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I got around to watching some 30 Rock, which I've heard often recommended as the kind of show I'd like.
I watched the unaired pilot first, which turns out to have been a mistake, because I will have an ongoing regret about the show: in the unaired screener, the character of Jenna was played by Rachel Dratch, who's not conventionally pretty, but is entertaining and has character as an actress. I liked her a lot.
For the actual show, she's been replaced by Jane Krakowski. Yeah, that one. The conventionally pretty blonde whose entire schtick is being an irritating ditz. Rachel Dratch is relegated to being the Cat Lady.
It's aggravating. It's like they couldn't have a show with out ditzy women for the audience to look down on - Tina Fey is too intelligent and charismatic, Rachel Dratch played Jenna too intelligent, they had to bring in an irritating blonde.
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So, my otherwise-totally-awesome Gibson Les Paul Studio has one irritating problem: the third (G) string keeps going out of tune. Wildly so. I suspect this may mean the bridge needs adjusting... which I don't really know how to do.
Solution: Call the shop where I bought it. Ask them about it. Get diagnosis confirmed... and a free offer of: "Bring it in, we can fix that for you." Because, after all: "You bought it here, and we want you to be happy with it..."
Online retailers have their virtues, but those virtues really don't include being able to get them to fix minor problems quickly and easily, without having to ship the thing places. Had I bought my guitar online I'd likely be better served trying to fix this myself.
Which I don't want to do - I don't really know what I'm doing, my guitar is new and expensive and already beloved, I fear damaging it. Besides, I feel like I'm coming down with a cold.
So I shall pack up my Gibson and wander into town. (Might pack my camera, too, maybe grab some photos in town if it seems convenient. Or if the US Navy sailors are about again - they were all over town on Thursday. I assume a ship's in at Freo.)
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I... I think I may have accidentally flirted with one of my guitar dudes.
More disconcerting than that, he responded pretty well to it.
Hopefully he was just responding in a "we have mutual interest in music in a small-that-way city, we can be sociable" sense. I don't want awkward flirty encounters with my guitar dude right now. :wibble:
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I'm siiiiiick. :whines extensively:
I woke up this morning feeling vaguely off, bit sore throat, now I feel like absolute hell and I can barely swallow and talking hurts.
In the meantime, I went into town to get my guitar dudes to check if the saddle on my G string was in shape. While I was there, I got a call from Dean, asking me if I could pick something up while I was in town. From, as it turns out, a shop that's about fifty metres, max, from my guitar shop, so that was very much a trivial request.
Even if the trip was profoundly exhausting due to my body's unexpected shutdown in response to whatever virus has hit my system, it was worth it for a few reasons, including saving Dean a trip into town that would have been a major inconvenience for her, and also including this:
On my way home from the bus stop, slogging exhaustedly with my guitar, camera bag, jumper, and a small quantity of shopping, I came across a small boy, about two years old, rather adorable with pale blond hair and a Tonka truck, playing on the footpath.
And no adults in sight.
Now, our street isn't the busiest street in the world, but it's fairly high-traffic for a residential street. There are many cars parked along it, so visibility, if driving down it, isn't that great when it comes to things like small children running out into the road.
I couldn't just keep walking. I couldn't. So I set my stuff down, and talked to the boy.
"Where do you live?"
"Here!" *points at house*
"So your Mum and Dad are there?"
"Yeah."
"Shouldn't you be playing inside the gate?"
"No! I here."
I wavered back and forth a bit. Not my kid, don't know him or his family at all, he seemed pretty relaxed and happy, and I was feeling like hell and desperately wanted to get home. Carrying all my stuff was exhausting. I wanted nothing more than juice and a soft surface to lie down on.
Looked at the house - couldn't see any parents watching through windows, anything like that.
Looked at the boy - small, sweet, utterly adorable, and six feet from the road. There's a bad feeling in leaving a small child unattended at the best of times, these days - paranoia about paedophiles is excessive, and I know it, but at the same time, it's not discountable. I confess it crossed my mind that that was a risk, but mostly I was worried about the road.
