Geek Heaven

Today Tracy and I went to Salt Lake Comic Con. (By the way no matter what I do Blogger messes with the pictures and text so this post is a little messy)  It was a lot of standing in lines and crazy sensory overload and paying $20 for cold pizza and soda, but it was also amazing.  I've been in love with TV and movies and geek stuff for most of my life, so the kid in me was pretty darn gleeful about all of this.

Some of our highlights:

One of the few things on Tracy's Comic Con To-Do list was his picture with Han Solo in Carbonite - it's one of the first things we did .... he was a little cold though :-)










When I first heard about Stephen Amell the lead actor in Arrow coming to Comic Con I said "It would be so awesome if he did a panel...but that would probably never happen"  ....  well, sometimes you get what you wish for...

The next panel we went to was Shannon Hale and Brandon Mull, a lot of fun, and much lower key.  Nice to be in the same room with one of your favorite actors and one of your favorite authors in the same day.







One thing that was also a lot of fun is that there was a ton of awesome geek stuff there to buy, but we kept it down to a fairly respectable minimum.- Here's our small haul: a Comic Con Pin with a flying superhero, a button with the Arrow's catchphrase and a Doctor Who keychain.  The whole batch cost us less than lunch :-)   We also, at the last minute found some vinyl window stickers so our new car named "Clark" will have a Superman sticker in the back window.


























The other great fun in the vendor row was visiting Chris and Stacia at their HobbyTown USA booth.  It was a busy spot, but I did manage to get Tracy and Chris in the same photo.

And the last stop for our night (apologies for the repeat for those of you on Facebook) was a  picture with Stephen Amell.   The one funny random moment was that while we were standing in line for this photo, Tracy suddenly turned me the other direction as a someone brushed past me.  I turned and had to suppress a squeak when I realized it was actor Manu Bennett (another actor from Arrow that I'm fond of) 

This photo op was super fast, but Stephen Amell seemed really nice and I met some really fun people while we were waiting in line.   This picture also shows off Tracy's "Have you tried turning it off and on again t-shirt" which got tons of comments from people.

I'm not sure I'd go to ComicCon again necessarily, it was a long, crazy day, but I'm so glad I got a chance to do it and that I got to do it with my amazing husband! 

Fourth of July and Random Geek Good News

I am a horrible, horrible blogger lately.  And it isn't like there isn't good stuff to blog about.  Tracy and I had an awesome Independence Day Weekend.  It started with a really fun dinner with Tracy's family on Thursday night,  Tricia came with Julia and we went out with Chris and Stacia and Talon.  I got to see Chris and Stacia's new house, and it's really cute.

Friday I was in my pajamas until 1:00, which is always a good day.  For dinner we went to our favorite local park and had a picnic, and the best part was that there was hardly anyone there.  It was quiet and shady and fairly darn perfect.

Then we lit off our own little stash of fireworks (I bought  aerials for the first time and they were all kinds of awesome) and did our usual tradition of watching A Capitol Fourth, which always reminds of us our favorite Fourth of July when we were in D.C.

There - YAY!! I blogged about something - there is hope.

On the geek front there were two really fun pieces of Arrow related news today -  Brandon Routh who played Superman in Superman Returns just got cast as a recurring character who is also a superhero (one I've never heard of, but still, very cool) and they're adding my favorite character from the show,  Felicity Smoak, to the new series of Green Arrow comic books.  Fun.

Staying Put and Geeking Out

So many of you probably heard the rumor we might be moving to Montana...but turns out we're staying put in Utah.  Tracy did get offered a promotion there - but the offer just wasn't enough to justify leaving, especially since I have a job I like at the Church History Library - at least for the moment.  Though it's been a tough few months trying to manage three jobs I only have two more weeks of teaching and while I'll miss the interaction with students, especially the ones at Salt Lake Community College I'm looking forward to digging into some serious writing time.

Oh, and just so you don't think I'm losing my charming fangirl nature this video with the actor from Arrow had me geeking out...now if we could only convince Henry Cavill to develop X-Ray vision, we'd have it covered.

