thoughts on new food

burger king has new breakfast stuff; a pancake platter (3 pancakes & sausage patty), a ultimate platter (3 pancakes, sausage patty, scrambled eggs, tater crowns or disks & a biscuit), blueberry biscuits & a breakfast sandwich on ciabatta bread.

i had the ultimate platter. hardly any eggs, the pancakes were small and had too much vanilla in them. the sausage was bigger than the one in the mcdonald's breakfast platter (watch it shrink in a year) overall not bad. not good either. maybe if i could get it without the pancakes i'd get it again. otherwise no.

mom's b-day '10

Mout Ironic, tremendous internal wealth, know how to rapidly connect with others, looks for paternal authority. Colors: male: brown, female: red carmine Compatible Signs: Amon-Ra, Thoth Dates: Jan 22 - Jan 31, Sep 8 - Sep 22 Role: A creator goddess, she was the mother from which the cosmos emerged. Appearance: A woman with the wings of a vulture, holding an ankh, wearing the united crown of Upper and Lower Egypt and also a dress of bright red/blue, with the feather of Ma'at at her feet Sacred Animal: vulture What is Your Egyptian Zodiac Sign? Designed by CyberWarlock of Warlock's Quizzles and Quandaries

five things #115

Five memories Daniel never got back after descending

daniel remembers his grandfather coming to tell him that he couldn't come to live with him. what daniel doesn't remember is how he begged his grandfather to take him & writing a dozen letters with the same theme that his grandfather never answered.

he remembers sha're & the year they had together on abydos. what he doesn't remember is that a couple weeks after jack & the others left, a sickness hit the village they lived in. he feared that they had brought it with them from earth & it would turn into an epidemic. daniel used the few medical supplies left behind to try to help. despite his best efforts 40 people, mostly children, died.

daniel remembers the first archaeological dig that he went on, how the professor in charge kind of took him under her wing. what he doesn't remember is the other archaeological students snubing him & sneeringly calling him a wunderkind.

he remembers that the year he turned 6 his father helped a friend edit a book of ancient egyptian fairy tales that never got published. what daniel doesn't remember is that his mother became pregnant that year & that his little sister was stillborn.

daniel remembers a friend of his that was also in the foster care system. they were in the came class & once she was even placed in the same foster home as daniel for a few days. he remembers that she was killed in a car wreck caused by a drunk driver their senior year of high school. what daniel doesn't remember is that he was in the car with her & held her as she died.

quiz: which fantasy writer are you?

Your result for Which fantasy writer are you?...

Ursula K Le Guin (b. 1929)

7 High-Brow, -3 Violent, -27 Experimental and 19 Cynical!

Congratulations! You are High-Brow, Peaceful, Traditional and Cynical! These concepts are defined below.

Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is definitely one of the most celebrated science fiction and fantasy writers of all times. Her most famous fantasy work to date is the Earthsea suite of novels and short stories, in which Le Guin created not only one of the most believable societies in fantasy fiction, but also managed to describe a school for wizards almost three decades before Harry Potter. Although often categorized as written for young adults, these books have entertained and challenged readers of all ages since their publication. Le Guin is no stranger to literary experiments (see for example Always Coming Home(1985)), but much of her story-telling is quite traditional. In fact, she makes a point of returning to older forms of story-telling, which, at her best, enables her to create something akin to myth. One shouldn't confuse myth with faerytale, though. Nothing is ever simplified in Le Guin's world, as she relentlessly explores ethical problems and the moral choices that her characters must make, as must we all. While being one of those writers who will allow you to escape to imaginary worlds, she is also one who will prompt you to return to your actual life, perhaps a little wiser than you used to be.

You are also a lot like Susan Cooper.If you want some action, try Michael Moorcock.If you'd like a challenge, try your exact opposite, C S Lewis.

day 4 dragon-con '10

we just had 2 panels this final day of the convention. a DS9 panel and one that was most everyone else from trek that was still there.
my brother was tired of lining up early just to wait (even though we'd be inside & could sit on the carpeted floor) and with the excuse that there weren't that many people there last year on the final day, we went a little bit later than we normally would. so of course there's already about 100 people in line. and another 200 come in after us.
the panel was rene auberjonois, armin shimerman, avery brooks, robert o'reilly & j.g. hertzler. it was a great talk. o'reilly started by saying it was the committee on un-american activities. garrett wang was there in his program director's role & during a question on how they go into acting he told kind of a long story which auberjonois kidded him about. someone asked who was the big prank puller on set & auberjonois said that the show was far too serious for that. they made jokes once in a while, but none were pranksters.
the "rest of trek" panel followed right after & we had to clear out, so we decided to have a bathroom break. on the way saw brooks & hertzler waiting for the elevators as we went by. when i came out i saw shimerman waiting for the same elevator, but my brother missed him as he left before he came out. my brother said it figures that i'd see more celebrities than him. (see last year's d-con reports) it matches wup number with the 3 i saw last year. it also match up with my seeing most near the ladies' room.
there there was the trek people still at the con panel with marina sirtis, michelle forbes, jonathan frakes, robert beltran & john de lancie (with garrett wang as host) they talked about how no one like using props except for gates mcfadden. no one like the troi/worf romance (i always herd it was the actors' idea) & the TNG episode code of honor is so badly written that it's been taken out of the syndication line up. the room was nearly packed. i told my brother, if there are only 2,000 people left at the con they were all in that room.
we went to the comic artists' alley one last time for the aikra stuff (turns out that they didn't put up anything new on saturday) i noticed that there seemed to be a lot more people there on the final day than last year.
then we drug ourselves over to the georgia aquarium, payed too much money to take picturse of marine life for an hour and drug ourselves back to the hotel. where we had a dinner of snacks that we brought with us & watched a marathon of pawn stars before collapsing in a heap in bed.

