2023-01-25 12:00
Previously on A Mind Occasionally Voyaging…
“Bones says she’ll pull through,” Kirk said as he took the seat opposite Pike in the Admiral’s cabin. “That I… Read More
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My thoughts on life, love, music, science, the world. And dirty jokes.
2023-01-18 12:00
Previously on A Mind Occasionally Voyaging…
Jim got to main engineering ahead of Pike, in time to hold him back from rushing the safety door. “You’ll flood the w… Read More
2023-01-11 12:00
Previously, on A Mind Occasionally Voyaging…
On the bridge, Kirk looked to Saavik. “Time?”
“Three minutes, thirty seconds,” she said.
“Distance from… Read More
2023-01-04 12:00
I have The Rona, so I’m not writing this week. Instead, enjoy this factoid:
We are equidistant in history from the births of Benedict Arnold and Jean-Luc Picard.
Also, though this fact… Read More
2022-12-28 12:00
Previously on A Mind Occasionally Voyaging…
Aboard the Enterprise, the Genesis torpedo began to glow. A fine mist issued from it as it pulsed with internal energy. On the bridge, &hell…Read More
2022-12-21 12:00
Previously on A Mind Occasionally Voyaging…
Khan chuckled at the voice from behind. A series of concentric rings rose from the controller, and he twisted the outer one as he turned. I… Read More
2022-12-14 12:00
A decade and a bit ago Monday, I became a dad.
He’s getting big now and isn’t crazy about having his picture taken, so here’s a picture of his birthday haul, with a small c… Read More
2022-12-07 12:05
Previously on A Mind Occasionally Voyaging
No one was there to challenge Pike and La’an as they materialized in Reliant’s transporter room. La’an checked her tric… Read More
2022-11-30 12:00
I asked Dall-E 2 and Nightcafe to show me a promotional poster for Peter Falk as Columbo on the USS Enterprise.
Neither of them seemed to quite know who Peter Falk is, but were kind of consi… Read More
2022-11-23 12:00
So, I had this idea of a different climax, but I couldn’t get over the fact that in the canon, Enterprise needs to Warp Speed it out of there to avoid the genesis wave, and I felt like… Read More
2022-11-16 12:00
Previously, on A Mind Occasionally Voyaging…
Kirk indicated the maelstrom on the screen as he and Pike stepped from the turbolift. “Mutara nebula,” he explained. “Ga… Read More
2022-11-11 12:00
Happy Veteran’s Day. Thank you for your service Read More
2022-11-02 11:00
A second special holiday posting because I hear people are not happy about Halloween Ends. You know why? Because evil never ends…
I hear multiversal crossovers are all the r… Read More
2022-10-26 11:00
Since it’s Halloween soon, I’ll do a thematic one.
As you all know by now, the latest incarnation of Scooby-Doo is outing Velma. This has made exactly who you’d expect to b… Read More
2022-10-19 11:00
(Part 12 will be delayed a week to make room for something seasonal. Also, I have one more plot point I want to introduce and I’m hoping a delay will give me time to figure out how to… Read More
2022-10-12 11:00
Previously on A Mind Occasionally Voyaging…
It had, in fact, been years since Jim Kirk had taken hands-on approach to computer hacking. He struggled to lock out command pro… Read More
2022-10-05 11:00
Previously, on A Mind Occasionally Voyaging…
“Prefix code?” Saavik asked. “I don’t understand.”
Jim continued to try to shake Ortegas back to consciousne… Read More
2022-09-28 11:00
Previously on A Mind Occasionally Voyaging…
“We’re too late,” M’Benga said.
“Saavik, how bad is it?” Jim Kirk asked.
“Impossible to say at th… Read More
2022-09-21 11:00
Previously on A Mind Occasionally Voyaging…
The viewscreen flickered, digital artifacts rolling across the image as the video processors struggled to correct for the signal lost to th… Read More
2022-09-14 11:00
Previously, on A Mind Occasionally Voyaging…
“What’s going on here?” Pike asked. “Go to yellow alert.”
“Energize defensive fields,” Sam order… Read More
2022-09-07 10:00
Previously on A Mind Occasionally Voyaging…
“So this is all some twenty-year-old vendetta?” Carol asked. “I don’t understand. All this death?”
