EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!! BURBANK!!!
Hi! I've been pretty much bouncing back and forth between work and that funny thing known as "real life" for the past lil while - our LARP and Thanksgiving fell on the same weekend, and I haven't had a day off work since last Thursday.
Uhm, the huge uber-news I've been sitting on for a bit is: we crunched the numbers, and WE ARE GO FOR BURBANK!!!! I have the time booked off, the vacation pay submitted and accepted, just need to double check room bookings and roomies. (For those of you in the cheap seats, mike and I are driving down to Burbank, California for the Annual Farscape convention)
Our budget for doing this is brutally tight, though - you don't want to know how much a day we propose to get by on for food - so I'm going to be posting a (f'locked) itinerary, saying where we'll be when, and anybody who can volunteer to put us up for a day (and/or feed us) will be loved forever and worshipped and yadda yadda. (We'd offer you trinkets from the con, but we can barely afford to get ourselves there, let alone bring back stuff. Of course, if YOU want to give us something and pay for it to be autographed, we'll happily play gopher. Except for Rockne. He's giving out one per person, free, and I already picked out what I'm having him sign...)
And speaking of Farscape - my prize from a recent contest on Terra Firma got here - I am the proud owner of a set of IASA/Farscape 1 patches, and a limited edition farscape card signed by Paul Goddard. Kaz, lemmie know which patch you want - the one that says IASA or the one that says Farscape 1 - and I'll fork it over when we see you.
Okay, that interests meme is still going around: here's the latest batch:
pumagrrl asked about:
action figures - I started collecting these when I was a kid, I think my first were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - no, those were my first new ones, my very first ones were my brother's Masters of the Universe, and stuff I'd grab from garage sales, because I thought they looked cool. I'd make up stories about them, and play out long and involved sagas... when I left for university my step-mom convinced me to get rid of them. I really wish I'd never listened to her, and ever since I've been raiding garage sales and second hand stores to rebuild my collection. I really can't tell you what the attraction of these little plastic people is - I just love them. I love posing them in goofy tableaus, perching them all over the house - even playing out little scenes.
csi - stands for Crime Scene Investigation, and here refers to the popular TV show revolving around the forensics lab of Las Vegas. I've gotten into it from reruns incessantly played on a couple channels in our cable package - what I love most about this show is the characters, I think, particularly one Gil Grissom. He's... I'm serious here, he's my hero, he's a deeply admirable man whose personal values and MO I find nothing but emulatable. He's also delightfully quirky - I adore his sense of humour. I also love the "puzzle" nature of the show, and delight in seeing if I can beat the folks at Vegas CSI to it.
canadian cinema - I talk about this here
muppets - a word invented by Jim Henson from putting "marionette" and "puppet" together and originally meant a hand puppet with marionette controlled limbs, but has come to refer to the specific characters of the Muppet Show, Sesame Street, and other Henson creations - hell, Rygel and Pilot of Farscape are considered muppets. I love nearly everything Henson Studios has ever done, and have particular love for certain characters, especially specific cast members of the muppet show. Hell, in the words of Paul Goddard: "I wanted to be a muppet when I grew up. Failing that a muppeteer." He got closer to that ambition than I did, obviously. :)
lemon demon - covered here
snakes on a plane - *sings* "Times are Strange / got a free upgrade for / snakes on a plane" I LOVE THIS MOVIE. Love it love it love it. It promised to me exactly what it delivered, and in fact was fairly well-thought out in its execution. It took what on the surface is a pretty goofy premise - and then examined, "okay, what would realistically happen? HOW could this realistically happen" - including creating a character you could certainly believe would decide to go for somethingthis theatrical to get on somebody - Eddie Kim scares the crap out of me. And it's a no-holds-barred, non-stop action-thriller, with SAMUEL L. M-F JACKSON!! Oh, Samuel L Jackson, how are you so M-F awesome? (Oh, I also love The Song, too - and the meme makes me giggle.)
the shadow files - Explained here.
wolfscape asked about:
acts of random kindness - explained here.
