WARNING: will contain ER s6/7 spoilers.

I borrowed Goran Visnjic's face for an online RPG avatar. I had, up until that point, seen nothing he was in. Because I have a very strange set of ethics, in return for using his picture for a character he never played, I went out and bought every movie he's been in that I could get my grubby little hands on. So far, I'm really impressed. He can make me hate his characters (Practical Magic), make me love his characters (Spartacus), and make me cry for his characters (ER).

I don't watch TV, so I've missed the last 6 years of him playing Luka Kovac on ER. To my dismay, ER's only out on DVD to season 4. A lot of begging to my friends produced seasons 6-9. Fansites provided lots of little clips, and I watched those in the interim. I got the general impression that Luka Kovac's kind of a jerk.

I began watching s6 and got through the first two episodes, and noticed the character wasn't that bad. I sensed an impending trauma in his life. I was directed to s7. I've gotten through the first 7 episodes, and now all is made clear.

What I don't understand.. after Luka kills the mugger, he begins to self destruct, and it gets progressively worse through the seasons. None of that had been shown before the mugging, and there's fairly clear evidence that it affected him very badly. Nobody steps in. Abby does the worst thing possible and provides physical comfort, for which I suspect Luka's going to feel bad and use that to feed his self destruction.

He killed a man. Violently, in a rage. He works with an entire ward full of trauma doctors. Nobody forced him to take some leave after the incident, nobody asked him how he was doing, nobody referred him to counseling - and by that I mean his superiors didn't make him go. Abby doesn't help, she covers for him instead of telling people to talk to him, by saying he's fine. What the hell? A recovering alcoholic who should know better than to be an enabler.. enables him.

You've got a doctor who's a Bosnian war survivor, who's carrying guilt from watching his family die and being totally powerless to stop it or help them. Chances are good he's using being a doctor as some form of coping mechanism. Even watching people die, losing a patient - he wasn't powerless, he can do something. Then he smashes a guy's head on the sidewalk and when the mugger's brought into the ER, he's kicked out and made to watch, powerless, as the mugger dies. Even after that - he tries for redemption. He tries to find out who the guy is, to find his family, and so far he hasn't - making him powerless again, to do anything to make up for what he did. In two episodes, they strip his coping mechanism away. I watched that and kept shaking my head, knowing he was going to implode if he didn't get help.

I've been told he does self destruct, rather spectacularly, as the seasons progress. Later, his backstory is explained, and that should've made someone reassign him as suffering from guilt trauma to PTSD alert. Yet it doesn't.

What a horrible thing to do to a character. The entire premise of the show appears to be "Hm, just how awful can we make their lives today?" and then conflict->resolution. From what I've heard.. Dr. Kovac's conflict never really gets resolved. And it's never really explained why everyone around him misses it. I hope they have a really good reason for doing this, because it's painful to watch. You can see Dr. Kovac trying so hard to hold on.. and failing.. and it makes me want to cry for him. They do this to me with most of the characters, reaching in and squishing my heart just about every episode - and hey, that's why it's called a drama - but they usually resolve it one way or the other within a season.

So far, though, I like the series. It's like Stargate SG-1, Law & Order and CSI.. and I'm glad I'm not watching this on TV because if I had to wait a week to find out what happened next, I'd probably go rapidly insane. I like the way the show tries to establish the doctors individually as three-dimensional people. The actor who plays Romano... wow. I loathe his character, and I want to stand up and applaud every time the actor carries off a scene that makes me detest that character. I want to applaud whoever wrote that character, because so far, they haven't taken the easy route and done something to explain why he's an ass or to make the audience sympathetic to him. He's an ass. We're not supposed to like him, and the actor carries that off really really well.

I love shows like this. Where I'm watching and I get sucked in to the point where I'm concerned about the characters and what happens to them. I guess it's my version of soap opera syndrome. The show has an incredibly talented cast and it's incredibly well written, even if I think the writers are a bunch of maniacle genius sadists. "Hm. What horrible thing can we do to the characters today?" ".. Causeway collapse at a SciFi con?" "Oooh! Let's!" .. "Wait, this person hasn't had any personal truama in at least three episodes." "CUE TRAUMA!" I am getting the Star Trek "red shirt" vibe, though.. because things like, "I love you!" "I love you too, Mom!" .. and I'm sitting there going, "Yeah, that kid's gonna die." (speaking of, I thought that was Ashton Kutcher. It looks like him, but it's Todd Duffrey, who was on an episode of That 70's Show. That has nothing to do with anything, I just thought it was a neat '6 degrees' thing when I tried to look up who the actor was. Speaking of.. information was found here. I ::HEART:: Imdb.com!)

