quantumreality

FIRST KAI MEETING EVAR

Sun, 05 May 2013 22:49:43 GMT

HI THERE KAI YOU SEXY HAWAIIAN MAN YOU.

(So yeah, I bought Volume 2 now and am playing it! :D )

Also:

Kai (referring to why he's the new Forensic Tech): "Yeah, well, I heard you had some trouble with your old one. Something about him being a horrible serial killer…"

Natara (coldly): "Excuse me?"

Kai: "Too soon?"

OMFG YOU FUNNY MAN, KAI.

IF THIS WAS TENGEN TOPPA GURREN LAGANN YOU WOULD TOTALLY BE LEERON. :P

CoD Volume 1 Done!

Sun, 05 May 2013 20:37:01 GMT

Woooow! :D

Even though I sorta knew Eric was the Maskmaker I had no idea how they discovered it till I played! Amy discovering Eric's old picture was a real shock, especially since the scene (albeit a bit cliched) played out well with the right amount of tension!

I'm so definitely hooked and I'm gonna snag an iTunes card so I can buy more eps without needing a credit card. :D

Shiny iPad Mini is Shiny! :D

Sun, 05 May 2013 03:21:07 GMT

When I originally posted about Cause of Death I was very sad that I couldn't get it on anything but an iOS device. Well, now I has one! :D

I had some spare money, so I went and bought myself an iPad Mini 16GB! :D I set it up earlier today and now I've got CoD installed on it and I am happay :D Next up will be loading all my downloaded ebooked fics and stuff! So I can read on the bus or whatever. X-D

Bwahahaha LOL oh man. The early times when Mal and Natara were just starting out!

"As a matter of fact, Detective, I am [profiling]. And I'm not sure I understand why you find that so amusing." (SUPER FROWNY NATARA PIC)

And then they argue! :P

Ah, Maltara, from such humble beginnings...

Continuing the Spork!

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 01:01:04 GMT

Going to do Chapters 2 and 3 in one go. :) Thanks again to Ayala for looking this over and offering pointers :)

A few hours later...

"It was a horrid fanfic!" exclaimed Kai to Data Analyst Amy Chen, best friend of all Kalabas in San Francisco – of which Kai was certain there was only one, conveniently for him.

Amy frowned. "So show me, then."

Kai shuddered, turned to his computer, and pulled up the fanfic from that morning. He let Amy read through the first chapter, then waited for her reaction.

One eyebrow raised, she said slowly, "Welllll… I giess you could say one thing."

Kai looked at her.

"At least she or he spells most of the words properly," Amy conceded.

Kai clicked on the next chapter.

"Nat! LOOK OUT FOR THE TREE!" Shelby screamed at her best friend, who she was holding onto while they were on the Quad. They decided to go quadding in Nat's back yard woods, and the trail they took had way too many trees, and not enough trail.

"Quadding? Do I even want to know what that is, Amy?" asked Kai as he leaned back a bit from the monitor.

Amy rolled her eyes. "It's probably just some dumb thing the author and his or her friends do with horses."

Kai tapped the term into a search engine, took one look at the result, and swiftly closed the browser window. "We will not speak of that term again," he said firmly.

Amy squinted at Kai, then shook her head, seeming to dismiss whatever thought she had about Kai's behavior.

Special Agent Natara Williams chose that moment to step into the doorway of the forensic lab, unfazed at the fact that she was there at eight in the morning when any normal person—

"Say, Amy, why are you here?" Kai remarked.

Amy pointed at her workstation. "I was running a cryptanalysis on some intercepted text messages and came in to see if there was any progress."

"You couldn't check from home?" asked Natara as she sipped her coffee.

Amy shook her head. "The best security is physical isolation. I can't risk anyone corrupting that analysis – even if my firewalls are that good."

"Mm. Anyway, what're you two looking at?" Natara got a small smile on her face as she stepped closer, but she halted in shock as Kai and Amy hurriedly got up, hiding the screen from her. "Nothing you want to see! Trust me, Natara. It's just another… er, y'know." Kai devoutly hoped Natara would leave.

