Planescape: Torment - an old RPG lives again!

I struggled with bronchitis for the first time in my life in June and July, and let me tell you, it's awful! Co-workers treat you like a pariah no matter how many times you sputter "The doctor said I'm not contagious!” Embarrassment creeps in as you run to the washroom frequently from stress incontinence or to noisily dispatch a ball of mucous. A brisk walk becomes impossible. Small tasks take forever. Fortunately it's over now, but I can definitely think of better ways to spend two months of my life.

So it was very timely when I noticed that one of my favourite games from the past popped up on Google Play. Beamdog has been porting classic Black Isle games like Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale for mobile play over the past few years and I couldn't be happier! I never get to sit down at my desk anymore. Their latest release is Planescape: Torment, a cult classic RPG. Despite critical acclaim, Planescape did not have great sales when first released. I found my PC copy while rummaging around in a department store bargain bin :-D. It's not hard to see why - the box art isn't exactly attractive. The dude on the box is the immortal main character, The Nameless One, who wakes up in a mortuary and has to piece together his past lives through a lot of detective work. Every time he died he lost his memories, until this point, where he retains them.

It's also a difficult game to play for many reasons. Not only does one has to let go of the idea of a role-playing game as combat based, but there are smaller reasons like a shortage of recruitable companions, an abundance of challenging baddies and few places to rest. On my first play through years ago, a guide mentioned that the game stressed intelligence and wisdom, so all my points went into to those attributes, leaving my Nameless One weak in strength and dexterity. True, he is immortal, but his companions are not. It’s exhausting to constantly resurrect your party or hope you can make it to a resting spot without being taken down by a rat. The other learning curve comes from trying to figure out the Planescape multiverse which wouldn't be familiar to casual sword and sorcery fans - no dragons, elves or trolls here.

Two other things made Planescape unique - your Nameless One’s alignment is set to True Neutral but shaped by dialogue and choices made within the game. Then there is the sheer amount of text and dialogue in the game as you hunt down past connections, which is why intelligence is so important. If your Nameless One is too dumb, he won’t be able to unlock a lot of dialogue options, memories or clues. Playing the game was like reading a really good book. If hacking and slashing is your bag, you probably won't be a fan of this game.

I honestly thought I would never get to play Planescape again. I have no idea where the FIVE discs it came on went. This second time around, I found a better online guide and it was surprising by how much I missed during my first play through. It’s possible to miss a lot of the nuance in this detailed world and there were lots of little things that didn't occur to me. For example, once you gain the Stories Bones Tell Ability, you can revisit the Mortuary and talk to the zombies for more clues.

There's no shortage of complaints about the effect of video games on young people, but I played Planescape when I was a young adult and it had a positive effect on me. During this time, an older relative of mine wasn’t doing very well and went into hospice. I don’t know why the grungy, bleak landscape of Sigil was a place I wanted to be night after night. Something in the thoughtful narrative and the concept of having multiple lives made me less afraid of my relative dying - it was immensely comforting. My relative passed away the day after I finished the game and my grief was assuaged by the game's storytelling. Maybe it’s a very 21st century thing to say that a video game helped you with grief and loss?

Tea for Tuesday

It's funny how you never really move out of your parents' house. For years and years (14 in my case) boxes and bits flow and trickle into your house. So it was when Mom found one of my four childhood tea sets. I had three plastic ones - avocado green, white and ornate, blue and modern - and the real china one I am writing about today.

I think Mom secretly liked this one best because it is the only one I still have. It lived in her china cabinet, which is probably why it survived with the box and all the pieces. I don't know what happened to the plastic ones - perhaps like so many toys they went "missing" while at school.

Holding the pieces of this set makes me feel five years old again. Mom would sometimes fill the teapot with real tea but most of the time I used juice or water on my own. My parents were really not playful parents, so teatime was a solo endeavour for me plus or minus some stuffed animals.

Mom was curious to know if the tea set was worth anything, but a quick Google revealed, no. These sets by Summco are quite common and probably worth as much as what they sold for in 1981!

Escape from 2016

2016 is finally over! How has your first week of the new year been? Just because it’s a new year doesn’t mean you can toss 2016 aside, however! Actually, it’s a good idea every year to escape the old year. Let me explain in three ways that don’t involve losing weight, quitting smoking or hitting the gym.

1. Update your resume

Even if you are happy with your job, update your resume! It's easy to forget all the new skills or projects tackled in the previous year and each year your memory will get fuzzier and fuzzier. Trust me on this :D This is also important for artists and writers who may have exhibited or published. Not only will you have a handy reference, you’ll always be prepared. After six years I haven’t forgotten trying to scramble everything when my group was laid off. Writing a new resume is painful and can be a chore - it’s much easier to keep an old one up to date.

2. Clean up your phone

Rather than buying a newer phone or more storage for it, check your downloaded files folder for PDFs, Word docs and other things you may have downloaded over the year (or years). Chuck those blurry selfies too :-D A little organization will go a long way. I always like to dump the previous year photos in a yearly folder on our home backup system after selecting the ones I want to keep.

