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veronica mars, mooting, and punctuation.
written: 6:15 p.m. on Monday, Mar. 20, 2006

So we exchanged memorials with the opposing counsels (fake-counsels; I can't seriously call myself one and still remain sane) today. The thing that puzzled me most while reading through it was that she used a piece of fact that wasn't in the trial judge's finding of facts. I thought we were restricted to the stuff that were in the judgment; otherwise, I would've brought that up too and saved myself from thinking up another argument. It was about this handwritten note found in my client's personal effects, written by her supervising partner which showed that her company suspected that she was pregnant. I could've argued that it was possible that they dismissed her because of that (and then invoke other crap about parliament's intention - like who the hell really knows anyway - and how such an action is contrary to the intention of the statutory provision blah blah), but since my tutor said we couldn't use facts that are not in the judgment, I totally left that out.

And guess bloody what? While flipping through my own memorial in the lobby whilst waiting for my mom, I found out that one of my secondary sub-headings in my content page was wrong. I stupidly copied-and-pasted my sub-heading instead of the secondary sub-heading! Oh shit oh shit oh shit! I can't believe how careless I was.

Then again, I can - I couldn't wait to get the memorial out of the way. What a 'shocking oversight' though (quoting Tubby who wrote the exact phrase on my Lit 4 prelim paper because I forgot to underline the titles of my texts).

What should I dooooo? I wish I hadn't noticed it at all.

Anyway, freaking out about moots because I haven't been practicising at all and I don't know my text and I don't have any notes and my opponent has all these parliamentary debates which I've never even seen before in my life and I just KNOW that I'm going to blank on the spot when the judges ask me questions because I cannot handle such shit, period. Like, the whole think-on-your-feet thing is completely alien to me, I suck major balls at it (excuse the graphic imagery) and I'm just going to die of embarrassment when the last moots practice happens again and I keep quiet for about a minute before answering the question with an "okay" and a very incoherent, stupid answer.

This is why I would much rather write.

Anyway, moving on. The new Veronica Mars wasn't mind-blowing but it didn't disappoint.

(spoilers warning)

What really bugged me, though, was the complete absence of Veronica voiceovers. Some of the Season 2 episodes have felt kind of weird and it's really due to the gradual decrease in the usage of the voiceover. Normally, I think VO's are a cop-out on the writer's (or director or whatever) part because it's like, you have to resort to using VO's because you can't implicitly express these emotions through the character? But for Veronica Mars, it's become such an integral part of the show that episodes feel out of sync without it. And it doesn't compromise the show's subtlety either; if anything, it adds to the complexity because Veronica is still an unreliable narrator whose viewpoints are coloured by her own prejudices and personality. She's never the ominiscient narrator in her voiceovers, unlike how it's done in lesser TV shows and crappy movies; that's why I love the voiceovers.

In Versatile Toppings, there were none. I half-expected her to VO while investigating her high school mystery but...nothing. It's so sad. I wonder what the hell is going on. Are the writers getting sloppy? If so, that's just bloody indescribably sad.

And the flashbacks. I MISS THE FLASHBACKS. I LOVED THE FLASHBACKS IN SEASON ONE.

In fact: I BLOODY LOVE SEASON ONE. Season Two is great but it doesn't hold up too great on re-watch. That's what happens when your story/show becomes more plot-driven than character-driven.

I still love my VM though. Need a Season Three or else I will die.

Anyway, I LOVE DON LAMB SO MUCH. He's the hottest bad-ass, unethical, bastard sheriff ever, and he actually flipped the finger to the camera! I didn't notice it until I went to the VM board where people were gushing about it. This is exactly what is so great about the show (no, not the fact that they get away with the dirtiest sexual references on TV; the 'shocker' thing really shocked me when I found out what it was): You start off hating a character, then you end up loving/liking/begrudgingly tolerating that character.

Case In Point #1: Jackie Cook. I absolutely hated her when she first appeared in S2, but after Episode 13 when they played the sympathy card, I totally went over to her side. In Versatile Toppings I actually really enjoyed her scenes with Veronica, and - gasp - I even think I want her with Wallace. She's cool.

