Battlestar Galactica

First, the Ramen noodles were awesome (see previous post).



Second... OMG. I got on the BSG wagon a few years late but holy crap. Drama! Politics! Space battles! The human race is going to destroy itself... no, maybe it's not... oh wait, yes it is! Ahh!

I finished all 4 (new) seasons within a few weeks and it was one hell of an emotional roller coaster. I gotta give kudos to those writers for the way they manipulated those characters. There had to be a psychiatrist on that writing team having a psycho-gasm with all the bad shit people did to each other in that show. Baltar was a freakin' head trip, and although my friend thinks he should have been thrown out an airlock early on, he was actually one of my favorite characters. It was amusing seeing the desperation on his face at certain points, especially when number six would randomly appear to mess with him even more. And then I always wanted him to do the right thing, but half the fun was waiting to see what he would do wrong...

Now, I didn't see the original Battlestar Galactica. I've only seen the new one. One of my fellow geeky coworkers was all up in arms about the changes they made from the old one. It took my good review to get him to get past the first episode. His biggest beef?

Starbuck? Originally a guy.
(But she still smokes and sleeps around.)



My coworker likens Starbuck's gender change to rewriting Star Wars so that Han Solo is a girl (while that's actually an amusing thought, I get his point). Since I haven't seen the original I can't comment. He keeps bitching about Starbuck every time I ask him where he's at in the series, but he's still watching, so clearly it doesn't bother him as much as he says it does. So what else changed?

Boomer? Black dude.
(Not even close.)



Cylons?
(From Toaster to Titillating.)

Centurion gets a face lift...


And then we have skinjobs!


There are a lot of other changes from what I hear, but the writers gave themselves a valid reason from deviating so far from the original. I call it the Star Trek plotline escape.

Seen the new Star Trek? That whole oops Spock created / went through a wormhole and messed up the space-time continuum so that everything changed but the same players are still there thing? Yeah. It's kind of like that in the new BSG. There's a line repeated through most of the series (although a lot more often in the later half): "This has all happened before, and it will all happen again." Yes, yes, we get it, history repeats itself. But wait! There's more. At the very end, in the last episode, there is a conversation going on in which this statement is given (I won't spoil anything for you by saying who said it etc etc... it's non spoilery on its own):

"Let a complex system repeat itself long enough, eventually something surprising might occur."

(Fair warning, the following assessment is slightly spoilery in concept.)

Put those two quotes together and BAM! There's your reason for the changes. This is NOT the same Battlestar Galactica. It wasn't meant to be. This is history repeating itself. The old BSG happened, yes. Starbuck was a dude, the cylons were toasters, etc. But now it's happening again. It's the same, but different. Starbuck is a girl. The cylons look like hot chicks. Why all the changes? Because the complex system is creating surprises on its most recent repeat. Oooo. Some of you may think this is a cheap way to bring back the awesome show to end all awesomeness, but you lore sticklers gotta admit it's a good way (or at least an acceptable way) for the new writers to justify their adaptations.

And someone said they didn't like the ending to the new one, but I actually thought it was good. It resolved the storyline in a satisfying way. Plus it was a much happier ending than I expected compared to all the pessimistic build up (maybe that's why people didn't like it?).

My recommendation? If you haven't watched it, go seek it out. Netflix, your local rental place, a friend that has the DVDs, maybe even a library, whatever. Get your hands on that series and go watch.

I'll even see if I can find the original BSG and watch it while you watch the new one.



~Sass~

Ramen Noodles of Win and Awesome

Happy New Year everyone :) Yes, it's over a week since the coming of 2011, but I haven't blogged yet this year so I thought I'd play catch up and throw that out there.

Today I've been struck with the Ramen Noodle bug. Good Morning America (or some similar show... I don't know because I wasn't really paying attention) had a special on the popularity of Ramen Noodles and how the craze is coming to America. They don't mean the Ramen noodles in the packaging with the little flavor packet. They mean Ramen noodles that have been deliciously re-invented into bowls of yummy goodness. Of course I immediately had to run to my computer and look up recipes for Ramen noodles, and then run upstairs to check the expiration date of the box of chicken Ramen we bought from Costco forever and a day ago.

Sad story - we have actually reached the recommended use-by date on the package. 01/05/11. It's only 4 days past that so I figure if I cook all of them today I should be good. Right? Let's hope so. If not, I'm denied Ramen until we can get to a store and it's snowmageddon out there so I don't want to go driving for a cheap package of Ramen.

Anyway...