3. Back up your files

If you still have some Christmas money from Grandma left, it might be wise to invest it in a backup solution if you don't already have one. It's not glamorous, but it's the gift that will keep on giving, especially when data disaster strikes. Remember this rule of thumb - have an original, a backup and a backup backup. As hubs likes to remind me, it’s not only important to have backups, but to be able to restore from backups. If you do have a backup system already, make sure it is still accessible. And don't forget to backup #1 and #2 :-)

Have a great year friends!

I Can't Read!

The Internet has no shortage of embarrassing confessionals and I’ll throw another one on the pile - in the past two years I have been only able to finish reading two books. Two! At first I was going to make this blog post a year ago, but then I decided to wait and report on how promising 2016 was. The promise never materialized. I wasn’t able to come back and say “Well, 2015 sucked for reading, but I made up for it in 2016!” 2016 was just a “don’t” kind of year in so many ways!

My trusty Kobo confirmed that I had given 2016 a pretty good shot, but the number of unfinished books kept piling up. I used to be proud of sticking through to a book until the end, even if I didn't like it. But hey, what if a book I didn't like was keeping me from a book that I do like? Hmmm! Anyway, here are five books that I gave up on last year:

The Perfect Order of Things, David Gilmour
Canadians often find themselves with a conundrum - consuming the media of too many other countries and not supporting homegrown talent. I bought this book because it appeared on a list of award winning Canadian authors, but I just couldn’t get into the talky style of the narrator.

Maddadam, Margaret Atwood
After breathlessly reading the first two books and much patient waiting for the Maddadam, I bailed right in the middle. I can pinpoint the exact phrase that made me hit the home button: At first Zeb thought Chuck was gay and was about to start some trouser nuzzling, but it wasn’t that.

Trouser nuzzling? Zeb is one of the most interesting characters in the series and his back story fell terribly flat and felt out of of sync with the book up to that point. I may go back and skip over this part so I can find out how the story ends.

The Princess Bride, William Goldman
I watched the movie years ago but didn't understand why it was so popular. Maybe the book would change my mind - but again I just couldn't get into the talky style.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium, #1), Stieg Larsson
I bought the eBook bundle on sale in 2014 but haven't watched the movies. The premise was interesting and totally up my alley - but I found it too clinical and couldn't go on after Chapter 5. Perhaps it was a problem with the English translation?

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louise Stevenson
Just to prove it's not a case of modern literature not floating my boat, I reluctantly add this classic to the list. Classic books are free from Project Gutenberg, so at least I didn't have to feel bad about spending money. That's the trouble with eBooks - you can't give 'em away, trade 'em away or sell 'em away! My first surprise was that this was a story by Robert Louis Stevenson and I was impressed with how much of the story I didn't know. I almost finished this one too - but bailed on the lengthy confession letter at the end. Readers and watchers are pretty sophisticated these days and don't need everything explained to them - but a hundred or so years ago I'm sure it kept readers on the edge of their seats!

Will 2017 be better? Dare I have hope? At least I can hope to have good intentions :-D

70s Saturday Sci-Fi Scans

I just had to share this today - it's so weird. entertaining and retro! Thank goodness this vision of future fashion didn't come to pass, because I certainly don't have the body shape to rock this outfit. Imagine a potato instead of Raquel Welch and there you go. According to the helpful YouTube comments, this is from 1970. While some things haven't stood the test of time like space girl bikinis, you can still visit the park pictured in the background. It's Ruta de la Amistad or "Route of Friendship" built for the 1968 Olympics in Mexico.

I know, I know, technically this is not a book, but 2016 has turned out to be a pitiful year for reading. I have started - and abandoned - so many books that I feel a lot of shame. I love reading. It's a huge part of my identity and I am completely confused about it!

Mother Nature is surely joking

I can't believe it's April 1st and there's no snow on the ground. I half expected Mother Nature to pull a cosmic joke and wake up to two feet of snow this morning. Such is the expectation when you live in Canadaland.

I can't believe it's April 1st and leaves are unfurling.

I can't believe it's April 1st and the furnace is turned off.

I can't believe it's April 1st and I have been wearing shoes for two months.

I can't believe it's April 1st and people are out there riding bikes and playing Frisbee in the park.

I can't believe it's April 1st and I never got to use this cartoon to complain about the weather!

Tea for Tuesday

Every tea lover loves a little something something with their tea and I was challenged last year as my daily croissant habit started to add up. Even a pack from the grocery store didn't put much of a dent in the cost and don't forget how deliciously calorific a croissant can be.

I discovered the solution by accident when I had to run out and get a garlic bulb for dinner. I didn't want to go all the way to a supermarket for just one thing. An Indian import store opened up near us and since it was within walking distance, now was the time to check it out!

All good import stores will carry a taste of home and my eye was drawn to the colourful packages near the till. So many cookies, cakes and confections! On a whim I grabbed a green bag of rusk cakes and I was instantly in love. They don't turn to instant mush like vanilla biscuits and there was just a hint of sweetness. They look about as flavourful as a rice cake, but trust me - there's a pleasant mellow flavour that isn't sweet or salty. Rusks hold the tea's flavour and melt in the mouth! Any tea will do - but chai and black tea do very well. Now when I go to the import store I get two bags at a time.

Now, the funny thing is that you would think all rusks would be alike. Nope! I tried a few different brands and kept going back to the green package, made by TWI Foods here in Canada. There are subtle differences in flavour from brand to brand, but at least the cakes are so inexpensive that it's not a huge loss to try a bunch! My wallet and my waistline loves them.

