Spork · in · the · Road

Odo: 'Do you recognise any of these names?'
Sisko: 'A lot of them. Daneeka, McWatt, Snowden, Orr, Moodus. All of them were officers on the Okinawa.'

Yossarian didn't make the cut, apparently. (I'm so glad I'm rewatching Deep Space Nine. I didn't catch that reference the first time around because I hadn't read Catch-22 back then.)

Between the most recent Order of the Stick and reaching the double episode Past Tense in my rewatching of Deep Space Nine, I feel very slightly surrounded by anvils (especially since the year 2024 isn't as far away as it used to be). Not that that's a bad thing, as some anvils need to be dropped. I feel like I should watch Let That Be Your Last Battlefield from the original Star Trek for completeness. And because I haven't seen it yet and should. Maybe next time I visit my dad's DVD collection home.

The baby grand piano that currently lives in my family's house used to belong to my late paternal grandfather, and before that I believe it belonged to his mother. I don't know if I'll ever be in the position to pass it on to anyone else, though. I may be the first born, but all three of my brothers also know how to play the piano. Piano is actually more the secondary instrument for them; Robin plays the guitar, or used to anyway; Simon plays the flute, and Matthew the flugle horn, however you spell that. The younger two sometimes seem reluctant to practice, much as I was when I was actually taking piano lessons. Simon's probably the most musical of us. I have a natural ear for it too, but don't practice any more, unless you count playing sometimes when I visit home. I miss it now and then, so I hope I can get a piano someday, or maybe a keyboard.

Today's xkcd made me laugh out loud. Cos I have been in at exact situation a few times now, with an endless line-up of tabs to look at, each spawning at least another two links that I want to investigate. What I find most amusing is it was another webcomic that linked me there in the first place.

The bad news is, I got caught out in the rain without a hat.

The good news is, seems like my new* shoes are fairly waterproof.**

(*For a given value of new. I got them second hand, cheap, from Barnardos but they're new to me and don't seem to have been worn much. I heart them.)

(**I didn't learn until a few months ago that no shoes are completely waterproof, besides wellingtons. Who knew?)

Dave and I went to see Wolverine the other weekend, and I think he enjoyed it more than I did, quite possibly because I'm more of an X-Men fan than he is. If you're going to see a mindless action film, you'll probably be satisfied. If you're an actual fan, however...

( Minor spoilers beneath the cut. )

Star Trek and Coraline, on the other hand, which a bunch of us got together to watch on Friday, were brilliant. Coraline was a family film that was suitably dark for a Neil Gaiman story directed by Henry Selick of Nightmare Before Christmas fame. And the stop motion animation? So seamless that I wasn't quite sure it wasn't computer animated. Star Trek is a what I consider to be a Trekker's dream, taking on the semblance of fanfiction in that it's set in an alternate reality and is choc full of in jokes, but in the best possible way. Dave found some faults and I suppose it wasn't entirely perfect, but I was too high up on Deep Cloud 9 to take any notice.

So it's been a while since I've posted and I have a few things to talk about-- the fact that I finished my undergrad studies, decided to do a postgrad year (because I am clearly insane), a trip to London including the adventures of a toy puppy in Legoland (pics to come, mostly for Dave's benefit), and the awesome that was my first evar Roleplay and Wargaming Nationals. But more on some or all of those later. Right now, I have two things that have been bugging me.

Anyone who saw the Watchmen: can you remember what the song was that played when Dan and Laurie met up for dinner near the start of the film? It's one I know, but I can't remember it and it's driving me nuts.

Also, recently rewatched The Incredibles and it occurred to me: would it actually be possible for someone whose parents have recessive hair colours (Bob has blond hair, Helen has red) to have a dominant hair colour? (At least, I think black is dominant and red and blond are recessive. Although maybe that's just a few years of playing The Sims 2 talking.) Yes, I am curious if anyone with some knowledge in genetics is able to explain how Violet has black hair. (If no one can, I shall simply assume it's a side effect of her super powers. I don't consider the answer 'It's just a movie' to be a relevent one. ^_^)

This concludes our Random Post for the day.

