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New Earth. New Rules. Dive into the wild new world of 2046 and see St. Louis like you’ve never imagined. Arkfall is officially upon us! Will you grab the Hellbug by the horns or get lost in the rubble? Watch the Show. Play the Game. Change the World. Share this one proudly. It’s from our friends at SyFy.
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What happens when giant footprints are found at a murder scene? Thanks for tuning in to Castle tonight! Keep watching Mondays at 10/9c. Share this one proudly. It’s from our friends at ABC.
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The murder of a stockbroker who moonlighted as a male stripper is investigated. Thanks for watching! Share this one proudly. It’s from our friends at FOX.
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You’re watching the premiere of Doctor Who: The Rings of Akhaten, presented by Supernatural Saturday, only on BBC America. Tonight, Clara wants to see something awesome, so the Doctor whisks her off to the inhabited rings of the planet Akhaten, where the Festival of Offerings is in full swing. Clara meets the young Queen of Years as the pilgrims and natives ready for the ceremony. But something is stirring in the pyramid, and a sacrifice will be demanded. Share this one proudly. It’s from our friends at BBC America.
After my last termination around 10 years ago, I fell into a personal great depression. Even now there are days where I just want to cry. I do not have any relatives or friends who could help me find work. I don’t have a face to face network of any kind. All of my friends are anonymous online chatters, and even they only think about me when I am online. When I am not talking, they are probably not caring where I am.
I have not had a significant job in my life. The longest I have held a position is about two years and have always been terminated. With this long hiatus from my last position to now, I don’t even know what employers are looking for anymore. What would I write on my cover letter to explain my long hiatus? I could write after my last position ended I decided to focus on my domestic situation. It may sound good, but any potential employer could see right through it.
If I get as far as an interview, I still have about a dozen hurdles to clear. I am a fat, limping, older, and ugly woman. I am afraid a potential employer would take one look at me and decide against me immediately. I might not be obese, and more people are overweight these days, but if even one of the other candidates is petite; she would probably get the job. When an interviewer calls my name, and when I stand to walk forward my hip could seize up causing me to limp badly. (It does that to me often. Even a short trip to go grocery shopping causes my hip to at least twinge as I step out of my vehicle.)
Who would hire me?
On December 31, 2012 I made a snap decision on what I wanted to accomplish on a daily basis in the New Year when I decided I wanted to have a cleared counter top and a clean sink before January 1, 2013. So, each evening or night before midnight, I go into my kitchen and load the dishwasher and clear the counters from the day’s food and drink. It may sound like such a small thing to do, but it has had a profound effect on me. I can now go into my kitchen when I first wake up and not see one or more dirty pots and plates with the accompanying utensils. My day in the kitchen starts with an empty slate. An empty and shiny kitchen sink may not mean much to you, but it means a great deal to me.
Hope your New Year’s resolutions are working out as well as mine is for me?
I’m watching Firefly: Browncoats Unite
“I’ll be watching Firefly: Browncoats Unite. You can also unite by going to Twitter on the web & subscribing to https://twitter.com/#!/LadyAleena_FOX/firefly. Thanks!”
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“I’m sorry to see Daisy go. I hope Carla Gallo has a great new job to fill the gap.”
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(I apologize in advance, this is disjointed. I have been writing it in stages throughout the evening. I think it has morphed away from what it was originally intended to convey and has turned into a bit of a rant. If I missed anything, c’est la vie.)
My first foray onto the internet was not through the World Wide Web (WWW), which was once known as the Information Super Highway. No, I started my internet life on Telnet in my early to mid twenties. That is right, I started on the internet in a text only form as an adult. The only pictures I saw on the internet at that time were ASCII art. Images on the internet today still boggle the mind. I chatted with my new internet friends on Bulletin Board Services (BBS) with names like ISCA, Brinta, and Monolith.
My first email address is the one that I still use even though original internet service provider (ISP) was bought out by another who used to be my ISP until I had no choice by to go to high speed internet to keep my sanity. My simple website is still on that intermediary ISP though it is now a web server to me.
I have watched the WWW go from technical sites and simple fan pages written with just hyper text markup language (HTML) to commercially laden monstrosities that require half a dozen plug-ins. The first advertisements (ads) were simple links, now they sometimes take up half of the screen before the content. What is worse, some ads have gotten so intrusive that you have to click on them to get to the information you want.
