Really this post could have been written nigh on four or five years ago, but I only just got around to watching the television series Firefly. I missed its original run on account of doing more exciting things than watching TV, but over the years I heard many references to it, often along the lines of called it the best science fiction television show in recent years.

The thing is, it isn’t.

Not that it isn’t a good show, because it is. Aside from an annoyingly repetative soundtrack, it’s well done, with good effects and really entertaining characters. (I particularly like Kayley and Jayne, myself.) As a character driven show it certainly hits its mark quite well. The reason I wouldn’t call it the best science fiction show is because it isn’t science fiction. It’s space opera.

I first heard the term from Robert J. Sawyer in reference to Star Wars. Space opera are typically big cartoonish stories that have little to no actual science in them, even if they happen to take place on spaceships or distant planets. They’re just fiction that happens to be in space, which is not enough to be called science fiction.

In a television series like Firefly, I don’t expect a lot of hard science, or even much explicit science at all, in the same way you’d expect realistic medical problems in a hospital drama, although it would be nice. What I notice is that Firefly doesn’t make use of its setting at all. The point of science fiction is that it opens doors that wouldn’t normally be available. The best science fiction uses this to reflect back on real situations that we are familiar with in the real world, so that we don’t get lost in spaceships and laser blasts but remain connected to the story on a very human level.

Sure, this is just television, but aside from a couple specific (so far underdeveloped) instances, Firefly doesn’t even try to open those doors. The show is a western drama. You could replace the spaceships with horses and a stagecoach and for the most part still tell the same stories. In fact you’d even use most of the same footage—most of the planetary settings are all low-tech wild west style towns already. The only advantage of having a spaceship is that the wild west bandits can have something akin to a pirate ship to haul their cargo in from place to place.

The two aspects I would like to see a lot more of (and maybe I will—I’m only halfway through the series) are in the Reavers and the character River. The former is a great way of exploring human nature, what brings men to madness, and dealing with daemons within. The later could be anything—she remains very mysterious—but could effectively bring up questions of metaphysics or, through her experience in the Academy, all sorts of ethical problems. Maybe these are all high-falutin’ ideas that have no place for Average Joe Television, but they would make good science fiction.

No, I’m not going to say how it ended, as much as I want to go refer back to my list of predictions for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and say I told you so.

I didn’t get them all right anyway. I thought I might go back and give myself a grade as if it were a homework assignment— 50/60, 27/50, that sort of thing—but I realised even that might give too much away. (Though to repeat, not all were right, not all were wrong, and some were somewhere in between.)

Instead I’ll just say this: I was struck by an eerie similarity to The Matrix. One of the last chapters, King’s Cross in particular, reminded me of one of the final scenes in either the second or third Matrix movie (I don’t remember which it was). I won’t go into details lest I give something more away, but there were definite parallels.

Oh, and can I just say, corniest epilogue ever. Especially that name. Oh boy. I was hoping for something with a little more grit.

But other than that it was fantastic.

11:30 PM (Half hour before book launch)
I got to the Chapters in downtown Vancouver with plenty of time to spare before the seventh and final book in the Harry Potter series was released. Already lines snaked their way across the three floors of the store. People who had pre-ordered their copy go upstairs, show your ID, get your wristband, and join the line-up which was, by this point, winding its way through the Science Fiction section. Just minutes away, now, the man on the PA system promised. Minutes away…

12:00 (Seconds before launch)
The line now covers almost every open space in the store, winding down every aisle. From the front of the store are a few screams. Somebody waves a book in the air and camera flashes start going off. There’s a count down from ten and already people are running away with their copies clutched tight. The line is moving now.

12:38 (Chapter One)
Standing at the bus stop there were about four people with the book out already reading and eight more with Chapters bags in hand. I was already jealous of those who were well into the first chapter, already having the story play out before them. It was everything I could do to wait until getting on the bus to start reading, lest some of the few stray raindrops around fall onto my page.

1:32 (Middle of Chapter Two)
I’m already in deep. I can feel it. I just got home, make some tea and a snack, and am setting up camp on the couch in my living room. The Harry Potter soundtrack is playing to set the mood. Let’s get this show running.