I'm now struck with extreme indecision. How many recipes could there really be for Ramen noodles, you ask. Too many, I answer. Google "ramen noodle recipes." I dare you.

The one thing I got from going through the search results is that I could pretty much throw anything I have in my cabinets into ramen noodle soup (within reason) and it will turn out divine. I'm favoring recipes with shrimp or chicken since we have a frozen abundance of both. I believe I also have a choice of veggie or chicken broth, and we even have some dried shiitake mushrooms that I could use to make Shiitake Dashi broth.

(I say this like I'm actually going to do this myself and not have my husband make it. He usually cooks. For the sake of this blog, I'll pretend I'm the one that will be cooking.)

The recipe here to the right actually looks really good and is really easy to make. I may go with that one. Veggie broth, veggies, Ramen noodles, soy sauce, chili oil, minced fresh ginger root, and green onions. Looks like that cook also garnished it with a lettuce leaf and a slice of mushroom. I think I see regular onions in there too. Mmmmmmmmm. Along with all the tea we just bought from Teavana yesterday, it looks like I'll have a lot of warmth to combat the extreme cold blowing through Colorado the next few days.

Okay, enough blogging. I've made myself so hungry I think I'm getting heartburn. I'll let you know which recipe I picked and write it out for you if it turns out to be as dreamy as I think it will be.


Today's LOLvideo:



Enjoy!



~Sass~

Oh Look, a Shiny!

Today, while our system at work decided to go tits up for a few hours, I rolled around the writers forums skimming for something that might catch my interest. I gravitated towards the research part of the site because sometimes the weirdest stuff comes up in conversation and the answers tend to inspire me. What did I come across today?

Racing thoughts & bipolar disorder

It sucked me in. My mom is bipolar and the first thought I had on reading the title was "I wonder if this happens to my mom?" I read the initial question (what is it like for people that experience it?) and then read the responses, and then...

The more I read it, the more I thought, huh. That happens to me all the time. I thought it was just me having a lot of mental ADD. It didn't occur to me that it might not be normal. It certainly isn't an unpleasant experience for me, not like it's described in those few responses in the thread. I don't go into the negative beating myself up and saying "you suck you suck you suck" over and over in my head. It's more like... well, here, let me see if I can come up with an example.

Back to the original reason I'm blogging: the system at work is down. At that point my first thought was to check email. I got to my email, saw that one of my brainstorming buddies was online but away, and it occurred to me that I could use this time to write. I then jumped to thoughts of using writing programs such as Scrivener, which then made me think of when I was messing with the Beta version of Scrivener on my husband's computer, which then made me remember that there was a bunch of crap I needed him to get done today, so I went back to my email to message him about it. I then went back to the writer's forums, which looped me back in thought to planning my novel, so while I was reading the forums I was also in the back of my head thinking about how I could go about getting back into the mind set of writing as my werewolf Kate (who has been renamed Mallory, but that's another blog topic), and I began to wonder if I should just start retyping the story to get into that frame of mind. (It's first person and I've been out of it a while... I'd need to get back in Kate/Mallory frame of mind.) Then, I remembered when I was writing my NaNo this year that I used a lot of mental ADD in that character to get me through my word count, which then looped me back to the bipolar thread on the writer's forums and I thought, wow, I need to blog about that.

This all happened in a matter of about ten minutes.

Then I went back and checked (because I keep checking) to see if the system was up, and lo, it is still down for the count. At which point my brain then went back to thinking of ways I could revise my story, and I tabbed back over to this blog window to continue blogging.

I don't think you even want to know how long it takes me to actually blog, because the mental zig zagging that has happened during the course of even this one post would probably make you dizzy. And I consider it normal. It happens to me every day.

This statement in particular I found hilariously accurate:

Just a bit to add is that one thought leads to another leads to another and so on. Until the person forgets where they started. Sometimes, the person would have to back track to get to the first thought that started the whole mess.

This happens to me all the time. Occasionally I even have to back track multiple times because I run off on another tangent while I'm back-tracking.

It's why (here comes another zig) that I loved my previous job, and why I am starting to like my current job. I like these jobs that keep me so busy I can hardly think, precisely because they keep me so busy that I can hardly think. It blocks out my ADD. I simply don't have time to get lost in thought all day (and believe me, if I had the time, I would literally be lost in thought all day long). Did this make me a total space cadet growing up? Yes, yes it did. I strongly suspect the reason I became a writer was to organize and record all of my many weird and interesting thoughts. Sometimes it's exhausting having a brain that never quits.

Does this happen to anyone else? Does your brain just go and go and go like some demented Energizer Bunny on crack? I'd be interested to know how many of us writers experience this kind of thing.


