And it was a productive weekend, at least in terms of the amount of entertainment digested in various form:

I got in sporting entertainment by hitting golf balls at the driving range. I am so ready to average a double-bogey over a 9-hole course. Fear my iron play.

I took part in alcohol-fueled entertainment while the Mets came back from a 5-1 deficit against the Giants’ crown jewel Tim Lincecum. Probably the high point of my weekend.

I fit in a trip to the movie theater to see Star Trek. It was merely OK and not worthy of the ridiculous praise it’s getting. Galaxy Quest is still the best Star Trek-related movie of the past 10 years.

I laid back and watched the last three episodes of House. I enjoyed the twist well enough, and I definitely like the implications more than the alternative. The show is past its prime, but it’s still too fun to watch House and Wilson.

I also rewatched Series 1 of The Office — the British version — with the intent of continuing with Series 2 and Christmas specials this time. I definitely appreciate it more this time around, compared to when I was a dumb teenager, but damn if it’s not terribly depressing if only due to being so much more truer to life than the American version. That sentence was terribly depressing for English professors.

Speaking of which, I read an entire book over the course of the three days, “Faith and Fear in Flushing” — a book I didn’t even have to pay for! The internet can be a great place. I recommend it for any Mets fan, but I’m not sure if I would recommend actually paying for it. Rediscover your local library.

Meanwhile, I’ll be rediscovering Team Fortress 2 for about the sixth time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTj6tauY1JU

This does not include the numerous short stories that are online, or full novels posted on the net, like The Time Machine. I really don’t mind, because I haven’t really had to read for a class in a while, and sci-fi rocks. Getting an upper-division credit for reading Starship Troopers = amazing. Out of the ones I’ve read so far, the Star Trek one was easily the worst. But that was mostly because I already knew the vast majority of the physics talked about in the book. And the fact that I’ve seen maybe a dozen episodes of Star Trek (TNG only) in my life, and I don’t even remember them. I just have a vague memory of watching Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the U.S.S. Enterprise with my dad. Or maybe that’s just YTMND getting to me.

A Canticle for Leibowitz could barely be classified as science-fiction, as it follows a monastery through 1800 years after a nuclear holocaust. But it’s pretty interesting how it shows the Church paralleling the book-copying and knowledge-storing service it provided the Western world during through the Middle Ages, and how independent intelligent thought begins to arise again. It’s also one of the most depressing novels I’ve ever read.

The Forever War was a pretty cool exploration into a war-driven future economy of Earth, the effects of time-dilation (time slows down when you approach the speed of light) on human beings, and possible future technologies. The manner in which many of the breakthroughs are detailed and explained makes them sound plausible. With regards to the human and war side, you can tell that it was written by a Vietnam vet. The best quality of the book is how quick of a read it is.

Man, I should writing shit up FOR this class, not ABOUT it.