Everything and its mom

[laceblade]

I should blog, in order to prove to the Internet that I do other things than just watch anime.

However, by the time I have enough spare moment to get a blog entry together in the evening, I have reached the point in the day when my bitterness threatens to poison my words and thoughts, and convince me that things are much worses than they truly are. My time is consumed by work, class, homework, and barely having time for life-things like groceries and shopping. Although I am still afraid of graduation, I can feel my insecurities slipping away as my resolve hardens and I realize that this isn't going to be bad at all. What the hell am I so afraid of? Life? I can totally do this. I am hopeful that this will force me to kick myself into higher gear.

Ash Wednesday
Speaking of having a full life, though, tomorrow I'm going to be gone from 6:30am until after 9pm. The only time I'm going to have to go to an Ash Wednesday service will be at 8:00am, which means that I have to walk around with ashes on my forehead all day. I never understand why the Ash Wednesday reading always has Jesus telling people not to make a big deal about it publicly when they pray, etc. And then we all get marked and leave it on all day. I might wash it off when I go to work, but I'm not sure yet. I'm not a fan of mixing government and state, but this is more like....practicing my own religion and not pressing it on others, right?

Speaking of Ash Wednesday....I have no idea what to give up for Lent. Did I even do anything last year? I suck at being Catholic.

Politics and the Ideal
I spent my evening watching the election results with Antoine and Chad. My favorite TV show of all time is The West Wing, although I haven't watched it in quite some time (I really should). Chad sent me a link to a clip of the show tonight, and I find it pretty fitting after watching Mike Huckabee talk to ABC's Charlie Gibson about his good fortune tonight. Gibson asked Huckabee why he had invoked references to the Bible in his campaign thank-you speech. Huckabee told Gibson that "Bible" was not a second language to him, but a mother tongue. Blah, blah, your mom.

It's no secret that I consider myself a religious person. But I've never understood people tendency to mix religion with government. We either live in a free nation, or we do not. Separation of church and state aside, it's always bothered me that by layering on all kinds of archaic rules, people tend to miss the whole point of Christianity.

OMG BUFFY/ANGEL
WHY DOES NO ONE TELL ME THESE THINGS!? The actress who played Willow on Buffy is married to the actor who played Wesley. OMGWTF.

AND, Christian Kane (Lindsey in Angel) is best friends with David Boreanaz (Angel) in real life. THAT IS SO CUTE. OMG!!


WTF, is Lindsey really gone for good?! I liked him so much! It would have been so awesome if he had joined Angel's team. Awesome and hilarious. AND HE CAN SING SO WELL! HOLY CRAP! I need to find an mp3 of him singing that song and listen to it repeatedly forever. He might even be better than Giles. I totally need a Buffy/Angel soundtrack.

AS FOR BUFFY. OMG, the Buffy-bot episode was hilarious simply because of the premise. But also? Spike was totally a hero in this episode. His bravery surprised me, and made me like him even more. I loved him laughing at Glory. He was so beaten and bloody! And Buffy kissing him? WAS SO MELTY. Just...the look on his face when he realized it was really her.

Still, it makes me go WTF a little bit, because didn't she just kiss Angel a lot in the last episode, when he came to her mom's funeral? It's very clear to me that she and Angel are very much in love, and always will be. Why did he leave, again? Because he needs to "atone," and because of the human/vampire difference? Then why is Spike okay? These are questions I'll need to deal with as this relationship progresses, I think.

ALSO, his hair was totally hot when it WASN'T slicked back - after he and Buffy-bot had had sex. Loose-haired Spike = win.

I'm also confused as to why Anya and Spike don't understand humans very well. I mean, Spike kind of does, but is horrible in terms of courting. And as for Anya - the set-up is that she's an 1100-year-old demon. Wouldn't you learn something of the world by then? I don't know. It just never makes much sense to me. I feel like, the longer you're around, the more you would learn about human nature and habits. Or something.

Comments

[yuejiao.livejournal.com]

that clip is awesome. makes me wanna start watching west wing :D

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

Oh, you totally should! The West Wing is my favorite TV show of all time!

[snowystingray.livejournal.com]

Even weirder Buffy coupling: Amber Benson (Tara) and Adam Busch (Warren). I don't know exactly how much you know about the later seasons, so I won't spoil you for anything, but rest assured that it is very... odd, considering their characters' relationship on the show.

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

I think I might know what spoiler you're talking about, but as I'm not 100% sure, I won't ask, ^_^

[littlebutfierce]

Hahaha, our Angel-watching is still in tandem--we just watched that ep over here a couple of days ago (& haven't moved on yet). I thought I remembered hearing that the Lindsay actor-dude had a band, but then I figured I was just confusing him w/all the other actors who have bands. But yes, he certainly can perform!

