Many of you have probably already seen this, but I’m rewatching Buffy and I hope you might all play along. These posts will be going up weekly, probably every Monday, and I am having a lot of fun with them.
Category Archives: TV and Film
“I tried to think of something that would never hurt me…”
This is a picture of me at VCon, being menaced by the star of the most quotable movie ever, Mr. Staypuft:
The Ghostbusters
The convention itself was the usual bag of fun. My reading went well, I got to hear the opening chapter of DD Barant’s Better Off Undead
October is convention month for me! Even now I am at the Surrey International Writers Conference in just a few weeks. Anyone else going? Look for me there!
Posted in Appearances, Photography, TV and Film
Ambling, lunching, couchsurfing, all the weekend sports
We had two days of warm and muggy weather and on Saturday K and I made the most of it, ambling through the Farmer’s Market at Trout Lake (first time all season I’ve made it there!) and from there south beyond Kingsway, just for the walk. It was an uphill climb–my walking app claims we ascended about a hundred feet–but finally the hot and the damp were overpowering, and so we caught a bus on Kingsway to Mink.
My new flowery Doc Martins and my feet seem pretty happy with each other. After a careful breaking in period, I’ve done several 5K-10K walking days in a row, and the shoes have even made it through a number of rainstorms without carrying me home soaked. So they have won the coveted honor of being my winter boots. How fabulous for them and me, mmm?
After many failed attempts to find them open, we also finally got to Crumpler–I wanted to look at their bags, but the Answer was not there. I am beginning to suspect that the Answer is for me to have my own personal valet/Sherpa. Then we went on a sandwich-hunt that turned into a spontaneous visit with Barb. Finally, surprise! We wound up at Cafe Calabria.
Now the rain has come back and I’m wondering if it’s chicken-baking weather.
The new TV season continues to occupy my remaining free time and free brain space: The Mentalist started surprisingly well, but seems to have found a way to cruise back in the direction of their formula, so I’m not sure if I’ll keep on watching. Prime Suspect, meanwhile, is doing Realism, big time. Which isn’t always my favorite thing, but the first episode’s script was very tight and Maria Bello turned in a fascinating performance. The story was all about Jane Timoney and departmental politics and not so much about the murder of the week. It didn’t seem entirely divorced from the original and oh so amazing Prime Suspect
I’m still enjoying 30 Rock
What’s bad out there in TV-land? I will not be watching Blue Bloods
Posted in Photography, True Stories, TV and Film
Things with wings and Angelfail
The cold I complained about last week is in the rearview, mostly, though I’ve been using it as an excuse to baby myself a bit this week. Summer, too, is almost out the door. It’s dark when I wake up at five-ish, and I’m finding that strangely welcome. I love everything about autumn here on the West Coast: the rainstorms and the gusting wind, the way the rain pounds the color out of fallen leaves, stamping their images onto the pavement. I love the way the orb weaver spiders kick into high gear… even though it means sometimes watching where you walk if you don’t want an arachnid on your face. At this time of year, we can play ‘count the spiders’ on our walk along the Cut, and marvel at how enormous some of them get.
I’m less enchanted with the big honking moths of fall, but as long as they’re on the other side of a thick pane of glass, I can appreciate how marvelously they’re put together.
Another sign of autumn is Vancouver’s SF convention, VCon, and I will be reading with DD Barant, Mary Choo, and Julie McGalliardon on Friday September 30th, as well as doing the writers workshop on Saturday. Are any of you going to be there? Look me up.
Turning to TV: 
Kelly and I managed to watch ten minutes of the Charlie’s Angels
Posted in Appearances, Photography, TV and Film, Uncategorized
The flickering same old same old…
The new TV season is upon us and so far I’ve watched the Ringer pilot (as mentioned earlier) and two returning shows from last year. I watch Castle
Glee
Why watch? There’s some funny. There’s some charming. There’s gay kids in love! It’s a musical. And the Tom Jones number (should we rename Daren Criss Cadet Officer Tightpants right now?) offset a lot of boredom.
Posted in TV and Film
Blurgh, Tube
I rarely admit it publicly when I’m under the weather, as the primary symptom of every little bug I pick up can be characterized as “really doesn’t appreciate unsolicited medical advice.” This time is no exception, but I will say I am having my annual September go-round with germs, and it’s eaten into what I hoped would be a pocket of time and energy I’d set aside for blogging and working out. Next week, maybe, that’ll come together.
In the meantime, it’s cool enough to have the fire on, which is comforting and delightful and something of a relief.