Case In Point #2: Don Lamb. This doesn't have as much to do with the character development (because it's been very minimal) than it has with the actor, but anyway. Once again, I hated him. He's obnoxious, insensitive, vain, a male chauvinist pig, an incompetent sheriff, and an all-round Horrible Dude. BUT - he'slikesohotomg! So hot so hot so hot. Michael Muhney is so hot. And he's so good at playing the bastard that he even makes it charming. In real life, such a person would turn me off faster than a bloody techno pretend-song or an ah beng, but in VM World, he's the hottest thing since Logan Echolls. I especially loved him in the latest episode; the way he held his own against Terrance Cook and basically did not give a fuck about TC's 'leverage' (a recording of Lamb blackmailing TC) was just so bloody well-played that I have no words. And yeah, that's also the part where he flipped the finger for about three nanoseconds. Have I mentioned how hot Michael Muhney is? He needs to be a series regular. He's so yummy.

Case In Point #3: Logan Echolls. We've been through this many times before, no reason to go through it again.

Case In Point #4: Hannah Griffith (or whatever). Okay, so I hated her in the previous episode where she was all sickly sweet and irritatingly giggly. I still don't like her, but I'm begrudgingly tolerating her. Why? Because the show played the sympathy card again. She finds out her dad is the puppet of some scary-ass Irish mafia/gang/whatever and maybe even a cokehead, and to top it all off? She just HAS to fall for the bad boy senior (Logan) who may or may not be using her to further his own ends. You have to feel bad for someone like that, especially when she's really just a sweet, nice girl who probably doesn't deserve any of it, nevermind that she's so damn skinny it drives you nuts and makes you feel like bringing her to an all-you-can-eat buffet, and that her eyeliner seems to be applied a little bit lower than where her eyelids are, and that it makes you quite sick watching her make out with Logan because, dude, you can totally do better.

Um, yeah. Poor girl though. Really.

Anyway, now I'm all confused as to Logan's intention regarding his relationship with Hannah. Many people think that he's just using her, which makes me think: Were we even watching the same show?! Because I really thought that his earnest, sincere look that screams "Trust Me Hannah I'm Genuine!" was exactly that: Honest, earnest and sincere, even heartfelt and...well, I've run out of adjectives to describe that lay-heart-on-table look Logan had a couple of times in the episode. How can you fake something like that? It just can't be done. And while I think he almost definitely lied about not knowing who she was at the carnival, I also think that a part of him, or maybe all of him, has already fallen for her.

WHICH REALLY SUCKS BECAUSE I LIKE LOGAN/VERONICA.

But I just can't see how he's still using her after that look he gave while waiting for her outside her art class.

Okay, whatever. Maybe I'm just naive. That'd explain a lot.

I didn't care much for the Mystery of the Week, except isolated scenes that had nothing do with moving the mystery along. And the guest actress playing the lesbian cheerleader couldn't act to save her life. It was painful watching her. Kim from America's Next Top Model 5 did a much better job than her.

Still love Logan, although I prefer Jackass Logan to Sappy Logan. Hence, the Hannah thing has to stop as soon as possible. He and Veronica are meant to be.

This is where my Veronica Mars ramblings end.

In other news, my mom opened the mailbox and found two copies of 8 Days mag and two copies of Lime mag in it. I don't know why. I think maybe someone confused unit numbers or something and placed them in the wrong mailbox.

But in any case, one of the 8 Days has an interview with JOAQUIN! Wahoo. They could've chosen a better pic of him though. His double chin is quite prominent in the one they chose.

I love him with his glaring physical flaws. How many people can I honestly say that for?

Also, I'd like to express my shock at the number of people in the world - including fucking magazine editors for the love of grammatical correctness and my sanity - who don't know how to use a comma. Seriously, people. What the hell is wrong with everyone? You don't separate sentences using a comma - END OF BLEEDING STORY.

How comprehensible and credible is a published piece of writing that, does, this, weird, thing, with, commas, not very good right, in fact I have a hard time trying to copy it, people are so stupid, what is wrong with them, oh I think it's dinner time, got crim to read later, oh got desperate housewives later!

I'm sure you get my point. We're not writing Chinese here. Did you NOT attend English classes in secondary school? I stopped doing the separate-sentences-with-commas thing when I was 14 and only do it when I'm trying to get at an effect (yeah something called artistic licence, hurhurhur, which doesn't apply in non-creative works). Use a full-stop! Or better yet, use a semicolon! (But then again, I kind of concur with Tim Dore when he made an offhand remark about how the true mark of one's education is one's ability to use the semicolon. Maybe I'm expecting too much of other people.)

Seriously. SERIOUSLY.

A real-life example: "On the other hand the printouts Veronica handles seem valid to me, complete with signatures/quote tags and stuff, they even have spelling mistakes, just like the real thing."

Do you see what I'm talking about now? How can such things NOT irritate me? I just cannot take seriously someone who can't use the comma correctly. It's not that hard.

before sunrise // before sunset

Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010