I can't wait to get home and delve back into the episodes. Anything that can grab my attention and hold it, making me stay up until the wee-smalls and my eyes are burning because I forget to blink..

I think I have a very warped idea of what constitutes a good time. This, however, fails to bother me in the slightest.

Happy Valentine's Day.

After all the brouhaha over The War On Christmas, I thought about doing a spoof of a War on Valentine's Day - and then I Google'd it and found out there already was one.

I could go into a huge rant over the commercialization of the holiday, but other people already did.

I like the holiday. I like all holidays. Any excuse to spend time with and inflict cheesy gifts on the people I love? Dig it. I do usually wind up mocking the Hallmark-inflicted meaning of the holiday - for instance, this year, our V-day party is all about the red-foil-wrapped chocolates in the shape of internal organs. Also, zombie movies, because nothin' says lovin' like the reanimated dead! Of course, when they say it, it sounds suspiciously like "Freeessssshhh brrraaaaaaaaaaaaiiins!" - but true love is supposed to be cerebral.

However you celebrate, whoever you celebrate it with, whether you choose not to celebrate - I hope you have a wonderful day.
-P

Cellphones are evil.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. I was on a friend's cell phone plan and wanted a plan of my very own. I called Sprint. Conversation ensues.

"Hi. I'm on a friend's plan and want to get my own plan, but keep the number the same. What do I do?"
"Oh, no problem. Just go into a store and they should be able to help you!"
"Ok, thanks."

Went to store. No good. Friend needs to be with me to sign a transfer of liability form. Can I have you fax him one and have him fax it back? No. Why not? He has to be here in person. Why can't you call him - you have his number. No. He MUST be here physically to sign it. Ok, fine. So we make arrangements to do that.

I call back the 800#. (parts are paraphrased. All the 'Oh!'s were hers, though.)
"Hi. I'm transferring service and I had a question - when I transfer to my own line, can I keep the exact same setup I have now? I'm not sure what features or minute options we have, so could you tell me so I can tell them exactly what I need when I go in?"
"No, unfortunately due to promotional offers possibly expiring, we don't allow people to transfer plan features."
"Ok.. can you tell me if these are standard features or if they were promotions?"
"Unfortunately, I can't tell what they were when it was set up."
".. so can you tell me if they're standard features I can order NOW?"
"I can tell you what our current promotions are!"
".. I just want to know what standard options are."
"Oh! Three way calling, caller ID.."
"I mean for service plans."
"We have an extended warranty agree.."
"No. For minutes - free nights and weekends starting at 6pm, whether I can call someone on your network without incurring minute loss, unlimited text messaging, unlimited web browsing, etc."
"Oh! Well, our free nights and weekends starts at 9pm.."
"Is there an option to start it sooner? That's what we did last time."
"I'm not seeing one, no."
"That sucks. What about the rest?"
"Oh, you can get those, but they're not packaged anymore, it's all seperate fees."
"Ok. That's fine."
"What kind of phone do you have?"
"Samsung A660."
"Oh! We don't offer servicing to that phone anymore, so you might have problems transferring your number to it."
".. it's still on your website?"
"Oh, no! That's a Samsung A560! The antennae's inside. Yours is external."
".. so you're telling me a feature I don't care about made you render my phone obsolete and now I might have to buy a new one?"
"Well, I'm not sure, but it's something you'll want to be aware of when you go in."
"Right. Since I'm starting a new contract, am I eligible for a new 'free' phone?"
"Unfortunately, no, since this is a transfer."
"Ok, thanks for the info. I'm looking at the site, (insert phone type) is the phone I want. Can you tell me more about the capabilities? Is this one of the phones that works with your international roaming plans?"
"Oh, hey! You're in luck! That's part of our Buy One Get One offer! You'll get TWO phones!"
"I don't want two phones.. can I just buy one?"
"Why wouldn't you want two? The second one is free!"
"I have no use for a second phone of the exact same type as the one I'm buying. I've had my phone less than a year and now it's obsolete. Even accounting for having a 'spare' if mine happens to break, the chances of me being able to use the second phone with your service don't seem to be all that great."
"Oh.. well.. you have to get the two of them. That's how the offer works. You could wait until after 2/18/06 when the offer expires, or buy a different phone, I guess."
"I'd like to make the change this week. Could I 'accidentally' leave the spare in the store?"
"No, they're registered by serial bar code. It would show up as overstock, registered to you, and they'd just mail it to you."
"Thank you for your help."
"No problem! Is there anything else I can help you with?"
"Can't think of anything, but thanks for asking."

First they make it so I can't buy a phone that doesn't have widgets I don't want. Now I can't buy a single phone, I have to take two.

And yes, I'll call them in the morning.
-P