The Blog to Nowhere

- Sigh. Catherine Tate had to cancel her appearance at the comic book expo. So no Doctor Who guests this year. Consequently, this means no photo op for me, either. I do believe this will be the first year that I don't have a photo op booked with any of the guests. I mean, I could take the money I was going to spend on Catherine and put it towards another guest, but at the same time I feel like I should be more frugal. We'll see. I will probably get Wil Wheaton's autograph, since he's a guest and I have something for him to sign plus I knitted a Wesley Crusher doll so I'm hopeful he'll accept it as a gift.

The only annoying this about this is, and it's a very minor annoyance, is that I actually put together a femme!Ten cosplay. I'm still going to wear it, of course, but the main reason I put the costume together was for the photo op with Catherine. Oh well. It's a costume I can wear again and again so it's not like it's going to go to waste.

- A friend organized a game of archery tag for her birthday party this weekend. It's basically like dodge ball, only you shoot each other with padded arrows rather than hurl balls at each other. The only archery I've done is in video games so I had zero experience to draw from going in. In theory, I like the idea of shooting things, whether they be targets or moving people, but in practice, it's damn hard and probably only really fun if you're in shape and/or are good with a bow and arrow. Not to say that I hated the experience, but I doubt I will do it again.

Also, ow. My knees and thighs are so sore from ducking and kneeling behind cover. Thank god I don't have to climb any stairs at work. I also have some wicked bruises all along my arm from snap back from the bow string. I think I got off fairly easy, though; many of my friends were seriously black and blue and swollen. The place had arm guards, but some of my friends said it didn't really help since the bow string would get caught on the guard. No wonder Ollie wears leather and Clint has arm protection.

 Axe throwing is much more fun. Your arms and abs hurt the day after, but you don't have to worry about going into work with big bruises.

- Saw A Quiet Place as well. Horror movies generally aren't my thing - I think the last "horror" movie I saw in the theatre was The Village - but the movie was getting good reviews so I thought I would check it out. I actually quite enjoyed it. There are some logistical things you wonder about, but they are minor quibbles. The tense atmosphere the movie creates was amazing and the sound design was incredible. Seriously. The use of sound in this movie is so good. It's not that there's a lack of sound, but the sound that is there is so amped up because you are so aware of it.

There are jump scares, but those are a given in a horror movie. At one point, a lady in the theatre cried out, but she quickly apologized. I don't know why she did. It's a horror movie; there's nothing wrong with gasping loudly or a quick cry. I guess it's because Canadians are so polite. :-)

Happy New Year!

- Finished 61 books this year. That's down from last year, but I was unemployed for a big chunk of 2016 so that's probably why. I had wanted to read something exciting for my last book of the year, but I didn't find anything in time so I ended up reading another book in the knitting themed cozy mystery series. I really should give up this series, but it's like candy. You know it's not good and you should put it down, but you just can't help yourself. And the thing that bugs me - on top of the plain and repetitive writing and the dull characters and the boring murder mysteries - is that the author doesn't know a thing about knitting. Yes, the knitting isn't important to the story and it's just the hook for the series, but if you're going to feature something so prominently in your book, you can at least do some better research. The knitting store in the series is real for heaven's sake! There are actual knitters that the author knows. Okay, so maybe it only bothers me, since I actually knit, but you have to assume that a good chunk of the reading audience are also knitters. If the author describes something wrong, you know all of the knitters will pick up on it.

(Like, who decreases stitches every round on a hat? Rapid decreases like that would give you a very pointy crown. And you don't wind yarn into a ball until you're ready to use it! Winding yarn into a ball stretches it out. That's why everything comes in skeins.)

But I digress... I read a few stand out books this year. I finished off the Jackaby series; that's the series with the main character who is the love child between Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock and Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor. I don't get why the author ended the series after four books. He has enough ideas to keep going for many books, but on the other hand, it's nice to see a YA series with a definitive end. I also discovered the Galactic Commons series by Becky Chambers. A lovely sci fi series with great world building but small, intimate stories and interesting characters. I also started a YA Sherlock Holmes series called Charlotte Holmes. Charlotte is a direct descendant of Sherlock Holmes and her best friend Jamie Watson is also descended from John Watson. Basically, it's a modern day Sherlock Holmes series, but with a teenaged girl and boy. My only gripe is how the author chose to have Jamie in love with Charlotte. Ugh. You really don't need that.