So, I went up to the house, knocked, a man came to the door accompanied by barking dogs. My suspicions that the kid was doing something he knew he shouldn't was confirmed when, as I did so, the boy came back to the garden at a run and put his truck down on the garden path, exclaiming to get my attention so I'd know he was back there.
Gotcha, boyo, thought I.
So, after the dogs quieted enough for me to get a word in, I asked the man: "Sir, is your son supposed to be outside the gate?"
Man, unlocking the front door: "No, no he isn't, that's why we have the door locked. Thank you, thank you very much."
Me, stepping out of his way: "No worries, I just thought I'd check."
Man: "Thank you. Now you, little man, are coming with me..." And lo, he scooped up the boy and the truck - which the boy had no reaction of surprise or anything to, so I was reasonably sure that he was used to the man and accustomed to being picked up by him, so I was confident enough I had the right adult.
And then I went home and collapsed. I am remaining collapsed for the evening, it looks like, watching videos and drinking juice and water in quantities as vast as I can manage.
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So, getting triggered by episode 2 aside, I'm kind of in love with Lie to Me.
It has exactly the sorts of things that I tend to like. Ten things to say about it:
1) Plots that revolve around sociopolitical issues that treat them with much more subtlety and complexity than is usual. (At some point I'll post spoileriffic meta on this stuff, because: seriously, it's kind of awesome.)
2) Every single character in this show is, on some level, broken. And it's handled really damn well. The character interactions are complicated, and it pulls off some really interesting dynamics. The show passes the Bechdel test with flying colours - and, hell, we have complicated friendships between men and women that aren't sexualised at all.
3) So, hey, the major characters include two men and two women. One of the women is Latina. She's not a stereotype, she's brilliant in some ways and flawed in others, but they managed to make her strong without being "feisty".
4) So, of the two "senior" (in the agency) characters, one is male, one female. The male is Cal, and he's messed up in the head, so his primary relationship outside the agency is with his daughter. His daughter is awesome - she's fifteen, so she does some teenagerishly silly things, but she's basically a good kid - and Cal knows it, and they have a good, yet not unrealistically flawless, relationship. The female, Foster, is married - her relationship is also not without its complications, but it's handled really well too, imo.
5) The two "junior" staff members, Loker and Torres, are both single. Both have been seen dating - Torres has been seen responding to (respectful!) overtures from two men, in the episodes I've seen so far, one white, one black. Loker's date that I've seen was with a black woman. The "inter-racial" aspect of these interludes isn't mentioned - it's just about attraction. (Did I mention that the men involved were totally reacting to her as an intelligent and charismatic woman, not just to omg a hottie?)
7) Which is not to say this show is all about some kind of post-racial utopia - in fact, this may be the first TV show I've seen that actually takes on the concept of implicit/aversive racism, the idea that subtle racism is alive and well and dangerous. Hell yeah.
8) No, seriously, complicated relationships. That don't need to be wrapped up for a Hallmark moment, that don't need to be sexualised, none of it. If I were to write fic for this show, so far, at least, I could only possibly write gen, or possibly BFF fic. God, it's awesome to see recognition that relationships between men and women can be strong with no sexual component.
9) As a rule, no-one makes an issue of the fact that Torres is beautiful. (Seriously, she's stunning.) Because the thing is that just about all of the interactions between the characters, they're at work, and so people are professional - and the unprofessional moments aren't about sex, either, even slightly. The one time I've seen Cal touch her, in an unprofessional way, he was pushing her away and that was it. Because what matters about her is that she's brilliant.
10) I've seen eight episodes so far, and not been disappointed. However, I am compelled to say, as much as I recommend it to people who like intelligent TV, if you have triggers, you might want to check spoilers for the plots in case they're dangerous to you. (I hadn't thought of this as an idea - after the triggering from episode 2, Dean said, "I hope you're checking spoilers for each episode to know it's okay for you to watch," and I said, "Hey, that's a really good idea," and Dean facepalmed.)
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