Procedurals

***apologies for the late posting... it's been one of those days, more to follow***

I grew up watching Quincy M.E. and Murder, She Wrote on television with my mom. She was also a huge fan of Columbo. Little did I know that my Scooby-Doo episodes were really cut from the same cloth.

My brother was the first to turn me on to the original C.S.I. on TV. Initially, I didn't enjoy the formula of the series but once I bought into the premise and characters, I was pretty much hooked. I still tune in to see who from the original cast is still around and who has been imported to boost ratings but the show hasn't really been up to par since Billy Petersen (Gil Grissom) left and my favourite character in the show was the occasional entrepreneur and always entertaining Lady Heather (played by the lovely Melinda Clarke of Xena, Firefly, and Nikita allure) who, seemingly, ended her stint in Vegas with the 2011 episode "Unleashed" where she'd gone legit as a sex therapist. Without Grissom's tidy, subtle intellect to play off of, it just wasn't the same.

So, ANYWAY.....

Time and time again while writing this blog, I have been a little startled at how Life enfolds to create deeper meaning to these posts that I start in my head when I choose my shirt in the morning. I actually had a hard time picking a shirt today and just thought that I'd write a little post on mystery/cop shows that make forensic science look pretty with sexy camera angles and cool lights. Hence, the reminiscing about 80s primetime TV at the top of the page.

My day at work proved incredibly busy and I didn't have much of a break even during my breaks to write so I put it off to write when I got home. Didn't get in until after 6:30pm and started making some tomato soup for dinner. Just before 7pm, the neighbour's smoke alarm went off. I walked around my house carefully first to make sure it wasn't one of my alarms. (Since we share a wall with the next unit, Jeff and I have been fooled into thinking an alarm was next door when it was actually ours.) Establishing that it was definitely coming from next door, I went back to cutting cheddar cubes for my soup.

A few minutes later, I heard a knock on my door. The family from the other side of the squealing unit were trying to see if the neighbour was home. At their insistence, I phoned the landlady to see if she could call our neighbour on her phone (although why she'd hear the phone and not the crazy loud alarm doesn't make a lick of sense). After phoning her, I called the Vancouver Police non-emergency line to report the alarm. They put me through to the Fire department who asked me to vacate the premises until the fire fighters could take a look around. Next thing we knew, our street had a fire truck on it, lights swirling bright, and firefighters toting axes were circling the building. Because that's procedure. (See what I did there? ;)

Thankfully, there was no actual fire. Our neighbour had put a roast in her oven to cook and then headed across the street to visit a friend. The tasty, tasty fat of the pork roast meanwhile dripped onto the heating element and smoked up her house. By the time the firefighters were standing by her front door, axes still in hand, waiting for our landlady to come unlock the door, she came running. Soon afterwards, the tenant from the last unit in the complex arrived home, having been called by our landlady. As he came down the block, having already seen the fire engine and firefighters, what catches his attention? The back of MY t-shirt emblazoned with the giant "C.S.I." letters. Poor guy (whose townhouse was broken into and burgled the first summer Jeff and I lived here) had a moment of terrifying panic.

Our tiny little landlady was in quite the tizzy as well when she arrived with her daughter. By then, the firefighters had finished their paperwork and given the building the "all clear".

Now I'm thoroughly exhausted by all the excitement and suspicious of what may happen if I put my Star Trek shirt on tomorrow... First contact, anyone?

Music T Friday: When I'm Up I Can't Get Down

The universe conspires against me. Just when I make the conscious decision to really buckle down and become fiscally responsible (stop laughing, you), Barbra Streisand decides to perform in Vancouver for the first time EVER, Paul McCartney returns to perform for the first time since the Beatles played Empire Stadium in 1964, and Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, and Bob Dylan also book dates here. Leonard Cohen is scheduled to play here on November 12. And the Barenaked Ladies are playing with the VANCOUVER SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA *sigh*

Vancouver is far from the no-fun city it once sported the reputation as. Nowadays, it's more like "no funds" city. Interestingly enough, the seat I had at the Streisand concert on Monday would've gone for $1500 in Toronto. Made me feel better for spending $100 on it. For the record, I passed on McCartney, Young and Cohen. And, yes, dammit, that's me being all mature and restrained and stuff.

Today's shirt is quite possibly my first Vancouver concert tee. It's definitely the oldest one still in my wardrobe and it's in fantastic nick for being AS OLD AS MY GRADE EIGHT STUDENTS. Yup, in fact, I bought this shirt on November 1st, 1999, at the Vogue Theatre, a fact that didn't occur to me when I picked it this morning. Happy buy-day, GBS "Turn" shirt! Sadly, the plaid PJ pants I bought at the same concert have been reduced to scraps years ago but they were gorgeous and comfy and served me well.

