Memorials, Mist and Morons

The word of the week is accrochable - yes, it IS a word!

 Sept 11 – Bitter Sixteen

You never know what's going to happen, in life.

None of those who were in the Twin Towers in NYC sixteen years ago could have known that their lives would be forever altered by the actions of a crazed few terrorists.

Those that lost their lives in the tragedy are still being identified, with the scattered remains 1 in 3 of the victims still unable to be positively identified. Closure for their families is not complete without being able to bury their loved ones.

"Time is an imperfect healer."

Yet the lesson remains with us today: live each day with intensity, experience life and don't let it go by without making the effort to grasp it fully... as tomorrow might not arrive one day.

Sep 12 – Lego Milennium Falcon!

There's yet another super-expensive Lego set... and I love it!

It also happens to be the second-largest Lego set ever released, with 7,541 pieces weighing nearly 20 pounds! Unsurprisingly, the sets sold out within a few days of its release on September 13th, despite the $899.99 CAD which will probably double the the year for those lucky enough to have got one... talk about investment potential! One little gripe: it's not quite a 1:1 minifig-scale, so that the interior layout is an approximation of what the actual ship's looks like to scale.

For your viewing edification, you can watch a short time lapse of one owner's 12 Hours and 43 Minutes that it took to single-handedly put together:

You can also compare it to THIS custom 11K-piece one-off monster that likely costs $2K USD in pieces alone, but IS made out to match the minifg scale perfectly:

SPECIAL BONUS: Adam Savage on Tested builds the new Falcon with his team and compares last year's 'Ultimate' Milennium Falcon to this one...

Sep 13 – The Orville... is good!

It took a little doing, but I managed to watch The Orville tonight.

For those of you unfamiliar with the new show from Seth McFarlane, it's a sci-fi comedy designed to parody Star Trek, and I felt it did a good job, overall:

( no spoilers )Like any new show, The Orville will have to find its legs in the first season, after the writers get more comfortable with the characters and the story of their world. I found the humor a touch lowbrow and the pace somewhat on the slow side, but if those are my only nitpicks after seeing only one episode of a new show, I think it's doing quite well.

The set design was excellent, with clean lines and bright colors used instead of the typical dingy and dark sci-fi we're used to seeing ever since the 1990s. I have some confidence that Seth McFarlane knows what he's doing in television by now, as evidenced by his excellent track record as a writer, so I'll be happy to tune into further episodes of The Orville, once I figure out how to get stream them from the USA...

Sept 14 – The Last Jedi... comic?

Oh, Mark Hamill... what are you up to?

The Star Wars star told fans this week NOT to read an old comic from the 1970's, as it contained spoilers for the upcoming film, The Last Jedi, this December:

Now, I'm not the kind of Star Wars fan who wants to know everything about a film before it's released - far from it! I want to go into the movie spoiler-free, at least as much as possible given today's pervasive social media and the preponderance of idiots on such who love spoiling things for people...

But: I think he's pulling people's legs, as a diversion for his amusement.

We'll see; I actually own the comic, which unsurprisingly has jumped in price on eBay from pennies to over $100 USD in some cases, which just goes to show how dumb AND desperate some people are to give in to their fanboy urges.

I'll wait for the movie, thanks.

Sept 15 – Mist Opportunity

Ergh... that was disappointing.

I started watching the new Netflix series The Mist, based on Stephen King short story of the same name... and it was terrible. About two episodes in, I suddenly realized it was a 'character drama' with Big Bad Monsters thrown in as the driving force for the thin plot... and that killed my interest in it.

I had no desire to sit through episode after episode of trying to untangle the mess of badly-written character dramatics meant to be 'interesting' yet are anything but, since the characters are so flat and the plot so contrived. I ended up skipping through all of the remaining episodes of the first season without missing anything, because if you can't care about or relate to any of the characters, then it's a complete waste of time.

Sad, because I had such high hopes for this been more than a C-grade attempt at a horror-based drama that I might've been interested in... and I doubt we'll get a second season based on the ratings to date.

Sept 16 – Climate Crazy

Oh, Strumpet... will your ego doom the planet?

Yet again the POTUS has pontificated that he refuses to let the USA sign off as part of the Paris Accord in support of saving the planet, due to his massive ego.

How soon is it's until he's gone, again? Three years?

I find myself frustrated from day-to-day with the sheer ignorance of so many people out there it comes to the reality of climate change. It's very simple:

It's happening.

All the evidence, all the facts, all the research: it ALL points overwhelmingly that and the climate changes reality and that instead of arguing or debating the topic, we should have already moved forward as a planet in DOING something about it. Preferably a whole lot of somethings, like what the Paris Accord is all about.

Instead, people believe the garbage that Strumpet is spewing, preferring to post laughably incorrect memes about how man-made climate change is a hoax while sticking their collective fingers in their ears to ignore the EVIDENCE. It's stunning how loud so relatively few people can be when they're spouting such ignorance; obviously the POTUS is setting the example for them.

Too bad the planet is going pay the price.

Sept 17 – Sad Socialization

Today I attended a memorial, and a celebration.

My friend Chris passed away twelve days ago, on September 5th, and today his family held a memorial service for him in Sooke. My lady and I attended, under cloudy grey skies, driving through the wooded rural roads out to his parent's secluded home perched high on a cliff overlooking the harbour.

Several hundred people attended, with standing-room only, which spoke volumes about the character of my friend and how beloved he was by so many.

The memorial took two hours, with family and then friends speaking their hearts about Chris. About his generosity, his kindness and his always-present smile, which was a genuine window into his soul. They told stories of his antics, his propensity for clumsy accidents, of his love of sports and above all, of his love for his friends and family that defined him as a person, through and through.

It was an experience I will never forget, to see how one person can touch the lives of so many and change them ALL for the better, simply because of who he was and how he chose to live each day: to the fullest, with passion and a glad smile. I was also glad of the opportunity to catch up with friends from Staples, some of whom had traveled far to be there from as far away as Alberta and Nova Scotia.

Chris will be missed greatly by all of us, but never forgotten, not for a moment, if today was any indication: the impact he had on our lives was both profound and subtle, and we all owe it to his memory to live, as his brother said, as though he's still with us... doing what we love, as Chris did, and always with a smile.


It came to me as we left: I've never met a better person than he.


Heading back from Sooke, my lady and I stopped in at another invite, the 50th wedding anniversary for the president of our RC boating club who had kindly invited us a few weeks ago. It was a much lower-key affair without a sombre core, and we were glad for the opportunity to sit down while we chatted with mostly-strangers for an hour before heading home, feeling exhausted from our emotions.

The week ahead's looking busy, as is the rest of the fall. Now that the massage work I've had has really taken, I'm going to dive back into swimming more often in the next few weeks, as my access card expires soon - my abdominals are at the point where the gentle exercise will do them good, and I can certainly use the tone-up. Morning laps in the pool, here I come!