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tabloidtoc · 4 years

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National Enquirer, September 28

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Jeffrey Epstein’s madam Ghislaine Maxwell’s secret husband unmasked

Page 2: Royal renegades Prince Harry and wife Meghan Markle have turned their backs on the U.K. forever by paying back $3.1 million borrowed from British taxpayers to renovate Frogmore Cottage because Harry always felt the weight of the public loan and he’s paid it back in full as one of the last stages in divorcing himself from the royal family and the U.K. itself -- the California-based couple who recently bought a $15 million mansion in Montecito also claimed they will no longer take handout from Harry’s dad Prince Charles after signing a Netflix deal said to be worth as much as $150 million

Page 3: Slimmed-down Jessica Simpson has told chubby hubby Eric Johnson to shape up or ship out -- she’s been laser-focused on healthy dieting and exercise since giving birth to daughter Birdie Mae 18 months ago but her flabby ex-football star spouse has been piling on the pounds

Page 4: Angelina Jolie has shrunk to a skeletal 99 pounds after launching a hunger strike to force hated ex Brad Pitt to cave to her child custody demands but friends and medical experts fear the star may be killing herself in the process -- Angie’s surviving on handfuls of grains and nuts and avoiding full meals and she’s banking on Brad cratering when he sees her in such a sorry state and giving her anything she wants, sober and svelte Kelly Osbourne is on a mission to find a man

Page 5: Demi Moore is drooling over love rat Justin Hartley’s Instagram posts and she’s got it bad for the lothario -- she’s had it bad for him ever since they filmed a funny skit together on The Tonight Show last year -- Demi has not had a serious romance since her catastrophic breakup in 2013 with Ashton Kutcher but she’s coming out of her shell after swearing off dating and now she wants to have some fun and she’s zeroed in on Justin

Page 6: Katie Holmes has given up on Hollywood hunks and found romance with a Big Apple chef -- she was snapped getting hot and heavy with Emilio Vitolo Jr. and the single mom is hungry for love with a man more focused on her than stardom

Page 7: Sharon Osbourne chased Marie Osmond off The Talk -- Marie thought the show would be fun and just a bunch of girls gabbing about their lives and whatnot but she found out that was totally naive because Sharon disliked her from the start and Marie felt Sharon was jealous of her and thought she didn’t belong and there was a definite rift between them and an undercurrent of bitchiness that everyone noticed

Page 8: Big-ideas guy Chip Gaines is clashing with wife Joanna Gaines over money as he wants to expand their empire but she wants to slow things down, Hollywood Hookups -- Jay Cutler and Tomi Lahren dating, Kathie Lee Gifford’s son Cody Gifford wed Erika Brown, Lily Allen and David Harbour wed

Page 9: Scandal-scarred Kevin Spacey has been accused of trying to sexually assault two 14-year-old boys during the 1980s in an explosive new lawsuit filed in New York -- one accuser has not been named but the second accuser in the lawsuit is Star Trek: Discovery actor Anthony Rapp

Page 10: Hot Shots -- Brian Austin Green stocks up at a supermarket in L.A., Gerard Butler hopped about his motorcycle after having dinner in Malibu, Olivia Wilde at the beach in Malibu, Anne Heche stepped out in L.A.

Page 11: Martial-arts movie master Jackie Chan got his butt kicked by Chinese officials out into the streets of Beijing when they seized two side-by-side luxury apartments in Beijing where the Hong Kong-born karate king’s family lived and put them up for auction in an ownership dispute but Jackie is fighting back by filing a lawsuit to reclaim his property which he bought estimated to be worth $5 million at a massively discounted $2 million in 2007 after doing promotional work for the owners, Oscar-winning vegan Joaquin Phoenix hopes to whip up a career as TV’s next top chef -- he loves to experiment at the stove adding different spices to traditional dishes but those who have sampled his stuff have confessed he’s not that good -- despite his kitchen limitations he has no plans to ditch acting but he wants to go all in on trying to become a YouTube or Food Network personality

Page 12: Straight Shuter -- Alessandra Ambrosio played volleyball in Santa Monica (picture), new Dancing with the Stars host Tyra Banks has kicked former frontman Tom Bergeron from the ballroom blocking a final farewell appearance after 15 years on the show and now Tom’s responded by giving tyrant Tyra some lip by openly mocking her bizarre new promotional video where her kisser was enhanced to mimic the show’s mirror ball trophy, it’s bye-bye booze on The Real Housewives franchise because seeing older white privileged women getting drunk and fighting isn’t fun anymore and it’s put a lot of viewers off and Bravo execs believe it’s one reason the ratings have tanked so now there will be less booze available during tapings, Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani are clashing over politics among other things -- Gwen hosted an Obama fundraiser at her house in Beverly Hills while Blake is much more conservative and they’re struggling to find common ground and the weeks leading up to the election could rip these two apart

Page 13: Keeping Up with the Kardashians is ending its 14-year run because the famous family members can’t stand each other anymore

Page 14: Crime

Page 15: Broken-hearted Priscilla Presley is on the verge of an emotional breakdown and dealing with daughter Lisa Marie Presley’s past struggles with addiction and ongoing divorce with Michael Lockwood and the recent tragic suicide of her only grandson Benjamin Keough have taken a devastating toll on the 75-year-old along with the impact of the global pandemic and the country’s social unrest -- she locks herself in her room and cries uncontrollably for hours at a time and has had trouble keeping up with her daily routines -- she’s selling her Beverly Hills home and moving back to Graceland but the walls outside the estate are covered in graffiti with messages like Black Lives Matter and No Justice No Peace

