I suppose that with more important things going on in the world, my SF Babe and Aircraft Cheesecake postings might seem at worst, insensitive; at best, frivolous.

I have not really been plugged into many media as I have been enjoying time off with my family during the holidays. I have tried to post an item at least every other day, and these regular features write themselves, although each one reflects at least 30 minutes of work finding the right pictures and links. So, long story short, if you want the best links to these current stories, go to the main news sites like CNN and Fox, then surf through the blogosphere, where you'll find the latest at Instapundit and the Command Post.

I am gratified that several people still drop by every day, so I must be doing something right. I do hope to add a few more regular features that will keep me posting on a regular basis in the new year without burning out.

Posted by: JohnL at 09:42 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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1 Personally, I need a break sometimes, especially in the middle of reporting a disaster like the Indian Ocean Tsunami. Your site provides a valuable service, please continue.

Posted by: Alan E Brain at December 28, 2004 10:15 PM (dQ3Wr)

2 Alan, Thanks for the encouragement. I'm glad to see that your post "Save Them All And Let God Sort Them Out" got a well-deserved Instalanche. Keep up the good work on your end of the globe.

Posted by: JohnL at December 29, 2004 12:03 AM (gplif)

3 Dude, you can't slow down. How are you going to hit superstar levels of fame unless you're posting twice as often as Instapundit? I guess you could quit your day job and start a band.

Posted by: owlish at December 29, 2004 03:06 PM (KP3t9)

4 You post, we read. That was in this oral contract I signed. Besides, where else can we get Babes, Aircraft, and random SF tidbits?

Posted by: Lysander at December 29, 2004 10:16 PM (ht9UE)

5 I look forward to whatever you post, whenever you post it...your schedule, not ours. [Oh, no, now I can't get that Billy Joel song out of my head ("Don't go changin'...").] Dare I hold out hope for a Dr. Who edition of the SFBabe poll? Cheers and Happy New Year!

Posted by: Chan S. at December 30, 2004 12:06 PM (7kycG)

6 Even though I wasn't fishing for the compliments, I really appreciate them. Thanks for finding something of value here. Chan, Doctor Who is a great idea, but I'm afraid it would be no contest, with Leela the Barbarian the likely winner.

Posted by: JohnL at December 30, 2004 11:34 PM (gplif)

7 I'll second (third? fourth?) the comments above. And Chan is on to something with a Doctor Who contest. There may be grounds here for yet another one of our babe disagreements. Happy New Year and best wishes for 2005. Keep up the great work.

Posted by: Robert the Llama Butcher at December 31, 2004 09:35 AM (ywZa8)

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I'm loving my new Christmas present. Cheesy plots, a lot of bad writing, and silly acting, but extremely entertaining nevertheless. My kids have been enjoying it, too (especially my eight-year-old son). One thing that's been really fun for me is to identify the various guest stars who appeared -- Jack Palance and Roddy McDowall, among others.

An early episode featured the lovely Markie Post in one of the first appearances of her career, which led me to go searching through IMDB for other recognizable guest stars. Then I popped the DVDs in for some fresh screen caps and -- voila! A new poll for this week (click the thumbs for a full-size image of each candidate):

First up, the aforementioned Markie Post portraying Joella Cameron, in "The Plot to Kill a City," episodes 1.6 and 1.7:

Next, a young Jamie Lee Curtis portraying Jen Burton in "Unchained Woman," episode 1.9:

Finally, a more mature candidate, the original Catwoman Julie Newmar portraying the dangerously seductive Zarina in "Flight of the War Witch," episodes 1.23 and 1.24:

Enjoy! (As always check out the Gallery for previous winners, including last week's).

Results (Posted 4 January 2005):

Joella (Markie Post) 25 votes (69%) WINNER
Jen Burton (Jamie Lee Curtis) 7 votes (19%)
Zarina (Julie Newmar) 4 votes (11%)

36 votes total

Posted by: JohnL at 09:32 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Another Russian plane this week, the Myasischev M-50 Bounder:

According to the FAS link above, little is known about this plane's performance, though one referenced commenter noted that the M-50 was "an outstanding failure which revealed an embarassing lack of understanding of the problems of high-speed flight."

(Be sure to check out the other exhibits at AXLs Plane Gallery, where I found these images).

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I've always proudly claimed the number 13 as my lucky number, as I was born on the 13th day of April in 1968.

But now I read from Alan Brain that my 61st birthday may be a profoundly unlucky day for me (and other Earth residents).

According to NASA's data, an asteroid (2004 MN4) will pass very close to Earth on April 13, 2029. The asteroid rates a 4 on the Torino Impact Hazard Scale and has a Palermo value of 1 (any value greater than zero on the Palermo scale is a cause for concern).

