It's a busy week and I failed my saving throw versus sloth, so here's a reclaimed Geek Trivia for your minutial pleasure this week:
If one day you find yourself sitting down to pen that long-imagined bestselling science-fiction or fantasy novel and you’re looking for one particular trick that will give your speculative story a sense of reality (and lead to shameless marketing opportunities), just throw in a made-up card game or chess variant that everyone in your fake universe knows, enjoys, and plays with inhuman regularity. You don’t have to make up any actual rules for the game, as your devoted fan base (geeks) will retroactively conjure them based on the clues you drop in the prose — even if those clues don’t make any sense.
Don’t believe me? Then explain how it is that I can find “official” rules for fizzbin, a fictional card game that was fictional even in the Star Trek episode in which it originally appeared? ...
Not all fictional games are just for show, however. One hacker-favorite made-up card game actually served a real-life purpose — it was an anti-piracy measure for a classic video game.
WHAT HACKER-FAVORITE FICTIONAL CARD GAME WAS INVENTED AS AN ANTI-PIRACY MEASURE FOR A VIDEO GAME?
Expanded universe (n.) - Stories set in a fictional universe that occur outside the franchise's original medium, such as comics that tie into a popular movie, or novels that are set in the universe of a popular television or video game franchise. The Star Wars expanded universe is the seminal example, largely because George Lucas maintains such tight control over its content, though Star Trek, Doctor Who and Buffy the Vampire Slayer also maintain healthy and successful expanded universes.
I bring it up because: LucasFilm has confirmed at least two more mainstream Star Wars expanded universe projects, a Star Wars sitcom from Seth Green and the Robot Chicken guys, and an animated series chronicling the post-Jedi adventures of Han, Luke and Leia. This doesn't even touch on the news that Joss Whedon may be writing and directing the Avengers movie, which plays off the highly successful Iron Man movie continuity, including Iron Man 2 which opens May 7. It's fair to say that a great many more people saw Iron Man the movie than have ever read an Iron Man comic, and Marvel's plans for a cohesive movie continuity between Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America and The Avengers will pull equally one-sided numbers. This begs the question, which is the expanded universe: The Marvel movies, or the Marvel comics?
Conlang (n.) - Slang term for constructed language, which is a language created for a specific purpose rather than one that evolves naturally from consensual public usage. Conlangs are often created for use in fictional settings, with classic examples including Tolkien's Elvish from the Lord of the Rings book series, or Star Trek's Klingon, created by linguist Marc Okrand. There are, however, conlangers -- creators and consumers of constructed languages -- that develop these fictional tongues strictly for amusement, separate from any attachment to a book, television, or movie series. Some geeks use conlangs to flesh out their favorite fictional worlds, and some conlangers are just fake language geeks.
For those that haven't heard, Andrew Koenig, the son of Star Trek's Walter Koenig, was found dead of an apparent suicide in Vancouver's Stanley Park yesterday. Andrew played Boner, the goofy best friend of Kirk Cameron's character, Mike Seaver, on the '80s sitcom Growing Pains. As such, there are a number of cheap jokes being floated around gossip-o-sphere about the apparent humor of guy named Boner whacking himself.
I can promise you there are at least two people who aren't laughing: Walter and Judy Koenig. A couple years back, I got to spend a weekend with Walter Koenig as his fan liaison at a local sci-fi con. It was a privilege, and I took a great deal away from our time together. I would not be so bold as to call Walter a friend, but I am absolutely certain he was a proud and invested father who loved his children with an obvious, almost illuminated intensity. I have no doubt that the loss of Andrew has wounded Walter in a fashion I can barely comprehend.
No father deserves that, especially not one so generous and devoted as Walter. And whatever you think of Walter or Andrew or fame in general, no family deserves to have such a profound and horrific loss rendered a public punchline. So before you go make Boner jokes around the water cooler, take a moment and think of Walter and his family. They need our sympathies and our support, not our sarcasm.
Reboot (n.) - A new version of an existing story or franchise that discards or ignores existing story continuity. This is different from a retcon, which sees much or all of existing continuity maintained, but with select changes in the backstory. Reboots start from scratch in many ways, and are sometimes indistinguishable from remakes. For example, the Ron Moore/David Eick reinvention of Battlestar Galactica saw major deviations from the 1978 original with main characters changing race, gender, or even species alongside the introduction of major new characters, settings, and themes.
