Doctor Who and the Borg: Part Eight of Ten

Characters and concepts related to Doctor Who and Star Trek, and related marks, are trademarks of the BBC and CBS Studios Inc., respectively. This work of fan fiction is written purely for entertainment purposes, and is not to be used in trade of any kind.

To go back and read Part Seven, click here, or to go to the beginning, click here. Part Eight begins after the jump.

Doctor Who and the Borg: Part Seven of Ten

Characters and concepts related to Doctor Who and Star Trek, and related marks, are trademarks of the BBC and CBS Studios Inc., respectively. This work of fan fiction is written purely for entertainment purposes, and is not to be used in trade of any kind.

To go back and read Part Six, click here, or to go to the beginning, click here. Part Seven begins after the jump.

Doctor Who and the Borg: Part Six of Ten

Characters and concepts related to Doctor Who and Star Trek, and related marks, are trademarks of the BBC and CBS Studios Inc., respectively. This work of fan fiction is written purely for entertainment purposes, and is not to be used in trade of any kind.

To go back and read Part Five, click here, or to go to the beginning, click here. Part Six begins after the jump.

Doctor Who and the Borg: Part Five of Ten

Characters and concepts related to Doctor Who and Star Trek, and related marks, are trademarks of the BBC and CBS Studios Inc., respectively. This work of fan fiction is written purely for entertainment purposes, and is not to be used in trade of any kind.

To go back and read Part Four, click here, or to go to the beginning, click here. Part Five begins after the jump.

Doctor Who and the Borg: Part Four of Ten

Characters and concepts related to Doctor Who and Star Trek, and related marks, are trademarks of the BBC and CBS Studios Inc., respectively. This work of fan fiction is written purely for entertainment purposes, and is not to be used in trade of any kind.

To go back and read Part Three, click here, or to go to the beginning, click here. Part Four begins after the jump.

Doctor Who and the Borg: Part Three of Ten

Characters and concepts related to Doctor Who and Star Trek, and related marks, are trademarks of the BBC and CBS Studios Inc., respectively. This work of fan fiction is written purely for entertainment purposes, and is not to be used in trade of any kind.

To go back and read Part Two, click here, or to go to the beginning, click here. Part Three begins after the jump.

Doctor Who and the Borg: Part Two of Ten

Characters and concepts related to Doctor Who and Star Trek, and related marks, are trademarks of the BBC and CBS Studios Inc., respectively. This work of fan fiction is written purely for entertainment purposes, and is not to be used in trade of any kind.

To go back and read Part One, click here. Part Two begins after the jump.

Doctor Who and the Borg: Part One of Ten

Last week, when IDW comics announced their upcoming Star Trek: The Next Generation/Doctor Who crossover, I was taken back in time.

You see, although the IDW press release proudly reports that this is "the first time ever" (their emphasis) that the two franchises have crossed over, that's only true in a strictly official sense. It is no doubt obvious that wherever there are fans, there is fan fiction, and fans have been trying their own efforts at a Star Trek/Doctor Who crossover for many years now.

I know. I was one of them.

Transformers Feature: Bot Shots Optimus Prime

In the beginning, God created Rock-Paper-Scissors. Children would play this game, and it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

And God said, "let there be created Battle Beasts, expanding upon the rock, paper, scissors concept with cute little plastic animal toys that use wood, water, and fire instead. And let the Battle Beasts be connected to the Transformers line in the country called Japan, so that children who love transforming robots will also come to love the cute little plastic animal toys, despite the fact that the Battle Beasts shall not transform." Children would play with these toys, and it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

REPOST: Why You Shouldn't Give Up Facebook for Lent

I'm reposting an article I wrote last year. The main reason for this is that I didn't think to write and post it early enough at the time that anyone who didn't already agree with me could possibly have seen it, since they would actually have been in the middle of the lenten Facebook fast, and the whole point is get people thinking about these issues before making a decision. So I'm reposting the article again this year, a week before Ash Wednesday, in hopes that people can read it before then. Now, in spite of the intentionally provocative title, I understand that people will have different needs. It may well be that, for you, going for a few weeks without Facebook could be a good thing. But I do want to push back against what's become a popular thing for Lenten-observant Christians to do these days, and offer a reason not to just do what others are doing.

