I’m sure something will come along that will make me grumble, and eventually give rise to more frequent posts. Want to help? Comment with something that pisses you off, and if it’s also something that pisses me off, I might just be able to flesh it out into a full post. Everybody wins!

I’ve been heavily invested in the genre ever since childhood, and I place 99% of the blame for this on my old man. (The other 1% was my natural childhood fascination with all things scientific.) You see, my father read a lot of science fiction novels when he was growing up, and when I was a kid, I rifled though his endless boxes of them. It was here that I learned about all of the classic science fiction writers. Science fiction television and film may be great, but anyone worth their salt knows that the absolute best in science fiction is always found in book form. (And given my disappointment with recent science fiction television, I’ve been delving even more into books lately.)

If it was in those boxes, I read it. I’m sure I’m forgetting quite a few, but just to rattle off some names: Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Poul Anderson, James P. Hogan, Robert Heinlein, Philip K. Dick, Arthur C. Clarke, Frederick Pohl, Ursula K. LeGuin, Larry Niven, Cordwainer Smith, Clifford D. Simak…seriously, just pick a legendary science fiction author, and I can guarantee that I’ve read at least a few of their books thanks to my father’s collection and the local libraries. My father was also responsible for introducing me to the Dune saga, and I’ve been [Maker] hooked ever since. My home library of Frank Herbert’s works now spans an entire shelf!

I’m telling you, I filled my head to the brim with that stuff, especially hard science fiction. It was so chock-full, it’s a wonder I was able to process other more important items, like schoolwork, eating, and breathing. Even my favorite comic book characters, like Green Lantern, Iron Man, Firestorm, and Adam Strange are all completely based in the realm of science fiction! When I was a kid, no one else was into the genre, but that didn’t really register; in retrospect, I suppose it made sense that the other kids were more interested in sports and video games than a bunch of dusty old books.

I’ve kept up on my passion for science fiction throughout my entire life. I enjoy a wide variety of science fiction television, film, and other media. I’ve also gotten into the “new breed” of science fiction writers over the years, like Neal Stephenson and Timothy Zahn, as well as picking up novels by classic authors that I missed, such as E. E. “Doc” Smith’s Lensman series and the works of Richard Matheson.

Nowadays, science fiction is arguably more popular then ever, primarily in the film and television realms. Regardless, I find myself standing apart from my peers when it comes to the span of my familiarity with the genre. This is not a holier-than-thou proclamation, simply a statement of fact. I’ve just noticed that most of my peers aren’t into science fiction to begin with, and the ones that do enjoy the genre rarely (if ever) explore the breadth of the material out there, especially its written form. (The latter certainly isn’t their fault, as most people don’t read for pleasure these days as it is!) This unfamiliarity can be personally frustrating, as when I try to have engage in conversation about much of this stuff, I get blank stares.

I don’t understand why someone would refer to themselves as a fan of a genre when they have very little experience with it, or sometimes refuse to experience anything but a few small pieces. To use a non-fandom example, it would be like someone who’s read a medical textbook calling themselves a doctor. Now, this is different than being a fan of a specific property within a genre, or even a subgenre. There’s fans of the Star Trek film that came out last year, but who do not consider themselves fans of the Star Trek franchise in general. I’m also not trying to say that any self-proclaimed science fiction should check out and enjoy every new bit of genre material that comes along, either. We all know that like any other genre of fiction, there’s an extreme amount of absolute shit when it comes to science fiction.

Obviously, other hardcore science fiction fans do exist out there, and the Internet would provide the best way to connect with them. However, as with most things, I’m very reluctant to join Internet forums and the like devoted to science fiction. Intelligent discussion I can handle; fanboyism and nerd debates I can not. As we know, that’s what a majority of message board topics devolve into, so I tend to stay the hell out. Another idea would be science fiction conventions, but those can be very scary places. There’s not much left after that, but I’ve gotten along just fine so far, so I’ll just have continue forging the path alone.

