Terrible Last Words

Book review: Doctor Who – The Twin Dilemma

2011-04-19T08:54:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted from my Hardcore Nerdity blog:

Title: Doctor Who - The Twin Dilemma
Author: Eric Saward
Publisher: Target Books
Publication date: 1986

"The Twin Dilemma". Oh dear. Oh dearie, dearie dear. Okay, some background on this novelisation of a Doctor Who story.

A couple of years ago, the Doctor Who franchise hit its 200th televised story (not episode, but story - back in the day, stories were several episodes long) with "Planet of the Dead". So Doctor Who Magazine held a poll, wherein readers picked their favourite stories. The 1984 story "The Twin Dilemma", written by one Anthony Steven, came dead last. 200th out of 200. Sure, some story had to come in last. Such is the nature of lists. "The Twin Dilemma", however, mostly deserved it. It's really not a good story. Really, really not a good story.

"The Twin Dilemma" was the first full story for Colin Baker, the 6th actor to play the part of the Doctor. Having just regenerated from the Peter Davison incarnation, the new Doctor goes completely insane for much of the story, shouting at his companion Peri, attempting to strangle her, deciding to become a hermit (with Peri in tow) to atone for the strangling, and choosing to wear the ugliest coat in existence. Somewhere in there, in a setting of the year 2300, there's a couple of brilliant, but annoying, young twins (played by a real-life pair of annoying twins who can't act), an old Time Lord friend of the Doctor, a space cop and a giant slug named Mestor. It's not as good as it sounds.

So, why the hell did I read the novelisation of this story? Because I'm a hardcore Doctor Who fan, who will read, watch or listen to pretty much anything to do with the program. Plus, I thought, surely the story must be better in written format. Right? Right!?

Well, it might have been better, if it hadn't been adapted by Eric Bloody Saward! Eric Saward was the script editor for Doctor Who for a number of years, including most of Colin Baker's time in the role. Saward, unfortunately, was kind of a prick. He seemed determined to suck the joy out of the program. Every interview I've ever seen with the man makes me want to slap that self-important smirk off his face. But, hey, maybe he'd write a good novelisation and improve the story a little. He did, after all, write at least one decent story for the show, 1982's "Earthshock".

Oy.

Saward even writes smug. He really does. He tried to liven up "The Twin Dilemma" by giving it a little humour. But Saward is trying to write like Douglas Adams, with bizarre tangents, which might have been funny if worked into a story that was humourous in the first place. It just comes across as... annoying. "Hey, look at how funny I am!" Just when the rambling plot finally starts to do something, along comes another comedy aside, which is almost certain to include a reference to a fictional alcoholic beverage called Voxnic. Maybe Saward was drunk when he penned this. (Hell, I'm willing to bet he was drunk through much of his time as story editor for the show.)

He screws around with the characters a bit too much as well. Azmael, an old friend of the Doctor, is a renegade Time Lord too, not content with life on their home world of Gallifrey. In this adaptation, Saward turns him into a mass murderer, having, in a fit of pique, killed the entirety of a previous Time Lord Council as part of his back story! And we're supposed be sympathetic towards the guy! Hugo, the space cop, is made into a shallow mercenary, who only cares about getting a promotion. Saward's answer to a story full of unlikable characters, is to make the characters even more unlikable.

The plot, like the original, just sort of ambles along until the Doctor stumbles onto things. He doesn't really have much to do with what's going on, something that much of Colin Baker's tenure suffers from.

So, no, I guess I wasn't terribly impressed with this novelisation. Still, onwards. What's up next in my Doctor Who pile? "Attack of the Cybermen". Enh. Again, not a highlight of the Colin Baker years. Still, it might be an all right adaptation. Let's see who wrote-- Oh, frak me.

Eric Bloody Saward!

Book review: The Bird of the River

2011-04-12T15:36:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted from my Hardcore Nerdity blog:

Title: The Bird of the River
Author: Kage Baker
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication date: 2010

The Bird of the River is the third and, sadly, last (due to the author’s untimely death early last year) novel set in the fantasy world introduced by Kage Baker in her 2003 work, The Anvil of the World.

Baker’s fantasy world features two different (although both essentially human) races: the red-skinned, industrial Children of the Sun and the green-skinned, tree-dwelling Yendri. Also populating the world are demons and gods. However, the demons are not your evil, hosts of Hell type of demons. They’re elementals, given physical bodies (usually in a variety of colours and often sporting fearsome features like tusks) to interact with the world. Some are good, some are bad. None of them fear death because if their bodies are destroyed, they just go off and have a new form made. As for the gods… well, they’re rarely seen. But they are most definitely real.

Of the three novels in the series, Bird is certainly the most… the word I want to use is “gentle”. It’s not nearly as cosmic as the others. Anvil ended up involving nothing less than the fate of the world, while 2008′s The House of the Stag told the epic tale of the rise of the Master of the Mountain, the dark whom most demons serve. Bird, however, tells a simpler story, one about a sister and brother on a long trip aboard a river barge named The Bird of the River.

Eliss is a young woman, about 15 or 16 years old. Her younger half-brother, Alder, is a half-breed; Child of the Sun mother, Yendri father. However, he looks Yendri, which causes some problem around certain, less enlightened Children of the Sun. They live a nomadic life with their mother, Falena. Unfortunately, as the death of Eliss’ father, Falena fell apart, becoming a drug addict, and hooking up with a string of “uncles”, including Alder’s Yendri father. While never abusive to her children, she became unable to look after them adequately, forcing Eliss to grow up quickly.

Very early in the book, Falena dies in a diving accident, leaving the children to become members of the Bird of the River‘s crew. The crew are generally a kindly bunch and Eliss and Alder begin to fit in quickly, especially Eliss, who has a tremendous talent for observing detail and made a look-out (and nicknamed “Vigilance” by Captain Glass). Alder, however, is restless, longing to experience life with the Yendri, and perhaps find his father.

There follows a series of adventures as the Bird makes its way down the river, adventures made all the more, um, adventurous by a certain young man coming on board. A young man who is secretly an assassin, intent on avenging the mysterious death of a nobleman.

I loved this book. Kage Baker can literally have me laughing out loud on one page and then tearing up on the next and this story was no exception, from the young assassin’s self-effacing humour (laughing) to moments when Eliss realizes she may have to let her brother, the only family she has left, leave her and follow his own path (tearing up).

Baker’s writing seems effortless. Although she rarely uses the grandiose language often used in describing fantasy words, it’s easy to visualize the story’s environment. The dialogue is casual, making even the minor characters believable (with the deliberate exception of the occasional villainous-type).

And there’s a pretty good mystery amidst the human drama. I realized one page before the big reveal what was up and actually blurted out “Son of a bitch!”

So, to sum up: high adventure, genuinely funny humour, touching drama, all brilliantly executed. Definitely recommended.

(Okay, my first ever book review ended up being a gushing one. The timing worked out that it was a book by one of my favourite authors.)

Hardcore Nerdity

2011-04-02T12:48:00.000-07:00

A quick little post to let folks know that... Hardcore Nerdity is finally back! Woo hoo! I'm a member, and you should be, too. If you're a nerd. And, if you're reading my blog, you probably are. So go on, already.

My current laptop wallpaper

2011-03-23T21:09:00.001-07:00

This is my current laptop wallpaper. Because it must be so. It must.

A whirlwind trip to Toronto: Part 2

2011-01-25T10:37:00.000-08:00

The following day saw me getting up in time to quickly visit actor and internationally renowned children's author Adrienne Kress for a photo op with her cat, Atticus. The first results were mixed, with Atticus and me seemingly unable to both look at the camera at the same time. Eventually, though...

Ta-da! Unfortunately, poor Adrienne was under the weather, so, rather than impose on her, I went on my way.

I stopped by the Silver Snail and Bakka-Phoenix Books for a browse. Lots of "Oooo, cool... but I don't really want it myself" at the Snail and "Oooo, cool... but I can borrow it from work" at Bakka-Phoenix. Awesome stores nonetheless.

Then, that evening... the main event! The Tempestuous launch at the Dom.