“We… Read More
2022-08-31 11:00
Previously, on A Mind Occasionally Voyaging…
“Rigor hasn’t set in, no fixed lividity,” Doctor M’Benga said, examining another of the bodies they had cut d… Read More
2022-08-24 11:00
Previously, on A Mind Occasionally Voyaging…
Now, the pacing of this story is not quite perfect. But this is not because of my shortcomings as a writer, no: this is a subtle hint… Read More
2022-08-17 11:00
Previously, on A Mind Occasionally Voyaging…
“I don’t know you.” The man had long, white hair and a face harshly weathered by years of hard living, but his muscular… Read More
2022-08-10 11:00
Previously, on A Mind Occasionally Voyaging…
(I’m actually imagining a whole alternate version of TWOK now with Pike, which perhaps I will write out at length later)
&ldqu&hell…Read More
2022-08-03 12:00
“A Quality of Mercy” or “Tomorrow’s Enterprise”
“Stone walls do not a prison make,nor iron bars a cage:
minds innocent and quiet take
that for a hermitage… Read More
2022-07-27 11:00
“All Those Who Wander” or “The Wrath of La’an” – no, wait, I used that one. How about, “In Space, No One Can Hear You Rip Off James Cameron”… Read More
2022-07-20 11:00
Well I don’t know how I managed to donk that up. Got these two in the wrong order. Hope the jokes still work.
“Lift Us Where Suffering Can Not Reach” or “Th… Read More
2022-07-13 12:00
“The Elysian Kingdom” or “Hey, the costume department said the King Arthur thing fell through and we could have these fantasy medieval costumes for free if we wanted”… Read More
2022-07-06 12:00
“Spock Amok”* or “Hijinks Ensue”
Influences: “Shore Leave” (TOS), “The Trouble with Tribbles” (TOS), “Turnabout Intruder&rdquo&hell…Read More
2022-06-29 11:00
“Memento Mori” or “The Wrath of La’an”*
Influences: “Balance of Terror” (TOS), “Disaster” (TNG), Star Trek II: The Wrath… Read More
2022-06-22 11:00
So last week when I said I didn’t care if it made no sense and I just wanted them to go fucking nuts… Probably shouldn’t have said that while holding the cursed money&rsqu&hell…Read More
2022-06-15 11:00
“Ghosts of Ilyria” or “I Know This Series Has Been a Bit of a TOS Glow-Up, But This Is Taking Things a Bit Far”
Influences: “The Naked Time&rdquo&hell…Read More
2022-06-08 11:00
Showdown time, I guess. To a large extent, I think this is the real climax of the season. If we follow the pattern we’ve seen in the last season and in Discovery, we can expe… Read More
2022-06-01 11:00
Do you like forward momentum? Well fuck you then, because not this week. Well, I judge too harsh, because I think some stuff happened? I don’t know. Before Picard, I tried to watc… Read More
2022-05-25 11:00
Okay so let’s drop everything for a week and talk about Strange New Worlds because I finally managed to build up a buffer.
I do not like that Strange New Worlds is… Read More
2022-05-18 11:00
He said the thing! He said the thing! I know I said that the Easter eggs are largely unimpressive to me, but oh did it warm my heart when Rios tells Teresa, “I’m from Chile; I ju… Read More
2022-05-11 11:00
Well what the hell was that? Yes, they did it, and… Well I’m not angry. Maybe a little disappointed. But mostly confused, because after a season of pretty tight episodes, we&rsq&hell…Read More
2022-05-10 03:13
Some of my process of self-discovery has involved being a little bit of an artist. Last Friday I finished a project I’d been working on for several years.
Well, a project I’d bee… Read More
2022-05-04 11:00
Back to form I guess, since this episode is a little bit of an unfocused mess, at least compared to how tight the first part of the season was. There’s a ton going on, which isn’… Read More
2022-04-27 11:00
Well, I guess I should’ve saved my comments about ICE being a bunch of fascists for this week, because man, without giving the assholes too much screen-time, they manage to v… Read More
2022-04-20 11:00
Well that’s sure to anger exactly the right people.
Four major things happen in this episode of Picard:
Seven of Nine maintains her perfect track record of murdering people who ca… Read More
2022-04-13 11:00
Okay, it’s Friday night, the wife is out with her friends, I’m home alone to guard the sleeping children, time to get loaded and watch me some Star Trek while trying to… Read More
2022-04-06 11:00
When last we left our rag-tag group of misfits, Old Man Robopicard was about to head out to new adventures aboard La Sirena, accompanied by his young Romulan protégée Legolas… Read More
2022-03-30 11:00
Lay down your load. We are only down the road. We have no gifts, but we are many – “All of You”, Encanto
Let’s get this out of the way first. I kind of brok… Read More
2022-03-23 11:00
(I am practicing self-control in that I am not going to start in on Picard until I’ve finished Disco. Also in that I watched this episode sober, but I don’t promise thi… Read More
2022-03-17 00:30
Once again I find myself at the disadvantage of having been pretty drunk when I watched this episode. I’m going through some stuff right now. It’s fine.
