MadMup.com

I take three main roads on my way to work every morning. The first major street I turn onto is two lanes where I start on it, but after a half mile it turns into a four-lane street right before the first stoplight.  When my side splits into two, I immediately get into the left lane. Why? Because in 4.2 miles, I need to make a left turn. It’s so much easier to get into that lane right then at the starting point because no one is in the next lane and it’s a very slight movement of my steering wheel. The way the split is designed, I don’t even need to activate the turn signal. Seven stoplights later, I make my left turn.

I know it doesn’t strictly apply because the road curves and turns, but I frequently think of angles when I initially get in the left line, 4.2 miles ahead of the turn. If two people are walking in parallel lines, and suddenly one of them takes a 5-degree turn and they keep walking, they’ll get farther and farther apart. That little angle turn at the beginning ends up making a huge difference.  I’m a big fan of the “shortest distance between two points is a straight line” maxim.  Even at work, if I’ve got several things I need to attend to, I’ll plan my route to be the shortest way to get to all of them.  I know where I’m headed, so let’s figure out how to get there.

You’d think that would carry over into life. You’d think I’d look twenty years from now and say, “That’s where I want to end up” and make the small angle change now to start me that direction. For some reason, when it’s important, I’m not as easily able to do it.  Eventual left? Make the change now!  Life goal?  Eh… we’ll see what happens. To a certain degree, that can be a good thing. I can be more flexible should something show up.  But it’s not really a plan.

Part of the problem is not knowing what that eventual goal is, I think. I’ve been feeling lately that there’s something out there I should be doing (“should” in the sense of “would be a great fit for”), but I can’t figure out what that is. I’m not sure how you figure that sort of thing out. I feel like once I figure that out, the angle change will come to me.

I’ve been working my way through Star Trek: The Next Generation on Netflix streaming and I’m in the last half of the last season. I thought I had seen most episodes of the show, but I think there’ve been more I haven’t seen.  Regardless, it’s been a great ride and has reawakened my inner Trekkie.  After this, I’m thinking of starting Deep Space 9, because I’ve seen maybe three episodes of that one.

Yesterday I watched an episode that I had seen before, but didn’t remember that well.  It was called “Lower Decks,” and I’ll let the IMDB synopsis tell you about it:

A mission of the Enterprise as seen through some junior officers who are up for promotions, as questions of duty and honor arise among some of them, such as a Bajoran whom Worf has designated to be promoted to operations.

Because I’ve been watching the series in order, I remembered the Bajoran from the previous episode she was on, “The First Duty,” where she (along with Wesley Crusher)  covered up an accident they were involved in.  There’s more, but it’s not important.  You’ll get to that when you watch through the series yourself.

It ended up being one of my favorite episodes in the whole series. Seeing the ship from the viewpoint of people who weren’t the same characters we’ve seen every week was very interesting. The secondary characters circled around a storyline that sort of happened in the background with the main characters, until the end when the storylines sort of became the same.

I’ve said before how much I love the idea of space travel. I love the idea of an Enterprise wandering around at warp speed, checking things out and getting into crazy adventures. I do not, however, love the idea of actually being on the Enterprise.  Aside from the whole “submarine in space” thing, it just seems like living in the place you work is a bad idea. The Enterprise-D has a little over 1,000 people on it, which is fewer than the amount of people at the school where I work. So you see the same people during your 8-hour shift, and then you see those same people in your 16 hours of off-time (minus sleeptime). There’s pretty much just the one hangout place, and Guinan’s there most of the time, so there’s always the danger of her butting in and making you learn some sort of life lesson.

Aside from having to figure out how to keep coming up with small talk in a place where the weather never changes, there’s also the lack of privacy. Anytime the senior officers want to know where you are, they ask the computer and the computer tells them. “Ensign MadMup is hiding behind some crates in Cargo Bay 4. He is playing Angry Birds 4000 on his spacephone.” The kids on the Enterprise can’t play hide-and-seek because the computer ruins everything.

Speaking of kids, what kind of psychotic parent brings their kids on a spaceship whose job it is to seek out new and unexplained phenomena??  “Well, the Crystalline Entity was pretty scary, but I’m sure there’s nothing worse than that.  Now, what’s this ‘Borg’ thing you were talking about?” I don’t know what the Starfleet approximation of Child Services is, but any parent that wants to take their kids on a starship should probably be assumed to be an unfit parent.

