It was a dark and stormy night when Harry crept into Draco's dorm room...

There's one question I get asked a lot that never fails to make me gulp in a visually comical way.

"So, Kellie, what are you reading at the moment?"

I'm sure you guys know what I'm talking about.  When people find out you like to write, it's just a short jump to assuming (quite correctly) that you like to read too.  And if you like to read, then you must have some amazing recommendations of stuff that will blow their minds.  Perhaps some hidden gem that will turn out to be the next Harry Potter series.

Oh boy, I could definitely recommend things that would blow their minds ... I'm just not sure if I should.

Okay, I'll just come out and say it ... I read fan fiction.

I know, I know, I'm not supposed to like that stuff.  Or at least I'm not supposed to admit to liking that stuff.  But you know what?  I'm done with the hiding!  I'm coming out of the literary closet!

I'm a fan fiction reader, and proud of it!

And really, before you go scoffing at my lack of literary depth you really should try it first.  I can't even begin to tell you how wonderful it is knowing that somewhere out in the world there's a small army of people, and they're all writing hundreds of thousands of words a day about shows and characters that I already love.  I never run out of things to read, I get to see what my favourite characters would do in situations the TV networks would never allow them to be in, and I don't have to pay a cent for it!

So instead of hiding my literary leanings, I've decided I'm just going to be honest from now on.  When someone asks me what I'm reading now, I'm just going to tell them.  Maybe I'll even give them an URL or two.

But I don't think I'll warn them about the tendency fan fiction authors have to pile on the homoerotica and make all their characters gay.  I'll just leave that as a surprise.



Kellie's Fan Fiction Recommendations (just some of my favourites)

Sandstorms [link] by Mithreon (Stargate Atlantis) - Lot and lots of angst here.  I cried so much reading it! 

Make A Wish [link] by Rorschach's Blot (Harry Potter) - This was written before the series was finished, but it's hilarious and well worth the read.   

My Father's Keeper [link] by Emerald1 (NCIS) - Another angsy offering, this time with poor Tim McGee getting the rough end of the stick. 

Syrup and Honey [link] by LauGS (Glee) - a really well done "what if" story where Kurt owns a bakery. 

Ianto Jones' Diary [link] by Torchwoodfour (Torchwood) - This one was great!  A bit of a "missing scenes" one, in the form of a Bridget Jonesesque diary written by good old Ianto.  

Feel free to leave recommendations of your own in the comments!  I'm always looking for new stuff to read!

You've changed, man, you used to be cool...

Source

I have a confession to make, guys.

I just can't keep living a lie, it's eating me up inside.  It's time for me to come clean and tell you all the horrendous secret I've been keeping for the past fifteen years.

Wow, this is hard ... courage, Kellie, you can do this!  Back in the late 90's ... I may have had a bit of a crush on Jamie Oliver.

I know, okay, I know it sounds bad.

Believe me, if I'd had any idea how that particular train wreck was going to go, I would have nipped it in the bud right from the start.  But how was I to know he would turn into an annoying, patronising nitwit with more than a wee bit of a messiah complex?

Back then he was so adorably bumbling and sincere!  He'd stumble his way through the episodes of "The Naked Chef" with someone behind the camera having to ask him questions and prompt him through because he was so obviously out of his depth.

I was in my early twenties, okay!  I was young and impressionable, I didn't see a future egomaniac who would turn his shows into little more than the horrendous reality style programs I hate so much.  I just saw a cute boy with a British accent who could cook.

I kind of miss him, actually.

So, do you guys have any confessions to make?  Crushes you'd rather not admit too?  Come on,  I was honest, you can be too.  You're in a safe space to share your deepest humiliations ... the internet.

Conversations with St Clare...

"Oh St Clare, patron saint of boob tube watchers! Why hast thou forsaken me?"

But I suppose it's not really fair to blame her.  No one made me watch Toddlers & Tiaras.  Nup, I got myself into that fix all on my own.

I've always had a love/hate relationship with reality television. Some of the shows, like the 1900 House series or Hoarders, I love.  But unfortunately these gems are few and far between.  If I sit down to watch a favourite sitcom, you can bet it's bracketed by a couple of inane reality shows, if it hasn't been replaced by them altogether.

It's not uncommon to find me sitting in my lounge room of an evening, watching my reality saturated television, and whining to St Clare.

But she's surprisingly unsympathetic.

St Clare: Would you please stop your belly aching! Didn't I give you Glee? Didn't I give you Criminal Minds? I worked my arse off so you could drool over Shemar Moore, but do you appreciate it? 

Kellie: Of course I do, St Clare, but you've got to admit this really isn't one of your better works. 

