All posts by The Plaid Mentat

What Sci-Fi Universe Would You Live In?

A friend of mine asked during dinner the other night, “If you could live in any science fiction universe, which would it be, and why?”  I struggled with this question for a lot of different reasons, mostly because I have read about a lot of different science fiction universes, but many of them do not completely flesh out what life is like for the common person. Continue reading What Sci-Fi Universe Would You Live In?

Looking Back at 2016 – Resolutions

Now that 2017 has arrived, I want to take one final look back at 2016, and see how I measured up to the goals that I set for myself in the first week of the year.  Some seemed ambitious at the time, while others seemed like they would be easy pickings, but looking back, it was much more difficult to predict what would trip me up.

One thing about these goals – I’m going with a straight pass-fail.  I either accomplished the goal, or not; I’m not giving myself any partial credit. Continue reading Looking Back at 2016 – Resolutions

First Lensman

I recently finished reading First Lensman by E. E. “Doc” Smith and I found that, as a sci-fi space opera, I really enjoyed it.  I read Triplanetary last year, but wasn’t able to continue reading the series because, even after doing a used bookstore circuit, I couldn’t find a copy of First Lensman anywhere.  When I was looking for stuff to read earlier this year, I decided I would check online, and I found a nice anthology containing all the Lensman novels I picked it up and added the rest of the series to my queue. Continue reading First Lensman

Sharknado

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, Jessa and I watched Sharknado.  The thought for watching this was to watch something that was “so bad it’s good” and have a good laugh.  In this sense, Sharknado…  …Disappoints?  I guess, to be fair, it was “so bad it was ok”, but it never hit the point of being excellently bad (like The Core or Red).  In our watch through, I noticed some things that differed between a “so bad it’s good” movie and “so bad it’s ok” movie for me, so I thought I would write about them. Continue reading Sharknado