Also, This Is My Unofficial 100th Post. I Hereby Demand Unofficial Confetti.

Just so you know, I have officially given up on Heroes. It has broketh my heart far too many times now, and has become so utterly crap that I cannot even recognize it anymore. The first half of season 3 alone contained enough suckage to poison the earth five times over, and I have no intention of following the rest of Season 3;Part Two (Volume Four) or whatever it is they're calling it these days. Pretentious arses. My main Issues with the show are as follows:


a. NOBODY EVER DIES. Or stays DEAD.
b. I have stopped caring for the old characters. And not one of the new characters have succeeded in impressing me, not since Adam Munroe (and they had to kill him,like really truly actually kill him to death, out of everyone else. Bastards).
c. Zero focus in storytelling. I have no clue as to what the plot is anymore. Or if there is one. I think they accidentally blew up all The Good Shit along with Peter's epic nuclear explosion in Season 1 . These days it's like they just throw in as many characters and ominous, pointless "twists" as possible to make it all look Epic and Awesome and hope I don't notice that it's all one giant load of turdyness.
d. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired of all the various breeds of monumental suckage this show now contains.

Heroes, thou art unceremoniously dumped. Not even letting Milo Ventimiglia grow his hair back is going to change my mind at this point.

And so the BAP has nothing left to watch on the telly. I haven't seen hide or tail of The Office or Supernatural or Doctor Who, I have no interest in Lost, 24, Ugly Betty or any one of the infinite versions of CSI floating around, I watch Lipstick Jungle only to annoy myself (but don't worry, I do it on purpose;being righteously grumpy is such a rewarding emotion sometimes) and Skins is unfortunately a no-no unless I'm prepared to lip-read that as well. Then along comes a little BBC-produced show called Merlin, which is all about, well, Merlin. Duh. We are currently about 4 episodes into the whole thing, and I'm trying to decide whether or not it is too soon or too unwise to surrender my Time and Heart and Mind and Fangirl Parts to another show that really isn't anywhere near as fabulous as Heroes was when it first started.

It all begins when a young, naive, magical, jug-eared Merlin is sent to the kingdom of Camelot to be mentored by the court physician, Gaius, and once there he proceeds to develop crushes on every remotely attractive young lady he comes across, including one very massive Man-Crush on Prince Arthur, whom we initially see as a Big Fat Blond Bully but is later revealed to be just a Big Fat Sentimental Woobie with Daddy Issues. And then the Great Giant Cryptic-Shit Talking Dragon comes along and tells Merlin stuff like "you and Arthur are two sides of the same coin blah blah blah blah" I swear to god I am not making it all up this show totally exists, dudes.

Thinky Thoughts Regarding The First 4 Episodes of BBC One's Merlin

1. Historical and mythological accuracy need to be chucked out the proverbial window. All you though you knew about Arthurian legend has to be totally and utterly defenestrated. The only way this show even slightly resembles traditional Arthuresque lore is if you stand on one leg, tilt your head to the right, close one eye and squint at it with the other. And I'm talking serious, super hard squinting here.
In this version of events, Guinevere is a servant girl who has the hots for Merlin, who is the same age as Arthur, who actually grew up having his father, King Uther around, who is the guardian of Morgan la Fey, who apparently has no blood relations with the Pendragon family whatsoever, thus leaving the door wide open for some level of socially acceptable sexual tension with her pseudo-brother, Arthur. Also, she seems like a really nice, fiercely independent girl who doesn't look as though she's about to turn into an evil biatch who ties Merlin to a tree. All these liberties naturally infuriated me, of course, but I suppose the good thing here is that the writers have quite gleefully turned Camelotology entirely on its head, so you really have no way of predicting what happens next.
The historical inaccuracies don't really bug me at all, although I am just a tad bothered by the way all the signs and notices around the kingdom are printed in perfectly understandable modern English. I'd prefer the funky ancient version of spelling stuff, y'know. Like, "Here Be Ye Olde Eville Witch's Laire". Or something.