With this much advance notice, I expect we have enough time to determine what, if anything, needs to and can be done to minimize the risk of impact. As Heinlein said, the earth is simply to small and fragile a basket to keep all of our eggs in, so I hope we can move more quickly to expand and disperse to the moon, to Mars, and to orbital habitats.

Glenn Reynolds and Jay Manifold have each provided some commentary on this, too.

Update: It now appears that the risk has been significantly downgraded. Whew!

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I hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday season, and for those of you so inclined, I hope today was as blessed and merry a Christmas as ours was.

For the first time, we hosted the festivities at our house, celebrating with my wife's family and breaking out the good china and family-heirloom silver. The food was perfect: my turkey and gravy were just right and my wife made some incredible chocolate-chocolate chip mini-Bundt cakes with hot fudge sauce and raspberries for dessert. (For big occasions, I'm the chef; she's the baker). The kids behaved well, and we played games most of the afternoon.

Best surprise present? My wife proving to me that she reads this blog. (She got me Lileks' Interior Desecrations and the complete Buck Rogers in the 25th Century series on DVD).

Feliz Navidad, y'all.

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Well, I think we'll stick with this theme for another week at least.

Our candidates:

Lise Hampton Edgars (portrayed by Denise Gentile)

Talia Winters (portrayed by Andrea Thompson)

and Number One (portrayed by Marjorie Monaghan)

Results (Posted 28 December 2004):

Posted by: JohnL at 10:39 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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It's been a while since I've stolen a link from Gravity Lens.

Check out this very cool collection of starship schematics.

Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, and even Star Blazers (i.e., Space Battleship Yamato) are all featured here.

Star Blazers was one of my favorite cartoons back in sixth grade, and I don't think I ever caught every episode. Fortunately, it looks like all three seasons are now available on DVD. Check out the Yamato webring, too.

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You know -- the ones with the big bows and obnoxious yuppies?

They're really, really dumb.

Posted by: JohnL at 11:02 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 Heh. So, you're not getting your wife a surprise Lexus for Christmas?

Posted by: owlish at December 20, 2004 07:38 AM (KP3t9)

2 It's amazing how far they've come since the Lexis/Nexis lawsuit, and they were able to drop Toyota from the name of the car. > "Honey, why did you buy me a really, really expensive Toyota?" - what they don't show you.

Posted by: Lysander at December 21, 2004 02:00 PM (ShW/G)

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Behold the Sukhoi Su-34 "Fullback:"

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My first ever posting of the contents of my referrer logs: the last ten Google searches that led to a site visit here:

rush intermission video
battlestar galactica babes
babes posted
Michelle B
plastic surgery horrors
flying lawnmower
lovely babes
diy railgun
meaning of kommissar
chontosh

Rush, babes, Battlestar Galactica, the Michelle B (an X-prize entrant) -- yeah, that's a pretty fair sampling of my site content...

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More from Ted:

"It's not a fetish if 100 percent of men like it - it's a law of nature."

Sounds right to me.

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Ted asks which movies I could watch over and over and over again.

Well, I'm not sure if once a year every year counts, but each Christmas season we watch:

A Christmas Carol (usually the weekend after Thanksgiving)
Elf (a new tradition in our house)
Miracle on 34th Street (the original B&W version)
It's A Wonderful Life (on Christmas Eve)

Now, for the other, non-seasonal movies:

Star Wars
Silverado
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Aliens
When Harry Met Sally

Posted by: JohnL at 08:06 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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This post is tailor-made for Ted and Yobbo.

Never let it be said I don't treat my audience right.

(Link via BoingBoing).

Update: Actually, this BoingBoing post may be more up their alleys.

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Last week's poll was a real squeaker - a one-vote difference (I think the young Joan Collins should have won, but I don't know how to allocate the electoral votes this time).

This week's poll comes courtesy of an idea from commenter Robin. I never watched much of Babylon 5, so I missed the whole multi-season story arc that made the show a must-see event for Sci Fi fans. I still plan to rent or buy the DVDs someday and watch the series.

First up is Susan Ivanova (as portrayed by Claudia Christian):

Next is telepath Lyta Alexander (as portrayed by Patricia Tallman):

Finally up is Captain Elizabeth Lochley (portrayed by Tracy Scoggins):

Not that I would try to sway the vote, but Lochley is portrayed by a Native Texan.

Results (Posted 21 December 2004):

Posted by: JohnL at 09:45 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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My wife and I went to a "Holiday" dinner with a group of my clients tonight, leaving the kids at home with a babysitter.

When I got home, I found that my second son had left something for me on the kitchen table:

In case you can't see it clearly, the note reads: "Try to fix. Don't throw away." I got a big smile out of this, since it reflects such a simple, childlike faith that I can fix anything. Too bad that's not the case...

