Raise your hopeful voice
Dec. 12th, 2011 08:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rachg82I know it was totally a fiscal no-no, but I just spent almost twenty dollars (tip included) on a GF pizza & Cherry Coke from Bellagio's. I'm not even supposed to have Coke, because of the corn syrup. But, seriously, can't I just chalk it up to an early Christmas present for myself? 'Cause this shit is really good. Like, it makes me want to do my Happy Food Dance & everything. The only other time I've broken that out in the past year was probably over the Mike & Ike candies my nephew gave me the other night. Heh. And then I invented a ~Sugar Train~ & started chugging my way around the living room, all, "Sugar-sugar-sugar-sugar, choo choo!" Because I'm secretly five years old.
Oh, hey, speaking of -- guess who has new pictures of her cute-ass niece & nephew?
That's me with Isabella -- now three years old. I don't really like how I look in this picture, but I kinda don't like how I look at all lately, so. I desperately need my hair cut & colored, and that's not gonna happen for a while. In the meantime, I just have to deal.
How cute are they? This is the only one I could get of them together without Izzie looking away or making the pic blurry with her non-stop moving & so on--Jayden basically had her in a headlock here to try to keep her still, hee--but it turned out adorbs.
Jay asked if he could come over to my place on Sunday, so I snatched a shot of him ninja-style while he was playing with my video games.[/sneaky]
P.S. Take a moment to observe how HUGE he is, would you? He is eight years old and up to my CHIN.
Izzie wanted to come over too & had been saving her paints to use them with me (she must've remembered us doing artwork together last year). There's now a few streaks of kiddie paint on my kitchen table, but that's all right. Heh. Afterward, we dragged out all my old stuffed animals, and she asked me to draw each of them for her, one after the other. When my sister came back a bit later & tried to draw a teddy bear for her, my niece's reaction was to literally drop her head into her hands and dramatically sigh, "Oh, brother." Haha. I'm a tough act to follow, I guess.
As for how it went, hanging with them throughout the weekend, it was nice. I didn't feel pushed into watching them or anything--the first day was my idea, and the second day was Jayden's--and my sister washed my comforter for me (which is difficult to fit into the washers here at my apartments) & paid for dinner on Saturday (in turn, I made the kids lunch & smoothies the next day), so overall there was a reciprocal balance.
And while I'm sure there's some unwritten rule out there about schadenfreude-laced anecdotes & people who've just had a heart attack, I can't help but pass this one along (courtesy of my nephew): apparently my mom came to watch Isabella do gymnastics a while back, and right in the middle of it pulled a giant wooden spoon *out of her purse* and began using it to scratch her back--like I'm saying she'd specifically put it there for ~back-scratching purposes on the go~--then proceeded to pull her shirt up, right there in public, & ask Jayden if he could itch it for her too. Bear in mind, while telling me this story he had to keep catching his breath between giggles, and was all WTF-wide-eyed, like, "I THINK PEOPLE WERE WATCHING. IT WAS REALLY WEIRD! SHE HAD IT IN HER PURSE!" Haha. Story of my childhood, kid. Meanwhile my sister was laughing so hard over this that she was crying, and I wasn't far behind. It's just so HER.
Moving on, I've decided to split my responses to that meme I started into multiple entries, since I'm going ahead with the "three vids per fandom" dealio as well, and I don't want to overload people. We'll do two shows per entry--three episodes & three vids for each--and good times will be had by all. Woo woo.
Bones:
There are so many good eps from which to choose, and I'm sure some out there might disagree with my choices here--I'm not including predictable ones like the pilot or the much-loved "Aliens in a Spaceship"--but my instinct is to go with these three quite simply because I love them, and also because I think they'd serve just as well as the pilot would to introduce new potential fans to the show:
-"The Man in the Bear" (season 1)
-"The Man in the Fallout Shelter" (season 1)
-"The Woman in Limbo" (season 1)
For my choice of three vids, that was also a hard decision, especially since some of my favorite vids out there are amazing, yet wouldn't work for this type of thing. In the end, I decided to go with vids that represented the aspects of the show that most drew me in, originally. There's the geeky/funny quirkyness along with the occasional intensity, there's Brennan ('nuff said), and there's her relationship with Booth. Obviously, the other characters fit into the equation too, but you get the idea. Although my flailyness for the show has waned recently, it's not necessarily for good--it's somewhat the nature of being a fan, anyway--and I still have a lot of passion for the characters and various seasons/moments/episodes along the way.