I bring it up because: As we look back at 2009, this was The Year of the Reboot. Culturally, politically , economically, and spec-fictionally, so much was given the reset button it's hard to fathom it all. Sticking close to the nerd-o-verse, Star Trek was conspicuously rebooted, as was the classic TV series V. You can be forgiven for ignoring the painful cinematic reboots of GI Joe,Land of the Lost, Friday the 13th, and Astro Boy along with the second punch-to-the-brain installment of the live-action Transformers reboot. Even classics like The Prisoner, Day of the Triffids, and Sherlock Holmes weren't above the reboot footprint this year. The aforementioned, critically acclaimed Battlestar Galactica reboot -- which in many ways kicked off the reboot craze that dominated 2009 -- also drew to a close this year. Here's hoping that in 2010 we get a few more original ideas.
Santa Claus machine (n.) - Whimsical nickname for a self-fueling universal constructor; essentially, a machine that can create any object or structure desired by transmuting any materials already on hand. The term was coined by the late physicist and nuclear disarmament advocate Ted Taylor. Santa Claus machines are often seen as necessary components for the creation of megastructures, as the time and materials necessary to build Dyson Spheres or Niven Rings under direct human supervision and effort is astronomically impractical. (I once did some back-of-the-napkin math on what it would take for NASA to build a Death Star, and that's a pretty clear case for why we need Santa Claus and a legion of tireless robo-elves.)
Some allegory or equivalent of the Santa Claus machine is a long-held staple of speculative fiction. Star Trek's replicators are perhaps the most famous example, though the pharaohic chemical transmuter factories from Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy also fit the bill, as do the semi-sentient household "makers" from Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson's comic series Transmetropolitan. Self-directing Santa Claus machines are also fodder for sci-fi-horror, as they may be a precursor to a gray goo outbreak. In the right hands, Santa Claus machines could lead to a post-scarcity economy (cue the Whuffie references). Paradise or apocalypse, Santa Claus machines could bring about either.
I have served as a professional writer, editor, speaker, community administrator, and online product manager for over ten years. I have a regular radio show spot, my name on a provisional patent, and citations as a source in the Wikipedia to show for it. Google "Jay Garmon" and you'll get plenty of details. (Or just check out my lengthy bio page.) I'm a reasonably smart guy who understands the Web, and I'm offering my talents in exchange for your coin. Specifically, you can hire me as a...
Writer of blogs, proposals, ads, scripts, or pithy commentary. If you need words strung together in interesting ways, I can get that done.
Speaker on a variety of subjects, including how to use social media, emerging technology and the like. I also wrote a trivia column for eight years, which means I have a knack for making even the most obscure topics interesting, and I can probably do the same for you on most any subject. Particularly as it relates to tech.
Strategist for social media and interactive applications, which is to say I can explain how to profitably use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, and all the various other nebulous social networking tools that everyone says are changing the world. I've run and built online communities, so I am qualified to consult on policies, strategies, and tactics for building or running your own. I've also overseen the development of features and functions for Web sites, including revamping a multimillion-dollar e-mail marketing system. If you're trying to make smarter, more effective customer-facing software, I have a few bits of hard-earned wisdom I can bring to bear.
But before you contact me with a job inquiry, there are some things to know.
I have a day job. I work it from home, the hours are flexible and the people are great, but my gig as an editor for TechnologyGuide and Notebook Review comes first, because they pay me twice a month (plus killer benefits) to make sure it stays that way. My full-time attention is not for sale on any consulting project. If you want to hire me as a full-time employee, forsaking all others, you'll have to outbid my currently awesome employer.
I don't work for free. If your inquiry includes any version of the phrase "we can't pay you," spare both of us the effort, as this will only end in an awkward e-mail where I explain I actually get paid for this stuff. Reasonably well, reasonably often. I occasionally amend my speaking fees for non-profits and charities, but those are handled on a case-by-case basis and I agree to them rarely. You've been warned.
I am a very public geek. Look over this blog, and you'll note a pervasive interest in science, science fiction, and social media. In the current online world, you need to have a certain measure of imagination to understand how all these new tools and trends work and evolve. Moreover, as everything is now public, pervasive, and persistent, communications skills have become more important than ever. There's no better thought-leader for the social Web than a sci-fi writer. But if having a loud and proud Star Trek fan associated with your brand is a problem, it is best we stop now, because that's who you're hiring, and your customers will figure that out pretty quickly.
