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Shuttle Demons
Aug. 14th, 2024 08:42 pmLyda just seems to have this knack for making a quilt just perfectly designed for the recipient. I've seen the ones she's made for other members of our gaming group, and each one is not only a piece of art, but a piece of art that has been crafted specifically for the recipient. I am so overjoyed by the final result, I could scream.
Also: it is a truth, universally acknowledged, that a Captain of a federation starship must be in want of an Argo-class shuttle.
Ed is the Worst
Jan. 12th, 2024 08:03 pmWe started with a fairly standard space disaster. We've had an episode contrasting the two worlds of Mars life: the lives of the astronauts and the lives of the maintenance workers. We've had a coup. Well, two coups. One in the Soviet Union and one in the Mars black market. We've had Cold War politics. We've had a labour uprising. We've had a heist. We've had betrayals. We've had reveals. And we've had characters seemingly reaching the ends of their stories.
Brine and Brine! What is Brine?
Dec. 24th, 2023 06:11 pmWhen I was more active on Tumblr, I'd frequently see a meme lovingly gushing about microwaves with a potato button, and I'd think, "Huh. I've never had a microwave with a potato button. The very idea is weird!"
Those days are gone now.
Thought for the Day
Dec. 4th, 2023 09:16 amHer lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Night-mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,
Who thicks man’s blood with cold.
— “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Mirrored from Under the Beret.
(no subject)
Nov. 22nd, 2023 08:54 amI got into a long conversation about silverware while I was in Portugal last week. When you were growing up, did you learn the way to set your silverware on the plate to indicate that you were done or indicate that you were still eating?
Mirrored from Under the Beret.
Nothing But Blue Skies
Nov. 4th, 2023 12:14 pmI still like and prefer Mastodon, but I accept that there are segments of the communities that I follow that never migrated. So I’m giving BlueSky a try.
Mirrored from Under the Beret.
Beyond Videodrome
Nov. 3rd, 2023 12:07 pmI mentioned, the other day, doing a live stream as part of the Continuing Conversations 100th anniversary special. I think I even squee’d on Mastodon about sharing a screen with Dr. Erin. Anyway, the full video is now available. Full of RPG nerding.
Mirrored from Under the Beret.
Icon-Filled Self-Promotion
Oct. 7th, 2023 11:29 amI’m doing a livestream for a Star Trek Adventures Podcast/Videocast today.
🌌 🌟 Join Me for Continuing Conversations 100th Episode Extravaganza 🌟 🌌
🖖 Attention all Star Trek Enthusiasts! We are ecstatic to beam you up for a spectacular celebration of all things Star Trek Adventures RPG as we commemorate their 100th episode! 🚀
📅 When? October 7, 2023
⏰ Time? 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM EST
📺 Where? Live-streamed on Twitch at Studio Tembo
🌠 Event Highlights:
- 🌟 Stellar Guest Lineup: Join industry leaders Jim Johnson, Thomas Marrone (Star Trek Online), Aaron Pollyea , Nathan Dowdell , Michael Dismuke, and freelance writer Al Spader!
- 📚 Literary Contributions: From acclaimed Star Trek writers like Dayton Ward, Scott Pearson, Kelli Fitzpatrick, Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, and Derek Tyler Attico, author of the much-anticipated ‘The Autobiography of Captain Sisko’!
- 🧪 Expert Wisdom: Star Trek science advisor Dr. Erin McDonald and STA character creator manager B.C. Holmes will share their expert insights!
- 🎥 Special Appearance: By Star Trek Adventures YouTube sensation Bill Barbato!
🎉 Major Giveaways:Dive into the chance to win PDFs, hard copy collector editions, novels, and more! Answer our Star Trek-related trivia questions correctly in our LIVE chat first, and the prize is yours!
🎁 How to Win:Be the first viewer to type the correct answer in the chat and bag the prize!
Produced by Studio Tembo, this interstellar event promises a feast for every Star Trek lover! So ready your Star Trek knowledge, invite your fellow Trekkies, and let’s traverse the stars in the universe of Star Trek Adventures together! 🌟🌌🛸
Mark the date, engage with us at warp speed, and let’s boldly go where no fan has gone before! #StarTrekAdventures #ContinuingConversations #100thEpisodeExtravaganza #StarTrekFan #LiveLongAndProsper
Mirrored from Under the Beret.
Thought for the Day
Jun. 2nd, 2023 02:29 pmThe committee examined five areas of relative deficiency that are likely contributing to the U.S. health disadvantage: (1) unhealthy behaviors, such as our diets and use of firearms;(2) inadequate health care and public health systems; (3) poor socioeconomic conditions; (4) unhealthy and unsafe environments; and (5) deficient public policies. The last category especially exerts a powerful influence on the other domains — and helps explain why other advanced democracies are outperforming the United States on almost every measure of health and well-being.
“American life expectancy is dropping — and it’s not all covid’s fault”, Washington Post
Mirrored from Under the Beret.
Dis Agreement
May. 28th, 2023 10:11 amI was thinking, recently, about a topic that I recall being discussed in the old Usenet days: that the dominant social mode, for in-person conversation, is to agree. Either through direct statements, or through body language or other verbalizations. And that when discussing things online, there’s a stronger bent toward disagreement. If you agree with what someone else has said online, there’s no need to add anything; you’d only reply if you quibble with something or outright don’t accept an assertion.
I remember folks saying that a lot of people interpreted Usenet forums as “hostile” because they expected the same sort of social norms as in-person conversation: that they could say things and mostly expect to hear agreement, and instead being confronted with people’s critiques. I feel like I haven’t seen that kind of analysis out of all the “the world is more polarized than ever” thinkpieces that keep popping up.
