The Blog to Nowhere

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.

- Off to Cardiff tomorrow! Well, with the flight time and time change I won't get there until Friday morning, but you get the idea. I'm definitely going to visit the house that stood in for Sarah Jane's house on The Sarah Jane Adventures. I found a yarn store nearby (right next to the store front they used for Bloomin' Lovely, Gita's flower shop) so the bus ticket is worth the money now. Before, I probably would have been in the neighbourhood for like five minutes, but now I can browse yarn as well.

- Today was my last day of my temp job. They also celebrated the May birthdays today, so I got a birthday card that was half birthday wishes and half farewells. While I always knew the job would have to come to an end at some point, it is a little sad to move on. I liked what I did and the people I worked with were super nice. And I actually met people who liked the same stuff that I do! I never had that in my last job. I promised to pick up some swag at the Doctor Who Experience for two co-workers, so I will get to visit everyone once I get back, but it won't be the same.

- I'm missing out of a week of TV while I'm away. Usually I don't care but it's season finale time, so there's a lot of important stuff happening right now. Oh well. I guess I'll just binge watch everything when I get back.

- I'll have access to Wi-Fi while I'm away. Expect a over long post with pictures from the Doctor Who Experience on Saturday. :-D

- We had all day training today, but we spent the last two hours doing team building. Instead of doing something boring in the office, my manager arranged to do escape rooms with the group. I had never done an escape room so it sounded kind of fun. Yeah, reading about an escape room and actually doing one are two very different things. Out of the three groups, only one managed to escape. My team and another just gave up even after we were given extra time. You really need to be a lateral thinker to make your way through these things but even with hints, there were things I never would have thought of. Plus we were constantly unlocking pad locks, which got so repetitive. With that said, I think I would like to do another escape room, but maybe something a little easier to ease me in. I'm good with trivia, but I don't have the patience for puzzles. I usually turn to Google when I have to do one in any of the Assassin's Creed games.

- A new Doctor Who season ten trailer dropped today and there was one thing I noticed:

( Mild Doctor Who season ten spoiler )

Just a month to go now!

- The musical crossover with The Flash and Supergirl is next week! I re-watched "Worlds Finest" the other day and I can only hope that this crossover just builds from that. Kara and Barry are just so cute together. I know Grant Gustin and Melissa Benoist sung a lot on Glee, but I never watched Glee, so I Googled some videos of them and wow, they're really good. At least, they sound good to me; I'm not exactly a great judge. The producers even commissioned some original songs, so that should be fun. What I really want to see is Barry and Kara doing a duet in their superhero costumes, but going off the pictures that were released, I don't think we'll get that. Alas.

Well, as long as we get a .gif that tops Kara's ice cream moment from "Worlds Finest", I'll be happy.



(though nothing brings me more happiness than seeing Kara proclaim her love for stolen ice cream gifted to her by her new speedster BFF)

- Wow, I created this blog ten years ago last week. Crazy. Ten years ago I was still in university and just starting to get into fandom. I wouldn't say that I've come a long way since then, but I have certainly gained some real world XP. Whether this blog is here for the long term? *shrug* I guess I'll only leave if I have to.

- Other things with anniversaries this year: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Stargate SG-1. Both premiered in 1997. Yes, both are 20 years old this year. Bet you feel old now. ;-) I'd love to see a reunion of either cast. I don't think actors from either show are super busy right now. Come on, comic book conventions! Get your butts moving on getting the casts as guests!

- I don't have much else to talk about. Still working that temp job. I've been extended to the end of February, so that's nice, but I really need to look for a more permanent job.

- First week back at work. I didn't do anything for the first two days because, as usual, nothing was set up properly. Oh well, at least I got paid to sit around. Things should pick up next week now that I have access to everything. And I don't mean to speak ill of my co-workers, but after poking around the reports and files I used to handle, I have a vague feeling that nothing was done correctly after I left. Probably because no one had time to maintain everything. See, this is why they should have kept me on. I would have kept everyone organized.

