know that my phd is about computer games).

Note how crappy my sense of humour currently is.

I haven't commented on journals yet, but I'm reading. The lack of commeting is partly due to the lack of coherence/funniness on my part. I would like to say three things though.

1. ignipes has written the most incredible Supernatural fic in the history of forever and I dare you to read it and not cry. ignipes, when I can do more than snuffle, I will post comments to your glorificousness. Or something.

2. maddeinin, I promised myself that I would not be sucked in ever again. You got me watching Grey's Anatomy, Bones, In Justice ... and now this thing called Foyle's War?! Curse you and your will of iron!

3. Seriously, who "demands" apologies from their friend's list? This is not related to any of the previous two things in my list, I promise. I just read this lj entry and this girl actually proudly proclaimed that she demanded, received and then accepted apologies from her friends list because they participated in a poll that was hurtful to her or some such shit. I saw the poll, it had nothing to do with her.

Sleep time now.

OMG! It's cowboys ... ON ICE!

Sat, 25 Feb 2006 04:51:51 GMT

killerweasel pointed me in this direction, and I would not be doing my duty to the entire human race, if I didn't pass this piece of information on.

This link is to a video posted by bailunrui that has a number of rather good-looking ice skaters, dressed as cowboys, skating around and generally being hilarious to "A Little Less Conversation". Words cannot convey the hilarity, general hotness, and oh-my-god gayness of this video.

I only know one of the skaters - Kurt Browning - but I have adored him for years, ever since he did a routine to My Sharona. I think I may have to add another 5 skaters to my love of men on ice.

Seriously, do yourselves a favour: go look here.

Also, bailunrui, if this causes bandwidth problems, let me know, I'll upload the vid to my page.

grumpy

Tue, 21 Feb 2006 04:11:34 GMT

urgh.

Home sick today. No energy to do anything.

tired. sleepy. sick.

And! There's this thing that has been pissing me off for days, and it is so random. Something, either in my house, or the neighbour's house is beeping at night. I cannot find it in my house, so it must be the neighbour. Or something. I've timed it - every 30 seconds, there's a beep. It sounds like a smoke alarm that has a low battery, but it only happens at night. Because it takes me about an hour to get to sleep every night, I lie there listening to this beeping and it is so annoying. It's keeping me awake even longer than normal! The boy keeps telling me to ignore it, but I can't. I want the stupid noise to stop! grr. argh. Randomness, I know.

And the shingles on my right side are really, really hurting again. It hasn't been this bad for months. So I'm sick with a tummy bug and have shingles pain. double grr. argh.

I'm going to go away, sleep for a bit, then come back, hopefully in a better mood.

While impatiently waiting for a new ep of grey's ... my thoughts on grey's anatomy 218

Sun, 19 Feb 2006 08:51:52 GMT

I've been reading a bit on the internets about the reaction to 218. Things like: wasn't it great that George grew a spine, it was nice to finally see some positive emotion from Yang towards Burke, the shower scene at the end was a nice mirror of George's dream and there was interesting movement in the Meredith/McDreamy romance and ...

And I sit at my computer thinking, the shower scene at the end rates an off-hand comment about how it nicely mirrors George's earlier dream? AND THAT'S IT? For me, that was the most incredibly well-acted scene out of episode and possibly even the entire series. Meredith was like a puppet being moved around by Izzie and Christina, with big blank eyes and very clearly nothing going on upstairs. Izzie and Christina managed to convey their fear for the friend and their need to care for her, without saying a word. And George recognising it for what it was, and that he couldn't help her, even though he desperately wanted to.

There are paragraphs to be written about that one scene! And yet, it seems to be lost in all the other stuff, which was, admittedly, amazing. I don't get it. I was actually getting a bit choked up while I was watching it. For me to get choked up when there are no burly men with babies or cute animals, is a very new experience. :)

Speaking of burly ... I was going through my hdd when I found some pics from my "obsessed with Ryan Reynolds" phase. I think I might have to re-visit that phase (it occurred shortly before I discovered Jamie Bamber, which is why it was cut short).