Thanks to my library, I also read a ton of graphic novels. Ever since DC launched its Rebirth line, I've been reading some of those, like Wonder Woman, The Flash, and Supergirl. The app that I'm reading everything through also got some Marvel comics, so I may have to check those out at some point.

- Officially completed 8 knitting projects along with a handful of other smaller projects. My god, it was so slow at work before the Christmas break that I knitted a good chunk of the Christmas sweaters while at work. Good thing my manager doesn't care what we do to occupy our time during lulls. I'm trying to start proper sock knitting. I finished one adult sized sock with worsted weight and it turned out all right; I just need to finish the second sock. After that, I may be ready to start with sock weight yarn. I also keep meaning to knit a shawl for myself, but other stuff keeps getting in the way. Oh well. I'll get there eventually.

- Started a new full time job in May. After 8 months of doing temp work, it was nice to have benefits and sick days again. The work isn't anything exciting and the pay could be better, but it's better than being unemployed again.

- On the geeky side of things, I had a great vacation in Cardiff and got to visit the Doctor Who Experience one last time before it shut down. I even got to meet Peter Capaldi at the comic book expo. It's the small things in life that make me happy. :-D

What's to come in 2018: I don't know really. I re-booked that British Isles cruise that I had to cancel last year. My mom is turning a significant age this year and she'll get to celebrate her birthday while on the cruise, so that should be fun. The cruise will visit parts of the Ireland where they film Game of Thrones. I don't watch the show at all but it might be fun to hit up some of the filming locations just because I'm a giant nerd and I like things like that. Aside from that, I don't have any plans. I guess I'll wing it like I always do.

- Did a second locked library yesterday. It was part of Beakerhead, a science/art mash-up that's held in the city every year, so this locked library was much bigger than the last one I did; around 900 people, so roughly 200 teams. It was also held in the central library downtown, which is six stories tall. The size really helped with crowd control. The other locked library was held in a smaller library that only had two floors, so all of the teams started in the same place. This time, they split the teams across the various floors, so you had a different starting point depending on the colour of the wristband you were given.

And this locked library was space themed! The premise was the library was a prison ship for library offenders, i.e. late fees, people who fold down the corner of the page to mark their place, etc. You had to gather code words and then those words correlated to symbols, and then those symbols were the entry code for the escape pod. I think this locked library was a little easier than the other one. You mostly had to find words and then you pulled letters from those words to get the code word. It was somewhat easy to guess the code word even if you didn't have all of the letters. My team finished in the top third and it only took us one hour out of the three that was allotted. I think what helped the most was the use of our phones. You could take pictures of everything and then solve the puzzle, rather than going from clue to clue. I don't think it was cheating per se, there was nothing in the instructions that forbade the use of phones, but I did see a few teams where they approached it without any technological aids.

But anyway, the space theme. I wish I had more time to really appreciate the set-up, but you're too busy running around like a crazy person to really absorb the little details. At one point, there was an orientation video that you had to watch and that was pretty funny. I felt like the space prison for library offenders was something Doctor Who might do; hell, I might write something around that if I find the time.

I hope the locked library is a staple of Beakerhead going forward. By next year, the new central library should be done, so that'd be a great way to get people to the new location.

- Star Trek: Discovery premieres next week. Notice the lack of an exclamation point in the previous sentence. I mean, it's nice that there's a new Star Trek show, but I have a feeling that it won't be great. It's like the writers and the producers lost their vision of the show along the way. And the Klingons look weird! They say the show is set in the Prime Universe, but the visuals skew more towards the Kelvin Timeline. I don't know. Maybe Discovery will surprise me; one can only hope.

- In prep for the premiere, Space, the channel that will be airing Discovery (yup, no pay wall for Canada), is doing Star Trek marathons this weekend and next weekend. In a clever bit of scheduling, all of the episodes today are ones that feature the second in command. So the DS9 eps are all about Kira, the TNG ones are all about Riker, etc. Neat little nod to Michael, who will be the latest Commander to hit our screens. I also laughed when I saw that all of the Enterprise episodes are in the middle of the night. :-D Man, I love Space. Run by geeks, for geeks.