St Clare: Look, I can't patrol the channels 24/7. Every now and then a Toddlers & Tiaras is going to slip through. I'm only human you know! 

Kellie: I'm not criticising your work. You did a great job on Merlin, and you know you'll always have my eternal gratitude for Star Trek. All I'm saying is if I have to watch another middle aged, over bleached woman shove her four year old into a pair of Spanx and a ball gown, I'm going to scream. 

St Clare: Give me a few days, okay?  I'll slip something really choice into Supernatural for you, maybe something with Dean and Castiel. Will that shut you up? 

Kellie: Thanks, St Clare. That's all I ask.

I'm going to reserve my judgement though.  Lets see if she delivers.

I'm jealous of extreme couponers...

I'm feeling a little jealous of you Americans today.

The reason for my sudden attack of the green-eyed monster, you ask?  There's a new reality TV show that I've been watching lately.  I know, I know, I told you all that I'm not a fan of reality TV, and that's definitely the truth!  I hate shows like Big Brother, Survivor, and other monstrosities that only seem to exist to see how far you have to push a person before they become the worst version of themselves.

But I'm a bit more open to those shows like How Clean Is Your House or Escape To The Country.  For some reason, that particular style appeals to my inner voyeur without setting off all those second hand embarrassment alarms.  Give me a glass of wine, a Thai chicken curry, and half an hour of two middle aged British women teaching people how to get lime scale off sink fittings, and I'm as happy as a clam!

I thought I knew about most of those shows, but the other day I found one I'd never seen before.  I was strolling around in YouTube, as I'm known to do, and I stumbled across an American show called Extreme Couponing.  How on earth did I let this gem slip me by?

For those of you who've never seen it before, each episode follows two different "extreme couponers" as they try to buy ridiculously large quantities of groceries without having to spend any money.  It's full of people planning their grocery shop with a military precision that would make an Admiral faint.  Coupons collected, collated and filed into categories an cross referenced by location in the store and expiration date.  Stockpiles of tinned, dried and cleaning goods that would put a 1950's nuclear fallout shelter to shame.

It's absolutely breathtaking!

Take the episode I watched the other night.  In that one, a woman took over $1,800 worth of groceries, and at the end of it the supermarket actually gave her $150!!!  What sort of supermarkets do you guys have over there?  There isn't a shop in this country that would give you money to take stuff out of it!  I want shops that do that!

Unfortunately Australia doesn't do the whole coupons thing, so I'm left watching those shows, growing more and more envious.  Where are my 50 bottles of tomato sauce for five cents each?  Where are my 120 bags of rice that the shop gave me twenty cents a piece to take home because they were discounted to fifty cents and I had a coupon for seventy cents off?  I want to be able to stand at the cash register and watch my grocery bill total go down until it's in the single digits!

Alas, unless I choose to move to another country I'm not likely to be able to do that.

But a girl can still dream.

It's not for the novice, that's for damned sure...

So on the weekend I decided to introduce a friend of mine, let's call him Bob for privacy sake, to the delight that is Star Trek Voyager by having a bit of a marathon.

Yeah, that probably wasn't the best idea.

Bob:  So that chick with the really red hair... 

Me:  Captain Janeway. 

Bob:  Yeah, her.  She's the captain of The Voyager? 

Me:  Not The Voyager, it's just Voyager.   

Bob:  Huh ... but they say The Enterprise... 

Me:  True, but it's just Voyager.  No "the". 

Bob:  Okay ... and the guy with the pointy ears? 

Me:  That's Tuvok.  He's a Vulcan. 

Bob:  I see ... and who's the guy standing next to him?

Me:  That's Neelix.  He's the ship's Morale Officer and the cook. 

Bob:  Oh ... that explains the chef hat.  Is he a Vulcan too? 

Me:  No, he's a Talaxian!  Dude ... he's furry, with spots, and about four feet tall!  What about that made you think he's a Vulcan? 

Bob:  Well their names sound kind of similar. 

Me:  So because they have similar sounding names they have to be from the same planet?  That's speciesist! 

Bob:  Okay, calm down crazy lady!  Jeez, you take this stuff pretty seriously, don't you! 

Me:  Damn right I do! 

Bob:  Okaaaaay  ... what about that dark haired guy with the tattoo on his face?  What species is he? 

Me:  Human. 

Bob:  But ... what's the pattern on his face then? 

Me:  A tattoo. 

Bob:  *muttering* of course it it. 

Me:  This isn't working is it.  I'm not going to be able to convert you am I. 

Bob:  No, I don't think so ... 

Me:  ... 

