So, I could happily wipe out the seven intervening episodes, but I'm quite into both 9.01 'Savior' and 9.09 'Pandora'.

( cut for thoughts )

A miracle occurred! I watched an episode of Smallville Season 9 and enjoyed it! :D :D :D :D

Yes, Pandora. \o/ I didn't love it, but I enjoyed it, and I may even have Things to Say about it. When I can wipe the grin off my face and compose them...

Woot! Yay for me! I think this is the first ep since 9.1 that I haven't found predominantly excruciating.

Let me guess? Fandom hated it, right? LOL.

I really suck at life balance. I lurch from prioritising one thing totally over all else to prioritising something else completely... for six months or so it was work, and then a month ago I realised that the rest of my life had fallen into ruin, so now I'm on a 'get fit/healthy, get organised, get a life back' kick. Who knows if I can strike a balance at any stage?

Anyway, I'm struggling to fit fandom in, in either case, and am falling ever more hopelessly 'behind'. There are so many things I could or should be doing and I am not doing... sigh. I have lots to post about at the moment (had I the time!) so this is going to be one of those terrible, catch-all, catch-up posts... that won't really catch me up very far at all! :p

First up... Smallville. ( cut for description of where I'm at with it emotionally after 9.8 )

I went to see the new Twilight movie for the LOLZ. ( and they were bountiful (spoilers) )

Watched Friday Night Lights 4.4, ( cut for brief spoilers )

I did watch the Doctor Who special but found it too OTT.

I'm up to speed with Dexter but it's been patchy all season for me.

Community continues to please me. Abed and Troy's duet FTW this week.

Have read a few good books and have several more I want to get to! Wish I had time to natter about them. Hmm. Wishlists are going round, yes? Wave a magic wand for more time for me? :D

So ages ago I floated the idea of an informal vidding gathering in Australia. Somewhat more organised plans are now in motion, thanks to nushanakt. At the moment the plan looks like this:

an open-ended gathering of vidders, AMVers, remixers, etc (or fans thereof), to be held end of November/start of December 2010 in Wollongong (or possibly Sydney)

( more details/ideas therein )

I realise it's very early days for people to actually commit to attending. Details of costs, travel, etc will follow. But here's a very, very preliminary poll

Poll #1486903 Aus/NZ vidding convention
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 16

I would be interested in:

Know someone who might want to attend? Send them this way! Feedback welcomed on all points, although please understand that comments such as 'should be in Alice instead!' may have limited support. ;) (If I was in Alice, I'd want it there too, but hey we need to find some sort of compromise or this will never happen, yes?)

Friday Night Lights has returned! I still can't quite take it in, so much so that I forgot to post about the first couple of episodes. Making up for lost time! ( you've lost your inner pirate )

In other news, signed up for festivids and am excited to get my assignment! :)

This week's vid chat is hosted by heresluck, and the topic is creative growth. As always, all vid fans and vidders are welcome to participate. Please join us at her journal!

Title: Capital G
Fandom: True Blood, Eric/Godric
Artist: NIN
Warnings: very graphic violence, sexual themes, amorality, death, vampirism, Vikings
Spoilers: for Season 2
Access vid: via direct download (50MB) or streaming at YouTube or BAM or Blip
Thanks: to supacat for bringing her A-game

( cut for embedded video )

Vidding chats return! :) For those of you new to them, you can check out previous chats here.

This week's topic is visualising effects and it is co-moderated by lim. We'd really love this chat to function as a kind of shared workshop, with people sharing ideas with each other. So if you have a track out there that you're working with or considering working with and would like some shared brainstorming, share it with us here!

Below is an introduction from each of us.

