Fan theories are alternate ideas/interpretations for movies, music, books, etc.
One of the top-rated AskReddit threads of all time asked for people’s favourites. That got responses including this one which blew my mind. (Warning: these fan theories often will change your perspective on beloved pop culture items in a way that you’ll never be able to undo!)
If that thread appeals, you should also check out /r/fantheories
My Facebook feed was filled with people talking about the weather, posting screen grabs of The Weather Network (did we really hit-50 with wind chill? Was Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan really the coldest place on the planet today? Was the average temperature in Saskatchewan closer to the surface temperature on Mars than in Toronto? Yes to all of the above!).
Now, I do happen to believe that climate change is real. But I did note on the supper news that between 1931 and 1937, there were record highs of +9 and record lows of -43 within those six years which is the type of evidence of extreme temperature swings that some people use to explain climate change today.
I stumbled across this song on Rdio.com the other day and thought it was extremely fitting for the winter we’re having…
(I’ll use the “cool” tag but not for the reason I usually do – ain’t I clever?)
The snow in our neighbour’s yard is taller than Pace…
(And if he looks grumpy, you would be too if your dad made you stop on the walk to the babysitter’s to take a picture in in -40 weather!)
Back from a four-day weekend in Winnipeg where I was (mostly) unplugged – although I did send out one last membership pitch from the Tim Horton’s in Brandon on Friday afternoon which indicates that I’m either really dedicated or really deluded!
I did see a few things as the membership deadline approached that made me realise that “momentum” has become my most hated word of the Sask NDP leadership campaign.
At different times, all candidates have claimed “momentum” – I think Erin Weir was the first to toss out the word right at the start of the leadership race, citing his endorsement by 50 economists and his strong social media showing.
More recently, Cam Broten announced via e-mail blast that a series of endorsements – most notably by Allan Blakeney’s wife, Anne, and the United Steel Workers – were a sign of that campaign’s momentum.
Trent Wotherspoon also claimed momentum after getting the endorsement of MLA, Buckley Belanger.
The Meili campaign has claimed that mantle too although if I step back and try to be unbiased, I’d say he has the most legitimate claim to having “force or speed of movement” via a wide number of metrics beyond just endorsements. The Meili campaign has the best fundraising, best single fundraising month, most Facebook Likes, (and possibly) the most new members signed up or renewed of any campaign.
That said, momentum is a funny thing and can swing greatly depending on all types of factors. With just over a month left in the leadership race, I think the real question isn’t who has the momentum so far but who can build on their existing momentum in the final month.
And I think the other real question is: is there a better word than “momentum” that campaigns can use to try to convince us that they’re the campaign to watch? 😉
Since at least 2003, TL;DR which means “Too Long; Didn’t Read” has been used as a reply to a much longer post on a message board or other places to indicate that the replying user didn’t bother to read the comment because it was too long (which is probably pretty self-evident.)
On Reddit, they tend to use a slight variation. There, TL;DR is commonly used pre-emptively by the person making a long comment by adding a brief comment at the end of the post that summarizes what has been said for anyone without time (or just too lazy) to read the whole post.
A recent Reddit thread used this convention to great effect by asking Redditors to submit the TL;DR version of their favourite philosophers, getting responses about everyone from Plato to Camus to Captain Picard and Homer Simpson or this top-rated comment which is a grab bag of all the big names.
Ten years ago, Shea and I got married on a beach in the Mayan Riviera during a week long winter holiday as our parents and a handful of other guests looked on.
Tomorrow, we leave on a trip to celebrate our 10 year anniversary with a long weekend trip to Winnipeg.
Some people would probably say we’re going backwards or doing something wrong. But we’re going to have Pace with us, Kate will warm and safe in mommy’s tummy and both sets of parents will once again join us. Plus I’m sure the humidity in the pool area will more than make up for the lack of a sandy beach (or at least that’s what I keep telling myself!)
