My mother made noises about how nice it was last year when I kept posting travelogues of my journey across the USA, so I'm taking a little time to write up my vacation in Washington and Oregon.

( travels )

Tags: friends, portland, travels

So I decided I was going to devote some of this summer to writing fiction, for the first time in ten years.

The following is a brief sample. I have another fragment, and a longer story, which I may decide to post here also. Future entries, however, will be filtered while I decide what I am doing with them. If you want to see more, please contact me and I will add you to that filter. While everything I've done so far is derivative to some degree, it isn't all fan-fic, like this one.

                The tracks of the Explorer module hummed as Bochra tried to get to sleep. The automatic sensor units would record adequate information for him to review in the “morning” (actually, the sun on Xepera IV wouldn’t rise for nearly 26 hours, but Bochra would rise in six). This, combined with the information he had gleaned during his working day, would give him direction as to what aspects of the planet were worth closer examination by a conscious Romulan.

 

                Outside, it was raining, and the module was trundling through a thick swamp, navigating between the larger trees, crushing the smaller ones. Some species were far more concerned about environmental protection than Romulans when surveying new worlds for colonization. Bochra doubted if Xepera IV would ever be home to a large population, but early indications were that the chemical resources of the planet could be exploited for scientific use. Humans would be mostly interested in its potential use as a “medical storehouse,” though Romulans were less interested in repairing the weak. The chemicals of this planet, however, might well be used in the manufacture of mind-altering substances, useful for interrogation, or in boosting the courage of warriors, the efficiency of workers, the genius of thinkers, or the docility of servants. It was still too early to be certain about geological features or mining, but there had been traces of Septilium, a vital element in the production of cloaking devices, in long-distance scans, so this would bear further study.

 

                Bochra sighed and turned on his metal sleeping-shelf. Romulans preferred to sleep on hard surfaces, which was good for the spine, as opposed to the soft, pampering surfaces preferred by weaker races. Bochra was relatively rare among Romulans for suffering insomnia, and had occasionally wondered whether he might sleep better on some sort of pad. When on combat duty, he was regularly issued enzymatic supplements for effective sleeping, but his current assignment as a planet surveyor did not qualify him for special considerations. Either he slept or he did not. Tonight, it seemed, he would not.

 

                Bochra knew how he had come to this lowered position, and he still had mixed feelings about it. These feelings were a confirmation that the disciplinary measures were warranted, he knew. A true Centurion would be unrestrained in his certainty that he needed his old rank returned, and willing to take any action that would guarantee it. Bochra, in spite of his training, was not certain he wished to return to regular military service. Ever since his return from Galorndon Core, he questioned the philosophy behind his orders, and to question, even to doubt a little, made him a less dependable warrior, he knew.

 

                Bochra’s life had been saved at Galorndon Core by a blind human. Ironically, his mission there had been to set up a remote-viewing station in the neutral zone, which would have facilitated future aggressions against the Federation. When he was discovered by the human, his craft was destroyed and his two comrades dead. Bochra had attempted to take the human into custody, but prolonged exposure to the planet’s electromagnetic radiation was breaking down his nervous system and the two men had needed one another’s help to survive. Bowing to such necessity was hardly un-Romulan, and Bochra had given no information during their association. But, a certain doubt remained in the minds of his commanders.

 

                Moreover, he found, that doubt was in his own mind as well. When the human had admitted his blindness, Bochra’s response was that humans were weak because they wasted resources on defective children. However, it was the very device that human medicine had developed to compensate for this weakness which was ultimately responsible for getting them off the planet, as they used it to detect a neutrino beacon sent by the human starship. Without this he would have died, which would have been a loss to the Empire. Bochra could not resolve the conflict this set up in him. Could the very traits Romulans considered “weak” in humans allow them to match the Empire in power and prevent the long-anticipated final victory? Might Romulans and humans actually benefit from working together, as it seemed the Klingons had benefitted from the association? On nights when Bochra could not sleep, these kinds of questions floated up before him, and no amount of repeated military dogma would make them go away.



Tags: fiction, sci fi, star trek

Here we are again. Enjoy, if you care to.
 

( Characters )

Tags: manga, movies, mystery science theater 3000, psychotronics, star trek

So, I live right near a huge old multi-faith cemetery in Vancouver. On nice days, I wander around and look at different things. Today I did something I've been wanting to do since the first time and went into the Jewish section. The only reason I haven't done this before is that it is fenced off from the rest of the cemetery and the gate is kept shut, with the bolt closed (not locked). I've always felt a bit self-conscious about opening the gate and going in, especially with my shaved head and all (I know, the 80s are over...).

