Wait a minute, this sounds like Science and or Fiction

This is great. The result of the Top 200 SFX character polls, celebrating the 200th issue of SFX.

Here’s the top 3 of every category, followed by my two cents cause I’m geeky like that.

> Favourite Robots & Androids

1. R2D2 (Star Wars)
2. Data (Star Trek: Next Gen)
3. Bender (Futurama)

Everyone loves R2D2, or as C3PO would say the “overweight glob of grease” or “near-sighted scrap pile”. Speaking of R2’s counterpart, he comes in at number 12. No one likes a whinger, C3PO. The Terminator is “back” in 8 (haha see what I did there...never mind) while he of the pointless soliloquy, Optimus Prime, is 9th. I love that KITT is on the list – I used to think KITT was the coolest. It’s one of those things I’d have thought would just fade away into obscurity, but no, clearly talking cars still have it.

> Favourite Monsters, Supernatural Beings & Fantasy Creatures

1. Daleks (Doctor Who)
2. Lorne (Angel)
3. Aliens (um, Alien)

Honourable mention to Gollum, who came in fifth. Yay LOTR. Also Ludo from Labyrinth in 15, and ‘The Great Dragon’ from Merlin in 18...that poor dragon, if he could facepalm I’m sure he would.

> Favourite Superheroes & Comic-Book Characters

1. Batman
2. Wolverine
3. Spider-Man

How does Mr. Whiny Boredom Pants (aka Spider-Man) manage to get to third beating out both Death and Morpheus (6 and 8 respectively) from The Sandman, and Iron Man (10th)? I mean really, Iron Man! Peter should hit Tony up for some personality, and then maybe I’d give him a break.

> Favourite Alien

1. Spock (Star Trek)
2. Yoda (Star Wars)
3. Zaphod Beeblebrox (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)

The Star Trek franchise pretty much owns this category, 5 on the list, with Babylon 5 coming in with 4.

> Favourite Sages, Mentors and Boffins

1. Rupert Giles (Buffy The Vampire Slayer)
2. Topher Brink (Dollhouse)
3. Gandalf (Lord of the Rings)

This one’s pretty great actually. Obi Wan at 4, Walter from Fringe at 5; Back to the Future’s Doc Brown comes in at 8 followed by Dumbledore. Sirius Black is at 11, which should please Miss L, and adorably Alfred from Batman takes out 14. I’m slightly perplexed why Uther is in 16 – shouldn’t it be Gaius? I mean all Uther does is shriek “Magicz! Kill it!” (see also: Dom’s Merlin post of WIN)

> Favourite Villains

1. The Master (Doctor Who)
2. Darth Vader (Star Wars)
3. The Joker (Batman)

No surprises here. The pic included is sadly not of John Simm’s Master, but what can you do? Davros and Voldemort come in at 5 and 6, while that idiotic Sylar from Heroes is in 7th. I find it amusing that Jareth from Labyrinth is in 10th, I guess with all that singing and prancing about, he just didn’t strike me as that villainous (I so love that movie.)

> Favourite Anti-Heroes, Accidental Good Guys and Dodgy Do-Gooders

1. Dr Horrible (Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog)
2. Jayne Cobb (Firefly)
3. Captain John Hart (Torchwood)

I love the title of this section so, so much. Dodgy Do-Gooders! Win. And the top three freaking rules. Yes, freaking, I’m a nineties skater kid. Also, if you haven’t seen Dr. Horrible, you really should, it is made of win – I’ll give you the equation: Joss Whedon + Neil Patrick Harris + Nathan Fillion = Awesome. Snape takes out fourth *huggles* and Life on Mars’ Gene Hunt comes in at 5. These are all pretty cool really, as anti-heroes inevitably are.

