“THIS is Ceti Alpha 5!”

Update: Please see Ceti Alpha V for the title reference.

(Geez, you PVP readers, I thought you knew your sci-fi pop culture references. It’s not even that obscure.)


Update, 2007: Sadly, the joke alert is no longer there. It was great. NOAA posted a test alert saying that the Earth was careening out of its orbit towards the sun, but then erased it, and mr_crash_davis posted a screenshot, but now it’s gone, and the reference to Ceti Alpha 5 is just completely pointless now. Forget it.


A good thing that mr_crash_davis managed to grab a screenshot of the NOAA weather statement warning of unusually hot weather due to the planet Earth’s unseasonable catastrophic orbital displacement. Just so you know how doomed we all are.

(Note on the thread title: it’s a quote from Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan, where Chekov still thinks he’s on Ceti Alpha 6, not 5, where Khan was marooned. Khan tells him, “This is Ceti Alpha 5! Ceti Alpha 6 exploded six months after we were left here. The shock shifted the orbit of the planet and everything was laid waste.” Hence the reference to the fictional orbital displacement mentioned above.)

Cooking ng Ina Mo

About to try cooking Myra’s Chicken Adobo. Wish me luck.

Update: Except for the fact that I had no potatoes or boiled eggs, had to use garlic powder instead of real garlic, and onion powder instead of onions, the adobo cooked surprisingly well. I did not follow the above recipe exactly, since I was going for the stew-like adobo rather than the skillet-fried variety. My mix calls for a bit more soy sauce, lots more bay leaves and garlic [powder], a bit of sugar, and a much longer simmer to let it all work through the meat. The final output tastes a lot like how my mom makes it. Which is a good thing.

I failed to consider the lack of kitchen exhaust in my apartment, so my whole living space is deliciously saturated with the smell of garlicky adobo, even after having a window open to the sub-freezing air all night. Delightful.

Coveting Couches

Valerie wants to marry a clothes dryer, and other thoughts on covetousness and marriage. Go read. It’s her kind of thinking (the clothes-dryer thinking, not the couch thinking) that saves a man from ogling other women after he’s gotten married.

Planet WooWoo

Six months ago, Planet X did not come to wreak havoc on the world. Now, a new threat has come to imperil the Solar System. Get your tinfoil hats on as we await the arrival of Planet Z!