If low-slung pants and glistening chests disturb you, look away now ...

And this is why I sat through the Amityville Horror re-make, not once, but twice. guh.

Short attention span today. I'll get back to talking about grey's anatomy.

Nah, I'm over it, so I'll summarise. Burke is a hottie, Christina is my super-hero, Alex and Izzie whatever, although the post-coital hair was very funny ... as is the "I gave you sex in a broom closet, you do it" line. I wonder ...

Meredith and McDreamy is meh, don't care. Bailey is a goddess and I would love to see her and Christina fight it out for the coolest person in the world award, because that would rock. Did I miss anything? Can't wait for the next episode!

these are a few of my random things ...

Sun, 19 Feb 2006 05:41:29 GMT

The things I do to avoid work.

My house is clean (er, I should say. Not clean, but cleaner). I have done 5 loads of washing. I've installed Visual Studio .NET on two computers. Searched frantically for a cd that has some software that I sort of need, but technically don't really, because I already have it installed on my pc, and installing it on my laptop and work computer is more out of convenience than necessity. But, I felt like I really needed to find it, so I searched for a long time. Still haven't found it though. And now I'm running out of excuses that don't involve recreation to avoid working. I haven't played a game or read a book or even watched BSG this weekend, because I need to do some work. I have however, done lots of laundry and cleaning (as mentioned), paid bills, gone grocery shopping and generally done everything to avoid doing any work.

Does anyone want to work on my phd for me? Or set an assignment? I'll supply lots of chocolate. :)

Still in the process of trying to catch up on everyone's lj's (also procrastinating!), and I've noticed that meyerlemon and maddeinin are obssessed with a show called In Justice. This is bad. For me, these two people occupy roughly the same role as a drug dealer does. Or that cool friend who goes "just try it once, man! You'll love it" and then you're hooked on heroin for 10 years. I believe it's called an enabler? I cannot resist the flailing about hot, burly men ... BUT I MUST.

Two questions to end this post of randomosity.

1. How do people feel about going to sexpo? A friend of mine invited me to go with her this weekend, and I found myself not only reluctant to go, but actively grossed out at the thought. It may be because I have a long running need to pretend that she never, ever has relations with her husband, and never will, because he is incredibly annoying and makes my skin crawl. So, I guess going to sexpo would mean finding out more about their private lives than I think my sanity could survive, but I'm not sure. Am I being too much of a prude? Is that weird?

2. Fucking forgot question 2! I thought of another question though, and this is for the academically-inclined among you. How much of a bad thing is it to change phd supervisors? I know it's do-able in the first couple of years, as you define your topic, but I'm in the last third of my phd ... Is it bad? Is it something I should be concerned about?

And, because I can't count ...

3. What else can I do to avoid work? :)

ETA: And also? The shingles are hurting like a bitch. wtf shingles? Not fucking fair.

I'm still alive ...

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 05:12:21 GMT

I'm still here, really.

Just trying to get through a crazy period at work. Another two weeks until semester starts, and then things will get back to normal. Which sounds weird, but it actually makes sense. At the moment we are so busy trying to get everything ready before classes start, that things will become much quieter once semester actually gets underway. Had to fly to Sydney again last week, which was even worse than the trip last year. This time they scheduled meetings for me in the morning, starting at 9.30. Which means I had to catch a 6am flight out of Brisbane. Mother of god, that was possibly the hardest thing I have ever done - getting up at 4am to get to the airport in time. And then, the ditz that arranged my meeting had a mix up with the people at the other end and no-one actually told this guy that he had a meeting with me! So I'm sitting at a cafe at UNSW for about an hour waiting for someone to tell me what was going on, which made that 4am start even harder. The 5 hour meeting from 12 to 5 was a disaster too, which I came away from really angry. Such a waste of time, although in the long run it will be good that I went. The only thing that made any of it good was the 3 glasses of champagne that followed the meeting :).

