Rodney McKay/David Hewlett Thunk/Discussion/Appreciation

[Tinah]

Thank you! Franziska was born an hour ago, everything is fine I'll now drive up there but I need a gift for her first (she is born a week early).

OMG, can't believe I forgot to comment on that! Glad to hear that everything went well! A little girl... awww..!

[Tinah]

My favourite character in SGA is Rodney as to me he is probably the most realistic portrayal

I totally agree, Rodney's a very realistic character in that respect, he's a super-genius in scientific stuff but not very good at some other things. This makes him a character I can identify with, relate to, believe in, as opposed to somebody like Sam, who's good at everything ( Yes, I love her as a character, but she's just too far "above" me to feel a personal connection with ). And watching him overcome, or learn to function in spite of, his numerous "issues" is a fascinating journey. He starts out ( on SG-1 ) as a sexist young genius who doesn't really have much empathy for other people, but he grows into a hero, with the help of people who appreciate him for who he is but still can tell him off and put him in his place when needed.

I just watched "Sateda" ( the "arrow-in-gluteus-maximus-episode" ) and the scene between Rodney and Carson on the ship ( were those lemon slices on his boxers? ) was really wonderful: Rodney goes on about how he and Ronon have a "very deep friendship without words", and how Carson can't understand that "because he only sees the surface", and then Rodney leaves and the look on Carson's face "Oh belive me, I do. I would've given up on you long ago, otherwise..!". Really touching. I remember later Rodney actually refers to Carson as his best friend. While I adore Rodney, I guess it takes a lot of patience and understanding and empathy to actually be his friend.

I've found myself in... less friendly parts... of Gateworld defending David's skill as an actor, but then I realize that I really can't judge, since I've only seen him as Rodney. But he does such an excellent job as Rodney that I sort of feel he'd bring the same... honesty and... I don't know, the ability to reach out and touch me... to other roles. So really, some day I'll have to overcome my technophobe side and try to convert my DVD-player into a region-free one..!

[ed263]

Thank you! Franziska was born an hour ago, everything is fine I'll now drive up there but I need a gift for her first (she is born a week early).

Aww...a girl!! Congratulations!! Glad to hear mother and daughter are well!


Found this picture over on LJ. I hadn't seen this one of DH, so I thought I would share it with you all here!

Spoiler:

I wonder where this was taken?

[Tinah]

Found this picture over on LJ. I hadn't seen this one of DH, so I thought I would share it with you all here!

Adorable! *hugs him*

[x Varda x]

Hi there! Back again and with lots of catching up to do.

Hello again!

But before I do that, I just want to ask how you people manage to make siggies that are sharp and pretty and still stay within the forum rules? I've already had to shrink mine to make it 700 pixels wide, but I just found out that it's too many ( kilobytes, whatever? ) big too, and I got the advice to lower the resolution. But I think it's fuzzy enough already and that would make it even worse, and yet people here have sharp sigs that don't get reported, so how do you do it? Any advice would be appreciated. I actually downloaded GIMP, but ended up using Paint anyway, because I didn't need ( feel the need to learn... ) all those fancy functions.

I make all my sigs in Paint Then save them as bmp files to avoid any loss of quality (paint jpeg encoding is naff and creates the worst fuzzies esp with blue/red )

I then convert them to jpeg's with Irfan - a free program. (literally - File, Save As, Jpeg and there's a slider on the right to adjust the quality and therefore the file size)

My current (PJM) sig was 315KB before I shrunk it with Irfan. 95% quality and shrunk to 52.5KB. I don't notice any difference in the quality

I use Photoshop but I got it as a student so was pretty cheap... I also save mine large and in top quality Jpeg as Photoshop lets you choose how much compression you use, I believe Gimp does too... (300 x 1000 pixels) and then use Photobucket to shrink it to 200 x whatever pixels... dunno if that helps at all, I also host mine on photobucket though so that kinda gets rid of the size restriction.

PhotoShop... I only use that to play around with contrasts and effects, I'd never use it for shrinking (and it's not a free program either )

[Tinah]

*blinks, picks brain up from the floor*

Nice to know there are options though!

I think I may have converted the pic to JPEG because somewhere far back in my brain there's some ( most likely erroneous ) information that this is the "best" format...

EDIT: And yeah... Photoshop is extremely expensive. I used to have a free trial version for a month, but that wasn't nearly enough time to get something out of it ( since picture editing/manipulation isn't my number one hobby )...

