I've managed to avoid all spoilers/reviews for Children of Earth and tonight Space started showing it in Canada, so I saw Day One.

( Spoilery spoils )

I am returned! We had a lovely week at the cottage. There was much napping in king-sized beds, jigsaw puzzling, Scrabbling and sunning on the patio. It was also educational:

( The Bard's Handy Guide on How to Use Satellite TV )

So, yeah. I appreciate getting satellite TV in the middle of nowhere, but I will never, ever get it for myself. No matter how much fun it is to watch Stargate in Described Video ("Rodney looks up in horror!")

I have three pages of f-list entries, so I will do my best to catch up on them soon.

I've been meaning to watch the BBC show 'Merlin' for awhile now, it sounding like something I'd enjoy. I never got around to it, but now they are showing it on CTV, so tonight I watched a couple of episodes. Unfortunately, I missed the first two episodes since they showed them on Father's Day last weekend. Thus, I was slightly confused...

( spoilers ahoy )

I finally saw Star Trek last night. I loved it. Squee behind the cut:

( Spoilers! )

Yesterday (as of 18 minutes ago) was my birthday. I am now 23-years-old. I don't feel any different from 22-years-old, although I am one year closer to that 24-years-old that has always seemed to be 'grown-up' to me.

I had a nice, mellow day. Adam and Amalie joined us for supper (Mum's spaghetti and a Dairy Queen blizzard cake, both very excellent). Adam and Amalie got me a WOW game card and the Wrath of the Lich King expansion pack, which is nifty. I'm so broke, I couldn't afford a subscription lately, so that was very cool. From my parents I got a new lightbox (Dad accidentally sent mine to Value Village) for costuming and a beautiful butterfly bedecked portfolio to put said costuming in. I also got a Casino Royale DVD and a Gift Card for Jumbo Video rentals, much nail polish, The Princep's Fury by Jim Butcher and a gorgeous leather make-up case for all my beauty stuff. Plus money. Money is always good.

Ama and Stacey are coming again later in the week for a girls' party. Stacey had to work tonight and couldn't come.

Thanks to everyone who wished me well and/or gifted me! I really appreciate it.

I went to see Angels & Demons with Mum today. We had to decide between that, Wolverine and Star Trek. Mum doesn't dig Star Trek so much and I'd already seen Wolverine, plus we'd watched The Davinci Code on TV last week and Mum doesn't have a great memory for plot details, so she thought we should see it while it was fresh. I had read The Davinci Code, and seen the movie, enjoyed both as not great works of literature/cinema, but entertaining enough. I haven't read Angels & Demons. My brother said it was the worst book he's ever read, so, you know, not highly recommended to me. However! I really enjoyed Angels & Demons. It works much better that Davinci Code, because there is a time limit. It's race against the clock and so it's more suspenseful. Plus the consequences are more dire if they fail. It was slightly too long, I could have done with one or two less plot twists, but I would recommend it if you enjoyed Davinci Code and/or enjoy history and symbology and such. Plus, Ewan MacGregor.

In other news, I've started posting in my dreamwidth journal. At moment there are song translations/rambles about Roméo et Juliette, which is a French musical I'm very fond of. The icon I'm using is from there.

Hope everyone had a good weekend and will have a good week!

From, surprisingly enough book_memes.

Life of Books Meme:

( Under here. )

I've been meaning to do this for ages, but I never got around to it until now.

Since I think most of my flist is flisted on my flist's flists, I think a lot of recs I would give to LJ stuff would be known to most people. So, I thought I'd do some recs from FF.net, since they would be less likely to have been read before.

( Recs for Firefly, Stargate, SAJV, LOTR. )

I love live theatre! Mum and I went to a local production of RENT tonight. It was the School Edition version, so all the cast members had to be under nineteen and the show itself was slightly toned down (less swearing, and no Contact number). This did not diminish the enjoyment at all, since the cast was excellent. The guy playing Roger was great, an awesome singer and a good actor too. Angel was hysterical, and considering it was a teenage boy, was really brave in embracing the role. Collins and Mimi could NOT sing. They were wonderful actors and everything, but some notes were painful. I respected the fact that they went for the notes nonetheless though. Joanne had an awesome voice, she sing the solo in Seasons of Love and hit the high note perfectl - twice. Maureen was very good and she had a great voice, too. Benny did a good job of making his character sympathetic and Mark, while not a great singer, carried the show very nicely. There were a few problems with mikes and lighting cues, but it was opening night, so I can forgive that.