Page 18: Their Marriage Failed So They Tried Again -- Pamela Anderson, Larry King, Jean-Claude Van Damme

Page 19: Melanie Griffith, Elliott Gould, Marie Osmond, Elon Musk

Page 20: Brainiac Ken Jennings the all-time winningest contestant on Jeopardy! is being groomed to replace the show’s ailing host Alex Trebek by the beloved TV legend himself

Page 22: Prized props pilfered from Hollywood sets are big business for underground dealers and can fetch up to six figures on the black market and even worse some memorabilia heists have disrupted the making of major blockbusters costing studios a pretty penny

Page 28: Cover Story -- Sex monster Jeffrey Epstein’s accused madam Ghislaine Maxwell will never be convicted due to a provision in the U.S. Constitution that forbids married couples from being forced to testify against their mates and now facing charges of sex trafficking underage girls for the pervert billionaire Maxwell has a get-out-of-jail-free card because she secretly married the pedophile before he was murdered in a federal prison last year

Page 34: Prankster Sacha Baron Cohen secretly shot a sequel to his 2006 blockbuster Borat and it’s already been screened by select industry bigwigs, Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond is blazing her daughter Alex’s path to the altar with fiance Mauricio Scott

Page 38: Health Watch

Page 42: Red Carpet -- Venice Film Festival -- Cate Blanchett -- hot, Tilda Swinton -- not, Arizona Muse -- hot, Maya Hawke -- hot, Elodie -- hot, Vanessa Kirby -- hot

Page 45: Spot the Differences -- Gerald McRaney and Aubrey Dollar and Kim Cattrall on the new drama Filthy Rich

Page 47: Odd List -- a gory piece of history has landed on the auction block -- a lock of Abraham Lincoln’s hair that was wrapped in an 1865 telegram stained with the dead president’s blood is expected to fetch up to $75,000

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miragerules · 6 years

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The 15 Best Current TV/Streaming Series

Well we are closing in on the end of 2017 and with most series having had or are soon going to have their mid-season finales I thought I’d update what I believe are the best current TV series airing or have ended this year. Now I don’t watch a ton of television as I have not seen Outlander, Legion, The Man in High Castle, American Gods, Star Trek: Discovery, Runaways, and among others that people have recommended to me. Anyway here are in what my opinion are the best current TV series.

1. The Expanse: Some have called The Expanse “Game of Thrones in space”, and it does have some of the same vibe, but The Expanse has surpassed Game of Thrones as the best show on TV or streaming. Through two seasons, The Expanse has been excellent with a detailed mostly realistic compelling story about the near future with a diverse cast of characters with interesting stories that brings each characters journey to life, beautiful effects, a wonderful soundtrack and some intense action. For more read Brian Tallerico of the Rolling Stones article Why ‘The Expanse’ is the Best Sci-fi TV Show You’re Not Watching.

Rating: 10/10

2. Westworld: Westworld is based on the sci-fi western novel by Michael Crichton and film starring Yul Brynner. Jonathan Nolan brother to Christopher Nolan and creator of the underappreciated and excellent Person of Interest created the series. Westworld brilliantly expands on the ideas and concepts from both Crichton’s novel and the film delivering a thrilling and mysterious story that stars the likes of Anthony Hopkins, Jeffrey Wright, Thandie Newton, James Marsden, Thandie Newton, Ed Harris, and Tessa Thompson.

Rating: 10/10

3. Black Sails: Black Sails has officially come to a conclusion with the wrapping up of the excellent fourth and final season this past April. Black Sails through four seasons took audiences on somewhat of a historical look at the life of pirates in the Caribbean during the early 18th century. The writers delivered compelling characters helping the audience root for these criminals even though we shouldn’t, and the writers didn’t hide from showing the good, the bad, and the downright ugly that was the life of a pirate. Unlike any other film or show Staz’s Black Sails showed the viewer what it was like to be a pirate. Obviously there was the violence, action and nudity that helped make the show great, but really it was the stories, and characters that made Black Sails so good throughout its four seasons

Rating 10/10

4. Game of Thrones: Game of Thrones though out its seven seasons has always been excellent, but this past season with its shortened season had some issues mainly with continuity and plot holes. What I mean is that time and distance seem to have no meaning this past season. I know Westeros is a long continent from north to south, but why has it taken so long for the White Walkers to get to the wall. Another is how even though it just seemed like a day or maybe two did the Dothraki go from Dragonstone (at least that is where the Dothraki were at the time) and cross all of Westeros in what seemed like a day. Yes, Westeros is short from east to west, but not that short across. I loved the battle and the scene of Jamie charging at Daenerys on horseback, but thinking about how Daenerys and the Dothraki just does not make sense. These are still minor criticisms in what is otherwise an excellent show with just one more season left. Sadly, it sounds like we are going to have to wait to early 2019 to see who ends up sitting on the iron throne if anyone.

Rating: 9.75/5

5. 12 Monkeys: The final season of 12 Monkeys is coming up in 2018 with its fourth and final season, and from how quickly the Scfy channel aired season 3 the network will be happy to see the series go. Scfy may be happy to see the series go, but that doesn’t change the fact that 12 Monkeys is one of the best shows around. The show is obviously based on the Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt starred film with the same name. Only the series follows James Cole and Cassandra Railly as they travel through time trying to stop the rise of the group The 12 Monkeys and stop the plague that nearly wipes out the human race from happening. The series has some outstanding writing, and action sequences, but perhaps one of the best elements of the show is the friendship/relationship between James and Cassie. Their relationship is most likely going to be doomed, but is beautiful to watch thanks to that acting and chemistry of actors Aaron Stanford and Amanda Schull.