I was surprised at how old this section was. A lot of the gravestones date back to the 19th and early 20th centuries. Some of these appear to have "perpetual care" (meaning, they look a lot newer than the date of death suggests) but some of them are quite worn-looking. As you'd expect, most have stars of David and bits of Hebrew written on them, which I can't read.

One particularly large on caught my eye. It was for David Louis, who was born 1888 and died April 29, 1927, putting him right around my age. Where the Star of David should have been, there was a huge hammer & sickle instead. The epitaph read, "He Will Always Be Remembered By The Oppressed."

I won't be here the 29th, but I'm going to leave some flowers there before I head down to Oly. Red flowers.

Tags: communism, oh canada

The following is a sample sentence from a book written in German and "translated" into English that I'm struggling with today. See if you can make sense of it:

"After the First and following the Second World War, the attempt was made to underpin the supposed failure by University libraries with other arguments as, for example, the initiative that was lacking among professional librarians in providing for contacts with professors and students and the resultant lack of acquaintance with the real needs of users, the librarians’ expertise that was lacking in the ever more differentiating special areas of the professorships, the unwieldy nature of university libraries that had become too large for the acquisitions, and making available the literature, and yes, even the transfer of the university libraries to the storage, or closed stacks system, and to the numerus currens arrangement, which made direct access to the collection impossible for the professors and necessitated their going the roundabout way through the catalogs.”

 

Tags: german, library school

Nope, it isn't the library. I finally have Internet at home, which means I also have a phone again, for those of you who want to call me.

As I suspected, my outage was a result of maintenance being done somewhere in the area. Grrr. 

On Friday I saw "Fahrenheit 451," thanks to Turner Classic Movies. I hadn't seen it before, or even read the book, although I've read other Bradbury with similar themes. It's about a future world in which all books are banned, and the main character is a "fireman," whose job it is to collect and burn all remaining books. He starts reading the books he burns, and is slowly introduced to the underground of people preserving ideas in defiance of the state. He finally has to flee to the "Book People," a sort of commune of folks, each of whom has memorized a single book against the day when the State falls and they can write them down again. They introduce themselves to him by saying "Hello, I'm Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin" or "Hello, I'm Les Miserables by Victor Hugo."

So, let me stop right here and say that when people ask what my favorite book is, I never have an answer. I sort of like Alex Trebek's statement that it's "whatever I'm reading at the moment." I can't really pick a favorite book, it implies too profound of a judgment on the quality and importance of a given work.

But I knew instantly what book I'd choose if I were one of the "Book People." I would walk up to you and say "Hello, I'm the Illuminatus Trilogy, by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson."

What would your book be?

Tags: reading, sci fi

So, TCM ran a "Thin Man" marathon for NYE this year. This would have been much more useful if I had written it before said event, but just in case any of you wants it for next year, or otherwise has considered having such an event on your own, I present:

“The Thin Man Drinking Game”

 

1.       Take a drink every time Nick or Nora takes a drink.

2.       Take a drink every time Nick or Nora denies that the other is his/her spouse.

3.       Take a drink every time Nick or Nora denies that Nick is still a detective.

4.       Take a drink every time one of Nora’s relatives prevents Nick from drinking.

5.       Take a drink every time anyone (including Nora) takes a drink that Nick prepared for himself.

6.       Take a drink every time Nick embarrasses Nora or Nora embarrasses Nick.

 

Optional rules

1.       Special “coup de grace” rule: take a drink every time Nick goads someone into a reaction by implying they committed the crime

2.       Special "film geek" rule: take a drink whenever a character actor appears for the first time if you can name him/her and at least one other movie in which he/she appears.

3.       Special "hopeless romantics" rule: take a drink every time Nick or Nora convincingly professes true love for the other.

4.       Special "who’s in my house" rule: take a drink every time Nick’s old friends hold a party at Nick & Nora’s house without permission.

WARNING: It is not recommended that you apply all nine rules in viewing all five movies. They have been designed with the intention of there being an inverse relationship between # of rules and # of movies. This can be modified according to participants' alcohol tolerance and willingness to pass out before the end.

Tags: crime drama, drinking, movies

To everyone who knows me:

My Internet went down on Saturday at 3PM, taking my Canadian phone service with it. I've been out of touch with the world since then. Someone is coming to fix it on Tuesday of next week.

Until then, I plan to travel down to WA and Portland, since there's no point hanging around here all week. I'll have my American phone with me, and hopefully I'll be able to get some Internet use between now and then also. Contact may be a bit spotty, for which I apologize.

For those of you who actually like to read this stuff, here's another:

Tags: characters, movies, psychotronics, vampires