Natara scowled. "Move away from that computer now, Kai, or the next requisition you have for a fancy piece of equipment gets shredded."

Kai pouted. "Even the Bremsstrahlung gamma-ray spectrometer?"

"Even – whatever that is," said Natara firmly.

Amy grasped Kai's arm. "What's the worst that can happen?"

"Um, the world ends? I can never look Natara in the eye again?"

Kai gulped.

Natara strode forward and shoved Kai aside with her free hand. "So help me God, Kai, if you've written some smut story involving me, you, and one of these things in the lab—"

She squinted. Her jaw dropped. "What on Earth?! The writing is too poor to be yours, Kai, but it's about me. And some friend I never had! Who's 'diamondsintheroughhh'?"

" I think I might've broken my wrist. Or it's just a really bad sprain. Let's go back to the house, you can use me as a crutch and my mom can bring us to the doctors!"

"Not that space thing again," groaned Kai.

"And two hurt girls with no adult supervision? What kind of story is this?" wondered Amy.

"What in the name of—" Natara grimaced. "I wasn't that irresponsible when I was a teenager!"

"I still can't believe we ended up both breaking a bone in the quadding accident. Haha want a Slushie cast buddy?" asked Shelby.

"Oh hell yes! Hand it over Shelbs!" responded Nat. At that moment Shelby's boyfriend Todd jumped in front of them with a camera.

"COMMAS! GOOD GOD, AUTHOR, COMMAS!" expostulated Kai.

"Shelbs?" asked Natara faintly. "I never knew anyone by that name when I was fourteen."

"Best friends, friends that break bones together, stay together"

Natara winced. "That doesn't scan well."

Amy snorted. "I'm not sure breaking bones together is exactly the way to cement a friendship. Now hacking together…" She smiled in fond reminiscence.

"Or for that matter, fighting the forces of evil together!" exclaimed Kai as he brandished an imaginary sword.

"What? They did it in Harry Potter, didn't they? Or Lord of the Rings?" Kai sat back in his chair and muttered, "You can stop giving me those looks now. Oh, and we're done the second chapter. On to the third, I guess?"

"May as well. This is like a train wreck!" exclaimed Amy.

"Haha, yeah it is! Don't worry Shelbs, it's not poisonous! Besides, you're the one who wanted to see what I did at the zoo I volunteer at! It's mostly fun and games here, and there's so many cute animals!" responded Natara.

"Excuse me, author? Snakes? Snakes?! Since when am I ever enamored of snakes, for God's sake?!" Natara smacked her coffee cup down on a lab bench and stabbed her finger at the monitor. "I'd like to see you mutilating my characterization face to face!"

"Kai would be more likely to be the snake-handler, too," pointed out Amy.

Kai said, "At least it's not a circus bear. Circus bears are evil!" He grimaced, then kept reading.

"I'll be right back, authorized personal only! Haha." she said with a smirk, and walked into the locked room to grab Dusty. A few minutes later, she came back out with a massive reddish colored wolf. "This, is…SPARTA. Haha just kidding, this is Dusty. Dusty, say hi!"

"It's 'personnel', author," groused Kai. "And what's with 'This is Sparta'? I'm sorry, is Natara going to kick Shelby into a pit or something? 'Cause I'm pretty sure that's NOT how the murder in your fic happened. I mean, Natara, you don't go around being Leonidas or anything, do you?"

"I don't think so, Kai," Natara said drily. "I'm also pretty sure you can't domesticate wolves like that. My God, who does this author think I am? Casually playing about with dangerous animals like that! I'm also pretty sure they wouldn't let a teenager work that kind of a job; it's too dangerous!"

"I told you he was just saying hi!" laughed Natara. Gingerly, Shelby bent down, and 'shook' Dusty's paw. At this moment, Natara's boss, Patrick, came over with his camera.

"Ah, I see you have brought a friend today miss Mansingh."

