Parksville is likely far more commercial and developed than you recall.

But the beaches remain.

Here are some suggestions with a kids lens:

Vancouver Island

• get mid Island then over to the west coast

• Parksville - large sandy beaches to dig in

• ferry to Denman Island and then to Hornsby Island - fossils! https://hornbynaturalhistory.com/category/fossils/

• Qualicum Beach - gravelly and lots of seniors, but a great place to see bald eagles picking up clams and oysters, dropping them to break them open and diving to eat.

• Cathedral grove on Hwy to Port Alberni, accessible old growth forest

• Alberni - old forestry interpretation site with a logging train in the Cherry Creek area

• Drive to Tofino - an adventure in itself

• Long Beach

• whale watching

If you go to Vancouver, many of the classic stops are worth it

• the Aquarium
• Whale watching
• Grouse mountain gondola and mountain top
• Capilano suspension bridge and the fish hatchery and environs
• Seabus
• UBC museum of anthropology

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Mapping and confirming the existence of a system larger than the world renowned Castleguard Cave system is the story here.

Well, there was something of the kind of CANZUK sharing earlier. But that included SA and India in a kind of outer layer with less complete access.

There’s absolutely no incentive to log in to YouTube now that subscriptions and bells do nothing to control your feed. End stage enshittification.

I do know about the latter. Knew some folks that taught there.

Few courses are taught by tenured faculty at the Ivies. Junior faculty have to justify final grades, PhD students and sessional have to justify any grades lower than B- on any assignment.

Coupling that with the ‘legacy admissions’ where children of alumni have a lower bar to admission, anyone with a B- average has a questionable degree.

No matter how good their programs are, for the lowers tier of students, they’re just institutions of transmitted privilege. Which is why the complaints about DEI mechanisms to balance that are so suspect.

I wasn’t aware whether UPenn was on the same system but it’s a huge thing for private universities reliant on tuition fees and big alumni donations.

It’s interesting how California is shutting down the practice of legacy admissions, and Stanford and USC are feeling the sting.

But Trump was able to graduate?

Is Wharton one of those US schools (like Harvard) where anyone lower than a tenured professor has to write justifications to file anytime they give a student less than a B-?

Both Trump and Musk have degrees from the supposedly reputable Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

If these two are evidence of their quality of graduates, it really raises questions about whether it was another US institution where ‘legacy’ and money buy admissions and it’s impossible not to graduate.

You can join communities on other instances too if you have specific interests.

There’s currently an Redexit of Canadians who are looking to get off US-controlled social media.

Lemmy.ca has had a huge spike in enrolment as it’s the one that was most prominently promoted in r/BuyCanadian. Apparently, it’s had over 9k signups in the past day.

Why would anyone assume we’d be given the right to vote?

Puerto Rican’s still can’t.

Could this have something to do with many of southern Alberta’s pioneer settlers having come from the United States after failing as settlers in Nebraska, Utah and other states in the land rush?

From the Canadian Encyclopedia

Migration

The most extensive single wave of Americans came to Canada between 1895 and 1915, after the railways were well established in the West and good, inexpensive land had diminished in the US. American farmers poured into Canada, making up nearly as many western settlers as those from the British Isles, who were less likely to farm. Some of the effects of this migration are still to be seen in the relatively high US-born presence in Alberta and Saskatchewan, in the proportion of farmers among the US-born, and more arguably, in political attitudes in these provinces quite different from the remainder of Canada.

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/americans

My point is that I haven’t ever had any patience with the generational gatekeeping in the Star Trek.

I’ve been offended by it since the TOS fans campaigned to keep TAS from ever being aired. And I am more than done with TNG fans trying to brigade and kill every new offering.

I really don’t think you are assessing anything new on its merits at all.

What I am trying to say is that we - my spouse and I — am enjoying S31 on its merits, for what it is, in this period of television and movie making.

It IS fun stuff. We will be rewatching again!

My partner loved all the little inside references, including the hairstyle on the singer in the lounge.

S31 is a piece of this time. And we aren’t living in 1990.

It has more richness than Ryan Gosling or Ryan Reynolds action movies that become boring with endless action sequences.

I personally loved TNG in its run. It was the right Star Trek for its time.