I remember when everyone on the internet was a Star Trek and The X-Files fan. If you did not like Star Trek and The X-Files, something was very wrong with you. When I first started, Star Trek was a divided yet strong house, but now it is a very weak house. As an aside, because of The X-Files popularity, most netizens (as we were once called) knew and were fans of Adam Baldwin before he was Jayne on Firefly. So while Nathan Fillion has this huge social media footprint, Adam Baldwin was known by the geeks long before Nathan came to the scene. :)
I was around when instant messaging (IM) started. The first instant messenger, that I can remember, was America OnLine’s (AOL) IM (AIM) which was at first for AOL customers then they invited anyone to have an AIM account. After AIM, there was the stand alone ICQ. With the rise in IM popularity, it seemed like everyone wanted to have an IM associated with them, two notable companies were Yahoo and Microsoft. Each company required that you download their proprietary software to access their IM servers. Then along came Trillian which was a Godsend to those of us who used the big four above. Now Twitter has nearly killed them.
I have seen the rise and fall of web search engines such as eXcite, AltaVista, Lycos, Ask Jeeves, and the slowly dying Yahoo. I have watched Google go from a good small yet powerful web search engine to an internet superpower which is now good and evil. I watch the very commercial Bing with fear and dread. (When I enter the exact title of my website into Bing, commercial sites with only partial matches take precedence to mine.)
I remember eBay when it was small and customer friendly, though much riskier than it is today. eBay has gone from a site that were people selling Beanie Babies to a site that allows almost anything to be sold. At one time they had great customer service, now people have to jump through so many hoops just to talk to a person. They have also lost credibility since they stopped allowing sellers to give negative feedback on deadbeat buyers.
I remember when Amazon.com only sold physical books that they had in their warehouses. Now they sell so much that they have lost their charm. They now sell books and music without the quality control of publishers. I could write a book, put it in a compatible electronic format, and sell it without having to work with a publisher. I have not yet done so because I do not want to publish without someone with experience telling me it is good enough for public consumption.
At one time there was a web site I visited where someone kindly uploaded thousands of songs from all over the spectrum. All I had to do was right click the link and download what I wanted to save and hear. These days the owner of a site like that would be hunted down and sued for all he or she was worth. The internet was a looser place when I first got here. I blame Steve Jobs and his damned iTunes for ruining the freedom we had on the internet. No one dares do anything without risking a lawsuit and in some cases jail time. Gone are the days of sharing what we have with the less fortunate who can not afford it.
We are getting to a point where babies in developed nations are being born with an iPod, BlackBerry, etc. in their hands. With the internet spreading beyond the technological elite to the everyday person, people are becoming more and more impatient. Where once you had to go to a store to buy a book or a record, you can now have it instantly on your hand held device. Where once it took days to get a in expensive message from your dearest friends, you can now talk to them across the world without having to wait for nearly free.
We have become more impersonal as the internet becomes a bigger part of our lives. There are people who have these fancy mobile devices where they have the ability to actually hear the voices of the people they normally talk to, but they don’t because of they may have forgotten how to cope with real laughter and even more serious real tears. All they want to see is “LOL” at what they say or just to send *hugs* when their friends are feeling down in the dumps. It is hard to ignore a voice but easy to ignore words on their screens.
I fear one day the superpowers of the internet will all become one. If Apple, Google, Amazon, and eBay join forces; I think I will just have to go offline. I am hopeful that open source will gain more ground while the giants battle it out.
People are not writing personal websites these days. Gone are the days of the fan pages. Those creating web sites these days are selling something. Those who are selling something want to sell more things which turns them into monstrosities like Amazon and eBay.
Most people go to Facebook, create a profile, and call that their personal web page. That is sad on many levels. Do they not know that Facebook is gleaning everything they can on their users to sell their sponsors’ products? If those people are not using Facebook, they use blog services such as Tumblr and call that blog their web page. A personal website in one where you choose everything that is on your web pages. The moment a web server tells you that you have to put their ads on your web site, it is no longer yours. You should move immediately to a web server without such conditions. It does not matter how pretty they allow you make it, they still place their ads on your pages. (If I did not have AdBlocker, I would go insane.) This blog is not my website, my website is called Fantasy’s Realm. This is just a blog service I found as a useful way to post long thoughts onto Twitter.
Back when I first started using the internet, my baud was slow. The faster the normal baud is, the faster everyone wants the information they seek. Even I have fallen into that trap, though I have come from a slower generation who can wait for some things. I can wait hours and even days for replies to my questions posted to forums even Twitter. Unfortunately, faster bauds and faster messaging services get, the lower the attention span of the internet users. On Twitter, if one does not get a response in an hour or two, a response will probably never come. That leaves people competing for their “friends’” attention instead of collaborating to make a stronger community.
The point I’m trying to make here is that everyone should just slow down when using the internet. I know that the internet is now a lot faster and bigger, but that does not mean that you should hang onto it for dear life. Put down your mobile devices while you are out with family or friends, enjoy their company. While watching television or a movie, enjoy your show and discuss it later. Do not worry about how many people are following you on this or that service. Get a small intimate circle of friends. Learn to wait for answers, instead of needing them instantly.
My muse for all of this is @docsaico on Twitter.
