And my life bites a bit more.
A Patagonian toothfish that normally lives in the icy waters around Antarctica has hitched a ride to the top of the world and turned up off the coast of Greenland, scientists say.
Fishermen were puzzled by the discovery of the 5 foot 11 inch, 154 lb toothfish, the first ever seen in the northern hemisphere.
The furthest a Patagonian toothfish had previously strayed from home was 6,000 miles to the Atlantic Ocean near Uruguay.
But scientists at the University of Copenhagen believe the fish captured off the coast of Greenland caught a very deep, cold ocean current to migrate underneath warm tropical waters across the equator.
"This strategy would enable the fish to travel all the way from Patagonia to west Greenland," Peter Rask Moller said in a report in the science journal Nature.
He and his colleagues believe the theory could explain how the same species of cold-loving fish can occur at both the North and South poles despite the warm waters in between.
4th February 2003.
I am crap at keeping this thing recently. And it's not even like I've done that much.
Last week I went to Christchurch, going up on the 26th and coming back on the 30th. I didn't really do much up there, just shopping, hanging out with Tina and that's about it.
I am not a fan of bussing though. Buses are not fun over long distances.
Back in Dunedin I stuffed around on Thursday arvo, grocery shopping and the like. Friday was work, followed by chinese new year stuff in town.
Saturday should have been sleep to make up for it, except that midget was throwing a party. So I headed along, it wasn't terrible, though I should have gone straight home, and not out dancing with her. Long story short, I got it into my head she was trying to set me up with someone, and as such was less than pleasant. And it led to her being quite grumpy with me.
On Sunday, Simon and Renate turned up and dragged me off with no more knowledge of where I was going than that I would need walking shoes. About Balclutha I discovered we were going to the Catlins to do nice little southern scenic route nature walks. It was really nice. And we got fish and chips from the award winning place in Green Island on the way home.
Yesterday I spent job hunting. It's pretty grim.
This morning I took in an application form, and then picked up the Once More With Feeling script book that Catriona brought back from England for me, before returning home for lunch with my father and waiting for work to ring with my shifts, which didn't happen. Ah well.
Anyway, I should go sleep.
MARY F. POLS: MOVIE CRITIC
Does Buffymania still slay you?
• It's a high-stakes obsession for bloody loyal fans of the show
THE TRUE NATURE of cult television is something you can't understand until you've been hunched over a computer screen at 1 in the morning, blearily reading chat posts from fellow watchers who might be idiots, dorks or vastly irritating in person, but who at least share your obsession. I never understood the odd duality of isolation and modern community inherent in embracing a cult TV show until I became a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" junkie.
The rumors rampant on the Internet suggest that "Buffy," currently in the middle of a vastly intriguing sweeps cycle, will end this season, its seventh. As much as I mourn this possibility, I wonder nearly as much what it will mean to leave behind my nerdly Internet obsession of the last couple of years, the world of spoilers, gossip and "Buffy"-related discourses, some serious, some hilarious, nearly all insightful and fascinatingly intense in a sociological sense.
The vast majority of television viewers reading this column are groaning right now. "Not this 'Buffy' beef again," they're saying. "Why don't these weirdos just shut up already?" I get this, because I've been there, having resisted the tug of "Buffy" for years.
I actually saw the 1992 movie "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," starring Kristy Swanson and Donald Sutherland, when it was released. It was written by Joss Whedon, the genius creator and executive producer of the TV series, but his original vision of a high school cheerleader type fighting all sorts of demons, real and imagined, didn't quite make it onto the screen.
But "Buffy" the television show, which became a critical darling in its first year as a midseason replacement series on the WB, did embody Whedon's bizarre vision. Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar), the chosen one, i.e. the teenage girl with special vampire-fighting powers, moved to Sunnydale, a Southern California town located on the "Hellmouth." She made new friends and was soon in tormented love with a vampire named Angel. Whatever. I'd already had my Anne Rice era a good 15 years ago, thank you very much, so I passed.