2. Overall production quality is mediocre at best. The special effects are somewhat meh, but still tolerable (thank you, Doctor Who and your impossibly ridiculous aliens). The sets look too much like sets, and there is no sense of being transported back to ancient magical times. The writing is okay; the banter between Merlin and Arthur is always quick and witty and natural and adolescent enough to keep me grinning like a darned fool. The villains are as cheesy as they come, and to date they have always been scantily-clad and darkly attractive witch-women who spout cheesy villain dialogue like "YOU SHALL PAY!" and "AN EYE FOR AN EYE! A SON FOR A SON!".

3. The characterization. It's actually quite a spiffy idea to make both Merlin and Arthur young and angsty and far closer in age than they have any right to be. Face it, even I wouldn't want to watch another show depicting Merlin as an eccentric old geezer and Arty as a snot-nosed lonesome little orphan. I'd read it, yes (check out the very fabulous Sword In The Stone by T.H White, one of the saddest and funniest and most nonsensical books ever written in the history of forever) but I wouldn't want to watch it.
And I really like this version of the legendary sorceror. He's energetic and impulsive and naive and horny and just a little bit thick, with an innate sense of fairness and justice. He sees beauty in the simplest things, and he's bright and bouncy and cheery and dorky and adorable and Colin Morgan is an absolute cutie. Also, when he does magic, his eyes totally glow golden, dudes.
Arthur on the other hand, is an arrogant ass of pomposity, whose princely conquests are catalysed more by pride and bull-headedness as opposed to any noble or chivalrous motives, and he also has a particular fondness for bullying lesser mortals. But later on we slowly discover that the dude is in fact an essentially decent, soft-hearted woobie of a fellow trapped within the restrictions and requirements of his bloodline and position as heir to the throne. Not to mention the fact that he carries within him a great deal of Emotional Effed-upness, Macho Man Pain and Daddy Issues roughly the size of Avalon. Also, Bradley James is really hot, despite his wonky teeth.


The great acting and fabulous chemistry between Colin Morgan and Bradley James help make up for the mediocrity of everything else. Arthur and Merlin ,in this show's context, are supposed to be soulmates y'know. But I'm not sure if the writers intentionally..well, intended to make all the gay subtext quite so blatant. I am not even kidding you. If Merlin were a girl people would be expecting him and Arthur to be full-on making out by the second episode. The Epic Gayness of their relationship is undeniable, folks. And the Great Giant Cryptic-Shit Talking Dragon is always more than happy to fly around once in a while to add on to the already pretty heavy homoerotic undertones. Sam and Dean Winchester ain't got nothing on these two.
But don't worry. It's still a family show and all. You'd have to be a certain level of Filthy to pick that sort of stuff out.


4. The Pretty.
Two very unconventionally good-looking, but still hot, leads.


It's FABULOUS that they actually cast a guy with Epically Crooked Front Teeth to portray the Once And Future King, and presumably did not even insist on him having those wonky teeth fixed beforehand. Of course, orthodontistry probably wasn't too high on their budget list, but still. The crooked molars, they grow on me.
And having a dude with massive jug ears play Merlin? Plus giving him a bowl cut to emphasize the juggedness of said ears? Come on. Too adorable, I tell you.


Also, Katie McGrath kinda looks like a fiercer version of Kiera Knightley. Cue BAP's Girl Crush. And we have Santiago Cabrera, biotches, previously of the Heroes alumni, until Sylar impaled him the floor of his studio with the poor man's own paintbrushes and ate his brain. Purdy.

All in all, I think I'll give this show a chance. Heck, I've already blogged about it, no? I'm pretty much a goner by this point. I also welcome any suggestions for TV shows or movies or books or music or anything that will help fill the Heroes-shaped hole in my soul. If you need me, I'll be crouched in that dark corner over there, clutching the Heroes Season Uno DVD box set to my chest and pretending that seasons 2 and 3 never happened. And here, have another dose of Once And Future Royalty.


Aw shut up. He's a very attractive dude.

