Fun moments

[Rolfe]

Last night I was watching a financial help programme on BBC1. One of the reasons for the dire straits was that the husband was spending £350 a month on bottles and bottles of weird supplements and colon cleansers and muck of that nature. The financial agony aunt immediately put her foot down and insisted he pick one bottle and bin the rest. He started off on a rant about how he knew so much about all this, and he had identified the perfect blend of supplements to keep his body well tuned. He tried to get the woman to read a stack of quackery books all about ludicrous cod-nutrition subjects, and she just laughed at him. In the end his wife sided with the financial wizard-woman, and he was forced to quit nearly all the useless supplements. Didn't seem to have the slightest effect on his health, what a surprise.

Then this afternoon I looked at the beginning of the fifth season of Angel. They're moving into new offices. Someone says they suppose it's all properly kung-fued, or whatever. Someone else says, it's feng shui. Oh, what does that mean, comes the question. "It means some people will believe anything."

Particularly delightful in a show full of all sorts of demons, vampires and ineffable powers!

Rolfe.

[Ashles]

Originally posted by Rolfe
Then this afternoon I looked at the beginning of the fifth season of Angel. They're moving into new offices. Someone says they suppose it's all properly kung-fued, or whatever. Someone else says, it's feng shui. Oh, what does that mean, comes the question. "It means some people will believe anything."

Particularly delightful in a show full of all sorts of demons, vampires and ineffable powers!
It reminds me of Harry Potter. It always makes me chuckle that in a book about magic, sorcery, flying broomsticks, werewolves, floo powder and talking animals everyone still thinks the medium is an old fraud.

[LostAngeles]

Originally posted by Ashles
It reminds me of Harry Potter. It always makes me chuckle that in a book about magic, sorcery, flying broomsticks, werewolves, floo powder and talking animals everyone still thinks the medium is an old fraud.

Well, no. Some of the tittering girls believed Trelawney. I'd love to discuss the whole prophecy and fraud bit from Harry Potter, but it would require spoilers. Suffice to say, I think Rowling did an excellent job with Trelawney in a world where prophecies are pretty much required.

[jmercer]

Probably one of the best fictional's out there concerning prophecy (in my view) is the Sword of Truth genre. Terry Goodkind does a great job of using the prophecies to move the plot, introduce a "whodunit", among other things. (Some of the things in the prophecies are a bit tiresome to me, because he uses them as a "deus ex machina" at times.) But what I find so fascinating about his prophecies is the premise and the structure of them.

He uses a root-branch-false-branch structure that cascades in a number of interesting ways, plus he introduces double-forked prophecies with only two possible paths, etc. I have no idea where he got the idea for it, but it always reminds me of the "many universes" theory. :)

[Keri]

Originally posted by Rolfe

Particularly delightful in a show full of all sorts of demons, vampires and ineffable powers!

Rolfe. [/B]

It's one of the things I really like about all of Joss Wheadon's shows (Buffy, Angel, Firefly) he like to point out to the audience that all the supernatural stuff is imaginary.

That and I like any writer who can manage make references to Victor Hugo and Christina Aguilera within 30 seconds of each other. Erudite but not taking himself too seriously.

[DeVega]

I believe Terry Goodkind is a big proponent of Ayn Rand.
I have no idea if that's a positive thing or not as I know nothing about Ayn Rand - so, holding my hands up about my own ignorance there - but I know that TG consciously works to a philosophical model...

DeVega

[DeVega]

Oh, and I so miss Buffy and Angel... there is just nothing as sassy on tv at the moment... :(

[jmercer]

Hm... Ayn Rand, huh? One of those I haven't read.

Had a girlfriend once who doted on Rand... she had a bad case of "know-it-all-ism". I'm ashamed to say that totally turned me off to "Atlas Shrugged" and other Rand offerings. I couldn't imagine that I'd enjoy reading anything my-then girlfriend insisted was the basis for her philosophy.

Perhaps I should reconsider and read some of Rand's works...

[El_Spectre]

Originally posted by jmercer
Hm... Ayn Rand, huh? One of those I haven't read.

Had a girlfriend once who doted on Rand... she had a bad case of "know-it-all-ism". I'm ashamed to say that totally turned me off to "Atlas Shrugged" and other Rand offerings. I couldn't imagine that I'd enjoy reading anything my-then girlfriend insisted was the basis for her philosophy.

Perhaps I should reconsider and read some of Rand's works...

You might be interested in Michael Shermer's take (Either in "Why People Believe Weird Things" or "How We Believe", I forget)... basically came down to (paraphrasing here) "The philosophy has some merit, but the following became a cult"

Gotta be amused be a cult built around an individuality sentiment...

[jmercer]

Originally posted by DeVega
Oh, and I so miss Buffy and Angel... there is just nothing as sassy on tv at the moment... :(

Well, if you're not too proud to watch cartoons, Cartoon Network has some pretty pithy stuff, although it's not as consistent as Buffy and Angel because the writers differ for most episodes.

You can find some pretty decent sass and even social commentary if you listen between the lines of some rather silly shows on that network. There's a new "Batman", which contains some pretty cynical views of society interspersed with a bit of dark humor. Duel Masters is an amusing satire, designed specifically to mock the other Anime Card-playing Warrior cartoons. It's funny as all heck at times... the characters make totally out-of-context observations that eerily mimic the thoughts that run through most adult's heads when they see episodes of "Yu-GI-Oh" with their kids, etc. Some of the commentary is so accurate that I actually laugh out loud in surprise. :)

If you like darker drama, some of the anime shown on Saturday night after midnight can get surprisingly intense, such as .Hack, Full Metal Alchemist, Ghost in the Shell, and even Trigun or Inuyasha. (The most intense while being the least violent - in my opinion - is Ruroni Kenshin, but I don't think it's being shown any more.)

For pure adult-level silliness and often taboo-shock value, look for Sealab 2021, Venture Brothers and Robot Chicken. Think SNL/Shock Jock/Monty Python all mixed together. :D

I used to think these shows were pretty childish until I noticed who some of the writers were. It's surprising how many "name" authors write episodes for cartoons - and do it well.

[jmercer]

Originally posted by El_Spectre
You might be interested in Michael Shermer's take (Either in "Why People Believe Weird Things" or "How We Believe", I forget)... basically came down to (paraphrasing here) "The philosophy has some merit, but the following became a cult"

Gotta be amused be a cult built around an individuality sentiment...

Thanks - I'll have to look into it, but my time may start to be a bit limited starting next week... I'm taking up fencing (epee)!

This should be quite and adjustment from internal martial arts for me. ;)

[Lisa Simpson]

Originally posted by Rolfe

Then this afternoon I looked at the beginning of the fifth season of Angel. They're moving into new offices. Someone says they suppose it's all properly kung-fued, or whatever. Someone else says, it's feng shui. Oh, what does that mean, comes the question. "It means some people will believe anything."

Particularly delightful in a show full of all sorts of demons, vampires and ineffable powers!

Rolfe.

I love that line, although my favorite line from the whole season is "You're a wee little puppet man!"

I use it as my new message sound.

[Rolfe]

Hey, I had to buy the DVDs of season 5 because it's not on in the UK on any TV channel I can receive, and I've only watched two episodes so far. Spoilers will be severely dealt with!

Rolfe.