Subtitled fruit

Although I have normal hearing, it's a given definition of "normal" - that is, it's pretty low down on the normal range. We think this is hereditary as my mother has it too but worse. Consequently I have the habit of watching most television programmes and DVDs with subtitles. I've been doing this for so many years I've become a connoisseur of them, so to speak. There are good subtitles and there are bad subtitles. Bad subtitles are the ones that have stupid spelling mistakes - "your" versus "you're", argh - and miss out or paraphrase too many words. Occasionally you get the slightly surreal experience of watching a programme equipped with the subtitles of the wrong episode - this happened when I was watching Threads, and contributed to my general crankiness regarding that episode. There's a nice, silent fishing scene going on with the subtitles for a Jaffa rebellion. Bizarre.

Then there are good subtitles, ones that capture the words accurately and at the right time, make it perfectly clear who said what, whether they were on or off screen, and whether they sang it or not. And then there are the sci-fi nuances. Generally, each person has a different colour of text, with a black background. But computers have a red or blue background to their text, as do the computers in Star Trek (and Data in TNG, which struck me a nice touch) and also ascended!Daniel, which is weird. The Ashrak assassin in In The Line of Duty got some quite brilliant subititles - pink on a yellow background. I was impressed.

The Goa'uld get either different colours or the prefix [GOA'ULD VOICE] which I always find extremely amusing. And the reason for all this preamble is I noticed today while watching Family that the subtitles have got even more creative. That wonderful noise of someone stepping into a wormhole? It's rendered as [GLUG]. And, brilliantly, when a sequence of people go through, it's: [GLUG! GLUG! GLUG!]

Okay, so stupid things amuse me. But the best caption I ever saw on a television show was also Stargate. Specifically, it was the season three episode Legacy, which gave us the following delight:

[SOUND OF GATE CHEVRONS ENGAGING FROM INSIDE CLOSET]

I'll stop talking about that now. I'm going to talk about today instead, and now I feel moved to quote quackaquacka quoting me, if that makes sense:

"It's half term, I have too much to do, Pegasus B is eating my brain, and..."

"And we're going to buy fruit."

I blinked, nodded, then cracked up. Precisely. When life is hard, buy fruit.

No, there is method in my madness. It was, as I suspected, my turn on food for Biology today. Rice-Oxley (and everyone else) doesn't like the idea of lessons seven and eight on a Friday, so we take turns in providing refreshments. Only this week everyone's on Lent, barring a few, myself included. So there could be no chocolate or popcorn or Haribo; instead, there was fruit. And surely there's something wrong with the universe when said fruit costs more than the chocolate would have done.

Anyway, Miranda and I went to Sainsbury's at lunch and bought two bunches of grapes, some apples and oranges. They gave us another bag free, and I also bought an(other) Innocent smoothie. I blame Hannah. This one was cranberries and raspberries. And following that, we went back to the library where I realised we had too many oranges.

On my way there I met Patrick, explained about the fruit with some difficulty, and he was helpful and agreed to meet me next week. It occurred to me I'm going out with my ex on Valentine's Day. Sigh.

It's strange what will happen if you say to the room in general, "Anyone want an orange?"

Yeah, in a minute and a half they were all gone. "If you get orange peel on the floor there will be bloodshed," I said, and started internally beating myself up for sounding quite so maternal. Still, at least they're all well-fed and Vitamin-C-ed up for the day. I put the fruit in the library office and went to Politics.

Where I spent an hour tapping a pencil and scrutinising my smoothie bottle for lack of anything more interesting to do. And I made the sort of discovery you only make when bored to the depths of your soul and expending the entire force of your intellect in staring at a plastic bottle. I hereby charge you all with a mission - go and look at the base of an Innocent smoothie bottle. It says (and I couldn't make this up): "Stop looking at my bottom."

Turned out fruit wasn't the best idea ever today. Rice-Oxley is keen on making us look at simple reflexes this week, and accordingly spent some time last night collecting woodlice and earthworms from her compost heap. Sarah and I did all right with the woodlice, picking them up with paintbrushes and making them choose between wet and dry environments. And shouting at them, natch. When we were in Upper Four, we did the same thing, and named the woodlouse Buzz Lightyear. It's amazing the things I choose to remember.

Then came the earthworms. I gibbered a bit when Rice-Oxley grabbed one out of the box, and she asked, "Are you scared of snakes?"

I'm not scared of snakes. I'm full-blown phobic gibbering wreck terrified of them. Which is the only reason sorting_elite didn't put me in Slytherin, I seem to remember. Anyway, I wished she hadn't said that, because my brain made the association and it wouldn't dislodge it. Every time I saw the earthworm wriggle across the paper, I freaked a bit more. When it came to brushing my finger along it to feel the bristles (chaetae) and induce the simple reflex, I managed to do it, then totally lost it.

Rice-Oxley was very nice about it. "This is a simple reflex" - she tapped the earthworm on the nose, causing its entire body to contract - "and you're exhibiting a complex response. You have some sort of evolutionary fear of snakes, but your intelligence and experience are the reason you're not..."

"On the other side of the quad," I finished, and gibbered some more.

I gave my apple core to the worm. It seemed to appreciate it.

Lastly, on my way home I went to College Road library to avoid getting soaked, and picked up a book while I was there. I've heard good things about it - Ender's Game. Anyone read it? And my other book for half term is Lirael by Garth Nix. After all my quibbling it's finally come back in to the library.

I've got to go to work tomorrow. No fic-writing for tonight, methinks; it's time for bed and I feel like I haven't slept in a week.