Bob: ... 

Me:  So, Doctor Who then? 

Bob:  Bring on the Weeping Angels!

So it turns out that Star Trek Voyager is not for the amateurs, alas.  I guess some people just aren't up to handling its awesomeness.

Don't worry though, Bob, we'll always have the Weeping Angels.  

Magic and mystery are part of their history...

After our little discussion a few days ago about how scary kids shows are these days, I started thinking about all the shows I used to love when I was a wee sprat.  I've got to say, back in the 70's and 80's children's television had a definite flavour to it, but the thing that stuck with me the most over the years were the theme songs.  Shows from back then had the best theme songs!

Even today I occasionally will hear someone singing them, usually accompanied by an acoustic guitar in an attempt to be ironically nostalgic.  And because I love those songs so much I actually restrain myself from smacking them in the face.

I hate people who try to be ironically nostalgic via the medium of acoustic guitar.

So I've decided to compile a list of my favourite theme tunes from kids shows.  Lets see how many of them you recognise!

1.  Gummi Bears:  I think this was my first brush with lollies turned cartoon characters.  I couldn't even tell you what the show was about today, but I can still sing the whole theme tune.

2.  Fraggle Rock:  God, didn't we all love this show?  There was just something so amazing about the idea of teeny little people living under the house ... although the doozers always freaked me out a little bit.

3.  The Wombles:  These guys were definitely ahead of their time!  They were recycling before it became all "cool".  And who doesn't love Bernard Cribbin's voice.

4.  The Famous Five:  I'm not sure what it was about four kids and a dog that kept me coming back for more ... but I'm going to go out on a limb and say it was the fact that George owned an island.  She was a kid and she owned a freaking island!  I was always so jealous of her for that.

5. Monkey Magic:  I personally think that this show is almost entirely responsible for how many Buddhists there are in my generation.

So, what are your favourite theme tunes from when you were kids?

All the cool kids are watching it...

I've come to a conclusion.  Kids TV today is incredibly freaky and more than a little terrifying.

The other day I got called in for emergency babysitting duties.  My friends' babysitter had pulled out on them at the last moment and they had tickets to the circus, so they needed someone to come and stay with Hayden, their two year old, while they went to watch people spinning around on ropes and doing frankly painful looking contortion tricks.

Of course, being the good pseudo Auntie that I am, I quickly agreed and trotted myself over there.

Kids TV for the new generation?

My orders were simple.  Get him in his sleep suit, watch some TV with him, then put him to bed and wait around until the AWOL babysitter came to relieve me.  Sure, I could do that!  So after cramming him in his little sleeping bag pyjamas, we snuggled onto the couch and I turned the TV on.

Then I made my first mistake.  I asked a two year old what he wanted to watch.

I thought maybe he'd say Sesame Street, or wouldn't be able to make up his mind, but he was quite clear about his preferences.  He wanted to watch either In The Night Garden, a hideous kids show with scary looking puppets and absolutely no educational value whatsoever, or Bold and the Beautiful.

Yeah, that's right, he wanted to watch a soap opera!

And it's not like he was just pointing it out because it was on the screen, oh no!  He knew the names of the characters!  In his words, he wanted to watch "Widge and Book" ... which I'm assuming is two-year-oldese for "Ridge and Brooke".

But as much as I adore that kid, I wasn't watching B&B for anyone, so In The Night Garden it would have to be.

These would have terrified me
as a child!

Big mistake!

Have any of you ever watched that show?  It's terrifying!  The puppets are just creepy, and after watching an hour of it I can honestly say that they didn't actually DO anything!  There was a lot of repeating of the creepy puppets' names, lots of watching the creepy puppets dance around or bop up and down, and then at the end of each one they actually had the audacity to do an animated summary of the episode, essentially forcing us to watch a whole lot of nothing all over again!

I suppose it must have something though, Hayden loved it.  Even after the second episode he wanted to watch another one, but I don't think I could have stomached any more of that drivel so instead I whisked him off to bed.

Perhaps I should have let him watch B&B after all.  At least that has a storyline, albeit a trite one.  And not a freaky blue puppet in sight.

The 21st century is when everything changes...

Warning:  Gratuitous fangirling and Sci-Fi show recommendations ahead. 

For those of you who've been paying even the remotest attention to my entries, I'm sure you've realised by now that I'm a huge Doctor Who fan.  Yep, I'm a complete series owning, Weeping Angel fearing, TARDIS mug displaying fangirl, and damned proud of it!  But it might surprise some of you to hear that, of the whole DW franchise, Doctor Who isn't actually my favourite show.

Torchwood has that honour.

