Tag: Supanova

I would rather live on a train

Thanks – I’m fine,
But I’ve nothing to give,
But I just have to leave,
Enough – I would rather live on a train,
And now – I’m dying,
Cause I don’t want to be here,
I don’t want to be seen,
Enough – I would rather live on a train,

— On a Train, Yuksek

If you’re wondering why I haven’t been posting of late it’s because I’ve been feeling wretched, wrung out and on the edge of total burnout for the last few weeks. I really need some time to curl up into myself and completey ignore the world – happily I’ve arranged to take some leave in August, so I only have to hold out till then, which I think is just about doable. Just don’t expect me to be presentable, amicable or even sociable until then.

In the meantime there are a few things that need mentioning…

1: The Wyrmlog has, for some reason, stopped emailing me when people comment. So, if you’ve made some wildly witty and intelligent comment and are miffed that I’ve completely ignored it, that’s why. I only see your comments when I log in to make a post, and I haven’t been doing that lately. I’ll see if I can fix the problem when I have a minute (maybe September some time).

2: Went to Supanova with Bek and Paula. Quite fun, despite my current fairly desperate state of mind. Saw Rose McGowan and John Barrowman who were charming (see what I did there?) and hilarious respectively. The story about the understudy and the laxatives, oh my god! And Mel Brooks screaming “GET INSIDE! THEY’RE GONNA DO SOMETHING CRAZY!”. Great stuff!

3: It’s nice that Heron are trying to make their paracetamol tablets more palatable, but making them taste like a caramel vanilla milkshake seems somewhat misguided. Even I, who am fully aware of what a paracetamol overdose does to your liver (to wit, kills it, with negative subsequent consequences for your general wellbeing) am tempted to chow down on a big pile of them just because they taste so damn good. I can’t imagine how the uneducated hoi-poloi react to such temptation!

4: I may well be completely out of the loop, but I was listening to the radio on Sunday when a song came on that from the very first bar completely grabbed my attention. I thought at first – based on the vocals of the first verse – that it might be a new Megan Washington track, but was disavowed of this theory when the chorus cut in, and so hastily transcribed some lyrics into Google to determine exactly what I was listening to. It turned out to be 24 Hours by Sky Ferreira – an artist that I was peripherally aware of but had never paid much attention to. Well, I’m paying attention now. The song is a great electro-pop track that I’ve listened to so often over the last three days that it’s now stuck in my head to the point of nausea, but I’m still looking forwards to listening to it on a more moderated schedule once the neural burn-in repairs itself. Here it is anyway, so you can laugh at how execrable my musical tastes have become…

5: Saw The Double on Sunday with Rebecca. A very strange, but very stylish and enjoyable movie. Directed by Moss from The IT Crowd you know. If you like thought provoking sci-fi, urban dystopias and crazed, shovel wielding priests then definitely go check it out.

Hmmm, I think that’s about it for now. There was probably some other stuff I wanted to mention, but I’m too scatter brained from stress and fatigue to think of it. Go and make your own damn entertainment.

For the Emperor! Supanova 2013

Headed over to the Supanova Con on Saturday with Ryan, Paula, Bek and Bek’s daughter who’s name I can never actually remember. It was a pretty good day overall. I didn’t get any autographs or photos – I’m always starstruck to the point of imbecility when meeting celebrities, so there’s really not much point, but I did enjoy the panels with Karl Urban, Alan Tudyk and (of all people) David Hasselhoff.

Yes, I went to see the Hoff. Mainly just so I could say that I saw the Hoff. I actually enjoyed his panel, mostly I suspect because I expected him to be a complete train wreck, and he wasn’t. He could in no way be said to be a humble man, but he had some interesting stories, and I was surprised to discover that he can actually sing pretty well – perhaps those Germans aren’t quite as crazy as we all thought.

Karl Urban was fun. He started off his talk by awarding Judge Dredd badges to audience members who could identify movie quotes. This didn’t go terribly well at first, until he clarified that they weren’t specifically quotes from his movies. After that he answered audience questions in a highly entertaining fashion, did a Batman voice, and threw in some good natured trash talk about the Wallabies 🙂

The final panel we went to was Alan Tudyk, who was a complete riot. The hall was completely packed out – standing room only – happily Paula and Bek had got a place in line while I was seeing the Hoff, so we got seats halfway up. Notable incidents included someone asking him to say his “leaf on the wind” quote – which he delivered as “I’m a leaf on the wind, watch me GHURK!” – a self admitted fangirl asking him if he were her and he were still him what he as her would ask him as him – which completely threw him in a most entertaining manner – and a story which he reckoned he’d never told before about how he found himself identifying with a Billy Joel song while working in a racist bar before he got in Juilliard (he knew it was a racist bar because he threw a customer out for saying abominably racist things, then got told off by management).

He also did some Karaoke at Deville’s earlier in the week. Awesome! 🙂

Apart from the guests we had a good look around the stalls. I had finally given in to the inevitable and dipped my toe into the waters of cosplay by wearing my Commissar hat (a few people even requested photographs!) and found an amazing replica chainsword for sale. Unfortunately it was priced at $215 which seemed a bit excessive for a piece of painted foam, so I had to leave it. Bek got a friend’s block mounted Star Wars poster signed by Carrie Fisher, and just about died of excitement at meeting her. We also did a lot of sitting around watching cosplayers.

It’s been a couple of years since I’ve been to Supanova, but I was quite surprised by the quantity of Adventure Time cosplayers. You couldn’t have throw a rock without hitting four or five Finns. A bit of aiming would have easily brained several Fionas and Princess Bubblegums. There were at least two Ice Kings doing the rounds, one Flame Princess and a Marceline and Marshall Lee with actual guitars. On the 40k front there were some generic guardsman and at least two other Commissars, but they had much better uniforms than me, so I stayed out of their way lest I be accused of Heresy ;D

All in all, an excellent day out!