> Favourite Vampires

1. Dracula
2. Spike (Buffy The Vampire Slayer)
3. Angel (Buffy The Vampire Slayer)

You can tell these are proper sci-fi voters cause Edward Cullen is only 14th, haha. I think Spike is my favourite vampire (Angel rather gets on my nerves sometimes), and I quite like Mitchell from Being Human – he came in fourth. Drusilla is 5th with Eric from True Blood in 6th – interestingly enough Bill only makes it in at 18. One of my other faves, Lestat, is 11th – kept out of the top 10 by Mick from Moonlight, Selene from Underworld, Buffy’s Darla and Count Duckula. I think he deserves to be above the last two at least! Blade’s in 17th and the only other Cullen clan member to make the list is – dun dun dun – Jasper! Excellent *steeples fingers*

> Favourite Hero

1. The Doctor (Doctor Who)
2. Malcolm ‘Mal’ Reynolds (Firefly)
3. Dean Winchester (Supernatural)

Drinks all round! The Doctor is, of course, the ultimate. They’re all brilliant characters and not only fun, but also engaging to watch. I’d like to point out that everyone’s favourite dearly departed fictional welsh boyfriend, one Ianto Jones, made it in 5th – beating out Han Solo, Indiana Jones Wesley from Angel & Buffy, and Captain Jack Harkness. Hahaha, they’re not going to like that (childish, I know, forgive me.)

> Favourite Heroine

1. Sarah Conner (Terminator franchise)
2. Buffy Summers (Buffy The Vampire Slayer)
3. River Tam (Firefly)

I adore River so much – so completely crazy, so completely kick-ass. Representing the Whoniverse, we have Donna, Rose and Sarah Jane in 4, 8, and 10. For the Whedonverse, there’s Willow, Faith and Kaylee in 9, 15 and 16. I love that Emma Peel makes the list at 11 (I must get The Avengers box set!), and Starbuck from Battlestar is in 13. I’d totally have put in Martha, as I've mentioned before I feel she is greatly overlooked ninety nine percent of the time.

That rounds off the list. You can still get involved in the whole thing – vote for The Ultimate Best SF or Fantasy Character Ever, consisting of the winners of each category, here. Be geeky, you know you want to.

Music: Help - The Beatles
Mood: Relaxed

Lost and found, city bound in my dreams

Are we the waiting/St. Jimmy is a great reflection of character - the quiet, half poetic introspection and reflection, against attitude and those cheeky, give 'em hell tendencies.

Hm.

My tutor had that look in his eye when he looked at me today, the one they tend to get once they've read something I've submitted for workshopping in my writing classes...the one where they realise I am actually competent. Then I pitched my idea to the class and they all looked at me sort of stunned. I always feel slightly vinidicated when this happens cause they realise I'm not as useless as they think I am. We were workshopping another girl's piece, fantasty, and she said something like "so he falls in love with this girl" and completely randomly the guy sitting next to me (he always sits with Ally and I) turns to me and says "why must it always be a girl, why can't he be gay? That never happens. It doesn't have to be obvious or anything but hey, then it'll be different." I sat there nodding and wondering why he'd chosen to make such a comment, let alone to me. Of course, I'm quite the perfect person to make such a comment to, but it was just unexpected *shrugs*

I left early to go on a final Halloween scavenge. On the way, I came across a busker singing 'Sex on fire' but he had changed the chorus to "You, you're Jessica Alba." Not sure why. Ah the city, always amusing. I gave up eventually, and just got a military trench from a costume shop. The girl looked at me like I was insane because apparantly it's going to be a nice, toasty 36 tomorrow. So while I originally settled on just going with the Captain Jack Harkness thing for lack of another idea, now it's more of a half-assed-attempt-to-not-die-of-heat-stroke-while-pretending-to-be-a-doctor-who-character thing.

"You are so obtuse."
There is a character that says that in something...hmmm...can't remember who or what or where though. I hate it when that happens.

Oh and to continue my puzzling over fanfiction from the other night, you know what really preplexes me...people who write themselves into their fics. Usually teen girls. I understand wanting to be part of something (only too well sadly), but I think it's very weird to write yourself into an existing story. It doesn't feel authentic.