Rating: 9.75/5

6. Godless: The first of four Netflix shows on this list. Godless is technically a mini-series so it won’t be on a similar list like this next near, but Godless is still a compelling series neither the less. Godless mainly takes place in a small mining town of La Belle where the majority of its men died in a mining accident leaving the women to run the town. The series follows the lives of Roy Goode, Alice Fletcher, Bill McNue, and the antagonist of the series Frank Griffin played brilliantly by Jeff Daniels. In modern Hollywood, westerns are a risk, but thankfully, there is a streaming service like Netflix that took the chance and writer/director Scott Frank who brought Godless to life with a compelling story, riveting characters, great cinematography and some great action sequences.

Rating: 9.75

7. Jessica Jones: Technically Jessica Jones wasn’t on air this past year, but season one was excellent and the second season is premiering in early 2018.

Rating: 9.5/10

8. Daredevil: Like Jessica Jones, Daredevil wasn’t on air this year, but the first two seasons were great and the third season probably premiering in late 2018.

Rating: 9.5/10

9. Rick and Morty: I know most wouldn’t expect an Adult Swim cartoon to appear on a list of the best shows on TV or streaming, but Rick and Morty is the exception to the rule. What Dan Harmon has helped to create with Justin Roiland is truly something special as Rick and Morty is one of the most funny, tragic, complex and fascinating cartoons….no Rick and Morty is simply one of the most funny, tragic, complex and fascination shows on TV or streaming.

Rating: 9.5/10

10. The Punisher: The Punisher could have easily failed as a series with the climate we live in today with all the gun violence and mass killings in the United States today, but Netflix’s The Punisher is pretty much a rousing success that’s mainly thanks to Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle and Steve Lightfoot, and the rest of the writers that shied away from glorifying violence and guns. There are many elements of the series that are good from the story and relationship between Frank and David Lieberman and between Frank and David’s family as well as the action sequences, but for me one of the best elements of the series was the growing friendship between Frank and Karen and the will they won’t they vibe. Sadly, we don’t get enough of the two, and I am hoping for former and Frank and Karen end up getting together and the writers steer away from so-called “canon” when it comes to Karen from the comics.

Rating: 9/10

11. The Shannara Chronicles: Like The Expanse, The Shannara Chronicles is a show very few people watch and judging by the ratings on Spike I doubt the series will get a 3rd season, but through two seasons The Shannara Chronicles has been great. The Shannara Chronicles series is loosely based on the fantasy novels by Terry Brooks, and you’d think with the first season airing on MTV and the second on Spike that there wasn’t much to the show besides a simply story and hot characters getting it on and you would be wrong. Yes, the series follows the formula of the fantasy genre, but The Shannara Chronicles has a fascinating cast of characters, a pretty well developed story, and some good set pieces for the obvious limited budget the series has. I highly recommend everyone check out the series.

Rating: 9/10

12. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Rating: 9/10

13. Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Rating: 8.75/10

14. The Orville: Going into the series premier with Seth McFarland staring I thought The Orville was going to a half hour Sci-fi comedy after all McFarland is the mind behind Family Guy, The Cleveland Show, American Dad, and Ted, so I was pleasantly surprised when The Orville turned out to be much more than that. McFarland’s The Orville is an hour-long sci-fi dramedy. The first season does have some issues mixing comedy with sci-fi drama, but overall McFarland with the rest of the cast and the writers do a good job with mixing the two elements creating a fun and compelling hour-long series that honors Star Trek.

Rating: 8.75/10

15. South Park: After what is now, 21 seasons you’d think South Park would end up like The Simpsons in that South Park wouldn’t be funny anymore and only relying on their name and nostalgia for what they once were, but South Park continues to be a hilarious show. This past season Matt and Trey Parker tried to move away from the season long story, and focus from episode to episode. You can tell Matt and Trey are just as frustrated with the current state of affairs in America and dealing with Trump/President Garrison as the rest of us as often times they didn’t know what to do in each episode or tried to cram to much in a single episode, but the two handled it well. The best episodes of the 21 first season were "White People Renovating Houses", "Holiday Special", "Doubling Down", "Super Hard PCness" and the season finale "Splatty Tomato" that introduced us to the conservative White family and the hilarious use of the term “Thank god for the whites”.

Rating: 8.5/10

Honorable mentions: The Big Bang Theory, Arrow, The Gifted, Brooklyn Nine Nine, The Defenders, Iron Fist, and Lethal Weapon.

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roundtheworldrambles · 4 years

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Lake Tekapo, Mount Cook and Mueller Hut, New Zealand

Day 123 – Lake Tekapo and Dark Sky Reserve

I woke up in my camper well after the sun had risen, still a little tired after my many hours of driving the day before. Opening the trunk to make coffee in my make-shift kitchen, I finally had a chance to take in the landscape around me. Omarama is located in a highland basin of grassland, located between mountain ranges. The Ahuriri River ran directly next to my campsite, and as I packed up, fisherman began arriving, dressed in river waders for a day of fly fishing trout.

Heading North out of Omarama towards Twizel, my route was surrounded by wide, open plains, ringed with snowcapped mountains in the distance, including Mount Cook. This area of the South Island was where many scenes in Lord of the Rings were shot, as it was a stand in for the Kingdom of Rohan. The LOTR geek in me was pretty stoked, as I felt that I had been dropped directly into Middle-Earth!

As I continued north, Mount Cook loomed progressively larger on the horizon. The tallest mountain in New Zealand, surrounded by a jagged landscape of rock, ice and glaciers, Mount Cook was simply magnificent, even from a great distance. Its Maori name, Aoraki, is quite fitting, as it literally translates to “Cloud Piercer”. The mountain and the surrounding national park have long been popular destinations for Kiwi mountaineers, including Sir. Edmund Hillary – a New Zealander who was the first man to summit Mount Everest.

