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* Um. There’s an Edward Cullen bedsheet set. This might be the most disturbing thing I have ever seen.

* I watched the two John Simm Netflix DVDs that have been lying around my house for the past six months. The first was a TV show called Cracker, in which adorable young Simm plays a deeply fucked up young killer who just wants to be loved. Awww. You kind of want to snuggle the poor darling… and then lock him up for life. It was fun to watch, but nothing new; pretty much the same thing he did in Chiller (which was more fun because of the gay subtext with his evil imaginary friend).

Then I watched Wonderland… or, I should say, the first half hour of Wonderland, before I couldn’t take it any more and had to fast forward to only the Simm parts. It’s apparently a movie about a bunch of incredibly boring, miserable people, who go about their boring lives being miserable. I guess it’s supposed to be “realistic,” but it was just pathetic. Admittedly I only got part way through… maybe it got better? Simm didn’t have much to do anyway; he played one of the many boring pathetic losers, basically Danny Kavanagh without the spark. I don’t understand why people make movies like this. Even if some peoples’ lives are this dull, who would want to watch a film about it?

Between Wonderland and The Devil’s Whore, I am beginning to doubt the conventional wisdom that John Simm has great taste in projects. At least we’ll always have Life on Mars and Doctor Who. And I still haven’t seen anything as bad as the crap I endured during my Sean Bean phase.

* I had a peculiar weekend.

( Saturday I got way too drunk at my friend Livi's holiday party )

Sunday I had to drag myself out of bed to go to the Museum of Modern Art, because I'd bought a ticket in advance. I got there at 3pm and it closes at 5:30pm; the world is just not made for night people. Or hungover people. >:( But thanks to coffee and tylenol, I managed to enjoy the Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night exhibit. I know it's a cliche, but it really is so much more incredible to see an actual painting in person. They had both of my favorites, Starry Night Over the Rhone and The Starry Night. Which I also know is also a cliche, but... they're really popular because they're really amazing! It's stunning how beautiful they are, and how vivid the colors are when you see them in person. The exhibit was actually pretty small--something like 40 paintings--with a focus on how Van Gogh captured the light and the "spiritual qualities" of night. It was definitely worth seeing; I'm glad I finally made it there. (If you're going, buy your museum ticket online in advance and you're guaranteed entrance to the Van Gogh exhibit; otherwise you have to get a timed entry ticket, which they might sell out of before you arrive.)

Then I went to the Looking at Music exhibit, which honestly just seemed to be a bunch of stuff from the 60s and 70s randomly thrown together based on what had been donated to MOMA. However, they did have Bowie's "Space Oddity" video running on constant repeat, and I watched it through a couple times because I couldn't get over the novelty of watching a music video I like at a big fancy art museum. I wish I had thought to the use the "It's ART!" justification when trying to convince my parents to let me watch MTV as a kid. :P Oh, and I rather optimistically bought two tickets for the Bowie music video screening on Friday night. I don't know what I was thinking; now I have to find someone to take the second ticket. But I'm really glad I got one for me. Even though it's just music videos, it's music videos on a big screen! At a museum! Sorry, I just find it really amusing, in a good way. :)

* I'm trying not to panic about the holidays. Trying being the operative word. There is nowhere in the world I'd less rather go than Southern Indiana, but I owe my parents for helping me move, so I'm going. Wasting time and money I really can't spare to go be miserable out in the middle of nowhere, while my cats are left alone with a catsitter I can't afford and I have nothing to do and no one to talk to and nothing to eat and... just... oh my god I don't want to go. *sigh*

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* This just made me choke on my coffee. I think I enjoy The Meathead Perspective far more than I enjoy the actual band Nine Inch Nails.

* I’m not an Avatar fan, but I’m still upset by the blatantly racist movie casting. Just… what the hell? I’m glad to see that the fandom has already launched a letter writing campaign.

* This xkcd comic is awesome and totally nails the “nice guy” phenomenon. The wank it’s generated is severely depressing, though. “Women have nearly exclusive control over the nation’s sex supply, and that will never, ever change“???? *headdesk*

* jaydk and kalichan came over to my place on Saturday night for a very fun evening of wine and television. We watched the first episode of The Devil’s Whore, after which jaydk declared that she couldn’t stand to continue watching history be raped in such a blatant manner, so we switched to the first episode of Life on Mars (which kalichan had never seen!) to get the bad taste out of our mouths.