1:56 (Chapter Four)
Damn, Harry spotted the big gaping hole in the problem before I did, and it really was a big gaping hole. It’s good things can still be a bit humorous at this stage.

2:34 (Chapter Six)
Damn, I’m getting tired already. I should have bought some junk food to keep me up. A lot has happened already—more than I was expecting—and I’m loathe to stop now.

2:58 (Chapter Seven)
I don’t understand why Dumbledore had apparently told Harry not to tell anybody about the Horcruxes. Voldemort would want them secret, so they wouldn’t be destroyed, but Dumbledore had exactly the opposite motivations. Well, too late to do anything about it now. The title of the seventh chapter, “The Will of Albus Dumbledore” is very enticing, but I can barely keep my head up. Time to move this party to my bed, where I’ll try to get another chapter or two in before nodding off. Reading will continue in the morning.

3:41 (Chapter Eight)
A change of scene and a couple granola bars later, I’m quite rejuvinated. There’s a lot of things going on now. Lots of ideas, no answers, and the only solution is to keep reading.

10.24 (Halfway through Chapter Eight)
Normally it would take several hours or snoozing through alarms to wrench me out of bed in the morning, but not today. Trying to find where I left off before falling asleep, I accidentally read the last line in Chapter Eight—things are not going well! Breakfast can wait, I’ve got reading to do. (I love how Luna’s dad’s name is Xenophilius, by the way. And what kind of name is Thicknesse, anyway?)

11:12 (Chapter Eleven)
There’s one question delt with. Not a big surprise, I think. The big question that Rowling said was the most important has been asked, one about the events surrounding Harry’s death, but still no answer is coming to me. Why did Dumbledore need James’s cloak..

11:41 (A few pages into Chapter Twelve)
Yes, good idea Hermione, but poorly executed. I already see a bit of a problem…

12:20 (Chapter Fourteen)
Here I was telling myself that after Chapter Thirteen I’d take a break, go have a shower and get some breakfast, but then the chapter had to end in mass confusion, flashes of light, and someone screaming. What the hell is going on!?

12:38 (Chapter Fifteen)
Good, a chapter ending with Harry going to sleep, and nothing diasterous or highly suspensful happening (just a curious clue to sort out… one of those things for which all the information is probably in older books). I can take a break for hygiene and nutrition.

13:19 (Chapter Fifteen, still)
Word on the street (i.e., Facebook), is that the friend that was with me to get the book last night at midnight finished reading two hours ago, and here I am only halfway through. Now rested, clean, and nourished, I’m ready for another good run. It’s going to be a hard sell to get me out the door tonight (I have committments to keep) if I haven’t finished by then…

13:42 (Chapter Sixteen)
Some answers, more questions. I’m having one of those moments where I want to scream out the answer (or my best guess at the answer) and hope Harry, Ron, and Hermione will hear me. It’s rather clever, too, if I do say so myself. But I don’t have the whole answer… even knowing where something is hidden doesn’t matter if you don’t have the key. And of course I could be completely wrong anyway.

14:05 (Near the end of Chapter Sixteen)
Wait a minute—Harry’s parents died in 1981? When he was one year old? Is this story taking place in 1997 then? That’s just slightly odd…

14:12 (In Chapter Seventeen
Haha, “Dumbledore-ish power”.

15:03 (Chapter Twenty)
The book definitely living up to the hype so far. I seriously doubt it even qualifies as a children’s book at this point. The story has grown up quite a lot from where it started. There’s a lot of history coming into it, and lots of things are coming together. And the next chapter is called “Xenophilius Lovegood”, and you’ve got to love that.

15:22 (Chapter Twenty One)
Ah, the first mention of the Deathly Hallows. And at the very end of the chapter, of course.

15:33 (In Chapter Twenty One)
Does anybody else see a connection between The Deathly Hallows and rock-paper-scissors?

16:28 (Chapter Twenty Four)
No book where crucio exists is for children.

