I collect fandoms like an old lady collects cats.
I just joined another one this week. In the past year, I have joined more fandoms than the narrator from Fight Club joined support groups. This most recent one is Torchwood. This past year has included Dollhouse, Supernatural, Arrow, and all the Marvel movies. I also found the time to revisit Sherlock, 30 Rock, Firefly, Psych, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and stay up to date on The Legend of Korra, Game of Thrones, and Breaking Bad. And that is just this past year.
Personally, the best fandoms are the ones you discover all on your own. No friends ranting and raving about this new show you just have to watch, no one on your social media feed crying about the season finale, no press. Good ol' fashioned, "Oh hey, that sounds interesting, I'll watch the pilot..." and before you know it, it's 3am and you're telling yourself, "Well, I only have two episodes left in the season, might as well not leave them for tomorrow."
The best fandoms are the ones you can binge-watch. When your binge-watching ends with the show and you don't have to suffer like Dean did in hell until the next episode. When "Previously on ... " drives you crazy because you've just spent the last six hours watching Walter White be a bad-ass and don't need a reminder. When you don't skip the intro to Game of Thrones or Dexter because they are too damn good to not watch.
The best fandoms are the ones you can re-binge-watch. Once you've binged on a show, you become that friend. We all know that weirdo: the one who tries to bring up their fandom as often as Kaylee says "shiny", the one who would rather be at home watching Echo bring down the dollhouse than meet new people.
And one of the
greatest pleasures of being that weirdo is the possibility of recruiting someone to the fandom. Now you can re-binge without judgment. And when you re-binge, you can find those pineapples you missed the first time.
The best fandoms are the ones that leave you in a sort of withdrawal state. When you find yourself hitting replay on the series finale because your brain can't handle how epic that Agni Kai between Zuko and Azula was. When you search the internets for fan art, fanfiction, jokes, GIFs, shipping theories, air-dates, any news whatsoever.
Binge-watching is a serious matter though. Check out this PSA if you are unaware of the dangers. It is not for the weak.
http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/08/14/binge-watching-tv-psa/
You know you're an experienced binge-watcher when you have binge-watching pants. I do. Very much like PJs, they are pants you change into because you feel you should change out of your PJs but you know you have no reason or need to socialize today. These pants can be worn outside, in case you have to take out the trash or get the mail, and if you are brave enough, walk to the local 7-11 for a snack run. Binge pants are very much like airport pants: comfy, preferably with pockets, and they go great with Sanuks.
When you think "You heard about Pluto? That's messed up, right?" is the best pick up line ever, you're a Psych-o. Thank you Burton Guster.
TL:DR:: "Every time I join a new fandom, I fell like I'm ripping my soul into another horcrux."
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Monday, August 18, 2014
qwerty versus azerty
Alas, this blog and its posts are simple musings and rants, a sort of laugh-at-me-or-with-me kind of tale.
However, I'm a mediocre story teller. (Lucky for me, you didn't have to see me use google to abc-spelling check the word "mediocre".) You have been forewarned!
The first post is ... I'm sure there's an adjective in the dictionary, be it Webster's or Oxford or Urban, that could describe these awkward, ugly, confused, and mentally-constipated faces I'm making at the screen as I try to write.
I'm sure an English teacher at some point told me to always stick to the basics, then again, I could be bullshitting. How very Schrödinger's cat. (And you bet your ass I googled that. More for the umlaut than anything else really, since my qwerty keyboard lacks any character. (lol. a dad joke.)
qwerty definitely got the short end of the stick when it came to keyboard design. qwerty has the dollar sign $, the at sign @, the ampersand & (which is just a fancy way of saying and sign), oh! and let's not forget the tilde ~.
