You know who I really want to see in the new Star Trek movie(s)? Mudd. Harcourt Fenton Mudd.

Stargate is good at breaking your heart in unexpected ways. Like the episode about the guy finding out he was originally a Wraith, and is now only human because of a retrovirus.

Also... Stargate Universe's big problem that makes it not seem like Stargate? Not a single person has consumed or even mentioned blue jello. What kind of Stargate doesn't have blue jello?

...makes me feel like I'm penning the beginning of a Star Wars movie. I mean, really:

Story so far: Ellison, Shogun Alexander's right hand man, has arrived on the colony world of Susanou in order to investigate a seemingly impossible murder that may have a destabilizing effect on galactic civilization. The local government enacts plans to gain any sort of edge possible against the intrusive presence of the shogunate, as personified by Ellison.
Unable to actively refuse to help Ellison, the governor assigns two police officers, Lambert and Thornhill, to aid and supervise Ellison.
Bodhisattva: From the Buddhist equivalent of an angel, these are semi-sentient computer utilities that handle everything from monetary transactions to web searches.
Dataspace: A galaxy-wide version of the internet, viewable as a sort of virtual reality overlay to anyone with the appropriate implants.

Can't you see that in yellow text, scrolling on a starfield? Well, the part that's not definitions of terms used in the last chapter.

I suppose that, if there is a hell for bad hotel guests, spilling soy sauce on the sheets barely rates me a spot. Perhaps in the first circle, where I will chill with the virtuous pagans. Still, I feel kinda jerky.

Today, I learned about what's called a CG envelope, which is a range in which an aircraft is loaded so that it is properly balanced. I learned, also, how to tweak the CG envelope to make it larger or smaller as needed, and why you'd want to make it smaller. (To make life easier on the flight crew and let people sit all over the aircraft willy nilly.)

Today, I learned about the OEW of an aircraft, and the ZFW. I've spent my day immersed in the nitty gritty of aviation and I've found that it's absolutely fascinating.

Not that I didn't find this stuff fascinating before. I'm an airplane nerd. I grew up on Langley AFB, home to the 1st Tactical Fighter Wing, who are pretty much the USAF's Rogue Squadron(s). Or Skull Squadron, if you prefer Macross to Star Wars, which I do :p I find the sound of god-awful noisy fighter aircraft to be amazingly comforting.

I'm considering looking into getting a dispatcher's license now. Well, I looked into it; I didn't do much considering of looking into it. The courses run about $4000-$5000.

Oi vey.

Right, so not gonna run out and sign up for it now. In a year or two, though, after I get my student loans paid down a little, I think I may spring for it.

So it turns out that when you're a real employee, and not a silly new hire, Continental doesn't make you share a room with someone when you're traveling for the company. So I get the hotel room to myself-- this is a good thing.

Got up at 0400 this morning, dug out my business casual clothing, and hopped on the plane for Houston. Landed and spent the next 6 hours or so learning about the horribly outdated mainframe-based system that we use-- ran on an emulator on a windows machine now-- and typing in large amounts of commands that appear to be mostly random letters with little rhyme or reason, and trying not to stare at the bespectacled, drop-dead gorgeous girl from Costa Rica sitting at the computer next to me.

Learned some nifty things-- like the logic behind runway numbering, which I sort of understood but didn't truly grok-- and I now maybe actually have a clue on what to do for a flight. Maybe. I will after tomorrow, anyways.

I find girls with similar interest to be more attractive pretty much like 99% of the time. The ideal girl: I want someone who can carry on the kind of conversations I enjoy. She should know about theology, philosophy, science, science fiction, and preferably video games. Glasses are a big plus. Knowing the distance to Sirius and our sun's spectral type are huge pluses. (Nifty things in non-astronomical sciences will work.) I want a girl with a mind like a diamond. I want a girl who knows what's best. I want a girl with shoes that cut and eyes that burn like cigarettes. I want a girl with the right allocations, who's fast and thorough and sharp as a tack.

[16:55] [Screen name redacted]: Portal's not one of the best games of the decade.
[16:56] BadgerSensei: Ok. I've identified this conversation as being one in which I converse with the spirit of an internet troll, replying to me ouija-board style with your screen name, and will henceforth drop the subject.

This might be the funniest thing ever.

Afternoon Ops agent, over radio: "2938 will be here at 1400."
Random gate agent, over radio: "Gate copies."
Ramp lead, over radio: "Ramp copies."
Me: "Bag room copies, but is completely ambivalent."

And now it's time for me to clock out. Yays.

Or, "Oh god."

So, got the next writer's group meeting coming up tomorrow, and haven't had a chance to read through all the works yet, so I'm taking advantage of it being Saturday and all and reading them at work.

I try to be very diplomatic with criticism. Diplomacy is a strong point for me; it comes naturally. On occasion, though, some people are just so... bad... that I have trouble being diplomatic.

When I did my first workshop at OSU, there was a girl that wrote a story so horrifically sappy and sweet and amazingly incoherent that I had to dig to find something positive, and then I'm pretty sure I made it up. By the time I was done reading her story, my comments had degenerated into, and I'm being serious, "Grah, what?"

