These are all stand-alone movies with no chance for a sequel, right?

Well, as fast as you can say Ariel’s Big Adventure (no offense, Tom), Hollywood will want to cash in. Check out these actual script treatments for some of our favorite movies. Roger Rabbit versus the Nazis?

Your passive-aggressive advertisements won’t work on me.

My oldest asked me to explain the romance aisle of books. There are some things in life that I just can’t rationalize.

Last night, the Runnin’ Gungan confused security cameras with his bouncing gait and floppy ears. He also ruined the night of some poor audio surveillance team by ranting into a bug about the decline of quality Hapan flautists and increased Bith musical stereotypes in the galaxy.

This, though, is the creepiest. Any time your game seems to be influenced by Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit”, you know you’re in trouble.

Feed the Head is a puzzle game – I think.

“They’re wacky in a woo woo way.”

This coming from a school where parents think that the Middle Ages are too bloody and the Holocaust is too depressing.

Either that or I’m Hessian.

How many differences can you spot?

Dance Central 2 does understand my life stage. It gave me an achievement for dancing while a kid walked in front of the sensor.

Get ten of your friends to buy stock in Zynga and your stock market will grow.

(I didn’t actually buy stock and this is not an officially-endorsed market recommendation. Why would you trust anything on this site for stock market savvy?)

Unrelated: one SPAM attack this week tried to lure me in by saying that my site had an issue in Internet Explorer. Nice try, SPAM! Everyone has an issue in IE.

This disembodied head is telling students he’s iron.

The observant will notice a Juggernaut, overheating guns, no HP, a nuclear blast, and a controller that’s out of batteries. This is not Shepard’s day.

I helped a teacher archive her email and she broke down into tears of joy.

I explained to a teacher that, just because you put pictures and music onto a CD, it doesn’t automatically turn into a slideshow.

I don’t use IE, so I’m not offended, but this sounds more like a meme than a study. Check it out on the BBC. A research group offered a free online IQ test and then charted which browsers the users had. IE ranked the lowest, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari users average, and Opera users ranking the highest.

You can view what Netflix recommended to me in all its pretentious glory. “Mind-bending” means so many things to so many people, I guess. What you can barely see at the top of the photo brings a facepalm: “Like: Step Up 3″

I wonder how many players get the Shakespearean reference at the bottom of their screen.

1 – People who like Star Wars.
2 – People who want pictures of grandkids.

I’m hoping there’s a third category:

3 – People who are awesome at Excel.

Here’s the dilemma:
Our school secretary has a major Excel sheet of each kid that lost materials and did not replace them by the end of the school year. We have a mail merge letter created to send to these families. The issue I’m running into is that Aaron Aronson is on line 1 of Excel owing a Math textbook and then Aaron Aronson, same kid, is on line 2 of Excel owing a Social Studies textbook.

As it is, the mail merge makes one billing letter/statement for the Math textbook and then another letter for the Social Studies textbook. We want the two letters to be one. The secretary is preparing to do an insane copy and paste job. I’m looking to be like Tron and warp into the grid and yell, “I FIGHT FOR THE USERS!”

Don’t be surprised when we start seeing the Gorilla Grodd threat make it to the front page like it deserves. We can’t rest in our victory over Red Skull. It’s not like we have an unending supply of heroes to thaw out and guys in red spandex have as many identity crises as guys with green rings.

He just can’t quite get up enough motorcross motivation now that he’s heard acid is eating the lining of his stomach.

Days ago I had turned on this mask’s distortion mic. Seconds ago I was vacuuming when it beeped out of standby (a sound very similar to a police siren starting up) and started to cycle back at me a distorted vacuum growl.

Yep. I jumped.

“Can you play this PowerPoint CD on your DVD system? I need it in five minutes.”

The cords! The cords!

Basically, when users type a Google search into Internet Explorer, Explorer records which ones you click on (if you have opted-in to send your data for higher quality products) and feeds that data to Bing to improve results. Google employees spent two weeks typing in nonsense words like “hiybbprqag” and deliberately clicking on results inside Explorer to skew Bing’s results. Here’s the defense from Microsoft where they explain clickstream stuff.

What I don’t get is why Google doesn’t just yell, “Gaqrpbbyih” and send the troublesome imp back to the 5th dimension.

All I know is that the Babelfish has kept AltaVista going. It’s still there! Oh, nostalgia. You remember web searches before Google?

I’m considering a CoverIt Live post that day. Any takers?

Madden’s done a decent job (the software, not the yelling guy) for the last 6 out of 7 Super Bowl predictions it has made. It’s like how Watson beat Ken Jennings. The guy running the project said that Watson was more like the computer from Star Trek than HAL-9000.

I submit for the jury V’ger, Nomad, and M5. The crew of the IKS Amar doesn’t share your optimism. Why’s that? They’re dead, you pointy-eared monster!

Let us not forget our own entanglements with the BlogghBot 3000.

What’s funny is IBM (makers of Watson) was the inspiration for the name HAL. (Shift the letters down a value.)

Thank you, Bastien Vives. Now I can’t sleep.

…

Eek!

“Your mom’s gonna hate it” is the tagline. Somehow that sounds more like angsty pre-teen and less like an intelligent gaming experience.

I guess both my kid and I are at a different stage. We’ve spent the day watching Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century and playing ilomilo.

ilomilo’s whole focus is to reunite two friends so they can have tea. (Not being sarcastic.)

Sherlock Holmes takes place, as you guessed, in the 22nd century and is what happened after Holmes fell into Reichenbach Falls. All of the stories are based on the short stories of Doyle, but with a sci-fi spin (sound familiar?) The East India Trading Company is now a lunar colony and Lestrade’s great-great-granddaughter is New London’s best inspector. (Watson? He’s some kinda cyborg. He wears a trenchcoat to not draw attention to his mechanical soul.)

Only four episodes are on Netflix. Here’s a sample, though:

What our news sources are going to focus on is how Marvel is designing mascots for the NHL (like they did for the NBA).

Looking at the photo, doesn’t it seem like Cobra Commander plays for Montreal?

We’re hanging out with two excellent world travelers today from Brazil and I am digging Portuguese. It shares similarities with Spanish, but has some cool slide things going on. Last night we had a deep conversation (not sarcastic) and it was boa to be able to dust off some of the linguistics parts of my brain.

The translation app on my friend’s iPad definitely helped. I felt like a stenographer at the United Nations.

Something that we found, still connected to the brain, is a great parody of this analysis of the Inception soundtrack:

Here’s the parody:

MIND-BLOWING!

No reports yet if your Dead Parrot has wandered into a neighboring farm, though I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw “Booyor needs four more shrubbery to complete a Trojan Rabbit” notices.

