So the characters say one thing, and the captions don't match at all? Ew.

In subtitles, often they change meaning without paying any attention. A character may say "I want to eat", the subtitle reads "I do NOT want to eat", and then the character goes eating and the non-English-speaking viewer is left very confused. Sometimes it's just that a character gives a number and in the subtitle they put a completely different one, things like that. I know that translation is a very difficult task, especially with this time constraint that scrappy mentioned in movies/tv that adds complications, but these are just I-don't-care-enough mistakes.

Many times when a character quotes something from the bible in a language that is not Hebrew, translators miss the fact that they cam use the original quote and not re-translate the translation. It's like a riddle - which biblical phrase is being rephrased right now. But it can get worse. In "Prince of Egypt" there's a scene where everybody sings a few verses from the book of Exodus in Hebrew. It too me a minute to realize it was Hebrew, because the accents were a bit strange, and then my brother noticed that the subtitles and the words the characters are pronouncing are completely different, with pretty much the same meaning. What we figured was that the subtitles were a translation from the English subtitles that we assumed had appeared on the screen for that part in original version, because the words weren't in English. It didn't have the 'hear faster than you read' problem, because it was a enough slow song.

Then again, I have started to watch most movies with the English subtitles on, because if I'm not paying attention and miss hearing something, I can read the screen and catch up.

We are so used to watching movies with the aid of subtitles, that many people, when watching a show in Hebrew, have to turn the volume higher or find it difficult to follow the dialog. Oh, and we're so used to be able to follow each and every word spoken on screen, because they all appear in front of our eyes in the translation, that several people were genuinely surprised when I told them that even native-English-speakers don't understand each and every single word pronounced in a movie - they thought that they couldn't follow the subtitles-less-dialog properly because their English wasn't good enough, not because of any other reason.

That's all shades of sucktacular. How long will you be TVless?

Actually I plugged it in again tonight and it's working, bizarrely enough! So that suggests it's probably something to do with the circuitry (I dunno, does that sound right?)...certainly not the tube in any case, which suggests it's at least fixable! I have yesterday's Buffy on tape so I'll watch it tonight, although...

People who know about this stuff...am I actually endangering life and limb if I continue to use the TV until I can get it fixed? As long as I'm in the room when it's on? Do modern TVs (this one is about 5 years old) actually burst into flames very often? (It's plugged into a powerboard with one of those safety cutout buttons, I don't know if that makes it safer...)

What exactly happened when it conked out? We had a TV that would randomly fade to black and return to normal, for random amounts of time. We had another one that would cut to black every now and again, but some good ol' Aussie handy work (i.e. hitting it with anything handy) would usually make the picture come back. Niether of those ever blew up on us.

I love our most recent TV that works and is pretty.

Hey, you guys, I'm crying over here. And I can't stop.

Hey, you guys, I'm crying over here. And I can't stop.

Without being spoilery - good kind of crying or bad kind of crying? Did it help stop you being disappointed in the season? God, I can't wait to see the end, but at the same time I don't want it to be over.

Emlah--thanks, you enabler you! Yeah, what's happening to mine sounds similar to what happened to yours.

Extremely dumb question: where does "Big Damn Evil, Sir" come from exactly? I have a feeling it was a quote in an Angel episode I didn't pay close attention to - I wasn't exactly invested earlier in the season.

Emlah, I can hardly credit it after all my bitching about this season, but good good crying. And sad crying. Can't believe how good it was, compared to much of the season. The dialogue was snappin', there were jokes, great continuity stuff, the characters were alive again, there was real sadness and joy and bloody great emotional catharsis. Doesn't mean ALL is forgiven though...

I certainly feel a lot better about the whole series now than I did two hours ago. (Nervously hopes this doesn't spoil anything for Aust -- just emotional spoilage.) Why doesn't Joss just do one show at a time, so he doesn't wear himself out, and write the whole bloody thing himself. Because half the writers were writing out of their arses this season.

Angus ... last December I bought a new monitor and within a couple of weeks I had it in the shop getting looked at b/c it went haywire. The service folk couldn't find anything wrong with it and after a week I got it back. A couple of days later the thing went psycho again, only this time it seemed worse b/c it sound like it was going to explode. I then had a problem with the computer itself and that's when I realised the problem with the monitor was being caused by a faulty, 4-socket power-board. The current wasn't getting through properly and fucking up the way the monitor behaved.

Actually I plugged it in again tonight and it's working, bizarrely enough! So that suggests it's probably something to do with the circuitry (I dunno, does that sound right?)...certainly not the tube in any case, which suggests it's at least fixable! I have yesterday's Buffy on tape so I'll watch it tonight, although...

Angus, I had a 10 year old TV that would shut off after 1-3 hours of being on, because of overheating. While waiting to get a new TV, if there was something I want to watch I used to train a fan on the back end of the TV, and that would keep it going for a while. Probably not the safest thing, but it worked.