Wow. One hell of a party. I have never spent such a long, continuous time in a bar or pub. I was there from a little after 6PM and didn't leave until 3AM. Yes, that's right, 3 of the morning clock. Fortunately, my internal clock, still on Pacific time, felt it was only about midnight. (On the other hand, getting up for breakfast at the hotel meant my internal clock also felt like I'd been up since 5 in the morning.) I'll have to confess that for the first couple of hours, I went into my default "wallflower mode". This tends to happen at parties where I only know about 2% of those present. However, by the end of the night I was having an absolute blast!

The launch officially started a 7:30. Folks mingled, ale was consumed (okay, I had Sprite) and, in a back room, the full trailer for Tempestuous was screen on a continuous loop. Largely thanks to director and effects fella Joe O'Brien, it felt more like a trailer for a Lord of the Rings film! Check it out:

After a while, it was time for Lesley to do a reading from the book, which I took a video of:

After the reading, Lesley was then put behind a table to meet fans and sign books. This went on for damn near four solid hours. And somehow Lesley managed to keep her energy high, as well as her enthusiasm for meeting her fans.

A bit of weirdness: There I was, visiting from Victoria, BC, to attend the launch for a Lesley Livingston book. The two important facts there are A) Victoria, BC, and B) a Lesley Livingston book. So, the very day I'm there, the front page of the Victoria, BC, newspaper has an article on the murder of an elderly couple. And the photo of the woman used in the paper is this:

Yup. She's reading one of Lesley books. OooooEEEEEoooo.... Jon Llyr brought the article up on his iPhone and the universal reaction to this from party attendees was, "Oh my God!" Okay, end of eerie tangent.

A few of us who are regular posters at Hardcore Nerdity managed to find each other for some chat. We were eventually joined by Lesley, once she finished signing 823,000 books. And then...

A rock concert broke out. Really. The music for the evening was supplied by one John Stuart Campbell on guitar and eventually people went up on stage to sing some tunes. Most notably Jon and Lesley. Lesley pretty much blew my mind by completely substituting her own voice for a another as she did the Doors' "Roadhouse Blues":

I found myself wanting the whole shindig to never end but, alas, the time came when I had to leave. I had a plane to catch the next day for what would be a 12-hour trip back home.

It was awesome seeing these ridiculously talented and cool friends again and I look forward to visiting them again. Lynn and I hope to head out their way again for next Halloween. Now, we just need to figure out what costumes to wear...

Here's a couple more images from the evening:

Fairies attended the launch. Here's photographic evidence.

Lesley on stage about to rock out with John Campbell.

Jon Llyr in the process of rocking out with John Campbell.

Lesley drinking something blue from the Wondrous Strange-themed martini bar.

Lesley and me with fellow HcNers James Marshall and T. Gregory Argall.

A whirlwind trip to Toronto: Part 1

2011-01-22T12:56:00.001-08:00

Some time in December, I received an e-mail invite from Harper Collins Canada, saying "Come on out for the book launch party for the new book, Tempestuous!" It was just a generic thing sent out to people subscribed to news about my friend, internationally renowned young adult author (and former Waitron-9000 portrayer), Lesley Livingston through the HC website.

And, while it certainly crossed my mind how much fun it would be to attend, I didn't seriously consider doing so. But, as I'm reading it aloud to Lynn, she suggests I use a chunk of our AirMiles (unfortunately not enough for us both) and just go. And that I not even tell Lesley, but just show up!

So it was that, a month later, I found myself getting up at a quarter to six in the morning in order to catch a flight to Toronto, Ontario. From Victoria, BC. For a single evening's party. As a surprise. (Although I had told Lesley's boyfriend, Canadian nerd célèbre and former Grot-portrayer, Jonathan Llyr. Who is da man. Hold on, do people still say "da man"? Well, if they do, Jon is da man.)

The trip didn't start at 100% goodness, though. The airport security people had to take the teeny-tiny, fake (well, duh) laser gun that was on my keychain. At least they were apologetic about it. They seemed to realise how silly it was to treat this like a threat of any kind, but still had to enforce the rules. "Is it your Jedi laser?" (I was wearing my Back to the Future t-shirt, so I think they knew I was a nerd.) And, no, I did not point out to them that Jedi don't use guns; I wasn't going to abuse the goodwill that I was getting from them over the issue.

The rest of the trip east was a pretty standard, uneventful (if long) flight and I safely reached my lavish suite in the luxurious Holiday Inn Express in downtown Toronto. Afterwards, at Jon's suggestion, rather than wait until the party the following evening, when Lesley would be swamped talking to and meeting Lord knows how many people, I wandered down to the Dominion on Queen, walked in and plunked myself down in a seat opposite Lesley and just gave a little wave.

Now, I don't usually cause people's jaws to drop, but that night I did. (And, Lesley's mom, if by some chance you read this, I apologize for causing Lesley to cut your phone call short.) After Lesley getting over the initial shock, she, Jon and I sat around for a nice long talk, with subjects ranging from Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's idiocy to having molds made of your head, from music to kids hurting themselves trying to remove their tongues from frozen metal. I even Skyped Lynn using my PSP (which I discovered you can really hold like a phone while using Skype), so she could briefly say hi.

And so, a couple of hours later, I left the Dom with a warm glow (multiple hugs from Lesley will do that to you) to counter the chilly Toronto weather and headed back to the hotel.

But, that was only the first day...

More to follow in a later post. This time with pictures. And maybe video.

What up?

2011-01-13T13:29:00.000-08:00

So, what have I been up to for the last... well, never mind how long exactly long... since I last tended to my blog? Here's a quick bullet list sampling of my life over the last couple of years. Things I might have actually blogged about had I been blogging.

Went on Alaskan cruise.
Visited friends (including the SpaceBar cast) in Toronto, also attending the big Silver Snail Halloween party in the process (I was the 10th Doctor, my wife Lynn was Clara from "The Guild"). Best. Halloween. Ever.
Launched my Doctor Who Chronology version 2.0.
Subscribed to and became quickly addicted to Netflix.
Got my very own advance reader copy of Lesley Livingston's Tempestuous. (Read. Her. Books.)

Aaaand probably lots of other stuff that I can't think of at the moment. Anyway, there ya go. Caught up.

Now, I suppose I should see about update the layout of and information on the page.

A triumphant(-ish) return!

2011-01-09T23:28:00.000-08:00

Okay, let's get this thing rolling again! Cough! Cough! Right, gonna have to do some dusting around the place...

All right, I've realized something. I avoid putting anything new on the blog largely because I feel bad about not posting anything in a long time. And I hate starting every post with "Sorry I haven't posted in a while..." So...

I'm just going to post whenever, without starting with "Oh, it's been such a long time!" Maybe I'll post several times a day, maybe it'll be months between posts (because, let's face it, I hardly need the most exciting of lives). All right? All right. We'll see how things go from here.

A sort-of post

2009-05-04T22:32:00.000-07:00

So, once again, I return briefly to my woefully ignored blog.

As I seem to have little to say here (I really need to work on that), for the time being I will be posting links here to the blog I do contribute to every once in a while, at Hardcore Nerdity. This past weekend, I contributed to an ongoing feature called "Soundtrack Sundays", where HcN grand poobah Jonathan Llyr talks a little about a soundtrack of his choice, along with accompanying YouTube clips of the music.

I got to write one up myself, detailing the history of the "Doctor Who" theme song, for reasons given in the post.

Have a gander.

A visit to the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame

2008-11-15T16:40:00.000-08:00

(Copied from my blog at Hardcore Nerdity)

In early October, my wife Lynn and I took a couple of days trip to Seattle with another couple, mostly to do a little cross-border shopping. (Fortunately, we managed to squeak this in before the sudden recent plunge in the value of the Canadian dollar. Excellent timing!) But as part of the trip, I decided I needed to visit the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. It's very close to the the city's famed Space Needle and was practically across the street from our hotel.

That's a view of the building from our hotel room. Only half of it is the SFM, with the other being another museum called the Experience Music Project. That funky design is thanks to Canadian designer Frank Gehry. Oh, and the Seattle monorail runs through a big hole in the building.

The entrance is pretty cool. The windows are plastered with collages of SF book covers...

...and images from a host of SF films and TV programs.

However, these scenes are all in danger from the nasty looking spaceship digging its way into the windows!

Eek!

