Wrapping Up the Adventures of Mathman and Dragongirl

Emerald City Comic Con was definitely a blast, but lest you think that the convention is the only thing my husband and I did in Seattle over the weekend, I thought I would wrap up this series of posts with the rest of the story.

We got a hotel within walking distance of the convention center, which was downtown. This of course meant it was within walking distance of several other places as well. We were lucky enough to experience some pretty nice weather while we were there--I don't think it got below freezing and it was in the mid to high forties most of the time. Maybe that's not super warm, especially for Texans, but it sure beats snowstorms! It didn't even rain that much. We experienced the odd sprinkle here and there but nothing that kept us from going about our touristy occupations. I also have to say that I found Seattle to be surprisingly and pleasantly clean for a big city. I was extremely impressed with the portions of it we saw. All in all it made for a quite lovely visit.

We were about six or eight blocks from Pike Place Market, and since we got in at about ten in the morning on Friday, and the convention didn't start until two, after we checked into our hotel (and by a stroke of luck actually found a ready and waiting room), we meandered in that direction. There was a lot to see there, and I won't even pretend we saw it all, or even close. We went back on Sunday afternoon after we finished our last tour of the convention, and still, I feel like we'll easily discover many new things the next time we go back. It was a fun little labyrinth of shops and stalls and restaurants. On Friday we ate an early lunch at a little hole-in-the-wall Mediterranean place that was pretty yummy, and we found a store selling bacon scented soap of all things (along with bacon, cupcake, nacho, and wasabi flavored lip glosses).  We capped off our first visit with a stop into the first Starbucks for warm drinks and a bit of a history lesson. I will confess that while I knew the franchise to be named after a character in Moby Dick, I did not know that coffee, tea, and spices were the cargo of the ship in the novel, or that the picture in the Starbucks logo is actually a siren and not a mermaid. Yay for learning new things! Sunday afternoon we went back and just wandered around checking out the shops and we even managed to catch a little bit of the singing fish guys. For the record, I prefer the singing fudge guys in St. Louis, but hey, it's part of the Pike Place Market's hook, right?

We were also very close to the monorail that runs to the 1962 World's Fair grounds, which contain the Space Needle and the Experience Music Project-Scifi Museum. Saturday after the convention we went to the Space Needle and rode on up to the observation deck to check things out.

Here's our souvenir digital photo, with photoshopped backdrop.

As we were leaving, night was rolling in, and holy cow is that thing gorgeous against the darkening sky!

Space Needle at night.

Saturday was actually our sixth wedding anniversary, so we decided to have a nice dinner at the hotel restaurant. The waiter was kind enough to get a photo for us.

Still can't believe it is has been six years already!

Sunday morning we were back to check out the EMP and Science Fiction museum. They were kind of between exhibits, but we still really enjoyed what was there.

Guitars all the way up (with a lovely bass at the top).

There was a really super neat room with sound booths for jam sessions on all kinds of different instruments, and stations where you could learn how to play with pedals and the different types of percussion instruments. I found a few inspirational thoughts on the walls there.

Ray Charles was a smart man, folks.

This is true of so much in life, not just music.

There was also a really spiffy room with a display chronicling the evolution of electric guitars and bass guitars. It was pretty spectacular, but alas, I got no photos. It was a hip, hip place though.

We of course got bogged down in the gift shop for the science fiction side of things, though we didn't end up buying anything. But they had some pretty groovy stuff in there, I have to say.

Of course, my favorite exhibit, and the reason I so eagerly agreed to join my husband on a trip to the museum in the first place, was this one:

The Battlestar Galactica exhibit!

That's right, Battlestar Galactica! Woohoo! There was a really incredible mix of stuff from the original series and the newer run (though I think the newer run was more heavily represented, but it did run for a heck of a lot longer). Some of the highlights, in photo form (you can bet I remembered to take lots of pictures here):

Great sign.

A Mark VII Viper.

Apollo's Viper, in fact.

A Mark II Viper (and a female pilot costume from the original series).

A Cylon Raider and an old school (original series) Cylon.

It's watching you...

One of Starbuck's mandala paintings.

Starbuck's flight suit.

Viper pilot helmets from the original and new series.

There was a place to stand in the exhibit to "test" whether or not you were a Cylon. My husband thought it was broken because when he stood there nothing happened. But when I stood there, the music from the series (the "All Along the Watchtower" theme) started playing. Hmm. I guess the glowing back should have given it away...

All in all, the trip was outstanding all around. The convention was a blast and we found lots of other enjoyable things to do in Seattle as well. Enough that we are definitely going to be going back there again, probably often. Hubby is lobbying to add it to our list of destination cities for vacations, and I am inclined to agree with him.

And that wraps up my week of blogging about Seattle. Normal blogging to resume tomorrow. Until then, ciao!

Strange Convergences

I know I said last week that on Friday my friend and I were going to go out and see The King's Speech, but unfortunately it didn't pan out. The show was sold out when we arrived, because apparently I failed to take in how ridiculously hopping the 7th Street Movie Tavern would be last Friday. Sigh. So we were bummed we couldn't see the movie, and there didn't seem to be anything else playing soon that looked interesting to us, so we decided to just grab dinner instead. It would give us the chance to chat anyway, rather than just sitting next to each other in silence. We picked a restaurant, went in, and were told it would be an hour's wait. Sigh. Nope, not so much.