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This week's cheesecake helping is the XB-70 Valkyrie:

Posted by: JohnL at 10:31 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 Ahh, yes, one of the bombers I wished we had built. If Airframe #1 still exists, I wonder if it could be retrofitted for further tests, especially with Spaceship 1 technology. Then again, the B-70 and F12A would have been interesting to see in training Lysander

Posted by: Lysander at December 13, 2004 01:02 PM (ShW/G)

2 Silly me. I had to go and look up "F-12," forgetting about the SR-71 development history. I'll be featuring the Blackbird (with appropriate background on the A-12/F-12 interceptors) in a future cheesecake post.

Posted by: JohnL at December 13, 2004 11:29 PM (gplif)

3 This plane was a "hot and high nuclear bomber" advocate's dream. Unfortunately, it was only worth the cost as long as we really needed to drop a nuclear bomb on a target with an airplane, and as long as it was less vulnerable than conventional bombers. Both ended up not being true, as the Cold war ended about a decade later, we already had more ICBMs than nuclear-capable bombers, and the Soviets developed high-altitude capable SAMs as the development for this was ending. It is one heck of an impressive aircraft however. Unfortunate that airframe #2 was lost in that accident.

Posted by: NF at December 14, 2004 11:31 AM (d9qCZ)

4 Simply the most beautiful airplane ever built.

Posted by: Timothy Sandefur at December 16, 2004 10:24 AM (fLlQ8)

5 John - The F-12 to SR-72 conversion was beautiful - makes most forget it's origins. Given the B-52/B-1/B-2's varied resurgence as a conventional bomber, I wonder if the B-70 could hack being both a spaceplane and a tactical conventional bomber. Lysander

Posted by: Lysander at December 19, 2004 10:50 PM (ht9UE)

6 Lysander, Good question -- I think stealth technology is more important than speed these days. Even without stealthing, we send in the electronic warfare and attack planes first to take out air defenses and achieve air supremacy, so even old B-52 Buffs can bomb with relative impunity. Not sure what we would need a Mach 3 bomber for (other than because we can do it -- America, F--k yeah!) Re spaceplane: the B-70 does look somewhat like the NASP conceptual designs I remember seeing from the eighties.

Posted by: JohnL at December 19, 2004 11:08 PM (gplif)

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One reason I've been blogging so lightly this week is that I have been reading intensely (with all marginal notes and some comparative translations) the book of Job for the Disciple I bible-study class I have been taking with my wife.

While I've read most of the bible many times in the past, and I had some fairly sophisticated theology classes at my Jesuit high school, it seems my current stage in life has opened me (and closed me) to bible stories in a way unlike any earlier time in my life.

Job is undoubtedly one of my favorites, as it addresses (without really answering) one of the most logical arguments against an omniscient, omnipotent, merciful God: namely, why do bad things happen to good people? I'm not really satisfied with the [non]-answer, but I appreciate the fact that this struggle to understand the meaning of things stretches back thousands of years.

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Tonight's menu contains but a light snack. Feather-light, you might say. (Via Ilyka Damen).

Posted by: JohnL at 10:19 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Thank goodness.

Hooters doesn't have a monopoly on waitresses selling hot wings in mildly provocative get-ups.

Update: For my kind commenters, ask and ye shall receive. (All links are mildly NSFW).

Posted by: JohnL at 09:45 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 Back in the late '80's I was briefly at Tech in Lubbock, and there was a resturant called "Humps". Girls in tight T-shirts and short-shorts, the masot was a camel. We used to wonder if Hooters would sue- but Hooters wasn't interested in Lubbock, I guess. Don't know what happened with Humps, I can't even remember the food...

Posted by: Jack Grey at December 09, 2004 08:44 AM (Jq8H8)

2 I object, ever so gently, that the link you sent us to lacked pictures. We like pictures!

Posted by: RP at December 09, 2004 04:29 PM (LlPKh)

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I have to apologize that these polls have turned into something of a Star Trek dorkle-jerk, but I'm running out of original ideas (I can mine Star Trek for many weeks to come, so if you have a different SF movie or series that you would like to see featured, please let me know!)

In any case, I rather like both candidates in this week's contest. These women were extras playing the roles of women in Earth's past. Both went on to greater fame.

First up is Edith Keeler, from City on the Edge of Forever, a Harlan Ellison-penned episode. Portrayed by the beautiful and youthful Joan Collins:

Our second candidate, from the failed spin-off pilot Assignment: Earth, is Roberta Lincoln as portrayed by the quirky and cute Teri Garr:

Enjoy!

Results (Posted 14 December 2004):

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