Let me use myself as a guinea pig here. I’ve long ignored social expectations, as I simply don’t think my personal life should be defined by the masses. At the end of the week, I’m ready to unwind just as much as the next person. However, I never feel compelled to attend a social gathering in order to do so; there’s loads of ways in which I can relax without falling into a strict social expectation. If I want to go out to some event I’m interested in, I will; if not, who cares? I suppose I’d be admonished as a “nerd” if I chill out on the couch and watch Caprica on a Friday evening (and before that, it was Battlestar Galactica), but after a long week of work, studying, juggling chores, and going to the gym, relaxing with some intellectually stimulating media is perfect downtime. Why should I go out and shout to be heard over the mindless drivel at some crowded bar, just because that’s what society or “most people” say I’m “supposed” to do with a weekend? (The fact that I don’t drink also factors into it, but that’s not the primary point.) I get out plenty as it is, but that’s only at a time and place of my choosing, not that of the rest of the population.

Aside from being stupid, that lemming-like socially dictated behavior that far too many people subscribe to is counterproductive. Relaxing is all about doing what you want to do in order to wind down, not what other people demand. If you’re acceding to others’ wishes, then you’re subconsciously stressing, which in turn invalidates the entire idea! Believe me, I’ve known many an introvert who is a far more capable human being than these weekend warriors.

While numerous versions of the tale exist, today we’ll be examining the version commonly seen in book form, retold by “Rowdy” Watty Piper. (That’s not even a real person, mind you; it’s just a pseudonym used by the publisher, Platt & Munk.) Even more specifically, we’re using the 1976 Golden Anniversary Edition, with illustrations by Ruth Sanderson.

(When I was a little kid, I had the 1961 edition with illustrations by George and Doris Hauman, but that’s been lost to the sands of time. I even had a 45rpm record of the story, and who the hell knows what happened to that thing.)

Anyway…all aboard!

The story begins as a train filled with toys, games, snacks, and other goodies is heading towards town. Once there, its cargo will be distributed to the local children. Being a children’s story, of course, all of the toys as well as the train’s locomotive are sentient beings, which is downright creepy. And yes…there are clowns. Seriously, check out this creepy little bastard!

You know he’s plotting to knife some kid in their sleep, or drag them down into the sewers below Derry, Maine. But let’s get back to the story. Unfortunately, their red 4-4-0 steam locomotive breaks down right before the last mountain she needs to scale. The dolls, clowns, and other toys can’t repair the broken locomotive themselves, so they have no choice but to hang out and wait for another engine to come along so they can beg it to take them over the mountain. Did it ever occur to them to just send someone back along the train’s route to find help? What if another engine never came along?

Well, their luck holds out, as a Shiny New Engine comes along shortly. While the front end of this locomotive looks like a GG1, it’s got loads of small driving wheels with connecting rods. It’s clearly a steam engine, but of indeterminate type. Anyway, the toys ask the engine for help, and it declares that it’s a Passenger Engine that only takes important adults from place to place. It couldn’t possibly demote itself to pulling a bunch of toys and kids’ stuff! The Passenger Engine takes off, leaving the saddened toys by the rails. What a dick.

After being spurned by the Passenger Engine, the group’s next chance at assistance is a Big Strong Engine. This one’s a 2-6-0 steam locomotive, and he rumbles that he’s a Freight Engine. His job is to haul big machines and printing presses to town, so that adults will have their morning papers and other such necessities. Like the Passenger Engine before him, the Freight Engine also tells the toys to fuck off.

It should be noted that each of the engines that came down the tracks did so alone. This is practically unheard of on a railroad! Sending out a locomotive without any trailing cars is a colossal waste of resources. The only time a locomotive goes without cargo is if it’s in need of serious repair, and even then, it’s always got another locomotive pushing or pulling it. Which makes the tale of the next candidate all the more depressing.

Things aren’t looking good for our group of kids’ playthings. Then, along comes a Rusty Old Engine. An antique 4-4-0 steam engine, this poor bastard’s all alone, too, and he’s lucky to squeak his way down the rails. When begged for help, he says that he can barely get back to his roundhouse for repairs, and he sadly trundles off, leaving the toys in an even deeper state of despair. Cripes, why don’t you make the old goat feel bad about it? Unlike the other two douchebag engines, at least this guy’s not being arrogant. Far from it; he’s fully accepting of his own physical limitations. Still, it’s implied that he’s just yet another engine that won’t do the job, and we should pity the toy train more than him! Is this the level of disrespect we should feel towards our elders?!

Ahem. At long last, a small blue 4-2-4 steam locomotive comes down the tracks. She’s a switcher used at the local yard to assemble trains that bigger engines will take on their way, and hardly the type used to haul cargo over long distances. Still, the toys are desperate, and she agrees to the job, repeating her mantra of “I think I can.” The mountain grade is rough, and the little blue engine strains to her limits. Against all odds, she manages to pull the train over the top of the mountain, and the delivery is made to the waiting children in town.