Stephen Amell Target Practice

Writing Buddies and Storytelling (and a little TV ....again)

Today I met with my writing buddies, Pam, who's been my critique partner for awhile, and Jenny, who's a new writing friend. (Yes, Tracy has joked that maybe I'm collecting writing buddies named Jennie/Jenny the way I used to collect best friends named Becky).  They are always great, but today they were particularly helpful with the novel I'm working on.   Pam helped me walk through a scene I was really struggling with (seriously, I think I've spent two hours just staring at my computer screen this week trying to write it) and Jenny is giving me great feedback on my second draft.   It's incredibly helpful to know what doesn't work, and sometimes even more importantly what does.  I also feel like I help them as well, which is great feeling.

It's interesting because earlier today one of my TAs/grad school buddies was asking me about how to improve at writing and also how I managed to do anything other than schoolwork while I was getting my PhD.  I think having a critique partner was a huge part of that.  It gave me permission to work on my writing amidst all that grad school craziness because I had someone to be accountable to on the writing side of things.   I realized how lucky I was to have that - so thanks Pam!
 
I also realized again how much storytelling and words inform my whole personality.  Even my love of history grew out of a love of historical fiction, and even now I see the best history as telling stories that connect people with the past.   I write stories, I watch stories, I read stories, and chances are at any given time when I don't have something else I have to think about I am thinking about a story - or writing one in my head.  I sometimes (major geek public confession here) tell myself stories as I drive by myself as a way of keeping entertained.

I wouldn't know how to function in a world without narrative, both fiction and non-fiction, and it once again makes me grateful for libraries, shelves full of books, and friends, family and a husband who put up with a woman who has lots of imaginary friends running around in her head.


So if you want to be proud of me for writing a blog post about something other than a television show just stop now.

Speaking of emotional reactions to stories.....

I've gotten a whole bunch of people watching Arrow, and last week's episode sucked on so many levels (bad morals, bad storytelling, jerky characters) it made me angry in a very real way.   I was talking with one of my Arrow watching buddies today and we've agreed to give it a couple more episodes to get back on target (silly pun intended) or we're both bailing.  So I just feel the need to issue a pseudo-public apology to all the others I've roped in. 

More TV Ramblings

Can I just say I am love, love, loving the relationship on Castle right now?  It's so awesome to see a television show actually let the couple be together in a quite happy and stable adult relationship.  Yes, yes, I wished they'd just hurry up and get married already (though they are working on it, yippee!!) but really its so nice to see a show demonstrate that love triangles and manufactured drama aren't the only way to go with things.

This adoration may be more than a little enhanced because I find myself comparing Castle to the uneven, angst fest that is  Arrow.   And, ironically, why I find myself writing fanfiction for Arrow and not Castle.  I don't have to write fanfiction for Castle and Beckett because their relationship onscreen is satisfying to my clear storytelling, romance oriented brain.  

 Oh, and if I'm not blogging about my real life,  it's because the new schedule still has me a little overwhelmed and things are just getting more complicated - and who wants to listen to me whine about problems that aren't actually problems like having too many jobs, right? 

So television ramblings will have to do.  

You Know You're an Archives Geek When...

...Tonight on Arrow they had a shootout in the City Archives.  It was the first time I kinda wanted to punch Oliver in his little green face.

(Then at almost the last minute of the show he was cute with Felicity ... so maybe I can let him off with a stern lecture  :-)

Checking In and Sherlock Wishlist

So real life first.  Nothing really to report.  I'm learning a lot about cataloging archival records, finding out just how much I prefer teaching 15 students as opposed to a 160, planning a church building scavenger hunt for Young Womens, and trying to figure out how to read on Trax without getting motion sick.  Oh - and I finally got the Christmas tree taken down, exciting stuff.   Now that I've proved I am capable of dealing with reality I can move on to....Sherlock

 Okay...so first things first.  If you haven't watched the first episode of Sherlock Season Three and you care about spoilers, don't read any more. 

I think my love of Sherlock has been firmly established.  The theme song is my ring tone, and I don't even want to fess up to how many times I rewatched the first two seasons.  (That's what a two year wait for new episodes will do.)  So I had a couple of things on my wish list for the season three opener...first, that John Watson's reaction to Sherlock's miraculous reappearance would be some kind of violence, that I would like the character of Mary Morstan, and that it would make me laugh out loud. 

I got all three of those wishes. It was really, really fun.

Arrow Nitpicking

So I've become slightly obsessed with Arrow over the past couple of months.  While I was getting Christmas stuff ready I re-watched a lot of the first season, and while it is officially my second favorite show these days (Castle still holds the top spot of course) it doesn't mean there aren't things about it that drive me a little crazy.  Here's my little list....