For those of you who've never seen the show, allow me to give you a brief run down of it.  The main character is one of the Doctor's former companions, the great coat wearing and sparkly smile flashing Captain Jack Harkness who pretty much runs around waving an antique gun and sleeps with anything that stays still long enough.  In the show he runs a mysterious organisation called Torchwood (it's an anagram for Doctor Who) which exists to protect Earth from all the aliens that are being dropped through a rift in space and time.  Well, to be honest they exist to capture the Doctor ... but let's not get into that.  

As far as sci-fi/fantasy concepts go, it's pretty run of the mill.  Captain Jack and his band of merry alien hunter, tearing around Cardiff in the worlds most obvious SUV.  It's kind of like Scooby Doo, but with lots and lots of sex.  But it wasn't the concept or the storylines that got me so hooked.

It was the characterisation.

These characters are all so ridiculously flawed.  They're awful to each other, say the meanest things, make ridiculously huge mistakes out of selfishness and greed ... but somehow you still can't help loving them.  The thing that makes it so brilliant is that if you asked me, I couldn't even tell you why I love them.

You've got Ianto, the Alferdesque type butler character, all three piece suits and calm efficiency, who it turns out is hiding a killing machine in the basement.  Owen, the doctor who the first time you see him is using the alien equivilant of a date rape drug to make himself irresistable to the girl he's trying to pick up at the bar (he ends up going home with her AND her boyfriend).  Toshiko, the tech specialist who was in jail for treason, although to be fair she did steal the plans to a weapon to try and save her kidnapped mother.  And the character that gets introduced to them all at the beginning of the series, Gwen.  She's portrayed as being the "heart" of the group, all empathy and big sad eyes.  But within the first season she's sleeping with Owen, drugging her husband after he found out about the affair to make him forget, and pretty much spends the whole time making cow eyes at Captain Jack even though he's in a relationship with Ianto.

These characters are all just so ridiculously flawed, and I think that's what makes it work.  Usually when you watch a show like this the characters are all up to the task, fully equiped with the skills they need and gung ho to get the job done.  In Torchwood, they're all in completely over their heads, and they know it.  Instead of dealing with that in healthy ways, they fall back on every one of their vices as a way of ignoring the fact that they're fucking terrified of what's going on around them.  I think, as much as we like to watch the heroes save the day, we see more of ourselves in these characters who are barely coping, but keep going anyway.

This is my recommendation to you all.  Get a copy of Torchwood and give it a go. It's sometimes tacky, sometimes crass, but I can guarantee it'll make you think.

So, what shows do you think are seriously under rated and deserve more of an audience?

Life lessons and Sesame Street...

The other week I had the pleasure of seeing a production of Avenue Q done at The Arts Theatre here in Brisbane.  I saw the touring version when it showed a couple of years ago, and I have to say that it wasn't any better than the one put on by this teeny little theatre.  Good job, guys!

But after watching what its commonly referred to as "Sesame Street For Grown Ups", I started to reminisce about my youth and the lessons I learned from good old Sesame Street.  Of all of them, and as a daily viewer there were a lot, there's one that I think was the most important and valuable.

I could have learned to count or recite the alphabet at school, I could have learned different rhymes or fairy tales from my parents.  Sure, I learned them from Sesame Street, but the fact remains there were plenty of places I could have gained these skills.  But there was one lesson that I don't think I would have learned anywhere else at such a young age.

That lesson was that grown ups aren't always right, and it was taught to my by Mr Snuffleupagus.

My prime Sesame Street watching days were back in the late seventies and very early eighties, so this was back when everyone still thought Snuffie was just Big Bird's imaginary friend.  Every episode I'd watch as they played together, and then Big Bird would say he was going to go get a grown up so they could finally see that he existed.  He'd ask Snuffie to stay right there, he'd beg, he'd cajole, and every time, Snuffie would promise.  He'd swear he'd stay right where he was.

And every single god damned time, he'd get distracted by something and wander off before Big Bird could bring the grown up over.

Every.

Freaking.

Time!

Of course, the grown up would come over, not be able to see Mr Snuffleupagus, and either "pretend", which would frustrate Big Bird (and by extension me), or they'd say that he wasn't real.  Holy crap, of course he was real!  He was a god damned six foot furry elephant thingamabob in the middle of suburbia!  Surely someone should have seen him hauling his enormous brown shaggy ass up the street!

And seriously, Snuffie, couldn't you have just stayed in the one place for a few minutes?  Why did you have to get distracted by every stupid butterfly or every ice cream truck to go wandering by!

