Nattering While I Have A Man In

[liadnan]

Working at home as I currently have a Man putting a water meter in. He seems a bit gormless but sufficiently competent.

To be honest I've been working at home a lot this week, largely because almost every morning I have woken up at 8.45 at the earliest feeling vaguely crappy. Presumably some kind of low-level virus. Unfortunately the risk of working at home is that although my library still lives in my office there nevertheless isn't a great deal of competition between, on the one hand, trying to construe an appallingly complicated clause in an A&M Settlement, and on the other livejournal, various boards, the interwebtype thing in general, and Buffy season 4. Yes, I know season 4, the Riley season, is generally not very good, but there is the saving grace of Spike to keep me going through that. Besides, I'm watching my way through the entire box set in order, it would be cheating to skip.

As loads of people have commented, ljchat has finally gone live, though since the beta has been happily working for ages this doesn't seem particularly special to me. The slightly odd thing is the little green buttons giving the option to IM or call which show up on the profile page when you are logged in to ljtalk. Seems to be a slight lack of thought on that one: first of all when I hit either of those buttons I get an error message because my system doesn't recognise the "gizmoljtalk protocol", unsurprisingly so since no one has ever told it about any such thing (how would I tell ubuntu/gnome/epiphany about it, anyone?). Secondly, despite what it says there is no point whatsoever in trying to call me through this, even though I am logged in and can be IMed, because I am logged in on Gaim which doesn't as yet have voice capability, and the client they are pushing doesn't appear to be available for linux yet: they need to change it so it doesn't assume that if you can be IMed you can be called. I suppose Ekiga would work but frankly I can't be arsed to try.

Ho hum. The Meter Man appears to have disappeared. I hope he hasn't been clamped. Oh, here he is. Hooray, I have a water meter. How long before I start putting bricks in the loo cistern I wonder.

Comments

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

I have just finished the second disc of Season 4. I like it. Although it is a soap opera and soap operas make me sad at the moment. Actually I cried during Forrest Gump last night, ffs, so I think I am just set on mope in general.

Besides, I'm watching my way through the entire box set in order, it would be cheating to skip.

Me too. Race you.

[liadnan]

Bah. I just don't like Riley.
I was interleaving it with Angel, but I only have season 1 of that.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

I just don't like Riley.

No, he is stupid and has a square head.

[liadnan]

Race accepted by the way. Up to "A New Man", disc 4, ep 12 but I am in Hants all weekend, so you have a chance to catch up.

[rparvaaz.livejournal.com]

I seem to be set on the panic mode atm. I freak the minute I see a mosquito [Koko actually told me last night that fear is riding me, her exact words], and I'm so tired by the evening that I cry over movies, adverts, and vampire romances...

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

not very much of para 3 sounds like the English language I recognise. Are you speaking in Barathastrian?

[liadnan]

A large part of my profession is the ability to waffle nonsense semi-convincingly.

[ex-greythist387.livejournal.com]

I use Trillian Pro on WinXP, and frankly I'd be happy if they never fixed things properly to allow calls to push through. (Selfish of me, since lots of people find voicechat useful.) Even within my f-list, I'd rather not have miniature phone calls.

You're more familiar with linux than I (I don't use it regularly and haven't administered my own setup), but wouldn't it be enough to have a client listen on an appropriate port, if there were a client running that's able to handle that sort of network request? That's all Trillian (or Gaim) does on Windows, I think.

[liadnan]

I may use it but it doesn't necessarily mean I always know what I am doing. I merely type in the magic incantations I find on the ubuntulinux fora.

[fairymelusine.livejournal.com]

I've been watching Buffy for the first time ever this month, and I'm full of thoughts and opinions that are half a decade too late to be of interest to anyone else anymore. SO annoying. But I will say this - Season 4 is weak, but some of the Spike moments have actually made me laugh out loud, which the television NEVER does for me.

'Course, now I'm into Season Five, and something different had better happen soon.

[liadnan]

Season 5 is Dawn and things: it has its good points. Though I have a theory the good writers were putting their best efforts into Angel for a while from when it started, ie season 4 of Buffy.

[fairymelusine.livejournal.com]

See, I'm waiting to get thru all of Buffy before I even start on Angel. I suspect it will happen sometime next week - for someone with no time to do hardly anything anymore, I do seem to be able to sneak in 'just one more episode' with alarming regularity.