Let’s get something straight: I am extremely thankful for the new copy of Office for Mac. I know that I am old because I am really excited about a word processor.

I get that the new Office does everything in ribbons instead of toolbars. I can follow the rationale and appreciate it.

But what’s up with the icons in my dock?

They’re ribbons. I get it. They just look…different. Shockingly so. I have yet to open Word yet (checking for updates and all that), but I trust that it will be shockingly different.

But what’s up with the Excel icon? Is it two greater than/less thans performing Cirque du Soleil? If only I knew someone who worked at Microsoft that I could ask…

Beacon for lovers. Setting for weird Georges Melies films. Reminder of Chairface Chippendale’s far-reaching criminal influence.



In 1962, JFK said that we choose the moon (remember the cool site his library set up?):

George W. Bush had said that he wanted NASA to focus on getting us back to the moon. While a lunar base would be cool, especially as a construction yard (although would we want more space junk?), it’s a place we’ve already been.

Obama spent Columbus Day signing his space vision into law. We’re going to have a manned mission to an asteroid by 2025 and to Mars in 2030. Those dates don’t feel like they have the same sense of urgency as the Space Race. We’re not afraid of a Sputnik fleet brainwashing our teenage girls, only to be saved by rock and roll, anytime soon.

What works is providing a challenge for NASA. Now they have to hit a moving target.

What? You say the moon orbits around the Earth, which in turn orbits around the sun? Don’t tell the Internet commenters that. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that trolls hate science.

“Don’t burden me with your Kepler ellipticals, boy!”

The real benefit of the program is that there are some vocal experts on landing on asteroids. Steve Buscemi is already putting together his Aerosmith mix tape in anticipation of being selected. The asteroid program is said to rely heavily on commercial help. Richard Branson is wringing his hands in Burnsian delight.

Which one’s the crazy one?

If you want to fund the program, sell advertising space on the module. Send the GEICO gecko up. Better yet, to gather the most news time, put Kim Kardashian up there with The Situation, Nancy Pelosi, and Glenn Beck.

The only danger would be if they could work out their differences, populating an asteroid with their own twisted culture. Then we would definitely need the nuclear option.

The big question is what will happen when the next administration takes over. Will the next president scrap Obama’s plan like he did to Bush’s Constellation project?

The funny thing is that I’m so immersed in my alternate history right now (27,000 words!), I keep thinking Woodrow Wilson wins the next election.

And now back to my alternate history.

I haven’t redeemed the code yet. I’m going to see if my wife wants Hannah Montana’s “Hoedown Throwdown”.

I had a gut feeling from the first e-mail. No one starts out with “Good day.” Not in my state, pardner.

He asked if it was in good condition, I said yes, and here was the response:

Hello,
Thanks for your prompt reply.Well, i must say you’ve got a nice item and as a matter of fact, In a transaction like this, i will appreciate it if we can put trust first so that the transaction can go smoothly.
I would have love to come by with cash and pick it up but at the moment am a kinda of too busy to come over,so i think i can send you a cashier check via Fedex Or UPS overnight and my shipping company could come pick it up once payment is cleared.The Check will be excess and all you what will need to do is to just send the remaining balance to my Shipper for pick up after deducting your money,if you are ok with this pls do get back to me with your full name,address and phone number so i can proceed with the payment and pls do keep this item for me and inform other interested party that its been sold..ok

Regards,
Paul

Spoiler Alert: It’s a spammer.

Yesterday we sent an e-mail to a number of consumers who wrote to us in recent days expressing their concern with respect to Blizzard’s Real ID program. Given the large number of messages we received, we decided to respond with a mass e-mail so those who’d written us would receive our response as quickly as possible – rather than responding to each message individually, as is our usual practice.

Through an unfortunate error by one of our employees, some recipients were able to see the e-mail addresses of others who wrote on the same issue. Needless to say, it was never our intention to reveal this information and for that we are genuinely sorry. Those who write to ESRB to express their views expect and deserve to have their contact and personal information protected. In this case, we failed to do so and are doing everything we can to ensure it will not happen again in the future.

The fact that our message addressed individuals’ concerns with respect to their privacy underscores how truly disappointing a mistake this was on our part. We work with companies to ensure they are handling people’s private information with confidentiality, care and respect. It is only right that we set a good example and do no less ourselves.

We sincerely apologize to those who were affected by this error and appreciate their understanding.

Sincerely,

Entertainment Software Rating Board

After the math department at the University of Texas noticed some of its Dell computers failing, Dell examined the machines. The company came up with an unusual reason for the computers’ demise: the school had overtaxed the machines by making them perform difficult math calculations.

I’ve been overtaxed by difficult math calculations before.

What shouldn’t be a surprise is that the 11 million computers (not all at U of T) were found faulty. They had a Dell label on them, right? Oh, zing!

Check out this one from the Church of Diamonds. In order for Pastor Godfrey O’ Dette (the rebels use names that sound like Bart Simpson calling Moe’s Tavern) to donate to the scammer, the recipient of the money had to prove that he had been initiated into the Church of Diamonds. Not only did he waste the scammer’s time (and draw focus away from people who might actually fall for the scam) but he made the guy send an awesome photo:

The new initiate

There’s more to the story, so check it out. The 419eaters usually get out of trouble by Photoshopping their own death:

But what do you do when you upgrade/renew a contract and you have an extra cell?

This is for Gary and Jason:

Sites that I would check out are CellForCash, FlipSwap (with free shipping), Gazelle, NextWorth, and YouRenew.

To see if you have the plan that best fits your use, check out BillShrink.

If you have an iPhone, you’re kinda stuck with Expensive or More Expensive.

Things the new iPhone won’t do:

1. Take pictures unaided underwater.
2. Stop the BP leak. [oooh! how timely! I'm like Dennis Miller over here.]
3. Shoot phasers.
4. Get me to stop watching literal versions of music videos.
5. Cheer up Keanu Reeves.
6. Get me to stop laughing at this.
7. Make driving a minivan give me more swagger.
8. Help this Scottish guy love Iceland.
9. It will do anything for love, but it won’t do that.

For these reasons I’ll have to wait.

Here’s the plan. I’ll post a copy of it and you vote for whether it’s SPAM or not by leaving a comment. (You know, if you’re already an approved commenter and all that. SPAMmers, you get no vote.)

The original comment is as follows:

I’m not SPAM, I’m Cholera. CHOLERA!

I came to the Valley Of the Surface Of The Sun 31 years ago waving the prog – rock flag.

Then I got tired of listening to commercials with music thrown in as filler.

Then the jazz station that hit he up for money sent me a revised schedule chock full of notjazz (KJZZ still has a great blues show at 6pm Sunday nights)

Then the computer came and assimilated me.

