Michael Hanscom

Enthusiastic ambivert. Geeky, liberal, friendly, curious, hopepunk; trying to be a good person. (he/him)

On This Day: Oct 4

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 18 posts previously published on October 4th

  • 2023
  • 2021
    • 📚 36/2021: Contamination by John Vornholt ⭐️ 🖖🏻 ➡
  • 2020
  • 2017
  • 2016
    • Didn’t even bother with the VP debate. Star Trek Voyager and Buffy the Vampire Slayer instead. No regrets. (278/366) ➡
  • 2011
  • 2009
  • 2005
    • Another Cheaper by the Dozen? Would someone please just forcibly retire Steve Martin and put us all out of our misery? ➡
    • Quote of the Day: Guess? I saw a woman wearing a sweat shirt with "Guess" on it. So I said "Implants?" She hit me. ➡
    • Seattle’s Seasons in Software As a Macintosh user interface designer I like to simplify whenever possible. Four seasons is two too many. Seattle has two seasons, rainy and dry — anything more is too complex for new users. ;) ➡
  • 2004
    • Placeholder Entry This is just a placeholder to give me some content while I work on moving things over to my own server. Nothing to see here, move along. ➡
    • Dr. Hanscom’s Health Clinic Very interesting report from some researchers in the UK claiming that massaging breasts helps avoid breast cancer. I figure it's the least I can do to offer my services! Just e-mail me to set up an appointment. ;) ➡
  • 2003
  • 2002
    • Civil Disobedience Lots of Not In Our Name rallies this Sunday, including one here in Seattle, one in Anchorage, and many other cities. ➡
    • so whut r u wearing If you've ever used IM systems such as AIM or Yahoo! Messenger, this is too funny… ➡

On This Day: Oct 3

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 20 posts previously published on October 3rd

  • 2023
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • Not-So Idle Hands The section of the house within reach of the phone cord was often the neatest part of our house. ➡
  • 2016
    • Always my favorite room in the house. (277/366) ➡
  • 2015
    • Saw a raccoon running around the CWU campus yesterday when dropping Prairie off by the library. ➡
  • 2014
    • There seem to be some issues with the transporter, Scotty. ➡
    • Pretty sure I know a few discrete random variables. ➡
  • 2008
  • 2007
    • Misogyn•E This looks to be the third time running (following Cars and Ratatouille) that I'll wait to rent Pixar's latest, rather than sending any of my money their way via the theater. ➡
  • 2004
    • My family, circa 1977 or so This is one of my favorite old family photos. Probably just a proof that was passed on during the selection process, it always makes me laugh when I see it. ➡
    • Has flickr been hijacked? Flickr hasn't been loading for me at all today — all morning long it was giving me a DNS error saying that the server couldn't be found. ➡
    • I so need this toy! I came so close to blowing some money just a few minutes ago — if this wasn't rent week, I probably would have. There's a plush Alien Facehugger available now (I saw it at Suncoast). ➡
    • The DJ tried to kill me Last night at The Vogue was really good — Ogre was DJing, standing in for Evan, and he kept making it damn near impossible for me to get off the dance floor. Always a good thing, of course, since it means that the music is consistently good — but then he topped it all off by playing Pop Will Eat Itself's 'Can U Dig It?', off of This is the Day…This is the Hour…This is This! I'm a big PWEI fan, and would never have expected to hear that at a club. Too cool. ➡
    • Fox news really is Faux News While their rather strong obvious bias has earned Fox News the nickname of 'Faux News' for a while now, this past few days they seem to be doing an incredibly good job of living up to their nickname. ➡
  • 2003
    • Buffy! I have to admit, this is really tempting: all of the first four seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer for only $120. ➡
    • Nicknames Tiny Sugar Packets of Evil is asking about nicknames today. Since she asked… ➡
    • You will never lose betting on human stupidity Every so often I mention to people that I haven't watched television, for the most part, in somewhere around a decade or more. I've got a whole host of reasons why I don't bother with television — and today, I just got one more. ➡
    • Dec. 16: LOTR Marathon It's official: the Lord of the Rings Marathon will be at the Seattle Cinerama on Dec. 16th. ➡
    • Search the web? A question for Windows UI gurus — why in the world is there a 'Search the web' button right next to the 'Up one level' button in open/save dialog boxes in Windows XP? ➡
  • 2002
    • NaNoWriMo I'm not entirely sure yet, but I've just run across something that I'm really tempted to make a shot at — National Novel Writing Month, in which all participants have one month, from Nov. 1st to Nov. 30th, to write a 50,000 word novel (approximately 175 pages). ➡

A wish for a Best-Case Scenario

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I’m so tired of this year.

