Author: Chris S.

Posted on

Keep On Trekkin’

I think I figured out why I liked Star Trek The Motion Picture so much when I was 12 years old, and continue to enjoy it to this day.

I’ve been a Star Trek fan since as far back as I can remember.  It was a staple of my childhood, alongside The Six Million Dollar Man and Underdog.

In 1977, a movie called Star Wars came out, and I was not interested in seeing it, mainly because it wasn’t Star Trek.  Reluctantly, I went to see it with my immediate family and a couple of my aunts.

It fucking changed my life.

But that’s another story.

For two years I was more gung ho for Star Wars than Star Trek, though Trek was more readily available to watch because of syndicated television.  All we got for Star Wars on TV was a Holiday Special, which, incidentally, introduced my favorite Star Wars character of all time. 

But that’s another story.

When The Motion Picture finally premiered, it seemed to ‘make things right’ in my mind.  Star Trek made it to the big screen.

And it’s not like there was ever a competition between the two franchises in my mind, I just seemed to shift focus from one to the other over time.  Nowadays I watch both equally, whether it’s a episode of TOS or TNG or one of the films, or introducing my niece to the Clone Wars and Rebels animated series, or the latest episode of The Mandalorian.

But back to The Motion Picture.

Sure, it can be a boring film, but to me it’s as captivating as 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Depending on your mindset.

And as I’ve gotten older, I seem to be in that mindset more and more.

But that’s another story.

Posted on

Bale

Despite today’s 3-3 draw, it was quite a moment to see Gareth Bale return to Spurs.

He started his career the same year (2007) I started following the English Premier League, and Tottenham Hotspur.

At that time, Robbie Keane and Dimitar Berbatov were the top players on the team, so I gravitated toward rooting for them.

Bale slowly became a favorite of mine, and then he left for Real Madrid, another team that I followed back then.

I certainly don’t follow Real Madrid as closely as I do Spurs, so I don’t know all the details of the rift between Bale and Zinedine Zidane.

So seeing an OG Spurs player who was there at the beginning of my being a Spurs fan is pretty cool, especially a favorite player.

And yeah, he should have scored on that great move near the end of that match.

#COYS

Posted on

More

I simply should be posting here more, y’know?

Tweeting, or posting on Facebook, is quick and dirty.

Here I can think about what I write, what I have to say, before committing to it, just by hitting ‘draft’ beforehand, instead of the post button.

Eh, we’ll see how it goes.

Posted on

Post-Game II

After another successful online D&D session, I again revisited my character and how he did in the adventure.

My biggest problem was with paladin spells, my character cast 3 and failed on 2 (Command, Compelled Duel) while one resulted in nothing significant (Detect Magic).

So I went and redid the prepared spells for my character.

I dropped Command and Detect Magic, and added Heroism and Searing Smite.

Hopefully Kal Jadestone will be more effective in this next adventure.  His bear companion Zod has played better than he has.

Posted on

Bittersweet Sixteen

Hi, Mom.

It’s been 16 years since I held your hand and felt your last breath leave your body.

All things considered, I’m doing okay right now.

I had a hell month in August with a kidney stone.

I’m currently in the office, working on a couple of laptops and a desktop.

It’s been a crazy year.

There’s a guy that just arrived up there that you may want to say ‘Hi’ to, Chadwick Boseman.  Dad knows who he is.  He can tell you about him.

I just wanted to drop a note and tell you that I love you and miss you.

Posted on

Celebration Weekend

In a normal world, Nelson and I would probably be heading back to the Bay Area from Anaheim, on the last day of Star Wars Celebration.

Instead, I made a Target run to see if I could get anything from the new Galaxy’s Edge Trading Post items that went on sale today.

I went to one Target and they had no such items out.  I saw another customer with a basket of figures, asking an employee if they had a particular figure in back.  I asked the customer if they had put up their display anywhere, and he said no, he found the figures in the regular Star Wars display in the toy section.  I told him that other Targets had end cap displays for the new stuff.

I then went to the other nearby Target, where I was greeted with this:

That same customer from the other Target came up behind me and asked if this was what I was looking for, and I said yeah.

To be honest, the sight of this made me feel sad that I wasn’t in Anaheim, because I had planned to visit Baatu and Black Spire Outpost and even build my own lightsaber.  But it wasn’t meant to be this year.

I almost bought the cheap Jedi Blade Builders saber that they had, but decided not to.  I’ll build mine at Galaxy’s Edge, someday.

Instead, a porg and a LOTH CAT jumped in my basket.

They brought along a deck of Sabacc-shaped cards to keep themselves busy.

The majority of the other merchandise was rebranded Blade Builders sets, Q’ira’s blaster from Solo rebranded and recolored as a Mandalorian blaster (Double barreled?  No.), droid factory action figures and plush droids, and some masks and books.

