(cyber) home at last

Lately, the blogosphere has been permeated with references to scifi classics. Star Trek and Star Wars themes abound, and there are many other, other-worldly references as well.

Check out Lileks' exceptional Bleat on the score for the TOS Trek episode "The Doomsday Machine". The guy's on fire.

Then, there are the great blog entries comparing John Kerry to C3PO in the original Star Wars movies: see Swimming through the Spin and James Taranto's further exploration along the same lines, here.

Then there's the reference to the "United Federation of Bloggers" right on Blogger's homepage. I've seen musings about Greedo shooting first on at least 3 different blogs, and that's probably just the tip of the iceberg on that subject. I can usually count on Jonah Goldberg to toss in a classic scifi reference at least once every other day over at The Corner on NRO. VodkaPundit recently indulged us by giving a mostly positive review of the last two-thirds of Alien vs Predator, just one day after posting a killer tip about how to score the new Star Wars DVD for the absolute lowest price. Hugh Hewitt ran a great contest comparing the Dan Rather/CBS memo debacle to LOTR. (Check the archives, I couldn't link directly). Even Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit himself, frequently links to scifi-themed blog entries -- that's where I first saw SpinSwimming's great C3PO piece -- giving equal opportunity to Trekkies by also linking to a Borg piece.

Is it any wonder why I love the blogosphere? It's the class reunion of the cultural school that none of us were fully aware we were attending. Sure, we're still geeks and weirdos, but we're all articulate and (how best to put this?) at least to outward appearances, for all intents and purposes: happy. That is to say, I'm sure there's a good deal of turmoil in all our personal lives, but the one common characteristic of all the sci-fi riffing bloggers is a sense of optimism. This optimism doesn't render them naive, but it does give them each the ability to recognize and laud the good that is in the world, and they are all blessed with a fine sense of humor. I find this crowd illuminating and entertaining, and, well, comfy. Cool.