Oh, AND: the third vid was made for me as a gift by my BFF![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dosidella, so, y'know -- obvious choice is obvious.
1.
2.
3.
Battlestar Galactica
I sort of went in the opposite direction here; instead of only choosing a bunch of season 1 eps, I tried to cover more ground, figuratively. I wanted to not only introduce someone to the show's basic premise, but also give them an overall feel for the stylistic variety & depth that it achieves.
That being said, I'm also copying/pasting the answers others gave here, so you can take your pick if you want.
First up, my choices:
-"The Hand of God" (season 1)
-"Resurrection Ship Part 2" (season 2 -- and yes, I know, how are you gonna include only one part of a multi-ep arc, but WATCH ME. I love this one too much to not include it. As it is though, I'm wringing my hands over picking it over "Exodus Part II" in season 3. Choosing between the Pegasus arc and the New Caprica arc is always damn near impossible for me)
-"Unfinished Business" (season 3 -- making up for not including the aforementioned Exodus eps here. As long as the newbie in question understands that this ep is full of introspective flashbacks that viewers had been waiting to see after a mighty time jump, then I don't think it'd even matter if they understood everything else leading up to it. They'll still get what they need out of it, and it's just such a gorgeous episode, both visually & emotionally, to use as an introduction to the series. It also conveys some of the variety I mentioned above, because while one episode might be all about edge of your seat action, the next might be extremely subtle, artistically daring & not at all unlike watching a fanfic vignette in motion. It's the type of thing I go nuts for, and it's also the main reason I haven't written much fic for the show yet, because so much of what I'd like to explore has basically already been covered--brilliantly--by the show itself (if not other fanfic authors). Heh.)
Next up,vash26's choices:
"…I'd probably go for the mini cause it just explains everything. If it wouldn't spoil everything, I'd add something from NC to show how epic the hair can be compared to the mini."
Fair enough -- the hair is very important. Hee. But, see, I covered my bases there by choosing "Unfinished Business", so! And as for the miniseries, I didn't even think I could include that without cheating, because it's technically not an "episode"; however, I'd definitely insist on watching it first if you decide you like the show & are going to watch the whole shebang from the beginning. I don't think it'd be necessary though just for an "I'm going to watch these three eps to decide if I want to invest time in the show at all" trial period.
And finally, here'shurryupslowly's opinion (all season 1 picks):
"For BSG, I'd choose 33, Water, and You Can't Go Home Again (I didn't know that there was a miniseries when I rented season 1 from Blockbuster but still found 33 totally gripping; then I got the miniseries after and finally figured out what the hell was happening with Baltar and Six, which had been the most mysterious aspect of 33 for me, LOL)."
Pretty self-explanatory. I myself debated between "33" and "The Hand of God" a LOT, so take from that what you may.
Lastly, let's get to my pick of vids. The first is simply a non-spoilery trailer, which took me forever to decide on, because there are approximately 1,723,051 fan-made trailers out there for this show, not to mention clips of Joss Whedon & Seth Green pimping it out (like, what else do you need?), but eventually I just made myself pick one & go with it.
The second vid does have *some* spoilers, but it is effing ridiculously hard to avoid that when you're dealing with a show that's already off the air, so come on, yo. Just let it go. Heh. I'm willing to overlook it, too, because I don't think it makes a huge difference whether you know what ~time-period~ the show is set in when it comes to how much you can enjoy it overall, AND because this vid is crazy good, like you could show it in a movie theater as an actual trailer and the audience would probably wet themselves by the end ("so say we all!" Ngh, CHILLS). So I refuse to leave it out. The editing--gaining intensity as it goes--is just like aeailghoigh PERFECTION.
And the third vid should be fairly obvious & predictable. Back when I did my Shipper Showdown in 2010,sumpta posted this vid in the comments, campaigning, and it was one of the tipping points for me in changing my vote from Mulder/Scully to Roslin/Adama. I couldn't help myself when faced with the quotes toward the end, man. "I like it so much that I don't want it to be over" might as well be the slogan for those two. It gave me the vapors. Heh. (in a good way! -- it's something you can expect from these two on a regular basis. That, and your heart weeping & fainting, especially by season 4, which is basically the point at which I officially lost my shit over them)
1.
2.
3.
And that's it for today. In my next entry, I think I'll share my picks for The X-Files & Community.
Oh, hey, speaking of -- guess who has new pictures of her cute-ass niece & nephew?