You Always Objectify The Ones You Love

I haven't fangirled properly in ages (and I do mean ages; the days of Jake seem like centuries ago) and I really feel like it right now, so it is only right for you all to indulge me for a while. In fact, I fear that I may even be a little out of practice.
The subject of today's pursuits of shameless fangirlyness (the best kind, I'll have you know) is one James Edward Franco, the Epitome of several types of Awesomeness, and very much on the edge of the brink of being Jake's replacement. The following doses of Fluff, Superficiality, Pretty and Shameless Objectification are especially dedicated to Graceface (the only other human I know who seems to find the man as attractive as I do) and B.Rach (who fell disgustingly in love with him last Wednesday afternoon in roughly 46 seconds flat). So. Here be the fangirling.

Behold; The Franco


1. The Lips
Probably the part of his body I am fixated on the most. The dude's mouth, it is sinful. I could spend forever watching him talk, even on mute (which is kinda what I've been forced to do, thanks to the fact that this computer is too frakking old even to have speakers fixed to it), but it doesn't matter, because I really don't need to hear what he's saying. Everything he utters will undoubtedly be of geniusical proportions, but if I have to watch him while he waxes intellectual, it will really be quite a waste of his energy. Because I will not be paying attention. Sorry, bro.

2. The Smile
Ladies and gentlefolk, only a true Dork could possibly have a grin that huge. Seriously. It is huge and life-affirming and hilariously dorkish. And you know I happen to love me some dorks of the sexy variety.

3. The Funny
Hosting SNL, Pineapple Express, Acting With James Franco and this, just to make a few points. I dunno, but this Franco person may just actually perhaps possibly conceivably be a rather humorous fellow.


Ugh. His Prettyness has no business being on a crap show like SNL.

4. The Redundant-But-Very-Hot Gucci For Gucci Ad
Come on. Thirty seconds of James Franco broodingly brooding in a very broodish manner all over some swanky hotel with dramatic shadows flitting across the walls? And in black and white? GUH.

5. The Off-The-Charts IQ
I have mentioned before that it would be virtually impossible for me to seriously fangirl over a person, male or female, without at least the slightest bit of appreciation for their intellectual capacity. (Yes there is such a thing as serious fangirling). The Franco surpasses even my own standards in this department. He reads Tolstoy and Joyce, he is pursuing two masters degrees at two different universities simul-effing-taneously, he is taking a grand mind-boggling total of 62 subjects including terribly sexy ones like 20th Century American Literature and he's about to publish a novel he wrote himself, which Grace and I shall purchase by the dozens and tear the pages out to wallpaper our bedrooms with and save a copy for reading in the toilet or something. I have never wanted to shag a guy based on his brainpower alone this much before, and yes it helps that he is hot and funny and obviously does not take himself all too seriously. It dulls the impact of what would otherwise be a highly intimidating brand of intelligence. And yeah, you could say that his celebrity status ensures that university administration boards are all bending over backwards to tweak rules for him and bring him special treatment on gilded platters, and they probably do, for all we know. But the dude seems to actually want to go back to school and take truckloads of subjects nobody ever really needs or uses in real life. And a thirst for knowledge is one thing you cannot fake, however rich you are. Or however gorgeous.


6. The Artsy-Fartsy
The dude reads obscure, high-brow literature, and paints, and writes poetry, and helps pimp artists and authors nobody has ever heard of, and he sings (do not deny the ABBA) and probably secretly composes nocturnes and sculpts marble and makes wood carvings and charcoal portraits. Blindfolded. Hanging upside down. Using his teeth.

7. The Cheekbones
Have you seen 'em? You could bloody grate cheese on those things, I tell you.


8. The James Dean-esqueness
James Dean was one bad ass cool mofo, and the guy who played him in a movie and won an award for it to boot has to be just as, or at least right up there in the same range of bad assery as Dean himself. Ergo, James Franco is one bad ass cool mofo.



9. The Talent
DUH. I mean, boy can act his purdy face off. When he's choosing the right scripts, naturally. However much I may adore him, I cannot really call him one of my favourite actors quite yet, simply because almost everything he made prior to that stoner flick and Milk was kinda crappy. Have you all even heard of Flyboys? Meh.


10. The Girlfriend
Ahna O'Reilly does not annoy me in the slightest. Seriously. Despite her blondness and skinniness and disgustingly close proximity to the object of my affections, I have absolutely nothing against her. She just seems so nice and lovely and not-to-be-messed-with, all at the same time.