The Internet is a different place, now, what with weaponized hate engagement and all that. But it felt useful to recall that discussion.
Mirrored from Under the Beret.
2022 in TV
Dec. 29th, 2022 10:38 pmOkay. Now let’s do TV shows. There were a lot of good shows this year, but after several years of The Expanse being something that I adored, I feel like none of these shows really fit the bill. And it’s true that I could keep The Expanse in the list, as its last episodes aired this year, I mentally think of it as something from last year.
Anyway, here are my top five TV shows and a handful of also-rans.
Number 5: Yellowjackets. My friend, kalmn, categorized this, approvingly, as “grim, grim, grim and also lesbians.” And, yeah, that’s probably not inaccurate. Yellowjackets is a show that takes place in two time periods. In “the past” — the mid-90s — an airplane carrying a team of high school sportsball players (“Yellowjackets” is the team name) crashes. We learn (in scenes set in the present) that the kids were stuck in the wilderness for 19 months, and we know from the creepy opening scene that things go bad and there’s ritualistic cannibalism. But beyond that opening scene, we mostly don’t see the past storyline being too horrible (just horrible enough). In “the present” — essentially the current day — we follow four of the survivors, now adults. We’re clued in pretty early that although they were eventually rescued, they mutually agreed to a somewhat light-on-details story of how they managed to survive. One of the survivors is Misty, played by Christina Ricci, who is upbeat, cheerful, super resourceful but also clearly a sociopath. And as much as the other three adult survivors want nothing to do with Misty, Misty is not the sort of person who doesn’t get her way. Through the first season, we get to see the slow devolution of the community of high school students stuck in the wilderness. By the end, things are becoming bad but it hasn’t gone too far off the rails. But, like I say, we’ve had a peek at how bad it ultimately becomes. In the present, we’re seeing that none of the adult survivors are in a good place either. And there are lots of other characters from the past that we don’t know anything about: did they survive? Did they get eaten? It’s similar to the Amazon Prime series, The Wilds, but I enjoyed Yellowjackets a lot more.
Mirrored from Under the Beret.
2022 in Film
Dec. 27th, 2022 11:12 amI’ve fallen out of the habit of doing these round-ups since the panini started. But I want to return to it because it’s kind of fun thinking back over the last year’s media.
This year, I’m gonna break up my usual post into two parts: my favourite films and my favourite TV shows. Here we go.
Number 5: Nope. I confess that the earliest trailers for this film were largely incomprehensible to me. I had no idea what the film was about (except, broadly, horses and UFOs), and that didn’t particularly move me to seeking it out. But Sio suggested that we try it one night, and I was particularly struck by the relative originality of the story, especially in regards to the UFO element. I hesitate to say much more about plot, because part of the enjoyment, for me, was watching the various discoveries emerge. There were moments when I found myself pondering: “why does this particular side-story exist in the film?” but by the end was really satisfied with the cohesiveness of the film. I’m torn about the original trailers: on the one hand, I really enjoyed not having the trailers spoil the story beats for me, but on the other hand, I don’t think they did a very good job of enticing me to see the film.
Mirrored from Under the Beret.
Terminology
Dec. 23rd, 2022 01:42 pmLeela-ing? Boner service? Hm.
Thought for the Day
Dec. 3rd, 2022 01:59 pmAnd Will loves New York? she asked.
He really does, I said. And he’s a Marxist now, I think. He just says Kapital, doesn’t even use the Das.
Cool.
Yeah.
Miriam Toews, All My Puny Sorrows
Mirrored from Under the Beret.
I watched a coupl’a movies the other night. The first was The Lost Girls. It was pretty bad. But it was the $0.99 movie rental on Apple Movies a week or two ago, and I rented it. The premise was that multiple generations of girls from Wendy Darling’s family are visited by Peter Pan. Or maybe not. Maybe Peter’s just a metaphor for mental illness. It’s not entirely clear. The person who wrote the screenplay (adapted from a book) and directed the film also starred as the main character. And I don’t think that was a great choice.
But the other movie I watched was Being the Ricardos — an Amazon Studios film available through Amazon Prime. And that was amazing.
This latter film was written and directed by Aaron Sorkin. And while I sometimes think that Sorkin’s stuff can be a little infuriating — for example, I think The West Wing is a very facile and idealistic view of the way American politics works — I love how he writes dialog.
He writes the characters smart and able to express themselves. Throughout the film, characters are juggling multiple crises: rehearsing and filming an episode of I Love Lucy (with a director that Ball doesn’t really have confidence in), dealing with a question of whether or not Arnaz has been unfaithful, trying to quash a news report alleging that Ball is a communist, and trying to persuade the studio that they should allow the show to incorporate Ball’s pregnancy as a storyline (I learned, years ago, that the studio didn’t allow them to say the word pregnant on TV; Lucy was, instead, “with child” or “in the family way.”) The characters are constantly jumping around from one point of conversation to another. In one scene, Arnaz chides Ball for jumping topics without warning and Ball admonishes him to keep up.
There was one distraction in the film: it positions Arnaz’s opposition to communism to be a result of the revolution in Cuba… but the story is set waaaay too early (1952/1953?) for that to make sense.
Anyway: going from a film that I almost turned off to a film that I adored in the same evening was pretty whiplash-y.
Mirrored from Under the Beret.
Canada-as-Canada in Film
Jul. 13th, 2022 09:13 amAll My Puny Sorrows is beautiful, but tremendously sad.
Content warning: suicide is a major theme of the film.
Mirrored from Under the Beret.