That's me with Isabella -- now three years old. I don't really like how I look in this picture, but I kinda don't like how I look at all lately, so. I desperately need my hair cut & colored, and that's not gonna happen for a while. In the meantime, I just have to deal.
How cute are they? This is the only one I could get of them together without Izzie looking away or making the pic blurry with her non-stop moving & so on--Jayden basically had her in a headlock here to try to keep her still, hee--but it turned out adorbs.
Jay asked if he could come over to my place on Sunday, so I snatched a shot of him ninja-style while he was playing with my video games.[/sneaky]
P.S. Take a moment to observe how HUGE he is, would you? He is eight years old and up to my CHIN.
Izzie wanted to come over too & had been saving her paints to use them with me (she must've remembered us doing artwork together last year). There's now a few streaks of kiddie paint on my kitchen table, but that's all right. Heh. Afterward, we dragged out all my old stuffed animals, and she asked me to draw each of them for her, one after the other. When my sister came back a bit later & tried to draw a teddy bear for her, my niece's reaction was to literally drop her head into her hands and dramatically sigh, "Oh, brother." Haha. I'm a tough act to follow, I guess.
As for how it went, hanging with them throughout the weekend, it was nice. I didn't feel pushed into watching them or anything--the first day was my idea, and the second day was Jayden's--and my sister washed my comforter for me (which is difficult to fit into the washers here at my apartments) & paid for dinner on Saturday (in turn, I made the kids lunch & smoothies the next day), so overall there was a reciprocal balance.
And while I'm sure there's some unwritten rule out there about schadenfreude-laced anecdotes & people who've just had a heart attack, I can't help but pass this one along (courtesy of my nephew): apparently my mom came to watch Isabella do gymnastics a while back, and right in the middle of it pulled a giant wooden spoon *out of her purse* and began using it to scratch her back--like I'm saying she'd specifically put it there for ~back-scratching purposes on the go~--then proceeded to pull her shirt up, right there in public, & ask Jayden if he could itch it for her too. Bear in mind, while telling me this story he had to keep catching his breath between giggles, and was all WTF-wide-eyed, like, "I THINK PEOPLE WERE WATCHING. IT WAS REALLY WEIRD! SHE HAD IT IN HER PURSE!" Haha. Story of my childhood, kid. Meanwhile my sister was laughing so hard over this that she was crying, and I wasn't far behind. It's just so HER.
Moving on, I've decided to split my responses to that meme I started into multiple entries, since I'm going ahead with the "three vids per fandom" dealio as well, and I don't want to overload people. We'll do two shows per entry--three episodes & three vids for each--and good times will be had by all. Woo woo.
Bones:
There are so many good eps from which to choose, and I'm sure some out there might disagree with my choices here--I'm not including predictable ones like the pilot or the much-loved "Aliens in a Spaceship"--but my instinct is to go with these three quite simply because I love them, and also because I think they'd serve just as well as the pilot would to introduce new potential fans to the show:
-"The Man in the Bear" (season 1)
-"The Man in the Fallout Shelter" (season 1)
-"The Woman in Limbo" (season 1)
For my choice of three vids, that was also a hard decision, especially since some of my favorite vids out there are amazing, yet wouldn't work for this type of thing. In the end, I decided to go with vids that represented the aspects of the show that most drew me in, originally. There's the geeky/funny quirkyness along with the occasional intensity, there's Brennan ('nuff said), and there's her relationship with Booth. Obviously, the other characters fit into the equation too, but you get the idea. Although my flailyness for the show has waned recently, it's not necessarily for good--it's somewhat the nature of being a fan, anyway--and I still have a lot of passion for the characters and various seasons/moments/episodes along the way.
Oh, AND: the third vid was made for me as a gift by my BFF
dosidella, so, y'know -- obvious choice is obvious. 1.
2.
3.
Battlestar Galactica
I sort of went in the opposite direction here; instead of only choosing a bunch of season 1 eps, I tried to cover more ground, figuratively. I wanted to not only introduce someone to the show's basic premise, but also give them an overall feel for the stylistic variety & depth that it achieves.
That being said, I'm also copying/pasting the answers others gave here, so you can take your pick if you want.