I stopped along the shores of Lake Pukaki to admire the stunning landscape around me. A bright, turquoise colour, the lake’s vivid shade was caused by glacial run-off, which carries minerals and finely powdered rock downstream in meltwater. Looking straight down the lake, Mount Cook towered over the far end, quite an impressive sight! Taking in the scenery, I spent some time wandering along the shoreline, taking photos, and admiring the pink and purple lupins scattered along the water.

Lake Pukaki

Leaving Lake Pukaki behind, I drove another 30 minutes before reaching my next destination for the night, at Lake Tekapo. This small hamlet is located on an equally scenic turquoise lake, slightly smaller thank Lake Pukaki. I checked into my campsite to park my camper, and wandered into the town of Tekapo for lunch.

I spent the following few hours relaxing along the waterfront and taking photos, before I had some seriously bad luck. My Nikon was (presumably) stolen – it was like it had vanished into thin air. To this day, I am still not exactly sure how it happened, as one moment I had the DSLR in my bag, and the next it was gone. My best guess is that I had left it on a picnic table when I briefly stepped away to take some photographs with my phone. It couldn’t have been more than 10 minutes between when I had last used it, and when I realized it was missing. Even more mystifying was that there was almost no one around in this small town. I was devastated. All of my photos from the previous days had been on that camera, along with all of the photos I had taken in previous countries and not yet downloaded onto my Ipad. The rest of my afternoon was blur – I searched the area methodically, asked everyone I met if they had found a camera, left my contact information with all of the businesses in town, and called in a police report with my contact information. Despite all of these steps, I never saw my camera again.

After my fruitless efforts to find my missing DSLR, I was feeling exhausted, isolated and very lonely. After a few pep calls from my family back home, I fell asleep for the rest of the afternoon in the back of my camper. Fortunately, I felt more upbeat after my long nap, and shifted into problem solving mode, researching and formulating a plan to replace my camera. Although the purchase of a new DSLR was certainly not in the trip budget I had originally planned, I knew that this was an investment that I would not regret, and would be well worth it for my remaining months of travel.

Lake Tekapo

As the night began to fall, a dazzling array of stars began to pop out overhead. Lake Tekapo is in the centre of the Aoraki Mackenzie Dark Sky Reserve, a designated 1,700 square mile area with very little light pollution to interfere with the observation of stars, galaxies and planets in the night sky. In other words – it was super dark! The streetlights in the town at night were also very dim, and spread out to a bare minimum.

Shortly before midnight, I bundled up and headed back into Tekapo Village, as I had booked a nighttime stargazing tour at the nearby Mount John Observatory. We boarded a bus equipped with special red headlights, to avoid interfering with the photometry of the telescopes. We were also given our own mini red flashlights to safely walk around the observatory grounds. As our bus wound up the mountain in the dark, our driver turned on some space themed music – from “Rocketman” to “Space Oddity”, pumping us up!

Mount John Observatory

Arriving at the observatory, our small group spent the next two hours observing the night sky, learning about the telescopes, the research conducted in the facility, and different types of celestial objects. Mount John Observatory has 5 massive telescopes, and countless smaller telescopes that we had a chance to look through. We got to observe and learn about globular clusters, the Magellan Clouds, the Gemini Twins, the Orion and Tarantula Nebulas, and Alpha and Beta Centauri, which form the Southern Cross (found on Australia and New Zealand’s flag). Incredibly, all of the large telescopes can be controlled remotely, and we saw one of the large telescopes move around – while being controlled from Boston!

That evening, the stars were brighter and clearer than I had even seen them, and I was completely mesmerized. I had always loved watching the night sky in Canada, and come from a family that does too (my dad literally bought a telescope as his “mid-life crisis”), and it was fascinating orienting myself to the Southern Hemisphere, with a brand-new set of constellations and stars. To cap it all off, we ended the chilly evening of stargazing with a steaming cup of hot chocolate – a perfect end to the perfect night.

Day 124 – Mount Cook and Mueller Hut

It was a spectacular, bluebird morning as I stocked up on groceries in Tekapo and retraced my route back towards Mount Cook. Driving the length of stunning Lake Pukaki, I arrived in Mount Cook Village shortly before noon. I checked in at the Department of Conservation office, and picked up a pass to stay at Mueller Hut, my destination for the night. Located on the Sealy Mountain range, this remote alpine hut is built at an elevation of 1,800m, and is surrounded by a ring of glaciers, ice cliffs, and New Zealand’s highest mountains, including Mount Cook. It is only accessible via an advanced alpine hike, and takes about 4 hours to get to from the trailhead.

I parked my campervan at White Horse Hill Campground, and packed my bag with the essentials I would need for the following 24-hours, including snacks, a bottle of wine (my post-hike reward!) a sleeping bag and many warm layers. Mueller Hut is a “pack-in, pack-out” hut, where all hikers must be completely self-sufficient, and leave no trace upon departure.

Sealy Tarns with Mount Cook and Mueller moraine in the distance

As I set off along the trailhead of the Sealy Tarns Track, I briefly facetimed a group of my friends back home, who were all up at my friend Riley’s cottage in Canada. In moments like that, technology amazes me – as I was able to show them Mount Cook and my hiking trail from the other side of the world! As I continued along the tramp, the path got progressively steeper, and before long I had a sweeping view of the Mueller Glacier and the terminal Mueller Lake, which was surrounded by a massive moraine wall (composed of debris left behind from the receding glacier). The landscape was vast, wild and desolate, and left me completely in awe.