Earth Hour is tonight-- I've set an alarm for 8:30 to remind me to turn off the lights. From my fairly isolated vantage point, I won't be able to see how much of the rest of the city is joining in... I'm guessing the WWF will email with news on how it went worldwide.

I've been glancing at BBC iPlayer and realising that there's a bunch of children's shows on at the moment:

Wolverine and the X-Men-- definitely not as lame as the title first led me to believe (they couldn't call it just The X-Men, I guess, that show already exists)-- the British accents are a bit cringeworthy and the other non-American accents might be too, if I had more of an ear for them, and some of the characterisations are definitely not what I'm used to, but there are plentiful squee-worthy moments and Ominous Plotz. And, though I'm not sure if it's her first animated appearance ever, this series is certainly the first time I've seen Emma Frost in a television show. She really winds Wolverine up sometimes. I love her. ^_^ (Though not as much as Gambit, who is also made of win in this series.)

Trapped-- kids gameshow, not entirely unlike The Raven (best kids' gameshow EVAR, btw) in terms of style-- characters instead of just plain hosts guiding the kids through their tasks-- I find it really interesting because for each challenge one of the kids is assigned to sabotage the others, and it's pretty fascinating to watch how they go about it and whether they can get away with it without the other kids knowing who it was. Makes up for the fact that one of the characters annoys me a little.

Who Wants to be a Superhero? --came upon this by chance and have missed much of the first half of the series, but have definitely added it to my 'to watch' list. Another gameshow of sorts-- though the term challenge show is probably more apt (same probably goes for The Raven and possibly Trapped, come to that). Basically a group of kids with undertake the lives of superheroes (they have costumes and aliases and everything-- I wanna play), fighting against their arch-nemesis Doctor Dark. Every week one of the superheroes gets powered down and has to go home. The winner? Becomes the star of a comic by Stan Lee. God, I hope that turns out as awesome as it sounds. Stan even makes video appearances, usually giving the kids their missions. ('I'm counting on you, superheroes! All of England is counting on you!') Right now, just in case this comes up again later, I want to state for the record that I'm rooting for Steel Soldier to win.

It's enough to make me nostalgic about being a kid...

I decided to give roleplay a miss today because I'm a little under the weather and feeling sorry for myself.

At about 8, my youngest brother Matthew called, probably as a procrastination method since he really doesn't want to do his book report (having crammed an essay into the last minute yet again myself, I can totally sympathise). Ended up on the phone for over an hour, chatting to Matt about school, his birthday plans (on the plus side, I'll be home for it, on the down side, so will two of his friends-- I'm not sure if they're are evil as he is but I imagine they're close), the Sims (which he is now expressing an interest in-- will need to let him have a go next time he visits) and Warhammer; to Mum about travel plans and postgrad funding applications; and to Simon about roleplay, what subjects he's choosing for third year, and about how he can't wait to finish high school and go to university-- he's currently hoping to study zoology, though he's aware that might change. He's one of those kids who actually likes learning-- unlike most of the other boys in his year-- so I think he'll really like uni-- though I've told him not to get his hopes up as it's not without its problems (he seems fairly aware of this too). He's also decided his current dream job is to be a zookeeper. I could totally see him doing that. ^_^

I'm writing this down mostly for the sake of remembering how happy it makes me to talk to my family-- I don't care how strange they are, they're awesome.

Happy Love-Heart Day, peoples (for a whole forty minutes more from where I'm sitting).

Here, have Valentine-themed webcomic links, because they made me smile/go 'aw' and might elicit a similar response from some folks on the flist:
Ryan Estrada
xkcd

And also, though this is a web animation rather than a webcomic and I can't do it justice by explaining what it's about (an unorthodox romance would be putting it bluntly), but suffice to say it is very cute and very awesome (episode 4 is incredibly powerful): There She Is!!

I think Lydia is my favourite character in QC. ^_^

Also, Penny and Aggie is made of win lately. Not that it isn't usually, but it's more awesome than normal lately, as the good guys have finally joined forces and are plotting to bring down the bad guy-- I am so looking forward to the inevitable smackdown.