I will say a few short things about TV, though: the best things about the first new episode of Inspector Lewis were its title (“Old, Unhappy, Far Off Things”) and Laurence Fox’s hair. The plot had about as much cause and effect as a bowl of overcooked spaghetti; if there was a Huh? award, it would rate one. Made me sad, it did. I love me my Lewis.
Doctor Who: loved “Let’s Kill Hitler,” especially all the Rory content, but felt meh about “The Girl who Waited,” which seemed to me to be an attempt to water down five minutes of potentially powerful emotion into twenty-five minutes of really coulda done something else there.
Progress through Torchwood has stalled midway, also due to plotfail.
Finally, I saw the Ringer pilot. This, I thought, had some promise: there’s enough of a plot there, at least, to get me interested, Sarah Michelle Gellar was well-cast, Ioan Gruffudd was a welcome surprise, and there were enough teeny ambiguous story elements in play to make it seem as though the possibilities are–if not endless–multidirectional. I’ve seen it characterized as noirish, and I’m not entirely sure I agree. Then again, I’m no noir expert, and I’m willing to wait and see.
Next week brings us Castle (and many other crime shows, returning and new) and the return of Glee.
Posted in True Stories, TV and Film
What did you watch on your summer vacation?
Now is, of course, the time of year when one’s thoughts turn to the new TV season… at least, they do if you’re me. The two new shows I plan to watch are Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Ringer and the fairy tale themed Once upon a Time. (Here’s the Ringer preview).
Over the summer, we tried out two new-to-us, old-to-you shows: Leverage
Posted in TV and Film, Uncategorized
Rufus, Rufus, he’s our man…
The day I’ve been waiting for since Sherlock ended last fall has come: Masterpiece Mystery is back for the late summer/fall season, and they opened with “Vendetta,” which features Rufus Sewell as Roman detective Aurelio Zen. This gave Kelly and I the dual pleasure of a) getting to see Rufus play a fairly nice guy; b) in Rome! Which let me ogle important sights I plan to visit.
I enjoyed “Vendetta,” though it ended in something of a muddle. Clearly he is Up to Something, but I can’t see the greater outline of Aurelio’s plan yet, so I’m not sure what to think of it. There’s a good review here.
It looks promising, though: the setting’s great, and I like both Rufus and his love interest, Caterina Murino, with whom he has mad chemistry.
Posted in TV and Film, Uncategorized
Horse tails and assorted bloggage
I am alternating bits of blogging and correspondence with bursts of work on a big project today, so there are lots of photos going up in the usual places: my Flickr page, the Tumblr blog, all my virtual real estate. Some will come from yesterday’s dawn walk in Stanley Park.
I was at the park by 6:30 a.m., having walked Kelly to the bus so she could catch a plane to her aunt’s funeral. When I got to Lost Lagoon, it was me and about a dozen joggers, some with dogs. Later, when I picked up the lake trail, I had the entire place to myself… I saw maybe three other urban hikers in ninety minutes.
All but one of the swans seems to be off their nests but I’ve seen no cynets; in terms of photo ops, the best subjects were turtles, who were very happy indeed with the sunshine.
I don’t know Stanley Park all that well, despite having lived in Vancouver for twenty years. Now that I have a reason to be in Coal Harbor more regularly, I’m getting to know the place. I printed off a map and yesterday’s goal was to find Beaver Lake, which turned out to be gorgeous and smelly and apparently home to newts.
After three hours in the park (the herons sound like they’ve hatched, but are apparently too small to poke their baby dinosaur heads up yet) I came home and tackled the work pile in fits and starts, with naps and errands in between. It didn’t go all that well: my mind was too much on Auntie Joan, and the family, and when I embarked on a long errand I strained an already-tired muscle in my foot. But things got done; the day passed. At eight I knocked off and rewatched the first Sherlock
Posted in True Stories, TV and Film, Uncategorized
Literary blackmail, televised DIY surgery and other lite squicks
I wrote a post this week for TOR.COM, about blackmail in fiction, and in Veronica Mars
Second: I dunno how many of you have seen this past week’s new episode of a certain medical drama
Also TV adjacent, I am 3/5 of the way through watching Mildred Pierce 
But the story–I haven’t read the original novel–has all this peculiar class and gender stuff.
The message so far seems to be that men are useless parasites, and… um… something about social class and snobbery involving Guy Pearce’s naked bum. Seriously. The class stuff is, at this mid-point in the story, entirely murky. Mildred was a snob, but now she seems to be evolving. Unless she isn’t. It’s incredibly hard to tell.
The story is just intriguing enough to keep me watching, but it’s also very cold. Kate as Mildred seems as though she should be poised to be a source of joy and warmth in an otherwise harsh and chilly world, but she’s as icy as everyone and everything else. I am entirely baffled by it.
