Tag Archives: Star Trek
Ten Nein Ate Fibbing Friday
Here are your ten questions from Pensitivity101 last week:
1. Who invented Elf on the Shelf?
A father who hoisted his midget son up to the kitchen counter, but got interested in the game, and forgot to lift him back down.
2. Have you been naughty or nice?
Yes to both – numerous times. Santa’s list is clouded with cross-references. I receive enough coal to run a small generator…. to charge my new Tesla.
3. Who or what is The Beast from the East?
Lenin is gone. Hitler is gone. Heir-apparent is Putin – balanced by Trump in the west, to keep Earth from tipping over.
4. Who was Santa’s Little Helper?
Meth! Beans! How else could the corpulent UFO pilot and his crew of illegal aliens work 24/7 for months?? 😮
5. What is a Yule log?
A list of all the stations, when, and in what order, the Christmas train will visit.
6. What is marzipan?
It’s a small, independent principality, on the border between Namibia and Paraguay.
7. What is Egg Nog?
A healthy excuse to drink copious amounts of rum.
8. Why is there a fairy on the top of the Christmas Tree (be polite!)
See #7 – Egg Nog/Rum – above
9. What are baubles?
It’s how we tell boys from girls – boys have ‘em…. girls don’t.
10. What is a tree skirt?
What a Scottish lumberjack wears
Switch-Hitting Fibbing Friday
Frank, over at PCGuyIV, helped out Pensitivit101, and posted this list last week. Your best lies, please.
1. Why is he called “Dr. Who”?
Because we first met him 50 years ago, when we were all young and curious. Now that we’re all old farts, it’s more like “Dr. Whuh???!”
2. What happened after the final episode of M*A*S*H was aired that made it newsworthy?
Thirty million toilets flushed simultaneously, crashing the water supply systems in New York, L. A. and other cities for half an hour, until straining pumps could refill reservoirs. Firemen had to improvise.
3. What do The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Andy Griffith Show, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show all have in common?
The titles all start with the word “The” and end with the word “Show.”
4. What 1990s’ sit-com is about a group of six acquaintances living in Manhattan?
That was “Seinfeld,” with Gerry, Elaine, George, Cosmo Cramer, Neman the postman, and the Soup Nazi.
5. What is the TV show, NCIS, about?
About six years too long. It’s hard to chase down criminals when you’re pushing a walker, and wearing support hose.
6. What does CSI stand for?
That is a secret network code that means, ‘If the original was successful, and made boatloads of money, we will continue to present spin-offs until the suicide rate rises significantly.’ “Coming next season, CSI: Kankakee, and its British cousin, CSI: Tynemouth.
7. The TV show, Bull, though dealing with court cases, isn’t about a law firm. What kind business or organization does the show center around?
It is a high-interest, mob-owned bail-bond service. If you don’t pay off the charges, there are two chances that you’ll end up in hospital – selling a kidney to make the payment, or from injuries sustained, falling down a flight of stairs – three or four times. No bull!
8. What planet were they searching for in the original Battlestar Galactica?
Tau Ceti 16. The crew had had enough of battling Cylons, and wanted at least a temporary respite, on the world that Barbarella landed on. Who could forget Jane Fonda in the nude – or the Orgasmatron?? I originally watched it in French, and never noticed the dialogue.
9. What was the inspiration for the animated show, The Flintstones?
To make as much money with a cartoon, as the first James Bond movie, Dr. No. Oh, do you mean, What was it based on?? The Honeymooners. Bam! POW! To da moon, Alice – or was that The Jetsons??!…..
10. In the original Star Trek, what exactly was the 5-year mission of the USS Enterprise?
To foist Canadian, William Shatner on an unsuspecting American audience. Shatner, Celine Dion, Justin Bieber, Shania Twain – Americans just never seem to get the joke. How else to explain T J Hooker, or Boston Law??
What If?? What If?? What If??
Oh goody! We’re going to play a game of What If. I have not been amused or entertained by one of those for years.
