Sometimes, when I am reading about a novel that is mostly about spaceships firing projectiles at each other at near relativistic speeds (and I'm mostly thinking of David Weber here), I wonder if some sort of coin-flipping/dice-rolling was engaged in on the part of the author to decide the gender/ethnicity/etc of the various characters in their equal-opportunity space navy.

I am using the coin flip method to determine gender. With the exception of the Captain, who was predetermined to be a lady.

On a side note, looking at the Wikipedia entry for David Weber was the first time I've seen a picture of the man - or should I say, man-mountain. Seriously, it looks like he could punch my head off without getting too worked up about it.

--Geoff

Well, today is the first comic of our third year of doing the ole FtG. It's also the first day of a new presidency over here in the ole United States, which is perhaps a slightly more historically significant event...

I also find it oddly comforting to think that, in 700 years, on some spaceship far, far from here, some bored helmsman might very well be playing Pong to pass the time... It is actually the sort of thought that resigns me, to some degree, to my own mortality...

- Count Dolby von Luckner

Archival Bits of Note:
- The First Comic of Our First Year
- The First Comic of Our Second year

So, there it is: Obtain New President: Quest Complete! Now, let's DO something. Find something that you do well, and find a way to help people with it. Love animals? Take two hours - four sitcoms worth of time - and volunteer at an animal shelter. Good at helping your kids with their homework? Go down to the local family aid society and help THOSE kids with their homework every once in a while. Good with tools? Knock on your neighbors' doors, ask them if they need help with something. We are SO good in this country at pretending that we don't need each other, in priding ourselves in our self-reliant independence from each other - and that served us well for a long time. But that time is over.

We have this tremendous amount of natural ability and talent that gets employed when it is paid for, and then gets tucked under the bed while we enjoy the small entertainments of the evening. Find a place that has never seen the benefit of those abilities; bring them what you can. I know, it's easy to wrap one's self in the warm blankets of the Household Objects - if I spent the rest of my life in a room with a computer and a few dozen bookshelves, I'd be entirely happy - but that road, when Everybody takes it, goes nowhere, or worse than nowhere, to a slow, grinding dissolution. So, let's all figure out Our Thing and Do It. A couple hours a week... Let's go!

- Count Dolby von Luckner

In the meantime: "We will restore science to its rightful place..." Damn Straight.