This evening, I went to a business meeting, where business-type things were discussed. No further comment on that.

That paragraph took nearly 5 minutes to write.

I finished watching the third season of Xena last night (Sacrifice, Pt 2), and dug into the retrospective documentary features this morning. I realized again that despite the imperfections, that was a damn cool tv show.

Something I didn't quite get around to mentioning in the rambling before: Ambiguity. They briefly touched on the subject in the documentary, which brought it to mind again. Xena as a tv show (and Hercules, to a lesser extent) thrived on it. Another word to describe it might be "subtext".

I'm not just talking about the nature of Xena and Gabrielle's relationship, which is what everybody automatically thinks about whenever that word is mentioned. It's much bigger than that. The entire thesis of the show, if there is such a thing, is subtextual. Lurking beneath every good episode -- comedy, drama, or farce -- there reside oceans of hidden themes that are hinted, suggested and then retracted, or left with a question mark.

Is Ares the father of Xena? The original script for The Furies was written to answer the question with a definitive Yes. But the way it came out in the final draft, as a mere excuse to get Xena off the hook (which still may or may not have been true) made for a much better resolution. If Ares was her father, it would explain a lot about the reason for Xena's abilities, while also adding the rather creepy implication of incest. Though in keeping with Greek literary tradition, American tv audiences probably wouldn't be up to the challenge of handling such a notion, especially in a hero character. So it gets a big question mark, and each viewer can come to their own conclusions.

Is Dahok representative of Christianity? Well, no. But.... For the first 30 minutes of The Deliverer, when Gabrielle gets cozy with followers of the "One God", it certainly seems like that's where things are heading. Steven L. Sears (who has easily become my favorite behind-the-scenes person in the documentaries and commentary tracks) even said that one of his goals in writing the episode was to toy with people's pre-conceived biases about religion. But no, Dahok really has nothing to do with the Judeo Christian deity, despite the fact that people referred to him as the "One God", his supernatural offspring was born in a stable, and the child was conceived through some strange form of divine conception (arguably rape without penetration, but that's for the fans to debate). No, nothing alike at all. [wink, wink]

Anyway...

Here's a serious one to ponder. Did Joxer come from the reincarnated spirit of Jar Jar Binks? Mee-sa thinks so. (When Ted Raimi described his experience of going online to read what fans thought after each episode, only to see mountains of "I hate Joxer" messages in every forum, all I could think was, "poor guy". Funny, in a sad sort of way.)

Well, now I can finally get to devoting my entertainment time to the Angel episodes Zan Lynx loaned me. Sweet.

I've been attempting, but failing horribly, to structure my time in a semi-normal fashion. The theory is to do work, work-type projects, and possibly job hunting during the day, and spend evenings playing and having fun. But what usually happens is that I find myself sleeping in, goofing off for most of the day, along with much of the evening, and then when it gets to be late at night, I might get down to business for a while. Or I might get tired and go to bed, thereby procrastinating even further. This is not a wise way to live. It needs to be corrected.

For better or for worse, scottgalvin.com has once again ignited some measure of hope in me that his crazy ventures might just be on the verge of really working this time. There is evidence, beyond just the mere talk, to believe that it has a good chance of happening. Past experience compels me to be skeptical. But maybe, just maybe, he might be onto something. We'll see.

This next month is going to be interesting.