Happy ending, right? But…whatever happened to the original locomotive that pulled the train? The toys didn’t even bother to send for help, or ask any of the other locomotives to ask for assistance once they got where they were going. They just left their original engine to rot! Disloyal little fuckers, aren’t they? No wonder the Passenger Engine and Freight Engine brushed ‘em off. Perhaps the toys’ reputation preceded them.

As you can see, while the tale of will versus adversity is prevalent, The Little Engine That Could still has a seedy underbelly. The other engines seemed like assholes, but the laziness of the toys is just as clear, and given their ignorance of the original engine, I can hardly blame the other engines’ actions. I doubt they’d want to be worked to death then left behind, either. I pity the little blue engine…she’s in for a rough life, if the fate of the red engine is any indication.

Now, this post is not meant to claim that my friend is somehow an elitist for placing one group of geeks below another; her “lower-caste” term was clearly meant as a joke, as she was just fishing for a funny term to describe the crowd. (She’s a comic book cosplay nerd herself, so she didn’t really “fit in” with most of the other patrons.) Instead, I want to examine an interesting trend that’s been growing exponentially in geek circles over the past decade: subdivision of the overall geek crowd into smaller groups (a caste system, if you will), the game of one-upmanship that accompanies this behavior, and the absolute irony of the entire process.

Heated debates between geeks is nothing new; you could trace ‘em all the way back to Star Trek versus Star Wars arguments in the late 1970s, and I’m sure there were Flash Gordon diehards who disliked John Carter of Mars even further back. However, what bound everyone together was their love of the source material, and in the end, that was all that was important. In recent years, that common bond has been eroding, and the geeks have no one to blame but themselves.

With growing frequency, geeks are cramming one another into a caste system of their own making. My friend’s joke nonwithstanding, this is a very real and serious situation: geeks in one group are demonizing the other, but not out of the good-natured rivalry seen in the past. Geek subcultures literally hate each other now, and often consider certain groups “beneath” them as far as the nerdy social strata are concerned.

This is the colossal irony I spoke of. Geeks and nerds have always complained that they’re a misunderstood and maligned social group, shunned by the rest of the world. Well, look at what they’re doing with this caste system: the exact same thing! So, not only are they maligned as a whole, they’re actively pushing some of their own peers even lower down the social scale, making the entire problem even worse. How fucked up is that?

The Internet has certainly contributed to the caste system in a big way; just as it has brought nerds together, it also drives mountainous wedges between them. Case and point: video game console flame wars, which have gotten far uglier than even the famous Sega and Nintendo rivalry in the early 1990s. Now, we’ve got entire sites and forums devoted to elevating one nerdy hobby while bashing another. All this truly accomplishes is making geeks look even worse in the eyes of everyone else!

I’ve always been of the mind that you shouldn’t hate an entire group; just specific people inside said group that personally piss you off. For example, I can’t stand all of that Twilight shit, and I think the fan fervor over it is incredibly annoying…but I have friends who are into it, and I’d never consider myself “better” than them as a result.

Having said that, if a Twilight diehard nearly knocks me down at the bookstore in their frenzy to score yet another generic young adult novel, they’re going to get an earful of rage.

Nowhere is this behavior more prevalent than in comic book fandom. Legions of message boards and websites are devoted to spoiling upcoming issues and plots, weeks (and sometimes months) before their release. In fact, I’d wager that the amount of comic book nerds hunting for spoilers far surpasses those who do not. Which of course begs the logical question: if you’re going to rabidly seek out spoilers, then why bother even reading comics in the first place? You’re obviously not that interested in experiencing the story from month to month, as was intended.

It’s been pointed out to me that some spoilers are “impossible” to avoid, such as those printed in the monthly PREVIEWS catalog put out by Diamond Comic Distributors. Is this catalog full of spoilers? Absolutely. But there’s a legitimate reason for this: the PREVIEWS catalog is an advance order book designed for comic book shop owners so that they know how many of a particular book or other piece of merchandise to order. However, you don’t have to dig through it for spoilers! In fact, I skip past the entirety of the comics listings in the catalog for that exact reason. So don’t tell me that those spoilers are a given; you can avoid them just as easily as I can. The closest we come to “impossible” spoilers are when something’s printed on PREVIEWS‘ cover. For example, the villain behind DC Comics’ Blackest Night crossover was spoiled a few months in advance of his in-series appearance due to a PREVIEWS cover promo, but the few readers that complained about it were drowned out by the rabid cheers of fanboys.

