Posts tagged with "top ten" - Faerye Net

Top ten ways I could be a better action heroine

2011-02-15T21:40:16+00:00

Some people achieve action heroism, others have it thrust upon them unexpectedly after they finish their waitressing shift at Big Jeff’s burger joint. I’m not a good prospect for the former: although P.E. activities with a hint of adventure or violence (obstacle course! archery!) got a better performance from me than team sports, I was never a prospect for rippling athleticism. But there’s always the latter. You can’t predict being the accidental survivor of a zombiepocalypse, or indeed the fated mother of mankind’s savior. I’d rather be prepared, especially if there’s any chance of 1980’s-era Michael Biehn shirtlessness involved.

How I could be a better action heroine
Note: list draws from sources in a gender-neutral manner.

10. Learn Morse Code. I’m not sure how useful it is if no one else knows it — in the absence of Starfleet Academy, I may not put this one into effect.

9. Play flight simulators (See also #8) A little bit more theoretical knowledge of how to fly – and especially land – a plane can’t hurt, and occasionally it can really help. No reason not to do this.

8. Practice driving a stick. In theory, I’ve known how to drive a manual transmission car since I was commanded to learn for paleontological purposes. Realistically though, I haven’t driven one in over five years. The choice of cars for breakneck chases and last-minute escapes is not always wide, so it’s best to be prepared for anything. Should an opportunity present itself, I should practice.

7. Practice cheeking pills. I’m not saying I expect to have to avoid swallowing mind-numbing medicine in a mental hospital or hoard pills in order to poison my captors, but I don’t expect to be an action heroine, either. Taking my daily pile of pills just got more heroic!

6. Train up sense of direction. My sense of direction isn’t bad, precisely. It’s just limited. If I’m on foot, it works pretty damn well, and has even impressed people. If I’m in a car, not so much — this could get really awkward in case I’m ever in a car chase. But then, what do I need to know but “away”? I may forego doing this, and just hope I’m never called upon to, say, lead survivors through a maze of ventilation ducts pursued by an alien horde.

5. Get baseball bat. (Or cricket.) Good for zombie-crushing, fending off murderous failed novelists, and, given sandpaper enough and time, staking vampires. It’s actually very strange I don’t have a baseball bat, because I was raised in a house where the baseball bat was the what-was-that-noise weapon of choice. As a side note, I’ll mention I already have done one thing right: learn a sport with a swinging tool. Sure, a tennis racquet is a lousy weapon, but I bet I get a free point in shortsword for that.

4. Learn when to remove things from wounds, and when not to. I often think characters are pulling, say, shrapnel from exploded Terminators from their flesh when they should leave it in at least until there’s a tourniquet. If I learn this, I can be more helpful in an emergency and a more confident know-it-all when watching movies!

3. Get a shotgun. Watching shocking numbers of action movies, not to mention playing video games, has reminded me that the shotgun is your friend. It is suitable for big damn heroics, zombie slaying, and applying delaying force to nigh-unstoppable cyborgs. However, here in the real world, I’m not sure I’m ready to take this step. Even though I’d love to have a shotgun (or a replica pulse rifle, to be honest) hanging on the mantel with a brass plaque reading “Chekhov’s Gun”, it might cause an endless stream of gun-rights arguments in the unlikely event of us inviting people over. Not to mention, it’s a slippery slope from one gun on the wall to crossed guns and a mounted deadite head, and that just wouldn’t go with my aesthetic.

2. Start carrying a lighter. Due to my personal history of primness, practicality and asthma, I have never smoked. (Once I had to fend a cigarette off physically – ah, France!) However, it has not escaped my attention that the ability to summon fire is dead useful. Whether it means summoning help (also 1980’s Michael Biehn, although tragically fully clothed) via fire alarm or completing an elemental ritual in order to save the universe, the lighter pays its way. Much like a bit of rope in another context, you’ll want it if you don’t have it. I’m seriously considering this.

1. Cardio. (Run away, run away!) Already working on it.

Geek Valentine's: Serious discussions for geek couples

2011-02-14T16:21:53+00:00

Those of you who know me well may expect that if I acknowledge Valentine’s Day at all, I usually mark it as Oregon Statehood Day or extol its origins in the celebration of familial and platonic love before its absorption by the romance cult. So I’m going to shock you: this is an actual romance-related blog post to mark Valentine’s Day.

