Holiday Tidings

Oh hai! I DO still have a blog here!

(Of course, as soon as this blog is no longer counted toward credit, I start using meme-speak....)

And my absence can be explained by my computer crashing every time I tried to open the blog. Huh. I'm glad it waited til after the class was over before crashing.

Well then, how shall I summarize the last few weeks since I last posted here?

• After my birthday, Christmas and a sale at BestBuy, I now have an Android superphone, a Kobo eReader tablet and an upgraded, full-size HP laptop. The dinosaur flip phone is dead and the HP Mini is now my kid brother's computer.
• And yes, I named the Android "HK-47", the Kobo "My Datapad" and the laptop "Darth Megabyte" (The mini was named Darth Byte).
• I hate my hometown. If you hear anything in the news about Three Hills, know that I refuse to associate myself with that town or Prairie. Not for the reasons you may think.
• I'm finding it much harder to re-read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy as quickly as I did when I was twelve. Maybe perhaps now I actually have a social life and the Internet. So, unless I can finish half of Fellowship of the Ring and the other two books by tomorrow evening...
• On that note, I have Shakespeare's plays on my Kobo. I am well-pleased with this.
• I've proven myself a complete geek by downloading Pazaak apps and playing those.
• It is possible for a cat to hide in the engine of a truck for a 150 km trip to Red Deer and (aside from being scared out of five or so lives) survive intact. Yes, I know this from personal experience. Stupid cat.
• I. Hate. Winter. Driving.
• Dentists.
• The interrogations about my boyfriend from my assorted family members WILL NEVER END.
• Oh yeah, something about Kim Jong Il dying or something?...

And lo, for there is my life update. See you all sometime next year!

Can we say "Busted"?

Those of us who watch Discovery Channel on a semi-regular basis are probably quite familiar with the popular show "Mythbusters", in which a team of scientists take on some of the most well-known myths around (anything from Hollywood movie magic to ancient legends to old wives' sayings) to prove their validity.

Recently, they were firing off cannon balls at a bomb range near Dublin, California. Sounds like a typical day for the Mythbusters, no?

Well, it was, until one cannon ball missed the target, went flying over the hill, tore through a house, bounced across four lanes of traffic, bounced off another roof and finally ended up smashing through a minivan window. No one's quite sure how nobody got hurt.

In a word: Ooops.

In a few more words: The show is now undergoing an investigation and current myths are, understandably, on hold for an undetermined length of time.

Link to the YouTube version of the story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj-CErr0VOY&feature=share

Remember, remember, the end of November...

Houston, we are nine days away from the end of classes and the beginning of finals and- wait, what?!

*insert shocked-looking smiley here*

And by the way, this is the last regular post you will see for a while. Why? Because we of the Providence Fall 2011 Writing For The Media class are done with blogging after today!

*happy dance*

Today is obviously November 30th. NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month (where the more insane of us attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in a month) has closed and been won. No, I did not attempt NaNo this year- I'm a college student. I have no time! (And, alas, no writing muse.)

I do have friends who attempted it, though. I'll just avoid them for a little bit until their sanity recovers from mass-writing without editing.

Also, today ends No-Shave November/Movember, where the guys (and some of the girls, not including myself) refrain from shaving their beards/mustaches/legs- some to raise support for cancer research, others because everyone else is doing it. I'm not sure who's happier about this: my boyfriend (who is ecstatic about not having to deal with his beard anymore) or me (who is excited to finally see him without the beard).

In other news, we are two weeks until the assorted Provians are allowed to leave school and go home for Christmas. And we are just over two weeks until I finally grow out of being a teenager and turn 20.

Yes, I'm still nineteen. So what?

Prov's Festival of Christmas Praise is going down this weekend. 'Tis a two-day event, where people will pack into the university chapel to hear the Providence University Choir sing their hearts out with songs of, well, Christmas praise. If you're in the area, come down to hear us (And hopefully you won't hear the goof I made this morning during rehearsal when I started singing one song on the tenor line instead of the alto line. Whoops...).

And that wraps up the mandatory posting for this blog. I may come back to this later with random tidbits of information that you may find fascinating, or amusing, or infuriating, or perplexing, or just facepalm-worthy.

Peace.

On second thought, maybe I'll just go with an Android...

Before the death of the late Steve Jobs, Apple was (and, for the most part, still is) well-known for good quality products which are in high demand throughout the world. Those who can afford Macs, iPods, iPhones and iPads show them off with pride, usually getting envy from those without (unless those without are like my kid brother and avid fans of Windows).

Passengers on a recent flight in Australia, however, probably are thinking of converting to non-Apple-related products, after one passenger's iPhone spontaneously combusted shortly after landing in Sydney.

According to the report, the phone began to randomly release large amounts of dense smoke and began to glow red. A flight attendant managed to extinguish the phone before any serious damage to passengers or the plane was sustained.

It's possible that the customized back panel of the phone, which was a version of the Apple logo featuring Steve Jobs' profile released after his death earlier this year, had something to do with the phone's malfunction. Australian authorities are investigating the cause as to the phone's combustion.

And I have now decided to not upgrade my cell phone to an iPhone. Android, anyone?

Link: http://www.bgr.com/2011/11/28/apple-iphone-spontaneously-combusts-aboard-flight-in-australia/

I am disappoint.

The story of my Saturday:

- Fell asleep around 3 AM after watching Star Trek and text-ranting to a friend.
- Woke up at 7 from another friend texting me. Was unable to go back to sleep.
- Turned on computer at 9 anyway to prep for beta-testing The Old Republic.
- Opened game launcher at 10:00 CST, when the test was to start.
- Dealt with fifteen minutes of trying to log in. Finally was able to get in (thank you, swtor.com, for taking so long to tell me that I needed account security questions before I could sign in).
- The launcher started downloading a video of some sort. Being that I'm living off Prov Internet, I expected it to take a while.
- Game crashed twice. Eventually uninstalled and re-installed the game. This involved me deleting Jedi Knight: Jedi Outcast, a few OpenOffice documents and uninstalling Portal 2 (which I'll now have to spend another three days re-downloading from Steam. Humph.)
- Two hours later and the video was about half-downloaded.
- Lurked on The Old Republic forums and fed the jealous nerd-monster within me with all the awesome accounts of what was going on inside the beta.
- Gave up on downloading and playing around this point.

So, long story short, technology hates me and I didn't get to play The Old Republic. But now I'm considering buying the game anyway, because it's evidently rather excellent.

After I get a laptop that will actually be guaranteed to PLAY the game. (And Knights of the Old Republic, and Battle for Middle-earth II, and possibly The Force Unleashed.)

*le sigh* *nerd-sulk*

.... There are no words...

Black Friday. It is a day that makes customers giddy, store clerks cringe, and store corporation managers gleeful over the sales to be had. It falls the Friday of the American Thanksgiving, and for the average shopper, roughly translates into "OMG SALES!!1!".

Anyway. People are known to line up from as early as midnight in front of store doors so as to get good deals on early Christmas shopping items, such as very cheap dolls, Wii games or electronics. While the stores do their best to keep the shopping somewhat calm, people are known to get vicious when fighting over discounted TVs, Barbies, Lego kits or sweaters.

How vicious, you ask? This year alone there have been two reported shooting outside of two seperate Wal-Mart locations in the States, namely in Northern California and South Carolina. Also, in a third Wal-Mart in Los Angeles, twenty shoppers (including children) became victims of another female shopper's pepper spray attack.

Even more sickening is that the customers who avoided the worst of the pepper spray didn't bother trying to help the victims or to catch the woman who attacked them. Instead, they could see sales beyond the downed customers and wanted to get the new Wii games for 70% off NOW, DAMMIT, and bugger the person who is clawing at my foot and crying because of some pepper spray in their eyes.

Disgusting.

Only in America...

There is only one way this can go...

Since you have found this little blog in the corner of cyberspace, I'm assuming that you've heard of the Occupy Wall Street movement, no? Yes. If not, go look it up on Google.

Also, if you have Internet access to see this blog, you've more than likely seen reports of Occupy protesters being kicked out of their protest areas by police. This is not just Occupy protesters in New York City- the anti-protest measures are popping up all over the United States and elsewhere around the world. Berkley, San Francisco and Seattle are all listed as Occupy movements being countered by police. In some instances the police have brought out pepper spray to get protesters to cooperate.

This was the case for Occupy Seattle last week. More shocking than the six arrests made one night was the pepper-spraying of a priest, a pregnant woman and an 84-year-old woman, who happened to be standing beside and observing the protest march when she was sprayed by police. This comes after word of New York police evicting Occupy protesters from Zucotti Park.

I don't foresee a peaceful ending to the Occupy movement occuring anytime soon. There is indeed only one way that this can end: Badly.

Link: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/komo/article/Elderly-woman-priest-pepper-sprayed-during-2271197.php

It's beginning to look a lot like Chri- Wait, what?

It's late November here in Manitoba. As those who have been in Manitoba know, by this point in the year we're usually plowing our way through snow at least a foot deep and are producing the parkas and toques in anticipation of the winter ahead. Sledding is happening, snowball fights are happening, and fingers are at risk for frostbite.