Let’s say you were in a naval battle in the middle of the ocean and your ship was destroyed so you are in very cold water. You know that you need to act now to get on a ship or you will die. Now there are 4 ships that you can swim to. But it looks like all the ships are very badly damaged and unlikely to be seaworthy enough to save you. It’s hard to tell from your position but as best you can tell one ship has a 5% chance but the others have less than a 2% chance of being seaworthy enough to save you.
What do you do? Do you think well no one has “proven” or “verified” that any of these ships will save me so I might as well die in the water? Or do you start swimming to the ship that gives you a five percent chance (the best shot)? I think that is the obvious choice. You are not in a position to demand “proofs” or “verification.” You just have to make do with the information you have.
I think this is analogous to the situation we are in when it comes to how we should live. We can’t pause our life until someone can prove how we are supposed to live. We choose to act or not act all the time. And we can’t insist on verification or proof beyond what we have. We just have to take our best shot.
For me I think following Christ’s teachings is the “best shot.” I may wish I had better evidence or proofs but reality does not bend to my wishes. The rational person bends his beliefs and actions to reality.
People often believe that they are thinking, when all they’re really doing is rearranging their prejudices. So, you’re going to dream up a scenario that is so outlandish and restrictive, that it makes your already-decided-on choice look good barely acceptable.
I am disturbed that you would advocate a selection with a 95% chance of failure, but, as you inferred, It’s (barely) better than nothing. Desperation is not considered a good method of choice. It usually results in wrong decisions. Even choice is a bad method. You can attend a Christian church, and repeat all the magic words, but it won’t produce the honest, true-hearted Belief that the unwritten rules call for.
I’d like to ask what mechanism you used to determine what percentage of success your choice, both in real life and in your specious analogy, had. I see none, other than desperation and gullibility – only an unproven claim.
Unlike your fantasy-novel format, in real life it is both possible and advisable to do some research, so that you don’t end up in these religious shipwreck scenarios.
What if that water isn’t as cold and deep as you believe? What if you were just told that, by the guy who runs the life-preserver franchise? What if, no matter which ship you swam to, it sank and drowned you? What if the ship you chose was an enemy vessel, and the agents of Allah tortured you to death? What if you stopped panicking, and used your strength and determination to swim toward the big orange rubber raft that the rescue helicopter just dropped, labelled Reason/Reality? What if you’re not Captain James T. Kirk, and there just is no right answer?
What if you summarily dismiss all of my What Ifs, because you think that they sound almost as silly as your What Ifs??!
All The Languages Of The World
I am so glad that my blog-buddy, BrainRants made me aware of The Expanse series. I have been reading the books and, not quite as quickly, watching the TV programs for several years. It is a great epic series, not just because I love Sci-Fi, but because the writers provide tons of eclectic detail to flesh out the story arc, and the characters.
Two male writers, taking a cue from their mentor, George R. R. Martin – he of Game Of Thrones fame – and/or J. R. R. Tolkien, publish as James S. A. Corey, when neither of them is James, nor Corey. As male authors, they have created at least four powerful, well-defined female characters.
The depth and breadth of their knowledge, which they work into the books is awe-inspiring – especially (for me) the linguistics. Millions have gone into space, and many are mining the asteroid belt. People move around on Earth, and the language where they migrate to slowly changes, but remains basically the same.
There was no Native Tongue in the Belt, so a new language, called Belta, has come into existence. It includes some sign language, for folks encased in space suits, who can be seen but not heard. The spoken language is mostly English, with additions and admixtures of American Spanish from Pittsburgh to Patagonia, Portuguese, German, French, Italian, Maori, Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian, and more.
Every chapter brings examples of words and expressions that impress the Hell out of me, or drive me to dictionary or search-engine sites. Remember, Belta is like Star Trek’s Klingon. It is a non-existent language that these two are completely creating themselves. The fact that I’m at least a year behind the avid fan readers, means that I sometimes reach a site where others have gone for explanations.