To be honest, I didn’t mind The Devil’s Whore–probably because I’m woefully ignorant about that period of English history, and because I was only watching for John Simm. He had his shirt off for a whole scene, so I got what I wanted out of the deal. :P

* This panel description has me dreading Gallifrey One. I think it might be best if I spend this convention drinking and chatting and avoiding most of the actual programming. >:( Still looking forward to seeing Phil Collinson, though. And hopefully to hearing interesting insights from the various new series writers who are attending.

* I’ve kind of reluctantly gotten into Spooks–I actually went out of my way to watch the season finale as soon as possible. I don’t love the show by any means. It’s pure genre, which makes it incredibly predictable; it never does anything that a spy drama wouldn’t do. But it’s quite a good example of a spy show, which makes it entertaining for what it is. Well, okay, mainly the entertaining thing is the lovely contrasts between Richard Armitage’s pale skin, black hair, and blue eyes. But occasionally he even gets to do some actual acting! And I kind of love the character of Ros–her competence and snark make her one of the more appealing female characters I’ve seen in quite a while.

* I’m re-reading Pawn in Frankincense despite myself. I forgot how funny this one is as it starts off! In fact, I think I forgot almost everything that happens except for the ending, which kind of blew the rest of it out of the water. It’s a totally different experience to read this series for a second time; everything makes so much more sense when you already know what’s going to happen. Dunnett’s style of keeping the reader completely in the dark for 90% of each book (and the series as a whole) is incredibly frustrating, but definitely rewarding if you’re able to put up with it. It also makes re-reading a whole new experience–you can actually appreciate the subtleties instead of just wondering what the hell is going on. It also helps that I’ve got a book of translations with me this time around, so I can figure out what the hell they’re saying when the characters suddenly switch to French or Latin.

* I’m resisting the urge to write a long song-by-song analysis of “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.” I know that no one cares about my interpretation of a 35-year-old classic album that I’ve only been listening to for two weeks. Still. It’s all I’ve been thinking about. I haven’t even turned it off at night, because it’ll play in my head if I don’t have it actually playing from my speakers.

* 5years.com is an incredibly helpful website if you suddenly decide to get obsessed with “Ziggy Stardust” 35 years too late. Plus I’m learning all this stuff about glam rock–now I totally get that scene in Life on Mars where Sam meets Marc Bolan!

* I bought this Best of Bowie DVD. It’s all so totally totally awesome for about the first 50 minutes, and then… 1974 happens. Good god. I think maybe I’m a fan of Ziggy Stardust, not of David Bowie?

* I wish I’d gone to the Bowie Ball last weekend. I totally want to go see this all-female Ziggy Stardust cover band in January. And I want to go see this thing at MOMA even though I doubt 1) I can get tickets, 2) that it’s anything I haven’t already seen on the Best of Bowie DVD.

* I finally figured out how to connect my computer to my TV wirelessly. It’s a combination of this and this and it totally works! My TV is a second monitor and I can just drag video files over to it and play them. Now I should probably cancel my cable TV, but I’ve gotten addicted to The Rachel Maddow Show and now I kind of don’t want to give it up. I suppose I could just watch that online too. And I might actually continue catching up on more of those old Doctor/Master episodes now that I don’t have to waste CDs on burning them.

Although I might just watch lots of YouTube clips of young David Bowie instead.

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Those of you who read my journal regularly are probably aware that, every night before I go to bed, I get down on my knees and pray that John Simm will return as the Master for one of the 2009 Doctor Who specials.*

Nothing has been announced yet, BUT…

( spoilery speculation )

* I don't actually do this.

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Just got back from the vet. He said Lucifer seems fine based on the exam, but I should watch him closely to see if anything changes. I’m going to work from home the rest of today and probably tomorrow so I can keep an eye on him.

I miss sleeping. Every single noise wakes me up now because I’m afraid it’s Lucifer having a seizure or Lucifer throwing up. :(

Anyway. Distracting myself with Doctor Who stuff before I go do more work:

* Excerpts from Russell T. Davies’ new book about writing Doctor Who. Have I mentioned how much I love this guy? I adore his enthusiasm and positive attitude and, yes, his crazy cracked out ideas. I can’t wait to read the whole book.