I found this absolutely NERDTASTIC site the other night while googling Space Whales (don't ask, I get geekier by the day), and it's just so amusing and so us. Today I came across a bit under 'Genre Savvy' that sounds completely like something I'd say - And they've seen enough Horror movies to know that when there's an ax murderer on the loose, the last thing you want to do is either split up, boink your significant other, or investigate strange noises in the Sinister Subway. I was also particularly pleased with the 'Idiot Ball' section - A moment where a character's stupidity fuels an episode, or a small plot line. If the character does this the entire time then the character is Too Dumb To Live, if multiple characters have the Idiot Ball it becomes an Idiot Plot - especially with it's reference to Peter Petrelli - Peter's first memorable action way back at the start of the series is to see if he can fly... by jumping off a tall building. This troper considers Peter to have been consistently portrayed as an idiot. Of course, he's also the most powerful character on the show,and also, the season one finale had him standing around looking panicky as he was about to go nuclear, completely forgetting that he had the power of flight. Thank you, that's excatly what I was thinking! If Sylar can multi-task than so can he. Huffs.

I'm only doing this to distract myself.

Meanwhile, back in the real world where people's main concern is not the suckiness of their Halloween costume, Roze quit her job thinking she had another one lined which has now fallen through rendering her in financial crisis; Em has worried us all and is currently MIA, not responding to any of our texts; and David Tennant has quit Doctor Who.

Well done universe, well fucking done.

Music: Are we the waiting - Green Day
Mood: Worried

Dying slowly of boredom

It's too hot to be sitting in the car waiting for the doctor to show up. I need my own set of keys or something! It also doesn't help that I just watched an episode of Torchwood where a girl is trapped in her car at the start and then stripped of her skin and organs. Pleasant. At least it's not dark.

Torchwood, may I just point out, is fantastic. I only have 6 episode until I'm done with season 1. Woe! I was babbling about it in class and no one had a clue what I was talking about, glee!

Since I'm on the topic, finished watching Heroes last night. SYLAR SURVIVES?? After all that? What is this madness? They just leave him there and...and...gah! How can they be that stupid? Also, damn it, can't Peter multi-task? That show is endlessly frustrating, I wash my hands of it.

Washing of the hands is also imminent for this Children's Fiction class. So. Frustrating. We started half an hour late cause the teacher stood there going through his email. He was looking for something class related, but that's not the point! And we're "workshopping" now but the way they did it in this class...holy crap, I've never seen anything like it. They literally went through every line to edit and critique, to the point of redundancy. I felt so bad for the poor guy. Usually when we workshop we say things we like and things we think needs work...we don't analyse every sentence submitted! Its no wonder then it went for over an hour. Like I said poor guy. Ally and I had enough by this point and were discussing Edward instead (I lent her New Moon)...Anthony interrupted us halfway through with "you're still talking about that!" T'was quite amusing. Then we did what any self-preserving being would do, we left at 12 during the break. Hell there's only so much repetitive criticism one can take...even if one is the audience and the person "under attack". They are probably going to tear my Limbo to shreds but hey, it's not rocket sciene....it's teen girl fiction. Like you know, whatever.

On the home front, the parentals have sold the Zafira. I'm slightly pissed since its for less than they should be getting for it but my dad doesn't wait anymore. Can't help but feel guilty. Stupid guilt. Grumbles.

Ugh. My laptop is still on the brink just so by the by. Screen is currently pulling its disappearing trick and still no sound. Gaaaaaaarrrr. I have to sneak about the house looking for unused dvd playing facilities, it's insane! Then I'm interrupted every two seconds "what are you watching?", "Go away! The alien is sucking their brain, can't you see this is tense?"....not really, but something like that. Also your father sneaking up on you is NOT FUNNY. I'm going to die young.
Concluding statement.....vampires rock.

