The word of the week is dearth.
March 19 - Snapback
Sometimes - more often of late - I wonder what I'm accomplishing?
There's a mental image I use for this sort of thinking: a rubber band.
Much like life, you can stretch a rubber band to encompass all sorts of
things, but not too many at a time: if you try that, some of those things are
going to slip away.
Today, I felt like my rubber band was stretched too far, almost brittle. I
wrote about it when I got home, which is an exercise I'm making myself do
whenever these sorts of moods hit me: it's a form of externalization, and it
does help. You can read what I wrote here, as I didn't feel it was
worthwhile turning into a full post-section all by itself, but still worth
mentioning as it's an honest reflection of what I'm feeling at this point in my
life regarding my self-worth as tied to my work/career and my 'accomplishments'
as such.
Treading water will keep you breathing, but you're going to get tired, and
the shore doesn't get any closer while you're just surviving. Still, better to
swim than float, because at least that way you get to choose a direction
instead of being swepy along willy-nilly by the currents...
March 20 - Cosplay
While I didn't get out to the local con this year in Victoria, word has it that it was a spectacular success( and a crowded one too, glad I didn't
go... )so we should see it again in 2019, as I've read the organizers have
already booked space here. There was a nice
In the meantime, here's a brief glimpse of the happy-crazy crowds:
Capital City -
As well, Emerald City Comicon in Seattle is on my radar for a visit, maybe
as early as next year - we'll see. In the meantime, there's plenty of imageryfrom 2018's convention, which has some excellent cosplay, one of my fave things
about cons!
March 21 - Stephen and Stephen
The world lost Stephen Hawking last week, as I noted in my previous blog
post: a giant of science, he will be long-remembered by the world for his
contributions, as well as his indomitable spirit.
I'd also like to remember a smaller Steven, a friend I'd never met, who
passed away March 7th 2017... and who deserves not to be forgotten. From my March 2017 posting:
He had cystic fibrosis, succumbing after a courageous battle to this vile
disease only a few months after he was diagnosed around Christmas time. He was
hopeful to last that a lung transplant would bring things around again, and to
see him just vanish was utterly shocking.
I first met Steven online, playing Neverwinter Nights, around 11 years ago.
I got to know him through his characters, one of whom, a warrior named Jade,
spending quite a bit of time with my own character creation, Nichneven. Through
our regular character interactions over the years, I came to count him as a
friend.
I am saddened that I did not get to know Steven as well as I could have,
though I was fortunate enough to become a FBook friend years ago. He always
posted images of beautiful landscapes, had a fondness for funny memes, Star
Wars and Star Trek, and from our too-few interactions had a lovely,
contemplative soul. He also had an oddly endearing love of squirrels, as well
as Disney's Tinkerbell.
I hope that wherever they are now, both Steven and Stephen get a chance to hang out; I think they'd like each other.
March 22 - Jabba's Sail Barge
Hasbro's trying something different: crowdfunding!
In an effort to appeal directly to Star Wars collectors, the newly-formed
Haslabs has come up with a 'kickstarter' of sorts, to fund the creation of the
largest Star Wars toy... er, 'collectible' ever created: the sail barge from
The Return Of The Jedi! Check out this amazing set of images and video:
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| Click for details - it's stunning! |
They're about 70 percent funded, with 3635 out of the 5000 backers needed
to turn the sail barge into a reality as of today:
While I'd love to have one for, um,
display purposes, the $500 USD price tag is *way* out of my league, sadly. It's
going to end up being one of those 'holy grail' collector pieces that everyone
wants, but only a few manage to find as the years pass and one or two show up
on eBay for exorbitant prices, just like all the Star Wars Lego toys. Some of
those are going for ten times their original prices, depending on rarity and
the market, which actually makes them a pretty good investment...
But only if you keep them unopened in the box, darn it!
March 23 - Biases
How biased are your sources of information?
It's shocking how many people take what their favourite media sources say
for granted, to the point where they don't question the bias of stories they
consume. This is often attributable to confirmation bias, where people tend to
look for information that confirms their preexisting beliefs.