16:51 (Chapter Twenty Five)
I suspected that this was the case, a few chapters ago as the story of who had what when began to unfold. But knowing who had it last, particularly how he came to get it, proves that it is not everything it is made out to be. There is still hope.

17:44 (Chapter Twenty Eight)
Oh, all hell’s breaking loose now. I love it!

18:20 (Chapter Thirty)
My internet’s pooped out since quarter to five, so this live-blogging idea isn’t as live as it really should be. But that’s just as well… Things are moving along steadily and I definitely feel a climax coming on. Still got a fifth of the book left though. Lots of things still left to happen.

18:36 (Chapter Thirty One)
This chapter is giving me goosebumps already and all I’ve done is read the title.

19:24 (Chapter Thirty Three)
It wasn’t looking good, but now I can feel it! The answers are coming! Right to the end of the previous chapter I was thinking the worst, but, oh, the twists! This is killing me!

19.54 (Chapter Thirty Four)
Well damn. But I don’t believe it’s really true. Not yet.

20:09 (Chapter Thirty Five)
“But it did intrigue him slightly.” Always with the jokes, even at a time like this.

20:24 (Chapter Thirty Six)
Well I’m not sure about how I feel about that last bit. And the title now is rather ominous… Where can things possibly go from here?

20:55 (The End)
Oh, well, I think the epilogue was a bit overkill. But what a ride that was. It will stick with me for a while, I think, going through what happened in my head and wondering about missing pieces. Now I’m late for going out with a friend. Time to go back out into reality.

After two years the final book in the Harry Potter series is just two days away. It took me a few books to really start getting into it, but by the end of the sixth one I was in deep. Now as the day where all sorts of remaining questions will be answered gets closer I’m definitely obsessing a little bit.

Rumour has it some pages, including the epilogue, of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows have been circulating on the internet and spoilers have been popping up everywhere. I haven’t read any of these (unsubstantiating and, reportedly, contradictory) stories about what happens, but I do have some ideas of my own—predictions, if you will, and nothing but predictions. I’m putting them down in writing in case some of them are right so I can say “I knew it!”.

1. Harry will not die
There’s nothing in the prophecy that says that both Voldemort and Harry need to die, as some people have said—it merely says not both can live. So, the flip side of this is that Voldemort will be killed, by Harry one would assume. It will be a happy ending, technically, but I’m sure it will not be all sunshine and lollipops.

2. Harry is not a Horcrux
We know Voldemort made Horcruxes, and Dumbledore suggested he was going to made his last one with Harry’s murder. The theory I heard is that Voldemort somehow realised his killing curse on Harry was backfiring and quickly cast the spell to make a Horcrux (using the murder of Harry’s parents). It would explain the strong connection between the two, but I dont see why Voldemort would have deserpately wanted to make a Horcrux when he already had five under his belt. Besides, it would be pointless—Voldemort would destroy his own Horcrux by killing Harry (which he would still need to do, because of the prophecy).

Even if Harry does turn out to be a Horcrux, the first prediction still stands, we’ll go a ways through the book under the impression that he will have to die to kill Voldemort, but I’m sure they’ll be able to find a way to extract that piece of Voldemort’s soul and destroy it without killing him.

3. Dumbledore will remain dead
There has been plenty of suggestion that Dumbledore’s death was a fake, and I’m not going to make any bets that it wasn’t. Rowling has said, however, that he will not do a “Gandalf” in the seventh book and come back to life. Frankly I still have my doubts about what happened in the Half-Blood Prince, but I guess the Avada Kedavra curse was just what it seemed. I do think Dumbledore will play a significant role, though, through memories, instructions, or clues left behind. We still need an answer to why Dumbledore had James’s Invisibility Cloak, after all.

4. Fred and George Weasley will get what’s coming to them
I have no basis for this other than sheer conjecture, but I don’t think these guys can get away with their hijinks forever. They make fun of everything (I loved “U-NO-POO”), are connected to the Order of the Pheonix, and some of their products support the Ministry (clothes with built in sheild charms). The Death Eaters aren’t going to let them slide forever. If the man with the ice cream booth in front of the bookstore can disappear misteriously, so can these guys.