elfquest - Comic book series, expanded into several over the years, by Wendi and Richard Pini, featuring the adventures of a race of elven aliens who crashed on an earth-like planet with two moons in prehistoric days and were hunted down by the humans ever since. It just completely entranced me from the first graphic novel I picked up as a kid, and I can religiously collecting them for a while, though I've fallen behind - plus not all the spin-offs appeal to me. There's been talk of a movie on an off for over a decade now... here's hoping we finally get to see it someday...
fan fiction - well, nearly everybody knows this is the unofficial fiction featuring other people's characters and settings written by fans of those settings. As to why I'm interested in it... look, I can't turn off my brain, my creativity. I get to know these characters, these worlds, and the stories just come. And I have to let them out. Some people write fanfic to "fix" canon, or get their jollies, or explore stuff we'd never see in canon for various reasons (budget, medium constraints, censors...) - all of that is secondary to me: I write fanfic because I have to.
farscape - for those people under a rock who read this journal and managed to somehow not pick up on what farscape is: Brian Henson and Rockne O'Bannon's show about an astronaut shot to the far end of the universe and how he finds home. As to why I love it... well I'm just gonna plagiarize myself here. 'Cause I could never ever say it better than this: Because Paul Goddard is sexy. Because damn near everybody ELSE is sexy too. Because the redshirt PK in the first season finale episode is the kick-ass captain PK in the series finale mini. Because the "body swap" episode was fresh and original. So was the time travel episode. So was the "trapped in VR" episode. And was the [insert sci-fi cliche here] episode. And the "sh*t sh*t one of our actors has to leave" episode. Because Zhaan stayed dead. Because Harvey didn't. Because the main character comments on how damn slashy it can get. Because the muppets will make you cry. Because the comic relief can also make you cry, or scare the sh*t out of you. Because there's sex, bathrooms, farting and piss, just like real life. Because the scientist charcter b*tches about how scientifically improbable what's going on is. Because that line from episode 1.19 is a major plot element in episode 4.20. Because the bad guys quote Shakespeare, and the good guys quote Star Wars. Because the actor written episodes are two of the best ever written. Because I cried when the bad guy from season one gave his life to save everyone in season three. Because two of the main characters are the SPACESHIPS. Because the bar got raised so high there is no goddamned bar. Because they finally made it back to earth, and earth just wasn't that great. Because they're a family, and they treat each other like family - they kick and scream and hurt and love each other. Because the aliens are ALIEN - not just physically, but socially and mentally. Because there's a REASON the human-like aliens look human like. Because there's plant sex. And muppets. And cartoons. Because I came here to ogle Paul Goddard and Virginia Hey, and was given something that feeds my heart, mind, and soul.
Because I love Farscape.
harry potter - *grins* this is mike_mccall's fault - he was in Calgary working on a production of the Sound of Music, and the production's kid wrangler lent him copies. He was hooked, and immediately went out and bought his own copies - which he mailed to me, book by book, as soon as he was done. This was right when Goblet of Fire came out, BTW. I couldn't possibly tell you why I love this series so much, but I do - I love being whisked away into another world, so much like our own, where the struggle of Good and Evil is write large, but human nature remains as it is. I love the great and indefatigable power of love and friendship. And I love the pure whimsy JK installs in her world, all the brilliant little touches, the everyday magic - and how, when looked at through the eyes of a wizard, our muggly word is filled with "everyday magic" as well.
linguistics - I started out as an anthropology major... but halfway through the semester, right around when we covered anthropological linguistics, I found my true calling and changed it. I've always had a fascination with words and languages and how the meanings conveyed are subtly different in every one - and the more I learned, the more fascinated I became. We have thousands of different ;languages on this planet - and every single one represents a different way of codifying the same world, a different point of view on the same human experience - how could anyone not find that fascinating?
world-as-myth - explained here.
And now for something only slightly different: The Icon meme
Comment on this post. I will choose seven userpics from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are using in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so others can play along.
southoffebruary asked about:
- well, cause it is love. This was one of the first icons I came across when I was looking for Sam/Rodney icons... and it's the reason I have her friended, in fact. Plus I love the cap itself. I realize it's just a hallucination, but I still feel that it *is* love between those two: I mean, of all possible people for him to hallucinate, he picks Sam. He's lost and scared and alone - and he picks Sam.
