All right, so I fail at updating LJ! Damn you, Twitter. I went to a U2 concert in Tampa with firstlightofeos and nancydowns a couple of weeks ago, and it was brilliant. I went to New York right after that, where I bought far more DVDs and assorted geekeries than I ought to and ate really, really good Chinese takeout. I totally fell in love with the city. ♥ And I bought a new MacBook Pro! It is gorgeous. I've just finished setting her up to my satisfaction today. Her name is River. (After River Tam, obviously, not River Song. And damn you for even considering that possibility, oxys_kai_moros.)

TV-related rambling ahead! But first, tell me something.

Poll #1476009 What have you been watching, flist?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 37

Fantasy/sci-fi:

Drama:

Procedurals:

Comedy:

Which of these soon-to-be returning shows do you plan to continue/start watching?

Rec a TV show!

( vague spoilers for Glee, Dollhouse and Merlin )

Three TV shows I'm watching and enjoying—with download links, because everyone knows I'm a pimp at heart:

Castle: Nathan Fillion playing the part of a Fillion-y mystery writer who helps solve crimes; what's not to love? I'm enjoying season 2 even more than I did season 1, and I'm happily waiting for my copy of Richard Castle's Heat Wave to arrive. Here's a YouTube promo featuring Fillion being awesome and geeky. Download the Castle pilot in .avi format here.

FlashForward: the premise is interesting—the entire world blanked out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds, causing massive casualties, and during that time everyone caught a glimpse of what their lives would be like six months from now. The main character saw himself investigating the blackouts, so he begins investigating; it's all very wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey. Also: there's John Cho! And Jack Davenport! YouTube promo link. Download the FlashForward pilot in .avi format here. (Hulu link.)

White Collar: I was excited to see Chuck's Matthew Bomer (Bryce Larkin) in a new show; it just premiered two days ago, and it didn't disappoint. [Incidentally, if you aren't watching Chuck, why the hell aren't you watching Chuck?] Bomer plays a con artist who helps investigate white collar crimes to keep himself out of jail, à la Catch Me If You Can. It's entertaining! Check out the YouTube promo, and download the first episode here in .avi format (or watch on Hulu).

I'm also watching, with varying degrees of dedication, enthusiasm and caught-up-ness: Dexter, Fringe, Heroes, How I Met Your Mother, Lie to Me, Numb3rs, Criminal Minds, Stargate: Universe, Supernatural and The Mentalist. I have a terrible case of television ADD—I rarely remember/want to watch shows' new episodes every week—so everything always piles up. *pointed look at Heroes, Criminal Minds and Fringe* *headdesk*

(PSA: Guys, sarahtales' LJ—most of you remember her as the Drop Dead Gorgeous author—was hacked, just like copperbadge's and shoebox_project. As usual, all her entries were deleted; don't click on the links you see there.)

And just because I do this every year:

Happy Towel Day! (Alas, not a Thursday this year.)

Also, happy Lilac Day! The happy folks over at howdotheyrise have started their celebration already, and I find myself dying to reread Night Watch—I haven't done that since the release of Half Blood Prince, which was when I bought the damned thing; I read half the book while waiting in line. (My first Pratchett. *tear*)

Random links of the day:

1) I'm On A Ship (I'm on a Boat, Star Trek XI-style). Made of win.

2) Extended Serenity gag reel, which for some reason or another I found myself watching, like, 15 different times this week. And quoting extensively. All the time. It's funnier if you've seen the movie, or if you like Nathan Fillion, but it's also pretty damn funny if you haven't, and if you're a sad, deprived soul who has no idea who the man is. If that is the case, watch this and remedy this fortunately curable condition as soon as possible.

3) Ickle Twilight/Buffy crossover, with a bonus Something Blue reference. *grins* I was linked to it from this fanficrants rant, which definitely deserves a click all on its own.

4) I've set up a fanfiction recs Twitter account here. As you can imagine, it's mostly Merlin and Harry Potter, but there are a couple of other fandoms there somewhere.

(I don't have the patience to do the awesome reasons-for-reccing thing that afterthree did at Coffee and Chocolate, and that thirty2flavors and inksplotched did at atasteof, but I do have too many fic links bookmarked—so yay for Twitter's 140-character limit!)

Oh, there's lots of Star Trek, too. Obviously.

This fandom is taking over my life, guys, it's not even funny. I think I've said this about far too many fandoms way too many times. I'm downloading all the movies and all the series while impatiently waiting for the remastered DVDs to come out in Brazil (May 27th!). *sighs* This is my brain on Trek. THEY HAVE PON FARR, PEOPLE. How can a fandom that has an official name for AMTDI fic not be awesome?