A Crown of Marble

Various updates and the passing of the Modern Major General

It’s Canada Day today, and as a consequence JJJ Breakfast kept playing O Canada (the Canadian national anthem for those who require such enlightenment). I couldn’t help but notice that it (or at least the arrangement they were playing) bears quite a resemblance to part of Handel’s Water Music. This is not of any significance at all, just something I noticed 🙂

Similarly the guitar riff on the Grates new single Burning Bridges I believe it’s called, is taken directly from Pachelbel’s Canon. Again this does not signify.

On the subject of Canadians (which we were) everyone is probably waiting with bated breath (OK, maybe not) to hear how our expedition to the Supanova event on Sunday went. Well it really requires a full write up rather than the short summary I could fit in here, but suffice to say it was a fun day, despite my making a total fool of myself in front of Jewel Staite (which, lets face it, was likely to happen no matter what ensued).

(Jewel is Canadian, hence the segue – you knew that right?)

On a sadder sci-fi note I have to pause to mark the passing of Don S. Davis – perhaps most familiar as General Hammond in the Stargate franchise who passed away on Saturday at the age of 65. He will be missed.

As a rather inadequate tribute I here reprint the sonnet dedicated to General Hammond’s head I wrote many many years ago for a fanfic challenge…

I sing to all of Hammond, George by name,
The modern Major Gen’ral, it is said,
That many sing of valour, and of fame,
But person’ly I sing about his head,

A crown of marble it was once described,
By Hathor (she is evil, also old),
Her hair was artificial, you decide,
Perhaps beneath that wig she too is bald?,

But back to Hammond’s head, it well could scorch,
The eyes, reflecting any source of light,
By flouro-tube or halogen or torch,
By sun or moon a beacon shining bright,

The thing to note the most of Hammond’s hair,
Is just the fact it simply isn’t there,

Enough said.

Kolfinnia Kokokoho?

Finland! Finland! On the Baltic Sea! Finland! Finland! Also known as Suomi!

Ah, busy week, busy week.

Not only have I been co-ordinating our efforts to go to the Supanova convention tomorrow (I have four tickets in my hot little hands right now which mean we’ll be able to go straight in rather than queuing) but we’ve got a new employee at work. His name is Lasse and there are a number of interesting things to note about him…

  • He’s from Finland
  • His birthday is February 29th, making him only 6 years old
  • Ummm…

Well he’s only been with us for a week so there are no doubt plenty of other interesting things that shall be revealed in time.

(Oh, and I know he’s not really 6 years old, but it’s such a common joke about people born on the 29th that it shouldn’t really require any explanation).

We asked him about the Estonian message from last week. It turns out that as similar as Estonian and Finnish may appear to us Indo-Europeans they’re actually mutually incomprehensible – although there are a few well known similarities such as the Estonian for “milk” meaning “sour milk” in Finnish, and the Estonian for “Wedding Day” meaning “Trouble Day”. This is no doubt a great source of amusement among Finns, probably of much the same calibre as the Australian/Kiwi “Fush and Chups” 🙂

I was tempted to ask him about the famous “Kokoo kokoon koko kokko” but figured it’s probably as annoying to Finns as “You chop a tree down then you chop it up!” is to English speakers, so I let it be.

I also caught up with Katie over dinner on Thursday night. We wandered around Subiaco looking for somewhere to eat, but everywhere was either stupidly expensive, closing or Indian (I have nothing against India, but I just can’t abide Indian food). We ended up at Cafe Ecco where we had a potato and rosemary pizza – which is a lot more delicious than it sounds. We then adjourned to Gelare for ice cream. A good night overall.

Today I headed over to the Galleria for groceries and a haircut. I figured I could do with a haircut before tomorrow as while the odds of Jewel Staite spotting me in the audience, falling madly in love with me and us living happily ever after in a flying castle are ’round about fifty billion to one, they’re bound to be slightly better (say forty billion nine hundred and ninety nine million nine hundred and ninety nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine to one) if I’ve got a decent haircut. Or at least any kind of haircut at all as opposed to the rather unorganised mess that was sitting on top of my head. So I got one. Any kind of haircut that is. I don’t know if it makes me look any less geeky, but at least it looks a bit neater.

Continuing with preparations for tomorrow I’ve spent the last hour or so fashioning a Pringles can into an insulated Red Bull can holder. You know, if I feel the need for a quick caffeine hit. The only problem (apart from my apartment now being littered with styrofoam scraps) is that it looks a bit like a pipe bomb, so I’ll need to be careful with it. Hope there won’t be any bag searches 🙂

Finally a FreakAngels Google Earth update. After the interlude last week the story is back in full swing, with Jack seemingly about to get into serious trouble. The GE file has been fully updated – including the exact location of “Camping Etc.”, which I managed to track down by dint of a lot of zooming around studying intersections (I could tell you where it is, but you’ll just have to download the file and see).

That’s it, early night before tomorrow’s festivities 🙂

You learn something new every day

Staite and Statitability

I had no idea that Estonian was Finno-Ugric!

(Discovered after someone sent a flower order through our system this morning with a message in what I initially thought to be Finnish)

Quite busy at the moment co-ordinating a trip to the Supanova convention next weekend. There is the possibility that I may be able to get some free tickets which (along with the fact that Jewel Staite is going to be there *g*) seems to have motivated the guys to want to go. What’ll happen if I can’t get any free tickets will be interesting.

One odd thing I’ve noticed over the last week of emailing back and forth about the event is that I have terrible trouble typing the word Staite. I always seem to type statite instead. The fact that I even know that “statite” is a word is slightly worrying.

Later: Water ice on Mars! W00t!! 😀

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