Then PANDORA.

end of line

Though I’m really curious how mt “Thievery Corporation Radio” , chosen for its preoccupation with trip – hop, morphed into DJ Tiesto on the jackhammer every sixth cut. -, that ‘s annoying. Get off my lawn!

SPAM or not? You make the call. It’s a game I like to call “Are You Smarter than a SPAMmer?”

But where’s my hoverboard? Are we any closer?

While I wait I’ll have to be content with a robot moon station and the crazy balancing scooter chair.

I know they’re striking athletic poses, but I can’t help but think Wenlock (or is it Mandeville? Which one’s the orange one?) is standing like a one-eyed alien Nazi.

One-eyed alien Nazi

Barcelona’s Cobi (from 1992) was cool because he was so simple.

I also dig the 1980 mascot, Mikhail Potapych Toptygin (yeah, that’s his name).

No mascot can trump the 1984 eagle, designed by Disney. It’s no surprise that Sam was the first mascot to sell out and be used commercially. Oh, the irony.

I blame the London mascots on the Athens mascots:

and accursed Izzy, the genetic aberration that should serve as a reminder that just because you have the technology doesn’t mean you have to use it.

He (it?) was the first mascot designed completely on computer. That never translates well into giant foam-suit-guy reality.

If you feel the need to Rickroll, please consider the following:

For convenience, the Interwebs now has the easy-to-remember URL of http://trololololololololololo.com/

Can you just feel the nostalgia in these words?

Declaration of Secrecy

I, the undersigned, hereby acknowledges towards LEGO System A/S that all pieces of information, whether submitted orally or in writing, documents, drawings and any other kind of material (hereinafter referred to as “Information”) which I receive during test of LEGO Universe, until launch of game, shall be treated strictly confidentially, and that all such Information shall always be kept in a satisfactory way and shall not in any circumstances be revealed to any third party.

Furthermore, the undersigned declares that all such Information shall only be used in connection with the co-operation with LEGO System A/S and shall in no circumstances be copied or reproduced in any way without the prior written consent of LEGO System A/S.

The undersigned hereby furthermore declares that I will never use the Information as mentioned above for any commercial purposes.

The undersigned accepts that all such Information remains the property of LEGO System A/S and therefore, at LEGO System A/S option, either has to be returned to LEGO System A/S after the termination of the co-operation or has to be destroyed.

The fact that Space Buddies was playing in the background was not a help. You should know that we have sneezed so much that my youngest is currently fake sneezing, saying, “Achoo! Oh, bless you!” over and over again in a sing-song voice.

I went on Microsoft’s Social Problem website to find a fix to my Internet connection (I browsed using the MacBook – Internet to the home was just fine). The solutions ranged from “re-install Windows 7″ to “don’t let your computer go to sleep”.

Don’t let your computer go to sleep? Wasn’t that Nightmare on Elm Street?

I tried one option that involved ipconfig and the typing of subnet masks. When that didn’t work, I tried the whole “unplug the router, modem, and computer then watch Budderball pass gas in his space suit then reconnect everything” option.

That one always works.

And Windows 7 Help Desk people – when my Internet is down, please don’t offer “have someone remotely connect to your computer” as the only Troubleshooting Wizard solution.

But kudos on Office 2010. I’m digging Word and Excel. PowerPoint, why can’t you be more like Keynote? [PowerPoint hangs its head and shuffles away.]

Internet’s up, I’m typing away, and now I will collapse on the couch.

I present to you…Web Site Story.

For anyone who has wanted to punch Clippy in the face: What if the Matrix ran on Windows XP?

It should be noted that Windows now gives a rating to describe your OS experience, on a scale from 1.0 to 7.9 (the 6 scale already being taken by ice skating judges and the 10 scale done to death by beauty pageants and/or video game magazines)(Will it expand to 8 with a future OS?).

My machine, with its new hardware, was ranked by Windows 7 at a very encouraging 1.0. Oh…7.9 was the good one. D’oh.

I don’t have Aero running, but the new look is still not lost on me. It is simpler, as advertised, and that’s what I love about Snow Leopard. Get me to what I want to do in the quickest way you can. 7 is definitely a jump in the positive direction from XP (which still had a lot of hold-overs from Windows 95 and 3.1).

Two things so far will take some getting used to:

I didn’t realize just how much I threw around my windows and project files until the windows started resizing on me. With 7, if you drag a window to the top of your monitor, the window maximizes. For the most part this is pretty cool. But when I got into the thick of a project last night I had windows inflating all over the place.

I read promises of pinning to the taskbar at the bottom, like the dock in OSX. You can pin applications, but you can’t pin folders (I probably haven’t discovered how to do it yet…I’ve only had one day with the system). I like to have my documents right there in the dock for one-click access. So far, no deal on the docs. I did put it in my Start menu.

Those two issues are not dealbreakers. They’re not intuitive, but I know I’ll adapt. (Isn’t that how tech works? You adapt instead of the software adapting.)

I already had back-ups of my documents, so I didn’t do the back-up procedure recommended by the upgrade manager. Like I told Devin, I felt like I was rolling up a new character who hadn’t wasted all his feats on stupid stuff like Mobility or Martial Arts I. I’ve set up a lot of computers since we first got this desktop. I now get to organize the files in a more logical sense, instead of trying to play catch-up.

What I didn’t realize was that Windows 7 still stored my documents, even though it said it wouldn’t. I’m not complaining. It’s in a folder called Windows.old. I wish I had known that before trying to set up my anti-virus. The program wouldn’t recognize my serial number – I had until February to renew, but I purchased a renewal last night. To download the free trial you still had to purchase it, they would credit back your account. Very tricky.

We set up the Office 2010 beta. I’m liking what they did. I mainly do web-based stuff, so I haven’t had to type anything up yet. My current book project is in Google Docs. I wanted to type it up in the new Word, just because it looked like so much fun. I know I’ll get there. I may even have to use Word’s help feature for the first time in my career, if only to see what it looks like. (I take that back…I had to use help to figure out mail merging for the office secretaries. It’s not like I merged a lot of databases to form letters in college. I didn’t major in Junk Mail (but I did minor in Spam)).

On day two I only have two complaints (appropriately enough).

7 has a great new search feature that is very similar to Spotlight in Snow Leopard. I’m not seeing easily how to search for files of certain sizes or specific file types (except for using wildcards with the file extensions). In XP you could hone down the criteria for your search even in the default search function. I’m not seeing it in 7 but I hope to find it in time. Now if I could only create Smart Folders…

My biggest complaint is what they’ve done with setting up a home network. If I had another machine running 7 I could set up a new thing called a homegroup (a little different definition than I’m used to). But I miss the My Network Connections section of the Control Panel. It was really easy to set up a network between the MacBook and my PC before. My first time trying it the router had the two machines sharing the same IP address, allowing neither to connect to the Internet or each other. My second time trying to set up a network disabled my LAN. I had to call up my ISP to figure out how to enable my network adapter again (basically I called but then went through the 7 troubleshooter a couple of times until I found the LAN settings…the poor tech support guy had to listen to me figure it out myself. He hadn’t used 7 yet.)

