I'm Tired and Cranky. This Is What You Get

I had a couple of book reviews I wanted to write up tonight.

And I wanted to talk about my love of the new show GCB (totally my guilty pleasure).

And how I'm five episodes in to rewatching the entire Star Trek: The Next Generation because that show was such a huge part of my childhood so I've decided to watch an episode a night for the next, oh, eight months or so until I'm done. (Eight months is longer than it should take me at an episode a night, but I'm allowing for nights of going out.)

And how Game of Thrones comes back on Sunday but I won't be able to watch it because I'll be in Seattle ::sadface:: for the Emerald City Comicon ::happyface::

And that if I don't end the weekend with Wil Wheaton phoning security to remove me from his room, I've totally failed in my objectives.

I'm kidding!

I just plan to hang around his table until he gets creeped out and asks security to remove me from the entire convention.

Again, just kidding!

Kinda.

Obviously, I had a lot I wanted to write about, but my computer is being a total twat and just ate my last post before crashing... twice. So instead, you get this:

On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
Been on my too-read for a long time. Really glad I did. Found it fascinating. Recommend it if you have an interest in science... otherwise it can be a bit dense and dull. I highly recommend getting an annotated edition because he often references other scientists/science papers from that era.

They Fight Like Soldiers, They Die Like Children by Romeo Dallaire
Started reading this last year. Got a little emotional so I put it down... for 11 months. So, so good (but I will always recommend Shake Hands with the Devil first). I tip my hat because the man can also craft some good fiction in amongst his fabulous non-fiction.

Malachy McCourt's History of Ireland by Malachy McCourt
Loved it. It was written very much like an oral history. I felt like I was sitting down with Mr. McCourt at a table in a bar as he told me the stories. My dad, who is no big fan of the McCourt brothers (and I'll talk about that in another post with another book review), even loves it. There's a line in the book which sums it up nicely (and I'm paraphrasing because my dad has the book at the moment): You should know by now that in Irish history, whether or not something is true is not as important as whether or not it makes a good story.

Playing With Fire by Theoren Fluery
If you like hockey, read this book. If you are curious of the thought process of someone dealing with being sexual abused as a child, read this book. If you want to better understand the mind frame of an addict, read this book. I'm not going to talk about him being some great writer (because he's not, although he is good), but his honesty and openness about what he went through is incredible. He lays his entire life out for everyone to view and he doesn't sugar coat any of it. Loved this book.

There are more books but these are the only ones I feel like mentioning now that I'm tired, cranky, and hating my computer so why write about the books I wasn't enamoured with? And, because no one wants to end on a downer, I found another craft project online that I want the pattern for:

They even put a bumb on Worf's forehead! *squee!*

Things I Think Are Awesome: Part Two

Part two of no segues has arrived. (There will also be no segways. We've been over this.)

1. This Photo

For those of you born without the geek chromosome (oh, how boring your life must be), that's Nathan Fillion, Felicity Day, Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright and Anthony Head all in the same photo! On top of that, the photo was taken in the house of Joss Whedon!!

Throw in a Wil Wheaton, and I would have stolen a car and driven to that party... three days late, but whatever.

2. Sleeping masks

At some point this summer, I noticed that I was waking up really early regardless of what time I went to bed. I started sleeping with a shirt strategically placed across the top half of my head and noticed a huge difference. After a conversation with my mom, I got one of their free-from-a-plane-trip sleeping mask and it's love. Well, lust.

I've noticed that it's much easier to fall asleep and when I wake up, I've actually slept the whole night. I'm waking up at 7:00am (without an alarm clock!) feeling completely refreshed. I'm also not waking up through out the night because of various street noises. I'm attributing this to the fact that I'm reaching REM sooner and staying in it longer because the light from the outside streetlamp is no longer affecting my sleep patterns.

Of course, I'm not a scientist, so this could all just be mumbo-jumbo bulldroppings.

But it sounds impressive, right?

The only downside is that the cheep sleeping mask can occasionally get a little hot and sweaty. An upgrade to a higher calibre of mask is on the horizon (although I'll stick with this one for now).

3. Fernwood Village

I felt it was time I threw a little love at my little corner of Victoria. It's a funky area to live in and I don't always give it the props it deserves. When I first moved to Fernwood in 2003, the NRG was pretty much a non-entity,  the George and Dragon Pub was the site of the worst service I had ever experienced in my life (and I was spat on by a waitress in Paris, so, you know, the G&D was pretty crappy), the dark square and questionable 'residents' meant I never walked through the area at night, and the largest building sat boarded up.

I would tell people I lived in Fernwood and I could see that look in their eye.

Flash forward five years and I'm back into the neighbourhood. The NRG is a sizable organisation which has bought and developed the Cornerstone Building (which houses the awesome Cornerstone Cafe), all available building space has been taken up by independent, locally owned businesses, the Fernwood Inn is actually a decent pub with decent service(!!), and the more questionable residents have been 'encouraged' to vacate, leaving behind the fun, funky artist and Bohemian types who make this neighbourhood so awesome.

As a community, we came together for a day and painted the poles. How awesome is that?

The Cornerstone Building is hiding in the background.

From the annual FernFest to small street parties, Fernwood really is about making the neighbourhood a neighbourhood. It's impossible to walk around the area without meeting someone you know from random conversations in  the cafe, the pub, or one of the restaurants.

I'm so glad I moved back to the area and got to give it another chance. I couldn't imagine living anywhere else.

PS. One of the people who makes Fernwood awesome, is Terry.

