One of the benefits of being involved “behind the scenes” with science fiction conventions is that I frequently know who the guests are going to be a day or two before the general public finds out. I sometimes wind up having photos emailed to me.
More than once I’ve opened a photo attachment without realizing it was a high-resolution scan. It’s a pleasant surprise to open one of those and suddenly find myself staring into a gorgeous, life-size (or larger) pair of eyes.
One of the downsides is that I sometimes find myself falling in love with someone quite unattainable.
Category Archives: Fandom
The Schweitzer Chronicles (pt 5)
Three months after we “sleighed” the shuttle, it became clear that folks thought we were still a going concern. So, it was time to enter another status report. I still wanted to have some fun with it though, so returning to form, I looked up the dialogue for the “Dead Parrot” sketch. I started off trying to rewrite the entire thing, but eventually decided to go with something a bit shorter. Continue reading The Schweitzer Chronicles (pt 5)
The Schweitzer Chronicles (pt 4)
By September, we’d decided to disband the Shuttle Schweitzer as a Starfleet chapter. Normally it takes a group about nine months to go from a shuttle (a chapter in training) to a full-blown chapter. We were coming up on three years and still hadn’t completed the process. What we’d realized was that we were friends anyhow and didn’t need the framework of a Starfleet chapter for that to happen.
So, we announced our decision to Starfleet via the monthly status report. Given the previous three months worth of status reports, there was only one way to do it.
Shuttle Schweitzer has had a change of command.
Our new CO is Charles Foster Kane.
Rosebud.
And with that, Shuttle Schweitzer was “sleighed.”
Pardon me, have you seen my cziltang brone?
One brave soul recently asked me which Science Fiction series is my favorite. From the context, he probably meant “TV series” (his examples were Star Trek and StarGate), but he didn’t specify. Besides, with the exception of the first half-dozen or episodes of Heroes, I haven’t really turned the TV on long enough to watch anything.
So I gave him my best, most truthful answer: Known Space.
“Known Space” isn’t a TV series; it’s a collection of stories, mostly written by Larry Niven, that are all tied together. It’s essentially a “Future History” of mankind, much like Asimov’s Robot series. (I believe the term “Future History” may first have been applied to some of Heinlein’s earlier works, but I haven’t read them recently enough to cite examples.)
Probably the best known collection of Known Space stories is the Tales of Known Space anthology. Crashlander (the collected stories of Beowulf Shaeffer) is another good starting point. Other Known Space titles include Neutron Star, and then, the four books of the Ringworld series (five if you count Protector) also have roots in Known Space.
The various Man-Kzin Wars titles are deserving of special notice. Although they all take place in Known Space, Larry Niven only wrote two of those stories (he professes that he doesn’t know how to write war stories). The remainder of the Man-Kzin stories were written by other authors who were visiting Niven’s “playground.”
Also worth a look (and kinda scary for how close some of today’s headlines are) is Flatlander which is the collected stories of Gil “The Arm” Hamilton. It’s not strictly Known Space, but it definitely contains the social roots of the other stories. (The Amalgamation of Regional Militias – or A.R.M. – in particular figures heavily in the other stories.)
Not that I’m the least bit fanatical about the stuff. 🙂
(Not sure what a “cziltang brone” is? The best way to find out is to go and read The Ringworld Engineers. But if you’re in a hurry, you can always take a shortcut.)
The Schweitzer Chronicles (pt 3)
Going into the August status report (my third in a row), I decided to take a break from the Monty Python references. Of course, after the previous two months, I couldn’t jump straight into the new gag. I’d like to believe that the transition worked out well enough that the new gag took everyone by surprise.
Having made his purchase, Matt headed out of the cheese shop, pausing to hold the door for a gentleman he’d seen coming out of the library while he was on his own way into the cheese shop. Nibbling on a chunk of Venezualan beaver cheese, Matt looked around to get his bearings. The sales clerk had confirmed that this was indeed San Francisco and Matt had decided to file his MSR in-person at headquarters. Continue reading The Schweitzer Chronicles (pt 3)
The Schweitzer Chronicles (pt 2)
Having already taken care of the Shuttle Schweitzer’s monthly report for June, I volunteered to write the July report as well. Not having learned from the previous month’s experience, Matt decided to take me up on it. The Monty Python gags continued.
Having been tossed into the Gorge of Infinite Peril at the end of last month’s MSR, Matt drew a deep breath for what he was certain would be a long drawn out “Noooooooooooooooooooooo!” worthy of Wile E. Coyote falling off the cliff for the fifth time in three minutes. Much to his surprise though, he’d barely started drawing his breath, much less yelling, when he was quite startled to hit bottom, letting out a deep “WHUMPF!” instead. Continue reading The Schweitzer Chronicles (pt 2)
The Schweitzer Chronicles (pt 1)
When Matt had problems filing the Monthly Status Report (aka the “MSR”) for the Shuttle Schweitzer (a chapter of the Starfleet science fiction club to which we both belonged), he asked me to take over for him. Matt’s known me for about ten years. You’d think he’d know better.
Our CO daringly attempted to file the chapter’s MSR via the SFI database site which, as everyone knows, is located in the fifth level sub-basement of Area 51. Upon Matt’s arrival, he was greeted by armed guards who denied that any such base existed. When asked why they were guarding a base that didn’t exist, the guards disappeared in a puff of logic and Matt proceeded to enter the top secret access codes. Continue reading The Schweitzer Chronicles (pt 1)
Getting out the Vote
One of the downsides to living in the DC area is that you get inundated with political ads pretty much nonstop. And during an election year, it just gets worse. The barrage of ads is bad enough, but making it worse is that the ads contain little of any substance.
I ran into Zaphod’s campaign ad last year, shortly after the Hitchhiker movie came out on DVD. The movie’s not as good as the original BBC series, but that’s OK. I figure Zaphod’s a better choice than some of the other jokers who are running for office. His campaign ad is certainly no less informative.
Happy Star Wars day!
Today is Star Wars Day.
Sometime today, greet a friend, loved one, or even a deserving co-worker, with the phrase “Happy Star Wars day!”
And when they respond with the inevitable blank look, simply explain, “May the Fourth be with you.”
Afterwards, be prepared to run.
Starship Maps
I spent a few hours Saturday evening playing with Google Maps. On the one hand, it’s probably not the most productive thing I could do with my time, on the other hand, all work no play…
One of the cool things about Google Maps is that they publish a programming interface so you can create interactive maps of your own. (Yahoo lets you do this too, but I haven’t had a chance to try it out yet.) Back in January, I spent some time playing with the interface and put together a map showing most of the chapters in STARFLEET in just a few hours. All in all, I probably ended up spending three or four times as much effort on the data as I did on the coding. (A lot of people couldn’t find their starships and wanted me to locate them. Hopefully they’ve since learned to not leave the keys in the ignition.)
One of the things missing from my original version was detection for browsers that couldn’t handle Google’s mapping code. I started out to fix that tonight, then discovered that Google had recently updated the interface, followed by the discovery that the interface had some hiccups with the latest version of Firefox.
A few hours tinkering and voila! The new map pages are ready to go!