The word of the week is exacerbate.
Dec 11 - Farscape Finished
Today, I finally finished my 'binge-watch'
of Farscape.
I've been watching episodes almost daily since October,
whenever I could fit in a few minutes, be it on break, lunch or during the many
boring repetitive tasks that didn't require any of my brains higher functions
to engage my hands or eyes. Which, surprisingly, are big chunks of my daily
routine for the last year, which is saying something.
The last full watch-through of Farscape
I can recall was just before the series wrap up( The Peacekeeper Wars )was released in late 2004, easily a decade and more past. Until this year, I've
only watched an episode here and there on YouTube as they appeared before being
removed for the usual copyright violations. I own the entire series on DVD and
have copied it over to my media server for streaming via Plex, so I can watch
it anywhere any time that I have a solid Internet connection and my old OnePlus
One works great when propped up for viewing.
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| Big show, big story, big cast! |
But back to the show: it was better
than I remembered!
It goes without saying that the CGI
is a little dated, but the practical creature effects from the Henson Workshop
are outstanding and go a long way to making the world of Farscape far
more believable than it would with CGI alone. The puppets of Dominar Rigel
The Sixteenth and Moya's Pilot are both so well-done that they come across as
'people' in their own right, and some of the cast have stated exactly that in
interviews.
The writing on the series is also
excellent, with only a few questionable episodes in total; the rest moved the
plot and story along nicely in a long-term arc, much like my other favorite
sci-fi series Babylon 5, the plot evolves over the second and third
seasons, culminating in the two-part 3-hour-long series finale of The
Peacekeeper Wars, which tied up all the loose ends neatly with a bang and a
flourish.
The acting was also top notch, with
an ensemble cast whose members changed slightly over the three seasons of the
show before it was canceled in 2002. The main character, John Crichton, goes
from a wide-eyed astronaut in the Premier to a badass galaxy-spanning hero with
The Right Stuff by the end of the series. Each of the other main characters are
all well fleshed-out, with many foibles and fine points each to play off one
another. The main villain of the series, Scorpius, is one of the best
antagonists I've seen on the small screen( or the big ): he's smart, devious,
elegant, powerful and always seems to steps ahead of the main characters while
not being omniscient or invulnerable - a hard thing to pull off consistently,
but the writers manage it and the series soars because of his presence.
I'm not sure when I'll next re-watch
the series, but I've certainly internalized many of its storytelling lessons
and for that alone, it was more than worth the daily binge time these last six
weeks. Especially as after finishing, I feel like I've had a long overdue visit
with some old friends and we all come away better for the experience.
Dec 12 – A laugh...
When in doubt: pun!
From this collection I found today,
this was my favourite:
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| This might leave some people cold... but not me! |
It's been a bit of an odd week, in
that various aches and pains and making their way around my body and it's quite
tiring to try to function day to day, especially when some parts hurt when I
stand in other parts hurt when I sit, so I can't do either for long. But you
learn to adapt, so with the help of my standing desk and a 20-minute timer on
my watch, I've been keeping the aches from getting any worse, though my core
seems overly sensitive matter what I'm doing. Even swimming this morning,
though it helped my left leg's tendons to loosen up, did nothing for my core so
I guess I'll just have to keep at it twice weekly for the next few months. I've
been able to walk to and from work each day without a cane, so that's
something, and I'm paying close attention throughout the day to ensure that I'm
not overworking my left foot whatsoever to keep it that way.
I'll leave you with this one... not a
pun, but still relevant as such:
Dec 13 – A replacement?
Well that's some interesting
timing...
I may have found a videogame version
of 'Crossbows and Catapults' on the PC to replace the physical game that's now
winging its way to Australia for Christmas.
While not quite the same as
the physical boardgame, Beseige looks to be as much fun and visually
excellent as well - might as well take advantage of the decent video card I
shelled out for a year ago for my computer.
