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[prepare4trouble]

 I feel like I haven't been on here for ages.  Probably because I haven't.  I haven't had the time.  My sister and her two kids were here all last week, dog-sitting while my parents were away and I was at work.  When I was home, I was either entertaining the kids, or watching movies with Jennie.  We got though four Star Trek movies, the Man From UNCLE (Which is much better on the second viewing, once the shock as worn off!) Deadpan, Death Becomes her, which is an old silly favorite from when we were kids, and Demolition Man, which is as well.  We also managed to go pottery painting, have a trip to the Humber Bridge park (Pokemon hunting!) and eat lots of take out.  It was a fun week.

Next week, we're all heading to Center Parcs, Mum, Dad, me, Jen, her husband and kids and the dog.  I'm looking forward to it, even though sharing a room with Poppy means I will never get enough sleep!  

Work is going well, though I;m glad to be getting a week off.  It's a bit scary though, like one of the managers told me how impressed her manager had been with me, and then She was telling another manager how well I was doing, and I was a little baffled because I honestly don't feel like I;m going that well.  I feel like I'm constantly asking for help, and struggling to put out one fire after another.  But I guess nothing has actually burned down yet, so maybe It's going better than I think.

I'm up late drinking beer tonight because Poppy I don't have to get up to take Poppy to karate tomorrow, she went today instead.  This will be my last lie-in for a week, so I'm going to take advantage by staying up late for no reason.

In other news, I finally got my hair cut today.  It's been about seven months, and I decided it was time to get the back trimmed so it was more even with the front.  It looks and feels so much better.  I should have done it months ago.  All I have to do now is decide what ind of a style I;m actually going to go for.  I'm thinking inverted bob, but I will need more length in the front.

Comments

[stardreamed]

Welcome back! *hugs*

Demolition Man? LOL It's funny, some of their predictions sort of came true. Wow... Haven't seen Death Becomes Her in years.

Still haven't downloaded pokemon go - not enough space on my phone. After archery practice last week, my brother caught a Pikachu in the parking lot. lol. It was pretty cool to watch.

I'm into covering that maternity leave - definitely putting out fires. I'm sure you're doing well. :)

Inverted bob sounds cool. Probably easy to take care of, too.

I saw you posted some more story! :) I noticed you mentioned the tea. Do we know how we want to add the flash backs? I was thinking of starting a google doc for the story. (Not to replace collaborative-daredevil, just to have a way to edit the overall story.) As we'd been going along, I'd been copying and pasting our posts into a word doc - it's easier for me to type in word, then paste into the comment window. A google doc would give us something we could both edit - you can even leave notes and track changes and stuff, it's cool. (I've been using it with my group BIS projects in school.) If you want, I could set one up. It'd be easy - I'd just have to copy/paste from the word doc I already started.

[prepare4trouble]

I'd not seen it in years either, I since I was a kid I think. We went through the downloadable movies on Sky and chose some very random stuff! Was fun though.

I still don't have a Pikachu. Seems like everyone else does. I'll get him eventually. I hear you can hatch them from eggs too, but no luck yet..!

Google docs sounds like a good idea. I've never used it before, but it sounds like a nice way of handling things. I type everything go up in open office or pages before I copy it to the comm too, it's much easier that way. Still not sure on the flashbacks tbh, not sure what would have to most impact. But if we're playing about with it, we can always change our minds later. I quite like the idea of these weird, disjointed bits where you don't quite know that's happening, like we played around with before, with it slowly starting to make sense as the sorry progresses. Might be tricky to pull off though.

[stardreamed]

I have the google doc set up. I just need an e-mail address you'd like to use for it so I can add you. (If you have a gmail account, those work best with it, but it does work with whatever. I've done it before.) The original word doc is 43 pages and 17241 words, not including the flash back training scenes. Holy cow. LOL.

Sorry, I meant to get this up a lot sooner. I got distracted by school & Nik. (We just got engaged. We're getting married next month. LOL.)

[prepare4trouble]

Wow, congratulations! Yeah, I can totally forgive you getting distracted with that going on!

The only google e-mail I have is the one I set up for my youtube bike cam vids, filmingmybikeride@gmail.com. My usual one is prepare4trouble@yahoo.com, so whichever one is best I don't mind.