- Hmm, I haven't posted in a while. I had been knitting like a fiend to finish a commission for a friend, so that's probably why. Of course, I have no news or anything interesting to post about...

- Orphan Black had its series finale last Saturday. I was a little sad to see it go, but I doubt they could have sustained the clone conspiracy storyline for much longer. So it's nice that the creators got to finish things on their terms. It was so amazing that this little Canadian show gathered such a devoted following. Here's hoping that Tatiana Maslany can win one more Emmy for her incredible work. I swear, there was always one moment in every episode that I forgot that she was playing multiple roles.

( Minor spoilers for Orphan Black 5x10 )

- The Defenders premieres this Friday. I'm actually fairly excited despite how lacklustre Iron Fist was. Danny may be as dull as dishwater, but there's Matt and Jessica and Luke to make up for that. Plus it's only 8 episodes, so that should help tighten up the storytelling. The Netflix Marvel shows always slow to a grind around the midway point. And who doesn't love it when superheroes team up?

- I also bought the DLC for Red Dead Redemption, "Undead Nightmare", the other day. We got to talking about RDR at work and it made me want to revisit the game. I never played "Undead Nightmare" when it was released, but it's been fun so far (though I couldn't remember how the controls worked so there was a lot of dying while I tried to figure it out). The zombie theme fits really well with the Western setting. The writing approaches the zombie apocalypse quite seriously, but you can tell the writers were also have a grand ol' time. Now that I'm not under a time crunch to finish some knitting, I can really get back into the game.

- I did a locked room yesterday for a library fundraiser. The twist? You're not locked in one room with one small team. You're locked in the library with 50 other teams. So that was interesting. You can see the other teams while you're running around, so you can kind of glean what the clue is from where people are milling around. At the same time, you can be led down the wrong path if people are milling around the wrong place.

My team did make it out, but after the allotted hour and half, but we were 14 out of 50, so that's not so bad. Top 15! I liked this locked room better than the last one I did. The library one was more word based, so I could actually figure out some of the clues. There was obvious stuff, like figuring out a message made up numbers. The numbers were 1 through 25, so it was obviously the letters of the alphabet. Then there were passwords you had to figure out from jumbled up letters and once we figured out that all of the passwords were book themed, that was easy to do.

The other cool thing was how the library used the library system to provide clues. Like, we had to check out a book and the result on the screen provided the password. Another time, we had to look up fake authors in the catalogue and the names of their books were another clue. The very last thing you had to do was return all of the books you collected during the night and library had programmed all of the RFID tags in the books so they were sorted into specific piles with corresponding letters. If you collected all of the right books, then the letters made up the word of a cryptex that got you out of the library. It was really clever. The library said they're doing another locked room in September and there are going to be 1000 participants, so roughly 200 teams. My friends and I are eager to try that one when it rolls around.

- I saw Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 this weekend and it was really fun. I think it was a little too long, but there was a lot going on so you need that time to service everything. I think that the first movie is the better movie to watch when you need something zany to unwind with, but Vol. 2 will still have you laughing hysterically.

( Spoilers for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 )

I think Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is one of those rare movies where I would gladly pay the money and watch it again in the theatre. There's just so much to see that one go isn't enough.

- Looks like it'll be raining in Cardiff for most of my vacation. :-P I know the UK isn't known for sunny skies, but come on. I want to take pictures of places where Doctor Who filmed and I don't need a wet camera.

- GUYS THE COMIC BOOK EXPO ANNOUNCED PETER CAPALDI AS A GUEST!!! I was totally not expecting this. I thought he'd be busy finishing up the Christmas special or something. You should have seen me at work. I was practically vibrating I was so excited.

I think this is his first Canadian con. I always thought that Toronto Fan Expo would get him as a guest first, but clearly the Expo people are magic. Now I actually have to plan my weekend. Before this I didn't have much of a schedule. And cosplay plans! I don't have the funds or the time to come up with a Twelfth Doctor cosplay, as much as I'd like to, but I can always use one of my other ones. But which one? Fourth Doctor? Eleventh Doctor? Ace?

I'm so stoked that I get to see Capaldi before he bows out as the Doctor. I can attempt to tell him how much I've enjoyed his run as the Doctor, though I'm very certain that I'll just end up rambling and saying something ridiculous.