Good communication is key to any lasting relationship, romantic or otherwise, and there are certain important conversations that the experts suggest people have before entering upon romantic commitments. But those experts are usually not geeks, so they overlook all sorts of situations that are specific to the geek lifestyle (or to the lifestyle geeks wish they had.) So, I have taken it upon myself to lay out some discussion topics. These are not small questions like who drives the starship: they touch on religion, ethics, life, death, and all that sort of thing. It’s important to settle such points if you want to be celebrating the tenth anniversary of your victory against the forces of evil together, instead of going on adventures all by yourself and wondering where your zippy banter has got to.

What is my authority to designate discussion topics for you and your co-protagonist? My authority is that I have a blog and you are reading it.

10 Serious discussions for geek couples

10. Am I free to date if you die? It’s just good to get this out of the way: how long should you wait to make sure your old honey isn’t going to be revived, or resurrected by magic, or regrown by sinister corporations?

9. Will you kill me if I am facehugged, bitten by a zombie, et c.? If it comes to that, your partner should do you both. If you’re not willing to even get someone else to stake my vampirized corpse, cut my head off and fill my mouth with garlic, what kind of commitment can you offer me?

8. Do we convert if we witness a miracle? If the Holy Grail cures your dad’s gut wound, do you consider yourself illuminated, or just move on to the next thing?

7. Do we welcome our alien overlords? For instance, I’m pro-cephalopod overlord, but I’m not too keen on reptilians.

6. Are we going to get cyber implants? If so, how many? If flashing lights and servos are a dealbreaker for your co-protagonist, it’s best to know now.

5. Are AIs and manufactured sentients deserving of human rights? Social justice, baby.

4. Is being body-switched with your worst enemy grounds for a break-up? For the record, Callisto is very pretty. If you have to switch bodies with an evil murderer, you could do worse.

3. Does the holodeck count as cheating? However you come down on the general rule, it’s best to specify that holodeck-snogging people you actually know is creepy as hell, as well as potentially more relationship-endangering.

2. Are we raising the kids Orthodox Jedi or Reform? Oh, sure, some of us geeks are atheists and so forth, but you know if you raise Force-sensitive kids without any religious training, they’re much more susceptible to Sith interference.

1. Are we in this for loot, or XP? Sure, you think this is an abstract question, but when you’re bickering over whether your co-protagonist should take the dream job or the six figures, or whether to return the culturally significant artifact to the village or fence it, you’ll realize I was right.

Top Ten Favorite Fictional Ships

2010-12-26T13:38:04+00:00

Because I recently named a vehicle, this burning question has been on my mind. (Wikipedia links contain spoilers, natch.) List subject to change without notice if I remember any more awesome vessels!

The Millennium Falcon – “I got your promise: not a scratch?”
USS Enterprise-D – Icon of my formative years. I still physically wince when I watch “Cause and Effect”. Or Generations, but please, who doesn’t?
Serenity – My favorite episode is “Out of Gas”.
(SSV) Normandy – Hey, giving me a ship is a good way to engage my affections. If you have a yacht on hand, I invite you to check if this works for non-fictional craft!
HMS Surprise - Yes, I know there are real HMS Surprises. But none of them have Jack Aubrey’s initials carved into the cap of the masthead, which this one does.
USS Enterprise (-A) – It is a classic, I’ll admit.
The Dawn Treader
The White Star – Despite the dilution effect.
USS Defiant – It looks like an anteater, but then, my high school mascot was an aardvark.
Johnny Dooit’s sand-boat – From The Road to Oz. If anyone reading didn’t need to be told, then I salute you!

Terminator Week: Top Five + Five ways pets are like movie monsters

2009-11-02T11:17:08+00:00

Spoiler: Still spoiling Terminator after more than a week.

As we all know — because surely those who have not watched Terminator have either rectified the oversight or abandoned my blog for the duration of Terminator Week — at the end of the original film, Sarah Connor has a dog. There is a certain thread of pro-dog propaganda in the Terminator movies which has always led me to believe James Cameron is a dog person. After all, he was stuck with that cat when he made Aliens: it was left over from Ridley Scott.

But perhaps something deeper is at play here. Let us consider the Terminator and the Alien.

5 by 5. Terminators don’t get along with dogs. Aliens don’t get along with cats. While they don’t necessarily eat them, it’s clear Aliens and cats have a natural antipathy, as manifested in copious hissing. Dogs, on the other hand, flip out when they detect a Terminator.