If you asked me in the early 1990s, I would have agreed that TNG was the best Trek ever.

At that time, I much preferred it to TOS At that point, TOS was far enough out of time that it grated but not so far that it can be appreciated for itself, as something from another era.

I’m actually finding TNG not so great now. Your appreciation can evolve over time if you let it.

When our kids (now late teens) went through an intense fandom for Voyager in middle school, I understood why they thought it was the better show of the two. It was a better fit for them and I came to really love that show after originally finding it weaker than TNG.

Where I am coming from is that the TNG generation of fans needs to seriously lighten up and stop trying to insist that it’s the only model for good Trek or television.

You don’t own Trek any more than the boomers and older GenX did when TNG came on. At least we were the key demographic then - you are NOT now. TNG fans in their 40s are not the generation that this movie primarily targets.

Just as the TOS fans who were so derisive of TNG were damaging to the franchise, so is from the Berman era younger GenX and older Millennial fans.

You want tension and drama in a Star Trek show or movie.

That could be good. But it’s NOT the ONLY definition of good. It’s just a different kind of storytelling.

Trek on TV and movies has always had a mix of drama, horror, comedy, camp and action adventure. Even TNG covered all of these every single season.

We’re in an era where generally shows keep to one tone.

I have argued that the TNG and Kelvin movies that tried to hard to mix tones within a single movie, felt cringey (Nemesis, Beyond).

S31 went for a single tone for the most part and delivered.

SNW is able to mix tones because it’s episodic but there are fans who refuse to watch any episodes because the campy or lighthearted ones exist.

Well, I just rewatched it and enjoyed it all the more the second time.

My partner saw it for the first time, really enjoyed it, laughing the way through - with an overall rating of 7.5.

Like my partner, I’m an old thing.

I have watched absolutely everything Trek in first run since 1966 so I don’t have a lot of patience with those who became fans in the Berman era and feel entitled to gatekeep or define what isn’t Trek or isn’t ‘good’ for the next generation

I actively kept TOS fans from booing down young TNG fans trying to speak up at the cons in the late 1980s and early 1990s. These YouTubers are cut from the same mould but unfortunately have a much bigger public than the toxic TOS fans did on Usenet or subscription mimeod fanzines.

I actually enjoyed S31 for what it is and am about to rewatch it today with my partner.

It’s campy, and full of action sequences and fights, but that was to be expected with MU Georgiou.

It’s relatively rich in plot and characterization when I compare it to the run of current action movies like ‘The Grey Man’ on Netflix.

And it’s soooo much better than Star Trek V ‘The Final Frontier’.

How anyone can talk about the movies failing now clearly had rose coloured glasses on while watching:

• Kirk’s death in ‘Generations’

• the completely boring, Patrick Stewart indulgent dune buggy sequence in ‘Nemesis’ followed by the offensive rape content with stoic and sarcastic Troi turned into a tearful, dependant mess

• ‘Into Darkness’

• the destruction of the Enterprise, ridiculous motorcycle stored on bridge and motorcycle action sequence in ‘Beyond’

Not sure ‘cutting them’ is totally accurate.

The writing team and original creator/showrunner EPs Kim & Lippoldt were joined by a guy who had some showrunner experience. At the time, it sounded more like the Paramount suits weighed in on that as the show stayed in development hell even after an original greenlight.

But the fact is that when S31 got put on the back burner during the pandemic lockdown, Kim & Lippoldt took an offer from Netflix to take over as showrunners of ‘Sweet Tooth’.

They have been very successful with that. Paramount would be very fortunate to get them back to run anything.

Sooooo unbearably sugary and sweet. Yikes.

I bought one many decades in childhood and couldn’t finish it despite loving cherry-centred chocolates.

I found out when we visited the Hershey plant in Smiths Falls before the closure that it was originally a local brand targeted for the super-sweet preferences of Eastern Ontario and Quebec - which are apparently shared with Louisiana and Georgia.

Shockingly, they were bred to be easier to handle and fit a can shape.

Imagine what the original varieties looked like.

We like brown rice baked in an ovenproof dish with a cover.

In a typical 1200 w toaster oven toaster oven, that would be 1200 w. We have a rice cooker but tend to only use it for large amounts.