Called it.

From now on, we're Terrans. Decency is weakness and will get us killed and the lives of everyone on this ship and the Federation are at stake. So you do what you must, whatever you must, to anyone. 

Captain Lorca: Despite Yourself, Star Trek: Discovery

And there you have it, the mid-season premier of Discovery: mirror universe, little goatees for everyone, as predicted.  Long live the Terran Empire...

- Sid

Indigo III: My secret country.

 

 “Most of us, I suppose, have a secret country but for most of us it is only an imaginary country. Edmund and Lucy were luckier than other people in that respect.”

C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader 

Having tried two different routes to replacing my Narnia books at Indigo, I shrugged my shoulders and moved on - life is short, and there's always something else to worry about.  In my case, it was apartment hunting.

Karli and I live in an older three-story walkup, and whereas we're in a great neighbourhood which is located within easy walking distance of the ocean, the building itself leaves something to be desired.  As such, we've been looking at other residential options in the greater Vancouver region. Having found an interesting option on Craigslist™ earlier this week, we made an appointment for noon Saturday.

A couple of days later, Karli pointed out to me that she'd done a search on the Indigo™ site, and the missing books from the local branch's Narnia selection were available at their Metrotown location.*

"Thank you, love, but that's a bit of a trip just to make up a set of books. It's really not that big a deal."

She replied, "Yes, but we're going to be right near there on Saturday looking at an apartment." 

Bingo.

We looked at the apartment this morning (which we ended up not applying for - great apartment, wrong location for us) and then made our way to the nearby Indigo/Chapters store.  Karli managed to find the single copy of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe that they had in stock* (located on the regular inventory rather than the $6 book table) and I found all but two of the other books, two which had been well stocked at the other store.

As it turned out, the books were not only on sale at six dollars each, but three for ten dollars, and a friendly checkout clerk very kindly pro-rated my five books so that the entire stack only cost me seventeen dollars.  (Thereby redeeming Indigo's reputation more than a little.) A quick lunch, then back to our local store, where I was able to purchase the remaining two books (and a copy of Tarzan of the Apes to legitimately qualify for the 3 for $10 pricing.)

Skimming through the books, I felt a strong sense of nostalgic pleasure. Narnia was my first introduction to fantasy - my first secret country, to quote C.S. Lewis - and in spite of all of the competition that it's had over the decades, it still holds a special place in my heart.  I'm going to add my seven new copies to my 2018 Resolution reading list - I've re-read them many, many times over the years, but it's always a pleasure to visit a place that I think of as my home.

  - Sid

* This is exactly the sort of thing that makes Karli such a treasure as a companion.

If at first.

 

A couple of New Years' back, I confessed to having been a lazy geek, and resolved to do better.  To be truthful, as with many New Year's resolutions, results have been mixed, and I've decided that it's time to formulate a more specific plan to address my shortcomings in the area of geekness.

To be fair, it's not as bad as I make it sound.  I've certainly managed to keep up with the major genre motion picture releases*, and even attended a couple of the less successful films, such as Ghost in the Shell and Blade Runner 2049, not to mention outright mistakes like Alien: Covenant.

However, I feel that a more dedicated geek would have taken a look at The Dark Tower, War for the Planet of the Apes, or Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets**, and I agree with my girlfriend Karli*** that not seeing Hidden Figures was a mistake on my part - which I plan to address now that it's on Netflix™.

(Just for the record, I have no regrets about skipping The Great Wall or The Mummy, but I'm open to arguments to the contrary.)

 

Sadly, my record for television series is abysmal.  Of course I watched Doctor Who, and both Star Trek:  Discovery and Stranger Things 2 made the viewing list, but there have been a lot of things like The Orville, Legion, The Dark, The Handmaid's Tale, the whole Daredevil / Jessica Jones / Luke Cage / Iron Fist / Defenders thread, and a host of other programs that probably deserved some attention.

I've also developed a significant reading backlog.  Now, before you panic, don't worry:  I still read as much as ever, but it generally involves ebooks on my iPhone.  But I've never stopped buying  books - real books, paper books - and as a result, I've got a substantial stack in the study at home.

So, part of this year's resolution is to get rid of that particular pile of paper, although, to be honest, pending the space for another bookshelf, those books will just go into the stacks of books that I have read.  Still, it's the thought that counts.

Having laid out the problem, what's the solution?  For the books, my plan is to read at least one paper book every week.  Some of that will replace iPhone reading on the bus, and some of it will replace time spent looking at internet trivia on my iPad before going to sleep - a price I shall gladly pay, to quote the Solomon Kane movie.

It's a bit more challenging to schedule TV time.  When she agreed to move in with me,  Karli*** warned me that she watches a lot of television, and over time we've developed a system where we spend time together after work, then take a little time on our own where she watches television in the living room and I retire to the spare bedroom to play games, surf the Net, and, of course, work on blog postings.

However, she also sometimes visits her friend John on Sunday nights (ironically, to watch either Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead, both of which I should probably be watching) or spends time at her sister Stefanie's place (for The Bachelor/ette, which, to be clear, I feel absolutely no desire to watch), and going forward I'm going to schedule TV viewing during those time slots.