- Made by _wwsd_ and snagged while looting SG icon comms. I love Rodney. I love that Doctor Who quote and the episode it's from. David Hewlett loves Doctor Who, too. It works on so many levels!! :D
- *laughs* another result of me looting SG icon coms. On a superficial level, I love blue jello and think it's awesome they serve it on Atlantis. On another level... look, I am freaking amazed that Blue Jello hasn't become the great shipper symbol for Sam/Rodney, or at least Sam on Atlantis. Where am I getting this from? Well, for ages blue jello was significant as Sam's favourite jello - and only Sam's. Please see surealist's The Blue Jello Metaphor - THE Sam fic of all time. Now, consider - the first time Sam and Rodney really sit down and talk is in the commissary, where she grabs her customary blue jell-o - and he does too. Also, in Atlantis, when they opened up regular supplies with Earth again, the commissary there started serving multiple flavours of jello - and Rodney always picked blue. Here's the thing - in Atlantis, blue is the popular Jell-o flavour. Ergo, Sam belongs with Rodney, on Atlantis. Q.E.D. ;)
- *laughs* I have a shirt that says this which I stole borrowed and never returned confiscated procured from either my brother-in-law or the guy who stole or car - whichever of them left it in the back seat. Anyway, when I saw scaperdeage had made an icon that not only had this phrase I feel very apt for me very often, but looked exactly like my t-shirt, I had to grab it.
- heheh. ladynyks made this for me, in response to one of those "comment and I'll make you something" memes. I asked for a LOL icon - and she knowing my love of Keanu gave me this. I use it as my "oh, wow, you're so hilarious I forgot to laugh" icon.
- made by freyja from a macro by taki, the story behind this one is here. I snagged it promptly because a) I love captain Jack in many ways, not in the least for being one of the rare canonically Bi heroic characters on TV and b) I have bisexual fury, yo. Taste it.
- snagged this from not_kawaii (I think it was her Valentine's day special), because.. uhm, it's true. I'm cheap. Give me chocolate, I am yours forever. (Granted, in a fairly superficial way, but I will at least hang around incessantly, hoping for more chocolate.)
So... do you like.... stuff?
-Lisa Simpsons
Uhm, the huge uber-news I've been sitting on for a bit is: we crunched the numbers, and WE ARE GO FOR BURBANK!!!! I have the time booked off, the vacation pay submitted and accepted, just need to double check room bookings and roomies. (For those of you in the cheap seats, mike and I are driving down to Burbank, California for the Annual Farscape convention)
Our budget for doing this is brutally tight, though - you don't want to know how much a day we propose to get by on for food - so I'm going to be posting a (f'locked) itinerary, saying where we'll be when, and anybody who can volunteer to put us up for a day (and/or feed us) will be loved forever and worshipped and yadda yadda. (We'd offer you trinkets from the con, but we can barely afford to get ourselves there, let alone bring back stuff. Of course, if YOU want to give us something and pay for it to be autographed, we'll happily play gopher. Except for Rockne. He's giving out one per person, free, and I already picked out what I'm having him sign...)
And speaking of Farscape - my prize from a recent contest on Terra Firma got here - I am the proud owner of a set of IASA/Farscape 1 patches, and a limited edition farscape card signed by Paul Goddard. Kaz, lemmie know which patch you want - the one that says IASA or the one that says Farscape 1 - and I'll fork it over when we see you.
Okay, that interests meme is still going around: here's the latest batch:
pumagrrl asked about:
action figures - I started collecting these when I was a kid, I think my first were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - no, those were my first new ones, my very first ones were my brother's Masters of the Universe, and stuff I'd grab from garage sales, because I thought they looked cool. I'd make up stories about them, and play out long and involved sagas... when I left for university my step-mom convinced me to get rid of them. I really wish I'd never listened to her, and ever since I've been raiding garage sales and second hand stores to rebuild my collection. I really can't tell you what the attraction of these little plastic people is - I just love them. I love posing them in goofy tableaus, perching them all over the house - even playing out little scenes.