Picture by moi! It took 18 shots to get the perfect one.

Tea for Tuesday

I was disappointed when the Tea Lovers community on G+ didn't recommend a Southern sweet tea recipe to me. I didn't need to worry, though, as all the recipes are pretty similar. Black tea, water, a little baking soda, and depending on your preference, a whole lot of sugar!

I will back up a bit as Southern sweet tea is a bit of a mystery to Canadians who haven't travelled to the Southern United States. My first trip ever to the US was to Kentucky. It was a hideously long journey that consisted of three flights and a thunderstorm. By the time my friend and I hit the hotel, it was pitch black and raining buckets. The hotel didn't have a restaurant, but fortunately the bright yellow sign of a Waffle House beckoned.

Hungry and tired, all we wanted was a good cup of hot tea and some toast. The waitress looked at us like we were from another planet when we ordered tea.

"Sweet tea?" she said.

"Just tea."

"Sweet tea?" she said.

"No, just regular tea."

"Sweet tea?" she said.

We were so confused. I didn't understand what the problem was. "No...just tea like with hot water and a tea bag?"

My friend was mortified, but I didn't know how else to explain what we wanted (oh Canadians, so polite :-)). In that grand moment of embarrassment we learned the difference between hot tea, iced tea and sweet tea. Canadians are used to drinking powedered mixes like Goodhost iced tea or Lipton Brisk. Sweet tea turned out to be a delicious treat, when we finally tried it later on in the trip.

So, for our latest potluck at work, I endeavoured to make sweet tea. No one really thinks to bring drinks to a party. It was ridiculously easy. I made it the night before at work since trying to carry one of those giant Tupperware pitchers would surely be a disaster. Everyone asked what I was doing and some people raised an eyebrow at the two cups of sugar. I claimed a spot in the fridge and felt proud of myself for being a smartypants.

The next day, however, anxiety set in. What if the concoction was too sweet? What if no one liked it? I gamely set it on the table with some plastic cups, and took a big glass for myself to get the ball rolling. I noticed that others were taking cups too. Whew! But this is the devil of anxiety - what if there were dozens of half empty cups left all around the meeting room? Again, I didn't have to worry. When I circled back later in the afternoon, the pitcher was empty. It was a hit, not a miss!

The 4 Quart Tupperware always seems like a foolish purchase until you really need it!

Auto-correct, My Worst Enema

As the saying goes, auto-correct is my worst enema.

I downloaded a popular predictive typing app years ago for my Android phone because it was so handy and a time saver; now it seems to have lost its mind a little.

I have pretty fat thumbs so I thought it would help me type better on a tiny screen. Instead, it constantly embarrasses me.

I wanted to congratulate an old co-worker on his new job, so I sent him a text that read "Congratulations Pail!" Oh c'mon, who on Earth names their kid ‘Pail’? Why didn't you suggest ‘Paul’? Doh.

This app will gallantly protect you from making a big ducking fool of yourself, but can’t get a popular name right.

Worse, I recently planned a potluck with a male friend via texting. “I’ll bring the slow cooker and we can make children” was totally not what I meant to write.

OMG! My thumb hit the send button faster than my eyes could see and my brain could comprehend. “Chili! Chili! We can make chili!!” Auto-correct, you’re driving me to an early grave, or at least making other transit riders inch away slowly from all the laughter. A slow cooker is about as unsexy as appliances get.

It seems the app is preoccupied with me having children actually, because it pops up the word constantly. The result is that hubs picks up fried children after work, I have leftover children for lunch and every now and then we go to Swiss Chalet for children with dipping sauce. Yeesh! You’d think I was Snow White’s wicked stepmother handing out poisoned apples left and right. I guess it’s my fault for doing a poor job of training the app. Garbage in, giggles out.

Now this one isn’t entirely the app’s fault, but it’s still pretty funny. One time we were driving down a thoroughfare alongside which our neighbours live. I dashed off a quick note to my friend whiile stopped at the intersection because I could see her sitting upstairs. “I can see your head through the -“ The light turned green and with one little bump, I completed the text. “I can see your head through the blood.”

“OK, I am totally going to hide in the closet now,” she wrote back, because that was not creepy at all!

As the saying goes, auto-correct is my worst enema. At least Word just quietly offers to change it to enemy :-)

70s Saturday Sci-Fi Scans

Today's blast from the past is a time capsule in itself. While we were on vacation, my parents cleverly hid a few boxes of old books in the basement. It took about a month for me to notice :D.

See, back in the day when there were used bookstores all over the place and trendy neighbourhoods were less Starbucksy than they are today, I used to enjoy scooping up old sci-fi paperbacks by the pound. My husband also enjoyed this hobby, and it's possible that we bumped elbows in those dusty, musty places. Digging through the boxes was almost like shaking hands with my younger self. “Why hello there, young woman in the plaid shirt! You don’t know me, but let me tell you about the fuuuuuture!”

Sometimes I wasn't too careful about what grabbed - sometimes all it took was an interesting cover to seal the deal. Let's start with the author photo and cover of today's tome. Pretty groovy for 1976!