Music: A song in the key of sex - Lorene Drive
Mood: Hyper

A heart that's harder than stone

Damn it, talk about bad timing. I stupidly just deleted this post JUST as the draft was saving. The internet continues to mess with me. I am not your toy! *shakes fist at nerd overlord*

Ok let's see....what was I saying...

I watched a rather bizarre movie after work today - Secretary with Maggie Gyllenhaal. IMDB has the description as "A young woman, recently released from a mental hospital, gets a job as a secretary to a demanding lawyer, where their employer-employee relationship turns into a sexual, sadomasochistic one." So yeah, go figure.

After that I sat in the sun reading since it's the only place that was comfortably warm since winter has decided to send a last pitiful reminded not to forget it, with Oreo running around as she does. The Home Care lady showed up to collect her catalogue and Oreo decided to go gaurd dog. She's really bad at it, it turns into some sort of bad comedy skit. She's delusional. Tonight when I took her for a walk she wanted to take on this super aggressive pit bull being walked by three wannabe gangsters. Like I said, delusional.

Oh, rumour has it there's a new Green Day album due out next year. About time, I say. This internet fueled world has made me impatient. You hardly ever need to wait four or five years for an album anymore these days. Funny old world innit?

Speaking of albums, listened to the new Jack's Mannequin one yesterday. Gotta love that piano rock. I'm especially fond of 'Spinning' and 'Lullaby'. The 'Suicide Blonde' track irks me a bit merely because of the name...I swear there's an INXS song by the same title. It would appear that I am easily confused.

I also wacthed the first episode of Torchwood on youtube. Youtube. I don't know why but I feel there's a certain type of pathetic-ness that comes with watching TV shows on youtube. No offence to the many many people I know who do it. Just personally I find it sad waiting forever to load 5 installments of ten minutes of bad quality footage. But I wanted to check it out before I spent a small fortune on the dvds...consulting my good friend e-bay first though. Oh god, some people on e-bay annoy me...mostly the people that chase up the price six days before the auction ends...honestly what are you doing? You're making it worse for everrrrryone. Tsk tsk.

Anyway...I have to go back to uni tomorrow. Joy. I just re-printed my stupid script cause I didn't notice the grammar errors the first time. Why do I always do that? I seriously need to learn to read before I print. It's ridiculous! Honestly though, I've spent more time trying to decide what to wear tomorrow than I have worrying about work. My priorities are clearly in order. I've also been contemplating whether the uni has a faster download speed and if I should take advantage if they do *strokes beard*

You know what I hate? When that damn Paramore song gets stuck in my head....I'm in the business of misery, let's take it from the top. She's got a body like an hourglass, it's ticking like a clock. GAH! *bashes head against desk* That Hayley girl just grates me something severe.

What else did I want to say? I guess except for feeling that sometimes life consists of noncommital repsonses to other people's dramas, nothing. I have nothing to say. I am dying for a show.

Well, I have the last two episodes of Heroes left. I am going to be rather annoyed if things aren't tied up properly. I am suffering through the frustration for a pay off after all. I sort fo want to watch season 2 just to see how the pacing works as it only has 12 episodes or something. The shorter, more compressed format seems promising. I think I best go finish it all now...

Music: The boy who blocked his own shot - Brand New
Mood: Lethargic

More like a sponge

I came across the top 100 books of all time list this morning. I assume it's a new version. I've read a lot of books on that list, and there are others I have been intending to read. It just makes me wish I had more time.

I've watched nine episodes of Heroes today. Suffice it to say I am a couch potato. I've got six left so I figure I can finish it tomorrow. Hiro is utterly adorable. The show is rather frustrating at times, but totally addictive. People don't become obsessed with shows for no reason, I guess. It does induce what I call the X-Men effect though, the sudden irrational desire to be a mutant. And hey I've had headaches lately, could be a sign...sigh. It's been overcast all day which makes me feel slightly better for still being in my pjs. The parentals went on one of their 4x4 day trips so I had run of the tv. Huzzah. I've been watching dvds on my portable player since the laptop isn't co-operating and the screen really is quite miniscule. But hey, anything will do.