Well, usually.

So far, we in Otterburne have had a staggering total of only a few centimetres of snow. Even more shocking? Today was +5 C. That means that students were frolicking outside in spring-like temperatures, enjoying the scents of the ground being moistened by the melting snow and the sounds of slush under their feet, instead of the normal crunching of snow. Tomorrow's supposed to be even warmer, with a high of +7.

Global warming? Maybe.

Complaints? Nope!

We know the inevitable will happen, and that we'll be bundling up against -40 temperatures sooner than we'd like. But for now, we'll savour the pseudo-spring that we've been blessed with.

Adding to the geek status...

The new project from LucasArts and BioWare is entering another beta phase this weekend. Geeks from across the world (myself included) are logging into the hosting website for the new MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic to apply for beta-testing status for the weekend.

I'm still refusing to pay for the game itself, unless it's either much cheaper than I think it is, or it goes the way of Lord of the Rings Online and becomes free to play, excluding expansion packs. But my inner Star Wars fangirl refuses to bypass the chance to play The Old Republic for free with the excuse of looking for bugs.

Hopefully my Notebook (which won't play Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, but will play Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy) will be able to support The Old Republic. If not, I shall be rather disappointed.

Part of me is worried that this new endeavour from LucasArts is going to be another disappointing money-making scheme from George Lucas (*cough* Very much like the "upgrades" to the Blu-Ray movies. Han shot first and Ewoks don't blink, dammit!). But I'm hopeful that it will be well worth the effort into playing and beta-ing- and possibly playing, if I decide I love the game that much. I would prefer if the game was free to play like Lord of the Rings Online (or at least free until a certain level, such as World of Warcraft), but I suppose the people working behind the scenes to design the Jedi characters deserve paycheques.

As long as the graphics are better than the Jedi Knight, and the story has a better ending than Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (which, although gameplay and graphics are much better than its precurser Knights of the Old Republic, had a very lacking, abrupt ending to the storyline. Thank you, Lucas, for rushing production of that game.), and my computer will support it, I'll be happy.

Also, if Darth Revan or the Jedi Exile or the Mandalorian Wars are mentioned, I'll be ecstatic. (Hey, it's only a thousand years after the events of the KOTOR series, and still three thousand years pre-Darth Vader! It's plausible!)

If nobody hears from me this weekend, you know why.

Some people really shouldn't have children...

A couple in New Jersey has lost custody of their fourth baby, seventeen hours after he was born. The older three children have all been in foster care for some time now.

Why, do you ask, would the NJ authorities take away four small children from their parents?

The answer stems back to the third child's name. Really, who in their right mind would name their child Adolf Hitler [insert last name here- in this case, Campbell]- and then claim to not be neo-Nazis?!

Heath and Deborah Campbell are protesting their lack of custody over their children- two daughters named JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, Honszlynn Himler Jeannie Campbell, Adolf Hitler Campbell and their new baby brother, Hons Campbell, claiming that the state has "kidnapped" the children for no legitimate reason. According to the parents, the children were perfectly healthy and fine. The parents also claim that they are not neo-Nazi supporters.

Perhaps not. But what kind of a future are you setting your kid up for if you name him after the most loathed dictator and murderer in the last century? How is that not a form of child abuse?

Reports indicate a history of violence within the Campbell home, which serve as the ulterior motive for removing the children from the home. The Campbell parents will be in court today to determine if they will be able to keep Hons in their custody.

Legally, the children will be able to change their names once they're 18 without parental consent. I really hope the state makes an exception for Adolf, though- because as soon as he starts learning about World War II and the Holocaust...

The story: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/parents-adolf-hitler-lose-custody-newborn-020633900.html?fb_action_ids=10150368328961666&fb_action_types=news.reads&fb_source=other_multiline

How Geeks Are Formed

Those who know AJ beyond "casual acquaintance" would describe her as a "hard-core" nerd. The average observer would see a short, brown-haired girl in her standard dark jeans and a black hoodie, sitting off in the corner with her laptop, her sketchpad or a fantasy novel of some description. The people who have known AJ for longer than a couple of years know this is a normal activity for her, and have since learned to just not disturb her when she's in the midst of some fantasy world.

At some point in AJ's life, she was probably a normal, non-geeky human girl- but that was before she started school and discovered that most potent of loves, a greater addiction than drugs: reading. By grade four, she had finished the Chronicles of Narnia and was reading Frank Peretti's novels. In grade six, she set out to read the entire Jedi Apprentice series. By grade seven, she had discovered her mother's collection of books by Ted Dekker. In an effort to keep her own books to herself and also prevent premature mental scarring from thriller novels (neither of which were a success), AJ's mother handed her a copy of The Hobbit, and followed up with the Lord of the Rings books just after AJ turned twelve. That decided AJ's fate as a Tolkien obsessant for the next several years: by the time grade seven was finished, AJ had read through The Silmarillion and still couldn't understand why most adults wouldn't read it.

By this point, she was also convinced that she was Half-Elven and aimed to be able to read and speak Elvish. Fluently. As of the time of writing, she has learned some basic terminology, including the translations for "my son/daughter", "love" "well met, my friend", and "go kiss an orc".

She remained a slightly-insane Tolkien nerd for the next four years, sprinkling her Middle-earth readings with other assorted fantasy novels (including Redwall, The Wheel of Time, and The Inheritance Cycle), until that fateful day in grade twelve when she stumbled upon the fanfiction writings of fellow Lord of the Rings fangirls who had crushes on Legolas and dreamed of being a non-canonical 10th Walker in the Fellowship. From there, any semblance of AJ's sanity was gone, as she started to write her own fanfiction stories. Then she found the Star Wars fanfiction archives, and all hope was lost.

At some point along the way, she was introduced to online forums dedicated to riffing bad fanfiction in Mystery Science Theatre 3000-style, and became a notorious sporker. On these forums, she found geeks as insane as she was- including geeks obsessed with the British television series Doctor Who, fellow nerds who read William Shakespeare's plays for enjoyment, and even other fangirls who admitted to playing video games such as Battle for Middle-earth and Age of Empires. Through these online nerds, AJ learned of the Histories of Middle-earth, the video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and just how enjoyable online written crossover roleplay games are. Even if the games are so insane as to assume Obi-Wan Kenobi and Atton Rand are half-brothers, with one being the son of Darken Rahl, the other the son of Don John, or to think of other such ideas such as Qui-Gon Jinn being the grandson of Maglor Feanorion, Anakin Skywalker being the son of Balian of Ibelin, or Neo Anderson being the son of the Witch-King of Angmar (affectionately known as "Tim").

In university, she was introduced to people in person who played KOTOR and watched TV shows such as Big Bang Theory, Supernatural, Firefly, and Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog, further cementing her identity as a nerd. Her nerd-status only increased when her friends introduced her to the trading card game Magic: The Gathering, and convinced her to start a mono-white playing deck. Between that and her recent addiction to George RR Martin's fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, it's no small wonder as to why she's perpetually broke now.

AJ treasures the family and friends who allowed her to admit she's a geek to anyone who would ask, despite the facepalms of her parents and the laughter of her friends and brothers. She still maintains that she could be a worse geek- she could be playing World of Warcraft or be fluent in Klingon as well as Elvish, and she still has a social life. But regardless of the degree of geekery that she claims she hasn't fallen to yet, she will be always thought of as a geek by those around her.

The good die young...

A ten-year-old Illinois girl committed suicide on Friday, after allegedly enduring oppresive torment from bullies at her school.

Ashlynn Conner, a fifth-grade honours student from Georgetown, Illinois, was found hanging in a closet in her home, after complaining to her mother for several days about insults and hateful comments directed at her by her peers in her class.

Her mother, Stacy, told ABC reporters that her daughter had been called "fat", "ugly" and even "slut" by classmates, which made Ashlynn come to dread school in the weeks before her death.

The school, Georgetown Ridge Farm Elementary, says they have a strict anti-bullying policy in place to prevent incidents like this. However, as someone who was bullied enough in elementary school at age eight to drop out and homeschool for four years, I know from past experience that bullies don't care about school policies. If they do not like someone at the school, they will strive to make his or her life miserable, and to heck with the consequences- I'd like to think that they don't expect something like this to happen though.

Rest in peace, Ashlynn.

Link to ABC News' story: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/11/was-a-10-year-old-honor-student-bullied-to-death/

No one sits with him, he doesn't fit in
But you feel like you do when you make fun of him
'Cos you want to belong, do you go along
'Cos his pain is the price paid for you to belong?
It's not like you hate him or want him to die
But maybe he goes home and thinks suicide
Or he comes back to school with a gun at his side
Any kindness from you might've saved his life...
-"Hero"- Superchick

Temple Shalom: The Experience

The average Gentile passer-by in Winnipeg, Manitoba might not notice the building across from the strip mall on Grant Avenue. The structure that houses Temple Shalom is a fairly-ordinary looking building, distinguished from its neighbours only by the large image of a menorah painted onto the circular window just above and beside the door. Even on the inside, the synagogue looks much the same as the foyer of an average city church- on November 11^th, 2011, just after seven o'clock in the evening, it's very quiet.