Anyway, once inside, photography is not really allowed so I only have a few photos from this point on (all of them washroom related - you'll see) and will just list some of the highlights. (I'm sure you can see some pictures at the Museum's site).

The first thing you see when entering is a great big replica of Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still. And, damn, he is tall. Immediately after that are some public washrooms. We didn't need to use the facilities, but spent some time gazing at the signs on the doors. And why is that? Here:

When we finally entered the Museum proper, we were greeted to the sight of a large ball hanging from the ceiling with a projector inside, flashing montages and planetscapes onto the ball-shaped screen.

Then, the first true display. And it's for (surprise, surprise) Star Trek. They've got a nice little selection of actual props and costumes from the classic series. An actual captain's chair from the set and an actual captain's uniform worn by William Shatner. And, man, you realise how slim the Shat used to be. There's also a replica of Nichelle Nichols' script for "The Deadly Years". The script is "annotated" by Nichols, which seems to mean doodling and underlining her own lines.

Further along, one display includes Neal Stephenson's hand-written manuscripts for his massive "Baroque Cycle". Hand-written. It's four and a half feet tall.

Blade Runner outfits. Neat. But, boy, was Sean Young tiny.

A section on Social Commentary in SF, mostly literary. Books about subjects like gender issues and overpopulation.

Ooh, a big video wall made to seem like we're looking out on a massive spaceport with dozens of ships from TV, film and books flying by. It's a little jarring seeing the Enterprise followed by the 5-mile-long Red Dwarf.

There's an actual Gemini astronaut's space suit. We boggle at how... flimsy it seems. It reminds one of the crazy/brave thin line. I can't believe people went into the vacuum of space in these things!

A display of vehicles, both large (although in reality small, like the model of the Galileo 7 from Star Trek) to the one-person (like Griff's hoverboard, "Pit Bull", from Back to the Future Part II).

"The Armory"! Nice selection of weapons, both long-range laser types and close-range melee types (bat'leth anyone?). And I can't believe it when I see a Fun Gun from the Doctor Who (classic) story "The Happiness Patrol"! "I'm glad you're happy!" "And I'm happy you're glad!"

A Mars display featuring original editions of The War of the World by Wells, The Martian Chronicles by Bradbury and Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy.

And now, the SF Hall of Fame. Looks pretty slick.

All the images of the inductees are etched into blueish glass in a 3D fashion. Very spiffy. There's also a console which allows you to watch brief bios of a number of the inductees.

Next up, a neat display of a number of SF awards, including a number of Nebulas and the 1953 Hugo given to Forrest Ackerman, basically for being the uber-fan that he was.

Speaking of fans, there's a nice, big display devoted to fandom, with a whole bunch of fanzines and a selection of fan-made costumes. We boggle slightly at the incredible detail put into the costumes.

Now we reach the robot display. There's Twiki from Buck Rogers; I discover that it is in fact impossible to see Twiki without automatically going "bidi bidi bidi". There are also copies of Robbie the Robot from Forbidden Planet and the robot from TV's Lost in Space. They each go through a loop of lines they delivered in their movie/series. The thing is, they've been set up to make it seem like they're having a conversation! They introduced themselves to each other, have a big of an argument and then make up!

Speaking of Forbidden Planet, at some point, we found one of Anne Francis' outfits from that film. Damn, again, another actor who must have been insanely tiny! She must have been something like a size -1!

Another video display, cycling through views over a number of future cities. There's the placid, imaginary world from The Matrix, the dark dystopian Los Angeles from Blade Runner and... the world of The Jetsons! Well, I know which one I'd rather live in.

It just goes on and on. It's delightful! There's just too much to describe it all here. Any SF fan visiting the Seattle area really must give this place a visit. Just make sure you give yourself a good couple of hours.

One last picture. We used a second set of washrooms. I started slightly on entering, confronted with a huge movie poster of Alien Vs. Predator. When exiting, Lynn smiled at me and asked, "Did you have one in yours as well?" "What, you mean the AVP poster?" "That's not what was in mine. I took a picture. I'll show you later." We get back to the hotel room, and Lynn shows me this:

She knows me so well. Now, I just need to find one for our home bathroom.

Nerdity of the Hardcore variety

2008-10-03T12:47:00.000-07:00

I've neglected the blog for a bit (big shock there) but I've come back long enough to do a little promoting of another site where I spend a good chunk of my time these days. Hardcore Nerdity:

Visit HardcoreNerdity

Hardcore Nerdity (or HCN) is sort of a cross between Facebook and a 24/7 SF convention, plus its own weekly podcast. It's a social network for genre lovers. It is, as they say in one of their tag-lines, "where the elite meet to geek". They haven't been around that long, but they're already over 1000 members. If you like science fiction[1], fantasy or horror, check it out. I think you'll be glad you did.

View my page on HardcoreNerdity

[1]And I'm assuming that a few of you are here because you googled the Doctor Who line "Those would have been terrible last words" and, therefore, like science fiction. So go sign up already!

40... it feels a lot like 39

2008-08-15T22:39:00.000-07:00

I turned 40 on Tuesday. Yep, the big 4-0. Middle aged. And, really, it doesn't make me feel any different. On the other hand, it means I got a kick-ass party the Sunday before (Tuesday's a crummy day to have a decent party)!

Rather than do any food ourselves, we mostly got a selection of really nice meat/cheese/veggie/sushi platters from the grocery store. It greatly simplified things. Of course, plenty of food was brought by guests. And there was a cake (courtesy of my mother-in-law Helen). There was a selection of ice cream to have with the cake. There were also Shirley Temples.

I also did all I could to get as many guests as possible to play SingStar. It's always fun to stick a mike in someone's hand and make them sing along to "We Built This City" and "The Final Countdown" (which actually has the lyrics, and I quote, "Ba ba ba baaa! Ba ba ba ba baaa!"). Everyone was impressed by Nathan, my supervisor from work and as white as any of us at the party, kicking butt on Run-DMC's "Tricky". I'm not sure if he was singing the Run part or the DMC part, but he rocked.

And gifts. Wow. Much more than expected. A couple of weeks before all this, I got myself a PS3 (woo!), so it was great when I got Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction from my mom; it was the game I most wanted for the new console (although I gather she didn't know exactly what she was after and asked for Pools of Destruction at the store). I also got a couple of gift cards for EB Games, so I now also have Lego Indiana Jones. Other gift highlights had to include:

a plush of the killer bunny from Monty Python and the Holy Grail
an extremely silly Marvel comic called Wha-- Huh?!
my very own Doctor Who sonic screwdriver, along with a wallet with psychic paper (now I can make anybody's cell phone work across any distance through time and space and I can easily get into any party or crime scene of my choice)

And best of all, everyone honoured my request; there were no dancing girls (or girls jumping out of cakes), no firework, and no one tried to get me to drink alcohol. There was the mandatory singing of "Happy Birthday" as the cake came out, though, which was a bit embarrassing.

Most of all, the day was just... fun. I've got great family, great friends, great co-workers and a great wife in Lynn (who really held things together and made sure I had a steady supply of Shirley Temples).

2008-07-02T13:55:00.000-07:00

I wonder how Carl from Liverpool is doing. Who, you may ask, the hell is Carl from Liverpool? Well...

I'm looking through an old Doctor Who Magazine from a few years back, just as a little background work on my Doctor Who Chronology. This issue (specifically issue 343) saw print sometime in the year before Doctor Who's return to TV. Much had been announced about the show. Russell T. Davies as show runner, Christoper Eccleston as the Doctor... But it seems that Carl from Liverpool had... well, a wee problem with Russell. Thought he was "arrogant" (whahey?!). And, possibly, had a wee bit of trouble with Russell's sexual orientation. To quote a chunk of his letter to the editor for the issue:

I'm surprised that Russell T Davies didn't cast himself -- after all, there must still be some people in the world who don't know that he is 6ft 6in and gay, and this could have been his chance to spread his message.

Due to the arrogance of Davies, I won't be watching his new series, and I sincerely hope that it will be a critical and ratings failure.

To quote Nelson from The Simpsons: Haw-haw! I am very much looking forward to seeing this week's finale for Series 4 of the massive critical and ratings success that is the revived Doctor Who.

As for Carl from Liverpool... I wonder he'll be up to this weekend...