While I had been driving around looking for a place to park (the garage was, like the theater, packed), I had noticed that I ended up close to a restaurant called Dos Gringos. Now, I have driven past this restaurant often in the twelve years I've been in Fort Worth, and I have mocked its name relentlessly in that time, but I have never actually eaten there. But, it was off the main stretch, away from the throng of hipsters who were thwarting our evening out, and the price point seemed to fit what we were looking at, so we figured what the heck and gave it a try. Okay, the food, it was not spectacular, and the service was a weensy bit lacking, but it wasn't terrible, and my friend and I had a mostly enjoyable meal and some good conversation, so the evening was not a total loss. We had fun, it was good. But I gotta say, the place was weird. My friend commented on how it just had a lot of pieces that didn't seem to fit together correctly, as if someone had dumped the pieces of two different puzzles in one box and mixed them up. The primary example of this was the live band in the bar. I'll be honest with you, I didn't even realize the band was live until about halfway through dinner, I really just thought they had a classic light rock station on. What's that, you say? Classic light rock in a Mexican restaurant? (Well, Tex-Mex.) Not Tejano? Not Country? Nope. Strange. Even the list of songs they played was a strange mix--ranging from Neil Diamond to Tom Petty's "Last Dance With Mary Jane." Also, their bathrooms were freezing.

Oh well, at least now I have a valid reason to mock the place, right? Also, my friend and I had a good time, which was the important thing.

I have to say, I was a little bummed I wasn't gonna get to get my Colin Firth on though. So I was super excited on Saturday when I discovered that Syfy's cheesy movie of the week was one I hadn't seen starring Kavan Smith. Yay! This week's monster flick, Iron Invader, was actually pretty darn amusing to me, I have to say. It had a super silly plot about alien bacteria that feeds off of metal taking over a big statue made out of scrap and wandering around a small town in Idaho, killing people by sucking all of the metal out of their blood. The effects were spectacularly low-budget (I am pretty sure the "bacteria" was just neon green paint with iron fillings mixed in that were manipulated with a magnet). But it was the casting, man, the casting is what really got me.

Here is the conversation I imagine the casting people had when putting together this movie:

"Hey, who is our lead for this one?"

"Kavan Smith."

"Oh, hey, yeah. He's cool. I loved him in Stargate Atlantis, and isn't he on Eureka now, too? Oh, and he had a brief appearance in Battlestar Galactica....dang, I think he's been in just about all of our big franchises, hasn't he?"

"Huh. I guess he has. Hey, you know what would be funny?"

"What's that?"

"Let's cast a bunch of people from all of the other Syfy shows he's been in!"

"Yeah, right on!"

So....this resulted in the cast being rounded out with:

Nicole de Boer, who appeared in the Stargate Atlantis episode "Whispers."

(Interesting fun side fact number one: She was also in the movie Cube with another SGA alum, David Hewlett.)

Donnelly Rhodes, who you may know better as Doc Cottle from Battlestar Galactica.

Paul McGillion, who you may know better as Doctor Carson Beckett from Stargate Atlantis (and who in this film for some strange reason had a southern accent, even though he was playing a small town sheriff in Idaho).

(Interesting fun side fact number two: Donnelly Rhodes was also a series regular on Canadian series Da Vinci's Inquest--which is, as far as I can gather, the equivalent of Law & Order in the Canadian acting community--and Paul McGillion made a guest appearance on that series back in the day.)

Chris Gauthier, who you may know better as Vincent from Eureka.

(Interesting fun side fact number three: Paul McGillion and Christ Gauthier and Kavan Smith have all made guest appearances on Syfy's Sanctuary.)

I know people joke about Syfy owning the actors that appear in their original series and "forcing" them to do these silly made-for-television movies, but dude. My head was seriously about to explode going over how connected all of these actors were. It was crazy. In the most awesome way possible.

I think that, along with The Room at the End of the Hall (or The Nightmare at the End of the Hall, depending on which country you are in), Iron Invader will be one of those television movies that I regularly record whenever it comes on. You gotta love those guilty pleasure movies, eh?

Creatively Keeping it Clean

One of the more difficult challenges of parenthood, in my opinion, is learning to change your bad habits when the kiddo arrives so that you don't inadvertently pass them on. For me the most challenging habit to break has been cursing. I have a horrible potty-mouth. (Sorry, Mom.)

This is not my mother's fault, I will point out. If I were going to shrink myself, I would likely conclude that this predilection sprung up as being the lesser of the teenage rebellions available to me. I was always a rather mild-mannered and well-behaved kid (and adult) for the most part. Sure, I had my indiscretions, went through my phases, but my acting out was always minor. Developing a colorful vocabulary of expletives and then putting it to good use was also a way for me to keep my image from being too squeaky clean without having to get into any real trouble. At this point, most of the "bad" words I drop don't even have any real vehemence behind them, they are just part of my vocabulary now. But knowing where they come from doesn't really help address the issue of getting rid of them.