I’m finally able to share documents, but I still can’t get the printer on the network (even though it says it’s sharing). The home networking setup procedure is not intuitive any more.

Overall I’m very happy to be running Windows 7. I’m very excited about Office 2010 and how fast my computer is running. I also like that there’s now a decent screenshot utility built into Windows. For as many tech manuals as I’ve made, it’ll make my life easier.

I know this has probably circulated already, but at work I opened up my fortune cookie and found this:

The back said, “Please someone at work by being calm and impartial.” Easy for you to say, Courier Cookie. Your employer didn’t block Google. Thankfully it wasn’t every Google service (I’ve already used Wave to coordinate two major projects and Docs lets me write spontaneously). We’re now asked to use Bing as a campus if we’re looking for images. I like the image search, to some extent. What I find really funny, in a “the tighter you clench your fist the more systems will slip from your grasp”-type funny, is that YouTube is blocked completely on campus. I unfortunately had mentioned at the district office that blocking didn’t make sense because the results still came up in Google Video. Well, in Bing those YouTube videos still come up. Now it’s even easier because you hover over the thumbnail and it plays automatically.

I used to find that feature annoying but now it cracks me up. Bing, even though your name doesn’t conjugate well, you’re starting to grow on me.

I see this as a great opportunity to be a well-rounded computer user, to see both sides (until I become a famous author and can afford an iMac).

This is similar, except with less Gettysburg. Put on your headphones and have fun at the virtual barber shop:

If you have trouble listening to something for an extended period of time, you could make an animation while you wait at Aniboom.

That in and of itself could make for a good bloggh post.

But wait! There’s more!

If you want to read articles from The Professional Site, read on:

I had watched a demo video at wave.google.com over the summer debuting Wave. As with any tech thing, my thoughts started racing with how to use it in an educational community setting. Over the weekend I got an invitation to be a part of the limited preview. (Happy Thanksgiving, right?) I’ve been chatting with people about Wave and here are some general questions (before we tackle how to use it in a school setting) I can answer after having used it.

What is Wave?
The best way I can think to describe it is that Wave is what e-mail would look like if it was invented today instead of decades ago.

But I already do e-mail. Why would I use this?
E-mail is extremely linear. When you are e-mailing a simple message to one person, that works. If you start e-mailing back and forth in a conversation, that’s where stuff starts to get cluttered and it’s tough to see the progression of ideas. GMail started the whole “conversation” idea, making it easier to follow who said what. Wave takes it further.

I was able to embed a map, a YouTube video, and a picture into the Wave very easily. That’s a definite plus. In e-mail those resources sometimes don’t come across.

How could it make my life easier?
For me, e-mail gets confusing the more recipients that I have per message. Before replying, I have to sift through what everyone else said. Many times that entails opening up multiple messages and checking when they were sent. With Wave, it’s one message and the responses are shown more like threads or comments at the bottom of a blog post.

How could it make my life more difficult?
First, there’s the “Great. One more account to manage; one more thing to check” problem. I’m hoping that Google will incorporate other services, specifically mail coming in from already-created e-mail accounts.

Next, you can reply to any portion of a Wave. The Wave’s status will show how many replies are unread. You need to scroll through the whole Wave to see the unread replies.

How could it give me a headache?
My friend are I were chatting (Google calls it “ping”…think Scott Westerfeld’s Tally Youngblood series.) and we had to scroll quite a bit. Just like in a main Wave, you can reply to any section of a ping. Think about how fast an online chat goes. Now picture someone posting a reply at the very top of the chat where the ping started an hour ago. My friend and I are decently tech savvy and we were lost. For friends chatting, it’s funny. But I picture a professor I had that did online chats. His idea of a chat was to have everyone type up their responses days in advance and then paste them into the chat all at once. That hurt to read. This will not improve that.

Where could it offend people?
I choose my words carefully. When it’s a really important e-mail, I’ll revise it a couple of times before sending it out. With Wave, my friend jumped in before I knew it and was watching me type my reply, letter by letter, so that before I was done he was already saying, “I thought so.”

Very disorienting. I like to spell things correctly. Typos become even more annoying as someone is virtually watching over your shoulder.

My friend was able to edit what I had said. Google changed it to read that we were co-authors of the reply. I’m glad he can spell well, because you can’t tell who said what after the specific reply becomes co-authored. I didn’t want someone to look through the archives of the Internet to see that I had misspelled a word when in fact it was someone else.

You know, because those things are important.

I also think about how many people write an e-mail angrily just to delete it as a way of venting. Wave records what you’re messaging, so someone could watch the playback and see what you initially said. For people who carefully choose their words when writing to others, you have to do a rough draft in your head. It slows things down and makes it more stressful.

Is it worth it?
Google is known for constantly changing, constantly growing. I think that the tech will change to meet the need and we’ll see more features show up once it’s out of preview mode. Just like any new tech, we’ll see it come out for a year as the people who use tech for gadget’s sake enjoy it. Some time after that we’ll then see the general populous join on IF it incorporates e-mail better.

___

Over the weekend, when I wasn’t figuring out Google Wave, I finished Crocodile Tears by Anthony Horowitz. Stormbreaker (as well as Haddix’s Among the Hidden) was the first YA book I read as a junior high teacher and it helped me to see how that market of books has developed over the years. If you remember my review of Ghost in the Machine by Patrick Carman, I made reference to how much I enjoyed Scorpia (my favorite of the series) and how Ark Angel was a letdown for me. (Yes, I’ve read Snakehead.)

As I began Crocodile Tears, I thought, “Can this get me back from ‘I enjoy the series’ to ‘I rave about the series’?”

I love how Horowitz starts out the novels with an opening scene much like a James Bond movie. We see minor characters involved in some sort of trauma, introducing a sliver of the main conflict. We also don’t see Alex Rider, for the most part. Chapter one gets you hooked with a disaster at a nuclear power plant. A charity swoops in to help immediately and we are instantly suspicious that the charity may have known ahead of time when the disaster was going to happen.

I was nervous, at first. I’m a huge supporter of helping out wherever you can, even internationally, so I was hoping that Horowitz would not paint a jaded view on aid organizations. There’s a great conversation where Alex Rider is defending people who donate because it’s the right thing to do, not because they’re playing some kind of game.