5 Things That Bug Me About Arrow

1. Oliver’s atrocious island hair.  Even the actor commented on how bad it was in one of the blooper reels.

2.  Any time anyone but his little sister calls him “Ollie.”  Normally I have no problem separating the Smallville Oliver Queen from the Arrow Oliver Queen, but since the Smallville character went by this nickname so often, every time they use it on Arrow I think, “That’s not Ollie.”  I just don’t like the awkward mental collision.

3. The “not trusting your people” thing.  I’ve blogged about this before, but I hate the whole “I can’t let people be close to me because my life is oh-so-dangerous.” It’s so overdone, especially in these kinds of stories.  Seriously, cops and firefighters have families, so Oliver needs to get over himself and quit using this as excuse #1 every time he actually likes a girl.  

4. The inconsistency of Laurel Lance and Thea Queen’s characters – seriously their personalities and roles in the show change about every twenty seconds.

5. The fact that uber-tough-superhero Oliver Queen still essentially lives, apparently rent free, at his very Versailles-looking mother’s house.  Which, by the way uses the same exterior shots as the Luther Mansion in Smallville, taking us back to the whole awkward mental collision thing. 

The show has been steadily improving this season, so here's hoping that some of this stuff eventually sorts out.   And thanks for not minding that this is a fairly ridiculous thing to write a blog post about. 

Additions to My Favorite Characters List – Television Edition

So I was looking back over my blog and was looking at the favorite character's list I created back in 2011 and it occurs to me that there have been some updates to that list.  Since I've had kind of a low energy week (stomach flu followed by monster cold, yay)  I thought I'd have some fun and update my list.  Today's editions all come from the world of television and fall into two distinct categories.

 It’s All the BBC’s Fault

Sherlock Holmes (played by Benedict Cumberbatch in Sherlock) – Tracy and I rewatched the first episode of Sherlock yesterday, and I was struck again with how well done this show is and Benedict Cumberbatch’s brilliant portrayal of Sherlock Holmes is at the heart of that.  He creates a Sherlock who is fascinating, insufferable, and heroic all at the same time.

John Watson (played by Martin Freeman in Sherlock) – Okay, so why do we put up with the above mentioned insufferable consulting detective?  Mostly, because John Watson does.   The dynamic friendship between the nearly unbalanced genius and the steady everyman makes for amazing television.

The Doctor (played by David Tennant and Matt Smith in Doctor Who) - Yes there are other actors who’ve played (and will play) this role, but it is these two who really created a character I could get behind.  The Doctor always likes who you want him to like and helps the people you want him to help.  And he does it while being irrepressibly goofy (at least in these two incarnations).  It’s awesome.

Donna Noble (played by Catherine Tate in Doctor Who) – Okay, so I love Rose,  Amy, Rory, River, and Clara but Donna Noble is my favorite companion of The Doctor.  There are two reasons for this – first, she and David Tennant’s Doctor create one of the best male/female friendships I’ve ever seen on TV.  Second, because Donna proves that even the most ordinary person can be extraordinary if someone gives them the chance.

It’s not Easy Being Green – the Arrow Gang

Felicity Smoak (played by Emily Bett Rickards)  – This character was supposed to be on the show for one episode…now’s she’s everyone’s favorite.  Including mine.  If Oliver Queen doesn’t kiss this girl at some point in the future, I will never forgive him.

John Diggle (played by David Ramsey) – Okay, so I’m getting the theme here that I like the depiction of friendships on television.  Digg and Oliver are hilarious, and I love that Digg is always willing to call Oliver on his crap while still being the steadiest possible friend.

Oliver Queen (played by Stephen Amell) - So yes, there was an Oliver on the old list, and Justin Hartley’s Oliver is still awesome and by far the funnier of the two.  But when I think Oliver Queen now, I have to admit Stephen Amell’s broodier version is the one that pops into my head.  Especially after the episode “Three Ghosts.”

Grateful

This has been one of those spots in my life where things have just been happier.   Even with having two weird flare ups of not feeling well, it's still been a amazing couple of weeks.   On the serious real-life side of things I have an internship with the Church Archives starting in January.  Still only part-time, but it's really interesting work that's going to pay decently.  That combined with teaching for the U and for SLCC actually makes me feel downright employable.  It's an extremely good feeling.

