Today's Star Trek Advent Calendar entry is a couple stickers, one of which is of the thirteen-star TOS Federation flag. I still wish they had decided what the thirteen members were.

Cracked published an article about Wah Chang today.


Of course you all know about Wah Chang.



Thanks to Inside Star Trek I already knew that he designed the classic phaser, tricorder, and communicator, but going through Memory Alpha let's look at his full contributions...


* The "Cage" laser pistol
* Romulan Bird-of-Prey (the "Balance of Terror" version, also called Vas Hatham class in the Expanded Universe)
* The original tribbles
* The salt vampire (I just can't call it the M-113 creature)
* The flying parasites from "Operation: Annihilate" (sometimes called blastoneurons).



Wah Chang's full involvement in TOS was suppressed for the longest time because he wasn't a member of the propmaker's union.

Comic Book Resources' Kellie Lacey wrote about the live-action Cowboy Bebop petition:

Cowboy Bebop Fans Launch Petition to Save the Cancelled Netflix Series

Your daily dose of weirdness is the 1967 Wonder Woman screen test.


I certainly wasn't expecting the same narrator as Batman 1966. Or the costume to be so pathetic.

And today's entry in the category of "songs I didn't think they could metalize" is My Heart Will Go On Meets Metal.


My Heart Will Go On was a radio staple for years, I heard it more than enough times to get sick of it. And I've never even watched Titanic.


If you don't care for the Jonathan Young version above (I don't either), you can listen to 331Erock's version here.



Celine Dion's Christmas Album:
O Holy Night
Blue Christmas
Oh Come All Ye Faithful
Chesnuts Roasting on an Open Fire (I will never call this "The Christmas Song")


Listening to so much Dion makes me wonder what her accent is. It turns out that she's Canadian and fluent in French.



And of course we can't talk about Celine Dion without mentioning "The Prayer" from Quest for Camelot.

Cliff Stoll strikes again.


Just in case you have a hard time visualizing conic sections, he's made a conical loaf of bread and sliced it to demonstrate for you.

What better way to celebrate the holiday than to recap everything we know about World War III?

Today I Found Out tackles Hill vs. Mountain and Lake vs. Sea.


The latter I consider pretty obvious: lakes are freshwater and seas are seawater. There are exceptions of course, but in general it's a good rule.



The former is a tougher question, and I'm glad that they bring up The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down a Mountain.


My personal definition is thus:



The soil and plants of a hill aren't noticeably different from the surrounding areas. A hill is just a higher version of the area around it.



A mountain is more or less bare rock with isolated patches of dirt. The plants are distinct from the surrounding area, adapted to grow with less dirt, less water, higher wind, colder temperatures, etc.

What if Peanuts had a game on the Sega Genesis? What would the theme sound like?


Well...


I'm not sure how to feel about this one. Clearly a lot of work went into it.



I don't have much nostalgia for the 16-bit era. As I've noted before, I went from NES to N64.

You all remember the scene in Toy Story 2 where Woody gets restored, right?


Well, someone actually made the tool chest from that movie. Complete with toy-sized barber's chair.

For complicated reasons I got on a Winnie the Pooh kick today...


A cover of a medley of music from The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
Pogo presents "Boy and Bear"


Zooey Deschanel's cover of the theme for the 2011 movie. I'm surprised that it took this long to get Tigger included in the cast rundown.


Instrumental medley from the original film created for Critter Country


Theme from the New Adventures. This cartoon was a part of my childhood, but nothing later. Don't speak to me of Darby or Lumpy, they don't exist.



Carly Simon cover that was packaged with one of the first DVD releases of Many Adventures (and the VHS equivalent, which I had).


I'm Just A Little Black Rain Cloud. I still believe that none of the later voice actors can compare with Sterling Holloway, the original and best Pooh.

Someone tries to explain the physics of the arc reactor.


Of course this is totally off the mark, the arc reactor works because it's a plot device, nothing more. I don't recall anyone ever saying that the thing is a miniature fusion reactor.

Odin makes a human-sized Lego Space Radio


What a shock, I'm a fan of the older LEGO themes that didn't have oodles of custom parts.



In fact, I remember when "licensed LEGO" wasn't even a thing. Castle, Pirate, Town, Space, those were the themes. Technic and Duplo were peripheral to these. And that was it.

Epic Rap Battles of History presents Christopher Columbus vs. Captain Kirk


The Kirk actor really overdoes the Shatnerian pauses. I get that hyperbole is a valid form of comedy, but (ironically) you can overdo it.

Can you fit a whole game into a QR code?


Yes, you can. Sure, it's only graphing calculator-quality Snake, but it still works.

Trailer for the new Moon Knight series.


While Moon Knight is not one of my favorite Marvel heroes, I know a lot more about him than most people. And I'm just not sure that this guy would work as a show unless you really changed him. Deadpool sort of used up the audience's appetite for insane superheroes, and Batman knockoffs are a dime a dozen these days.

apparently you can watch all of 2007's kid nation on youtube?

Kid Nation Episode 1 Part 1 - I'm Trying to be a Leader Here!

An analysis of the history of Starfleet uniforms during the Lost Era between STVI and TNG.



I find this stuff interesting. And of course a Voyager scene set during this era messed the continuity up.



Followup video


The green wraparound tunic is pointed out. I really do DESPISE that ugly thing. More discussion of the mission-specific uniform variants here.



To nobody's surprise, Gene hated the Monster Maroons (too militaristic) and rejected all such elements for TNG. More proof that Gene had the unfortunate habit of focusing too much on the little things and not enough on the big things.

Norm from Tested creates a diorama for the Wonder Woman Golden Armor figure.


I get the reference to the work of Alex Ross, but I never liked the golden eagle armor. One of the key principles of Wonder Woman is that she's agile, and I just don't see how you can be agile in bulky armor like that.


That being said, using the LED string for a lit-up Lasso of Truth is pretty cool.


As for Wonder Woman vs. Iron Man, Wonder Woman wins. She could crush sections of the armor just like Thor did, and she's fast enough to deflect or dodge any of Iron Man's weapons.