Not Forever But Just for Now

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May. 31st, 2006

02:09 pm

( Response to the complaint I sent the Wall Street Journal )

Current Mood: satisfied

Current Music: Veronica Mars Radio

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May. 30th, 2006

10:52 am

( The complaint I just sent to the Wall Street Journal for the horrible article about the plane )

Current Mood: determined

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May. 15th, 2006

May. 12th, 2006

11:20 pm

( My recent sappy post from TWoP. Cause I like it )

Current Mood: drunk

Current Music: Sway (Again)

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09:04 am - It's possible to be both smart and a fan

So I've decided what bothers me most about so many posts on TWoP is the idea that I can't be both smart and be a fan of a show that has some flaws. I like to think of myself as intelligent. If it were my mission to prove that intelligence, I could write and write and write about what's wrong with VM. It surely had plenty of flaws (in BOTH seasons). Some I saw, and lots more I could dig up if that was my mission.

But it's not. And it's not that I always have to mindlessly watch TV. I'm actually critical of lots of TV shows. My wife doesn't like to watch Lost with me because I won't stop criticizing. But I'd never tell someone not to love Lost if that's the show they love.

And I love VM. Like no TV show I've even encountered. As a very wise friend wrote to me recently, I love Logan and Veronica together or separate, and I love Keith and Veronica and their relationship, and I love the story of Neptune. I want to watch it unfold. I'll analyze what has happened and why and what's going to happen, and even what pieces I think are more or less compelling. But I'm not going to rip it apart, because, well, I'm just not because that would suck the joy out of something I love. Why would I want to do that? At this point, bad episodes aren't going to make me stop watching the show, they'll just make me more eager for the next time, when I'll get a better story about these characters I love.

I love other things irrationally. The Pittsburgh Steelers. There is no intelligent, rational explanation for the fact that I have to hide behind the couch during close Steelers' games because I'm so nervous. It's crazy. And I love it. If I didn't have the ability to turn off rational thought and just feel that tension, I wouldn't have had the feeling I had when they won the Super Bowl. Crazy, irrational, ridiculous? Sure. But if you deny yourself that crazy stuff, then you're seriously missing out.

Even my wife. I can tell you ALL the things I like about her. But I don't know why I love her. I just do, and honestly I'd rather not analyze it. That cheapens it.

You can tell me it's just a TV show, and I'm nuts. Maybe. Or I'm a sappy romantic. Probably. But VM is one of those things for me. I'll analyze it with intelligent people all day long. But I'm not going to rip it apart. It's insulting for someone to imply that's because they see deeper than I do, or to say they're "happy that at least some people are missing all the flaws." Or that this means I don't have appreciation for great literature. You want to analyze Gravity's Rainbow with me? Let's go. I've just decided that life is better if there are certain things you can just love without tearing them down every time it's possible AND if you don't have any preconceived notions about what those things are allowed to be. You just feel it.

Current Mood: determined

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May. 11th, 2006

11:30 am - I ALMOST called it

Since I was the one (I think) who started the "Beaver was born a girl" stuff on TWoP, I had to post this.

From the "What's Alan Watching" blog. http://sepinwall.blogspot.com/2006/05/veronica-mars-whodunnit.html

----
Alan Sepinwall said...

Donboy, originally Beaver was going to be a hermaphrodite (hence the nickname), but Rob thought better of it.
------


Plus I love it when non-shippers see the L/V stuff I do, so I know I'm not just imagining things. He said:

And speaking of Logan, even though I'm not a 'shipper, those were some big hunks and hunks of burning love going on between Veronica and Logan in the last 10 minutes, and they felt well-earned.

Current Mood: satisfied

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May. 3rd, 2006

Jan. 29th, 2006

09:29 am - Random Thought of the Day

The only thing ironic about the Alanis Morissette song Ironic is that nothing in the song is even remotely ironic.

Tags: random thoughts

Current Mood: amused

Current Music: Violent Femmes

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Jan. 28th, 2006

12:28 pm - My Ten Favorite Books

Keeping with the list geek theme, here are my 10 favorite (fiction) books of all time.

1. Waterland -- Graham Swift
2. Catch 22 -- Joesph Heller
3. The Things They Carried -- Tim O'Brien
4. A Prayer for Owen Meany -- John Irving
5. Lolita -- Vladimir Nabokov
6. Skipped Parts -- Tim Sandlin
7. The Unbearable Lightness of Being -- Milan Kundera
8. The World According to Garp -- John Irving
9. The Music of Chance -- Paul Auster
10. Underworld -- Don DeLillo

Tags: literature, reading

Current Mood: nerdy

Current Music: Arcade Fire

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Jan. 27th, 2006

08:10 pm - Albums of the Year

So, in 1982, when I was 12 years old, I started to get into music. Yeah, Yeah, I'm old. Started with a Violent Femmes concert in the parking lot of a local college. Singing along to Kiss Off and drinking my first beer and I was hooked.

