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Comfort Star Trek

I’m home sick today and was thinking about shows I watch when I’m just killing time. Episodes I love to just put on in the background when I’m working (or sick). Most of the time, I open Paramount+ and play Star Trek. I figured I’d share my favorite “comfort” episodes. Warning: A couple of mild spoilers below for really old episodes.1

Mariner and Boimler on the USS Enterprise.

Star Trek: The Original Series

  • S1 E15 Balance of Terror. A “submarine” battle between Kirk and the Romulan commander.
  • S2 E6 The Doomsday Machine. The race to stop a machine before it destroys more planets.
  • S2 E15 The Trouble with Tribbles. My parents loved this episode when I was growing up and it’s one of my favorites. Sometimes, I pair it with DS9’s Trials and Tribble-Ations.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

  • S2 E10 The Defector. More Romulan manipulation.
  • S4 E26 and E27 Redemption, Part 1 and 2. The Romulans try to destabilize the Klingon Empire.
  • S6 E4 Relics. A Dyson Sphere, and a somewhat believable way to resurrect an old character.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

  • S5 E6 Trials and Tribble-Ations. The DS9 crew goes back in time to the middle of The Trouble with Tribbles.
  • S6 E6 Sacrifice of Angels. I love the action and pacing of this episode. The end of one of the arcs that dominate DS9.

Star Trek: Voyager

  • S4 E14 Message in a Bottle. The Doctor is transmitted back into the Alpha Quadrant, and works with another Emergency Medical Hologram to liberate a Federation ship.
  • S7 E25 Endgame Parts 1 and 2. The series finale. The Voyager makes it home… twice.

Star Trek: Discovery

  • S1 E7 Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad. A great time loop episode, with some great performances.
  • S2 E2 New Eden. Captain Pike. Mysterious Earth colony. Prime directive debates. Love it all.

Star Trek: Lower Decks

  • S2 E7 Where Pleasant Fountains Lie. All about evil AI, but in the funniest possible way.
  • S3 E5 Reflections. Starfleet Recruiting Booth. Rutherford’s implant malfunctions.
  • S3 E6 Heal All, Trust Nothing. A visit to DS9, and Tendi goes full Orion to save the day.
  • S4 E4 Something Borrowed, Something Green. Tendi goes home for her sister’s wedding, and chaos ensues.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

  • S1 E2 Children of the Comet. A comet that’s worshipped as a live bringing god. Such an old school Star Trek story.
  • S2 E7 Those Old Scientists. A Lower Decks/Strange New World crossover that works far better than it should.
  • S2 E9 Subspace Rhapsody. The musical episode, that also works far better than it should.

Star Trek: Picard

  • S3 E10 The Last Generation. A fan-service finale that’s full of fun.

Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.

  1. Or Star Wars: Rebels, but that’s a post for another day. ↩︎

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Spent the evening troubleshooting some fonts that I’m going to sell through MyFonts. Finally think I’ve got everything fixed, but I want to look at again with clear eyes in the morning.

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I wish Cotton Bureau made stickers.

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The ACC and Florida State/Clemson are going to settle, right? These cases will be in the courts for years, probably heading all the way to the Supreme Court. The uncertainty will hurt the ACC and Florida State and Clemson will end up in the Big 12, where neither of them want to be.

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We bought our soon-to-be middle schooler a phone today. Pretty sure he was the last in his friend group to get a phone. We’re still not letting him get social media apps, but he was cool with that because none of his friends use social media. They just text each other.

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Fun fact: One of my favorite pieces of memorabilia in my office is an autographed Dr. Ruth program from when she visited the University of South Carolina in the mid 1990s, signed “Bob, Great brochures! Thanks, Dr. Ruth.” She signed autographs for hours after her talk. RIP Dr. Ruth.

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Then: 7.13.24

Posts titled “Then” were originally shared on my “Now” page.

