Update and Random B5 Stuff
Bit of radio silence there; yesterday was a harder day than the day before. REALLY looking forward to today. Not. But am looking forward to the weekend. I have hinted hard about a Mother's Day outing, and my unsubtleness may be rewarded. I will get back to reading (new J/D by alexcat! More of abracax's Labyrinth, part 2!) hopefully today. Depends on experimental difficulties.
Work: A major piece of equipment broke on me yesterday. Everything in the lab is now over five years old; things start to wear out. (Note: request increase in repair budget next year.) I tore the thing apart and found an electrical connection and a loose wire. The other connection seemed to be soldered on. I think I can strip the wire back and twist the exposed bit around the post, but do not have the right tools ('that is...not right. Never use that one.') or even a teeny strong flashlight so I can see what I'm doing in there. Left everything torn apart and hand-fashioned what I needed using bits of glass and a bunsen burner. Call me Ms. MacGyver, thank you very much. I guess my old fogie skills are still useful!
Still need to repair the damn thing, though.
PTA: So we lose one of the best teachers in the school; seniority rules strike again. Really, teacher's unions? I am all for you, but there are teachers in our school that we could lose with a lot less anguish, you know what I'm saying? Classes will be crammed up, more people moving in all the time. We may get a teacher's assistant if our enrollment goes up any more. Yay. Still no 'pls raise my property taxes so my kid is not imitating a sardine in class' petition. Funny, that.
Next year the elementary school is having a school-wide Science Fair. I had to sit on my hands to keep from volunteering to help run it. Still thinking about it. Coincidentally next year the state starts high-stakes testing 3rd grade and up in science. Funny, that.
I now have two sons going to dance classes. #1 is taking hip-hop, break-dancing, whatever. He loves it. One of the after-school caretakers for #2 asked me if I've ever watched that show Criminal Minds. (I did not squee, I swear.) She told me she's just started watching and Dr. Spencer Reid kept reminding her of someone...and that was my #1. Okay, I did squee a little at that, especially at how puffed up he got. Would it be wrong to dress him up as Reid for Balticon? CM is not SF but still, there be overlap there! He wants to go as Doctor 11 again, but that's just hoping/wishing/fantasizing that the hordes of fangirls would recur.
I am thinking of joining the Amazon Cloud service. Which puts me in mind of various SF clouds. ST:TOS had cloud-creatures, and of course, there's Cloud City. All these tech companies are run by geeks, right? Clouds do not have good associations in fandom...may need to think further on this.
Here are some B5 ruminations for you. Commentary is welcome; these relate to various story ideas I've been kicking around. Some of this will only make sense if you've read JMS's B5 short stories.
What's the difference between recording a mind (Susan in Space, Time, and the Incurable Romantic) and a hunting a Soul? Is the mind recording simply a copy, without feeling or awareness? If so, how does Marcus make a new Susan? Why would Delenn put up a Susan Shrine complete with mind-recording given her visceral reaction to the Soul Hunters? If Susan's soul wasn't captured, what the hell did Marcus make, some sort of Golem? John Hightower's epic over at jumpnow deals a bit with Delenn's reactions to Reanimated John Mark 2, but variations on the concept comes into play in two different stories I'm working on right now.
That Zombie B5 story may rear its ugly head again too.
Also, what about the possible relationships/commonalities/differences between:
1) the vickers (Deathwalker) --I refuse to call them vicars because there are no church fetes on B5.
2) Abel Horn (Spider in the Web)
3) mind-wipes and personality implantation (Passing Thru Gethsemane)
4) Talia's implanted personality (Divided Loyalties)
5) Anna's implanted personality (Z'ha'dum)
6) Bester's use of subliminal suggestion and mind-tweaks on Garibaldi (Season 4)
6) Susan's shrine recording (Incurable Romantic)
I'm certain there's a progression in the abilities of Earth/PsiCorps in these matters, and that the leap in proficiency may have come from the Shadows involvement in the higher echelons there. The manipulation becomes more effective, and more subtle, as well as reversible, as time goes on. Neat, isn't it? In the far future it's perfected, if wicked expensive, which has disturbing implications.
And as a total aside: once again I hit timeline troubles for the Z'ha'dum thru The Summoning stretch in my cracky AU story. This time I found a note in the chronology. Stephen mis-spoke in his voice-over! He was meant to say 'It's been fourteen days...' Fourteen, not nine! Nine since Garibaldi disappeared; fourteen since John left with Anna. Thank you, god. Also JMS.
I made a timeline for that damn stretch since I return to it over and over again. And each time have to look it all up. Brain like a sieve, me.
Oh, and the Girls' Road Trip? Still too short (we get a week to do the round-trip to the big Z.) My personal belief? Susan tinkered with the engine of the White Star, ordered Lennier to floor it, and basically Made It So.
Road Trip would be an epic title for a story with those three, wouldn't it? Or even more for a sequel to the cracky AU. *chortle*
Lastly, writing. I now have three stories in various stages of completion (being beta'd, tweaking, polishing), one half-plotted, one title plus opening sentence, one 2000 words and threatening to become a major AU. Not too bad! Now to get one of those time-wranglers Hermione's got, and we'll get these puppies written!
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