"Yes sir! I brought out Dusty to say hi to her!"

"Why, isn't that just adorable, how about I take your picture? Dusty's a really photogenic wolf ya know!"

"Of course! Shelby come here, group photo!" Shelby sauntered over and stood behind Dusty, still eyeing him warily.

"What's with people just popping up with cameras, anyway?" asked Amy, who wore a perplexed expression.

Kai shrugged, only to jump at Natara's outburst.

"No. Just – NO! Period! I would not do that. My hypothetical boss at a zoo would not do that! None of this is in the least plausible!" Natara reached for her coffee and gulped down a huge sip, then sighed. "Please tell me this is the last part, okay?!"

Kai checked and nodded.

Natara let out a relieved sigh. "Good. I'm going to forget this ever happened, and I'm going to get a Tylenol. Profiling serial killers is at least more logical than this… thing that calls itself a fanfic."

Natara's heeled shoes clicked on the floor as she departed the lab. Kai shook his head. "Even I know enough to know that guy could get fired for letting two teenagers hang around a known wild animal, even if it's in captivity. I mean, they have cages for a reason, you know!"

Amy rubbed her forehead. "I think headaches are catching. I hope it'll be a while before you get zinged with one of these things again. And I pray yours are never this bad!"

"Oh, no! Never. Never ever never, my dear Amy! Kai Kalaba will always write properly." He leaned in confidentially. "Even if I do happen to like 'Maltara'."

Amy chuckled. "Go. Get some work done. And close that browser window, for God's sake."

Kai obliged and felt a wave of relief wash over him as the bad fanfic was consigned to the void.

A niggling sensation remained, though, making him wonder if he would get another mystery e-mail some time soon.

Please take a bow, Kai, Amy and Natara!

*All three bow, heave sighs of relief, and wave goodbye to the audience*

... Until next time, folks. :)

Sporking a Cause of Death Fanfic!

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 21:57:35 GMT

So, my friend ayala_atreides has been playing this game, Cause of Death. Between her regaling me with the details of the game and some wiki searching, I got interested enough to introduce Sporker!Kai Kalaba, with Amy Chen and Natara Williams as backup roles.

The fic being sporked is Because You Loved Me. Thanks go to Ayala for reading this over and giving commentary :)

Forensic Technician Kai Kalaba may have been bending one or two rules about doing personal work while the gas chromatograph was running, but then again, he was the only one around at five o'clock in the morning on a Saturday.

Kai was just putting the finishing touches on "Kai Another Day", his latest fan fiction story, when his e-mail client popped up a message. He clicked over to it, and to his consternation, it was a URL, nothing more. "Now, Amy always did warn me about clicking these things, but…"

Kai chewed his lip for a second, then decided. "I am the Fearless, the Noble, the Brave Kai Kalaba! I shall open this link!"

Natara's best friend was just murdered. How is she going to cope, and how is she doing to remember the great times she and her best friend had? Sorry I suck at summaries. My first ever Fan-Fic. Rated T for some swearing. Oh, btw, Disclaimer- i do not own Cause of Death and i dont own the song, Because You Loved Me

"… Oh," muttered Kai as he stared at the screen.

Pontificating to the empty room at large, he said, "You never, never say 'I suck at summaries', Miss or Mister diamondsintheroughhh! Oh lord help my throat, how do you even say that last part? I feel like I'm gargling trying to sound like a Scottish person speaking Gaelic!"

Puzzled, Kai wondered, "And since when does Natara have a 'best friend who was just murdered'?"

He read on.

Natara Mansingh sat at her desk in her bedroom. It was only weeks after the murder of her best friend, Shelby Shea.

"Well, that's not so bad," he muttered. "Well, mechanically, I mean. It's obviously a tragedy her friend died, though."

"Shelby, come on, let's go jump in the pool, it's so hot out!" Natara yelled at her best friend.

" Yeah Yeah, whatever! Actually.." Shelby eyed the sprinkler and then the horses in the paddock. "I have a better idea. Nat, jump on Jupiter! I'll get on Casper!"