In other news I'm starting to get rather freaked out about the impending trip. It's next month for crying out loud and no arrangmenets have been made. I've been doing research and drawing up plans and what not, but I cannot get them to sit down and sort it out. I am rather screwed if things aren't finalized soon cause I can't do it myself. It's not like I have the money for a self-funded trip...it's supposed to be a 21st birthday present! I get nervous and apprehensive and just...gah. You'd think I'd know better than to look forward to things. I think it's cause we still haven't been able to sell the stupid Zafira...I guess they were relying on that to be the bankroll.

Ugh. I don't know. I guess I'll just focus on things I can actually exert some control over....like what to get for dinner, or what shoes to wear. How exciting.

Music: Everything's Magic - Angels & Airwaves
Mood: Apprehensive

Sanctuary! Sanctuary!

Why did I teach him that word?

The possible closure of the iTunes store does not exactly fill me with joy. I don't use the store very often, it's true, but it's nice to know it's there with my copious amounts of store credit, should I not be able to find what I'm looking for or just need something new. I also enjoy being an idiot and just looking at stuff. Internet window shopping is one of my major issues...just this afternoon I trawled ebay and amazon. It's fun, but it's also frustrating since I do not particularly like waiting for things I want. But I'm supposed to be saving so I can get my car registration done, and also pay my bills and Oreo's accomodation while I am overseas. This leaves me with very little "spending money" but here's hoping I survive. How did I go from discussing the iTunes store to rambling about saving?

I still haven't given Roze her birthday present and her birthday was in the first week of August. I am a wonderful friend. I suppose I should burn her some cds before I head over there...perhaps tomorrow. We'll see how apathetic I feel. Oh crap, I better not be too apathetic, I still haven't started my script. It's only six days, it's still good, it's still good. It's just a little airborne, it's still good, it's still good.

I never learn.

I am currently contemplating whether to join Quickflix, or at the very least try their free trial. It's an online DVD rental company that offer a number of monthly options for you to hire a select number of dvds during the month, with no late fees or such. I think I'd probably be better off with the 4 DVDs a month (2 at a time) plan since I don't really have that much free time, but watching 2 dvds a week or so isn't beyond me. I have never been a big renter, preferring to buy my stuff, but hey, they rent out tv shows. Guess I will have to discuss it with the parental unit.

Lizzie has lent me her copy of Heroes season 1 so I can finally join the band wagon...so far I've only watched the first five episodes (I think) on the Sci-Fi channel but then I got distracted. This always happens when it comes to television. Lately I've taken a shine to getting the seasons, then I don't have to worry about that. Speaking of, Dad and I finished Jericho today. Woe. I love that show, why they must always cancel the good ones, I do not know. Though I suppose it wouldn't have worked if they drew it out. I havent watched the alternate ending for the last ep yet, so there's at least one small thing to hold on too.

On that note, I'm stealing one of Abbi's features in the form of my obsession of the week. The first obsession goes to *drum roll please* Doctor Who. Yes, I admit defeat. Doing nothing but watch a show for about 6 hours straight will do that to you. I first caught an episode of the British cult sci-fi show about a year ago. It was 'The Quiet Undead' episode with Charles Dickens, and Christopher Eccleston as the ninth doctor. I was rather intrigued by it all, but never caught an episode again and didn't actively think to pursue it. A little while ago, Lizzie got into the show, and fell in love with it as you do, so the next time I noticed it as I channel hopped, I actually stopped to watch it. And then I had to watch the next one...and the next one...long story short, Doctor Who season 2 marathon ensued. I much prefer David Tennant in the role though, I'm sure it's why I'm more taken with it this time around. Too bad acquiring the seasons verge on blatant extortion. That's right, take advantage of the nerds.


[image © jennicat5]


Anyway, enough time wasting for one day methinks.

Music: Desert Song - My Chemical Romance
Mood: Contemplative