11. The Broodishness

He has the art of brooding down to a science. Or the science of brooding down to an art. Whichever way you look at it, dude's got it down.


12. Saul Silver
Awesomest. Stoner. EVER. And I haven't even watched the whole of Pineapple Express yet.


13. The Pretty


Yeah. Now, this is the part where I talk about what a great personality he has. Seriously.


What? I only objectify him because I respect him. That's all.








14. The Rogen


The chemistry Franco has with Seth Rogen is so FABULOUS, it is literally beyond comprehension. When they are together, they become hotter, sexier, funnier, dorkier, smarter and all-round Awesomer versions of themselves. Oh boys! Stop being so adorable and announce the engagement already.


15. The Blackbook Article

Greatest interview in the history of forever. Amen.

16. The Bad-Boy-Ishness

For goodness' sake, look at him. He's making the very naughty and bad-for-your-health act of smoking seem like pretty much the sexiest shit on earth! If that's not a rottenly bad example, I don't know what is. Also, he's an insomniac who forgets to shave. Oh how do mere females resist?
(And B.Rach, that shot up there, that's for you)

In conclusion, James Edward Franco = God.
Or, you know. Something roughly along those lines. Please, thank you and amen.

I'm A Part-Time Meme Hijacker. Watch Me Grab It And Run.

Nobody tagged me for this, which is fine, because memes are always more fascinating when you're not under obligation to take part.

"Think of 25 albums that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life or the way you looked at it. They sucked you in and took you over for days, weeks, months, years. These are the albums that you can use to identify time, places, people, emotions. These are the albums that no matter what they were thought of, they musically shaped your world. They stood up, they lasted, they mattered. They still matter, in some way (even if only in memory). "

Right. Before I start, I'll have you all know that
a. I'm barely two decades old, so there probably hasn't been much room for musical profundity, really.
b. You probably won't find anything on my list that was released before 1996.
c. I make no apologies for any album on said list which may contain unforgivable levels of suckage.
d. I will not be tagging anyone, as usual.
e. This will probably be really long, considering that it combines two of my fave things ever ; music and talking about myself.

Here Be The Life-Affirming Musical Profundity (in no particular order):

1. A Rush Of Blood To The Head - Coldplay


Yeah. Coldplay. Apparently well on the way to becoming the next perennially bloated U2, so I've heard. But A Rush Of Blood To The Head will forever stand as a testament to Coldplay at their best ; halfway between the acoustic sentimentality of Parachutes and the anthemic, ambitious, pretentious shit of X&Y. And it would be impossible to forget the year in which Amsterdam became my Emo Anthem of Emo-ness (because I was a pathetic emo mess at age 14 ). And it remains my strongest piece of evidence that these guys are at the peak of perfection when singing about primary colours and shady Dutch capital cities.

2. Takk - Sigur ros

This one is pretty darn nostalgic in a lot of ways. It constituted a large portion of the first mixed CD I ever received, it was the first album I ever got as a gift, a review of it was in the first copy of Galaxie I ever purchased, it contains the one song that made me tear up the first time I heard it, and most importantly, it was the reason for my discovering that my Life's Ultimate Purpose is to stuff music down people's proverbial throats whether they liked it or not.

3. Debt & Departure - Those Bastard Souls

Debt & Departure remains special in the sense that I discovered it pretty much on my own ;no assistance from radio, TV, the Internet, music mags or even word of mouth. It was just there, lying at the bottom of a stack of old CDs in a dusty, mouldy, cockroach-infested cupboard. I decided to give it a spin, just for fun, and fell in love practically on the spot. It wouldn't be years later until I discovered the album's very impressive credentials, namely the fact that most of the band members were stray wanderers from Jeff Buckley's original posse, and that it was considered one of the best albums of the 90s. Not that any of it matters,really.

4. Hopes And Fears - Keane


Hopes and Fears intruded upon my life when I was fourteenish, and proceeded to enable a lot of my early adolescent emo phasing. Somewhere Only We Know played on pretty much a constant loop on my head, especially when I was at school, where I would gaze wistfully out the window at the trees outside and imagine Tim's (or is it Tom's?) voice soaring through the leaves. Keane will never be as good as this, which is probably a mean thing to say. Oh well.