Doesn't the title alone make it sound like this awesome dystopia? The “Terminal Generation?” Who are these poor, trapped souls? Are they like “The Starlost”? What evil overlord must they overcome, what adventures will they have? I can totally see why I bought it. On the inside it says:

We are the Terminal Generation...

on the brink of despair, engulfed by waves of confusion, desperately grasping for hope in what seems to be an utterly hopeless world.

But, if I had read a little further, I would have discovered that it was one of those 70s disasters books full of future predictions, and this one more so than others. Hal Lindsey is an end times author, or dispensationalist, as Wikipedia helpfully explains, and apparently there was no shortage of all the ways the world was going to end by the mid-80s, if not sooner. Mr. Lindsey is still at it, actually! There isn't a cohesive narrative that most non-fiction books are able to form at all, just short screeds that clearly inspired the cover artwork. Lindsey's mind is wrapped up in a lot of anxiety caused by world events, particularly a fear of communism. The chapter on false prophets is particularly quaint - sometimes it's easy to forget all the consciousness raising stuff people did in the 70s that was pretty cultish.

It's pretty hard to take the book seriously in this day and age - maybe we’re just used to the news or have some disbelief because we're still here 30-plus years later. It was the idea that the alignment of the planets in 1982 would trigger disasters - but at least there's a hint of science fiction within. Lindsey mentions The Jupiter Effect, a book from 1974 which somehow had an introduction by Isaac Asimov. It's nice to know that goofy ideas existed long before the Internet :-D

Not Your Parents' Mad Max

We saw Mad Max: Fury Road with friends this weekend and it was amazing. I knew a little about the film from the trailer and that some people were upset that it was a “feminist action movie”, but it was definitely one of those movies that I didn't want to know too much about beforehand, so if you haven’t seen it, don’t read beyond the trailer below.



Fury Road is a challenging movie in many regards. It helps to have watched the previous movies (which my friends had not) and it requires a certain amount of visual literacy to enjoy it to the fullest (remember that I went to art college). Every frame is filled with so much detail like car parts, logos and tattoos. Three-quarter views, profile views and symmetrical shots add a lot of visual interest and show off the cars and craziness. Much like how authors will write entirely in dialogue or start their story by discarding the first part, Fury Road is told almost in visuals and with very little dialogue. Most dialogue sounds pretty grunty anyway! Close attention needs to be paid to how the characters use objects and speak through their actions. For example, Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa expresses emotions mostly with her eyes and Tom Hardy as Mad Max has a wild, fearful look most of the time. It’s the ultimate in “Show, don’t tell”.

Come to think of it, Fury Road is not a traditional action movie at all. Fury Road challenges viewers expecting to be spoonfed the who, what, when, where and why. It was clear that our friends would have preferred to see Age of Ultron instead as they did not like it at all. “I don’t understand why…” they kept wondering as we wandered the mall afterwards, and I kept piping up with answers like “The War Boys spray their mouths with spray paint because huffing paint gives them a high before battle…”. The movie is so nuts that questioning how the drummers hang on to the sound machine or why the world is so weird will just drive you nuts.

I welcomed the challenge and found the movie so refreshing in many ways. I loved every second, from the practical effects and stunts. The movie does not shy away from showing blood or the effects of violence. Another piece of sly commentary on bloodless CGI, perhaps? Be prepared for a lot of squishy stuff to happen.

Trivia: did you know that George Miller also directed Happy Feet and Happy Feet 2? Are you surprised at all? I’m not, since Fury Road has a strong environmental theme. In one of the more subtle moments, reformed War Boy Nux points at a tree in the desert and doesn’t even know that it’s called a tree (this tree, by the way, is a nod to the Arbre du Ténéré). There’s something hopeless about watching the tree being uprooted by the war rig in order to keep the Five Wives from being recaptured.

Speaking of the Five Wives - five physically healthy and beautiful young women held captive by top baddie Immortan Joe - they are never shown as damsels in distress. Although they are fragile and unsure after living their lives locked behind a vault door, they quickly find their strengths and fight for themselves alongside Furiosa and Max. All the women in the movie are given agency, and there’s even room for older, wrinkled women to shine. The Vuvalini are bad ass little old ladies on motorcycles that show up about halfway through the movie. It’s all right for men to look a little rugged in movies, but never women. Furiosa and Max fight as equals, never trying to one up the other and sometimes shooting at the exact same time. They triumph not just physically over Immortan Joe but over inequality of the sexes when they stand together in victory at the end. A movie that shows men and women working together equally and respectfully to solve a problem? OMG!

It seems that all the reading that the Wives did put some ideas into their heads about equality, and as seen in the trailer, they wrote “We are not things” in their sheltered paradise. At every turn Miller slips this idea in that people are not commodities. Max is treated as a “blood bag” by Nux, the Wives are stored away like precious jewels and the War Boys are Immortan Joe’s disposable warriors. I really liked that Nux, shown as a crazy disciple worshipping Joe and V8, is allowed to become human again. So many times society writes off people who have made poor choices in life. Once bad, always bad - but the wife known as Capable does not believe this about Nux and treats him with love and kindness.

Whoo…I should probably stop here. A whole book could be written on all the subtle intricacies and meanings of Fury Road. Just enjoy it if you see it, and marvel that George Miller was able to make the film he always wanted to make 30 years ago.