- The project moved buildings in the interim, so now I have to commute downtown, but it does give me more time to read. I finished a book yesterday and I'm already a third of the way through the fourth book in The Expanse series. I didn't think I would get to Cibola Burn so quickly, but when I saw that it was available, I had to download the ebook from the library. Sometimes I have nothing to do at work, so it's nice to have a book on my phone so I can sneakily pass the time. Plus, I don't have to lug around a brick of a book in my backpack.

- The Star Trek con I'm attending in August announced Scott Bakula as a guest and it's a big deal since he doesn't do a lot of cons. And I get his autograph for free! It's complimentary with my ticket package. So I have to decide what he should sign; like, do I buy a photo there or do I bring something from home that's free? I didn't love Star Trek Enterprise, but when the man is literally giving away his pricey autograph, you can't turn it down. Maybe I'll find a Quantum Leap photo. ;-) I loved him in that show.

- With the major TV shows done for the season, it's nice to have the evenings free. I'm catching up on DVDs and whatnot. My library got a bunch of new Doctor Who DVDs in, so I'm slowly making my way through them. And I saw today that they finally released "The Underwater Menace" on DVD. This is probably old news, but it was new to me. I guess that means all of the existing episodes have finally been released to the public.

- Speaking of Doctor Who, filming for season ten starts in two weeks. Of course, we won't see the bulk of their efforts until some time next year. Damn you, sporting events, getting in the way of new episodes!

(Please feel free to ignore all of these work woes posts. I just need somewhere to vent)

Ugh, I'm trying to update my resume right now. I haven't worked on it in years, not since I got hired on with the company about seven years ago. I hate doing these things. How do you market yourself so that you sound completely awesome, but not totally pretentious?

And do you refer to yourself in the first person or the third? Point form or complete sentences? I'm under the belief that you should be succinct, because your resume will be included in a pile and the person reading through all of them doesn't have time to read over everything in detail. I vaugely recall from my high school CALM (Career and Life Management) course that your resume shouldn't be more than a page (double sided I presume).

At least for right now, I can gear my resume for internal use within the company and my manager can provide some feedback, but I should be prepared to hand these things out to a wider audience if I do get let go.

Oh, and as I was covering reception yesterday, two guys from HR came in and turns out that they were there to let two people go. It was really horrible, just sitting there and seeing these two employees come in for their meetings. I suppose you kind of expect these sort of meetings while in a downturn, but it still sucks.

So three years ago, my company held a contest challenging employees to walk 1500km or roughly 2,025,000 steps in a year. They handed out free pedometers and signed us up on a site to track our steps. I managed about 5,000,000 steps by the time the year was through.

The project I’m on now is doing something similar, though only for six months instead of twelve and the goal is to walk enough steps to reach Japan from British Columbia (there are specific start and finish destinations, but they're really not that important). This time we’re working in teams, 15 teams with 10 members each, so it’s a competition and a challenge. Which team can reach Japan first? According to the challenge page, it’s 9,683,572 steps or 7,012 km (4,357.05 miles).

The challenge started last week but I didn’t get my pedometer until today, but it’s the same site as from three years ago, so you can plug in an activity and the length of time that you did it for and the site can spit out the supposed amount of steps that you took. So I was able to make up for last week, but it’s not an accurate summation of how many steps I took. Much to my chagrin, the team I was placed on is currently last in the standings. Gee, thanks.

Edit: Wait, while writing this the steps I entered for last week actually put my team up a standing. Whoo, go me!

Whatever the case may be, it’s a free pedometer and some motivation to get off of my butt for the next six months. Hopefully this pedometer is a bit more robust than the one I was using three years ago. That one broke while I was on vacation and I was super sad. I don’t want this one to break while I’m on my cruise since I know I will be doing a ton of walking.

Things that work in my advantage: 1) I walk to work so that’s a bunch of steps I have to take every day 2) I don’t drive, so that forces me to walk to a lot of places, too 3) my cubicle is in like the furthest corner possible from the woman’s washroom, so that’s a bunch of steps, too. I should drink a lot of water so I have to go to the bathroom lots. ;-)

Oh, and the weather is getting nice, too, so it will be easier to get out and go for a stroll around the block or something. Too bad I can’t knit and walk at the same time. That’d be the best sort of multitasking.