To all the trips to come…
Inspired but tired after very fun night out at Ryan Meili’s “A Night To Re-Membership” event at the Artful Dodger. So I’ll just post a quick photo before bed and perhaps add more thoughts later!
There’s less than a week left until the deadline for selling NDP memberships (how did that come up so fast?)
I’ve spent the evening spamming reaching out to pretty much any potential NDP member in my Facebook friends list (so I expect to be de-friended by quite a few people by tomorrow!) 😉
This exercise does bring up one interesting observation – one of the things that the NDP needs to do to re-build is to reach out beyond their traditional supporters and bring more people into the tent. And from what I’ve seen so far, I think Ryan’s been incredibly successful at this – at least partly because he’s already attracted a group of supporters who aren’t traditional NDP members. That means the friends of these people aren’t likely to be active NDP members either but are very open to personal approaches from their friends about joining the party.
That means Ryan’s campaign is bringing in former supporters of the Green Party and the Sask Party; artists & business people; new immigrants to Saskatchewan and people who’ve lived here their whole lives but have signed up for a political party membership for the first time in their lives; plus many many more.
It’s been a wonderful thing to be a part of and I hope the NDP’s membership chooses to elect Ryan Meili in a month and half so he can continue building this amazing coalition!
“Dad, to aliens, people are the aliens.”
Killed two birds with one stone today – coming down to Weyburn for the latest #skndpldr debate and also getting to spend the night with Shea’s folks. Shea and I got to work Ryan’s table at the debate and, as usual, I’ve got a lot of random thoughts from the day…
– I’ve been to two debates now – Regina and Weyburn – and watched bits & pieces of various others online. And wow – I don’t know how the candidates keep their focus! It’s always new information for each audience but for the candidates, they’re probably at the point that they know what each other are going to say before the other one says it. Coincidentally, my best personal analogy to understand what this must be like also has a Weyburn connection. When I was Branch Supervisor for Southeast Regional Library working out of Weyburn, I had to visit each of our 46 small town branches over a period of about two and a half months. During that time, I delivered a 3-hour training session on the Internet, popular web sites and social media to all of our branch librarians. By about day 5, I had my patter down and by about day 10, I felt like I could pretty much do my presentation on auto-pilot, with some of my “quips” even being quite rehearsed. I wasn’t debating anyone (at least usually, depending on how the training went!) but like the candidates who get at least a little variety in terms of the questions they’re asked and even the order they speak in, I got variety from the different skill levels each branch librarian possessed and some of the rabbit holes we went down depending on the questions I got and/or the interests of the person getting the training. But I think the biggest similarity is that I never stopped enjoying it because I loved what I was doing – which I suspect is how the four candidates also manage to keep these debates fresh for themselves.
– Speaking of Southeast Regional Library, the debate was held at the Weyburn Legion Hall which is where we held most of our large SRL events. I organized three different staff days during my year and a half contract and also attended as many regional board meetings at the Legion. Lots of fun memories in that building – from making a presentation for SRL to create a digital branch (#GeekLibrarianFail) to staff kindly clapping as HQ staff were introduced but giving our payroll person a standing “O” to being introduced to a new colleague who soon after proceeded to slurp a spilled beer off the table, downstairs at the Legion Bar, at the end of my first day of work (which also happened to be a regional board meeting.)
– Best neck tie? Easily Cam Broten’s bright orange one. Not only does it evoke the NDP but it could also be used as a hazard flag if you hit the rhubarb driving down! 😉
– Cam introduced himself to me when he first arrived which was nice – just as it was nice when he introduced himself to me at a couple other events during the race. 😉 (I do feel sympathy for the candidates on that too – how do they possibly keep track of names and/or faces of all the people they meet?)
