The Journal of the Browncoat Cat

Over the past week I have been painting the woodwork in my hallway and my staircase with white gloss paint, in the evenings after work. It looks great once it is up, but why does it have to stink so badly when it is being applied. My friend Sharon has suggested that I add a few drops of vanilla essence to the paint to reduce the unpleasant smell. Anyway, I have to get more paint today, perhaps this tin will not have such a pungent odour, if not, in with the essence.

Comments
Gerard Whittle (4.5.04 20:29)
maybe you can help me. i’ve got quite a bit of gloss paint and i need to reduce the amount of gloss or shine from it. is there anything that i can add to the paint before i use it that will reduce the gloss when it dries?

(5.5.04 00:41) Sorry, can’t help. I just schlep the stuff on my woodwork.

Firefly Episode 13 (1AGE13)
The Message
Writen by Joss Whedon and Tim Minear

Plot:
When the Serenity arrives at a Mail Station to pick up supplies and any post the crew might have been sent, Mal and Zoë are surprised to find they have been sent a large wooden crate. Upon opening it, they discover that it contains the body of a wartime colleague. As the Serenity is leaving the station, an Alliance Police vessel is docking. It appears that the three Feds aboard want the body that Mal has just taken possession of. Another surprise is that the dear departed Private Tracy is not as dear or as departed as it might appear, he is using his body to smuggle illegally enhanced organs. Tracy tries to hijack one of the shuttles, using Kaylee as a hostage, and is shot by Mal. After a tense cat and mouse chase, the Feds are allowed aboard Serenity. However, they are persuaded to leave without Tracy, who now really is dying, after Shepherd Book points out that they are way out of their jurisdiction, on an unauthorised mission and would be in more trouble than the crew of the Serenity if the truth were ever to surface. Shortly afterwards, Serenity delivers the body of Tracy to his family.

Thoughts:
This has to be one of the most sombre episodes of Firefly so far, touching on issues such as death, responsibilities, friendship and ethics. It is also extremely claustrophobic, from the huckster’s booth on the Mail Station, all the way through to the confrontation in the cargo hold of Serenity, everything is dark and oppressive.

(more…)

Last night the SCI-FI Channel treated us, with the broadcast of an episode of Joss Whedon’s “Firefly”, which has yet to be shown by FOX in the USA. I love this series, and resent the way that it was treated by US network television, cancelled before it had a chance to shine.
If you have not seen this series, it is set in the year 2517 and tells the story of the crew of a firefly class freighter the Serenity, her crew and passengers. The crew consists of:

• Malcolm Reynolds (Captain and owner),
• Zoe (second in command),
• Wash (Pilot and Zoe’s husband),
• Jayne Cobb (mercenary, and despite his name, very male),
• Kaylee Frye (Ship’s Engineer)
• Simon Tamm (Ship’s Doctor).

The passenger are:

• Shepherd Book (a Monk),
• River Tamm (Simon’s damaged sister) and
• Inara Serra (a Companion who has rented one of Serenity’s shuttles).

Earth has been abandoned, and humanity has spread out across a system of over 800 terraformed planet and moons, ruled by the Alliance. Many of the border worlds are so poor that they have revereted back to wild west frontier level technology, whilst others have especially those close to the Core of the Alliance have all the latest gadgets. The Alliance is bilingual, with two language being English and Mandarin Chinese. People in the ‘Verse (short for Universe) as inhabited space is known will liberally pepper English conversations with Mandarin phrases. (more…)

It has taken three years, but on Saturday night, my house was finally in a fit state for me to move in.

When I bought it, the house had been empty for about 15 years and had not been decorated since the early 1970’s. There was a decrepit central heating system, the electrical wiring was a joke (it still had old-fashioned round pin sockets) and the roof over the lean-to was letting in water like a sieve. Now, there is a brand new central heating system, the house has been completely rewired, and the lean-to has been replaced with a proper breeze-block and tiled roof structure.

I still have plenty of work to do down there. As I said, the last time it was redecorated was April 1973, I can say this without a shadow of a doubt, as old newspapers from that month were used to cover over cracks in the wall before some of the most hideous wallpaper I have ever seen went up. Did the entire World have its taste removed for that decade.Things left to do:

• Tile the kitchen floor and walls
• Paint the dining room
• Fit 1930’s style light switches to match the original tiles on the floor of the hallway
• Carpet the study and landings upstairs

I don’t think there is anything I have forgotten.

Comments

anonymous (28.7.03 14:49)
Let me guess; you bought this place near London for £1.2 million? Or in N. Wales for £719.00?
Cheers

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Lets try again, shall we.
Hello, my name is John Campbell Rees, and this is my web log.

Comments
anonymous (26.7.03 22:16)
hello