- I have a new project to go to on Monday; I finally got the confirmation on Thursday. So no more commuting on the train for me. I still have to support the project that I was doing coverage for, but they don't have much work to do, so hopefully it only takes up a small amount of my time. But I'm super happy I will have something different to do. The temporary project was so slow. There were days where I just sat there, staring at my phone. I'm sure the lady who sat across from me thought I was a total slacker.

- I AM A KNITTING MASTER! Okay, not really, but I finally got around to learning the purl stitch, so now I can start some projects in earnest. First up, a thin scarf that I can wear in the spring. The one I usually wear is super thick so it's not suitable for the days when I just want to keep my neck covered. The pattern on this one looks pretty cool and fairly easy, so once I get some good yarn (and better knitting needles, according to my sister), I should be good to go. I'm still amazed that people can produced these awesome things just from winding and twisting the yarn a certain way. I don't see myself following complicated patterns any time soon, but it would be nice to work my way up to knitting gloves. I have small hands so "one size fits all" usually doesn't apply to me.

- The Flash did something awesome this week:

( Spoilers for The Flash 1x12, "Crazy for You" )

- I saw on io9.com that they've hired writers for the Stargate reboot movie so I guess they're still going ahead with it. :-P I usually don't read the comments, but I was browsing through them on the io9.com article and someone had posted the bit from the Stargate SG-1 episode "200" where they spoof Farscape, and it made me miss the show so much. It's a crazy episode, but it's a sign of a good show when they can poke fun of themselves like that. So if the reboot turns out to be crap, and there's a good chance that it might be, well, I'll just watch some old episodes of SG-1 to make the hurt go away. ;-)

- Thanks for all of the thoughts and opinions regarding AO3. I think I will create an account there once they open up the invitations again. Looks like the automated invitation queue is down due to spammers.

- Found $5 today. It was at the train station, just lying there on the ground. The odd thing was, a couple of people passed by it and didn't pick it up. I mean, it wasn't hard to miss. The $5 bill is blue and the ground is brown. So maybe people felt weird picking up such a large denomination? Well, I certainly didn't feel weird. ;-) It's not a bad way to start the day, that's for sure.

- Case in point: I got the last of my project packed up today and then I got some mostly good news about a potential new project for me to join. So I could be working on a new project as early as February 2, which is great, because the project I'm on is pretty much dead now. Plus, the new project is back at my old building, the one that's within walking distance from my house. Of course, that would mean no more reading on the train, which makes me sad. I got so many books finished that way.

- Oh, and Arrow's winter premiere:

( Spoilers for Arrow 3x10, "Left Behind" )

- Lost my connection to the Internet for a couple days and you really start to see how much we rely on it. It wasn't withdrawal, but I suddenly realized just how much time I spend surfing around. Like, if I'm watching something, it's so simple to just hop on to the Internet and check a reference. It was very weird not having the world at your fingertips.

- During my lost couple of days, I took up knitting and no, it wasn't because I had nothing to do. ;-) My sister has really gotten into knitting and I thought maybe it would be fun to start, so she stopped by on New Year's Day and dropped off some yarn and needles for me to practice on. Of course, with my Internet down, it was very hard to learn how to start knitting, so I went old school and got some books out from the library. It's actually quite easy to start, but I'm nowhere near proficient yet. I can cast the yarn into the needle and do a basic knit stitch, but I still need to learn how to purl before I even attempt making anything. I wouldn't say it's fun yet, but it is interesting to see how knitting works. Just how all the loops you do sort of tie together and create a pattern. I may end up making a scarf for myself, but that's probably all I'll manage.

- With that said, knitting is definitely easier than learning how to sew, but it would be nice to get back into sewing. At least with sewing, I could make things for costumes.

- I've had the past week off and it's been nice just hanging around the house, doing nothing and not worrying about work. It's back to work on Monday, so we'll see how things are. Stupid oil prices...