5. Begin To Hope - Regina Spektor



It was late 2006, and we were doing this super huge makeover on the house, and this was the only thing we listened to during our back-breaking 12 hour painting sessions, until even my mom was singing along to the "ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-heart" chorus in Fidelity.
In fact, the smell of paint still makes me think of that song. Aww.

6. Paint The Sky With Stars - Enya

Shut up.
Enya rocks.

7. Life For Rent - Dido


You know those albums you've listened to so many times that every note of every instrument has practically seared itself into your brain? This would be one of them.
And shut up. Dido's awesome.

8. Hearing Voices - Will Ackerman

When I asked my dad to get me a copy of Takk from Tower Records, he went over there, completely mispronounced the band's name, and came home with this instead. Out of pure pissed-offness I decided to ignore the existence of Hearing Voices until my dad played it one day and I fell sickeningly in love with all the gorgeous guitars and vocals in languages I couldn't understand (Hebrew, Sanskrit and Italian to name a few). And I am a sucker for languages I cannot understand. Never have I been more grateful for my father's inability to say the word "Sigur ros".

9. Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not - Arctic Monkeys


I listened to Fake Tales of San Francisco on Grace's mp3 player on the bus while we were on a librarian field trip thing (remember them good old librarian days, dude? When we made Nerd-dom proud by laughing at obscure limericks in the Dictionary of Quotations, amongst other intellectual pursuits?). Prior to that field trip, I was of the opinion that the Arctic Monkeys were just some loud, pimply, brash English youngsters badly in need of elocution lessons. That bus ride changed my whole outlook on the band. They're still loud, brash, pimply, virtually unintelligible and English. But now I can love them for it.

10. The Collection/ Let It Rain - Tracy Chapman


How much I frakking adore this woman, I cannot even begin to describe. Also it's kind of cool to think that my mom used to listen to these songs on cassette tapes on the bus, on her way to work back when she was my age.

11. Logic Will Break Your Heart - The Stills


I went barking mad over these guys during what is referred to as "the beginnings of my indie phase". It's not exactly musically-groundbreaking stuff, but I can forgive its relative simplicity for the number of times it has kept me company during long, boring car journeys, mainly trying to figure what exactly the chorus to Gender Bombs says. Exceedingly cerebrally-stimulating activity, that.

12. In Rainbows - Radiohead

Yeah. I could have said something awesomer, like Kid A or OK Computer. But the reality is that the bulk of my Radioheaducation came in one massive dose, with no real distinction between time frames or albums. I could probably inform you rather well as to what song comes from which album, but it makes no actual difference to me (travesty, I know). In Rainbows marked the first time I could savour a Radiohead album on its own terms, at a time when I was both old and Radioheaducated enough to be aware of their awesomeness, and that's a pretty big deal to the BAP.

13. O - Damien Rice


This took over my life roughly around the time when I started rebelling against Catholicismess, the religion I was brought up with (with? in?) and asked too many questions nobody could answer and took the plunge into my own special brand of a weird sort of agnosticism and wrote a letter to my mother explaining all my issues because I could hardly have a face to face conversation with my folks about religion by that point without somebody being reduced to tears, and yeah. The last time in living memory that I made my mom cry. And O, despite really having nothing much to do with the Catholic faith really (except for Why'd you say hallelujah/ If it means nothing to ya) was sort of the only thing I listened to during those months. Nothing else was miserable enough, really.

14. He Poos Clouds - Final Fantasy


Seriously. Best album title ever. Final Fantasy was one of the first things I ever experimented with when it came to acquiring music on the Internet via blogs, and I remember being as amazed as heck that anybody could make songs like these off nothing more than ye olde violin. I'll profess love for almost anything under the sun if you toss some violin music in there, and He Poos Clouds was sort of like having a prayer answered at the time. For about 3 months I honestly was not the least bit concerned about the existence of any other musician on earth.
And imagine my delight when I found out how Pretty the guy is!

15. Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man OST - Various

I never really got into Leonard Cohen's original stuff much before, but the cover versions on this soundtrack album were like a drug. One listen and I was hooked. Everything from Nick Cave to the Wainwrights to Teddy Thompson to Beth Orton to Jarvis Cocker, it was all I played for maybe a month (until the new Sigur ros rolled along;because I am fickle like that) and my whole family have even picked out their funeral songs off this collection. Go buy this and guess which mine is.

