Weekend with the be fri, and after

[bironic]

synn was here (yay) and synn is gone (boo). I had a really nice time—we always do—and I think she got a good taste of the city in the two days we had, since we either deliberately or inadvertently wound up seeing:

• Thousands of healthcare bill protesters down in Penn Quarter
• The White House (from the outside, on the Rose Garden side)
• The Washington Monument, reflecting pool, Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial (from afar) and Korean War Memorial
• Busloads of veterans visiting the WWII memorial
• Smithsonian Air & Space Museum
• Arts festival in Chinatown
• Street fair in Adams Morgan
• "Downtown" Silver Spring
• The stately old stone houses down 16th Street that remind me of the neighborhoods just outside Vancouver
• 9 (semi-Tim Burton post-apocalypse quasi-steampunk CG movie)
• Psych, DS9, Sherlock Holmes, Hellboy II, the Vampire Diaries rerun and Dexter

And of course, eating: Vietnamese, Thai, Indian, Chinese, homemade omelets, accidental McDonald's, the natural frozen yogurt I am so glad exists, and probably something I'm forgetting.

And! I now own a squid shirt! One of the street fair vendors was a Baltimore clothesmaker called Squidfire, which makes shirts that were designed for me. They have a series of squids, and happy octopi, and t-rexes with veggies, and LJ friends, and I may put a few items on my holiday wish list.

.

Now it's back to our regular programming. Although there's a slightly surreal series on right now. I don't know if anyone's been following the story about the Yale student who was missing and then found murdered and crammed in a wall on her wedding day, but my family went to the same temple as her fiancé and his family. I haven't kept in touch, but jeez. Poor Jonathan. Poor everyone.

Speaking of articles, has this interview with a medical advisor for House in yesterday's USA Today made the rounds? I've unsubscribed from the fandom comms but I haven't seen it mentioned on any of your journals. It's short, but there are a few interesting bits, like the tiny morsel of info about how advising on the show works.

Comments

[synn.livejournal.com]

accidental McDonald's, like we just fell into the hamburger and french fries.

: )

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I swear, the fry fell into my mouth. It fell into my mouth ten times.

[synn.livejournal.com]

yes, exactly.

[daasgrrl.livejournal.com]

I've heard Vampire Diaries is pretty terrible. Thoughts? I must say that just hearing it's

accidental McDonald's

Is there *cough* any other kind?

Also, I like the T-shirts, the Yale student made the news down here (eep!), and I hadn't seen the medical advisor interview, but now we have someone to blame XD

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Is part of your Vampire Diaries -- which I was about to abbreviate until I realized that would be VD, although it's kind of appropriate -- opinion missing there? :) I think it's not great. The books were also not great in an objective way, but they had everything you needed in a yearning/obsession-inducing YA vampire melodramatic love story. Angst and Mary Sues, but not a Mary Sue as irritating as Twilight's. In the show, Elena has personality. Everyone knows her and talks about her, but I think in a way that's consistent with attitudes toward popular people in high schools. Stefan (the vampire hero) is bland. Damon (the evil vampire brother) is weird-looking and not super-compelling so far. Some people are already into the slash there, but it's not my thing. There's a lot of diary-writing on the hero and heroine's part. I don't remember if that was in the book so much. Could go very wrong very fast.

My main problem is the show isn't doing anything new (yet?). It's postmodern like BtVS and Angel were postmodern, poking fun at vampire brooding and claiming some parts of the myth while sardonically discarding others, but that's been done a lot now. Time for innovation, and there hasn't been innovation so far. There's been Angel and Louis in Stefan, a Ring/Gem of Amarra, some Cordelia/Buffy/Angel love triangle stuff from the BtVS premiere with Elena's friend/Elena/Stefan, some Willowesque lines for Elena. A few surprisingly good lines.

Also, a lot of blatant underage drinking. Weird.

Uh. Sorry you asked?

[daasgrrl.livejournal.com]

Ooops! I was probably interrupted halfway through and didn't bother picking up my train of thought. What I was going to say was that I feel far too old for 'teen' shows nowadays, vampire or no. I'm not even watching Glee, which I feel in theory is my kind of thing, but I'm just 'pah, kids' XD

I appreciate the rundown though! I just couldn't quite believe that there was yet ANOTHER vampire show jumping on the bandwagon - I know they've always been around in a low-key kind of way, but we seem to be inundated with them recently. Actually, in that light, VD seems kind of appropriate!

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Twilight made me mad because I could have done it. True Blood at least did something interesting. VD... we'll see, I guess. Seeing as how they're all based on books, they should be able to take the creative energies that would've gone to plotting and characterization and channel them into doing something above-average.

And yeah - why Edward and Stefan both decide to go to high school is beyond me. I guess Stefan wanted to be with Elena allllll throughout the day, but wouldn't they, like, want to avoid all the work and pettiness? It would be just as easy to say you're a college student nearby or something.

[daasgrrl.livejournal.com]

Yes, I thought that was fairly tragic. I mean, there was this 'oh, the younger we pretend to be, the longer we can stay in a place' in Twilight, but HIGH SCHOOL, FFS? If I were ninety-odd years old? NO THANK YOU. I suppose you could go and raise hell for a while, but still, it'd get old very quickly. Ha.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

It's also interesting that Eddie and Steffie look like teenagers, or twenty-somethings at most. That society has less of a problem with a two-hundred-year-old person who looks like a boy dating a girl, than with a two-hundred-year-old person who looks like a man dating a girl. Bill at least looks like a man. (Though they all act like teenagers!) (Including my Mary Sue savior, who looked like he was in his forties. Being an Anne Rice character and all. Shhh.)

[daasgrrl.livejournal.com]

(Including my Mary Sue savior, who looked like he was in his forties. Being an Anne Rice character and all. Shhh.)

Eh? The only people I can remember from my Anne Rice reading are Louis, Lestat, and David (who I think I liked very much).

It's true - they do act like teenagers and such, but at least they... aren't? Remember, you're only young once, but you can be immature forever! Etc.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Heh. Tagline for a new vampire romp?

Armand, Louis and Daniel were in it too, but for whatever reason my Sue ended up with Marius, the Roman blond.

[topaz-eyes.livejournal.com]

Nope, this post is the first mention of the article I've seen.

From the article: I also read the scripts to try to keep them from making mistakes. But if they think (a change) is going to cost them in terms of drama, the drama and comedy will always win out.

Well, at least she tries. But I wonder how frustrated she feels when the drama/comedy do win out, y'know? I'm not a medico (I know just enough to be, y'know, dangerous) and I'm damn frustrated at it. /bitterness

Your weekend sounded awesome. And busy! I'm exhausted just reading your list.

The Yale student though--wow. I can't fathom that at all. :-(

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Bizarre and sad.

Re: the interview: I went to a panel last spring where scientists and showrunners talked about what it's like to be scientific advisors for Hollywood. It was interesting. One scientist told the audience not to take the opportunity to preach or teach, but to try to be as accurate as possible within the demands of dramatic narrative. That seemed like a healthy and workable solution. The problem with House is that there seem to be so many moments, even plots, that could have been made plausible within those same constraints but weren't. Not that this woman is entirely to blame, since the show has many advisors. And I remember another article, maybe from Doris Egan, a couple of years ago, about how even when something is taken verbatim from an anecdote or journal paper, different doctors will protest its accuracy. But yeah, it must be frustrating.