There’s Something Flaky About Those Photos

~ lobablanca

Okay, break time from the shoveling. Although not really shoveling. Just sad, pathetic attempts to shove around a bunch of lumps of slushy snow without slipping and skidding onto my ass as I walk across the big sheet of ice that now passes as our parking lot. I have a strong suspicion that Sammy isn’t moving anywhere any time soon.

This was Sammy yesterday as the snow was still falling. Like his windshield wiper horns and his snowhawk? He’s now at least dusted off for the most part, but the snow drifts all around him come up to his windows. I’ve kind of cleared a path along his starboard side, but my muscles revolted at the thought of tackling the port side. Just like everything revolted when I fell into this snowdrift yesterday:

Yeah, I’m not a short person, so when you see me standing in snow higher than my thighs, you know things are going to be a bit shit. Kind of like Queen Elizabeth is a bit royal or curling is a bit Canadian.

Again, though, it is pretty to watch. From inside. With coffee and Rice Krispy treats and a feckin’ awesome telephoto lens. Here, then, are some highlights of the past two days. Then it’s off to have some lunch and back outside. The Bobcats have arrived to help dig us out, so maybe it won’t be too terribly bad. I just have to keep telling myself that.

The Great White Hype Reality

~ lobablanca

OMGWTFSNOW?!?

I actually miss the days when the meteorologists in this area were always wrong. Used to be, they’d start hyping a snowstorm, only to have the predicted snowy deluge never materialize. I can remember several ocassions in which school systems shut down the night prior only to wake up to the rude reality that they closed for no reason whatsoever. No snow at all.

The meteorologists are starting to get better…and that sucks. They started predicting this storm at the beginning of this week. And they kept bumping the numbers each time they talked about it. 12 inches. 24 inches. 30 inches.

The storm started yesterday at around 11 a.m. I went into the office that morning, but when the president of the company came around and looked at me like I was crazy, I knew that it was okay to leave when the first flakes started to fall.

The snow finally stopped around 4 this evening. It was so blustery at points overnight that we awoke to a blanket of white over all the window screens and a pile of snow on the sidewalk that stood almost as high as the banister. I haven’t actually measured, but I can tell you that the snow drift I fell into when I was trying to check the phone lines at the back of the house came up above my knees. I’m going to venture a guess and say that we’ve got almost three feet. Some of the areas to the west got even more than that.

Like I said at the beginning, OMGWTFSNOW!

The last time we had a snow like this, I was about 12 years old. Actually, though, even that snow wasn’t this bad. This is now recorded in the history books as the fourth worst snowstorm in D.C. history.

I will grant you this…it is beautiful. I’ve taken quite a few photos since the storm began. I’d upload them, but they need to be resized and my main CPU is now off. The power started fluctuating sporadically around 3, so all essential electronics were clicked off at that point. The DSL also went out around noon. Followed by the phone lines at around 1. Both just came back about 20 minutes ago.

And of course my first thought was to come here to the lair and let its denizens know the 411 on my own personal white hell.

Can I just say now how much I’m dreading tomorrow morning? Sammy’s in about 4 feet of snow right now, thanks to drifting. And this is a heavy snow, denizens. Heavy, wet, clumpy snow. We’re going to be digging for most of the day, I believe.

The bonus? I strongly suspect that the federal government will be closed on Monday. Possibly even Tuesday.

Damn it feels good to be a contractor.

Anyway, so that’s where things are at Chez Loba. Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a glass of wine waiting to be drunk and a cheesy 80s movie waiting to be watched. So I’m off…but only slightly…

Flashback Friday: They Make Great Pets

~ lobablanca
Every witch needs a familiar...

I’m sorry, denizens. I know that I try to keep things relatively light and funny on Flashback Fridays. But I still has a sad. Data’s passing has impacted me far more than I expected it to…although it’s a bit silly on my part to ever have thought that such a thing wouldn’t upset me. Like I said, he was in my life for more than half my existence.

Also, from a thoroughly selfish standpoint (although, really, what other is there in the blog-o-sphere, eh?), I realized the other day that this is the first time I am completely pet-less since I was 7 years old. In that time, I’ve had four hamsters, two dogs, one cat, and a squirrel. Yes, a squirrel. She was awesome. I really need to find and scan those slides.

And while I know that one should never have favorites among their dependents (I’m not going to call them children because…well, I’d rather not envision birthing a four-legged furry), I think the losses of Data and Jodie have hit me the hardest of them all.