[liadnan]

It's quite interesting, re-watching them, to interleave them so that you see the cross-over episodes, of which there are a few, play out in the two different series.

[fairymelusine.livejournal.com]

I've been seeing the references to Angel in Buffy (a bit heavy handed they are too, honestly), but since I hate the moment when series end and I'm left episode-less, I'm trying to leave myself something else to go to when I finally finish Season 7(?). I don't know tho' - I find Angel awfully whiny.

[liadnan]

I was thinking more of the actual cross overs than references: the points where a storyline starts in Angel, picks up in Buffy and comes back to Angel, or vice versa, eg the Angel stalking Buffy episodes and the Faith waking up from her coma episodes.

Rather Angel than Riley any day.

[fairymelusine.livejournal.com]

Oh, okay. See, I don't even know about all of those yet.

Well, yeah, but both options are annoying. The only men I can really stand in that show at all are Oz (even tho' Seth Green is annoying) and Spike, who I rather adore.

[cybik.livejournal.com]

Angel reminds me far too much of goths who sit around and moan about how tormented they are. I still like him more than Riley..

[tabouli.livejournal.com]

As they say in the States, I feel your pain. I too have made my way from Season 3 to about 2/3 of the way through Season 6 in the last few months, and all the websites and people with intelligent commentary are shut down or over it. Huh.

I liked Season 4. OK, so not as much Faith (who is excellent and whose reappearance I'm eagerly awaiting), but I found the Initiative fascinating, and didn't have a problem with Riley. Why do so many Buffy fans have such antipathy towards Buffy's all-American beefcake boy? Sure, he's a bit earnest and cheesy, but in her earlier incarnation as teen queen cheerleader, he'd have been just the sort of guy you'd expect her to date.

Me, I found Season 5 much weaker. I'd take Riley over the irritating, ghastly Glory any day. With you on Spike, though. Heh. Something about him has always vaguely reminded me of liadnan...

[fairymelusine.livejournal.com]

Well, I hated the whole Initiative angle - for my money, vampires are about goth and gloom and darkness, and the sci-fi-y thing doesn't really appeal to my romantic side in the same way. I get what you're saying - blond girls do seem to gravitate twwards beefcake guys - and, honestly, that's always (and by "always" I mean for the past five weeks) been the thing that I like least about Buffy. I have a lifelong hatred of blond girls.

Glory, I'm finding, I rather like. But I'm always sorta drawn to evil people. Plus she's got good shoes, and I'm vapid enough to find that interesting.

On the Spike/Liadnan note - I suspect that's just the idea of the accent (albeit entirely the wrong one). Although I'd put down good money to see him in the haircut.

Spike/Liadnan

[tabouli.livejournal.com]

No, no, it's more than that (though they do share a few turns of phrase, accent notwithstanding). It's the hint of dry, dissipated romantic, the faintly comical world-weariness.

Re: Spike/Liadnan

[fairymelusine.livejournal.com]

Amusingly, I'm in the middle of watching Season 5 as I write this, and it's one big Spike-o-rama at this point (ooo - he just bit someone - how did he do that?)

Re: Spike/Liadnan

[liadnan]

Flattering though all this is I am afraid I really don't see it. I'd prefer to be some kind of mix of Giles, Oz, and Angel myself.

Re: Spike/Liadnan

[fairymelusine.livejournal.com]

I think there's a certain 'devil may care' attitude missing, I think. Which is only really preferable in fictional characters anyway.

I'm officially broken-hearted that I'm up to a point where Giles has left ... I'm now deeeeeeeep into Season Six. And racing to finish the thing, 'cause I'm dying to know what happens. It annoys me that things like "work" keep getting in my way.

[pashazade.livejournal.com]

I actually became rather fond of Riley on rewatching. I think this makes me unique among all the Buffy fans I heve ever met.

[talvalin.livejournal.com]

Did you, um, acquire these or buy boxsets? If the latter, could I possibly borrow them off you at some point? :)

I am more likely to watch them this decade, unlike Vellum which I should just return to Martin and give up thinking about reading it.

[liadnan]

The latter, what do you think I am?

In principle you are welcome to borrow. In practice your request will be held in a queue.