By Google’s Command

I’m a bit embarrassed I hadn’t noticed this before.

The icon for Google’s new Chrome web browser features a sort of beach-ball thing with a circle in the middle. It looks a little like a robotic eye.

Chrome eye.

They’ve included that eye in the logo on the download page.

Chrome eye.

On the new Battlestar Galactica, the human-appearing cylons are frequently referred to as “skin jobs.” The more classically robotic centurions are occasionally referred to as “chrome jobs.” These so called “chrome jobs” have only one eye.

One eye. Robotic. Chrome.

Do you suppose Google is being run by Cylons?

2008 Browncoat Ball Open for Bids

The Browncoat Ball Oversight Committee is currently accepting bids from groups wishing to host the 2009 Ball. Details are available [PDF] on the Chicagoland Browncoats website, but an important item to note is that bids are due by September 14. (Short notice I know. The first email I saw about this — on an established Browncoat mailing list — arrived yesterday. But hey, who needs lead time? This is all about the thrilling heroics!)

Past Browncoat Ball host cities:
2004 Chicago, IL
2006 San Francisco, CA
2007 Philladelphia, PA
2008 Austin, TX

Scriptusphobia (Fear of Writers)

During a recent convention, I was one of the hundred or so people who went home with a “Convention Special” publication from Pocket Books, containing the first chapters of three upcoming Star Trek books: Greater Than The Sum by Christopher L. Bennett, Kobayashi Maru by Michael A. Martin & Andy Mangels and Destiny Book 1 — Gods of Night by David Mack.

Reading through the chapter from Kobayashi Maru, I was somewhat amused to find Captain Archer reflecting on some apparently hard-nosed superior officers. Admirals Gardner, Black, Douglas, Clark and Palmieri.

I’m not sure about the other four, but my guess is that “Admiral Palmieri” is a reference to Pocket Books senior editor, Marco Palmieri. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that the others Admirals are also employed by Pocket. (And for the record: I’ve met Marco; he struck me as fairly easy to get along with. Which is probably how he ended up being “picked on.”)

It’s not the first time I’ve run across this sort of thing. In How Much for Just the Planet? a group of John Ford’s characters encounter a Lieutenant Crispin whose first name is later revealed to be Ann. Surely that was a reference to his fellow writer, Ann C. Crispin.

And that’s where I start getting scared. I know a handful of Star Trek novelists well enough that when we see each other at conventions, the conversation goes into areas other than books. Some of those conversations have been memorable (particularly in regards to The Shovel).

Some of them have been known to mention convention attendees in their books.