There's nothing like live theatre, is there? It makes me glee!

From joonscribble:

Comment to this entry and I'll pick up to three of your fandoms. You must then update your journal and answer the following questions:

1. What got you into this fandom in the first place?
2. Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
3. Favorite episodes/books/movies, etc?
4. Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?
5. Do you think more people should get into this fandom?

She gave me: Firefly, Dresden Files, Stargate

( Rambles. )

Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

featherjean gave me: Harry/Murphy, kid!fic, dance, music, art
( In which I elaborate... )

You know what's annoying? Someone left a review for me at FF.net, which was very critical (and had a valid point, I'm not upset about the criticism), but it was anonymous and I can't reply back to thank them for not leaving the standard 'gd fic' review.

I've got a new monitor! The old one was so dark, I couldn't see anything in one of my Nancy Drew games. The only problem with this one is that it's so much brighter that all my icons look way too bright. So now I'm worried that whatever ones I make now will either be too dark or that all the ones I've made in the past were too light. In order to figure this out, I would love some assistance.

( Poll under the cut. )

Hope everyone has a safe and Happy New Year! I love you!

So there was rather an epic shuffling around for our Christmas this year and in the end, we did everything last night, so that Amalie and Adam could do Christmas day with her family in Ottawa.

We had a great time! We opened our stockings, then we ate our English dinner (turkey and stuffing, etc.) and then opened our presents, then we had dessert (ice cream and soupirs des soeurs). I was spoiled rotten! I got lots of new night things (which I needed, mine are getting very ratty), a bunch of new books (including the Dresden Files comic book, which I was sure nobody would be able to find), Mamma Mia! on DVD, a cool nightlight thing that turns into a flashlight if the power goes out, two new Nancy Drew computer games, and a SingStar game for the PS2. Adam and Amalie got me the SingStar game and organic lipgloss (red that won't make me allergic!) and the first two Twilight books (as a sort of gag gift, since I've been watching the Twilight phenomena unfold with a kind of fascinated horror).

Everyone else really liked their gifts as well (it's probably the best I've done shopping for others ever) and we managed to get Ama's quilt done in time. Which is a great story that I can tell now that she's got it:

Mum was crocheting an afghan for Ama, which consisted of 27 granny squares and 27 granny squares expanded into octagons. She did all the squares up and put all the ends in and then realized she couldn't read the pattern on how to put them together. So I took a look and I could figure it out (my spatial reasoning skills are better than hers), so we spent three hours trying to follow the pattern, with me trying to explain it and we couldn't figure out how to work with the octagons and the instructions offered nothing. So, in the end, I had to rip 27 octagons back to granny squares and Mum had to make up a pattern by herself. In four days. It was done at 5:45pm last night and the kids arrived at 7:00pm. And it looks gorgeous and it's certainly unique.

Tonight it's just Mum and Dad and I for French dinner (tortiere). But we've had a great time and Mum said this morning that's it's been one of the best Christmases she's had. So I think we'll probably do this reverse thing again next year.

Hope everyone else had a lovely Christmas (or Thursday) and has a lovely New Year, too.

My annual holiday card - generically winter-themed (because I have a pretty new dress for Victoria :p).

( Under the cut. )

In other news, I went to make tea last night and found that the water in the kettle was frozen. In the tea kettle, on the stove. That's how cold it is around here. The snow is so high, the Scotties disappear behind the drifts. Also the kitchen sink is blocked and the plumber is coming tomorrow. I also have a cold.

Happy Christmas!

So, I was flipping through channels last night and I stumbled across 'Under the Mistletoe' on the W Network (Canadian Women's channel). It was a sweet and sappy made for TV movie where every plot point was predictable and nothing was surprising. I enjoyed it, however, because I like sweet and sappy things AND because it had Michael Shanks in it and I was like 'oh, hello Daniel Jackson'. The other cool thing was that his opposite in the movie was Jaime Ray Newman, who played Cadman on Atlantis and once I figured that out, I was like 'I wonder if the Daniel/Cadman fans know about this'. Because you name two characters in a fandom and there's at least one person out there who ships them.