( Discussion of rumors that could possibly be spoilers )

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Why is London After Midnight playing in NYC the same night as the Cure? I would’ve liked to see them. That’s just weird.

I went to Ikea last night. Dude. I felt like I was trapped in the hedge maze from Harry Potter 4. It took me two hours to get out of there, dodging strollers and shopping carts and trying not to get distracted by all the shiny things. And I missed Vegan Drinks. :(

( I chose a different bookshelf )

Did I mention that I got my plane tickets for DragonCon? Yep, I'm going. I might want to hide under a burka, but dammit, I can't miss DragonCon. I always have so much fun there. I wonder what the Doctor Who panels are like... (the good thing about DragonCon is that, if they suck, I can always find something else entertaining to do).

I tried out that Wordle thing with my "Midnight" review. Nifty!



Oh, and here's a short post-"Midnight" fic rec: Humans by rosa_acicularis. Very insightful look at the various characters.

(Anyone have more post-"Midnight" fic recs? That episode is practically begging to be explored further in fanfic. And dammit, I need something to entertain me seeing as 95% of the links on my flist are off-limits due to spoilers.)

Also: a yummylicious John Simm picspam from lozenger8. :)

Other nifty links: really interesting Doctor/Master discussion at best_enemies and two compilations of Doctor/Rose squee here and here.

(I don't know why I love Doctor/Rose so much in canon--romantically or as best friends, either interpretation is fine with me--but am completely uninspired to read about them in fanfic. Maybe because their relationship is already a lot like what you get in fanfic--full of character moments and bonding and actual happiness and it's already got such a perfect ending that I'm not inspired to seek out more? Or maybe because my interpretation tends to differ from the mainstream in that I don't care whether they're having sex or not, and I get kind of sick thinking about them "settling down"? Whereas I can't get enough Doctor/Master, maybe because the stuff I'm interested in there is always heavily hinted at in canon, but it never goes as far as I'd like. It's just the kind of relationship that fanfic was invented for. Thus the fact that I could probably read Doctor/Master fic forever without getting bored.)

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Home from work. I know everyone’s thinking this, but thank god it’s Friday.

It’s dreary and horrible outside, but I braved the weather in order to pick up important Doctor Who watching supplies. Namely beer and coffee. I wanted Abita Strawberry Ale, but didn’t feel like waiting in line for a half-hour at Whole Foods, so I went with Magic Hat #9 from the deli. And the coffee is freshly ground pumpkin spice.

I see that people are angsting about the upcoming Doctor Who episode, but I’m unspoiled and willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. Spoilers always give you a distorted and out of context picture, anyway. I can’t tell you how many things I freaked out about in Buffy fandom that turned out to be minuscule in retrospect. Of course, the episode could totally suck, but I want to see it first before I judge anything. I’ve been happy with this season so far, so I’d be surprised if it wasn’t good.

(It kind of sucks not being able to participate in a lot of the discussion, though. Alas, the curse of the spoiler-free.)

I guess we’ll also watch the last Sarah Jane Adventures two-parter. (Did I mention I loved “Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?” So good. It made me cry.) And maybe “The War Games.” It’s first on this list, and jaydk loves the Second Doctor, so hopefully she’ll want to watch it with me.

Note to self: get web work done this weekend. And go apartment-hunting if the weather clears up. (There. I wrote it down; now I have to do it.)

Did you guys see Stephen Colbert talking to the astronaut last night? I thought he was going to explode from glee. So, so cute.

Since this entry is pretty boring, I’ve added an icon of John Simm looking gorgeous to brighten it up. Isn’t he adorable? :)

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Oh, god, John Simm is just so cute that I can't even stand it. Look at this interview. And he's so adorably shy in this one (contains spoilers for the end of Life on Mars). And he's such a Paul McCartney fanboy! (It's not my fault; writteninstars mentioned watching YouTube clips of John Simm all day, and I couldn't get the idea out of my head.)

I watched him in this thing called "Chiller" last night and it turns out that David Fury was right about me after all. Because John Simm plays a serial killer and I totally just wanted to hug the poor darling. He's all sad and lonely! His mother abandoned him! It's not his fault he keeps killing people; his evil imaginary boyfriend will leave him if he doesn't!