If I haven't scared you off with all the above caveats, we can now discuss price. My consulting rate is $100 per hour. I typically bid jobs based on how many hours I estimate they will require, and for speaking engagements this includes preparation, especially if you want a PowerPoint presentation in addition to my words and voice. For recurring jobs -- such as an open-ended blogging assignment -- I discount my rate based on how much recurring work is required. Finally, I am available on retainer, with the regular fee negotiated based on the expected level of time investment.
Questions, comments, or proposals should all be addressed to jay [at] jaygarmon [dot] net. Alternately, you can leave me a Google Voicemail using the link below. All contacts are confidential, and I usually respond within 24 hours. The rest is details.
Unobtainium (n.) - Snarky term for either a scientifically impossible substance that makes some fantastic device or process possible, or an exotic real-world substance that is conferred with implausible or impossible properties for the sake of a story. The classic examples are Cavorite, a metal that creates antigravity fields as first imagined by H. G. Wells in The First Men in the Moon, and scrith, the impossibly strong material from which Larry Niven's Ringworld was built. A more contemporary example would be dilithium, the crystal from Star Trek that regulates matter-antimatter annihilations and makes warp drive possible.
Science fiction fans (and, more importantly, critics and editors) refer to these blatant wish-granting elements and minerals as unobtainium, as they are unobtainable in the real world. Equivalent phrases include: Unattainium, wishalloy, buzzwordium, handwavium (for technical handwaving), and element 404 (as in Not Found).
I bring it up because: 14 years ago this week, the first pure Bose-Einstein condensate was synthesized. A BEC is an extremely weird state of matter with behaviors that cannot be fully explained by current science--including a propensity to spontaneously crawl out of containment vessels. Bose-Einstein condensates are often used as contemporary stand-ins for classic fictional unobtainium in modern science fiction stories, as it "sounds" more real and the author at least has the flimsy cover of "science doesn't understand it" to explain how BECs can turn raw matter into a Jovian mooncastle using only a souped-up inkjet printer (I'm looking at you, Charles Stross's Accelerando.) Plus, Bose-Einstein condensate is just fun to type, even if it sounds vaguely like the residue from a lightspeed subwoofer.
Canon (adj.) - Describes the accepted, official, sanctioned events and elements of a fictional universe, as opposed to all the stuff that fans and tie-in works have made up. For example, persons, places, things and occurrences that appeared on the actual Star Trektelevision series are considered canon; stuff from Star Trek tie-in novels, comic books, video games? Not so much. (Though the new movie may have reset Trek canon; that's a discussion for future nerd words.)
I bring it up because: May 22, 2009 would have been Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 150th birthday, and Doyle pretty much made the study of fictional canon necessary. Doyle created Sherlock Holmes, whom everyone knows wore a deerstalker cap and often prefaced his famous modus ponens deductions with the catchphrase "elementary, my dear Watson." Except that Doyle never described Holmes as wearing a deerstalker cap or saying "elementary, my dear Watson" in any Holmes work he wrote; those aspects of the character are assumed parts of Holmes' description based on popular illustrations and derivative literary, stage, film, and television adaptationsbut are non-canon. There are actually more non-canon Holmes works than canonical ones, so it's easy to see how the popular conception of the character has been stretched beyond its original canon. And the new Sherlock Holmes movie is going to stretch it even further.
Jonbar Hinge (n.) - An event in history with two (or more) distinct possible outcomes, one of which leads to our familiar present, and the other which leads to an appreciably different world. A Jonbar Hinge is usually (though not always) small and unappreciated at the time, and its consequences are usually only felt in the distant, subsequent future. The term comes from the Jack Williamsonshort story "John Barr," wherein the protagonist's choice to pick up either a magnet or a pebble ultimately leads to either a utopian future, or global tyranny. And you thought the soup versus salad option at dinner was irelevant.
Despite some rather glaring plot holes, I very much enjoyed the Trek reboot and have seen it twice. A sequel has already been greenlit, and the good folks at SFSignal wasted no time asking what the first Trek reboot sequel should be about. Here's what I suggest.
What I'd really like to see (barring the possibility of an ongoing TV series with the current cast) is an actual, ethical/moral dilemma, which is what Trek has always been about. Moreover, I think you can get that done based on what happened in this film.