Desmond McCain is a good villain in the spy movie sense. There are some times where the cheaper, easier way to win would be to just kill Alex and be done with it. Nope. Just like it’s mentioned in Pixar’s Incredibles, the villain monologues and explains the plan, trusting the henchmen to finish the job. Not the most logical way to enact your evil schemes, but it definitely fits the style.

A student and I had debated on whether Alex Rider had actually killed anyone in his books. The villains pursue him to the “Captain Ahab” level of obsession to their own demise. In this one it’s pretty clear: bad guy is going to kill Alex, Alex kills him first – but it’s under a spy code of morality.

1. You point a gun at someone and shoot, you’re an assassin.
2. You create an elaborate plan to watch the person die, you’re a supervillain.
3. You create an elaborate plan using just what’s on you at the moment (perhaps feeling a degree of remorse), you’re a super spy.

Alex is angst-ier this time around.

Something that I had lost sight of is that the entire series has just been one year in Alex’s life. In other words, he has missed a TON of school. Crocodile Tears highlights this; the adults finally realize that this 14 year-old should probably attend a full day of school from time to time.

It’s definitely not the end to the series. There is still room for Alex to grow throughout the years. Crocodile Tears is an enjoyable read. (I’m still biased towards Scorpia, but I’m excited to see where the series goes.)

___
Choose Your Own Adventure books kept me coming back to the public library daily as a kid and I would be willing to bet partly influenced my decision to become a librarian.

A friend of mine sent me this link a while back and it’s taken me until now to sort through all of the analysis of the Choose Your Own Adventure books. I hadn’t realized that as the series went on, there became less choices in the books. I have always wondered what it took to organize all of the pages to point to different places throughout the book. (I made a Choose Your Own Adventure radio show CD in high school, so I understand the effort on a smaller scale.) Check out this site for more of the math behind Choose Your Own Adventure books.

Also of note were the Lone Wolf books by Joe Dever. It makes sense that these types of books, ones where you jump around inside the framework of the book, came around during milestones in video game computing. (For my students that know how much I love video games, you should imagine what it would be like growing up on this game. Yeah, no 3D cards, just text.)

The Lone Wolf books were cool because they had a page at the end with random numbers scattered across them. This was to generate a score for your character’s skill checks and attacks. It was a book where you were the main character and it played out like a variation on a video game. You were supposed to close your eyes and point to one of the numbers, but my teacher would always get mad at me during silent reading time.

These books really grabbed my imagination because, no matter how hard I tried to predict where the story was going, it could always take a crazy turn. Some smart authors even put fake endings into the book to trap you if you were just flipping through the pages.

The worlds that these authors created I can still remember. That’s why the samizdat quote is so poignant:

It was the fact that after reading it you understood the logic of Gibson’s world. And that logic was portable to any new scenario you could dream up.

___

Justin Bieber got his start broadcasting videos of himself singing on YouTube, getting the attention of a record label. Now Web 2.0 stuff is creating some trouble for that record label. James Roppo of Island Def Jam Records is being charged with a couple of misdemeanors, such as endangering the welfare of children. A riot of fans broke out at a mall appearance on Friday; five people had to go to the hospital.
James Roppo is accused of not helping out the police in handling the angry crowd. Here’s what one officer had to say about it, from the Associated Press article:

“We asked for his help in getting the crowd to go away by sending out a Twitter message,” said Nassau County Police Det. Lt. Kevin Smith. “By not cooperating with us, we feel he put lives in danger and the public at risk.”

You want to do what you can to keep the fans safe. Those are the people that make a star famous. But I’ll admit it’s an interesting step in technology ethics by requiring someone to write a message on Twitter. Is that covered under the first amendment? Is this like yelling fire in a movie theater?

“In 2010, Activision publishing is expected to release a strong product line of innovative new titles,” Tipple said. “The diversified lineup will include, among others, titles based on the best-selling franchises in the company’s history, including Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk, Shrek, and Spiderman, and a select few new intellectual properties such as Blur and Singularity, and a strong catalog based on our top sellers of 2009.”

You might want to also look up “innovative”.

I really liked the way that the window re-sized when I dragged a chunk off to the side. I don’t see myself, nor my grandma, using the “shake the window like an Elebit to see all the program’s windows” feature (unless it’s after a Star Wars night (multi-caffeinated beverages consumed). Then the Wario-esque shaking would come naturally as I de-toxed.) I’ll hit F9 for now.

Dance magic, dance!

I agree with the Ohm – lots of great broken image links, website awards banners, and even a hit counter stuck at a ridiculously low number. But what are they missing? Animated gif flames.

They did enough frames to make me sick to my stomach, though.

We’re not just limiting nostalgia to bad web design today: I haven’t been home to watch the Nintendo Channel on the Wii yet, but I guess Nintendo is releasing a 3D version of Excitebike with online multiplayer. Also, rumor has it that Activision is working on another GoldenEye game.

That’s good, because right now the biggest game my students are obsessed with right now (besides some game called “Call of Duty”) is some game where you play as a giant shark.

Thank you, Ohm, for bringing to our attention this painfully honest commercial:

Before you get too offended, check out how Rhett and Link (the guys who made the commercial) are helping out other local businesses.

I, for one, support our ant overlords:

“Did you hear that?!?! OBLIGATORY!”

Even thought I’m not a big Halloween fan (this year I contemplate just a warning sign: “CAUTION! SARCASTIC LIBRARIAN MAY HURT FEELINGS”, but I think I’m going Luigi instead), we do try and be out in the front yard to hang out with our neighbors. I’m contemplating this with an LCD projector:

It’s no Plan 9 with Dr. Zombie, but it’ll do.

I mean, how many variations on guys in tights hugging each other can you get?

Companies are trying to grab new followers, experimenting with different immersion technologies. I think this first one is very limited.

The next one just scares me.

Yes, that’s an actual patent and yes, that’s the artwork their marketing department really thought would engage the imagination.

I think that they are intending this:

for games featuring these:

where I believe that they are missing out on these:

I don’t even use the well-written apps. I’m one of those weirdos who leaves actual comments.

Oh! Zing!

Warning: Don’t watch this video before bed. I love Japanese advertising.

The double guns remind me of Jango Fett.

How many carnival game collections does one system need? I’ve stopped hoping for decent RPGs and turned to an unlikely source…books.

These are actual bundles from Gamestop.

See the responses at IGN.

Once you’ve done that, listen to Neil Gaiman read The Graveyard Book in its entirety. Newbery!

You may have seen that our politicians don’t always agree.

The legislature of Arizona approved a budget June 4. We can start planning for the school year, right? Not yet.

We have three branches of government (checks and balances still rock, even if we don’t wear powdered wigs anymore).

The legislature is holding onto the budget. It’s like a game of keep away, where they keep looking like they’re going to give the paper to her, and then they pull it back quickly.