The critical acclaim just kept coming, though. Actually, it has never stopped. "The most daring, innovative and emotionally complex show on television," the New York Times raved last fall. Academics love it. Published papers on the world of Buffy include "Biological Warfare and the Buffy Paradigm," linking America's war on terrorism with what Buffy and her friends face on a weekly basis. Last year, an English university held a full-scale symposium on "BTVS" called "Blood, Text and Fears."
So grudgingly, I'd tune in occasionally to see what the fuss was about. At some point in Season 4, something struck a chord with me. It could have been the irresistible dry wit of Oz (Seth Green), occasional werewolf and boyfriend to Buffy's best friend Willow, or maybe the rapport between Buffy and Giles, her British watcher, who even in the fourth season was still flummoxed by the ways of the American teen. At any rate, I started trying to remember to tape it every week.
Chronic VCR failures led me to Times business reporter George Avalos, who taped religiously. George had been pushing "BTVS" on me all along, but he was coming off an "X-Files" high, so I didn't entirely trust him at first. As my interest in the show grew, George became my tutor. Prompted by my incessant questions about the show's chronology and mythology ("How do vampires have sex?"), he handed over his old "Buffy" tapes, nearly complete sets of Seasons 1 through 3. For a few weeks in the summer of 2000, I watched three or four shows in a night, marveling at the sharp wit of the scripts and the way the writers dropped clues to future plot points, sometimes two years prior. I was finally there, a devotee.
But my obsession has mostly been a lonely one. My smart chick friends will analyze every fragment of "The Bachelorette" with me, but "Buffy"? No way. By the time my brother gets halfway through reading this column -- if he gets that far -- he'll be composing an e-mail mocking my passion for "BTVS." Even my hip little niece, now 20, dismisses "Buffy" as stupid. The general public seemed to agree with this consensus: Because the show lacked strong ratings and was so expensive to produce, the WB dumped it a couple of years ago, and the network that picked it up, UPN, is the TJ Maxx of television.
All this disdain drove me to the Internet. George clued me in to some of the sites devoted to the show, including the invaluable "Loey's Guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer," which provides both early sneaks of new episodes, culled from satellite feeds, and clever synopses of older shows (http://members.aol.com/LRL94/buffy.html). One site, run by someone with the pseudonym Pysche, posts full transcripts of each episode of "Buffy" and its spinoff "Angel," which is nearly as addictive (http://StudiesInWords.de/). Hilariously cruel synopses can be found at Television Without Pity (http://televisionwithoutpity. com), a site I've become very fond of for its sassy, sarcastic edge. For links to every Buffy news story, spoiler and essay out there, there's www.slayage.com.
Confession: All of these sites are bookmarked on my home and work computers (All research for this column! Begun two years ago! I plan ahead!). I'm guilty of reading "Buffy" spoilers all the time. They never ruin my appetite for the upcoming episode; I'm that hungry. The "Buffy" community is a clique without judgment; the only entrance requirement is to be caught up in the show's mystique. I wouldn't call my participation in it socializing by any means -- it's more like skulking -- but it's the closest I've come to being in an online community.
So if "BTVS" goes off the air, as predicted, I'll face two voids this spring. Not only will I be deprived of fresh episodes of the show, but I'll also miss my appointments with this strange little community of like-minded freaks I've stumbled into. I'll miss the faceless gang of Buffy worshippers burning up the Internet. Thanks, Loey. And Psyche. You too, Leoff. And you nonbelievers? There's still a chance for you: "Buffy" Seasons 1 through 3 are already available on DVD. God willing, the rest will come soon.
9th February 2003 - Sun in Pisces.
Wednesday I stuffed the day away and then worked the afternoon and evening.
Thursday was Waitangi day. I slept the morning away, and then went into town and spent the day with Tina, who is down in dunners staying with her boy.
Okay, where was I.
Friday I had work, and then pretty much just blobbed after as I was tired and grumpy like.