And I do need to start getting rid of them. My daughter is not yet speaking English, but she is already an extremely talkative kid, and she has picked up the odd word here and there. I will sadly not be surprised at all if her first real sentence is something absolutely horrible. While that will certainly provide many funny stories much, much later on in her life, it's really not the goal.

But...there is a need for some expletives in anyone's language. I truly do believe that. For a while I have been thinking about how to weed out the words I really don't need my daughter repeating in politer company (or teaching other children with much less laid-back parents). I am really bad about the F-bomb, and the synonym for waste often sneaks in, as well as "damn" and "hell," though those last two are not in and of themselves bad words. My aim is to implement the tried and true method of substitution, and since phrases like "golly gosh darn it" just hold no weight in my mind, I have decided to turn to my love of all things geeky for help in finding some good replacements.

The Little Mermaid
Okay, I know this one might throw you for a loop, but it is the source of the word snarfblatt, which I have actually long used as a replacement for my bad language (I can occasionally filter myself). This one is pretty versatile, actually, and can be used to replace the F-bomb, damn, and hell. So I think I will be keeping that one around for sure.

Farscape
When astronaut John Crichton got  swept off through that wormhole, one of the first things that happened to him aboard Moya was that he had translator microbes implanted in his body so that he could understand all of the aliens he encountered. For some strange reason though, curse words did not translate (gee I wonder what the reason for that could have been), so we were treated to quite a lovely lexicon of alternative curses to pick from this series. My two favorite are frell (substitute for the F-bomb) and dren (substitute for the word that rhymes with "hit"). I have been using these occasionally for some time now, so it is just a matter of more consciously choosing them to replace their more mundane counterparts. I have tried to get behind Hezmana a time or two (it is their equivalent of hell), but it just doesn't quite roll of the tongue.

Red Dwarf
Ah, this lovely series gives us the word smeg, which is another good all-purpose swear. It comes in handy in pretty much any situation where you have plenty to say and none of it is nice and keeping it bottled in would just plain be hazardous to your health.

Battlestar Galactica
Of course, from one of my favorite space operas we get the ubiquitous frak. I doubt there's any question of what that one replaces. I actually use this one about equally with its Earth-bound counterpart these days, so maybe that means I am halfway to conversion? Though this one is so close to the actual term that I think it will need to be reserved for when I am really mad. Side note: Yes, I am going with the four-letter spelling. In the original version of the series, back in the eighties, the word also appeared and was spelled "frack." That's all well and good, but RDM officially changed it to "frak" for his series, and that is the one I watched, so that is how I spell it. In case you were wondering. (Yes I realize that was some excessive nerdery there, still, it needed to be said.)

Star Wars
Specifically the Republic Commando series. A big part of that series, as I mentioned before, was delving into Mandalorian culture, and that definitely included Mando swear words. I rather liked quite a few of them. My favorite is osik (can range in strength from "crap" to that other word that is worse but means the same thing only with more intensity). There is also shabuir, which is what you call someone you really don't like, and shebs, which refers to one's hind parts.

That's quite a collection to start with, I think. I have a few others that come from life rather than the realm of geeks, too. For example, back in college, I had a friend that used the term heezy instead of hell, and I quite like that, so I have used that one pretty much since then. Also, at some point in high school I thought I should clean up my language a bit. It didn't take, but I was using the term fruitbat in place of another word that starts with the same letter, and I'll be darned if that doesn't crop up every now and again as well. I have heard from a few sources the phrase Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? to replace What the F-bomb? and have also been incorporating that.

So really, it comes down to just getting better about actually thinking about what I say before I actually say it. Really, that's good advice for anyone. It has the added bonus that sometimes just pausing to think takes all of the heat of the moment and the desire to curse at all goes away (sometimes). Honestly, the words themselves are only of marginal importance, because it is the intent behind them that really matters. I know this. But it is nicer for the people around you if you don't walk around muttering obscenities where they can hear (or at least that they can understand).

There are those, I am sure, who feel that because it is the intent that matters, even the replacements are bad and I should strive to not want to have or express those feelings at all. I can only say to those people that their souls are much purer than mine. Either that, or they run into far fewer idiots on a regular basis than those I seem to come across.

Hopefully I can remove the "real" swear words from my vocabulary so that when my daughter does start picking up those phrases, at least she won't get them from me. Also, this way, if she does go around repeating what I say, hopefully the other authority figures won't catch on to what she is saying, or will be amused enough to let it slide.

Also, you know, there's the fact that I do plan to actually teach her about the function and appropriate use (or lack thereof) of such words, but still. Kids are kids, even the good ones. Just look at how I turned out...

Bits and Pieces

Ooh, ooh!  I totally finished Towers of Midnight yesterday and it was so freaking awesome.  I love Perrin so much.  He's cool again, huzzah!  Also, Moiraine!  And I'm very annoyed that there are now Whitecloaks that I like.  What's up with that, seriously?  Plus, it's going to suck to be Aiel in the future, apparently.

Um, that's pretty much the extent of the review I am going to do on that particular book, other than to say oh wow.  I loved it.  I can't wait for the next (and last!) Wheel of Time book to come out.  I suspect my husband and I will be fighting over first-read dibs ferociously.  But if you'd like a more in-depth review, Leigh Butler over at Tor has two, one that is spoiler-free, and one that is so totally not spoiler-free.