4. TARDIS Cat scratcher

Doctor Who!

Cats!

Together at last!

My mind = blown!

Okay, so it's not really the first time they've been together. In fact, if google is anything to go by, most Doctor Who fans must also be cat-owners. But my mind is still blown!

Tip of the Catnip to THR for sending this my way. More pictures can be found here.

5. Bakingdom

I woke up to find this announcement on the Bakingdom facebook place:

I pretty much had to sweep up my mind so it could be re-blown.

Fingers crossed she finds a way to make this happen!

6. Munro's Books

In anticipation of possibly going to Guinea next year, I wandered into Chapter's to peruse their French section. I had two goals while I was in there: 1) create a mental list of the type of French books I'd like to take to the school, and 2) check out the selection of sewing books to gauge if there's any with lots of pictures and very little writing.

While the children's section in french took up a decent chunk of space, it was the same eight books over and over and over and over. Okay, so perhaps there were more than eight, but the point is that there was a lot of repetition.

I mentally noted a couple of books and then headed out to Munro's. It will never cease to amaze me that a book a book store that would take up less than half of one floor of our three story Chapters building has a better book selection. Not only did they have more options for children's books in french, they also had an adult section in French, German, Italian and Spanish.

When it comes time to actually think about ordering these books seriously, you'll find me at Munro's (or Bolen's, love them too).

Also, Chapters, you kinda suck. But that's a different post.

Things I Think Are Awesome: Part One

I’ve seen these lists posts on other blogs so I decided to do one here... mostly because I really don’t know how to segue through all the things I want to talk about. Although normally I think a well-crafted segue is awesome.

Not segways, though. They kinda suck.

(The only good thing to come from segways was G.O.B.)

1. Stir It Up

I wanted to give some love to a new-to-me restaurant in Fernwood, Stir It Up. I was finally enticed into trying the restaurant one day after smelling of their delicious food. It's Jamaican and Caribbean food. Sadly, the kitchen is very small and does not allow for prep in the space so some of the items are premade and then reheated but it tasted so delicious, I got over that very quickly.

GET IN MY BELLY!!

[Photo from their site]

It is cash only so hit up the ATM before you go (there's one across the street at the Fernwood Inn, so, you know...) and you either need to go on a sunny day when you can sit outside or get take out as the inside has about two 'cozy' seats. Meals run about $10.

2. XKCD

So, this webcomic is something that I always love but I was a little enamoured with this particular comic:

[Permanently borrowed from XKCD]

I know I may get some haters but based on the people I know who attend Burning Man, I have come to decision that the majority of attendees are socially obnoxious d-bags. Also, based on the number of stories those same people have told me about cheating or being cheated on at Burning Man, they're d-bags who can't stay faithful so... yeah...

3. THR

This falls into the list of things I always love but THR (who is also crafty) is back from her trip Down Under to see her family and she linked up to a great link of free organization tools. I thought it was so awesome, I decided it needed to be shared over here too. She linked to some crafty person who also had links to fee name tags/crafty items. The part I liked most is here. It's all free and all cute. What's not to love?

4. Star Trek (TOS)

Thanks to Darla over at Bakingdom (that girl is seriously talented and you should all have her in your reader even if only to look at the pretty pictures of things you'll never make... like me!) I learned that today is the 45th anniversary of the airing of very first episode of Star Trek.

I don't know if you guys have noticed but I am a huge nerd! I watched every single episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation growing up. I read a couple of the books (which I would only read at home so I wouldn't accidentally be caught with one by a 'cool' kid and mercilessly mocked for) and even dressed up as Counselor Troi for Halloween one year.

I dyed my hair black with one of those 'one wash' dyes and then I curled it.

The curls were gone in about 30 minutes (stupid poker straight hair) and

I was still washing the black dye out two weeks later. One wash my *ss!

I was a late-comer to The Original Series (called  TOS by those 'in the know' aka geeks) only starting to watch it about five years ago. I love it. Some day, when I meet my sugar daddy (so, you know, never), I plan to buy the entire series on DVD because I'm nerdy awesome like that.

Back to Darla's awesomeness. Also being of the geek-persuasion, Darla made these awesome TOS sugar cookies.

[Credit: shamelessly stolen from Bakingdom]

Seeing them in my reader this morning made my heart go pitter-patter! Also, she insinuated she was going to make some Firefly baked goods so that's my day made.

Captain Mal in edible form? If you insist!

So, those are some things I think are awesome right now. I have more to talk about but a) I have a lunch meeting I have to get to and b) The Guild isn't going to watch itself in the next 20 minutes before I have to leave, so, you know...

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.

Can I Get a "So Say We All"?

I find dating torture.

There, I said it. Dating sucks. At best, you find someone you want to pursue a relationship with. At worst, you are twenty-five minutes into an hour long hike when he says "I don't really get why people like sci-fi" and you spend the rest of the time in uncomfortable silence. And that right there is the crux of my problem.

If you get this, you just made my heart go pitter-pat.

[Source]

I'm a geek/nerd/dork/dweeb/incredibly-uncool-but-still-somewhat-normal-person. There are no dating guides for my kind. Cosmo has never written an article about when it's acceptable to bring up the Kirk vs. Picard debate, I've never heard any tips on how to get a guy to watch Doctor Who with me, and no one can give me a definitive answer on when I should confess to having watched every SG-1 episode. (Right now, I'm going with 'never' as the answer for the last one.)

Enter the web series Awkward Embraces and all its nerdy awesomeness. Finally, a show about dating that I can relate to!