Saturday was also eaten away by work, after a quick chat to that-first-year (who'll now be a third year - I'm so old) on the way in. Though after work I headed off to Nina's for a party she was throwing for some reason, possibly a house warming, I wasn't entirely sure. It was kind of fun, and I slowly worked my way into a pack of Summer Ale (half of which is still in my fridge, with my not being a big drinker and all), and chatted to ppl, though mainly Tina and her new boy. It was mostly fun. Though Tina threw a drink at me, for reasons that didn't make any sense except that she was very drunk, so most of the fun I had was tempered by my being damp.
This morning I watched a bunch of stuff I'd videoed off tv yesterday, got up, showered and was writing the start of this entry, when Tina nd her boy turned up with the one Buffy episode that I haven't seen yet (so I am once again up with the US), and the first couple of episodes of Firefly, which will probably never come to NZ. It's actually pretty damn good, for a Space Shanghai-Western. Anyway, we hung out a bit, and I scared Tina's boy by using my grumpy voice (which is kinda loud and definately expresses a whole load of grumpiness). Then I spent my afternoon watching the Buffy and Firefly I'd got, and then went to work for the evening.
Anyway, I'm off to sleep.
Bye.
Today's quote is from Contra Costa Times.
quote pending
12th February 2003
.
Monday, I stuffed around mostly. I went to lunch with Alana and Aaron and hung out with them for a while. Then after some random shopping Alana walked me to the Adams Building, and I paid for Pharmacy with my first ever cheque. I am SO grown up now. In the evening it was Mum's birthday, so I went there for dinner.
Yesterday, again I stuffed around a bunch. I picked up my official Buffy Musical CD from Echo, visited Oli for a while, and sat drinking by myself waiting for a phone call that never came in the evening.
Today I again stuffed around a bit, and then headed in to see my doctor. The visit was mostly a chat about my depression and how it's too soon to blame it just on the drugs I'm on, as I tend to be down over christmas anyway. And the drugs are working. I'm at 137/70, which is pretty much perfect. So I'm staying on my current drugs for another 4-6 weeks, and if I'm still all depressed and miserable and wishing I was dead, then my drugs will have to be changed.
Anyway, I'm going to go off to bed, as I'm feeling miserable, and no-one cares. Okay, the only person online who I would want to care is Simon, as there is no-one else on I particularily feel like talking to right now. And his not caring is mostly standard - though it's possibly more just not noticing than not caring, but still. I'm grumpy so I'm going to bed, or maybe to sit alone drinking and then go to bed, like the sad pathetic freak I am.
Today's quote is from.
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17th February 2003.
I keep not writing on all the days with interesting holidays on them.
Anyway, after my randonmly being depressed on Wednesday nigth about the fact I'm healthy, Thursday was pretty nice. I had a job interview in the morning, which I think I blew, but it was kind of fun. Then I picked up a first edition hardcover copy of Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene and a big book of Orson Scott Card short stories which I will most likely never read. I also spent a lot of time there all but drooling over someone who was buying some possibly interesting books like L.A. Confidential and a book on how pesticides work. I've been single too long, and I think the Valentine's hype was making me a little more aware of the fact than I'd normally be. In the afternoon I headed down to Harwood and spent the afternoon on the beach with my cousin Breffni and her partner, Dave. It was nice, and my upper body saw sun for about the first time in my adult life. I don't abide by my being topless.
Friday I had work, and a bit of a head cold, which had me almost falling over a bunch, which actually made work a lot more fun. Anyway, in the evening I was supposed to go out but was still feeling pretty crap so I was in bed by 8:30.
And I'm off, later.
Today's quote is from.
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18th February 2003.
Where'd I get to?
Saturday, I had work again all day, and then in the evening my mother's birthday party at Filadelphio's. It was kind of fun, as now that mum has got rid of that git she had, she's got all her old friends back, and her old friends are mostly pretty cool. After it was over, I came home and was grumpy and depressed and planning to curl up in bed and get drunk by myself, but fortunately Tim invited me to his place to watch DVDs and drink with him - as drink alone is far too sad for words and all. So we watched Ice Age and drunk good vodka.
Sunday, after too little sleep, I was suddenly quite awake. So I stuffed around online for a while, and then headed into town to buy myself the extended version of Fellowship of the Ring. The afternoon was then spent watching it, in Cast Commentary mode - which is SO funny.
