So, I've watched Damien for the second time through (the first time live every week last year, and then finishing it up today, coincidentally Bradley James's 34th birthday, via Hulu).
I have such an interesting... appreciation, I guess is the word, for blasphemy, or at the very least things that don't put God exactly in the highest light. I like the songs "Man in the Box" and "Stop Smiling". I've actually like dark-themed shows, like Damien, and then there are shows that put different spins on Christian belief, history, and lore, such as Dominion and Supernatural, both of which I've esteemed.
There are dark-themed movies like The Chronicles of Riddick that have essentially death-worshipers.
It's funny: I've always had an appreciation and somewhat fascination with the villains of television shows and movies. I'd thought about this some with June Foray's death (and how I'd listen to them speak of her voice-over credits and how they'd include Ducktales' Magica De Spell).
What is it with Magica? I thought she was kind of awesome (or at least cool), even though I couldn't state specifically what brought me to that conclusion. She did sometimes make me chuckle, if not being the situations in which she'd found herself. She wanted Scrooge's first dime, and sought to break his protecto-glass vault shield, and created shadow copies of herself that stole things until one of them galvanized and became a problem. June Foray did no small part to bring life to her.
Ursula from The Little Mermaid was a drag queen, even though she's female. I suppose it was the fabulousness. Suicide Squad's Enchantress, she was kind of interesting in the same way, though not quite as flamboyant.
Somehow I want to add Dame Vaako from The Chronicles of Riddick into this mix, "from here until Underverse come". I suppose one attraction (if not allure) is the sultriness.
She wasn't a villain in the traditional sense, but Polly Walker's Clarice Willow character in Caprica, a strong female antagonist at least, was cool until she started getting reckless. Her sermon at the end of the series was enticing.
One of my favorite childhood villains was, and is, Beast Wars: Transformer's Megatron. He's probably one of the few males on my list. David Kaye's voicing helped immensely, and it's David Kaye and then Frank Welker that I think of in order of Megatrons.
I remember at one point I was a reasonably okay-big fan of Once Upon A Time and Teen Wolf. Somewhere along the way, with OUAT being right before they went to Hades and TW when Kira went away again to control her darker side, I decided I wouldn't watch the shows anymore.
Teen Wolf had taken me in with the storytelling, and even though I'd practically given up on it I'd found myself curious about it again and started reading the Wikipedia article on this past half of the 6th season. The story seems pretty interesting, but I think I'd rather read it than watch it.
There was a time when I'd watch some episodes sometimes three times: live, the rebroadcast before the next live episode, and then a rerun sometime during a marathon. The last time I think I'd seriously done this was when the daragh was around.
Once Upon A Time, though, while I'm curious about Regina, the rest of it I'm finding I have no want to find out about the rest of the story. And then it looks like very few of the original cast remains for a new, upcoming season anyway...
Television, it's fickle. Well, so am I sometimes, frankly.
I think I'll find a Teen Wolf wiki that provides the episodes in detail and read, though.
I'd just got done watching the first episode... and wow.
I don't remember the book at all, and Mrs. Betty Bills would frown at that, but I'm glad they have this adaptation available on a platform I've come to love dearly, Hulu.
It's incredibly intense. I love intense shows, and the majority of what I watch is pretty serious, but generally even the serious shows lighten up a little bit. So far with this episode I'd only had really one light-hearted moment that had me smile, or at least chuckle.
I think I'm in store for more of those, but I don't expect too many of them. That's fine.
I'd expected intensity, though not to this level, but it's enraptured me.
I take in episode 2 tomorrow, along with another of my intense shows, The 100.
I'd talked about my musical tastes a few days ago, but it's funny how my tastes can run the gamut. And then, there are sometimes I hear a song completely randomly and it stuns me. And then I can't get enough of it.
I heard "Eternal Eternity" while watching Sailor Moon Crystal. It's probably my favorite of the Sailor Moon songs. I love, as well, how they'd managed to entagle the names Haruka and Michiru grammatically into the song lyrics.