This means I can start playing Kingdom Hearts today during nap time.  Sweet.  I've got my walk-through saved, and I am determined to get this damn game played, y'all.  Reading-wise, I have two months worth of comic books and graphic novels (including the Serenity GN about Shepherd Book's backstory, which I may actually review for you if I get motivated) to read through, so I am gonna get those all read up (just in time for my December shipment to head my way) before I dive into my next book.  I have two clamoring for my attention right now, so I am going to use the time to decide which one to dive into first.  I'll let you know when I do get that figured out though.  I know you're desperate to know. 

Oh, hey, did you notice?  It's Friday!  That means time for a new installment of Gronk, yay!  Please to check it out and enjoy, here. Poor Gronk may not want to watch Battlestar for a while, but hopefully she'll give it a chance eventually!

Speaking of web-comics, one of my all-time favorites is called Looking for Group.  It is completely and utterly fantastic.  Basically, it's an RPG that you read instead of play, if that makes any sense at all.  The story centers around an elf named Cale who is good and pure and always wants to do the right thing.  This is a bit of a problem because all elves are evil in the world Cale lives in, but apparently nobody bothered to tell him that.  So, as he goes along, looking for adventure, he picks up a group, made up of really awesome, really not-nice people.  This includes one of my favorite characters of anything ever, Richard the warlock (or, Dick).  It is updated two times a week (Mondays and Thursdays) and each installment is basically a fully colored page out of a graphic novel.  There is an overarching story-arc, but there are smaller story-arcs as well.  So far, they have released three volumes of the series in really nice hardcover graphic novel format.  I'll admit, it makes a lot more sense when you sit down and read big chunks of it at once, but it is still highly amusing and entertaining on a page by page basis.  If you're interested in giving it a try, you can check out the first couple of pages and then decide where to go from there.  Here is a link to page one. 

Anyhoo, the reason I am telling you this is because I wanted to share an awesome moment in my life with you.  A while back I was telling my friend Miss T about the comic and when explaining it to her I mentioned the bunny that ends up being the constant companion of Richard the warlock.  I'm not going to explain why, or go into the bunny's story line (yes, the bunny has its own story line) here, because, well, spoilers.  But suffice to say, the bunny is totally awesome.  I was telling my husband this past weekend about my conversation with Miss T, and was amused that she was interested because of the bunny's story line.  I was saying how wonderful it would be if the guys over at LFG decided to make a bunny plushie (there is already a Richard plushie, which yes, I own).  Then, two nights ago, I click on a link to LFG in my feed reader and find this. My reaction may have caused my husband to come running in from down the hall to see what the heck was up.  Seriously, I must own this, and soon.  I just love when stuff like that happens, when you are saying to someone, "Wouldn't it be so awesome if X existed?" and then the next day you find out that someone just went and made X!  So splendid.

Proceeding in the random flow of this post, I also wanted to share one of my most recent addictions with you.  I am sure you have seen it around on the internet (Facebook, most likely).  It is the site Damn You Auto Correct, which I finally caved and added to my feed reader the other day.  I am so glad I did.  Some of these things are just weird, but some of them make me seriously fall out of my chair or start crying from laughing so hard.   It also gives me a weird sense of not being alone in the universe.  Because really, who owns a smart phone and hasn't had one of these moments, seriously?

And finally, I realize I haven't talked about this yet this month, but yes, I totally finished my novel on Tuesday, huzzah!  Total page count for the first draft was 137 pages (which is an excellent number if I do say so myself) and 76,487 words.  I feel so amazing for having done that.  I will definitely be revising this story and expanding upon it in the coming year.  I can think of a few dead-end plot elements I'll need to to through and excise, and a few scenes (mostly from a certain character's point of view) that I want to go back and add now that I know what the actual story  arc for this first novel turned out to be.  I do definitely want to write at least one, if not two more books in this universe as well, because, well, while I feel like a lot of stuff did happen in this book, it largely set the stage for a lot more other, bigger, stuff to happen next.  Also, the conflict that I thought would be the big final conflict in this book?  Totally didn't happen yet, it's got a little while before it comes to a head, I think.  So, there you are.  NaNoWriMo, it rocks.

I am off to have lunch with a friend from my former job and then to have a spectacularly relaxing weekend.  Maybe, just maybe, I'll get motivated and put up some of the Christmas decorations inside.

I hope you guys have a wonderful weekend as well.

Stargate Wednesday: Visitation (2.9)

Beware of Spoilers My Fine Friends!!

Spoilers For The Stargate Universe Episode Visitation to Follow!!

Oh man, is that number up in the post title right?  This is episode nine already?  That means next week's episode is the last before the mid-season hiatus.  Oh, no!  What I am gonna do for my Stargate fix?  Hmm...I guess I could just read one of the several Stargate novels I have in my reading pile, or watch some of the Stargate shows from any of the three franchises that I have on DVD...gee, I guess I will survive after all.  Well, now that we've established that, let's move on, shall we?  Okay?  Good.

So this week, Destiny drops out of FTL (on what I believe to be just a routine stop), and then all of a sudden, another ship literally appears from out of nowhere.  Not only that, it looks just like the shuttles that Destiny used to have!  We soon find out that the shuttle is in fact one of ours, the damaged one we left back on Planet of the Crazy People in season one.  On board the shuttle is everyone who stayed on the planet.

