L o b a B l a n c a {dot} c o m

Thank you, TrekCore. I don’t know where or how you find these rare gems, but yet again, you’ve made me smile.

I’m trying to “keep calm and carry on” as the Anglophile in me thinks is best. My frame of mind at the present is a whirling dervish of unpredictability, with valleys of torrential self-pity…which I hate. What I hate even more is that I seem to be at a total loss regarding how to verbalize any of this. Or write about it either. My focus as of late has once again been reduced to Twitter-level: short, random, and most often pointless.

[Loba Tangent: I speak hypothetically, of course. Loba does not tweet. Although I get the sneaking suspicion that one of my Internet Personalities^TM does. I'm just not sure which one...yet.]

Anyway, this is why the lair has been a relative ghost town as of late. Minus my holiday investigation with Santa Sidle, of course.

[Loba Tangent 2: Did you know that, apparently, all I needed to do to give my visitor numbers a nice bump was to mention Sara Sidle? Who knew? I wonder what mentioning Jorja Fox will do to my stats. Gina Toscano? Maggie Doyle? Seriously, I'm a closeted stats whore, so I'll do whatever it takes to make my numbers soar. Heh. That rhymed.]

However, I wanted to bring you all something during this final countdown to the end of 2010…something more special than gold, frankincense, and myrrh combined. What could be better than that combination, you might ask? How about Wil Wheaton, the Golden Girls, and Dungeons & Dragons? Framed in bacon?

Yeah, it’s okay to be speechless right now. It’s also okay to be mesmerized. Go ahead, take your time and stare. I’ll wait.

…

It’s breathtaking, isn’t it? Even Wil Wheaton didn’t quite know what to call this masterpiece. His blog post on it was titled what is this i don’t even

I don’t even either, Wil. All I know is that when I start to feel sad, I open this image and the tsunami of awesome that crashes through my mind immediately sweeps the sad away. It’s a temporary palliative, true…but I’ll take temporary like this any day. With an extra side of bacon, please.

We heard you wanted to report a 459…burglary. What’s missing? Milk and cookies, you say? Oh, that’s all right. That was just ole St. Nick, making his annual rounds. Other than the milk and cookies, I bet he didn’t take anything, right? Bet he even left something behind…that’s his MO, you know. We’ve been processing his scenes for years.

We’ll go ahead and send over our best CSI (Christmas Scene Investigator, of course), Santa Sidle. She can be a little rough around the edges sometimes, but she gets the job done…

Yeah, this year I decided to give the sci-fi scions of my life a little break and go with another of my loves for my holiday card…CSI. I considered using Nick Stokes, since his name was the most appropriate for this particular holiday (St. Nicky)…but I had to go with my favorite: the dark, damaged, dentally diastemic one. Besides, if anyone needs a little holiday cheer in their lives, I think Sara Sidle comes at the top of that list. Plus, she wears that Santa hat well, no?

And, of course, I wish you all the merriest of holidays, whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or the Blessed Solstice. And I thank you. This has been a year of slippery slopes for me, but I have found solace and unexpected smiles from so many of you. I know I kid about having “ImagiFriends^TM,” but the truth is…you are my friends. I just haven’t met some of you IRL…yet. You have made my days brighter, my laughter stronger, and my mind filthier (you know which ones of you I’m talking about…).

Enough sentimentality. Break out the rum and let’s get this investigation under way! I’ll be over here, helping to print the reindeer…

Colonel Kira guards my stash. All arguments are henceforth invalid.

(Oh, and ImagiFriends^TM inspire the silliness in me. One of many reasons why I love them so…)

The anachronistic fustercluckery of this cover delights and disturbs me in equal measure. Ro Laren in a dress that looks like a reject from a Smut Trek bodice ripper romance? Running from…what? A Jawa with a raging case of gigantism and osteoporosis? And she’s holding a Cardassian phaser? In her left hand?

[Loba Tangent: Yes, I do notice things like this...I'm left-handed, so I almost always register when someone is similarly dexterous. Ro Laren, however, was not a southpaw. Neither was Admiral Cain or Maryann Forrester. Michelle Forbes, however...also isn't left-handed. Just so you know.]