A few congregational leaders are talking on the second floor, up a short flight of stairs from the doorway and coatroom. They are welcoming of their Christian visitors and invite them to sit and talk while awaiting more members of the congregation before the service begins at 7:30 PM.

The decor is slightly different, though- instead of the images of Christ on the crucifix that would adorn the walls of most churches, there are paintings of rabbis from times past, and two old-looking copies of the Torah held securely within glass display cases. Hebrew writing covers plaques and art pieces around the synagogue.

The sanctuary of this Reformed Jewish synagogue bears a striking similarity to an average church, however- there are pews facing the front of the room, and musical instruments on the stage, including three acoustic guitars and an electric piano. A large glass structure resembling the Ark of the Covenant stands against the wall, with the Ten Commandments etched into the glass in Hebrew.

The service itself is different from a standard Christian church service as well. Whether this is a normal Jewish tradition or one slightly altered for the Remembrance Day service, there is no “sermon”. Instead, there are musical performances from people of the congregation, in both English and Hebrew. There is no reading of the Torah in Hebrew tonight, however- instead, for the sake of the occasion, anti-war songs written by Bob Dylan and John Lennon are performed for the audience instead. It is not something that a visitor would expect, not even from a Reformed Jewish synagogue (which is comparatively more liberal than other Jewish traditions such as Orthodox Judaism), but it does seem to suit the anti-war theme of the service. A female rabbi leads the service, and in fact leads most of the singing. After the two-hour service, the visitors are invited downstairs to join in the traditional Sabbath meal with the rest of the congregation- a light snack consisting of tea, cookies, bread (including haballah) and fruit.

It is an interesting, and very informative experience, for the non-Jewish visitors of this synagogue, and rather enjoyable, minor culture-shock not withstanding. It was very different from the church services that the Christian visitors were accustomed to- and being that Judaism, while being the parent of Christianity, is still a different religion, that is understandable. But even though half the service was in Hebrew and not all of the rituals of the service made sense to the Christians attending the service for educational purposes, there were still close similarities to Christian services, such as the structure of the service and the congregational singing with instrumental accompaniment (something I suspect would never happen in an Orthodox synagogue). On the whole, this was a very enjoyable and eye-opening experience for a Christian studying Judaism.

Speaketh thou of a double-standard in censorship?

"In protest of Facebook's refusal to remove fansites that "joke" about rape, I will not be on FB on November 1. I challenge everyone who is a woman or who loves a woman to copy this to their status and then stay off FB tomorrow."

I saw this on a friend's Facebook status yesterday evening. As I feel particularly strongly about this subject matter (Just to clarify, I've not ever experienced rape or anything similar, and I pray I never do.), I then proceeded to copy that status to my own profile, then closed my Facebook window (as it was close to midnight). I'll be back on tomorrow at some point.

Some poking about on Google has brought up several news articles blasting Facebook for not banning fanpages on the social networking site which make blatant rape/nonconsensual sex jokes. Now, common sense and old-fashioned chivalry say that to remove these offensive fanpages is the right thing to do, right? I mean, Facebook does say they do not accept any content that is "hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence", according to their Terms of Service.

But those same terms of service, according to Facebook, say that the rape jokes are nothing more than an opinion, and therefore are exempt from this rule.

The countless people (both men and women) who have suffered from rape beg to differ.

So Facebook, tell us this: Why will you remove any and all content that is pornographic, violent in nature, pokes fun at transgendered folk or insults Muslims, yet you will back multiple fan pages that allow several thousand people to laugh at the victims of sex crimes, liking these "jokes" to the rude jest that would be told in an average bar?

I'm too furious to continue this rant. I'll be back tomorrow once I've cooled down.

For more information or rants:
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/10/abuse-based-facebook-offensive
http://www.yummymummyclub.ca/facebooks-pro-rape-page
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/sep/30/facebook-refuses-pull-rape-jokepages

And possibly the worst Facebook page I have seen in the four years that I've been a user:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/You-know-shes-playing-hard-to-get-when-your-chasing-her-down-an-alleyway/227051983998683

Geek Central

Crowds. Claustrophobia. Geek-speak assaulting your eardrums from all directions. And- was that a Dalek, over there in the corner behind Thor and the Phantom?

As the geeks in the Winnipeg region know, this past weekend was Comic-Con. For the non-geek-inclined of my readers, that is where nerds and geeks of all sorts gather at the Winnipeg Convention Centre, discuss geeky things, play geeky games and acquire geek merchandise. Some people even dress normally- others bring out their treasured (if rarely worn) nerdy costumes and happily mill about with fellow geeks.

If you've been following me on Twitter or Facebook this weekend, you've probably heard of some of the characters I've seen. These include, but are not limited to: two Han Solos*, two Princess Leias* (Okay, one was about five years old. Same with the mini-Vader with her. But STILL...), four Jedi Knights*, an entire clan of Mandalorians*, a couple of Stormtroopers*, one Sith Lord who WASN'T Darth Vader*, at least three incarnations of the Doctor*, two walking Tardises*, three or four versions of Batman/Superman/Spiderman/Superwoman/..., two versions of Two-Face*, many versions of Poison Ivy, Jace*, V*, Dr. Horrible*, a couple of Vulcans* (including one Spock), a Klingon*, plenty of redshirts, four Jack Sparrows*, more manga/anime characters than I care to count, LOTS of ninjas and samurai, several Hogwarts students* and Waldo. Virtual cookies to those who can guess what fandoms the starred characters came from.

For the curious, one of the Two-Face incarnations was taking great joy in telling everyone that he'd been cornered by a Dark Lady of the Sith (who happened to have a makeup sponge with her lightsabre) and her cohort, who proceeded to attack him with the makeup and even put glitter in his hair. For the record, the glitter was the cohort's idea- the Sith only did the makeup, and was quite pleased with her work.

The Trekkies rejoiced when they heard William Shatner was coming to Comic-Con at some point on the weekend. A few less rejoiced when they heard he was only coming on the Sunday. And very few cheered when they heard it was $20 just to get a picture with Mr. Shatner, and about $70 for an autograph. That was the deciding factor that determined I wouldn't be seeing the original Captain James T. Kirk, much to my inner geek's dismay (Worse was that we missed seeing the lightsabre duels.).

Regardless of the disappointment in being unable to meet Mr. Shatner, the Comic-Con weekend was very enjoyable.

And on that note, I'm taking off the cumbersome modified-bedsheet Sith Lord costume and not putting it back on for another year. Maybe next year I'll change it up and go as a Nazgul instead of a Sith- who knows?

*Oh yes. Han Solo, Leia, the Jedi, the Mandalorians, the Stormtroopers and the Sith are all from Star Wars (Really, how could you not get that?), the Doctor, the Tardis and the Dalek are from Doctor Who, Two-Face is from Batman, Jace is from the card game Magic: The Gathering, V is from V for Vendetta, and Dr. Horrible is from Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog. If you did not get that the Vulcans, Klingons and redshirts are from Star Trek, you lost all geek status. Jack Sparrow is from Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Hogwarts students are from Harry Potter.

They continue through the ages...

Tonight, while procrastinating on my Judaic Studies homework (after I finished reading The Bishop and loudly ranting over evil cliffhangers), I meandered onto my brother's Facebook profile, where I saw that he'd "liked" the fan page for Mystery Science Theatre 3000, or MST3K for short.

For those of you non-geeks who don't know what MST3K is, it was a TV series that ran for a solid ten seasons. The premise of the series was that there was a human trapped on board a satellite by a mad scientist with two robots for company, and to maintain their sanity, they would riff or mock bad movies. Most of the films that they did were B-grade sci-fi movies, which may help to explain why it's mainly geeks such as my brother and I who know about them.

Yes, nerdiness and geekery run in our family. It's probably genetic.

MST3K stopped airing several years ago, although the producers and actors have since gone on to create the RiffTrax, or MSTs of popular (and sometimes bad) movies. Whilst browsing the site tonight, I came across (and watched) clips of the riffs from Star Trek: 2009 and Twilight, and saw advertisements for other movies such as The Empire Strikes Back, Thor, The Return of the King, and some horrific movies that definitely deserved to be riffed, such as the rest of the Twilight saga and Tommy Wiseau's infamous classic The Room. (I first watched The Room without the comfort of the RiffTrax. If you know what I'm talking about, pity me. I refuse to make the same mistake with Twilight.)

MSTs continue unofficially throughout all of geekdom, ranging from muttered comments in theatres to mockery of certain novels that shall not be named, but which concern sparkly vampires (What makes you think I hate Twilight? *angelic expression*), and having a prominent niche in the fanfiction world. I myself am part of a small group of fanfic-writing nerds who take a sadistic pleasure in taking the worst of the worst fanfictions (usually Lord of the Rings fanfics written by hormone-driven girls without spellcheck and victimizing Legolas) and riffing (or sporking) the crap out of them.

The fine producers of MST3K have created a masterpiece trope that will continue for as long as there are nerds and geeks to appreciate it. On that note, this nerd is going to browse the RiffTrax store and ponder acquiring the MP3s of certain movie-riffs. Like Twilight. Because that is the only way I'm going to watch the movies.