4. Terminators keep themselves clean. Aliens slobber. You don’t see any Aliens heading home to freshen up and check the mirror before continuing their killing sprees.

3. Terminators are lone predators. Aliens hunt in packs. Yup.

2. Terminators don’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. Aliens are full of family feeling. Now here I’ll admit the cat/terminator parallel has its flaws — cats do appear to feel fear, tho’ pity and remorse are quite unlikely. But cats do tend to have a centered self-sufficiency more akin to the autonomous Terminator than the social xenomorph.

1. Terminators are manipulative. Aliens are straightforward. Either an Alien is going to growl and attack, or he’s going to sniff and attempt to snuggle you (really, Joss Whedon told me so.) There’s none of this “Oh, I’m just a cute cat, please further my mission goals.” Sure, currently they wiggle their way into our homes in order to eat food and sleep in the window, not open fire with chainguns, but you can give a Terminator a friendly mission too. Cats are infiltration units. We may love them, but let’s not let them have access to our launch codes. I don’t want to know how far this parallel goes.

Top Ten Reasons You Should Be Watching "Life"

2009-03-26T22:23:49+00:00

A while back, I started watching Life. There were two reasons for this. One is that all the episodes that then existed were free online at Hulu. The other reason is Damian Lewis, who played Winters in Band of Brothers, and, along with Ron Livingston, made me feel very conflicted. Is it wrong to crush on actors when they’re playing real people who are as old as my grandpa and portraying important historical events? Oh, the conflict.

At any rate, I was hooked on Life immediately, but didn’t spread the news. I think I was obscurely ashamed of the show, mostly because it is weird. It’s a good weird, though. A very deliberate weird. So, I’m letting the world know: if you’re not watching Life, you should be.

Top Ten Reasons You Should Be Watching Life:

10. It’s not like every other cop show. Since the premise (cop Charlie Crews gets sentenced to life for triple murder he didn’t commit, then gets exonerated and insists on being a cop again as part of his settlement) is a little far-fetched, so is everything else. The murders, suspects and situations are zany, often surreal. It’s not a cop show that could be set anywhere but LA. It’s not a cop show you could confuse with any old procedural on the air.

9. Crews’s silly amounts of money. And the silly things the show does with it, like the musical chairs with Charlie’s car.

8. Cinematography. Ryan can tell you more about this, but it’s not shot like any old show, either. Nice light, interesting angles.

7. No goddamn inter-partner sexual tension. Yes, Damian Lewis and Sarah Shahi are both hot. Yes, the viewing public will probably enjoy that. No, the writers are not using it to create constant, stupid sexual tension like every show for the last twenty-plus years of television. Hallelujah!

6. Surprises. They’re not shaking up the formula every week or pulling a Joss every season, but there are enough people getting shot or starting relationships that you didn’t expect that you stay on your toes.

5. The music. Ryan says the DVD doesn’t have the same music as the aired episodes (I believe Hulu does) but it tends to be unusual, good, and add to the episodes in an intelligent, fun way.

4. The supporting characters. Often mystery shows that have to present a new cast of suspects and victims every week fall into shorthand, but this show doesn’t rely on that. They depict different parts of a very diverse LA every week, and the characters are idiosyncratic, varied, human. Some of the recurring characters are played by great actors like Adam Arkin and (Saffron/Yolanda/Bridget) Christina Hendricks.

3. Sarah Shahi. Danni Reese could have been a simple straight-man cop character, but Shahi does a fabulous job of depicting her with layers and edges.

2. The writing. There’s the cop banter over the weird cases, Charlie’s ongoing attempts to view his odd life through Zen, his off-kilter questions to suspects, and his unquenchable passion for fruit. It’s unexpected without trying too hard. It’s droll without being dumb.

1. Damian Lewis. He’s a fabulous actor. I mean, I like Hugh Laurie as much as the next Wodehouse addict, but Damian Lewis’s American accent is the best I can recall hearing from a Brit. And his delivery of all the great lines in #2? Pitch-perfect straight-faced hilarity. His character is complex and winning.

Of course the show has its weak points. Everything does. I am not 100% convinced they had cemented the entire backstory/conspiracy before they started writing it, and there are some conceits and characters in Season 1 they ditched by Season 2. But it’s a good show, only getting better. Go watch Life.