I'm not on DW nearly as much recently, you probably announced your engagement in your blog, but I've been distracted by a new TV obsession, and hanging out on Tumblr trying to work out how the hell it works! Sorry! I'll get caught up soon. :)

[stardreamed]

Thanks! :) I think my last post has some of our vacation pics from Providence, RI. Some of them are zoo pics.

I added both so you can choose how you want to log in. (or do both.) I had started using google docs with my university address, but then found I couldn't log onto it with my tablet and phone (they're android, so I was already logged in as Stardreamed) so I switched. *shrugs* Wish I'd known how much would get tied to my e-mail name choice when I set it up years ago.

Yeah, on DW & LJ (still cross-posting - turns out a bunch of people I knew from way back when still Livejournal, plus I made a few new friends.) I have tumblr - I'm stardreamed over there, too. It's not nearly as active, but I use it to surf tumblr. (I think I've made 9 posts in 3 years.) I do a lot of the same stuff, so you probably haven't missed much. lol (Well, the archery is fairly new.)

Nerd stuff

[stardreamed]

I saw your fic with Kanan and the blaster. :) (I haven't seen the show, but it looks like it ticks a number of my boxes. Too bad it's not on Netflix. Darn.) That stuff where they're saying he's ambidextrous - it doesn't exactly work that way with shooting. (I have a pistol permit and do archery every week.) The hand you shoot with has more to do with your dominant eye. For instance, I'm, for the most part, right handed, but I shoot with my left because I'm left eye dominant. (It's called cross-dominance.) To shoot with your non-dominant eye, you have to adjust for windage. It doesn't really have anything to do with being ambidextrous - Kanan must've been pretty good at adjusting for his non-dominant eye. (Which is actually kinda hard. At least, in my opinion. That's why I shoot lefty and a lot of cross-dominant people shoot with their non-dominant hand.)

Also, when you get really good at shooting, you're supposed to make everything that goes into your shot (like proper form and the act of releasing or pulling the trigger) be unconscious. (Yeah, when it comes to archery, I'm definitely not quite there yet.) It's really meditative. My brother and I make "there is no spoon" jokes. The closer I get to that, the better my groupings. (Also, my eyesight kinda sucks - I can see the yellow bullseye, but I often cannot tell where my arrows hit on the target until we push the button to call it in, but I can certainly hit it.) So, my vote is that Kanan could definitely use the force and be accurate. Anyway, if it helps. *shrugs*

Re: Nerd stuff

[prepare4trouble]

No, it's a shame it's not on Netflix, that would have saved me from having to buy the DVDs. I've been watching it on Sky but they are removing the box set early next month, and I want to be able to rewatch. It airs on Disney XD though, so you might be able to catch it on there if you have the channel. The new season starts in just under 2 weeks, so they might be showing old episodes in preparation. Failing that, you should get the DVDs, it's worth it, trust me! :-)

That's interesting about the shooting, Ive never even heard of a dominant eye. I suppose that makes sense though, if you have the strength in your non dominant hand to hold the gun and pull the trigger the rest is about aim etc. So maybe Kanan has two dominant eyes, or he did. Is that a real thing?

I don't really have a dominant hand, I don't think. I'm not ambidextrous though, more like the opposite! The ed-psych at school said someone had forced me to use my right hand at some point when I was learning to write when I was supposed to use my left. I've never believed that though, I'm sure I'd remember it and my year one teacher was lovely, she wouldn't have done that. But anyway..

You should have commented some of that stuff about using the Force over on Tumblr, it might have cheered up the OP! :)

Re: Nerd stuff

[stardreamed]

Awes. I'll have to watch it. :)

There are left or right eye dominant people, or there's what's called center dominance. That's when you don't have a dominant eye. Someone without a dominant eye would need to shut one eye to shoot - that's not ideal. You can do it, but it's better to have both eyes open. The solution for center dominant people is to wear glasses and put dark tape on the off side lens of their glasses. Kanan probably has a dominant eye and he's just good at adjusting for windage when he shoots with his non-dominant eye. (If you shoot with your non-dominant eye, your shot will be off to the left or the right, depending. So, that's what he'd be mentally adjusting for. It's not easy.)

Also, he wouldn't really be looking down the barrel of his gun, because, actually, you don't want to aim it - you want your subconscious mind to take over. (Yes, use the sight, but you don't want to be looking at your gun or thinking about your shot too much, once you know proper form, etc., you just let muscle memory take over and your subconscious.) That's why I think shooting lends itself well to being a skill you can learn to do with the force.