(By the way, if you're interested in seeing what a fanfiction MST looks like, follow the link to the "Sue Free Zone" on the right-hand side of this page and look for the ones written by Xaja Silversheen. That's my alter-ego online.)
(... Oh, the heck with it. Here's the link to one of my earlier Lord of the Rings troll-fics: In the forest)

On Gender, Relationships and Sexuality

Tonight was the night when Providence Sociology professors Dennis and Val did the annual "sex talk" with students from across the school.

Before I continue, perhaps I should specify that even though this is a Christian liberal arts university, all of us are quite aware of how babies are made. Some of us even have little minions to care for (For the record, I am NOT one of the above, nor do I plan on being one for a few years yet.). This talk was not on the "birds and the bees", but rather on how relationships, gender and sexuality issues are viewed and dealt with today, both in common society and within Christian circles.

Not all of the points that we as a group wanted to cover in the alloted time slot, such as the LGTBQ debate, male-female interaction, and sexual tension in a relationship, were discussed. However, some major points in the discussion included inter-racial relationships, cross-gender friendships, pornography and chastity in the church's eyes. The points brought up were very intriguing and thought-provoking for all involved. As I'm fighting a cold at the moment, my memory's a little fuzzy (my apologies to the people sitting next to me who had to listen to me sniffle), but I do have some thoughts after this talk.

Why do Christian leaders, as a collective whole, look down so harshly on those who commit a sexual sin? Why are we youth told to "do this, do this, don't do this, and don't even THINK about that!", without getting an explanation? Are our spiritual mentors afraid to cross the metaphorical line and talk to us about the issues we're dealing with as young adults?

More thoughts will probably arise when I've gotten a decent sleep and am no longer distracted with sci-fi memes.

Sleep's overrated anyway, right?

If you were to look at the lists on the right-hand side of this page, you would see that the Patrick Bowers series is under my favourite pieces of literature (Right with the Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion and A Song of Ice and Fire.). But to my misfortune, I only own the first two books in Steven James' thriller series (that being "The Pawn" and "The Rook"), and have not had an opportunity to read the next books in the series.

And then I realized that one of my friends owns all the books in the series that have been published so far, and she was more than happy to lend me Book Three, "The Knight". No prizes for guessing why I'm so over-tired today- I was reading, and not for a course. Bad student.

Also, this is why I missed the discussions on the NDP, religion and politics. I think it was a worthy sacrifice.

Disclaimer: There be spoilers in this post. Ye be warned.

I was surprised over some of the changes in this book from where we left off in "The Rook". I was disappointed to see that Patrick, the protagonist, was slowly breaking up with the love interest in the first two books, Lien-hua. I've always loved the thought of Patrick and Lien-hua together, but evidently Steven James disagreed. But I think I like the new love interest, Cheyenne, although she comes across as one of the multi-talented Mary Sues that I've seen on FanFiction.Net. I don't know of too many people who have such a talent with a gun that they can shoot a chain out with four shots while riding a galloping horse out of a burning barn. I suppose I will have to wait until I read "The Bishop" and "The Queen" before making a judgement.

When I saw mention of Sebastian Taylor, the main villain from the last two books, I automatically suspected he was the antagonist in this story as well. Considering he had been brutally murdered by Chapter Four, I was wrong. This left me perplexed for most of the remainder of the book as to who the murderer actually was- something I admire in James. How he can create such diverse, blood-chilling, clever villains consistently and never bore his readers is beyond me. I want his job. No, I'm not mentioning who the villain in this story (and potentially the next book) is- you'll have to read the book yourself.

As always, there is a subtle Bible lesson worked into the book. Today, it was discussing lying. It's a sin!, you say. Right, yes- but the Israelite midwives in Egypt lied to save the lives of baby boys. Rahab sinned to save the lives of the spies. There are many other cases in the Bible where people lied to save others, and God rewarded them. I won't mention why exactly this came up (it concerned a murderer Patrick caught thirteen years ago and a re-trial), but it's made me ponder. What is God's view on a person lying to protect the innocent?

"The Knight" is an excellent read, although perhaps not for those of the weak of heart or stomach. It makes you think. It makes you afraid of your neighbour. It makes you appreciate sarcasm, wit, and good coffee.

In which, it is proven that we are a pessimist.

The world's populace is becoming less violent.

Uh-HUH.

Steven Pinker, the University of Harvard psychologist who brought this topic up, presents some interesting points, referring to war casualties and torture stats over the last several thousand years. It's relatively simple to see how less people die in combat, torture isn't sanctioned (Unless we're speaking of Guetalemo Bay. We're not even going to talk about that.), and genocide rates are down, after the horrendous events of the Holocaust and Rwanda. All well and good, no?

Perhaps I'm just a cynical person, but my thoughts are that these stats are not JUST due to literal deaths in battles or deaths from violent crime. Yes, according to Pinker's statistics, 1.2 million people died in the Old Testament of the Bible. That was also six thousand years ago in the Middle East, when medical treatment was highly lacking and it was easy for people who lost limbs or blood in battle to die after the war was over. The same is true for Middle Ages wars and the World Wars. God only knows how many soldiers suffered and died from conditions in the trenches without fighting. The wars in the world today could potentially have the same amounts of violence (whether on the battlefield or in a POW camp), but just have better medical aid to prevent deaths.

This topic came up on a discussion forum that I am on. One of the other posters commented that the lack of deaths like this is because as people get smarter, we learn how to psychologically damage and abuse people- therefore, physical harm is no longer required to make someone else's life miserable. Violence is not only to the body, but to the psyche as well. And really- why kill people, when one can merely take over their lives? Is that, perhaps, the thought behind the reduced levels of violence?

Another person commented that Pinker is correct, and we're raising a generation of pacifists. I facepalmed at this- because if Pinker IS correct and we're becoming less violent as a whole, then we're teaching our children that it's all right to run at the first sign of danger. Fine. Running is good. But what happens when there's no choice but to turn and fight? What are the weaklings that we're raising going to be?

Disclaimer time! I don't like violence. Really. I wish I weren't so cynical- then I might believe this article. But I am far from a pacifist- considering I have a brown belt in Shotokan Karate and am considering training in Hapkido or Ninjitsu (or both?) and consider it an asset that I can disarm, seriously injure or kill someone in defense if I need to, I'm not a non-violent person. And if I ever have children, they will not grow up pacifists- they'll be in martial arts by the time they're five years old, not because I want them to grow up starting fights, but because I want them to be able to stop fights if they need to, especially if they're a target.

Where was I going with this? Oh, right. Non-violence.

The stats may have some weight to them, but I don't think it's from people becoming less violent. I think it's because people learn how to be violent without being physical, or from unreported stats, or from a psychologist who views the world through rose-coloured lenses. My pessimistic, slightly-grouchy (and undercaffeinated) self thinks that we're just coming up with new, creative ways to destroy people? Why? Because humanity sucks.

Second disclaimer time: I just had two midterms and six hours' sleep. Pardon this post for crankiness and a lack of quality.

It's about bloody time!

After nine years of combat and almost 4500 casualties, US President Barack Obama announced today that all American troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by January 1, 2012.

And lo and behold, it's a politician who actually kept one of his promises that he made while running for office!

Anyway. Understandably, the Iraqi people are no doubt very pleased that they will be left alone shortly, without a constant American presence in their nation. And the soldiers in American uniforms are ecstatic to be going home. The question now, is this- Why did it take nine years, approximately 4500 deaths and over a trillion dollars to come to this decision? It's still debatable that the war had an actual, legitimate reason to begin- and I'm for the side that thinks the US should have just kept their metaphorical noses out of Iraq in the first place.

Regardless of his reasons for waiting until now to bring the troops home, Mr. Obama says that full withdrawal of American forces will not risk the nation's political stability. (While I fully encourage the return of the soldiers to their home turf, I can't help but remember that this is the guy who's leading a nation with a painfully-dying economy, a great part of which is his fault.)

Meh. Only time will tell if this is the best course of action. For the sake of the soldiers and the Iraqi people, I really hope it is.

Seriously? You doubt my relationship skills?

... If you are the ex-boyfriend I had in Grade 11, you can shut up now.

As some of you are aware, I have been happily un-single since Saturday evening. (If you haven't seen the Twitter feed in the right-hand corner of your page, you've probably heard me squeaking and jumping around in ecstasy.) My Facebook status changed on Saturday to say "in a relationship". All well and normal, no?

And as those of us who use Facebook know, Facebok tailors their ads to best suit the person viewing them. (Not, of course, that the ads are accurate. I still get advertisements for prom dresses and graduation rentals, and I graduated high school in 2009. Maybe that's 'cos quite a few of my Facebook friends are still high schoolers...) Recently, I've seen plenty of Head & Shoulders ads on my sidebar, featuring a chance to win prizes or some such nonsense.

As of Sunday morning, those ads changed to this...

Seriously?

So, either I'm set to be a very bad girlfriend without this Alyson Hannigan (whom I've not even heard of before these ads appeared on my Facebook sidebar, although Dan says she's from the TV show How I Met Your Mother), or I'm to be a very bad girlfriend without Head & Shoulders shampoo and conditioner. If this ad is correct, then I'm going to best make my boyfriend happy if I switch to this brand. Because I won't be able to be a good girlfriend any other way.