It’s actually more like a game of chicken. We’re waiting to see who’s going to be responsible for shutting down parts of Arizona government. Who will flinch?

Who will have the stinky hot potato budget in their hands when the June 30 Catch Phrase buzzer goes off?

One branch of government is suing another branch of government and asking the remaining branch of government to mediate.

“I’m not speaking to you. Judicial Branch, will you tell Legislative Branch to give me the budget?”

“Judicial, you tell Executive that we can do what we want. I’m going to hold my breath until she says that she loves me.”

I think we may have a possible cause for low voter turn-out. There’s an attitude that politicians follow their own interests and not the interests of the people of the Republic – that the population doesn’t feel represented/that their vote affects policy. Intriguing…

And then we see goofy school districts doing stuff like this. I feel like mentioning that not all of us subscribe to the rubber room philosophy.

While I was looking up the details about the Arizona Supreme Court, seeing if I could find anything in the Supreme Court online records about the budget case…imagine my surprise at what I stumbled across.

The Public Access Case Lookup.

I searched myself and thankfully none of the atrocities committed under the Booyor banner were listed, but one guy who shares my first and last (but not middle) name should probably lay off the alcohol – forever.

Look up your name. Tons of fun for the whole family. Gotta love public access court documents provided by our government.

I know that we’ve been very focused on the Iranian elections (which I’m glad that crimes normally ignored are being brought to light) but I find it interesting that people haven’t been intrigued by what’s going on with North Korea, Myanmar, and China.

View Larger Map

A cargo ship, the Kang Nam, is heading to Yangon, Myanmar but may have to refuel at Shanghai.

Here are the complications: there’s a U.S. destroyer (the USS John McCain, ironically enough) following the ship to see if it has illegal cargo. After North Korea tested nuclear weapons and launched a missile in May, the UN has sanctioned North Korea from shipping nuclear weapons-type stuff. If they have that junk, the ship is to be redirected to a port of Pyongyang’s (North Korea version of Washington, D.C.) choosing to be searched.

North Korea has been saying that this would be an act of war.

We’ll see what happens with the port authority of Shanghai. I wonder if North Korea’s testing the sanctions like a one year-old tests if you’ll make them finish lunch (not like I have any experience, right?) or if they’re just waiting for the U.S. destroyer to slip up.

I should be careful with my comparisons to big news events with immature acts. I don’t want to pull a Hoekstra. He posted an exaggeration on Twitter:

Iranian twitter activity similar to what we did in House last year when Republicans were shut down in the House.

and an entire site was born:

But have you seen these UFO sightings in Google Earth?


Both of these are in Romania. What’s your vampire band friend up to, Slade?

Open up the following files in Google Earth to see UFO and Sasquatch sightings over time. Click here for an animated map of UFO sightings.

What’s Slade’s friend doing? Plan 9, that’s what.

“We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I will spend the rest of our lives.”

I throw the next two fight scenes in for Mike:
Kirk and a Lizard

It’s “amok time”, fool:

After getting my computer up and running again from a 3D card mishap (who knew nVidia GeForce4 cards controlled all of your video, audio AND ethernet connections on your PC?) I’m working on speeding up the PC.

I’m doing the usual check for spyware, Norton runs constantly for anti-virus, and later I will do a disk clean-up with a defrag for dessert.

But what about speeding up the usability? How we can help the user?

One thing that I notice about XP is that the All Programs part of the Start menu gets cluttered.

I’ve had XP for a while and I just discovered an easy way create folders in the All Programs list.

Right click on the Start menu and choose Explore (or Explore All Users) to then view the folders XP uses to display in All Programs.

Now you can create a folder called “Multimedia – Random” to organize all of those photo editors/video makers that come with your cameras/PC. Here’s some info from Microsoft. All of these years and I never knew this. I never tried right-clicking on the Start menu. Doesn’t seem too intuitive.

It’s interesting prioritizing applications over the past six years. A lot of what I’ve done in the past is now managed online. I also have a lot fewer games. You may have heard why.

You may have heard that MTV recycles a lot of ideas. I say “heard” because you probably tuned out when they stopped airing Remote Control, Aeon Flux, and the T2 music video.

You can tell what summers in Iowa consisted of for me.

Which is bigger, the hair or the remotes? It’s so outdated, the veejay hasn’t heard of the name “Marisol”.

MTV is recycling something already recycled by Argentina. Twice the recycling – @algore is excited.

Have you seen Casados con Hijos? You may have seen it as the epic tale of Peggy and Al Bundy. Well, Argentina re-wrote it to be la historia de Lola y Paco.

In our area it’s on channel 40 (non-cable) at 4pm and 7pm in Spanish with English subtitles. It’s the same show plotlines, just now in subtitles with new actors. It’s even the same set. I don’t know which is better for Spanish acquisition, watching a telenovela with no subtitles and picking out a few words or having a sitcom with subtitles (do I rely too much on the subtitles?) and catching most of the words.

It’s not Destinos, though. Way better show with only half the mind rot.

Did Raquel ever make it to Don Fernando’s and figure out who the Rosario chica was? We never finished it in Spanish 102.

Click here for episode 1. It may ask you about pop-ups. Apparently Annenburg loves Windows Media Player to embed their videos. Blargh.

This slipped past my mind, even after completing my Wii Fit regimen this morning.

Video games are a great escape. You can be whoever you want to be (or close to it…the barbarian librarian with a laser sword is still in the concept-development stage) and perform feats that would normally cause you great injury.

But as we get into more motion-based game controls, we run the risk of creating fewer games for people whose minds are free but their bodies are not. Someone who is wheelchair bound, but has control of the hands, will not be able to pantomime their foot like a car accelerator.

How is Natal going to handle assistive devices, like what some have to use to drive a car in real life?

A positive, though, is the voice recognition technology. If we can get computers to recognize voices near flawlessly, we can get more people hooked up to modern technology applications at a cheaper price.

It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out. What’s really fun is watching all of the people who criticized the Wii for being a gimmick (I started out as one, when I first saw Ultimate Alliance…but then was won over by Wii Sports) now on those same video game message boards defending Microsoft (the even funnier ones being the PS3 owners, afraid that Sony will now target casual gamers…you live with your mom, now she’s going to frag you in Resistance-type fears). It’ll be great when the creativity, innovation, and execution of great storylines will be the determining factor, and not hardware choices.

Who am I kidding? We created this dearth of creativity by buying the same game, over and over again, with different packaging. And the companies have watched us do it and are taking notes.

You’ve probably seen the commercials for bing. But how many have taken a look?

It dawned on me yesterday that as a librarian I should know how to navigate it and understand the pros and cons.

What a weighty responsibility I have – do you realize this? I shape the future, much in the way Nen Yim fuses poison darts into fingertips.