csi - stands for Crime Scene Investigation, and here refers to the popular TV show revolving around the forensics lab of Las Vegas. I've gotten into it from reruns incessantly played on a couple channels in our cable package - what I love most about this show is the characters, I think, particularly one Gil Grissom. He's... I'm serious here, he's my hero, he's a deeply admirable man whose personal values and MO I find nothing but emulatable. He's also delightfully quirky - I adore his sense of humour. I also love the "puzzle" nature of the show, and delight in seeing if I can beat the folks at Vegas CSI to it.
canadian cinema - I talk about this here
muppets - a word invented by Jim Henson from putting "marionette" and "puppet" together and originally meant a hand puppet with marionette controlled limbs, but has come to refer to the specific characters of the Muppet Show, Sesame Street, and other Henson creations - hell, Rygel and Pilot of Farscape are considered muppets. I love nearly everything Henson Studios has ever done, and have particular love for certain characters, especially specific cast members of the muppet show. Hell, in the words of Paul Goddard: "I wanted to be a muppet when I grew up. Failing that a muppeteer." He got closer to that ambition than I did, obviously. :)
lemon demon - covered here
snakes on a plane - *sings* "Times are Strange / got a free upgrade for / snakes on a plane" I LOVE THIS MOVIE. Love it love it love it. It promised to me exactly what it delivered, and in fact was fairly well-thought out in its execution. It took what on the surface is a pretty goofy premise - and then examined, "okay, what would realistically happen? HOW could this realistically happen" - including creating a character you could certainly believe would decide to go for somethingthis theatrical to get on somebody - Eddie Kim scares the crap out of me. And it's a no-holds-barred, non-stop action-thriller, with SAMUEL L. M-F JACKSON!! Oh, Samuel L Jackson, how are you so M-F awesome? (Oh, I also love The Song, too - and the meme makes me giggle.)
the shadow files - Explained here.
wolfscape asked about:
acts of random kindness - explained here.
elfquest - Comic book series, expanded into several over the years, by Wendi and Richard Pini, featuring the adventures of a race of elven aliens who crashed on an earth-like planet with two moons in prehistoric days and were hunted down by the humans ever since. It just completely entranced me from the first graphic novel I picked up as a kid, and I can religiously collecting them for a while, though I've fallen behind - plus not all the spin-offs appeal to me. There's been talk of a movie on an off for over a decade now... here's hoping we finally get to see it someday...
fan fiction - well, nearly everybody knows this is the unofficial fiction featuring other people's characters and settings written by fans of those settings. As to why I'm interested in it... look, I can't turn off my brain, my creativity. I get to know these characters, these worlds, and the stories just come. And I have to let them out. Some people write fanfic to "fix" canon, or get their jollies, or explore stuff we'd never see in canon for various reasons (budget, medium constraints, censors...) - all of that is secondary to me: I write fanfic because I have to.
farscape - for those people under a rock who read this journal and managed to somehow not pick up on what farscape is: Brian Henson and Rockne O'Bannon's show about an astronaut shot to the far end of the universe and how he finds home. As to why I love it... well I'm just gonna plagiarize myself here. 'Cause I could never ever say it better than this: Because Paul Goddard is sexy. Because damn near everybody ELSE is sexy too. Because the redshirt PK in the first season finale episode is the kick-ass captain PK in the series finale mini. Because the "body swap" episode was fresh and original. So was the time travel episode. So was the "trapped in VR" episode. And was the [insert sci-fi cliche here] episode. And the "sh*t sh*t one of our actors has to leave" episode. Because Zhaan stayed dead. Because Harvey didn't. Because the main character comments on how damn slashy it can get. Because the muppets will make you cry. Because the comic relief can also make you cry, or scare the sh*t out of you. Because there's sex, bathrooms, farting and piss, just like real life. Because the scientist charcter b*tches about how scientifically improbable what's going on is. Because that line from episode 1.19 is a major plot element in episode 4.20. Because the bad guys quote Shakespeare, and the good guys quote Star Wars. Because the actor written episodes are two of the best ever written. Because I cried when the bad guy from season one gave his life to save everyone in season three. Because two of the main characters are the SPACESHIPS. Because the bar got raised so high there is no goddamned bar. Because they finally made it back to earth, and earth just wasn't that great. Because they're a family, and they treat each other like family - they kick and scream and hurt and love each other. Because the aliens are ALIEN - not just physically, but socially and mentally. Because there's a REASON the human-like aliens look human like. Because there's plant sex. And muppets. And cartoons. Because I came here to ogle Paul Goddard and Virginia Hey, and was given something that feeds my heart, mind, and soul.