I've also watched three good movies in the last week.  First, Thor 2 last Saturday, then the epic Doctor Who special screening on Monday, and today Catching Fire.  All three of them were respectably clean and thoroughly entertaining.  It was a great run at the movies.  It also reminds me of how grateful I am to be married to the world's best movie buddy.  Tracy isn't nearly as in to Doctor Who as I am, yet he still went with me and we had a really fantastic time. 

There's also been a bunch of other things, both serious and silly that have gone on in the last few weeks.  I got to babysit my friend Pam's little boy this week for a couple of hours, and in spite of going through the terrible two's he was a total angel for me.  My long standing favorite show  (Castle) and my new favorite show (Arrow) had great episodes that were again respectably clean and also mushy.   I had a great chats on the phone with my Mom and my cousin Jennie.  Thanksgiving dinner turned out really yummy.  I got the "Jayne's Cunning Hat" card while playing the Firefly board game with Chris, Stacia and Tracy.  Tracy's Mom and Aunt came for a visit last weekend.   It's almost December and I went outside without a coat today. I got an amazingly sweet note from my friend Becky.  In fact, it's been so awesome, I feel like I'm forgetting things.

And can I just say again that I'm married to the most amazing-perfect-fit husband on the planet!

Like I said it's been a lovely few weeks.  I definitely have a lot to be grateful for. 

Random Silliness

I know as a Superman fan I have no right to say this...but seriously it was about stinking time...

http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/11/19/arrow-oliver-mask-photos/

Surprise in Fiction

So it's National Novel Writing Month, and I thought about giving it go on a new project but instead decided to stick with working on my current project, with a goal of having a complete revised draft by the end of the year.  This work mostly involves writing "glue" scenes, that get things from point A to point B, and working on bolstering the plot and characters.

This got me thinking about my favorite plots and characters, and something that I've realized in the last few months about storytelling - it's terrific when you you're reading/watching a story and the characters do something surprising.  It's extremely annoying when your reading/watching something and the characters do something randomly out of character for the sake of surprise.  So what's the difference?   My two easiest examples of this come from tv show Castle.

The example of something delightfully surprising was in a early episode of Castle, when the two main characters Kate Beckett and Rick Castle end up on separate blind dates in the same restaurant.   You expect the average TV formula that they will get jealous of each others dates and end up sabotaging their own dates.  Instead, the writers did something kinda brilliant.  Instead of caring about each others dates, they both become obsessed with talking about the case they're on, and as they are talking to their dates come to the same conclusion about who the potential killer is.   They then abandon their dates to go and solve the mystery together.  The scene hits all the same emotional notes of the expected scene, and yet manages to reinforce the partnership and the crime drama aspect of the show.

My example of annoying out-of-character surprise also comes from Castle.  In the end of the last season, Kate Beckett got an offer a job in Washington, D.C.  and she took it.  Sounds like a reasonable plot complication right?  Uh-uh.  The show has made an absolute point of the fact that Kate Beckett is ultra-committed to her job as a homicide detective, even at the expense of other career ambitions, making the D.C. job feel like a convenient manufactured drama.   Could there have been a way for this same plot point to be in character?  Oh, I'm sure.  Give Kate a couple really sucky cases, where she feels like she doesn't have enough power to get justice and such a change is at least explainable.

So why am I talking about this?  (Other than the fact that I like talking about Castle.)  Of course, when I'm writing my book I want there to be surprises and things that come unexpectedly to the reader.  I hope my novels aren't predictable, but I do think I could use some work on the whole surprising thing.  It's hard, at least for me, to figure out how to do this.   I've really tried, in my own work to look for those little moments where something amazing happens that even I didn't quite plan for.  As far as I know, I've only pulled it off only once in the current novel.   But I'm hoping I that as I revise this draft I can come up with more ways to build pleasant surprises into my story.

Hobby Mania

I have too many hobbies.

Seriously -  here's a list of things I do, or am learning how to do, or feel like I should be learning how to do (at least the ones I can think of at the moment):

-Writing Fiction (though this should be a profession, but it's a hobby until someone pays me for it)
-Writing Poetry
-Reading Books
-Papercrafts (Cards, scrapbooking, etc.)
-Crafts (anything not falling into the above category, including jewelry making, decoupage, home decor DIY....I'm beginning to think this list would be freakishly long if it weren't for the word "crafts")
-Learning to play the Piano
-Crochet
-Gardening
-Cooking
-Baking
-Camping
-Postcard Collecting
-Watching TV
-Going to the Movies 

This list does not count the things -  like learning to play the guitar -  that I started enough to actually buy books for, but never did anything with.  (Though this is part of why Tracy talked to me after coming home teaching and asked me out on a date so I'm pretty happy about that one) It also doesn't count things - like playing volleyball - that my younger self was good at, but I can no longer really do.

