The Dork Diaries

Sometimes I like to try and convince myself I'm not a nerd/dork/geek. I'm just a normal 30 year old with the occasional geek-tendency.

Hey, lots of cool people like BSG!

Although I admit that I would be hard-pressed to call the majority of SG-1 fans cool.

I love both... a lot.

In my defense, BSG had Jamie Bamber and SG-1 had... well... erm... look, it was fun and funny and light-hearted and just a generally enjoyable hour-long escape into a sci-fi world I enjoyed and it had MacGyver Richard Dean Anderson.

But I digress. I like to think I'm cool. I travel, I do the running man, I'm occasionally hilarious mildly funny... I'm cool.

Then, after going for a run in the rain and having a Doctor Who discussion via text message with Darth, I sit down to my facebook and promptly have the following discussion:

Sadly, the only part of that discussion I didn't know off the top of my head was the planet that Armus resided on.

I think it's high time I got my Geek Card laminated.

Also, I should probably start looking for potential future husbands in their parent's basements. Might have better success that way.

GBC Book Review: A Song of Ice and Fire Series

Oh right! I'm supposed to be reviewing the books I'm reading, not just moving on to the next one...

This review is actually for books two, three and four in A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin (book one is reviewed here). The books, in order, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, and A Feast for Crows. I'm writing them all up as one because honestly can't remember where the divisions in the stories occurred. Plus, they're all part of the same series and I loved them so...

In short: if you have any interest in fantasy as a genre, then you need to read these books. If you're not a fantasy fan but you enjoy historical fictions, then you should also need to read these books.

The books continues the three stories laid out in A Game of Thrones: the struggle for power in the kingdom of Westeros after the death of King Robert (I'm not really giving anything away. It becomes apparent very quickly that Robert needs to die for the story to take off so even if you haven't read book one, I'm not ruining anything), the coming of winter which is bringing Others and white walkers from beyond 'the Wall' in the North, and the 'coming of age' of the youngest Targaryen across the sea in the Free Cities who is determined to win back her father's throne.

The book chapters are broken up into characters so instead of getting one over arching voice through the narrative, you see those events through the eyes of that character. The result is I found myself feeling a lot more sympathy for characters I would have otherwise despised and I wanted to scream at characters I thought should have known better. It also went a long way to helping stop people from being black and white which is one of my biggest issues with the fantasy genre.

I sped through A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords, (almost too quickly, I'd like to go back and re-read so I can enjoy the story more) and found myself reading well past my bed time; however, I found A Feast of Crows faltered a bit and it's taken me a bit longer to finish it.

Originally A Feast of Crows was supposed to be one book but it grew too large and got chopped up into two books with the second half (A Dance of Dragons) due out in July (well after the 'year or two', Martin originally promised). I felt as though Martin realised he wouldn't have enough material for two full books and so a couple of unnecessary side stories were introduced in the fourth book. The side stories either could have been skipped or could have been dealt with much quicker than they were.

Still, it was a heck of a lot more enjoyable than some of the crap I've suffered through in the past and I can't wait for book five (to come out in paperback in a year).

Monty Python Fixes Everything

I came up with this awesome idea for a series of posts I wanted to do. It is educational, it is relevant (to me at least), and it is a topic I love to talk about.

No, not me. History! Although I do enjoy talking about me. 

In my mind, I laid out a tentative idea for a four part series. I was hoping (because I forgot how much time research can take) to have the first part up almost two weeks ago. Then I started researching and writing. I have spent almost 50 hours on this series. I'm not even done part one and it's clocking in at a three page word document.

Part one got too long so I was going to break it up into two parts. Part Three is so much information (which I haven't even gotten to yet), I could easily make it an entire four part series on its own. In short, I bit of way more than I could chew and now I have to do a little re-think.

I'm still doing this multi-part post but it's time to step back for a moment, scratch my head, make a fresh cuppa, and actually think about what I think people actually need to know about this topic. I've also decided that myself imposed deadline of RIGHTNOW! was a little stupid. Perhaps not flip-a-car-set-it-on-fire-stupid, but still stupid. I was stressing myself out about something that's 500 years in the making... it can wait a few more weeks/months to make sure I do a good job.