Being a list geek, my reaction to my music obsession was to start choosing an album of the year every year. Sometimes 2. I've done it every year from 1982 - 2004. 2005 is not selected yet -- I usually wait until the middle of the following year to get some perspective. So, here's my list.

1982 - Violent Femmes (Self-Titled)
1983 - REM: Murmur
1984 - The Smiths: Hatful of Hollow
1985 - The Replacements: Tim
1986 - REM: Life's Rich Pageant
1987 - 10,000 Maniacs: In My Tribe
1988 - Camper Van Beethoven: My Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart
1989 - Pixies: Doolitle & De La Soul: 3 Feet High and Rising
1990 - Poi Dog Pondering: Wishing Like a Moutain and Thinking Like the Sea
1991 - Uncle Tupelo: Still Feel Gone
1992 - REM: Automatic for the People
1993 - Uncle Tupelo: Anodyne
1994 - Spearhead: Home
1995 - Son Volt: Trace
1996 - Wilco: Being There
1997 - Whiskeytown: Stranger's Almanac & Old 97's: Too Far to Care
1998 - Lucinda Williams: Car Wheels on a Gravel Road
1999 - Wilco: Summerteeth
2000 - Slobberbone: Everything You Thought Was Right Was Wrong Today & Ryan Adams: Heartbreaker
2001 - Drive by Truckers: Southern Rock Opera & The Shins: Oh Inverted World
2002 - Rilo Kiley: The Execution of All Things
2003 - Kings of Leon: Youth and Young Manhood
2004 - Modest Mouse: Good News for People Who Love Bad News

Tags: lists, music

Current Mood: nostalgic

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09:21 am - When is a plot inconsistency too much

There's been lots of debate about the most recent episode of Veronica Mars, Donut Run. Much of it around the idea that the whole "kidnapping the baby" plotline was silly since Duncan, as the father, would have basically automatically had custody under California law. And the smart Veronica we know wouldn't have betrayed friends and family, risked her safety, the baby's, and Duncan's, and broken so many laws if there was an easier solution.

The response that many -- including myself -- have offered is that maybe custody laws in RT's fictitious world are different. As long as we're making up Type IV epilepsy for the show anyway, maybe there's also a law that, due to uncontrollable violent outbursts, parents with this condition are automatically unfit. Or, even better, maybe Veronica and Duncan just got some bad legal advice and followed it. That would be very consistent that Veronica, while very smart, isn't quite as smart as she thinks she is and often has bad judgment.

The show didn't tell us any of this though. We have to guess. So, it's fair to say that there's something of an inconsistency since, on the surface, the kidnapping plan seems unnecessary, and we're not told what led Veronica to think they "had to do it." I say it's a minor problem though, because the solutions to this problem are fairly straightforward, and which one actually happened falls into the set of stuff leading up to the kidnapping that we weren't told to maintain the twist. Any of that stuff which is irrelevant to future plotline is, well, irrelevant, and any of it which matters will surely be revealed as we go along.

This led me to a broader question. Where's the line between plot inconsistencies that matter and those that don't? My classic example of either side of this line is characters speaking English in movies. Many movies show, say, officers on a Russian sub speaking English. That's wrong. But it doesn't matter -- they'd be speaking Russian to each other, but they'd understand each other, and the English just lets the audience hear the dialog. English with Russian accents seems silly, but it's no big deal really. Contrast that with Planet of the Apes. They crash land on this foreign planet, and discover some Apes who speak English. What??? This matters because much of the plot depends on the people speaking with the apes, which shouldn't be possible. But it matters even more because it ruins the whole twist of the movie -- surely the fact that the apes are speaking English is a bigger clue that you might be on Earth than the Statue of Liberty you stumble on at the end. It makes no sense.

So, I think it's about internal consistency. Fictional shows can create their own world. The rules have to be consistent. And the characters have to behave consistently. If so, we're OK. Good fantasy and Sci Fi can be great because they know they have to make the rules consistent. But this is true on lots of shows. CSI regularly uses crime scene techniques that are not really feasible. Pisses people off to no end. But the show is pretty consistent from week to week, so it works as a piece of fiction. It's not about matching some real world analog, it's about creating a fictional world that is logical and entertaining, and that hopefully speaks to the real world at least via metaphor. No city in America has as much "haves vs. have-nots" tension as Neptune, but that doesn't stop the message from working.

