Yvette's Inner Geek Blog

I watched the first Star Trek movie last night, in full, for the first time ever. Wow. It was… trippy. And long. Ben and I laughed to the point of crying during a couple parts… and I may have cried a Spock tear when it was all over. During the last part, (SPOILER) when Decker goes all sparkly, I couldn’t help but think of what the sparkly vampires supposedly look like in the movie Twilight. (It’s doubtful that I’ll read the books or see that movie, let’s be honest.)

Ben and I are going to attempt to watch all the Star Trek movies, in order, before seeing the new Star Trek movie that’s coming out on May 8. Sylar as Spock intrigues me. I hear that the new movie involves some time travel as Leonard Nimoy visits from the future as “Old Spock” to help his younger counterpart.

So, in line with Star Trek movie hype and the theme of time travel, I want to share a magazine flashback with you.

A few weeks ago, I was cleaning up in the basement and came across a vault of Ben’s magazines from his childhood. During the 1980s—while I was playing black and white Macintosh games, devouring hundreds of library books, and reading Cricket magazines—Ben was taking apart electronics, learning how to program on a Commodore, and reading 3-2-1 Contact magazines. (Is is really surprising that GeekDad’s 10 Annoying Habits of a Geeky Spouse basically listed things that we love about each other?)

I found this gem from December 1986 with the enticing cover question, “Is Time Travel Possible?” The cover article includes kid-level coverage of several TV shows and movies basically by filling four pages with exciting photos of Dr. Who, Superman, Marty McFly, Time Bandits, and The Time Machine.

The secondary spread covers the then-new Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Click on the photo to get a PDF of the scan… it’s precious. I especially love the photo caption that says “Star Trek movies include special effects such as smoke and fire.” I mean, WOW!

Have you seen these pictures of eleven of the coolest geeked-out cars ever made? They include:

1. Classic Battlestar Galactica Viper
2. VW Microbus Ball (does is actually work? Even if not, I think it’s hella awesome in terms of art)
3. Circuitboard-covered Sedan (Ben has an aging Saturn and enough crappy old circuit boards laying around to actually make this one)
4. Pyramid Car (doesn’t look particularly aerodynamic)
5. Pac-Man Race Car (the driver sits inside Pac-Man’s head! Don’t get me started on the woman in a bathing suit and heels standing next to the car in this photo)
6. Subaru Outback Ecto-1 (ZOMG! All-wheel drive Ghostbusters awesomeness! This would be the only reason for me to ever get a white car.)
7. Multi-colored 5 1/4-inch Floppy Disk-covered Honda Civic
8. USS Enterprise NCC-1701.7 Shuttlecar
9. Star Wars Landspeeder (can’t go back and erase the wheel shadow on this one, George)
   
10. Jawa Sandcrawler (Um, I don’t think this one’s even close to scale…)
11. X-Wing car (with R2-D2 in the back)

What I really want to see now is a track race with the Pac-Man car and four Ghost race cars chasing him… until the Pac-Man car catches the power pellet that’s speeding around in front of him (like the bunny in a greyhound coursing).

Then Pac-Man would spin around to chase Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde for a set period of time and when he overtakes one, the Ghost car would have to do a Drive of Shame back to its pit.

Fans would be outfitted with paint guns and instructed to colorize the overtaken Ghost car, which would then be washed off in the pit and resurrected into the race.

There would not be a “first to cross the finish line” goal. Scoring would consist of points for overtakes, drafting, driving style, and zealotry of paint gun-wielding fans. At the racetrack entrance, fans would have to declare whether they want to be Pac-Heads or Ghost-Heads for the day and sit in the appropriate stands.

To round out the racing teams, Pac-Heads would also be entitled to support race cars in the likeness of Ms. Pac-Man and characters from the early 1980s Hanna-Barbera cartoon series: Chomp-Chomp the dog and Sour Puss the cat. Don’t forget about Baby-Pac! He would be the adorable team mascot. On the Ghost side, the mascot would be the evil Mezmeron, leader of the ghosts from the cartoon series.

The only thing that would make this racing scenario cooler is if it were possible to screw with physics in some science-y way so that the race cars could drive off the East end of the track and instantly reappear on the West end (and vice-versa). And then maybe have a grand finale demolition derby. Yeah, I think that would score some serious green and some hardcore fandom.

Any other ideas to make this live-action Geek Race a valid sales pitch?