In the meantime, nothing helps me regroup like a little Monty Python watching break so here it is, my favourite MP scene:

It's all about the "where's the fetus gonna gestate?" line for me. Gets me every time.

Father's Day: The Soundtrack

Although my mom also had a great influence on my current music tastes (I can directly trace my love of Gordon Lightfoot to a mother-daughter road trip to Alberta when I was 14 or 15, but don't tell her because I fought her tooth and nail to listen to anything other that GL) it was really my dad who taught me to just love music for music.

I grew up without the idea that I wouldn't listen to something simply because it was uncool but because I had listened to it once and I didn't like it. As a result, while my classmates were hip-hop or rock or country or metal fans, I was just a music fan. I listened to everything as evidenced by a mix-tape (remember those?) I made in grade 10 which had Collective Soul, House of Pain, Nat King Cole, and the Dubliners on it. I was nothing if not eclectic.

For my dad, these are songs currently on my mp3 player because he made me listen to them ;) (I was going to do a little write up about each singer/group but they all ended up sounding the same way "my dad used to put these tapes on continues loops and blast them through the house" so instead, some have comments but most don't.)

Doug and the Slugs:

I chose Who Knows How (to Make Love Stay) simply because of the

'Drunk Musicians Fund' Fundraiser at the end. Their videos always made me laugh.

Leonard Cohen: My very first non-symphony concert was Leonard Cohen's Democracy Tour.

 

Sunday morning memory: Dad was cooking a fry up in his underwear

while belting out the words to this song.

Billy Joel:

1930's music (specifically, anything from Pennies from Heaven and The Singing Detective):

Irish Folk Music (the whole lot of 'em but that's an entire post by itself):

I really wanted to find the version that is track #1 on the Dublin Millennium Songs

sung by multiple Irish artists but I couldn't so you get the Dubliners instead.

Nat King Cole:

I know I already said Irish Folk Music, but I remember both my dad and my stepdad singing this song when I was young (in particular, I remember my stepdad playing it on the guitar when we were camping):

Happy Father's Day!

He's Ba-ack!

Carl is back!

Except this time, the noise is coming from the opposite side of my apartment and only when my patio door is open.

This Carl is a real person playing a real ukulele on one of the balconies.

I'm secretly hoping that it's coming from the same apartment I could smell the tea and bacon coming from this morning. Then I secretly hope that I figure out which apartment it is and that we become friends and then they start inviting me over for weekend breakfasts which I will eat while they serenade me on the ukulele.

I wonder if my soon-to-be new found friend will mind if I just call them Carl?

Heros and Ass-Hats: The 2011 Vancouver Riots

Can I just start by saying how much it pains me that I have to specify a year when talking about Vancouver riots now?

My Vancouver story has nothing unique, no fresh perspective on it, that needs to be added. I have no first hand story of being downtown because when it became apparent the Canucks were going to lose, we stayed on the other side of the bridge (I did, however, hug a perfect stranger on my walk home. He was about 21 or 22 and was sitting on the grass outside an apartment building crying, wiping his face with the sleeve of his Canucks jersey. I just felt like he could use a hug.) but given the amount I have mentioned the playoffs leading up to this, I did want to take a moment to acknowledge what happened.

Dear Vancouver Canucks: Thank you for an amazing season. Save the last 50 minutes, I wouldn't change a thing (well, maybe a certain eye injury and a certain spine injury, but you know what I mean). Being allowed to come along for the ride as a fan was an incredible experience and I love you all the more for it. You have been fantastic to watch and have achieved amazing things. I look forward to seeing what next season brings. See you in October!

PS. In a strange way, I have to thank you for losing. I would have been downtown with a 2.5 year old and her mom if you had won. Reports and interviews with some of the people stupid enough to still be down there at 10:00pm made me realise that this probably still would have happened if you had won. So, thank you? For keeping my personal safety in mind? What a kind thing to do. I didn't even know you knew me.

PPS. I have waited 30 years for the Stanley Cup to come to Vancouver, I can wait another 30 if I have to. (But please don't confuse my ability to wait with a desire to wait.)