I know that there are “dog people” and there are “cat people.” The debate has always somewhat baffled me. It’s like being “Kirk people” or “Picard people.” Both have wonders to offer, lessons to teach, love to give. Plus, we all know Janeway was the best anyway.

Ha. See? Not too sad to resist geek speak.

I loved both pets equally and differently. Of Jodie I once wrote:

You were my serendipity

Hailing Frequencies Closed

~ lobablanca

My parents informed me last night that my magical, mystical doodle cat, the enigmatic Mr. Data, passed from this existence last Thursday. My dad said that he woke up that morning and went into the kitchen to make coffee. Data was on the counter where he had fallen asleep the previous evening. He looked up at my dad, meowed once, and was no more.

Always the gentleman, he waited until he could properly say goodbye and thank you before departing.

Part of me wasn’t surprised when my parents told me. Part of me somehow expected to hear this news when I called. I don’t know how to explain it, but somehow I already knew. Part of me regrets that I wasn’t there to say goodbye. Part of me doesn’t ever want to have to say goodbye to another pet ever again. It’s way too hard and, quite frankly, my soul is a bit weary of saying goodbye to those I love.

Still, he had a magnificent run at this life. He would have been 18 years old this June, which means that he was part of my life for more than half of my existence. I’d post photos of him in his kittenhood, he with his perfectly triangular head and skinny kitty body, but those will need to be scanned. Yes, he predated digital cameras. Came before my first cell phone, too. He even slightly predated my very first computer, which came into the house a few months after his arrival.

Obviously, he didn’t’ predate my Trek obsession. Poor little guy, stuck with a nerd name all his life. It was his own fault, though. His eyes were the most beautiful…most Data shade of gold imaginable when he was a kitten. There really was no other name for him. The gold metamorphosed and faded as he aged, but they remained beautiful. Just like him.

He was a rescue kitty, found crawling out of a gutter by my aunt. Filthy and flea-infested, he was hardly recognizable as feline. So she took him home, bathed him and gave him food. He thanked her by voraciously consuming said food and then pooping in her plant box. That was pretty much when I fell in love with him. How could I not?

Eighteen years is a long time to remember, too many years and far too many joyful memories to fully encapsulate in the space of this post. But to say simply that he was a wonderful, beautiful specimen of felinicity seems somehow insignificant.

He was Data. Hinja-Doodle. Prettiest Kitty in the World.

He outlived both of my dogs. More significantly, he survived Jodie’s puppydom. He also survived a poor decision on his part to consume part of a fake Christmas tree. Plastic pine needles are not good for digestion. He traded in one of his nine lives to learn this truth.

In his twilight years, he became a country king, moving with my parents to the Tarheel State. He was technically my kitty, but, as I wrote previously in my Angry BloggerTM days, he and my father shared a special bond, perhaps borne from their solitary maleness in an estrogen-heavy house. Who was I to tear that bond asunder?

I don’t really know what else to say. My doodle cat is gone.

Au revoir, Mr. Data. Je t’aime.

Waking Memories

~ lobablanca

Loba plans and the Prophets laugh. I had places to go, people to do today. Instead, I’m sitting inside, watching as the “one inch” of snow that the meteorologists said we were going to get has transformed into multiple inches. I know a lot of girls who would get excited over more inches than originally promised. I’m not that girl.

I’m also apparently incredibly dirty-minded. I do apologize. However, I never said that Loba’s online lair was kid-tested and mother-approved.

So I remembered another dream. Not that big a deal to most people, I’m sure. However, Loba very rarely retains memories of dreams. For a long time I thought that I didn’t dream at all. Then Dr. Crusher and Data explained to me that if Humans didn’t dream, we’d go crazy. That was when I knew that I had to dream…I just never remembered any of what I was dreaming.

I realize now that I only remember the dreams that I wake up during. Like this morning. I was having a dream about something that actually happened. It was my final semester of college. My classes were over for the day and I was walking to my car when I ran into someone from my high school graduating class.

This probably doesn’t sound like that big a deal to most people. You go to a state university located fewer than 30 miles away from your high school, you’re bound to encounter a classmate or two on campus, right? Maybe if you went to a normal high school. I did not. The number of students in my graduating class didn’t even reach into the double digits. So this was a pretty big deal.