Recently, I hit four words on two pages that I needed to research. One of the asteroids described, was not an asteroid, but rather, a collection of rocks with enough common gravity to hold them together, but not enough pressure to coalesce into a single unit. Like a bag of giant marbles – without the bag.
The writers described it as a Duniyaret. The Hindi word duniyah means ’world,’ and the Hindi word ret means ‘sand, or gravel.’ They had created a neologism in a foreign language, to describe this conglomeration of rocks. A habitat had been created on the biggest chunk, by welding together, what were essentially steel shipping containers, at a slight angle to one another, to bend around the curve. The authors called this “town”, Nakliye, a Turkish word that means ‘shipping.’
On the next page, I found a blazon – from heraldry, a patch or badge, often worn on lapel or sleeve, indicating owning or belonging, especially with good qualities. When we affix such a marker, we use the slightly more-common word, emblazon.
The residents drank water that was hyper-distilled. At first, I thought it might be like double-distilled whiskey, but the Hyper, in this case, refers to Hyperion, the Titan that the Greeks believed was the father of the sun. They didn’t waste precious power, but used a large parabolic solar-collector, aimed at the distant sun. I had trouble researching this term, because the search engines kept throwing up an American company named “Hyper Distillation,” which is not the same thing.
The UN Space Navy had an Admiral named Souther. I was reminded of J. D. Souther, a singer/songwriter from Detroit, who influenced Glen Frey of The Eagles, to compose country-lite style. I had assumed that the basis for the name was someone originally from the South of England – a southerner. Imagine my surprise when I found that the name is occupational, coming from old English/old French soutere – a boot or shoe – therefore meaning a cobbler.
I have cobbled together a little more click-bait to lure you in. Drop by in a couple of days, to see where my mind has gone without me. 😎 🌯
’21 A To Z Challenge – E
I’ve often said that, if the English language must evolve, I don’t want the changes caused by people who have their names on their work uniforms. I want it guided by intelligent, educated scholars and linguists.
I HAVE CHANGED MY MIND!
One of the newer words in English is
ECDYSIAST
added sometime before his death in 1956, by the all-time pompous spoilsport American journalist, H. L. Mencken.
Also called stripper, exotic dancer, or stripteaser. a person who performs a striptease.
From ecdysis – the shedding or casting off of an outer coat or integument by snakes, crustaceans, etc.
With at least three acceptable alternatives, this pretentious prat added yet another, to turn an enjoyable, social pastime into something as cold and clinical as a colonoscopy. He makes Mr. Spock seem like a party animal, and looks like he parts his hair with an axe.
Some of them can appear as dumb as a sack of rocks, but the stoners flipping burgers, and dreaming up new words seem to be a helluva lot more fun than tight-ass, Latin-loving Mr. Mencken. Ignore the word. Ignore the nerd who birthed it. What is your opinion about strippers? 😕
’19 A To Z Challenge – M
I want to talk about
McGuffins.
They’re not those breakfast sandwich things that you get at the Golden Arches.
McGuffin = MacGuffin = Maguffin
Noun; an object or event in a book or a film which serves as the impetus for the plot
Word Origin for McGuffin
C20: coined (c. 1935) by Sir Alfred Hatchplot Hitchcock
Most stories, whether books or movies, have a beginning, middle, and end. Some stories though, have lots of action, and a great climax, but need a boost to get underway.
Dashiell Hammet’s novel, The Maltese Falcon was a great novel of the 20th century. There was lots of action – treachery, deceit, lies, double crosses, assaults, murders, and back-stabbing – literal and figurative. When the exciting ride finally came to a stop, the little sculpture that everyone was fighting and scheming about, was just a small, ugly, statue of a bird, just an excuse for all that excitement.
At the last Star Trek movie that I went to – Star Trek Into Darkness – for the first half hour, I fidgeted and twitched in my seat. Is this thing never going to get underway? I even considered walking out – and I NEVER walk out of a movie, especially a Star Trek.
What should have been served, hot off the griddle, as the McGuffin, the impetus, to catch and hold the viewers’ attention, was dropped cold, an hour and a half later, as a by-then, un-suspenseful and un-dramatic ‘Great Reveal,’ a story of brotherly betrayal, abandonment and revenge.