Commence the "WTF?!?" reactions.  The shuttle hails Destiny and the person on the other line sounds a whole lot like Dr. Caine, who was pretty much elected leader of the Crazy People back in the day.  He says that he has no idea how they got there, they just went to sleep in the shuttle, on the planet, and woke up in the shuttle, in space, next to Destiny.  There is much speculation in the bridge that this might be some kind of ploy on the part of the aliens who built the planet all of these fine folks were last seen on.  It is then pointed out if this is a trick by those mysterious aliens, then considering how advanced their technology is, there's nothing our crew has on hand that will help them see through the ruse.  So they agree to let the people from the shuttle on board but keep them under close watch.

I would like to take this moment to say that not only did I find myself thinking that Rush was making a lot of sense throughout this entire episode, I actually agreed with him on more than one occasion.  I think I'll go have my own WTF moment now, if you'll excuse me....  Okay, back now.  Sorry about that.  Can I just say for the record though, that any episode where Rush is the person making the most sense means that there must be some serious crazy afoot.

Eventually, after giving everyone from the shuttle an exam, Young realizes he has no reason to treat them like they're a threat, so he lets them take up residence in their old quarters.  He points out to Wray and T.J. though that these people all give him the heeby jeebies.  And he wants to know why.

Oh, poor T.J.  As soon as the shuttle docks with Destiny, she goes running to meet Caine and crew, hoping that they will be bringing her baby back.  Young tries to tell her not to get her hopes up, but she can't help herself.  But not only do the people from Planet of the Crazy People (which we learn that they called Eden) not have T.J.'s baby, they have no idea what she's talking about when she asks them about her "visit" to the planet a while back.

Of course, these people have pretty much no memories at all beyond parting ways with Destiny several months ago.  Young has Wray interviewing them all, trying to see what they do remember so they can try to put together the pieces of what happened  while they were on Eden and exactly how they got back to Destiny, which is, by now, all the way in another galaxy.  Rush and Scott go over the shuttle and find that it has been restored to its factory settings and is as good as new, with no logs indicating how it got to where it is, of course.  (I groaned inwardly when the brand new status of the shuttle was revealed, fearing that there was going to be a serious Starbuck ripoff here, but thankfully they went in a totally different direction.)

Everyone (except Caine) is pretty certain that the aliens who created Eden had something to do with getting the shuttle back to join up with the rest of the crew, but no one is really sure of their motives for doing so.  They are starting to wonder if maybe the people on Eden had some sort of encounter with the aliens that the aliens then wiped from their memories.

Then poor Eli sits down in the mess to talk to one of the returnees, who have been more or less shunned by everyone else (Young's not the only one picking up the bad vibes), and he gets her talking about what she does remember about Eden, when suddenly, her nose starts bleeding, she has a massive freak out, and then dies, right there in the mess.  Wow, I would have hated to have been on that lunch shift.

At this point I am thinking to myself, Aha!  The aliens who made Eden totally screwed with these people and then wiped their memories and sent them back, and remembering their time on the planet triggers a kill switch!  And, well, I was wrong.

In the infirmary, T.J. informs us that the woman, Val, died from what all evidence indicates to be massive blunt-force trauma to the head.  This causes more confusion, and Wray decides to try hypnotizing the people from Eden to see if she can get them to remember more that way.  We learn from the next person she talks to that Val actually died on the planet, several months ago, when she was hit in the head by a falling tree.  Then, Peter, the guy that reveals this, dies in session.  His cause of death appears to be extreme exposure and hypothermia.

We eventually learn that everyone on the shuttle died on Eden, and for some reason the aliens temporarily revived them and sent them back to Destiny, where they all get to die again, in order, from what originally killed them.  I've gotta say, I did not see that one coming.  In the end, James finds a Kino in the shuttle and we see Caine's last moments, recording a farewell message and begging for help, just before a bright light swallows up the shuttle and the transmission is cut off.

So now we know that all of those people we left behind (and kind of assumed were dead) are actually dead.  But, bonus, we've got a shuttle again!  T.J. also finally gets closure about her daughter in this episode and finally lets herself begin to grieve.  I have to admit I did like Caine's little speech imploring her to continue believing that her daughter really is in a better place, even if it isn't the better place she had imagined.

While all of this is going on, we also get a few glimpses into the situation with Chloe.  Apparently she is starting to become more and more something alien and less and less Chloe.  Greer tries to convince Scott that he needs to stop torturing himself by continuing to visit her, because she is turning into the enemy and the day is going to come when she is going to be gone, and he needs to deal with that now rather than later.  Scott refuses to listen to this, so Greer pays Chloe a visit.  They have an amazing heart to heart where Chloe works out that when she finally is fully alien, Young is probably going to have her killed, for the safety of everyone.  They also both know that Greer is likely the one who is going to be given this job.  So he has come to say his goodbyes to her now, while she's still mostly herself, and to ask for her forgiveness for doing what he believes he is going to have to do.  The part of Chloe that is still Chloe is taking this all very well, I must say.  She understands that she is in a crappy position, and she isn't expecting any sort of eleventh hour save.  She's just trying to make her peace with the time she has left.