I happen to prefer Herbal Essences, thank you very much. And Dan has said he doesn't care what I use on my hair, as long as I use SOMEthing. With my OCD tendencies, that won't be difficult for me to manage.

On that note, what exactly constitutes a "good girlfriend"? My classmate Kevin (who happens to be a mutual friend of both myself and Dan) is of the thought that a good boy/girlfriend, in very general terms, is someone who loves their counterpart as best as they know how, and is more honest and open with that person than with others. I agree with him on that.

Yet to hear H&S tell it, a good girlfriend (besides obviously using their hair products), is materialistic, focusing on making themselves look "pretty" for their male counterpart so they can be the trophy girlfriend. There are other factors, of course, depending on the personal preferences of the guys in question, but it seems that a large part of this in North American culture is based largely on beauty. (Depending on the group one talks to, being "easy" and meekly submissive are bonuses.)

Right, yes. Because I know so many girls whose sole focus is on being the perfect trophy girlfriend/wife for their guys. Who defines a "good girlfriend", anyway? The boyfriend in question. Do his criteria match the rest of society's? I rather doubt it.

Tales of a Tag-along

Yesterday, the Theatre students from Prov went on a field trip to watch the play Bingo!, performed at the Prairie Theatre Exchange in Winnipeg.

"But you're not a theatre student, AJ! You're in Social Science!". Yes, but I'm doing my Field Ed credits with the theatre program, I'm friends with half the people in the theatre program (including the professor) and my boyfriend is one of the stage managers for both the full-length production and the one-act troupe. So when they had a free ticket, they offered it to me and I got to tag along. Hence the title of this blog post.

Anyway. I was a teensey bit apprehensive about this, since the last play that the theatre students went to see (which I also went to), quite frankly, sucked. But I was pleasantly surprised with this play- there was a story, actual acting (as opposed to simple public speaking in costumes), and characterization. The play's focus centred around five people at their 30th high school reunion, discovering how much each other changed (or didn't) in the last three decades. The 70's music was loud, the alcohol (or, in this case, coloured water) flowed freely, secrets were divulged or discovered, at least one marriage was ruined, and the Calgarian got the girl. So I'm a little bit biased.

Surprising to all present, we discovered that one Ted Atherton, a Winnipeg-born actor, was in the play as the snobbish "douchebag" character Dookie. ("Douchebag" was a name given to him in the script, and not my own insult.) For those who weren't aware, he also played the character of Miles Leland III in the short-lived TV show Sue Thomas F.B.Eye. I have never seen that TV show, but more than a few people in the audience were familiar with his former character.

I've been told that I should watch it. I think I'll have to work that in at some point.

Bingo! will be playing for the remainder of the month at the PTE. Go see it. It's well worth it.

Speaking of living with parents...

I so wish I could take credit for the following letter. But I cannot infringe on Her Majesty's words now, can I?

To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II:

 

In light of your immediate failure to financially manage yourselves and also in recent years your tendency to elect incompetent Presidents of the USA and therefore not able to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately. (You should look up 'revocation' in the Oxford English Dictionary.)

 

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy).

 

Your new Prime Minister, David Cameron, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.

 

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated sometime next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

 

To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

 

1. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'colour,' 'favour,' 'labour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix '-ize' will be replaced by the suffix '-ise.'Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary').

 

 

2. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as ''like' and 'you know' is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as U.S. English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter 'u'' and the elimination of '-ize.''

 

3. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

 

4. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can't sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you're not ready to shoot grouse.

 

5. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

 

6. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

 

7. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.

 

8.You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

 

9. The cold, tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. New Zealand beer is also acceptable, as New Zealand is pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of the British Commonwealth - see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

 

10. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

 

11. You will cease playing American football. There are only two kinds of proper football; one you call soccer, and rugby (dominated by the New Zealanders). Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies).

 

12. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America . Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the Australians (World dominators) first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

 

13. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

 

14. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

 

15. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 p.m. with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.

 

God Save the Queen!

I KNOW Her Majesty didn't legitimately write this. But were truer words ever written? I think not.

Besides, things would be so much simpler if we all stuck with the metric British way of doing things, no? YES. *sits back with tea and biscuits to observe the commotion*

Microsoft, I hope you and your SpellChecker get this memo shortly.

Life Is Beautiful

And thanks to the prayers of several thousand believers over the last twenty days, there are at least 220 children who will be able to agree with that statement, instead of being killed by professionals before they have a chance to see the light of day.

Harsh? Perhaps- but true.

Disclaimer time! I know quite a few of you readers probably are of the opinion that abortion is a necessary option, the woman in question should have free choice in the matter, yada yada yada. Might I point out an interesting statistic? 100% of the people for abortion are former fetuses (fetusi?) themselves. And if the testimonials are any indication, the people who kill their unborn children face a lifetime of grief and regrets.

That being said, I'm only for abortion if it's clear that it will kill the mother to carry the baby full-term. In every other instance, there are plenty of barren couples looking to adopt a baby, if the baby can't be raised by its birth parents. Handicapped babies or babies born in poor homes or from premarital sex or rape are no exception to this- what did the child do to earn death before it could even breathe or see?

Rant over.

Where was I again? Oh, yes.

This is the midway mark of the 40 Days For Life crusade, a program in where people of the church will go to abortion or planned parenthood centres, sit outside, and pray, despite harrassment and persecution from the more aggressive pro-choice supporters. There are no loud rallies, no vehement protests- it is simply prayer, in many cities across North America, Australia and Europe.

"How can this possibly work?", you may ask. To that, there is no simple human answer- it's all God. From the prayer and friendly conversation that the vigil volunteers devote themselves to, many women choose life for their babies- and have no regrets. Despite negative reactions from many pro-choice people at these clinics, the pro-life supporters keep praying, and their prayers have saved 229 babies in the last 20 days alone.

I fully support the people praying for the lives of the children at risk for abortion. There is no child who deserves to be killed because its mother feels that she can't or doesn't want to raise it. On that note- Is anyone going to the 40 Day campaign in Winnipeg that I can hitch a ride with?


Now that it's over, I just wanna hold her
I'd give up all the world to see
That little piece of heaven looking back at me
Now that it's over, I just wanna hold her
But I've gotta live with the choices I've made
And I can't live with myself today

"Lucy"- Skillet (Written for a couple who aborted their daughter- whom they named Lucy)

40 Days For Life Campaign: http://40daysforlife.com/about.cfm

Hum dee dum...

I had a brilliant idea for a blog topic today. Alas, for eleven hours' sleep and a remarkably unproductive Friday afternoon have successfully wiped my memory of all trace of this brilliant topic, and my Facebook feed is granting me no alternative ideas. Then again, I also have a throbbing headache, I'm freezing, I'm still irked over the lack of Silver Wolf, Black Falcon fanfiction (Okay, I admit it. I need a life.), my iGoogle news feed is not producing any noteworthy news, and I'm finding myself strangely unmotivated to do anything, much less browse Teh Interwebz for interesting topics to write about.

Wait. Is it..? It can't be...

It is.

A foul curse upon writer's block! As if strangling my original stories and attacking my fanfiction and even beating on my art muse wasn't enough, now it spreads even to my academic work?!

*sigh* At least it's the weekend, and I have til Monday (around trying to study for MIDTERMS next week) to resume finding relevant topics. Yay?

*crawls back to the lair with tea to contemplate further actions for the evening*



*emerges four and a half minutes later* This just in- I was bored (obviously), so I clicked on my "stats" and went to "traffic sources", just to figure out where most people are finding my blog from. Took a look at the "search keywords" section and nearly snorted tea up my nose. For the record, that hurts a lot.

I'm still trying to figure out how a search of "lego darth revan" could lead to this humble little blog. I'm not sure if I should be impressed or facepalming. Either way, I am amused.

Perhaps the Greatest Sign of Geekiness?

Not World of Warcraft or Dungeons & Dragons. Not Magic: The Gathering. Not being able to quote The Big Bang Theory and intimately knowing every single fandom they mention. Not being able to speak Sindarin or Klingon or being able to write in Dwarven runes.

... Frequent attendance at Comic-Con is a plausible contender.

No, I'm speaking of fanfiction, and the inevitable stigmas that come with it. As some of you know, I've been writing fanfiction since my senior year of high school, and reading it for far longer, starting in the Lord of the Rings universe and since moving onward. My current fanfiction projects are, in order, Star Wars, SW/KOTOR II, and SW/LOTR fics, as well as riffing the bad fanfics in true MST3K style. Props to all those who understand what I just typed.

However, seeing as I get tired of frequently seeing 10th Walker stories or Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan slash (That will ensue an entire new rant. Don't get me started.), I like looking for new fandoms. Depending on the movie I've just watched or the book I just read, the fanfiction can be plentiful and good, such as the Chronicles of Narnia and Knights of the Old Republic. It can be plentiful and bad, like the Twilight fandoms. It can be meagre and decent, like the Song of Ice and Fire series.

