freckles_and_doubt | randomly various, or possibly variously random

So, Farscape! Why has the universe been keeping this from me all these years? It's space opera! Four episodes in, I'd say that it has the necessary combination of over-the-top and gritty, with a nice line in humour and sufficient sexy spaceships to keep my happy buttons pushed. It's not quite as well-scripted as Firefly, but otherwise functions as a rather happy mix of Lexx with same, with possible occasional moments of Star Trek. And when I find the particular cosmic wossname responsible for delaying this happy addition to my fangirly archive, there will be Words Said, I can tell you.

Did the Career Choice meme, courtesy of

egadfly. No. 1 choice is "Professor". Am glumly unsurprised. Fortunately "Website Designer" and "Desktop Publisher" came in at 7 and 10 respectively, so perhaps there's extra-academic hope for me. Amused to note that the test apparently agrees with my current dream-tendencies, in mutual defiance of all actual ability and inclination: "Actor" is at number 9. Tchah.

Finally, must pimp the rather fun online fantasy novels of Mayer Allen Brenner, which I found somewhereorother a couple of weeks ago, and of which I have just been reminded by BoingBoing. Entertaining, quite well written, with a nicely irreverent take on magic as an essentially geeky discipline, and a hero called Maximillian the Vaguely Disreputable. Fun.

Last Night I Dreamed: I was shepherding Neil Gaiman (in his trademark black leather jacket) through various public appearances in a large, busy city I suspect was New York. While including a certain amount of hotel-wrangling and airport-taxi-provision, this also entailed standing around protectively while he wrote madly on his laptop, and occasionally rubbing his shoulders. Anyone who tried to interpret this one gets shot. Metaphorically speaking.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ever watched Torchwood? Best thing since Firefly, imho.

I have a faintly guilty fondness for Torchwood: I love the concept, setting and characters, and of course it warms the cockles of my Doctor-Who-fangirly heart, but the series seems to me to be plagued by horribly uneven writing. There's so much good there, it's particularly frustrating when I keep wanting to take the writer out back and kick them to death for wooden dialogue and hokey plot. Also, they tend to write GROWN-UP! ADULT! SEXY! across their own forehead in letters of fire, which is annoying.

Farscape: If only I'd known you hadn't seen it! I would have Made Plans. E introduced me to Farscape in late 2002 when I first visited her in Hungary. I got sufficiently hooked that instead of stomping through snow to explore Budapest, we spent hours indoors ploughing through seasons 1 and 2. Imo it's not the "best tv eva" that the die-hard fans proclaim, but it is extremely enjoyable - madcap hero, compelling story arcs, interesting villains, some fun tech/creature concepts, pretty good characterisation, and space muppets! I also find it charming that the default alien accent is Australian for a change, rather than American.

Professor: Your glumness and extra-academic hope strongly imply a desire to flee the professing profession. One is curious - is this because you're starting to find academia inherently unappealing, or because the local opportunities are a bit crap?

Verbiage: What is it about your posts that means I don't comment frequently, but when I do, I tend to write a small essay?

You write a small essay because I'm contagious. Possibly.

I am horribly ambivalent at present about the academic profession. I still love the teaching and intellectual life, but I've become deeply bitter and disillusioned with my Cherished Institution, and rather inclined towards self-loathing and an extremely low opinion of my own abilities. These problems would probably be sorted out chopchop with a proper job: failing this, I will indeed flee the profession. Towards what is anybody's guess, really.

It's my view that for primarily economic reasons, your academic interests are never going to be sufficiently appreciated by any institution in Africa - not in our lifetimes, anyway.

While your Cherished Institution has its merits, the above reality makes it a poor reference point for judging your own abilities. It also makes it an inadequate professional home for you. Even if you were, eventually, to be offered some sort of Proper Job there, I would sadly predict significantly less recognition, lower remuneration and less job security, relative to the local academic norm, than you'd have if you were in the decadent first world.

The idea of you fleeing academia feels all wrong. It's so - you :) And unless you come up with an alternative that excites you, I don't see how it'd be an improvement.

You can tell where I'm going with this. It seems clear (from my admittedly very distant vantage point) that your interests and talents demand you transfer yourself to the aforementioned decadent first world.

You've obviously thought of this. I'm hereby adding my peanut to the gallery. It would make me happy to see you able to do what you love in an environment that appreciates and stimulates it. More to the point, it would make you happy.

I used to watch Farscape religiously in my daggy little room in Cambridge in between my 65 hour work week as a chef. I had to do some serious shift shuffling to make sure I never missed it...toffy Cambridge students were deprived Tempura prawns on more than one occasion!

In other news: Two of the main actors from Farscape now appear in Stargate: Atlantis....soul selling has gone on, me thinks. Then again maybe they actually liked being paid...if I remember correctly Farscape finished frustratingly in the middle of some major action, due to budgetry problems...then again that could just be scurrilous rumor...I had less internet access then.

Captain Jack is more fun (in Doctor Who) when he isn't having to deal with all those Welsh hangers on!

Actually, I kinda enjoy the Welsh hangers-on. They're interestingly conflicted. Stargate, on the other hand, bores me at the same time that it makes me grind my teeth. It could be marvellously cheesy if it just had competent writers, but as it is, it's just tired.

I didn't know you did chef stuff, btw. By all accounts it's a hellish way to earn a living.

Yes…cheffing…the stories I have to tell, the scars I have to show. I singed my eyebrows off on a 2ft flame once (funny in that fire curls your eyelashes and then they stick together just like Velcro) and another day I stood going “yidddaddddaaa” for a couple of minutes (electricity is an unforgiving mistress).

Luckily I have retained my love of cooking I just doubt I will ever cook 160 elaborate dinners with dessert in one evening ever again.

I am a regular and vehement defender of Torchwood in the office. Although I agree whole heartedly with you on the unevenness of the writing, I am very fond of the series. One of my co-workers has fallen to the dark side (Stargate) and now is a Torchwood basher. Sigh...work place politics, I have tried to save him but sadly I am but one woman!

I started watching Torchwood before I got into Dr Who (I always do things back to front for some reason). They just aired the episodes where Captain Jack goes from Torchwood back into Dr Who (I think it is the end of the third season). I find I am enjoying him even more now that I know a bit more of his story.

They definitely try a bit too hard with the whole “sexy” time stuff in Torchwood, some of it builds tension but a lot of it is gratuitous. Look, proof...I really am turning into some bodies mother! My love of gratuitous sex is waning!

Looks like I might be challenging egadfly for this week essay writing prize :-)

Farscape: I watched a season and half of it, got bored, though it does have its moments. It suffers a lot from "guest writer syndrome" AKA "Episodia Startrekia" - many of the episodes are contractually obliged to put things back by the end of the episode to exactly where they were were at the start.

Dream: .. must ... resist ...

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can't go wrong with space muppets

Re: can't go wrong with space muppets

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