From lim:
( an introduction to visualisation )

From Bop:
( welcome back and encouragement thoughts )

ETA: Update! We shall relaxedly be attempting to make some things resulting from the conversations herein over the next week or so... we encourage anyone who wants to to try making something (for example "haze on the sand" or "red/green blur") and share it. I promise to handhold for anyone who fears their effects thing may look unintentionally tragic. :) We're just playing, yes? :)

Sorry I haven't been posting much. I've been struggling with things a bit, personally, and I always go recluse-y when that happens. So, don't feel shy to send me links to anything you think I should not have missed (self-pimpage welcome , as always).

Anyway, it may not have gone unnoticed to some of you that I've not been posting about Smallville. Ahem. Yes. There are two problems:
1. Friday nights in the US is Saturday here, and that means it's a lot harder to coordinate a watching time with supacat (no, I cannot watch it without her: just no), and so I'm a week behind everyone else (which has also meant I've missed the meta :().
2. I'm not loving this season. ( cut for very, very brief description of issues which do NOT include anything to do with 9.6 and if you spoil me for that ep I will smite you )

In other television, Community continues to charm me every week. ( brief squee for 1.7 )

I have mixed feelings about Dexter. ( cut for spoilers up to 4.5 )

In perhaps shameful news, I have been converted to the Vampire Diaries despite the odds! (i.e. despite the stalking) It's so cheesey, but I have such low expectations for it that I am constantly delighted when something even mildly surprising happens. And Ian Somerhalder is having such a good time in his role it's hard not to join him in that joy.

Finally, I've been (shock!) somewhat enjoying Dollhouse! Yeah, I'm surprised too. ( cut for brief explanation )

Friday Night Lights is back!! Not much to say about it yet but I'm happy. *hugs it close*

So my one week holiday from Melbourne turned into a couple of weeks away from Livejournal. When I got back, all my online time went into writing commentaries for vid_commentary. Speaking of which, it's quite the commentary explosion there at the moment. And now that I'm finished mine I get to READ/WATCH OTHER PEOPLE's. \o/ \o/ *throws streamers around* I CAN'T WAIT.

acridnym wrote an incredible commentary for Clint Eastwood which has allowed me to achieve ZEN about it at last. (My own blatherings on it are here.)

And I got to write a commentary for 45 by bananainpjyamas, and I am proud to say achieved unprecedented levels of non-hatred for Bill Adama. (Aside: Does anyone else have the thing after writing a commentary of someone else's vid that it makes them want to watch it even more times?! You'd think watching a vid 100+ times for commmentary purposes would max you out, but nooooooooo! The opposite seems to happen for me: regardless of how much I liked it before, it rockets up my 'most likely to watch when have a random few mins to kill' list after writing about it.) Dragonchic's own commentary is here and it has cute graphics and vidding formulas!

Less excitingly, I made my first audio commentary: for Middleman. Quite honestly, I'm never likely to make one again. It was sort of hell and I got to say way less than I would have liked, which is pretty funny seeing I struggled to cut it to under 18 minutes. Sigh. I need to work on that tl;dr (or is it tl;dl?) thing. Dragonchic, I envy you your succinctness: I guess 'chic' isn't in your name for nothing. ;)

Other vidding-related announcement: vidding chats will recommence in November. The first chat, the weekend of 7-8 November, will be hosted in my journal but co-moderated by lim and it will be on visualising effects. (Seriously, you would be mad to miss that!)
The weekend of 14-15 November, heresluck will host a chat on creative growth.
The following weekend, 21-22 Nov, I'll host one on audience.
And I have several other chats almost confirmed--hopefully there will be one a week up until Xmas!

Reminder: Suggestions for topics gratefully received (from anyone!) here and sign-ups eagerly pounced on here.

So what did I miss? How is everyone? Chillaxed? I will be very grateful to anyone who links me to Stuff I Probably Wish I Hadn't Missed (vids released? important personal newses of friends? lolarious things?).

I have watched a lot of TV (duh!) and will post on that soon, no doubt.

Skipping town for a week. See you on the flip!