Crossing my fingers for the best-case scenario: Trump is actually ill. He ends up having a case that’s serious enough to keep him isolated and unable to debate or campaign for at least the next few weeks, but not so bad that Pence assumes the Presidency (and possibly brings anti-Trump Republicans back to vote for a ticket with Pence at its head). His sycophantic followers, used to gleefully following a bellicose, bellowing bully of a god-king, have to reconcile that with reality and decide if they still support a frail, sickly man, laid low by the very thing that he told them shouldn’t be worried about and that they decried as a hoax. From his sickbed in isolation, he watches in impotent fury as his campaign crumbles, his family and advisors turn on each other as they scramble to hold on to whatever power they can, his base stays home, either unwilling to brave a virus that suddenly seems real or simply uninterested in supporting a mere mortal, anti-Trump Republicans and Republicans unwilling to vote for someone in undeniable ill health either don’t vote or vote against him, and Biden/Harris solidly and unequivocally win the election.

We’ve had a year of worst-case scenarios, of course, so the odds are against this. But I can hope.

From Q&A to The Cage

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Including Short Treks episodes in a chronological rewatch means that the very recently produced Short Treks episode “Q&A”, dealing with Spock’s first day on the Enterprise, comes just before the original pilot for TOS, “The Cage” (and then the first two seasons of DIS before going into TOS proper).

Interestingly, I didn’t find this nearly as jarring as one might think, and while there are absolutely aspects I have problems with (like the external shots of the turbolifts that look like roller coasters surrounded by an absolutely ludicrous amount of open space), I do think it says good things about the care that the modern crew is taking with bringing TOS-era stories into the modern age.

Turbolifts aside, while the DIS version of the Enterprise is absolutely a modern interpretation, it is such a respectful interpretation that it works well for me, even when going from that to the very early ‘60s set from The Cage.

Part of Peck’s DIS interpretation of Spock, of course, was intended to act as a bridge between the more emotional version seen in The Cage and the more reserved version seen in the rest of TOS, and the events of Q&A tie directly into this. Romijn’s Number One is enjoyable, brining a little more warmth to Barret’s, and Mount’s Pike is quite simply an incredible match for Hunter, and it’s even more striking when watching them back-to-back like this.

So yes, as expected, there are differences. How could one expect otherwise, with five decades between the two productions? But even so, it’s quite impressive how well they mesh — at least, in my opinion. I may not agree with every choice the current stewards of Trek are making, but I think it’s clear that they have a lot of love and respect for the universe.

On This Day: Oct 2

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 29 posts previously published on October 2nd