In both my dream and in the real experience, I remember the awkwardness of the encounter…the surprise on both sides, the slight joy mixed with discomfort. I can’t speak for my classmate, but I understand now that my discomfort was based on the fact that encountering him forced me to come face to face with a part of my life that was slowly fading, as was the person I was during those days. College is a time of reinvention and discovery, and while there were no external signs of any major transformation on my part (no pink hair, no tattoos, no piercings…I’m insanely vanilla in my appearance), inside I knew I was different from the person he once knew.

I think he could understand this truth as well. While he still looked the same as he did in high school, he had changed his name (and in fact seemed quite flustered when I called him by his old name). He was in a state of reinvention as well. So there we stood, two people identifiable to each other only on the outside, still in a state of flux on the inside. Not really all that into being reminded of those people we were trying to leave behind.

There wasn’t really anything more special than this about the dream, just like there wasn’t anything more special about the actual encounter. In reality, I think we shared about 10 minutes of conversation in which we caught up with what each of us was doing, and that was that. No offer from either side to exchange numbers or e-mail addresses. Just a smile and a goodbye. That was more than 10 years ago now. It was the last time I ever saw anyone from my graduating class.

I think this memory resurfaced in my dream world because recently I ran into someone else from my old school. It completely threw me off because: A) I didn’t recognize her at first (she was barely a teen the last time I saw her and now she’s a grown woman); and B) she so quickly recognized me. Again, insanely vanilla in appearance am I that I can still be identified by someone who last saw me when I was 17 years old. But though she recognized me on the outside, I was acutely aware that the person she saw on the outside was no longer home on the inside to the person she remembered from those days. The foundation is admittedly the same, but the rooms have been cleared out, given a fresh coat of paint, and completely redesigned.

I’m not really sure where I wanted to go with this post. It was just something on my mind as I sat here in my geek cave, watching the snowflakes tumble and twirl from the sky.

Flashback Friday: PEZ (and Special Flashback Friends!)

~ lobablanca

Today’s a nasty one for work overload, denizens, but I haven’t forgotten that it’s…Flashback Friday! And so today, I bring you PEZ! More precisely, I give you a photo of Loba’s very own PEZ dispenser collection. Perty, innit? As I’m sure you can no doubt deduce, most of the PEZ dispensers I received were holiday gifts…something tucked into a Christmas stocking or Easter basket or received in my big Halloween pillowcase/bag. It’s a lovely gift for any kid you want hyped up on an instant sugar rush (especially if said kid doesn’t belong to you). You’re pretty much giving them a toy that when they play with it, it delivers a little brick of pure flavored sugar. And the more you play with it, the more sweet goodness you get. It’s a life lesson best learned early.

[Fhat the wuck? Did I just make an inappropriate joke at the expense of a childhood memory?!]

My very first PEZ dispenser was the little chick wearing a red hat. Said hat comes off. So does Santa’s hat as well as the two snowmen’s hats. And noses. Rudolph’s ears come off, and Batman’s fleshy face slides out of his blue cowl. Yes, I used to disassemble and reassemble my PEZ dispensers with such frequency that I’m amazed all the pieces still fit back into place (see my Mouse Trap Flashback for more on this).

I have a vague memory of sitting in the back of our family Chevette (the destined-to-be-mine blueberry Nerd Mobile), taking all my PEZ dispensers apart and then making them do battle like Transformers. I so desperately wanted Transformers. I got PEZ dispensers instead. So I made do.

[Oh dear Prophets, was I really that big a geek when I was little?]

Know what I love most about this photo of my PEZ collection? How I inadvertently snapped a bonus flashback photo by lining them up on top of our old Betamax VCR. Betamax!! Yeah, my dad still has it, and still has it in working condition. See how awesome it is to have tinkerer blood? It’s strangely comforting to know that I can still watch my Beta tapes of Troop Beverly Hills and the remake of The Blob whenever I go to visit.

Also, see the little telly in the background, reflecting my dorkiness in the screen? This is my old TV, the one from my Hunt the Wumpus Flashback! Told you my dad still had it.

So, there you go. PEZ. Go get some. Rot your teeth. Bounce off the walls. Pretend the dispensers are Transformers. It’s all Loba-approved fun 😉

Picture Worth A Thousand Geek Squees

~ lobablanca

While looking for something else in my photo archives, I came across this. I’d give you a setup, but I really think this speaks quite well on its own.

And then this morning, my alarm went off while I was in the middle of a dream in which I was interviewing Nana Visitor for a talk show that I was auditioning to take over, I think from Conan O’Brien.

I’ve really gotta lay off the Trek.