Made in the 70s Saturday

The world is full of knock-offs meant to trick parents and grandparents, from toys to movies, and if you ever received a Go-Bot or a My Little Phony, you may have also been disappointed with a trip to see...

Starcrash

I thought my husband's enthusiastic embrace of The Starlost meant that he would be all over this 1978 movie. He kept hemming and hawwing and even my plea that the 16 people that read this blog regularly were losing out on a fun column couldn't persuade him. So I made some popcorn, got out my notebook and found it on YouTube. Later when he wandered out of his man cave, he asked "So what was it about?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?" He was mystified.

"Well, it's about this space outlaw named Stella Star and she wears this leather space bikini - " He rolled his eyes at my description of leading lady Caroline Munro.

"And she travels with her space navigator and in their spaceship they get chased by space cops..."

My husband squinted at me something fierce as I continued. "And they go to separate space prisons...but then they are freed because the space emperor needs them to defeat the space devil, well, he looks like Satan, so they go to this planet with space Amazons and I don't know what they were doing there, but they face the giant space Amazon robot. Then they go to this other planet with space cavemen..."

He slowly walked away from me before I could utter another mention of "space". However, that's the best way to describe this movie in a time where science fiction films were not exactly taken seriously nor had great production values. Starcrash is no Star Wars, but while Stars Wars has roots in pulpy serials of the 30s and 40s, Starcrash has them proudly on display as Stella Star leaps into a new plot every fifteen minutes. When I realized that I didn't understand why things were happening, I thought it was a case of inattention. But nope, there are whole...holes...happening.

Is Starcrash a bad movie? Well, it's a bad movie, but it's also a FUN movie full of hilarious lines, goofy acting and out of the blue costume changes. It never takes itself seriously and Caroline Munro does such a good job as a plucky space heroine. It dares to be whimsical when so many movies opt for grim and dark. What's not to love about a robot with a Texas twang, David Hasselhoff wearing too much mascara and Christopher Plummer appearing as if he had wandered onto the wrong set? Star Wars it is not, but at least there's a ten minute laser battle near the end that must have been awesome on the big screen.

Oddly enough, Starcrash opened up a whole new genre of film for me. Surely you have heard of spaghetti Westerns? Have you heard of spaghetti science fiction? Looks like there is plenty more fun and weirdness to indulge in :-)

Made in the 70s Saturday

It's hard to believe the amount of research that goes into writing a blog post that takes ten minutes to read. In fact, it took 17 hours of research to bring you...

The Starlost

My husband latched onto The Starlost last summer and read everything he could about it, then recited it back to me at random moments. "I did not know this, but..." is my cue that I'm going to hear about carburetors, single propeller planes or anything, really! Imagine a science fiction TV series with a stellar concept starring well-known actors and backed by two science fiction titans. Now imagine that series being produced in the age of Canuxploitation and shot on video while the entire concept falls apart before and during production! "Jill, just what are you rambling about? What is this show? Why haven't I heard of it? I'm a huge science fiction fan!" you may be saying. Wonder no more, my friend, because the Internet coughs up everything eventually. Bet you'd never guess that Keir Dullea, who played Dave Bowman from 2001: A Space Odyssey is the star of this series.

There's no shortage of blogs and YouTubers to help you understand the world of The Starlost. Harlan Ellison wrote the series bible and Ben Bova was brought on as science advisor. Both left the project (Ellison before it aired, Bova after six episodes) and the entire run of episodes was never finished.

I can sagely nod at the lost potential of The Starlost, and while many focus on the technical aspects, the failure of the Magicam system and goofy 70s haircuts, no one talks about the relationships between the three main characters. It's a glaring omission in my eyes. The backstory of the main three characters - Devon Rachel and Garth - makes up the entire amazing first episode. Devon is to be stoned to death after questioning the elders of rustic Cypress Corners and being a rabble rouser. He is in love with Rachel, but she is betrothed to his friend Garth. After discovering that their dome world is a sham, the three escape and go about exploring the interstellar ark in a "dome of the week" style format. Rachel chooses to leave with Devon because she loves him...but the love part is mostly forgotten, replaced with a quest to find the "back-up bridge" in order to save the Ark from certain doom. The tension that your best friend stealing your bride to be would have been amazing to explore! But if Garth is ever jealous or unhappy about being friendzoned, it never really shows. Despite having the freedom to love each other, Devon and Rachel remain pretty chaste. 

A complete lack of consistency is really the main problem with The Starlost (even the format of the titles change halfway through). The Canadian writers threw out tantalizing plot lines and intriguing characters without following up. The entire premise of the dome inhabitants being unaware of each other goes out the window with the introduction of dome paramedics. At least the main characters hold onto their naivete and innocence as inhabitants of an agrarian society. Bit by bit they stretch their thinking and learn from their strange encounters.

As much as possible for the time, The Starlost does have progressive roles for women as scientists, pilots and technicians and Rachel is far more than just a prop. Her modest ways shine in "Children of Methuselah" where she wins the trust of the children with compassion and love. Idona, in "The Alien Oro", amazes Garth as she works on some circuit boards. Idona does her best to ignore Garth as he tries to talk to her and tells her that he's never seen women use tools before.

