Random Stuff for a Random Day
Jan. 24th, 2006 12:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newnumber6Here's more assorted random thoughts I've had over the last week or
so that probably aren't worth an entry on their own but I'm shooting them off as a big post before I sleep.
It occurs to me that theoretically it's possible that somebody's entire life has been captured on film from birth to death already. Now granted, it would have to be one of those tragic 'died shortly after birth' situations, but it still would have happened.
I used to watch the show Medium. I say used to because for the last couple weeks something else was on that I wanted to watch a little bit more and so I skipped it, and today I've just decided to give up on it completely. Really, the fact that I skipped it entirely rather than taping it and watching it later pretty much tells the story... it just didn't matter enough to me.
I think I've put together why I just stopped caring about it... there's never any tension. She gets all the answers through dreams, and there's never any sense that she actually has to _do_ anything but rely on them. She gets vague dreams until it's time for the mystery to be solved, where she gets a dream that solves the mystery. Or she gets vague dreams until she happens to be in the right place and time that the dream was talking about, and figuring it out. It's like in the Medium universe it's predetermined that it'll all turn out all right, because (the presumable 'higher power') who's sending the dreams is doing it so it'll turn out the right way.
Now, compare that to the Dead Zone... Johnny too has psychic powers, but there at least there's the sense that he has to touch the _right_ thing to get him a vision, and interpret it correctly, and occasionally has to do things like race to get to the right place in time.. plus there's the whole 'long term vision of an apocalypse he has no clue how to avert' that keeps the stories interesting.
I mean, really, in both cases in a meta sense there's no tension since you generally know both characters will figure it out in the end - that's how most TV shows work... but Medium loses even the _illusion_ that things might not because it seems to be set up so it's all fate.
(For those wondering, which is probably nobody, the shows I gave Medium up for were 24 at 9, and Dead Like Me at 10, because it plays the same night at 2 different times on 2 different channels here - one of the main reasons I've always been able to catch it before).
Sudden topic change time again (segue's are for wusses!): It's sad how many of my problems would probably be solved if only Axe/Tag body spray worked like in the commercials.
Random question: If you were going to die in some reasonably accurate timeframe, would you rather know in advance, or not know until the last possible moment (perhaps even not at all and just wake up dead one day)? Would it matter how long the timeframe is, or if the dying would be particularly painful once it actually began?
Conversely, if you knew you were going to die, would you tell your family/friends or try to spare them the angst of knowing what's coming?
I think I'd probably be hypocritically selfish- I'd rather know I was going to die, but at the same time I'd rather my family and friends not know. Though knowing me I'd probably spill it at some time anyway.
Had a dream last night, but all I can remember was that I was semi lucid, but everything was a cartoon.
Still spending far too much time plotting out Runaways icons. Had a good 'Lasers!' one ready but the scans of the issue were from two different sources and some weren't so good, so it just looked jarring. Looking for a better source. After that I think I'm done for a bit. I don't have the icon space to use most of them now, but some day I may have a paid journal again.
Oh, and election was today. Sadly, what expected happened, Conservatives won. Ah well, at least it wasn't a majority government, and in fact it was a closer minority than I expected after all the doom and gloom polls (where even the possibility of a majority was talked about). Also nice to see the NPD make some gains. I skipped voting because I didn't want to waste the cash on a bus ride or the hour and a half it'd take to walk to my polling station, and of course in my riding it was pretty much pre-determined (my riding's the one of leader of the NDP's), and even if it wasn't, the strongest challenger was Liberal, so there wasn't really any fear of a Conservative MP, and beyond that I have no strong preference. In the only other riding that caught my eye, copyright nut Sam Bulte (who's been extensively reported on at http://www.boingboing.net for accepting huge campaign donations from entertainment industries that she may have a role in regulating and has proposed much more stringent copyright rules in Canada) seems to have been defeated by an NDP candidate, which is nice.