I heard it from an inside source that Bing stands for “Bing is not Google”.

I think the only way to solve this is simple: Battle Royale. Some may demand that I go to the Deadliest Warrior depths of simulation algorithms, but I think the typings of a madman shall suffice for the preliminaries.
vs.

The Yuuzhan Vong Challenge

I typed in Nen Yim to bing and the first result was the Wookieepedia article. The next two were about a Gamespot user profile, followed by a Yahoo Star Wars community beta image, then the Talk comment for the Wookiepedia entry.

I typed Nen Yim into Google. The first result was Wookieepedia, a branch off (a little bit easier to read) was the Talk page, followed by a Facebook page, a feed-stealer site that copied the Wookieepedia entry, and finally a profile result for a fan fiction network.

The verdict: there are a lot of Star Wars nerds on the Internet.

maps.site.com
Google takes me to the U.S. by default.
Bing takes me to the Southwest by default.

I typed in my address (even though I was already being Binged (many connotations based on pronunciation) ) and Bing found it without trouble.

I really dig the popular business categories listing, finding the results in my area. Bird’s eye view is easier to interpret than the satellite view from Google.

Don’t click on Bing’s “Explore collections”. Talk about search overload – I got a whole bunch of letters and numbers that have no meaning for me.

Google has a place for me to search and has lots of breadcrumbs to get to other searches. Bing took me some time to find my way beyond the prescribed searches.

The verdict: for pretty picture, Bing; for pretty code, Google.

I really like the front page of Bing. The picture of the day, with different hotspots, is pretty fun. I love information, following fact trails.

So the feature of the day on Bing is something that I appreciate. This weekend they had Normandy Beach (versus Tetris on Google and Land of the Lost on Dogpile), with lots of information. You click on different parts of the picture and it brings up articles and video about the topic of the day.

This morning I wanted to go back to that information, losing interest in the pictures of people eating at the San Antonio Riverwalk. In order to click on the navigation arrows on the photo to go back, I would need to install Silverlight. What would happen if I wanted to go to a different computer and show someone the cool topic from tomorrow?

The verdict: for not making me install stuff and tracking me without any inconvenience, Google wins the match-up.

Finding Sumo Blogs that Have Me in their Blogroll

The verdict: Bing wins!

Who would win in a knife fight, Google, Yahoo, or Bing?

The verdict: Did the search:Google.

The winner? By a landslide, Wolfram|Alpha. It can’t get me any information on anything I search for on a daily basis, but have you seen it generate ISBN barcodes? Cool!

Bing is already a household name, but he sang “White Christmas”.

Google was a Square One math fun fact until the search engine made it a verb.

Microsoft is going to need to throw even more ad money at the project (either that or innovate) to be able to replace Google in our minds. I have enjoyed the Search Overload commercials more than the iTunes overgeneralization or the Find a Laptop omission of details campaign (“These are small.” Really? A small laptop? Imagine that. And who buys a laptop for gaming? Do I need to educate you on modding the innards of the case, youngling?).

The saddest part? Once they got rid of the butler, Ask.com is just another collection of random shouts mixed with ad links.

The only hope for exercise was to get up and make some food.

We’re doomed.

Slade, check out Gladiator A.D. Remember how we talked about games like Street Fighter IV getting old fast because we’re not on the same team? Split-screen arcade swordfighting. It doesn’t look very Mario-friendly, though. It’s put out by some group called HVS. I think there’s a game called The Conduit coming out sometime soon.

With watching LOST, Star Trek, and Terminator, I’m kinda burned out on time travel. Now will it be an excess of, “I’m metal, but am I human?” At least Tim Burton has samurai robots in his future. (Versus Bruce Willis with two bad haircuts.)

What’s really funny is that my friend Tina (Mike – a certain “Grandma’s Fruitcake” type college friend) and her boyfriend are in one.

She’s an actress, but they told her to say something else for what she does for a living. I guess Microsoft only hires actors and that they’re not average people selected off the street.

Not that I’m complaining, though. She got paid $1000 for being filmed and then she got paid additional money because her commercial is one of the ones chosen to air. They also have specific things that they want you to say.

And she did get to keep the laptop. I don’t know if that’s a plus or not.

I know all of this is big, but I can’t help but crack up looking at all of these people holding up this statue, very seriously, and postulating.

But what if this was the carving of some obsessed high schooler? I think it’s hilarious to stereotype a people based on one work of art. Not even Thrawn would do that.

And what the heck is going on? Cloverfield is real? Robot teachers?

Is it summer yet?

Maybe I shouldn’t type that too loudly. Oh, we’re good. John Connor’s been born already and Christian Bale will growl us into the future.

Let’s just say that, hypothetically, one of our bloggh’s own challenges Wesley Crusher in a Geek Ethics debate (of which I concur in not discouraging people in practicing the Geeky Arts…I mean, that’s what a techfreak librarian does all day). What if Wesley Crusher immediately responded (venom, don’t click the link)?

How many astronaut blogs do you follow? How many update frequently from orbit? Mike Massimino is on STS-125.

And qubo and their staff have recognized Booyor the Unintentional Whistleblower.

As you may have surmised, the Internet is back up. It was a matter of unplugging everything and plugging it back in again. Unfortunately the tech guy for Cox didn’t realize this. He kept walking me through stuff and I kept saying, “Yes, yes, I understand. Move on.” but was humbled after I hung up the phone. I had unplugged the modem but had not unplugged the router.

I actually thought the conversation with Automated Lady (AL) was going somewhere.

AL: Please state the problem.
Me: Internet broken.

AL: Please hold while I check your account.

Animal Crossing-esque load music plays.

AL: It seems that your Internet connection is down. Is the computer off?

Booyor facepalm

Me: No.

AL: We need to turn off the computer to continue. Is the computer off?

I’m shutting off the computer.

AL: We need to turn off the computer to continue. Is the computer off?

Me: I’m working on it!

AL: Would you like me to walk you through how to turn off your computer?

Me: No.

AL: Fine

Transfers me to tech support operator.

True story.

South Korea, on the other hand, is cornering the market on glowing beagles.

May 1 you’ll see a new option (in Japan) on the Wii. Much like what Sony wanted with Home, you’ll have your own personal space for your Mii to hang out and manage media. Your TV in the Sims-ish set-up will play actual videos downloaded from Nintendo.

My prediction? Anime. I do realize that I may be going out on a limb with such a gutsy prediction.

It seems there are also places in your virtual hangout that when you click on them take you to ads. How…exciting?

My guess is that you won’t be able to interact real-time with other people, but you’ll probably send messages to other Wiis. What would be interesting would be VC game demos on a virtual system.

It’s nice to see that the current console to popularize avatars (understanding that there was previously Second Life and Alpha World) is getting in on the virtual world idea.

