Walking in Place

Anddd we're freezing

2009-12-15T03:26:05Z

Yay us!

"At one point on Saturday night, Edmonton had the dubious distinction of being the coldest place on Earth. The record low temperature of -46 degrees was measured at the Edmonton International Airport. With the Wind Chill, it felt colder than -50."

It's kind of hard to get bent out of shape about global warming when that's the case.

Warming? Sure, send it down our way!

It's apparently going to be absolutely sweltering on Wednesday at -11. We shall see.

(And I mean that icon in all seriousness.)

And there shall be much rejoicing...

2009-12-13T10:15:50Z

Because winter has officially arrived.

Except I'm lying about that rejoicing part.

We got our snow (40 cm) last Friday and this weekend the cold blew in with a vengeance (-38 plus wind chill). And it's not even actually winter yet in terms of the calender.

Ah well, such is life. It could have happened earlier - there was snow in October but it all melted.

The upside? Now it won't do that freeze, melt, freeze, melt cycle that drives me up the friggin wall because it makes driving trecherous.

Gaming

2009-11-24T08:10:55Z

This is awesome.

The Curious Case of the English Language

2009-11-16T02:49:02Z

I'm a bit of a grammar Nazi and word-police type of person. When talking to family/friends I have no problem correcting someone if they happen to use the wrong word. And English certainly has a lot of words that can be mistaken for others and/or mixed up.

The classics, of course, like the there/they're/their and its/it's. Interchanging "good" and "well" when they don't really mean the same thing. Using "decimate" to mean totally destoryed when that's really not what it means. And on occassion my sister has said "mute" when she really meant "moot" and didn't even know that was wrong.

But one that really ticks me off for some reason, and that I see endlessly on the internet, is "peak" or "peek." I don't mean mixing those two words up. I mean using them instead of "pique." As in, "it piqued my interest." I can't tell you how many times I've read an LJ or forum post, or a fic, often times written by people who otherwise seem to have excellent grammar etc (sometimes even fic writers) and seen this mistake.

Do people just not know this word exists? Or what? Have they only ever heard "piqued my interest" in conversation, TV, or movies and just assumed it was one of those other two words without ever bothering to look them up? I can't figure it out. I can't even think of a time when I saw the phrase used correctly on the internet!

And yes, I just saw this mistake in yet another LJ post which is what triggered this rant.

SG Fan Awards

2009-09-27T09:14:31Z

Winners have been announced, sooner than I thought (given all the long previous delays).

The Way... won its category (SG1Fanfic>Ship>Other>Large Works).

On the Wings of Bees, Through the Death of Suns won its category as well (SG1Fanfic>Ship>Other>Drama).

So a big ole WOOT about that! :D I had no expectations going in, it was just cool to be nominated, but of course it's awesome that both fics won. Thanks to anyone who voted for them.

Hockey, hockey, hockey!

2009-08-29T07:43:27Z

The pre-season starts on Sept 15! Sept 15!!! I can't wait. I have missed my hockey this summer and I'm very excited for the start of the Oilers' season!

Yeah, I'm a total homer. But what the hell's the point of being a fan if you aren't going to root for your team, despite everything?

Nothing much has changed in terms of trades or the roster so I'm quite curious to see how much of a difference the new coaching staff makes. I've been screaming at the TV for several years that they needed to get rid of stupid MacTavish and the stupid old boys club of the Oilers' glory days.

So finally we did, and we've got a new owner, and I'm hoping we'll see some changes (in terms of their performance). I'm hoping we'll see that the coaches were the problem. Because if they weren't then there's still something fundamentally wrong in the organization somewhere and that makes me sad.

Oh, and good God was I thrilled when they put the kabosh on the whole Danny "petulant" Heatley idea. What a complete jerk he was in that whole thing (and I got manical, vengeful glee from the fact that no other team has shown interest in him... I want him left in Ottawa to twist in the wind!). I certainly didn't want him here after his attitude (not to mention it reeked of another Chris Pronger situation).

Anyway - September 15th!

I simply had to share my squee because it's coming...

Dun dun da!

Health Care

2009-08-21T07:49:35Z

I've been watching and reading about the current health care reform debate going on in the US with something akin to stupified amazement.

