Category: Geekery

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!! 😀

I think I’m better than Chuck Swirsky!

Max Headroom! M-M-M-Max Headroom!

So, it’s the 22nd of November 1987. You’re in Chigaco Illinois, and you’re settling down to watch the late night showing of the Doctor Who serial The Horror of Fang Rock. Fifteen minutes in, this happens…

How could I not have heard of this before? It’s awesome!! 😀

(I’ll try and blog a bit more this week – work’s been insane)

(Oh, and the link’s probably not safe for work – or at least any work that values good taste)

Do the chickens have large talons?

Ligers do not in fact have magical skills

Yesterday I finally got around to watching a film I’ve been meaning to for ages – Napoleon Dynamite (it was on special at JB’s and I needed something else to buy so it didn’t look like I’d gone in there just to get season four of Gilmore Girls :))

Well what, I ask you is there about this film not to like? Creepy Uncle Rico, ligers, time machines, llamas, holy statues protecting the school hallways and truly awful portraiture. It’s an exuberant paean to sheer, small town pointlessness, and probably the best thing I’ve watched all year to date.

I’m off now to brush up on my computer hacking skills!

A Drop of Wyvern’s Blood

How to win friends and poison them with mocktails.

Quite a while ago the Dragon’s Landing (which is currently on hiatus) put the call out for beverages to serve in the bar of their (completely fictional) inn. I don’t think they had much of a response, but due to a combination of boredom and caffeine craving over my two weeks off I managed to come up with one – a cocktail (or mocktail?) that I have decided to name the “Gary Gygax Wyvern’s Blood”.

(Call it my own little tribute to the master – it’ll have to do until we can get the Tomb of Horrors built for him).

The recipe is as follows…

  • 2/5ths your favourite cola beverage
  • 2/5th dark apple juice
  • 1/5th water (without this it’s way too sweet)

(If you want to go alcoholic you could possibly replace the water with some kind of spirit – in this case it should be called Dragon’s Blood)

Voila!

It’s probably only my deranged tastebuds that will ever actually like this bizarre combination, but I throw it out there in case anyone has a party coming up and needs dare/torture material.

On a similar theme Ryan alerted me to the “Skin Disease or D&D Character?” online quiz. I got 94% – I would have done better except I presumed no one would be stupid enough to name a character after an infectious plague (I was wrong :)).

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