Currently browsing: Sci-Fi

I’m ok, and that’s ok

I was perusing Tumblr and ran across this image:

I think that pretty much sums everything up. Things are better, but not fantabulous. We’re finally getting caught up financially and things are looking up as far as that goes. Personally, I would like to work towards putting our house back on the market and start paperwork on the house we wanted (YES! It’s still available!), but Jim’s not ready for that. And I don’t know if or when he will be. Us selling our house indicates promise for a future for “us” … and that’s still uncertain to him.

So, I’m still an emotional sponge. I soak up everything around me, and with the littlest bit of pressure, everything comes rushing out. But at least I’ve been able to hold it together a little better than before. Baby steps, I guess?

I know I haven’t posted much personal stuff … or really, anything at all, other than my weekly funnies. The truth is, I’m busy. We’re busy. And I try like mad to stay distracted or I’ll go out of my mind. (my ‘silly game‘ helps a lot with this, believe it or not, it’s been great therapy for me … in my opinion) And I try every day to find things that make me smile or laugh. Tumblr has been great for that. There’s SO MANY fan sites on there of things that I adore — from kittens and puppies to geeky sci-fi movies and tv shows.

So, like Jim and I have good days and bad days for us, I also have good days and bad days for me. And I’m working hard on keeping positive. The dark place I used to be in now has a little more light, and sometimes I think I can see better days ahead.

I still have hope.

Love and hugs to you all. I promise I’ll try to post more often. ♥

Weird deliveries come by email

I got all kinds of weird things via email. Hell, half of them are from Uncle Monster. ;P hehehe… But he’s not the only one … I have a friend in CA who owns a little San Diego carpet cleaning company. He sent me a whole slew of stuff today (bored are we, George? ), including two pieces in the animal kingdom that caught my eye: apparently it’s not the feathers that makes a bird, and scientists work on fishing for the lazy. The first one kind of surprised me … I always thought peacock feathers were the ultimate end-all-be-all of sexy costumes of the animal world.

Shows what I know. :lol:

Senate says ‘no’ to guns on campus

Several local ‘Bama blogs are already steaming over news the proposed campus gun bill has been blocked by the Senate. A shame really, because personally I thought that was a pretty good damned idea! Per Erwin, it was “designed to discourage gunmen by making them aware someone could shoot back quickly.”

Ya damned skippy.

Something a little lighter

Want a good laugh? Check out this SondraK post.

Very cute. :mrgreen:

Spice of Sci-Fi

And last but not least … because I have GOT to have something sci-fi every day, here’s a list of the six most brilliant “bite your head” dragons from science fiction.

Because dragons are cool, mmmkay?

Omega-packed weekend

We had an absolutely FULL weekend this weekend. Our furniture delivery took a bit longer than I had anticipated. Apparently the setup of the bed wasn’t quite as easy as the salespeople had us believe (it never is!), but what aggravated me was that they forgetting to deliver some accessories to the bed. Oh well, it’ll be here later this week, and it wasn’t essential … but still …

Jim and I popped by OmegaCon for a bit Saturday. (at the time of this post, the OC site is down) We saw TONS of cool stuff, met lots of interesting people, and came home with a few goodies, cool swag, t-shirts and other geeky goodness, an Asian version of a Swiss Army knife, and my (early) birthday gift from Jim: a black on red Victorian/goth dress and corset set (courtesy of Lady Heather, who was fabulous dealing with all my questions and helping me with my dress and corset!). :mrgreen:

Complete Photoset:

Among the many we met were: Dixie Hallows, 501st Legion (Alabama Garrison), Southeastern Browncoats, Fiona’s Fancies, Iron Age Remains, Lady Heather’s Fashions, Legendary Leatherworks, Pegasus Publishing (t-shirts), Renaissance Fashions, Brain-On (he and his girlfriend were very sweet!), Mark Helwig, Mitch Foust (artist of that lovely Dark Phoenix print I bought!), Capt. Comics (who sold me the Bleeding Edge Goth doll).

We had a great time, and I will DEFINITELY be looking forward to going back next year!

I’m pleased to say that things with Soldiers’ Angels are going well. I’ve been busy mailing out donation requests to a few local businesses who’ve expressed interest in the organization and/or donating, so hopefully I’ll be getting some help in that area. I will say this: Intuit’s (the makers of TurboTax) It’s Deductible online site has been a great way to keep track of out of pocket costs that can be deducted from next year’s return.