The vitriol some people spew over such an important issue is utterly astounding. Even more astounding, the fact that about 99.9% of what the Republicans are saying about [Canadian] universal health care is flat out wrong.

See, normally, I wouldn't care about this. What Americans want to do with their American health care is their business and not mine. But when my country and our system gets dragged into it - and dragged through the mud - it sure as hell starts to matter to me.

Now, maybe a few - or even a bunch - of pissed off Canadians won't scare anyone in Washington. But reading about this issue on web forums, blogs, etc, has revealed a greater general ignorance about Canada and a startling... arrogance. Which mostly are trolls out to spark things, I know. But sometimes it's not and it only takes one or two people like that before it starts [wrongly] reflecting badly on the whole group.

Really though, you'd think the normal American you'd stop on the street would have more general knowledge about their northern neighbours, their biggest trading partner, and the source of most of the oil they import (indeed the largest oil reserves in the world, second only to Saudi Arabia) than seems apparent. (So, my American friends, please ease my mind!)

Anyway, I digrees. I'd like the Republican fear mongers to shut the hell up. Canada is immaterial to whether or not they pursue health care reform and it pisses me off that they're painting us as the boogeyman when we've been, and probably always will be, one of their closest allies.

Grunble grumble.

I should stay away from web forums and the like. They only serve to rile me up.

Is there a defining Stargate fic?

2009-07-19T00:56:50Z

I've slid in and out of a lot of fandoms over the years. Farscape, BSG, Alias, Babylon 5, Buffy, Firefly, and lots of others. In my experience they all had what I would call a "defining fic" (even though I don't necessarily remember what they all were!). A story that had seemingly been read by everyone because it was simply that good, that inevitably - guaranteed - would show up any time anyone asked for recs. They tended to be longer, excellently characterized and superbly well-written (sorta a no brainer, there), and enduring.

So my question, does Stargate have such a fic(s)?

Because I suspect not, if simply becasue the fandom is so divided. Nobody ever just asks for "recs," it's always qualified as what kind of story they want - het, slash, none of this pairing, none of that character, nothing in this season. And if anyone ever does ask for general recs people always seem paralyzed by the open field handed to them and must ask "what kind of story do you want" instead of simply saying "here are the superbly well-written fics I've read."

Don't get me wrong, I understand preference because I of course have my own. But if someone said to me "this story is achingly beautiful" I'd read it, even if it didn't fulfill my wishlist of preferences.

Preference is not the same as absolute bedrock refusal to read anything that fits criteria x, y, and z. It seems a shame that there are so many walls dividing such a developed and enduring fandom.

So, is there a defining SG fic?

Dumbfounded

2009-07-15T21:31:32Z

So I was out and about the other day with my mother. She wanted to buy some music but, seeing as it's been well over a decade since she updated her music collection and since she doesn't pay attention to artists etc on the radio, had no idea what to buy. Of course, she protested and said she had bought music recently, some James Last CDs. And I, having just gone through her records not too long ago (I was unpacking them from the box they'd spent the last...ohh, 13 years in, cause she finally got the record player fixed and we hooked it up), fired back that "buying CDs of music you still have on record is not updating your collection." Anyway, she ended up with 5 CDs and I don't think I steered her wrong.

But this is not what has me dumbfounded. As we were standing at the till I noticed a book with the title 11,002 Things to be Miserable About. Slightly curious, I picked it up and opened it.

It was a list.

That's it, just a list. Each line had one thing on it, for example "tornados," then the next line had something else and on it went in alphabetical order.

I was absolutely astounded that some publisher out there bought this book. And then later, as we were eating lunch, I was more astounded by the thought that anyone would actually buy it because... it's a list and who buys a book without opening it?? Perhaps that's why it was 15% off. I should have checked the publisher because I'm still totally dumbfounded by the thought. Methinks it might have been self-published.

Hmm... must check Amazon.

Canada Day, SG Fan Awards... etc

2009-07-02T21:52:05Z

I haven't posted much here lately!

