I'm a Browncoat, which means that I am a fan of the television show Firefly. That was canceled after half a season, but it was such a great show that a number of people such as myself made ourselves sufficiently obnoxious that a movie was made, which was called Serenity.

Being a Browncoat has been my first exposure to fandoms, and how they work, and how being part of a fandom is really rather different from simply being a fan, i.e. being someone who just really likes a particular work. One thing that I have noticed is that fandoms are really quite conservative--fans liked what they saw before, and they tend to want to see only more of that.

For example, although the movie Serenity is a continuation of the television show Firefly, it is different in many ways, both large and small. The characters don't get along as well; the palette is cold blues rather than warm golds; one of the actresses lost weight. There is no change from the original that is too small to not have strongly alienated several members of the fanbase. And mind you, Serenity is a very good movie--it is one of only a handful of films that has won both a Nebula and a Hugo, and the Rotten Tomatoes compilation of critical reviews gives it an 81% positive rating. Likewise, the new Battlestar Galactica is a critical darling, and yet it was made only in the face of fierce opposition by fans of the old Battlestar Galactica.

So recently an animation studio has begun sniffing around the fan sites, trying to calculate support for an animated version of Firefly. And they apparently got enough of the NEVER!!!-type responses that they are passing on it without even trying to meet with the show's creator, which would be the first step in figuring out things like how much rights would cost and whether this is even possible to do. And, you know, this begs the question--what exactly were they expecting?

Current Mood: awake

Yes, I'm afraid it's official: I am sick.

About five years ago, I felt like I was getting colds all the time. I finally had a horrible month-long bout of illness, during which I used so many antihistamines and decongestants that by the end of the month, I could no longer fall asleep without taking the former or really wake up without taking the latter. After I kicked (it took about two weeks), I decided that I really needed to figure out what the hell was going on, so I poked around on-line. (What? You would have gone to the doctor? Silly person, I am a doctor's kid, and doctors and their immediate family members never actually go to the doctor unless they've got a big old bone sticking out of their leg or are in labor or something like that.)

Anyway, I realized that what I had always thought were colds were actually sinus infections. One thing that various ear, nose & throat-themed Web pages recommended was sinus irrigation, also called nasal irrigation, where you de-congest not by taking a decongestant but by running a bunch of water up one nostril and out the other. I'm posting a link to a photo here, but keep in mind that we're talking about a practice designed to flush all the goop out of the deep inner recesses of your schnoz, so if you are squeamish, think twice before clicking. Or reading the rest of this post. (You'll note that the link is to, surprise, a yoga-themed Web page, but actually I'm only linking there because the photo is good. Traditional Western EN&T specialists also routinely recommend sinus irrigation.)

The idea is that all that glop (and believe me, there is a surprising quantity of it) makes a nice home for bacteria, so if you get it all out of there, you'll have fewer infections. And it works--it's totally unpleasant to do, but I certainly can't argue with the results. I do it whenever I start feeling sinus-y (some people do it every day, but I have my limits), and I am sick much less often.

Once I get sick, sinus irrigation helps make the cold a little less gross (or perhaps I should say that all the grossness takes place in the privacy of my bathroom, and I don't have to go out in public with a massively runny nose). Sinus irrigation certainly doesn't make me instantly well or anything like that, but I suspect it probably lessens the duration and severity of the illness a little. Also I don't have to take decongestants, which tend to make me either somewhat or very stoned, typically to the point where I really enjoy the day but can't actually get anything done.

Anyway, ixnay on the ogayay for today. I am still trying to get some writing done, however.

Current Mood: sick

A paltry 769 words, for a total of 81,430. I've mentioned I'm sick, right?

I also mailed off a proposal and sample chapter for the historical biography off to an agent who said last summer that she was interested but too busy, and that I should resend it to her in 2007 if I hadn't gotten representation by then. So keep your fingers crossed on that one.

Current Mood: sick

While watching Criminal Minds tonight, I saw the most sick and disturbing thing--yes, the commercials featuring a reanimated Orville Redenbacher. If you haven't seen it, it's not an old film clip or anything--it's basically CGI of a man's corpse dancing around. I'm sorry, but that's just freaking creepy. I wrote Redenbacher's obituary about 10 years ago, when I was working for a news digest for children. He had a heart attack while in the bathtub and drowned--I remember it because I was new on the job, and I wasn't sure how much detail I should put into these obituaries, and that sequence of events struck me as a little too detailed for our intended audience of children.

So, yeah--that's what I think about when I see that commercial: having a heart attack and drowning in the tub, and how that's really going to be disturbing to children, and how morbid and wrong it is to bring a real person's corpse back to life in order to sell popcorn. Not exactly the sort of thing that makes me want to rush out to purchase snack food, is it?

(Copyranter, um, rants about this same subject here.)

Current Mood: annoyed