Top Ten Reasons I'm glad to be back in Oregon

2009-01-14T12:00:41+00:00

10. Online access to the OED through Multnomah County Libraries. Oh yes.

9. Shopping Locally. Also see #7. The area of San Jose where I lived had astoundingly few locally-owned businesses. One per shopping center or less. In this area of Portland, the ratio is almost reversed. In t.c.e.c. (the current economic climate), it feels good to know your money is going directly into your community.

8. The roads, and being on them less. Fewer potholes (save for I-5 North after three freezes and a week of chained semis), fewer drivers, lower average speed, and less merging. This also means fewer ‘grouse’ entries.

7. My favorite shops – from tea purveyors to stationers, I know where to go to get what I want.

6. Walks. I haven’t always lived in a walkable area, but I do now, and I cherish it like the dickens. Besides, it’s easy to get somewhere to stroll all the afternoon using…

5. Tri-Met. I never knew how much I loved you until you weren’t there with your low, low fares and convenient routes.

4. Weather. Actual weather. Rain for my amphibian skin. Wind for brisk walks. Clouds to watch as I ponder.

3. Landscape. Dark points of conifers, mist-veiled mountains…this is where I belong.

2. People. I left some good friends in California, but I’m not just talking about my pals, Ryan’s folks across the Water, my uncle in our quadrant of Portland, or my sister up in Seattle. I grew up in the friendly but unassuming civility of the Northwest, and it is my natural habitat.

1. Powell’s. Yes, feel free to be insulted, #2. And no, this is not part of #9 or #7. Powell’s is the center of my universe and the signed pillar in the spec-fic section holds up my sky. I am gravitationally attracted to books. Don’t judge me!

Top Ten Move-Related Firsts

2007-04-09T17:46:52+00:00

10. First Starbucks I’ve visited in California.

9. First time I’ve driven eight hours in one day. That leg wouldn’t have taken so long if I hadn’t tried to give the cats water at every stop. On a related note, you’d think the average Californian had never seen a grown woman in pigtails with a leashed cat climbing her back before.

8. First real live CHP motorcycle officer sighted. They really do dress like that.

7. First road trip with cats. Next time, Ryan gets to drive Miss Evilcat.

6. First time I’ve ever wanted to kill a cat. In my defense, it certainly would have rendered her tranquil.

5. First time sleeping in a room with two cats. And second, and, tonight, third. The pouncing, the kneading…last night Qubit tried to stretch her forepaws into my eyesockets. In a nice way.

4. First time finding British comedy on in the middle of the day on a weekday. I think I’m going to like it here.

3. First time driving in California. I went from ‘zippy’ to ‘slowpoke’ without changing speeds!

2. First time I’ve been told I have a pretty ethnicity. Umm, thanks. It works out.

1. First fifty-point-bonus word on my first turn of Scrabble. (I built ‘STRAINED’ off Grandma’s ‘CORES’, with the ‘D’ on a triple word score.)

Top Ten Reasons to move to Santa Clara, California

2007-03-29T22:25:41+00:00

10. Ashamed of only having pumped own gas once in lifetime.

9. Mild winters may mean less shed cat hair come spring.

8. ‘Schwarzenegger’ 23% funnier name than ‘Kulongowski’.

7. Pretty geology.

6. Left movie Zodiac convinced of Bay area’s beauty and Zodiac killer’s current deadness.

5. Easier access to Pacific Ocean.

4. 42% more history per square mile.

3. Recommended by favorite living poet.

2. Dream job for favorite working programmer.

1. Anxious to be awake during an earthquake.

Top 10 Best Practices for TV on DVD

2006-07-11T21:30:44+00:00

I am more or less a sucker for TV on DVD. It’s so convenient, so portable, so crisp, so FULL OF DELICIOUS CONTINUITY. However, it is still a young medium, relatively speaking, and maybe there is some feedback the studios would like from me. Out of the goodness of my heart, and not because it annoys the stuffing out of me, I’d like to share some constructive criticism.

Really, it’s constructive! You’ll notice some of them are things ONE company or series is doing RIGHT!

Top Ten Best Practices for TV on DVD

10. ‘Play all’ button.
(MVP: Babylon 5) Sometimes you just want to have a gargantuan view-a-thon, and this easy-to-implement feature facilitates that. One button, and the entire DVD of episodes plays.