Let's see, yesterday was Canada Day. Woot! I guess. I didn't do anything, though. I'm not a huge fan of giant, teeming crowds and the press of bodies in limited space. Especially when it's hot out, not that it was terribly hot yesterday. Ok, well, I didn't do anything Canada Day related - I finished pulling up grass in the yard and painted the garage door frames. Fun.

Hmm, oh! After what seems like many delays the Stargate Fan Awards have finally opened for voting! So that's cool.

I've been spending a lot of time watching TV shows I never watched before. I really got into NCIS (just in time for that killer season 6 finale cliffhanger!) and think it's pretty awesome - better than CSI, the Law and Orders, etc. Cause it's got the cases and the criminals etc, but it's also just as much or more about the characters. Also, Ziva David has to be pretty near the top of a list about kick-ass women on the small screen (and I think Cote de Pablo plays her wonderfully - and I can't help wondering how "Cote'" is supposed to be pronounced).

The other big show, West Wing. Never watched it before. Am enjoying it, but it has yet to hit me upside the head with that "wow" factor, if you know what I mean.

The Oilers have been doing a couple interesting things with free agents etc. I'm shocked and amazed that we signed Nikolai Khabibulin but also, despite how much I liked Roli, excited.

Okay, that was really boring. Yes, I am a very boring person.

People

2009-05-14T06:00:36Z

Sometimes, maybe a lot of the time, I don't have a very high opinion of people in that general, abstract, non-specific way we mean when we bemoan "why do people do that?!" whatever "that" happens to be. This attitude of mine has been present for the majority of my life in some form or another, I'd say.

A favourite story in my family is that when I wasn't very old - maybe in the 4-8 range? - I was talking to my grandfather (who would have been in his early seventies). And he said that I'd have to speak up because he was old and didn't hear that well anymore. My apparent response? "Don't worry, Grandpa, most things aren't worth hearing anyway."

Indeed.

But aside from the blowhards and outright jerks etc it's unfortunate that people can really suck in worse ways.

We kill each other over the dumbest things sometimes. I'm of the rather gloomy view that when the human race inevitably dies out it will be our own fault - whether through nuclear war, or destorying our planet, or whatever.

However, all that said, sometimes when people are being "people", especially on the internet, all it leads to is amusement for me and them making themselves look bad.

Like today, which is what spurred this post in the first place.

I've gotten very few "flames" on my series, especially considering its size; they're always conveniently anonymous so they're fixed with the Delete button. I got one today and I had to laugh because aside from the profanity and nonexistent grammar etc, their "complaint" was just wrong. S/he called me a rather uncharitable name in the subject and then said "teal'c? what about jack? <repeat profanity>"

I killed myself laughing because I assume their issue was that they thought Teal'c and Carter were "together." And as well all know, they aren't. So, this person took the time to flame something they obviously hadn't read based simply on the character lisiting on fanfiction.net. Talk about having some issues, not to mention saying more about them than me or my fic.

Though, I've found it to be a common assumption by people that the two characters you can choose to label your fic with denote the/a main romantic relationship. This is so NOT the case. It's to indicate the main character(s) of the story. That's it. It's not a feature of the site meant to serve ridiculous and juvenile "ship wars" <gag>. Yes, I guess often the main characters will end up being together, especially in Stargate, but still...

People.

<shakes head>

Crossovers

2009-05-03T03:53:44Z

I'm speaking of course about fic crossovers. I felt like reading an SG fic since it's been awhile since I've had the time so I went looking...

...and all I found were crossovers.

And not things that make sense. I mean, crossing SG-1/Atlantis, I don't even really consider that a crossover. One universe originated in the other. I was seeing things like SG-1 with Highlander, NCIS, Gundam... something or other, JAG (ok, maybe I could see this one working since they're military lawyers and, minimum, two main SG characters are in the military). And don't even get me started on all the Harry Potter x-overs I've seen.

But in general I. Don't. Get. It.

What's wrong with just a nice SG-1 fic? Why go to the trouble of trying to find a logical, reasonable way for these two often disparate worlds to intersect? Especially when you could just write two separate fics and they'd likely both be better than the single x-over.

I guess it's like taking the SG characters and putting them all in highschool. Or the old west. Or something else totally unrelated. I always see that and think... ok, why don't you just write an original story?