Hooray for helpful tools!

And last but certainly not least: got a bit of an “Aww…” moment, courtesy of BlackFive.

Stories of heroism and intrigue

There are a lot of things I wanted to cover today, unfortunately I wasn’t able to finish this post prior to class this afternoon, so bear with me … there’s a lot here.

Those of you who are local I’m sure have been following the story of the busload of Marines that overturned Sunday. They were from E Co., Anti-Terrorism Battalion, 4th Marine Division, returning from a weekend training exercise. I read this morning about Lance Cpl. David Miles, the Marine that passed away Monday afternoon from his injuries. However, even in death he still served others.

“According to his mom, he was very adamant about (donating) his organs … so the mom is very adamant about carrying out his wishes of harvesting as many of his organs as possible.”

Courtesy of The Birmingham News.

No doubt about it in my mind, he’s a hero. Courtesy of Villainous Company, here’s another tale of heroism: America’s Female Warriors Show Bravery, Loyalty. Greta highlighted a brave soldier’s father that she has met through Soldiers’ Angels: Robert Stokely, a fellow SA member and father of Mike Stokely who proudly gave his all for his country in Iraq.

Honestly the grace and bravery that our finest men and women exhibit every day never cease to amaze me. Too bad the liberal media doesn’t show them more often! :sad:

On Cookie’s site earlier today, I read a story about a couple of vets experiencing problems with Verizon:

Verizon Cancels Returning Marines’ Cellphones, Gives Their Number Away, Charges Them $500

Two Marines, a husband and wife, found Verizon had an unpleasant welcome-home gift waiting for them when they got back from serving in Iraq: canceled cellphones, a $500bill, and their phone numbers were given to other people. Under the Service Members Civil Relief Act, when a soldier goes off to war, they’re able to send their deployment letters to their service companies and get their service put on hold. Apparently in the case of Haley Katz and her husband, that letter wasn’t good enough. When they complained and reached a manager, the manager told them ” it was their fault they owed the money”, and then hung up on them. Read their letter as published in Stars and Stripes, inside…

At 3:30 a.m (Iraq time), [recently], my husband and I called Verizon Wireless to reactivate our phones, as we are returning home [from Iraq] soon and wanted to catch the company during its business hours. Upon speaking with a customer service representative, it became apparent that Verizon not only suspended our contracts, it disconnected our phones and gave our numbers away to other customers.

What is truly amazing is that the company took the letters our commanding officers signed regarding our deployment dates, and deemed the letters not worthy of suspending our contracts. It continued to charge us for those months without notifying us and when we did not pay, it disconnected the lines.

Long story short, when we called to reactivate our phones they told us our numbers no longer existed and that we owed them nearly $500!

When we asked to speak to a manager, we were told nothing could be done. When we did actually speak to a manager we were told it was our fault that we owed the money. The manager then proceeded to say “We’re sorry but nothing can be done for you. Goodbye.”

We were hung up on … in Iraq … at 3:30 in the morning. Real professional.

We spoke to another manager who was courteous enough to recredit our accounts and cut all remaining ties with their service. We are no longer with Verizon Wireless.

For all of the soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen out there, make sure you are checking up on the status of your accounts. Apparently, a letter from your command stating you are deploying is not enough these days. And aside from seeing service members off at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point (N.C.), I am not sure what else they are looking for.

Marine 2nd Lt. Haley Katz
Camp Fallujah, Iraq

:shock: I’ve heard horror stories about Verizon and their crappy customer service for years, but this takes the cake!

And speaking of human depravity, there’s the Berkley protesters. We’ve all heard of this one, right? Today, Rachel Lucas gave plenty examples of and commented on the ‘fine minds’ (and I say that lightly!) objecting to our nation’s finest.

Somebody please put these morons out of our misery!

Moving on to cooler (and more intriguing) things … a Starbucks employee donates a kidney to her customer. In today’s Mental Floss blog postings, a UAB study is mentioned where researchers are studying the use of scorpion venom in cancer medication. (YAY us!) Also, one of my fave sci-fi blogs, IO9, tells me that there is a remake coming for one of my favorite ‘B’ movies, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! :grin: And last but not least, a funny bit courtesy of A Bama Blog: How to tell that you’ve ticked off an engineer.

I think that just about covers it.

Oh … before I forget … anyone going to OmegaCon this weekend?