It’s all too much. And yet not even close to being enough. I want need to know what this comic is about. Although in my mind, I’ve decided that this is a really bad first date, and that look of murderous intent in Ro’s eyes is either: A) Because she’s now on her way to assassinate the creator of IntergalacticHarmony.com for completely botching her request for someone “dark and mysterious, with a sense of Old World adventure” or; B) Because she’s had enough of Tall, Dark, and Bony grabbing her…bustle.

Whatever is going on, I can’t stop laughing at this cover. Silly Star Trek comics, you just don’t care about continuity at all, do you?

If you find yourself needing to know more about this particular comic and my explanation just isn’t cutting it for you, then might I direct you to this electronic comic book collection, brought to you by Santa Timmy and his lovely worker elves at ThinkGeek. Consider it my gift to you at this festive Tribblemas…

The theme for our division’s door-decorating extravaganza this year was “gingerbread men.” Most people in the division went the traditional route, gumdrop buttons at all.

Most people in the division aren’t raging geeks. Thank the prophets I am. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have…”The Gingerbread Man Trap”:

It’s not nearly as detailed as the OCD/anal-retentive part of me would like, but it’ll do.

As most people know, this past weekend was the Rally to Restore Sanity And/Or Fear, the combined crazy spoofiness sponsored by Comedy Central and hosted by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. I didn’t attend this rally (although I did get caught up in some of the mad rush trying to get downtown). I have a HUGE phobia against massive crowds, regardless of how amused I am by the purpose of said gatherings. Plus, I had quieter and more personally enjoyable plans for my weekend.

However, this morning I did find this link of the 100 Best Signs At The Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear. Some of these are simply brilliant (and some of the people holding the signs are equally wonderful).

Several of these signs quickly became favorites, including the one that reads, “Teatard.” I’m only going to post one here, however, because if I start posting more than one, I’ll end up posting them all…and I don’t want to steal buzzfeed’s thunder. Here, then, is the one that made me laugh out loud and make a strange squee-like noise that made me grateful my officemate hadn’t arrived yet:

Of course I enjoyed it for the obvious reason, but I also loved it because whoever made this sign has a sense of humor as cheesy and geeky as mine. Case in point, this is a snippet from a blog entry I made during my Angry Blogger^TM days:

When an American reporter later asked Bush if he realized that many people considered his statement to be highly hypocritical because many consider him to be xenophobic, he scoffed loudly and replied, “Who said I was Xena-phobic? I love that show! I think it’s great to see more women in action roles, especially ones who look so good in so little…know what I mean?” He then appeared to cringe visibly and several in the vicinity reported hearing loud screaming coming from the still unidentified “mystery bulge” beneath the president’s sports coat. Several reported that the voice sounded like Karl Rove. Mr. Bush promptly stopped talking and allowed Secret Service to escort him back to Air Force One.

See? Utter cheese of the strongest geek flavor. And, wow, talk about taking a walk down “Thank the prophets those days are over” lane! Ah, good times.

Anyway, take a look at the rest of the signs and, hopefully, laugh along with Loba.

So I may or may not have ever mentioned this here at the lair, but I have a HUGE fangirl crush on Keith Birdsong. Not familiar with the name? That’s all right. I bet, if you’re a geek like me, you’re familiar with his work. He’s an extraordinarily talented artist who has done work for almost every major fandom imaginable, including my all-time favorite, Star Trek. In fact, if you ever picked up a TNG or DS9 novel back in those shows’ heydays, more likely than not you were looking at a Birdsong original on the cover. I happily confess that, on several occasions, I bought a novel based solely on the fact that I thought his cover art was gorgeous.

Imagine my delight, then, when I realized that he had done a fantastic piece for Creation Entertainment’s annual Xena convention back in 2007. I immediately fell in love with this one: Not only is it Birdsong’s recognizable style giving life to familiar scenes of Xena and Gabrielle (and Argo, too!), but it’s done on a beautiful abstract backdrop painted by Birdsong as well. Top it all off with the fact that Lucy Lawless and Renee O’Connor signed each of the limited-release prints of this artwork and you’ve just pushed the geekery over the breaking point for me.

But how could I make this even more special?