Gahh.

So my search was fruitless. :(

A bit of Canadiana.... hmm, is that a word?

2009-03-22T02:05:56Z

I don't like beer, but I love Molson Canadian's commercials.

The newsest:

The original Joe Canadian:

And in the same vein, Tim Horton's. It's funny only becasue it's Tim Horton's. Any other company I might be offended:

Don't ask me why I felt the urge to share Canadian commercials.

Stargate Fan Awards

2009-03-19T07:56:10Z

The Way... Series and On the Wings of Bees, Through the Death of Suns were both nominated in the SG fan awards! Very, very cool. My thanks to anyone who might have nominated them.

Impending Warmth?... Not So Much

2009-03-10T01:27:38Z

So it's March and for a lot of people that means they start thinking about spring. Not so much here. In the last two days we got a huge dump of snow, accompanined by blowing wind which always makes neat snow drifts (and whiteout conditions), and the temperatures plummeted again.

Sigh.

Oh well.

A few pics below the cut.

That one with the snow hanging over the edge is what happens when things start melting and then freezing again.

Isis Awards

2009-03-03T02:33:03Z

After what seemed like many delays the Isis Awards have finally announced the winners.

The Way... Series won its category of Sam/Other. Huzzah!

My thanks to all those who voted! :-D

ROFLMAO!

2009-03-01T07:08:04Z

I find this quite amusing. And you really don't need to play WoW to enjoy it, I think. Just know some internet speak.

Joss Whedon's [hopefully triumphant] return to television

2009-02-25T02:08:37Z

I loved Buffy. I eventually enjoyed Angel. I mourned Firefly's demise and all the potential it showed in a short 13 episodes. I waited for and watched Serenity with great anticipation and joy. And then Joss Whedon left TV for awhile and it was a sad day.

Joss has always excelled at doing what far too many TV shows and most movies still can't seem to pull off. He's always written strong, interesting, compelling, complex, and flawed female characters. But not just great women - central women. Central female heroes. Because I don't care how great a character happens to be, if I never get to see her for more than ten minutes for every hour episode, if she never gets to get down and dirty, shoot guns, throw punches, disarm the bomb, fly the plane, save the day and generally kick ass then I really don't care that much. The women I like to watch aren't there to just look sexy, or kiss the hero, or be saved by the strapping man. They're there to drive the story, to have problems and dilemmas, to get themselves into and out of trouble. They're there to be awesome. Joss has always done this and in a genre that has one of the worst track records for having nothing but sexpot women - scifi.

And now he's back. On Friday, Feb 13th Dollhouse premiered. It's about people who, presumably becasue something's gotten really screwed up in their lives, volunteer to have their memories, personalities, pretty much everything that makes them themselves erased. They then get imprinted with constructed personalities to become whatever/whoever a client wants/needs. After each engagement they're wiped back to a childlike, blank state. The show is specifically about one such "active" named Echo. And of course, she starts to remember things that she shouldn't.

It's pretty darn good already. The pilot was perhaps a little clunky - what pilot isn't, though - but the second episode blew me away in many respects. Already we're learning backstory, already an arc has been established, already Echo is starting to show signs that something isn't quite working like it should. She's just a little less blank, a little less... empty. I already have a bit of anticipation for the inevitable moment when she gets wiped and, instead of there being nothing behind her eyes, there's a person. Who exactly that person will be is the question.

My only issue? It airs on the dreaded FOX, famous for screwing shows over. Two episodes have aired and you can already find people saying it won't last long. Good God people, give it a chance! And trust in Joss - I do. If he gets his way Dollhouse will only get better.

So, if you're looking for a great sci-fi show with that elusive female lead/hero, then please check out Dollhouse. You will not be disappointed.

Rain

2009-01-30T23:53:07Z

That's right, rain.

Yesterday. And not just a little bit, quite the downpour.

In January. Almost February. With a good two or more feet of snow on the ground.

Are you kidding me? That's just... wrong.

