To Boldly Split Infinitives Where No Infinitives Have Been Split Before!

So recently I've been on something of a Star Trek kick, specifically DS9. For those of you not in the know, DS9 is sort of the red-headed stepchild of the Star Trek family (not that there's anything wrong with red-heads. I've fallen for the occasional red-head, but that's not the point). Whereas all the other contemporary Trek shows were basically controlled by Rick Berman (TNG, Voyager, Enterprise), DS9 was off doing its own thing, helmed by Ron D. Moore (the new Battlestar Galactica). While Berman's shows were dictated by the apocryphal Roddenberry doctrine, which ruled that characters were not allowed struggle with moral dilemmas (given that humans had sufficiently morally evolved by the 24th century that they wouldn't make mistakes), Moore's DS9 featured characters with rougher edges. While the Berman shows basically followed a planetary-encounter-of-the-week, DS9 spent its time developing the characters on the station as they dealt with internal difficulties. Furthermore, DS9 was a show that was not afraid to make long-running story-arcs that tied the whole series together. Voyager sort of did that, but the whole "get home" thing kind of got lost between the Borg and all the other mishaps. DS9 also gave us the chance to see characters grow over the course of the show. My personal favorite character arc is that of "plain and simple" Garak, the tailor. When the show first started, Garak was just a Cardassian tailor who decided to stick around on the station at the end of the occupation. As the show progressed, it became clear that something more was going on. Turns out Garak was actually a member of Cardassia's Obsidion Order, which is basically like the KGB of Cardassia. Though Garak occasionally uses his connections to help the crew, we seldom believe it could be for a purely altruistic reason. As the series progresses, Garak becomes something of a hero, risking his life for greater good. Next time, we'll look at Garak's foil and parallell, Gul Dukat. Yes, I am a geek.

Britain Prevails

So the other day I read Alan Moore's V for Vendetta. It's pretty awesome, and I recommend it to anybody who likes a good graphic novel. Basically, it takes place in an Orwellian-style Britain, ruled by a totalitarian fascist government. The title character, V, is an anarchist dressed in the style of Guy Fawkes, bent on destroying the existing order. Most interesting.

In other news, I have decided that my personal life is sufficiently boring that I will no longer discuss it.

Everybody who plays pen-and-paper games must read this comic: Commissioned. It's quite entertaining. The bits about killing off NPC's was very reminiscent of my group.

Signs and Portents

Okay, yeah, so that's a corney title that sounds like something out of Babylon 5. Not that there's anything wrong with Babylon 5. At any rate, yesterday was weird. You know that feeling where you just randomly think of something, and it hurts? Yesterday was like that for me. There is of course a specific set of thoughts that causes this hurt, which I will not go into in any more detail for the sake of all three of my readers, but the point is, by the end of the day, I was angry, pained, and all-around disgruntled (though, to be fair, I don't think I've ever been just plain gruntled in my life). As I say, not the best of days. So I won't discuss it any more. It's a bit better now. On to the weekend's events!

Saturday consisted of a depleted RPG crew over. We've been trying out the Star Wars RPG. I'm GM-ing, mainly because of my vast experience with the game universe. There were a few hiccoughs, namely regarding the difference between empathy and telepathy. We got it sorted out, though it was irksome. Then Gemedet arrived, back from his friend's wedding, so it was a brief extra-planar jaunt through Eberron that almost killed us. Even though my Warlock is beefier than a wizard or sorceror, he's still only got a d6 for hit dice.

Sunday was laundry day and Unex in the evening with Justin. That was, as always, most entertaining. Gemedet also gave us some leftover shish-kebabs from the afore-mentioned wedding. I talked with the folks for a bit. Ye gods, but my life is boring.

In other news, Justin and I have been talking about perhaps doing some sort of road trip at some point down to Roswell, New Mexico, of UFO-crash fame, for the sake of poking fun at the so-called "UFOlogists." For the record, I believe that UFO's exist. After all, people do sometimes see things in the sky that are unidentified. Are they alien spacecraft? I don't know. If I knew, they wouldn't be unidentified, now would they? At any rate, I'm not convinced one way or another as to their actual nature. With regards to extraterrestrial contact with humans, I remain agnostic. Has this post been sufficiently rambling? I think so, so I shall sign off. For now! (Cue dramatic cliffhanger music.)