How often did the non-major characters even know what was going on, anyway?  The ship’s being torn in half, but I never noticed anyone getting on the intercom and saying, “Hey, we’ve run into some slight quantum turbulence, so buckle in and put your tray tables up.” It really seems like a horrific experience all around.  Sure there’s replicators and holodecks, but Barclay can’t even run a simple holodeck program with the senior officers as inferior-to-him beings without being found out, so what chance does your “I am Superman mixed with Spider-Man on a planet of chocolate” program have of not being used by everybody?

I’m completely in favor of space exploration. When I’m appointed President, I’ll make sure NASA gets a nice budget (and I will share my ideas with them). I just don’t want to be the guy out there in actual space.  Vulcans are totally cool, but I can wait til they come here for a visit.

In October of 1986 I was just a couple of months into being a freshman in high school and I didn’t have any idea who Weird Al Yankovic was.  That didn’t stop him from releasing this album on the 21st day of that month.

This is actually a hard album to write about. There are no really big break-out songs, and the album itself was not received well and didn’t sell very well. I remember reading somewhere that Al wondered if this was it, if he was done.  I’m sure that anyone who has chosen to reflect popular culture as his job would always have in the back of his mind “This can’t last forever.”  I don’t know Al personally, but I can guess this was a difficult time for him.  Of course, 26 years later we can see his fears were unfounded, but at the time I’m sure it wasn’t easy.

9. Toothless People – A parody of the Mick Jagger song, “Ruthless People,” the theme song for a movie by the same name. Never heard of it? I’m not surprised. This song is about people who’ve lost their teeth, whether through age or neglect.

8. Living with a Hernia – A parody of the James Brown song “Living in America,” which was on the Rocky IV soundtrack. I credit this song for fully 90% of my medical knowledge about hernias, including the names of several different types.

7. Dog Eat Dog – A style parody (sometimes called a “pastiche”)  of the Talking Heads. This one’s set in an office and talks about office politics.

6. Here’s Johnny – The third parody based off a song from a movie soundtrack on this album!  This one’s based on the El DeBarge song “Who’s Johnny?” but, as usual, this song supersedes that one. This one pokes a little fun at Johnny Carson’s sidekick Ed McMahon, while at the same time celebrating him.

5. Addicted to Spuds – Also better than the Robert Palmer song it spoofs, mostly because I, too, love potatoes.

4. One of Those Days – A series of unfortunate events befall Al throughout the day, with each next one getting worse and worse. Particularly bad? “I left my Beatles records out in the sun.” …though I guess the bomb being dropped and Nazis tying you up and covering you with ants would also be pretty bad.

3. Good Enough for Now – The following year after I did “One More Minute” for a talent show, I did this one.  I couldn’t find someone to accompany me, so I borrowed a guitar and learned one chord that I randomly strummed at various times throughout the song. This one was not as well received – I think people thought I was talking about a particular person and took it as misogynistic or something.  The chorus goes “You’re sort of everything I ever wanted / You’re not perfect, but I love you anyhow / You’re the woman that I’ve always dreamed of / Well not really, but you’re good enough for now.”

I think I was just ahead of my time, though, because a few years later (when I was overseeing the talent show), a couple of guys did this song again and it went over very well.

2. Polka Party! – If you’re a fan of 80s music, this is the polka for you: Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Madonna, Lionel Richie, Falco, and Tears for Fears. It’s a perfect summation of the decade!

1. Christmas at Ground Zero – You forget just how incredibly dark this song is because it’s sung in such a light and cheerful way. “Everywhere the atom bombs are droppin’ / It’s the end of all humanity / No more time for last-minute shoppin’ / It’s time to face your final destiny.”  It’s pretty grim, and plays on the fears of a generation raised during the Cold War when the threat of nuclear war served as a backdrop to pretty much everything else.  For all its grimness and darkness, though, I absolutely love this one, and I know I’m not alone.

We’re about 30% of the way through, folks! Nine more albums to do – but 10 or 11 if we count side projects and other things!  I don’t know if we’ll handle those, but I can’t imagine not at least mentioning his version of “Peter and the Wolf.”