One last thing, finished the Wild Cards book I was reading and am moving immediately to the next one.
so that probably aren't worth an entry on their own but I'm shooting them off as a big post before I sleep.
It occurs to me that theoretically it's possible that somebody's entire life has been captured on film from birth to death already. Now granted, it would have to be one of those tragic 'died shortly after birth' situations, but it still would have happened.
I used to watch the show Medium. I say used to because for the last couple weeks something else was on that I wanted to watch a little bit more and so I skipped it, and today I've just decided to give up on it completely. Really, the fact that I skipped it entirely rather than taping it and watching it later pretty much tells the story... it just didn't matter enough to me.
I think I've put together why I just stopped caring about it... there's never any tension. She gets all the answers through dreams, and there's never any sense that she actually has to _do_ anything but rely on them. She gets vague dreams until it's time for the mystery to be solved, where she gets a dream that solves the mystery. Or she gets vague dreams until she happens to be in the right place and time that the dream was talking about, and figuring it out. It's like in the Medium universe it's predetermined that it'll all turn out all right, because (the presumable 'higher power') who's sending the dreams is doing it so it'll turn out the right way.
Now, compare that to the Dead Zone... Johnny too has psychic powers, but there at least there's the sense that he has to touch the _right_ thing to get him a vision, and interpret it correctly, and occasionally has to do things like race to get to the right place in time.. plus there's the whole 'long term vision of an apocalypse he has no clue how to avert' that keeps the stories interesting.
I mean, really, in both cases in a meta sense there's no tension since you generally know both characters will figure it out in the end - that's how most TV shows work... but Medium loses even the _illusion_ that things might not because it seems to be set up so it's all fate.
(For those wondering, which is probably nobody, the shows I gave Medium up for were 24 at 9, and Dead Like Me at 10, because it plays the same night at 2 different times on 2 different channels here - one of the main reasons I've always been able to catch it before).
Sudden topic change time again (segue's are for wusses!): It's sad how many of my problems would probably be solved if only Axe/Tag body spray worked like in the commercials.
Random question: If you were going to die in some reasonably accurate timeframe, would you rather know in advance, or not know until the last possible moment (perhaps even not at all and just wake up dead one day)? Would it matter how long the timeframe is, or if the dying would be particularly painful once it actually began?
Conversely, if you knew you were going to die, would you tell your family/friends or try to spare them the angst of knowing what's coming?
I think I'd probably be hypocritically selfish- I'd rather know I was going to die, but at the same time I'd rather my family and friends not know. Though knowing me I'd probably spill it at some time anyway.
Had a dream last night, but all I can remember was that I was semi lucid, but everything was a cartoon.
Still spending far too much time plotting out Runaways icons. Had a good 'Lasers!' one ready but the scans of the issue were from two different sources and some weren't so good, so it just looked jarring. Looking for a better source. After that I think I'm done for a bit. I don't have the icon space to use most of them now, but some day I may have a paid journal again.
Oh, and election was today. Sadly, what expected happened, Conservatives won. Ah well, at least it wasn't a majority government, and in fact it was a closer minority than I expected after all the doom and gloom polls (where even the possibility of a majority was talked about). Also nice to see the NPD make some gains. I skipped voting because I didn't want to waste the cash on a bus ride or the hour and a half it'd take to walk to my polling station, and of course in my riding it was pretty much pre-determined (my riding's the one of leader of the NDP's), and even if it wasn't, the strongest challenger was Liberal, so there wasn't really any fear of a Conservative MP, and beyond that I have no strong preference. In the only other riding that caught my eye, copyright nut Sam Bulte (who's been extensively reported on at http://www.boingboing.net for accepting huge campaign donations from entertainment industries that she may have a role in regulating and has proposed much more stringent copyright rules in Canada) seems to have been defeated by an NDP candidate, which is nice.
One last thing, finished the Wild Cards book I was reading and am moving immediately to the next one.