You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby…

~ lobablanca
Silly photographer! Holy Sci-Fi Trinities are for boys!

Know why I think this is one of the most bittersweet Trek photographs in existence? Because whoever composed this shot must have been under the same wonderful, fantastical, extremely naive delusion that I was under when I first discovered TNG. You know, that the famous holy trinity of “KirkSpockMcCoy” would somehow transfer to this new show and would morph into “PicardRikerCrusher.”

Never really worked like that for the Dancing Doctor, though, did it? No, Beverly was never given the respect (or screen time) afforded to the great Bones McCoy. So what happened? Why was Dr. Crusher never considered one of the big hitters from the cast? Was it because Gates McFadden wasn’t up to taking the role to that level? I would strongly disagree with that statement. Yeah, yeah, I’m biased. It’s my blog and she’s my favorite character. Piss off.

Or was it something more?

Let’s look at the other female characters from TNG’s first season. The lovely Deanna Troi. Counselor, empath, sexotic alien, galactic cheerleader. She didn’t really do a whole lot that first season beyond change outfits and hairstyles a couple times. And get a shitload of headaches. Actually, that’s pretty much a great summary of Deanna Troi for the first 6 seasons of TNG.

Then there was the feisty Tasha Yar. Security chief, dangerous, damaged, loyal, dead.

Poor Tasha, so much potential there, shackled by the proclivities of her IRL representative, Denise Crosby. Whether it was personal frustration over the lack of character development or TPTB not really digging all of Crosby’s craziness, the axe came down on Tasha before the first season was even over. Or rather the Ink and Metamucil Monster came down on her. Yes, that is what Armus was made of…printer’s ink and Metamucil. I’d be a killer anger blob, too, if I was made of such stuff.

Still, Tasha was able to return thanks to all that tasty alternate timeline goodness that has granted us the shit bog known as the new J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek universe. Tasha’s return is considered one of the best TNG episodes of the series. Tasha’s gift to the new timeline, however, is about as popular with fans as J.J.’s movie is with me.

I’m looking at you, Commander Sela. Genetically unfeasible (blond hair, blue eyes, and pink skin? Are you sure you’re half green-blooded Romulan?), insipid, uninspired, and ridiculous, Sela was one of the worst characters ever introduced to the Trek mythology. Even worse than Sybok. Better hair though.

[Trek Tangent: I still say the Sela storyline not only could have been salvaged, but done in such a way that they could have even made sense out of that whole blond hair/blue eye bullshiggidy. In fact, I once had a notion to write fanfic that would explain that Sela was actually Tasha Yar, captured from the alternate timeline, reprogrammed to believe she was this Romulan/Human hybrid, and kept in cryo-stasis until the Romulans could unleash her on her former crewmates. Hmm, maybe that can be my big writing project in 2010! No. No more living in other people’s worlds, remember? Besides, Ro might become irritated if you start invading her territory. And you know what happens when Ro gets testy…]

And Beverly. Beverly didn’t survive beyond the first season either. At least they didn’t kill her as well. The mystery behind why Gates McFadden wasn’t asked to return for the second season continues, as McFadden has never said anything more than “The producers wanted to go a different direction with the doctor character.” I’d love to know the truth, but I respect that it’s her truth to reveal or keep.

Dr. Crusher may not have remained on the NCC-1701-D when it fired up its warp drive for Season Two, but her son did. Yes, Wesley Crusher, eternal nerd king supreme, got to stay on board while his mom “went back to head Starfleet Medical.” Really? Way to undermine Dr. Crusher not only as a character but as a parent. (I can’t help but ask at this point: If “Wesley” had remained “Leslie” as the character was first intended to be, would she have been kept on board? Hmmm…)

But it kind of makes you wonder, what was Dr. Crusher’s greatest contribution to Trek lore? Her dedication as a doctor? Her Southern charm? Her wizened platitudes and her pithy catch phrase?

Nope. It was Wesley. She gave birth to her greatest contribution, just as Tasha, for better or for worse, gave birth to hers. Heck, even Deanna got in on the baby-making, giving birth to the horrible recycled Star Trek: Phase II plot originally meant for Decker and Baldy. Er Ilia.

And it wasn’t just the main female characters. Guest stars got in on the placental frenzy, too! Look at K’Ehleyr. Portrayed by the ever lovely, ever vivacious, ever delightful Suzie Plakson, K’Ehleyr was the Klingon/Human hybrid betrothed to Mr. Woof. She was strong. She was opinionated. She was feisty. She broke bones and drew blood when mating. And she color-coordinated like a fashion fiend.