Dear Boston Bruins: Congratulations on your win. You deserved it. Especially Thomas. Someone give that man a big fat bonus. Like, big enough that he'll want to retire and live out the rest of his life far, far away from the hockey rink. I understand Atlanta is beautiful.

Dear Vancouver Police Deptartment: I saw your tweets about people's kind tweets and that today (Thursday) people had been bringing baked goods, snacks and 'thank you's' to your headquarters. That's because you deserved them. You had a no-win situtation on your hands and I think you did an amazing job. Thank you.

Dear Vancouver Police Department Horses: Neigh, neeee-igh, neigh, brrrrrrrrrrffffff, sugar cube whinneeeeeeeeey. Neigh.

Dear CTV and specifically the field reporters/camerapersons: You kept us informed but I never felt like you sensationalized it. That is a difficult line to walk in a situtation like this. Also, thank you for all the wonderful hours of video evidence of people partaking in illegal activity.

Dear Volunteers who cleaned up Vancouver today: I wish I had had time to join you, but I didn't. You came out in droves and you were awesome! Thank you for cleaning up someone else's mess. Thank you for restoring my faith in humanity.

Ass-Hat, Douche-Canoes, Rioters (or the people who just stood there laughing and taking pictures than claimed "but I didn't do anything" because that totally means you're not guilty of being a douche-canoe): There are no words to describe how angry you made me and how saddened I was by your actions. There were people who came down that night looking to start a riot (one does not normally bring rocks in a backpack to an outdoor family event unless one is going to build an inukshuk to show the children) but they did not do it alone. There were legitimate Canuck fans in that mob. You are a disgrace to the team you support, to the city that so graciously hosted outdoor events for all the games, to the other fans who didn't need to burn things to feel better, to the province you all hail from (as I'm sure most of you were not from Vancouver-proper), and to the country that gave us the awesome sport of hockey.

I saw the people being interviewed saying "I'm not taking part, I just can't get out of downtown". I also saw the people today who all said there were able to get out of downtown within an hour so when you're telling the camera crew at 10:00pm you couldn't get out of downtown, you're full of it. Yes, busses and taxis weren't coming downtown. Yes, apparently there were delays on the Skytrain. But you know what? You have these things at the end of your legs called 'feet'. Feet are amazing things. If you lift up your right leg and move it forward, your right foot will be in a different location. Do the same with your left leg and foot. If you keep alternating, you start doing an activity that's called 'walking'. Amazingly, your body has been doing this very actitivity since you were about 18 months old. Sure, public or private transit might not have been making it into town, but you could easily have walked over one of the bridges (they were only closed going into town) to where public transit was still running.

There are riots occuring all over the world because people are being denied basic human rights and you riot because of a hockey game. Never mind jail, I'd like to round all of you up and send you to Burma, Iran, Libya, or any other oppressed nation for a year. Try to riot there and see how far you get before the police just open fire. I'd give you three minutes tops. By the way, they won't be firing tear gas and rubber bullets.

"Life is Either a Daring Adventure or Nothing" ~Helen Keller

At about 10:00am yesterday morning, knowing that I wasn't scheduled to work in the office today or tomorrow, I decided to take a last minute whirlwind trip to Vancouver for tonight's game seven.

I'm currently sitting on the ferry between Swartz Bay and Tsawwassen with 5 million other Canucks fans* on our way to a huge party in downtown Vancouver (assuming Vancouver wins. If Boston wins... egads, I'll be booting it out of downtown as quickly as the SkyTrain can carry me).

Technically, I won't be in downtown Vancouver. I'll be across the bridge in Kitsilano (hanging out with THR and Shannon), but it's closer than Victoria and unless you're from Vancouver/the West Coast, it's still Vancouver.

Also, I'm camera-less so I bought a crappy disposable which needs to be sent to a 'photo shop' to be 'developed' so pictures of my daring adventure will not be instantaneous to the blog (and will probably be pretty sketch once they are up).

This is also a preemptive apology for all the Boston slander I may or may not tweet about and/or post on certain Boston-based bloggers' sites (who have done nothing to deserve the slander themselves, but a few beers in and anyone in Boston is fair game.)

LET'S GO CANUCKS!!!!

*I may be exaggerating. Maybe. Just a little.