The latest human/alien-sex fetish (not mine). I take it tribal nose-rings are catching on in outer space.

You know, it was all fun and games when it was accidental, but now that Stargate Universe has made it a major plot device, you would think the users of the magic communication stones would adhere to some code of conduct, right? Oh, no, just fuck around in someone else's body, damn the consequences.

Let's assume that this mind-swap is purely voluntary, instantaneous, and not limited by distance. Thus, all users of body/mind swapping devices must adhere to these rules:

To add "realism" they've put all the non-whites and/or non-male characters back into non-leadership roles.

Yes, I have watched every single Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. Yes, I have watched all 5 hours (so far) of the new show, Stargate Universe. My verdict: cheapest Stargate series, ever.

I guess the producers figure since consumers are tightening their belts and just about every commercial nowadays emphasizes frugality, they can get away with a show that costs as much to produce per episode as ten minutes of the originial Stargate SG-1 series.

How can I tell that the budget is smaller? Simple: The entire show is set on a single spaceship that the characters are stuck on.

Recently, I've re-acquired HBO and thus every bad movie is again available at any time to me. I have the TV running while I'm on the computer looking for jobs and whatnot, and I happened to have on Alien vs. Predator: Requiem

The ads promised so much more than the movies delivered.

I've always liked Alien,Aliens,Predator, and to a lesser extent, Alien 3 and Predator 2. But then Hollywood has to go and throw Alien: Resurrection in our faces. Why? And then they had to take the successful crossover franchise and make cheap horror/thriller flicks out of them! WHY?

Money is why. Money money money. The simple logic was: people liked those movies, so people must like anything to do with those IP's. But people didn't like those movies just because they had weird-looking scary Gieger-aliens and weird-looking violent "predator" aliens in them; they both had a good story. So here, for yours and Hollywood's benefit, I am going to detail exactly why the good movies are good, and why the bad are bad.

Time travel is impossible. That said, I still love the way that time travel is treated in the Terminator series. SkyNet, the evil computer that causes mankind's nuclear holocaust, sends Terminators back in time to kill the mother of it's fiercest opponent. Never mind that doing so creates a separate timeline, and SkyNet remains unaffected in its own time. In fact, in this new timeline, the alternate SkyNet does one better by sending another Terminator (the T-1000: you know, the liquid guy from the second movie) back to kill the future leader of mankind, and creates yet another timeline.

Then we get the decently made (I can't say "excellent", not yet) TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. To complicate things further (and provide enough plot elements to last 5 seasons), the good guys and the bad robots are sending many Terminators/people to many different points in time, making a chronology too twisted to explain properly in text.

So I made a handy chart.

cast of Stargate SG-1 seasons 1-8: Multicultural, intergalactic do-gooders, or a neo-fascist paramilitary commando team?

Yeah, that's right, I said it. I re-read John Zerzan's old essay against Star Trek (1994), in which he says:

What Star Trek conveys about technology is probably its most insidious contribution to domination. Not only is a structure of hierarchical orders a constant; so is the high-tech, anti-nature foundation of the drama as a whole. Always at home in a sterile container in which they represent society, the crew could not be more cut off from the natural world. In fact, as the highest development in the mastery and manipulation of nature, Star Trek is really saying that nature no longer exists.

I'm inclined to agree, but I'm looking at it from a writer's perspective: to utilize the vast amount of science-fiction ideas that the writers had, you have to have an antiseptic set-up, such as Star Trek does. Maybe it's better for me to break it down by plotline, since genre fiction is plot-driven, rather than character-driven (which literary fiction aspires to be).

I saw the Žižek documentary. A friend of mine was talking about Žižek and Lacan a while back - I was wondering what all the uproar was about, so now I know. As far as I can tell, Žižek is talking about the failure of deconstruction, and the silliness of capitalism in fostering insatiable desires. Isn't that the basic teaching of Buddha? Aren't we all savvy to the idea that the advertising industry is completely cynical; they know people are never going to be satisfied materially, but regardless, they keep promising us material satisfaction.

Seriously, I can't afford this job anymore.

I just bought a new passenger side window, because the ice storm destroyed it: $250 Gas costs me $30 every day. The lease costs $122 a week. Insurance costs $75 a week.

I drive a truck now. Not a big, 18-wheel monstrosity, but a smaller truck, more like a "van" really. The back is big enough to put my bedroom in, and more. You want to know what driving a truck is like? It's a manly job, of course, and I get to honk at girls on the street, or other cars I see, or just for the sheer joy of honking. But I NEVER honk at bicycles.

I've been plugging away at this comic book for about forever or so, and it's starting to wear on me. Today I watched Jarhead, and wondered why I never ended up in some branch of the armed forces. Wait a second, I know why -- because I hate the government! If we had some other government - say, Canada's, for instance - I would have no reservations about joining the military. I could use the exercise.