Anyway, this episode has… Read More
2022-03-09 12:00
And another low-key one, oddly. “The Galactic Barrier”‘s A-plot is exactly what it says on the tin: Discovery crosses the galactic barrier. It’s… Strangely emp… Read More
2022-03-02 12:00
“Rubicon” is a good solid name for an episode of pretty much any sci-fi adventure series. It’s got a clear meaning but is just obscure enough that people feel good about th… Read More
2022-02-23 12:00
We ease back into Disco this week with an episode that’s somehow both high-stakes and low-key. The camera remains upright, the fight scene is discrete, the climax is a poker game, and… Read More
2022-02-16 13:00
I guess we’re backing away from the Protostar gang for a bit in order to get Back to the Future next week. And we see them off with an episode that isn’t quite what I wanted, but… Read More
2022-02-09 12:00
Aw man, yeah.
Look, Lower Decks just isn’t my jam; I get what they’re going for, but they keep either trying too hard to channel Rick and Morty or drifting into a kind… Read More
2022-02-02 13:00
Ooh boy, a Nickelodeon Puzzle Box. I kind of love it. “Time Amok” (clever!) is a Temporal Shenanigans episode that showcases incremental problem solving in a very lovely way.&nbs&hell…Read More
2022-01-26 12:00
Okay, well then. Here we get a look into what the Protostar crew looks like on something approximating “a mission” – something they very broadly tried in “Dreamcatche… Read More
2022-01-19 12:00
And we’re back to this. As one would expect after a break, we ease back in with a low-key episode. There’s not much that is of major plot-interest: we set things up but don&rsquo&hell…Read More
2022-01-12 12:00
Our 70%-of-the-season cliffhanger is an episode that is simultaneously high-stakes and low-key. Weird.
Yeah, this is a slow, talky episode where most of what happens is speeches. And what a… Read More
2022-01-05 13:00
Happy New Year!
Another Frakes-directed episode and, much like his last Disco, it’s got a bit of a retro vibe to it. Discovery takes on one of Trek‘s oldest and dearest trop… Read More
2021-12-29 12:00
So… I was pretty drunk while I watched this episode so my analysis might be a little… Weird. Also, I think there was something wrong with my speakers, but possibly I was just d… Read More
2021-12-22 12:00
Discovery is a flawed show in many respects. But every once in a while it’ll do something – usually not even a huge something – that knocks it so far out of… Read More
2021-12-15 12:00
Discovery is really getting the hang of being on-point thematically. Other aspects… Well, we’re working on it.
We don’t do much to advance the overall plot this week, but… Read More
2021-12-08 12:00
Okay, that’s a little better.
For its second outing this season, Discovery gives us an episode where a lot less happens. Well, that’s not quite right; I mean, quite a b… Read More
2021-12-01 12:00
Look at me building up a buffer even though it means Imma be a week late talking about Disco all season. Minor spoilers: Yay trans rights, boo the fact that mental healthcare doesn’t a… Read More
2021-11-24 12:00
Ahem. We’re back.
Discovery’s fourth season premiere, “Kobayashi Maru” sure does a bunch of things! Some of them it does well! Not all of them!
Okay, the oddly-long p… Read More
2021-11-17 12:00
This is more like it, aside from the fact that I don’t care for a cliffhanger at this point. So the gang goes to one of those honeytrap planets (Which is visually a bit reminiscent of… Read More
2021-11-10 13:00
(There is no episode 2 of Prodigy. Episode 1 was a double-wide.)
Two weeks in and… I mean, it’s okay. Still don’t think this is going to be my bag, but the kids are still… Read More
2021-11-03 11:00
Well now. I dunno. I’m not sure if this show is for me, but unlike Lower Decks, I won’t say that it not being for me is reflective of a failing in the show. The kids lo… Read More
2021-10-27 11:00
No Christmas Before November
Evelyn picked the hardest damn design in the book, but tbh I think I nailed it Read More
2021-10-20 11:00
Evelyn loves that Alexa can make up bedtime stories that insert her as a character. But she’s frustrated that Alexa’s repertoire is limited to stories not about her favorite TV-Y… Read More
2021-10-13 11:00
Normally this time of year, I remind everyone to celebrate the historical figure named Columbus who is credited with discovering something on account of being the first European man to notic… Read More
2021-10-06 11:00
I wasted a lot of time over the weekend being unhappy and writing a VPN server, so here’s a humorous thing I noticed when breaking into a box of “healthy snacks”.
Yes, I o… Read More
2021-09-29 11:00
A small fragment this week because I’m feeling a little stuck writing it. It’s part of an idea that came into my head a while back, but fits in pretty late in the story. This sta… Read More
2021-09-22 11:00
So I still own my old house in Baltimore from back when I lived there, and we had a management company looking after the place, but they flaked out during the pandemic, and… Well now… Read More
2021-09-15 11:00
“Daddy caught me a geode!” Read More
2021-09-08 11:00
The exciting conclusion, built around a punchline I did not, in fact, have planned from the start, but which only came to me while writing the previous part.
In Which a Party is Held, and th… Read More
2021-09-01 11:00
It’s that time.
