Can you hear my Hart-beat?

So pretty much since my friend Jean sent me a link for "My Drunk Kitchen" I've known that Hannah Hart is the comedic gem I wish I could be. I mean, I try -- anyone within earshot of me knows how much I pun -- but Hannah is sheer brilliance. I have enjoyed every video she's posted and I'm just sad I spent four days without this song in my life.



Oh Internet. <3

Silly Video of the Day

I know that I said I was going to be posting cat videos and all but I think I might have a problem. I may have suddenly garnered an insight for the origins of all those picture-spam emails that go around. I deactivated my Facebook but I still have all the blogs that I keep up with through my Google Reader feed. The other day I saw the video that is posted below and I thought: oh my gosh, this is so hilarious that I have to share it on Facebook. I mean that was actually my first thought. Whoa whoa whoa. Back up the sharing train because is that 3 minutes and 35 seconds that everyone really must see? Will it enrich them and make them happy that I foisted this time suck upon them? Probably not, no. But then….awesome!S sent me a link of the same video! I felt a surge of vindication: two of us could not be wrong about the awesomeness of 3 minutes and 35 seconds. Which is exactly why all of those emails propagate and kill inbox capacities.

The nature of the email-forwarding-beast aside, I love how many different Sesame Street spoofs and videos there are. This particular video is not directly affiliated with Sesame Street but there are many official ones that are very awesome and very cute. I think it’s great that Sesame Street is still going strong after all these years and that new generations are being introduced to those loveable muppets. So I hope you enjoy the wonder that is an Elmo cover of LMFAO “Sexy and I know It”; I know I preferred this video to the original!

Bibliophile

When I worked in a book store during high school, I used to love the feel of trade paperback books. The covers had a beautiful matte finish and the paper used for the pages was slick and silky. I loved the paper used in trade paperbacks – it made the price difference between the mass and trade versions worthwhile. You could feel the better quality materials.

Now when I see trade paperbacks on the shelves they use the same pulpy paper as mass paperbacks. The have a larger formtatstill, which is more awkward to carry around than mass paperbacks. Overall, the same quality is just not present any longer. It’s irritating to me because more books are being published as trade paperbacks and fewer as mass paperbacks. So not only are the books more awkward to carry and the same quality binding and materials as mass paperbacks – they’re still more expensive.

Which leads me to my next complaint: why are Canadians still paying a premium on books printed in the US when our dollar has been so strong for the past three years? When the Canadian dollar first stabilized near par, book retailers claimed that they couldn’t sell at the US price because their stocks had been purchased earlier. Six months later some of the major retailers offered US list price on select newer titles. It has been two years since then and Canadians are still paying premiums to get the same titles.

Mass paperbacks are 12% more expensive in Canada than in the US; trade and hardbacks have an equivalent price disparity. In a time when major book retailers are going bankrupt and the industry as a whole is in a tizzy that no one is buying books, one would think that the market would be more flexible. I own an e-reader but I am not willing to forgo the pleasure of handling and reading physical books. I love the smell of books and knowing that I can go back and read books again wherever I take them. I do not have enough faith in the nebulous internet cloud that all the e-books I purchase will be available to me as long as material copies.

Current issues with iTunes and downloaded music only reinforce my concerns that our society has still not balanced artistic rights and the business of selling artists’ work. If you buy mp3s, you should be able to download them again if your computer or music device fails. There should be no restriction on these downloads because if you had the cd and your computer failed, it would be a non-issue. Of course, this is based on the idea of responsible consumers. People have shared music for decades and still the music industry is making money. The same goes for books – sharing books hasn’t hurt authors to my knowledge. I learn about new authors and buy their books; my friends learn about new authors and buy their books. Win-win. I just want to enjoy my books.

W/A Fan Letters

Weekend Assignment #328: Fan Letters

How about a lighter topic this week? Let's talk about FAN LETTERS. I have never personally written one, because the one time I attempted to, it came off, well, sounding kinda weird! LOL. Apparently I have NO talent for them at all! Nope. Nope. Nope. But how about you? Have you ever written a successful FAN LETTER? If so, tell us about your experience. Did you hear back from the celebrity? Was it a positive experience? Tell us all about it.

In 2005, I began watching CSI: Las Vegas. The show had been running for five years and a fandom was well established. I fell in love with the subtle relationship between Sara Sidle (Jorja Fox) and Gil Grissom (Billy Peterson). I also came to respect Jorja Fox for the charitable work she did in her off-time and sticking to her own style. I decided to write a letter to Jorja to let her know that I really enjoyed her acting and I thought that she was a pretty awesome woman. To my surprise, months later I received a signed photo.


Extra Credit: Write a one paragraph FAN LETTER to your favorite celebrity.