5. Snape will redeem himself

[14:39:24] Greg says:
But I’m undecided on Snape.
[14:39:29] Meg says:
Me too
[14:39:33] Meg says:
I feel good about him though
[14:39:50] Meg says:
But I think that’s because he’s delicious
[14:40:13] Greg says:
Delicious like poison.
[14:41:27] Meg says:
Wonderful gloomy, sadistic, chocolate-covered poison

There are two possibilities: The first is that Snape is not really a Death Eater, and his killing Dumbledore was part of some great plan of Dumby’s. If these were the case, the death was probably fake anyway. Snape turns out to be a good guy afterall. Unfortunately I don’t think this is the most likely. The second is that he really is a Death Eater. If this is the case—or even if we are never clear on what his motivations were for the last few books—I think he will see him repent and come back to the good side. Of course to convince anyone, he’ll have to do something pretty fantastic, which brings us to my final prediction:

6. Snape will die
A tragic death of a misunderstood hero. Probably the one thing he’ll be able to do in the end is to sacrifice himself by fighting Voldemort, to destroy a cursed Horcrux, or to directly saving Harry’s life. Too many people love Snape to really let him end up as a bad guy, but I think this is the only way to convince us he’s not.

We’ll know if I’m right on any of these by the time the weekend is out.

I can’t find a good moving coming out movie to watch.

I used to be a big fan of gay cinema. When I was a teenager I’d pounce on any piece of gay culture that I could, feeding a starved appetite. Yet, gay movies today — even those same ones that I couldn’t get enough of five or ten years ago — don’t hold nearly the same appeal as they once did.

On some level I’m tempted to think that it’s only because I’m past that stage of coming out in my own life, because I don’t identify with any of those troubled characters in the same way that I used to, but it is not limited to just coming out films. I don’t have that strong desire to be part of some larger community at all anymore, so although it’s still nice to have films with gay characters in them, they’re no longer exempt from the regular criteria of good cinema that I would apply to any other film.

Let’s be honest. Most of these movies are not very good. They tend to convey a feeling that they were only made because somebody had some vague idea that a particular story needed to be told, rather than a feeling that the filmmaker had a compelling story to tell. The difference may be minute but it makes a big difference. Somebody wanted to address the problems of homophobia in the mormon church and made Latter Days, but unless you’re predisposed to identifying with the character that suffers through it — that is, unless you yourself are faced with, or significantly interested in, the same problem of religious homophobia — the movie doesn’t pack much of a punch, in the same way that coming out stories mean much more to closeted teenagers than well adjusted adults.

No longer can I profuse love for a particular movie out of a mere desire for commonality with somebody, nor out of a fallicious obligation to support one’s community. There’s a lot of gay themed movies out there, but very few of them are genuinely good. It seems to me that most are B list curiosities, there if you need them but forgettable if you don’t.

I just got my first MP3 player. The original promise was a free iPod mini from my sister as a birthday gift, but the package that was supposed to contain said iPod turned out to contain a note about why there was no iPod and a guilt cheque to make up for it.

This turned out to be fine because with that cheque I was able to go buy my own MP3 player which was decidedly not an iPod, although it might be described as iPod nano-ish—a sexy little Samsung K3, in red of course. Almost by virtue of being not an iPod it is better than an iPod—its cheaper, has an FM radio, and is not a symbol of conformity.

I’m disappointed, however, in its navigation. In the same manner as the iPod, you can browse through songs based on their ID3 tag, selecting artists, albums, or genres. What I don’t like is that this browsing to find a single song is the same as setting the playlist, whereas I think the two things should be separate.

If I want to listen to Jay Brannan’s Soda Shop, as I sometimes do, I can do it by finding Jay’s name in the artists list. However, Soda Shop is the only song by him that I have, so my playlist is that one song over and over. If I want to listen to the whole album (being the soundtrack from Shortbus) I have to have to foresight to navigate to it from Albums > Shortbus > Soda Shop instead of Artists > Jay Brannan > Soda Shop.

