Thursday, September 29, 2016

You Can't Take The Quiz From Me.

This week's geeky social activity: the Geeks Who Drink Firefly theme quiz, which was held in Albuquerque last night. (Well, and also in lots of other cities, but I didn't go to those.) We came in third! Which didn't win us anything, but it was not too shabby at all, considering there must have been thirty teams, and that the winners reportedly only missed two questions all night. Now, those are some big damn heroes!

Win or lose, it was an entertaining evening, and a good excuse for a re-watch, something I hadn't done in years. Of course, now I'm annoyed at Fox for cancelling the show all over again. Some grudges truly never die...

Saturday, September 10, 2016

Still Trekkin'

After my post on Star Trek the other day, someone linked me to this piece of music, which combines the theme songs from the original series, TNG, DS9, and Voyager into one amazing whole, and I thought it was just too great not to share:

Thursday, September 08, 2016

Keep On Trekkin'

I could not possibly let today pass without wishing a happy 50th Anniversary to Star Trek. Who would ever have predicted, back in the day, that a show that had trouble even staying on the air for three years would still be something we'd be talking about half a century later? Let alone that it would have such a tremendous influence on science fiction, on pop culture, on millions of people, and even on real-world technology?

I sometimes like to describe myself, only half-jokingly, as a lapsed Trekkie. There was a point -- OK, it was pretty much the entirety of my teens -- when Star Trek, with its humanist philosophy and its much-discussed optimistic view of the future, served me pretty effectively in place of a religion. These days, Trek and I have drifted apart a little bit. I've found myself disappointed with some of the later entries in the franchise, eventually giving up entirely on both Voyager and Enterprise. And I can see problems with the original series that weren't remotely obvious to me as a youngster, from the disturbing implications of Kirk's interpretation of the Prime Directive as something that only applies to societies he approves of, to its unexamined 1960s sexism.

And yet. And yet, I still maintain a deep, abiding, nostalgic affection for Kirk and company, and (in a somewhat different way) for their Next Generation descendants. Not to mention a strong appreciation for the tragically under-rated Deep Space 9, which, despite a rough first season and the occasional plot or character misstep, was and remains a damned good show.

I may not think about Star Trek obsessively the way I did when I was, oh, thirteen. And I'm pretty sure I've forgotten more Trek trivia than even Gene Roddenberry ever knew. But the swelling notes of that classic theme song can still stir my heart, and the role Trek had in shaping my life really cannot be underestimated. I feel like I should feel embarrassed by that, somehow. But I'm not. If nothing else, I'll always love Star Trek for giving me Mr. Spock as someone a lonely little nerdy kid to look up to and adopt as a role model, as he was for so many nerdy little kids like me.

Live long and prosper, Trek. Not that you need the encouragement from me. Whatever I might think about all the twists and turns you've taken over the years, you seem to be managing that just fine.

Tuesday, September 06, 2016

I'm Still Here! And It's September Now, So Have Another Iteration Of The Usual Meme

Apparently I haven't posted anything since I did this meme in August. Well... That's August for you, really. It's just one long month of nothing. Anyway, here's the state of things in September:

Current clothes: My wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey Doctor Who t-shirt. Blue shorts. White ankle socks. Black leather work boots that really need to be polished. Or even just cleaned, really.

Current mood: Not too bad. Kind of sleepy. I think the shift work has been kicking my ass more than usual of late.

Current music: Nothing much at the moment. Boring, I know.

Current annoyance: The pump on my swamp cooler seems to be having problems, and there are just enough too-warm days left in the season for me to want to do without it.

Current thing: I've been playing a lot of Don't Starve. Which is a fun game, and rather addictive, but also a bit frustrating. I think I may give it a rest for now. My little guy managed to survive for 66 days on my last attempt, and I'm not sure I can face the thought of doing all that all over again just yet.

Current desktop picture: Still Discworld's Death and one of his kitties.

Current book: In the Company of Cheerful Ladies by Alexander McCall Smith. It's number six in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, which I came to late, but am enjoying. I'm making my way through it slowly and intermittently, though, as I fear the books could lose their charm if not spaced out enough.

Current song in head: Snippets of some obscure song about Charles Darwin that I'm feeling far too lazy to look up the title and artist of.

Current refreshment: Mango passion fruit tea.

Current DVD in player: I'm just about to start the last disc of season 1 of Broadchurch. I'd been meaning to get to this one for a while, but bumped it up the queue when Chris Chibnall was tapped to take over Doctor Who after Seven Moffat leaves, since I've found his writing work on Who kind of forgettable but wanted to see what he could do as a showrunner. I must say, I've been surprisingly impressed by it.

Current happy thing: I'm still happy to finally have my driveway work completely done. All the more so since they finally showed up to seal the cracks in my little concrete porch area, which was the last thing waiting to be done. (Well, the last thing on that job, anyway.)

Current thought: I probably shouldn't have eaten quite so many tacos before sitting down to write this.