I’m sure the ending of stories like Blackest Night are already well known amongst the basement-dwellers, even though the final issue isn’t due out until the end of March. I’m perfectly comfortable waiting until then; I don’t know why so many of these losers just can’t learn simple patience.

(Note: This entry is crossposted to The Indigo Tribe.)

It reminds me of another groundbreaking television program, where bits and pieces of mysteries running throughout the show were presented as episodes went by, all leading up to some grand conclusion that promised to explain everything. That show was the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica. (SPOILERS AHEAD! Do not read any further if you haven’t finished watching the entire series!)

It’s been almost a year now since the BSG series finale, and during that time, I’ve come to realize something very important:

I was wrong.

The two-part ending, “Daybreak,” shocked me just like every other fan, for better or for worse. I decided at the time that while it wasn’t perfect, it was still a great ending. In retrospect, I was definitely viewing the finale through rose-tinted glasses due to my love for the show. I’ve had this problem before, as I’m only human. I made the same mistake with the 2007 Transformers film and Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. I liked them at first, but only later did I realize how crappy they really were! This change of heart sadly applies to the BSG finale, as well.

I had written up a big post defending “Daybreak” late last summer, but I think that was just a kneejerk reaction, or worse, a subconscious way of trying to justify my own thoughts and feelings on the matter. Articles and reviews I’ve read since then have completely deconstructed every feeble defense I had thought up. I’ve had no choice but to accept the superior and correct logic of those articles, and I have actually removed my original post; that’s something I almost never do. I may sound like an asshole on this blog, but I still have to admit when I’m wrong! Besides, that post made me sound like a mindless fanboy (you know how I hate that), and quite frankly, it was embarrassing.

So…why was I wrong about the BSG finale? Aside from problems within the final episode (which I’ll get into momentarily), another issue was the fact that I considered BSG to be the best science fiction television program ever made. As such, I had built it up to lofty heights within my mind; most other fans had done the same thing. From there, the only logical place was down; we just didn’t realize at the time how far it could’ve fallen. I have no one to blame but myself on this particular point.

On to the problems with “Daybreak” itself. The finale started out great, but in the last hour, the whole thing fell apart like a house of cards. It was revealed that everything that had transpired in BSG all boiled down to one thing: “God did it.” Now, that may seem like I’m painting the series with a broad brush, but “God did it” has become the commonly accepted description of what happened, and sadly, it’s accurate. BSG’s finale was a deus ex machina in a very literal sense! (Note: BSG’s God is clearly not any god or gods found in our real-life religions; it’s just been referred to within the show as “God” for simplicity’s sake, I’m assuming.)

During the decisive battle aboard the Cylon Colony, we discover that all of the prophecies and visions experienced by various humans and Cylons alike have led up to the scene where the Final Five are standing above Galactica’s bridge. That’s fine and dandy, and made for one hell of a powerful piece of cinematography…until it was revealed that God had put these visions in the characters’ heads, and directed all of the humans’ and Cylons’ paths throughout their journey. Did the characters act according to their own free will? Not according to “Daybreak.” If the characters truly had free will, then the events of the finale would have been impossible. In fact, in order for those events to unfold as we saw them, God must’ve been pulling the strings behind virtually every single event during the series to make things happen according to its grand plan, including the Fall of the Twelve Colonies! (Former EFF chairman Brad Templeton wrote up a list of events that required divine intervention in order for the series to proceed; there’s an astounding number of them.) This, far and away, is the finale’s biggest flaw, as it casts aside all of BSG’s drama, mystery, and tension on the whims of a deity.

A perfect example of this is the case of Kara Thrace (aka Starbuck). She committed suicide during the third season, but mysteriously reappeared alive and well at the end of that season. We knew something brought her back, but we didn’t know what, or how; it was another enthralling mystery to add to the pile. Well, it turns out she was then resurrected by God to bring the humans and rebel Cylons to the new Earth, and shortly after she got there, she just vanished. That’s nothing but a cop-out, and this particular plot point is one I’ve always had a problem with. (I honestly think the writers just didn’t know how to resolve her storyline anymore.) Plus, the fact that she was unwittingly trained by God since childhood through the Music, the paintings of the Eye of Jupiter, and so on simply to punch in the coordinates to Earth at a very specific time just ended up being silly.

