Michael Hanscom

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

Year 50 Day 256

by

Me in a hotel meeting room, wearing a black winter hat and coat with a rainbow scarft; behind me are a number of other people gathered around tables, all also bundled up in coats and hats.

Day 256: Today was our coldest Norwescon ConCom staff meeting yet! Not only is Seattle having a cold snap and topped out at 24° F outside, but the meeting room was having heat issues and was in the mid-40s at the start, and made it all the way up to 51° by the end! The things we deal with to make sure the convention comes together….

Year 50 Day 255

by

Me on our couch, wrapped up to my chin in a black-and-white plaid blanket.

Day 255: Seattle’s having a bit of a cold snap, and it’s currently just 18° F outside, which is not nearly enough degrees. We need more degrees. Can we have our degrees back, please?

Year 50 Day 254

by

Me on the balcony outside my office, overlooking trees, athletic fields, and water in the distance, all well lit under a bright blue sky with wispy white clouds.

Day 254: After a week of panic and dire predictions, the first expected Snowpocalypse of 2024 appears to be more of a Snowpoca-whoops. Grey skies in the morning gave way to a gorgeous (though cold and windy) afternoon and evening. Of course, now that I’ve mocked the weather, that will probably be the trigger event, and I’ll wake up tomorrow morning to find myself trapped under a ten-inch blanket of snow….

Read more

📚 Child of Two Worlds by Greg Cox

by

3/2024 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Good Pike-era (shortly post-“The Cage”) adventure that has Spock examining his approach to dealing with his mixed heritage while attempting to assist a teenager who as a child had been captured and then raised by Klingons. With a side-order B plot of flu-like virus on the Enterprise, of course. Good insight into Spock that meshes imperfectly, but surprisingly well with the current Strange New Worlds take on his journey.

Me holding Child of Two Worlds

Year 50 Day 251

by

Me sitting in my home office, with a green screen curtain to my right and shelves of books behind me, looking at my computer.

Day 251: Just a quiet Monday working from home. Today’s the first day of classes for the quarter, so there was plenty to do, it just all pretty much looked like this.

Year 50 Day 250

by

Me kicked back on our living room couch.

Day 250: While I’m still quite good with going out for a night dancing at a club, it is nice to be fine with taking the next day to be far less active than I would have done in my 20s. After a few morning errands, the rest of the day was devoted lying around and watching a dumb movie and the silly TV shows we like.

🎥 65

by

65 (2023): ⭐️⭐️

Weirdest Princess Bride remake ever.

(Damsel in distress being rescued by a mysterious stranger, reptiles of unusual size, geysers/fire swamp complete with roasting the ROUS, lightning sand with a dramatic rescue just after immersion, a rope climb up the cliffs of insanity….)

Admittedly, it is somewhat more successful as a SF adventure than it is as a Princess Bride remake, but not by much. Of course, many of the big action set pieces are done in the dark and/or rain, so actual visibility of what’s going on definitely wasn’t a priority. And Adam Driver seems to have forgotten how to smile, which really seems like it would make it difficult for him to bond with the young girl he rescued.

All in all, we spent about as much time rolling our eyes at this and having fun pointing out the surprising number of Princess Bride parallels than we did actually watching.