Test 1, 2, 3.

There is a North Skunk Creek and a South Skunk Creek, but no Dead Skunk Creek.

There was a Dead Horse Creek in Wyoming (as well as a Crazy Woman Creek, which I side-eyed until I decided it was preferable to Dead Woman Creek), and just generally, Wyoming had a lot of creeks of the [Adjective] [Noun] Creek [Road] formula.

Iowa was the land of wind turbines. They had a whole gentle giant majesty going on especially when compared to the smoke stacks of South Dakota ejaculating poison into the air (seriously though, the phallic imagery was pretty epic).

Little Sioux had a billboard that seemed bigger than the town itself saying "Prepare to meet thy God". Um. Sure. I'll meet my god, who doesn't exist. Then Sioux City, and finally Sioux Falls where Bobby and Snowmiser conspired to trap me for the night with blizzarding and road closures. Though I guess if I was going to be delayed somewhere, it's nice that it was a place I got to make Supernatural references about.

This is the first time my car has ever gotten below 30 miles per gallon (27: yikes!), but I figure it was due to a combination of the car being weighted down with my stuff and the weather/windiness as well as spending a lot of time idling to warm up the car in the morning when it was below zero out. And the other numbers were in the 30s and I got as high as 37 on one tank, so not too terrible overall.

Driving in the wind is incredibly tense-making. Even with the extra weight, I had to make minute course corrections and got all hunched up over the steering wheel about it. I know some of the extra windiness was from the storm, but seriously, set up some wind turbines and you'd be set for power.

In other reference makings, I stopped in Bozeman, Montana for gas on the final day of driving. I seem to have a thing for states with future Star Trek history in them. Going from the future birthplace of Captain Kirk (although not in the alternate timeline of the reboot cuz there he was born in space), to the future site of the launch of the first human warp drive/first contact with the Vulcans.

I wound up spending a lot of time following trucks and sort of using their speeds as a reference to what would be best given the icy conditions and wind.

I did not get hit by a Semi when "Bad Moon Rising" came on the radio.

There were periods of no radio reception as well as only scary religious radio reception, and lots of country (which led to me discovering Carrie Underwood's "Blown Away").

Bootsie was of course NOT PLEASED throughout the ordeal, but he wasn't overly howly about it, and he drank and ate a little the second night so I didn't have to force water down his throat with an eye dropper like I did the first night (I was slightly less worried about dehydration since it wasn't super-hot summertime, but winter Bootsies need liquids too).

Being a "young woman traveling alone" (as both Dad and Aunt Flossie felt the need to warn me about) did not really seem to affect my travels in any way that I could tell.

I'm sure I'm forgetting lots of stuff because well, three days of driving insanity almost two weeks ago, but that gives you a taste, I guess.

Of course when I finally got to my new apartment, they were still putting the flooring in and that made everything extra stressful and obnoxious, and Bootsie hid in the crate while they were there all the next day, which was a little ironic considering how it had gotten progressively more difficult to get him back in there.

But they finally finished, and the new floor is nice, and I got my stuff all moved in. I still have some boxes around that I should probably do something about, but I'm getting there, and my first week of work went well.

is the title of an episode of Falling Skies.

I'm just going to put that right here in my pile of Badass Episode Titles next to "For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky".

As you bounce the graviton particle beam off the main deflector dish.

Eventually, when The Hobbit movie[s] come out on DVD, I'll be expecting a fanvid set to Leonard Nimoy's The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins.
Fair warning.

(I'd also like to see Benedict Cumberbatch serenading Martin Freeman with the song, but I think that's a bit less likely.)

Obviously, first and foremost, Keith David needs to guest star (preferably as like, Kevin's dad, or Kevin's dad's twin brother since I get the impression that Kevin's biodad is dead) for the Elisa/Goliath love.
But I've been watching TNG eps on BBCAmerica, and Wesley Wil Wheaton was on, so it got me thinking.
Because TNG peeps also fit with the Gargoyles reference. Like Xanatos Riker Jonathan Frakes and Demona Troi Marina Sirtis. They like working together. And I'd love to see Coldstone Worf Michael Dorn as a nerdy geeky type.
As for Puck Data Brent Spiner, he's got a gift for playing mad scientists that just should not be wasted.
Then Geordi Reading Rainbow Guy LeVar Burton (did he ever do a voice on Gargoyles? Or was he too busy flying twice as high?) can be the Reading Development Specialist and organizer of the Eureka Book Club. So he does something to the Eureka version of a Kindle to make reading addictive and everyone's walking around all Belle with dreamy far off looks and their noses stuck in books.

(Patrick Stewart is too movie-y and, well, something I've been noticing in the resurgence of my TNG love, is that while I didn't like Pulaski back in the day [largely due to her anti-Data tendencies] at least she had a frelling personality. Dr. Crusher is so bland, and I don't know if it's the actress or the writing or both, but yeesh.)

I know they've been talking about Star Trek XI being a prequel about Kirk and Spock's academy days for a while now, but feel free to read this anyway.

Because I really don't think this is gonna work. I mean, I'll end up going to see it anyway because I am Star Trek's bitch, but have they learned nothing from the massive retcon disaster that was Enterprise? Don't get me wrong, I actually liked the show for the most part (which is not to say that it wasn't flawed, but certainly better than Voyager's later years *sings* The Captain and Seven Show, starring them, the Captain and Seven...) even if Scott Bakula did somehow forget how to act (or decided that snotty douchebaggery was the way to go), but it wasn't exactly continuity friendly.
And this is going to be even worse because no matter what they do, or who they cast, Kirk is William-fucking-Shatner and Spock is Leonard Nimoy (and Leonard Nimoy is Spock).

It's a lose-lose situation: either the actors aren't going to try to act like Shatner and Nimoy, which is dumb, or they're going to be doing second-rate impersonations, which will also be dumb.

And, from the article linked above, the Shut Up, J.J. Abrams Award goes to this little gem:
"...I would actually prefer [that] people don't know the series, because I feel like they will come to it with an open mind."
Yes, let's alienate the people who are actually going to shell out the cash to see your movie. Good plan.

...that the Journal of Tribology is not about the study of Tribbles.

But it should be.

"Yeesh, at least Shatner has personality. And also? Why me?"