Video Game 30th Anniversary of the Month - BurgerTime

Although I was only 8 years old at the time, I nonetheless have always thought that 1982 was a pretty good year. Besides being the summer I lived in Walnut Creek, which I've always considered an important part of my childhood story, I later began to notice that a great many things I enjoyed had origins in that specific year. Sitcoms such as Cheers, Family Ties, and Silver Spoons all started that year. Michael Jackson's Thriller was released and Madonna made her debut. I've also discovered, in the years since, that several of the video games that I still remember fondly dated back to 1982. Admittedly, some of the most significant games—Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, for example—had already been introduced by that time (in 1980 and 1981, respectively), but by 1982, the golden age of video games was well underway (Professional video game referee Walter Day of Twin Galaxies actually says 1982 marks the start of the golden age, citing the date of a TIME magazine cover story. I don't go quite that far, but it's worth pointing out). To commemorate the 30th anniversary of some of these important video games, I'm going to feature a different one each month.

A Brief History of G.B. Blackrock - Part Three

When we last discussed G.B. Blackrock, I wondered about the possible negative PR that Blackrock Enterprises might suffer as a result of its namesake having been an unwitting pawn in a scheme by the Decepticons to steal gasoline from human beings. We don't see G.B. Blackrock again until issue #68, when his company has apparently changed its name to Blackrock Industries, and is now based out of Washington, DC, rather than Portland, Oregon (given the change in locale, it is, of course, possible that this is a separate organization, but it's far more likely that new writer Simon Furman simply misremembered some details of Bob Budiansky's work, and a name change accompanied by a geographic move makes sense to me).

Majority Tools

Shortly after being elected to the office of Student Body President at my college, my Vice-President and I had a conversation with the Dean of Students about what was ahead for us in the coming academic year. Among other things, he suggested that we needed to guard against the "tyranny of the majority."

I have to confess, it wasn't until several years after I graduated that I really understood what that term meant. While I did have some concept for using my own judgment not to just follow along if it seemed like everyone else was doing something I knew was wrong, I nonetheless generally assumed that the best way to be fair to the most people was to do what the majority wanted.

On Quarters, Coin-Operated Laundry, and Inequity

When I was a kid, and my friend and I would go to play video games, getting quarters with which to play was a minor challenge. Usually, the question was far more one of whether we had any money at all rather than one of making change, because at most venues where video games could be found, there were convenient change machines standing ready to convert our dollar bills into quarters we could pump into the games.

These days, I really don't play coin-operated video games anymore, but my need for quarters still exists. Only nowadays, I need quarters for a far more basic need: to do my laundry using the coin-operated units in my apartment complex. But getting quarters nowadays is much more of a challenge than it was back then:

A Case Against "Masculine Christianity"

What says "masculine"
better than the
Old Spice guy?

In what is only the latest in a long series of comments by Christian leaders advocating for the supremacy of men over and against women, John Piper has recently explicitly said that he believes that "God has given Christianity a masculine feel." Now, when he says such a thing, I do not imagine that he would actually say that he believes men are "superior" to women. The usual complementarian line, which I understand Piper to embrace, says that the genders are equal, but that they merely have different God-given roles. That said, it's difficult to read a belief in a "masculine Christianity" without feeling like a belief in male superiority is actually at play, whether Piper acknowledges it or not.

A Brief History of G.B. Blackrock - Part Two

In the previous entry, I detailed multi-millionaire industrialist G.B. Blackrock's first encounters with the Transformers in issues #5 and #6 of the original Marvel Comics Transformers series, as the Decepticons attacked and captured a new oil drilling platform built by his company. Another casualty of the attack was one of Blackrock's employees, Josie Beller, who was left paralyzed. Although Blackrock is only seen in cameo appearances in issues #7 and #8 as he visits Beller in the hospital, it is clear that both are planning to fight back.