Neatorama shares photos of many Star Trek-themed cakes, each awesome in its own way. This bridge scene (featured on Trekmovie.com) is probably my favorite:

So, yes, I loved the new Star Trek movie. Loved it. Despite it making some fairly ballsy changes to the continuity, I persist in arguing with naysayers that nothing has been lost–only gained.

However, Nathan Schneider of Religion Dispatches (via Episcopal Cafe’s The Lead) makes a compelling case that something significant is indeed missing from the new Trek. As far as I’m aware, every incarnation of the series made the case that mastery of one’s passions was a good thing. Whenever there was a conflict, the winner was always the person who responded calmly and rationally.  (Even if it took them most of an episode or movie to get to that point.) We’d all be a lot better off, Trek seemed to be saying, if we would all just chill the f*** out.

This is not at all the case in the new movie, where Spock’s insistence on following the logical course of action is an obstacle Kirk has to overcome on the way to smashing the enemy to smithereens.

Schneider:

The golden ages of Star Trek have thrived on prolonged meditations on repression… While Spock was always trying to shun his human half, The Next Generation’s android crew member Data wanted nothing more than to become more human. Still, lacking an emotion chip, Data blundered his way through personal interactions with what turns out to be an uncanny charm and wisdom. Star Trek, you would think, makes a bit of a case for self-control.

(I could throw in any number of other examples. Remember Errand of Mercy? Day of the Dove? Picard being shamed out of his fairly justifiable anti-Borg fury in First Contact?)

I can’t help feeling that there is a connection between the loss of tortured-yet-sympathetic repression and the loss of political consciousness in the recent Star Trek. Our society, and consequently our science fiction, has gotten so uncomfortable with self-discipline that Data needs an emotion chip and Spock needs to go in for Primal Scream therapy. Meanwhile, politics goes off the map. …Setting our emotions free, somehow, means the freedom to see our enemies as demonic madmen, to forget about a Great Society that might someday encompass us all. Maybe Freud was right; maybe it’s time to start thinking about mastering our passions again, rather than unbridling them.

Once again, SmiteFest rocked.

The day started early, when Eric and I went to the KOMO 1000 studios to appear on Charlie Harger’s radio show. We talked about SmiteFest, trends in gaming, trends in church, and how the nature of community is changing in the 21st century. At Charlie’s urging I also once again challenged the Lutherans to come to SmiteFest and show the Episcopalians how they roll.

We met again at noon in the undercroft at Episcopal Church of the Redeemer. Eric and Stephanie came loaded with roughly a gazillion games:

After setting up, we kicked off eight hours of gaming! About 20 people showed up (including a couple of Third Place Gamers) to play games such as Sarcophagus, Dominion, Cribbage, Blokus, El Grande, Risk, and many more.

You can find a full list of what we played (with commentary) at BoardGame Geek.

We had pizza from Pagliacci, fresh-baked cookies, and just generally had a blast. We can’t wait to do it again.

On Saturday, May 2nd, the greatest gaming event ever held in a Seattle-area Episcopal church returns!

(It’s also quite likely the only gaming event held in a Seattle-area Episcopal church, but let’s not quibble over details.)

SmiteFest 2 is a free, all-ages day of games and awesomeness taking place in the Undercroft at Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, Kenmore. This follow-up to last year’s successful event is being organized with the able assistance of Eric Franklin of the Talking Game blog. Donations go to support Child’s Play.

The smiting runs from 1:00 to 9:00 p.m., with pizza served at around 5 or 6. A list of available games is here, but attendees are encouraged to bring their own favorites.

There’s no “churchy” stuff at SmiteFest, but the interested and/or curious are welcome to come upstairs at 7:00 for Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, a weekly half-hour service of quiet prayer and contemplation.

You can RSVP here, and add the event on Facebook. If you have any questions, email info@smitefest.org.

iTunes has gone entirely DRM free (huzzah!) and has also implemented variable pricing (whatever). Some tracks cost 99 cents, some cost less, some cost more.

So now that both iTunes and Amazon MP3 offer DRM free music, when you’re looking at a $1.29 song in iTunes you may well ask yourself, “Does Amazon offer this for less?” The answer is a click away with an app called Advantageous mp3, available in both Windows and Mac versions. When you find a song you want on iTunes, Advantageous mp3 can take you to the artist’s or album’s Amazon MP3  site to do some comparison shopping.

The Windows version of Advantageous mp3 only fetches data from the iTunes Store site for a single album or artist. No search results, iMixes or shopping carts. That fact makes it less likely I’ll use it when I’m in Windows — the extra steps involved probably outweigh the benefit of saving a couple of dimes.

(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog. Photo by parl.)

Take your hat off, boy.

Photo by _Madolan_

Behold the awfulness at Holy Taco.

Etsy seller EveningArwen brings us a Starfleet uniform design that I’m sure would win James T. Kirk’s wholehearted approval. This is actually a Next Generation inspired corset, which can be made in any of the Star Trek colors (red for hot command personnel; gold for hot engineering, security, and operations personnel; and blue for hot science and medical personnel.)

The position of the communicator badge means that the wearer would have to poke herself in the boob whenever she wanted to call someone.

(Via Craftastrophe)

“Because Tomorrow May Never Come”

More about the upcoming line of Star Trek fragrances, including the super-manly Tiberius, at TrekMovie.com. (via Guy Kawasaki)

Actually she’s poking fun at my lack of stealth. Still, I’ll be ready for the call to NINJA ACTION.