- I also got news that my temp job is extended to the end of June. No more month to month speculation. It's not a permanent job, but it's a little more security than I had last week. Considering the comic book expo keeps announcing awesome guests, I'm going to need the extra funds. ;-)

- So I had ordered some stuff from ThinkGeek for upcoming birthdays and much to my surprise, the package that showed up last week didn't contain anything I had ordered. Suddenly I was stuck with this box of stuff and who knows where my stuff was. Thankfully, ThinkGeek has a helpful return form for cases like this and they've shipped out my order again. But here's the really great thing. I was dismayed at the thought of shipping the wrong items back on my own dime so I phoned their help line today. After explaining my situation (that I'm in Canada, that this isn't a refund), the lady informed me that I could keep the wrong items at no cost to me. I was actually quite floored that they would let the items go, but I guess it's just easier in the long run. I don't have to pay to ship it back, they don't have to pay to generate a shipping label for me, and they end up with a happy customer. So as often as I grumble about shipping to Canada, ThinkGeek does do right by their customers.

As for the items I received in error, I'm going to give them away. It doesn't feel right to sell the items on eBay or wherever.

- Blargh, it's not a cold anymore. I have a chest infection (with an eye infection on top of that). :-P I thought I was getting better, but my cough started to get worse around Tuesday. I'm on antibiotics now, plus I'm resting at home today, so hopefully this will clear up relatively soon. Persistent little cold bug going around the office. My supervisor said she has a sinus infection.

- One advantage to staying home is you get to watch copious amounts of TV. Space did a week long Star Trek marathon, with each day following a different theme. Monday had episodes all about Q, Tuesday was all time travel episodes, Wednesday was episodes all about the holodeck, Thursday was all about the Borg, and today is alternative realities. Nice way to get a mix of all of the shows in there. Plus, they aired all ten of the "classic" Star Trek movies. "Classic" was how Space billed them; I guess you have to define them separately from the Kelvin timeline movies. God, I love Space. Thank you for providing quality programming during the holidays.

- I saw this article today; I can't believe that Animorphs is 20 years old. I loved that book series when I was a kid. This was still back in the heyday of the book order form, so every time a flyer came out, I always got the latest Animorphs book or books. I was so consistent in my ordering habits, the teacher looking after the forms always knew to expect me. Oh man, good times. Do they still have book order forms in schools?

To the best of my memory, I got into Animorphs because I had won $5 worth through the order form. I can't recall what I had won at school in order to win this, but I do distinctly remember ordering book five (and maybe book six?). $2.50 each; now that's a bargain. It was a little weird starting the series on book five. Marco was talking about stuff from the first four books, like how they had just rescued Ax from the bottom of the ocean. A good way to get hooked, though. You have to go back and read the other books to figure out what's going on.

I haven't read any of the books in ages. I have all of the main books and most of the companion books packed up in a box somewhere. It'd be neat to read them now as an adult. I'm surprised Scholastic hasn't tried to do a revival. Or maybe they did; I vaguely recall seeing some new covers that looked completely different. I guess kids weren't interested. A new TV show would be fun, though. The one that aired ages ago on YTV was okay, but it could have been better. I mean, just look at the new Power Rangers movie. 90s nostalgia is all the rage right now.

- Need to do a year end wrap up post. I have to total up the number of books I read this year.

- Off to Las Vegas for a Star Trek 50th Anniversary convention. The con actually started today, but it's just pre-registration, so things really don't get started until tomorrow. I thought they would ease into things, but they have guests panels starting tomorrow plus autographs and photo-ops. This con means business. ;-) Since I assumed nothing would be happening tomorrow, I bought tickets to Marvel's Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. attraction at Treasure Island. So once I land in Vegas, I have to rush to the hotel, drop off my bags and/or check in, then book it over to the Strip. I'll do registration in the evening; hopefully that won't take long.

- In preparing for my trip, I decided to back up my phone just in case. I was prompted to do a software update, so I hit yes and did the download and install. Stupid phone decided to stall in the middle of the update so suddenly I didn't have a working phone. :-P This totally wasn't something I wanted to deal with a day before my vacation. Thankfully, there's an Apple store at the mall so I rushed over there to get help. One of the guys did something and the update finally took. Luckily, I had a back-up of my phone from when I was trying to install the update, so I didn't lose anything.