[SPOILERS]
We know that the Federation has lost a founding member in Vulcan, that Starfleet has basically lost an entire Academy class and a half-dozen ships to Nero, and that the Klingons lost an entire fleet to the rogue Romulan. Everyone in the galaxy knows that A) there's something called Red Matter that can make black holes, which is every bit as dangerous as the Genesis Device ever hoped to be, and B) that in a little over a century, Romulus is going to get obliterated by a supernova.
Basically, Romulus has the motive and the opportunity to finish what Nero started and take out both the Klingons and the Federation. They don't have the luxury of waiting this out, both because someone else might develop Red Matter before they do, and because unless they have an invincible position in 129 years they'll be at the impotent mercy of their enemies.
You could do a great non-proliferation allegory as the Enterprise has to forestall all-out war with the Romulans and Klingons and prevent anyone or everyone from getting their hands on Red Matter, possibly by kidnapping Spock (who, one assumes, can make it if his future self figured out how) or tracking down the new, presumably hidden Vulcan survivor colony where future Spock is hanging out.
You can some of those great Kirk/Spock/McCoy ethical debates about whether what the Romulans are doing is moral, whether now would be a good time for a preemptive strike against the weakened Klingons (and if such a thing is ethically defensible), if the Federation should compel future and/or present Spock to create Red Matter as a deterrent--all while enjoying some great space battles and chase scenes as the Enterprise stands alone between the entire Romulan Empire, a bloodied and enraged Klingon Empire, and all-out, galaxy-consuming war.
Yes, I saw the Trek reboot on Saturday. Yes I liked it. No, it wasn't perfect, but that's not just me being a fanboy or an impossible-to-please critic (though I am both of those things). The movie had flaws, but they were outweighed by one inimitable factor that the film had in spades--and which almost every other Trek movie in the last 20 years has lacked--fun.
The new Star Trek is fun. It's funny. It has action. The characters are designed to be likable and interesting, not just allegories for whatever social group or psychological foil was necessary to drive the plot. There was no larger message about tolerance or human potential, it was just about the popcorn and the whiz-bang spectacle.
That, quite frankly, is the best we can hope for from a mainstream Star Trek movie. It's also why no mainstream movie can ever do justice to Star Trek.
I'm not talking about the bad science or the bad tactics or the plot holes (and more and moreplot holes) you could fly a Klingon warbird through--those have been staples of all versions of Trek and, to a larger extent, nearly all filmic science fiction since day one. I'm also not talking about the inevitable (or imagined) knee-jerk fan backlash against anyone new taking on the classic Trek roles. I'm talking about what Star Trek stands for, and what is missing from this Trek movie--a moral.
Star Trek has always been a morality play dressed in sci-fi drag. The lessons were sometimes ham-fisted or cloying or maudlin, but there were lessons. Even as bad as Voyager and Enterprise got--and they got really bad--they still fumbled towards a moral or a theme in almost every episode (the dreadful series finales notwithstanding).
In the new Star Trek, the closest we get to a moral or a comment on the human condition is Spock's outrage at how racist the "logical" Vulcan leadership seems to be against humans and halfbreeds, or the notion that Kirk shouldn't let his father's death be an excuse for wasting his potential. These appear more as character inflections than social commentary.
Put more damningly, the new Star Trek is of closer kin to Independence Day than to "City on the Edge of Forever." That makes a real gee-whiz fun action ride, but nothing really approaching art. Many, many Trek episodes stand as some of the finest hours of television ever produced. No one would ever make the same claim about a Trek movie, except perhaps Wrath of Khan, which is really just a tightly scripted Moby Dick pastiche.
In fact, I'd argued that making Trek serve a mainstream cinematic audience is what killed it (and it certainly killed the Borg). Trek is at its best when it isn't trying to please such a wide swath of the viewing public, and is content--or, rather, not content unless--to tackle why and how the extraordinary artifice of science fiction can illuminate and instruct our own contemporary experience. That's the job of a television series, which has 20 or so hours every year to tell a succession of small or large stories focusing on one or more characters, as each best befits the moral and artistic goals of the show.
I'll leave it to greater minds than mine to determine whether Trek succeeding is good for science fiction as as a whole, but I will say that this Trek succeeding on the big screen could have disastrous consequences for the Trek franchise itself. It could turn Trek into solely a movie phenomenon, and widescreen is often a shallow medium. It seems financially unlikely that Paramount could afford to cast the current movie versions of Kirk, Spock et al as TV stars in a new Trek series, which is a loss. Trek belongs on television. (I'd argue the reverse is true of Star Wars; it functions best as a mainstream widescreen thrillride, and crumbles when stretched to navel-gaze at its own origins with prequels or TV series.)
