Gonna Try This Again

Gonna try to do the thing where I take one picture a day for a whole year and post them online. I think this is like the third time I try this?

Hopefully I'll stick with it this year. I've made a tumblr blog entirely dedicated to it: One A Day.

We'll see how this goes.

(Also my brother didn't come back home for Christmas, so that was a miserable experience. Our first Christmas without him. Hopefully this won't become a regular thing, but he lives clear on the other side of the country, so I fear it will.)

Sometimes I feel that there is something very wrong with me and I don't know how to change or fix it.

Swearing is really the least of my problems and it's one of the least problematic things I am capable of.

There is a wounded hatred in my soul and I don't know where to direct it. Or what to do with it.

So I'll go watch another children's movie and be shamed for it because I'm actually an adult, but what else am I supposed to be doing when all I keep hearing is that activities that are traditionally normal for adults are all frowned upon and bad.

What am I supposed to be doing here, exactly?

A Day at the Movies

Got to see Danny Boyle's Frankenstein on the big screen today.

It was AWESOOOOOOOOOOOOOME!!!

To be honest though it wouldn't have been anything I would be interested in if Benedict Cumberbatch wasn't in it. But he is, and he was amazing as the Creature, and next week I'll get to see him as Victor Frankenstein (played this week by Jonny Lee Miller, who was also awesome).

I'm so happy I got to see it in the theatre though.

My dad ended up coming to see it with me and managed to not fall asleep during. Though that did make the parts where an actor was nearly naked a bit awkward. Whatevs.

CAN'T WAIT FOR NEXT WEEK!!

Single-Minded Focus

So I pretty much just spent the last week or so binge-watching four seasons of Teen Wolf. 

I'm done now until season 5 is all out, so I'm a bit at loose ends here.

I just finished reading a Teen Wolf fanfic and this is what it's come to.

It's like the first time I read Fruits Basket and Hana-Kimi straight through: now that it's over I'm just wandering around between things.

At the moment I'm back to watching true crime shows and playing with random things. Which is usually what I do before the next big thing takes hold. Hopefully I'll get back to knitting in a significant way because I have a blanket to finish.

Also Mark Gatiss has apparently started writing on Sherlock and I'm screaming.

Well This Certainly Isn't Nostalgic

Luckily morning bus duty went much better today than it did the other day. I actually went on the bus this time, so there's that. I'd still rather not make a regular habit of it, but what can you do right? A job is a job.

Also today (again at the English Board) lockdown practice. Dear holy fuck I will never get used to this idea. We actually had to hide in the storage room in the gym.

This is fucking terrifying. I never had to do lockdown drills while I was in school. Never. I think my school started doing them the year after I graduated (the 2009-2010 school year). I've had maybe one drill at the French school where we ducked in the classroom. But this is the first time I've had to hide in a gym storage room for anything.

Is this what the world has come to these days? I know that America has way too many school shootings (like waaaaaaaay too many, far too many, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT PLEASE), but Canada generally doesn't have many. 

I never thought I'd have to worry about that kind of thing around here. Not that I'm really sure we'd ever have a school shooting around here for real (and if we ever do I'm moving to Mars because that would be the last fucking straw).

Go Me

Fried an egg for the first time today (all by myself, might I add) and managed to not set anything on fire. 

I AM UNSTOPPABLE!!!

Probably gonna try for a grilled cheese next time, see what happens there.

Rainbow Loom #1

Making Rainbow Loom bracelets is very addicting. I can see why they're so popular.

It's also something great I can do with my hands and generally less of a hassle than cross-stitching. Less sharp things around as well, which is a plus (nothing to stab my fingers with).

I found a thing

For a while I've been looking for physical copies of the Phoenix Wright DS games and SIMS 2 Freetime. I've looked on Amazon and Wal-Mart and I've asked about them whenever I went into a store that sells games.

The other day I checked out eBay.

Why I didn't think of that sooner, I have absolutely no idea. These games are pretty much out of print so really eBay should've been my first stop.

So yeah, depending on how much I get paid this week (if at all) I'm gonna get on that.

I've also discovered Rainbow Loom. Those bracelets are so addictive to make, I swear. I just wish the elastics weren't so expensive (I have to buy them online from the Rainbow Loom store with 12$ and up shipping, yeesh).

Anyway, hopefully I'll be able to get those games soon.

Also maybe some new Benedict Cumberbatch magazines, maybe, hopefully.

Sherlock - Pink Iro no Kenkyuu - Jay

An adaptation of the BBC re-imagining of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series, Sherlock, which aired in 2010 (season 1) and 2012 (season 2), with season 3 currently in the works.

In this series:

V.1 – Pink Iro no Kenkyuu

(from Baka-Updates Manga)

John Watson has been recently invalided home from the war in Afghanistan – where he was a doctor and a soldier – and now lives in a tiny bedsit in London. He’s got a limp, a hand tremor, and a therapist and he is bored. One day he runs across an old friend who introduces him to the most interesting man John has ever met: the world’s only consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock is strange, brilliant, and probably a bit mad; but he’s got two things to offer John right off the bat: a new flat and excitement.