2008-06-28T08:53:00.000-07:00

Weird patron encounter of the week:

Yesterday, I changed the paper roll in the self-check machine. This always produces a chunk of extra paper as the machine automatically makes an initial cut to give the roll a nice straight edge for its next receipt. So, I crumpled up that bit of paper and, as I passed the upstairs public internet stations, tossed it into the recycle box next to those stations. And the lady at the terminal next to the box got seriously pissed off. Apparently, what I'd done was "inappropriate", although God knows how. She said I should have kept the paper and thrown it in the recycle box in "my own area". Um. Yeah. It's a public box lady. Anybody, including staff can use it at any time.

I uttered a couple of "sorries" but I don't think she believed me. Which is fair enough, because I didn't really mean it. I'd done nothing wrong.

For the next 10 minutes or so, when I wandered anywhere near that area, to assist patrons with something or other, she just glared at me.

Oooookay.

2008-06-11T22:17:00.000-07:00

Look who's been remiss in his blogging. That would be, oh, me.

Finally feeling much better after more than a week fighting off a nasty cold and likely an infection of some kind. Still coughing a fair bit but not as often or as long. It's actually nice to get back to work after being home sick for a week. Especially today.

We played video games at work. Really. A bunch of us attended a workshop on video games and literacies. A couple of women from the University of Victoria gave a little talk on how video games are not bad for kids. And are, quite often, good learning tools. Then, for the second half of the workshop, we actually played games for a while. The verdict: I might do okay on the Wii with a little practice on the controller, I'm half decent at Dance Dance Revolution and I suck pretty badly at Guitar Hero.

So, all in all, a pretty good day to return to work. Plus a few of us went to Japanese Village for lunch. Nice.

2008-04-03T11:00:00.000-07:00

We won. We actually won. The library lock-out is over. And we got what we were asking for. Well, mostly. More than I thought we'd get anyway.

Monday evening, our union local met at a nearby (for us) school gym and presented to us a package worked out by the employers and our representatives. Then we voted 85% in favour of accepting it.

We got pay equity. Not exactly the pay equity we were asking for. We were going for equity with Victoria city hall, but ended up with an average of two other municipalities' city halls. That's still a big improvement over what we had and is, in essence, still equity. And it's retroactive to the beginning of last year!

Management has agreed to creating a number of "senior page" positions. This will be a page position that is full-time and permanent, which means benefits. Just like a real job!

It was certainly not a perfect package, but it's a huge step forward, especially considering that we didn't lose anything we already had. There had been talk of changing Sundays to a regular work day, rather than an extra day, but we ended up making no concsessions.

So, I'm back to work today. Just a half day for today and we won't be opening until Tuesday, but we are back! And it mostly comes down to our union members' strength during this last couple of months and the huge public support. Don't mess with library patrons or employees!

2008-03-02T14:50:00.000-08:00

This morning, I finally finished the third and final part of the futuristic role-playing Xenosaga video game series. The series' story-line is massive, epic and, to be honest, rather too complex for its own good. Don't get me wrong, I very much enjoyed playing the series. It looks great, it's got a huge amount of (mostly) fun side quests, the characters are likeable (if a little melodramatic).

However, the story is so deeply steeped in mythology, Biblical scholarship and the works of Nietzsche (yes, that Nietzsche), it's often difficult to figure out exactly what the hell is going on or what the characters are going on about. Although I enjoyed it, I won't be going back to play these over again. Guess I'll turn in the volumes I own for credit at EB Games.

The Xenosaga series will certainly go down as winner of Most Bizarre Video Game Plot Twist of All Time. One the main characters, KOS-MOS is a hot, kick-ass blue haired android who regularly pulls out massively oversize guns to take down enemies:

The bizarre twist? It turns out that KOS-MOS was built to be the re-incarnation of... Mary Magdalene. Mary. Magdalene. Whahey?!

2008-02-29T18:19:00.000-08:00

Day 612 of the library lockout. ... Okay, maybe it only seems like day 612. At least, today it does.

In reality, we are closing in on the end of the second full week of the library board and the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association's depriving the city of their libraries. And, so far, an end to it seems awfully far in the future.

I've mostly been pretty positive during all this. Certainly not happy, but generally hopeful that things will turn out, especially given the overwhelming public support. But, for some reason, today... Today, I felt cranky and just generally annoyed at the world. Lynn says it's probably because I didn't sleep well last night, and she's probably right, but I was still grouchy. I hope the mood passes.

A random thought about the situation:

While spending four hours walking back and forth in front of the library, I'm reading a bit here and there, working my way through The Last Days of Krypton by Kevin J. Anderson. It tells the story of, well, the last days of Krypton: the events leading up to Krypton's destruction. Superman's father Jor-El, as the story has always gone, tries to convince his world's ruling council of the danger threatening them all. The council refuses to listen, burying their heads in the sand, desperate to maintain the status quo. Gee, sounds like a certain library board I can think of...

2008-02-16T15:05:00.000-08:00

A little after 3 PM on the second to last day that the library is open before a lockout...

"It's a madhouse! A MADHOUSE!!!!"

Just a little on the busy side, then.

2008-02-16T10:14:00.000-08:00

Today's my last day at work for what could be a very long time. Actually, nearly all of us at the library are having their last day today or tomorrow. We're being locked out.

I've mentioned our labour problems here a couple of times and now things have come to a head. After 5 months of asking the library board to return to the bargaining table and trying to not strike completely, they've decided they'd rather shut us down.

What's really got a lot of us pissed off is that their official press release has this passage:

“We do recognize and value the contribution of employees and would urge employees to ask their union representatives to return to the negotiating table to work out a fair collective agreement that meets the needs of all parties.”

Um, what?? They're doing their best to make it look like we are the ones who don't want to negotiate, despite telling them repeatedly that we would stop any and all strike actions if they would return to the table. Dickweeds.

Lynn and I expect to be okay, as long as the lock out doesn't last more than a few months; we've got a decent amount saved up right now. But a lot of folks are going to suffer because of the board's petty and small-minded actions.

Now, back to that last day.

2008-02-05T16:51:00.000-08:00

DISTURBING LIBRARY FINDS #4

Hey, it's only taken me until February to make my first blog post of the year! To make up for the long gap, I'm presenting a new Disturbing Library Find!

Yes, the adorable little tale of an adorable little mole in adorable search of "whodunit". That "hat" on his head? It is what you think it is. A co-worker originally found this in its original German format and passed it on to me, thinking it ideal for Disturbing Library Finds. He was right. Everyone I show this book to, whether in German or the above-pictured English translation, tends to sit with their mouth gaping open in disbelief.

The little mole pops his head out of his hole one morning and, yes, suddenly has crap land on his head. Understandably pissed off about this, he goes from animal to animal, asking if they are the perpetrator. On each double-page spread, each animal proves their innocence by letting go with their own, unique feces. There are thuds and splats all over the place. Wherever these animals all dwell together is obviously to be avoided if you care about your footwear at all.

I won't spoil the ending for you by revealing "whodunit" but I will let you know that the mole clearly believes in "an eye for an eye" and gives as good as he gets.

2007-12-06T20:56:00.000-08:00

Well, I certainly had an interesting day at work.

Yep, lame-o bomb threat. I guess to match the one they had on the ferry last week. Probably some pinhead kids who don't have the brains that God gave a troglodyte.

Or possibly someone disgruntled at our on-going job action. If so, this was a stupid way to go about it. We didn't suffer. Hell, we got an double-long lunch hour, hanging around at the nearby Tim Horton's waiting for the all clear. The only people truly put out by this would have to be (A) other patrons and (B) the police, who had to waste manpower (and bomb-sniffing dogpower) making sure the public was going to be safe.

I repeat... pinheads.

2007-11-21T16:48:00.000-08:00

So, famous Science Guy Bill Nye has had to file a restraining order against his former fiancee, who apparently tried to poison him. On hearing this news, my brain immediately went into flashback mode, remembering Bill's days on "Almost Live!". Along with every other male cast member, he had his turn playing a suffering boyfriend of... "The Worst Girlfriend in the World".

Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes.

Oooooh she's the worst girlfriend in the world!
A psycho bitch from hell, yeah, that's the girl!
She's the worst girlfriend in the world!
The worst girlfriend in the woooooorld!