Lucy Lawless:
Thank you for the years you spent as Xena and for all the hard work that you put in that allows me to enjoy the show even these many years later. I love your sense of humor and the dedication and love you share with your fans. I am always excited to see what new projects you are in, from “Spartacus” to “Battlestar Galactica” to “Locusts”. It’s so enjoyable to see the variety of projects you undertake and the showcasing of your many skills. Ultimately, I want to thank you for sharing your talents with the world. Please don’t stop!

Original post

Time Shifted Viewing

In the age of technology there are always those that drag their feet. I am one such, mostly because da-yum, technology ain’t cheap. Thus it is that I have a TV from a coworker’s mother, with an epically large remote because the original remote is not compatible with dvd players. I cannot set the TV clock with my epically large remote so when I tape, with my VCR, my season finales of all my Space shows this weekend I have a bit of a problem. I have to determine how real time relates to my TV’s time and thence set my VCR to record my programs in real time via TV time.

This is why I’m waiting until Saturday when all my shows air back to back. Can you imagine the drama of taping three shows on two different days? There’d be time zones and physics equations required just to sort this out.

To sum it up

I have never been particularly well suited to studying math. Sure, we get along for short periods of time but like any family visit – it ends with shouting and frustration. The irony of my relationship with math lies in two main facets: my day job and my habit of adding up random numbers. The date, the elevator floor buttons, the passage of time. For instance, I have posted 3 times in 9 days in the month of June (6th month). These figures are divisible by each other! They are the sum of their parts. They are an enjoyable mathematical puzzle.

Battlestar Galactica: The fight over Starbuck

Science fiction has always had an uneasy relationship with women. (This site is awesome for context:Feminist SF.) I did not become a fan of the new Battlestar Galactica until the second season. Once ensconced in this world, I was offended by Dirk Benedict’s outcry against Starbuck. Benedict’s childish and pathetic ranting about the change in gender of one of the principle characters is an insult to the new audience and the past audience of the show. It reflects an attitude that I find a personal affront; it’s ridiculous the characteristics that Benedict finds so emasculating when portrayed by a woman are empowering when played by a man.

“You were fantastic, absolutely fantastic. And you know what? So was I.”

I first stumbled across the band Lamb through Torchwood’s use of the song Gorecki. One of the many fanvideos made for the Doctor and Rose ‘ship used this song and snippets of the show’s dialogue. I really enjoyed Christopher Eccleston’s portrayal of the Doctor and I was sad to see him go after one season. David Tennant quickly won me over but friends later told me that Eccleston had only done one season of Doctor Who to avoid typecasting. This is a bit arrogant and casts a whole new light on his closing lines even though I liked both actors.

Merry meet and merry part

When I first graduated from university, I found that without the structure of classes I spent most of my time chatting in online forums. I was very active in the CSI fandom and rediscovering the Xena fandom. This lasted for the better part of a year and outside of my roommates I did not socialize greatly. Once I began expanding my social circle for the first time since entering university I found that there were many different venues to meet up to socialize. I found within myself a Martha Stewart that loved to cook and host friends at my apartment.

I have been at my place of employment hard on the heels of graduating university and so have gotten to know my coworkers. I am one of the youngest people in this office and it is interesting to see how age dynamics can play out in relationships outside the office. There are only a few that meet up regularly outside of the office. Though lunches and Friday night rounds are not uncommon, perhaps because we are in the mining industry and so wining and dining is a regular part of the work place. I’m lucky to like all my co-workers.

Weekend Assignment

Bit o' nonense and stuff

There is one thing only that truly drives me nuts about blogger and that is the follower option. Every time I look at my home page, it tells me I have four followers but when I go to the detail it only shows me two. (Hi Diane and Alan!) Who are these shadow followers? Is it just a by-product of unknown RSS feeds? I can think of ten people who know about this project and otherwise the only reason for someone to come here is if they click “next blog”. So hello my phantoms, my angels of music. Welcome here.

techno babble

A recent cover of “The Economist” was titled, “How to handle the data deluge” (or some close equivalent). It made me think of my online footprint and the myriad of ways that my information is represented.

For email, I have a (very old) Hotmail (MSN) account and a gmail (Google) account. I have a Livejournal (Independent) and a Blogger (Google) account; to make those blogs pretty I have a Photobucket (Fox) and a Picasa (Google) account to host my photos.

For those friends who don’t read my blogs I have a Myspace (Fox) and a Facebook (Independent) account. For my friends that are more mobile, and tech savvy, than myself I have a Twitter (Independent) account. Because my phone does not access the internet, I use Echofon (Independent) which helps me keep track of all my tweets.

My ICQ account is long gone but sharing its place are MSN, gchat (Google), Skype (Independent/Ebay) and a now largely defunct AOL account.

