(no subject)

been following quotes and links for Ethan information

found

http://storyteller.psubrat.net/author/savvy/writercon04/
She absolutely believes that Giles and Ethan had some kind of sexual history together. As she put it, “Come on, they both went to public school!”

which seemed a tad bit stereotypical to me
so I went looking for related evidence
found a Guardian article about people's experience in public school. Is interesting.

Highlander convention progress

HLWW7, March 10th to March 12th, 2006

kind of snuck up on me

I forgot to book a room. Available rooms went expensive. But now I found a room to share :) *waves at roomshare person checking my LJ to see if how crazy I am*

I know the trains run quite often. I should check that again closer to the time. Possibly even book in advance, though that means showing up at a particular time.

Haven't packed yet. Have a month. Am starting to decide what to wear. General theme of 'red', partly for fannish affiliation reasons, partly because that is the stuff that got cleaned lately. Well, some of it was. Some I'll have to dig out.

I will be bringing my 'Richie's swimming in the River Denial' t-shirts with me. I have a bazillion left. I'll be giving them away free to a good home. I'm not sure if they'll all go even then...
They've been in the corner of my room since *Chron99*. Is getting a bit ridiculous.

I'll also have to reassemble the Highlander folder. Bits of it are in the Stargate folder, from last time there was a convention with PW at.

I realised my PWFC membership lapsed, er, quite some time ago. "Hi, I used to be in your fan club!" being a less than stellar introduction, I rejoined last night. :)

MTAS is much easier to stay in. Just hang out on the mailing list. And also I'm only in it because they had the room party at Homeland 98, which was fun (there were Dragons. Also rats. I don't *think* the rats dissolved in the dragons...).

I'm nearly done rewatching Highlander. On the last season. Should be able to get through the rest this month. Even with all the sociology reading I'm suddenly doing.

I've got a regular ticket instead of a front six rows, because its only a small convention anyway, and I really don't mind how far back I am. I also booked for the meal with entertainment on Saturday night. If previous hotel menus are anything to go by there wont actually be anything edible in the 'meal' component. I could maybe try find out about that. Vegetarian / no dairy is a teensy bit difficult to feed off most menus. I can eat breakfast - baked beans, scrambled eggs, mushrooms, hash browns - but other meals tend to have more cheese.

I've been thinking about the Highlander cons I've been to before, and I've realised this con will be a quite different experience, simply because I'm much much much better at doing stuff lately. I haven't fainted for ages. Is very cool.


I'm trying to decide if I should costume. I mean I usually costume, but this is a new con culture and I hear they're costumeless in general. I have the boots I wore for my Rebecca costume before (brown boots, green dress, red waistcoat - it weren't a terribly accurate costume) but they made my toes go numb so I'm not keen to wear them again. She wore some nice stuff, but getting it together at this point would be not easy. And it is all outside my usual colors. Black, red, purple, blue, and some rainbows. That is what I have.

If I get a red waistcoat I can dress in mostly black and be Duncan. I've got the hair tie to go with it. Being Duncan in a Clan Denial outfit would be vaguely ironic.
I think if I get a purple waistcoat I can call myself Amanda.
I have a very dark red velvet, a white waistcoat, some grey stripes, a blue tie dye, a rainbow tie dye, a white with gold fleur de lys, and a purple with little shiny mirrors. So I'd have to shop for a new one.
Which would actually be fun.
Except for the 'going out' component, which I'm not terribly good at.

I think the red waistcoat idea is the most cost and time effective one.

I can bring my velvets and corset and shiny bits and see how other people dress.

I'm going to get my hair redone, the very red and black look. Put the shiny silver triangle hair tie in and I think that'll look pretty good.

plan! yaays!
pre-convention bouncy can commence :)

Sociology textbook, media, concentration of ownership

from Haralambos & Holborn "Sociology themes and perspectives" shiny new sixth edition

p836, Concentration of ownership

Bagdikian (1997) has pointed out that if each of the USA's daily newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations and book publishers were owned by separate individuals, there would be 25,000 owners. In fact, only ten corporations dominate ownership of daily newspapers, magazines, broadcast and cable television, books and films.

There is much evidence to suggest that the process of monopolization described by Marx has taken place in the media industry. Accordint to Bagdikian, in the 1980s there were 50 dominant media corporatons in the USA, and at that time they tended to concentrate on one medium only. By 1990 the number had fallen to 23; by 1997 it was 10. Mergers and acquisitions continue, so that by the early years of the twenty-first century we can expect even fewer to dominate.

***

Bagdikian has a website which talks about 5 or 6 corporations now basically being the boss of all that.

I realised the few had much, but I didn't know it was *that* few.

Elsewhere it says that Rupert Murdoch reckons his company's satellite and TV channels can reach three quarters of the world's population.

That's just very strange.

Internet has many talking to many, or at least potentially many.
Suddenly I'm very glad there is internet.

*continues reading*


all their big examples seem to be about *US* media corporations. Where are the UK connections? Okay, they mentioned Sky, but surely its more relevant to a UK A-level student who owns sundry channels etc here?
Yes, its a lot of the same companies. But surely that should be pointed out explicitly rather than leaving paragraphs full of NBC and CBS and I'm sorry but I never bothered to learn the differences because I have to download it all anyway.


Chapter also says the future of media is in downloads for money.
Which, okay, the companies really hope so. But downloads *without* money are proving rather persistent too.

*goes back to read more of huge textbook of doom*



also, to be clear about their interests, it should say somewhere who owns the textbook. Like, H&H wrote it, Collins publish it, who owns they? Anyones?
Maybe it says somewhere else in the book.

(no subject)

note to self: if you can't remember when you last ate, the answer should become 'now'.
yes, even if the textbook is intersting.

*facepalm*

Highlander season 5: Little Tin God

Lots of stuff about faith and belief and illusion and how belief shapes perception and action.

Also we find out that while it is physically possible for Immortals to attack en masse and on holy ground, following through to Quickening may well be a very bad idea (volcano day)(now has plot bunnies involving Captain Jack Harkness on a self cleaning con somehow having something to do with that fight).

Actually this episode has so much thought up front in the text I don't really feel the need to write about it.

I do like the 'what does it take to be a god' bit. Ba'al on Stargate had something to say on the topic too. What *does* it take? Well it very much depends on your definition of God. But, since this 'little tin god' guy didn't actually protect his people in the ways he claimed, he fell short even by his own standards.


This season maybe has an arc leading up to Archangel. I've never seen it, but I'm getting that feeling. Dealing with fallout with Richie, the nightmares. Illusions of the dead. Gods and devils.

Mac in this episode always wearing red. (Convenient - I have a red shirt. My long black coat is actually a long blue coat, but close enough. Or I could order a new one. The blue does have a button shortage.) Devil red on him and 'pure' white on the fake guy. Fun.

I liked that church they were singing in. I'm used to churches that are stone and around since the middle ages, but they have all these pretty bits and it can be a bit distracting. Church is the people in it really.

I'm thinking its slightly odd that Mac sent the kid off to study with Mr I-used-to-be-a-slave-grrrrr. I mean the guy had major legal troubles just lately, does he really need a student right now? Its like the writers think black people should all go together all tidy.
*shrugs*
Issues.

Interesting ep. Follows through on the Immortal thing into interesting places.