I realize that some fans might want to fall back on the old science fiction cliché that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. If you go that route, God and its “angels” (the visions of Six and Baltar) are easily classified as a technologically superior alien race that’s been helping the humans and Cylons for unknown reasons. (BSG writer and fourth season co-executive producer Jane Espenson believes this is the case.) Even with this explanation, though, you’re stuck with same problem as “God did it”: the characters aren’t the driving point behind the show anymore, as their actions are subject to whatever entity is secretly controlling them and orchestrating every event.

“Daybreak” also stretched some concepts beyond the realm of plausibility, even for a science fiction show. Case and point: the thirty-thousand or so remaining humans decided to give up all technology and live on their new Earth. Perhaps some of them would’ve gone for it, since they’d been living inside cramped spaceships for so long; but I’d venture that most of them would not. They had no problem building a small town using their existing technology on New Caprica, and I don’t see any reason why they would’ve changed their minds months later. Would the last remnants of the human race really ditch their medicine and supplies in favor of hunting and gathering, which they had no idea how to go about doing? I don’t think so. If the refugees had decided to keep their technology and form their own secluded city, that would’ve made more sense…especially if said city came to be known as Atlantis. (Since there was a battlestar named Atlantia in the BSG miniseries, the name isn’t without precedent.)

Let’s get back to the “God did it” problem. The whole mess could very easily have been avoided: just don’t mention “God” at all during the ending! Leave the characters’ visions and such unexplained, while keeping everything else intact. The humans and Cylons find the new Earth, as was expected, but as to why the prophecies came true…leave that up to the imagination. BSG’s strength was its characters, and I don’t think that these unsolved mysteries wouldn’t detract from that. Sure, such an ending might’ve pissed off a lot of fans, but not as many as the actual ending did.

If you must explain the visions and prophecies, then perhaps since the Colonial humans clearly evolved on a world that’s not our own, some of them could havve evolved enhanced mental abilities. Characters with clairvoyant “powers” are not uncommon in science fiction, and such a thing certainly wouldn’t have been out of place here. Kara Thrace’s resurrection is still a stick in the mud, but I don’t think there was any getting around that, as I mentioned earlier.

Even Six and Baltar’s visions of angels could be explained logically; since both characters carried such a tremendous weight of guilt over their deeds, it would’ve been perfectly understandable if the angels were just hallucinations, their consciences made manifest. (That’s what most fans thought they were up until the finale, anyway.)

Last but not least…there’s another tried-and-true method of explaining away knowledge of future events: time travel. At some point in the future, the humans, Cylons, or their descendants find a way to warn their ancestors about what happened, hence “all of this has happened before, and will happen again.” The obvious problem with this explanation is that time travel has been absolutely beaten to death within science fiction over the past few decades. It would’ve been nearly as bad as “God did it.”

The problems found in “Daybreak” may affect the BSG prequel series Caprica, but so far, we haven’t seen any direct evidence of this. Religion is part of Caprica’s plot much as it was in BSG, but as long we don’t discover that Zoe Graystone’s avatar only works because God said so, I think the show will stand well enough on its own. We know that God is pulling the strings and controlling everyone behind the scenes due to “Daybreak,” but since we don’t know specifically what’s going to happen with the new characters we’ve seen, there’s still some room for mystery.

Furthermore, none of the God stuff was part of the plot in The Plan, the direct-to-video BSG film released last fall. (In fact, I don’t recall God being mentioned at all, except for John Cavil’s sarcastic remarks.) The result? The Plan was a good story in its own right that perfectly weaved in and out of the first two seasons of BSG.

Okay, I’m done. Please don’t see this as a “Fuck Battlestar Galactica!” post. I still consider it a good science fiction television show; I just hated the ending. Sure, the acting, special effects, music, and cinematography were all top-notch; I just don’t particularly enjoy the way series creator Ron Moore and crew went about it sloppily resolving the show’s mysteries, and retconning the entire series as a result. (You know how much I fucking hate retcons.) I was so caught up in the hype that I couldn’t accept this until recently, and I feel like a fool.

Now that you’ve read my take on the BSG finale, I suggest you check out the following articles. Don’t just brush them off; they make logical arguments that you really can’t ignore.

