📚 Mere Anarchy by Mike W. Barr et al.

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32/2023 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Originally published as six eBook novellas, this series tracks a single plot line — a natural disaster on a non-Federation planet and the resulting aftermath and recovery — through decades, from just before TOS’s “Where No Man Has Gone Before” to just after the intro of Star Trek: Generations. It makes for a neat look both at the Federation’s long-term approach to working with non-aligned planets (after all, how often have we seen an adventure and then never heard of the planet or culture again?), and how the core TOS crew evolve over the years. This is helped by each novella being written by an author specifically chosen for their expertise in a particular era of Trek history. Definitely one of the stronger Trek omnibus stories I’ve read.

Me holding Mere Anarchy

Year 50 Day 66

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My wife and I, both wearing face masks, standing in front of a blue-lit concrete wall with the words "we are angry and hungry" scratched into it.

Day 66: My wife and I hopped on the light rail (for the first time since the pandemic hit) and went up to the Seattle Center today. We got some (mediocre) food (the Armory’s food options just don’t really work for us), sat for about an hour watching people play in the fountain, and then went to MoPOP to see the Laika exhibit (and, of course, the SF, Fantasy, and Horror sections; we skipped the music stuff, because there are only so many times I can feign interest in Nirvana memorabilia (that is, it was interesting the first time, but those exhibits aren’t as engaging on repeat visits)). I took a fair number of photos, but used my “real” camera for most of them, so they’re not ready to go yet. Eventually!

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Year 50 Day 65

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Me sitting on a chair in a hallway next to an open door to a breakroom. I'm leaning forward with my arms on my knees, wearing grey converse, a black kilt, and a black button-up short-sleeve shirt with a pattern of cartoon aliens.

Day 65: A few 80° days will really make you appreciate both air conditioning and having a job that doesn’t require pants. (Don’t get me wrong — you have to wear something. But kilts are perfectly acceptable.)

Threadless

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It took less than 24 hours for me to delete the Threads app from my phone.

Hate groups Libs of TikTok, Moms for Liberty, Gays Against Groomers, and PragerU are already on Threads and harassing people. Apparently PragerU even already has a blue “verified” checkmark.

I’ve updated my bio there to say that I’m not using the service, and put up a post similar to this one telling people why I’m leaving and where to find me.

It had already given me a bad first impression, as there is only one feed and it’s all an algorithmic constant stream of crap from obnoxious randos and (so, so many) brands, with no way to filter it out to just the people you actually want to follow or get a chronological view of posts.

And there’s no way to add alt text to images, so accessibility is obviously an afterthought, at best.

Threads does not get my recommendation. If you choose to explore, good luck and stay safe.

Year 50 Day 64

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A very dark selfie, lit only in green; only my face is visible against a black background.

Day 64: Whether because of the heat, the drone from the air conditioner, or just pure orneriness, I was having trouble sleeping, when I suddenly realized I’d forgotten the day’s photo! Turns out a green nightlight in the restroom makes for a nice moody (if a little goofy) late-night photo opportunity.

Liberty and Justice For All

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With everything going on, and particularly with recent SCOTUS decisions and That Fucking Guy still being, yet again, the GOP’s front runner, I see no particular reason to celebrate where we are as a country right now.

But my hopepunk determination to not just wish that things were better, but to continue to fight to make them so, goddammit, prevails.

We can be better than this. It’s not easy — not now, not in the past, and not anytime soon — but we can keep fighting for ourselves, for each other, and for those who don’t even know we’re fighting for them. (And “fighting” is different for everyone. Pick your battles, and pick battles and methods that work for you.)

The US Capitol under a rainbow, under text that says, ‘I didn’t grow up saying ‘with liberty and justice for all’ every fucking day to accept anything less.’

Original image by TJDPoetry on Instagram.

(I’ve been seeing this image go around Facebook, and really like it, but noticed that the image showed signs of degradation, and was uncredited other than the signature in the image. So I went looking to find a better quality image file and to give a credit link back to the artist.)

Year 50 Day 63

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My wife and I in our backyard, in front of a small fire pit table with plates of burgers, coleslaw, and beans.

Day 63: We’re not really much for the patriotic thing, especially these days (I try to be hopeful about the future, but don’t quite feel like celebrating the present). However, we do like a nice meal out in our pretty little backyard with a small fire going.

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Star Trek Collector’s Series by Dr. Pepper

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Here’s a fun little entry in my small and random collection of Trek stuff: A set of four drinking glasses issued by Dr. Pepper. They all have TAS artwork on the front, some technical or biographical information on the back, and have a copyright date of 1976.

Four drinking glases sitting on a bookshelf in front of a stack of TOS Star Trek novels. TAS artwork on the glasses shows the Enterprise, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.

This set was found by my brother at a garage sale or antique store (I don’t remember exactly) a few years back and sent to me as a present. They’re great! Though they’re definitely display pieces, as I don’t want to risk damaging them…or the possibility of their using some sort of funky ’70s-era lead-based paint or some such thing.

Four drinking glases sitting on a bookshelf in front of a stack of TOS Star Trek novels. They are turned to show the text on the back of each glass, though it's difficult to read in this photo.

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My Twitter Archives

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Thanks to this simple Twitter archiver, I’ve just added my Twitter archives to my website, and added a link under the “Worth Reading” header menu item (though whether or not they’re actually worth reading is debatable).

While I wasn’t one of the most prolific users out there, I had my share of silly, serious, inane, or thoughtful things to say over the years, and it would have been a shame for them to have entirely disappeared. So I’d downloaded my data before deleting it and locking down my account, and have had it sitting on my computer waiting to find the right way to get it online somewhere. Nice to have them visible again.

(I actually have them all also imported into this WordPress blog, but the tool I found to do that imported them all as their own specific post type intstead of adding them as standard posts, which means they’re not easily visible. Maybe someday I’ll figure out how to either covert them to regular posts or incorporate this other post type into the rest of the blog. For now, though, they just sit in the database.)