2007-11-11T16:15:00.000-08:00

Time for a little catch up. And, yes, I've been bad about keeping up this blog. It will almost certainly continue that way. But I think we'll live.

Much work relief. I now have a full-time permanent position with the library. Whew! It's at the Emily Carr branch, which is really my first choice. Not too far from home, not too crazy (although by no means dead slow).

We are still in the middle of job actions, however. We have shut down the public internet terminals, are closed between 12 and 1 everyday as we all take lunch simultaneously, and have stopped collecting overdue fines. We've also had a few strike days here and there, some involving picketing and one where we all went to a "study session" at strike HQ, where we spent four hours listening to talk about pay equity. I drifted off for about ten minutes during hour three. Nobody noticed.

Still, at least I do have that new position. If I play my cards right, I'll never have to go through another job interview again.

I will try to post something half-way interesting next time.

2007-10-14T19:52:00.000-07:00

Heh. Hehheh. Hehhehheh. Ha! Ha ha ha! Hahahaha!!! Bwahahahahaha!!! ... Oh... Oh, my sides... Oh, God... Deep breaths... Deeeep breaths... Okay. Okay, I'm all right now. Okay... You really do have to be a fan of Homestar Runner to get it.

{glances up a picture} Bwahahahahahahahaha!!!! {falls out of chair} Ow... Hee...

2007-09-26T16:46:00.000-07:00

I think our rally at City Hall last Friday went well. (I'm not really certain, as this was my first work-action rally.) Folks were pretty pumped, and loud and boisterous. Which, I guess, is what you want at one of these. Several speakers were there, including one of Victoria's MLAs. There's even footage of it on YouTube. I'm even visible! Just. For about two seconds beginning around 1:20 on the right hand side of the screen.

Oh, wait. Make that around 1:57, counting down. Forgot it did that. Anyway, no more job actions until after Thanksgiving. We're giving them time to "reconsider their position". Here's hoping...

2007-09-19T08:39:00.000-07:00

Mutiny update. Arrr! Although we are already technically mutinying against the scurvy dogs, we are still choosing to swab decks and raisin' the mizzenmast, we have had two wee work stoppages. Three hours each, one last Thursday and the other the Friday afore that. But the land-lubbers still refuse to parley, so this comin' Friday, we will be havin' a full day's mutiny. We'll all be meetin' on the main deck at 11 bells, then marchin' to the captain's quarters and then hangin' the officers from the yardarm!

(Non-Pirate Day translation: Strike update. Although we are technically already on strike, we have chosen so far to remain open for the time being, with only a couple of three hour job actions. One last Thursday and another the Friday before. But the powers that be still refuse to return to the bargaining table so this coming Friday, we will be having a full work stoppage for the whole system. We will be meeting at the Central branch downtown, then marching to City Hall for a rally. Anybody in the area interested in helping out woefully underpayed library workers, please come join us on Friday. Arrr.)

2007-08-27T20:42:00.000-07:00

I aten't dead. 'Nuff said; moving on.

My mini-golf birthday bash. Wow, that was a long day. In a good way. Nice picnic, a couple of rounds of mini-golf and... the bumper boats. When we'd decided we wanted to do the bumper boats, we though that that would be all there was involved. Boats. Smacking into each other's bumpers. Like bumper cars. When we got into the boats, though, we realized that they had water cannons on them. Oh, boy. The four of us (me, Lynn, Rob and Kama) and a few kids. Needless to say, the kids were merciless with their cannons. Mostly towards Rob, but we all got our share of spray. On the other hand, it was nice to have targets I felt no remorse about soaking back. So, we ended up just a tad wet at the end of it all...

Good news on the work front. I finally score a permanent position with the library, out at the Juan da Fuca branch. It's only half-time, but it's a big step forward. And a relief.

It was all rather whirlwind. Thursday afternoon, I get a phone call asking if I can come in for the interview the next morning at 9! I make it in, do the interview and am told the decision will be known later that day. I got a call right around lunch telling me I got the position! Less that 24 hours. Whew...

Bad news on the work front. A strike seems increasingly unavoidable. This might become my "strike blog" for a while. Heavy sigh.

2007-08-11T13:55:00.000-07:00

Ahem. Yes, it's been a while since posting. And I have no good excuse. I have excuses; they're just not good ones.

One excuse is that Lynn and I have managed to get ourselves addicted to World of Warcraft. Really, though, it's a small miracle that we hadn't already gotten sucked into the world of WoW. (I guess that, unabbreviated, that would be the world of World of Warcraft. That's a messy phrase.)

So far, Lynn's got, um, four characters, I think? Maybe five. I'm just sticking to two. Which, in a bit of web weirdness, you can actually see, even if you don't play the game. There's Duglas (so called because Douglas was unavailable on our chose server), the human paladin. And there's Lumiaris (so called because I couldn't think of anything and just went with a randomly generated name), the night elf druid.

Moving on to other happenings... the strike vote I mentioned a couple of posts back? 90% in favour. No strike is imminent, but if negotiations don't improve sometime soon, it looks like we'll be hittin' the pavement.

I hope to have something actually interesting to post soonish. We're going up-island tomorrow with Rob and Kama to mini-golf. There may be photos. And it so happens to be my 39th birthday tomorrow, as well, although it wasn't planned to have the two together. Just turned out that way.

2007-07-21T13:55:00.000-07:00

Well, didn't get any of the permanent positions at the new branch. However, this kind of thing usually starts a bit of a domino effect, so there should be a couple of other positions opening up to try out for. Plus, I've got myself two full weeks of work at the beginning of August. 35 hour weeks. Which means guaranteed two-day weekends with Lynn. So that's good.

In more work-related goings on, today is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows day. The day the branches receive copies of the most anticipated book since... well, since ever. We've had e-mails reminding us that the books were strictly off-limits until launch day. I believe the phrase "serious penalties" was used (words to that effect anyway). All the regular copies will, of course, have reserves on them and not hit the shelves proper for months and months. For the Fast Read copies, though, I half-expect fisticuffs. (Fast Reads are high in demand books that you can only take out for one week with no renewals and cannot be reserved.)

It's all quite entertaining really, witnessing a book release with security measures usually reserved for foreign dignitaries and rock stars.

2007-07-12T16:50:00.000-07:00

Good-ish and bad-ish news on the work front.

Had my interview this morning for one of the permanent positions at the new Saanich Centennial branch opening in the fall. I feel fairly good about the interview, which is better than I usually feel coming out of these things. Hence the "good". On the other hand, I still may not get the position. Hence the "-ish".

And it looks like this weekend we take a strike vote. Yay. So, even if I do get one of these new positions, we may not be working. And slowly going broke. Hence the "bad". On the other hand, maybe it will be a successful tactic, we won't be out for long and at least some of our demands will be met. Hence the "-ish".

I wonder if it's time to start playing the lottery...

2007-06-26T21:16:00.000-07:00

Haven't had much to blog about the last little while. But I don't want to let the blog slide, so I need to post something.

Ah. "The Sound of Drums" on Doctor Who. Wow. Just... wow. Super drama. Super-duper drama. I seriously have no idea how this story is going to wrap up. The episode also allowed me a couple of Geek Level Doctor Who Knowledge moments. The orange skies of Gallifrey: yup, Susan referred to orange skies waaaaaay back in the original's first season (maybe in "An Unearthly Child", but also possibly in "Marco Polo"). And the Master watching Teletubbies: the original Master, while imprisoned during the Pertwee story "The Sea Devils", found himself enthralled by the British children's TV series The Clangers. Heh. The Master offering people jelly babies: well, that one's a gimme, really...

Oh, got myself a Facebook account. Lynn got one after discovering some friends having one, I decided to give it a shot, too. Kinda fun. Lynn and I can actually play Scrabble through it, even while one of us is at work. Just log in during a break and take a turn.

2007-06-21T18:53:00.000-07:00

I love it when a patron at the library has a celebrity's name. Last hour, I helped a patron named... Bruce Campbell.

Hail to the king, baby.

2007-06-16T23:57:00.000-07:00

Just finished watching the new episode of Doctor Who, "Utopia".

Holy.

Snappin'.