Of course, it will be more fun if I
managed to get a few of my friends to pick it up as well, as it's a sandbox
game that's designed for multiplayer mayhem. I'll keep an eye on it and see if
it becomes available during one of Steam's online sales this month, or in the
spring...
Dec 14 – Double Dining!
I ate really well today, twice over!
Today was my workplace's annual
Christmas Potluck, and as always it was a feast for all involved. I was tapped
to carve the turkey, just like last year and by the time I was done with the 25
pound monster, two huge plates were stacked high with succulently-moist slices
of roast turkey that made everyone in the office's mouth water.
As you can see, there was plenty of
other food to go around as well:
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| I love this hat - and those that don't: get stuffed! |
As I don't eat nearly as much
nowadays as I used to even five years ago, I just took a normal sized plate for
myself, which as you can see isn't much more than a regular restaurant meal but
it still took me a fair bit of time to work my way through at my desk:
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| This counts as BIG meal for me nowadays... |
I felt full for the rest of
the afternoon, and a few hours after getting home from work, my lady and I went
out to a second dinner at the Victoria Model Ship Society's annual gathering.
It was a fairly big affair with around 80 people, and though it wasn't free
like today's work potluck, I felt I did justice to the ticket cost with a few
plates of excellent food that included perfectly-cooked roast beef and
excellent mashed potatoes with gravy. We had some interesting conversation with
the other dinner guests at our table about the topic of real estate in
Victoria, and we left after two hours feeling quite satisfied that are time had
been well-spent.
I went to bed feeling satisfied as
well and not overfull, which was perfect.
Dec 15 – THE LAST JEDI!!!
After my regular 2-week massage
session this morning, I hopped on the bus again and the short ride later I was
at the Tillicum Silvercity theaters to print out my ticket to see Star Wars!
Just this week I decided to use my day off today to see the movie, as to date
I've managed to avoid ANY spoilers but I knew that couldn't last much longer. I
also thought that if I saw a weekday matinee, I'd avoid the younger evening
crowd, which would probably have much higher noise levels.
Turns out I was right, and I even
ended up with a perfect seat in the middle of the theater!
SPOILERS BELOW!
I thoroughly enjoyed the
movie, as it made it a priority to have fun with the Star Wars saga
without mocking it, and any blockbuster that doesn't take itself too seriously
is a good thing in my eyes. The main characters all had their stories advance,
though to hear the fanboys crying online in various forms, too many things were
'left out' of the movie... but hey, it's already 2.5 hours long, how much MORE
movie do you think people could stand before it collapsed under its own weight?
Personally, I liked how the various storylines were intertwined with the old
lore from the previous Star Wars films while making room for new thinking.
Action-wise, there were some odd
choices in terms of what various characters chose to do in response to the
different threats introduced, and while some of them were pretty dumb( bombers,
anyone? Casino trips in the middle of a space battle? )it all somehow
worked together to provide a cohesive movie in the end. Even the 3-D worked:
not overdone, but tweaked just right to serve the story.
The most telling part for me when
watching any movie, especially Star Wars, is how long and how often I'm taken
out of the movie. For The Last Jedi, it was one continuous flow from
start to finish, and I left with a big satisfied smile on my face despite the
few flaws that the writer in me perceived. A great movie, and definitely one
geared to moving the franchise forward rather than retreading old ground. It
appears that the critics agree with me, though the disparity between their ratings and audience ratings on RottenTomatoes is rather surprising, though I
suspect mixed reactions on a film will only create even more good PR for
Disney.
I'll probably go see it again in a
few weeks, this time in IMAX!
Dec 16 – Brain Pain!!!
So much for best-laid plans...
I woke up this morning with a slight
headache, nothing unusual for me with changing weather on the way, but BOY was
I wrong!
