The word of the week is riot. Not the laughing kind.
June 13 - Star Wars Done Funny-Fiddly
The great thing about pop culture is that it evolves from shared experiences, touchstones if you will, that we all know. Only two days ago, a Star Wars re-edit was uploaded to YouTube that is absolutely hilarious! It's a comedic take of the scene where the Millennium Falcon is first pulled into the Death Star and a scanner team is sent aboard... who apparently are rather harder to knock out this time around. Some other Star Wars in the local news this week: local Victoria busker celeb Darth Fiddler was attacked by a group of morons downtown. Thankfully he wasn't hurt, but his violin was smashed. Social media to the rescue - thousands of people he has entertained have posted their outrage, and a local music shop stepped up to replace his violin... with a neon-esque lightsaber bow added. Love this town!
June 14 - What's Old is New again
Wow, I've gone out to a LOT of movies this last month; more than I've seen in the last year total, at the theaters. Tonight I saw Super 8, which was really well done - it reminded me of ET combined with a horror flick and Stand By Me. The effects were second to the story, and the setting was bang-on for the late 70's - so much so that I felt pangs of nostalgic recognition in many scenes.
The film also reminded me that many people are using the 'net to find out more details on the old shows I liked, far more easily than you ever could even ten years ago. Shows like The Muppets, Buck Rogers, or Captain Power were all shows I recall with great fondness, but knew little about while they were on the air. Sure, there were fan clubs you could join but those were expensive and usually the magazines they put out were rather on the thin side when it came to actual show details. So now I hunt things down on the net, occasionally coming across gems like this one: photos from the actual set during production. Fantastic to see people who used to work on these shows posting things all these years later for fans old and young alike to enjoy.
June 15 - Small IS Livable for a family!
I know, I know... it's obvious by now, I like small houses. So far I've only seen them for single people, not a family. That changed when I came across this video, which shows a family living mortgage-free in their small home, right next to their same-sized workplace. What an intelligent and efficient lifestyle choice; watch it and see if you can picture your family living there:
June 16 - Vancouver Riots? Really?
Living in Victoria is like being in Niagara in some ways: we're a 'small' city next to a giant like Vancouver or Toronto. Yet some things hit close to home, like the Vancouver Riots this week. We got to see social media at work on a large scale for the first time in Canada, with the public helping to identify the criminally stupid people involved. No longer able to remain anonymous, the majority of photos are being sent to the Vancouver Police Dept, where they are aiding investigators enormously. The trouble with such photos however, is that innocent bystanders caught in the riots may be falsely accused of participating, which is why its important to send the photos to the police and let them build evidence using their methodology and not fall back on 'mob shame' efforts that some websites are flaunting. It's a slippery slope and one we all need to tread lightly; reputation is something that takes years to build and only seconds to destroy... and often the 'net is the medium used in both case. Good and bad.
June 17 - Mental Health at your workplace
Well, here's an unexpected bit of news: Canada has become the FIRST nation to propose protecting every worker's mental health - a potential minefield of legislation and administration pitfalls, but commendable all the same. I sure could use a few Mental Health Workplace Guidelines to wave at my employers the next time they do something idiotic like cancelling people's vacations - I'd love to have been able to ring up a government agency and ask "Can they do that?" and hear a definite "No way! Send us the details; you NEED your vacation to keep your mental health!" ( check out the comments on this article as well, very insightful ). Which also brings up the specter of people abusing the system, as our current heath system in general seems to have quite a few people milking it for more than they should... that's humanity for you, though.
June 18 - 'Meeting' my childhood stars
Yes, social media seems to be the theme this week. Today, for example, I joined a few FBook groups for old shows I liked... and was stunned to find numerous members of the old cast already part of the group! It's amazing to see someone like Erin Gray, whom I enjoyed watching in Buck Rogers, being part of the same group I am - one of a few thousand, to be sure, but still MUCH less far-removed from their fans than before where they could only be reached through their agents or at conventions. I can now talk (in)directly to actors, directors and others who were part of shows I've enjoyed, thanks to FBook, which adds a much more personal level to my interaction with my favourite forms of entertainment. The danger lies in that having tens of thousands of 'fans' deluging individual actors or other people in the entertainment industry means that the personal gets lost - I hope that doesn't happen, but somehow I feel the cool wind of the inevitable in my words above.
Which is why I like Doomsday devices! Sure, it's an incredibly expensive and exclusive hobby, but being the baddest kid in the galactic block evens things out a bit. Eat your heart out, Doctor Hubert J. Farnsworth!
June 19 - Delivered: One Day Off
It's been a long week; today's my only day off before I start an 11-day stretch ending with the Canada Day weekend off, my own 'mini-vacation' to myself until such time as I can arm-wrestle my new DM into granting sanity-time to all area employees ASAP. So I'm just cruising the next few months, keeping up my job search and enjoying the fact that I work with a solid crew of staff who enjoy having me as their boss. Too bad the company is so focused on metrics and other idiocies to see how they're alienating people... but then I suspected that it would come to this years ago. Collect paycheque, pass Go and repeat until out of sanity or you get a Switch Jobs card... with money in the bank for the transition period, of course. The smart thing would be to have six months of wages in the bank to allow you the freedom to change jobs as needed... something I'm working towards but haven't reached. Yet. Toodles!
After a lot of time on the phone, I gave up and activated an internet stick with Telus in addition to re-activating my old phone this week. The iPhone 3G isn't coming back and I don't want any of their current smartphones on my contract... so it's an extra bill each month for anywhere-access for my ASUS tablet. Not a lot, but enough to make my teeth grind that it came to that. Why is it that I can love tech so much, yet it still bites me in the ass so often?