The Count is my favorite Sesame Street character, and I suppose it's partly his OCD. His songs are incredibly catchy, and his songs are the only ones I really know by heart. The other two I know are "The Lambaba" and "The Count Goes To School." They're all so fun!
"WARRIORS" was a jolt. After hearing episode after episode of "Wild Ride" and kind of getting used to that, having this song, which I absolutely love, come on was welcome. It ends up being the theme song that has the most amount of episodes it precedes. I like how they'd played around a little bit with when they'd play it, too. Sometimes they would just start the episode with it. Sometimes they would start the episode, and then have something relatively shocking or pausing happen, and then start "WARRIORS." Other times still, they'd do kind of a "Previously on..." and, usually Anzu or Yugi, they'd narrate and then the theme begins. It's super-catchy.
I'd heard this song as one of those they intersperse PRI's "The World" with as the show goes on. I had to find out what that song was.
I'd heard "Blow" as part of a Vine clip, which was a little annoying. Thankfully, there were people in the comments who were also, like, "What is this song?" and there were people who'd answered it. I can't say I'm an immense Beyoncé fan. I know I've tried to give her some shots. I remember there was a commercial that had runway models walking and I was wondering "What is that?!" It ended up being the beginning of "Girls (Who Runs The World?)". It upset me that the rest of the song wasn't as entrancing as that beginning! I'm glad that "Blow" makes up for it.
I don't even remember how I came on this song. All I know is I'd heard it and was like this is the Metallica I know!!!
Yet another song I'd discovered via a Vine video (and a pleasant juxtaposition was it was a Supernatural fan's video featuring mostly Castiel). "TRKRTRT"!!!
So, that's a little jaunt into some of the music I like. There are lots more!
I remember hearing about this show and I was reticent to start watching it. Then I heard there was a gay line in it and I became interested.
It wasn't until I saw they'd had it on Hulu that I'd actually given it a shot at watching, and the rest is history. It's completely engrossing... Well, maybe not as engrossing as I'd found it initially, but I still stay tuned. I tell you, though, I'm not sure what they're going to do with it next.
It surprised me that this was just a hiatus finale, since season 1 was pretty short.
Still, I'll take the extras. Not too many extras, but enough.
This event is almost done, and it's stirred up all kinds of things in me. I'd probably not have noticed the series if not for a Hulu ad one day last week, and I'd looked forward to watching it.
Except, I feel terrible. It brings up all these feelings of resentment and discontent for me, and it's not even because of the treatment of GLBT people in the past or today. It's partly because of not feeling like a part of anything really, and partly because I don't make myself a part of anything.
I'm gay. I've known that "officially" for 18 years now. I've experienced things I still remember and wonder about, and there are things others have experienced that teeter between me not electing to do these things and me not in the path to experiencing them.
I've never been in a relationship. I may never be. The way I've come to be gets in the way of that some, and it's partly because I don't seem to fit the mould gay people around here seem to want.
Example 1
A toned white guy with model looks and abs.
Example 2
A black guy with black identity markers. I'm generally too "Oreo".
Example 3
A Latino of virtually any sort.
Example 4
Your stereotypical hot, confident Asian guy.
People tell me I look better without glasses. I can see that, but I haven't liked wearing contacts for a while now, and I'm not so sure about eye surgery. I cut my own hair, so I don't have the "professionally cut" look. I'm nerdy (but apparently the really hot thing is being into video games, which I'm not). Essentially, there are a lot of things I elect to do that strike against me.
Then there are guys who come after me that I don't particularly fancy, but that's another story.
Seeing just a snippet of these people's lives, which include falling in love, is heartbreaking. What is it these people have that I don't, or what do they do that I haven't? Yes, it's a made-for-television, based-on-a-true-story telecast with æsthetically pleasing people. I'm not seeing the failures in between, not in the way I'd gripe about.
How many eggs does one have to crack to get a cake?
People say it's getting out there and meeting people. It's about taking risks in exposing yourself to others.
I suppose I feel terrible because I can't really work myself up to that. Maybe ever. I'm slowly becoming fine with that, but seeing shows like this don't make it easier.
