Sens at Land’s End

I’ve spent much of the weekend trying to get myself ready to go back to school. I’ll be leaving the rainy climes of Ottawa next Saturday, heading back to the perhaps equally rainy city of Vancouver. Let me tell you, this packing stuff is a job of work, and I realized today that I’ll have to mail some of my stuff back to myself because it won’t all fit in my suitcases. And one of my suitcases is a hockey bag. Clearly, someone made too many trips to the Gap this summer.

Anyway, in the absence of any Sens news or hockey books to post about, here is part two of the 100 Things About Me thing I started about two weeks ago. Today, you will learn about raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, and a few of my other favourite things.

100 Things About Me – Episode II: Things I Love (Besides Hockey)

31. I am a huge, huge fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I firmly believe it to be The Greatest TV Show Ever Created. I often quote the show (in fact I did so above) and can name all the episodes in order. I once went all the way to Nashville, Tennessee to present a paper at an academic Buffy Studies conference, and I own a bag with the word “Buffyologist” printed on it. Buffy is one of my heroes.

32. I also love Buffy’s spinoff, Angel, and consider it to be The Second Greatest TV Show Ever Created. Such is my love of Angel the character that I started watching Bones solely because David Boreanaz is on it. Angel’s series finale, “Not Fade Away,” is, I’m pretty sure, the best series finale ever shot. Six Feet Under’s last episode, “Everyone’s Waiting,” is the only one that comes close to it, if you ask me.

33. Perhaps you could see this one coming: Joss Whedon is one of my favourite people, and I’m also a big Firefly and Serenity fan. I was ridiculously excited for about a whole week before Serenity opened. My good friend Cocoa and I went to see it on opening night. We own matching Jayne hats, knitted for us by our other friend and fellow Firefly geek, the awesome Sner.

34. I have watched all three Joss shows over and over, and love marathoning them. If there’s a Joss marathon on TV, I’m there. The aforementioned Sner and Cocoa and I, along with Doc and a few other friends, once voted on our favourite Buffy episodes and then sat down for a 12-episode marathon. I also participated in a group re-watch of Buffy, Angel, and Firefly — we watched an episode per day, and we alternated between Buffy and Angel during the seasons when both were on the air — with a few of my close online friends. I’ve also got my mother to watch all three shows. When she started Firefly, she kept saying, “I don’t know about this whole ’space western’ thing.” By the time we finished it was “I don’t understand why this show got cancelled!!” Neither do I, mom.

35. U2 has been my favourite band since I was about 14. I’ve seen them play live five times, and each time it’s been amazing. “Where the Streets Have No Name” is my favourite song and I’d have to say that some of my best ever experiences have been being in the crowd when they’ve played that song.

36. I once saw Bono on the street! Well, I didn’t just run into him. I went downtown specifically to see him, but still. He was in Ottawa for an announcement about aid for Africa. I didn’t meet him, but when he was getting into his car he made a peace sign, and I’m pretty sure he was looking at me. Oh yeah! After Bono went away, I saw George Stroumboulopoulos, so I went to ask him if MuchMusic was covering the press conference. He was talking on his cellphone when I approached him but he gestured for me to wait. I heard his end of the conversation and gradually realized he was actually talking to Bono. When George hung up, I said “You didn’t let me say hi!!” I was joking, but George apologized, even though, really, I was being very rude. I thought he was a very nice guy.

37. I saw Titanic in theatre 11 times. Yes, I was that girl. I still think it’s a great movie. Screw you!

38. When I was in high school, I loved the Smashing Pumpkins. I had one of those ZERO shirts and everything. They won my heart when I saw them play live at Scotiabank Place (then the Corel Centre) and they did “Thru the Eyes of Ruby,” which was my favourite song of theirs. I don’t listen to them as much anymore, but “Cherub Rock” is my favourite song to play on guitar in Rock Band. I kick ass at it!

39. I was a total grunge kid when that was popular. I had babydoll dresses like Courtney Love had, and flannel shirts and Doc Martens. I still remember how I found out that Kurt Cobain had died, and I think of it every year on the anniversary.

40. On a related note, I used to be able to calm myself down when I’d have an attack of nerves by listening to “Even Flow” by Pearl Jam on a loop. Yeah, I’m not really sure why that worked.

41. For a few years, I was totally obsessed with the Manic Street Preachers. My first major attempt at a website was a Manics fansite. I started wearing lots of eyeliner and even some leopard print.

42. Radiohead is my favourite band that isn’t U2. Thom Yorke’s voice is one of my very favourite sounds, and they rarely come up with a song I don’t like.

43. I love The Verve, and they are the only one of my favourite bands I’ve never seen play live. I was excited when they got back together because I thought I might get a chance to go to a show, but it hasn’t happened so far.

44. I am a Harry Potter fanatic. I took the Harry Potter course at Carleton when I was in fourth year and got to present my paper at the Children’s Literature Association conference. My final paper for my Master’s was a comparison of Buffy and Harry Potter (which, incidentally, now that both series are over, I think was pretty much dead on). Before the final book in the series came out, I counted how many chapters there were total in the first six books and planned it out so I cold re-read them one chapter per day and finish on the day Deathly Hallows was released. Did I mention I was a geek?