Or it can be completely nonexistent, as in the Mithgar series by Dennis L. McKiernan. I picked up Silver Wolf, Black Falcon at a used bookstore a couple of weeks ago, finally got around to reading it and became emotionally attached to the two main characters enough (NOT fangirling. No. Nu-uh. Even if I do like fictional guys with long silver hair. Maybe that's why I have fangirl crushes on Rhaegar Targaryen and Cin Drallig...) to Google fanfiction for that series. Normally, Google produces at least decent results, most of the fiction from FanFiction.Net or from a specific board, even for the elusive fandoms such as the Codex Alera.

This time, Google failed me by not bringing up ANYthing even remotely pertaining to fanfiction. I strongly doubt Yahoo! will do any better. I did, however, see a Q&A with McKiernan, where he discourage fanfiction for the purposes of copyright and the reasons that if one wants to write, one would be better off creating their own universe.

I am disappoint.

Why does fanfiction (and the people who write it) earn such a negative connotation from others? Is it the excuse that we fanfic writers are obsessive geeks who lack enough creative brain cells to come up with our own stories? Au contraire- while that might apply to the thirteen-year-old Legolas fangirls with nothing better to do (and evidently no Spell-Check on their computers. Those who just blinked in confusion at that are now dared to go into the Lord of the Rings fanfiction archives.), there are plenty of fanfiction writers who have since gone out and created their own fictional universes and stories. I am one of them, even though my fictional works are suffering a severe case of writer's block, and have been since high school.

The copyright worries I can understand. But it is clear that the fanfiction writer does not own the work she (or sometimes he) is writing a story from. The original author/producer/writer/whatever should be able to own the full rights to his or her story. And every person who has created a story that was well-recieved around the world knows all about the fanbase that follows- including the fanfiction and fanart. Some even make use of this, such as the writers of the popular TV show Supernatural, where the main characters Sam and Dean Winchester attend a fan convention in one episode and meet a fanfic writer, much to the characters' bemusement and the hilarity of the watchers who are guilty of writing the same fanfiction that Sam reads online in the episode.

Yet other authors have said that they do not want any fanfiction to be written about their stories. They may be shouting to a vacuum, but sites such as FanFiction.Net have heeded their requests and do not show stories written by certain authors. Other authors, like George RR Martin, have realized that the fans will not be disuaded- FFN hosts several pages' worth of A Song of Ice and Fire fanfics, where the fans speculate over who will be the ruler of Westeros at the end of the series. (My personal hope is that it's Daenarys Targaryen or Bran Stark.) And of course, there are countless fanfics for The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, and Twilight.

I have yet to try deviantART for Silver Wolf, Black Falcon stories, so there may be something hidden in their archives. If not, then I suppose I shall have to content myself with stories that my over-active imagination will come up with..

Lo, how the seasons e'er changing...

"But it's been autumn for almost a month now!" I can hear you saying. Yes, yes, which is why Southern Manitoba has been boasting spring or summer-like temperatures for the last week or so, and only cooling off within the last little while.

Why can't Manitoba always be in the 20 C range, or higher?

On that note, to quote a certain character from a certain fantasy book series that a certain George RR Martin needs to finish, "Winter is coming". And I'm not looking forward to what I'm sure will be a very cold winter this year. All in favour of relocating Prov to the Caribbean, say "Aye!".

What is further proof of the turning of the seasons beyond the sudden chill and the breaking out of hoodies, you ask?

Midterms! (And the university students all cringed and hid under their desks.) It is a reminder that the semester is half-over, despite what people think. This includes me, who looked at my calender this morning and said "What? But school just started! Don't I have lots of time before I have to finish that paper?"

... So I'm an inherent procrastinator. There. I said it.

As my last post may have hinted, the Canadian Thanksgiving was this weekend. Said weekend was spent with my roommate and her family, and it was highly enjoyable. Comic-Con and Halloween are also coming up at the end of the month- which are perfect excuses for me to find my interchangable Sith Lord/Nazgul/Dementor costume, procure either my (plastic) lightsabres or my (plastic) swords and act like a complete geek without getting too many weird looks. (Pictures coming after Comic-Con, if I remember.)

Also, an excess of candy and other sugar-loaded products. Because the kids aren't going to eat all of that junk food, and we post-secondary students firmly believe in not letting anything go to waste, right?

Those who say I'm terrifying on sugar or caffeine highs had best not come to near me for the week or so after Halloween. Just putting that out there.

And perhaps the biggest indicator that summer is dying? Today in choir, we broke out the Christmas carols and were informed that time is growing short before we have to perform them.

I'm not complaining. I have a special place in my heart for Christmas melodies. But I refuse to put them on my iPod until after Rememberance Day.

Of course, Kutless did just come out with a new Christmas album, which I should consider investing in at some point in the near-ish future.

Tomorrow I'll attempt to come up with a relevant, interesting topic besides the seasons' change. Apologies to my WFTM professor.

*scurries back to the lair with a mug of hot chocolate and a good book* The perfect way to spend a fall day, no? Yes.

We are thankful...

For freedom of democracy, even if some anti-Conservatives would say otherwise.

For family and friends, even those many timezones away.

For university, so I can at least feel like I'm doing something productive with my life.

For dormmates' parents, who adopt homeless college kids for the Thanksgiving weekend, even though they already have five other kids of assorted ages under their roof.

For that blessed soul who invented Pepsi.

For the Internet, without which my dormmate and I would never have found the recipes for lembas bread, Quintuple-Chocolate-Mocha Brownies, and Butterbeer.

For hindsight, which has taught us what NOT to do when attempting to create miruvor.

For fellow nerds, who understand what miruvor, lembas and Butterbeer are. (For those who don't know, miruvor is an Elvish liquer, lembas is an Elvish waybread from Lothlorien, and Butterbeer is a popular drink for young wizards in the Hogwarts area.)

For technology, even though we curse and abuse it frequently, for making our lives that much easier.

For Jesus Christ, who has surpassed all of these by giving me a reason to live.

Happy belated Thanksgiving, world.

Alas, for the loss of another great one...

Steve Jobs, founder and former CEO of Apple and Pixar, died yesterday at the age of 56.

No one is quite sure where Apple is going to go without Jobs frontlining the new innovations from the company, including the now-old-news iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad (all of which were his idea). It is the hope that the new CEO of Apple, Tim D. Cook, will be able to earn the same inovation from Apple employees that Jobs possessed in and of himself.

But whether another person with the same technological genius will rise to continue Jobs' legacy remains to be seen.

Rest in peace, Steve, with the knowledge that you managed to almost single-handedly change the world with your ideas.

*turns up music on 5th generation iPod Nano and browses prices for second generation iPads*

And they thought I was bad before...

First, it was reading The Silmarillion. Then, it was trying to learn Elvish. Then, the fanfiction archives were discovered.

And now I'm at a whole new level of geekery, a level that I swore I would never fall to.

No, I'm not playing D&D or World of Warcraft.

I'm becoming what I swore I would never be (No, not a Twihard either) and turning into the dreaded stereotypical gaming fangirl.

"Weren't you already one of those?", I can hear you asking. And yes, I am one of the only girls I know who has played through Knights of the Old Republic and part of KOTOR II, fangirls Atton Rand and knows what HK-47 is.

But now I've fallen to a whole 'nuther level. Because I've just discovered, much to my delight and my GPA's dismay, that my computer will in fact play Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, Age of Empires II: The Conquerors EP, and Stronghold: Crusadors. Hopefully I can also play Battle for Middle-earth II.

Worse?

I now am in possession of two decks of Magic: The Gathering cards.

For those of you who know what MTG is and are either shaking your heads in dismay or cheering, I salute you for your geeky knowledge. For those of you staring at your computer screens with blank expressions: RUN. It will eat your soul.

Not as much as Kyle Katarn and Haldir are going to try to steal mine. Little do they know Atton Rand already stole it the first time I played KOTOR II.

Back to the game installing and the downloading of patches...

Conspiracy Theorists have happies

... Must stop visiting the memebase. Internet grammar is getting to me.

But after watching Transformers: Dark Of The Moon, I'm pretty sure that many, many people who have ridiculous little theories about the Apollo missions and what the government does behind closed doors are now screaming "I knew it! I KNEW there was something on the moon that the government doesn't want us to know about!".

Absurd, says you? Hey, there is a legitimate Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, says I. People are not known for coherent, logical thought.

I really wish I was making that up.

But I digress.

Perhaps it is because I am notorious for watching sequel movies without watching the first movie(s). Spiderman 3 comes to mind- evidently I've only seen the worst of the series. I'm bad this way with books as well. But anyway, am I the only watcher of Transformers who barely understood the past history with the plot, or who didn't know any names of characters beyond "Sam", "Bumblebee", "Optimus Prime" and "Dutch"? Raise your hands if you're in the same boat as me.

... Okay, so maybe that IS just me.