All sorts of craziness going on with my phd, too. I do my phd at a different uni to where I teach, which has caused a bit of confusion over the last year. Now the Dean of the faculty where I work is trying to convince me to move my phd over to my work uni and have him as a supervisor, which would be fun, but could also possibly be a disaster. Then the various heads of schools weighed in, and they think that I should definitely bring my phd over ... and not to worry about the reams of paperwork that would involve, because they'll take care of it for me. Which is an incredibly generous offer, and it's definitely something to consider. The main concern I have is that changing universities and supervisors would necessitate a change in topic, although I'm not sure how big a change. At this stage in my phd, I don't know that I really want to change topics. But I have to be realistic about my chances of completing my phd, given that my current supervisor has absolutely no interest in what I do. One memorable conversation we had last year was about whether I wanted to have children, my supervisor assuming that I did, and that I should take into account that if I left it until I was in my 30s I might not be able to have children, and therefore I should consider having kids now ... which she followed by saying that 9 out of 10 women who have children while doing a phd drop out. I didn't know whether to start crying or to beat my head against a wall after that.

I've also been really reluctant to write anything about the various tv shows that I watch, because I think I (and I know everyone else) would get tired of the constant stream of vitriol that would pour out onto the page. I haven't read anyone's reactions to BSG or VM for awhile, which I will have to catch up on, but mine haven't been pleasant, except for some small exceptions. I also think Rory Gilmore needs to be smacked upside the head, making it hard for me to enjoy Gilmore Girls and even Supernatural has been getting on my nerves. How weird is that?!

Totally different topic: the boy started his new job today, which has been pretty stressful. He was really sad to leave his old job, but that was more to do with the people in his office than the company that he worked for. The actual work they had him doing was pretty wretched, so I'm glad he's out, but he's had mixed feelings. Haven't heard anything about the new job yet, so I'm really looking forward to seeing him after work. The fun part is that we catch the same bus now, where before he had to drive an hour each way to his work at the Gold Coast. So now we can sit on the bus together and hold hands, just like two kids in high school!

Sorry.

Will try to catch up this week, next weekend at the latest.

another book meme

Wed, 25 Jan 2006 14:52:37 GMT

yoinked another book meme from my enabl0r maddeinin who is also trying to get me to watch a new tv show (called In Justice) and my will power is crumbling rapidly.

Another book meme: the current top 50 books from whatshouldireadnext.com. Bold the books you have read. Italicise the books you might read. Cross out the books you probably won't read.

The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
~~The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger~~ (comment: I heard this book has the most god-awful Mary Sue as the main female character.)
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter 6) - J.K. Rowling
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story - George Orwell
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
1984 - George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3) - J.K. Rowling
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
Angels and Demons - Dan Brown
Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
Neuromancer - William Gibson
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
~~Brave New World - Aldous Huxley~~
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Ender's Game (The Ender Saga) - Orson Scott Card
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
~~A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving~~
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
~~Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell~~
The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Good Omens - Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
Atonement - Ian McEwan
The Shadow Of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Dune - Frank Herbert

I've never heard of some of these: The Shadow of the Wind? The Kite Runner? Things like The Bell Jar I'll eventually read because it's the sort of thing that I feel like I *should* read, rather than actually wanting to read. Once I get started, I'll probably enjoy it, so I shouldn't complain too much.

book meme

Wed, 25 Jan 2006 14:21:26 GMT

yoinked from maddeinin:

Book meme:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what's actually next to you.

"The Khaleems require such, since treachery is so much a part of their lives."

From Moontide by Mercedes Lackey - a novella in the anthology called Winter Moon (the other authors are Tanith Lee and C.E. Murphy)

my holidays are nearly gone, oh no!

Mon, 16 Jan 2006 13:01:14 GMT

Tomorrow is the last day of my holidays. :( I just realised that I haven't commented in anyone's journal in ages, so look for a big flurry of commenting from me in the next day or so. I promise I'll start paying attention to things again!