"This author seems to have slight issues with spaces," noted Kai.

" Wait, Wha- Oh! I get it! Ahah okay ill race you to it?"

" You're so on!" And with that they both gave their horses a gentle nudge and the horses took off to the sprinkler. Nat was in the lead, at first, until Jupiter got to the sprinkler. It was then when Nat remembered, Jupiter hates Sprinklers, and Water.

Kai's frown got deeper as he kept reading. "I'm pretty sure Natara wouldn't speak or write that poorly. I mean, no apostrophe usage, no capitalization of 'I'? And what's with 'Sprinklers' and 'Water'? This isn't German, sweetcheeks!"

" Oh, SHIT!" Nat yelped as Jupiter went one way, and Jupiter went the other.

Kai's eyes crossed. "The horse split in two? This isn't an horror fic, diamondsintheroughhh!"

"… at least, I hope not," Kai temporized, eyeing the monitor uneasily. He decided to wait for a while to look at the next chapter, as the gas chromatograph was beginning to spit out the results.

That was chapter one, folks. There's two more to go, a nice easy spork this time. :P

This Gilbert & Sullivan Rant on FFR...

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 18:48:58 GMT

which is here suddenly makes me realize that rap has an oddly similar iambic meter.

Also, thinking of meters now makes me want to try English poetry in dactylic hexameter, no matter that it's less practical than the more common iambic meters.

A propos of previous writings of mine re HP fandom

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 20:08:00 GMT

This old writeup I saw on ffr seems to echo what I've said regarding the philosophy of what I have come to term Death-Eaterism.

More Lovely Rantage!

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 17:01:44 GMT

Misused words rant warms my heart. :)

So I was looking through old ffrants entries...

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 06:57:14 GMT

and came across actual math! :P

Mhari's Law of Sue Notoriety:

T x (SPa² + B) = R³.

As all research Sueologists know Mhari's Law, named after the redoubtable field researcher who first began to classify the various species of Sue that exist in the wild, states that the more amazing talents (T) an OC is burdened with, and the more overwhelmingly significant her past links (SPa) and blood ties (B) to one or more of the canon characters becomes, it becomes exponentially more likely that both the show's regulars and we the reading or viewing audience should already be able to recognize (R) her.

That's kinda awesome. :D

A Brilliant Insight!

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 15:25:50 GMT

One person's thoughts on Harry and Hermione.

Harry Potter is Symmetrical!

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 19:17:17 GMT

Mind = blown.

KAFA Campaign!

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 16:20:40 GMT

I just saw this on imgur. (Content warning: Describes hurtful words to women)

KAFA Campaign images: "Words hurt"

QR watches Continuum!

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 22:51:44 GMT

Check it out on DW! :)

Anything with Nathan Fillion in it is pretty much automatically awesome.

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 02:40:48 GMT

I give you the short-lived "Drive" series!

It aired back in 2007 and it's actually pretty neat! It's a shame it never picked up a sizable fanbase, but the story got far enough it at least exposed who was behind the mysterious "race" that Alex Tully found himself sucked into, and did enough backstory exposition to explain some of the characters' motivations. :)

Alex ends up teaming up with a woman, Corinna, played by Kristin Lehman, and NGL, she's pretty hot. :P

Anyway it has some really awesome driving and chase scenes, and I was holding my breath sometimes, wondering if there'd be a horrific accident! :O

Also, for cuteness, an honorable mention to J. D. Pardo, playing Sean Salazar:

But yeah, I encourage y'all to check out this series! It's not real deep, but it does draw you in and keep you wondering :)

Continuum!

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 08:49:34 GMT

A very interesting TV Series! Like Intelligence, it's set in Vancouver and environs, but Continuum is premised on a time-travel incident from 2077 to 2012.