Canadians approaching Mueller Hut

I stopped for a break at Sealy Tarns, and had the good fortune of meeting two Canadians from Vancouver, Brendin and Meghan, who were also heading to Mueller Hut for the night. Brendin was a professional photographer, and kindly offered to take some photos for me. This was a welcome suggestion, as I was definitely missing my DLSR this day, finding it was hard to capture the beauty around me with only an Iphone! We continued onwards towards the hut, ascending along a zig-zagging path of alpine scrub before reaching a challenging scree slope, loose gravel slipping easily beneath our feet. Passing through a large rock field over the ridge, the trail turned into a “choose your own adventure”, as we clamoured around massive boulders, trying to keep an eye out for the orange trail markers.

Mueller Hut

Finally, we caught sight of Mueller Hut in the distance. Bright red and located in the shadow of Mount Olliver, Mueller Hut was originally built in 1914, where it was used as a shelter when exploring the nearby glacier. Since this time, several new huts have been erected in the same location, although wintertime avalanches have destroyed several of these shelters in the past. The current hut was built in 2003 and was constructed on a strong platform and metal frame, designed to withstand severe alpine weather. Fortunately, since I was completing the hike in the summer, I did not have to worry about avalanches, although I could easily see how making this trek in the wintertime could be extremely dangerous.

Arriving at the hut, we could quickly see that it was designed for communal living – with a total capacity for 28 people, there were two rooms with stacked bunk beds, jammed closely together, and a large shared kitchen and deck. Next to the kitchen, there were rainwater tanks with potable water to use for cooking. A short distance from the hut, there were two elevated drop toilets, built on long stilts to ensure access during heavy winter snowfall. While the amenities were rustic (and private space virtually non-existant) I loved it! Over the rest of the day, I met many fellow hikers, mostly travelling from the UK, Israel and other parts of New Zealand. We were a congenial bunch, and later spent the evening playing cards and Combio, sharing our wine and food.

Mueller Hut

It was very cold and windy up at the hut, despite it being the height of summer. I spent some time wandering around outside, admiring the massive nearby glacier and eventually watching the sun go down over Mount Cook. Keas - alpine parrots endemic to NZ - flew overhead, occasionally landing to check us out. Nicknamed “the clown of the mountains”, I could quickly see that Keas were curious birds. A fellow tramper had left his backpack unattended, and it didn’t take long before the Kea was pecking away at it before being chased off. The hut warden laughingly told us that he had known of a Kea that once carried off a visitor’s passport – and warned us to be careful!

Along the glacier, long, thin waterfalls ran off the ice, carrying glacial meltwater into the valley below. Throughout the evening, we would occasionally hear loud booming noises, resulting from large chunks of ice calving off the glacier. As we all went to bed, we could hear the wind pounding on the metal siding of the hut, a powerful reminder of how unforgiving the alpine weather could be.

Day 125 – Mount Cook and Christchurch

View Over the Hooker Valley at Dawn

I woke up with a few other hikers at dawn to watch the sunrise over the mountains. It was a blustery, frigid day, and we were only able to catch glimpses of the sun through the heavy clouds which were drifting over the nearby peaks. With the hut warden advising us of bad weather expected in the alpine that day, I had a small breakfast and quickly packed up my sleeping bag and bag, preparing for my descent down the mountain. Dark, stormy clouds began to spill over the nearby glacier as I departed, and I hustled to get over the ridge and descend the treacherous, scree slope before the weather turned. Unfortunately, the speed at which I was descending quickly flared up my knee injury, and although I missed the rainstorm, my knee was very sore and tired by the time I returned to my camper.

Beginning of the downwards scramble

I rested and had some lunch in Mount Cook Village before heading back along Lake Pukaki, leaving the magnificent mountain range behind me. I briefly stopped back in Tekapo on my way out, a final attempt to see if any of the local businesses or police had found my camera –with no luck. This solidified my plan for the next day, as I decided to drive into Christchurch, the largest city on the South Island, to buy a replacement DSLR. I promptly booked a night at a Kiwi Holiday Park (looking forward to laundry and a hot shower!) and began the 4 hour drive Northeast to the city.

#newzealand

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claroquequiza · 7 years

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Identity asks: every questions except 17,23 26 and 27 =D

OH MY...

IN REFERENCE TO THIS POST:

1. if someone wanted to really understand you, what would they read, watch, and listen to?

This is difficult to answer because I have such spotty taste in everything--I rarely have more than one song by the same artist, for example, or read more than one book by the same author. SO, if you base your understanding of me on which works I have consumed more than one of from the same author, artist, or whomever, then a small list would be: Jane Austen, Arthur C. Clarke, Mercedes Lackey, Musouka (from FF.N) and Michael Crichton for authors, Studio Ghibli, Disney, Ang Lee, and Star Trek TNG and VOY for movies/TV, and ABBA, Adele, Annie Lennox, Bad Lip Reading, Belanova, Beyonce, Daft Punk, David Bowie, Dido, Efecto Pasillo, Enya, Florence + The Machine, Juan Gabriel, OK Go, P!nk, Queen, Regina Spektor, The Seatbelts, and Woodkid.

2. have you ever found a writer who thinks just like you? if so, who?

You know, I don’t think so--I have disagreements with the style, intentions, and beliefs of every writer I’ve ever read. It would almost be terrifying if I did find someone who thinks just like I do, like--WHO SENT YOU???

3. list your fandoms and one character from each that you identify with.

Overwatch: Hanzo

Pride&Prejudice: Mr. Collins (I don’t think I’m anywhere near as bad as him anymore, but when I was a kid...holy hell...)