Why Battlestar Galactica is still the best thing (currently) on TV

2009-01-17T06:46:16Z

Battlestar Galactica has had its ups and downs, a few bumps on the way, just like every other television show out there. But the critical acclaim it has received from everwhere except the television awards shows (with the notable exception of the Peabody) has never ceased. BSG always excelled at pulling itself up by the bootstraps. The bad episodes were few and far between and when one aired you could pretty much rest assured that next week the show would deliver. And pretty much all of BSG's worst episodes were still far and away better than 99% of the mindless trope that's on TV nowadays (read, especially, "reality" TV).

BSG may have spaceships and battles and sentient robots, it may have a bit of a goofy name, but the reason it's so good is becasue it was never really about that stuff. It's about the characters - always has been and always will be. It's more of a drama that just happens to be set in space and it goes places some of the most daring dramas don't even dare to go and, certainly, it wades into territory Star Trek, Stargate etc never touched.

The remainder of BSG's fourth, and final, season started today - after far too long of a break, if you ask me - and I waited with anticipatory glee for the episode to air. I was not disappointed.

WARNING! If you have not watched the eppy do not read below the cut! If you've NEVER watched BSG but think, one day, you might, DO NOT read beneath the cut. Spoliers for the SERIES abound!!

It proved that again today. Nothing much plotty happened in this episode. It was all about the characters reacting and dealing with the fact that the goal they'd spent four years striving towards was literally a burnt out husk. No Earth. No new home. No salvation. A lot of shows wouldn't have bothered to show us the character's reactions; a couple minutes is the most a lot of shows would have devoted to something as trivial as "emotions" and then they'd be off on some new high octance, peril and death adventure.

BSG gave it a whole 45 minute episode.

And the epitome of this is in Dualla's character. She shot herself, not as the prelude to some revelation, not as the vehicle for a plot twist, not for it to mean anything or lead to something else bigger. She killed herself becasue she was a human who, for four whole years, fought and suffered, watched friends and family die and lose themselves, all in the name of finding Earth. Earth was supposed to make it all better, was supposed to make all that agony and death somehow worth it.

When the dream of Earth proved to be a fallacy Dualla did what humans do. She broke. She fell apart in the face of that shattered dream, under the weight of those four years that now felt pointless. So she took her gun and quite calmly, quite neatly, killed herself.

That is good storytelling. That is real storytelling, with real characters. That is what a television show can accomplish when it's not afraid to kill characters and not concerned with the "mainstream."

Perhaps my only quibble with this episode was the revelation of Ellen Tigh at the end. I thought... really? I mean... I really wasn't excepting to find out who the fifth was until the very last episode. And I expected to be blown away. Ellen Tigh doesn't blow me away at all. I find it entirely underwhelming. I'm hoping, since Tigh's had hallucinations etc before - and since he still has serious guilt over killing his wife - that he was just seeing what he wanted to see in his memory.

There's still a lot left to see, a lot of answers and explanations, and I have high hopes that the remainder of the final season will be as phenomenal as BSG's best episodes. Bring it on!

Sanctuary - final thoughts on season one

2009-01-14T00:26:06Z

Yes, I know, I totally flaked on all the other episodes. There were several weeks I couldn't watch until much later and it threw me all out of whack. But now season one has come to a close and I thought I'd share. Before I get to Revelations though, my main thoughts on the other episodes.

Requiem - a disappointment. I think they made a fatal error when they went with the pseudo in media res format.

Warriors - as big of a surprise as Requiem was a disappointment. At the opening scene I thought every uncharitable thing in the book about getting more cliched, tired trope. But the Kabal's invovlement saved it and Gregory's introduction was unforeseen (hopefully he'll recur every now and then and they'll tell us, you know, how he's still alive and all). But Will's God awful Hulk-ish makeup has to be the worst the series has done - I cringed.

Instinct - I don't know the buzz on this eppy but it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of people didn't like it. I thought it was refreshing and encouraging to see them experimenting with different formats and styles, taking risks, and not getting locked in a formula. Also, it helped that I already liked the reporter from her role in BSG.

Revelations - a pretty good all around season finale. It moved at a good clip, I didn't feel like we got bogged down in exposition despite the fact that there was a lot of information dumped on us about the Source blood etc. I felt like the cast finally started to really gel.