Explosions? Not bad- and especially not in 3D. Acting? Meh- I've seen better. Granted, I've also seen worse. (Anyone else remember Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones?) Graphics? I can't complain. Female sidekicks lacking in wits, IQ, and nigh-well everything except British accents and boobs? Check. Shia LeBouf? 'Nuff said. (Let it be noted that this is a different "'nuff said" than the version that I would use for Ewan McGregor or Johnny Depp. I actually LIKE/fangirl those actors.) Emotional attachment to the characters that would get abruptly killed off? What is this emotional attachment that you speak of? Characters with the ability to keep federal secrets? Pffft. Flashbacks to Battle Los Angeles? Many, many, many.

A major US city BESIDES New York or LA that gets destroyed in an epic takeover/battle? FINALLY!

Long story short? Transformers: Dark of the Moon is a good way to spend a solid two and a half hours without having to do anything. Perhaps my opinion of it will improve after I see the other Transformers movies...

And if my kid brothers are reading this- You DO have the other two movies, right? Right? Good. We're watching them over Christmas, after I steal back my Pirates of the Caribbean DVDs.

For lack of an interesting topic...

Welcome to October! The month of Halloween, high candy sales, Winnipeg's Comic-Con (to which I am acquiring tickets tomorrow. Yay!), Canadian Thanksgiving, Rosh Hashanah (The Jewish New Year for those who aren't familiar with Jewish tradition)...

... I think I'm forgetting something. Possibly the Old Republic MMORPG, which will mean cheering for myself and my fellow hardcore Star Wars fans.

I really should figure out when that's coming out.

Anyway. Due to this being the week when I end up experiencing a hormone-induced state of depression (Ahhh, hormones.), my interested in anything extending beyond what I see on my Facebook wall or what I hear tell of from friends on-campus is lacking. Apologies- I'll try to come up with something tomorrow.

On the flip side, I now have another reason to go visit a bookstore in the near-ish future.

http://www.box.net/shared/static/a6omcl2la0ivlxsn3o8m.jpg

Evidently I need to be finding books by RA Salvatore, a novel edition of Stardust, and Wicked. But wait, I already have four and a half books that I'm never going to get finished at this rate... *sigh* I should really finish A Song of Ice and Fire and Forbidden before starting new books.

I'll go crawl back into my lair now and keep my depression to myself now. *sigh*

The Prov Cafeteria: The Experience

There is no such thing as silence. Over the sound of the workers behind the counters and the noises of the the beverage machines, there is a roar of voices. Students, professors, faculty and visitors congregate in the cafeteria over the lunch period, perhaps grabbing a quick bite to eat before running off to class, or socializing with their colleagues and friends.

I'm seated at one of the tables furthest away from the windows. Why? Because latecomers to lunch like myself go to where their friends already are. Today, it was at a far table. Tonight at dinner, it could be at the stools beside the window. Who knows?

I have to squeeze my tray onto the table through the other dishes. This is normal for regular visitors at this cafeteria, and something we are all well-versed in adjusting too. There is an animated conversation about Aslan's Child and Once Lost already underway, and I sit down just as my friend Mark starts singing a line from a Petra song he wants to play with Aslan's Child. Since he only repeats one line of the song over and over again, the rest of the table is soon doubled over laughing- a happily frequent occurance at the Prov cafeteria.

People leave and join the table frequently as they begin or finish their meals. Kevin, a commuter with a meal card, joins us a moment after I sit down, just as Mark leaves for a class. This eventually leads to a discussion on "Christian rock" and how most so-called Christian bands are now merely labelling themselves as rock bands with Christian members, such as Switchfoot and RED. Gales of laughter are heard when Kevin mentions that the lead singer for RED is a nurse in his spare time- which lead to jokes concerning the song lyrics "Breathe into me" if he were ever doing CPR and "It's already over..." in regards to a patient asking about a surgery. Rob, another commuter who brought his own lunch, joins the conversation within a moment of sitting down as well.

Eventually, there are three separate conversations going on. Kevin and Evan are discussing how many Christian bands end up touring with secular groups, Nadene and Hayley are talking about Hayley's cell phone, which has mysteriously disappeared since lunch started (and which Nadene may or may not have had something to do with), and Lane, Rob and I are comparing RED's three albums, as well as various other bands in concert including Kutless and Hawk Nelson. The conversations eventually merge again around the topic of Hayley's cell phone, when the guys start discussing how to get the information about said missing phone from others. This conversation went from "fingers and toes" to "Chinese water torture" to "tying them down and making them listen to Justin Bieber" to "we have much to learn from athiests!". This spawned a whole new conversation about world religions.

Such is a meal in the college cafeteria. Between bites, people will be discussing topics of the day including, but not limited to, music, classes, papers, movies, weekend trips to Winnipeg, members of the opposite gender, the latest Bombers or Jets game, the latest in world events, and civil arguments- Calgary Flames vs Edmonton Oilers, Skillet vs Justin Bieber, The Silmarillion vs Twilight, Pepsi vs Coke. Often, there is no difference if the argument takes place with another student, the school president, or the guy who serves us our French fries- it is all in the name of a friendly discussion (Unless it concerns the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and the Saskatchewan Roughriders. More than that, I am not at liberty to say.).

It's noisy. It's chaotic. Sometimes, depending on how immature the dorm guys are feeling, it's disgusting. But the majority of the regulars at the Prov Cafeteria wouldn't have it any other way.

(By the way, I don't cheer for either the Bombers or the Riders. On the rare occasion that I watch CFL, I'm cheering for the Calgary Stamps. So ha!)

Grow up already!

It's no little secret that kids are leaving home later and later, quite content to mooch off their parents' paycheques. As a 19-year-old student who spends eight months of the year living in a dormitory, I can sympathize with the young adults my age who struggle to survive on their own with minimal-wage jobs. Yet I fully expect to be fully moved-out and on my own by the time I've got my BA- MA at the latest.

Someone might want to drop a hint to a 41-year-old Italian man who, despite his parents' pleas, is still living at home, despite having a good job of his own. He has even stooped to the level of making his parents do his laundry and cook his meals. The parents, having failed to kick their son out on their own, have now called in the aid of lawyers from the consumer group Adico. Their son has been given an ultimatium to be out of the house in six days or face a restraining order from his parents.

Now, as a student struggling to make her own way in the world, I know that the economy is bad for poor students. Jobs are hard to come by. Houses are nigh impossible to buy, and even rent can cost an arm and a leg. And that's before worrying about tuition or paying off student loans.

But for a 41-year-old man who has a decent job and is still living with his parents? Give me a break. Most people his age have children, or in some cases are grandparents!

My parents have told me that I'm not allowed to permanently move back home once I graduate university. I love my parents, but I agree with them- I can't wait until I can be fully independent. I don't understand why fully-grown adults as old as my parents refuse to move out on their own and assert their independence.

To the university-or-older-aged adults who are fully capable of living on their own, but choose to stay in their parents' basements: You are disgraces to mature adults everywhere. Grow up and get a life.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14995588

Online Dating

Pardon last night's Game of Thrones-induced insomnia for the lack of a brilliant, witty title today.

My school's Sociology department does lunchtime discussions in the back corner of the cafeteria over Friday's noon meal. As I've recently switched majors to a Social Science degree, and today's topic of choice interested me, I felt it would be informative to go to this lunchtime discussion.

Three guesses as to what the topic was today. And the first two don't count.

I can see where both supporters and condemners of online dating draw their facts from. Having seen several people (including my grandmother. I jest not.) find happy, meaningful relationships with significant others whom they've met online, I can see how this trend has become very popular recently. Sites such as eHarmony, match.com and plentyoffish.com exist for the purpose of bringing people together, who otherwise would never have met. Even for non-dating purposes, online relationships can have their value. Quite a few of my best friends, I've only ever met online through fanfiction and roleplaying forums.

Yet everything has a dark side, and online relationships are no exception. In fact, their dark side may be more prominent than others.

Stalkers creep on these websites frequently, looking for unsuspecting women (or men) to prey on. Honesty in conversations (which are usually limited to instant messaging or emailing) can rarely be trusted. Not to mention the pressure of being in that relationship for purely dating or marriage purposes, instead of having a friendship base. I'll not go into the websites or phone lines intended purely for hooking people up for sex, as that will keep me going for hours.

My personal views on online dating are mixed. As a nerd who spends more time than she will admit in cyberspace (Admittedly, making artistic forum posts and writing fanfiction, not scoping out men), I believe that online relationships, whether romantic or platonic, can be good and happy as long as both parties are careful with what they say.

Yet I don't put very much weight in online relationships designed for romance. To my thinking, that's reserved for the desperate or the semi-anti-social.

... Maybe that is for me, then. I will admit that I have made an eHarmony account- although that was a spoof, done with my dormmates from last year to see what kinds of matches we'd come up with, and then laugh at the site before deleting our accounts. I think I had five or so matches, most of whom lived in the States, and none of whom I bothered to glance at beyond their profile pictures and names. If I do get lucky and start dating, I would much rather have that come about with a boy I already know in real life, instead of being connected through the admins behind a dating site.

What are your thoughts on online dating?

"So you think justice has a voice, and we all have a choice..."

So, the rumour is that America is a place of justice and freedom, where the good guys always win and the courts aren't near as corrupt as they are elsewhere.

Tell that to Troy Davis' family and supporters.