In other news, my internet is annoying me. It keeps dropping out when I am half way through a mission in Guild Wars. I hate it when other people do that, so I can only imagine how annoyed all these other people are with me. I always try to log back on to apologise to the group, but I don't know if that helps or not. I have one more mission in the main game to do, and all the side quests that I ignored in my power march to completion. I also have the expansion to complete, but I've heard that's really hard. I don't know if I want to do that, considering how hard I've found the last part of the game.

I think I've been staring at my monitor for too long. I'm trying to keep a reasonable distance between my nose and the monitor, but I keep finding myself about 6 inches from the screen, which is not a good thing. Even my glasses aren't helping all that much anymore. I'm going to end up one of those stereotypical geeks with thick, enormous glasses that I have to wear everywhere or else I can't see anything and I squint, fetchingly. Is squinting fetching?

Unable to stay on topic, becoming obssessed with silly words like fetching, means time to get away from the computer. I feel like a little kid who is fighting to stay up past their bed time. I really, really don't want to go to bed, but I'm really tired and should sleep.

So, carry on about your day, hope all is good, there's new episode of Bones this week (hooray!) and god bless.

ETA: oh, I forgot to mention. I read a fic that managed to pair Jayne and River, I won't say believably, but the pairing was so cool and I loved it. I haven't ever really been a big shipper for anyone in Firefly/Serenity, but I think Jayne/River is going to have to be my Serenity OTP. it was so cute!

Fri, 13 Jan 2006 05:38:24 GMT

Some days I wish I could have a do-over. I'd really like a do-over for the last hour or so.

People are fucking crazy. I would like some brain bleach to remove some of the crazy shit I have learned about weirdos on the internet.

I had a look at fandom_wank and kept looking around and somehow ended up further and further away from where I started. I learned that Laurell K. Hamilton caused a fandom wank, as did Ann Rice, which is funny, but kinda predictable. But I also read some crazy, disturbing stuff on Encycolpedia Dramatica, amongst other places. I guess I always knew there could be crazy people with livejournals, because of the anonymity and all, but whoa. Some of the journals that are out there, if they are reflective of the people who write them, whoa. Some of the journals, rants therein and fandom wanks were funny at first, in a really disturbing way, and I was doing my whole "well it takes all kinds to make a world" pretend-tolerance attitude (where I say that, but what I really mean is "you crazy fuckers, I am so much smarter, more logical and most importantly, more sane than you"). And then it just got wrong and I got kinda sick of the vitriol that people throw around so casually.

I think I'm going to retreat into my little corner of the internet and never come out again, if nobody minds.

Anyone got any glee or pictures of rainbows or something?

Lost 210 - The 23rd Psalm

Fri, 13 Jan 2006 02:21:49 GMT

I love Mr Eko. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I really do love him. I loved him the minute he showed up on screen, and my love continued to grow, even as I got more and more pissed off with season 2 of Lost. And then they showed his back story. The second they showed kids playing soccer in what was clearly meant to be Africa, I started thinking "please don't let this be about child soldiers, please no" and then it sort of was and sort of wasn't and OMG. Eko is just the most amazing character, and I love his backstory the most out of all of them. Let's just have a show about Eko, yes? Forget those annoying other people (especially Charlie, because shut up Charlie), and just have 45 minutes of Eko talking in that beautiful deep voice and occasionally smiling, because damn! What a smile!

I read something on the TWOP forums (yes, I actually braved the snake pit) that made me laugh, so I'm going to repeat it: Mr Eko just out-alpha male'd Lostzilla! He so totally did! Forget all this nonsense about Locke and Eko having a shaman-off to see who has the greater powers of mysticism, I want to see Eko and Lostzilla have an alpha male contest. Because then Eko would deliver the beatdown with his Jesus stick (oh alright, Charlie said ONE funny thing). Yeah!