So remember, those of you who want to write – even if it’s just blog-posts. If you think that your story needs a little something to draw readers’ attention, get that McGuffin out early. Craft a catchy title, and compose an interest-grabbing opening line. Once you’ve got ‘em hooked, you can reel ‘em in.
I’d be reel real happy if you stopped back in a couple of days, for another instalment of Do-It-Yourself Philosophy. Phil will be reel happy too. 😉
2018 List Of Books Read
I read a book, once…. Others, I’ve read more than once.
My GP sees me so seldom that she forgets who I am, because my “yearly” physicals are often 18 to 24 months apart. I continue to accrue a lengthening list of medical specialists for myself, the wife, and the daughter. Because of this (and normal physical deterioration), available free time for reading diminishes.
Next year, instead of a list of books that I managed to read, I may just put up a list of all the medical appointments I had to drive to. This past year’s list is down to 21 books – I think. I’m too tired to check. Someone add them up, and get back to me. These are the ones that I managed to get through.
Eric Flint/Griffin Barber – 1636: Mission To The Mughals
This series was interesting Sci-Fi when it started out. I’m done with it. Now it’s just a 700 page excuse to publish a little political history of India around the time of building the Taj Mahal.
Chris Ryan – Stand By, Stand By – Zero Option – Greed
A very British men’s action series. Not bad if you’re into that sort of thing.
Gregg Loomis – The Cathar Secret
More suspense and plot development than any of the above. A good way to waste an afternoon.
Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child – The Pharaoh Key
A suspense/action tale good enough to sink your eyeteeth into, but not deep enough to need to munch your molars.
Tom Clancy’s Commander In Chief
Tom Clancy is long dead, but his ghost writers continue to grind out the pot-boilers and royalties.
Michael Kurland – The Whenabouts Of Burr
This is a re-read from 1975. I was reminded of it because of a conversation with a lady author who said that she liked time-travel Sci-Fi, as I do. It’s actually more of an alternate universe/history story, with minor temporal displacement. I’ll publish a review on it soon.
Blake Crouch – Dark Matter
This one is another alternate universe story like the above, but with no time travel. I’ll publish a review on it also, in a couple of months, to compare the viewpoints and construction.
Steve Berry – The Columbus Affair
Christopher Columbus and his navigator were both secret Jews, escaping the Inquisition…. and they hid the Temple Treasure in the New World??! Okay, you’ve got my attention and interest.
Isaac Asimov – The Rest Of The Robots
I thought that I had read every Asimov story in the Foundation series, about robots. Turns out that I was wrong. This book was published in 1964. It contains 8 short stories, and two novellas about the positronic predecessor to Star Trek’s Data character. I was able to purchase a Kindle version, and wallow in classic Asimov.
E. E. ‘Doc’ Smith – Imperial Stars
This is another Sci-Fi re-read. This is the first in a series of 12 books. In 1976, after the death of Doc Smith, his younger author friend, Stephen Goldin took notes, and drafts, and conversations/discussions with Doc, and assembled the story line as he felt Doc would have. Performers from the interstellar Imperial Circus are used like James Bond, as intelligence gatherers and executioners. Goldin has his own books, but he did well with this lot. They still have Doc Smith’s feel to them.
E. C. Tubb – The Temple Of Truth – The Return – Child Of Earth
I read the first 27 books of this never-ending series years ago, but ‘life’ caused me to give it up. When I heard that another author like Stephen Goldin above, had brought it to a post-mortem culmination after Tubb’s death, I bought the final 7. I read four of them in 2017, and the final three last year.
James Rollins – The 6th Extinction – The Kill Switch
A couple more rollicking-good men’s action books. ‘The Kill Switch’ is the first of a series within a series, where the hero, introduced in a previous book, is an ex-Army, now-paramilitary, who has brought along his K9 partner, which the Government was just going to destroy.