Good week, although still way too hot in Columbia, South Carolina. To be fair, it’s too hot pretty much everywhere, it seems. I’ve stolen a brilliant idea from Sven Dahlstrand (@sod on Micro.Blog) and I’m going to archive my previous “Now” pages on blog in a category called “Then.” I like to have an archive of everything and it always bothered me that my Now page implementation didn’t have a history.

Feels

  • I’m tired. It’s been a long week for some reason.
  • Looking forward to an upcoming vacation.
  • Sad that summer is coming to an end. Kids start school in less than a month. The excessive heat has been brutal this year. We are fortunate to have shelter and air conditioning so we can manage, but I haven’t felt like leaving the house. Ready for cooler weather.

Projects

  • I’m getting closer to finishing a couple of new fonts to make available on MyFonts. Just need to put the finishing touches on the files and marketing images.
  • I spent time this week editing my paper on consumer attitudes toward logos. Happy with the edits. Time to submit it to a journal. We’ll see what happens.

Entertainment

  • Star Trek: Prodigy on Netflix. Finished watching the series this week. Liked where the story landed and was genuinely surprised by some of the callbacks and references to previous Trek franchises.
  • Star Wars: The Acolyte. Finale this week. I’ve enjoyed the show, and like the idea that they are telling the story in an earlier time period. I’ll probably post longer thoughts on the blog after the finale.
  • Looking for books for vacation and realized the last book in Rebecca Roanhorse’s Between Earth and Sky series is out. I thought I’d preordered it, but apparently not. Need to go back and reread the last book to remember where they left things. Looking forward to reading the final book of the trilogy on vacation.
  • No F1 this week.
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Stopped by Rutledge on my way across campus today.

A brick pathway flanked by benches and lush greenery leads to Rutledge Chapel at the University of South Carolina.
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The South Carolina Women’s Basketball team deserved the ESPY for Best Team. Undefeated national champs. Glad they won. 🏀

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Early in my career, the president of the insurance company I worked for told me “When you are losing money, you can’t make it up in volume.” I thought about that when I read this collection of clips and links that Michael Tsai pulled together about the economic realities of AI.

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So tonight, I’ve learned that Lego is releasing a Jedi Bob Starfighter that will be released on my birthday. And my family thinks that Jedi Bob bares a striking resemblance to me. So I guess I know what I’m getting for my birthday this year.

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According to Facebook Memories, 13 years ago, I was sharing Google+ invites with friends. 🤣

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I’m taking (and sharing) a lot fewer pictures this year compared to past years. I’m not actually sure why… It’s not a conscious decision… I think I just need to get back in the habit of taking pictures of the world around me.

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What an exciting British Grand Prix. As a new F1 fan, I never got to see Hamilton when he was dominant. So cool to see him win this one at Silverstone.

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I’ve decided to publish a Now page again. I’ve tried it before and I didn’t stick with it. I like the concept though so I’m going to give it another go.

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Then: 7.6.24

I’m giving the “Now” page concept another go. I love the idea, but I just haven’t figured out how to make it work for me. For now, I’ve settled on an opening paragraph and three category prompts: feels, projects and entertainment. Should capture a nice snapshot of what I’m focused on and how I’m feeling. When I update these, I’m going to copy them over to Notion so I have a weekly journal.

Feels

  • Looking forward to an upcoming vacation.
  • Leadership changes at work are never easy to navigate.
  • Anxious about the state of our country.
  • My sore foot is feeling better, but that means I need to turn my focus back to getting healthy.

Projects

  • I’ve decided to give this “Now” page a try again.
  • Finishing up a couple of fonts that I want to release soon. You can see previews at SbB Fonts.
  • I’ve got a paper that I need to update and submit to for publication. I’d really like to get it wrapped up this summer before the new semester starts.

Entertainment

  • Star Trek: Prodigy on Netflix. Working through the episodes slowly. I suck at binge watching.
  • F1, because my daugther got interested and now I’m hooked.