Yesterday, I went into varsity and did course approval, which turned out to be really easy as a pharmacy student. Then I had lunch with Alana at Capers. Then, after a long chat with Bruno in the Uni library, I headed home as Midget was supposed to visit at 4pm. At 6 I gave up and made tea. She eventually made it here at sometime after 8, while I was writing the above. She is SO punctual.
Today, I had work. Which was only for four hours, but I still felt crap by the end of it.
Not helping things is the fact that I'm being all paranoid about Pharmacy camp. I'll be on it this time next week. And I'm reasonably sure I'm going to do something that will make everyone there hate me, and then I'll spend the next three years being the class reject wot no-one likes. or maybe I won't even need to do anything, and they'll just hate me for being me.
That and all my friends seem to be getting skinny, so they want want anything to do with me, who'll be left the only fat one, and I won't fit into their pretty skinny new lives. So I'll be a complete no-friends loser.
I've just been out hanging my laundry on the line, and something suddenly struck me. I suddenly realised where in my imagination the poem "treacle woman" came from. And I really wish I hadn't. I'd been nicely assuming it was my inner misogyny, but then I realised it wasn't at all. It's about the reason I hate Anglicans.
So now I'm in an even crappier head-space than I was before. Yay me. And yay for stuff one wishes one could forget.
Oh, and I got the great rejection letter from the library job I applied for. It's one huge passive construction so that they can pretend they didn't reject me. In fact they even make out that there was no choice made, just that someone else was successful in their job application. It's so amazingly girlly. They should just grow some balls and say "sorry but we thought someone else was better". Stupid 'tard creatures.
Today's quote is from.
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21st February 2003
- Last day for LXX.
On Wednesday I got a hair cut - and I like it. then I went and got my ID photo taken, and it is amazingly ugly. I showed my flatmate and his slightly too quick responce was "you are not that fat". And everyone else has laughed, or maybe "wow, you look just like Shrek" comments. I hate my ID photo. And I hate my stupid face for featuring on it. On Wednesday night I went to Re-Fuel and met up with Oli, Aaron, Tim and a bunch of other weirdoes I know and had a pretty fun night.
Yesterday, I pretty much just stuffed around all day. Then in the evening I was dragged off to Rach to be in a TV ad which so far as I can tell she was doing to get a discount on the limo-bus she's using for her wedding. It was kinda stupid, and lead to me being outside when the nasty big hailstones were coming down. Though it does mean I'll be in a crap Channel Nine limo ad. Hopefully my grandparents (the only ppl I know to watch Channel Nine) will get a thrill out of seeing me look like a git on it. And it wasn't all bad, the photographer was kinda hot.
Today I had work, and then ate dessert with Alana at Filadelphio's. And now I'm off to get some sleep.
Today's quote is from.
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24th February 2003 - Mathias Ap. [If it be leap year, the fourth day after S. Peter's Chair will be the Feast of S. Mathias, and the letter f will be counted twice.]
Okay, I was kinda lying in my having nothing more to say, it was more that I was tired and grumpy. But on that note, I'll leave things as they were.
On Saturday I had work, which was long and hard as too many stupid beer drinkers kept buying stupidly cheap beer. Then I came home and blobbed until Tash visited. We watched Buffy and listened to music and were still at it after 4am.
Sunday I had to rise early to go and see The Two Towers with Renate. It pissed me off so much. Stupid Peter Jackson just plain making stuff up and messing with it. Though the massive sleep depreivation probably didn't help. In the evening i went to a BBQ, and was massive amount of not fun.
Today I woke up really sick, having tried to pass it off as just overly tired last night. So I spent the day in bed sucking Strepsils. Then I ventured out for dinner and Alana's and stopped by my mother's and found out one of my friends is in jail on remand until she gets sentenced on Friday.
I watched Bless the Child while I was in bed sick. It's pretty good.
Oh, and on Thursday my blister from Christchurch finally popped, and is still all tender, stupid human body not fixing it all up and having everything pre-prepared.