The new Star Trek cast is fantastic, and the public's newfound demand for their takes on the characters will likely preclude an new Trek on TV. That means the look and feel and faces of the old Star Trek weren't the only casualties of this fun-and-fizzy new Trek reboot--so was Star Trek's heart. And that is a loss indeed.
There are days I'm convinced that The Onion is written by half-stoned journalism drop-outs from the future, and there are days I think it's written by my own subconscious. This is both of those days.
But hey, even if you are a Trek-basher who doubts the powers of J.J. Abrams or the premise of an Academy-era prequel--I'm looking at you, Stephen Colbert--just remember, it could always be worse. How worse? This worse.
It's time for another geek showdown, where I list off 20 or so unlikely terms and you guess which of two antithetical but bizarrely similar categories each entry belongs to. This week, just in time for the new Star Trek flick, we give you a matchup of Trek alien races and real-world gourmet cheeses. The descriptions for each are in "invisible" text after each entry, just highlight the area to figure out which is cheese, and which is just a cheesy use of make-up.
Bolian - The blue-skinned dudes with a single ridge running down their faces; played waiters and barbers on NextGen.
Breen - Evil race that team up with Cardassia and the Dominion during DS9's Dominion War seasons. Helmets kinda look like the one Princess Leia wore when she pretended to be a bounty hunder in Return of the Jedi.
Gorn - Slow-moving lizard dudes that Captain Kirk beat by building a homemade cannon out of rocks and sticks.
Sakura - Japan's only famous cheese, made using cherry leaves.
Nausicaan - Predator-faced mercenaries famous for stabbing Capt. Picard in the heart when he was just out of Starfleet Academy.
Briori- Alien race from Voyager that famously kidnapped Amelia Earhart.
Benzite- Grey-faced aliens from NextGen that have smoky little humidifiers sticking out from their chests, and made a habit of befriending Wesley Crusher.
Tyrolean Grey - Famously stinky Austrian cheese with sticky grey or black centers.
Brunali - Remember that baby Borg, Icheb, that Seven of Nine saved and adopted and made into Wesley Crusher 2.0 on Voyager? He was Brunali.
Menk - Neanderthal-esque race from the episode of Enterprise where Dr. Phlox sort of invented the Prime Directive--by letting another race die of plague.
As my previous post indicated, I have recently resigned the longest-running writing gig of my career, authoring Geek Trivia and The Geekend for CBS Interactive. As part of dealing with my separation anxiety--and also to incentivize my former Geekend readers to come check out this blog--I've list my personal Top 25 Geekend columns from my four-year run with the blog. Enjoy.
Walter Koenig is not Pavel Chekov. Walter Koenig is not Alfred Bester. Walter Koenig is a lot more than that. I just spent the weekend as Mr. Koenig's (pronounced kay-nigg, for those that haven't heard it properly) guest liaison for the local science fiction convention. I ran his autograph sessions, during which we chatted, and he was gracious enough to buy me dinner Saturday night as a very generous gesture of thanks for the minor service I rendered over a couple of days. During our various conversations, I got to know someone far more interesting than just an actor who played two iconic science fiction television characters.
(For my foodie friends, we went to Martini. I had the rigatoni bolognese, he had the eggplant parmesan. Walter doesn't eat red meat, for various health and philosophical reasons.)
Walter, as he insisted I call him, isn't just an actor, though he is still acting in many things--Star Trek and otherwise--at 71. He is a writer, having penned everything from movies scripts to television episodes to his autobiographies to comic books. He is also an activist, working with his son on the U.S. campaign for Burma. Still, these are all things you could learn from his Wikipedia entry.
What I learned is that Walter is very patient, fiercely intelligent, and one hell of a sports fan. I'm sure he wearies of constantly recounting tales Trek and B5, so during dinner the two of us talked family and sports. Walter is a Brooklyn kid, having spent much of his youth there, and is passionate about the Knicks and the Yankees. He was ecstatic that Isaiah Thomas was fired as Knicks coach, and is a little frustrated that Brian Cashman is relying so heavily on two second-year pitchers for the heart of the Yanks' rotation. (FYI, he can't stand the Angels.) He also recounted the entire starting lineup of the 1950 Knicks from memory, and spoke admiringly of Willis Reed and Earl Munroe.