And yeah, I’m wearing yet another Star Wars shirt today.

Posted on

Post-Game

I have no memory of this, but when I was really little, maybe even before I was born, my Dad would play chess in the company chess club.  He’d play on Friday nights, and according my Mom, when he’d get home, late, he’d still be down in the living room or dining room, setting up a chess set, and studying it, looking where he made a mistake that cost him a match.  I don’t know how long he would do that, couldn’t be more than an hour.  Or two.

Flash forward to now:

We played Dungeons and Dragons online last night, and the first thing I do when I get up this morning is futz around on Roll20 and DNDBeyond, looking at my newly leveled character and figuring out how to make spells work correctly from the online Roll20 character sheet.

I did that for about 2 hours before I realized what time it was, and took a shower.

Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I guess.

* * *

I do like the online tools for D&D, but I miss face to face interaction.

Posted on

Stones

So I’ve been nursing a kidney stone at home for the past few days, and yesterday was by far the worst day.

The pain wasn’t as bad as I’ve had in the past, it was just THERE.  Constant.  Throbbing. And no amount of water drinking or ibuprofen seemed to make it go away for more than 1/2 an hour or so.

Because of the pain I was pretty lethargic, trying to fall asleep and nap throughout most of the day.  I think I did manage to nod off a few times, only to wake up with the dull pain still there.

I also watched the pilot episode of The Greatest American Hero on Peacock.  That show hasn’t aged well.  Or at least the pilot didn’t.  That used to be one of our ‘must watch’ shows back in the day.  Dad loved it.

I kept moving from my bedroom to the living room throughout the day to find a comfortable spot to sit or lie down.  I managed to watch both the Red Sox-Mets game and the Padres-Giants game.

I didn’t really eat much during the day, either, just some cottage cheese and Belvita biscuits for breakfast, the last slice of frozen pizza from the night before for lunch, and for dinner, some shredded chicken from the chicken broth I made the night before.  Don’t ask.

I tried to fall asleep after the Giants walk off win over the Padres, but I couldn’t, so I decided to stay up and watch Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. which I probably would have done anyway.

During the episode the pain faded, but came back almost at the end of the episode, so I took another ibuprofen with a cup of milk, and that seemed to do the trick, though I did get up around 2 am to pee.

This morning?  Pain is much more manageable.  I think it’s about to pass, like its about to drop into my bladder.

Here’s hoping.

Posted on

Justified: A Celebration

It started with a news article saying that Timothy Olyphant was going to play Cobb Vanth in The Mandalorian, Season 2.  Vanth, according to the Star Wars Aftermath books, is the man who found Boba Fett’s armor some time after Return of the Jedi.

I had heard of Olyphant, but never watched his show, Justified.  My friends on Facebook suggested that I watch as soon as possible, and that I’d love it, and that they couldn’t believe that I had never watched it.

I binge watched it over 8 weeks.

Five years late to the game, but I now consider it one of my all-time favorite television series.

From the first episode, I felt that I related to the main character, Raylan Givens, in a few ways.

Raylan Givens: I guess I never thought of myself as an angry man.

Winona Hawkins: Well, you do a good job of hiding it, and I suppose most folks don’t see it, but honestly, you’re the angriest man I have ever known.

The show itself was well written, with snappy dialogue.  It reminded me of Firefly in some ways, probably because of the music and the fact that Raylan reminded me of Malcolm Reynolds in many situations.

This is a rare show that I can say had few, if any, bad episodes.  That said, season 5 was probably my least favorite, but only because of a weaker plot that other seasons.

Plus, Dewey Crowe is probably the stupidest character on TV in recent history.

How about some top 5(ish) lists?

Favorite Characters:

  1. Raylan Givens
  2. Boyd Crowder
  3. Art Mullen
  4. Rachel Brooks
  5. Tim Gutterson

Favorite Recurring Characters

  1. Ellstin Limehouse
  2. Dickie Bennett
  3. Bob Sweeney
  4. Winn Duffy
  5. Mike “The Hammer” Reardon

Least Favorite Characters

  1. Dewey Crowe
  2. Boon
  3. David Vasquez
  4. Wendy Crowe
  5. Danny Crowe

Yeah, I really didn’t like Season 5…

Favorite Big Bad (Season) Villains

  1. Mags Bennett
  2. Avery Markham
  3. Robert Quarles

The series finale ended the show better than most other series finales.  Better than Game of Thrones, LOST and Battlestar Galactica, even though I enjoyed the last two shows finales.

Posted on

Pause

After this next print job is done on my 3D printer, I’m going to try to take a break from printing anything in order to work on the stuff that I HAVE printed already, mainly Poe’s blaster.

And then I’ll work on the Darksaber, which still needs to be reprinted.