BC Holmes

BC Holmes

@bcholmes.org

One part Pip; one part Estella Trek nerd. Queer 🏳️‍⚧️. Programmer and pro-grammar. IDIC means Black Lives Matter and trans rights! I'm not going to read your Substack article. I maintain the STA Character Creator. she/her

583 followers2.1K following1.2K posts

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I'm an "Even more free content." Go me!

Modiphius@modiphius.bsky.social

Star Trek Blog! Over the years we have accumulated both paid and free content for players to fully immerse themselves in our Star Trek Adventures RPG. This week Jim Johnson goes over where you can find some of the best free content Modiphius has to offer buff.ly/cQNk1Vc #Startrekadventures #TTRPG

Re: Walter Koenig I saw _Moontrap_, a really bad sf movie with Koenig and Bruce Campbell. But there's a part of me that'll always remember the gold lamé-wearing character that he played on _The Starlost_. (I'm Canadian; we were legally required to watch it)

Every once in a while, I kinda wish someone would pick up this property and make a more hard-sf reboot of it. I remember back on the bird-site-of-yore, the James S.A. Corey account mentioned having a really cool idea for rebooting _Space: 1999_. I'd love to see them tackle _The Starlost_.

BC Holmes reposted

My heart is heavy. Walter Koenig, our Ensign Pavel Chekov, passed away early today. Walter and I met on the bridge of the Enterprise in the 1960s, and we stayed friends for nearly six decades. When Brad and I married in 2008, Walter stood beside us as our best man.

I eat a lot of bagels. I used to get bagels from the in-house bakery at my grocery store. I'd include bagels as part of my online orders, and I'd get a dozen, or a dozen and a half, fresh bagels. I'd stick them in my freezer and pull them out, one at a time, to make lunches or whatnot.

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I now alternate the stores I order my groceries from because one of the stores won't sell me pastrami. Like... seriously? You have pickle-flavoured mayonnaise, but figure there isn't a sufficient payback for pastrami?

Back in the '90s, there was a show called _Two Fat Ladies_. Two gourmands would make and/or eat food and ride around on a motorbike with a sidecar. And a recurring riff they'd do was complain about how awful supermarkets are. I didn't get it then. I get it now.

I eat a lot of bagels. I used to get bagels from the in-house bakery at my grocery store. I'd include bagels as part of my online orders, and I'd get a dozen, or a dozen and a half, fresh bagels. I'd stick them in my freezer and pull them out, one at a time, to make lunches or whatnot.

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The guy who owns the shop tends to deliver them himself. The store isn't far away, and I think he likes not having to pay someone to do the delivery. Two hours ago, he handed me two and a half dozen of the freshest bagels I might have ever seen. I toasted one for my lunch sandwich.

I've always had this wonder about high-volume, low margin places like grocery stores. Their math is "we want to sell more of the things with higher margins, and fewer of the things with lower margins." But when they start dropping the things that I want to buy, I have to go elsewhere.

I eat a lot of bagels. I used to get bagels from the in-house bakery at my grocery store. I'd include bagels as part of my online orders, and I'd get a dozen, or a dozen and a half, fresh bagels. I'd stick them in my freezer and pull them out, one at a time, to make lunches or whatnot.

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But I eventually found a bagel place, just a bit north of me. With same-day or later delivery (if I order enough at one time). Next day delivery is the only practical option, 'cause if you order a certain volume of bagels, they end up not having enough prepared.

Good variety, although irritatingly one of my favourite flavours is available but not orderable on their web site. I usually get a Sunday delivery (I speculate that Sunday is a not-terribly-busy day for them, but I don't know). Recently I noticed that I was running low, and I made an order.

I eat a lot of bagels. I used to get bagels from the in-house bakery at my grocery store. I'd include bagels as part of my online orders, and I'd get a dozen, or a dozen and a half, fresh bagels. I'd stick them in my freezer and pull them out, one at a time, to make lunches or whatnot.

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Those first bagels were Montreal-style, but I guess, at some point, I started eating New York-style and that became my default). Anyway, when the grocery store stopped selling bagels that I wanted, I tried to look for a replacement source.