• Battlestar’s “Daybreak,” the worst ending in the history of on-screen science fiction, by Brad Templeton. I know the title of his post sounds overly harsh, but trust me, it’s worth reading. Templeton delves very deeply into the “God did it” problem, as well as many glaring scientific problems present in the finale. (This is the same author of the list I spoke about earlier in this post.)

• In God We Rust: Final Thoughts on Battlestar Galactica, by Robert Bland. An excellent examination of how BSG radically switched from being a character story into an idea story, and why that switch didn’t work.
• As Battlestar Ends, God is in the Details, by Annalee Newitz. Here’s a more positive spin on the ending, including mention of the technology/magic cliché.
• Not in Our Stars: The Betrayals of the Battlestar Galactica Finale, by Sam J. Miller. The author takes issue with such a generic happy ending to a series that never worked that way.
• It is finished: Battlestar Galactica: “Daybreak” – Part 2, by Norm Doering. The author speaks about the finale’s transhumanist failings and the “philosophy of ignorance.”

I just hope Lost has a better conclusion than BSG did…I swear, if the Island is God or some other such nonsense, I’m going to throw up.

Wondering what brought this post on? A week and a half ago, I covered an Epica show for Musician Photo Journal. (You can read my review of the show here, and my interview with Epica founder/guitarist Mark Jansen here.) After the show, I hit the merchandise table to buy a few Epica CDs I was missing. One of them was their second full-length album, Consign to Oblivion. The other was The Classical Conspiracy, a double live album featuring the band playing classical tunes as well as their own, backed by a forty-member orchestra and thirty-member choir. It’s the latter album that sparked this post.

Don’t get me wrong, the music on the album is nothing short of stunning; Epica’s renditions of classical pieces is amazing, and the full orchestra providing accompaniment to their own compositions is a natural fit. The first disc is just perfect; each track flows into the next without pause.

The second disc, however, has those dreaded gaps. So, in the midst of the crowd cheering between songs, there’s a cut to two seconds of silence, then back to the crowd. It completely destroys the illusion that you’re attending a live performance, which is the entire point of a live album!

Do I blame the band for this? Of course not. Nor do I blame the record label. The fault almost certainly lies with the hardware used to mass produce the CDs at the factory; perhaps a setting was toggled incorrectly, or an older machine was used to write them. Whatever the cause, it’s still irritating. I’ve used iTunes to ignore those last two seconds, but it’s not seamless; the gaps in the CD are like a kick in the ear every time.

Quality control, people, quality control!

For example, I was once grumbling about a crappy opening band at a metal show, and some bystander told me, “When you put out an album and go on a tour, then you can criticize them.” Or, in the middle of one of my anti-Buffy tirades, I was told that Joss Whedon must’ve done something right, since he’s had multiple television programs, and I do not, so I should shut up.

There’s clearly a case of the straw man argument at work here: I’m criticizing the creator’s work, not their fame. One’s success is not directly determined by the work itself; it’s determined based on the amount of people that enjoy it. Therefore, if you’re not specifically criticizing their success, then claiming immunity based on that is completely irrelevant to the discussion! If I was complaining about their fame, then my detractors would have been correct in calling me out, as I have no experience with being famous. (Nor would I want any!)

The closest I get to complaining about fame and success is when I see people like those idiots on Jersey Shore elevated into the upper echelons of “cool” society. Even then, I’m not complaining that they’re famous; I’m complaining that so many people in this country are so brain-dead that they watch the show and increase its popularity. The cast’s fame is just a side effect of that.

This kind of critical immunity nonsense is right up there with “You shouldn’t criticize the president, because he’s the president.” Legitimate criticism is always welcome, no matter who (or what) the target is.

If that wasn’t annoying enough, it gets worse. Aside from forgetting social events and such, my recollection of useful skills is fading. This, also, could be considered normal; if you don’t practice something, you’re naturally going to lose it over time. Still, I’m worried that I’m losing critical life skills. For example, anything above basic math has escaped me. I took years of algebra, trigonometry, pre-cal, and calculus…all gone now. I may not need calculus for my job now, but who knows what the future may hold?

My biggest concern is that I think the process is accelerating faster than normal. It seems like more and more stuff is dropping out of my brain pan with each passing month. People have to remind me of stuff I used to talk about a lot, and I feel like a complete idiot as a result. Cripes, if I’m having this much fun now, imagine what it’ll be like once senility hits in a few decades.