But as I said, this taught me a very valuable lesson at a very early age.  Just because a grown up didn't believe me, didn't mean I wasn't right.  And if I was right, I was entitled to trust myself and demand that others did too.

I honestly think that's the reason why, when I was accused a couple of years later of pushing a boy into the girls toilets (our primary schools most heinous form of bullying), I stood up for myself, told them that I most certainly did NOT push him into the toilets, and the teachers actually believed me.

Thank you for that, Snuffie.  You might have been a frustrating sonofabitch, but you taught me something that it would have probably taken me years to learn otherwise.

NB.  I didn't push the kid into the toilets, by the way, in case you were curious.  I've no idea who did, or why he chose to blame me.

Daytime TV and fevers do not mix...

Today I'm unwell.  Yep, I'm suffering from the dreaded lurgie.  I'm all feverish, I feel like I just drank an icy cold can of razor blades, and I'm pretty sure that if I answered the phone right now the telemarketer who's trying to sell me raffle tickets would think I'm Barry White.

Get lost, telemarketer, I don't want your stinking raffle tickets!  I'm sick, damn it!

Sorry, back to what we were talking about.

So after spending all of the morning sleeping, I finally got to the point where I couldn't stand to stay in bed a moment longer.  I'm sure you know what I mean, that point where the sheets are just too sweaty, the room too closed in, and neighbour's gardener too noisy with the mower.  So I dragged my admittedly slightly addled brain out into the lounge room and set up camp on the couch.  Because if there's one sure fire cure for the flu, it's daytime television.

I started my search for something to keep me amused, flicking past several boring looking news shows, some kids programs that looked like they'd been created by someone on acid, and an old 60's sitcom that I wouldn't watch when I was well, never mind when I was feverish.  That's when I hit pay dirt.  Infomercials!

Infomercials are either the best or the worst things to happen to daytime television since the invention of the talk show, and I'm not sure which it is.  They're full of overacting women with too big smiles and too white teeth trying to sell you products which if you saw them in a shop for a quarter of their asking price, you'd scoff at.  But for some reason (perhaps it's the whole 4 monthly interest free payments schtick) you believe Little Miss Smilestoomuch when she tells you that you'll find complete fulfilment and inner peace if only you'll buy a leopard print snuggie.

So I settled down to watch the infomercial, ready to be amazed by whatever was on offer.  As it turned out, they were trying to sell some sort of exercise equipment that looked like a cross between a medieval torture device and a Disneyland ride.  While Little Miss Smilestoomuch stood there and extolled it's many virtues, the Bobbsey Twins of the exercise world gyrated away behind her, smiles even larger than hers painted on their faces.

"As you can see," she said, with a scary amount of pep in her voice, "The Exerfithealthotron is so easy to use!  Just jump up on it, turn the handles, hold your elbows at 83 degree angles, recide pi to 27 digits, and you're off!"

"Bullshit," I cried, hoarse but adamant, "Those bimbos probably think pi comes in cherry and apple!"

"And with the way the machine works, you can see they're really working up a sweat," she continued, seemingly impervious to my snark.

"They'll need it," I muttered, looking at their clothes, or lack thereof, "considering how they're practically naked.  Someone get those girls some damn tracksuits!"

"Can you see how well it's working their abdominals?" she asked, groping at Bobbsey Twin number two in what can only be described as an inappropriate way.

"I can see their hoo-hahs," I replied, giggling a little from the fever and the disturbing way a high definition camera will let you see EVERYTHING.

Okay, so perhaps an infomercial wasn't the best choice considering the state of my health.  I probably would have been safer picking a nice soap opera or talk show.  But never mind, it's not like I bought one.

At least I THINK I didn't buy one ... I was pretty feverish and I've been known to do some weird shit when I'm not well.

Perhaps I'd better check my credit card statement.

My TV boyfriends...

Hello ladies and jellybabies!  Today I've decided to do you all an enormous favour, and introduce you to the delicious little morsels of man flesh that I lovingly call my TV boyfriends.  They're cheaper, easier, and less whiny than the real thing, don't leave the toilet seat up, and if I need to talk to them all I have to do is press pause on my media player and freeze the frame on their gorgeous faces.

Shemar Moore

Ah, my beautiful Shemar.  How could you resist this face?  Of course it doesn't hurt his character Derek Morgan on Criminal Minds is the sweetest thing on two legs!

I still remember when I started watching the show about three seasons in ... I have a really bad habit of jumping on bandwagons I'm afraid ... and I just adored his character from the get go.  The coolness, the old world gentlemanly demeanour, the cute bantering with Garcia.

And lets be honest ... he's pretty easy on the eyes.