Sherlock correctly deduces John’s military career and injuries just by looking at him; then invites him to come look at his flat on Baker Street. John arrives on Baker Street to check out the flat and ends up getting completely involved in Sherlock’s latest case. He spends the night visiting a crime scene, getting ‘kidnapped’ by Sherlock’s arch enemy, waiting for and then chasing down a suspect, and then chasing down a lead to find the actual serial killer.

By the time the night is over John has shot one man to save the life of a man he’s just met. He no longer has the limp, but he has a new flat and a new flatmate to go with it. He’s also certain to never be bored again with a friend and flatmate like Sherlock Holmes.

BBC’s Sherlock is a modern retelling of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novels and stories. The first episode, A Study in Pink, is based on the first Sherlock Holmes story A Study in Scarlet. If you’ve seen the episode of ASiP you already know what happens in the manga version.

Pink Iro no Kenkyuu is basically a scene-by-scene retelling of the episode, so if you enjoyed the episode you’ll most likely enjoy the manga as well. There are, of course, little differences here and there but nothing major.

The art is gorgeous, and also slightly different from the ‘traditional’ manga style. This is especially obvious in the characters’ faces. The characters were drawn to look like the actors in the show, and the designs are pretty spot-on. The artist even included Benedict’s eye freckle in Sherlock’s design.

There isn’t too much of a focus on backgrounds, but there are a few that are drawn that are brilliant and basically look exactly the same as they are in the show. There’s even a two-panel spread of the living room inside 221B that is very detailed, right down to the wallpaper. There’s also a nice panel of the park where John runs into Mike, and Roland-Kerr Further Education College (where Sherlock and the killer have their final showdown).

The physical volume also includes some colour pages, which are beautifully done and reflect the colour scheme of the TV episode.

I can’t say much about the dialogue, though I’m assuming it’s basically the same as in the show (with an extra line added here and there, usually from John thinking to himself). The manga hasn’t been picked up by any English publishers and the copy I have is in the original Japanese. There are scanlations out there, but no official translations. Though considering the show’s popularity (and the fact that the manga series got a second volume for the show’s second episode, The Blind Banker) there’s a good chance of it being brought over.

So if you’re a fan of BBC’s Sherlock definitely check out the manga; though since it more or less re-tells the episode scene-by-scene you won’t be missing any new material if you don’t read it. It’s also worth checking out for the art alone just to see the actors in the show in manga-style form.

Sherlock – Pink Iro no Kenkyuu is published by Kadokawa Comics and is not available for purchase in English at the time of this writing.

Acadian Star - Hélène Boudreau

Meg Gallant and her best friend, Nève, are competing in the Acadian Star talent competition, the biggest thing that’s ever happened in their small Cape Breton town. If the girls perform well enough, they might even make it to the finals in Halifax.

But Meg’s weird old aunt, Tante Perle, has been acting stranger and stranger – and just before the finale of the competition, she whisks Meg away from everything she knows. Meg is suddenly trapped in the time of the tragic Acadian Deportation, and she has to choose between escaping back to her own time and saving a girl who looks remarkably like Nève. Why is she trapped in the eighteenth century? Will she be able to save this stranger, so much like her best friend? Is true friendship really enough to change history?

Meg Gallant is a young girl living in Picasse Bay, a small Acadian town near the ocean. Big things are happening in town as an American Idol type talent show, called Acadian Star, is holding auditions to find young Acadian talent to compete in a bigger show in Halifax.

Meg is in an act together with her best friend and cousin Nève Gallant. All is not well, however, when Meg finds out that Nève’s father might not be able to find local work after the lobster season is over and the family will have to move to Fort McMurray, Alberta. This move would take Nève and her family all the way across the country (Picasse Bay is a fictional town, but it is meant to be in Cape Breton). This information certainly puts a damper on things, then Meg’s mood worsens even further as she accidentally angers Nève and then agrees to bring her Tante Perle to come see the Acadian Star auditions.

Tante Perle is Meg’s great aunt and has lived in Picasse Bay all her life. She’s fairly well-known around town for being a little off her rocker, talking about dolphins being in the bay and it being the sign of approaching ships.

Tante Perle seems even more agitated than usual when Meg arrives to pick her up. Instead of getting ready to go to the auditions, Tante Perle locks Meg in her cellar and sends her nearly 300 years back in time to the Acadian Deportation. Meg finds herself stuck in 1755 (or thereabouts) and finds out that she has a job to do. It turns out that Tante Perle has sent her back to be with her ancestors and to keep the family together when they’re put on the ships to be sent away. As a bonus, managing this will also keep her cousin Nève from moving away to Alberta.

Meg starts out not wanting to help, but she finds herself getting closer with the Galland family (her ancestors in the 1700s) and realizes that she can’t let them down. But her task isn’t as easy as it sounds. There are British soldiers all over the small Acadian village and keeping families together is not a priority of theirs and they’re hardly going to be taking any suggestions from a little girl.