I wonder if you're left eye dominant like me? I've wondered if I should've been a lefty - my right is more practiced at certain things, but at times my instinct is to do it lefty and my left is pretty good at doing things. Maybe the whole cross-dominance thing is a factor.

You can check for dominance by choosing a target in the distance, may your hands into a triangle and look through that to find the target. If you find one eye naturally closes, it's the eye that stays open that's your dominant eye. (If you're not sure, try looking with one eye, then the other - the one where the target jumps isn't it. If the target always looks the same, you're center dominant.)

lol. I need to figure out how to do that. I'm not sure yet how to comment on tumblr. Also, some people get weird about guns or have strong feelings about gun control, so I'm careful who I tell that I've had firearms training - I don't want to upset anyone. (My brother is a NRA certified instructor, too, so we're very safe. I think it's better to know what you're doing, so you're not trying to figure it out in an emergency. Even if it's just to unload the gun or recognize a hang fire. It's a good skill to have.) Even my fiancee doesn't want me to own a gun. I haven't fought him on this because they're very expensive, and I usually use my brother's or my mother's at the range. These days I'm more into archery, anyway. It's both cheaper and it makes you stronger, which I could really use. lol :)

Re: Nerd stuff

[stardreamed]

I was thinking why Kanan shoots with both hands... Maybe he's cross-dominant. I was thinking, maybe he learned with his dominant hand as a kid because he didn't know better and had learned to compensate. (People do this. There's no "wrong" side to shoot on. Ultimately it boils down to preference. It's just way easier with your dominant eye.) Then, later, he had some real lessons and trained himself to shoot with his dominant eye and found it improved his accuracy. Thus, he's proficient with both hands, but favors one over the other. :)

Re: Nerd stuff

[prepare4trouble]

That actually fits perfectly into his backstory. He was a Jedi Padawan during the Clone Wars and when Order 66 was given and the clones turned on them, he had to go into hiding. He wound up sheltering with a smuggler on his ship and he helped him blend in, change his clothes hair etc, and have him a gun. Just thrust it into his hands because a lightsaber would have been a dead giveaway. So he would have used his dominant hand instinctively because that's just what you'd do. He later joined the resistance, and though I don't know where he might have gotten training, it's entirely possible that someone gave him some pointers much later on.

On he other hand it could just be that the animators didn't realize he was using different hands in different episodes, but I like the other explanation better!

Re: Nerd stuff

[stardreamed]

I like it. :) I think that's my new head cannon, even if it's really the animators in need of better continuity. LOL. I managed to track it down - already saw the first episode and some of the second. It's cute. It's a bit like a Star Wars/Firefly fusion.

You know there's a race that's born without eyes in the Star Wars MMO game? I wonder if that's why they did that to poor Kanan. I saw the trailer for season 3 and his gear looks like what the Miraluka might wear in the MMO. (I used to play one, actually. Well, when I had time for computer games. lol.)

Re: Nerd stuff

[prepare4trouble]

No, I didn't know that. I've never really been a gamer. Or at all, actually. For some reason I never got into it. It's possible that there are links there though, a few people have also mentioned another game character, whose name I can't remember right now, a Jedi who was blinded in similar circumstances, saying there may be a link to him too. Could be a combination of the two.

Yay, so glad you managed to find the series. The Firefly comparison is very accurate now I think of it, never thought f it before, but that may be one of the reasons I like it so much! And yeah it is cute, much more so that the Clone Wars was (did you see that? There are quite a few links between them, but not enough that you need to have seen it) but it becomes less so as it progresses.

Re: Nerd stuff

[stardreamed]

I have a thing for MMO's like SWTOR and WOW, but they're a huge time suck, so I haven't been playing this past year. I checked - SWTOR isn't considered Star Wars cannon anymore, just like the expanded universe, so who knows if the Miraluka are even a race in the show's universe. But, that head covering had made me wonder if Kanan got it from them, maybe spent some time with them to better his force sight (that's how they see - they're a very force sensitive near-human race), or the show was trying to promote the game or something. lol. Maybe they were talking about Rahm Kota? He's in a different game, but he gets blinded by his future apprentice.

I hear Clone Wars is supposed to be good and that David Tennant even does one of the voices, but I haven't seen it.