Well. Anyways. I just pulled up one of the stories for tomorrow by a new guy and he doesn't appear to be a native English speaker by what I'm reading. Tenses all over, viewpoints shifting around like a kaleidoscope... I'm pretty sure that I can be gentle, but I wonder about some others. Hmm.

Edit: *sigh* Vampires. Again.
Edit: Not vampires. Gargoyles. Who may or may not hunt sinners or just this one priest or all priests or all humanity or grah.

Sammmy, who is the bagrunner currently, over the radio: "Josh-- any more Cleveland bags?"
Me, from the bag room: "Clear on Cleveland."
Sammy: "Clear on Cleveland?"
Me: "Clear. Zero bags."
Corey, over the radio: "Josh, how many more Cleveland bags?"
Me: (slightly annoyed.) "None. Zero. Clear on Cleveland."
Corey: "Are we clear on Cleveland?"
Me: "Clear on Cleveland."
Mike, the ops agent today, over the radio: "Josh, the ramp wants to know if you have more Cleveland bags."
Me: "No more Cleveland bags. Zero. Clear on Cleveland-- Though, I suppose, in a broader, spiritual sense, we all have Cleveland bags."
Mike: "Copy. One more bag."
Jeremy, the weekend lead, over the radio: "Josh, is that bag a heavy or standard bag?"
Me: "Only as heavy as my soul."
Jeremy: "Copy that. Three heavies."

Josh is going to operations training. This is a good thing.

What does this mean for Josh? Several things:

-It means that Josh will be able to pick up overtime that he wouldn't normally be able to pick up.
-It means that, should the operations agent be ill, and call off during the wee hours, the ramp isn't quite as screwed, because Josh will know how to do weight and balance and communicate with load planning via normal channels instead of frantic phone calls.
-It means three days paid in Houston for training, per diems, paid hotel room and flight time on the clock.
-It means that Josh is more useful to his company, which is a very good thing for someone during Scary Airline Times.
-It also means that Jodi, the oh-so-wonderful supervisor who went to bat for him when he was trying to get days off to see his sister graduate from Basic Training in San Antonio, once again went to bat for him.

There's a lot of inter-station politics going on here. Continental (and presumably most airlines) divide the station grunts into two categories: Ramp workers (CSAs, in CO parlance. "Luggage monkeys" or "ramp rats" to jerky pilots.) and Ticket counter/ Gate workers. (ASAs, in CO parlance. "Hens" when I'm frustrated with them.)

Now, in some stations, Ops is considered an ASA position. In others, a CSA position. Here, in Columbus, it is a CSA position. But yet, last year, when they scheduled CSA couldn't make the class, they sent an ASA instead of sending me, to appease the hens upstairs, who were upset that someone who recently switched from being a CSA to ASA was still considered qualified to work ops.

So I resigned myself to not going then. (The ASA sent is a complete jerk, by the way, and I'm not normally judgmental like that, but this guy is a sleazeball, lazy, and rude. Anyways.) I spent the last few months harping on the supervisors: "When am I going for ops training? I want ops training!" and then, the GM turned around and scheduled another ASA to go.

An ASA who won't work past 1 PM, who trades off most of her days. I haven't seen her in weeks, and the whole point of sending people to this training is to cover when the normal ops agents don't make it in.

And when Jodi found out, she was pissed. I was pissed. The guy who was supposed to go last time but couldn't make it was pissed. Several people began emailing HR about it.

And now Jodi just called me (I'm over in the bag room, hence the posting from work) to tell me that there are still two open seats in the class, so I'm going, along with the ASA (Grrr.) and the guy who was supposed to go last time.

Holy crap, a vampire movie that actually looks good:


Also: 300. In space. With Samurai.

... I definitely am now.

Hat tip to wxgeek

Ganked from capnflynn.

A LIT MEME FOR ALL THE BOOK NERDS:

. So, you can read! Congrats!
Are you reading a book right now? How far are you into it and what do you think so far? If you're not, what was the last book you read and how did you feel about it?
Second Stage Lensmen by E.E. "Doc" Smith. I'm enjoying it more than it should be enjoyed, really; the world is simple, the characters overly trusting, and there's very little in terms of moral questions on which to ponder. That having been said, I think I love it for a lot of those reasons-- Also, for space battles in which an entire galaxy's military is mobilized to fight another galaxy's military, and the sheer audacity of scope. The Lensmen books are more fun than they should be.

. Do you have a favorite book? Do you have... a book you really liked, at least?
Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons. John C. Wright's Golden Age trilogy. The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe.

. What would you say is your favorite genre to read? What do you tend to steer away from?
Space opera. Weird, posthuman space opera. I like stories about mankind fighting for their destiny amongst the stars. After that, hardboiled mysteries.

I tend to avoid fantasy, unless I'm familiar with the author, and vampy novels.

. Do you read more fiction or non-fiction/information books?
Fiction. I need to read more nonfiction, though.