Interesting thing they are doing with the backstories this season. They are focussing on the person's story as a whole, doing the broad strokes, I guess. So we get a sweeping picture of Ana-Lucia, Eko and Jin's pre-island life. But none of these have focussed on how they got to the island. They're looking at the person as a whole, rather than the one little thing that caused them to be on the plane. So we still don't know why Eko and AL were flying from Sydney to LA. Which I think is a refreshing change. We're actually finding out about these people, so we can put them properly into context, instead of having to guess.

I'm not trying to complain that the Lost people should give away answers, because this is a thriller/mystery, so quite clearly they shouldn't give everything away. What I am arguing about is the quality of the writing and storytelling. They have a brilliant plot setup that I thought they were ruining through lazy storytelling and characterisation. There was a bit of it in this latest ep, but it wasn't too bad. I mean, Charlie finds out that Eko's brother died on the heroin plane, and just doesn't ask questions? He has absolutely no interest in finding out anything more about this man? This complete lack of interest or follow through by any character is the only thing that has held the plot together so far. The writers have great ideas, they just don't seem to be strong enough as writers to get from start to finish without doing something stupid and contrived each time.

They also have a tendency to do a narrative version of something I call "look at the birdie, look at the birdie". This is where you show someone something loud and flashy in the hope of distracting them from something that you don't want them to think too hard about. The Lost writers seem to pile question after question on, without ever resolving any of them, and some of them are completely contradictory. Maybe they are supposed to be that way, and there is an answer underneath. However, without any resolution to anything, it seems like they are bad writers who are trying to distract the audience from questions that they are unable to answer by using loud, flashy new stunts. As I said, I'm not demanding immediate resolution to all the islands mysteries. What I am demanding is narrative sense, and if something clearly doesn't make sense then give me a reason to believe that it's intended, not just bad storytelling. And thus far, all I have is bad storytelling.

All in all, I was seriously underwhelmed by season 2 of Lost. And then they go and do this episode to me. Frakkers! It's not fair! I want to wallow in my bitterness, not appreciate good storytelling when I had given up on it.

Also, Sawyer and Kate were cute. He's so vain, flipping his hair around like that! I'm so glad they've decided to stop this whole Jack and Kate belong together because they are the alpha male and female, and thus perfect for each other because they are perfect. Because blah. It just wouldn't have worked at all.

I'm gonna go back and drool over Mr Eko a bit more now, k? k.

Farscape season 1

Wed, 11 Jan 2006 07:33:40 GMT

I'd forgotten how incredibly dodgy season 1 of Farscape could be. I had also forgotten just how awesome Aeryn Sun is. I mean, I always knew she was great, but I'd forgotten exactly how great. It's been awhile since I've watched any Farscape, so that could be why. I've watched the first four episodes of season 1: Premiere, I, ET, Exodus from Genesis and Throne for a Loss. I don't really have much to say about any of them, especially Throne for a Loss, which I mainly fast forwarded. I don't actually remember seeing I, ET before, so that was new. It was kind of fun, actually. I liked the idea of John being the alien, and being a disappointment to all these people who were hoping to find proof of aliens, because he was just so boring.

Although Crichton really does look special in those spacesuit pants,and they keep focussing on his butt! It's not my fault I happened to pause the dvd on that shot where his butt is in the foreground (I think I'm supposed to be looking at D'Argo in the background, but meh). I know that right from the beginning they were really pushing the Aeryn/John 'ship, which is great, and I love them together, but I think I have had more fun watching Aeryn and D'Argo together. They are so funny! And snarky. They snark at each other, which is great fun, but when they combine their powers of snark against John or Rygel, it's a thing of beauty.

Trying to decide if I feel like watching any more Farscape, or doing something else. Sleep is sounding like a great idea, but if I sleep now I'll never get to sleep tonight. Which would be annoying.

Jade Empire is teh coolest thing EVA!!!!1!!1!!

Wed, 11 Jan 2006 02:06:11 GMT

omg, I totally love Jade Empire!