Star Trek: Counselor Troi

Star Wars: C-3PO

4. do you like your name? is there another name you think would fit you better?

Daniel is an okay name! I don’t like its meaning much, though: God is my judge. Ew. I’m adopted, and I’ve met my birthmom, and for the three days before my adoption went through, she called me Esai, which is a bit more unique but means “God is salvation”. Not that much better than Daniel in implication. If I were to pick a name? I like wolves, so maybe Boris or Caleb.

5. do you think of yourself as a human being or a human doing? do you identify yourself by the things you do?

I’m definitely a human being, I’m not very dynamic at all. That’s a huge sticking point between me and my dad actually: he has a need to constantly be doing things and has a very strong sense of pride in his accomplishments, big or small. I don’t have that same sense of accomplishment, for almost anything really. My writing and my humor are almost my only sources of pride, really.

6. are you religious/spiritual?

Absolutely not! I was raised a devout Mormon, so I’m very familiar with a certain kind of religion/spirituality, but I’ve been at odds with it for almost as long as I can remember. Even when I was very young I was drawn far more to a more scientific outlook and believed in religion more as an aside more than out of personal devotion, at least until I was a teenager. But that was a short phase. Nowadays I’m a fairly hard atheist, meaning I don’t believe anything has a supernatural explanation, so--no, not religious, not spiritual.

7. do you care about your ethnicity?

LOL, I am 1/8 Navajo, and growing up I was encouraged to be far more proud of that than was merited. I know next to nothing about Navajo culture, but that didn’t stop me from telling people about it as though it meant something to me personally when it actually didn’t. I don’t do that much anymore--sometimes I fall back into the habit though, to my shame.

I don’t think much about the other 7/8, though I did do a DNA test a few months ago that suggests I may have a little bit of Moorish ancestry by way of Al-Andalus, which is interesting to me because I love Spain, but other than that I don’t think my personal connection to my ethnicity is anything to be proud of.

8. what musical artists have you most felt connected to over your lifetime?

Enya, Adele, and Woodkid.

9. are you an artist?

Naw! I used to aspire to be one, but I’ve only drawn once in the past few years.

10. do you have a creed?

I live mostly by the Golden Rule these days, but with caveats. Not everyone deserves its protection.

11. describe your ideal day.

Wake up after sleeping the whole night through, have a breakfast of pancakes and bacon, go the gym, come back to write a nice long chapter with a break for a lunch of pizza, and finish out the day watching something entertaining/informative with a nice big dinner of hamburgers or spaghetti before going to bed with a sense that the day was well spent.

12. dog person or cat person?

Both! Dogs and cats are both awesome! My dream is have at least one of each who are best friends with each other, but it’s unlikely because when I do get pets, I’m going to adopt them from a shelter, so they’re likely to be adults who will tolerate each other but not be good friends.

13.inside or outdoors?

Both! Inside when it’s cold, outside when it’s warm/hot!

14. are you a musician?

I can sing okay! I learned to play the viola and the clarinet when I was growing up, but I haven’t played either for a while. If I get the money, I might take up the viola again.

15. five most influential books over your lifetime.

Lord of the Rings, Andromeda Strain, The Last Herald-Mage, Pride&Prejudice, 2010: Odyssey Two

16. if you’d grown up in a different environment, do you think you’d have turned out the same?

NOPE. I am very much a product of my environment. The biggest factor in my childhood is the homophobic religion I was raised in--all things being equal, if I had been raised in an environment with a positive, neutral, or absent religion, my childhood would have been much, much better and I’d be a much healthier person.

18. what’s your patronus?

I haven’t been assigned one, but probably a cat or a pig.

19. which Harry Potter house would you be in? or are you a muggle?

I imagine I would be a muggle, but if I were a wizard, I would apparently be a Slytherin.

20. would you rather be in Middle Earth, Narnia, Hogwarts, or somewhere else?

I would like to live in the Star Trek universe. I think it has fairly positive outlooks and societal workings. I especially like the post-scarcity aspect that allows people to live their lives more or less independent of their chosen vocation. I’m sure it would be a paradise for artists and authors.

21. do you love easily?

I don’t know! I don’t think so, but I haven’t really been allowed or allowed myself to be in situations where I might fall in love. I don’t know whether that means I don’t love easily or just that I haven’t had the opportunity to.

22. list the top five things you spend the most time doing, in order.

Browsing the Internet

Writing

Holding Myself Back

Sleeping

???

24. have you ever felt like you had a “mind-meld” with someone?

Naw.

25. could you live as a hermit?

YES. That’s practically how I’ve been living lately--I’ve had a difficult relationship with society in general for the past year or so. The only caveat might be that I would still like an Internet connection, which probably doesn’t count as a hermit, but I've been thinking of disappearing into the wilderness.

28. on a scale from 1 to 10, how hard is it for someone to get under your skin?

On average? 5. Depends on the person, of course--if they’re conservative, it’s much, much easier. If they’re liberal, it’s harder.

29. three songs that you connect with right now.

New Rules - Dua Lipa

I Won’t Let You Down - OK Go

The Writing’s On the Wall - OK Go

30. pick one of your favorite quotes.

