A Man walks into a bike shop...

Last weekend I woke up to find that some $(*&#@)(* had stolen the back wheel of my bike, talk about annoying. Ironically, this was also a day or so after I converted my VISA hotpoints into vouchers at Hedgehog Bikes so I could get a new pump and light, just my luck, great timing as usual...

...so yesterday I take the bike into Hedgehog and leave it with them to fix up whilst I wander off and do some shopping and $400+ dollars later I head home with a complete bike again. It seems my "not so old" 7 speed GT moutain bike is too old and they don't have 7sp components anymore, so I had my gears switched up to a nice new 8pt Shimano setup ($40 or so), whilst I was there I had them do a full service on the bike to just make sure everythings good (another $35 or so), I picked up the Joe Blow Pro pump, and a nice uber bright LED lamp (which makes for a kick-arse torch as well), that - combined with the rim, tube, two tire (as well as the new tire, I replaced my front tire to get a set of semislicks on), and labour - brought the price up higher than I hoped - thankfully the $200 in vouchers from VISA brought the price back down to what I was expecting.

Whilst I was out shopping I picked up the new Firefly DVD set, I only caught a few episodes when it was played on TV and enjoyed them, so was looking forward to watching the full series, only - having done so; I feel I'm missing something - unlike Joss' other shows, Firefly never really caught me as being a cohesive, well thought out show.

Whilst there's plenty to love about the show, I kept on coming up the feeling that the show was just going nowhere, and that it wasn't going there fast. Unlike Buffy or Angel, Firefly didn't seem to have real story arcs; sure theres the whole Simon/River story - but story arcs tend to have a few more degrees to them, and then to wrap up - this just never really even started; and then there's Sheppard Book - who may, or may not really be a Sheppard...

I guess I could overlook these points if I knew there was to be a second or third season in which the characters would grow, and there story's told - but there isn't. The show was cancelled, and the stories left open... hopefully the forthcoming Serenity movie will shed light on alot of these subjects, and if not - Firefly could expand to an exciting space-opera-western sci-fi novelists playground.

Some things I did enjoy in the film however:

1. No aliens. It was refreshing to see a sci-fi show with no aliens, not only is a pure-human show a change from normal Sci-fi, it's a change from Joss as well. Although, I suspect if we ever see anything of the Reavers, it'll be gore and latex abound.
2. The chinese language. I found it odd to hear an "alien language" that, whilst I didn't understand, I recognised. Used sparingly throughout the series, Chinese dialog often occurs during arguments and cussing, nothing really jumped out at me in the way of explanation about its origins in society, thou I read on the Firefly website the Alliance is a combination of the US and China, which gives it context.

Still, at the end of four DVDs I'm not really left at the edge of my seat wanting more, it's just not grabbing me as much as it could have...

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