Angel's here this week with a bit of a geek confession.

There was a show once, a little thing called Firefly. It ran a sparse few episodes and then through the moronitis of various studio executives, was canceled. I'm not along in my undying love of the show, I know that. A million voices cried out in anguish when it was canceled.

OK. I don't know if it was a million. I didn't count. But we have such a dearth of perfect SF TV series. You can throw other titles at me, go ahead, but nothing, nothing will ever match this one for me. It was the perfect ensemble cast - great actors playing quirky, sometimes sociopath characters with depth. Nine characters gazing out into the vastness of space and seeing something different:

There was universe building, There were political intrigues large and small. There were good guys and bad guys and lots (LOTS!) of gray areas. There was action, angst, funny moments and some of the best dialogue I've ever come across on television.

Oh, and spaceships and EVA's and interesting plots lines and Jayne's hat. If you're one of the lucky people who has yet to experience the wonder of this series, go do so now. It's stayed with me so strongly all this time, and though I'm still bitter that they wrenched it away from us, it's nice to know that there are tons of fans out there more rabid than I am.

I will, in moments of bleakness, sing the theme song still, that anthem to last-ditch hope defiance that still gives me chills:

Take my love, take my land, take me where I cannot stand... I don't care, I'm still free, you can't take the sky from me...

Oh, yes. It's Freddy's week again, and this time I get to share my love of puns and punning. Anyone who knows me will tell you I love bad puns. Like really bad 'that hurt my heart' kind of puns. I will pun in conversations without even trying because it a Pavlovian response to hearing people talk. I can't help myself. People will also tell you I love new and interesting apps.


So what happens when you put punning and apps together? A dream come true for me (and Angel's worst nightmare.

This app, Tearable Puns, is fucking awesome. I cannot tell you how many times I've scrolled through laughing my ass off - then proceed to subject Angel to my favorites (she may have tried to run away, but she couldn't escape.)

You go through them and rate them, enjoying as many puns as you like.

If you look at the bottom you can see that you can rate each one as you go. It's interesting to see what other tearable puns people enjoy (and the flops.)

Aweome, right?

How about you? What are some of your favorite puns?

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening everyone (There, I think I have everyone covered. LOL)

Toni here for another episode of Stuff We Like... Are we really up to # 57 already? I hope you guys have enjoyed reading about all the various things the Mischiefers like, have maybe even found something new you hadn't known about before.

This week I'm here to talk about Netflix. 
Netflix is still relatively new to Australia, being here less than a year. But I love it. 

Before Netflix all we had apart from free to air TV was Pay TV (Austar/Foxtel) and If you wanted to get any of the good channels that could cost you upward of $100 a month. 

Netflix offers all sorts of TV series, dating back to some of the ones you grew up with all the way up to the most recent and popular ones. The same with movies. And all for an incredibly low cost of $9 a month to watch on one screen up to a max of $15 a month for four screens. How awesome is that!

Not only does it have a wide range of movies and TV shows, it allows you to set up different users, both adults and kids and set your own preferences. It will make recommendations on what it thinks you might like going off your previous viewing history.

My daughter is a massive fan, her only complaint was that the Australian Netflix wasn't quite as up to date as the US and Canadian ones with a couple of the TV series that she's found and fallen in love with. This all changed the other day when I got an OOOOOHHHH MMMMMYYYYYY GGGGGGOOOOODDDDD text message from her letting me know that the new series was available. 

The good thing about Netflix as well is all you need is an internet connection. She has the App on her iPad and even though it's my account here in Darwin, she can watch it while she is visiting her father in Canberra, hell she may have even watched it while we were in the US late last year. LOL

If you're looking for a change from regular TV, i can highly recommend Netflix. Plus, no advertisements in the middle of programs. That alone is worth the price. 

Would love to hear your thoughts if you have Netflix, or even if you don't. 

Love 
​Toni
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Today's edition of SWL comes from J. Scott Coatsworth, who is crazy for Italian.

I love Italian.

I'm not Italian in any sense of the word. My family tree reaches back to the UK and Dermany, and even to Denmark, but not at all to the Italian peninsula.

Nevertheless, I love Italian.

I fell into the Italian language through the back door. When I was a junior in high school, I moved to California and ended up enrolling at Etiwanda High School late. I had to take two years of a language, and the Spanish and French classes were already full. So I ended up taking Latin. It was one of those "back to the basics" school things, and I found that I loved the Latin Language, in part because it also included a crash course in Italian culture and history. And I fell in love with that, too.

Flash forward twenty years, and my husband Mark and I decided to go to Italy. I'd always been a little fearful of going to a country where I didn't speak the language, so we decided to take a crash course at our local Italian Cultural Center, here in Sacramento. We took a five week traveler course with Patrizia Cerruti, and then proceeded to confidently use our broken Italian in Italy. It was amazing - I even helped an American woman at the Vatican request an audio tour. And an Italian clerk at McDonalds in Florence (I know, but we were starving and it was at the train station) told me I spoke the language really well.

Three years later, planning another Italian trip, we decided to dive in and learn Italian for real. We lucked out - our class became a family, and we have now been studying together for eight years, five of them at The Center and three on our own.

Italian is a beautiful, lyrical language. It sprang from the Tuscan dialect when Dante (yes, that Dante) standardized it, and spread to become the lingua franca of the country

They DO lie to you a little to get you started - for instance, they tell you that you can spell any Italian word by just listening to it because Italians pronounce every letter (80% true), that almost every word in Italian is accented on the second to the last syllable (50% true) and that Italian is an easy language to learn (a flat-out lie).

And Italian is fascinating, It often abdicates personal responsibility - you are never late in Italian - you are instead in a state of lateness (presumably caused by someone or something else). In Italian, you don't "like" something - instead it is (or isn't) pleasing to you - again, apparently its fault, not yours). And if you are going out on a date, the language can betray you - you have to either specify who you are going out with because Italian words are masculine or feminine. In English, I can say "I went out with a friend" and be purposely vague without actually lying. In Italian, you have to specify "male friend" or female friend,"

Learning a new language is hard. But it has its rewards. We've made some dear friends here and in Italy because of it. We've enjoyed some great moments speaking with Italians in unexpected circumstances. I have written (and will continue to do so) a number of Italian characters, and my River City Chronicles is being translated for an Italian audience. Plus, it's supposed to be really good for your brian as you age.

​So pick a language. It doesn't have to be Italian. I promise, it will be amazing!