bees_rambles

TV Rec: The Almighty Johnsons

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 21:24:31 GMT

I've just marathoned my way through the two existing seasons of this show. (There's a 3rd shooting now, yay! It needs at least another season because it's got an overriding arc.) It's a Kiwi show and is also shown on the UK version of SyFy. (Per usual, I bought region 2 discs.)

Premise: The Norse gods decided to hide amongst humans and moved to New Zealand. The Johnson brothers are some of these gods. Their youngest brother, Axl is about to turn twenty-one and receive his god powers. Oh, and there's a prophecy; if he finds the goddess Frig then all the gods and goddesses get to shed their human shells and ascend back to their full powers.

It's a very blokey show. The trailer attached isn't particularly work safe. (sex and language)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHpRkD6CK24

It's about how these guys, and the women who have to put up with them, deal with their mundane lives (one's a builder (and later barman) one's a refrigerator repairman, one's a PR Flack and Axl is a student, and try and cope with the additional pressures brought on by being gods at a time when things are in flux. It's quirky and different. Sort of a surreal dramedy.

For those of you keen on Dean O'Gorman, he's in there as Anders aka the god Braggi. I also spotted actors I recognized from Xena and Maddigan's Quest. I particularly like the younger characters: Axl, Gaia and Zeb.

If you are looking for something different, give it a shot.

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Los Angeles 'Meatless Monday'

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 22:51:27 GMT

Did anybody else's brain immediately jump to this cartoon when they saw the news?

No?

Just me, then.

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Horns

Sun, 04 Nov 2012 15:42:21 GMT

I finished it last night. I'm coming down on the side of 'Meh'. It had it's good points. I liked Ig, as you were meant to. And his brother. The theme of the book: people do bad things for all sorts of reasons, even good people', was executed in an interesting way, but ... I don't know. There just wasn't enough 'there' there. It would have made a better short story or a novella, maybe, rather than a novel. There just wasn't enough plot.

I guess I'll just have to wait until the reviews are out to learn if this is a see or skip film.

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Today has been a genuine mixed bag..

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 22:28:35 GMT

Cold and windy out today, and I swear, when I went to go get the mail a little while ago it was trying to snow. We had the first fire of the season last night and I burned one all day today. That was actually pretty nice.

I borked a recipe for chocolate gingerbread cookies out of the King Arthur Flour catalogue. That was disappointing, but not a total loss, because I figured out I could put the dough in mini-muffin tins and when they collapsed, the middles could be filled with Nutella or flavoured buttercream, or something. Crunchy, chocolate, gingerbread dessert cups!

The loaf of chedder tomato bread I made turned out quite well though, yay for that. I finally figured out it's the 1.5 pound loaf that our new bread machine is optimised for. The one pound loaf wasn't bad, but the two pound loaf left me scratching my head trying to figure out the best way to cut sandwich slices. I have to wonder if those engineers in the Cuisinart kitchen even took that into consideration? (Although, it does mix the ingredients quite nicely.)

I need to write up a post about how Law and Order: UK is the equivalent of macaroni and cheese in terms of being mental comfort food, but that's going to have to wait for another day.

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Is DCI Chandler a good detective?

Sun, 28 Oct 2012 23:27:13 GMT

I've just finished watching the 3rd series of Whitechapel. I get that they were sort of forced to find a reason to hang on to the Ed Buchan character because he's the link to the history of the Whitechapel area and was a pivotal character in the first and second series. But DI Chandler's reason for bringing him into the fold was if they look to the past crimes in Whitechapel that will give them a lead on the crimes they're currently investigating.

As a broad theory, that's true enough. Certain types of criminals do have patterns, otherwise profiling wouldn't be such an important tool. But the idea that if some murderer used a particular poison in the 1800's then a killer in 2012 will have the exact same motivation and pattern seems a bit of a stretch. (although it does give them a chance to witter on about those historical crimes, and many of them are darned interesting.)

Getting back to Chandler though. He's not a detective, not really, although he's now working as one. He was fast tracked through the Met to be a politician. Until his 'disgrace' over the failure of the New Jack the Ripper case he was destined for great things. He hasn't done the street time necessary to develop his instincts the way his Sgt or any of the people working under him have. Presumably, most of the advanced coursework he's done has been in managing investigations rather than the nuts and bolts of investigative work itself.

Could it be said that because he doesn't have a detective's imagination he's using Bucham and the archive as a crutch until he can develop skills he lacks?
Will he find the confidence to think for himself in the coming fourth series?

I wonder these things because Chandler is such an antithesis of the stock television DI. He's not seasoned. He's not really suited for the job. He apparently loves his work, and he's a very dedicated officer, but he's just not cut from the same cloth as a Luther or even a Barnaby.

I find Whitechapel an enormously entertaining television series. But it's not seamlessly constructed, although it is (evidently from the commentary) extensive researched. But listening to Chandler rationalise his hiring of Ed Buchan really made me scratch my head.

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Hello Post

Sun, 28 Oct 2012 22:57:09 GMT

Hello, you've reached bees_rambles. There's not much to see right now because I've been journaling at LJ as beesandbrews. If it's posts on cooking, gardening, random observations on television and books you're looking for then this is the place. If you're looking for fanfic, then it's dw user bees_stories you're looking for.

Feel free to friend me. If you're an active or semi-active poster, I'll likely friend you back.

Hey flist over on LJ: Look! New journal. I'll be crossposting until my paid membership runs out and/or LJ institutes this new 'upgrade' they've got on the horizon, at which point I suppose I'll jump ship entirely.

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