So, I wasn't entirely thrilled with the idea Rihanna is in yet another acting gig that coincides with something I've come to love or find interest in. She's not made many songs that I like to begin with (only one of which is actually in my music collection), and I've not been a fan of celebrity hype in general (something that seems to follow her around 🙄). She's a fair actress, so I am not in the outrage camp some people are in of "HOW DARE THEY?!", even though I am a little miffed they'd chosen her.
Looking at my IMDb widget and seeing it's her birthday anniversary today, it had me thinking whether putting the Bates final season premiere on today was intentional or a coincidence. I'm leaning towards intentional (I'm about to expand on the moreso reason for my thoughts) partly because of the Holmesian thought that "rarely is the universe so lazy".
1) People on the Bates Motel Facebook page have chimed in that naturally they bring her in to bring more people to watch a show that has had ever-declining ratings. This may work to a degree, but other shows I've noticed they do this to, it usually literally only lasts the first episode (thinking right now of American Horror Story: Hotel in their plastering Lady Gaga all over the place).
They may want new people to try exposing them to other A&E shows' commercials they're likely to bombard us with tonight (well, those who're watching live, one of whom won't be me because I'd cut the cord months ago) along with the product commercials they're equally likely to overdo ad-vomit-inducing-nauseum. This may be in hope they'll stick around to watch those other shows (even though it probably won't work; remember how they'd tried and failed to entice us to watch that lackluster Chloë Sevigny drama Those Who Kill?).
They may just be experimenting to see if the celebrity hype factor can influence viewership over a longer term (because maybe it may not be as much of a one-off as I'm predicting it will), and use that information to try this again across their networks. They may even be trying to see if it's worth keeping Carlton Cuse around, since he's brought quite a few series to A&E (but I'm sure he's getting more expensive to have around with that tenure).
2) Having the premiere on with Rihanna's birthday might interact with that celebrity hype thing because her fans will probably be flooding her Twitter account and Facebook page with celebratory wishes and lots of views. She's more than likely put on both those places mentions she's going to be on tonight's episode, and so the masses who follow her, for the greater part, will probably do what she asks. Thinking about it, too, there would be the eyes on her IMDb page too, seeing that screen credit.
3) There was one Facebook reply that off-handedly mentioned she was a fan of, if not the series itself, Psycho and/or Alfred Hitchcock. It could be a thank-you to her in passing.
But then, yes, it could be as much a coincidence as the final season premiere of yet another one of my now-cancelled favorite series Tyrant was in that it premiered on the last day of Ramadan (the series taking place mostly in a fictional, majority-Muslim nation).
But rarely is the universe so lazy.
Am I overthinking this? What do you think? Do you agree? Is there another reason there might be? What do you think of her being Marion Crane?
So, I'm a watcher of sorts. I've always felt my purpose in life was to observe and record, when possible, somehow elements of humanity. This can be in reading, watching things, listening to music, and hearing people's stories.
One if the most frustrating ones have been TV shows of late.
So, a brief, and probably incomplete, list of shows I've gotten into within the last 5 years is:
• Tyrant
• The Whispers
• Once Upon a Time
• Manhattan Love Story
• Selfie
• The Messengers
• The Tomorrow People
• Reign
• The Returned
• Helix
• Archer
• American Horror Story
• Bates Motel
• Better Call Saul
• Dominion
• Scream Queens
• Teen Wolf
• The 100
• The Librarians
• Stalker
That makes 45% of the shows I've gotten into of this list cancelled. And it seems it's getting more frequent than not that I pick up a show and they cancel it, within the season, shortly after the run, or by the next season.
A couple of them, I'd pretty much figured they'd cancel, but others I'd held out so much hope for.
Only for them to dash dem weh.
Forty-five percent is pretty bad. Hopefully my odds improve this season.
How a same-sex kiss could have derailed the new Fox hit "Empire" huff.to/17aercU
I would say this could have read "How a same-sex kiss may derail 'Empire'"… or perhaps it should if I base it on what the article seems to say.