  • 2024
  • 2023
  • 2022
  • 2020
    • A wish for a Best-Case Scenario We’ve had a year of worst-case scenarios, of course, so the odds are against this. But I can hope. ➡
    • From Q&A to The Cage I may not agree with every choice the current stewards of Trek are making, but I think it’s clear that they have a lot of love and respect for the universe. ➡
    • On This Day: Oct 2 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from October 2 ➡
  • 2019
    • Alligator House Dance Party Nothing terribly fancy here — just an hour's worth of playing around, entertaining my nieces (ages 10 and 7) during a visit. ➡
  • 2018
    • “Yakko’s World” — the Animaniacs song with all the countries of the world — just got a brand new verse with all the countries added since the song was written! ➡
    • Book thirty-five of 3018: Flash Gordon: The Time Trap of Ming XIII, by Alex Raymond and Con Steffanson. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
    • Siri shortcut for “xyzzy” Old-school geeks will (well, maybe) be amused by this: a very simple, very stupid, tiny iOS 12 Siri shortcut. Tap it in Shortcuts and Siri will reply with, 'Nothing happens.' ➡
  • 2016
    • Tried two new kinds of apple we hadn’t seen before: Koru and Aurora. Both were good, but the Aurora was our favorite. Quite good. ➡
    • Before and after my end of the month shave-and-a-haircut (two bits!). I’m much more presentable now. (276/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • The first rule of thermodynamics is… ➡
  • 2007
    • Soylent Cheese Of course milk comes from cows, but we know that cheese comes from people... ➡
  • 2005
    • Bad Books Reading List Via Terrance: How many of the 100 most frequently challenged books of 1990-2000 have you read? The ones I've read are in **bold**... ➡
    • Shining Okay, so I'm a bit late to the party on this one, but if you haven't seen it yet, you've _really_ got to check out the trailer for a little heartwarming family comedy called Shining (9.5Mb QT .mov). A definite must-see! ➡
    • Dilbert on Doocing Everyone's favorite geeky office shlub takes a look at job-related weblogging today. ➡
    • Bouncing and flirting Much fun out at the_vogue tonight. Flirting with friends I hadn't seen in a while (Tej, Suzanne, Noreen) and friends I just made tonight (Margarite, Amanda, Sarah). All in all, definitely worth going. ➡
  • 2004
    • Disney turning Bloom County 3-D You know, much as I'd like to get excited about the prospect of a Bloom County feature film, given Disney's track record over the past few years, the news that their first foray into 3-D animation without Pixar's involvement will be a Bloom County film doesn't thrill me. ➡
  • 2003
    • And this is a surpise to…who? Remember all those weapons of mass destruction that Bush et al assured us were all over Iraq, just waiting to be found? Funny thing, that — apparently, they don't exist after all. ➡
    • Graham out? It's a little unclear, but it looks like Bob Graham is abandoning the Democratic nomination race. ➡
    • Silliness reigns supreme Looking foolish does the spirit good. The need not to look foolish is one of youth's many burdens; as we get older we are exempted from more and more. ➡
    • Get your DJ name! According to Quiz Me's Get Your DJ Name page, I'm either DJ Broken Box, DJ Master Storm, or DJ Hell-Bent Storm, depending on whether I start with Michael, Woody, or Wudi. ➡
    • A marriage made in heaven If Ivana Trump married, in succession, Orson Bean (actor), King Oscar (of Norway), Louis B. Mayer (of MGM), and Norbert Wiener (mathematician), she would then be Ivana Bean Oscar Mayer Wiener ➡
    • Genetic Engineering Aside from the obvious (and brilliant) attention-getting shock tactics of the image, there's some interesting questions being raised here. Unfortunately, it's time for me to head out the door to get to work. Discuss amongst yourselves. ➡
    • ACME catalog How wonderful: the ACME catalog, a collection of every ACME product ever seen in the classic Warner Brothers cartoons! Me, I think I'm going for the Instant Girl ➡
    • Democrat fundraising outdoing Bush Based on the preliminary estimates for the third quarter, the 10-person Democratic field collectively will have outraised the Bush campaign, an indication of how fired up Democratic donors are. ➡

Möbius Trek

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On Tuesday evening, I finally finished watching Star Trek: Enterprise (the finale of which is, well, a rather impressive number of bad decisions for a series finale). This was a bit of a personal milestone for me, as it was the first time where I had watched all of Star Trek’s canon at least once. Some, of course, I’ve watched many times, but ENT was the last series I’d never gotten around to watching.

Of course, that milestone only lasted for roughly 36 hours, since as of midnight this morning, the latest episode of Lower Decks went live, and I won’t get to see it until tonight. But I’m not about to complain that my milestone didn’t last long because we’re in the midst of almost six months straight of new Star Trek coming out each week!

So what now? Well, keep going, of course!