The things I learn from Sci-Fi

I had meant to post about this a short while back, but had forgotten (and dummy me didn’t save the link!) until I was reminded via Beth’s post: GTD in Space – Seven Habits of Highly Effective Spaceship Captains.

Now seriously, I love me some IO9 — it’s a geeky guilty indulgence. While someone more “cultured” may be more obsessed with the latest edition of some wine of the month club mag, I’m jonesing for some sci-fi geekery and IO9 is my fix. They do have really good articles from time to time that make you stop for a second and say to yourself, “You know, I never thought of it that way!” This is one of those.

And so, here you have it: Getting things done, the ‘geek way’…

1. The Prime Directive is just a suggestion. Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Enterprise wasn’t as swashbuckling as he predecessor Captain James T. Kirk, simply because he actually wrestled with breaking the Prime Directive instead of ignoring it entirely. The Prime Directive states that humans shouldn’t involve themselves in the affairs of less developed planets, for fear of messing up their cultures with ultra-advanced tech. While Picard often considers the importance of the Prime Directive in his decision-making, he refuses to be bound by it. Lesson learned? Rules are made to be broken.

2. Always shoot first. Every good leader should be willing to do what he or she asks of her team. One of the reasons for the loyalty of the ragtag crew of Serenity, the ship Malcolm Reynolds captains in Firefly, is that Mal will throw himself into battle to protect his team. Whenever he has a crazy scheme or rescue mission in mind, he takes the first plunge. Lesson learned? Show your crew that you’re willing to take a bullet for them, and they’ll do the same for you.

3. Don’t be afraid to hook up with a cute spaceman. We love Leela on Futurama not just because she’s the only person on her ship with any kind of sense, but because she also lets her long, purple hair down once in a while. She’s always tangling with spacemen and getting mixed up with strange alien pets. And that’s one good reason why her goofy crew would follow her to the ends of the galaxy — well, if she had enough beer. Lesson learned? A good leader has to get laid once in a while, and she shouldn’t be ashamed of it.

4. When you’re about to go genocidal, get a second opinion. Admiral William Adama from the new Battlestar Galactica is one of the best leaders we’ve ever seen. He’s gotten a group of a few thousand humans halfway across the galaxy, despite the fact that they’re being pursuit by a group of homicidal, erotically obsessed cyborgs. He’s had to deal with incredible loss and sheer terror, and he always keeps his head. He is also truly humane. How does he keep it together without going all Admiral Cain on everybody’s ass? By sharing his power with President Roslyn as well as his circle of trusted officers and advisers. Without their guidance, the Galactica and its fleet might have turned into a bloodthirsty military fleet, instead of what it is: a mostly-civilian group with a (sort of) free press and even elections. Lesson learned? True leaders do not ever make decisions alone.

5. Just because you have a crappy ship doesn’t mean you’re a loser. Everyone knows that Han Solo, captain of the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars, is piloting a souped-up bucket. And yet his seemingly-crappy ship is probably the very best thing for helping out a group of covert resistance fighters like Obi Wan and Luke. Plus, he knows his ship so well that he can totally slam those Stormtroopers in their McFighters. Lesson learned? Every crappy PC is a lean, mean Linux box waiting to be born. Oh, and in case that didn’t make sense: It’s not the tools; it’s what you do with them.

6. Freedom fighters make good teammates. Say what you will about Captain Janeway on Voyager, but she made a smart decision early on to integrate her Federation team with a group of subversive Maquis who got stuck with them out in the Delta Quadrant. Another captain might have kept the Maquis separate from the Federation types, but Janeway integrated them and gave them Federation ranks — much to her good fortune. She got a great Chief Engineer and First Officer out of the deal. Lesson learned? A little subversion goes a long way.

7. There is always somebody out there who can bend spacetime better than you can. In Iain M. Banks’ novel Excession, the Ship Sleeper Service (which is an AI that captains itself, thank you very much) discovers that its amazing, human-dwarfing brain is nothing compared to the “excession,” a phenomenon that none of the Ships can understand. The excession exists in subspace, and looks like a giant something that could be a gateway to another dimension, perhaps, or a ship from the edges of the universe. Meeting the excession, for the Ships, is a very humbling experience. They realize that they are not as omnipotent as they realized, that that there are intelligences out there far more profound than their own. Lesson learned? No matter how in control you are, always be ready for something for which you’re completely unprepared.