9. Episode list on packaging.
(MVP: Xena) This helps a lot when you’re trying to find a specific episode quickly, and there’s no reason NOT to do it.

8. Don’t quote the series on the packaging, or, worse yet, the discs.
(LVP: Angel) Umm, does anyone realize that people who want to watch the TV show may NOT have watched the TV show? Some seasons of Buffy and Angel have totally vital and spoily dialogue plastered across the packaging, or on the discs where you’re REALLY likely to see them.

7.Spoiler-free menus.
Similarly, we’re pretty much stuck seeing the menu, so if you could choose images that don’t give away that Character B is a vampire or that A and C are getting together…that would help.

6. Skippable intros.
(MVP: Everything Joss.) We promise we know your studio’s name and musical sting, and that the FBI and Interpol frown on thus and so, and that you aren’t responsible for anything Ted Raimi says. We don’t need to see it 6 times per viewing of the season.

5. Quick menu switching.
(LVP: Buffy Season 2) Again, we are going to see this OVER and OVER. It’s swell you sprang for a CGI swoop-shot through a cemetery, but by root and twig, we don’t need to sit through it every time we press a button!

4. STOP the foldfests.
(LVP: Buffy, Angel, early seasons of Xena) Many shows are in these gigantic folding cardboard monstrosities. There are a lot of ways to deal with the problem of packaging 6 or more discs attractively, but I think the Firefly approach of slimline cases and the Babylon 5/late Xena book-style packages are the way to go. The Xena discs even click in place nicely and don’t fall out all the time!

3. Clear episode progression.
(LVP: Buffy Season 3; MVP: Xena) Episode numbers, a clear linear pattern to the episode titles…any of these will do. Instead, we often have four episodes, one in each quadrant, and they don’t always progress in the same manner from series to series or season to season (Buffy Season 3 had a different pattern from any other Buffy season.)

2. Silent menus. (MVP: Xena) Remember, again, we will hear this MANY times. If you choose a good atmospheric bit from an episode, it will have lost all meaning by the time we watch that episode, and in any case, we’ll be sick to death of it. Xena compromises by playing the (beautiful) theme music on the disc menu, but having blessedly silent episode menus, so we can get a drink, go to the bathroom, and generally settle ourselves without a 30-second loop of effects and music driving us mad.

No one has this last one yet, and I think movies as well as TV shows need this all-important feature:
1. Mute-able characters.
I don’t want to listen to Jar-Jar Binks or Kennedy the Annoying Girl in the comfort of my own home. I could probably get wonko to watch Babylon 5 if Sinclair spoke in subtitles for all of Season 1! Give us more freedom. After all, we bought the damn thing!

If a decalogue is too much for the studios, I’ll cut it down to two general reminders: We may not have seen it before, and we will see it over and over again.

Top Ten Pointers for Conducting Bad Science

2005-10-31T00:31:33+00:00

A first for Faerye Net: the Halloween Special! Pointers on accomplishing Bad Science — be it evil, ill-advised, or both — as taught to me by Professor Television and his lovely assistant, Mlle. Cinema. Sharpen your evil pencils and prepare to matriculate.

10.: Extraterrestrial material always holds the potential to bring humans back from the dead. (But mind the side effects!)
9.: There are two species of brains in jars: Creepius Stagedressingus, and Speakus Sansvocalcordicus. The latter can sometimes claim to use telepathy. The former just sit there and pickle.
8.: Chambers — isolation, quarantine, experiment — are all deathtraps and mutation devices. The wise Bad Scientist will allow only enemies and expendable lab minions to enter.
7.: Bad Scientists are all white or Asian. Only male scientists can be in complete control of Bad Science Laboratories. Female scientists must answer to capitalists or chief scientists. In the latter case, they should try to cultivate a secret love for their brilliant compeer.
6.: Antidotes to virii and poisons must be kept in a rack or case with the virii and poisons, in matching vials but contrasting colors.
5.: Sympathetic magic is an excellent basis for research, and the ultimate explanation for all that goes wrong with that research.
4.: Experiments on insects should be conducted upon social or swarming species, not on well-established subjects such as fruitflies.
3.: All clones go wrong. Sooner or later. They all go wrong.
2.: If you really want your Bad Science to work, it must be some color of green.
1.: Monkeys in cages. All Bad Science must involve monkeys in cages. In the very best Bad Science Labs, THE MONKEYS ARE ANGRY.