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08/14/2003: more summer tv: The O.C., also: ugly buildings and the end of weather whining (for now)
Now featuring much too long subject lines, indicative of entries with no structure or point whatsoever...
Anyway, the O.C.: I've watched the first two episodes, and I see the slash potential, but somehow the characters haven't really clicked with me. I mean obviously I like teen angst -- otherwise, would I watch shows like Everwood? -- but for example in Everwood there are all those "kind of cliched at first glance but really quirky" characters whom I mostly liked right away, whereas the O.C. characters feel fairly "bland" as of yet. Part of it is, I think, that Ryan is (understandably) very guarded (and who wouldn't be if the super rich public defender suddenly takes you in?), while Seth is cast as the friendless geek, but we haven't seen much of him beyond that cliche either. And I have to say that the premise is slightly bizarre, even if I buy that Sandy is overidentifying with Ryan and wants to "save" him, it requires some suspension of disbelief, though I can go with it. Still I hope the series is going to find its footing, there's certainly potential. If they made the endless party orgy scenes a little shorter in the future episodes that would help too. I mean, it's all well and good to see the depravity and decadence of the idle rich, but I don't need that to go on and on and on.
Unrelated to any fandom stuff, I just wanted to express my befuddlement why anyone would incorporate parts of an old overground bunker in their new apartment building instead of just tearing the thing down, or why anyone would buy ridiculously expensive apartments in a building that looks like an ugly ex-bunker for that matter. Those WWII bunkers are not exactly rare here (you can see 36 pages with photos of about two of them on each page here), though their numbers dwindle. Until this one was converted and anther one was torn down two years ago or so, there were four of them alone between my home and the organic grocery store not even ten minutes away. But anyway, they are ugly (though not all as prominently ugly as the first one on this page), and not especially easy to use for something (the one that now is part of the new building was previously used by local youth groups for band practice IIRC, I guess it was relatively soundproof, without windows and such), though some are used for retail space, some are converted into apartment buildings, and one at the central bus terminal had a McDonalds in it before it was torn down. I'm not sure why there remain so many still (one or two as some memorial or for preserving architectural history I get, but dozens?), except that maybe some had been kept during the cold war for their original purpose, but I have no idea if that is the case. I've never much cared about these bunkers, they are just sort of there, but obviously I notice it much more when a seemingly "new" building looks as awful. So before it was converted the bunker looked like this, you can already see parts of the scaffolding in that picture), and I have to say the new building looks about as mishappen, and it doesn't even have the excuse of being a bunker.
Also, it finally cooled down, there is a breeze, the temperature was more like 25°C at most, and I take it as an indication of something deeply wrong, that I found myself thinking today that it felt "sort of chilly," when in my usual frame of reference I think of 25°C as "hot." But it was much much better, generally it felt more like summer and less like a furnace or sauna. I could go outside without my clothes sticking to me, and I didn't feel like I'd done some major exercise just because I walked up the five flights of stairs to my apartment either.