It looks like Chloe's situation is going to come to a head next week.  I have to say, I hope that she doesn't turn into one of the aliens, but that she also doesn't get "fixed."  I would like to see her become something truly other, still Chloe, but not, and become an asset to the crew (and stay that way).  We shall have to see where they take this character.

All in all, I have to say, I liked this episode a lot more than I was expecting it to.  Caine and his followers came back, sure, but they didn't wreak much havoc other than to leave everyone in a huge state of doubt and confusion about what it all means.  It was a very quiet episode, and I thought it was extremely well handled.  Even the bits about faith and God and miracles and science were all done in a way to make one think, rather than to get one's hackles up (whichever side of the fence you may come down on those issues).  I especially liked that they played with some science fiction tropes and the episode started out feeling like it was very predictable but ended up going down a completely unexpected road when you weren't looking.

There were also some really good character moments, like the heart to heart between Greer and Chloe, and Chloe's Kino messages to her friends and loved ones.  There was some lovely humor, such as when Wray reveals she knows how to hypnotize people and Young asks if there is anything else he should know about her.  Her response?  That she was probably overqualified for an HR position.  Eli, of course, gets the requisite Arthur C. Clarke quote about sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic (to which Young gets his own quip in reply).  Also, most importantly, there was a cute little couple moment between Greer and Park, yay!

I am very curious to see our big cliff-hanger next week for the mid-season finale, to be sure.

Word Count Update: 44,345 out of 50,000

P.S.  Today's NaNoWriMo writer's pep talk?  From Lemony Snicket.  Write on, my friends, write on.

Stargate Thursday: The Greater Good (Revisited)

I know, I know.  Two days about the same episode of Stargate?  Really?  But, I want to take a few minutes to "update" yesterday's SGU review based on some links I stumbled across on the webs.  Notably here and here.

Apparently, I may have jumped the gun in calling Perry's (and by extension Ginn's) death.

In the Q & A section of his blog, SGU writer and executive producer Joe Mallozzi had this tidbit:

Kassian writes: “Please, please can you tell me something regarding her story arc, because I love Julies charakter Ginn and it´s just heartbreaking what happened to her.”

Answer: What happened to her?  If you think you know, think again because this is science fiction, after all.  Anything can happen.  And will.

And also this one:

Nathan writes: “Those guards should’ve been completely focused. Any thoughts as to why there was no guard with him???”

Answer: Now that you mention it, that IS strange.  After all, we did establish the fact that all Lucian Alliance prisoners are only been permitted out of their quarters with an armed escort.  What happened to Simeon’s guard?  Hope he’s okay.  Well, guess we’ll find out next week.  I mean

On his Facebook page David Blue (who is notoriously anti-spoilers of any kind, which is totally his prerogative but bears mentioning here) had this to say:

David Blue BTW guys, avoid teasers/trailers/sneak-peeks of next week's all-new SGU ("Malice"). It'll just ruin things for you, or make you think things that aren't true. Watching it clean is always best. And, can I just tell you, Robert Carlyle gives an amazing performance in this one. ;)

All of this seems to be trying to say that Creepy LA Guy did not, in fact kill Perry/Ginn.  Now, as I said yesterday, while the end of the episode is a fade-to-black so we don't know exactly what happened, the teaser trailer for next week's episode seemed to pretty much explicitly state that they died at the end of this episode. I do acknowledge it has been a method long in use to tweak the scenes in trailers to make it seem like something happens that really doesn't at all, just to get potential viewers to tune in and find out.  I will give you that.  Maybe that's the case here, and I, like many many other people jumped the gun in making an assumption.  BUT, I can't imagine what other way it could have gone down from the ending where Creepy LA Guy is advancing on Perry.  In that situation, his only recourse to stop Ginn from spilling her guts to Homeworld Security is to kill Perry in Ginn's body, therefore killing both women.

I included the bit from Mallozzi's blog about Creepy LA Guy's guards because I wonder if maybe that isn't the answer and Mallozzi was trying to give us a clue.  Maybe right after the scene cuts away, the guard(s) catch up to him and save Perry, and it's some other "she" entirely who is dead next week.  But that all seems a bit eleventh hour to me.  Don't get me wrong, I like Ginn.  A lot, actually.  And I hope for Eli's sake that she's alright.  But if she is, there had better be a damn good explanation for how she and Perry survived the confrontation with Creepy LA Guy.

It is entirely possible, of course, that Mallozzi and Blue are just trying to throw us off the scent.  Mallozzi certainly doesn't deny that they died.  He just says that it's unlikely that what we think happened is what actually happened--which could mean anything.  And as I've mentioned already, Blue really really really hates spoilers.  I wouldn't put it past him to deny a story element right up until it airs if he believes that people thinking they know what's going to happen will cause them not to tune in.  Again, totally his right to feel that way, I am not judging.  It is just a plausible explanation for the comments above if Creepy LA Guy turns out to have really killed those women.

I said yesterday I couldn't wait for next week's episode, and now that is even more the case.  On a positive note, this week's viewership saw an increase (huzzah!), which hopefully means that next week will stay strong or (knock on wood) rise again, considering this episode left us hanging in a rather artfully suspenseful manner.

Nerds in love (and leather). 