Meg has to find a way to keep the Galland family from separating in the past so that it can remain together in the present.

Acadian Star is a fun novel, and a pretty quick read.

Things start out a bit slow; Meg’s interactions with her family and friends aren’t really all that exciting, although Tante Perle is pretty fun. Nève’s subplot about moving to Alberta brings in some drama, and the Acadian Star competition seems to just be there to give the characters something to do; but the story doesn’t really start to get going until Meg gets sent back in time.

Things pick up right away as soon as Meg lands in 1755, especially because she lands right in the middle of the action at first. Meg initially describes the situation as a nightmare, and it really is. Even when nothing much is happening there is still this sense of foreboding hanging over everything because both the reader and Meg know that something really bad is happening, but the Galland family have no idea of what’s really coming.

I don’t think that knowledge of the Acadian Deportation is needed to enjoy this book. The book doesn’t go into much detail about it, but it says enough to give a sense of what’s happening. There’s a lot of talking about the English ships taking the Acadians far away from their home; and that’s all you really need to know when you read this book. Obviously there’s a lot more to it than that, but that’s the part that Acadian Star really focuses on.

The themes of friendship and family are really strong in this book. Meg and Nève are cousins and best friends, and have been for pretty much their entire lives. They’re almost like sisters, so it’s really distressing when they find out that they’re going to be separated. Meg makes similar connections to her ancestors when she goes back in time. These people are strangers to her but they’re still technically family and Meg wants to do right by them. She starts out by helping them because of obligation, but by the end she wants to help these people because they are her family and she has developed a strong bond with them, and they with her.

One thing I’ll say about the time travelling in this book, that I really like, is that when Meg first lands in 1755 she is confused (understandably) but doesn’t spend any time trying to convince people that she is from the future. She quickly realizes what’s going on and then gets on with things. It doesn’t matter that she’s actually from the future because that won’t change anything. She then becomes more concerned with trying to figure out how to get the Galland family to understand what’s going on around them without explicitly giving everything away. Also there aren’t any pop-culture references while she’s in the past to confuse people for laughs.

Another thing I really liked about this book is that this is more or less the first book I’ve ever read (and I was in my late teens when I first read this) where the main character is a girl like me. I sometimes hear people complaining about never having a book or movie made about them. I honestly don’t care about seeing myself in movie/book characters, but I have to admit that it was nice to see myself in a work of fiction. I could’ve been a lot like Meg when I was her age (though probably a little shyer), a young girl with a best friend living in a small community with a close extended family. Picasse Bay reminded me of the communities where my parents grew up, and Meg’s family reminded me of my family. True, I don’t have a Tante Perle, but I do have aunts, cousins, and grandparents that can be very silly and go on about things and tell stories about the past. They also switch between English and French when they’re talking, which I have never seen in any other books (that I can think of at the moment), so that was nice to see for once. All this to say that Acadian Star reminds me of home.

I definitely recommend this book. Even if you aren’t from a small town/French/Acadian you still might get some enjoyment out of the time travel adventure, which is both exciting and suspenseful. There is no romantic subplot at all, just straight friendship and deep family ties. Also the main character is a preteen girl (with no superpowers, or emotional baggage, or anything to prove) who goes on a dangerous adventure and saves the day, which is different. 

Read-y Bits

Read some The Cain Saga earlier and was reminded of Cain's back-story for the first time in a while and holy fuck I forgot how messed up the whole family is. 

Jesus Christ.

Also, how old are the children supposed to be in the Cock Robin story that one of them is having sex with a grown man and nobody is bringing it up?

"Her grandfather is a priest, if this gets out it will ruin me!" Pretty sure you've got worse things to worry about there, buddy. I'm pretty sure this takes place in late 1800s/early 1900s London and surely pedophilia was as much a grevious offence then as it is now. I mean, they make a big enough deal about the incest.

... this is a weird series.

Greetings From the New Hardware

Just got my new HP Pavilion laptop today.

ALL THE EXCITE!!!

I'm liking most of it so far. The size is brilliant. It's pretty small, which is what I was looking for. Perfect for carrying around and a lot more portable than my Toshiba.

Good stuff.

Windows 8 is a bit of a learning curve so far. The start screen with the apps is starting to get a bit annoying because I can't really find anything I'm looking for.

At the moment I'm searching for the antivirus program. It's going about as well as you'd expect.

Also the new Microsoft Office edition costs 100$ a year to use. No. Not happening, thank you very much. I'm trying to find a download of an older version. I still have the disc for Microsoft Office Student somewhere in my house, though I have no idea where. Not that it would be too useful right now since the HP doesn't have a disc drive. Oh well, I'll think of something.

Also probably have to get a malware program before long.

But seriously, first I have to get Word. I don't think this laptop has a writing program at all. I must rectify that since that's what I bought the laptop for in the first place (typing on the go).

I did find a paint program though. And it's pretty awesome. Textures and things, yo.