I can't believe I waited this long to play Jade Empire. It's by Bioware, so I knew it would be an amazing RPG, I just wasn't feeling the love. I've played it for about 8 hours over the last 2 days and I love it so very, very much. In some ways it's very similar to KOTOR, as you can choose to play the Jade Empire version of dark side or light side. Which are "the way of the open palm" or "the way of the closed fist". Guess which is which? :) The combat style is also very stylised, I guess that's the best way to explain it, making it fairly easy to use. The story is so engrossing. It's set in Ancient China and it's an epic involving gods and spirits and demons and the Emperor and destiny and whoa.

Also, the bad guy for the first part of Jade Empire was a character called Gao the Lesser. I'm listening to this guy talk, thinking his voice sounds familiar, and that I could listen to it all day, because it was a very nice voice, although very American, which is kinda funny for a character called Gao the Lesser. Anyway, I'm playing away, the boy is watching me, laughing at my agonised attempts to get points for the light side without actually having to be nice to anyone in game, when he randomly goes "That's the Captain". Which was a bit non sequitur-ish, but ok. When I looked at him blankly, he explains "The guy doing the voice of Gao is the Captain from Firefly". I had a total duh! moment. It was Mal's yummy voice being all evil at me. yum.

The boy and I have a new phrase too, thanks to Jade Empire. We pick up random phrases from whatever we watch/play. So "I mock you with my monkey pants" is a standard phrase, of course. The new one is "I need to put out silver bananas to catch the monkey thief!" which will make no sense, but is making me giggle like crazy. That and we are just calling each other monkey thief, because you know, monkey thief. Monkey thieves are like a crazier version of normal thieves, I think.

And on a completely different note (but I don't feeling like writing a separate post and spamming people) the boy got a job offer. This means he can leave his shitty job on the Gold Coast, which requires him to drive over an hour each way every day. The new job is better money, he'll actually be learning something, and it sounds like the work will be interesting. He will also have the possibility of being promoted soon, which wouldn't happen anytime soon in the company he currently works for. The other interesting thing is that it means we might be able to afford me going back to do my phd full time, instead of part time. I could go back to my phd scholarship and do 9, maybe 18 hours a week teaching, instead of my current setup where I deal with teaching and admin 40 hours a week and have to try to squeeze in my phd somewhere around that. Which just doesn't happen. I'm so incredibly relieved at the thought of going back to my phd full time, and possibly finishing it this year, instead of in about 18 months. And the thought of not being involved in the office politics for the next year is wonderful too. I can go back to being an oblvious phd student. Yeah!

This is getting long and rambly, so I stop now. To be playing of the Jade Empire, thinks I.

VM fic rec

Tue, 10 Jan 2006 00:50:41 GMT

I just read the most cynical, brilliant Veronica Mars fic. Wow. It was rec'ed on crack_van, so most people have probably already seen it. In case you haven't, go read it now. It's written in the style of a Vanity Fair article, and it's all about what would happen in the future if Aaron Echolls is acquitted.

wow.

The Comeback: The Vanity Fair Profile

updating my list of things to do again

Mon, 09 Jan 2006 09:50:54 GMT

My weekly attempt to guilt trip myself into doing something with my holidays.

1. Fannish/LJ-related things

~~a. Write about BSG~~ (I wrote something about Adama and Roslin, does that count?)
b. Write about Prison Break
c. Write about Grey's Anatomy/Bones or any other crazy show that catches my attention
d. Write about Harry Potter
e. Write about A Feast for Crows - in particular there are some things that [info]queenofthorns was saying about Jaime Lannister that I need to write about.
f. Write about Buffy/Angel or Farscape, depending on how part 2 of this list goes.
~~g. Possibly write about some of the other books/games I will finish.~~ (I've written enough about Guild Wars to bore everyone for years)

sort of updated, I guess. In a really half-assed sort of way.

