Category: WWdN in Exile

I put this on Tumblr earlier today. It deserves to be here, too, I think:

Two things jump out at me in this picture:

1. Holy shit those shoes are huge.

2. I don’t look nervous or uncomfortable; I look genuinely happy. That, combined with my haircut, makes me think that this must have been taken when I was 14, perhaps in the Spring just before I turned 15. This is probably right when Star Trek was starting.

When I look at these cheesy teen magazine pictures of myself— wait. That sounds creepy and weird and awful. Let me try again: When I gaze lovingly at these old pictures, I remember how sad and unhappy and uncomfortable I was for most of my teens, and how much I hated all the posing for pictures and attention from magazines. I was shy, I was uncomfortable in my own skin, I was nerdy and anxious and weak and weird, and being put under the Teen Media spotlight just made me want to crawl into a hole and die.

But this picture reminds me that it wasn’t always overwhelming and weird, and I’m glad to be reminded of that, because it’s way too easy to focus on the awkward and uncomfortable times I really wanted to be alone playing Blades of Steel on my NES, but I was at some teen cheese thing, trying to fit in.

In a lot of the teen magazine pictures, my smile never reaches my eyes, so I'm grateful for those rare occasions when it did.

(Thanks to Chambers1986 on Tumblr, who originally posted this picture.)

There's a moment every day when I think, "I should have written about that in my blog," but then I realize that instead of planting the seeds that would grow into a story, I put them in boxes on a shelf called Twitter, or Tumblr, or Google Plus.

They're nice seeds and all, and they look great in their individual boxes, preserved for years to come, but they never get a chance to grow into something more than just seeds. That's sort of sad, I think, and I always promise myself that I'm going to come back here and write something every single day, and give myself one assignment and deadline a week… but I'm just not disciplined enough to do that right now, and I haven't been for close to a year.

It's not that I don't love telling stories, but I sort of feel like a band that's been on tour so long — and having so much fun doing it — they haven't gone into the studio to cut an album in so long, they've forgotten how to do it.

Last year (also known as two weeks ago) I participated in the Reddit Gifts Secret Santa exchange. My giftee is a Batman fan, so I gave him a copy of Gotham Central, autographed by my friend Ed brubaker, who wrote it. I also gave him a copy of DC Universe Online, because it's really fun to pretend you're a superhero (or villain) and when you go to Gotham City in the game, you can play with me (I'm the voice of Robin in the game.)

My Secret Santa hit it out of the park, and shipped me a box of awesome. Yesterday, I finally put pictures of my gifts into the gallery.

My Secret Santa looked deep into my soul, and gave me four + Q gifts that nailed the four points of my inner compass. There was also a Snickers bar in there, in case I needed a nougat boost during the opening of gifts. They were all awesome, but it was the one non-gift in the box that was the best gift of all. 

My gifts were all individually wrapped and labeled so that I would open them in the proper order. Go ahead and flip through the gallery to enjoy them the way I did. 

Head on over to RedditGifts to see what I got, and Happy New Year!

Here are three Star Trek-themed things that have come up recently. All of them made me laugh so hard I pooped a little, so they need to be preserved here for the ages.

First, from Jimmy James, Inc:

For the record, Wesley's dance crew was called Jiffy and da Popz.

Next: Last night, Paul of Paul and Storm made WesLOL Crusher:

It's a little uncanny how much it fits with the original image, isn't it?

Finally, this place is real and exists:

For those of you who are scratching your heads right now, that's the intersection of Crusher Avenue and Picard Lane, around the corner from WARP DRIVE. WARP-FUCKING-DRIVE! 

BAM!

Ryan's home for the holidays, before he moves far, far away for his new job (hey, check out my son! He graduated college last week, and he starts a great job in two weeks! Go Ryan!!)

The first night he was home, I told him that the warm covers for the bed he's sleeping on were in the dryer, so he could get them out when he was ready to go to sleep.

The conversation went something like this:

Me: Hey, it gets cold in my office overnight, so don't forget to put the comforter that's in the dryer on it before you go to sleep.

Him: Okay. Thanks. G'night.

Me: I love you, kiddo. G'night.

I went to bed, and the next morning at breakfast he told us how cold he was overnight, because we didn't give him any warm bedding.

See, even at 22, the damn kids still have brain damage.

I reminded him of our conversation. He recalled it (having apparently forgotten it, immediately after I told him goodnight, likely because that part of his brain is the part that also processes requests to put his goddamn dishes in the dishwasher), and that was the end of that.

Flash forward to later yesterday afternoon. Ryan and Nolan were out with some of Nolan's friends, and Ryan texted me, "Will you put the covers on the bed, so I don't forget them again?" I told him that I would do just that.

…then I got this idea to be a Trolldad. Instead of making the bed, I put the covers in a neatly-folded pile at the foot of the bed, and made this picture, which I printed out and put on top of them:

(Click all images to embiggen at Imgur)

I thought that was so stupidly funny, I made this picture, and put it in the middle of the blankets:

I was having way too much fun, so I put this on his pillow:

And finally, this was folded up and put under the sheets where it would crinkle and make him get out of bed after he thought he was getting into it to go to sleep:

When he woke up this morning, I asked him if he got my notes.

"Oh my god, that was hilarious," he said.

"It was pretty amusing to me," I said.

"The best one was the last one, because I thought I was done with your notes and I could just go to bed, and then I was all, 'OH GODDAMMIT!'"

"That was the idea," I said.

"Well done, sir," he said.

"I spent more time making those stupid pictures than I would have spent making the bed," I said. "I'm very proud of that."

"Oh, I'm sure you are. Good job," he said.

As we parted ways and I walked out of the living room toward my bedroom, I heard him say, softly, "…and it is on."

So I have that to look forward to for the next two weeks.