And then they brought her back. With child. Oh, what a horrible child. Which was worse: Alexander or Sela? I’m going to choose Alexander, simply because they kept insisting on bringing him back to the party. They at least had the decency to let Sela slink into the shadows of non-canonical book plots.

But hold on! K’Ehleyr’s story isn’t over yet!

Oh, wait. Yeah it is. This delightfully entertaining character was Klingoned to death as a way to move along a dull Klingon plot and leave dull Worf stuck with a dull child and a dull “unintentional parent” plot that should have been killed instead of K’Ehleyr.

Omnipotent? Or omnipregnant?

But, fear not, Suzie fans! Suzie Plakson did get to return to the Trek universe. Her return didn’t come until Voyager, but she got to come back, prosthetic-free AND as a member of the most powerful alien race to exist in the Trek universe! Yes! She comes back as a Q! She gets to be snide. She gets to pout. She gets to deliver some Class-A omnipotent zingers to the Voyager crew.

Plakson rocked this guest spot like no one’s business, easily stepping into the imposing shoes of this omnipotent species and keeping up with the High Q-ness himself, John de Lancie. And what was the end result? She got to give birth. Again. This time to John de Lancie’s actual son, Keegan. All this happens off-screen, of course. We never see Suzie Q again. Personally, I think this is one of the biggest crimes of Voyager.

So, what’s the point of all this? I don’t really know. I guess I just think it’s a bit crazy and totally pathetic that this franchise that continues to be heralded as forward-thinking and trail-blazing was so chained to the weight of the female-as-babymaker stereotype. That doesn’t mean that I think women shouldn’t be portrayed as mothers in the future. But, really, if you think about it…they weren’t portrayed as mothers on Trek. They were portrayed only as having given birth. Suzie Q gave birth to Keegan Q, but they never interacted. K’Ehleyr may have been Alexander’s mother for the first three years of his life, but we never saw any of that. Tasha? Same thing with Sela.

And Beverly? Wil Wheaton recently made this comment about his memories of the TNG third season episode, “Evolution”:

Some memories (of the Future, durr) were crystal clear: how great it was to have Gates back, how excited I was to have an episode where Wesley wasn’t a weenie, and how cool it was to finally have scenes together where we interacted as mother and son in a believable way. [bold emphasis mine]

When even the Wunderkind recognizes that he didn’t really have much of a relationship with his mom, you know you’ve got a problem.

There were actually lots of problems with almost every single female character ever written for the Trek universe. This is just one of the many that’s been irking me as of late. And it all started when I saw that wonderful, sad photo at the very top of this post.

I really do love that photo. I love it because of how amazing they all look in their skinny spandex spacesuits. I love it for Gates’s big 80s “future” hair and Jonathan’s baby face and adorable chin dimple. And I love it for the promise that was broken before it was ever made. The promise that this Trek was going to be even more groundbreaking than its predecessor…was going to give us women on board who did more than answer the phone and bring the captain his coffee. These women grew up to be doctors and security chiefs and…Deanna. They were supposed to change the world, or at least the world view of women and their roles, both in the future and in the now.

I guess I’m still trying to figure out where it all went wrong.

It’s Only Make Believe

~ lobablanca

With all my griping about special effects taking the originality and complexity out of movies, even I know that sometimes it’s all about the lightsabers. Especially when it’s geeky fanboys in an empty parking garage, dorking out with a wickedly choreographed lightsaber duel.

Epic make-believe geekery, FTW.

Special Defects

~ lobablanca

I usually don’t read Gene Weingarten, WaPo’s version of Dave Barry. I know there are plenty of people out there who find him funny. I’m sure that many of these people aren’t even related to him. However, the only thing I typically find about his prose is that it is consistently inconsistent. Sometimes it’s uproariously funny. Sometimes it’s horrifically bad. Most of the time it lands soundly in the tepid waters of “meh.”

However, this week’s column struck a particularly loud chord with me. Titled “Special defects: Gene gives movie technology a digital salute,” it’s all about Weingarten’s frustration over how Hollywood has seemingly abandoned decent storytelling for some flashy special effects and CGI Smurfs. Yep, that’s pretty much how I feel about a lot of these big-budget, “blow your mind,” effects-heavy movies. I think Weingarten summed it up perfectly with this line:

The problem is that when absolutely anything is possible, absolutely nothing is special.

It might not be funny, but it’s totally true.