Apparently I like projects and goals and learning new things.  However, I sometimes think that save item #1, my sheer number of hobbies keeps me from being particularly good at any of them.  Yet they also keep me doing things that are happy and productive.  (Even those last two have helped me make friends.)   I sometimes just wish I had a little better focus, and a few more hours in the day.

The Geek Girl Bucket List

So recently on Pinterest I saw someone's geek bucket list,  a list of amazing - very fictional - things one would like to do if it were possible.  And because I had a cranky morning, I decided I needed something silly and fun to do for a minute, so here's my own version.  

One thing that struck me about the list on Pinterest though was how many of the things sounded cool in theory, but when you really thought about it would be kind of horrible.  Seriously, super powers sound awesome, but I don't know that I want all that responsibility.   So I tried to make my list things that really did sound fun to me.  (And even with that, numbers 4, 6, and 7 I would only want to do on a day when I was feeling particularly resilient.) 


Jenel's Geek Girl Bucket List
1. Temporarily replace Jimmy Olsen as photographer of the The Daily Planet (Superman)
2. Join a book club with Lorelai and Rory Gilmore (Gilmore Girls)
3. Work a case with Castle and Beckett (Castle)
4. Work a case with Sherlock and John (Sherlock)
5. Become the official historian of Starfleet (Star Trek)
6. Co-pilot the Millennium Falcon (Star Wars)
7. Co-pilot Serenity (Firefly)
8. Convince The Doctor, preferably Ten, to take me back in time to meet Abraham Lincoln (Doctor Who)
9. Become Minerva McGonagall's teaching assistant (Harry Potter)
10. Take an archaeology class from Dr. Indiana Jones
11. Visit Rivendell (Lord of the Rings)
12. Visit Narnia (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)
13. Have Belle take me on a tour of the Beast's castle, before the spell is broken  (Beauty and the Beast)
14. Rhyme with Inigo and Fezzik (The Princess Bride)
15. Be in a position to end a conversation with, "Mulder, I think you're crazy." (X-Files)

I know - silly - but my brain needed a break and I needed to blog, so actually I'm multi-tasking :-) 

Ringtones and other Random Bits

So one of the cool features of cellphones is supposed to be customizing them, right?  I changed my ringtone today (a peppy bit of music from BBC's Sherlock) and realized I hadn't changed it since we bought the phone about a year ago.  Maybe it's a sign that I'm getting old.  I have at least changed my background wallpaper twice.  Yeah, it's a fall photo, so not exactly current either.  I suppose I could take this as a sign of the fact that I just have better things to do with my time.  Yeah...that's a nice theory :-)

I actually realized I have a second thing to say about ringtones (who knew it was such a fascinating subject).  I love having ringtones and other pop culture related paraphernalia that are just a little bit geeky, but that, unless you know what they are from don't seem obviously so.  There's something nice, in my late thirties, about celebrating my geekiness in a slightly lower key way.

Doctor Who

So I was beginning to wonder if my geek credentials were going to be permanently tarnished by the fact that I hadn't watched Doctor Who. Every time I turned around, someone was extolling the virtues of the nameless Doctor and his time-traveling Police Call Box.   So it came up on Netflix and I started watching it.  Now, I was nervous because apparently people get REALLY into this show, and frankly I don't think grown-up me needs the return of Superfan Jenel of the X-Files years.   The good news,  I like the show, it's fun and funny and VERY geektacular (William Shakespeare and multiple Harry Potter references in the same episode, yeah, sign me up.)  The even better news -- as much as I like it, I have no urge to write bad fan-fiction, or name my firstborn TARDIS. 

However, between the good Doctor and reading a book set in the UK this week I actually said the phrase, "I'm rubbish at math" in conversation yesterday.  (At least I didn't say "maths" which is the pure Brit version, I believe).  Anyway, the current book I'm reading is set in the desert of eastern Oregon, so that should help me reset my vocabulary:-)

The Olympics

So I am definitely not an athlete and not even really a sports fan these days, but I always tend to find myself drawn into the Olympics.  I've liked watching gymnastics since I was a kid, and have found an affinity over the last few days for both kinds of women's volleyball and to a small degree women's basketball.   Maybe it's the whole spirit of the Olympics, maybe it's having a built in team to root for, but whatever it is, the Olympics make me smile. 