First up, my choices:
-"The Hand of God" (season 1)
-"Resurrection Ship Part 2" (season 2 -- and yes, I know, how are you gonna include only one part of a multi-ep arc, but WATCH ME. I love this one too much to not include it. As it is though, I'm wringing my hands over picking it over "Exodus Part II" in season 3. Choosing between the Pegasus arc and the New Caprica arc is always damn near impossible for me)
-"Unfinished Business" (season 3 -- making up for not including the aforementioned Exodus eps here. As long as the newbie in question understands that this ep is full of introspective flashbacks that viewers had been waiting to see after a mighty time jump, then I don't think it'd even matter if they understood everything else leading up to it. They'll still get what they need out of it, and it's just such a gorgeous episode, both visually & emotionally, to use as an introduction to the series. It also conveys some of the variety I mentioned above, because while one episode might be all about edge of your seat action, the next might be extremely subtle, artistically daring & not at all unlike watching a fanfic vignette in motion. It's the type of thing I go nuts for, and it's also the main reason I haven't written much fic for the show yet, because so much of what I'd like to explore has basically already been covered--brilliantly--by the show itself (if not other fanfic authors). Heh.)
Next up,
vash26's choices:"…I'd probably go for the mini cause it just explains everything. If it wouldn't spoil everything, I'd add something from NC to show how epic the hair can be compared to the mini."
Fair enough -- the hair is very important. Hee. But, see, I covered my bases there by choosing "Unfinished Business", so! And as for the miniseries, I didn't even think I could include that without cheating, because it's technically not an "episode"; however, I'd definitely insist on watching it first if you decide you like the show & are going to watch the whole shebang from the beginning. I don't think it'd be necessary though just for an "I'm going to watch these three eps to decide if I want to invest time in the show at all" trial period.
And finally, here's
hurryupslowly's opinion (all season 1 picks):"For BSG, I'd choose 33, Water, and You Can't Go Home Again (I didn't know that there was a miniseries when I rented season 1 from Blockbuster but still found 33 totally gripping; then I got the miniseries after and finally figured out what the hell was happening with Baltar and Six, which had been the most mysterious aspect of 33 for me, LOL)."
Pretty self-explanatory. I myself debated between "33" and "The Hand of God" a LOT, so take from that what you may.
Lastly, let's get to my pick of vids. The first is simply a non-spoilery trailer, which took me forever to decide on, because there are approximately 1,723,051 fan-made trailers out there for this show, not to mention clips of Joss Whedon & Seth Green pimping it out (like, what else do you need?), but eventually I just made myself pick one & go with it.
The second vid does have *some* spoilers, but it is effing ridiculously hard to avoid that when you're dealing with a show that's already off the air, so come on, yo. Just let it go. Heh. I'm willing to overlook it, too, because I don't think it makes a huge difference whether you know what ~time-period~ the show is set in when it comes to how much you can enjoy it overall, AND because this vid is crazy good, like you could show it in a movie theater as an actual trailer and the audience would probably wet themselves by the end ("so say we all!" Ngh, CHILLS). So I refuse to leave it out. The editing--gaining intensity as it goes--is just like aeailghoigh PERFECTION.
And the third vid should be fairly obvious & predictable. Back when I did my Shipper Showdown in 2010,
sumpta posted this vid in the comments, campaigning, and it was one of the tipping points for me in changing my vote from Mulder/Scully to Roslin/Adama. I couldn't help myself when faced with the quotes toward the end, man. "I like it so much that I don't want it to be over" might as well be the slogan for those two. It gave me the vapors. Heh. (in a good way! -- it's something you can expect from these two on a regular basis. That, and your heart weeping & fainting, especially by season 4, which is basically the point at which I officially lost my shit over them) 1.
2.
3.
And that's it for today. In my next entry, I think I'll share my picks for The X-Files & Community.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-13 05:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-14 05:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-13 06:02 pm (UTC)Predictable but true. I'm pretty sure Aliens in a Spaceship is how I turned my best friend on to Bones.
I would go and answer your meme but I'm terrible at working out what episodes would be good to show people. I keep second guessing myself and wondering if they'd like it as much as I do and worrying that I'd turn them off the entire show by getting it wrong. Aliens in a Spaceship is an exception because it's just that good.
Also, I'm boring and would probably always suggest people start at the beginning. Especially with BSG because you really need to watch that properly in order from the start if you want to have any idea what's going on!
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-14 05:56 am (UTC)I do the same thing, ha. But I still thought it'd be fun to see people's choices to this.
you really need to watch that properly in order from the start if you want to have any idea what's going on!
Pshaw, understanding what's going on is so overrated. Heh.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-13 06:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-14 05:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-14 08:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-17 05:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-18 01:25 pm (UTC)And I'm glad you got to spend time with them. :-)