Ian Somerhalder

Ian and I go way back, back to a time when he wasn't a household name.  He may have become famous for his role in Lost, and then gone on to do The Vampire Diaries, but to me he'll always be Hamilton Flemming from Young Americans.

I'll always see him as the cute boy who questioned his sexuality when he fell in love with a boy who was really a girl pretending to be a boy.  What can I say, it was a spinoff of Dawson's Creek and it was little more than a teen soap opera.  Yep, my taste in television programs is just that refined.

I think it was the eyes that got me though.  You could practically fall into those eyes.




David Hewlett

David is the most recent of my TV boyfriends.  He plays the utterly adorable Dr Rodney McKay on Stargate Atlantis, a show which I only found only recently but am loving so much.  He's got that whole geeky cuteness factor going for him ... and it doesn't hurt that he's both smart and funny, a diabolical combination.

There's just something so endearing about him.  He spouts technobabble fit to make Geordie LaForge proud and lets be honest, we all love the nerdy, socially stunted, utterly brilliant characters.





Mario Lopez

And finally we have Mario.  His place is an honorary one, based on the fact that he was my very first TV boyfriend.

Those of us who were of an age to watch Saved By The Bell tended to pick a side ... Mario Lopez or Mark Paul Gosselaar.  I chose Mario.  My fourteen year old self (and my thirty mumble year old self if I'm being honest) found him absolutely dreamy.

I think it was the dimples.





So there you go!  Absolutely adorable every one of them, all good listeners, and I can turn them on or off with the press of a button ... sounds ideal to me.

So who are your TV boyfriends?

Why reality television is EVIL...

I don't really spend that much time watching television any more.  Of course I used to be a slave to the boob tube just like everyone else, but with the popularity of TV show box sets, iTunes, and internet streaming, it's gotten to the point where I can go weeks without even turning it on.

But when I do switch it on to check out what's happening I've noticed a disturbing trend.  Is it just me or are there a scary number of reality TV shows on these days?

Now I'm not very familiar with them, I must admit, but of course that's never stopped me from having strongly held opinions before so lets get down to brass tacks.  I'm firmly of the opinion that reality television is going to result in THE END OF CIVILISATION AS WE KNOW IT!!!

A bit over the top, you say?  Perhaps I'm exaggerating a tad?  Oh, I don't think so!  It's possible I'm allowing my obvious hatred for the format to cloud my judgement, but I think you'll find my argument stands on it's own feet.

As far as I can tell reality television serves one purpose only, to embarrass and vilify the people on it.   Sure, it's in the context of whatever the show is about, but the result's the same.  A cooking show?  The judges stand there and yell abuse about the poor contestant's bouillabaisse.  A renovation show?  They're pitted against each other in such a way that by the end of it they'd cheerfully nail gun the other to a wall and are made to look like complete prats to the public.  One of those adventure survival shows?  They're stuck in awful situations, the worse the better, and we all sit on our couches and chuckle as they're forced to do painful, humiliating and dangerous things for the chance to win some vaguely hinted at prize.

Are you sensing a trend here?

TV has always been about escapism.  You watch people doing or having awful things done to them, but it's okay because you know that it's not real and at the end of the hour everything will be neatly sewn up with a happy ending.  But with reality TV, these are real people, with real people feelings.  So why is it okay to take so much joy in their pain and trauma?  Some might argue that they put themselves into the situation so they deserve what they get, but that doesn't excuse our behaviour.  Insensitivity is insensitivity.

I remember watching an episode of Doctor Who where, in the future, reality television had evolved to a point where the repercussions had grown worse and worse to appease the public, the result being that the loser were executed live on TV to make it more interesting.  In true Doctor Who fashion they weren't really executed, and it was all solved by the end of the episode, but the point stands.

And THAT is why I think reality television is evil...

The Star Trek conspiracy...

For those of you who have read some of my other blog entries, this will come as no surprise to you.  I’m a geek.  A huge sci-fi watching, computer game playing, tech gadget loving, internet surfing geek.  So it’s understandable that I have some rather strongly held opinions on certain issues involving geek culture.  There’s one in particular I’d like to bring to your attention. 

The Star Trek movie they brought out in 2009 should never have happened.

You may be cute, but you're no Picard.

Now, before you all start howling about how it was such a good film and how cute Chris Pine was in it and how it honoured the memory of Gene Roddenberry (may he rest in peace), I just want to make one thing clear.  I’m not saying, insinuating, or in any way implying that I thought it was a bad film.  In fact I rather liked it.  It was fun, the story was good, the effects top notch, and there were plenty of fannish inside jokes to pander to those who were fans of the series.  I’m not saying it was a bad film, that’s simply not the point I’m trying to make.

