How to watch a season of West Wing in 4 days
Well, any TV series really:
1. Be obsessed.
2. Have an obsessed partner. Alternatively, have no partner. Having a not-obsessed partner is not an option.
3. Watch until late at night
4. Have at least one cold, rainy, disgusting day.
5. Be determined to boast to the friends that loaned you the DVDs about your acheivement.
6. Be obsessed.
Following on…
… from the last post, I think I might actually have to get out of bed, although whether I stay out is another question: I need to go and get my book, to try and finish it today. I’m currently reading The Origins and Forms of Early Greek Tragedy (my boss just laughed when I showed it to him – so I’m a geek, who cares? He admitted to being a news junkie…). I’ve got two new books to review for VATE, plus I’m getting one from ASif!, and frankly there are just a lot of books looking at me rather accusingly form the shelves at the moment. It’s making me feel guilty… and paranoid….
Saturday mornings
So I haven’t got up this morning to watch bad music videos. Instead, I have stayed in bed, listening to the rain which has put a spanner in the plans to prune some roses – mind you, that’s a plan that may well not actually have got off the ground, since it’s not likely to get above 11C today. I’ve watched the 7th episode of West Wing Season 6 (at this rate, we’ll finish it in a week… we only started watching it on Thursday night, when we watched the entire first disc – 4 episodes), and episode 8 of Farscape season 2. I might actually have to venture out today to get more Farscape, although when J gets back maybe we’ll watch more West Wing… and I am hopeful of getting more Stargate tomorrow, too, since our suppliers are apparently nearly finished it… It’s a great weekend to have no markin to do.
Jimmy and Alan
West Wing 6 – Jimmy Smits! Not entirely sure why he ranks as getting into the lead credits, but oh well. And in the lead pictures on the DVD is Alan Alda! No idea where he will come in, but I’m very willing to wait and see.
Farscape
The episode I am watching now has Alex Dimitriades in it! How funny! I can’t believe that he is still acting… I wonder how he is making any money. And, classically, he plays a lover.
King Solomon’s Mines #2
Patrick Swayze was surprisingly good, although I wonder whether Quatermain was American in Haggard’s original. He looked surprisingly buff for a man who must be in his mid to late 40, surely, if not in his 50s. I don’t know why the girl was, but she was pretty average; the black guy, who played Mbosa (?? the one who turns out to be the king, anyway…) was really good.
I also didn’t realise that this was a telemovie, which is why it was so darn long – nearly 3 hours’ worth of it. And, not to spoil it too much, but they don’t even get to the mines until the last 15 minutes! It’s not really the point of the whole thing.
I think – I think – I might have to read this. Eventually. If only for comparisons sake.
Later edit: turns out I have seen the chick before. She played Dr Elsa Schneider, in the last Indiana Jones movie, which brings me to the other thing I meant to say – Alan Quatermain is basically Indiana’s father. Speilberg must have been a huge fan of Haggard.
Yo ho ho and a whole lot of rum
Yep, we went to see Pirates of the Caribbean part TWO yesterday. And it was GREAT.
Jack Sparrow was the same as ever – deceitful, duplicitous, and delightful. Once again Johnny Depp was magnificent. I heard a few days ago that ‘they’ (that nefarious they who seem to be behind everything bad… very X-Files) didn’t want Sparrow to be like he was, but someone said to give him a go (I’m sorry, how you can you ever doubt Depp and his ideas in a film?). And so we have Jack Sparrow, the bestest pirate in the innumerable seas.
Keira Knightley was mildly painful as always. She is only just bearable as Elizabeth. At least the accent is appropriate in this context… unlike as Guinevere…. Orlando Bloom was ok.
My one beef with this movie was Davey Jones’ crewmen. I can accept that they might turn into sea-creatures, but I wanted them to be more recognisably actual sea-creatures, rather than just barnacle-encrusted monsters. I did like, however, the number of different sea myths that could be put into this movie before being saturated and dumb. Davey Jones, the Flying Dutchman, the Kraken… very nice.
King Solomon’s Mines
Just went to the vid store. I had no idea that a new movie had been made of King Solomon’s Mines! With Patrick Swayze as Alan Quatermain! This might give me a feel for whether I should actually go and read the books… I have heard some dubious things about the worth of H Rider Haggard’s style… the story will hae to be pretty good, I think, to make me go read it. Just looked it up in Wikipedia (my respect for which as a general source of probably-true information has grown recently), and I don’t think I realised that the oldest Alan Q book was published in 1885…
Me cycling
I don’t think I mentioned that I bought a bike – or had one bought for me, anyway… It’s a Kona Fire Mountain. J has a Kona Caldera, so it seems that lots of the Kona cycles are somewhat volcanic… Anyway, I’ve had it for a week. I’ve been trying to cycle every day, but what with getting home late and it still being winter, and me not having lights, makes this somewhat hard. At any rate, today we went into the city – more abot that later – and we decided to ride. Thi was quite a feat for me. It was 5.5km one way, which to experienced cyclists is a walk in the park literally, but for me was quite a way. The way in was quite easy – lots of downhill, which is always nice – but the way home was a bit home, for the aforementioned reason…. Nonetheless, I made it; hurrah!
Pussycat Dolls
Hmm, with what I’ve been blogging the last little while, anyone would think I was trying to increase traffic through here…
Anyway, my question is this: do the Pussycat Dolls really count themselves as a singing group? As a band? I’ve heard them described as a cabaret act, and that certainly seems closer to the reality of their video clips, and the one time I saw them on some awards show. Only one of them actually makes any attempt at singing; all the others are just there for eye-candy. Doesn’t really make that much sense to me, but then – I’m not exactly their target audience.
Randomly Yours, Alex 