[CarsonsKitty]

Hehe that it is... I am *so* glad I got CS3 when at Uni, 80% off for students and I had a voucher too so I ended up paying about 13% retail for it.

[Tinah]

Actually, my favourite image editing program was one I got with an earlier laptop, maybe 10 years ago. I don't remember what it was called, but it was sort of a Photoshop-lite. I had lots of fun with that. It was very user-friendly too. I need that, since I use the "point-and-click" approach to computers.

[CarsonsKitty]

Actually, my favourite image editing program was one I got with an earlier laptop, maybe 10 years ago. I don't remember what it was called, but it was sort of a Photoshop-lite. I had lots of fun with that. It was very user-friendly too. I need that, since I use the "point-and-click" approach to computers.

Here is a free source for software... http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/

They are basically restricted and out of date versians of the Serif range of products... which are the non-professional programs similar to Adobe's range.

[Tinah]

Thanks! Bookmarked! I already have a long list of creative projects I want to finish, though! Organizing pictures, taking photos of action figures, writing fanfic and the upcoming rpg in July..!

[Ravenheart]

More Get Down pics.

Spoiler:

[Tinah]

More Get Down pics.

Awww, poor thing! *makes picnic basket, climbs up and joins him*

[Tinah]

OK, I seem to be the only one here, but anyway... Just have to squee a bit about "McKay & Mrs. Miller". Just watched it now. And... it's another episode that makes me feel a lot, but in this case it's mostly good feelings. I remember when I just joined Gateworld, there was a discussion about Rod and I seemed to be the only person who liked him.

Well, that hasn't changed, I still like him, but I felt much worse for Rodney this time around, to be faced with everything he could have been, and seeing himself as "a lesser model". I felt that his friends were mean to him, with the whole bed-wetting and lunch-with-pants-on-head thing. Ok, so he isn't exactly the nicest person sometimes, but from how I interpret it, it's mostly psychological defense mechanisms to hide a shaky self-confidence. I thought they showed too little empathy for what he must be going through. If they want him to learn how to treat other people, they shouldn't be "stooping to his level" but give him positive examples instead. He's fully aware of his own shortcomings, I can see it clearly and they should be able to, too. Yes, he sometimes may need to be put in his place, but I felt really bad about that scene. It smacked of bullying and petty revenge. But they sort of made up for it at the end.

But Rod, I think, treated him quite decently. You have to imagine, too, what it was like for him to be faced with Rodney and see who he could've been. It must be hard to see something in an alternate universe version of yourself that you can't picture yourself having. It must have been a very emotionally confusing time for all of them and I can't really blame anybody for how they felt or acted. Well, by "anybody" I mean Rodney, Rod, and Jeannie, mostly.

The episode was a wonderful character development piece for Rodney, and as is the case with so many Rodney-centered episodes, an emotional rollercoaster where at one moment I smile and laugh at how cute and adorable he is, the next moment I feel so terribly bad for him, and then I go totally "awwww" at some emotional moment. The last scene with Jeannie, OMG, his acting! He makes Rodney feel so incredibly real ( always, but especially in this episode ) so honest and human and trying so hard. When the end credits rolled, I was just sitting there with this smile on my face.

Funny though, that over at the whump thread I was talking about "Trinity" and this episode continues that plotline. I didn't remember that in this episode Rodney screwed up again, depleting the ZPM, but the tone of "McKay & Mrs. Miller" was completely different, especially at the end, it was filled with hope.

[Alder]

McKay introduces Scrabble to Pegasus:

Spoiler:

"Sure, I’ll explain again. It’s really not that tricky, is it, John?"


"You create the word, and then you lay down the tiles on the board like this..."


"Don't forget to check to see if you have a double word score. Or a triple, that’s really cool..."


"Then you have to add up your total from the numbers on the tiles."


"You add it to your score, and then it’s someone else’s turn. Highest score wins. Easy!"

See that Sheppard, he's got the attention span of a butterfuly...sheesh...

[x Varda x]

McKay introduces Scrabble to Pegasus:
See that Sheppard, he's got the attention span of a butterfuly...sheesh...

@Tinah - I love that last scene in 'McKay and Mrs Miller'

Just popping in to show off my new sig and the out-takes:-

Spoiler:

Current


Out-take


No text/compression

I'm working on a McKeller version, if I can find the right cap to use