Also, will the NSA approve the new First Blackberry (Blackberry One?) for Obama? It’s interesting that this article comes out alongside an article about triangulating locations for prison-smuggled phones.

One billion apps downloaded from iTunes. Craziness.

Japan’s paying immigrants from Latin America to go home and never seek work in Japan again. Spain did this, but didn’t make too many headlines. It’s interesting the types of jobs that the immigrants took:

“kitsui, kitanai, kiken” — meaning “hard, dirty, dangerous”

I can’t remember which comedian it was (or demotivational poster) that said that if your job could be replaced by a guy who doesn’t understand English, your job stinks and will probably be replaced by robots.

There’s an interesting social experiment going on with Facebook and voting. The ghost of Benjamin Franklin approves.

I see this photo and I think The Office.

But who cares about economic reform or education?

Ashton Kutcher has proven that he’s popular.

Or not.

Here’s what the Yahoo tech guy says to prevent damage from the Conficker virus:

Microsoft offers a web-based scanner (note that some users have reported it crashed their machines; I had no trouble with it), so you might try one of these downloadable options instead: Symantec’s Conficker (aka Downadup) tool, Trend Micro’s Cleanup Engine, or Malwarebytes.

And then he has to add:

And yes, Macs are immune this time out.

I GIVE UP!!! I AM GOING TO BREAK SOMETHING!!!!

I WILL PAY YOU $10 to log-on to my xbox 360 LIVE account and sing ONE SONG on expert. You have to complete it only. I don’t care about the stars. I just want the achievement.

The song is Boston’s Foreplay/Long Time.

I have completed every other song on expert already. I cannot get past this one. I am going to break another controller if I try it myself again. Is 5 minutes of your time worth $10? It’s yours if you can do it.

(I guess it makes sense, being 1984 and David “Twin Peaks” Lynch.”)

And here’s a commercial from him that makes as much sense as buying a cigarette in the first place:

Tim Brooks, one of the guys who helped launch the Sci Fi channel when he worked at USA, is quoted as saying:

The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular

Ouch. I may be antisocial, and I may be obsessed with video games, but I do not have a basement! (But if I had one I would transfer the Star Wars room there.)

Here’s another gem:

We spent a lot of time in the ’90s trying to distance the network from science fiction, which is largely why it’s called Sci Fi

I really don’t think you’re fooling anyone, Mr. Brooks. Mr. Howe, the guy that currently runs the Sci Fi channel (I refuse to say ‘Syfy‘), has this to say:

We need an umbrella brand we can attach to new businesses: Sci Fi games, Sci Fi kids. It does no use to attach ‘Sci Fi’ because there’s hundreds of sci-fi Web sites and sci-fi publications. So it’s changing your name without changing your name

Then he goes on to talk about how they’re working on a show that also will have a subscription-based MMORPG. I remember the good ol’ days when it was the movie and then the spin-off marketing.

Did you know that not once are the words ‘TIE Bomber’ or ‘Palpatine’ used in the dialogue or the script for the original Star Wars trilogy? Check out the proof that Lucas is a marketing genius.

Syfy? That’s your marketing genius? And you say that you don’t want to focus on space or aliens? Because that hasn’t been their focus, right? [cough] Cylons [/cough]

I must admit that I am intrigued by an MMORPG that updates with the events of the show, but I don’t have time for that. I know that there’s all this stuff about Heroes or Lost, but I don’t have time to check that out.

Who has that time?

geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular

The Facepalm v. 1.2

And to save you the trouble, Wookieburger, I point towards what Syfy looks like an abbreviation for.

You may be aware that I’m a fan of Star Wars.

But what you may not be aware of is that I dig Star Trek. Admitting that takes a little bit of a risk in modern society. But really it shouldn’t.

The Captain and I went to the Star Trek Exhibit yesterday and it was actually pretty cool. They wove real-life space exploration landmarks and vessels into the timelines and displays. I kept staring at one vessel trying to remember if Zefram Cochrane worked for NASA or not.

Mike is the Captain and I am the second-in-command. I actually almost sat in Deanna Troi’s seat. I don’t have the figure to pull off the spandex. I see myself more as a bearded warrior.
Frakes on a plane:

There are Frakes on the [bleepity bleep] plane!!

We took a Star Trek trivia test. Mike scored high enough to be Admiral. I am but a Science Officer, but I would have had a higher score if Reginald Barclay had been the focus of the questions.

Being a fan of the little details, I enjoyed learning that:

1. The names of the cast and crew from Next Generation are on the display read-outs behind Worf. Initials like “PA ST” and “WI WH” stand for Patrick Stewart and Wil Wheaton, but look like settings on the scanners. In engineering they have a button for an Infinite Improbability Drive and the Oscillation Overthruster.
2. The seats are from a Pinto.

But there were some things about the exhibit that bugged me as a librarian who innately catalogs and sorts.

1. There’s a uniform from Star Trek II that is labeled as Kirk’s, but the shoulders were wide (and, ironically, the waist was narrow)(this being a key clue). When you look at the sleeve, it is the rank of a Science Officer. Yep. They have it labeled as Kirk, but it’s Nimoy’s costume.
2. Picard’s uniform is on display, but on the neck it has three gold circles and one black circle. He should have four gold circles if he’s Captain Picard. Did he get sortof demoted?

It should be noted that if I picked up on these discrepancies, imagine the reaction for a fan in actual uniform. (Pictures not included to not induce Internet mockery.)

You should know, though, that NASA created the Science Officer position on their shuttle programs from Spock’s inspiration. I’m tempted to petition for Grand Moff to be the person in charge of the ISS. They are already struggling for names, right?

Wow, Fitness First. Way to kill the use of clean, public transportation. Mental note: avoid the Netherlands.

I guess that’s not too big of a stretch.

Thanks to Peter for my dose of northwesternly Ohmage.

Have you seen the new, great Star Wars resource out there? Wookiee Burgers. I might not trust all of its articles, though, considering certain history… (No, Jesse, I’ve moved on. I swear. Really.)

Check out even more updates to the wiki. What is this? A bloggh with readers and a wiki with editors? Redonkulous! Very exciting. 木の猿のように非常に、刺激的。

Have you seen the new ad campaign launched by Book? I think it may work.

There will be ruing.

(To my normal readers, check the comments on the “Wiki Updates” post.)

The winner of the “Name My Star Destroyer” contest? My dad. He was the tie-breaker, choosing The Amaranthine. And Lt. Gravix, thank you for your continued loyalty. Please don’t kill me.

I would be most displeased.

Also, I think this is an interesting take that abovetheinfluence is taking with anti-drug campaigns. Much better than the technique Gilette is using to sell razors.