Procrastination

Technically I'm supposed to start my thesis today. One ten page introduction to go! Except I just don't want to start it, even though I could probably write this part in my sleep. Okay. I'm not going to think of this as the start of a very large thesis. I will just pretend that this is a ten page paper on the history of shoujo manga that I have to turn in on Monday. Yes. Right then... go me.

So basically the only thing I've been up to lately is watching TV. It's quite sad, really. I was wondering, what did I do before? And generally I think I just tend to sit around all day, reading for school, reading for fun, and of course, wasting a lot of time on the internet. I live a sad, stationary life. The boy and I finally finished watching Neon Genesis Evangelion, which would be maybe the 8th time I've watched it and the first time for him. I'm not sure what he thinks. He's probably too weirded out right now from the final few episodes to really think anything. So now I want to watch End of Evangelion. And IMO, Evangelion is still the best thing that's ever aired on TV. Ever. This includes all of Joss' shows. Combined, maybe. It does great things playing with anime stereotypes, coupled with a really cool idea, a complete revamping of the mecha genre, along with an extremely deep look into the characters' psyches. Ever. Hee. I'm not biased at all. But Evangelion tends to be a little mind-blowing, so then we switched to watching a little more Alias.

I'm not sure I can watch Alias now. *sigh* And I was all excited about finding a new show, especially now that it's official that Buffy's ending and there's no Faith spinoff. I hope there's some sort of spinoff or something. Anyway, as long as Joss has a show on air, I will be watching it. The problem with Alias is that it's got great action sequences and really fun spy stuff, but the characters are almost all stupid. It's quite frustrating. Like Sydney. She's supposed to be someone who's been working for SD-6 for almost 7 years, and she still can't figure out how to control her own emotions in case people suspect her of something? The thing that probably annoyed me most was in this one episode, when a mistake she's made ends up killing a few CIA agents, she just sits there, gawking at the accident even while her SD-6 partner keeps asking her to move. I mean, I understand that she feels absolutely awful about it, but I just thought it'd be more effective to show her breaking down sometime more safe instead of making her just look kind of careless. And she keeps confronting her dad with stuff she's learned from the CIA in SD-6, where oh, of course they're not being monitored or anything. Grrr.

Then there's just all the drama going on with her friends, which I also think is kind of silly. I love the spy stuff, but the drama with the friends just feels contrived and not emotionally true at all. Kind of like Ally McBeal. And I can't quite figure out why they show them anyhow, when their problems, compared to Sydney's life, really doesn't make for riveting TV watching. On to the characters now. I think I would like Sydney if she just stopped doing all those stupid emotional things that could potentially compromise her position in SD-6 or her mission or something. I don't particularly mind when she's being stubborn and bone-headed and compromising the mission, because that seems to be part of her personality and part of what makes her a good spy as well. It seems to be more of her mode of operation, very gung-ho. But when she gets all emotional, it just turns annoying, like the writers have decided that some piece of information must affect Sydney emotionally. But of course she can't show it in a normal manner, she has to let it break out in the worst time possible. Like in SD-6. Or in the middle of a mission. I didn't mind at all when she was weepy because her dad didn't show for a dinner date, because that was completely outside of work. I think all of her friends are silly right now, and Will is definitely going to get himself killed. And he's just annoying. Francie is also annoying. It's only the sixth episode, and they're already playing the whole she mistakes her boyfriend doing something secret as having an affair and can't be bothered to communicate. Grrr. As I said, Ally McBeal. The SD-6 and CIA people are much better though. Sloane is nicely matter-of-fact, get-the-job-done, except in a way that you know will turn out being extremely chilling later. I adore Vaughn. Vaughn is great. Vaughn gets to slap Sydney down when she's being stupid. And Vaughn is funny. I also like Sydney's dad a lot. For all the random emotional punches that she keeps giving him, he still can show he loves her somehow, yet can't get too close to her. Dixon is functional. The Q guy is dorky, but might get annoying later. So maybe I will keep watching for the plot twists and hope that some of the random character stupidity that spawns out of emotion will be fixed soon.

After being completely frustrated with Alias, I made the boy watch Selfless with me. And it is still an awesome episode. I love how Buffy's entire "I am the law" speech has completely foreshadowed what she's doing right now. Personally, I think her speechifying, general in charge attitude is going to end very badly for her. She's Buffy, and she's acting like Giles from the Gift. What I love about Buffy is that, even though it's set on a Hellmouth with demons running amok, somehow the show can always pull me in and make me feel all the emotions I should be, instead of generally making me feel slightly manipulated, like Alias does right now.