These cakes are out of this world

I found out today that my 17-year-old son is older than the Sci-Fi channel. He turned 17 in March, almost six months ago. The Sci-Fi channel just turned 17 today.

In recognition of that anniversary, they have a display of 17 sci-fi themed cakes. These are the kind of cakes I can only dream of making. Just look at the detail in that Minas Tirith cake! I’d hate to have to cut into it to serve a piece.

I’m really not much into cake. But I do like the Sci-Fi channel. We didn’t have it all that long before we had to drop it to save money. But it was long enough to become fans of Stargate SG-1 (and Stargate Atlantis). My husband watched some other shows as well, such as Eureka. Recently he discovered full-length episodes of Eureka he can watch on syfy.com (the Sci-Fi website).

But first we decided to check out earlier seasons from the library, so I could watch them as well. Last night we had a mini-marathon of Eureka, watching the pilot plus three more episodes from the first season. I had seen one of them, and occasionally walked through the room during other episodes. But I remembered little except that it was a kind of quirky show.

Religion in science fiction

I’ve enjoyed science fiction ever since I first discovered it in fourth or fifth grade (after exhausting the meager resources on Greek mythology in the children’s section of the local library). While I enjoy some sci-fi merely for a fascinating story (especially those that deal with time travel or applying scientific principles to unscientific subjects such as magic), my favorites are those where the primary focus is on people and their deepest motivations, and the futuristic setting is only a vehicle to tell the story.

Most of the time sci-fi seems to steer clear of religion, whether because it is assumed that in the future only a radical fringe element will still accept religious dogma, or because in today’s society science and religion are seen as fields with virtually nothing in common. (Or perhaps because it is so difficult to do a good job incorporating religion into fiction, without being either condescending or preachy.)

A few stories effectively deal with issues of ethics and the meaning of being human without reference to religion per se. And there are a few writers I am familiar with who write from an overtly religious perspective, such as Stephen Lawhead and James Blish. I have one whole anthology of Catholic science fiction, which particularly interested me because of the unusual perspective – unusual to me, anyway, as most of the time references to the Catholic Church in science fiction/fantasy present a very negative view of the Church.

One advantage science fiction has, over ordinary fiction, when it comes to discussing religious matters, is that the debate can be framed in terms of religions that don’t actually exist. Any fictional references to actual world religions (e.g. Christianity, Judaism, Islam) is bound to evoke strong emotional reactions (whether for or against these religions). But an extraterrestrial race of people worshipping a god or gods never known on Earth – here is an opportunity to examine religious faith without quite as much knee-jerking going on.

I didn’t watch Babylon 5 regularly, but it was sometimes on when we visited some friends, where my husband played Dungeons and Dragons and I chatted with the other wives who didn’t play. I remember one episode (which an internet search tells me was titled “Believers”), in which a child will die unless he has surgery, and the parents refuse to allow it because their religion says that cutting open the body will allow the spirit to escape.

Turn your brain on

Actually, you already did. Turn your brain on, that is. At least according to Steve Jobs (born Feb. 24, 1955), who said in an interview four years ago, “We think basically you watch television to turn your brain off, and you work on your computer when you want to turn your brain on.” Since you’re here reading my blog, instead of watching whatever there is on TV, you must want to turn your brain on. I hope it’s working.

Steve Jobs clearly doesn’t have a high opinion of TV.

When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It’s the truth.  (Interview in WIRED magazine (February 1996)

There is some decent stuff on TV, though I think most of it is on cable, not network TV (and there’s plenty of trash on cable, too). But computers certainly give a lot more scope for your mind to learn, analyze, communicate, and create. Jobs also said, regarding computers, “What a computer is to me is the most remarkable tool that we have ever come up with. It’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.”

TV Trivia for $100

Answer: It premiered on NBC on March 30, 1964.

For $100 (virtual dollars, mind you, which are pretty much interchangeable with Monopoly dollars), what is the question?

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What is Jeopardy?

Jeopardy was one of my favorite game shows when I was young, although I rarely knew the answers. Er, the questions, that is. But it was still fun guessing, and occasionally actually getting one right.

To test your knowledge of Jeopardy trivia, see if you know the questions to the answers below:

For $200: He holds the record of the most wins of any Jeopardy contestant, from his winning streak of 74 games in 2004.

For $300: It was the lowest dollar value of Jeopardy clues when the show started in 1964.

For $400: He was the first host of Jeopardy.

For $500: He composed the Jeopardy theme song, “Think,” as a lullaby for his son.

25 years ago today

I can rarely say what I was doing on a particular day in the past (9/11/2001 is an exception, just as previous generations remembered the assassination of JFK, or Pearl Harbor). But when I looked at This Day in History at infoplease.com, I knew exactly what I was doing 25 years ago tonight: watching the final episode of M*A*S*H.

I had watched the show since the second or third season. Since season 1 had a black character called Spearchucker Jones bunking with Hawkeye and Trapper, and I have no memory of him, I must not have watched it then. I had already been watching it for some time when Trapper left the show (at the end of season 3) and was replaced by BJ Hunicutt (seasons 4-11). Since I saw lots of reruns in later years, I can’t say which episodes I remember from when, though. (And I don’t actually “remember” the details mentioned here – wikipedia is a great help in refreshing my memory.)