Sound and Nerdery

This is not a hint or me begging. Just for them who are interested. Will update it if I discover a burning desire for anything else before Christmas.

This absolutely gorgeous box set of Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents

Folio Society edition of The Left Hand of Darkness

Ateco six piece double-sided round cutter set

Baby Boom bluetooth speaker

Ernesto’s 2020 Calendar

Bluetooth Poké…

I don’t think there are a whole lot of directors I’d trust to make a funny movie that involves Nazis, but Taika Waititi has earned it. Though now I keep wondering: a) Has Mel Brooks seen this movie? and b) Did he love it as much as I hope he did? Because Jojo Rabbitis fucking hilarious, and there are a few scenes that are just straight out of the Mel Brooks playbook. But it’s also incredibly…

The Shitty Trans Take of Remothered: An Analysis

One of my social activities is playing horror video games with my friends. Which is to say, my housemate does the hard part of actually driving, and me and my best friend sit and watch and offer helpful advice like “oh god, run away!” because we are both giant weenies who forget how to use a PS4 controller when we’re startled. The most recent game we all played together was Remothered: Tormented…

DS9 Rewatch: Season 2, Episodes 8-10

Necessary Evilis a damn good episode, I think. Two connected murder (or in Quark’s case, attempted murder) mysteries running in parallel, one in the DS9 present, one in the past that’s told in flashbacks. It’s an episode with such solid character work for both Odo and Kira, explaining their friendship, expanding it, and then ultimately troubling it. I think what makes it so good is that while the…

Mile Hi Con Schedule

Wow, it’s already time for Mile Hi Con! This has been one hell of a year. I’ll be at the convention Saturday and Sunday. And here’s my schedule:

Saturday:

Pride on the Pages; 11:00 at Wind River B

Group Reading and Discussion: Weird Westerns; 12:00 at Wind River A

Reading Game; 14:45 at Grand Mesa

Sunday: 

Fans Getting Active; 10:00 at Bristlecone

Writing Fan Fiction: The Good, the Bad, and the…

Deep Space Nine Rewatch: Season 2, Episodes 4-7

After the short arc of the first three episodes, we’re back into more standalones. Invasive Proceduresis about Deep Space Nine being taken over during a plasma storm because there’s only a skeleton crew left aboard. The mastermind of the takeover is an unjoined Trill named Verad, who has decided that he is entitled to the Dax symbiont. His love interest, Mareel, is a prostitute that he rescued…

DS9 Rewatch: Season 2, Episodes 1-3

The Homecomingstarts out out with a Bajoran earring… and it’s enough to make me even more curious about them, since they’re apparently singular enough that Kira can look at one and know exactly who it belongs to. Which in this case is a war hero who everyone thought was dead. But the earring implies that he’s maybe still alive, and on Cardassia IV. She’s not just looking to rescue a fellow…

For the first time in my life, I don’t give a shit what the science says.

It’s a thing that happens in the cess pit of social media every day. Some anti-trans dipshit pops up with a declaration: “Science says there are only two genders!” (What they really mean is that there are only two sexes, which is wrong according to current science, and then conflating sex with gender, which is… also wrong according to current science.) The argument gets joined, most often by…

DS9 Rewatch: Season 1, episode 13-19

The Storytellerwas… look, I was drunk while I watched it. It was okay? You had parallel plots of the young Bajoran Tetrarch trying to figure out how to negotiate, and the Bajoran village figuring out how to name a new “storyteller” to keep it unified. The only real problem I have with the episode is the dude that wants to be the Sirah LITERALLY TRIES TO MURDER O’BRIEN and he’s SO INTO IT that…

DS9 Rewatch: Season 1, episode 11 & 12

The Vortex has a pretty good hook to start. Shady dealings, half of a Miradorn pair getting murdered by a random other guy in a robbery gone wrong that Quark might have set up, the remaining half swearing vengeance. And the alien that did the murdering is from the gamma quadrant–and knows about Odo’s people, “changelings.”

The gamma quadrant alien, Croden (played by Cliff DeYoung) is the absolute…

DS9 Rewatch: Season 1, Episodes 7-10

Well, Dax is off to a strong start with another round of “Julian, take a fucking hint.” Extra annoying is Julian basically tells himself “well, she didn’t say no, so it still could be yes!” and follows Dax, so he’s there to at least see her being kidnapped. Dax, why so many creepers?

I love that there’s a “unilateral extradition” treaty with these people, because that ensures a dramatic…

DS9 Rewatch: Season 1, Episodes 5 and 6

Captive Pursuit oh boy oh boy. Starting off the episode great with Quark apparently having a sexual harrassment clause in his contracts for the women that work at his bar. I think they’re trying to be funny, but hoo boy is it gross. It’s a relief when the alien ship comes through the wormhole and kicks off the A plot. Now, I get sending O’Brien by himself to not overwhelm a new alien, but he is…

DS9 Rewatch: Season 1, Episode 3 & 4

The rewatch continues!

Past Prologis episode 3 according to Netflix. It’s the first appearance of one of my favorite characters, Garak, the simple tailor. And it probably says a lot that when I saw him as a kid, I did not notice how totally fucking gay he is–but this time around, hoo boy. I’m honestly still not sure why Garak was so bound and determined to make friends with Julian, other than…

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the rewatch

Well, sort of a rewatch/first watch, because I don’t really remember watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine beyond the first couple of seasons. I was barely twelve years old when it started airing and a dedicated Star Trek: The Next Generationfan, but for some reason DS9 just never grabbed me. Maybe it’s because they didn’t subject Jake Sisko to the same series of ugly sweaters that Wesley Crusher…

I didn’t feel personally belittled until this moment: George’s Hugo Losers Party explanation

Over my years of being on the internet, I’ve learned a thing or two about apologies. It’s mostly been incredibly hard-won knowledge, informed by me giving shitty apologies and then learning the how and why of their shittiness when someone explained why they still felt hurt. Or me giving a shitty non-apology on purpose because I didn’t feel sorry, but wanted someone off my back. (I’ve modified the…

The Importance of [Scary] Stories

I grew up on Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. I didn’t find the stories that scary (though some of them were very gross), but the pictures that went with the original editions absolutely haunted me. I ultimately decided that seeing this movie might not actually kill me because after watching the TV spots, the glimpses of the monsters we got didn’t scare the bejeesus out of me like the old…

[WorldCon] Quick Summary: WSFS Business Meetings 2 & 3

Again, maximum mea culpa, yesterday was a garbage fire, and for more reasons than you might expect.

Liveblog of the preliminary meeting here.

Liveblog of business meeting 1 here.

Summary of the preliminary and meeting 1 here.

Liveblog of business meeting 2 here.

Liveblog of business meeting 3 here.

The agenda is available here.

  Business Meeting 2 Summary

Site selection! Washington, DC will have…