Oh, it may also be that we have a DVR, which makes watching the Olympics a lot easier and makes it so instead of having to watch three hours every night, you can just watch the hour that interests you.

Favorites A to X - Part Nine "R-X"

Pardon the marathon finish...I'm about to have a delightfully busy, relatively computer-free week.

Alas, no entries for poor lonely "Q" 

R

Movies 
Raiders of the Lost Ark - Have it memorized.  Seriously, I can mouth the words along with the characters.

Return of the King - yeah, it may have six endings, but after nine-plus hours of film making you can get away with it. 

Return to Me - This is my favorite David Duchovny role, and if that seems like a underwhelming thing for me to say see the TV entry under "X"

Roman Holiday - I really do love Audrey Hepburn, but so often I feel like she was kind of poorly matched in terms of co-stars.  This movie is an exception.  I so love watching her and Gregory Peck wander around Rome. 

Books 
Rapunzel's Revenge (Shannon Hale) - Normally, I'm not a fan of graphic novels.  I don't even own a Superman graphic novel, and I own this one.  Really, Rapunzel in a mythical wild west, that's a good idea.

TV
Remington Steele - In junior high my dream car was a white convertible VW Rabbit.  This is not a coincidence.

S

Movies 
Serenity - The reason I watched Firefly, oh and Tracy and I noticed that both Mal and Han Solo both have striped pants and routinely wear a holstered gun and a jacket.  Is this a coincidence?  I don't think so.

Star Wars - Han is my favorite character, Chewie is my second, and the Millennium Falcon is third.

Superman - Of course.

Books 
The Screwtape Letters (C.S. Lewis) - the most spiritually enlightening book I've read that falls outside the LDS canon, and it's funny. 


The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett) - Just downloaded this book FOR FREE to my phone.  The world is a beautiful place sometimes.

Seer of Sevenwaters (Juliet Marillier) - This is, partially, a book about a giant shape-shifting sea monster, and yet I related to it on a very personal level.  You have to love an author who can manage that. 

TV
Sherlock - This is somewhere between a television show, a series of hour and a half movies, and a mini-series.  Honestly I'm not sure what the format is, and one of the six episodes, from my moral framework is relatively unwatchable.  However, I still found this BBC update of Sherlock Holmes to have everything the recent movies lacked.  This is definitely a textbook case of "how to update a classic."

Star Trek The Next Generation - In my opinion, quality wise, this is the best of the Trek universe.  Well, at least once Riker grows a beard and Tasha Yar dies (the first may be a coincidence, the second unfortunately, not so much).  And really Captain Picard is so entirely awesome.

Star Trek Voyager - having just said that I think Next Generation is the highest in quality, I have to say that for sheer entertainment value I like Voyager the best.  Maybe because it's the only one of the series in which I had a crush (at the time) on three different characters at any given time.  And don't worry Tracy knows this, and hopefully is confident that he has no competition, fictional or otherwise.

T

Movies 
To Kill a Mockingbird - I love my Dad, but if I could also be adopted by a fictional character, Atticus Finch would be in the running. 

The Two Towers - as I've said before, my favorite Lord of the Rings movie. 

Books 
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (Judy Blume) - this book is about having an annoying but lovable little brother.  I had three :-)  No wonder I loved it. 


To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee) - the magic of such an deep and layered story told convincingly from a child's point-of-view is brilliance. 


A Town Like Alice (Nevil Shute) - Apparently, in looking at this list, I'm a sucker for heartwarming World War II fiction with a romantic bent.  And this book has AUSTRALIA in it, yeah, I kind of think the guy wrote it just for me :-)

Twilight (Stephenie Meyer) - call it a guilty pleasure, a flavor of the month, or just a symptom of my general obsession with the Pacific Northwest, but I couldn't honestly leave it off the list.


W

Books
Wee Free Men (Terry Pratchett) - An brainy-tough-little girl witch and a brawling, drinking band of tiny Scottish-inspired men?  Yeah, it's awesome. 


Wildwood Dancing (Juliet Marillier) - a lovely version of the "12 Dancing Princesses" fairy-tale in a great Eastern European setting.