So, does it come down to the fact that Donut Run didn't explicitly tell us that the custody laws are different or that Veronica and Duncan consulted a lawyer? Because that seems pretty nitpicky to me. If it's a major thing, they should tell us. Buffy wouldn't work so well if they didn't tell us that, by the way, vampires and demons exist in this world. But I don't think they need to tell us that some lines of the custody code are different. The story makes sense with one assumption. So, we make that assumption.

In fairness, it's more than this. It's also about how much we like the show. Shows I love have plot inconsistencies that violate my rule. No one can ever convince me that everyone wouldn't have moved out of Sunnydale sometime in S1. Scully was still a skeptic after everything she saw week in and week out?? If I love a show, I'm willing to give it leeway. For VM, that means I'll give them that Veronica was in love with Duncan, even though I never saw it on my screen (as long as she quickly stops being in love with him now!!). But I don't feel like such leeway is needed for the kidnapping plot.

Tags: vm

Current Mood: hopeful

Current Music: Postal Service

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Jan. 26th, 2006

08:20 am - Some More TWoP Thoughts

I've been thinking some more about being banned by TWoP. And here's the thing. I deserved it. I mean I basically told current members that I was the reincarnation of staygold, who had been banned before. If the bannings are going to mean anything, then they had to ban me for that. I get it.

I did have good intentions. To let a friend -- Maka -- know that I was still out here since she had asked about me. But at a deeper level, the problem is still the first banning. At that time, I was an active, happy, mostly respected (I think) member of the VM TWoP community. From nowhere, Sars banned me for being rude. No explanation beyond that. No reference to an offending post. No warnings indicating a pattern of bad behavior. Just banned. People I talked to had no idea what I did that was rude.

That's hard to take. The people on TWoP were my friends. I was an old dude jumping into the internet world and loving it. Then, someone yanked it away in a way that felt arbitrary. Yes, I could sign back up with a new username. But that broke lots of the friendships I had built. I probably could have fixed that here on LJ, but I was an old guy who didn't know the internet well enough to know that. I couldn't totally let go of the old friendships. So I reached out to one and got banned again. Ouch.

Still, it's caused me to be reflective. And in that reflection I have a few honest, constructive criticisms for TWoP and how they handle things. They're trying to accomplish the very difficult task of running a site for discourse about TV without being a fan site, while letting that site double as an online community rather than just a commentary on shows. It's the best thing out there for all of that. But it would be better if:

1. Let there be a positive rating system to go along with the warnings. Run by other posters. People can give thumbs up to posts, and if a post gets some number of thumbs up (5?), the poster gets a credit. People love the new nicknames (channel surfer, stalker, etc.) on TWoP, so reserve some for people whose posts are well liked. Reward contributions to the discussion, rather than just punishing problems. It simply has to be relevant to a banning decision to know if someone has made lots of well-loved contributions, so the mods would benefit from this information. I think people miss good contributors who are banned, and would be willing to forgive many more transgressions from the people who make good posts. Let people be edgy and difficult IF they have intelligent things to say.

2. Recognize that a banning is a big deal. People have friends online. Internet era/virtual friends, but still friends. To arbitrarily take that away is a rough move. So, give clearly written warnings. Document problems. Make sure people know what they're doing wrong and only ban them if they don't fix that. It's a community with its own rules, and while they may seem like second nature to the mods, they can be confusing to posters (ask posters what it means to "not talk about the boards on the boards" if you want to see mass confusion). So, help the learning curve before banning.

3. Reduce the rules to 2. Don't divert threads from their topic. And don't make personal attacks. That's it. The "talking about the boards on the boards" type stuff is confusing. The issue is when people take things off topic. Fan squeeing is off topics. Just tell people that and warn them if they don't catch on. And ban them after only 1 warning for any personal attack. That's it.

4. With that, tell people when they sign up, that they have to be grown ups. Ideas will be attacked. I have no problem with people saying an idea is stupid or crazy, as long as they don't say the poster is stupid or crazy, since smart, sane people say stupid, crazy things all the time. But even if you want to limit those words, people have to know that ideas will be dissected. Characters you love will be ridiculed. That's the nature of the site. As long as it's on topic and not a personal attack against a poster, it's fine. In all cases.

Tags: twop

Current Mood: contemplative

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