Winter Shinanigans - Slip'n'Slide

So, this afternoon, I decided to walk down to the dollar store while I waited for my mother’s hair to be done at the hairdresser. My mother needed a few things from the dollar store, and I knew that it was going to take a while, because Mom needed her hair cut, coloured, and styled.

It’s only a couple of blocks between the hairdresser and our local Dollarama, so I set out, glad that I had decided to wear my sneakers even though snow was sticking to the balls of my shoes. There’s a street, a parkinglot, an alley, and another parkinglot I have to walk across before I can reach the store.
I set out, confidant I would get there gracefully and compitantly and within a reasonable amount of time. But I hit trouble once I reached the boundaries between the alley and the last parkinglot.

This parkinglot runs up beside the Dollarama and serves to be the dollar store’s parkinglot. There is only one way to get into this parkinglot on foot if you don’t want to risk walking on the side of the road and go the long way around because there’s a metal pole fence that runs the parimeter of the parkinglot. The entrance to this parkinglot is barely wide enough to drive a super-duty pick-up truck through.

When I reach this entrance with its empty sign holder (it was probably a grocery store in the past), a pick-up truck backs out of its parking space within the parklinglot. And to my right a jeep pulls off the road and onto the alley Im standing in. Now I’m holding up two vehicles, which are waiting for me to get out of the way.

I look down at the entrance way, remembering that this parkinglot is notorious for having pool-sized potholes in the summer (though I don’t know why, but it being unpaved and covered in gravel may have something to do with it). I note that there are two potholes sitting side-by-side.

I realize I have to make a decision, and fast. The pothole on the left is a massive crater, and coated with black ice, giving it the appearance of a pit that leads to oblivion. Or death. And I can’t go around it because the little bit of snow between it and the fence is too narrow for my feet, and its the same before the little bit of ground between the potholes.

Now, the pothole on the right was just as wide as the one on the left but not as deep and was covered in snow, not ice. And the ledge between it and the fence on its right was big enough for my feet, so I decided to pass through there.

But as soon as I stepped on that ledge, it was like I was standing on a finely polished skating rink, and I began to slip. I’m pretty sure that the show I gave the passengers and drivers of the two vehicles turned out to be something like this:

I was so embarressed! But then I started to smile after I walked into the store. Yay, for winter shinanigans! lol!
(Didn't go down, though. Never slipped like that in my life.)

The Time of the Doctor

The Time of the Doctor. Christmas Special 2013. Original Airdate: December 25 2015.

I guess this could count as a movie for the Christmas Spirit Challenge I'm participating in this Christmas. Note to self: add "The Time of the Doctor" to 'Films I've Watched So Far' on my Christmas Spirit Challenge post.

Anyway, I have mixed feelings with this episode - not because it wasn't good. It was great, even! But "The Time of the Doctor" is the episode where we say goodbye to the 11th Doctor and say hello to the 12th (though we only see Peter Capaldi's Doctor for less than a minute before the episode cuts to credits).

Now, as a reminder, if you haven't watched "The Time of the Doctor" yet, I suggest you read no further. I don't want to spoil it for you!

This is a curious episode/movie/thing, whatever you want to call it. It opens with Clara Oswald (my favourite companion to date) ringing the doctor on his phone (which is located outside the TARDIS, in space) Apparently, her mother, father, and grandmother are coming over for Christmas dinner - and somehow, some way, Clara let it slip that she had a boyfriend (which she doesn't).

So in her panic, she calls up the Doctor, who's in space hovering above a strange planet surrounded by almost every alien the Doctor has had to face. (Okay, this makes this the second 2016 Sci-Fi Experiance appreciation post about a ton of aliens over a planet involving the Doctor in some way, lol).

The Doctor abandons his spot amongst all the alien ships and his TARDIS appears in the field next to Clara's apartment building.

And guess what? Clara's apartment building doesn't posess an elevator, meaning that whoever wants to visit her, or if she wants to go anywhere, they have to climb an almost never-ending staircase. And Clara's apartment is halfway up the building! I can just imagine the dread she must feel after every long school-day. Her feet may be sore and she is faced with having to climb all those stairs before she can have a chance to relax! I makes me grateful that I only have eight stairs to climb before I get to the back door of the house I'm in now.