– Got to meet Trent Wotherspoon and Erin Weir’s dads who were traveling with their boys. Both seemed like great, personable guys – you can see how their boys grew up to be politicians. (Also couldn’t help that Mr. Weir sports a beard. Perhaps he’s a secret Ryan Meili supporter?) 😉
– Funniest comment of the day goes to Trent Wotherspoon. He’d already tweeted about how good his aunt’s cinnamon buns were and also mentioned this from stage during one segment. But rather than leaving well-enough alone, he said something like “Some people might say she has the best buns in the southeast too, I guess!” I’m not sure if he was being sincere (in that he meant her dinner buns), going for the double entendre or if he kinda mixed a bit from Column A and a bit from Column B with this line. But the crowd seemed to think he was making a joke about his aunt’s booty and he got the biggest laugh of the day as a result.
– Not sure why that story reminded me of this but I’ve noticed that each of the candidates has a different quirk that sort of defines their stage presence:
– What else? Shea’s uncle has been a party stalwart in SE Saskatchewan for many years and even got a shout-out from Trent during the debate (which I joked to Shea meant that Trent’s guaranteed himself at least one vote!)
– That also led to a slightly awkward moment when someone came up to the table having mistakenly thought Shea was her uncle’s daughter rather than niece. Shea’s uncle had also told this person that Shea and I were brand new to the party. (“Well, pretty much everybody who’s joined the party since 1970 is brand-new to Shea’s uncle”, I explained.)
– I don’t know – what defines “new” in terms of the Sask NDP? I can say that I bought my first membership in 2001 and have been very active since 2009 so am I “new”? It’s an important question because it’s a theme running through the leadership race too – how long has Ryan been active (both longer and more active than most people realize I think.) Did Trent work for the Liberals before becoming an NDP MLA as Erin accused mentioned at a recent debate? (Me: Who cares?) Who’s got deeper party roots – Erin who’s spent 15 of his 30 years active in the party or Cam whose grandpa was a CCF MLA? (Again – who cares? Shouldn’t we try to expand the tent rather than having people pass a purity test to be NDP leaders – either in terms of length or depth of involvement? Tom Mulcair got some of that too and he seems to be working out just fine.)
[Edit: A representative of the Erin Weir campaign has contacted me to clarify that the mention of Trent Wotherspoon working for the Liberals wasn’t meant as an accusation but as an example of the “expand the tent” mentality I mention later in that same paragraph. If you watch the clip, I think it’s probably best characterized as a backhanded compliment at best – especially given how Trent reacts during his next chance to speak. I don’t really have a dog in the fight so am happy to approve any comments from either camp who want to clarify or discuss the point further.]
– I’ve frequently talked about my connections to Weyburn – from my mom going to high school there to my parents getting married to Shea also doing her high school there, my work with Southeast Regional Library and how Shea’s folks now live in Weyburn. That meant there were lots of people at the debate who we knew – either from the library or that Shea went to high school with or whatever – or that knew her parents or that we had some other connection to. I mean, that happens anywhere you go in Saskatchewan but is probably never more pronounced than when we’re in Weyburn. And I love it! 😉
– Erin Weir joked in his opening remarks about how all the candidates would probably take advantage of being in Weyburn to continually evoke Tommy Douglas but I think Trent was the only offender (a double-offender actually – tweeting a shot of his volunteers at the Tommy Douglas statue before the debate and quoting Tommy Douglas in his closing remarks – although if memory serves, he does that as part of his closing in every debate.)
– We came down early to get to Shea’s parents’ so I was also the first to arrive to set-up our candidate table and I think the NDP HQ staff deserve *major* kudos for all the work they do to put on these debates, often behind-the-scenes before anyone arrives and after everyone’s left. Craig and Rick and Aaron and Aaron and apologies to anyone else I missed (and those are the ones I met there today – there are other staff who go to different debates at different times.)
– one good way to judge how the debate went is to watch which tables get the most visitors after the debate. And I didn’t notice how busy the other candidate’s tables were…because I was so busy at Ryan’s! 😉
– oh, and a good strategy if you have a snarky comment occur to you if you’re live tweeting a debate is to type up the tweet, save it as a Draft then delete it later (being *very* careful not to hit “Send” by mistake!) Or you could hypothetically use some of those comments to write a blog post! 😉