To the many people who told me to suck it up and watch Dollhouse... thanks! I actually enjoyed that ep as much as I've enjoyed any episode of Dollhouse. ( cut for brief thoughts, since I feel I owe my f'list that after the counselling session (spoilers for 2.1) )

In other news, I watched the first episode of Community and am completely charmed! ( cut, but not very spoilery--just squee )

And I've been reading! Joining the BSG crowd in reading Hunger Games (thanks, Tara!). ( cut for thoughts on the first book including the shipper issue )

So... confession... I can't bring myself to watch Jamie in Dollhouse. I'm totally nailbiting about it. I was so upset when he got cast because the idea of watching him play a misogynist makes me shudder... he's a really good actor, I'm sure he'll carry it off, and I just really don't know if I can deal with that. *is a massive emotional coward*

So, people that know me well? Will it make Bop :((? (do NOT tell me how hot he is, my f'list is managing to convey that quite nicely already and it's still not enough to make me watch it...)

Sigh. It's so much easier to watch him in Law and Order. *missing my Matt/Alesha*

In other news... *glances at f'list* ... WOW that is a lot of wank! I'd forgotten what it was like when the shows are actually on. ;) But even BSG is still bringing the wank. Amazing! Still, SV scoops the wank awards as usual... bless.

ETA: Lots of spoilers for Dollhouse 2.1 in the comments.

Eeeee, it's back! In all its confusing, flawed glory! And now with bonus really bad green lighting.

( cut for the new-style light, fluffy, meta-free review )

Obligatory pre-Season 9 squee. ( cut for the shortest response on my f'list to this meme because I have NO TIME )

And now I must flee LJ before I get spoiled.

This post has a sneaky double purpose. It is the long-owed meta post I promised talitha78 on her masterpiece talitha78's That's Not My Name but it doubles as some pre-season-9 reflections on Smallville and, most importantly, Clark Kent. ( cut for a lot of gushy Clark love )

Thank you to everyone who left suggestions for vidding chat topics. Anyone may leave suggestions there at any time.

My plan for hosting is quite simple and mostly consists of me making puppy eyes at anyone willing to do so. ( here's the lowdown on what hosting a vid chat involves ) Any/all pimpage and promotion gratefully received.

<b>ETA:</b> Sorry, I'm unco with Rich Text. And if you have any questions at all, let me know!

I am going to post on vid chat hosting next, PROMISE. Meantime, a reminder that any and all suggestions for topics of vid chats are welcome any time here. Non-vidders are also welcome to leave topic suggestions--it'd be great to have some viewer-centric chats too, I think!

Work is kicking my ass and I am chatty so short break to post about random new favourite things:
1. Blue streaks in my hair. So fun! (More subtle than they sound, promise: they're on underlayers and just peak out sometimes.)
2. Bollywood classes. We're learning a routine to Chaliya Chaliya from Tashan (except thankfully not in bikinis)
3. A book that made me cry! First one in years. The Knife of Never Letting Go... it's young adult fiction but it has 'fuck off, kidlets!' marketing for a reason. Very, very dark, but very cool. Don't read it in public, as I did. I'm a little nervous to start the second book in case a) it's anywhere near as tense or b) it's a letdown.

In other news, I've flunked another fandom... ( Read more... )

I watched the first eps of Twilight Vampire Diaries and Glee and I have ( these things to say )

And now sadly I must edit some more...

Thank you to everyone who voted and offered feedback about vidding chats. You are still welcome to do so here as it's all useful feedback. However, I've settled on a plan for now.

I'm opting not to set up a comm for now based largely on:
- people saying they would be as likely to participate wherever it was held
- me having a terrible track record with comms
- a few people saying they'd be more hesitant or quiet in comms.
Instead, I'm going to co-ordinate them from here but people will host in their own journals. Thank you to the people who said they might be willing to host (in the poll): I'm hoping you will be as willing to do so in your own journals as in a comm. Either way, I will put a post up about hosting sign-ups later this weekend.

Which brings us to topics. ( Great Big Topic Collection Post )