The other thing that was on last night was the Rankin Family Reunion special. I'm not sure how big the Rankins are outside Canada (especially in the US, which is where most of my flist comes from), but they are a group of siblings from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, who sing and play instruments. They do some traditional Celtic folktunes and then sort of country/Celtic flavoured original stuff too. They often sing in Gaelic and step dance as well. Pretty much everyone in my family likes them and their tapes were often played on car trips when I was little, since they were a neutral party. When I was probably six or seven they came to play at our local theatre (very exciting since no one tends to come to our town) and seeing them is one of the most vivid memories I have of childhood. I remember what I wore and where we sat and who sat in front of us and some of the jokes they told and everything. It was awesome. They stopped performing several years back but last night they had their reunion special and it was very nice to see them again.

Rankin Family youtube stuff (if you're interested):
We Rise Again [A beautiful song which is a favourite of pretty much everyone in my family. We played it at my Grandmother's funeral. The last note is breathtaking.]
Fare Thee Well Love [My favourite song that they do. It's very pretty and sounds like a song that should play over the closing credits of a movie.]
Ho Ro Mo Nighean Donn Bhoidheach [An example of the Gaelic songs they sing.]
Children Go Where I Send You [A Christmas song.]

Anyway, good teevees!

First off, I just woke up from a very weird dream in which I woke up from my dream, then woke up from my dream again with in it. So it was a dream within a dream within a dream.

Anyway, everything I watched this weekend was British, for some reason. Ama and I watched Maybe Baby and Sliding Doors on Friday night. I've been trying to get her to watch Sliding Doors for several years now and Zip finally sent it this week. She enjoyed it, but she didn't find John Hannah attractive enough to be in a romantic comedy (me:'He's charming!', Ama: 'He's ugly!') and, for me, his performance is one of the really great things about it. I hadn't seen Maybe Baby before, but it was great! Hugh Laurie is always spectacular and it was very charming and funny. James Purefoy should be in more things. So I can look at him and hear him talk. Then we started to watch Pride & Prejudice while Ama straightened my hair.

Yesterday was my dad's birthday, so Ama and Adam came over and made fajitas for dinner and I managed to successfully make sugar-free banana cream pie for dessert. I'm always so nervous when I cook, though nothing has turned out terrible or an uneatable yet. Dad seemed pleased with everything, which is good because I don't think he's ever too keen on his own birthdays. Ama and I finished watching Pride & Prejudice while she was here.

After they were gone, Mum and I sat down to craft and I put on the Shakespeare Retold DVD which Zip also sent this week. We watched Much Ado About Nothing last night. I really enjoyed it. It was fun to figure out how the characters had been adapted or how they were going to get around certain non-modern concepts. Damian Lewis and Sarah Parish were a great Benedick and Beatrice.

Finally, this afternoon we watch the Macbeth episode. This one was a bit more interesting to my mum, who was very familiar with the original play. James Macavoy and Keeley Hawes were incredible in it and I really liked the way it was adapted. Thankfully they didn't really do a lot of blood and gore with it, because neither Mum nor I are very into that stuff. I would have liked to see more of Richard Armitage as Macduff, though.

And that's that.

God, I love old movies.

(cut for spoilers for 'Pennies From Heaven', though I don't know if you can spoiler a movie that came out 72 years ago. Is there some sort of statute of limitations?)

( And he'll have a lute! )

( In which I am sneaky... )
So, I obviously didn't get a lot of NaNo done. Only about 1100 words, I think. But I told myself I wasn't going to take it too seriously, so that's okay.

Now I just need to sleep from now until next Friday and I should be back to normal. I could never make it as a conman (conperson?).

Okay, History Television. I get that maybe JAG could pass for history, since it's all military and was topical for the time it was on. I'll even buy that CSI:NY is somewhat relevant, since it takes place in the aftermath of 9/11 and occasionally references it. Ditto for NCIS. But how do you justify Mission Impossible II?

...seriously?

I'd never thought I'd say this about a movie franchise, but the third one was better. Not that I've seen the first one. I watched the third one first. Because it has Johnathan Rhys Meyers in it and I was going through a Johnathan Rhys Meyers period at the time.

It's Canadian Thanksgiving today and how does karma repay us? My parents were in a car accident. They (and the dogs) are both fine, aside from my mother bumping her arm (she had it out the window when they were hit), but the poor little Fit is very badly hurt. Much worse than the last time the Fit got hit. It's odd, my father has driven for...like...a really long time and he has never had a car accident and this year he's had two. Neither were his fault, the first someone ran a red light and this time someone's indicator light wasn't working and my father manage to stop in time when they turned but the people behind him didn't and rammed them. Poor Shill was thrown into the front seat and Puzzle is quite disgusted someone dared to hit the car she was travelling in, but everyone is fine. Which is definitely something to be thankful for, isn't it?