Davis, who was convicted of the 1989 murder of police officer Mark MacPhail in 1991, was executed by the State of Georgia last night at 11:08 PM local time, despite the heated protests of Davis' supporters across the world.

The tale of Davis' fight for innocence has gained worldwide attention for 22 years. His execution has been pushed back three times since 2007, based on challenges to the "evidence" condemning him in the case. Why is "evidence" in quotation marks, you ask?

Because seven of the nine "witnesses" brought forward in the case have come forward since the initial trial to retract their former statements, claiming that they were pushed by police into saying untruths. Forensics evidence did not definitively link Davis to the shooting death of MacPhail, and another man who was at the scene has even come forward to say that he was the real shooter.

Yet for all of this, all the Supreme Court did in this case was to push back his execution by three hours before giving the order for the lethal injection, despite faulty evidence on the prosecuters' side, worldwide support of Davis by countless numbers, including Pope Benedict XVI and former US president Jimmy Carter, and condemnation of the execution by Amnesty International.

Justice is dead in this world.

Rest in peace, Mr. Davis.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/09/21/troy-davis-deathrow.html

Day of Prayer

As those in the Providence University College or Seminary know, today is the annual Day of Prayer. Like the title suggests, this is a day devoted to prayer, Scripture readings and meditation in various forms- including bodily expression of prayer, fasting, worship, or walking around the school.

As a Christian inter-denominational school, this is perfectly acceptable for Prov to organize and host a Day of Prayer for its students. How they do it is, of course, up to the Spiritual Life committee, working with faculty- yet generally, they tend to gravitate toward meditative contemplation and prayer. A discussion over lunch with Liam the seminary student brought up this point. Liam also mentioned that many other schools of this variety tend to do their Days of Prayer as loud worship sessions, where people can sing and dance in prayer to God.

Understandably, people have their own ways of praying. I happen to prefer the quiet contemplations, when I'm alone (preferably outside on a nice day) with only a notebook, my Bible and perhaps the worship music on my iPod to keep me company with God. I don't think I'd be able to focus nearly as well if I were in a loud, energetic dance. However, people who've grown up praying in noisy situations might not be able to concentrate or sit still for long periods of time in prayer.

Should Prov cater more to those who are used to loud, worshiping prayers? Or should everyone be used to praying and meditating in peace and quiet? Is there a single correct way to pray?

Regressing To Childhood?

I spent today unintentionally returning to childhood joys.

It started this afternoon, when in the commuter lounge, my good friend Rob and I confirmed that college-age kids can, in fact, be entertained with LEGO bricks for a substantial length of time. With time on our hands until dinner, no afternoon classes and a heavy rainstorm preventing any outdoor-type activities, we re-discovered the simple joy of building with LEGO- me, a small brick house, he a green lightsabre hilt.

Okay, so the lightsabre wasn't proper LEGO. It was more K'nex. But it was building pieces designed for the amusement of small children and bored post-secondary students.

When we went to Winnipeg later in the afternoon with our mutual friend Dan, our plans involved going to the cheap theatre to see Pirates of the Caribbean 4. Long story short, that turned into joining the crowd of families going to see the Lion King 3D re-release.

I strongly doubt that we were the only college-age people in the theatre to re-visit this movie, a favourite of mine from the time I first saw it, beyond waking memory. Although I am still amused that Dan and I were the only ones in the entire mostly-full theatre who were singing "Hakuna Matata" and "Can You Feel The Love Tonight?".

What is it about childhood hobbies and entertainment that draw us adults back to them? Is it a memory of happier, easier times in our past, when our biggest worries were not academic papers and student loans, but that the last person to watch our favourite Disney movie didn't rewind the VHS tape (Yes, I still remember what a VHS tape was.), and if Mommy was going to make us eat spinach again at dinner? Is it a mindless enjoyment that requires no thought and is an effective time-killer? Is it fun in that sense of "I feel so lame for watching this movie right now- this is hilarious!"?

Is this why respectable, successful grown-ups can happily devote hours of their time to building LEGO replicas of the Millenium Falcon or constructing entire cities made of small bricks? Or why a classroom of high school science students can be enthralled by a video of Bill Nye the Science Guy? Or why VeggieTales still holds a special place in the hearts of teenage youth-group attendees?

Of course, smart-aleck college kids will still be smart-aleck college kids, even when re-watching a favourite Disney movie...

Simba: You knew my father?
Rafiki: Correction- I know your father.
Me, under breath: No, Simba, I am your father.
Dan: *nearly chokes on popcorn trying to not burst out laughing*

I don't remember quite so many chances for wisecracks when I last watched this movie in elementary school. But who's complaining?

Hakuna Matata.

Theology's all well and good, but...

I'm sore. I'm tired. My back and legs feel like they're on fire. Two showers later, and I think I've finally ceased to smell like a mosh pit. How I don't have a black eye or a mass of bruises on my person, I'm not sure.

But the dangers of the mosh pit were worth it to watch Thousand Foot Krutch during the Rock the River tour (sponsered by the Billy Graham Association and Ransom.TV) in Winnipeg on Saturday night.

Like many of the teens and young adults in the crowd, I'd initially been drawn in by the free concerts (And to listen to TFK and another one of my favourite bands, The Letter Black, both of whom I still would have paid money to see. To hear them both for free was a bonus.). Franklin Graham (the son of renowned evangelist Billy Graham) and his altar calls were... for lack of a better word, a bonus that the un-churched in the crowd may not have been expecting.

During one of the many counselling sessions over the evening, when people would be able to pray for salvation, a recorded video from Skillet (which happens to be my favourite band of all time. Just a side note.) was played on the screens for everyone to watch. In it, frontman John Cooper spoke of how the church has done a bad job of relating to real-life issues that the kids in the church are going through- such as relationship issues, depression, problem 'friends', drugs and suicide. Skillet's popular song "The Last Night" is one such example- 'normal' churches have evidently classed that song, which tells of a girl who wants to kill herself and is told by God that she doesn't ever have to spend another night alone, as too "out-there" or too negative for a Christian band. Despite that, countless teens have mailed, emailed, Facebooked or otherwise told Skillet that that song has saved their lives and kept them from following the girl in the song to suicide.

How many churches talk about suicide? How many churches talk about real teen issues, such as premarital sex, drugs, depression, or even 'simple' things such as friend issues or relationship woes, to the people who need to hear it? How many instead sweep everything under the rug and assume that parents will talk to their kids about that, or instead just say that it's wrong to be involved with any of that and will jeopardize one's relationship with God? Why does the church not want to dirty their clean hands with real-world dirt and grime that the rest of us have to trudge through?

For that manner, how many churches actually preach the salvation message in their sermons, instead of just assuming that everyone in the service is a Christian already? Why do churches like to speak of grand, deep mysteries hidden in Paul's letters or preaching about the Books of the Law, instead of reiterating the simple Gospel messages that the unsaved need to hear?

The teenager who got dragged to church against his will by his parents doesn't need to hear about the deep, theological messages in Ephesians. The alcoholic present on the invitation of his neighbour doesn't need to hear one of the Pslams picked away to its theological bones. That theology's fine for some, but those people need to hear what Jesus did for them, and how much God loves them, more than they need to hear theology that makes no sense to them. Because motivational Christian speakers like Franklin Graham or Reggie Dabbs can't be everywhere to tell the unsaved what was done for them two thousand years ago, or that the real-life issues they're dealing with, but are too afraid to tell the church about for fear of judgement, are forgivable and fixable.

Where did we, as the church, go wrong?

"You are the light of the world... let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." -Jesus Christ (Matthew 5:14-16, NIV)

Lucas was right!

Ladies and gentlemen, we are now officially one step closer to finding the famous galaxy from far, far away that houses the Jedi Order, the Sith Lords, the Republic Senate that makes our Earth governments look efficient and scruffy nerf-herder smugglers.

And there was much rejoicing from the nerds, the geeks, and the fanboys/fangirls.

NASA has just announced their discovery of Tatooine, the famous home planet of Anakin Skywalker (and later, his son Luke) that was known for orbiting two suns.

.... Okay, so it's not a desert planet governed by Hutt gangsters and populated with slaves and exiled Jedi Masters. The planet, named Kepler-16b, is actually a cold, gaseous planet that isn't fit to sustain life, about the size of Saturn. The two suns that the planet orbits are both significantly smaller than our own Sun- one with a mass of 69% of what our Sun has to offer, the other with a 20% mass. Given that the planet is too cold, even with two suns to orbit, to have liquid water on its rocky surface, it's incapable of sustaining life.

However, NASA scientists are pleased with this discovery. As scientist William Borucki said, "Given that most stars in our galaxy are part of a binary system, this means the opportunities for life are much broader than if planets form only around single stars."

Which means that somewhere, out in the vast cosmos of space, the real Tatooine that we all know and love may well exist. Ditto with the Jedi Masters, protocol droids and walking carpets.

Now, if you'll excuse me, this news is cause to celebrate with Star Wars Episode IV, A New Hope, and a certain scruffy nerf-herder and his farm kid sidekick. I'll emerge from the lair sometime next week, when my inner fangirl finishes happy-dancing.

Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2393115,00.asp