Distractedly yours,


~Sass~

Almost! Almost!

Tomorrow is the Harry Potter madness! So excited!



(Also, sorry for not posting for two weeks. I didn't realize it had been that long between posts. Bad Sass. Bad.)

I'm rolling right along with NaNo. Right around day eleven or so I had a change of heart with my story and took a three day break. It was a good break, because I came out of it and decided that no, I was not going to write this story from the perspective of the snakeshifter. No, I was going to write it through the perspective of one of the very human coworkers of the snake shifter. And not just any human coworker. No! I was going to write this thing through the perspective of the office gossip chick.

Let me tell you, things got interesting.

I did get three days behind in my writing, though, and I'm still working to get caught up from that. Last night I was "only" 4800 words behind. I'm going to try to get back on track by the end of this weekend, and then I'll tackle the holiday when it gets here.

Thanksgiving typically kills my word count. If I'm not ahead of my word count by that Wednesday, I'm generally doomed to miss my 50k goal. We're traveling back to KC again this year (MO side, kthx) to see family and of course we have to hit all three Thanksgiving dinners. But I will make 50k this year. I will. Why?

I want my discount on the Windows Scrivener!

So yeah. Cheer me on. I'm totally making it this year.

To keep in the spirit of Harry Potter-ness, here it is. The Harry Potter cast tries their best at American accents. Enjoy!

'American Talk' With Josh Horowitz And The 'Harry Potter' Cast



~Sass~

Harry Potter and the Movie Marathon

Harry Potter is almost upon us.

I admit to being a complete book nerd (like you haven't figured that out already?). I waited in line to buy each book as it came out (insisting, of course, that I get my own separate copy in addition to my husband's so that we could both read the books at the same time), faithfully saw all of the movies, and of course had to buy them all on DVD. Except for the sixth one, which we somehow still don't own, but I intend to remedy that.

Since I had anticipated not having a job on November 19th when the movie comes out, I planned on going with my whole team to the theater that day to take over an entire row of seats in a midday show. That plan did not change when I got the new job. So guess what I get to do with manager approval? Take the day off and go see the movie. Damn straight.

It's going to be crazy. We're going out to brunch, going to see a 1pm-ish movie, hitting up the happy hour at a nearby bar and grill, and then possibly doing dinner. Yes, I am friends with an entire team of Harry Potter fans. We are awesome. And somewhat insane.

(Yes, we did secure a baby sitter for that day. I am so not bringing our little bundle of teething cuteness into a theater.)



Of course we have to prepare for the 7th movies by watching the first six. I'm still trying to figure out how to fit in that many movie watching hours with a finite number of free weeknights and weekend hours available, but I think we can pull it off.

Anyone have an extra scarf? :)




~Sass~

Cold Hearted Snake

Snakeshifters. Yes, there, I said it. I have snakeshifters in my NaNo this year. The awesomeness that is reptilian were-form has me trying to think up all kinds of great battle scenes for later in the story. Although, typical to NaNo, I haven't quite figured out who my bad guys are yet. I've simply referred to them as... THEM. In capital letters. It's my flag to go back and change the reference once I know their identities. I can't tell you how jerky it is to read through a paragraph and see "THEM"... "THEY"... "THEM"... "THEIR," but oh well. It's all part of the fun.



I am a little behind, though. As my husband put it, our 7 month old "thinks sleep is for the weak," and by that I mean as of last weekend he's been waking up crying multiple times a night. I don't know if he's teething again or what. Since it's super dry here we started running a humidifier in his room. That helps some but he's still waking up way more than he should, and it's making my brain short circuit. Hard to stay up late and meet that word goal when I suddenly cease to function after about 7:30.

I'm most of the way through season 2 of Weeds, though. That show is freaking hilarious.

We have a new plan to tackle our lagging word counts tomorrow. Multiple birthday parties and game nights shall not interfere with snakey NaNo goodness!

A JOB I HAS ONE

Much happiness. I'm still gainfully employed as of 9am this morning when I accepted an internal position. Made my Monday a lot better, let me tell you.

Don't forget - it's the first day of NaNo! Join in the craziness! I mean, come on, I got my husband to do it, and he's never written a sentence of fiction in his life. If nothing else, make it your goal to beat him. :)

Those of you already doing it, what are your first lines? Here is mine in all of its silly glory:

"What do you mean, you 'lost your tail'? How do you lose an entire appendage?"

I have no idea where I'm going with it, but that's half the fun!

So how was your Monday?




~Sass~