(& I didn't know about him & Boreanaz being BeFri--that's adorable, hee.)

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

Yay! It's cool that it's about the same time. I think I read on his IMDB profile that he does have a band. I'd like to look it up on YouTube or something....I'm mildly hesitant because it's probably Country music, and I'm not a huge fan, but...I MIGHT DO IT FOR LINDSEY.

I'm kinda bummed that he's gone, though. He's so much more interesting than Lilah is. I hope they do interesting things with her character.

[were-duck.livejournal.com]

I think the Anya and Spike not understanding how to act around people makes a lot of sense. Granted, they've both been around for a long time, but they spent all their time just killing people, not having to interact with them on a long-term, meaningful basis. Spike always kind of reverts to the mama's boy he was when he became a vampire, I think because that's the only way of being human he knows.
And Anya's job as a vengeance demon required literal interpretations that did not account for the fact that the women who asked for their men to be punished didn't mean it, or didn't always mean it, and that that anger and hate came from feelings of great love. For Anya, all there was was that job, she never had to stop and think about it in context, or stick around for the aftermath.
I like both characters because they can be good foils for the human condition, making us seem momentarily strange in order to point out the wonderful inconsistencies and complexities of human life.

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

Okay, so the things you say are persuasive and make sense (Am I surprised? No!), especially in terms of Anya. While I remember how she was introduced into the show, I guess I hadn't thought too much about the fact that her job was to interpret things literally in order to exact vengeance.

Spike, I'm not entirely sold on. At least, when Angel reverts to Angelus, he takes everything he knows about the way humans act (which is clearly a lot), and twists it to hurt them with words in the most excruciating way possible, easily picking out their fears and hopes, and mocking them. He wouldn't be able to do that if being a vampire made him focus only on humanity's role as a meal. Spike can also be piercingly perceptive about how the human characters are feeling and behaving, and can often tell them what's wrong before they themselves have a chance to figure it out.

I should clarify: I do *like* both characters (although it's taken me about a season and a half to fully warm up to Anya), I just didn't understand this aspect of their character too much.

[jume.livejournal.com]

holy crap, okay I feel kinda good and bad now;

I had noticed a girl earlier with a black smudge on her forehead, and I thought about mentioning it to her, but didn't. So I feel good that I didn't make a fool out of myself, but bad that I was so oblivious xD

see, it's a good thing you blog sometimes!

I don't think my [presbyterian] churches ever made a big deal out of ash wednesday or lent really. I know some people who went to lutheran (and catholic of course) churches did back in high school though.

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

Bwahahaha, I'm glad that I can be a learning device for you!

A friend of mine told me that last year, she saw a girl walking around, and she was about to go up to her and ask her if she was okay, because she thought the girl had a giant bruise on her forehead. Good thing she didn't!

It's weird to me being an odd-one-out here in Madison by having ashes - in Green Bay, it's something heinous like 75% Catholic or something, so I'm not used to being a "minority."

[lavendersleeves.livejournal.com]

since the anya/spike thing has already been well argued, I'll just say that I really like when they show why Anya is afraid of rabbits--I'm pretty sure you're not there yet. Suffice to say, she didn't particularly understand humans even when she was one. Spike, too, will be better explained later. Essentially, all of his powers of coolness come from not being human.

But did you know that of all the singers in the group, Spike--er, the actor--actually has a band that performs?

Also, about the kissing: in the comic, Buffy seems to think (in her daydreams, that is) that a threesome would be pretty awesome. So probably it bothers other people a lot more than it bothers her.

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

No, I don't think I know why Anya's afraid of rabbits, although I really loved her giant bunny costume that she wore on Halloween. Now I want to know! (But don't tell me!)

I did not know that James Marsters has a band!! OMG, that is so cool! I really need to go on a binge of finding Buffy mp3s, but I kinda want to wait and see them in the episodes? The karaoke bar in Angel is pretty much the best thing ever.

Yeah, I actually saw that threesome picture circulating somewhere on LiveJournal. First of all....eww. But secondly, I find that kind of interesting. I don't know about anyone else, but I definitely assume that Darla/Angelus and Spike/Dru had a lot of intermingling with one another during their time spent together.

[lavendersleeves.livejournal.com]

No, don't go looking for mp3s unless you want massive spoilers (or unless they're divided by season). Season 6 has a rather famous musical episode, and it would be ruined if you saw it out of order.

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

D: I've already watched some of the musical songs on YouTube! But I don't remember anything particularly heartbreaking, except now I know who's going to be alive that long, lol. I do know lots of random Buffy spoilers, so I might already know....? I guess we'll find out!