Noiseless Chatter Archive

I’m going to open my discussion of Star Trek : The Original series season two with some unexpected disappointment. Why not, eh? My journey through Star Trek has taken place almost entirely offline. You got my summary post of season one , and I’ve exchanged messages with a few friends, but nearly all of my discussion about the show has occurred in reality, with the friends and coworkers I interact with normally. They’ve been very — impressively, even — good at allowing me to come to my own conclusions. Very, very rarely do they tell me ahead of time of a development to come or how an episode is overall received by fans. When it does happen, it’s been stuff that’s pretty obvious. (Chekov joining the cast for the second season, “The City on the Edge of Forever” being rightly beloved, etc.) Beyond that, they’ve volunteered very little that I didn’t bring up — or question — myself in the course of conversation. And yet — and yet! — there is one thing I heard many times over: Se...

What did you accomplish during the deadliest year any of us have experienced? If you’re like me, you’ve accomplished the square root of jack squat. But you’ve probably consumed a lot of entertainment, perhaps even stuff you’d never gotten around to experiencing before. For me, my big “late discovery” was Star Trek . I’m a nerd. (DID YOU KNOW?) For whatever reason, though, Star Trek never appealed to me enough to sit down and watch it properly. I had an interest in it from a historical standpoint — it’s an important part of television history, before we even consider whether or not it was any good — but that was about it. I figured I’d get to it eventually, but there was certainly no rush. Then 2020 happened, and nearly all of my time was spent alone, indoors. If not under those circumstances, when? Let me say one thing up front: I will not be reviewing each episode of Star Trek . A friend of the website — and all around ace human being — has done that already . She’s done...

Look! I haven’t died! Neither have you! Wonderful. Anyway, a lack of posting isn’t for lack of things to talk about or lack of time, even. Everything’s just been a struggle lately, and I know that is far from unique to me. Here’s hoping by this time next year we can all breathe again. For now, though, let’s talk about video games! I’ve played a lot of them this year, because if I go outside I will die. I’ve also read a lot of books, but I don’t think a single one of them was published this year, so don’t expect a list for those. Books don’t have as many guns to collect or even jiggle physics, though, so who cares. As ever, there were a number of games I didn’t get around to, so a lack of those games doesn’t mean I disliked them. In this case, the big ones I wanted to play were The Last of Us Part II, Spider-Man: Miles Morales , and Cyberpunk 2077 . Additionally, I haven’t upgraded to either the PlayStation 5 or the Xbox Series X (but, come on, it will obviously be the Play...