Clive Cussler – Lost Empire
All the old, well-known authors are increasingly, farming out the sub-series. Grant Blackwood, who wrote this one for Cussler, also wrote Kill Switch, above, for James Rollins.
David Ignatius – The Quantum Spy
One of the new type of secret agent books. As you might guess, while there is lots of travel, suspense and physical action, much of the plot revolves around the World Wide Web, hacking, and code-breaking.
Nan Yielding – Things I Never Learned In Sunday School
The very-Christian wife of an author decided to do some research to prove the inerrancy of the Bible. Along the way she turned up so many mistakes, contradictions and unprovable claims, that she turned herself into an Atheist. I ran into her blog-site one night, and she was pleased that I had read her book, and gave it a recommendation.
James S. A. Corey – Caliban’s War
This is the second book of a grand Sci-Fi series, recommended to me by my buddy BrainRants. It is/was available as a series on SYFY, which I can’t access. Even if you’ve seen some/all of it, I still suggest that you try the books.
7 Of 9’s 4th Of 30 Challenge
That title’s a vague, old, Star Trek, Voyager reference, and it’s still not the fourth, it’s merely number four, on a thirty-day list that I’m chaotically crashing through.
- What you wear to bed
This list creator is seriously disturbed. You could be, too. There is not enough vodka or qualified psychiatrists in the world, to erase the mental picture of me, rolling out of the old fart sack. For a while, I dated only blind women.
When I first got married, I slept in the nude, because – you know – sex could break out. My wife informed me that, when it came to sex, I was self-sufficient, so I took the problem in hand. Sex did occur a couple of times, and soon we had a couple of kids in the house, one of them female. I couldn’t go looking for my BVDs in the dark when one of them had a bad dream, or go wandering down the hall with my dangly bits….uh, dangling.
I took to going to bed in my undershorts, and continued for decades. Never know when you’ll have to run outside to escape a fire. The house is 72/73 F, summer and winter, although we have an electric mattress warmer to keep us cozy in the winter.
When my doctor confirmed the diagnosis of an enlarged prostate, she prescribed a medication that will shrink it, and keep it shrunk. Without any explanation, she asked me if I wanted Cialis. That’s like offering a dog a driver’s licence. Erectile dysfunction didn’t seem to be the problem, so I said no.
After doing some research, I discovered that drugs like Viagra and Cialis were originally developed to increase blood flow. When test subjects were asked if they experienced any side-effects, many of the men replied, ’Uh, yeah. I don’t roll out of bed anymore.’ and a lucrative secondary market was discovered.
The maintenance dose of Cialis that I was offered is supposed to increase blood flow, to help the medication work, so I quickly said, yes. As I neared 70, my normal low blood pressure and slow heart rate were no longer enough to keep my feet warm enough to sleep at night, even with the Cialis. Perhaps at my next doctor’s appointment, I’ll ask for a higher dosage level.
The wife made me a hand-knit, custom-fit pair of socks, which I wear to bed over my regular socks, and sleep comfortably. They, and my bikini briefs, are enough to allow me out on my back deck, when the new puppies start rowdying in the morning, ‘cause no-one lives behind me, to see what I wear to bed. 😉
Off-Beat Challenge – Piercings And/Or Tattoos?
The son’s tattoo – all designed and ready to go, but not installed.
I have never got a tattoo because I have absolutely no imagination – and I got my ear pierced for exactly the same reason.
I have not wanted to be part of the madding crowd, but I never wanted to be too far away, for protective camouflage. I don’t want to be one of the flock, but I don’t mind grazing in the same meadow. Any wolves are more likely to take down a fat young sheep, than a grumpy old goat like me.
I’ve worn cowboy-type boots for almost 50 years, since I found a pair on sale at K-Mart, the first year we were married. In the 1980s, when I was having my mid-life crisis, I didn’t buy a red sports car. I got the first of a series of second-hand motorcycles, and a black leather jacket to go with it.
The wife and son and I went to an evening movie when there were still theaters downtown. When we came out and headed home, we were confronted with a gaggle of 6 or 8 Goths with a blaring boom-box the size of a VW van, randomly sprawled across the sidewalk.
