I’ve been on quite a run of epic nerdiness lately — you’re very kind to say you hadn’t noticed, but please, we both know better — and I’m beginning to worry about alienating that segment of readers who don’t know an alluvial damper from a flux capacitor. Therefore, as a favor to all you non-fanboys and fangirls out there, I promise that none of the following links has anything whatsoever to do with Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, or any of the other shows whose titles I used to scribble on my notebook covers back in elementary and middle school…

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I was just reading an interview with Dan DiDio, an executive at DC Comics, and I thought the following remark (made in reference to the challenges comics people face with some of their long-running characters) tied in quite nicely to I was trying to say about remakes in the previous entry:

You have to remember, a lot of our fan base has been reading comics 20 or 30 years now. They’ve seen a lot of stories and a lot of things. We’re always trying to find a way to give them something new but also give them exactly what they want.

That’s the same challenge J.J. Abrams is facing, isn’t it? He’s got to do something new with Star Trek, but he’s also got to give us, well, Star Trek, or else he fails. I certainly wouldn’t want his job…

Hey, everyone… if you’re actually reading this on Thanksgiving (which I like to refer to as Mass Consumption Day), I can only assume it’s after you’ve all finished dinner, right? If not, shouldn’t you be off, um, consuming?

Anyhow, I just wanted to drop a quick little note here: In his column this week at amctv.com, the ubiquitous John Scalzi lists all the things for which he’s thankful in the realm of sci-fi movies. I agree with him on pretty much all of these items, except for the one about special effects (sorry, I’m a big fan of actual, tangible miniatures, although I concede the CG stuff is getting better all the time). I found one of Scalzi’s items especially resonant:

I’m thankful I’m almost 40 years old and still want a lightsaber and a speeder bike.

My geeky ego has taken quite a beating over the past ten years. From the Great Fanboy Prequel Wars that trashed the reputation of my favorite movie series and revealed one of my boyhood heroes to have feet of clay, to the remakes of damn near every movie or TV show I’ve ever loved, I’ve had to endure the diminishing, eclipsing, or outright dismissal of things that I used to think would never go away. Things that loom so large in my personal history and psyche that I’ve always assumed they must mean as much to everyone else as they mean to me. I know… naive, even childish. There have been times, especially lately with all the talk about the new Star Trek, when I’ve felt like a damn fool for clinging to my increasingly obsolete obsessions, when I’ve wondered what’s wrong with me that I apparently don’t see this stuff the same way everybody else does, i.e., as quaint old relics that were cool in their day but are now just silly and needing to be replaced. Not to put too melodramatic a spin on it, but these times of self-doubt have been genuinely painful.

But then something comes along like that video of the dueling sailors, and I feel that old familiar rush of endorphins and I realize that, yeah, I still love this stuff, in spite of what the rest of the world may think about it. Moreover, I’m glad that I still love this stuff, that the critics and cynics haven’t managed to entirely wipe out my enjoyment of it. I’m thankful indeed that somewhere deep down inside my wounded, stressed-out, overburdened, and all-too-often-exhausted grown-up mind, there is still a happy, carefree ten-year-old walking through his small, boring, rural town with a comic book rolled up in his back pocket, dreaming of slicing down trees with a real lightsaber or whipping through the fields in a vehicle that’s magically floating three feet above the ground. Sometimes, that kid still finds a way to speak to me, and sometimes I still find a way to be him. And surely that’s a good and even necessary thing…

Happy Thanksgiving, my friends.

Every few months, some researcher somewhere releases the results of a new survey or study that demonstrates yet again how astoundingly ignorant the average American is about, well, everything: science, history, politics, other countries, and especially our own country. I never quite know what to think about these surveys. On a good day, it seems impossible to me that my fellow citizens can be so stupid, that the surveys must be biased, or filled with poorly worded questions that lead the subjects too much. Then there are other days when my grumpy-old-mannish tendencies are ascendant and it’s all too easy to believe that we ‘muricans are a bunch of hopelessly myopic rubes obsessed with sex, celebrity, consumer goods, and religion (these days often coincide with elections, oddly enough).

Earlier this week, political blogger Kevin Drum made note of yet another one of these surveys, this one conducted annually by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, on which “fewer than a third of the 2,500 randomly selected test takers managed to score higher than 60%.” Kevin included a link to the test itself, so naturally I had to click on over there and experience for myself this brutally difficult thing that so few otherwise fully functional adults could manage to pass.

Not to brag or anything, but I scored 93%, based on correctly answering 31 out of 33 questions. And the two I missed were both “Doh! How could I get those wrong!” types of things.

