mockturle06 | boys and their toys (Reply)

Hee. Stayed up late last night watching Doctor Who because I couldn't wait and I was being spoiled rotten, but more of that later.

What a week it has been. Where to start? How about last Saturday. I had to get up at sparrow's to get to the College of Fine Arts for a photography course. Yes another one, though I'd signed up for this last year, when I was particularly miserable, just to try and give myself a bit of a life outside work, maybe restart my interest in photography which has wilted and waned under the brunt of cruel commentary, and get me looking again at the world in new ways.

I wasn't the only writer in the class either, but of course it was C., who couldn't look more like an art student if he tried, so studiously boho is his look, who said that, not me (I mumbled something about being a holiday snapper), but it was what I was after, new insights.

The guy taking the course is very friendly, if old school (it's been so long since I've had to mess with f-stops I've no idea anymore) and I was glad I meet him at the gate while I was peering with forlorn hope at the faded campus map because the place is a maze, and also an old Victorian insane asylum, so kind of creepy, with it.

Anyways, it was mainly intros, looking at famous photographers in books and online and setting up a flickr account, whereupon I found I had one I must have set up well over a decade ago, judging by the age of the pics within, and completely forgotten about it. Anyway, I've uploaded a few more and my pics are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/havisham06/.

We also had to walk around campus on a cameraless shoot, just looking at things, and it was another case of twenty great photos I never took (it's always a case of me not having my camera handy/out in time/with me/charged and ready to go). I'm kind of hoping this course will kick me into always carrying a camera that is easy to reach and ready to go.

It was kinda fun. Afterwards, as I was at Rozelle, it was a romp across the road to the markets. Oh dear. Just a cup and a brooch, I told myself, but there, on the first table I saw, sat something I've been looking for, for such a long time. Something precious that was stolen from me, that I never recovered from the theft of, the loss of comfort and trust. It wasn't mine, of course, but one of the series, and a little scuffed, which meant I got it for a third of the mighty price I've seen it going for on ebay. But I bought it and I have it. My precioussssss!

Next, my original 70s Star Wars action figures with boxes. Yeah, right. And let's not be greedy. I don't know what I did to earn my precious back, but it gives me great relief to see it and touch it once more. What a great scar on my tender psyche that was, when it was so cruelly taken from me (a valuable gift from my Scottish family).

So, no more collecting, no more trying to fill in the hole? Oh, it's way too late for that. I picked up three interesting cup and saucer sets and a lobster brooch, to go with the crab one I picked up in New York, which I adore. Crustacean brooches, it's my thing now.

One of the cups was by appointment to Queen Mary, and Himself asks what it is about me and Queen Mary and tea sets, as I also have a teapot that is of the same series as one owned by QM. I dunno, but it is indeed worrying, but I think, more to the point, what is it with my grandmother's taste and Queen Mary, as I think I'm tying to recreate my grandmother's house, my safe place. I should restore the one cupboard remaining of hers and put the cups back in it, the way I remember. Ah, that would feel good.

I also picked up some fancy chocolates in a glorious old Edrwardian looking chocolate shop. They were okay, too, though more Paragon than Haigh's. Then I caught the big red bogan bus back home for afternoon tea and telly and clutching at hot water bottles.

Telly included Supernatural, which is always good to watch at these times, as I match Dean shot for shot, so my recollections might not be the best, but man, they just don't care any more, but kind of in a good way as they're just being so silly and surreal. I kinda like it. I mean, Supernatural has a licence to be surreal and it's cute when they go really of reservation. Oh yes, there have been glorious failures, but when it works, it works.

So, barely remembered highlights included the Western episode. Oh yes. I've always said the show was a Western, and so they went for it in a post modern whirpool of referencing Back to the Future referencing Clint Eastwood and, ack, my brain hurts. Did Jensen start to corpse in one scene, Mr Blue Steel In The Face of The Utterly Ridiculous? Oh, the poor wee boy, it finally got to him. And I loved the flaming map opening. Any tv western about weirdly co-dependent brothers needs to start with a flaming map (and, oh, I've gone straight back to that brilliant Maverick pisstake of Bonanaza, though I'm not sure straight is the word, tee hee). And Jensen, nice try, but nobody can ghat act like Clint. Check out his Maverick episode. It's all there, right from the start.

Also, why is the whole Dean/Cass thing so openly commented on. Mind you, I'm curious to see what my two favourite bad boys, Cass and Crowley, are up to. Yee and hah.

So, yes, Supernatural, so silly, but loving every minute of it.

And, just to be fair, I caught up on the last two White Collar episodes while still plesantly buzzed in unplesant circumstances.

The Peter/Neal swap one wasn't all I could have hoped it would be, but it was nice to see Peter pick up some skillz that'll put him on a more even footing with the grifters and be less of a dupe. I loved him lifting Neal's wallet at the end, heh. And Neal, watching Peter go home with 'er Indoors. I'm going to affix my slash goggles and assume triangle and it's thwarted affections that send Neal spinning into the arms of the no chemistry skinny bint.