They'd addressed inherent homophobic tendencies the audience may have because the test audience rejected the show outright with the kiss scene (which I have not seen; I've not watched the show because I just haven't felt like it).
Stating they'd done the scene early in the series and the fact apparently the show is having splendid ratings together seem to indicate this is a test audience false positive.
It's not the first time I've wondered, but I've been wondering when television commercial producers had decided to start putting nametags visibly on their characters, or even giving the characters names in-commercial (like Maxwell the Pig).
The first one I really remember paying attention to is Annie from Popeye's Louisiana Chicken, and from there it's been everything from Matt of Carmax to these new commercials (of I forget which car company) where they have splash screens of the characters' names when they've completed the obstacle course of supposed "hard customers".
This comes to me because, partly, I wear a nametag at work and partly because I – based on apparent work standards – have to "introduce" myself to every customer. I can't help wondering if this is a change that had occurred — if at all — around the same time commercial characters started getting names. I can sort of get it as far as those characters go, since, I suppose, those that do have names are in a sequence of commercials either in format or in "storyline".
Logically, it's begun to make sense for me too, the self-introduction (though it's so intensely contrary to my self-effacingness most of the time): when you come back, you know me as more than just the ugly, big-headed, Spanish-speaking burnt-Black dude in glasses. At the same time, the vast majority of the people I deal with don't (seem to) come back due to their being transient, or if they do it's either I've not dealt with them sequentially or I've just forgotten them completely.
I suppose it's partly an exercise to get me to like myself more. Who knows?
Welcome: my name is Kris and I'm here to assist you today.
Okay, yes, I'm bi-national. I'm a British Citizen who received his US naturalization in 2006. I've grown up in the United States primarily, and being an anthropologist have observed all the little things that make United States Americans proud and whatnot, as well as what leaves others wanting more.
This, however, is an example of that. Americans don't want to accept anything that makes them think about anything other than the United States except for when it's convenient, trendy, or what "everyone else" is doing. So, when Piers Morgan confronts them obliquely, debating as he does or, apparently as this article states, doesn't cover what "Americans want to hear", shutting him down is a problem.
Accepting that shutting him down because he runs his show the way he does and that "everyone" flees to other networks because of that is a problem. Full disclosure: I've never watched Piers Morgan Tonight. I've never been one for talk shows period, so pretty much any of them I've stayed away from, daytime or primetime. I, therefore, have no idea if the show is (or was) any good. My judgment lies solely with the article's claims. I'd like to believe my knee-jerk feelings have some merit, though: Americans on a majority do not want to hear about things that make them change their minds.
This is sad. This is why this country is so messed-up, and this is why it makes me smile sometimes when other countries put this one in its place. The United States' priorities skew completely waywardly most of the time, and yet it expects the rest of the world to bend over and take it whenever it wants a piece. If Piers Morgan helped the United States in some part during his tenure to see that there are things beyond being the third-largest country (debatably) and the third most populous, that there are people dying *everywhere* while the majority of US residents were in their homes watching a bunch of people vie for twoish-pound pieces of metal medallions, then bully for him.
Yes, there are other countries, mostly European, that just about force their naturalized denizens to become French (or Italian, or German, or whatever) culturally and shun them if they don't adapt and make 100% a part of them all the trappings of Frenchness just as this article asserts CNN and the viewing public expected of Piers Morgan. If the United States is such a world leader, then shouldn't it lead with the example that some Britain-born dude on a US prime time show can be what he is, and shouldn't we "enlightened" Americans accept him for it? Yes, it's ratings. Yes, this is idealistic.
But this is why this country is filled with stupid people.
This half-season of two shows I like, Teen Wolf and Supernatural, decided to take different tacks than what I've known them to do: they've taken elements of foreign mythologies and made plot points out of them.
And for some reason, while I'd enjoyed that fact, it felt a little weird at first. Thinking about that underlying reaction, I had to reflect about that because I also happen to be a somewhat-passionate anime fan. Anime, the animated Japanese-originate phenomenon, often borrows elements from non-Japanese and Japanese mythology and history (often the former) to drive their stories, and it's never felt odd.