Look at the bottom left of the picture and you’ll get the answer to that question (sorry for the lack of detail and glass reflection in this photo, but I kind of wanted to make sure that no one could copy this image). See, my Mirror Universe self knows people, including the amazing Keith Birdsong. My Mirror Universe self rocks…but Keith rocks way more. He very graciously signed this print for me, and I can’t even begin to express how awesome he is for doing so. All I have to do is look at his signature and I’m suddenly 15 again, standing in the aisle of the Crown Books Superstore and looking for the newest TNG book to bear a Birdsong original.

If you’d like to see more of Keith’s artwork, you can visit his online gallery or check out some of his more recent work, sold through Lightspeed Fine Art.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some more squeeing to do…

I recently wrote a Flashback Friday on The Carol Burnett Show, and if you’re at all surprised that I’m a Trek Geek Supreme, then you haven’t been visiting here very long at all, have you?

So, imagine my delight and surprise when I stumbled upon the following photo in TrekCore.com’s Rare Photos section. A combination of Carol Burnett and Star Trek? Wha?

What is this photo documenting? Was there a Carol Burnett skit that featured Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock? Was he just strolling by one day while in makeup and decided to wander onto one of Burnett’s sets? What is the story behind this photo?

No. Actually? I’d rather not know the story. It’s even more delightful as a mystery…

On other news fronts, I’ve been doing some major heavy lifting in several life arenas lately, which has taken away much of my free time. Never fear, however, denizens. I can see the finish line from here. Plus, I’ve got some fun plans for the lair in October. Oh so very fun…

[Loba Post-Post Analysis: I thought a little more about this photo on my drive home this afternoon, and I've decided that I bet this was a skit that included Mr. Spock. I realized that Burnett is holding a bundle in her arms that was probably meant to be a baby. I bet the skit had something to do with confusing Mr. Spock with famous baby guru Dr. Spock. Just a theory, but one that satisfies like Snickers, no?]

Isn’t this the most wonderful mashup of science reality and science fiction EVAR? It’s the cast of the original Star Trek (sans the Shat) and Trek creator Gene Roddenberry at the dedication ceremony for NASA’s first space shuttle orbiter, the Enterprise.

Really, was there any other name they could have given this first shuttle? Well, actually, yes. The original name was going to be the Constitution, because shuttle construction was slated to be completed in 1976, America’s bicentennial year. However, when NASA made this announcement, they were inundated by letters from thousands of Trek fans who simply could not believe that anyone would dare suggest a name other than Enterprise for the first shuttle. NASA wisely rethought their plans…and meta history was made.

What could be cooler than this, you might ask? Allow Loba to show you.

What’s that? Is that…could it be…?

Well, yeah, that sure does look like a space shuttle. And that ginormous American flag must mean it’s an honest-to-goodness original! But…is it the Enterprise?

Would I give you anything less, denizens?

A brief explanation: In December 2003, the Smithsonian opened their Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Northern Virginia’s Dulles International Airport. This center, an annex of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum (NASM), became the showcase for all of the larger pieces that NASM had collected over the years, like the Enterprise, but had no room at their D.C. location to showcase. Most of these pieces had been in storage for years, hidden away from public viewing, sometimes rolled out to the downtown museum for temporary exhibits but never finding a permanent home.

Pieces like the controversial Enola Gay, the Boeing B-29 Superfortress that dropped the first atomic bomb, code name “Little Boy,” on Hiroshima, Japan:

Or this Air France Concorde supersonic airliner:

(Can’t forget a shot of that famous needle nose!)

Or this beauty, the Clipper Flying Cloud, the only surviving Boeing 307 Stratoliner in existence:

Or the always X-citing SR-71 Blackbird (please, someone get my geeky comic book joke!):

The SR-71 and the Enterprise? There might actually be more awesome than legally allowed in this shot:

Okay, I think you get the general idea. The Udvar-Hazy is, without a doubt, one of the most amazing museums within the Smithsonian Institution. Why it took me this long to finally visit is beyond my comprehension. However, I can assure you that if you live within driving distance of this museum and you’re a big geek like me, then you need to visit. And, if you’re ever coming to the D.C. area, you should schedule a nice solid chunk of afternoon to pay a visit. You won’t regret it.