Crap.

(Derek Jacobi really is one kick-ass actor, isn't he?)

2007-06-16T16:37:00.000-07:00

I had a voice class with Mark Hellman on Wednesday, the first in a long, long while. Just a little refresher to begin with. The old "engage the body" thing. Becoming aware of my breathing (which really needs some work), loosening up, et cetera.

I did notice one thing in particular. When I tried to exhale long "f" or "v" sounds, they're not quite right. My lower lip went to the same place as it did before I had that dental surgery a couple of summers back. Which is now the wrong place if I want to be properly enunciating.

Still, I felt relatively good about the session. We zipped through a good amount of training over the single hour as I remembered much of it with just a little prompting from Mark. I must schedule a couple more sessions over the next couple of weeks.

On a new topic, I was a king-sized dunce earlier this week. A couple of permanent postions came available at the library. Positions that I fully intended to apply for. Except for the fact that my brain kept telling me I had until the end of the week to apply. Turns out that my brain was wrong. The deadline was the beginning of the week. King. Sized. Dunce. In the slightest of defences, though, I mentioned this to a co-worker and managed to finished my story herself when I was about half-way through. Although she was not thinking of applying for any of the positions herself, she did think that the deadline was a departure from all other posted positions over the last six or eight months. Still. Dunce.

2007-06-09T22:48:00.001-07:00

Well, it's not the most momentous announcement, but I've finally gotten off my big, fat... procrastination muscle and gotten a hold of Mark Hellman, my "voice guy". We've only arranged one session for next Wednesday, just to see where I'm at for now. I think it's important to do that, given that, after my dental surgery a while back, I essentially have a whole new mouth than when I last worked with him.

Now, I just need to think of a project of some sort to actually work towards. Hmm.

In other news, Lynn is away on Saltspring Island this weekend with her scooter group. They go there every June and two-wheeledly explore and wander. This means she can't update her blog herself, so I've been adding some placeholders on her behalf. So, basically, that means parties and strippers here all weekend. And if you believe that last sentence even the slightest bit, you've obviously never met me.

So, I've just blogged in my blog about blogging in someone else's blog on their behalf. Is there such a thing as a "meta-blog"? Because I think I've just hit one.

2007-06-01T22:15:00.000-07:00

I've been a bad blogger. So, time for a little catch-up.

...

Um...

Okay. New book for Lynn and me. We finished Mr. Thundermug pretty quickly. It was a very thin book. Sort of peculiar. Somewhat humourous. Not really a story, more a series of vignettes about the history of this talking baboon. I think it was intended as a comment on some aspect of humanity. Exactly which aspect, I'm not sure.

We have now moved on to Hamish X and the Cheese Pirates by Sean Cullen, the first in a planned ongoing series about an orphan boy called Hamish X (a second book is already in the library system). Now this is one insane book. The author, Sean Cullen, is a Canadian comedian formerly of the comic musical group Corky and the Juice Pigs, who now works on his own. And he is stark... raving... mad. And I mean that in the best way possible. In this YouTube clip of C and the JP, he's the one on the right:

This first installment in the series introduces us to Hamish, an orphan whose name is feared by orphanage owners around the world. The nasty ones anyway. Hamish is placed in the Windcity Orphanage and Cheese Factory, run by the evil Mr. Viggo Schmaltz, creator of Caribou Blue Cheese (made, naturally, from caribou milk). Hamish plots his escape with the help of some new friends. Meanwhile, somewhere out there in the world... the Cheese Pirates grow closer and closer...

The story itself is crazy enough but then there are the footnotes. Here's one example. Cullen describes the cheese making process and mentions that the curds have the liquid squeezed out the them. A footnote to that explains:

Curds, not Kurds. Curds are immature morsels of cheese that must be ripened and
aged over time. Kurds are a people who inhabit a region that encompasses
southern Turkey and northern Iraq. No one knows if Kurds ripen with age, but it
is likely that if they were pressed, liquid would come out of them.

Needless to say, after reading this aloud to Lynn, I had to stop while we tried to get control of our giggles. In fact, that happens after the vast majority of the footnotes.

I'm guessing our next joint-read will be the next Hamish book, Hamish X and the Hollow Mountain.

In other news, or rather non-news, I keep managing to put off calling back Mark Hellman to try and get back into the voice work. The last couple of times I've called, I've managed to just get his machine and left messages saying I'll try him again. And so far, I'm still trying to call him again. Stupid intertia.

2007-05-14T09:49:00.001-07:00

Swindon... Swindon? Swindon. Swindon!!!

I was just looking at my blog visitor stats on Sitemeter. Mostly the usual. Folks from here in Victoria, some in Vancouver, a couple from Toronto. Right, there's the usual Japan visits. A scattering of U.S. visitors (I seem to have a regular visitor from San Luis Obispo in California). But... what's this? On Thursday, I had a visitor from...

Swindon! One of my favourite places that I've never been. The setting for Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next stories. And the hometown of (swoon) Billie "Rose Tyler" Piper. So, a heartfelt greeting to that visitor, should they ever drop by again. Oh, and if you should happen to bump into Ms. Piper, tell her I'm willing to bear her children.

...

What? Why are you all staring like that? What?!

2007-05-10T12:29:00.000-07:00

Especially observant visitors may have noticed that I've changed the "what I'm reading" list down the side of the page. However, I am not actually finished reading Stephen Baxter's Emperor, but am taking a quick break from it. Again.

It's not that I'm not enjoying the book. I am. Well, I'm enjoying the story anyway. The book itself is a little dry in tone. It's definitely an engineer's view of Roman history (or alternate history). Baxter's insane amount of techincal detail suits his hard SF stories better. But I do want to see where this multi-volume epic will eventually lead. Just in bits a pieces right now. It doesn't help that I find myself easily distracted by the novelty of my still-relatively-new PeeEssPee. As for the out and out break...

...that's due to a new Kage Baker book. It's been out for a few months now; how did I miss that?! I love this woman's writing, especially her Company series. With her words, she is able to make you burst out loud laughing one page, and feel you heart well and truly wrenched on the next. Gods and Pawns is a collection of short stories in her Company universe and I couldn't be happier that something has come along to fill the gap between novels.

For those of you who don't know the series. it's all about the immortal, time-travelling cyborgs who have lived among us since the dawn of time in order to make money for the Dr. Zeus company a few centuries in our future. I kid you not. And these characters are wonderfully human. Again, I kid you not. I find myself automatically empathising with Lewis, a Literature Preserver. He's the nice guy who will, for example, let Mendoza (a Botanist on whom he has a sizeable secret crush) take the remaining tent after the flash flood almost completely destroys their camp. I love the guy.

I've also changed the book that Lynn and I are reading together. We've finished Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, the funniest (and surprisingly touching) retelling of the New Testament (including the missing bits) you've ever read. Next up is Mr. Thundermug, the tale of a talking baboon.

In other catch up news, I should mention that Lynn has started her own blog, Everything I Eat. It was inspired by the surprisingly addictive book Everything I Ate: A Year in the Life of My Mouth, in which the author, Tucker Shaw, took a picture of everything he ate for an entire year. And, unlike me, she actually updates her blog regularly! Every day even!

2007-04-28T11:10:00.000-07:00

I interviewed for another permanent part-time position at the library's downtown branch. Got word yesterday that I didn't get it. On the other hand, I felt a lot better going into this one than previously. I think I'm improving quite a bit with each succesive interview, so it's only a matter of time before I get some regular position somewhere. After all, I've been doing the auxiliary clerk thing for less that a year at this point. (This is me trying to remain positive about the whole thing. I figure that if I fret too much about not getting a particular position, it'll put me off my game when the next one rolls around. Gotta keep the "Little Clerk That Could" mentality.)

On my way into work yesterday, I walked past a guy who resembled a puffy, slovenly, declining-years Joe Don Baker. So, really, Joe Don Baker at any given point in his adult life.

"Go ahead on."

2007-04-19T18:34:00.000-07:00

DISTURBING LIBRARY FINDS #3

Lynn suggested this one:

Where Willy Went... by Nicholas Allan. It is, as the cover notes, "the big story of a little sperm".