As long as I’ve just finished ENT, which is chronologically the first series, it just makes sense to continue on with a chronological re-watch. Using the list from the Star Trek Chronology Project as my guide, I’m rolling right in to the first two seasons of DIS (which, admittedly, will be a little weird for a bit once S3 of DIS starts broadcasting, but crossing time streams is pretty normal for Trek, so I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to cope), and then it’s on to TOS, TAS, TNG, LDS, DS9, VOY, PIC…and then we start all over again, right? ;)

Right now, I’m particularly looking forward to the TOS/TAS/TNG re-watches, both because they’re the ones I’ve last watched least recently, and because for each of them, though I picked up the remastered sets on Blu-ray for my personal collection, I’ve not actually taken the time to do more than sample a few bits here and there. It’ll be nice to finally see the restorations that have been patiently waiting for me to get around to them.

LLAP 🖖

On This Day: Oct 1

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 22 posts previously published on October 1st

  • 2023
  • 2020
    • Möbius Trek Worf: 'There is the theory of the Möbius—a twist in the fabric of space where time becomes a loop.' ➡
    • On This Day: Oct 1 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from October 1 ➡
  • 2018
  • 2016
    • Today was a well deserved day of rest. Tomorrow, back to being a responsible adult. (275/366) ➡
    • Seems today is National Mulled Cider Day. Hope you all got to celebrate too! ➡
  • 2014
    • And this would be me “wearing” a tiny fez painted by @aaron_morgan_art in 1994. ➡
  • 2010
  • 2009
    • Links for September 30th through October 1st Sometime between September 30th and October 1st, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too! ➡
    • October Awareness Month Two important things to keep in mind: this is both Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Both of those are bad. Feel Your Boobies, and don't smack around your significant other. Okay? ➡
  • 2008
  • 2005
    • LJ-style links for Ecto This is actually fairly simple, but you never know. For ecto users who want to post LiveJournal-style links to LJ user accounts into a weblog entry on a non-LJ system... ➡
    • Serenity Saw Serenity last night. Much fun with friends in line. The movie...I'm still letting it percolate. And I've gotta get in gear to go to work. More later. ➡
  • 2003
    • Fire up the shredders The White house asked for and got permission earlier this week to wait a day before issuing a directive to preserve all documents and logs which led one seasoned federal prosecutor to wonder why they wanted to wait a day, and who at the justice department told them they could do that, and why? ➡
    • Wacom Photography Contest Wacom is currently having a 'Go Platinum / Go Pro' photo/design contest. ➡
    • Meme 2: iTunes How you organize your music can be as important to someone as what music they listen to. For me, with a personal CD collection currently somewhere around 1,200 discs, organization becomes extremely important. ➡
    • Meme 1: The Dock So, not being one to let a silly pointless meme pass by, I give you my current dock! I'm sure you're all thrilled. ➡
    • Longhorn gets Scoblelized Robert Scoble has started a Longhorn blog. Information might be light until the upcoming PDC, but it could be a good source of info on Microsofts next OS. ➡
    • Five million in ten days Wow. It looks like I owe the Dean campaign something of an apology. ➡
  • 2002
    • Theologian of the Year We need someone who can not only deconstruct the problem of evil, but kick it's hiney; someone with a preternatural sense of comic timing and an eye for fashion. We need Buffy. ➡
  • 2001
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📚 thirty-nine of 2020: Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1969 Hugo Best Novel

While it was good, it was so tough right now to read a cynical dystopian novel about overpopulation, eugenics, and colonialism, featuring endemic racism and sexism, that it was a real slog.

On This Day: Sep 30

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 29 posts previously published on September 30th