One of my favorite anime series is Digimon, and there are thousands of digimon that have names coming from all kinds of sources. For example, you have Sakuyamon, coming from Japan, Wolfmon (pronounced 'vollfmon'), from Germany, and Shinduramon, from India. Another favorite series, The Big O, borrows highly in style and feel from the American cartoon Batman: The Animated Series. Yet with Teen Wolf, bringing in kitsune, oni masks, and demon warriors into the werewolf and coyote spirit mix, and Supernatural having in its most recent episode a Peruvian/Andean beast called a pishtaco, it felt weird for the first couple seconds hearing it.
Might it have been because Teen Wolf and Supernatural, for the majority of their histories, have used United States-based (more or less) creatures, beasts, and myths? That's more than likely probable. Bringing in other bits so late into the game might have been a little jarring, though the anthropology major in me jumps for joy at the chance to learn different aspects of other culture's artefacts and how American writers use them in their creations as much as learning that one of the Pokémon, Ooper, looks like the Mexican amphibian the axolotl.
It might be as well that one's imagination can accept animated series bringing in other myths more easily than a series with human actors. I suppose I should stay tuned to see what other shows I like start importing things, especially the live action ones.
It's funny how much I've been thinking about how often it seems we lump things with very distinct differences together.
It started Wednesday while I was watching Modern Family. Sofía Vergara's character Gloria couldn't think of the animal, so she said it in Spanish: ardilla. Me speaking and knowing Spanish, I'd always known ardilla to mean "chipmunk", so when Gloria's son translated it as squirrel, it surprised me. Checking the RAE's dictionary, I found it to be both chipmunk and squirrel. I thought this: how can Spanish lump together two similar but *very* different mammals under the same word? They share a kingdom, phylum, class, order and family. Close enough, but they can't interbreed viably, they look different, act differently. How can that be?
I brought this up with one of my Colombian co-workers/friends - Alix - and it brought up many trains of thought.
How, for example, do Spanish-speakers principally, from my experience, call all Asians "chinos"? Or after 9-11, I was hearing a lot of the Cubans around me referring to Arabs universally as "talibanes".
Backing to the animal theme, I'd brought up how dissimilar squirrels and chipmunks are, and asked if you would lump lions and tigers together. The response was, of course, no, because they're different. We kind of do the same thing in English quite a bit, like with turtles and tortoises.
I suppose I'm more sensitive to meaning in Spanish since it's my adopted language and not my main language, or I suppose because I'm me.
I caught it a little late because my computer was defragmenting, but when I did, I was glad I stayed to watch it. It's the first thing I watched as a person newly without cable!
I liked this one better than the Presidential Candidate debate #1 because they actually interacted. They weren't (completely) hostile, though Sarah Palin sounded scripted. Glad to see she doesn't change very much, eh?
The only thing about Joe Biden is that he kept pronouncing things really... interestingly. On pronunciations, Sarah Palin says "nucular" instead of "nuclear."
I liked that they were rather light-hearted. They both smiled, and took strides with it. There were a few jabs, and even a low blow that had me going "OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH" out loud, but it was good.
During the debate I was drawing Sarah Palin's U.S. flag pin because I liked the design. I'm a horrible artist, but it gave me a chance to test out my new (and by new I mean second-hand) graphics tablet. I like it so far. Hopefully I can develop another side of my creativity.
So, there's my horrible artwork up above! Toodles!
Floppyhead - Digital Media and Home Theater Computers: I'm seriously considering it, and it comes more each day. I've been thinking about it for a while, actually. I thought about it when I'd gone to North Carolina for a weekend and realised that I'd not turned on the television once.
I realise that every weekend, when Saturdays and Sundays generally happen with the TV off. The only thing I think about now is Stargate, and it's probable I can get that on the Internet somehow as well. The Internet is the way of the future, is it not? I mean, the moment that we decide to give up our consumerism and develop ourselves instead for the sake of human improvement, we'll progress, right?
I think I'm going to do it. Sorry, Comcast. You've just lost a little revenue.