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

-Philip K. Dick

#asks #nimpnawakproduction

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autisticandroids · 7 years

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DS9 for the fandom ask

The first character I first fell in love with:

okay so storytime: i actually watched ds9 out of order, because when i’m at home i mostly watch trek with my parents. we were running out of good tng, and mum and dad were like “hey, everyone likes ds9 even though we hated it back when it aired, let’s watch it” and i was like “nooooooo, dataaaaaa” and they were like “we’re watching it.”

so we watched emissary and they were like “this sucks” and i was like “but i heard worf is there in later seasons let’s jump” and so i picked a random middle season and that’s how i started ds9 with season five.

anyway, the first character i really fell in love with was odo, oddly enough. or rather, not oddly at all because he is superficially smack dab in the middle of my Ideal Character Type, but i later got quite disillusioned with him because of the show’s uncritical attitude towards his Police-ness, the way he is set up as a Protagonist of the show instead of the lovable quirky side-boy, and his conspicuous lack of gender complexity (he is the most comfortably masculine of the spocks, and it’s a symptom of ds9′s uncritical valorization of masculinity, degradation of femininity, and specifically villification of male femininity)

The character I never expected to love as much as I do now:

okay so there are three answers to this that each deserve equal space.

first, ben. ben ben ben ben ben. my love, whom i adore, and care very much about. it took me so long to understand him.

i spent the first maybe..... two months? of watching ds9 ranting at my mother for three hours a day about how benjamin sisko had the possibility to be such a good character with so much potential if he wasn’t so INCONSISTENTLY WRITTEN. i really couldn’t understand him. i wanted to love him but i couldn’t get inside his head. i spent all of my time wishing that he’d been better written so i could have the character i wanted him to be

this has a lot to do with the fact that i need to understand a character’s ethical system, why they follow it, and what efects it has on them to really understand a character, especially in a series as driven by ethical dilemmas as star trek. most characters i get get a read on it fairly quickly. to use the other two characters i’m about to list here, julian bashir is an idealist, in a way that’s rooted in a combination of naivete and his raging god/hero complex. elim garak has no morality, just a system of loyalties that he will follow to the death, and a sense of propriety based on rather conservative cardassian ideals; this has a lot to do with his tendency to dehumanize other people, and to not see himself as a person with agency but rather as a tool, as well as his rather uncritical patriotism.

anyway, i just could not figure out captain sisko. i couldn’t do it. and then i read hollow men, and it all slid into place.

the funniest running gag/plot point in hollow men (which takes place directly after in the pale moonlight, an episode which i fumed about for WEEKS after watching it) is ben sisko going around to approximately every member of starfleet who outranks him and begging them to yell at and punish him. and none of them will do it, because he did, you know, actually do the right thing.

before this, i had assumed that his ethical beliefs had been carelessly and inconsistently written. after, i realized that he was actually a hypocrite, of a very particular type. specifically, three things are true about his worldview/psychology and they’re totally incompatible. first, he truly, genuinely believes that a Good Starfleet Officer is a Moral Paragon of Perfect Idealistic Purity. second, he is a pragmatist who will always, in the end, do what needs doing. but third, most importantly: he needs to believe that he is a Good Starfleet Officer. this is why he is always so surprised at himself when he must Do Something Bad, and yet always so willing to do it. why it always throws him into a crisis. he has to lie to himself about things in order to function. he’s also incapable of maintaining a healthy level of detachment from affairs at hand, even though in the end he will generally make the right decision. he gets very emotionally involved in things, in all sorts of way: he holds a personal grudge against eddington. he gets angry at garak at the end of in the pale moonlight. hell, he gets caught up by dukat’s friendly and charming demeanor and happily banters with him despite knowing he’s a monster. ben is very bad at taking a step back. and that was the piece i was missing.

next: julian. here’s the story on julian: whether i like a character depends very much on how they’re framed. and i fucking hated the framing he got from both the show and the fandom. i’m not interested in julian as the audience avatar the way he is framed in the show, nor am i interested in him as the naive baby/perfect caretaker/sidekick boyfriend/garak’s pet twink that he is in the fandom. i don’t care for it.

now, i thought i hated julian bashir in an uncomplicated way for a long time. but about four months into my watching of ds9, three things happened at once: first, i began bingeing season seven seven with my parents. you know, the season where julian goes off the rails to the point where the show can’t lie to itself anymore. second, i hit a string of julian/miles episodes on my own personal runthrough of the earlier seasons. and third, i realized that i talked more about julian bashir than almost any character except mr garak, and that....... normally doesn’t happen with characters i straight up hate.

julian is a perfect, beautiful nastyboy antihero who thinks he’s hot shit and the savior of the galaxy. and i love him for it. but i couldn’t love him for it when i thought that i was supposed to love him for being a different character. which he wasn’t.

third, and this is the one that’s gonna shock EVERYBODY: i didn’t like garak at first. and the thing is, garak is like odo: he’s my type, to a t. mr queercoded (ex-)villain, wildly gnc, utterly fucked up, no healthy coping mechanisms we die like men and yet still dangerous through all of it.

but see, i started with season five. and his first episode of season five involves him 1) being a racist asshole and 2) not doing anything else of note. so i was like ???????????? why don’t i love this guy like everyone says i should. sooooooo i went back and watched past prologue. and i didn’t care for it. past prologue is a VERY badly written episode, on a number of levels. first of all, garak doesn’t make any attempts to not be obviously suspicious. second of all, he CREEPS ON JULIAN IN THAT FIRST SCENE IN A WAY THAT MAKES MY SKIN ABSOLUTELY CRAWL JESUS CHRIST. third, it just isn’t a very good episode. imo.