I tried different bagel places on my food delivery app. Skinny, anemic bagels, all of them. Someone on Gander (I think) suggested a few places in Toronto: all of them too far away and no delivery options.

I eat a lot of bagels. I used to get bagels from the in-house bakery at my grocery store. I'd include bagels as part of my online orders, and I'd get a dozen, or a dozen and a half, fresh bagels. I'd stick them in my freezer and pull them out, one at a time, to make lunches or whatnot.

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They were unsatisfying bagels. Skinny, anemic bagels. I hadn't really paid too much attention to the difference between Montrea-style bagels versus New York-style bagels, but I now understand that I'm pretty firmly in the New York-style camp.

(I could put an aside, here. I had never had bagels growing up. My family never ate them, and if I'm honest, I'm not sure any place sold them in the barren frontiers of Sarnia. My first bagel came when I lived in Toronto: there was a little neighbourhood bakery where I first lived.

I eat a lot of bagels. I used to get bagels from the in-house bakery at my grocery store. I'd include bagels as part of my online orders, and I'd get a dozen, or a dozen and a half, fresh bagels. I'd stick them in my freezer and pull them out, one at a time, to make lunches or whatnot.

Then, for some reason, the grocery stopped offering store-baked bagels. Well, I mean, I probably know the reason: they did some spreadsheet somewhere and decided that bagels didn't meet some profit threshold. Instead, the only options available were pre-bagged bagels sold in half-dozen packages.

How many Scaramucci's do we think Zacharia will be around? We thought Hegseth was done after Signal-gate, and yet he's still around.

Olivia Chow posted this on Faecebook. I'm just remembering how people rolled their eyes at Jen Keesmaat for endorsing the idea of "Province of Toronto".

I've early-voted in the municipal election and voted for Chow (and Ausma Malik for city councillor). I'm not gonna lie: it bugs me that Chow has no presence on BlueSky.

BC Holmes reposted

Russian bot traffic has dropped to nearly 0 after Ukraine struck a Yandex data center in Vladimir, Russia

Anonymous@youranoncentral.bsky.social

Ukrainian drones struck three Yandex data centres in Russia, shutting down two and crippling the third. The attacks disrupted more than 80 services, including banking, transport and cloud infrastructure, following Russian strikes on Ukrainian data centres.

I have a long history with the movie _The Silence of the Lambs_. I think I've seen it about a dozen times in cinemas, and many more on DVD or streaming. That's an unusually large number of time for me to see a movie, but spending a lot of time in cinemas wasn't usual.

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I also found myself wondering if Ardelia is actually named in the film. Starling addresses her, faux-formally, as "Agent Mapp" during their graduation party, but I'm not sure we hear her called Ardelia.

I *think* it was some time in the nineties I realized that Lt. Boyle, the officer who takes authority for Lector when he's transferred to Tennessee, was played by Charles Napier, who also played space-hippie Adam in the old _Star Trek_ episode "The Way to Eden". (Yay, brother!) Cannot unsee!

I have a long history with the movie _The Silence of the Lambs_. I think I've seen it about a dozen times in cinemas, and many more on DVD or streaming. That's an unusually large number of time for me to see a movie, but spending a lot of time in cinemas wasn't usual.

View full thread

91/92 was pre-transition for me. Back then, I took Lector's assertion that Buffalo Bill was not a real transexual at face value, and rejected the idea that he was a negative portrayal of trans people. Those themes sit differently now. "Transsexuals are very passive," Starling tells me. Harumph.

(I'm reminded a bit about Jen Richards role in the _Clarice_ TV series -- such a disappointing show, although Jen was great, and I loved the stuff they did with Ardelia Mapp. The idea that Jen gets to call out -- in the text, itself -- the Buffalo Bill / evil transsexual trope gave me life).

I have a long history with the movie _The Silence of the Lambs_. I think I've seen it about a dozen times in cinemas, and many more on DVD or streaming. That's an unusually large number of time for me to see a movie, but spending a lot of time in cinemas wasn't usual.

View full thread

This used to be my favourite thing in the world. And I'm not saying I had a bad time. I didn't. But I didn't *love* the experience. Too many people. Too loud. Change! It happens! It's so weird. Who even was I then?