Similarly, if I’m playing all tracks on shuffle, hit upon Soda Shop, and decide I’d like to listen to the rest of the soundtrack, I have to backtrack to the main list, choose Albums, find Shortbus, and start the song again. There should be an option, while listening to a song, to change the playlist to other songs only by the same artist or from the same album, or even just to other playlists with that song on it, without having to stop the song.

The difficult part is putting in all the navigational tools you have at hand with a desktop music player like iTunes or Amarok while only using six or seven buttons. Amarok has a very nice way of queueing tracks (better than iTunes’s method) that I would love to see in a portable player. It would be nice as well to be able to add songs to playlists on the fly without necessarily playing them.

Most of these, if not all, are things that could be implemented on MP3 players today (and for all I know they might already be) rather simply. Just put an option to apply filters to the playlist according to album, artist, etc, another to queue the track, and another to add the track to some existing playlist. None of this qualifies as “future” features for navigation because there’s nothing that new and innovative about them.

The feature I would really like to see is one that requires a little more innovation and will be nice to see sometime down the road.

Have you ever been listening to a song and have it remind you of another one? That Jay Brannan song often brings to mind other songs from Shortbus just because they’re all from that same soundtrack. Sometimes, though, there’s a specific song that I want to listen to next, and it might not have anything to do with what I’m listening to. James Blunt’s Goodbye My Lover might conclude only to have me wanting to hear Boston and St. John’s by Great Big Sea, or Rip Slyme’s Joint might bring to mind something by HY. In these cases—even if my feature wishlist above is implemented—it’s a pain to go navigate through various menus or walk through the tracks to find it. What’s the solution?

The MP3 player should just know what I want to listen to.

Oh baby yeah.

If I start mentally humming the intro to A Moth is not a Butterfly after that Julie Delpy waltz from Before Sunset, the player should pick up on that and queue it up for me. Or maybe I’ll just keeping singing Butterfly to myself, in which case the player should realise I’d probably like to listen to it again. And, of course, if there wasn’t anything specific I wanted it would just default back to the standard playlist.

It wouldn’t even have to be that specific at first. There might be some way of just picking up on my mood, and the player could gauge what sorts of songs I might enjoy based on that. The software that came with my K3 already makes an attempt at classifying my music based on its style. Maybe if I’m feeling upbeat it would play an upbeat song for me, or if it saw I was drifting to sleep something more mellow. Hell, that’s 90% of the point right there anyway.

Does anybody have an old EEG machine we could modify and jury-rig onto some headphones? (For maximum brain proximity, of course.) If only I were an engineer/neuropsychologist I could whip something together, apply for a patent, and be making millions in no time.

1. Begin arbitrary terrorist attacks.
2. Have a mutiny plot to overturn the President and seize power.
3. Have assassination attempt on the President, possibly related to above plot to take power.
4. In the process of addressing the terrorist threat, Jack must say “There’s not enough time for that!” and disobey orders to do something his way, probably resisting arrest.
5. Have Jack arrested again, which he will either talk or punch his way out of, yelling “You’ll just have to trust me!” the whole time.
6. Terrorist is killed during interrogation, uttering only a few useless words, which Chloe will turn into a set of entire life histories of some other terrorist cell.
7. Moving any prisoner/witness to “a safe location” results in escape/kidnapping of said prisoner/witness
8. Terrorists kidnap a member of the Bauer family.
9. Replace head of CTU for no apparent reason, even if (especially if) it’s 4 in the morning during a crisis. Current head of CTU acts shocked and protests, even if they knew they were being replaced for the last few hours.
10. Terrorists plan an attack on an anonymous target, i.e. CTU.
11. Replace the replacement head of CTU, repeat as necessary
12. Save the kidnapped Bauer, transport them to safe location (see point 7).
13. Just when we think we know what’s going on, who the terrorists are, and they’re about to be apprehended, show lead terrorist guy on the phone taking orders from some random other guy of a different and completely unrelated terrorist group.
14. Repeat above steps as necessary until end of season.

