Heroes in the Whedonverse

I sat down to start watching Angel from the beginning, streaming from Netflix the other morning, and as I was watching Season 1 Episode 1, "City of" a thought came to me. Many of Whedon's male characters have some seriously similar traits. Though it is not ALWAYS the case, Angel, Mal Reynolds and Paul Ballard are often very chivalrous heroes, relating to female characters without much sexual motivation.  And when they do finally give in, "bad things" happen.

**Warning: Dollhouse Spoiler if you've not seen the whole series!**

The Nicknames

I've only been on the Battlestar Galactica bandwagon for about a year and a half, but I can honestly say it's probably one of my all-time favorite shows. And one of my absolute fave characters on the show has got to be Kara "Starbuck" Thrace. She's hot, mysterious, and seriously bad-ass.  Because of my love for said character, and the fact that we share the same first name, spelled the same and everything, my geek friends started calling me "Kara Thrace." I even went so far as to be Starbuck for Halloween this past year. <-- See?

Then my poor husband started getting called Mr. Thrace. Not Anders or anything cool like that, just Mr. Thrace. That eventually turned into us getting called collectively "The Thraces." As in, where are we going to host Game Night? At the Thraces'. Who's bringing the movie? The Thraces. Now we are even stored in our friends' phones with those nicknames.

And then, my husband is also a "Toaster." This came about when we were first starting to play the BSG board game. In the game, you are either a cylon, not a cylon, or a sympathizer. The first three times we played, my husband was a cylon every time, and his covert actions cost the humans the game. I told him he was sleeping on the couch. Then on multiple occasions we have BOTH been cylons in the game, so apparently, now, to our friends, we are "Toasters," and they joke about it whenever they get the chance.

This is one of the many reasons I love my geeky friends. Do any of you have awesome nicknames given to you by friends? Any of them awesomely nerdy?

7 Weeks, But Who's Counting?

So, today was the first day back to school after Spring Break, and let me tell you how much I want out already! After teaching 6th grade for 5 years, this is the least-attentive, most talkative worst-behaved overall group we've ever had. Even some teachers who've been there 20+ years are saying the same thing. They drain all the energy I have by 3:30 every day.

We start our state testing (TCAP) next week, so this week is "finish reviewing" week.  First of all, with a new curriculum, a new test that is supposed to be higher-level thinking such as application and analysis of skills, and the fact that our job security is now directly tied to our individual test scores, I hate "teaching to the test" more and more each year, but it's getting hard to find much of a way around it.

Our school at least bought these great test-review books that have helped me to review kids in isolation on skills we worked on earlier this year in a much more holistic manner. They've made the past few weeks really easy on me, but I know that the students are completely over it. I mean, a week and a half of test prep before the break and another week after? Yeah, that's how massive my tested Language Arts/Reading curriculum is.  Reviewing takes two and a half weeks. 74 tested skills. Yay?!

So, in other words, if I can make it through the next two weeks, after TCAPs are over, there are only 5 weeks left. All downhill from there, right?

42: It's the Answer

As I was trying to fall asleep last night, for some reason, the date popped into my head as "42," and I immediately had an inspiration, but I had to file it away so I could actually get some sleep. The following is a true story about how a girl fell in love with a Hitchhiker and came to terms with her nerdy side. 

For some reason, Douglas Adams' A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has been on my mind recently, so it is no surprise that my subconscious wanted me to write about it. When I was about 12, I was browsing the shelves at my local library on my weekly Saturday morning drop-off while Mom ran errands. I came across a book with an interesting cover, a strange title, and the back-cover promise of being hilarious. That book was The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. As perfect as this book seemed, I could not get past the first few pages. Little did I know it was in the middle of a series I would put at the top of my list a mere 14 years later. 

Always a Badger

 I was watching the most recent episode of Chuck and noticed that the one and only Mark Sheppard had appeared as the director of the evil syndicate known as "The Ring." It is not the first time that the great sci-fi character actor has graced the small screen in my living room in recent years. Though it is not the role for which I will always remember him.

That honor will go to the sleaze-ball fence, Badger, from the "Serenity" and "Shindig" episodes of Firefly. Now, he was only in two episodes, playing a minor character, but for some reason, that is how I have chosen to remember him. He always gave Mal and his crew such a hard time for their dangerous work, yet, as shady as he was, I never disliked him.

So, you can only imagine my surprise, when I started watching Battlestar Galactica and saw him show up as the slick lawyer, Romo Lampkin. My initial thought was, "Who else but Badger would represent a weasel like Gaius Baltar?" Unfortunately, I could never quite get past the fact that he was Badger, and kept projecting those traits onto Lampkin. And strangely enough, I never ended up liking Lampkin that much. This is how most of my friends remember him, though, and when I bring up Badger, they seem to question my sanity.

Then, as BSG started to wind down, I started seeing him everywhere. What do I mean by everywhere? EVERYWHERE! He had a small recurring role on Dollhouse. Looked like good ol' Joss Whedon called in a favor from an old friend?

I've been told he was on 24, which I do not watch. Then he was cast on multiple cable shows that I actually love, so imagine my surprise when I start seeing my favorite genre character actor every time I turn on the television: Burn Notice, White Collar, Warehouse 13, Leverage, and finally (and most recently) Chuck.

Though his roles have been minor and short-lived in most of those shows, it makes me happy every time I see his smug face pop up. I always expect the cockney accent and bowler, but he's cleaned up a lot since then. Hopefully, we'll be seeing more of him for the foreseeable future. He's gotta be coming back in the Fall on Leverage as Sterling, I'm sure of it. And I'm waiting on a guest appearance on Castle, too.

I just hope he doesn't get cast on an episode of Caprica. You can't do that. No crossing canons. It isn't right.