While I'm on webcomics, has anyone heard of Count You Sheep? (Apart from Dave, I mean.) It's the latest addition to my collection of webcomics, and I'm still working my way through the archives. It comprises mostly equal portions of cute and win (as one would hope to expect from a comic about a little girl and her imaginary sheep friend). You can find one of the most popular (if not the most popular) strip here.

One of these days I'm going to make my own webcomic...

I am one of those people who should not be allowed in W H Smith because she goes in to buy just a diary, and comes out with a diary, a pack of plastic envelopes, an address book, a new notebook, and two pencil sharpeners (buy one get one free), and over £20 poorer. Bad Madeleine, no more stationary for you.

(Because my current notebook is a disorganised mess and also nearly filled up. That's why. =P )

M: By the way, our smoke alarm works!
D: o_o
M: Y'see, I was testing it.
D: ...What did you burn?

I'm paraphrasing.

(I was only pushing the 'test' button, yes. I consider this an achievement worth mentioning. Bugger hurt my ears. I know during a fire that's a good thing, but still... ouch.)

Today has been a relatively productive day in a winter break of not-doing-very-much-and-occasionally-procrastinating. While lying in bed this morning, not wanting to get up and feeling really rubbish, I realised the reason I felt rubbish was that the longer I stayed snuggled up in bed, comfortable though it might be, the longer I was spending not doing things that needed to be done. So I got up and made today a Doing Things Day (or a madelgine equivilant thereof). So, I went to the gym and actually did all three laps for once, finished reading the essays I need to read for the Modernist Poetry next Friday, and made a dent in Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages, a book I need to read for Medievalism at the Movies, ideally by Tuesday. Given I'm a slow reader, I ended up forfeiting going in to work at the Barnardos shop today, but as my presence there is helpful rather than entirely necessary, I'm not overwhelmed with guilt. My feeling at the moment is, 'Oh good, maybe this semester won't kill me dead before I've even started it after all.'

Maybe I won't even play The Sims 2 today!... OhwhoamIkidding.

D: Wait... Is that actually a waltz?
M: *Counts time-- there are 4 beats instead of 3*... Goddammit! I can't believe I never noticed that!
D: They're in waltz hold, but the song itself isn't a waltz.
M: *Still can't believe I never noticed that* They should call it 'The King and Queen's Pseudo Waltz'.

If I ever watch a movie of this type with Dave again, I think I'll sit somewhere where I can't see him cringing.

I did feel quite victorious when 'That's How You Know' got stuck in his head though. *evil grin*

Putting some preliminary character profiles here for my upcoming Avatar roleplay. Probably only of interest to roleplayers.

( Here be potential PCs. )

Dear members of the British public,

PLEASE stop voting for John Sergeant. Yes, he's lovely, and very entertaining, and it's great that he's enjoying himself, but the man can't dance and he'll never be able to. I didn't mind so much when this meant that other celebrities that weren't very good at dancing had to leave instead, but when it came down to losing Andrew Castle, and then most recently Heather Small (and Brian Fortuna! Dammit!), it's got to the point where John is being saved at the expense of those who might otherwise have had a chance to improve. For god's sake, Rachel flipping Stevens ended up in the dance off because of this, and her performance was wonderful. You know something isn't right when the first couple announced as safe is the one that got all of 12 out of 40 points and the couples that got 35 and 27 are made to dance for the remaining spot. Len himself what I'd been thinking since Andrew had to leave: if someone really deserving gets knocked out just because the public likes someone else, it makes a mockery of the show.

I don't quite know how it happened, but I've been watching BBC's Doctor Who timeslot substitute Merlin regularly. I find I kinda like it once I got past all the inaccuracies... or maybe because of them. ^_^ (Morgan le Fey, or Morgana in this case, is a bona fide love interest for Arthur... though in this incarnation they don't seem to be blood related. And Guinevere has a crush on Merlin. And the obvious, Merlin is the same age, if not younger than Arthur. Fun stuff.)

( If anyone else is following the series, this contains a spoiler for the latest episode. )