Now, don't get me wrong. I have no problem with teaching youngsters about the facts of life. (You see, you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have... wait a minute. Since when do "bad" and "have" rhyme?) The contents are the book are pretty inoffensive and does a decent if simplistic job of explaining the facts to the sprogs. But...

Where Willy went? Where Willy went?! Is that a wise name to be using in this context? I know they were going for alliteration but, come on!

And the poor girl born in our tale, saddled with the name... Edna. I can only presume this name was chosen because of the 99.9% likelyhood that it wouldn't match the name of any young girl reading the book. The name only reminds me of that old recurring sketch on "SCTV", Ted and Edna Boil's Organ Emporium". "Isn't that right, Tex?" "That's right, Edna!"

But the icing on the cake... oh, dear god, I hope that's icing... the icing on the cake is the dedication (which does not appear until the end of the book). "To Rod Stewart." The hell?! Rod Stewart?! Rod "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" Stewart? Where did that come from? I... I... ... I got nothin'. That's just too bizarre for me to come up with a witty comment...

2007-04-13T13:06:00.000-07:00

Where was I? Right, checking into the Vancouver Delta Suites. Niiiiiice place. We checked in with the assistance of the extremely enthusiastic Alison. Along with our keys, we received... a cookie. A pleasantly warm chocolate chip cookie. Each. Lynn and I looked at each other with looks that probably said, "Holy cow! They gave a cookie! A pleasantly warm chocolate chip cookie! Each!" Needless to say, this instantly become our favourite hotel ever.

Our suite turned out to be a corner suite, which meant big windows giving us a view of the city pretty much any direction we chose to face. (I'm not good with heights, yet this didn't bother me. Well, unless I did something really stupid, like press my face right up against the window. Which is something I tried to avoid doing. Duh.)

After getting settled in, we headed out for dinner at Shabusen on Burrard, where much sushi and Korean BBQ was consumed. Yum!

We took a few shots of some gargoyles and other architectural bits on the way there:

And the Vancouver Olympic countdown clock:

Yep, that's a clock all right. ... Okay.

On the way back it poured. We did have an umbrella but we were still pretty wet by the time we made it back to the hotel. Some passing employee spotted us approaching and leapt to help us through the door. Once back in our room, we discovered there was only one robe in the room. Calling down to the front desk produced an extra robe at our door after about, oh, a little more than a minute.

The rest of the evening was spent lounging on the comfy, king-size bed, in our robes watching a little TV. Oh, yeah, we were roughin' it. Late in the evening, we were feeling a wee bit peckish. "Oh, look, 24-hour room service. May we have a fruit and cheese platter, please? Oh, thank you for bringing that to our room. Here's a little something for your trouble. Time to scarf!"

That would be brie event number 1. Eating our lovely fruit and cheese platter in bed.

Tell me why anyone would ever voluntarily go camping for a holiday when this is available?

After a very nice night's sleep, we headed down for breakfast at the hotel's restaurant, Millennium. Brie event #2 happened when I order a large, yummy omelette with ham and cheese.

We checked out a little later (man, we scored on the Easter special - our total bill, with taxes, phone call charges and our room service was less than half the room's normal base rate). A little shopping at Pacific Centre and a little wandering around led us to:

The Vancouver Art Gallery. We decided, sure, what the heck. I rather liked the Acting the Part: Photography as Theatre exhibit and Lynn enjoyed the collection of Vancouver photographs by Fred Herzog. We were both left underwhelmed by the Huang Yong Ping retrospective, though. It was that weird, kind of pretentious art that everybody likes to pretend they understand but don't really. You know you're in trouble when the exhibits materials, instead of reading "watercolour on canvas" or "silver nitrate photograph", contain... "lion feces". Um, yeah.

We headed back to the SkyTrain station, stopping for a bite to eat in a handy food fair. We picked a Café Suprême (which we'd never heard of before) and... brie event #3 happened when I chose a ham and brie pannini. A ham and brie pannini... in a mall food court. Go fig.

We were right on time for the bus back to the ferry, then into town.

Despite working three evening shifts this week, I've felt fairly relaxed this week. I'm putting it down to all the brie.

2007-04-11T16:30:00.000-07:00

Day one of our holiday was on Sunday, April 8. Lynn and I got up at the crack of dawn (or close to it, anyway) and headed downtown to board the bus that took us to the ferry, onto the ferry, then off the ferry to downtown Vancouver. We had a pleasant enough breakfast of scrambled eggs and meaty accompaniments on the ferry.

The bus station in Vancouver is only a brief walk from Science World, which was our first destination. The usual interactive sciencey stuff was available and fun was had with those. According to one exhibit, it turns out that Lynn has a much stronger grip than I do, but then I beat her at the wheelchair race simulation. The machine that lets you move a ball with your brain's theta waves was unfortunately not fuctioning, though.

There were two featured exhibits while we were there. One to do with the human body and its functions, another about chocolate. We were each given a Purdy's hegdehog chocolate when we paid for our tickets. Nice.

The chocolate exhibit was mostly displays about how chocolate is made, from cocao beans through to bar format.

The body exhibit had a lot of the usual ick, including displays of implants. Especially creepy was the artifical eye section, although the artificial hips and the like were more interesting. And then there was this:

A breast implant and a testicular implant together in the same box. Thus representing the two human body parts that men care about the most.

After a quick bite of lunch at the Science World's very noisy Triple O's by White Spot (note to self; holiday Sunday = insane amount of kids at Science World), we caught the end of the "LocoMotion" program, where a staff member demonstrates the laws of physics with folks from the audience. Here's the end of the "conservation of energy" demo:

After wrapping up at Science World, we caught the SkyTrain and headed off to the Vancouver Delta Suites, the nicest hotel we have ever stayed in. To read all about it, tune in next time...

2007-04-09T21:05:00.000-07:00

BrieFest 2007! Seriously, I had more brie or meals containing brie over the last two days than I have had in, oh, the last two years.

For the Easter weekend, Lynn and I took a rare holiday trip. Just over to the mainland and just overnight, but man it was nice. Pictures were taken and over the next few days, I plan to recount our adventures.

Just... not tonight. Ironically, I need to wind down a bit from my holiday. Par for the course, really.

2007-04-01T12:37:00.000-07:00

Oooooeeeeoooooooooooo! He's back (again)! And it's about time (again)!

Yep, with the episode "Smith and Jones", series three of my all-time favourite show, Doctor Who, premiered on the BBC last night (and was immediately bittorrented by us). With a new companion! (Sob... my Rose... she's really gone...) With a hospital on the Moon! With... talking bipedal rhinos? Um... Okay, sure, what the hell? Why not? A few random thoughts (and be warned, this'll be spoilery):

Martha Jones, the new companion. Okay, she's not Rose. No one could ever be Rose. But, you know, she'll do. She's a medical doctor (well, almost), that should come in useful. She certainly could use a break from her insane, always argueing family. And she's, well, if I need to describe her in one word, I'd pick "sensible". While her family bickers away, she's the calm in the middle of a storm. And when things go seriously pear-shaped at the hospital, she keeps the coolest head (next to the Doctor).

The Judoon. Possibly just a leeeetle close to the Sontarans. Fortunately, their motivations are plenty different. The Sontarans are all about combat and conquest. The Judoon are about enforcing rather extreme laws and sheer bloody-mindedness.

The Doctor. Well, he's the Doctor, isn't he? Gotta love this look:

One especially interesting character moment for him, though. When asked if he had a brother, he responds, "Not anymore." Oink? Where's that headed?

Ontological paradox alert!

The Doctor appears to Martha early in the episode, takes off his tie and says, "Like so? See?" Martha tells the Doctor about this later on. The Doctor travels back through time to prove he can do so and takes off his tie in front of her. So... where did the tie-removal idea come from? The Doctor took of his tie because, well, because he took off his tie. It's Bad Wolf all over again!

All in all, a very good episode to introduce a companion in.

He's back!

2007-03-20T20:11:00.001-07:00

DISTURBING LIBRARY FINDS #2

I just about shrieked in terror when I spotted this little beauty:

Richard Simmons: Dance Your Pants Off. I'm sorry, but under no circumstances do I want Richard Simmons mentioning my pants. Ever.