Winter Sea (Susanna Kearsley) - It's an interesting thing about time travel-ish novels, I tend to either love them or hate them.  I really enjoy Susanna Kearsley's books and I think Winter Sea is the best of them.


X

Movies 
X-Files Fight the Future - If I hadn't seen the movie, I wouldn't have watched the show.

X-Men - This movie, in part, helped inspire the current series of books I'm writing and introduced me to the awesomeness of Wolverine.

TV
X-Files - It seems appropriate to end with X-Files.  It's the most truly geeky I EVER got over a television show, at least in my adult years.  I even dressed up as Scully for Halloween once.

Favorites A to X - Part Eight "M-P"

Sorry for the delay, an awesome writing conference and a bad cold kept me thoroughly distracted, but I'm back now and ready to resume :-)

M

Movies
Maverick- Beyond the fact that Graham Greene gives one of the single funniest performances ever, and one of, in my opinion, the best portrayals of an American Indian on film.  This movie is just the perfect blend of adventure, romance and western silliness. 

The Mummy - the sequels are extremely inferior, but the initial movie with Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, and John Hannah is so much fun.  One of my favorite lines (especially since I was working in a library at the time) is Evie's proud declaration, "I...I am a librarian!"

The Man From Snowy River - this movie probably has a great deal to do with the fact that the second place entry on foreign countries I'd like to visit is Australia.  It's also partly responsible for my desire to play the piano. 

Books
Monstrous Regiment (Terry Pratchett) - My adviser has actually thought about assigning this book in her women and war class.  Plus it's awesomely funny. 

My Antonia (Willa Cather) - I have always kind of thought that Willa Cather is what Little House and the Prairie fans read when they grow up. 

N

Movies
National Treasure - In spite of the fact it stars Nicholas Cage and the fact that the Archivist in me almost has a heart attack every time they touch the Declaration of Independence, I still love this movie.  Plus when I start missing the D.C. area, this movie is a good way to get a fix.

Books
Nation (Terry Pratchett) - On a deeper level, I think this book does lead you to question tradition and religious beliefs, but it does so while giving room for them to still be true and still mean something.  It's another of those books that makes you think long after finishing it.

O

Movies
Ocean's Eleven -Why is a movie about thieves so much fun?  I don't entirely know.  But I do love how clever it is, and how well it juggles so many characters at the same time.

Books 
One in Thine Hand (Gerald Lund) - Before Gerald Lund wrote epic church history books he wrote this great novel that takes place during Israel's Yom Kippur War.  A few years after reading it the first time I took a Middle Eastern History class, and was surprised with how well that novel set me up to start understanding what was going on in modern Israel. 

Outlaws of Sherwood (Robin McKinley) - the first book I read by Robin McKinley and still one of those books I'd put on a list of ten I'd take to a deserted island.

P

Movies
The Princess Bride - Of course, I mean I even dedicated a blog too it once.

Pirates of the Caribbean - The first one is the best. 
 
Books
The Princess Bride (William Goldman) - Uh yeah, it's here twice.  It's one of the few times when the book and the movie version of something are equally good. 

TV
Pride and Prejudice - So is a miniseries a movie or TV?  Not sure.  Anyway, the BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth is something I watch at least a couple of times a year.  So much frothy British fun.

Favorites A to X - Part Seven "J-L"

J

Books
Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) - some classics really do deserve the title
Jenna Starborn (Sharon Shinn) - an awesome sci-fi retelling of Jane Eyre. 

TV
Jeopardy- I love random trivia, and Jeopardy gives me my daily fix. 

K

Movies
A Knight's Tale - possibly the most anachronistic movie on the planet.  I love it anyway.

L

Movies
Little Women - this is slightly sacrilegious but I honestly prefer the Winona Ryder/Clair Danes version of this movie to the book.

Books
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis) - Really all of the Narnia books are good, but I don't think any of them are quite as magical as the first adventure of the Pevensie family.

Little House in the Big Woods (Laura Ingalls Wilder) - this was pure pioneer escapism for my elementary school brain.

TV
Law and Order - just recently started rewatching this show via Netflix and find it as fascinating as ever.  Though I can't watch too much of it or I start to think that everyone is out to get me :-)

Lost- I've already written several previous posts about Lost. For a convoluted show about a bunch of murderers, adulterers and other assorted miscreants it was quite uplifting.