My favourite episode is "Circuit of Death"

Despite having a reputation as one of the worst science fiction shows ever, The Starlost is not that bad. It looks like any episode of 70s vintage Dr. Who. It's just that it's futuristic ideas about dystopian societies and technology get lost in the slow pacing, low production values and twangy music. It's just begging to be remade. But until then, you can enjoy the novelization, the the graphic novel adaptation of the first episode or grab the whole series on DVD.

From the Mixed Up Files of...

While catching up and reading some more old paperbacks from our basement, I realized it wasn't fair to make fun of others without first making fun of myself. We all start somewhere as authors, artists, creators, makers...and yeah, that early stuff is pretty cringeworthy!

My childhood is best described as a little weird and lonely. It's hard to believe, but there was a time when nerds and geeks were not cool. We didn't see a lot of movies and we didn't have a VCR. My parents also didn't realize they were raising two nerds, and dutifully tried to steer us away from anything geeky. Gushing about Star Wars was not a path to popularity at all!

Life got a little better when pay-TV arrived in 1989 after my parents gave up fixing the giant old CRT. Suddenly we had more than ten channels and it opened up a world of entertainment and ideas. Today we take 24/7 for granted, but CNN was downright amazing. Naturally my brother and I gravitated to MuchMusic, a Canadian sort of MTV, and loved every second of it.

The summer of 1991 had a lot of great movies and I really, really, really wanted to see Terminator 2. There were too many obstacles for a young person to overcome though - getting a ride to a movie theatre (half an hour away), finding an adult to take me (not happening) and scraping up the change to see it (nope!). It was also R-Rated, as hard as that is to believe. So what do you do when you can't see a movie you really, really, really want to see? You make up your own version, and years later breathe a sigh of relief that the Internet wasn't around!

Being a nerd, I began by meticulously researching T2 as much as possible. I snipped out pictures from magazines, read the newspaper and paid great attention whenever You Could Be Mine came on MuchMusic. Then I got a brand new red spiral notebook and began writing away with great gusto, all in pencil.

Since I had no idea at all how the story progressed and had no idea what was in the first movie, I began at the part when the Terminator finds an alien dog. He takes it back to his place to show his three roommates, one of which is his younger brother named Joe. Oh wait, you didn't know all that happened? Well, it did, let me tell you!

My pencil galloped across the pages like a wild mustang, kicking up bad dialog, stomping on linear narrative and making awful metaphors. The book, which I fantasized about publishing, eventually spiraled into four notebooks. It was hard to get past a few pages at a time - somewhere along the way it careened into a crossover with Star Trek: The Next Generation. Blessed are the folks who don't know they are writing fan fiction.

(You may want to take a quick bathroom break right now, just in case)

The Terminator, oh so imaginatively named Arnold (every cyborg assassin needs a cover, I guess) shared his, oh man, I can barely type this, secret mountain hideout with his roommates and, ha, hahaha, they spend their days riding and fixing motorcycles and visiting their friend down the road. He's a doctor named Felix with a psychic horse named Oberon.

(Remember, you already got your bathroom break warning)

So one day, one day Oberon (snortle!) gets this prediction that something bad is going to happen to Sarah Connor and her son. Arnold hops on his bike and travels to the big city. I made up the city name, along with a whole bunch of other things, like how Arnold and Sarah used to be romantically involved (don't worry, the Terminator is not John's dad!). Thanks to the my careful study of You Could Be Mine, I was able to fill in the rest of the story, although quite laughably.

Now, maybe you're wondering what the other three notebooks were filled with once the T-1000 had been vanquished. Well, to be honest, I skimmed through the notebooks because continuing would mean needing a few puffs from my husband's asthma inhaler. With so many male characters, something was missing...like girlfriends! Each male character got a love interest that developed awkwardly while Arnold and Joe visited...their mother. The awful dialog sadly proves that I was not the sophisticated teenager I presumed to be. Eventually boredom set in and the lovey dovey parts gave way to an intricate history of one of the roommates, an Australian with a mean streak. He was mean because he had a really tough upbringing, right from the start, when he was born in the back of a truck in the outback (I can see why it's taken me a while to write this blog post...oof!).

Who was this unrecognizable younger self that wrote all this...verbiage? There were no real themes, just little bits of daily life, punch lines from Saturday Night Live and lots and lots of...huh. Where did all these ideas come from, plus the energy to write so much? The last notebook is dated November 28, 1992. Maybe I grew up a little bit in a year, maybe I got to the end of the notebook and realized that was a good time to stop this...saga. The last notebook just stops with the funeral of Felix's half brother, Jack.

And, here's the punch line - I still haven't seen Terminator 2. Or 3 or 4 or the TV series. Maybe it's because I always liked my version better :-). My husband groaned and pointed to the paper shredder in the corner of his man cave when I tried to regale him with these ridiculous scenarios. Naw, these notebooks don't deserve that fate...yet!




* Years later in the 90s, at a comic show, I was thrilled to find an Ewok action figure.

A Simple Goal for the New Year

You know what long winter commutes are good for? Catching up on my thoughts with Evernote. The first day of the new year was surprising sunny and optimistic, with a sky dappled with clouds. Happy 2015!