45. During the summer I spent writing that epic paper on Buffy and Harry, I nearly went mental. I will never try to write a thesis of any kind ever again! The only thing that kept me from losing my mind completely was taking frequent dance breaks every day, during which I would listen to and sing along with the first three tracks of Oasis’ album Heathen Chemistry. “Hung in a Bad Place” became my essay-writing theme song. That August, I went to see Oasis play in Montreal, rocked out, and felt totally reinvigorated afterwards. I can honestly say that Oasis saved my sanity.

46. I’m a huge Tori Amos fan. She is my most-listened artist on my Last.fm profile because I never get tired of her. She is a genius: very strange, but very brilliant.

47. Tori and Joss used their combined powers to get me into comics — Tori by making frequent references to Neil Gaiman and the Sandman series, and Joss by writing Fray, which was set in the Buffyverse. Neil Gaiman is now one of my favourite authors, and I highly recommend anything he’s written. I find that I sometimes have more interesting dreams when I’ve been hanging out with the Dream King.

48. I enjoy superhero comics, but only Marvel ones. The DC characters don’t do that much for me. I find that is true of both the comics and the movies, though sometimes I get in the mood for Batman and I continue to watch Smallville, even though I don’t really think it’s all that good (because Tom Welling is incredibly hot).

49. Spider-Man is so by far my favourite superhero. Spider-Man 2 is my favourite movie ever. I absolutely adore it, and I saw it 12 times in theatre. I will read just about any Spidey comic Marvel comes out with, no matter how lame it is, and I even saw Spider-Man 3 three times, even though it kinda sucked. Spidey, Buffy, and Harry Potter make up my holy trinity of heroic fictional characters.

50. Perhaps largely because he has done such a wonderful job playing one of my heroes, Tobey Maguire is my favourite actor. Aside from the first two Spidey films, Wonder Boys is my favourite of his movies. It and Tim Burton’s Ed Wood are two movies I’m always recommending to people because they’re both so good and so underwatched.

51. I’m also a big Keanu Reeves fan and I’ve got a stack of his movies on DVD. After all the Matrix movies came out, I decided to watch them all back to back in one day to see if the ending made any more sense if I did that. It kinda did … but not totally. The Matrix remains one of my favourite movies, though.

52. When I was a kid, I watched Grease and Dirty Dancing about a million times each. They’re still two of my favourite movies, and I think Grease in particular is a total classic. I never knew all the words to some of the songs when I was young, and the first time I saw the movie when I was old enough to realize what they were saying I was really shocked!

53. I love watching the Oscars every year, and I also love old movies. It’s a goal of mine to see every Best Picture nominee. The fact that I get Turner Classic Movies in Vancouver makes me very, very happy.

54. I am a dedicated TV watcher. When there’s a show I really like, I will make a point of setting aside the time to watch it every week. My current favourites are Lost, House, Battlestar Galactica, and Dexter, among others. My ritual every Sunday used to be to sit down and go through the TV Guide, making a note of when things I wanted to watch were on. However, I no longer get the paper so I don’t actually have a TV guide anymore.

55. Before the glorious advent of TV on DVD, I was really anal about taping my favourite shows. I had boxes of tapes in my closet with every episode of The X-Files, Buffy, Angel, and Party of Five. TV on DVD saves me a lot of shelf space.

56. I have massive love for Farscape, though I only discovered it after it had been cancelled. I tend to watch a whole bunch of episodes at once, and after a while I start thinking in Farscape terms like solar days, cycles, yotz, dren, and frell. I guess you could say it makes me slightly fahrbot.

57. I don’t participate in the Lost extended universe, but I do like looking for the literary and historical references in the show and trying to figure out what it all means. I always read Doc Jensen’s Lost column on Entertainment Weekly’s website.

58. I love to be shocked by TV and movies. I’m always trying to predict what’s going to happen, so when something genuinely surprises me, I’m really pleased. The season 1 finale of Battlestar Galactica and the ending of The Departed are two things that have managed to make me gasp out loud recently. Lost is constantly pulling of fantastic twists. Due to my love of the big surprise, I hate spoilers. I never read them, except sometimes for shows I don’t care about.

59. Arrested Development cracks me up. I sometimes randomly start saying “Bob Loblaw’s Law Blog” over and over. I find it very soothing. And also hilarious.

60. One of the best papers I ever wrote in university was on Rick Mercer’s Talking to Americans. I re-read it once a couple of years after handing it in, and I actually could not believe I had written something so good.

60. Aside from Neil Gaiman and J.K. Rowling, my favourite writers are probably Jane Austen, Mordecai Richler, and Carol Shields. I am pretty much strictly a novel reader. I almost never touch non-fiction, unless it’s about hockey.

61. I grew up watching soap operas and have at various points in my life followed All My Children, Days of Our Lives, and Another World pretty closely. I was most dedicated to General Hospital, though: I watched it daily for several years. I loved Carly and Sonny. The fact that Sarah Brown is back on the show has me almost tempted to start watching again.

62. I have a small collection of action figures and fandom collectibles. I don’t buy a lot of stuff, and I try to get things that are unique in some way. In particular, I like silly action figures, such as Darth Tater. I’ve got bobbleheads of Angel and Spike, a plush Rygel from Farscape, and a Harry Potter Quidditch mobile as well as my very own Puppet Angel. I have about 20 or 25 Spider-Man figures, which might sound like a lot to the average person on the street, but trust me, I know people who have many more.

(100 Things About Me – Episode III: The Good, the Bad, and the Random coming soon to this space!)