But this whole thing made me realize just how dependant I am on my phone. It's not just that all of my contacts are on it. I'm so used to using my phone as a watch that I had no idea what time it was when I got to the mall. Hell, I didn't even know what time it was to go back for my appointment with the Apple guys. It was so disconcerting not knowing the time of day at a glance. It's scary how much of your life is tied up with one device.

- All right, have to finish packing. Yes, I'm still packing.

- I tried out axe throwing over the weekend and I'm still sore. God, I need to get into shape. But axe throwing was super fun. It took me a while to get into it, but I did manage two bull's-eye towards the end. I do have photographic proof, just not on my phone; my friend was taking pictures on her very nice camera. I do have pictures of me throwing the big axe they use to settle ties. That thing is heavy. The head itself is two pounds. Oh, and I managed to get the big axe to stick to the board. It didn't hit the target, but hey, I was just happy to get in the vicinity of the target. :-)

- I saw this neat write-up about Bill's outfit from her introduction video. I'm always amazed at how fast the fans are able to ID items.

The other cool thing about the article is that it points out some details that I didn't notice. Turns out that there are a few more patches on Bill's jacket than just the "Wow!" one. Gives the outfit a bit of an Ace vibe. I'm wondering if the jean jacket will be a staple of Bill's wardrobe. You wouldn't customize something that much without intending to use it a lot.

And only five patches total, if you include the writing on the back corner as one patch, so you won't go completely broke trying to find everything.

- Weather forecast for the comic book expo keeps changing. Sun, clouds, rain; no one can make up their mind. No rain on Friday is preferable, since that's parade day, but no rain all weekend would be even nicer. You have to walk to another building to get to the photo-ops area and no one wants to get their costume or nice outfit wet. Alas, this is Canada, where it can snow at any time of the year.

But if it does, god forbid, snow, then at least the guests have an amusing story to bring home. I still remember the year Matt Smith was here. It snowed on the Saturday and he was totally thrown off by the sight of people walking outside in the snow in only t-shirts and jeans. Canadians; we're made of hearty stuff. :-D

- Speaking of the parade, I managed to borrow a small Bluetooth speaker so we'll have music playing while we walk. We didn't have music last year and, I don't know, it just wasn't the same. I have about an hour's worth of music, which includes every variation of the theme song (including my favourite, the guitar remix from "Before the Flood"), Doctor specific tracks (like "I Am the Doctor"), every original song Murray Gold has written for the show (excluding "Silence is All You Know" since the tempo is a little slow), and everyone's favourite "Who is the Doctor" as "sung" by Jon Pertwee. Oh, and the disco version of the theme song by Ron Grainger. Still can't believe it was actually arranged by him and it wasn't a fan remix. All of this is on my phone so no bulky CD player to haul around this time. Yay for technology!

I'm sure by the end of parade we'll be sick and tired of listening to the Doctor Who theme song over and over. ;-) It's kind of amazing how many times it has been re-imagined.

- Saw The Force Awakens again last night. I can see why people keep going to see it. You pick up new things each time. The friend I went with also had an interesting theory about a certain character. I don't know if he's the only one who has thought of this, but even if other fans have had this idea, it's still a neat one:

( Spoilers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens )

- Oh, and after the movie we did dinner and we ended up sitting in the lounge. The waitress actually carded me. Seriously? I still look like I'm under 25? Lady, I haven't been 25 in a while. I guess I should take this as a compliment, but it's still weird.

- Now that my Christmas knitting is done, I find myself with more time on my hands. I know that time should be used to go job hunting, but I'm just not feeling it.

- Instead, I've gotten back into my video games. I started playing Assassin's Creed: Unity. It's for the PS4, so it's a next gen game, and it looks gorgeous. The game play and the cut scenes have the same level of detail. The game was notoriously glitchy when it first came out, so hopefully they've worked out the bugs by now. The game is set during the French Revolution so I like to think I'm learning some history while I play. ;-) Actually, the French Revolution is something they teach in Canadian high schools, since Canada doesn't have a violent revolution of its own to learn about, so I should know some of this stuff already. At one point the main character is thrown into prison and I instantly knew it was the Bastille. And what do you know. The character is still there when Bastille Day happens. My cruise in May visits Paris, so if I end up touring the city, I can look for places from the game. I mean, I did the same thing in Venice and Rome last year. :-)