Geeks and Sports

The craziness that is the conversation about the ability of athletes to speak their minds is still ongoing.

What's weird is that, after watching a few episodes of The I.T. Crowd, I realized what a fucked up status symbol it is for nerds not to like sports and sports fandom. T. Campbell was ahead of the crowd by about a decade when he termed what was then the narrow sub-culture of science fiction and fantasy "fandom." Now, we refer to "geek chic" when we talk about people who love everything from Cougar Town to Twilight, and man, neither of those two things are geek as I understand them. Hell, check out this Comic Critics from a few days ago. Same fucking thing, but from a different angle. Yes, I know that sports, as an interest, is more mainstream than comics or sci-fi and that there are a lot of loud, obnoxious idiots who like sports and can't wrap their heads around why anyone would not love it, but fuck, that sentence is also an exact description of people who like Star Wars so fucking much they reciprocate those feelings towards sports fans.

Rewatching Star Trek: Geordi LaForge

As you know I've been rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generation lately. Currently, I'm up to the seventh season opener, "Descent," so I've covered a lot of ground, both good and bad. One of the cool things about watching something you've seen one hundred times or so before is that you don't have to focus on the plot, the events, or the central action (unless it's really, really good). It lets your mind wander over the details of set quality, line delivery, and the thought processes which guide the creation of the core cast of characters. All of this wandering has lead me to the conclusion that Geordi LaForge is an underappreciated gem that invites a lot of conjecture about geek culture.

For those of you arriving twenty years or so late to the party, Geordi LaForge was the Chief Engineer for the Enterprise for four movies and six of the seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation (He was around for the first season, but he was something like Chief Officer in Charge of Miscellany or something.). Most of the previous Chief Engineers died during the first year, meaning that he either has no apprent fear of death or colludes with a lot of alien space mysteries for advancement. Over the course of the series, he gets promoted from a Lieutenant Junior Grade to a Lieutenant Commander (and he's even seen as a Captain later). He's a good engineer, but he's not a literal machine like Data* or a genius like Wesley (there are even a few times where he's like, "Transporters? You want O'Brien for that.").

Star Trek: Redemption Crew, pt 02

First off, I want to say that yes, I get that making dark and gritty versions of characters A) doesn't require any fucking talent and B) misses the point of Star Trek, and maybe slapping the names of characters I didn't really like onto tangentally similar assholes doesn't do much, but this shit is happening.

I got nuttin' else; let's do this!

Captain Jadzia Dax left everything she knew behind for a lover from a previous life. Their passion faded years later and Jadzia was left, bitter and alone from the experience. She’s quickly climbing the ranks, partying her way to the top, but beneath her charming smile and good connections, there is a fierce mind, honed with centuries of experience and focused by years of anger and perceived injustice. She is often seen as a counterpoint to the long-lived, dispassionate, and ethical Tuvok.

My Chemical Romance: Danger Days

My Chemical Romance did "Danger Days" back in November of 2010 and you can read the wikipedia if you care about boring bio/fact bullshit. For me, music exists in a vacuum and it doesn't matter what the artists thought when they were making it; even idiots can make exceptional music. If it says something to you, it's great music. Context is vital in artistic appreciation, but I suppose it's the listener's prerogative as to how much context is enough. 

Heads Up

I wanted to go on a bit about "Said and Sadness," but I'll do it later.

Next week is (hopefully) my last week out here. That means that a lot of my time is going to be spent working on DnD adventures five and six and the next two The Doom Effect episodes. That's not a lot of time for blogging, but...I think the past few weeks have shown that more is definitely less in the blogging area.

Oh, and I totally have a poll up that you can vote on. I'll try to have one up constantly from now on and post whenever a new one goes up.


Anyway, I'm only planning on having five blogs next week, plus a been-too-long Sunday Morning Soapbox tomorrow.


Be seeing you.

Sunday Morning Soapbox-Rocking the Cradle

Tunisia
On December seventeenth, Mohamed Bouazizi attempted to sell vegetables from his cart in Sidi Bouzid. When he could not afford to bribe officials, he was beaten and his goods and equipment were confiscated. His attempt to take his case to the local governor was rebuffed and he was left in the street with no money, no goods, and no income to provide for his family. In protest of the abuse and apathy of his government, he lit himself on fire. Within a week, other protests had started. When state police fired on protesters, more dissent sprung up in other areas. Ten days after Mohamed Bouazizi's hospitalization, protesters were in the capitol. He lived until the fifth of January, nine days shy of President Ben Ali's flight to Saudi Arabia (The European Union has since frozen his assets).

For 23 years Ali had been ruling Tunisia, taking land from citizens and redistributing it to his allies and family. He had used the media and police to silence dissent, amended the constitution to allow him to run for president twice, and won obviously fraudulent elections with 99.9% of the vote. While the interim government still contains many members of his party (his own Prime Minister now heads the government), it's not expected that those members will remain in the government after free elections (date still to be announced). The uprising was quick, long in coming, and partially organized over the internet. Some also speculate that leaked US State Department cables released by Wikileaks exposing the corruption of the Tunisian leadership may also have played a part, sadly reducing my personal ability to vilify Julian Assange at will.

Meeeeh. Really want to video blog.

Want to so bad. I think there are some things I could comment on better on tape. Maybe it's because I just want an excuse to buy something new and shiny.

I'm holding back on a few posts when maybe I shouldn't be because I'd rather talk about them.

-The Thor/Heimdall issue that's passe now.
-The Muslim Batman from France
-The dangerous habit of ignoring racists.

They're all related, but each one in a different way. I guess I'll have to chain myself to my lappy one day and spell it all out.