Blog: Articles from October 2005

We learn something new every day. Today, I learned that John T. Haller has created a wonderful set of portable applications you can run on any Windows computer from your USB drive.

The one in particular I find cool is Portable Firefox, but there’s also Portable Thunderbird, OpenOffice.org, etc. It looks quite useful, works, and is just another way to bother my school’s system techs.

So I suppose I should give a general update after being offline for a while.

My idea that my English teacher read my novel and give me feedback seems to be a good one. Even though I‘m not less bored in English class, at least I’ll get something out of it by the end of the semester. I‘ve reached 40 000 words now, and I’m pretty proud. A friend of mine as well as my English teacher from last year, Ms. Sukalo, are also reading what I have so far.

Speaking of English, we get some choices for our “Independent Novel Studies” this year. The Stone Angel by Margaret Lawrence olleyes:, The Plague by Albert Camus, and Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. There was a fourth one too, but I don’t remember its name. Of those, I’ve read Catcher in the Rye and consider it a great novel, but everyone wants to do it (due to the fact that it is “short” ). We spent about ten minutes trying to figure out how to divide the books up evenly, but got distracted by a fire drill. Anyway, I hear that Camus is “difficult,” but that persuades me in his direction—if only to help the rest of my befuddled peers who get saddled with him.

The other English class has Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four amongs their choices! I am so jealous! My only consolation is that my class is (hopefully) doing Fifth Business as the class novel study.

In Drama, we’re rescripting fairy tales to perform for grade twos. My group is doing “Sleeping Beauty,” and my principal role is the King (Sleeping Beauty’s father) although I’ll play one or two other characters as well. It’s fun, eh.

Hmm … what else. Oh, yes, I am employed again by the law firm where my dad works. They‘re moving offices and need someone to help dispose of really old files and books in order to condense for the move. The pay is good, but I need to get more hours in order to make any money. :/

And to sum up with this weekend’s adventure, I bring you yet another interesting round of … English! Ms. Sukalo is Chair of Communications (eg; English) at another high school in the city (Hammarskjold). Anyway, the organisation of the books (novels, textbooks, et cetera) was terrible and they were trying to reorganise everything. So she invited some of the Shakespeare group to come over to Hammarskjold with her and help clean up the books and reorganise them. We get volunteer hours, and it isn’t a bad way to spend an afternoon. After moving and storing about fifty billion copies of The Stone Angel, however, I don’t think I’ll want to do that for my novel study… .

Wow! I‘ve got paid hosting! All thanks to A Small Orange!

I’m now going to work on rejuvenating it. The database backup is from October 10, so if you posted any comments or such after that date, then they’re gone … sorry. It appears this mean the entire guestbook is gone. I should get to bed, but I’ll put it back up tomorrow, so sign it again then.

So I joined this informal sort drama group known as “Black Light Theatre,” which does their performances in, not surprisingly, under black light. Several of my friends were already in it, so I decided I might as well join and have some fun.

I got drafted to play a “voice” (as opposed to a puppet) because the person who previously played the voice had moved away. So now I’m going to be an “angry dad” (the play, I gather, is about family issues). The atmosphere is quite informal, as obviously I‘m diving right in. Meanwhile, we’re working on a new play, this one about mental illnesses in adolescents at high school. That’ll be interesting… .

Thanksgiving long weekend! Pie, pie, pie! Turkey! Cranberry sauce! Stuffing!

Spoiler warning.

The movie was paced very well, there was plenty of action in the beginning and end, although the middle dragged just a little. Each character also got their bit of the action, and of course, River gets a lot of action. I’m rather disappointed with the smaller parts that Inara and the Shepard get, especially the latter fellow, but at least he had some great lines. The characterisation was good too, all the actors slid back into their roles very naturally.

The “Mr. Universe” character seemed a bit of a gimmick to me, perhaps even a deus ex machina, which is uncharacteristic of the Firefly motif. He’s a little too sudden and a little too pivotal to the plot for my tastes.

Wash’s death was quite dramatic and meaningful. Apparently, he’s the character with whom I identify the most, and I do love his dinosaurs. The people at the theatre (and it was pretty crowded) literally gasped when he died, because it came out of nowhere. I was so saddened that I had to go to the washroom. When I came back, they were getting ready for the dramatic fight scene where Simon and Kaylee would get to be romantic and then River could save the day.

As usually, it’s the actors and the characters who drive this movie. I can’t complain, the dialogue and the delivery is pure Firefly and great to see. My dad, who has not seen an episode of Firefly, said the movie was “great,” and he is very critical of movies. I was surprised by the turnout, but one of the unique things about Firefly is that, even though it’s science fiction, it doesn’t focus on the science part of the fiction, it focuses on the humanity (similar in the way that the new BSG does), which helps it draw in a much larger audience.

Now I hope they just don’t make a sequel… . .