What I’m trying to say is … it shouldn’t have happened.  Think of it this way.  As a fan I’ve put many years into loving Star Trek.  I’ve watched the episodes, learned the history, developed theories and ideas about the parts that aren’t covered by canon … essentially, I’m committed.  I’ve put in the hard yards and I think I’ve earned my spot as a Star Trek fan. 

But then one day someone who isn’t Gene Roddenberry (may he rest in peace) gets up and says, “You know what?  We’re going to reboot the whole series!  Start from scratch!  We’ll wipe out everything that ever happened and we’ll change the storyline so significantly that there’s no way that the old history could happen again.  Hell, we’ll destroy a whole planet just to make sure that it’s impossible for some of the future characters to even be born!  It’ll be great, the fans will eat it up!”

You know what, Mr Someone Who Isn’t Gene Roddenberry (may he rest in peace)?  I’m a fan, and as much as I liked the film, I did NOT like the way it basically wiped out my universe!  You called a do-over, and now I’m left wondering if it’s a betrayal to MY universe to watch the new one!  No matter how enjoyable the new stories are, I’m still going to spend most of them thinking “This is good, but was it worth Tuvok’s life?”

Will nobody think of the officers!!!

I know a lot of (much less obsessive) people have listened to me rant on the topic, and then brought up the argument, “But it’s just like having a parallel universe, right?  They have those already in Star Trek, so it’s totally canon.”  That may be true, and I can see the logic behind it, but it doesn’t change the way I feel about it.  My Universe is gone, wiped out with the stroke of a pen.  

Saying it's a parallel universe doesn't alter the fact that, according to this new storyline, MY universe is gone.  My universe, which a put blood, sweat and tears into.  My universe, where the characters I love exist.  I think they've under estimated just how dedicated we fans are to what we see as the REAL Star Trek.

No, Mr Someone Who Isn't Gene Roddenberry (may he rest in peace), you may have given the Star Trek franchise a new lease on life … but at what cost?

Why I don't hold dinner parties...

I love cooking shows.  I love watching them as they create little pieces of art out of four potatoes, an eggplant, and a crawfish.  I love how excited they get about it, waxing romantical about the joys of food.  What I don't like?  Cooking.

But I do love watching those shows.  I remember I used to love Jamie Oliver (before he became famous and a bit of a prat), and watched his earlier shows religiously.  He was just so enthusiastic!  He'd stumble over his words and be all sorts of adorable while the person behind the camera had to egg him on by asking questions about what he was doing.  I'm also a big fan of Nigella Lawson, the woman who can make de-boning a chicken look X-rated.  Seriously, anyone who can act that sensual about food while not actually doing anything sexual has my stamp of approval!

Like a lot of things I have an interest in, though, I'd much prefer to watch someone else do it than attempt it myself.  My philosophy is I'm not a professional.  If my toilet broke, I'd call a plumber, not stick my hand down the s bend.  So if I want a chicken kiev I'm going to go to the person most qualified to give it to me.

And most of the time that person is a chef at a restaurant or a cafe (and occasionally my mother).

So why am I bringing it up?  Well, today I found myself in the position of having to roast half a kilo of almonds.  I've never roasted an almond before, let alone half a kilo of them, and I wouldn't have had to today if my supermarket wasn't so plebeian that they only sold them raw instead of the barbeque roast flavour that I prefer! How very dare they!

But how exactly does one roast an almond?  After a quick sacrifice to the Google gods, I discovered that you just whack them in a low oven for about ten minutes, or until the smell of roasting almonds comes wafting out.  I don't know, Google!  It's not a good idea to give me options when it comes to something I'm not very good at.  I always pick the wrong one.  Always!

My oven, artist's interpretation.

And what does a roasting almond smell like, anyway?  They've always already been roasted by the time I get them!  So I went with the timed option.  Might not have been the best option, especially when paired with the unpredictable nature of my 473 year old gas oven (age estimated based on an excavation of grease layers).

So now I have two trays of roasted almonds, all of them slightly funny looking and ... for some strange reason ... more than a little chewy.  I'm relatively sure that none of the almonds I've bought from the shops ever looked like this.

Crap, maybe I should have just got the cashews...

The facts of science fiction...

When I woke up today I decided that the time had come.  Time for us to have ... the talk.  Come on now, don't look at me like that.  You knew it had to happen sometime.  I know I've avoided it so far, I didn't want to stress our burgeoning relationship, but I think that it's time for me to sit you all down and explain a few of the facts of life, or at least a few of the facts of MY life.