Additional things I found myself thinking about: At the time I watched it, I loved the presentation of strong women. Starling, of course. But also Catherine, who was executing her own escape plan. Today, the feminism seems pretty milquetoast. "It matters," Starling says in gentlest of chides.

I have a long history with the movie _The Silence of the Lambs_. I think I've seen it about a dozen times in cinemas, and many more on DVD or streaming. That's an unusually large number of time for me to see a movie, but spending a lot of time in cinemas wasn't usual.

View full thread

I was quietly annoyed at the people hemming and hawing in the aisles, trying to decide where they wanted to sit, as the previews were airing. The flash of light from the woman on the other side of the aisle who needed to check her cell while Lector was discussing fava beans.

And the print was showing its age: the audio warbled, and suffered a terrible case of the rice krispies. And it was really fucking loud.

I have a long history with the movie _The Silence of the Lambs_. I think I've seen it about a dozen times in cinemas, and many more on DVD or streaming. That's an unusually large number of time for me to see a movie, but spending a lot of time in cinemas wasn't usual.

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And we did. There was a time the Revue was being managed by an old friend of mine from Sarnia. That hasn't been true for a long time. But, whatever. It was a sold out showing.

Me, my partner, and Diane were in line about 50 minutes before showtime. First time I've stood in a cinema line-up for -- I wanna say 7, 8 years? I *think* _Black Panther_ might have been the last film I saw in theatres. That would have been 2018. I've lost all of my tolerance.

I have a long history with the movie _The Silence of the Lambs_. I think I've seen it about a dozen times in cinemas, and many more on DVD or streaming. That's an unusually large number of time for me to see a movie, but spending a lot of time in cinemas wasn't usual.

View full thread

The theatre was usually too cold, and too loud. Often, in the first few minutes of the film, some asshole who arrived late wanted to shimmy past me to get at an empty chair beside me.

So, last night, the Revue Cinema -- one of Toronto's long-lived repertory theatres -- had a showing of _The Silence of the Lambs_. My friend, Diane, who went with me to so many of those viewings in 1991/92, pointed it out and suggested we go for old times' sake.

I have a long history with the movie _The Silence of the Lambs_. I think I've seen it about a dozen times in cinemas, and many more on DVD or streaming. That's an unusually large number of time for me to see a movie, but spending a lot of time in cinemas wasn't usual.

View full thread

I remember seeing _The Silence of the Lambs_ at the Ontario Place Cinesphere, in a double feature _Bram Stoker's: Dracula_. Toronto's only IMAX theatre. Hannibal Lector's face staring directly at the audience, several stories tall, carefully enunciating, "That is incidental!"

At some point I stopped going to the cinema. I still loved watching moves. But watching them on DVD or video was enough. Not gonna lie: cinemas made choices that started to drive me away. Previews started being preceded by minutes of advertising. The price of popcorn was through the roof.

I have a long history with the movie _The Silence of the Lambs_. I think I've seen it about a dozen times in cinemas, and many more on DVD or streaming. That's an unusually large number of time for me to see a movie, but spending a lot of time in cinemas wasn't usual.

View full thread

Cinemas were my primary entertainment after I moved to Toronto. Other folks would go to pubs or live bands or sportsball games. Me, I'd be out at the cinema multiple times a week.

I grew up in Sarnia, where we had 6 movie screens for most of my life. We got all the big releases weeks after the major cities: once the films started showing on fewer screens in London, they'd send the print to Sarnia. _Star Wars_, _Superman_, _ET_. All arrived about a month after first release.

I have a long history with the movie _The Silence of the Lambs_. I think I've seen it about a dozen times in cinemas, and many more on DVD or streaming. That's an unusually large number of time for me to see a movie, but spending a lot of time in cinemas wasn't usual.

I confess that I was trepidatious the first time I watched it. I've long avoided gore, and I worried that the film would be too gory for me. I remember, that first time, watching Hannibal Lector biting Sgt. Jim Pembry's face through my interlaced fingers. Surprisingly gore-free.

BC Holmes reposted