2. Fannish/Real-life-related things

~~a. Convince someone, ANYONE, to see Pride and Prejudice with me.~~
b. Go see The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.
c. If I can't avoid it, see King Kong with the boyfriend.
d. Play KOTOR1 again.
e. Finish Guild Wars with at least one character. (UPDATE: finally making some progress again, but it's still really tough)
f. Play Jade Empire (which I brought for the boy for Christmas, but I'm sure he won't mind if I play it).
g. Play Morrowind or Neverwinter Nights again.
h. Finish watching season 3 of Buffy.
i. Watch season 1 and 2 of Angel with the boy. (UPDATE: we're now 16 episodes through season 1)
j. Watch season 1 (and 2?) of Farscape.
k. Make a dent in the ridiculous pile of books I have waiting to be read. For the first time that I can remember I received absolutely NO books for Christmas, which is kind of a mixed blessing. It means I don't have any more books that I have to read, but it also means that NO-ONE GAVE ME ANY BOOKS FOR CHRISTMAS!!! uh, anyway. The top 5 books that I have to read:

~~Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis: I'm halfway through Voyage of the Dawn Treader, with The Silver Chair and The Last Battle to go.~~

Thief of Lives, by Barb and J.C. Hendee (the sequel to Dhampir): Dhampir was pretty cool, so hopefully the sequel will be ...

Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson: I will finish this damn book if it kills me. I don't understand why I keep forgetting to read it - I always enjoy it when I do read it, but then I keep forgetting about it. grr!

~~Fool's Errand, by Robin Hobb (1st in the Tawny Man Trilogy): I'm about a hundred pages in and enjoying it so far, but waiting for the other shoe to drop.~~

Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell, by Susannah Clarke: see comments about Quicksilver, above.

I finished Chronicles Of Narnia! Yay!

3. Other LJ-related things

a. Write some of the crazy Victorian mystery that is bouncing around in my head.
b. Find a layout that I actually like and stick to it.
c. Work out this whole banner thing and actually attempt to make one involving Faith and Starbuck. And possibly Veronica. And Christina from Grey's. This is sad. Why are the girl crushes dominating my life?
d. Attempt some interesting icons of my own. Is it hard?

still no progress. what am I doing with my holidays?!

4. Other Real-life-related things

a. Go to the gym. grr
b. Write some of chapters 3 and 4 of my phd. At least 5000 words for each.
c. Start planning the next study of my phd.
d. Work on the journal paper that I am supposed to be writing.
e. Apply for that job in Indiana that I have been avoiding applying for, because it involves making actual decisions about my life.
~~f. Catch up on all my work email accounts - especially the one I haven't read in over a month.~~
g. Write some of the course outline for the subject I have to teach next year.
~~h. Buy a dress and have my hair done for the boy's brother's wedding.~~
i. Go to said wedding (technically that shouldn't be on here, because we all know I'll do that without having a prompt for it, and all it will do is make me feel better about how little I will do of the rest of it).
j. Write that stupid report I'm supposed to do about my trip to Sydney in late November. damn, I was trying to forget about that.

Well, I read my email. I guess that's something.

I guess I must be getting a lot of sleep, because it's not like I'm actually doing anything with my holidays. Where is all the time going? Has someone put a time jinx on me or something? Because I swear days aren't normally this short.

ETA: sheesh, I fucked the lj tags - cuts, html etc - on this entry, royally. Hopefully no-one read this before I changed them all, because wow, that was not good. How embarrassment!

Happy birthday!

Mon, 09 Jan 2006 05:36:02 GMT

Happy birthday rawles!

Hope you had a great day! I'm not sure exactly when the 8th of January begins and ends in the US, so hopefully I haven't missed your birthday by too much.

well, i'm stumped

Sat, 07 Jan 2006 12:51:33 GMT

I am totally and completely stuck in Guild Wars. I have absolutely no idea how to complete this one mission, and I can't progress in the game until I do it. I thought the big battle I had 3 days ago was going to be the hardest thing I did in the game, but this is ridiculous. I've been teaming up with other people in the game and we just can't get through it. Obviously it's possible to do it, because there are people who have completed the game. I just can't see how to do it and it's really pissing me off. So I did a completely rational thing. I started a new character and spent 6 hours getting it to level 7. You can add this game to my list of addictions. I'm a sad, sad being.