Posts in the “Then” category are archives of my “Now” pages.

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My 12-year-old tried again to watch the Lord of the Rings, but gave up after about an hour. He really wants to like it, but he just can’t get into it.

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Dead Mall Memories

I know that enclosed shopping malls have fallen out of fashion, but I’m of an age where malls played a major role in my childhood. An abandoned mall in Columbia is being torn down and I was thinking today about all the malls that have played a role in my life. I figured I’d share a couple of memories of malls that are no more…

  • Richland Fashion Mall. The mall that’s being torn down is in Forest Acres, South Carolina. I drove past it today so I’ll start with this one. Being close to the University of South Carolina campus and my first apartment, I took a bunch of trips to Richland Fashion Mall.1 We occasionally visited the movie theater on the rooftop before nicer theaters came to Columbia. Liz and I frequented the Barnes and Noble when we were dating and registered for our china at the Dillards when we got engaged. Liz even got her hair done at the Belk’s salon for a few years. Lots of good memories, but the mall had been pretty much abandoned for years and it’s good to see the redevelopment finally starting with the demolition of the old structure.

  • Dutch Square Mall. We lived in Illinois when I was in elementary school, but our family was still in South Carolina so we’d travel down twice a year to see everyone. One reliable stop was always Dutch Square Mall in Columbia, South Carolina near the intersection of I-26 and I-20. Back when Chick-fi-A was only in the South and only in mall food courts, this was an easy option for some delicious chicken sandwiches. Cromer’s Peanuts had a location in the mall where we could buy bags of boiled peanuts and see some monkeys.2 (I’m pretty sure my parents wanted to wear us out before we got to my grandparent’s house about an hour away.) Much later, the mall was renovated to have a 14-theater movie theater and the Dutch Square Theater became our go-to theater. I saw countless movies there including a midnight showing of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. With the opening of nearby Columbiana Mall, shoppers and retailers moved to the trendy new spot. Years later, I worked at an insurance company nearby and would occasionally run over to the Chick-fil-A, but it was clear by then that the mall was slowly dying and AMC closed the theater. The mall is actually still open and the movie theater is operated by a small chain now, but there’s not much out there any more. A nearby church is in the process of purchasing it and has plans to completely redevelop it.

Shoppers at the Aiken Mall
Shoppers at the Aiken Mall. Photo by Tim Dominick accessed via the Walker Local and Family History site at Richland Library.
  • Aiken Mall. This mall in Aiken, SC opened right as I started high school. For a small town, it was a big deal. It had a bunch of undersized anchor stores, but it also had everything a teenage me needed: an arcade, a Babbage’s video game store, a B. Dalton bookstore and a music store. My mom had us get family portraits taken at the Sears Portrait Studio many, many times. My car broke down in the parking lot at least once. As anchor stores JC Penny, Sears and Phar-Mor started to close, they tried to reconfigure it a couple of times, but the mall was already in a death spiral. At some point, they added a Books-a-Million and my in-laws would take our children there when they were babysitting. Redevelopment was promised for years, but they’ve finally torn most of it down and have started building a mixed-use development. Apparently, a Chicken Salad Chick will be opening soon in the new development.

All three of these locations are finally being redeveloped and I’m really happy about that, but as a kid that grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, these old hangouts will always hold a special place in my heart.

Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.

  1. Originally, there was an open air mall on this spot called Richland Mall. Then it was redeveloped and the name was changed to Richland Fashion Mall. Eventually its name was changed back to Richland Mall. ↩︎

  2. Seriously! The store had a display high in the back with several monkeys. ↩︎

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Rok-Tahk on Star Trek Prodigy is one of my favorite new Star Trek characters. 🖖 Enjoying the new season of Prodigy on Netflix.

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Holding down the fort with a skeleton crew at the office on the Friday after the Fourth of July.