 

The b'ys from The Rock are celebrating their 20th anniversary next year and touring the continent with their "XX" album. They'll be at the swanky Orpheum Theatre here in Vancouver on March 10th next year. Of course, I bought my ticket already. One more seat at the wedding reception or a night with three fabulous Newfoundlanders? Pfft.

Like most of the musical acts that I follow, I appreciate that Great Big Sea has never lost that feeling of camaraderie and fun that made them so great to listen to when they first emerged on the scene. Furthermore, their salt-of-the-earth NewfoundLANDer personalities have never failed to strike a genuine note with their audiences. The b'ys have found individual as well as group success over the two decades and their fans are the first to flock to a solo show or tune in to a TV show to catch a cameo appearance. Pretty sure that Alan Doyle's stint on Republic of Doyle (no relation, haha) saw a ratings boost for those episodes. Mind you, Russell Crowe showing up might deserve some of the credit too...

To sign off on topic, enjoy a video of Alan, Sean, and Bob playing their unreleased single "Great Big World" in studio. 

 
And to sign off slightly off-topic, I've been edumicated recently on the existence of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Post Month), an homage offshoot of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). This was exciting news but, unfortunately, because I only write on school days and NaBloPoMo requires you blog everyday for the month of November, I don't think I technically qualify. I've sent a note to the organizers to see if I can still participate. As of sometime yesterday on Google-Time, I crossed the 2000 pageviews milestone and I don't THINK me checking my own page accounts for more than half of those so.... yay! Thanks, readers, commenters and especially you lurkers because I've really been enjoying this exercise and even when there isn't a lot of chit-chat, the stats show that you're all sticking around. :)

The Powers That Be

Back in the television season of 2006-2007, I stopped trying to watch new shows because, invariably, whatever I liked got cancelled. Either I had really terrible taste or I was the kiss of death for network series. It was several years before I could open my heart to newcomers again and let pilot season excite and enthrall me.

Studio 60 was a Sorkin show. It starred Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitfield. It was a behind-the-scenes look at an SNL style variety show. It was timely in its humour, cleverly self-referential, and had lots of attractive women and the cuter Corddry brother. It had all the earmarks for another long-running hit from the chatty, brilliant brain that had spawned Sports Night and birthed The West Wing.

For a variety of reasons, some having to do with the ratings, NBC jerked around the show's scheduled airings starting before Christmas (Happy holidays!) that year and then all over the spring schedule until they finally officially pulled the plug in May (Happy birthday to me!) of 2007. The shirt was a souvenir from the NBC Store in New York City after the cancellation. 

Good shows often get good runs. Awesome shows often get killed off early with only a brief, brilliant season or two to glow in the memories of its fans and following. Firefly, Cupid (which was apparently re-booted in 2009 and I didn't even notice), even Snoops with the uneven Gina Gershon deserved more than their short, mutilated run. The brutality of the spring up-fronts are such that many freshman shows are afraid to build in a cliffhanger ending in case the renewal fairy doesn't visit. Last year, I was given the chance to eulogize one such single-season casualty online - the late, great Chicago Code. Since then, I've been purposely more jaded about new offerings and was pleasantly surprised by the renewal of Scandal. It's all about expectations and I've gotten to the point where good writing, engaging characters and a clever concept means it'll probably be gone by morning.

All right, readers, give it to me with both barrels: You have the power to reverse the cancellation of one show in all of television history. Not a reboot but an actual contiguous extension from its untimely demise in the time and context that it was gunned down. What do you choose, hot shot?

Music-T Friday: Somebody I Would Never Have Known

There is a lot of music out there and a lot of musicians finding success making that music. How they get there, whether it's via industry design, a competition like American Idol, or YouTube "discovery", the result is basically the same. They're on our radio, TV, Internet, sometimes in the news if they have the quirkiness to be deemed worthy of coverage.

Occasionally, a musician has a more interesting backstory than the norm. I'm sure all of them would claim they do but it's a subjective thing and, for me, most of them don't. Yes, being discovered is awesome. Yes, getting to perform with a long-time hero is inspiring. But unless you were discovered performing while Rome burned or your long-time hero was someone long-dead and brought back in a non-holographic manner to jam with you, I still feel that this is a typical music industry narrative.

Today's t-shirt is, as promised, music related and a musician with what I would judge to have been and continues to be an interesting backstory. I am far from an expert in Amanda Palmer but I do know how I came to know of her and that, in and of itself, is interesting enough for me to blog about. Subjectively speaking, that is.

(It's also Shakespeare-related which is another WIN for this shirt.)