He's such a cute little woobie, all angsty and sweet and sad, and then he turns into evil scary psycho!killer. This is clearly the best sort of role for John Simm. He's so young in this; he must've been around 25 but he looks about 17. And I haven't seen him in anything with this much homoerotic subtext since Doctor Who.

lozenger8 has a great summary/picspam here which anyone interested in adorable pretty boys being psycho and having lots of ho!yay really ought to click. (It took me four tries to write "click" instead of "lick." Freudian slip, much?)

Also, I may have just spent $100 on John Simm DVDs from amazon.co.uk. What? I need to test out my new region free DVD player.

***

In, um, non-Simm related news, I listened to three Doctor Who audio books read by David Tennant. It's super fun to hear him read them in his adorable Scottish accent, and then do all the characters with different voices. The Resurrection Casket and The Feast of the Drowned were pretty forgettable childrens' stories, but The Stone Rose was nifty. ( It's super Doctor/Rose shippy. )

http://rusty-halo.com/wordpress/?p=2168

Okay, so more people recommended 24 Hour Party People, but more people said John Simm is hot in The Lakes. So I went with The Lakes. (Don’t worry, I’ll watch them all eventually.)

The Lakes is a soapy drama from 1997 that lasted two seasons. I didn’t like it much, but the first four episodes do open with John Simm naked, so it was certainly worth watching.

Season one actually isn’t terrible. ( The Lakes season one: in which John Simm is brilliant )

So, season one was ultimately worthwhile. Season two, on the other hand, made me want to gouge out my own eyes. What I want to know is WHAT KIND OF BAD CRACK WERE THEY SMOKING WHEN THEY WROTE THIS THING? Apparently they sat around in the writers room thinking “Hmmm, we have a successful show thanks to our charismatic lead actor and his wonderfully complex character. Let’s reduce him to five minutes per episode and focus on the incredibly dull supporting cast instead!”

I’m not kidding, here are things that actually happened in season two of The Lakes. I’m going to exorcise them now and never speak of them again.

( The Lakes season two: the bad kind of crack )

So that was The Lakes. If you like John Simm, watch season one, and whatever you do, if you value your sanity, stay as far away from season two as possible.

***

jaydk came over Friday night for another Doctor Who-and-related marathon. We didn’t manage to squeeze in any Who; instead we watched David Tennant’s episode of Who Do You Think You Are (which is so cute; he gets all angsty when he finds out that his Irish Protestant ancestors weren’t adorkable enlightened modern Liberals like he is) and then the entirety of State of Play. jaydk got really into it and had to know what happened. >:) And then she called me at 1am on Saturday night asking for Life on Mars fic recs, because she was in a John Simm mood. Hee!

I love State of Play. It’s a six-episode political thriller from 2003 in which John Simm plays a reporter investigating the death of his friend’s mistress. My thoughts:

( State of Play Spoilers )

***

A couple of John Simm pretties: young, goofy hair, supercute, semi-pr0n and singing with New Order in front of a zillion people.

I am completely jealous of people who live in the UK. Why do they get this awesome Doctor Who season three DVD cover? I’d almost buy it anyway (yay region-free DVD player!) but it’s £48.99. That’s almost $100! Maybe I’ll just print out the picture and paste it over the US DVD set that I have….

[Cross-posted to InsaneJournal]

Originally published at rusty-halo.com. Please click here to comment.

Okay, so more people recommended 24 Hour Party People, but more people said John Simm is hot in The Lakes. So I went with The Lakes. (Don't worry, I'll watch them all eventually.)

The Lakes is a soapy drama from 1997 that lasted two seasons. I didn't like it much, but the first four episodes do open with John Simm naked, so it was certainly worth watching.

Season one actually isn't terrible. ( The Lakes season one: in which John Simm is brilliant )

So, season one was ultimately worthwhile. Season two, on the other hand, made me want to gouge out my own eyes. What I want to know is WHAT KIND OF BAD CRACK WERE THEY SMOKING WHEN THEY WROTE THIS THING? Apparently they sat around in the writers room thinking "Hmmm, we have a successful show thanks to our charismatic lead actor and his wonderfully complex character. Let's reduce him to five minutes per episode and focus on the incredibly dull supporting cast instead!"