I love that Druitt came back becasue he and Magnus are just elecrtic together. Watson was also a pleasure to watch (another Stargate vetran actor!) - but was I the only one who couldn't stop thinking about Watson and Crick every time I heard his name? The interaction between him, Magnus, and Druitt was, I think, one of the best things about the show and it only got better when Tesla appeared. Pity they killed Watson becasue I was hoping we'd get more of all of them together. There's just a vibe between them all, it really feels like they have relationships that stretch back more than a century and I like the side that reveals of Magnus' character. I like that Druitt's becoming a "good" bad guy but hopefully he'll continue to have conflicts with his nature and/or backslide becasue that's far more interesting and complex.

I have to say, I pretty much saw the ending coming when the Kabal woman said that the Five would essentailly "get them what they needed." Not the exact how, but I deduced they were enticing the Five to reunite to retrieve the Source blood so the Kabal could steal it. And once Henry and Ash got captured it all clicked into place quite nicely. My only hope is that Ash's turn to the "dark side" will not be neatly resolved in the season premiere. I hope it's a bit of an arc that lasts for maybe half of the second season, which should get us some good angst and conflict with Magnus and Ash, and hopefully Druitt.

Finally, I've seen some people discussing why the Kabal stole the blood. I thought that was pretty apparent. The characters said it themselves, did they not? How can the Kabal use a pathogen that'll make abnormals homicidal when that's what their army is composed of? The Five wanted the Source for a vaccine. I figured the Kabal wanted it for the same - vaccinate their soliders as a bit of extra insurance in case those creppy little parasites aren't enough to keep control of them.

On the whole a pretty good first season. Generally entertaining, with a few duds for sure but what show doesn't have that? My hope is that the plotty, arc type suff we got towards the end will continue into and throughout season two (and beyond). If they'll answer some questions as well, and maybe give us some more flashbacks of Magnus' life, I'll be a really happy viewer.

Until then!

Huh

2009-01-09T23:51:37Z

You Scored as Postmodernist

Postmodernism is the belief in complete open interpretation. You see the universe as a collection of information with varying ways of putting it together. There is no absolute truth for you; even the most hardened facts are open to interpretation. Meaning relies on context and even the language you use to describe things should be subject to analysis.

Postmodernist

88%

Existentialist

69%

Materialist

63%

Cultural Creative

63%

Idealist

50%

Romanticist

38%

Modernist

31%

Fundamentalist

19%

I always groaned when the postmodernists came up in any class in University. But the more I think about this the more accurate it seems - well, as accurate as any online quiz can be, that is. But they do offer some degree of amusement.

Brrr!

2009-01-08T23:50:00Z

This is what it means to live where I do. One day it's -35 and with the windchill it's -46 and three days later it's -7. A thirty degree or more jump in temperature either way is perfectly normal, if not highly obnoxious. I hate the freeze/melt cycle. But thankfully, since we hit December it hasn't quite gotten warm enough to melt all the snow.

But I'm bracing for February becasue that's traditionally the month with a week or so of the worst deep freeze - the last few years it was minus forty or more plus the windchill for a whopping minus fifty something.

Shiver.

Isis Awards - Voting

2008-12-23T06:00:22Z

The voting is finally open for anyone who's inclined to particiapte in the awards. You can check it out here.

Isis Awards

2008-12-07T04:39:29Z

The Way... Series was nominated in the Isis Awards.  These awards are for "rare pairings." So that's kinda cool.

But I find it slightly amusing becasue I've always contended quite vehemently that the relationship does not, and should not, define the series. It's about so much more than which characters do or don't pair off. Don't get me wrong, I see Carter and Baal as a vital element for their respective characters; but on the whole it's simply a single fact in, what I hope is, a relatively rich tapesrty of details, characters, and diverse elements.

So I take serious issue with judgements made about the series that are based on this single, minor fact, without knowing anything else and indeed without even reading it. I mean seriously, what a dumb thing to let control what you decide to take a gander at! I've never understood the "shipper" thing and I've resigned myself to the fact that I never will.   I guess you'd call this whole issue a peeve of mine - maybe my biggest peeve - for the Stargate fandom.

Anyway, just wanted to share the cool news!