This is a story in parts:

Part One: With the exception of his early teen love affair with the Barenaked Ladies, my brother and I haven't shared a whole lot of music interests. While in high school (?), he became a fan of the "dark cabaret" duo, The Dresden Dolls, which I hadn't heard of and didn't really take the time to investigate. The Dresden Dolls were/are comprised of Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione.

Part Two: In my first year of teaching in Richmond, I struck up a friendship with sister geek and bibliophile, Mitch, and she quickly remedied a huge gaping hole in my literary consciousness by lending me the audio book recording of Neil Gaiman's "Fragile Things". I took the recording with me on a bus trip to the Okanagan soon afterwards and fell in thrall to Gaiman's wordcraft, imagination, and voice (He often reads his own audio books but I would probably pay to listen to him read a phone book.)

Part Three: Twitter happened. I joined in early 2009 so I can't really call myself an early adopter. I think I joined after seeing Biz Stone on The Colbert Report. In Vancouver terms, I think I was probably part of the earliest group using Twitter regularly. I base this on the fact that in the first six months I was using Twitter, I won nearly every Twitter contest I entered for the Vancouver area. I started following Gaiman on Twitter as he was both an interesting and prolific Tweeter. That year, he and Palmer announced their relationship and, since they had the most endearing Tweet-versations (still do) but one must follow both to be privy to the convos, I started following her as well.

Part Four: In 2010, Palmer came to Vancouver with Jason Webley to perform as Evelyn Evelyn a set of troubled but talented conjoined twins with a dark traumatic history. I attended as a photographer for the Vancouver-based website (known then as Guttersnipe) The Snipe News. My galleries for both the Evelyn Evelyn and the Amanda Palmer (solo) portion of the evening are still online.

Probably my favourite concert pic (that I took) ever

Part Five: Neil and Amanda got married and decided to tour together as "An Evening with Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer", Kickstart the whole shebang, and included Vancouver in that tour (Nov 6, 2011).

Backtracking to Part Four-Point-Five: In the spring of 2011, Mitch underwent a liver transplant. The operation and the period of time that followed was a frightening time for her, her family and her friends, with whom I am honoured to be counted. When I reached out to Mr. Gaiman over Twitter to garner a well-wish for her, he responded immediately. When she came through, we let him know and he cheered with us. When the Kickstarter offered a chance for supporters to meet him and Amanda backstage before the show, I bought the Starry Night level and had my Early Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah/Hurrah-She-Has-A-Working-Liver present for the year at the ready. (Of the things I am able to do on the bus with my iPhone on the way to work in the morning, shopping is probably the most dangerous. In this case, though, I kow-tow to the gods of technology)

Part Six: Great fun was had at the Vogue Theatre. Mikala (aka Backstage Rider) was in the house and has an incredible gallery of photos to show for it. Mitch, husband J, sister D and I were all seated in the front few rows for a show that clocked in at over three hours and, although Mitch was tuckered by the end of it (it was her first big outing since the operation, after all) that crowd would've blissfully hung onto their every note and word for another three. I wore my Evelyn Evelyn t-shirt to the show and Amanda signed me afterwards (still have that shirt but not sure it still fits) and brought an issue of Sandman that Jeff didn't have yet and Neil signed it for him.

So every once in a while, I peek in on Amanda's website and see what's out and about. Loved this t-shirt and bought a couple of them, not just for the Shakespeare, not just to support her, not just for the fact it says something coming AND going. I like the main sentiment. Haters suck and deserve to be bear food. Yes, she's made her career on "dark" images and inspirations but I find AFP's approach to Life, music, love and art intensely positive. She is arguably the poster child for crowd-sourcing which spawns from her life-lessons as a street performer and a belief that music and art belong to the people. She offers her music on both a FREE and PAY AS YOU WANT basis on her website with a clear and concise mission statement:

(To be clear, her newest album is entitled "Theatre is Evil" but "SPREAD THE EVIL" is a heckuva tag line for any campaign.)

Recently, there has been a controversy in AFP country. To be sure this isn't Palmer's first controversy, but this one, involving a request for fans to come perform with her voluntarily, seems to highlight the divide between the "business" and the "art". It's not a debate of right or wrong. It's a difference of world perspective. So however it hashes out in the end, I don't think that it'll change where people sit on the issue of creativity versus monetizing. I have a ticket to her next show in Vancouver on Sept 29. I paid money for it and some more money to Ticketmaster (speaking of evil...). And I'm going to have a a grand thievin' evilly good time. And THAT is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help my *Asian-born-Canadian* a$$.