And that's the plan!  Wish me luck - I think we're all too aware of how quickly the spirit of a New Year's resolution collapses under the weight of everyday life.  Hopefully this will be easier to stick to than those damn gym visits.

  - Sid

* Interestingly, if you search Google™ for "2017 movie releases", Thor: Ragnarok is listed as a comedy.

** I will be taking care of that last one in the near future, regardless of the less than glowing reviews of the film.  I actually own Ambassador of the Shadows,  the Valerian and Laureline graphic novel by writer Pierre Christin and artist Jean-Claude Mézières that provided part of the basis for the film, and the trailers intrigued me in terms of how Mézières' artwork was translated to the big screen.

*** As previously, my gorgeous girlfriend Karli, to be accurate.

Let's all just get along, okay?

"Who's the new guy?"

- Sid

P.S. If anyone from Funko™ reads this, it is challenging to get the laser rifle to stay in the Lone Wanderer's hand. CHALLENGING.

Indigo Fail II: Close but no cigar.

She remembered, as every sensible person does, that you should never never shut yourself up in a wardrobe.

 C.S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

Hello again, Indigo.  So I thought to myself, "Wait, maybe they have all of those Narnia books for sale online.  That would be cool, because really, I did like the cover art."

Unfortunately not, as it turns out, but I feel I should point out that Pauline Baynes illustrated the Narnia books rather than wrote them, although I'm sure she'd appreciate the vote of confidence if she were still alive.

I'm a bit sad that no one at Indigo has noticed that this is wrong. It's understandable to me that the people entering data into the catalogue don't necessarily need to know anything about literature, but surely there must be some kind of approval process in place - hopefully involving someone who is paying attention and cares about this sort of thing.

Or not.

- Sid

Indigo Fail I: All for one, one for all.

Hello, Indigo.  Just a quick note - if you want to tempt me into spending $42 on replacing my beloved 37 year old boxed set of Narnia books, which are sadly suffering from split spines and loose pages, you need to have all seven books for sale, not just four.

- Sid

P.S. And you can't even blame this on people buying books because of movies, because then Prince Caspian wouldn't be available, and The Horse and His Boy would.

So there.

Geekmas 2017: And to all a good night.

 

It's an interesting exercise to make a list of shopping suggestions for Christmas.  On one hand, it's just a practical thing to do.  People are often at a loss when it comes to choosing gifts for the holiday season, and being able to anonymously read a list of affordable suggestions helps to take guesswork out of the process. 

On the other hand, it closes the door on creativity:  here's the list, choose an option.  But even if someone doesn't want to buy something from the list, it points them in the right direction, just in case they were entertaining ideas involving, I don't know, sports tickets or bottles of top shelf tequila.

With those two options on the table, the most unexpected result is C, none of the above. Karli and I went to a pre-Christmas get-together at her father and stepmother's on the 23rd, and although I was grateful for the gifts I received, they were a bit generic in nature:  socks, gift cards, chocolate, a cell phone charging shelf, and so on.  Given that this was exactly the sort of situation for which I'd created my list, it was a bit of a letdown to see that nothing had made the cut.

And that's where perfect girlfriends come in.  When I unwrapped my gifts from Karli on the morning of the 25th, I was thrilled to see that she'd chosen the items from my list that I most wanted to receive:  The Handmaid's Tale, Marvel Comics: The Untold Story*, a blu-ray copy of Rogue One, and the Fallout Power Armour action figure.

And, AND, she got me a waffle maker!!!  I'd love to say it's a clever tie in with Stranger Things and Eleven's Eggo™ fetish, but really, we just like waffles.** (Thereby proving that going rogue can be just as rewarding as sticking to the wish list.)

Thank you again for everything, Karli. As always, words fail to express how happy I am that you've chosen to be with me. I'd also like to thank the people who gave me Amazon and Indigo gift cards, trust me, they'll be put to good use. And the chocolate, thanks for the chocolate!

In conclusion, I'd like to wish a merry Christmas to anyone reading this - I hope your holiday season has been as happy as mine.

- Sid

* I've been casually skimming through Sean Howe's history of Marvel, and just on the basis of looking at random pages, I'm fascinated - it's definitely next on the list when I finish what I'm currently reading. (More on reading plans in my New Year's posting.)

** And it made perfect, delicious waffles right out of the box, no teething pains or setup issues.

Geekmas 2017: "Rebel Rebel, how could they know?"

I received an early Christmas gift tonight from Karli - a little something to accessorize my outfit for The Last Jedi tomorrow afternoon!  Thank you very much, my love, it's perfect!

  - Sid

Tonight, the part of Snoke will be played by...

 

Wait, what if it's Krennic?

Supreme Leader Snoke, that is, the mastermind behind the First Order in the new Star Wars trilogy - what if he's Krennic? When I was listing previous villains that might be Snoke, I completely forgot about Rogue One.

Makes no sense, though - there wasn't even a hint that Krennic might be a Force adept, not to mention having the base on Scarif pretty definitively blown up by the Death Star.  On that basis, you might as well have Snoke turn out to be Grand Moff Tarkin (he said, looking around hopefully).

No? Oh well, back to the drawing board...

- Sid