I've never been a Trekkie—I know nothing of the old series apart from the occasional tidbit, and of course the fact that Kirk/Spock was the Slash Ship to Start All Slash Ships. (I'm all for that, incidentally. And the subtext made me laugh out loud way too many times.)

I've just watched J. J. Abrams' Star Trek and shit, it's made of AWESOME. It's also possibly the Wibbly-Wobbly-Timey-Wimiest movie I've ever seen, even though it's totally anti-WWTW logic, of course. Here's my two cents: ( Are you out of your Vulcan mind? )

I liked this movie far (FAR) more than I did any of the latest Star Wars flicks (which I didn't hate, except for most of Hayden Christensen's bits). Watch and learn, Lucas. This is how a decent director works his actors! This is how a competent plot-maker (and J. J. Abrams is nothing if not a superb plot-maker) develops his story! ... Oh man, I loved this so hard. I'm still on a major geek high.

I watched Angels & Demons right before Star Trek, and I can't decide if I hate The Da Vinci Code or this one more. This one had worse plot devices and lamer action sequences, even though the plot itself was better—more credible, I guess. Tom Hanks had some particularly horrible bits. The burning scene was cool, though. *grins* Of the two books, A&D is probably better; the two movies are pretty much equally bad, but this one doesn't have Ian McKellen.

A Half-Blood Prince trailer showed right before Angels & Demons. As usual, I'm doing my best not to be excited, and not to let myself think that this movie could actually be decent. I know it won't work, but I can still try. *grins* Man, they're going to fuck up the book's plot so thoroughly, it's not even going to be funny. I can hardly wait.

Regarding yesterday's season finales: I haven't watched Grey's Anatomy at all this season, but I know what happened, and yay! Finally! As for Supernatural, oh my God, that was mind-boggling and brilliant and almost entirely unexpected. I loved it! I thought they'd ruined the show's next season with this larger-than-life season plot, but they didn't. I'm happy.

Overall, it's been a good day to be a geek. *beams*

Happy wedding day, oxymoron! I hope everything goes well ♥

I'm a big fan of character-driven fiction. It's not that I think plot is unimportant, but it's secondary—a plot has to be truly dazzling to make me ignore severely underdeveloped characters. (Lord of the Rings anyone?)

So yeah, character-centric > plot-centric. This applies to movies, TV series, books, fanfiction, you name it. I'd take Closer over Catch Me If You Can (and Havemercy over City of Bones, and Dexter over Alias, and Drop Dead Gorgeous over Draco Sinister) any day. Shit, I just fandom-dated myself really badly by mentioning that fic, didn't I.

By 'character-centric,' I don't mean plotless—it's mostly that the plot exists to push along the character development, and not the other way around.

( Issues of the Week, BSG, genfic and Dollhouse )

Just to clarify, I don't consider 'plot-driven' an insult or anything. Nevertheless, I do believe bad writers don't try to write character-centric stories nearly as often as they do plot-driven ones (maybe it's easier to settle for the latter, because plot-driven fiction is the norm, and to part with that you need a firmer crafting hand, to have at least some idea of what you're doing? I'm not sure).

...And then Stephenie Meyer comes along with a primarily character-driven universe that has little to no plot or character development for at least 70% of any given book in the series, and I...I don't even know what to do with that.

Anyhow! I've rambled on for long enough. Do any of you guys have a preference? Is this a distinction that matters to you—in published fiction, fanfiction, or TV?

(Unrelated: Geek pride ftw!)

So I've been playing World of Warcraft for a week.

...

I know.

Trust me, I know.

Shut up.

I'm on holidays. I have time to spare. /rasp

It's so much fun, though, seriously D:

I have an awesome warlock, and a very, very badass rogue. Also a priest on her way to become surprisingly badass, considering how lame priests are by default *grins*

MMORPGing is a whole new level of geekdom for me. I think I'm irrevocably lost now. (Not that I wasn't before, mind you.) The next step is, I don't know, watching Star Trek, maybe. Or learning Ruby on Rails.

I'll have to give the matter some thought. But not right now—now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go back to demon-slaying in Shadowmoon Valley. *laughs*

Like bazcat89, I'm doing this TV shows meme so I can ramble about stuff. Also, it's 7 AM and I'm procrastinating on going to bed. *grins*

( TV meme )

Yay for rambling! Answering these questions made me feel like I watch too much TV—I don't, really. Honestly! *laughs* It's just that TV series are sort of a bonding experience in my circle of friends: we rarely watch things on our own, and the series we have in common are always a popular conversation starter. So I tend to give most of what they watch a try. (Except for Gossip Girl. Because just...no.)

inksplotched came to my house this week! She's been travelling around the country, and was in Rio for a couple of days. It was brilliant *grins*

...Aah. I'm having Pride and Prejudice cravings. Damn you, firstlightofeos!