I still get laughed at but it doesn't bother me,

I'm just so glad to hear laughter around me

-AFP

Keeping it Simple

As counter-intuitive as it may seem, simple is not easy. Keeping things simple these days is hard work. It's a conscious effort. One of my co-workers stated one aspect of this last week when he said to a student,"If you want to be lazy, you have to be organized." Being disorganized is easy but it makes getting things done far more complicated, ie ,"not simple". (PLEASE go take a look at the "ie" link. LOVE oatmeal.com. Might need to look into buying a t-shirt from there when I start running out of fuel for this blog)

Today's shirt has a simple message but it's not an easy intention. Human nature focuses on the negative and the easiest thing for most people to criticize is themselves. I've spent a lot of my life self-hating aspects of myself, largely physical ones, and it takes effort to remind myself that what I judge as lacking or aberrant isn't necessarily what matters in the grand scheme. Many of my students have a hard time liking themselves in school because they don't see themselves as successful compared to their peers. I probably annoy a lot of them with my persistent cheerleading but if they aren't going to talk themselves up internally, I'm gonna do it for them externally, loud and proud and in their face.

The shirt is courtesy of Rooster Teeth (because there's NO other way that their logo could be interpreted... nooooo) and the geniuses behind the Red vs. Blue (aka RVB) online video series. Arguably, Season 1 was the best (I haven't seen the most recent series) but Halo fans deserve their own entertainment niche as much as the next game culture. And the RVB episodes are extremely accessible to non-gamers. The creators seem to have a good time with the stand-alone PSAs that come out every once in a (timely) while too:

 

To tie it all back to the title of this post, I refer to the very first episode of RVB:

In the commentary on the DVD, the creators explain that the very first shot in this very first episode (0:00-0:06 approx), a "simple" pan up to the Red sentries before they start talking, was the most difficult and frustrating shot of the episode, possibly of the season because the "camera" character had to be balanced on the barrel of a tank and then raised up to create the panning effect. Apparently, the game engine never thought that "balancing on the barrel of a tank" would be a needed trait in their characters and the "camera" kept falling off ... and dying. "Take 196, anyone? And action! Aw, crap, we're dead again."  So once again, simple does not mean easy. Simple is a craft. Easy is a default.

Taking the Plunge

 Bet you thought I was going to blog about wedding plans, didn't you? BA-zinga!

Whistler Bungee is the closest place to Vancouver to find this particular activity. It's a jump from a bridge spanning the Cheakamus River, a 160ft plunge, and a lot of bouncing. And I probably would never have gone looking for this experience except for two things. First, came this segment on the Rick Mercer Report:

Once I'd seen Rick Hansen do the deed ... in. his. freakin. WHEELCHAIR. I knew I had to give it a try. Eventually.

Then Katrina came to visit. Kat's afraid of heights but you would think the exact opposite if you were to review her travel activities. When I mentioned that I wanted to go up to Whistler and do the bungee jump, she was all for it. Of course, she practically vibrated with nervous energy for the 24 hours before our jump and couldn't sleep at all the night before. But we did it! Here's the video of my perspective:

And here's me, "hanging out" at the bottom, waiting for retrieval: 

Kat did her bungee jump face-first (but still with the torso harness, not the ankle one) while I jumped backwards. Since I live nearby, I decided after that first jump that I should go back and try it face-first too. So in October of 2010, while in Whistler for Peggy's bachelorette, she and I bussed down to the jump site and a-way I went...

It was significantly scarier going face-first.

To be anecdotally scientific for a moment, I made an interesting discovery after my second jump: a dramatic adrenaline rush can completely negate any subsequent alcoholic effects. Hours later (and we're talking ten or more) as we celebrated Peggy's soon-to-be-finished singleton-dom in the entertainment hub that is Whistler Village, I realized that the substantial imbibing that was going on was not having the same effect on me as on my companions. I still had a great time but drinking was a futile (and expensive) activity that night.

You get a t-shirt EVERY time you jump

A little while later, a Groupon came up for a discounted jump at Whistler Bungee and I bought it, then nearly forgot to use it before it expired. My darling had to drive me up to do the jump and even crossed the bridge despite his own intense dislike of heights. I could've chosen to use the ankle harness this time to change it up again but hanging by my ankles for minutes while waiting to be pulled back up really didn't hold a lot of appeal and, quite truthfully, falling backwards is kind of relaxing. 

Familiarity breeds comfort and I didn't hesitate on this jump like I did on my first. Apparently, the guy on the platform even commented,"Well, she's done this before" after I'd gone.

Well, I did say at the start of this post that it wasn't going to be wedding-related. But, since our photographer, Darko, posted one of our engagement photos from last Friday, it seems just too perfect, timing-wise. So *double BA-zinga*. Here we are at Queen Elizabeth Park.

... and the goofy smiles aren't just due to being deeply in love. He was whispering (without moving his lips) that he was going to throw me in the fountain and I was whispering back (without moving my lips) that if he did, I'd pull him in with me. A nice metaphor for wedding planning really if you think about it.