By noon, my head was pounding and my
right eye felt like somebody was flicking it from behind whenever I moved it:
sure signs of eyestrain and incipient migraine on the way. I popped some
Tylenol but it was too late, and by midafternoon my migraine was in full swing
and my weekend was shot. It was the worst migraine I've had in years.
All I did for that evening was lay
down in the dark with cool cloths over my eyes and earplugs to drown out any
intrusive noises whatsoever. It was bad enough that I couldn't stand to look at
any sort of book, phone screen or video: my eyes were complaining that much
about both the effort and the brightness levels.
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| It's kinda like this, only it sticks around longer... |
What might have caused such a severe
headache and eyestrain? I ran over several possibilities, some of which may in
combination have hit me hard:
- playing a few hours of MWO this morning, with fast-moving images
- watching The Last Jedi for two hours yesterday in a dark theater, not moving
- having some unusual leftover cheese for lunch today, which I don't usually do as I'm still somewhat sensitive to lactose
- having prepackaged soy sauce on my sushi for lunch yesterday before the movie
- the severe weather change going from high to low pressure ie. rainy weekend
Thinking about it this evening, I concluded
that it was indeed a combination of factors: the movie, videogame and weather
together triggered an ocular migraine by straining my eyes in activities I
don't normally do together.
Watching The Last Jedi with my
regular glasses at 50 feet away for two hours wouldn't have been bad by itself,
but ALSO spending a few evening hours playing video games with those SAME
long-distance glasses staring at a smaller screen only a few feet away probably
strained my eyes quite a bit. Adding a weather change to the mix meant that I
was in for a rough weekend, and who knows if the soy sauce I had didn't tip the
balance, as it naturally contains glutamates, kin to MSG which is known to
cause headaches( even though the restaurant where I went specifies that a
dozen at MSG to any of its menu items ). I went to bed early, and counted
myself lucky I could still function...
So much for getting anything useful
done this weekend.
Dec 17 – Recovery... is... slow...
Today wasn't quite as much of
a wash as I thought it might be, though I didn't get all that much done
compared to what I had planned a few days ago.
I did everything I could to be able
to function at the minimal level as I fought my migraine, with the rain coming
down outside a reminder that the weather wasn't cooperating as a barometer kept
dropping precipitously. I found that if I wore sunglasses over my reading
glasses, I could manage to edit this month's critiques for about 20 minutes at
a time, and so I alternated editing with laying down in the dark with cool
cloths over my eyes for most of the day. Keeping the blinds closed helped, as
did turning down the brightness of my phone for quick checks of social media,
e-mail and the barometer, of course:
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| Down goes the pressure, up goes the pain - this time, at least. |
By early evening, I was done the
critiques and able to work on my blog, though admittedly with the brightness on
the TV turned almost completely off. I was still trading 20 min. of writing for
20 min. to resting, which seemed to work enough to allow me to finish writing
my blog, though by 8 PM my eyes were tired no matter what I did and I was
dictating it via Dragon naturally speaking with my eyes closed and correcting
whatever errors I could spot after I was finished each paragraph.
By 9pm I was finished, though it'd taken me twice as long to write, and I didn't know if I'd be able to finish it when I started before dinner. I'm hoping that I'll wake up tomorrow with only a lingering headache so I can work in the office for a full 8 hours: I'm out of sick days AND vacation days for the year, so I can't really call in, which is a bummer feeling to go to bed still head-hurting with.
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| Me at work tomorrow... |
That's all I’ve done this week: tons
of excitement after watching The Last Jedi tempered by a wasted weekend;
there's balance there, much like what the movie did for the Star Wars universe.
That's good enough for me.
Sometimes it feels odd writing about
my week, like I'm reporting on my own life and especially when I'm not in the
best of shape. The last few years have felt like a constant battle with my
health, both physically and mentally, but that I'm slowly gaining the upper
hand despite some setbacks here and there. All I can do is wake up each day,
figure out what I can and can't control, and go from there. That's the best
plan that I've could develop, at least so far.