. How about a favorite author, or perhaps a few?
John C. Wright, Gene Wolfe, Raymond Chandler, and Terry Pratchett.

. Have you read any terrible books? Something you'd recommend staying away from?
Debatable Space by Philip Palmer. I nearly threw it out in disgust while waiting for the employee shuttle at work one day-- the arrogant, unlikable, immortal Mary Sue narrator started ranting about how history had "defanged Islamophobic American neocons." Alas, it was a TPB and paid 15 bucks for it, so I forced myself to finish the tripe before I trashed it. Worst fifteen bucks ever.

. Do you reread books, or is once enough? Any exceptions so far?
I agree with Wolfe: Good lit is a work that you can read and reread with increasing pleasure.

. What were some of your favorite books as a child?
A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in the Door by Madeline L'engle. These books affected me so strongly that I'm pretty sure my slightly unusual idea of what makes a woman attractive can be traced back to Meg Murray, the protagonist. Also, My Side of the Mountain by Gene Craighead George.

. Do you usually pick books from the kids, teen, young adult, or adult books? How old are you, if you don't mind?
Generally adult. That having been said, I'll read a good children's book-- Such as, The Graveyard Book, Coraline, The Tripod Trilogy...

. Do you buy books much or mostly just borrow?
Buy. My books are as much part of the decor as my posters.

. Have you read any books after seeing them in movie form? Which did you enjoy more?
Both The Big Sleep and The Maltese Falcon-- I enjoyed the books more in both cases, but it was very pronounced in The Maltese Falcon. The movie doesn't appeal to me as much as the book-- but I still think I'd take the crappiest Chandler (The Big Sleep) book over the best Hammett (The Maltese Falcon) novel. Chandler writes with a touch of humanity and lightness that Hammett lacks-- and Marlowe is quite obviously a superior PI to Spade. (EDIT: This is not to imply that The Big Sleep is the crappiest Chandler novel. I was just trying to provide reference for those who aren't familiar with the two authors.)

. What about reading the book before there was a movie? How did you feel about the movie? Did you even bother seeing it?
I've read a lot of books before the movies. Dune, Watchmen, Coraline, LotR, Narnia, etc. I'll generally go to see a movie based on a book I love. Still waiting on a good Dune adaption, though.

. Do you read any other forms of literature aside from novels? Such as graphic novels, comics, (fan fiction???) etc.?
I love Gaiman's Sandman series, but I'm not an active comic reader. I follow about half a dozen webcomics, but none of them are exactly high art. The ones that are the best of them are probably Penny Arcade (What a knack for beautiful words in such a strange place.) and Dr. McNinja. (The good doctor understands the Rule of Cool.)

. What is a book you want to read, but haven't yet? What intrigues you about it?
I have a Pile. With a Pratchett-style capital P.

. If you could rewrite the end of one book (or any other part, I suppose), which would you choose? If you were satisfied with every book you read's end, yay.
Uh... Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds. As much as I want to like his writing, I can't seem to get into it-- though Redemption Ark had me hooked, thinking it was going to go in a very creepy direction for leading into the next book-- and it didn't. It wasn't quite on par with "It was all a dream," but something that should have had a pretty heavy influence on the course of events didn't.

If you can think of one, name a book that made you:

I went to the North Columbus Fantasy and Scifi Writers meeting for the first time today. I enjoyed it, a lot, and got actual useful criticism from a few people.

That's a rarity for me. Nate will turn out useful criticism when I can convince him to read, but beyond that, I've not run into a lot of people who think in the appropriate way.

One girl-- an editor, outspoken and blunt-- actually looked at me, shrugged, and said, "Meh." when I gave an underwhelming explanation of something. It was strangely thrilling.

There were about 11 people there, I think. All of them either very good, or showing the potential to be very good. I was worried about this, initially; I want the company of people who would like to be professionals, and I was afraid I'd be stuck discussing writing with people who turned in furry crossover slash fiction.

Instead, the worst I had to deal with is vampires ;) None of them sparkled in the sunlight, though, so that's good.

Or, "Josh Talks About Something Besides Scifi and ExGirlfriends"
Really, how many people are this good at turning a phrase?

Some of my favorites:

She had a nice smile. She looked as if she had slept well. It was a nice face, a face you get to like. Pretty, but not so pretty that you would have to wear brass knuckles every time you took it out. (Farewell, My Lovely)

I used my knee on his face. It hurt my knee. He didn't tell me whether it hurt his face. (Farewell, My Lovely)

"She's a tall handsome blond. Very--very appealing."
"You mean sexy?"
"Well--" she blushed furiously, "in a nice well-bred sort of way, if you know what I mean."
"I know what you mean," I said, "but I never got anywhere with it." (The High Window)

I felt like a half-digested meal eaten in a greasy spoon joint. My eyes were stuck together and my mouth was full of sand. (The Long Goodbye)

It was a crisp morning, with just enough snap in the air to make life seem simple and sweet, if you didn't have too much on your mind. I had. (The Big Sleep)