I have seen a lot of groups popping up to save their favorite cancelled television series. I wonder if those that are pushing for the series to be saved know just how hard it would be to bring them back. So, if you want to save your favorite television series, here are a few things you need to address.
Sets are probably the biggest hurdle to bringing a cancelled series back to life. The closer to the cancellation you are, the more likely the sets still exist and might still be standing. Let’s look at Eureka. It was recently cancelled, however, it would be dreadfully difficult to bring it back since the sets have already been struck. Making it slightly less difficult is that some or even all of the set pieces may be intact enough to rebuild them without having to start with nothing. For a series like Farscape, think about how expensive it would be to rebuild the sets from nothing. Do the plans for the sets still exist?
Along with sets is a place to rebuild the sets. The three Stargate series were filmed at Bridge Studios. Are the sound stages still available to rebuild those sets? Remember, Stargate took a lot of real estate there. Has Bridge Studios leased that space to another television series?
Let’s go onto the actors. Find pictures of them from the last episode of the series, and then find pictures of them now. How different do they look? Also check their availability, do you think Stargate could pay Jason Mamoa what Game of Thrones is paying him? Do you think that Firefly could pay Nathan Fillion what Castle is paying him? I seriously doubt it in both cases.
Now we get to the money, where are you going to get it? First watch every episode with an eye for what products have been placed in the series. Farscape will give you fits since it was not an Earth based series, but you should still look for the little things. Second you should pull out any VHS tapes, DVD writable disks, and your DVR recordings and, if you did not pause the recordings during the commercials, write down all the products advertised. If you can not find a single product, you will have to think critically about what products you buy that would fit the theme of the series you are trying to save. For example, you could choose a bottled water company that sells a lemon flavored drink to help bring back Stargate: Atlantis. Another would be to buy lots of blue JELLO to help bring back Stargate SG-1. You should not stop at just one product; you should have a list of at least ten.
Once you have your product list, go out, buy, and use those products. After the products are used, find anything that can prove you purchased them. If a product comes with a proof of purchase, you have the simple task of cutting it out; if not, use the UPC as a proof of purchase. Larger and more expensive items will probably come with registration cards. If the question is asked about why you bought one of the products, write in that it is to bring the series you are after back. If your Save
After you have collected enough proofs of purchase or UPCs, do not just send them to a general corporate address. You would want to send them to the head of the advertising department. The vice president of advertising would be the one who you want to impress since that vice president is probably the one who makes the decisions on where the company’s advertising money goes.
You can also target stores like Walmart and K-Mart or restaurants even if they are, in the most off-handed manner, mentioned in the series. In this case you would want to fill out comment cards saying “I heard
If you were watching last week’s episodes of Warehouse 13 and Alphas you will have seen product placement. On Warehouse 13 there was a pretty blatant advertisement for Toyota. On Alphas it was a subtle advertisement for Dyson’s Air Multipliers. If either of those series were facing cancellation, buying a Toyota or a Dyson Air Multiplier may be out of the question on the spur of the moment; so you might want to start saving up your money to buy those products in the future. In either case when asked why you bought it, tell them it was to keep your favorite television series on the air.
If you want to be cute, that might work as well. Just remember that the cute campaign to save your favorite series will be less effective than one that brings in money to the people who will be satisfying your desire to see new episodes of the series. An example of a cute campaign would be for Jericho fans to send in lots and lots of nuts to CBS. On the flip side is the serious campaign where fans go out and buy vehicle makes and models that they saw used in Jericho.
To bring back a series, it all comes down to money. To be safe you and your group should aim for at least $3 million an episode. So, when sending in your proofs of purchase, UPCs, registration cards, or comment cards inform the company why you are telling them you are sending them in and how much you are trying to raise. I suggest that you aim for thirteen episodes, meaning you would have to raise $40 million dollars (there is an extra million in there for safety). Maybe you can even ask for the company to do a press release which tells the public how much they are willing to pledge supporting your efforts.
Twitter accounts, Facebook fan pages, various forums, and e-mails are not enough to bring a cancelled series back from the dead. You need to get advertisers excited about promoting their products on that series by showing them you are buying what they are selling because of the series. Just be warned if a company adamantly and decisively tells you that they will not support the series no matter what, leave them alone. Always be polite to the people at those companies you want to seduce.
Remember, put your money where your mouth is to bring back your favorite cancelled series.
Over a year ago I had a Facebook account and was building a nice little community of friends there. I was having a good time chatting with my friends, playing with the various modules I could add to make my profile more informative, and more. One day something went wrong, so I reported the problem to them. The next day I could not log into my account without any warning. I contacted them to find out what the problem was and was told that my account had been disabled because I did not use my real name. I was aghast, how could any site require my real name, especially a site like Facebook? I was not buying anything from them where they needed to know that kind of information. I tried to explain to them that my friends only know me as Lady Aleena, so using my real name would be a waste of time. I even linked them to the search results for Lady Aleena to prove it. They would not budge. I had to reveal my real name to them or not get my account back. I chose to protect my privacy and not give them my real name.