This episode induced a lot of bittersweet feelings inside of me. There was humor and there was war. We learned that the planet he had been hovering over before Clara called him was, in fact, Trenzalore, the planet where Clara jumped into the Doctor's time stream and scattered herself all over time and space in order to protect him from the Inteligence, but way back in time before it was converted into a planet-sized graveyard.

And because the Doctor was there, defending the town called Christmas, Trenzalore probably never became that graveyard.

Points I liked about this episode:
- We got to see an almost fatherly-side of the Doctor because all the children in Christmas looked up to him.
- I got a chuckle out of the wooden cyberman with the flame-thrower strapped it its forearm. Well, that was smart - not. lol
- It tied up a lot of mysteries - we found out why the TARDIS suddenly exploded in "The Pandorica Opens"/"The Big Bang", where the Silence came from, and why Trenzalore was so important.
- I liked Handles, the cyberman head. Handles was the Doctor's closest "friend" for three hundred of the years he was on Trenzalore. He got to see one last sunrise and reminded the Doctor to patch the phone through the TARDIS' console before he finally died.

Points I didn't like about this episode:
- Seeing the 11th Doctor so close to death from old age. He was the first Doctor I was introduced to, so he was my favourite. Props to the makeup department for making the character's age look so real on the actor!
- The fact that the "Church of the Papal Mainframe" considered itself a church when all it seemed to be was a nudist colony ship that was militaristic in nature and used religious-themed codewords. They are also the Silence, and I never really liked the Silence anyway (since they were trying to kill the Doctor, caused Time to explode, and terrorised practically everyone since no one could see them and remember them once they looked away).

Other than that, is was a pretty good episode/movie. Now I can finally watch the escapades of the 12th Doctor!

The Pandorica Opens & The Big Bang

Last night, my family and I figured out how to hook up my Wii U to our netflix account, and we spent some time watching Doctor Who before my brother had to go to bed.

This is a short appreciation post for the two episodes I watched in the light of the 2016 Sci-Fi Experiance.

For the longest, longest time I wondered what was up with the episode "The Pandorica Opens". And for the longest time, I wondered why the Doctor kept calling Rory Williams "Rory the Roman". I finally got my answer last night.

Now, before you read any further, if you don't want to read any spoilers or if you haven't watched anything to do with the 11th Doctor yet, I would suggest you don't read any farther. After all, it's spoilers, sweetie.

"The Pandorica Opens" opens with Vincent Van Gogh writhing on the floor of his room, on death's door, screaming. Turns out, he had a dream where he saw the TARDIS exploding, heralding the end of reality. It both terrifies and confuses him. And he paints it as what seems to be his last painting. (I don't know very much about Van Gogh's role in the Whoniverse, honestly).

This episode was facinating, and together with "The Big Bang", paints a story of how they got Rory back after he fell out of the universe in a previous episode (which I must have skipped, because I have no recollection of Rory being erased from reality). One day, when me and my family have unlimited internet again, I am going to rewatch 11th's era again. Or, at least, I will watch the episodes I haven't watched yet.

"The Big Bang" explains how they fix reality after the TARDIS explodes. In "The Pandorica Opens", it showed how the Pandorica (I think it was the Pandorica) controled the numerous Roman soldiers which Rory had brought under Stonehenge (where the Pandorica was) and Rory as well, revealing that Rory and the Romans were actually plastic replicas of themselves and that they have guns in their hands. Guns in their hands.

The Pandorica manages to gain control of Rory and makes him shoot her with his hand-gun, so she dies. The Doctor's been locked in the Pandorica because, as it turns out, it was built to lock him away. But...well...if you've watched the episodes, you know how it turns out, and if you haven't...well - spoilers. If I told you the whole story, then you wouldn't want to watch it then, hmmm?

Points I liked about these two episodes:
- River Song managed to convince a whole leigon of Roman soldiers that she was Cleopatra (even though Cleopatra was dead by the time the majority of the first episode took place).
- The oldest words in the universe turned out to have been written by River Song. "Hello Sweetie".
- Turns out River Song and the Doctor can ride horses at a full-on gallop. Amy - not so much.
- I loved, loved, loved, loved the fact that Rory waited for Amy for 2000 years! The mythos built around him and the Pandorica was practically romantic!

Points I didn't like about these two episodes:
- The promotion of the Big Bang.
- How lonely Earth seemed without stars in the sky.