Specifically, I think it's time for me to explain to you all my, some would say unhealthy, obsession with science fiction.

I suppose it all dates back to when I was around eleven years old and I first discovered that if I was willing to wake up at five in the morning I could sneak out into the lounge room and watch an old British kids show that some television genius had decided to put on in that oh so popular timeslot.  The show was called The Tomorrow People, had been filmed in the 70's, and was based on a bunch of kids who were the next step of human evolution (and seemed to have no parents, as far as I could tell).

The Tomorrow People

It was badly acted, poorly funded, had some of the worst special effects you can imagine (and this is coming from a Doctor Who fan) ... and somehow managed to capture my imagination.  I set my alarm religiously for a whole year, getting up every morning to watch it, until a change in the TV schedule took it away from me and shattered my poor little tween heart.

But by that point I was hooked.  It wasn't long until I discovered other sci-fi classics being re-run on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.  Land of the Giants, The Twilight Zone, Lost In Space, Buck Rogers, and Time Tunnel all featured prominently in my schedule.  It's strange, they weren't the sort of shows a young girl was supposed to like ... but I adored them.  I suppose it should have been a warning for what came next.

When I was around twelve a new version of Star Trek started airing.  I think The Next Generation was a bit of an experiment.  They were trying to see if it was even possible to bring back something that had been so popular back in the day.  But it was a success, and like all the other's before it, I fell hook, line and sinker.

Wil Wheaton, then and now.

It didn't hurt that there was a boy on it that was around my age and who, in my youthful naivety, I thought was just dreamy.  Of course that boy was Wil Wheaton, who grew up to be famous on the internet and one of the biggest geek legends out there, so I'm going to believe that it shows my good taste even at such a young age.

I followed Star Trek: TNG for a couple of years, at which point I entered the mid years of being a teenager who couldn't possibly do anything that might make her look uncool (don't be fooled, I was incredibly uncool as a teenager) and of course promptly stopped.  That marked the beginning of several bleak, barren, sci-fi free years.

But then a miracle occurred, an amazing miracle!  A friend of mine introduced me to a show called Sliders.  I originally agreed to watch it as the lead actor was Jerry O'Connell who I thought was adorable.  Are you sensing a trend here?  I never claimed to be noble, I've always been completely shallow and easily swayed by a cute guy.

The show was about a group of people who travelled to parallel universes, having adventures, trying to get back to their own.  It had been a good five years since I'd really watched any science fiction, but it was like coming home again!  I soaked it up, haunting my local video rental waiting for each new VHS release (yep, I'm definitely dating myself there).

Once I was back, it didn't take me long to work out I had a lot of catching up to do.  I had years of Star Trek, in two different series, to watch.  And then, to my joy, a third series began!  Star Trek Voyager was, and still is to this day, my favourite of all the Star Treks.

The picture on my work desk.

I'm not claiming it's the best acted or the cleverest or the most significant, but what it is is the first of them that I watched in order from start to finish.  It will always have a special place in my heart because of that and even now I keep a wee little picture of the crew of the USS Voyager on my desk at work, my OTHER family portrait as I call it.

From that point there was really no stopping me.  I caught up on the Star Treks, got into Buffy when it started, then Angel too.  I watched The X Files, Farscape, Dark Angel, Xena, Seaquest, Lost, Firefly, Life on Mars, Being Human, and so many more.  All these wonderful, imaginative, sometimes tacky shows.

And while I loved them all I didn't really find another that filled that gap that Voyager left ... until in 2005 the BBC decided to bring back their old classic Doctor Who.  Finally I'd found another true sci-fi love, one that lasts to this day, and from it I found Torchwood which I think I might love even more.  But really, it'd be like asking me to choose which child I loved more.  I have to think of them as a package deal just to keep my sanity intact.

I've been very lucky with my science fiction obsessions, I think, and about six months ago I found a new one.  I don't know how it was that I'd never watched Stargate Atlantis before, somehow it had slipped through my radar, but all it took was a crossover fanfic with one of my other favourite shows and I found myself enchanted with the characters.  From there it was a short step to getting hold of the episodes.

I'm still only half way through the five years worth (I like to take my time and savour them, especially as I know exactly how long I've got), but it's shaping up to be another sci-fi soul mate.

SGA:  my newest obsession.

I know it seems a bit over the top, but this is who I am.  Some people religiously follow football or car racing (which I really don't get), I choose to devote my obsessive tendencies to science fiction shows.  I can't say they changed my life, or saved me or anything suitably dramatic like that ... but I can say that I love them with all of my heart.  They get me, I think.

Of course, I'm also obsessed with Glee, but probably the less said about that the better...