39 Feels Fine!

This weekend I entered the last year of my 30s.   

I admit to having some issues regarding the whole aging thing.   I  think it is mostly because I enjoy life so much I'm not to crazy about the passing of time.  I'm also not big on maturity, I may be 39 in body but I'm about 19 in my mind.  I think I get sillier and less serious with each passing year, which isn't a bad thing.

I was also lucky to have an absolutely fabulous birthday weekend.    I had a delicious breakfast at Tops Diner Saturday morning  

and then we went to the The New Brusnswick Kennel club dog show to see the Toy Group breeds.  I wore my Mischief Made me 1950s style dog tee since it seemed appropriate for the show.

The pugs and poodles where shown in the afternoon so we missed them.  Though we did see plenty of pugs in pens outside the breeder's RVs.  

  The best part was we got to see the Chihuahuas which is a breed I'm very interested in owning one day and the main reason I attend the show. The Chihuahua breeders and fanciers where lovely and let us attend their meeting, they where all members of the Central NJ Chihuahua club.  They were so kind and gave us lots of information about the breed.   

The accepted show size is  6 lbs and under and the good breeders breed to get dogs in about the 3 to 6 lb range.   So tiny, but some unscrupulous people try for much smaller, crazy!  

The main breeder we met also rescues large dogs and she recommended a dog 4 lbs or bigger for us when the time comes which I agree with.  It was wonderful to see breeders who love their breed so much and are really working to better it.  We also met the most adorable 4 month old puppy.  I was completely in love.

On Sunday we mostly stayed home with the dogs and cat's and I got my birthday present.  49 vintage Star Trek novels John found on ebay!  How awesome is that!

My favorite part was that someone named B.H. had owned some of the books and took notes and recorded ratings.  He or she gave several books 10 ++ ratings so I guess they are good.

I also found these two 1970s school pictures in one of the books, perhaps one of them is the elusive B.H.?  

I'm so pleased 39 is off to a fabulous start!

Leonard Nimoy-Heart Throb

My birthday is right around the corner.

and while I might not love everything about growing older, I do enjoy birthdays.  
One particularly thing I've always liked about my birthday is that I share it with one of the people I most admire, Leonard Nimoy.

I loved Leonard not just for his Mr. Spock role

but for his public profile that was always so kind and generous.  He was patient and appreciative of fans, and I really think used his celebrity status for good.  I really enjoyed reading his autobiography I Am  Spock and learning about his career and life.  It remains one of my favorite books, and certainly my favorite autobiography.   



Despite his ubiquitous link to his Vulcan alter ego,  Leonard had an interesting and varied career that spanned that later half of the 20th century.  One aspect of that career did surprise me somewhat, his 1960s and 70s status as a heart throb.

While it makes perfect sense that Nimoy's nerdy outside character Spock would appeal to angst ridden 1960's teens (see below this touching letter Nimoy wrote to a young fan struggling with her bi-racial heritage, Spock of course was also bi-racial being half Vulcan and half human)

his popularity with female fans comes as something as a surprise, because well,  lets be honest Leonard Nimoy was not exactly handsome. 

Still, from the minute Star Trek appeared on the airwaves in 1966 it was Leonard Nimoy as Spock, rather then the more traditionally handsome William Shatner playing the womanizing Captain Kirk

who got the majority of female fans attention.  Something that Shatner has admitted irked him a bit at the time.

 So surprising was Nimoy's popularity with female fans that none other then famed science fiction author and Star Trek screen writer Issac Assimov wrote an article about the phenomenon.  You can read it here.   It is a great vintage article and dream reading for any vintage loving pop culture geek like myself.  In the article, Assimov explains that his teen daughter finds Mr. Spock "dreamy" and speculates that this is because smart is sexy.  Personally, I think Shatner might have been more on the nose when he said that Spock's appeal lay in his inaccesability and the general human desire to want what we can't have.  Both are probably correct.

Personally, I love both Kirk and Spock, and possibly Kirk a teensy bit more.  I think the character get's less attention then Spock in general and I've always had a thing for the underdog.  Regardless, smart and nerdy is always best in my book.

Spot's New Collar and Third Cross Stitch

Little Spot

Is not so little anymore.  In fact he grew to big for his collar.   I kept finding his grey break away collar around the house and when I went to put it back on him I realized it was a bit tight on his neck, so he was rubbing against thing's to get it off.  (Of course we only use break away collars on our cat's for safety.)  All our cat's are strictly indoor only, but Spot is the only one of the four to show any curiosity about the outside world.   He has gone out the door a few times and of course we always bring him back immediately, but I still feel he must wear a collar in case he escapes.  

15 years ago our now 16 year old cat Baby opened a screen in our Brooklyn basement apartment and was missing a week.  We papered Bay Ridge in fliers and miraculously found her but the experience has made me a maniac about preventing cat escapes.  (Interestingly it has also made Baby terrified of the outside world and she never even goes near the door.)   I never open windows, even with screen's, and I'm very careful about the door.  If a delivery person is coming the cat's get locked in a room.   I'm constantly checking on the cats, particularly, Spot, to make sure they are inside.  So the second I realized Spot's collar wasn't working I knew he needed another one.

Luckily I found a cute larger collar in the adorable etsy shop Furocious Kitty  and bonus!  It's a Star Trek collar, Spot is named after Commander Data's cat on Star Trek The Next Generation:

so this collar is perfect.   Spot and I both love this collar.  He has been wearing it three week's and hasn't tried to get it off yet.  

I love how the retro Star Trek fabric look's against his white fur and the live long and prosper tag is too cute.

