Hodgier and Podgier

Blaugust 2015 Day 12

I enjoyed writing yesterdays’ disjointed rambling, and decided to do it again. Enjoy.

Fox’s Law

Murphy’s Law states, anything that can go wrong will. I watched a pilot for an upcoming variation on the police procedural last night and really liked it. So in the storied tradition of Firefly and Almost Human, I’m sure it’ll be cancelled after the first season. There’s also a high probability that episodes will be aired out of order.

Amateur Appreciation

Swimming competitively even though it was only at the high school level has immensely helped my appreciation for and understanding of Olympic swimming events. Even though the athletes competing were operating at a level far beyond me, my background still let me notice things that others watching didn’t see. Similarly after playing KSP, I feel like I get a lot more out of watching rocket launches than I did before. I know what a lot of the terminology means, and have a basic grasp of the difficulty involved.

One the other side of that though, watching the ISS spacewalk earlier this week really brought home how complicated even basic activities are. Listening to all of the steps involved in just “stepping outside” and cleaning some windows was really incredible.

Silver Linings

I was listening to a podcast while at work today that covers Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series. They were discussing the short-lived SciFi (at the time) TV adaptation and spent most of the podcast talking about how awful it was. While they did make some good points, I thought they missed one crucial good thing about the show. It brought a lot of fans to the books that may not have known about it otherwise.

In 2007 I was a fantasy snob, I only read high or epic fantasy trilogies. I’d never read any urban fantasy. At the time I felt like mixing real world elements with fantasy was like putting pineapple on pizza (which should be illegal).

A commercial for the upcoming Dresden Files show peaked my curiosity though and when I saw it was based on a book series I decided to order the first one and check it out rather than wait for the TV pilot to air. The book showed up a few days later and a few days after that I finished it, and loved it. I ordered the next three or four that were available and had caught up on the series within a month. So not only did the show get me into the books, but it got me into the urban fantasy genre, and two of my favorite authors: Jim Butcher and Patricia Briggs.