A few days ago I heard on the news that Sook-Yin Lee was approached about doing a naughty photo shoot for a naughty magazine, but CBC said they’re fire her if she did it. I didn’t think much of it at the time and just filed it away as an interesting tid-bit.

Imagine my surprise when last night, knowing nothing about it beforehand, I sat down to watch the movie Shortbus and only a minute into it I see Sook-Yin herself getting eaten out on a piano. The scene quickly progressed to all manner of graphic (as in pornographic) kama sutra like acrobatics, intersperced with someone trying out a little autofellatio and another being put in his place by a dominatrix. Not exactly CBC approved material, no doubt.

It wasn’t any surprise when I did a little searching around the internet about the movie. As it turns out, CBC threatened to fire Sook-Yin back in 2003 when she took this role as well. It was only through much pressure from other musicians, actors, and artists, as well as the public, that they backed down. I don’t know if she’d get the same support for a pornographic spread in Playboy, though. (If that’s even what it was. I don’t remember the details, so the offer might have been more tame than that.)

That is was Sook-Yin, who I wake up to and spend every Sunday afternoon with via CBC’s Definitely Not the Opera, made it feel like I was watching a friend go through her trials and tribulations on screen. Is that creepy? Maybe. But I already felt a connection with a lot of the characters, seeing a bit of me in all of them. Maybe that’s also a bit creepy. But that’s what good movies should do, right?

Every once in a while I remember something from years and years ago that I’d like to hear or see again, like a piece of music or a movie, but can only remember very vague details about it. In the past, I’ve turned to the internet for guidance, and it worked then so I’m going to try once more.

The object is a play. See if you can tell me which one.

In grade eleven or twelve we read this play in our English class. It was a comedy and had some genuinely laugh out loud moments. I’d like to read it again, or watch out for a stage production of it, but I can’t remember the name.

It was political in nature, but with fictional countries. Each half of the stage was part of a country with an embassy, and ambassadors and their wives would go back and forth with humorous results. What exactly it was about thematically, or even what the plot might have been, I can’t remember, but it was in a book with a blue cover and there was a particularly funny line three quarters of the way down a right facing page. Something, I think, about a particular ficticious holiday in this ficticious country.

That’s not enough information for Google to track down an answer (at least not with the keywords I tried), but it’s probably more than enough for at least one person out there on the internet somewhere. It’s probably somebody’s favourite play of all time, somebody who spends all day obsessively searching for even vague references to it like this one. I’ll just trust Google to direct them to this page and wait for the answers to come rolling in.

I’ve been spending a lot of time on Craigslist looking for an apartment to sublet, and as is only natural with a midterm to study for, I’ve lately started wandering around other categories. In particular, I lose myself in Missed Connections.

I recently read The Hipless Boy’s eight one-sentence stories. That same feeling comes out of each of these ads. There is a mystery behind some of them. Who wrote them, and to who? What encounter inspired them to reach out into the cyber darkness for that connection?

They range from the sweet and innocent:

Thankyou
You might think you did very little, but you’ve given me a confidence I’ve been searching for for months. I hope one day I can somehow repay the favor.

to the slightly creepy:

The girl at McGill every Saturday
We keep looking at each other everytime. We have never been engaged in a conversation. I find you very cute. Do you feel the same thing I feel? [...] Hint: Not that I am handsome, but I am really visible in the classroom!

No thanks, Professor. But then, it is only what I imagine that makes them seem as such. My imagination makes almost every character cute and shy, and every word genuine. Many may be frauds, jokes, or without meaning. I have no way to know.

They remind me of similar missed encounters I’ve had. Sharing a look with a stranger, that girl that said “You’re welcome!” when I thanked her for holding the door, or a smile on the subway. Nothing ever comes of them and I don’t expect them to. I live for those moments. Craigslist’s Missed Connections is evidence that other people do too.

If I were to write one right now:

Tell me your secrets
Dear R&R,
We met in January; Your curvature attracted me.
I’ve crossed the event horizon and there’s no going back.
Let’s make naked singularities.

Time to study.