I’m not crying, you’re crying.It’s fine. This is fine. Just my little girl going off to school for the first time. Nothing to worry about. I’m s… Read More
2021-08-25 11:00
I have about a hundred words left to write in the final chapter of the Winnie-the-Pooh story, but for dramatic purposes it will have to wait for shipping.
Instead…
So here’s a w… Read More
2021-08-18 11:00
And we’re back. Ish. I guess. Getting there. My new computer arrived Saturday evening. Keep in mind that when the old computer died, I slapped the hard drive into an ancient laptop wit… Read More
2021-08-11 11:00
It turns out I never bothered posting the second half of the article on “The Raising of Lazarus“? Damn. Now I have to find the draft and redo all the jokes because IIRC they were… Read More
2021-08-04 11:00
It feels like every time I post an article about my collection of War of the Worlds-related swag, there’s an implicit “This will probably be the last of these,” about… Read More
2021-07-28 12:00
A failed update of the geolocation database caused the anti-malware on the site to go tits-up for a few hours and just block everything. And then it took me another couple of days to noticed… Read More
2021-07-21 12:00
Evelyn wants me to finish the Winnie-the-Pooh story, but I’ve been busy with work, so instead, here’s a picture I took while walking around Wilde Lake.
There are a lot of si… Read More
2021-07-14 11:00
In Which Evelyn Learns How To Button a Button, and Owl Gives an Etymology Lesson
As it was only a little past lunchtime when Piglet had left Evelyn and Red Zoomer to their own devices, girl… Read More
2021-07-08 00:27
ooops! I forgot to finish writing the story I was going to post today, so here’s some pictures of the cool bridge to nowhere I found over the weekend.
Built 1919. Appears to have been… Read More
2021-06-30 11:00
We start drifting a little from the way we originally told the story here because I couldn’t figure out how to make the original sequence of events make sense, but I assure you I have… Read More
2021-06-23 11:00
I have an exciting work-related thing going on this week which is occupying my time, and also I got bifocals for the first time and have not re-learned how to see well enough to write long-f… Read More
2021-06-16 11:00
The other night, my daughter asked me to tell her a story. I made her do the heavy lifting. Here, after some editing, is the first part of what we came up with.
In Which a Visitor comes to t… Read More
2021-06-09 11:00
By the way, there’s a new massive bundle out there, this one for Palestinian aid. Wherever you come down on that part of the world, there’s never been an armed conflict in histor… Read More
2021-06-02 11:00
So now that Cruella is out, we have to face up to it. Some people I think have hit it on the nose by saying that the thing that makes this one hard to swallow is that the Evil Queen is a fan… Read More
2021-05-26 12:00
There’s something that I think progressives misunderstand in the struggle for voting rights. They’re not wrong about their own position, but by failing to understand their opposi… Read More
2021-05-19 11:00
You ever hear the grammatical oddity, “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo”? A grammatically correct and logically coherent sentence that is incredibl… Read More
2021-05-12 11:00
Some years ago, a then-colleague described me as “A Developer with a big D,” Which he quickly corrected to a capital D. Anyway, today I’d like to tell you ab… Read More
2021-05-05 12:00
Page 3 was a bit lighter on games that would run on my linux box, but here’s my impressions…
Pikuniku: Played well, pretty cute. Dylan had watched one of his Youtubers play this… Read More
2021-04-28 11:00
Anyway, here’s the punchline.
The pain was short-lived in that the concept of time had ceased to exist. It was, for the same reason, eternal. Zeke became aware of his own existence aga… Read More
2021-04-21 12:00
It’s funny how ideas evolve. When I first had the idea that this is based on, the twist wasn’t even a twist. It only occurred to me a good twenty years after I first had the idea… Read More
2021-04-14 11:00
Another thing I wasn’t planning. SPACOM 3 was just supposed to be a cute cameo in a story that was mostly about Zeke’s struggle with the existential nature of living in a teen dr… Read More
2021-04-07 16:10
Dipping once again into the pile of “Stories I meant to write decades ago,” this is actually an idea I had way back in the ’80s, but it took several decades for the key ele… Read More
2021-03-31 12:00
Colonel St. George rubbed his temples and sighed. “Let’s try this again. Two days ago, you interrupt my lunch to tell me things you shouldn’t have any way of knowing. Then… Read More
2021-03-24 12:00
Many years ago, a colleague and I likened programming in C to programming by shoving your hands into a big box of broken glass. All the pieces are there, and you have complete access to them… Read More
2021-03-17 12:00
I was surprised to find I had another piece of this in my head. It’s… Still not great, I think. But I’m trying a new thing where I go ahead and write things instead of ago… Read More
2021-03-10 13:00
Sorry. Sorry. After that Frollo thing, another terrible idea came to me.
Click to Embiggen Read More
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