The description on the back of the video invites you to "Simmonsville" (shudder) where you can boogie those pounds away to, ahem, "classic" songs of the '80s. Check out that list of tunes:

"Celebration"
"She Works Hard For The Money"
"Flashdance"
"All Night Long"
"The Rose"
"Total Eclipse Of The Heart"

"Total Eclipse Of The Heart". "Total Eclipse Of The Heart"! You're meant to work out to Bonnie Tyler's overraught, Wagnerian magnum opus? Is it the 47 minute version or only the 17 minute radio edit?

And "The Rose"? Double that with "Eclipse" and you've got the most depressing work-out ever! "Come on, work it, people! ... Why are you all curled up into the fetal position and sobbing?"

2007-03-20T13:58:00.000-07:00

I didn't manage to wear anything green, but we did do something for Saint Patrick's Day on Saturday.

Our friend Kathleen's birthday is on the 21st, but instead of getting her a gift, she wanted us to join her and her significant other Brian and a couple of other friends at the Central Bar and Grill downtown for a performance by Jim Byrnes and his blues band. (You know, the guy from "Wiseguy" and "Highlander: The Series".)

The music was entertaining enough, but the real thrills came from watching those around. A lot of increasingly drunk bar patrons who were just enough past their prime for it to be truly embarrassing when they started shaking their moneymakers. Folks who really should know better flailing their arms in a most uncoordinated fashion. There was much giggling from Lynn and myself. Especially when that one lady fell over. I kid you not. She and her beau are "rockin'" away and suddenly, WHUMP, she's on the floor. She wasn't hurt or anything, mostly embarrassed. Oh, and none of this was anywhere near the actual dancefloor. And some people wonder why I don't drink...

Still, I'd rather be surrounded by happy drunks than the type who appeared in my last post.

2007-03-16T14:47:00.000-07:00

Heavy sigh...

Well, I didn't get either of the available positions. One of my interviews told me that I did do well enough, I had no answers wrong, I obviously have the knowlegde, I just needed to bring up more points under the "what skill have I got" and "why would you be a good addition to our team" categories. Which I knew.

I get into that small (yet surprisingly echo-ey) room and I metaphorically shrink. My brain shrinks, my voice shrinks and my ego shrinks. Tiny little specks about the size of Mickey Rooney. I'm going to give Mark Hellman a call and set up some voice lessons with him; I'm sure it'll help with the incredible shrinking voice part anyway.

On the plus side, last night my name ended up on its very first "incident report" at work. Yay. I had an evening shift at one of the branches and this... person (and I use the term loosely) was making a pain of himself on and off all evening. Very loud and abusive and more than a little drunk (I detected an alcohol-based funk following him around). It all came to a head when he was using the pay phone and yelling into it. The librarian asked him to leave but he acted like she wasn't even there. So, the police were called. He left before they could arrive, though, so we just called back and gave them a description. He was ranting quite a bit as he left, mentioned that he had been on the phone with "The Major". Um. Yeah. I guess we're all in trouble now. (Please note sarcarsm.) He then asked me where the way out was. We were about 10 feet from the very obvious front door.

As we were filling out the incident report, a patron who'd had her own run in with shared her experience with us. He was extremely rude to her, using profanity... while her kid was nearby!

The pitfalls of being a public library.

...

Okay, reading most of that over in print, it doesn't sound nearly as tense as being there. But believe you me, we had some adrenaline pumping at the time!

2007-03-13T13:42:00.000-07:00

Deep breaths, dammit. Deep breaths...

There are a couple of permanent part-time positions coming up at the downtown branch of the library and my interview for them is imminent. Less than half an hour, actually. It's not a big deal if I don't get it, I'm getting plenty of auxiliary hours, but it'd be nice to have a regular schedule, not to mention benefits. And vacation time. Ooooh, vacation time. Still, though, currently doing well.

But, even though it's not a big deal, I'm still a big ball of anxiety. Okay, maybe a medium-sized ball of anxiety. My heart's beating faster that it really needs to and I'm all fidgety. I know I can do the job and I know I have a firm grasp on policy and procedure... It's just that "selling myself" thing. That just gives me the willies.

I should've taken a Gravol or something to calm myself down. Planned to, actually. In fact, I can clearly visualise the box of Gravol sitting on the bathroom counter at home right this moment. Can I have a "D'oh!"?

2007-03-07T19:12:00.000-08:00

DISTURBING LIBRARY FINDS: #1 IN A POTENTIALLY ONGOING SERIES

So, I'm at the downtown library yesterday, pulling requested holds. And I find this on the list:

Yes, that is a bedspread featuring a full 3-D garden. When I first saw the cover, I simply said to myself: "Oh. My. God." I showed it to a few others back in the workroom. Their reactions: "Oh. My. God." Some of us discussed the possibility of yarn topiary. Using little, teeny tiny gardening shears.

2007-03-04T15:20:00.000-08:00

So, I met with Mark Hellman for lunch on Friday and talked about where I want to go with the whole voice work thing. Wish to God I knew.

We did chat about the whole podcast phenomenon and I might do something with that. I really think I'm going to have to do a little "basic training" with him for a while first, though. I need a little help getting over constantly clenching my teeth. My jaw's like a rock. I must remember to send him links to Decoder Ring Theatre and Doctor Floyd, though, to give him a little idea of the kinds of podcast I'm enjoying.

In other news...

Last night, we actually had company over. Annie from the AmazonRPG mailing list was over from the mainland with her boyfriend Bryant, who I got to meet for the first time. Damn, these people are insane. And I mean that in the best way possible. Bryant has a number of "characters" that he likes to break out to confuse and embarrass those around him and he and Annie regaled us with tales of those characters' adventures. Lynn and I are considering cultivating our own to use, especially if we ever decide to go on a cruise. We're thinking undercover hitman and his helper/assistant/apprentice. "So, what do you do for a living?" "I'm not at liberty to discuss that." "Ha! Funny! So, seriously." "I'm not at liberty to discuss that." I don't think I could keep a straight face, though. God knows neither of us could stop laughing last night.

2007-02-27T16:15:00.000-08:00

To quote Boris Badenov: "Allow me to introduce myself!" (You know, the accent really doesn't come across in print...)

Hi, I'm Doug. Doug Scott. On the internet, I usually go by Doug A Scott (A for Arthur) because it makes my name at least a tiny bit less... dull. If you have a look around my homepage, you'll be able to tell that I'm something of a geek. I'm into all the nerdy things. Science fiction and fantasy (in all media formats: film, TV, books), comic books, video games. I've got a pop culture reference for most situations. (You don't think so? "I find your lack of faith disturbing.")

I currently live in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Which means I'm on an island in the Pacific. No polar bears or smoke monsters, though. I'm a library clerk, married to another library clerk, the lovely Lynn. We've been together a little more than 15 glorious years now.

I'm nearly 40 years old and, despite my current profession, still don't know what I want to do when I grow up. Well, that's not entirely true. I'm interested in voice acting. I'm hoping to get back into exploring the field again soon, after a break for a couple of years due to some major dental surgery. I suppose one goal of this blog is to chronicle my attempts to make something of this. I'm hoping for a bit of a feedback loop where I do something interesting so that I can put it in my blog. Then, after putting something in the blog, I'll need to follow it up. ... "The theory is sound." (Egon Spengler)

I think that's enough autobiographical nuggets for the time being. We'll see if more follow.

2007-02-25T22:57:00.000-08:00

Hello? Hello? Mr. Magic Plane Person? Hello?

Okay, I'm gonna try another one of these. In the past I've attempted to keep up a LiveJournal with some limited on-again, off-again success. Largely off-again. I think it's the "journal" part. It makes me feel like I have to be updating it regularly, so I feel guilty having not updated in a while, so I end up avoid the damned thing.

I recently gave a MySpace blog a shot. Oh, look. One whole post. Moving on.

So, I figured I'd give the big ol' officially-named-"Blog"-registered-tradmark-copyrighted-patent-pending system a try. Especially since I now have a couple of friends who have got their own as well (Lesley and Alisa - check sidebar for links).

Don't anyone expect a coherent theme or tone for this blog, at least not for a good, long while. I do hope that having somewhere to write things down will actually inspire me to do things to write down.

Well, there we go, my first official bloggy post. Expect the next few posts to be "hi, this is me" type stuff.