AAAAANYWAY so instead of giving up like a sensible person i kept skipping through garak episodes one after the other. i enjoyed cardassians (although the resolution was, imo, Bad), and i absolutely LOVED profit and loss, (although that was as much for the quodo as for garak), and then i got to the wire. here’s the thing about the wire: it is a LOT of emotional turmoil for a character who we’ve only seen in three episodes. it helped me reconcile my biggest issue with garak (that he seems like a spy when he should be able to seem innocuous since he has spy training; he acts suspicious bc he was high and also as a form of self-sabotage) and it also made me more attached to both him and julian, but also...... after watching it, i felt like i should have been more invested going in. i felt like i didn’t Feel enough, because i didn’t know him (or julian, really) well enough.

so i kept going on my garakbinge. the first time i felt maybe a touch of the emotions i feel for him now was in second skin. it was when he vaporized that obsidian order agent after bantering with him and quipped “a shame, i rather liked him”. and then the other charcters turned and looked at him in absolute horror. deep in my gut i felt a little bell go off. a bell that said damn that is a good piece of writing. because like, action hero style quips right? actually kind of a brutal and terrifying concept. no one ever points that out. and like..... god damn is he quick with the quips.

and then.... then........

civil defense. civil defense helped me to truly understand what kind of monster garak is. what makes him tick. and it’s all in the scene where he insults dukat for hitting on kira. what he focuses on in his insults? the fact that dukat is married, and calling dukat unattractive. he focuses on dukat’s failings according to Propriety (that he’s slipping around on his wife) and as a man (that he’s an incompetent seducer/unnatractive). he doesn’t comment on the fantastic rapey-ness of the situation, doesn’t comment on the fact that what dukat wants is one last validation that his role in colonialism was justified/is forgiven. it showed me that garak dehumanizes everyone, yes, and thinks of himself as above everyone (except, as i was to learn later, the Objects of his Loyalty), but that he had two categories. non-cardassians couldn’t know any better. they were sub-cardassian by nature. they could never be held to the same standard. whereas cardassian should know better. they should be better. the fact that they’re not is their own personal failing. this racist principle controls garak’s entire way of relating to other people, and i didn’t understand him until i understood it.

and then........

improbable cause/the die is cast. never has a piece of television quite so effectively Totally Destroyed My Ass.

improbable cause is a smart little piece of comedy that brilliantly develops a relationship that has a ton of potential: garak&odo. they’re both brilliant on their own, but together they reach new levels, and the writing is glorious.

the die is cast is a harrowing walk through elim garak’s daddy issue riddled psyche and i don’t know if i could not-love any character after watching them go through that shit.

the mood whiplash between the two episodes is ingenious, the writing is tight, and the emotions? very real. i was so invested. i decided i was ready to die for elim garak at about exactly the moment odo punched him in the face.

The character everyone else loves that I don’t:

jadzia dax. she’s the only in the credits-main character who i truly cannot muster up some love for, somewhere. the only time i ever enjoyed an episode focused on her was rejoined (yeah, shocking, i know). jadzia dax is a sex object who is defended from accusations of being a sex object by doing two things: 1) giving her a superficial list of traits (sass, scientific knowhow, some fighting skills) associated with Strong Female Characters, and 2) making her a Mighty Whitey with the klingons.

but she isn’t actually a complex person. she responds to workplace sexual harassment and even stalking (lookin at u juli) by laughing and flirting back, and her sexual libertinism mostly serves to make her supremely available to all nearby men. if you are a young straight man in the audience, she is your wise mentor (but without any kind of power over you), your fuckbuddy (with no strings attached), your best friend and drinking (but without any of those nasty feminine interests and habits girls tend to have) and your girlfriend (but with no difficult Womanfeelings). ds9 has some really terrible gender bullshit and essentialism that we can blame for this. miles o’brien’s line about wishing keiko was more like a man in that one episode is a good example. it sounds gay, and it is, but it’s also underpinned by this terrible gender essentialist, heteronormative assumption that women are inherently alien to men and inherently difficult, (and also that men don’t have feelings/shouldn’t have feminine traits/yadda yadda). jadzia dax is the perfect woman for a man who follows this philosophy. she is a sexy woman who has none of the traits that make women difficult, won’t ever so no, and will always make things more fun without being a person in her own right.

the only time she ever gets to be a person on screen is when her gender is overridden by her performing the role of white audience avatar among the scary, barbaric, non-white-coded klingons. she is a textbook mighty whitey, an audience avatar who is instantly loved and respected by all klingons she meets, and can out-klingon most klingons as a party trick. it’s really absolutely disgusting and plays into ds9′s really bad racial politics and especially bad racial politics regarding klingons. like, she just waltzes into their culture and they shower her with adoration, and also she’s used to highlight the barbarism ds9 likes to portray klingons as having.

i’m gonna work myself up into a snit about ds9, klingons, and worf so i’m just gonna stop here, but, god DAMMIT,.

The character I love that everyone else hates:

there aren’t a ton of universally hated characters in the fandom? but ben sisko doesn’t get the three dimensional appreciation he deserves and i cringe every time i see him reduced to “baseball dad”

The character I used to love but don’t any longer:

odo and jadzia, but just so i can round this out with another character, i’ve gotta say quark sort of too. i still love him, and actually i still love odo too, but i no longer get excited when i see a quark episode because they’re so repetitive. as the series went on, quark got more and more shunted off into his own corner of the narrative and stopped being allowed to interact with others in meaningful ways, and that just made him less interesting to me? because without outside influence, quark is totally cyclical. he can’t develop. he’s trapped in his own trap and all his plots are the same. i love him but i need him to do something else for once. please.

The character I would totally smooch:

kira :3c

The character I’d want to be like:

i don’t normally take fictional characters as role models, because i tend to be more interested in them for their flaws than their virtues, but if i had to pick i would say ben.

The character I’d slap:

julian. deserves slapping but doesn’t deserve anything worse.

A pairing that I love:

:3c y’all know

A pairing that I despise:

all the het especially the canon het, garashir

#star trek #rape ment //#racism ment //#thanks for the ask!#bluespock

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