October 30, 2026
The acclaimed, award-winning star of stage and screen has died at the age of 86 after ‘a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia’. He leaves behind celebrated roles in Star Trek and X-Men as well as a long career in theatre
Sir Pat apparently suffered from Alzheimer’s as well as Lewy Body Dementia…in private.
He leaves a legacy.
August 28, 2026
Lunar eclipses occur when Earth moves between the sun and the moon and its shadow is cast on to the lunar surface. In Thursday night’s event 96% of the moon will be darkened by the Earth’s shadow at its peak moment. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/aug/27/lunar-eclipse-north-south-america
WordPress has gotten really wonky with the “quotation” formatting, so I hope this one works…
Anyway, I will of course still blog about science in addition to family history and other things I find interesting.
Remembering when I took a writing workshop online a few years ago, and they told me to choose only one genre in order to not confuse readers.
And I still think, nah. I think readers are smart enough to enjoy good writing when they see it. To me, the mark of a good writer is one who can wend and weave between multiple genres. Why limit yourself?
If you don’t like science writing, fine. If you don’t like history, fine. If you don’t like science fiction, fine. If you don’t like random thoughts about life, the universe, and everything…well, then, what on earth are you doing reading my blog? :p
Anyway, enjoy the eclipse if you are able to see it. I’ll keep on writing!
(Also, I really don’t care for this “AI can monetize your blog” BS. I’m not doing this for money. I just like to write. I hope you like reading it!)
April 7, 2026
“It is blowing my mind what you can see with the naked eye from the moon right now,” Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen radioed ahead of the flyby. “It is just unbelievable.”
Just like Apollo 8 in 1968.
History does not repeat, but it sure does rhyme.
August 8, 2025
- This group comprises millions of individuals who are deeply interested in our space programme
- The name “Enterprise” is tied in with the system on which the Nation’s economic structure is built.
- Use of the name would provide a substantial human interest appeal to the rollout ceremonies scheduled for this month in California, where the aeronautical industry is of vital importance.
It is really too bad that the shuttle looked nothing at all like the Enterprise (Constitution class).
And an odd coincidence that the original name chosen by NASA was…
…Constitution…
February 21, 2025
Hi, everyone. I know I haven’t posted in a while now (about three months).
Things happened. I’ll see if I can deal with that in a post this weekend before returning to regularly blogging about astronomy and etc.
Winter is still here! (In the northern hemisphere.) Going on walks and hiking in 3C windy weather only makes hot chocolate taste that much better…
☕️
November 23, 2024
What book are you reading right now?
I finished re-reading all my Usagi Yojimbo books a couple weeks ago (I’m a big Stan Sakai fan), so I got the thought that I should read his inspiration, Musashi (Sakai’s main character is an anthropomorphic bunny named Miyamoto Usagi).
While I was reading Musashi, I also started a Japanese manga series about classic literature from 600 CE to the 20th century. I’m on the first volume of 今昔物語 (Konjyaku Monogatari, usually translated as “Tales of Times Long Past”).
Last week, I began reading volume one of The Arabian Nights (also called Tales of 1001 Nights). This is a more recent (2008) translation of the entire tales, not just a sampling of the more famous stories (e.g., Aladdin, Sindbad, Ali Baba etc.). It’s likely to take me, uh…1001 nights?
Tales within tales within tales…
September 2, 2024
Haven’t posted anything in about five or six weeks. Sorry!
I was going to initially post something about the Boeing crew that got stranded on the ISS, but NASA kept delaying their decision to use SpaceX. It was a given that they’d have no choice.
Boeing, quite obviously, cannot be trusted to spend millions of taxpayer’s dollars and make a proper spacecraft.
Anyway, I’ll start posting something more interesting soon.
In the meantime, here’s a Star Trek TOS selfie by Catwoman. I mean Lee Meriwether. (S3:14, That Which Survives)
May 8, 2024
What was the last live performance you saw?
Last live performance of what?
I saw a baseball game last September. That was live. Does that count?
Oh. Do you mean “live” in the Japanese sense, i.e., a live performance by a musical artist?
As in a live concert?
At a club?
Or just that the musicians were alive and actually wrote their own music and played their own instruments rather than danced around and lip-synced?
Yes. I am a snarky Gen-Xer. Wave the flannel.
(FWIW I think the last live musical performance I’ve seen was in a Japanese club in Osaka around 2000 or 2001, and before that in mid-1999 in a club somewhere in Boston. It’s hard to get out when you have a family and need to actually go to work in the morning.)
May 1, 2024
Do you have a quote you live your life by or think of often?
I don’t think I “live my life” by a quote (too busy surviving), but I do think a lot about:
“Keep on keeping on.”
“Keep on trucking.”
“何とかなる (nantoka naru – “it’ll work out”)
“Das lassen sein (let it be)”
But also oddly:
“Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!”
April 16, 2024
In BRINGER OF LIGHT, M. Thomas Apple crafts a satisfyingly complex future where mankind has moved off Earth but must fight and struggle against the harsh realities of physics—and each other—in order to survive.
https://indiereader.com/book_review/bringer-of-light/
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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