Neo, check the dictionary under “gullible”

What if, in fact, the Matrix really was the “real world” and that the world of Zion and the tunnels was a computer simulation designed by Morpheus and his cronies to produce bands of duped, highly-trained international terrorists?

Ehh, maybe not.

Game designer robin-d-laws is running a play-by-poll RPG in his journal where the reader is cast as an inmate of a psychiatric ward who’s the only person able to fight the demonic “operators” that his “angels” have warned him of. The beauty of his storyline is that, after 30 installments, I’m still not sure if the “operators” are real, or figments of the character’s psychosis. I’m not even sure if I’ll get to find out. Gripping stuff 🙂

Dinged lvl 52 with my gnome mage last night. I can finally see the endgame from here. Ironically enough, I’ve soloed almost the whole time (a little less so recently), and the endgame is all about 5-40 member parties. I’m not really sure I’ll be much use, or have much fun in that part; I may just go back to leveling some of my alts, and wait for the expansion. Or I might find out that I have untapped potential as a Raid Master. We’ll see.

And then I built another Death Star… it also exploded.

Really, I try to restrain myself from linking to YouTube stuff very often, especially when I don’t have much more content for the post.

But this one, I couldn’t resist: a lightsaber battle in an English forest, long ago…

Best-laid plans gang aft agley

This last weekend I missed the Fire for the first time in years. I was pretty darn disappointed, though we managed to spend our time here in good ways. But as Friday night came closer I had to confront the reality of the situation: the engines couldna’ take the strain.

For the last two weeks, 2 of the early-shift typesetters have been absent from work: one on vacation, and one on family emergency. Doesn’t sound too bad, except I’m the only other one! For those 10 work days, my shifts ran from 10-12 hours apiece.

I kinda rate my combined mental, emotional, and physical energy levels as “main power”, “reserves”, and “emergency”. Reserves is a subjective 25% of capacity – enough to supply me comfortably for an hour’s drive home at 3am after a good party. Emergency is about 5-10% of capacity – if I expect to do anything useful in that state, adrenaline or caffeine should be involved (preferably both).

Well, I’ve been working on “reserves” since two Wednesdays ago, and all I was getting from a night’s sleep was back approximately to that 25%. After a 10-hour Friday shift, I was running at close to emergency levels again. Oh, technically I’m sure Rain and I could have made it to Blacksburg. We’re tough. But did I really want to attend an event with my friends while I operated in total zombie mode? No. That was more fun when I was 18… which was some time ago.

So, we stayed home, and did some cool things around Norfolk and Va. Beach, which I’ll talk about later. Kind of a mixed blessing, to be honest; while we had enough fun to make up somewhat for missing our friends, it was still energy-consuming fun. Even by Sunday evening, I didn’t feel recharged much past 30% or so.

Last night, OTOH, I came home from the shift, nuked some very tasty leftovers, and plunked myself down in front of WoW for about four hours. Say what you want about gaming too much, this was 4 hours of physical rest, endorphin production, and frankly not too much challenge at any point. This morning? Why, I may be up to 40-50%.

Just in time to go to work…

Reboot! -whap-

It’s pretty easy now to find copies of the J. Michael Straczynski and Bryce Zabel proposal for re-booting Classic Trek. This series would not have had to deal with 40 years worth of continuity unless it wanted to from time to time, and would have had technology more believable to the 21st century viewer; as well, it could have been interesting to see new actors and scriptwriters putting their spin on Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. (The authors even throw out the idea of a female Scotty or Sulu, just to cut down on the sexism a bit.)

But would it have been Star Trek?

I don’t actually have a problem with a single revision they suggest – lots of it would have been quite interesting, and I think their season arcs had much more potential than Enterprise‘s. No; what I’m worried about is the current angst-ridden quality of Sci-Fi right now, and the idea that this show would bring that to Star Trek. That simply doesn’t work right.

Star Trek‘s main message was: “If we ever get a grip on ourselves, the future’s gonna be great.”

TNG: “In fact, with a little more time, it’ll be even shinier and comfier. Though we will talk a lot.”

DS9: “And once in a while, we’ll have to make nasty decisions and put ourselves on the line to keep what we’ve worked for. Worth it, though.”

(Then things came apart a bit)

VOY: “Of course, this future society will produce a few spoiled brats who, in a crisis situation, will manage to be smug and whiny simultaneously. Hell, let’s look at boobs and funky alien tech for a while.”

ENT: “And for a while there, we were just whiny, and everyone in the universe hated us and had cooler toys. Wow, we sucked.”

—–

While the main message of B5 and the current BSG seems to boil down to, “Humans (and the aliens who are like us) suck. We’ll muddle through somehow, but we suck now and forever. Deal with it.” Perhaps, a more realistic message, but I’d prefer to fight for the great shiny future, myself. Would this Star Trek be a gritty, realistic, angst-ridden examination of the flaws of humanity? If so, I don’t think I’d want any part of it.

Protected: “Thank you, may I have another?”

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“Quick – put up some shelves.”

While watching the 2005 season finale of Doctor Who with Rain the other day, something struck me. The Doctor carries a tool he calls a “sonic screwdriver”. About the size of a regular screwdriver, this tool emits sonic (and perhaps other) waves which can manipulate small mechanical and electronic objects. It’s most commonly used as a lockpick, but it’s been shown as a welder / unwelder, circuit modifier, computer reprogrammer, medical scanner, and (on rare occasions) a screwdriver.

He started using it in the Sixties, in his second incarnation, and continued well into the Eighties, when it was destroyed by an enemy of the Fifth Doctor. Sources in the BBC production team revealed that the device was causing the writers trouble when they wanted the Doctor locked up or otherwise frustrated by mechanisms. While I can’t remember if the Eighth Doctor used one during his movie, the Ninth and Tenth do so regularly, and I think with good reason. Someone at the BBC seems to have realized a fact:

Locked doors are boring story telling.

The sonic screwdriver is in fact a boon to the program: when there’s only 45 minutes of story, it’s a wise move to get past the locked doors and computer codes, and move on to the part where the Doctor must deal with other people and nasty decisions.

Besides, since the tool’s never too clearly explained, you can always have the door that the sonic screwdriver just won’t open.

(Brion Fields of Space Rogues keeps a sonic screwdriver in a pocket of his jumpsuit. Where he got it, I don’t know; and it was intended to be a subtle in-joke, not fill half the frame in an early scene.)

This is all I have today

What, you want content? Sorry, I gotta leave for work in a few.

What you get is a webcomic link: Bumblebee and Jazz go to see Pixar’s Cars.