The last one? Yikes. It all got a bit too silly for me, and the enigma machine pushed it way over the edge, but almost worth it for the scene where Peter and Neal share a gruff manly momment of manlove non declarations before cutting the wires (and seriously, none of this has corroded, have they not seen what real WWII stuff dug up looks like on Time Team?). Anyways, Neal and Adler face off with this weird thing they have (for serious, it was just about the gold? Methinks Adler doth protest too much) and then Peter kills him because Adler was threatening his pookie (more like a lover spurned than a miffed employer, but I digress again) and then Peter instantly suspects Neal and Neal gets all huffy and I can see Neal's point but I can see Peter's too and I'm more annoyed because the warehouse full of Neal's paintings was somewhat pivotal in my fic, but never mind.

And the gold. I still think they missed the point of Raiders entirely and I don't think that stolen war booty is anything to gloat about, especially war booty stolen like that, and I'm still annoyed that they chose to make light of the Holocaust. Tsk. Fortunately I'm less screamingly distraught than when I first heard about it. Oh, it so wasn't the week to make fun, then, and I reserve the right to be sad an angry about it, because it's still not right, no matter what my feelings might be on the matter. I mean, I know Neal's a thief, but there are some things that are just not on, and he should know what an issue it is in the art world, never mind the sensitivities of the survivors, some of whom quie rightly want their stuff back. Tsk again. They should sit down in front of a few Who Do You Think You Are episodes, such of those of Mr Fry and Mr Springer, and take a good long hard look at themselves.

Sorry, still a bit of a hot button, it seems, even though my family were all thieves (they were reviewing the situation). And it's not about religion. I just feel using terrible human tragedy as a cheap punchline lacks dignity, morality and humanity.

And the whole dry docked sub in the warehose thing. They did all that without Peter or Neal noticing? Too silly. And do not get me started on the enigma machine.

At least, I says, turning on The Saint, you'd never catch Simon chasing after hidden stashes of stolen gold. Of course you would. What, you don't think 've been watching the show since I was so high? I was bemused, when uncovering the secret hidden stash of gold bars, Simon demands to know where it came from and weasley guy says cheerily, at gunpoint no less, that Goldfinger gave it to him. Heh, and Roger, holster the snarks, you'll get your chance, you will, you know. Giggle.

Yes, somehow I have no problem with gold stashes in martello towers in the West Indies. It's probably because it's Simon, and, as I grew up with him, he has a given authority that Neal will never have, the young whippersnapper.

So yes, White Collar was totally being Saint-like in that last episode, but somehow I'm less forgiving, maybe because at least Simon would have offered some form of condemnation of Adler's actions, even if it was just an eyebrow raise. Simon Templar, your more moral amoral adventurer.

The rest of the week was ghastly, just ghastly, but I did get some quality sunny autumny park time and I've finished up yet another notebook for the greatest story never typed. Ah, well, it keeps me amused.

Which brings us to last night, and the Doctor, and the Tardis. Well, I must admit that I squealed when the words 'by Neil Gaiman' came up. At bloody last, eh. Much like Mr Moffat, I was not surprised Mr Gaiman turned out to be such a fanboy, it was kind of obvious. And what a fanboy he turned out to be. It took me a while to settle into the story, but that's possibly due to me being overwrought over the two hours of technical fuckery I had to go through to get the things on disk (my next telly will be integrated and interactive, I swear).

Once settled, with a judicious application of tea and chocolate, I did get into it, and I got, and oh my, it was very Hartnell and Troughton in freaky weird and menance, but that's my Who, so I liked that, and I loved the snappy comments, especially the not reading instructions - snerk. I think the last time I noticed and bothered about the pull to open I was like seven or eight. It cracked me up, to be reminded that the Doc never opens the doors the right way. Sometimes, fanboy observations have me nodding and smiling, like this one.

Ah, but the Tardis. Well, it was the greatest love story of the Doctor's life, and it reminded me very much of Supernatural episodes devoted to Dean and the Impala, or Kirk and his Enterprise. Boys and their toys. I don't get it, and it's more than a bit wrong, but clearly there's an archetype, and it's kind of distirbing to realise that the Doc is just another petrol head who'll happily pull the engine apart over the weekend. Oh dear. Disturbing, but kinda cute and funny, too.

And yeah, we had running down corridors, 60s spacey corridors at that (the Tardis has apparently remodelled since that Baker ep where it did, indeed, look like a Victorian hospital) and it was all a bit Jamie and Zoe, which was cool, too, though they couldn't resist killing Rory. Again. You bastards. (I'd make it a drinking game but I fear the hospital costs).

So it was cute and sweet and the Tardis has a crush on Rory, which is also a bit wrong. Basically, me likey. Me likey lots. And the confidential? Most fun of all. Neil + Tardis = Bwee!

So happy I saw that. Two of my most favourite things, together at last. Why so long? Neil has been writing about mad, magical, mischief making men for so long it just had to happen, and it finally did. I feel like booking a table at Milliways, that was such a big tick on my impossible wants list.

And while we're on nostalgia, Triplej, of all places, was playing some Icehouse tracks re the re-release of Icehouse/Flowers (a Doctor Who episode in a song as it is) and they played some songs recorded at the Capitol Theatre, oh, you don't want to know when, and there was some mad teenager squealing up the front, no doubt to the irritation of the sound engineer. Yeah, me.

My first concert, not 'studying at a friend's house', hence the squeals. Anyway, it was so funny because I was at work and very grumpy and suddenly there I was, happy young wee me. Bless. And, as I was jittering on allergy pills (the perfumed wench has upped the ante) I was swinging in my seat as they played. Another brief flash of happiness, and now it's stuck in my head. Whee!