Where we really hit it off, however, was college hoops. Walter is a UCLA alumnus, with a breadth of passionate memories that begin in the Wooden glory years and end with a visible anxiety that the top six players from this year's Bruins squad may be gone next year, five of them to some form of pro ball. (He also isn't too optimistic about the Bruins' football team for 2008, either, citing a very suspect offensive line.) We talked Denny Crum, a UCLA alum who became a Hall of Fame coach at Louisville, my hometown team. We recalled the 1975 Final Four (him from memory, me from family stories and books), where Wooden announced his retirement and promptly defeated Louisville in the national semis before trouncing Kentucky in the final. This led to our discussion of the rematch in the 1980 final, where Crum's Cards defeated a Larry Brown-coached Bruins squad.
Walter also grew up a boxing fan, with a devotion to Joe Louis. We touched on Muhammad Ali--another Louisville kid--and the decline of the sport. Walter has a fascinating theory about the rise of immigrant classes in America, and how that upscaling can be traced through boxing. Whichever is the dominant ethnicity of the working class in America is the dominant ethnicity of boxing. Jewish boxing stars gave way to the Irish gave way to African Americans, who are now giving way to Latino boxing stars. As each group moves up the class scale, they leave the ranks of boxing behind.
If ESPN had half a brain, they would have Walter doing guest color commentary on welter-weight boxing matches, Yankees/Angels match-ups, or any UCLA hoops game. Even if it's just on ESPNU, he'd make for fascinating listening.
Walter is also extremely proud of his children, and spoke glowingly of his son's involvement in the Campaign for Burma. He also recounted the tale of his kids' 70th birthday present--a faux-documentary that"revealed" Walter's real career as a sleeper agent for the Soviet Union. Apparently, Walter has never actually been to any conventions, that's when he's actually meeting with his KGB handlers. I'd pay money to see that.
What I did catch glimpse of were some of Walter's current projects, including InAlienable, an indie sci-fi film that he wrote, produced, and starred in. You can download it here. Walter's eyes lit up when he talked about it, his passion (and occasional frustration) with the project shining through. As to why he didn't direct the film himself, Walter modestly believes he has no eye for film direction, claiming to shoot everything in proscenium. There are worse sins.
Finally, he did briefly touch on J.J. Abrams' new Star Trek film. Walter had a guest day on the set, and watched Chris Pine film a scene as a young Captain Kirk. Yes, I was privy to one very infinitesimally minor spoiler--the kind of thing that may never appear in the actual film--but I'm not about to reveal it here. In the unlikely event that somebody at Paramount reads this blog (Odds: 1 in 60 kajillion), gets mad, and it gets back to Walter--well, I'd simply never allow that.
So far as inside knowledge I will reveal, Anton Yelchin (the new Chekov) has decided to go with the classic Chekov accent, despite the fact that Yelchin was born in Russia and--in Walter's estimation--the classic "noo-klee-arr wessels" accent is rather decidedly inauthentic. Karl Urban, the new Dr. McCoy, apparently sounds "just like DeForest" to Walter's ears. Abrams has made little effort to cast actors that look much like the original Trek cast, but apparently he wants at least two of them to sound familiar.
And one last note, Walter is the only member of the original main Trek cast not to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I don't know what the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce's problem is, but I suspect a simple phone call from Paramount--explaining that Walter getting his due would be very helpful publicity-wise to the premiere of Abrams' Star Trek movie--would solve the issue forthwith. Trekkies, I'll be very disappointed if an online petition doesn't appear to address this issue in the near future. Make it so.
Image by Márcio Cabral de Moura via Flickr
![[365 Toy Project: 057/365] To Boldly Go Where ...](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3587/3517438844_4de48e7ce2_m.jpg)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=843e800f-64f6-4bfa-a86d-f771ee486707)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=5fbf4315-9a7c-45b6-b02b-02c765e56849)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=543ac69a-b525-473e-9474-9326d79d5e24)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=e30c0a3d-297b-4718-b9bb-a87faa6b5e2e)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=8109b52a-3f9e-4737-bf51-22d0c767c673)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=7e8685a7-cfce-43fe-9b28-94f9822199d2)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=82456e3a-7eac-4ae6-9b53-4db8f9ab44ea)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=b2baa116-2841-4b80-983d-5f82bbb7f0a3)