day 3 dragon-con '10

every night i'm woken up by the sirens of an ambulance/police car/fire truck. i would find out later that there was a fire at the hilton & someone fell of the balcony at bar in the hyatt.
we lined up early for avery brooks. he's smooth, cool & really smart. i felt like i had to take some kind of advance class ust to understand what he was talking about. he talked about doing spencer for hire in boston & how the city is more like a collection of small towns than a big city. and it wasn't easy to be a person of color there.
since we had a bunch of time before the robert beltran talk i suggested we hit another stargate panel. since it was in the hyatt where the akira stuff was my brother agreed. it was the same line up as before, minus ben & just as crazy as before. shanks showed why he should never get on twitter & moma said less than the first time. i was this close to asking a question, but it was a semi-serous question & they weren't a semi-serious group.
brother checked out the akira stuff (they had new cells) & then we went to the room where beltran was going to appear with garrett wang. (we had briefly looked at it after the brooks talk & discovered it was small) there are several people in line but we manage to get in the room before the cut off. the room was so small that they didn't ven need microphones. the two are crazy together. wang said they had trailers on set next to each other and beltran said he was like eddie haskel and wang was like the beaver (look up leave it to beaver on wikipedia). wang talked briefly about the TNG panel that crosby walk out on & i felt bad for him because it was his first year. they told some crazy stories & i wished that people from the TNG/DS9/VOY era of trek would write books about their time on their respective series.

day 2 dragon-con '10

breakfast at dairy queen (the have breakfast there) then we decide to avoid getting caught up in the traffic of the d-con parade to go early to the comic artists alley in the hyatt for my brother to check out the cells from the akira anime (they changed daily). had to wait a while for it to open, only to discover that they didn't change them yet. i went to the trek track table where i saw the old director who thought i was going to make off with some trek novels they had there.
after hanging out near the video rooms for a while (it was zombie-themed stuff. ick!) we decided to line up early for our stuff. this was the only time we split up during the con. brother went to anime company Q & A and i went to see the scott bakula talk. we lined up about 1 1/2 hours early & had planned to talk some on our cell phones, but mine crapped out. the bakula talk was nice. he mentioned that ENT seems to have more fans now than when it was on the air & he had fun in the mirror universe episodes.
we had planned to go to the stan lee talk, but figured that they'd talk about a bunch of comic stuff that we've never heard of.
later in the afternoon (after my brother rechecked the akira stuff & found they didn't change anything) we hit the stargate panel. just before it started one of the volunteers proposed to his girlfriend, she said yes.
this one was with michael shanks, his wife lexa doig, writer martin gero, ben browder, jason momoa, alaina huffman (from the new series) & paul mcgillion. in the begining two guys carried out a big, brass tub (which turned out to be filled with beer & water on ice) i recognized one as ben & thought; he's helping out one of the crew guys bring it out. it wasn't a crew guy, it was jason!
it was a crazy panel (as most stargate ones seem to be) with shanks & his wife trading barbs, momoa swearing and mcgillion flirting with female question askers from the audence. poor huffman, i don't think she knew what she was in for.

day 1 dragon-con '10

so my brother & i get up early for breakfast at the corner bakery cafe. it was good, i recommend the place. (a hint though: they give you a card so someone can find you to deliver your food, you need to put i at the top of the thing on the table with the pepper & salt.)
we get in line for the star trek: voyager thing about an hour early & there are already several people there. the panel had robert beltran, garrett wang who the new program director (kind of a long story. comment if you want to know) & levar burton. it was worth seeing. beltran revealed that he'd use his middle finger to hit buttons on his control panel if he didn't like the script. burton is working to bring back reading rainbow on-line. they talked about timeless (that burton directed) the best of the VOY episodes & one of the best trek episodes.
later we got in line for the quantum leap panel which was out the door by that time. loved the panel! scott said that if there was a QL movie and he & dean weren't in it, we should boycott. then go see the one they are in. the crowd hooted & applauded their approval. he then admitted that he was kidding. (we weren't) dean told about when he did the movie the boy with green hair that it was a wig (made from human hair from france) and he got a skin disease. which i did not need to know about. they talked about the final QL episode & how it had to serve as a season ender (in case they got picked up. even though they were canceled), an end of the series episode and a link to a tv movie or big screen movie. scott thought sam was loosing his mind (literally) from all the leaping & dean didn't like the crazy outfits he had to wear. i could've sat at that panel for another hour.

day 0 dragon con '10

i had only gotten about 6 hours of sleep the night before so i was dragging my butt the whole day. i tried without success to grab a nap on the plane.
checked in to the hotel & went to get in the pre-registered line for the badges. it wrapped around the sheraton where you get the badges! my brother had left his ID at the hotel (a must to get the badges) & ran back for it. i had managed to move up some and he got back in line without any problem. several people had e-book readers & iPads to pass the time. someone blew-up to small beach balls that were hit around until one hit a chandelier and security took them away.
so after about 4 1/2 hours or so we get the badges, drag ourselves back to the hotel, took rapid release tylenol & collapsed in a heap on our beds.

i must be crazy

we're going to dragon con again.
the same couple who couldn't go last year can't go again. some work thing of his. she tried to find a friend to go with her, but couldn't. we didn't find until last moment that they'd transfer the stuff to us.
we've been running around like crazy trying to get stuff together. (travel size stuff, look at the schedule, etc.) we had a hell of a time finding our luggage (why is nothing where we put it?) should've said screw it, i already have a headache & an upset stomach.

cross posted to a few places