For all that it's got probably a modest budget, it's still really good! I've watched part of the pilot, and I'm already hooked. :D It does not hurt that the main character is a badass policewoman who can kick butt and take names. :P

I'll probably write up some episode reviews later, but for now, I'll just say if you want to see the city where I make my home as part of an action/drama series, check out Continuum. XD

(PS: One thing I really like is that they've made Vancouver almost unrecognizable in their vision of 2077 :P )

DHS warrantless searches signal boosty thing

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 04:45:51 GMT

Are You Living in a Fourth Amendment Exclusion Zone?

No way to tell if this is one of those fringey sites or not, but the DHS has been running internal checkpoints on US highways near the Mexico border to catch illegal immigrants, so I know they have been bending, if not breaking, the spirit of Constitutional free mobility within the US.

OWS Signal Boost

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 22:46:23 GMT

OWS Suing Wall Street.

Pass it on, if you would. :)

A funny from tonight's Arrow episode!

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 05:56:19 GMT

Felicity Smoak's facial expression at the end of this clip made me LOL. XD

TV Show Review: The Americans

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 23:16:20 GMT

Hey all!

So I've been scrounging around for TV shows now that Last Resort is finished (and will not be renewed), and Revolution is not coming on 'till March, as will Bomb Girls.

As a result I've been watching Person of Interest, Arrow and I tried watching The Lying Game, but I felt it kind of started creating unnecessary drama for the sake of stringing out the story line past about when it should've been resolved (mainly centering around Sutton's and Emma's missed communications feeding into Sutton's vindictive personality traits, etc), so I quit at around the 13th or 14th episode.

I ran across The Americans and got really interested, because it portrays the "other side" of the Cold War of the early 1980s within an American milieu, so it still reveals what the Soviets were doing and thinking, while allowing viewers to relate to the US cultural and social context.

And it really is fascinating! The main characters aren't unalloyed heroes nor are they unalloyed villains; they see themselves as being, essentially, on the right side of history and doing what they feel they have to do on behalf of their country to accomplish that goal.

The opening credits are particularly interesting, as they juxtapose American and Soviet national landmarks and achievements side by side, along with showing the names of the characters in Cyrillic and then in English.

Transliterations below images where applicable, with the TV-show provided English names following. Note that some characters are not very readable so some of my text will be best guesses.

Then...

FX Predstavlaet ("FX Presents")

Keri Rassel ("Keri Russell")

Mettyu Ris ("Matthew Rhys")

Meximiliano Khernantses ("Maximiliano Hernandez")

Kholli Teilor ("Holly Taylor")

The Cyrillic word is "NAROD" which means "People" in Russian.

Noa Imme--? ("Noah Emmerich")

And finally....

The fifth episode is due out this week and the series has already uncovered some interesting back story so far! I'm hooked, and I want to see where this series goes next. :)

Corporate Tax Dodgers Signal Boost

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 21:45:53 GMT

PDF link on Bernie Sanders's website.

Bernie Sanders Petition Signal Boost

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 05:29:08 GMT

Sen. Bernie Sanders has proposed a constitutional amendment that would overturn the Supreme Court decision in a case called Citizens United vs. FEC.

Pass the word on, folks! :)

Cause of Death OMFG.

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 05:08:21 GMT

So my friend ayala_atreides has been raving about this game and so, intrigued, I watched a couple of playthroughs on Youtube.

OMFG THAT GAME I WANT IT

Only I has an incredible sad because I have no iPod, iPhone, or iPad. And being a person who likes larger screen sizes on things because eyestrain, it's gonna cost me $$$ just to get the device to play the game on! :(

Alas.

But I shall save my money! :D

The best damning with faint praise EVER.

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 04:30:23 GMT

Sifu Kisu comments on The Last ~~Airbender~~Failbender.

*ded of LOL* XD

TRON: Uprising!

