Rob Vincent dot net

>:-[

The Sci-Fi Channel is rebranding themselves to "SyFy."

The comment responses on MST3K@LJ, AICN, and pretty much everywhere else on the Internet including Sci-Fi's own forum are pretty golden.

If that channel hadn't been dead to me ever since they killed MST3K so that WWE and reality shows might live, I might be able to summon up some of my old fanboyish outrage instead of just enjoying the fallout.

Nicky flew in on Thursday night, and we had an awesome long weekend together. Here are some things we did.

• We rode the Staten Island Ferry there and back, a favorite pursuit of ours.
• We discovered a new talking kiosk at the South Ferry terminal. Consisting of an electronic LCD-based map of the terminal hooked to a monitor, it describes things you touch on the map in a deadpan synthesized voice. We played on this for much longer than we should have; my beat-boxing and Nicky's tapping madly all over the map created a happenin' dance track. "Boat slip-boats-boats-women's-retail-women's restroom-women's-women's-men's-women's-stairs-boat slip-boats-boats-boats-waiting-boats-boats-boats..." The security guard nearby was too busy WTFing at us to actually stop us.
• We took a long walk from the southern tip of Manhattan up into midtown. On the way we puttered around a book store, bought things at a comic shop, ate DELICIOUS UNCOOKED FISHES, laughed at drunk people, and watched the city go by.
• I introduced Nicky to the subtle delights of On the Moon and Insanity Prawn Boy.
• While Nicky was doing work stuff on her lappy, I finally installed a copy of Star Trek: Elite Force II I've had lying around for five years or so, and played the training levels. This led me to wax philosophical for much longer than is probably healthy on how even storyline-heavy games like Trek still have to work the obligatory "figuring-out-your-moves" training stuff into the narrative, resulting in gripping space-opera drama wherein the dignified Lieutenant Commander Tuvok instructs an experienced Starfleet Lieutenant to walk forward and jump over something, and then congratulates him on his ability to do so.
• I took my sister Jo out to lunch for her anniversary, and she brought my baby nephew with his squishy face, so Nicky finally got to meet them both as well as have lunch at one of my absolute favorite eateries on Long Island.
• We watched lots of Beavis & Butt-Head. It didn't suck.
• Nicky taught me Phase 10.
• We did a lot of musing about the batshit crazy paths we're both on, and how they've somehow managed to cross, and how awesome that is.

Last night I put Nicky on her plane home, rode the trains back to my place in silence, and played more EFII until I could pass out. Despite the noise and distractions provided by the game, my room was far too quiet and unpopulated.

I fell asleep at around 8PM last night, and woke up around 11PM. Insomnia is teh s uck.

For breakfast I had strong coffee, a vitamin pill, and half a box of jellybeans. It's not exactly the Natalie Dee Super Breakfast, but it's in the same spirit.

I tried to see Watchmen over the weekend, but there were no tickets to be had anywhere. Grey's already seen it, and she won't go again with me due to it being so not her thing. I shall have to find a way to actually view this motion picture at some damn point. It's had very mixed reviews from friends of mine ranging from total love to total hate, which is more than enough to interest me in checking it out for myself.

Speaking of Grey, at last week's NYC2600 meeting she snapped my latest favorite photo of myself.

In quite happy but belated news, a week and change ago the charming folks from the Swimcast bestowed upon me the honor of a "Swimmie" award, for my guest spot on their show way back in episode 14. You can hear my stammered, half-asleep, yet genuinely grateful acceptance speech in Swimcast episode 59.

The latest chapter in my ongoing quest to prank call reach out to 419 scammers takes place in lovely South Africa, where I lecture an advance-fee fraudster on the evils of Apartheid.