Am I required to keep him alive?

[sovay]

I just watched my first episode of Fringe (2008–2013). It is amazing how disorienting it is to be told a city is Boston when it is very plainly either Toronto or New York. Also, I think the show's Harvard University might be Yale. Can you do that without starting a small war?

(John Noble is awesome. All mad scientist buttons checked. Including the one where he looks good in a lab coat.)

I saw these cat portraits on Tumblr a few days ago, but I had no idea they were actual guard cats of the Hermitage Museum. I approve.

The baked Alaska this afternoon was an amazing sucess. I am very proud of my skills with folding egg whites. rushthatspeaks and tilivenn can be proud of their ice cream wrangling and attention to baking times. The weevils in the confectioner's sugar were a surprise no one was looking for, and so was the time out where we had to get more eggs because the kitchen was too hot and humid for the first attempt at meringue to peak at all, but the results in Earl Grey and cardamom ice cream were wholly worth it. The sponge cake base was fluffy, the ice cream was sliceable and cold, the meringue on top was crisp-brown with the delicious marshmallow taffiness of burnt sugar at the tips. Egg whites are exactly as effective an insulator as I was always told. We really have no excuse for not reverse-engineering a butter-pie now.

I wish my head did not hurt this much.

Comments

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Ha, yeah. Luckily, I have very little sense of Boston beyond the bits you can see in The Departed and/or on the way to Burlington, so it's not that much of a wrech. Also, to be frank, I'm used to being told somewhere is somewhere else and knowing in my heart it's Toronto, because it's happened to me all my life.;)

That said: Episode two of Fringe is seriously some of the worst TV I've ever seen. Don't be disheartened! Keep going anyhow. ("Hey, I know that bridge," Astrid says, at one point, to which Steve and I both replied, out loud: "That's the Magical Bridge of Many Colours!", because the line was almost identical to one in Cal's then-favourite Little Einsteins episode. Which tells you how long ago this was.)

BTW: New Ian Tregillis book! A third instalment of Milkweed, called Necessary Evil! It starts with a Gretel-POV chapter!

[sovay]

Luckily, I have very little sense of Boston beyond the bits you can see in The Departed and/or on the way to Burlington, so it's not that much of a wrech.

I don't watch that much television, so I couldn't think of many shows I'd seen that were supposed to be set in Boston regardless of where they were filmed, but it was striking to see not just general skylines, but specific locations like "Harvard University" or "South Station" when they were patently no such thing. I think that was what got me—I understand not being able to film inside a university or a major transit station without a lot of organization (and budget) ahead of time, but is it actually that difficult to get establishing shots of the right exteriors?

Also, to be frank, I'm used to being told somewhere is somewhere else and knowing in my heart it's Toronto, because it's happened to me all my life.

Fair point. Why Toronto?

Episode two of Fringe is seriously some of the worst TV I've ever seen. Don't be disheartened! Keep going anyhow.

Fortunately, I was started on episode three! (I take it I shouldn't go back.)

It starts with a Gretel-POV chapter!

I will have to get hold of that. How is it so far?

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Like people said above, Toronto is where half the stuff on TV/in movies seems to be shot. Also Vancouver, with occasional side-trips to Quebec City to film stuff set in "Europe," and Nova Scotia, for stuff set in "Ireland" or "rural America/Maine." My Neighbour Toronto, indeed.

Good choice to start on episode three. I didn't personally hate the pilot, but I know a lot of people did. Then again, a lot of people went through the entire show hating Peter Bishop fairly relentlessly, so. (Shrugs.)

So far, the book's really good. You read The Coldest War, right?

[sovay]

Like people said above, Toronto is where half the stuff on TV/in movies seems to be shot. Also Vancouver, with occasional side-trips to Quebec City to film stuff set in "Europe," and Nova Scotia, for stuff set in "Ireland" or "rural America/Maine."

Well, I was asking why pick on Toronto. It's not like, as far as I can tell, it actually looks very much like other cities; everyone just seems to agree it's supposed to.

Then again, a lot of people went through the entire show hating Peter Bishop fairly relentlessly, so. (Shrugs.)

So far, not so much. I don't have as good a sense of him as I do of Olivia or Walter or even Astrid yet, though.

You read The Coldest War, right?

No; I was given to understand by B. that it had a stop-short ending, so I was waiting for the third book that turned out to be Necessary Evil to come out!

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

One time I walked out the side of my building and discovered that Market Street, which runs (oddly enough) down the side of the St. Lawrence Market, had been entirely converted via the magic of set dec into a New Orleans boulevard right after Mardi Gras. This was apparently in aid of a TV movie they were shooting called Sinklhole, in which New Orleans falls into a gigantic sinkhole. And this was long before the SyFy Channel, too.;)

Yeah, I think you'll enjoy reading these two back to back far more than you would have having to wait a year or so between instalments. Still, I was pretty sure even at the time Tregillis wasn't going to leave it there.;))