The wife said later that she was a bit worried about this bunch. Then she looked at me on one side, with my motorcycle boots and leather jacket. On the other side was 6’-2”, hairy, Grizzly Adams-like son, wearing a sort-of sombrero, an ankle-length oilskin duster out of a spaghetti western, and steel-toed work boots.
When it became obvious that we weren’t going to step out into the street to go around this puddle of anti-societal slush, legs and feet were quickly withdrawn into standing or lotus positions.
I went with a co-worker after an 11 PM shift-end, to an upscale roadhouse/bar. The fussy little hostess wanted me to remove my jacket before he’d seat us. When I asked why, he replied that it looked very much like a motorcycle jacket. “What a coincidence! My bike is parked right outside.” Well, some of the other patrons might feel intimidated, and would I please take it off.
During my change-of–life rebellious period, even before I got my bike and jacket, I thought that I might like to get a tattoo and/or an ear stud. I recently saw a photo of a pretty, young female custom-cake maker in New York, sporting two forearms covered in tattoos. Back in the ‘80s, tattoos were transgressive and subversive. She’d have been a professional wrestler, a biker chick, or a stripper. They have gone from being questionable, to de rigueur.
I had a gold, eagle necklace pendant. Did I want an eagle tattoo?? I had a sweatshirt, a slab of slate, hand-painted by the daughter, and a light switch plate with wolves on them. Did I want a wolf?? I didn’t want to be identified as either a Star Trek, or a Star Wars nerd. What else? What else??!
I’d like to claim that I had decision paralysis, where I couldn’t choose among so many options, but the sad truth is that I just wanted to seem to be a bad boy, but didn’t have enough imagination to know how.
During a discussion while I was composing this post, the loving son helpfully suggested that I have D N R (do not resuscitate) tattooed across my chest. Like a dead child, dark humor never grows old.
A younger female co-worker asked me if I would give her a ride home, and stop at a nearby mall, so that she could quickly pick up a couple of things. On the drive, she told me that she’d got her second tattoo, but she couldn’t show it to me – right then – because it was inside her bikini line.
Poor tattoo artists. They see it all – even if they don’t want to. They wear rubber gloves while they work, to prevent infection in either direction, but I’ll bet that a lot of them wish that they could wear a blindfold sometimes, while they work.
As we went from one store to another, she told me that she intended to add a piercing. She didn’t volunteer the location, and I valiantly refrained from asking, or even showing any interest. I mentioned that, along with the absent tattoo, I’d often thought about getting my ear pierced. Suddenly, she literally grabbed me by the earlobe, swung me around, and pushed me toward a jewelry store whose window ad read, “Ears Pierced – $10.”
Within a minute – ZAP – I had a cheap piece of glass-chip and plated wire installed in the side of my head. I objected that, since I only got one piercing and one stud, the price should only be $5. The clerk insisted that there were no reductions….but she did add the other one as a third stud in my friend’s left ear.
Surprisingly, the wife didn’t make a fuss about it – although she did insist that we visit a reputable jeweller as soon as was convenient, and swapped it out for a $80 gold and sapphire (my birthstone) version.
I wore it proudly, and rebelliously, for over 20 years, until one day I stopped in to see the daughter. She had acquired a frisky young, female German shepherd, who insisted that I kneel or bend down so that she could lick my entire face.
One day, as she put a paw up on my shoulder, she must have caught it with a toenail. Fortunately, she only popped the back off, and didn’t rip it from my earlobe. Assuming that it was still there, I went about a week before I noticed that it was missing. By then, it was too late to search for it, and the hole had started to heal closed.
Society, and its norms, has greatly changed since the ‘80s. Neither tattoos nor piercings have the cachet they did back then. At 73, I don’t plan to add either. It’s just as well. With all the old folks medical procedures I’ve had, and presumably will have – the clinics and the hospitals have signs that insist that ALL jewelry and piercings must be removed or treatment will not be given. 😳
Archon's Den 