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Micro.Blog as my home base

I was thinking this week about how Micro.Blog has become the home base for all of my online activity. I’ve had an account since I backed the Kickstarter in 2017, but recently, I’ve started slowly moving everything from my old Squarespace1 site:

  • Blog Hosting. This blog is hosted on Micro.Blog. I’m in the process of migrating my favorite old posts from Sketchbook B here so everything is in one place. At the $10/month premium subscription level, I can even add a few more blogs if I want to.

  • Site Hosting. SbBFonts.com is a static site hosted on Micro.Blog that features my typeface designs. I’ve got other ideas for simple sites I want to build. These “single page sites” are completely underrated feature of Micro.Blog and included with the premium plan. I love the flexibility of adding these kind of sites quickly and easily.

  • Social timeline. I use Micro.Blog’s timeline to interact with other Micro.Blog users and to follow Mastodon and other Fediverse accounts. It’s not the most active timeline because there is no algorithm pushing content at you. I consider that a feature, not a drawback. It’s not a replacement for other social sites like Mastodon, Threads or Bluesky, but it is a nice alternative.

  • Crossposting. Social media is fragmenting. When I post to Micro.Blog, I have it configured to automatically crosspost to Bluesky and Threads. I could also crosspost to LinkedIn, but I don’t want everything I post copied over there. People on Mastodon can follow my Micro.Blog posts at bobwertz@bobwertz.com. And the service keeps evolving. Micro.Blog founder Manton Reese is great about adding features as new APIs are released or updated.

  • My Tweet Archive. Just because I left Twitter didn’t mean I wanted to lose all my tweets. Manton built a way to import my tweets and I now have a searchable archive of 15 years of Twitter posts on my own site.

  • Third-party Tools. The web interface for Micro.Blog is fine, but I like using different apps, too. I can post directly to Micro.Blog from Ulysses and MarsEdit. Feedbin has a nice little integration, too, but I don’t use it much. It’s nice to have options, something that Squarespace doesn’t offer.2

There are other features that I don’t take advantage of yet like email newsletters, podcasts and narrated posts. All of these are included with my plan, I just haven’t gotten around to using them yet.

I know that Micro.Blog isn’t for everyone. It’s easy to get started, but to get maximum customization, you need to be comfortable with tinkering. The text editor uses Markdown, which I like, but many people have never heard of. It’s worth noting that Micro.Blog has no built in metrics. This is by design and I think it’s a good thing, but if you are the type of person who wants to dig into the metrics of every post, this probably isn’t the service for you.3

Micro.Blog is exactly what I want in a service. A home for all of my random thoughts, projects and experiments. The service provides an incredible amount of value for $5 or $10 a month and it feels like the web I fell in love with. If it aligns with your needs, there really isn’t a better service.

Bob Wertz is a creative director, type designer, Ph.D. student and researcher living in Columbia, South Carolina.

  1. Squarespace seems to be trying to serve a business audience with a ton of features that I really don’t need. Plus, they recently announced they are going private again with the help of private equity. This makes me nervous. ↩︎

  2. When I first started using Squarespace, there was an API, but they phased out support for that a long time ago. ↩︎

  3. You can add metrics through some other third party services, but I personally want to remain blissfully ignorant. Maybe I’ll write a post about that some day. ↩︎

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Happy Fourth of July, designers. 🇺🇸 The red, white and blue. 🇺🇸 The Pantone 193C, White and Pantone 282C. 🇺🇸 The #BF0A30, #FFFFFF and #002868.

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I had numerous captions on some of my old posts over on Squarespace. I didn’t want to lose the captions when I move the post into Micro.Blog. Today I learned that the Figure and Figcaption HTML elements work really well.

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I missed that Lego released a refined visual identity a couple of weeks ago that includes a new typeface, Lego Typewell, based on brick proportions. I really like it. The best detail I’ve found on the typeface is on this review from BP&O.