We return here to the wonders of Joss Whedon quotation after the discovery of a quite astonishing fact. Through conversation and conspiracy with Thief, it was discovered that there is no such event as Shiny Day. Now, I don't know entirely what to make of this. I imagine if I delved into the deep underworld of the Internet I would find some kind of Firefly/Serenity commemorating day, but...I mean...no Shiny Day? What madness is this?
I'm going to postulate some things here for a minute. First, Firefly isn't really, truly gone. Here I refer to another day event, Towel Day, that commemorates the awesome of the late Douglas Adams. Every May 25th since his tragic passing in 2001, fans of Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Adams' other works take a towel with them everywhere they go. I have done this two years in a row, both times taking the aforementioned item of bathroom-wear into my place of work and causing much amusement amongst my colleagues who hadn't a clue why I had a brightly coloured towel tucked in with my apron. I very much plan on doing it this forthcoming May 25th, too. Might even ensure that photographic evidence on hand as well.
So yes, Firefly isn't gone. Joss is still most definitely Boss, the impending release of The Avengers (or, for some reason in the UK, Avengers Assemble) will go and prove that. The cast are still around - Alan Tudyk being AWESOME at every he does and Nathan Fillion being ever so ruggedly handsome in Castle. So in that vain, there's really no reason to be commemorating something that isn't lost, not in the eyes of fans anyway.
Now as I said earlier, I may be overlooking the fact that there is an alternatively named day that commemorates Firefly and Serenity, but...it's not called Shiny Day. And I think that's just a little bit wrong...here's my case.
Shiny. It's a beautiful, versatile(ish) word. It has many, many real world applications and has such pleasant connotations that instead of saying of "okay" or "great", an expression of "Shiny!" can brighten someone's whole day. There's also phrases such as "Shiny, let's be bad guys" and "Everything's shiny, Captain" (particularly useful when pieces of your ship are breaking off).
The gist of this is, if no one's guessed already, "shiny" is an awesome word and one cannot honour it or its many uses without of course honouring its origin, the beautiful and wonderful show Firefly and the Big Damn Movie, Serenity. So I propose that, for 2012, we, the loyal Browncoats, establish Shiny Day - a day to wear our long coats of a brownish colour that we bought on sale, to say "Everything's shiny, not to fret" when things are blowing up around you and "Shiny, let's be bad guys" when shenanigans and capers are afoot. My suggestions for the precise date for Shiny Day are as follows:
- September 22 - In 2005, this was the date of Serenity's premiere in the United States.
- October 7 - Same year, only this time it was the UK premiere of Serenity.
- September 20 - In 2002, the original US airdate of Firefly.
- June 23 - birthday of Firefly creator Joss Whedon.
- March 27 - birthday of Nathan Fillion, everyone's favourite loveable rogue starship captain, Malcolm Reynolds.
- June 2 - birthday of Jewel Staite, the most loveable damn mechanic in the whole 'Verse and most frequent user of the term "shiny".
So there you have it, fellow Browncoats - Shiny Day. Who else is up for it?
First, some clarification. I'm not lost. Well, not geographically anyway. Metaphysically, maybe. I'm not angry, despite a day in the basement and the relentless tide of idle humans who had the opportunity to lounge about in the sun today while the rest of us pandered to their caffeine-craving whims. Also, I apologise for the bitterness. The heat makes me cranky.
However, I am armed.
Sort of.
I have to say, FedEx are frakking awesome. While the impending letter on import duty to be paid will likely put a downer on things, from shipping to delivery, it took them four days. Four days to get my latest item of QMx swag from California to Somerset.
Ladies and menfolk, I am now the extremely proud owner of a replica of the stunt pistol used by the one and only Captain Malcolm Reynolds of the Firefly-class transport Serenity.
All I need now is a long coat of a brownish colour.
But most importantly, I have my replica of Mal's pistol. It is sufficiently, if not - scratch that, IT IS - frakking exceptionally gorram awesome!
As has been promised, pictures will follow eventually. My dear friend Phoenix is still buried under mountains of work, but after that, a photo of me wielding Mal's pistol with the tagline "I aim to misbehave" (predictable, yes, but entirely necessary!) will be forthcoming.
In other news, still no new computer. Once again, a blog post is being composed from my housemate's Mac. Current soundtrack: Ketto - Bonobo. Always makes me think of jPod (series, not the book, though both are awesome) and Kam Fong. I swear, every time I hear this song I feel I'm about to bundled into a Chinese mafia kingpin's limo. To date, this still hasn't happened and as my iPod headphones died around the same time as my computer, these fears won't be surfacing on my walk to work. Or general walks into town. I do miss my soundtrack...
There's not much other news from the land of geekdom. It's pretty much my ownership of Mal's pistol. So let's talk about it some more.
It's a strange thing, finding such fondness and beauty in a weapon of all things, but from the first moment I saw it in Serenity (yes, I did the whole Firefly-Browncoat-fandom a bit backwards), I loved that pistol. From an aesthetic standpoint, it's a beautiful thing. It's the shape, it has all the right dimensions in all the right places. Though it may also be some kind of spiritual connection to the wielder of the weapon. There's no denying it - Malcolm Reynolds (and, by extension his actor, Nathan Fillion) is a damn fine and handsome man. And there's a little part (or maybe big part), I imagine, of many, many male Browncoats that look at Mal, aiming to misbehave with that pistol of his, wishing that they were him, that suave, down-to-Earth-That-Was and dashing rogue. Or you were me, wishing you were that loveable pilot, cursing dinosaurs for their sudden but inevitable betrayals.
If only I could pull off a Hawaiian shirt...
Speaking of these damn fine men, I was reading something rather amusing earlier - SFX magazine's Top 200 Sexiest Characters in Science-Fiction. They've paired their Top 100 Men and Top 100 Women lists and the pairings are more than a little gigglesome. And Number 5...yeah, dude, that is totally destiny.
Until next time my dear readers, I'm going to walk around with Mal's pistol looking gorram shiny.