The next day looked like the same old year - grey and overcast until we plunged into a snowy deep freeze. I needed that sky to find my optimism for 2015. I was busy taking care of my self, my family and a friend for the last part of 2014. There's always a kind of joy to starting a new year fresh, but also so much pressure to make the most of it too. I started 2011 with being laid off. No one plans for that! It's a hard lesson for anyone who loves to plan. Life doesn't go from point A to point B or turn out like the PowerPoint. Hope is not a strategy either.

A few months ago we had a motivational speaker at work that emphasized that trying to change everything at once leads to failure. He suggested making one degree changes (no 180s people!). My wake up call last year was a troublesome tooth that revealed that I had to change my diet in a big way - not just cut back on sweets, but that I also had an iron deficiency. Thanks to iron supplements, I had to eat more fibre, and because of that, which meant drinking more water. If I make 357 more changes, like getting a cast iron skillet, I will be a whole new person. At least, that's my theory.

But, looping back, one thing I do plan on accomplishing (notice I didn't say hope) is finishing this cross stitch peacock. It was started in 1998. 1998! I don't want to die with it rolled up in a drawer, which was the fate of some needlework my great-aunt started in the 50s or earlier. Great Aunt Katie was childless and so are we. My niece is probably not going to want two generations of unfinished embroidery :-)

As motivating as it was to want to finish it, there were logistical problems. I would have to go out and find new embroidery floss, which probably wouldn't match after all these years. Then I would have to find the pattern, etc. etc. Truly, it's the little obstacles that prevent us from accomplishing great things. 

Then I was reminded of something from art college - Kintsugi - or the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold resin. It's a way of giving a broken object new life. Objects have all sorts of lives - and the peacock is a reminder of how much I used to love cross-stitch and find peace in little fabric pixels. I bought a few kinds of gold embroidery floss and I'll apply the same idea to my peacock - just gleefully fill in all the empty spots with gold so that it can live the life I always meant for it to have.

Tea for Tuesday

Oh, the German import store. A large, yet cozy shop where you can even find a little bit of the Netherlands nestled in a bay window. It's the place to be at Christmas, and anytime you want a big helping of red cabbage and schnitzel or an armful of real black licorice and Haribo gummies.

It's also the place to go when you want really unique kitchen gadgets, and as a Canadian, I couldn't resist this adorable moose tea infuser made by Koziol. I almost didn't see it - I saw an orange rabbit and a green frog first! Later I found that "Rudolf" was not a moose, but a reindeer, and comes in a herd of colours.

One of the disappointing things about being a tea lover is that there are only so many accessories that you can buy - which may be a good thing or a bad thing. Then I cheerfully realized that I needed a tea infuser for work!

Product testing began immediately. It fit most of my mugs (no hope for the ugly mug, however). Right away it was apparent that fine teas would not filter very well, so I tried some whole leaf teas, like Idle Tea's Cream of Earl Grey. The only problem with the strainer is that the water stops flowing through it once the leaves expand - but, no problem, just pour hot water into the cup instead at that point. These strainers are the perfect stocking stuffer - and I can't wait to go back to the import store when it's a Christmas wonderland!

70s Saturday Sci-Fi Scans

It is appropriate that today's book features a big giant head, because so much has been going on in my head over the last month and a half, and I still don't know why! Let me say that I'm thankful for antibiotics when my salivary gland became infected. There were times too, when I was sure my ear canal was going to give birth to something gross and alien. Life is weird and so is this book:

Herds

The wife of a powerful figure in California is found brutally murdered in the couples' lonely mountain retreat. Wesley Stoneham made certain that all the evidence concerning the murderer of his wife pointed to a nearby hippie community. He had three goals in mind: to get rid of his wife, to drive out the hippie commune and to enhance his own power in the State. He was at the point of achieving them all when Garnna, from the peaceful planet of Zartic finally made contact with Debby, a hippie from the commune, who had problems of her own. Then Stoneham's troubles began.




Herds is number two in a new series called Laser Books - at first I thought this was a book of short stories. The main focus isn't even on Wesley Stoneham, but Garnna the alien centaur. He and his fellow Zarticku have a strong herd mentality that he comes to doubt and question. As an Explorer, he visits other worlds in a psychic sort of way (actually, in a box). Garnna is traumatized by witnessing Mrs. Stoneham's murder, which would be hard to work into a brief synopsis for the back cover.

The cover artist is a legend and his work is better known than his name. Sadly Frank Kelly Freas passed away in 2005, but his website remains. And although it doesn't have the same snazzy cover, you can buy Herds and other books by Stephen Goldin on his website too.

Guardians of the Galaxy Movie Review

We saw Guardians of the Galaxy last Sunday and it was awesome! Maybe it was several months of being plied with trailers and advertising, but the coolness I originally had towards it warmed up to the point where I was practically vibrating. Why, why am I so excited to a movie with a trash talking raccoon and one of my favourite actors as a tree? Maybe it was that being in an air conditioned movie theatre for two hours was way more exciting than lying limp around the house.