In other news, as it is Thursday, there is a new episode of Riese up to watch, yay!  I forgot to link to Tuesday's episode (bad Cori).  So, here are the links to both:

Riese Episode 5

Riese Episode 6

I am really enjoying this web series so far.  Though, I do think the addition of the narrator, as much as I love Amanda Tapping, is way too intrusive.  It feels like they are trying to dumb it down for an everyman audience or something.  This is, by the way, just one more example of how Syfy doesn't actually understand its audience (or even try to, really).  I think it's a pretty safe bet that anyone who is going to go to the Syfy website twice a week to watch a web series is intelligent enough to infer some things that are shown on the screen without dialogue to explain them in detail.  In fact, I'll even go so far as to say that a lot of us prefer to work some of these things out on our own, as it makes the show more interesting.  Some people have been griping about the addition of the map, to show where each character is, but I kind of like that.  Granted, I am one of those people who gets super happy when I crack open a new book and see a map inside of it.  I think maps are pretty spiffy as a general rule.  Sigh.  But still, I wholeheartedly support this endeavor, and would love to see it have enough online popularity to go the full television series route like Sanctuary did.  Riese would be an excellent addition to Syfy's scant genre lineup.

On the plus side, however, it is great to see Alessandro Juliani play someone awesome again (so far at least).  His character was hands down my favorite on the recent Battlestar Galactica series until his character took an unfortunate (understandable, but still one I couldn't get on board with) turn in the last season.  In fact, if they make Riese a television series, they could make it all about Alessandro Juliani, and I would be a happy Cori. 


Word Count Update:  21,054 out of 50,000

Discovering the Star Wars Expanded Universe

Alright, I don't know if I've actually mentioned this yet, but I absolutely LOVE Star Wars.  I hear the sizzle of a light saber and my imagination just bolts off to a galaxy far far away.  I can't help it.  It is second only to Stargate in the realm of things Cori is a huge fangirl about.

Yes, Stargate still comes first.  In fact, just so there's no question, let's go ahead and get Cori's space opera hierarchy on the record, shall we?  First to last, it goes:  Stargate, Star Wars, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica (the 21st century version), and Farscape.  Okay, have we got that out of the way?  Good.  Now, back to Star Wars. 

For the sake of clarity, when I say the Expanded Universe (or EU), I mean things that are considered officially Star Wars but not part of the main cannon, which for my purposes includes the original trilogy, the new trilogy, and Clone Wars (the movie and cartoon).  So EU would be the official novels and comic books (of which there are a LOT), and video games.  I think technically Lucas is only counting novels and comics as EU, but there is a ton of story in the video games (and many of them are getting novelization tie-ins anyway), so I consider those part of the Star Wars EU.

Now, I think it would be fair to say that I have always enjoyed Star Wars.  It was always in the background when I was a kid, I was all about Ewoks, and USA used to always show the trilogy during holidays so I caught bits and pieces of it here and there.  It wasn't until the summer before my sophomore year of high school though that I actually actively watched the entire original trilogy (which I actually did at a sleepover at a friends house--back to back--staying up to finish long after she had fallen asleep).  When I was a senior in high school the theatrical re-release of the trilogy happened, and I got to go with my friends to see all of the movies on the big screen.  Yes, they were the special editions, but I didn't know any better, so I'll have to admit that the changes Lucas made have never really annoyed me as much as they have  all of the fans who came before me.  (Though I will admit that once I was older and wiser I was very irritated that he tried to take back Han shooting first.  That is truly just an insult to the character.)

The summer after my freshman year of college, The Phantom Menace came out.  My sister (a year younger than me) had fallen in with a crowd of ultra geeky Star Wars fans (one of whom was the assistant manager at the local theater), and so they had camped out for opening day tickets (ah the days before online movie ticket sales) and they got me one too.  And you know what, I really liked Phantom Menace.  I went to see it at least five times that summer.  (Admittedly, this was partly because I often got into movies for free that summer, and I saw a lot of things multiple times, but still.)  Was it as good as any of the original films?  Hell no.  Does it hold up well under scrutiny eleven years later?  Not really.  Was it a lot of fun for a casual Star Wars fan who just wanted more of the story?  Oh heck yeah.  I also liked Attack of the Clones, which I went to see at opening with my best friend (and now husband) and our ultra-hard core Star Wars fan roommate.  Sadly, I didn't get to see Revenge of the Sith when it opened (I liked Attack of the Clones but it was a bit of a let down and some of the fervor had died), but I did get to see it in theaters and am so glad I did.  It is arguably the best of the new trilogy and damn it if isn't just a good movie.  Still not quite up to par with the original trilogy, but I don't think anything ever can be because we've all placed it on a pedestal that is too high for mere mortal filmmakers to reach anymore.