But I mean, come on! azerty has got all that QND (lol again.):
~these math guys: the one degree ¹, the square ², the temperature symbol °, the section sign §, the eighths ⅛ , ⅜ , ⅝ , and ⅞, the negation ¬ (a favorite of mine. for your semantic linguists, your philosophers, your coders and programmers), the classic operations ×, ÷, and remember this guy from high school science? ±,
~these money guys: the euro €, the yen ¥, the pound £, and the cent ¢ ,
~these old and current dudes: Mu µ (no, not the pokémon, the 12th Greek letter), Omega Ω (the 24th Greek letter), Thorn þ (from Old English now found in modern Icelandic), this vowel and letter found in Scandinavian languages ø, and the German letter Eszett ß (in English, sharp s), and probably the funnest thing about high school Spanish ¡ and ¿,
~not to mention these dudes (é, ç, à, ù, è), and sounds with the little hat (you know, a circumflex: â, ô, û, î, ê, ŷ, ŵ, ẑ, ĉ, ĝ, ŝ, ĵ), with the umlaut (ë, ä, ï, ö, ÿ, ẅ, ü), and with any diacritic (å, ā, ă, ǎ, ȧ, ą),
~and let's not forget the ones I found just by pressing alt+shift+any key: ™, ¤, ¶ (a nod to that English teacher I mentioned earlier), and ©.
But enough fun. I was going to stick to the basics, wasn't I?
Let's see,
I'm a linguist, a recycler, a music enthusiast and festival junkie, a tacky fashion expert, a rambler, a fangirl, a hooper, a laugher, not a dancer but that doesn't stop me, and a volunteer guinea pig for any home cooked meal.
I'm one part funny and one part nerd.
However, I'm a mediocre story teller. (Lucky for me, you didn't have to see me use google to abc-spelling check the word "mediocre".) You have been forewarned!
The first post is ... I'm sure there's an adjective in the dictionary, be it Webster's or Oxford or Urban, that could describe these awkward, ugly, confused, and mentally-constipated faces I'm making at the screen as I try to write.
I'm sure an English teacher at some point told me to always stick to the basics, then again, I could be bullshitting. How very Schrödinger's cat. (And you bet your ass I googled that. More for the umlaut than anything else really, since my qwerty keyboard lacks any character. (lol. a dad joke.)
qwerty definitely got the short end of the stick when it came to keyboard design. qwerty has the dollar sign $, the at sign @, the ampersand & (which is just a fancy way of saying and sign), oh! and let's not forget the tilde ~.
But I mean, come on! azerty has got all that QND (lol again.):
~these math guys: the one degree ¹, the square ², the temperature symbol °, the section sign §, the eighths ⅛ , ⅜ , ⅝ , and ⅞, the negation ¬ (a favorite of mine. for your semantic linguists, your philosophers, your coders and programmers), the classic operations ×, ÷, and remember this guy from high school science? ±,
~these money guys: the euro €, the yen ¥, the pound £, and the cent ¢ ,
~these old and current dudes: Mu µ (no, not the pokémon, the 12th Greek letter), Omega Ω (the 24th Greek letter), Thorn þ (from Old English now found in modern Icelandic), this vowel and letter found in Scandinavian languages ø, and the German letter Eszett ß (in English, sharp s), and probably the funnest thing about high school Spanish ¡ and ¿,
~not to mention these dudes (é, ç, à, ù, è), and sounds with the little hat (you know, a circumflex: â, ô, û, î, ê, ŷ, ŵ, ẑ, ĉ, ĝ, ŝ, ĵ), with the umlaut (ë, ä, ï, ö, ÿ, ẅ, ü), and with any diacritic (å, ā, ă, ǎ, ȧ, ą),
~and let's not forget the ones I found just by pressing alt+shift+any key: ™, ¤, ¶ (a nod to that English teacher I mentioned earlier), and ©.
But enough fun. I was going to stick to the basics, wasn't I?
Let's see,
I'm a linguist, a recycler, a music enthusiast and festival junkie, a tacky fashion expert, a rambler, a fangirl, a hooper, a laugher, not a dancer but that doesn't stop me, and a volunteer guinea pig for any home cooked meal.
I'm one part funny and one part nerd.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)