Now, I honestly don’t consider my all that smart or well-informed, so I am utterly flabbergasted by all the results of this survey. And also more than a little scared. Especially terrifying is the chart of “additional findings,” which indicates that, as poorly as the average citizen did on this test, our elected officials — the ones who are running the country and thus, presumably, know a thing or two about it — did worse in most categories. For years, our society has been playing up the “ordinary joe-ness” of our politicians, voting for the guys we’d most like to have over for a barbecue, and sneering at intellectual “elites.” It looks like we’ve gotten what we’ve been asking for.

One more little serving of food for thought: the aforementioned Kevin points out that “[o]ther ISI findings, by the way, include these: the more education you have, the better you do; it doesn’t matter much what kind of university you went to, whether you go to church, or what your politics are; watching lots of TV is bad for your score; and reading lots of history is good for your score.” All of which ought to be obvious, I suppose…

It was nice this afternoon, unseasonably warm, and I’ve been feeling antsy all day because a bout of insomnia last night completely hosed my ability to focus, so I decided to walk down to the local bookstore during my lunch and pick up something I’ve been meaning to buy for a while. I’m used to encountering homeless people and/or eccentrics along the way, but I rarely take note of what they’re doing unless they’re somehow threatening.

Today, however, I couldn’t help but do a double-take at the sixty-something guy in a bright blue parka who was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, his face tilted up toward the sky, arms straight out as he spun himself around and around in a tight circle, like a toddler who’s just figured out how to make themselves dizzy. If you’ve been reading this blog for any time at all, I’m sure you know what he reminded me of:

I watched the guy for a couple of minutes, but he never did transform into his superhero identity. He must’ve forgotten a vital step…

This is an unexpected pleasure: Jaquandor, who recently re-entered the blogging fray after a few months off, has bestowed upon me the “I Love This Blog” award:

He calls Simple Tricks “a terrific geek blog” and says that yours truly “writes a lot of well-considered opinion on topics wide and sundry.”

In all sincerity, thanks, man. I’m honored to think that my silly little rantings here provide someone I don’t even really know with some entertainment value and/or food for thought. One thing I find interesting, though: I don’t really think of this as a “geek blog.” I just write about whatever happens to be on my mind when I find the time to write. Which I suppose says quite a bit about me, doesn’t it? Oh, well… we should all accept who we are, I guess.

Anyway, this prize comes with certain obligations:

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I’m not sure of the original provenance of the following quote — I got it from SamuraiFrog, who didn’t post a link back to the source — but I thought it was worth passing along:

Gail Simon, current writer on Wonder Woman: “In general, I’m very skeptical of any fake irony when dealing with Wonder Woman. If we’re getting some kind of post-modern satire of the Lynda Carter series, I’d rather they just pass on the whole idea entirely. Christopher Reeve showed that the noble characters work best when played nobly. Winking at the audience insults everyone involved.”

For the record, I have no particular affection for the character Wonder Woman or the old Lynda Carter TV series (although Lynda Carter herself was — and still is — quite yummy). I just happen to agree with the sentiment being expressed. I dislike remakes in general, but I really hate the ones that treat the original source material as a joke…

I read last week in a couple of different places that JVC, the last electronics manufacturer still making VHS-format videocassette recorders, has stopped production of standalone VCR units. Those VCR/DVD combo players will probably live on for a while, but for all intents and purposes, this is the end, at long last, of the VHS era.

I can already hear the smart-aleck kids out there in our studio audience murmuring, “good riddance,” and I suppose I can understand why. The lowly VHS tape doesn’t begin to compare to modern digital media in terms of video and audio quality, it’s hopelessly bulky compared to slender DVDs and Blu-Ray discs, and it’s subject to wear and tear that reduces fidelity every time you play your favorite movie. Like the much-maligned 8-track audio format, VHS is something we look back upon from the comfort of our more advanced times and can’t believe anyone ever thought it was acceptable or cool.

But, as I’m sure my three loyal readers are already anticipating, I’ve got something of a soft spot for this obsolete format, and also, believe it or not, for 8-tracks. I think people have forgotten just how revolutionary these two media really were, and we should take a moment to properly eulogize the vanguard of the media-on-demand world we now enjoy.

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There are two possible explanations for this recent photo of me. One is that the very talented and way-cool motion-graphics designers at my place of employment have been having some Halloween fun with Photoshop. And the other is that there was something odd about the flu shot I had a couple days ago…

Beware the Moon!