I'm not kidding, here are things that actually happened in season two of The Lakes. I'm going to exorcise them now and never speak of them again.

( The Lakes season two: the bad kind of crack )

So that was The Lakes. If you like John Simm, watch season one, and whatever you do, if you value your sanity, stay as far away from season two as possible.

***

jaydk came over Friday night for another Doctor Who-and-related marathon. We didn't manage to squeeze in any Who; instead we watched David Tennant's episode of Who Do You Think You Are (which is so cute; he gets all angsty when he finds out that his Irish Protestant ancestors weren't adorkable enlightened modern Liberals like he is) and then the entirety of State of Play. jaydk got really into it and had to know what happened. >:) And then she called me at 1am on Saturday night asking for Life on Mars fic recs, because she was in a John Simm mood. Hee!

I love State of Play. It's a six-episode political thriller from 2003 in which John Simm plays a reporter investigating the death of his friend's mistress. My thoughts:

( State of Play - Spoilery! )

***

A couple of John Simm pretties: young, goofy hair, supercute, semi-pr0n and singing with New Order in front of a zillion people.

I am completely jealous of people who live in the UK. Why do they get this awesome Doctor Who season three DVD cover? I'd almost buy it anyway (yay region-free DVD player!) but it's £48.99. That's almost $100! Maybe I'll just print out the picture and paste it over the US DVD set that I have....

I finished State of Play and I LOVED IT COMPLETELY. I'll post an actual review after I rewatch it over the weekend.

Poll #987
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

What should be next in my John Simm-apalooza?

Also, who said IMDB forums are useless? They linked me to this: adorable baby!Simm.

Another question: which commentaries from season one of Doctor Who are worth listening to? jaydk and I just finished our S1 rewatch, and we thought we might try a couple of the commentaries before we move on to season two. However, we don't want to get stuck with a really lame one. So what's good? (And by "good" I mean "contains discussions of character development, story arcs, writing, and acting" and "does NOT contain endless rambling about how they did the special effects or how cold it was on set that day.")

Once upon a time, I "didn't get" RPS.

Now I have an OTP. Just... just... look at them! They do these adorable things on purpose just to make their fangirls' heads explode.

Also, I think this photo counts as pornographic just from the expression on John Simm's face.

I watched the first four episodes of State of Play last night and, yes, I am even more in love with John Simm than before.

I made a deal with myself that if I finished three freelance projects this weekend, I'd reward myself by watching State of Play.

Unfortunately I only finished two, so no State of Play yet. I am the best procrastinator in the world. Among the things that distracted me from work:

* Barrowman/Tennant/(Gill) RPS from versaphile. (...jkljefioajkjklfdlefj... *ded from pr0n*)

* BtVS/Doctor Who crossover from rat_hospital. Giles is no match for the Master.

* Harry Potter/Doctor Who crossover from sheepybunbuns. Doctor/Snape, psychic sex, and Snape has lot in common with the Master. What more could you ask for in a fic?

* I finally finished The Pandora Project by calapine. It's a thirteen part Doctor/Master AU featuring pirates and a giant vampire squid. You can't really go wrong there.

* A gen fic with good Tenth Doctor characterization. Kind of depressing how rare that is.

* And then, right in the middle of getting actual work done, I was suddenly seized with the urgent need for an LJ icon of Stephen Colbert as a pirate. So I hunted down the video, took screencaps, spent an hour fiddling with them in Photoshop... and concluded that all the icons I'd made were ugly and that I didn't really need a Colbert!pirate icon anyway. Like I said, best procrastinator in the world.

Also there's this: ElJay continues to prove its utter incomprehension of the community that lives on its servers. Here's more crap to opt out of.

OH MY GOD. I just finished watching the final episode of Life on Mars and there is not enough squee in the world to describe how completely awesome that was! Best ending to a TV series I have ever seen! And one of the best shows that I've seen in my life, period.

Um, let's see. Raw initial thoughts before I delve into the fandom and then re-watch the entire thing (yay four day weekend!). Warning: lots of babbling incoherent squee ahead.

( big spoilers for Life on Mars, obviously )