I’m a member of a Yahoo group and a Google group – not to mention membership in the Gateworld forum, the Stargate Solutions forum, a Xena Yuku forum and the Spacecast forum.

To keep myself entertained I have a youtube account which is linked to my gmail account. Also through my gmail account I use the Google reader to capture my RSS feeds of other blogs and websites that I regularly enjoy. Clearly Google and Facebook are neck and neck for who knows the most about me.

All of this and I haven’t even mentioned all the online retail and banking accounts! I’m probably taking this too lightly but in the meantime, I hope you’ll forgive because I want to draw a pretty pretty flowchart of all this information.

Speaking of techno babble, I don't care about the clock time -- Sam Carter would beat Rodney McKay any time!

note to self

Fun fact! Realizing that if your fiscal year-end is the same as a calendar year-end, this means that your quarters will be a palindrome of months that end in 31 days for the first and fourth quarter and months that end in 30 days for the second and third quarter.

Important: no one else will think this is a fun fact.

*not a true palindrome obviously, as it would be structured 31/30/30/31 and reversed would be 13/03/03/13 but a neat bracketing coincidence in any event.

Evil Dead: The Musical

Last night I saw “Evil Dead: The Musical” in all its blood spray and glory. It has been a long time since I’ve seen the movies and I’ve actually seen “Army of Darkness” more times than I have either of the Evil Dead movies. Still, I love Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell is an amazing comedic actor with a flair for camp. There wasn’t as much blood spray as I was expecting given that there are 6 rows in the splatter section. The production scenery, costumes and singing were all over the top and awesome. A really fun night out.

ladies in space

For all that I love Star Trek, I have not watched much of the original series. It’s pretty campy and at times the American Way ™ themes can be a bit overpowering. This is a show that it is important to consider in the historical context – what other programming was on the air and the technology available to produce the show. I am watching the pilot episode of Star Trek and it’s a nice nod that the first officer is a woman. They were also one of the first shows to have a woman of color as a main character.

Geek Lite

Folks, the internets don’t think I’m geeky. It’s true: I don’t know any computer programming languages, I can’t fiddle with the hardware of a computer and ever hope to have it work again, I’ve never played D&D and I listen to the same five albums. I think I’m in danger of losing my self-granted status of “geek”. I am very focused on my particular interests but how much of a Xena fan am I? I haven’t watched all the commentaries. I wouldn’t recognize the crew names! Worse, I don’t know all the Trek episode titles! I’m having an identity crisis.

Star Trek Global Release

I have been helping the organizers of the mini-Star Trek convention by putting up posters. I have also approached some other businesses that, while not specific to fans of Science Fiction/Fantasy, are still likely venues. I find it funny that most people when I tell them about the event will say that they have seen some Star Trek. But, by and large, they point out that they think the new movie will be good not just for those crazy people that dress up for conventions and at the theatre.



Ahem.

I say, live a little – one to beam up.

Free Comic Day

Today is International Free Comic Day! This wonderful day you can walk into any comic book store and receive a free comic, just for going in. That’s pretty awesome. Most comic publishers produce special comics for today so it’s not just old comics that no one wants. I don’t often read comics myself but I really love graphic novels.

So I’ll be spending my day picking up free comics and putting up posters for the Khan-Con. Then I’ll get to visit with some friends and play some board games! All in all, a delightfully geeky way to spend the day.

Wolverine

The summer Blockbuster season has opened and I attended the midnight preview of the movie that is kicking it off, Wolverine. I was initially supposed to be going with a friend as we have been eagerly awaiting Hugh Jackman…I mean, the movie release. Unfortunately she fell ill and my running partner (in crime) attended instead. We had a delightful time playing cards in line for three hours before we got to go into the theatre. It was a lot of fun and dispelled much of the squick from X3 for me. Lots of action and amazing effects, with good plot!

Star Trek!

Facebook isn’t all stalking and too much personal information, it’s also the wondrous deliverer of news like the Khan-Con! Yes, that’s right, there is going to be mini Star Trek convention here in Vancouver and I’m going! And because of course, I have been wanting to do less – I will be volunteering. Hah. It’s another chance to wear my uniform out and about. I’ll be attending the opening night of the new Star Trek movie for that express purpose. This event is run by some apparently like-minded people so if this goes well, I might have some new friends! Khaaaaaaan!

Geekdom

I have always embraced my geekiness as I think it is an integral part of my personality. The intensity of my attention on things geeky tends to go in cycles and though one might argue my attention to running and soccer of late as a different form of geeky behavior, I shall be returning my more traditional roots. I’ve recently been checking out more Trek blogs and twitter postings. I can feel the sweet pull of inane details. As Wil Wheaton said, there’s nothing geeks love more than talking about something no one else cares about. I love my fandoms!