I really recommend Furocious Kitty if you are in the market for a cat collar.  They have ton's of collar's with adorable charms in lot's of different themes Holidays, animals, food, etc.  I can already see myself purchasing some Holiday collars.  It's also nice that the shop caters exclusively to cats.  I think that's partly why the collar fits so well.   The collars are very reasonably prices, between $10 and $12, Spot's collar was $10 and the seller was very nice about answering my questions.  

In other news I finished my third geeky cross stitch.  This one is Fry and Leela from Futurama and I'm really happy with how it came out.   

I'm working on Twin Peak's themed cross stitch next.  

Weasley's Crush on Wesley Crusher from Pug Notes

Just in time for Valentine's Day Weasley is breaking out one of his Christmas gifts.  A Star Trek The Next Generation Wesley Crusher inspired sweater by pug notes.

Now all he needs is a Valentine to send to Wesley:

 

Spot's Star Trek Cross Stitch

From what I've seen on the web most vintage ladies, and even dog moms, are incredibly crafty.  Not me, I've failed at knitting and crocheting and can't even sew on a button, but I think I've finally found the craft for me.  Something so simple and basic that a six year can do it well, which means I can do it ok:

Cross stitch.

  I decided to give it a try whenI saw that there where lots of geeky sci-fi and fantasy patterns available on Etsy.  I started with a really simple Star Trek The Next Generation inspired pattern from the etsy shop  Quote Stitching.    This pattern was perfect because it referenced my beloved Spot, who I named after the cat belonging to the Android Science Officer Data on Star Trek The Next Generation.

In one of my favorite Data/Spot moments Data explains to one of his friend that Spot is a feline and not a canine and thus does not respond to verbal commands.  

(This might not be true of all felines, but it seems to be true of mine.)

It took me about 2 days of stitching in the evenings while watching TV to finish my project and I'm pleased with my results.

I bought the threads and supplies at  Everything Cross Stitch which I found very reasonably priced with a huge selection and cheap shipping.

I tried to take Spot's picture next to the finished cross stitch but you know he doesn't respond to verbal commands.  So here is a picture of him playing on his cat tree instead.

I'm really happy to have found a craft simple enough for me to do while I watch TV.  I've started my next one, A Super Natural inspired pattern.

Product Review: Geeky Bandannas from Electrolucy

It's taking me a while to get around to writing this post, and not because I don't love the products I'm reviewing but just due to be being busy.  I ordered 3 bandanas from Electrolucy back in September for Fry's second birthday.  

I found the shop while doing a search for two of my favorite things on etsy Star Trek and dogs.   Electrolucy makes awesome geeky dog bandannas and collars with themes such as Harry Potter, Dr. Who, Star Wars, Sherlock Holmes and of course, Star Trek.  I ordered three Star Trek themed bandannas.


A Star Trek Dr. McCoy themed bandanna:

A Star Trek The Next Generation Wesley Crusher Bandanna:

A tribble themed bandanna:

The bandannas are all made of nice sturdy double sided fabric, with the design and wording stitched on. and a tie around the neck,.   I really like the neck ties as I find them quicker and easier to take on and off then bandannas that slide  over a collar.  Each bandanna comes in sizes small, medium, and large and retails for ten to 14 dollars, depending on size.     I ordered smalls and found them to be generously sized for the pugs, and perhaps a smidge to large on Tuvok.  

These bandannas are too cute and I definitely recommend checking out Electrolucy.

Cinema Spotlight on The Weirdest and Worst Holiday Special of All Time-The Star Wars Christmas Special

Anyone who reads this blog knows what a devoted trekkie I am:

 

                                                           

 

 

On the other hand, I've never been much of a Star Wars fan.  I appreciated the original movies as fun, goofy, block busters but I never saw them as particularly great.  However, I have recently begun to enjoy Star Wars a bit more, I liked the Force Awakens a lot, and I loved Rogue One.  So maybe I've been seduced by the dark side a bit, and I even bought this:

40 hours of extras!  I mean what the hell could be on this thing.

Still Star Wars will never hold a candle to Trek for me and my absolute favorite thing in the Star Wars oeuvre is something that most people have either never heard of, or would rather forget.  The Holiday Special

It aired in November of 1978 after the first movie had become a mega-hit and it is incredibly weird and awful.  I pride myself on being a connoisseur of so bad there good, as in funny, movies and I'm a devoted fan of the make fun of bad movies show MST3K and its later incarnation Rifftrax, still the Star Wars special threw me through a loop.  Even after a life time spent watching bad movies, the weirdness of this one comes as a shock. 

The basic premise of the special, if you can go so far as to say that it has one, is that Chewy the Wookie is trying to get home to his family to celebrate the big Wookie Holiday Life Day 

Obviously it is a mistake to focus a television special on characters that communicate by grunting.  Never the less the producers of The Star Wars Holiday special did just this, at least half of the special is Chewy's family grunting at each other.

  At some point CBS must have realized they couldn't get by on grunted conversations alone and they threw in some guest stars of the kitschiest caliber and created a sort of variety hour.   Art Carney appears as the Wookie neighbor

 Bea Arthur sings in an alien bar

and  Disco Star Dihann Carol appears as some sort of virtual reality entertainment of a rather mature sort :

 The whole thing culmintates in the Wookies donning rather creepy red robes for Life Day and walking off into the stars while Princess Leia sings the Life Day song:

The special is so bad that it remained virtually hidden for years with George Lucas trying to bury it and erase it from the collective conscious.   It was never re-aired and never released, but it couldn't be destroyed and with the release of the Force Awakens the Holiday special crawled out of the wood work.  It can be seen on you tube as can all of the wonderful 1970s commercials:

   but if you are going to watch it, and I strongly recommend that you do because it is hilarious, you really need to see the Rifftrax version.  

It's just so bad and so weird that I'm afraid without the riffing it would be unwatchable, but with the riffing it may well be the funniest Holiday movie ever

Happy Life Day!