Just this week I ran across the handy chart below from this site, which is being regularly
updated by its creator. It visually shows how biased various news sources are,
which is quite handy to determine where on the Left/Right and Accurate/False
scales each rests:
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| Click image for the VERY LARGE version to save for your reference! |
Bonus: if you're using Chrome, you can use a handy-dandy plugin that will
perform much the same function, via MediaBiasFactCheck.com to check out the
biases of a source. That particular website is gold for pointing out to someone
how solid( or not )their sources are, which may shake up their
preconceptions and( hopefully )make them THINK about what they're
saying.
As you always should.
March 24 - March For Our Lives
It was a huge day today in the USA for gun control activists!
The March For Our Lives turnout in Washington DC alone was estimated
to be a million people, showing stunning support for the reform of gun laws in
America:
Millions of people turned out elsewhere across the country:
The video coverage was equally massive, and the speeches were tragic,
heartfelt and moving:
Support for gun reform has continued to build after the Parkland high
school shootings, with many celebrities chiming in to lend their weight to the
cause:
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| Hellboy's on their side! |
Yet there continues to be strong opposition from gun-rights advocates,
including the NRA, who have their own supporters, many of whom are nothing more
than scum, who TRASH-TALK the Parkland survivors, or alter IMAGES of the teens
to push lies to discredit their courageous stand. This is an image one such
scumbag posted online, that I've blurred out because it makes me sick to see
such viciousness directed at teenagers by cowardly grown men who love their
guns more than the lives of the innocent:
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| I don't have the words for how disgusting this kind of image is... |
I'm actively involved online in highlighting the efforts of those who are
pushing for gun reform in the USA, because I believe they need every bit of
support they can get. They're fighting against an organized, well-funded
opposition who continue to do all they can to discredit, distract and defuse the efforts of the Parkland teens along with their supporters. I would love to see
a safer, saner America in the near future, one I can visit with far less
trepidation regarding random gun violence, like the victims of the LA shooting
in late 2017: right now, anyone is vulnerable, and I don't feel like ending up
a statistic.
I especially don't want anyone I love dying the same way.
Just like those who are marching this weekend for gun control in the USA.
March 25 - Luke's Lightsaber!
Well, this was a surprise!
Last week, my friend Kevin did me the kindness of visiting the Science
World exhibit in Vancouver, where he took many photos of Luke Skywalker's
original lightsaber which was on display:
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| Click to read the full-size image, the text is quite interesting! |
Purchased by Ripley's in July 2017 for the princely sum of $450K USD, it
has been traveling around for the last few months to drum up interest in
Ripley's, which is fine by me, though there was no way I could get to Vancouver
to see it.
Yet amazingly, the lightsaber traveled over to Langford THIS WEEKEND ONLY
to go on display at the Save-On Foods, of all places:
I found out about it on FBook, of all places, as one of the local Victoria
photographers, Doug Clement Photography, had snapped a few photos of the
display( while he was in Vancouver, ironically )and mentioned in the captions it was
coming HERE - huzzah! So today in the early-morning-ish, my lady and I headed
to Langford, and were pleasantly surprised that here was NO lineup as of 9am!
We walked right up to the display and had all the time I liked to
take some of these amazing photos:
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| Click to enlarge, there's some great snaps in there! |
I was pretty chuffed; as I told my lady, this was as close as I will likely
ever get to Star Wars, in the way of what I saw on the screen being
THERE right in front of me. It's like I reached into the fantasy world of the
movie and plucked out this one iconic item, to place it under the lights to
shine with the bright silver sheen of solid reality.
A pretty damned good day, I'd say!
I had a pretty decent weekend all in all, with my lady and I spending good chunks of Friday, Saturday AND Sunday together: always good for my state of mind, and hopefully hers as well! Going into this coming week, I've again got little on my plate save my usual projects, so it's again a slow burn towards some kind of success this spring!
And as a bonus, I've completed my blog WAY early, to spend the evening as needed: writing, relaxing, reading a few comics( crossovers are great - more on that next week )and give over the main living area to my sister to use so SHE can relax - it's all about balance...
And as a bonus, I've completed my blog WAY early, to spend the evening as needed: writing, relaxing, reading a few comics( crossovers are great - more on that next week )and give over the main living area to my sister to use so SHE can relax - it's all about balance...
