Sunday, October 5, 2014

A Quick Touching of Bases


Hey gang (if indeed there are enough readers still out there to constitute a "gang").  I've been meaning to post an update for a while now, but.... well, life, y'now. I've been neck-deep in my Outer Limits blog, plus we just moved two weeks ago and we're still getting settled, and.... yadda yadda yadda.


Longtime reader Scott Stevenson writes:

Hello Craig.

Please tell me that you will be keeping your TZ blog active.


October 2, 2014 (55th anniversary) came and went with no news or updates from you.

I have also been enjoying your Outer Limits blog but it is not quite the same as the TZ.

Anyway, I hope all is well with you and your family and I am really dying to read your second review of "Where is Everybody"?


Peace/Out.


Regards,

Scott


Hello again, Scott, and thanks for the check-in. 

Yes, I totally missed the 55th anniversary this past Thursday, and I have very little excuse, except that I had to get that week's Outer Limits post done that night, and I was way behind. I guess I could justify myself further by pointing out that this blog has always been about the series' 50th anniversary, and I've similarly ignored the 51st, 52nd, 53rd and 54th anniversaries, which sounds a bit snarky now that I see the words typed out before me, but I don't mean it to be.

I do plan to revisit most (if not all) of season one; the question is when. As I peruse my calendar and see what the next few months hold, I see a lot of commitments (the Outer Limits blog is a huge one, but there are other, non-blog and real-life things happening too). I think I can safely say that I won't be active much at all in these pages until February at the earliest. The Outer Limits' 50th anniversary run will be over in mid-January, and I refuse to do two blogs simultaneously again (I think back to September 2013-May 2014 and shake my head at how stressed and bleary-eyed I was. It's a lot to juggle when you've also got a full-time job and a family. Don't get me wrong, I love writing both blogs).

Truth be told, I'm also dying to revisit "Where is Everybody?" and the numerous other season one gems too. But it'll have to wait a bit. I want to approach the episodes fresh and interested, versus tired and distracted. The Twilight Zone deserves a much bigger chunk of my care and attention than I'm able to allocate at present.

In any case, these doors are far from closed. Promise.

Okay kids, let's stumble drunkenly down memory lane for a bit.

Longtime readers (all 2.75 of you) may recall that this blog originated from a home office/mini-theater we'd built in our garage. That room was my sanctuary, a place where my DVDs and action figures and liquor collection could roam freely and proudly (and keep my unique brand of nerdiness from infecting the rest of the house). I'd always dreamed of having my own office, and I enjoyed the hell out of it until we lost our house in the foreclosure crisis of 2010. My life since has been a crazy roller coaster of relocations, marital separations (and subsequent reconciliations) and assorted life changes (let's just say when I launched this thing in 2009, I had a full head of hair and now, five years later, I.... well, don't). I chronicled said roller coaster in these pages last fall, if you want the sordid details.

Through all of these changes, these rises and falls, I've remained haunted by the loss of that office, that glorious room that served as an extension of me, positively bursting at the seams with my interests and passions. I wondered if I'd ever have anything like it again.

We moved yet again two weeks ago. And two weeks ago, I got a new office.

Okay, it's technically an office-slash-guest room, but it's still gonna be filled with my stuff, my books and DVDs/Blu-rays and records and collectibles and movie posters. It will also eventually serve as a mini-theater as well, just like the original (the surround sound is already hooked up, but the TV won't be added til January). It's really bare bones at the moment, but have a look:



Luna approves.


So when I start revisiting season one, it'll be from this room, which by then will be tastefully decorated and otherwise adorned. Y'all come back now, ya hear?