  • 2024
  • 2023
  • 2021
    • 📚 35/2021: Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams ⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
  • 2020
    • 📚 thirty-nine of 2020: Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1969 Hugo Best Novel While it was good, it was so tough right now to read a cynical dystopian novel about overpopulation, eugenics, and colonialism, featuring endemic racism and sexism, that it was a real slog. ➡
    • On This Day: Sep 30 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from September 30 ➡
  • 2019
    • Ken Burns’ “Country Music” Prairie and I just finished the Ken Burns Country Music documentary, and really enjoyed it. If you have any interest in American culture and music, even if this isn’t a style you generally pay much attention to, the film is well worth the time it takes to watch. ➡
  • 2016
    • Painting detailing on a prop for a Halloween costume. I don’t really know what I’m doing, but experimenting is sure fun! (274/366) ➡
  • 2015
    • No more noisy jangly keychain for me. Going Swiss Army knife style with the #KeySmart instead. @keysmart ➡
  • 2010
    • 21st Century Television (Part Two) As promised, here's a bit more information on the geeky details of how I've set up our cable-free TV system. ➡
    • 21st Century Television (Part One) Cable and broadcast TV are no more for us. Instead, we have our personal DVD library, DVDs we order from Netflix, the entire Netflix on-demand library, and, for the current-run TV shows we want to keep up with, I simply download them and toss them into the Roksbox library for us to watch commerical-free at our leisure. ➡
  • 2009
  • 2008
    • Sarah Six-Pack I was curious as to whether Palin might be any more coherent when she was a little more in her element and "among friends," so to speak, but that doesn't seem to be the case at all -- at least, not from where I stand. A few bits stood out to me... ➡
    • Links for September 29th through September 30th Sometime between September 29th and September 30th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too! ➡
  • 2004
    • Federal Marriage Amendment rejected Excellent news: the proposed Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage has been shot down. ➡
    • Where it all began… In case there was any curiosity where my tendency for innuendo-laced humor, flirting, and the occasional blatantly sexual comment come from, I present you with the following evidence… ➡
    • Once More, With Feeling Season four of Buffy had what is so far my all-time favorite episode — 'Hush' — but last night I watched what's now a very close second: 'Once More, With Feeling'. ➡
    • First Presidential ‘debate’ (The following are my hastily-scribbled thoughts while watching tonight's presidential debate — unpolished, written on the fly. Be warned. [grin]) ➡
    • WSJ’s Farnaz Fassihi on life in Iraq Recently, a letter from Wall Street Journal reporter Farnaz Fassihi started getting passed around the 'net, detailing just what day-to-day life in Iraq is like at the moment. That letter has now been confirmed as genuine. ➡
    • Future past tense? Past future? There's sure a lot of past tense in this article about the presidential debates — which don't happen for another five hours or so. ➡
    • Debate rules You'll be happy to know that the podiums are lucite, clear. So there won't be anybody scratching their balls during this debate. ➡
    • Debates on the web? Does anyone know if tonight's Kerry-Bush debate is going to be webcast anywhere? ➡
    • Sounds good… I even take the position that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged. ➡
  • 2003
  • 2002
    • Laughter is good However, a good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing; the more's the pity. So, if any one man, in his own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not be backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and be spent in that way. And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than perhaps you think for. ➡
    • Oooh – he’s cute! Marco the Magnificent Magician isn't going to swoop down on you, black cape a-flappin', tap you on the dick with his magic wand, and -- *poof!* presto, homo! -- you're a homosexual! ➡

On This Day: Sep 29

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Since I’ll hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 12 posts previously published on September 29th

  • 2025
  • 2023
  • 2020
  • 2016
    • It’s a little sad — we’re going to be finishing off Penny Dreadful tonight. It had to happen sometime, after all. (273/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • Reading about leadership styles for one of my classes and trying to think about what mine might be. ➡
  • 2008
  • 2005
    • Cage Match: Gaiman vs. Whedon ...in America, it almost seems like family has become a code word for something that you can put a five-year-old in front of, go out for two hours, and come back secure in the knowledge that your child will not have been exposed to any ideas. I didn't want to do that. ➡
    • Lost s02e02: Adrift Scribbled notes while watching last night’s episode of Lost. Spoilers, obviously, so only read further if you want to… ➡
  • 2004
  • 2003
    • Underworld I found it very disappointing and frustrating. There was a lot of promise and potential in the film, which unfortunately was entirely wasted. I'd almost prefer that a film be flat-out bad, but when you can see the seeds of a worthwhile effort in the midst of the crap, it makes it just that much harder to deal with. ➡
  • 2002
    • The hunt is on: MT, MySQL, and PHP While I've done my best to track any changes I've made to MovableType in my 'Sitebits' archive category, I'll freely admit it's not organized quite as well as it could be. ➡