Out of all the Marvel movies, this is quite possibly the best one to date. It's free of earthly concerns and has such an interesting and diverse cast, characters and settings. Maybe too, I'm just tired of dark and gritty reboots, movies that are just a little too based on coincidence or forget how to tell a story completely. There's only so many times you can watch Iron Man be a jerk, after all. Come to think of it, it's easier to describe GotG by what it's not. The main characters don't drag each other down, there's no big city destruction scene (well, just a little) and it's not serious at all. Serious characters get their dramatic comic book speeches, but also get upstaged by humour. GotG is incredibly self-aware of having one foot in B-movieland.

The movie is pretty tight, zipping along at a fast pace and helped along by the "awesome mix" soundtrack. Right after the opening scene, the audience gets to dive in as Peter Quill steals an artifact, an orb, from an ancient temple (if that scene looks a little familiar...it's just the start of nods to the 70s and 80s that will make a lot of freeze frame fun later). It would take a lifetime of reading Marvel comics to understand all the characters and why Ronan and Thanos are baddies, but after a little planet hopping, the audience has all it needs to know without too much set up. We are here to see a talking raccoon and a sentient tree, after all!

All five main characters are flawed in ways that anyone can relate to, and for a group that doesn't initially get along, they come to treat each other with a lot of respect. Rocket, for example, could have been played solely for laughs and comic relief, but he's not just a cute funny animal. He delivers some devastating lines (which he can, because he's an animal). He might talk tough, but he's a softie inside. Likewise, the other characters stretch their personalities - Peter Quill finds a higher purpose, Gamora wants to redeem her past (and is never treated as a sex object - she rejects Quill's "pelvic sorcery", and Drax learns to love his enemy. Uh, I'm not sure what Groot's flaw is, maybe it's that he can only say three words - but his strength is definitely in his selfless actions. GotG does a great job of showing the characters - we don't have to sit through long and convoluted backstories. I guess that's important to note too - the movie treats the audience with respect as well. Surprisingly, the real lesson of GotG is that friendship is magic :D

It's tempting to see it again this weekend...we were excited for another piece of nostalgia, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but it looks more like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turkey, so we'll probably pass.

80s Saturday Sci-Fi Scans

I was so bummed about not being able to make yesterday's post, so I backdated this one. I had the most severe pain ever in my face yesterday, and ended up Googling "ear infection or toothache" (Dr. Google says - "Inconclusive! See a real professional."). Maybe the virtual doctor needs another ten years. Anyway, the latest book on top of the reading pile is:

New Dimensions 11

The exciting series that showcased the best of the 70s now launches the 80s with superb science fiction - from the terrifying to the sublime!

It's really surprising that we don't have one of the earlier volumes on our bookshelf, because there were some truly groovy ones. I honestly can't figure out what this cover is about - the flip side has the faint skeleton of a pterodactyl and some sand. Is this the Planet of the Crystal Skulls? A user on GoodReads seems to hint that the contents match the weirdness of cover:

I read this collection of short stories when I was in junior high, much too young to be reading it. It contains a story about a spaceship navigated by sexual fantasies. And another story introduced me to the concept of sentient beings having more than two breasts.

There's only one way to find out!

Escape from The To-Do List

When roughly half your year is spent in wintry cold, it's so easy to take summer for granted. Suddenly everyone is social and there's so much to do. I found myself slipping deeper and deeper into the To-Do List! The joke goes, "There are only two seasons in Canada, winter and construction." It's mostly true, because you can't paint your garage or pour a new sidewalk when it's -40C out. 

Not that long ago I was standing at the dinner table, wrapping several packages and I wondered why I wasn't outside enjoying this particular cool spring day. White and pink blossoms, the rich green grass, the cloudless blue sky - and I was inside, staring wistfully out the windows. It was like an invisible parent was staring down at me and saying, "No playtime until all your chores are done!"

And when life starts looking like a Buzzfeed listicle, you know you need to Escape from the To-Do List. Eventually everything becomes a chore. The To-Do List starts affecting your body and you don't really know why at first:

The To-Do List just becomes one never ending cycle. Inspiration to flee came from a safety ad on the bus:

 Stop          Think          React 

I put my phone away, I took a deep cleansing breath. The heart of my entanglement in the To-Do List was that I could not say no. It was a trap within a trap! I had to climb out of the Yes Pit.

It's not easy to say "no", especially for women. Some people are raised to put others needs before their own. Some people feel that it's incredibly rude to say no. And yet others say yes because it might be a career killer. My time as a temp certainly eroded my ability to say "no" too. It's natural to want to fit in, please people and say "yes" when we mean "no". Maybe the trouble with saying "no" is that we know how to say "yes" easily, but not "no".

"Practice big no's and little no's," I told myself. Yesterday my husband wanted to watch Dr. Who. No thanks! Last week an old co-worker was hopeful that I had some free weekends and evenings to help with her work project. No, my bandwidth has been exceeded lately! Last month I ran into someone from a group I volunteered with in the past - did I want to be webmaster again? Without burning a single bridge, I replied, "No, but I know someone who might be interested!"

The To-Do List shrank as I exercised the power of "no". Maybe it's easier to reframe "no" as "not today" or "not right now" when considering a request. Maybe I'll want to watch Dr. Who tomorrow! Saying "no" is actually saying "yes" to other things - like time with family, myself (remember, I'm an introvert!) and things I really care about. It's not fun giving up weekends for extra work - especially during a short Canadian summer. That's something I really can't say no to at all!