Fun and Games Dept

May your house be full

Yet another clue from my elementary school days that I would grow up to be a full-fledged, practicing homosexual. (I keep practicing, some day I’ll get it right).

“Tragedy” by The Bee Gees? Musical brilliance. Happiness. Movement. Joy.

“Disco Duck” by Rick Dees? Sheer idiocy.

You know, twins got a really bad rap in the “Wonder Woman” TV series back in the day. Even before Lynda Carter famously filled the satin tights, twins were wreaking havoc in the world for Cathy Lee Crosby’s Wonder Woman.

They’re not really twins, kinda like Cathy Lee Crosby wasn’t really Wonder Woman.

Then alien invaders called the Skrill came by Earth to steal Vincent VanPatten’s brain with an illuminated egg and they picked up two twins along the way. There was no explanation in the two part episode that told us how the twins came about to join the Skrill, they were just there. It must have just been because they were twins. According to IMDB, the Hendricks twins never appeared in any other television or movie production. They were only in “Mind Stealers from Outer Space” on “Wonder Woman”.

They tried to scare Wonder Woman with a canister of glitter

More twins starting creating problems for Wonder Woman with crazy man Mariposa, who loved to dress up in purple and capture Olympic athletes in “Screaming Javelins”. Unlike their predecessors the Hendricks twins, the Kearney twins did appear on television but only once more, on an episode of “Welcome Back, Kotter”.

Evil twins were everywhere on “Wonder Woman”. I wonder why there was such a focus on the double trouble. I don’t recall if there was such a focus on evil twins on other shows like “The Six Million Dollar Man”, but the Hager Twins were on “The Bionic Woman”. They were trying to capture Helen Hunt who was Princess Aura before she was “Mad About You”.

Why were the twins always evil?

I just nuked one of my Twitter accounts. I have a few (but really, how many?) that I use and I nuked the “general purpose/Star Trek fan” account.

There wasn’t really anything that provoked the decision to deactivate the account. Over the past several months I’ve been a little surprised at how narrow minded many in the Star Trek fan community tend to be to one another, and I’ve been dropping folks I follow based on horrible comments exchanged. Politics inject themselves into Twitter no matter how many keyword blockers or other filters you have in place. And we all know the United States is a mess, I don’t need constant reminders in “trends” and “hot news” sidebars that are way too pervasive.

So I nuked the account. I’ll probably nuke another. Let’s see how I feel about the matter tomorrow.

My inspiration for 2021.

This is not me. GIF courtesy of Giphy.

You would think a big dork like me would be all about the video games. The truth of the matter is, my age and affinity for retrocomputing lends its love to the likes of the Atari 2600 games Super Breakout, Astroblast, and Centipede. I’m not one to jump into games like Command and Conquer or whatever the latest shoot ’em dead game is these days. As far as gaming computers go, while we’ve had and Xbox and Wii in the relatively near past, I’m not huge into gaming.

We bought Oculus Quest 2s a month or two ago and I’ve become addicted to Beat Saber. I love the whole VR experience when it comes to gaming, but I still don’t want to shoot things. I’m happy just smashing blocks flying at me with lightsabers that I swing around. It’s the closest thing to Super Breakout that I’ll probably find in the 21st century.

If you’re not familiar with Beat Saber, it works like this. Blocks are coming at you in time to the music track that’s playing. You hit the blocks with the appropriate lightsaber in time with the music. The more accurate and definitive the hit, the more points you score. The tracks I’ve been playing have several different levels of difficulty. I’m up to “Hard” (three out of five) on most of them. I’ve tried “Expert” a couple of times (it’s the fourth level) and I usually fail about a third of the way into the track. I need to get more practice.

Unlike the days of the Atari 2600, playing Beat Saber with the Oculus Quest 2 is the best cardio workout I’ve had in the house in years. My arms are consistently sore from the excursion of anywhere between 30 to 90 minutes. I sweat like a crazy man, usually soaking the foam padding on the Oculus (once of the reason we bought two). The game is also fun for the whole family; we play across the miles courtesy of our broadband connection.

I’m sure the neighbors are watching through our balcony windows as we thrash around the living room (Earl) and bedroom (me), swinging at colorful blocks they can’t see. I don’t care. I love the immersive experience of Beat Saber and if I’m getting a decent amount of exercise thrashing my arms around in the air I’m happy with it.

Our Christmas plans are quiet this year. We have minimized our celebrating to the four of us and FaceTime journeys elsewhere. We are all healthy. That’s all I ask for.

I find a certain amount of beauty in our infrastructure. This is one of the things that compelled me to finally become a civil engineer; building and improving our infrastructure not only keeps society functioning by providing a solid foundation, there’s also a certain amount of beauty in the basis of life as we know it today, or our infrastructure.

I’ve always been a bit reserved when it comes to talk about my interest in our infrastructure. I enjoy the symmetry of power lines and high tension wires. I appreciate the simplicity of a wind turbine effortlessly collecting a natural resource and turning it into electricity. I am entranced by the simplicity of our nation’s roadways and rail lines. When I was in high school I started to talk about these things but I was instantly shot down by classmates who found me weird or not relatable. So I decided it was best to keep quiet about these things.

The truth of the matter is, I really enjoy taking photos of the world’s infrastructure. I find a certain amount of beauty in these man made creations. I don’t fear cancer or being pelted by a deceased bird when I’m taking photos of wind turbines. As a scholar of traffic engineering, I recognize the effort that goes into making a road sign guiding motorists to their destination a contributor to public safety.

On our recent ride across the prairies of Northern Illinois I took photos with both my aging iPhone X and my decade old Canon EOS DSLR camera. The iPhone X, with all its technological ties to algorithms and other associated software, takes better photos. This is one of the reasons I’m still married to Apple when it comes to my technology needs. For the most part, it still just works.

I see beauty in what others find mundane. I appreciate the power lines that have withstood Mother Nature for decades, even when she’s causing tornado sirens to blare a warning to take cover. I love the flatness of the Illinois Prairie and all the crops it provides to the sustenance of our nation.

I look forward to capturing more of this in the way of photography. Whenever and wherever possible.

I never tire of this movie. And it always puts me in the holiday spirit.

May your days be merry and bright.

The Kennedy Expressway in Chicago takes thousands of cars to and from O’Hare (and points west of the city) on a daily basis. Along the median of much of this expressway is the ‘L’ Blue Line. I get why the city built the ‘L’ tracks in the median of the expressway, but it makes for a cold experience in the winter when waiting for your train.

When we come home from a ride on the prairie I always coming in from O’Hare. Using other methods of entering the city and then trying to get to our condo on the north side is a challenge, especially with the never ending construction at the Jane Byrne Interchange near the loop.

Tonight as we made our way eastbound on the Kennedy (folks from elsewhere know it as “Interstate 90”), the CTA Holiday Train was traveling along the Blue Line ‘L’ tracks in the median. This explained why the overhead electronic sign said “MONTROSE 7 MIN” instead of the usual “MONTROSE 5 MIN”. Folks were slowing down to see Santa.

I have no issue with this.

Because of the pandemic there are no passengers drinking hot cocoa on the Holiday Train (which my husband and I call the “Jingle Train” when it passes by our condo on the Brown Line) nor is anyone visiting with Santa. The CTA has purposely not published the schedule because they don’t want crowds gathering to see the festivities. But it was an extra special treat to see the Jingle Train on the Blue Line on our way home from our ride.

A piece of merriment to keep us in the spirit. Happy Holidays!