Aw, heck yeah!!!!

Space.com: Virgin Galactic Unveils Suborbital Spaceliner Design

It is difficult to express how FRIGGIN' ECSTATIC this makes me!!!

I want to send Burt Rutan a fruit basket.

UPDATE: Hubby tells me that William Shatner has bought one of the first tickets for SpaceShipTwo. :-)

It is a shame that some of the other original Trek cast members did not live long enough to see this day, not to mention Mr. Gene Roddenberry himself. :-/ I think ol' Gene would have been ecstatic, too.

Gadget names

As I mentioned in the post above, Rich and I name virtually every gadget and major appliance in our house. I'll share a few with you:

"Cherry Blossom" -- A pink Pioneer Inno XM Radio receiver.

"Theora" -- My new Pantech Duo. (And, yeah, I like it way more than CNET did.) The phone talks to me in a synthesized female voice, which reminded me of the cool talking home computer system in Theora's apartment in the old Max Headroom TV series.

"Serenity" -- My Dell laptop. No explanation necessary. :)

Dragon*Con recap

Hubby and I got home LATE last night from Atlanta. His brother and sis-in-law gave us weekend passes to Dragon*Con and two nights' lodging as a wedding gift, and a good time was had by all. A few highlights:

• Rich went over on Wednesday night to attend a two-day writing seminar hosted by author Ann Crispin and gave it rave reviews.
• Sunday night, we saw a panel discussion on "Beer Snobs in Space" on the schedule and decided to attend. (Rich is a homebrew and winemaking enthusiast.) The featured speaker had to cancel at the last minute, but a group of homebrewers filled in -- and they brought samples. :) Props to the chemistry professor who brought his "Imperial Death Star Stout" and the dude in black who treated us to real honeymead. So cool. Man, I love geeks.
• I got to meet two male idols from my childhood -- Erik Estrada of CHiPS fame and Gil Gerard, better known as Buck Rogers. Gil was friendly and wisecracking; Erik looked unbelievably handsome, even 30 years past his CHiPS days. When I told him my mom loved him, he asked her name and said, "Be sure to tell her I said hi." I called her later and told her I had a special message from Erik Estrada. Tickled her to death.
• I also got to meet three Star Trek: TNG cast members: John DeLancie ("Q") and Jonathan Frakes ("Commander Riker") were polite but seemed like they really needed a nap. (Granted, this was yesterday on the last day of the con.) But Brent Spiner ("Data") made my day. Super nice, joked with me and looked terrific.

Special note: I'm sad that our buddies Tom and Minde couldn't make the con, but they had good reason: Their daughter was born Friday. :) Welcome to Geek World, little girl.

Bits 'n' snips

Hello, GGB readers! It's been a few days since I've posted, so I thought I'd update you all on my goings-on:

95 Days and Counting: The GGB's days as a single girl are numbered. When we were 200 days out, it felt like forever until the wedding. Now, my to-do list is expanding geometrically like a psychotic Mandelbrot set, and it's hard to keep up with my own thoughts. Luckily, my mother is retired and the noble and gallant Rich is not above taking over part of the checklist.

24 Hours of Terrorist-smacking Goodness: We had to see what all the fuss was about, so Rich and I downloaded the first four "hours" of 24 from iTunes and watched them Sunday evening. (What a great deal! Four hours of entertainment for $8, no commercials.) Caught last night's installment as well, and we're both recording the season on our respective media PCs.

I can see why the show is addictive. It's just a damn good show. A few nitpicks, though: The dialogue occasionally lapses into tired stump-speech clichés and sloganeering. And the twist about possible involvement of Jack's brother and father is just a wittle too convenient, IMHO.