I also quit my guild and joined a new one. This random guy came up to me and was begging me to join his guild and when I refused he started asking me about my guild. He was really shocked at the answers, which made me think about my guild. The only reason I was in it was because of my friends, but one of them made me guild leader without telling me. The only reason this guy would make me leader of his precious guild is if he didn't plan on playing anymore. He was so possessive about who he would let in, that if he was actually handing control over to me, it meant he didn't plan on being there anymore. And then I looked at the login history of my guild. Only one person has logged in in the last 2 months (other than me) and I don't even know him. So I quit. I joined another one that's actually planning on doing some guild versus guild competing, which I've always wanted to do, but my guild was never interested (when they were around, that is). So, I'm feeling very positive about that part of it. If I could just get past this one frakking point in the game!

Because I love my characters, I'm going to bore anyone who has made it this far with more talk about my girls. I always seem to play as a girl. I think it's because I don't like the way the males look in the game. The male warriors, for instance, are huge. And whether the players mean to or not, they always seem to loom over everyone else. I feel like they are trying to be intimidating, even when they probably don't mean to be.

So. This is my mesmer, Freya Draco.

The face mask is to help confuse people, I think. This character specialises in confusion and disruption spells, so what better headgear than a harem mask on a chick in skin tight blue leather? Or something.

This is the new character I started today, Ciara Fenrir. She's a warrior. The main reason I chose a warrior this time is that I've never even considered playing as a melee character. I always, without fail, in any RPG I have ever played, go for the long range spell caster (if I can. Some games force you to play melee). So I decided to give the warriors a go. So far, I'm enjoying it more than I thought I would.

Apparently all the women in the Guild Wars world are stacked. Who knew?

I think I'll go watch the new Stargate SG1 while waiting for my BSG to download. Please download quickly!

Fri, 06 Jan 2006 10:07:45 GMT

Happy Birthday, meyerlemon!

You should feel pretty special, you know. You get to claim that the return of BSG is a special birthday present, just for you. Because I really believe that it is!

Right, computer getting turned off before the power goes. That storm is very close now.

nearly BSG time!

Fri, 06 Jan 2006 09:51:26 GMT

It's already been Jan 6th here for nearly 20 hours, so I can't really jump up and down and go "BSG day! zomg it's Jan 6th!" Instead, what I can do is go "omg it's finally Jan 6th in the US which means BSG torrent for me soon!" squee!

'scuse me. I'm just a leetle bit excited.

We're about to get our 3rd storm in 2 days (the one at 4am this morning was awesome! It had those huge rumbles of thunder that go on for nearly a minute, and roll all around the sky before coming back to where they started from. uh, if you know what I mean). Hopefully this one might actually cool things down a bit. Because, ugh. hot and sticky.

BSG soon! yay!

ruh roh

Fri, 06 Jan 2006 05:52:59 GMT

I have over 600 unread emails in my phd-student email account.

My phd supervisor was apparently promoted to professor. 6 weeks ago.

This is a problem. I don't know what's worse - to not acknowledge her promotion at all, or to acknowledge it 6 weeks late with the excuse that I haven't read my email in nearly 2 months.

I really should check my student email more often.

ETA: Due to some brutal deleting, I've managed to get my inbox down to 21 emails. yay!

I also found out that I am overdue on my progress report, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem. I hope.

not happy, Jan.

Wed, 04 Jan 2006 07:23:01 GMT

My computer just crashed as I was choosing a user pic for the huge post I had just written.

Cleverly, I had not saved it or backed it up in anyway. I am not impressed.

I suppose this is LJ's way of telling me that no-one wants to read a blow by blow account of my epic battle in Guild Wars. fine. I can take a hint.

Still fucking pissed off that my pc is crashing for no reason. That means I have to spend the rest of my afternoon doing boring diagnostic-y shit, which I'd rather not do. Why don't computers just work?!

grrrr(r times infinity)r.