A botanical hero arises
Many friends have asked for a copy of Bob’s Quick Guide to the Apostrophe:
I know, too small to read, but I don’t want to pollute people’s friends pages with the full-size version.
Bowling for Chocobos
Dug out the sketchpad Wednesday night, and worked on that character some more.
There’s an Eddie Izzard joke where he drops into the role of the young Hitler in painting class, muttering to himself, “I can’t get this tree to look right… wait… dammit… fine! I’ll just have to kill everybody!”
That gives you an idea of how well the drawing was going.
Saturday night was a birthday party at the bowling alley for one of Rain’s work friends. I knew a bunch of people there from her work, including the one guy who begged off and just played Final Fantasy Tactics all evening. I bowled well… which is not to say I got a high score, but that I actually hit pins most of the time and got the rare spare and strike. Next time we go for ourselves, I think we’re putting the bumpers up. We had them for one game because of a youngster’s presence, and the score sheet’s a lot less embarrassing when there’s no gutter balls.
Back to the gym today, finally. (The holidays played hell with our gym schedule.) I was hoping the new mini iPod would be a lot cheaper, because it’d make an excellent gym companion, but no joy.
In the last week, I’ve read Diane Duane, Frank Herbert, Tom Clancy, Robert Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke, among others. That, and madwriter‘s posts have reawakened my writing urge. We’ll see if it goes anywhere… the nice thing about 15 years of abandoned projects is that I have a lot of source material to mine 🙂
“We Are Klingons! (Aaarrrrr!!)”
I know that this post will be completely uninteresting to those who don’t watch any “Star Trek”, but I was thinking randomly this morning while working on another used car ad, and my mind turned to last week’s episode of “Enterprise”.
You know, I became quite weary of Klingons during the late seasons of “Next Generation”. It’s not so much their politics, cultural attitudes, manners etc. that I directly mind – it’s just that I wonder how the heck Klingons ever managed to become a space-faring race with a large empire.
I mean, is it only humans that actually face risks and difficulties in space travel? Imagine, if you will, “Next Generation” as a series about a Klingon ship, maybe the “Battlecruiser Vengeance” (that’s an in-joke, btw.)
“Encounter at Farpoint” – the crew of the Vengeance meet Q, who challenges them to prove that they aren’t a savage, child race. They fail, and in pique, he curses them with the inability to actually die permanenly. (They’ll need that curse.)
“The Naked Now” – Investigating a lost ship near an unstable star, the Vengeance contracts the “drunken” virus. The crew start slaughtering each other, until the last two or three are killed by the explosion of the star.
“Where No Klingon Has Gone Before” – An alien Traveler accidentally gets the resurrected Vengeance crew lost in another dimension. After his first attempt to get them home fails, they kill him, and wander uselessly in this dimension until they starve to death.
“Q Who?” – The captain of the Vengeance is too proud to ask Q for help against the new race he has introduced them to – the Borg. The Klingons shoot the Borg a lot, and the Borg effortlessly snuff them out.
You see the pattern? All Klingons know how to do is shoot and bully, and you’d think that in the Star Trek reality of the 22-24th centuries, that wouldn’t keep them going too long…
Sometimes I can’t help but start thinking about these things. I don’t think even medication would stop it. 🙂
On a sadder note, condolences to you, Barb. I only met Dan a couple of times, but I really enjoyed his Zetra-stuff. He will be missed!
