Posts Tagged ‘Star Trek’

Piss on the dogs and call in the fire

October 14, 2021

Space: the final frontier. (Some restrictions apply.)

What’s that ominous rumble? O buggah — it’s the Trane XR80 roaring to hideous life astride the cooling carcass of summer.

Mid-October is a wee bit early for this sort of thing. But these are strange times, and getting stranger by the minute.

Captain Kirk rode one of Jeffy Bozos’ dick-missiles to the edge of space yesterday and returned to tell us all how glorious it is to be a wealthy white man with friends in high places. A first-class ticket for Aer Dingus is just one more thing you can’t afford, suckers. Now get back to work.

“Live long and prosper,” murmur the Vulcans. But they’re being ironic, as usual.

Either that or they’re talking to the Vogons, whose Constructor Fleet should be popping round to start work on that hyperspatial express route any day now.

Resistance is useless!

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Posted in Casual snark, Cold | 16 Comments »

‘I don’t like to lose.’

December 9, 2020

The UCI Cycling Esports World Championships sponsored by Zwift are to be held today, and mirabile dictu, the virtual cops will be on the lookout for the actual outlaws.

What are YOU on?

This dude is ready for his comeback.

It seems that digital “doping,” like actual doping, is a thing in these dark days. The same miscreants who will hitch a ride on a team car, hide tiny motors in their bicycles, and hotrod themselves with the drug du jour will manipulate the data like cadet James T. Kirk queering the Kobayashi Maru test at Starfleet Academy.

Tech blogger Ray Maker, speaking to The New York Times, suggested that Zwift is rife with the sort of shameless corner-cutting one used to see when bike races were still held outdoors, in the real world, where there are actual corners to cut.

“There’s so much cheating in Zwift that I think a lot of people would like to see more accountability,” said Maker, who writes the endurance sports technology blog DC Rainmaker.

A spokesman for Zwift, meanwhile, expressed confidence in the company’s ability “to catch cheaters and to police the races.”

Ho, ho, etc. Objection, your honor. Assumes facts not in evidence.

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Posted in Bike stuff, Cops and robbers, Technology | 4 Comments »

R.I.P., Leonard Nimoy

February 27, 2015
Mr. Spock, everyone's favorite green-blooded, pointy-eared freak.

Mr. Spock, everyone’s favorite green-blooded, pointy-eared freak.

Mr. Spock has beamed up for the final time.

My favorite quote so far comes from The Los Angeles Times: “My folks came to the U.S. as immigrants,” he said in a 2012 speech at Boston University. “They were aliens, and then became citizens. I was born in Boston a citizen, and then I went to Hollywood and became an alien.”

I don’t know about you, but I watched me a shitload of “Star Trek,” mostly in college, when I was supposed to have been getting one a them, whatchamacallit, edjimications.

Here's a little LLAP dance for you.

Here’s a little LLAP dance for you.

I could Name That Episode about a nanosecond into any one of them, which made me a hair slower than Ed the Beard, a total sci-fi geekazoid who christened his beater Step van “The Hawkwind.” We used it to deliver appliances rather than Michael Moorcock-inspired space rock.

Spock almost always had the snarkiest lines, which may be why I liked the character so much. Scotty and Bones were too excitable, and Kirk was a dickhead authority figure, so yeah, Spock.

When Edith Keeler asked what he was building, Spock replied, “I am endeavoring, ma’am, to construct a mnemonic memory circuit using stone knives and bearskins.”

Chatting about Tribbles with McCoy, who said they were “nice, they’re soft and they’re furry, and they make a pleasant sound,” Spock replied, “So would an ermine violin, Doctor, but I see no advantage in having one.”

Discussing Harcourt Fenton Mudd’s having skipped appointments with Bones, Spock noted: “It’s not at all surprising, Doctor. He’s probably terrified of your beads and rattles.”

Well, now he’s boldly gone where all men (and women) must go. We’ll miss him. Live long and prosper, the rest of yis.

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Posted in Absent friends, Bad news | 15 Comments »