When I see a link to Facebook, I sigh and move on without giving it a look since I can not support a site that requires it’s users to reveal their real names. I am Lady Aleena online unless I need you to ship something to me, and even then I require that you hide that information in as deep and dark hole as possible.
So, as Obi-Wan Kenobi might say to Facebook, “You don’t need to see my real name”.
Whenever you make a decision, the option you did not choose spins off a parallel universe. The more options there are the more parallel universes will be created. Now you might be wondering what that has to do with time travel and coming back home from the past. Since there are uncounted decisions being made across the universe every nanosecond, are you sure the home you came back to is the right one? How many parallel universes have been created since you left? How may of those parallel universes will never see you again, but will hold out hope that you will come to what they consider home?
When a person travels back in time, every decision made in the universe will have to be taken into account. You might not think that an being on another planet could affect your timeline, but that alien could be making a decision that ripples across the vastness of space and affect your home base, even if that decision is how to take the alien civilization’s version of coffee.
Another thing to consider is the variables that go into when you leave. If you have a window of one minute with 60,000,000,000 nanoseconds in it, it is possible that you have spun off 60,000,000,000 parallel versions of yourself. It is possible that you could run into one of those parallel versions of yourself while trying to get back to the home.
So, how hard do you think it would be to create a system that will correctly navigate you home from the past? How many parallel versions of your lover are you willing to leave alone to travel into the past?
I am currently proofreading something written by a friend on Twitter, and I have come up with a few writing tips for him and will now share them with you.
The first thing you should do is to at least mouth the words you have written to make sure that they flow when or if what you have written is read aloud. You do not have to use your vocal cords, but sometimes the best way to find flaws is to move your lips and feel how the words flow.
You should expand all abbreviations and contractions. When writing in long form like this Tumblr post, you have the room to fully express your thoughts. This includes leet or net speak. I can not take anyone seriously when I have to look up the abbreviations used. Also, the more expansive you are, the easier it is for translation software to translate what you have written. Even the most common abbreviations could be mistranslated.
To add emphasis to a word or phrase, you need to use italics not all caps.
Be sure to check that your nouns and verbs match. Do not use a plural noun with a singular verb and vice versa.
You just need to make sure you are being clear and preview often before posting.
Dear Big Media Companies:
It is not up to the taxpayers to protect your copyrights, trademarks, and patents; it is yours. You are responsible for hiring your own investigators and lawyers to take on those pirating your material. If you are unwilling to take responsibility for protecting and pay the price to protect your copyrights, trademarks, and patents; why should the taxpayers care? The government grants you certain rights with the copyrights, trademarks, and patents. It is up to you to enforce those rights.
The Federal Bureau of Investigations should not have to investigate on your behalf. Federal prosecutors should not have to litigate on your behalf. The Federal government has done enough by giving you the rights to investigate and litigate against those who are pirating your copyrighted, trademarked, and patented materials.
It is not the fault or concern of the United States government and its people if you forgot or just plain failed to protect your rights to your materials in other countries. Sure there are nearly 200 countries worth of laws to wade through to protect your rights, but again not the responsibility of the United States government or people. Laws like Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act are just ways to force the United States taxpayers to pay for your mistakes.
The above is just my opinion. I do not expect you to share it. If your opinion differs, I’m willing to discuss it further. If you do share it, please let me know and possibly share it with others.
To those who have Twitter accounts and like any of the series listed below, please subscribe to the applicable lists. You will need to be on a desktop computer using a web browser to subscribe, as Twitter does not allow for lists on mobile devices. Also, if you subscribe to a list, you will get followed by the account it is attached to with some exceptions. Have a nice day and thank you.
* non-automatic follow back list
Welcome to Lady Aleena's tumblr space where I will share long thoughts that I can not fit into 140 or less. If it is long enough, I may just put it on my website.
I watch a lot of television. We watch several series on the USA Network: White Collar, Covert Affairs, Necessary Roughness, Burn Notice, Suits, and Fairly Legal; on Syfy: Eureka, Warehouse 13, Alphas, Haven, and Sanctuary; on ABC: America's Funniest Home Videos, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Castle, and Body of Proof; on TNT: Leverage and Falling Skies; on NBC: Harry's Law and Chuck; on FOX: Bones. I do not like situation comedies or reality/competition shows.
I am a speculative fiction fan. I like several cosmologies including Evil Dead, Stargate, Doctor Who (including Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (with Angel), EWA (Eureka, Warehouse 13, and Alphas), Star Trek, and others.
You can find out more about me on my website. For more contact options, click here or Contact Lady Aleena below.