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 17:00:49 GMT

Hey all,

So I've been watching TRON: Uprising for the last while, and it's just fascinating :D The scenery porn is amaaaaaaazing, guys. :O And the characters are well-rounded and not cliches, for the most part. :)

The stick-figure-like animation of the characters threw me off initially, but it's kind of grown on me now, so I don't notice it as much. :)

I like the callbacks to the original TRON-verse, such as the "Encom 786", and the occasional references to Flynn, as well as callbacks to Legacy, when Quorra shows up in a flashback.

Incidentally, I've been noticing people complaining about Zed being a "Nice Guy" type, and after having watched the series and the likely episode involved, I think it's far fairer to say that he's just amazingly single-mindedly clueless about when it's appropriate to ask questions about the way Mara likes him.

I also liked the exploration of the conflicts between programs and ISOs, as well as Tron's and Paige's pasts that were key focal events making them the people (programs? :P ) that they are as of Uprising.

I'm on Episode 13 now, so I'm close to the end. Hopefully I find out how Tron becomes Rinzler!

The Plan & Caprica (Season 1 partial)

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 19:40:27 GMT

The Plan was really interesting, and Caprica's visual effects and storyline are, so far, remarkable :D

It's really fascinating how in "The Plan", the Cylons who had contact with humans (as well as the Final Five) tended to become less ideologically committed (except for the Dorals, and ironically, for Space!Cavil, when Resistance!Cavil came to grasp that what his line had done was a horrible mistake) and in particular, for the Simons (Number Fours) they seemed to gain a true appreciation for humanity: Space!Simon cannot undertake his mission, choosing to airlock himself instead, and Resistance!Simon appreciates the human need for sex, even to the point of taking Cavil's statements and twisting them jokingly regarding sexual positions. He also seems to appreciate human resilience and commitment more than the Cavils do.

The Sixes show a lot of variety and seem to show Simon-like ability to grasp humans and the way they live and act. I also found it rather ironic that one of the Sixes, with Cavil, actually "pioneers" the Cylon execution technique before Roslin. :P (Simon's airlocking wasn't a true one in the sense that he simply blew off a section of hull and vented himself out to space, while Six used a legitimate airlock to do it)

As others have remarked, for all that the Cylons had a plan, it fell apart as soon as they realized a significant number of humans were left alive (i.e. in the tens of thousands in space, as well as hundreds, if not thousands, left as resistance movements in the Colonies), as well as due to the fact that close contact between the Cylon spies and the humans they worked with seemed to erode their zeal over time.

The thing that totally cracked me up?

Cavil: One of your counterparts managed to get himself outed back on Ragnar Station.
Doral: I can't understand how he was discovered. I heard it was Dr. Baltar.
Cavil: Well, no. I'm not talking about that, exactly. I'm talking about the fact that you're walking around this fleet wearing that jacket and, more importantly, that face. You're recognizable.
Doral: His jacket was burgundy. This is teal.

*ded* XD

The Dorals are described on the Battlestar Wiki as being single-minded and fanatical. To which I think I should add, "rather uncreative". :P

Caprica is a fascinating TV show. Right from the beginning, they call back to Cylonhood in the Battlestar Galactica series - for example, having Zoe and an identical copy both inhabiting the same club. In fact, before I realized that the club is in a virtual community a la Second Life, I thought Zoe was a Cylon. :D

Daniel's tendency to self-aggrandizing behavior and stepping on toes all over reminds me more than a little of Gaius Baltar's behavior. He's even taking the first steps to humanity's betrayal by pushing so hard to get his Cylon program up and running he's ignoring the dangers he's creating along the way.

I haven't got the full story yet, but given that the Centurions in BSG's time are monotheistic it strongly suggests that Zoe's adherence to the STO's philosophy is the progenitor of this doctrine and her unwillingness to re-initiate contact with her father is going to lead her in the direction of "evangelizing" other machines when they get created.

Also, I can see hints of the Cylon resurrection in Zoe's avatar, as well as the Cylon projection technique through the Holoband, which could, presumably, be incorporated into any Cylon, mechanical or humanoid.

So all in all, the BSG-verse continues to fascinate and thrill me. I look forward to the rest of the episodes! I AM EXCITE XD