Because I love Farscape.
harry potter - *grins* this is mike_mccall's fault - he was in Calgary working on a production of the Sound of Music, and the production's kid wrangler lent him copies. He was hooked, and immediately went out and bought his own copies - which he mailed to me, book by book, as soon as he was done. This was right when Goblet of Fire came out, BTW. I couldn't possibly tell you why I love this series so much, but I do - I love being whisked away into another world, so much like our own, where the struggle of Good and Evil is write large, but human nature remains as it is. I love the great and indefatigable power of love and friendship. And I love the pure whimsy JK installs in her world, all the brilliant little touches, the everyday magic - and how, when looked at through the eyes of a wizard, our muggly word is filled with "everyday magic" as well.
linguistics - I started out as an anthropology major... but halfway through the semester, right around when we covered anthropological linguistics, I found my true calling and changed it. I've always had a fascination with words and languages and how the meanings conveyed are subtly different in every one - and the more I learned, the more fascinated I became. We have thousands of different ;languages on this planet - and every single one represents a different way of codifying the same world, a different point of view on the same human experience - how could anyone not find that fascinating?
world-as-myth - explained here.
And now for something only slightly different: The Icon meme
Comment on this post. I will choose seven userpics from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are using in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so others can play along.
southoffebruary asked about:
- well, cause it is love. This was one of the first icons I came across when I was looking for Sam/Rodney icons... and it's the reason I have her friended, in fact. Plus I love the cap itself. I realize it's just a hallucination, but I still feel that it *is* love between those two: I mean, of all possible people for him to hallucinate, he picks Sam. He's lost and scared and alone - and he picks Sam.
- Made by _wwsd_ and snagged while looting SG icon comms. I love Rodney. I love that Doctor Who quote and the episode it's from. David Hewlett loves Doctor Who, too. It works on so many levels!! :D
- *laughs* another result of me looting SG icon coms. On a superficial level, I love blue jello and think it's awesome they serve it on Atlantis. On another level... look, I am freaking amazed that Blue Jello hasn't become the great shipper symbol for Sam/Rodney, or at least Sam on Atlantis. Where am I getting this from? Well, for ages blue jello was significant as Sam's favourite jello - and only Sam's. Please see surealist's The Blue Jello Metaphor - THE Sam fic of all time. Now, consider - the first time Sam and Rodney really sit down and talk is in the commissary, where she grabs her customary blue jell-o - and he does too. Also, in Atlantis, when they opened up regular supplies with Earth again, the commissary there started serving multiple flavours of jello - and Rodney always picked blue. Here's the thing - in Atlantis, blue is the popular Jell-o flavour. Ergo, Sam belongs with Rodney, on Atlantis. Q.E.D. ;)
- *laughs* I have a shirt that says this which I stole borrowed and never returned confiscated procured from either my brother-in-law or the guy who stole or car - whichever of them left it in the back seat. Anyway, when I saw scaperdeage had made an icon that not only had this phrase I feel very apt for me very often, but looked exactly like my t-shirt, I had to grab it.
- heheh. ladynyks made this for me, in response to one of those "comment and I'll make you something" memes. I asked for a LOL icon - and she knowing my love of Keanu gave me this. I use it as my "oh, wow, you're so hilarious I forgot to laugh" icon.
- made by freyja from a macro by taki, the story behind this one is here. I snagged it promptly because a) I love captain Jack in many ways, not in the least for being one of the rare canonically Bi heroic characters on TV and b) I have bisexual fury, yo. Taste it.
- snagged this from not_kawaii (I think it was her Valentine's day special), because.. uhm, it's true. I'm cheap. Give me chocolate, I am yours forever. (Granted, in a fairly superficial way, but I will at least hang around incessantly, hoping for more chocolate.)
So... do you like.... stuff?
-Lisa Simpsons