16. Try!The John Mayer Trio Live In Concert - The John Mayer Trio


See, when John Mayer isn't being a massive jerk, he actually makes some pretty kickass music. These three kept me company on all those long, lonely nights I had to spend staying up with my History textbooks and all that manner of crap, cramming names and dates and facts into my head. And it was always History, for some reason. Mayer, Jordan and Palladino never seemed to get along with any other subject. Gentlemen, I thank thee all for the big fat A on my exam slip right next to "History".

17. Gold - ABBA

Shut up.
If you must know, my parents used to play this album every Sunday morning right after church when my mom would be making the only homecooked breakfast of the week. And I was like, 8 years old maybe. You could probably say I didn't know any better. But I told you I wasn't going to make any apologies.


18. Singles - Travis


It seems odd to place such a tragic event in association with the jangly happiness of Travis, but I bought and listened to Singles at a time when an acquaintance of mine from school died a particularly terrible death. I didn't know the person well at all, but everyone was so badly shaken up and in tatters over it that it was hard not to be affected by it, at least to some small degree. It got all of us pondering on mortality and how ridiculously, disgustingly young we truly were at the time, and to some of us it was even a rude shock, pertaining how very little time we actually had left and how unfair the universe could be when it felt like it. And also how some people live and love and accomplish more in 17 years than others ever will in 70.

19. Narrow Stairs - Death Cab For Cutie

Y'know back in the day, maybe a few months ago, when I hated school's guts and felt like throwing up even when thinking about it, blah blah blah? This album kept me sane. In all seriousness. Thanks, Grace.

20. Donnie Darko OST - Various


I mean like, duh. Greatest film soundtrack of all time. Of course it had a profound musical impact on my life or whatever it is that meme said it was! It was the first time I ever felt like the songs were an utterly indipensable part of the movie, that there was no way you could get the same viewing experience even if you changed the order of songs within the 120-odd minutes, let alone replace any of the tracks. Frakking work of geniusical art. I worship it. I do. Also the best concluding montage EVER, set to Gary Jules' cover of Mad World.

21. Grace's Valentine's Day Mixed CD (2007) - Grace. And some other musical people.

I listened to this so much I had to rip all the tracks into my computer because I was afraid I'd end up breaking the CD, or wearing it down to dust or something. It was my first official introduction to the world of music beyond what I was accustomed to, and I was pretty much hooked from the very first notes of Albert Hammond Jr's In Transit right up to the final guitary- pluckings of Skinny Fists by Christians and Lions. And yes, I can recite the entire tracklist from memory. If that's not musical profundity, I don't know what is.

22. The Magic Position - Patrick Wolf


I don't really know why. Or what. It just makes me happy. Maybe it's all the tinkles and the bouncy violins, or Patrick's lovely happy hair. Maybe it was all those years I spent wallowing in self-indulgent adolescent Emo (I still Emo fairly often, but it is a more sophisticated brand of Emo, really). This album just puts me in the bloody magic position, that's what. Wherever the magic position is.

23. Sway EP - The Perishers

I had the world's massivest crush on the lead's voice (not quite THE massivest; Jake still holds the record on that one) and the fact that they were all Scandinavian just made me more excited, and I played this every night before I went to bed for some months when I was 16. A lullaby of sorts.

24. These Streets - Paolo Nutini


Stupid gorgeous boy and his stupid gorgeous voice and his stupid gorgeous Scottish accent had me in drugged-up romantic daze for centuries. I almost seriously started to consider eating fish again, for his sake. That's how hardcore my affair with this one was. But gosh. Is he pretty or WHAT?

25. Black Holes & Revelations - Muse

Pretty much the reason for my attending my first ever real gig. Which was so awesome it defies words, including made-up ones.

There. Consider yourselves tagged. And I really mean it, because I'm honestly super pumped about seeing what your choices are going to be. Also feel free to mess around with the 25 Albums concept. I mean, 10, 5, 13.5 albums...it's all good. It's not like the meme police are watching or anything.