Revenge of the Sith got my excitement for the franchise back up a bit, actually.  It is what got me to start thinking about the EU.  I thought maybe I might like to give some of the novels a try.  But oh my goodness, where to start?  Seriously, next time you're in a bookstore or goofing around on Amazon, check out the Star Wars books.  There are a very very lot.  My husband suggested the logical place to start would be with the three books by Timothy Zahn that essentially stand in for episodes seven, eight, and nine (The Thrawn Trilogy).  Those would be, in order, Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command.  So I read those books, and they were okay.  I have to admit some of the writing really took me out of the universe.  Zahn didn't quite have the world in his grasp--some things were just too close to Earth, and it felt a little like laziness on his part, given how rich this universe is, that he couldn't come up with something more Star Warsy than hot chocolate (if you've read them you probably know what I mean, if not, yes, Luke discovers that he loves hot chocolate in this series).  But the story itself was pretty compelling and it was a nice continuation of the original trilogy.  We got some closure and paths to whole new stories and adventures were opened up.  We also got some perspective on the events of the original trilogy from characters that weren't in the spotlight in the movies.  But still, I was sated.  I thought I might like to read more but didn't have enough motivation to find out which series should be my next to pick up.  At this point, I was still just a casual fan. 

And then Clone Wars came out and everything changed. I knew I had to see the movie because it came out just a few days before my birthday, a birthday which my husband and I were celebrating with a trip to my hometown, hanging out with those same friends I saw the original trilogy in theaters with.  So, on my birthday, my husband, my best friend from high school, and his daughter all went to see Clone Wars.  I think I liked it best out of anyone in the group.  It got my imagination going again.  There was a lot of negative feedback for Ahsoka Tano--but even at her whiniest moment (and remember, she's a teenage girl and a padawan being tossed at a new master who isn't really a master himself yet, just a knight) she was nowhere, and I mean NOWHERE, near as whiny as Luke Skywalker in A New Hope.  And she stepped up pretty darn quick.  Plus, I thought the baby hutt was cute.  Sue me. 

But the point is, I was quickly falling more in love with the Star Wars universe than I ever had been before.  I had dithered on getting the new trilogy on DVD but suddenly, I had to.  My husband, who had been trying to get me to see the awesomeness of PC gaming (at this point I was strictly Gamecube, Wii, and PS2 games, and really only casually), was finally able to talk me into playing Knights of The Old Republic (which was totally my gateway drug into PC gaming and I really haven't looked back).  In between KOTOR and the Clone Wars series, I was gone.  Total fangirl.  I wanted, no I needed, more.  The joy I get from dipping my toes into the Star Wars universe takes me to a happy place surpassed only by Atlantis.  And thus, I have begun my foray into the EU.  On the video game front, I have played KOTOR and its slightly less entertaining sequel, as well as, of course the Lego Star Wars games  for each of the trilogies.  My copy of the Clone Wars Lego Star Wars game, coming out next month I think, is already on preorder.  I've got quite a few console games (like The Force Unleashed) sitting in my Amazon wishlist waiting patiently for me to bring them home and give them a whirl.  I just picked up Republic Commando and will be playing it as soon as I finish my current game.  As far as comics go, I have been reading the online tie-ins to the upcoming MMO The Old Republic (set after the events of KOTOR), which I am eagerly awaiting.  For my birthday I picked up the first volume of the Legacy series, set a few generations after The Return of the Jedi.  I enjoyed that quite a bit, and will be picking up the rest of the series as my budget allows.  There's also a new series of comics called Knight Errant about to come out that I've subscribed to.

And what about the insanely massive amount of EU books I mentioned earlier?  Well, I've jumped back into those waters as well, with the Republic Commando series by Karen Traviss.  I just finished the first book, Hard Contact, a few days ago and am currently working on book two, Triple Zero.  In all honesty, everything that I've said so far was supposed to be a quick intro into my review of Hard Contact.  But it is clear that I have more than a little to say about Star Wars and the EU.  So we'll save my book review for tomorrow, and I'll wrap this up. 

You may have heard that George Lucas has recently announced his plans to re-release both trilogies (in chronological order, which I think is just a terrible idea) in 3D (which is an even worse idea) over the coming years.  This is getting him a lot of (well-deserved) flak.  But the fallout is landing on Star Wars itself as well, and that makes me more than a little sad.  Flick Filosopher, who I adore, asks in her question of the day why we keep letting Lucas make us his bitch.  And instead of focusing on why we, the fans, time and time again give Lucas money in exchange for disappointment, the comments have mostly been just remarks on how the new trilogy sucked and no one will be seeing them in 3D, and they refuse to give any more money to Lucas.  While I respect their right to these opinions, and the fact that they don't want to pay for what they perceive as crap, they are clearly in the minority--because Lucas doesn't keep messing with the original trilogy (and didn't get to make the new trilogy) because nobody went to see what he came up with.  So I suppose my point in all of this is just to say that yeah, somebody needs to love Lucas enough to tell him "no" once in a while (and actually enforce that no), but just because he's gone off the deep end, we shouldn't forget that without him, we wouldn't have this wonderful sandbox that is the Star Wars Universe to play in at all.  Right now, with the movies and the television show, along with all of the EU, Star Wars has something to offer pretty much any fan.  I, for one, will remember to thank him for that at least, while hoping he eventually realizes he's a bit too big for the sandbox and maybe he should just let the other kids play in it now. 

A few fun quick links for you folks:

Darths & Droids (A webcomic that retells the new trilogy as if it were a RPG campaign, using stills from the movies.  It is hilarious.)

The Old Republic MMO (I seriously cannot wait for this game to come out--at which point my family and friends are probably going to need to just say goodbye to me for a while.)