The Pigpen Cipher

As I have heard - and have been told many, many times, research is a good thing when you want to write a novel. Most of the time, I go, "Pfft, yeah right," and plung right into building my story and writing it.

Recently, I have been sucked into the Sherlock fandom, though I've only watched the first three episodes and don't have the money to buy any more through the Google Play store on my phone. The only reason I think I caved and started watching the show was because I kept hearing that it was very well done, and that I heard that Steven Moffat had something to do with it. I like what Moffat did to Doctor Who, another one of my favourite shows, so curiosity eventually got the better of me, especially after I saw production photos of Sherlock and John Watson dressed up as their Victorian counterparts.

Anyway, I'm getting to my point. On Sherlock's website, http://www.thescienceofdeduction.co.uk/, based on the website Sherlock has on the show, the world's only consulting detective has been being plauged with hidden messages, two of which I couldn't even hope to answer despite the hints that were hidden in the message.

I was finally able to solve the third message, the most current one, which was comprised of a series of shapes and dots. This is where the Pigpen Cipher legend I have displayed on this post comes in.

"SHERLOCK I HAVE FOUND YOU."

 

Talk about ominous, or what? Makes me wonder if Mr. Anonymous is after Sherlock for more than amusement through bugging him...

 

Anyway, I've come to alert you to the wonders of a cipher I've never heard before! If I can ever get my behind in gear, I might just get to use this cipher in a mystery novel before I die. :P

Introducing: The Mysteries of Eldûr - Adelle Baker and the Missing Title

"The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day."

~ Albert Einstein

 

So, I come to you with the news of a new idea for a novel - one borne of my sudden re-obsession with The Hobbit, and Middle-Earth in general. Inspiration hit me like a tsunami while I was watching The Hobbit: the Unexpected Journey.

 

Suddenly, I found myself sucked into the deep recesses of my mind, where I was walking down the street of a town like Bree - but it was decidedly not Bree. I remember wondering what it would be like if there was a mystery to solve in a fantasy world, one without help from magic...

 

And just like that, I was back in reality with a new idea that's slowly been growing. Let me introduce you to a few characters that have come knocking to my mental door:

 

Adelle Baker - protagonist - age: 24 - denizen of Earth. Adelle somehow finds herself in the world of Eldûr, a world similar to Earth and bound by nearly all the same laws of physics. She has a Bachelor's Degree in creative writing and has training in office administration, and is down in her luck in her search for a job.

 

Côlter Dénéde - deuterotagonist - age: undetermined - denizen of Eldûr. Pronounciation: (call-ter day-nay-de). Occupation: undetermined, hovering over the choice of 'ranger'. Côlter is half elf, half man from a settlement called Eldain, which was somehow destroyed when he was twenty (still contemplating how it was destroyed).

 

Thorain Xildûrn - extra character - age: undetermined - denizen of Eldûr. Pronounciation: (Thor-rain Zeel-dern). Occupation: undetermined. Thorain is a dwarf from the dwarf kingdom of Unaline in the north, and the trusted welder of Moljnir, the hammer of the line of Xiline.

Note: Thorain popped into my head when I contemplated the silliness of what monkeywrench would be thrown into my story if a character with 'Thor' in his name had a hammer named 'Moljnir'. lol

 

King [name yet to be found] - extra character/unsure that he's going to be in book/might be mentioned - king of kingdom-yet-to-be-named, which is where the novel takes place. He may be mentioned... but for some reason he looks like Benedict Cumberbatch in my head.

 

The plot of the mystery is still under development, but it might have something to do with a large diamond roughly shaped like an apple, or maybe a crown that was stolen... yep. Still in development.

 

I'll provide frequent updates if this idea gets off the ground. And I hope it will because I really like the idea.

Guilt

Have you ever encountered one of those moments where you realized you've realized that you have made a terrible mistake?

I have. I experienced this less than hour ago when I stepped into a gas station and attempted to purchase a Google Play card and found that I had already depleted most of the money I had earned while Christmas shopping in the city. I didnt realize that they couldn't take the card back when my debit card declined the purchase.

Now the woman behind the counter had to pay for a card she probably can't use! I'm asking myself over and over about wht I had to go and try and buy that card. I can inlt pray for forgiveness and that the woman knows someone who can use the card!

I felt I had to write this down in order to get this off my chest. I feel like such a horrible person. What would you do if you were in my situation, where you have no cash, no credit card, and only a debit card that doesn't have enough money on it?