Let's Hit Opening Time

I'm in the kind of mood you get from hearing the Shallow Be Thy Game on the way to work. It is the best kind of mood, so let's get some stuff out of the way before reality ruins it.

Between the Outlook Mountains and the QC River lies the Valley of Routine. It is there that I am trapped most of my days, in constant battle with the warrior tribe of Daily Crap. They are big and vicious, but not one of them is so mighty that it will not be completely forgotten by the time I'm 20 seconds into Fascination Street. That's really all I wanted to say on the subject.

In other media news, Dexter is totally rocking my world. I just finished season one, and it rates a solid five stars on the iDoc scale. Please note that if you're the kind of pussy who minds some blood and screaming on TV, you will definitely want to skip this one. The beauty of this show is that, much like Dexter himself, I can never tell you why I love it so. Also, Darla.

Ariel Ambulance Day was a blast!

This is me, piloting in the real Firefly Ariel Ambulance.

View idoc's map

Taken in (See more photos here)

Thad dressed appropriately for the occasion

And then we went to Maize Maze. It was a-maize-ing fun!

Winter is upon us, and I'm shopping for snowboard shoes and ski-passes. Life rocks.

Oh , and did I mention that I stared learning Spanish a few weeks ago? I've picked up a lot of words from my Argentinean half over the years, but I'm only now starting to learn some sentence structure: Si, mi culo es verde, pero mi hermana es una gatita caliente, y tu mama es tan gorda, sus ojos estan azul azul, y el resto es culo.

28 Sequels Later

I really liked 28 Days Later, and enough people liked 28 Weeks Later for me to give it a shot, so I did. And I just spent an hour and 40 minutes watching Aliens.

I mean, the disc did say 28 Weeks Later, but they just a re-shot the Alien script in London, with the virus playing the alien. The government wants to settle a place that should have been blown up to bits after the event of the first movie, things get out of control again, and the army is sent to do a half-assed job of killing everything that moves.

It suddenly hit me that Sgt. Doyle is, in fact, Cpl. Hicks. Major Scarlet is, of course, Ripley, so determined to save Newt, the scared little blond girl. Scarlet's also a little of a Vasquez, come to think of it. Robert Carlyle plays the queen alien, who now possesses a little intelligence and planning ability, and the little escape capsule ends up carrying an alien. Original.

Not quite worth two hours of my life, and now I have a sudden urge to watch Aliens (the super-awesomelicious director's cut!) again.

Party Animal

Yes, iDoc goes to a comic convention!

Again.

This weekend was Silicon weekend. I've been to 4 large conventions before (Comic-Con and WonderCon, twice each), as well as one tiny convention (APE). Silicon was a whole new experience for me (especially after the overdose that was Comic-Con 2007), because there was so little happening that it was hard to say if the con was on or off.

Except for the dozens of costumed people walking around in the hotel lobby.
And meeting great new Browncoats.
And the night-time parties in the hotel rooms.
And meeting more new Browncoats. Browncoat meetings are always fun, because regardless of differences in age, jobs, talents and background, we are all very passionate about one thing, and in the meetups, we don't really care about anything else.
And learning to waltz.
And dressing up in our finest for an all-geek dance party. And waltzing. And dancing to the Doctor Who theme. And stomping around to the Imperial March with 200 people, including a Sandman, several Kaylees, a Jayne, a french maid, Poison Ivy, and at least two teen-aged zombies.
And yeah, I said I took a waltz lesson. And loved it.

You've never seen a party like the Hallo-Whedon Hootenanny. It started out fun and funny, with some guided waltz, polka, and some guided dancing that I don't even know what to call, with most people in the room not knowing how to dance, but having a great time trying to. Nearly everyone was in costume, or shindig-inspired outfits. About 15 minutes after we arrived, Arielle invited me for a dance, and we pivoted all over the ballroom like was GD Fred Astaire. She's that good a dancer. For a moment it seemed like I could actually dance, and I clung to that illusion for the rest of the night.

Most of the time the music was modern-ish dance music, and people just did their own thing on the dance floor. Somewhere in the middle of all that, they played the Imperial March, and everyone marched around the ballroom, stomping their feet as hard as they could. It was the cleanest joy I can remember. It was all so friendly and open, so pose-less and unjudgemental, so unlike just about any party I've ever been to, that I just wanted to stay there and jump around with those people for hours more.

This is not a feeling I get often. I don't easily meet new people, and I'm terrified of dancing. I don't get to forget this very often, and I am bummed to tears to let this weekend go.