Recently, on Facebook, I picked my Top 5 toys from my childhood, the ones that i remember being special, and one of the things I chose was Space Lego. I grew up with Lego and I think I was around for the move to the little Lego people and buildings and vehicles to work with them (I recall having much bigger Lego people as a really young kid – though maybe that was due to the possibility of ingesting small pieces).

I loved all the Lego back then, including my mechanic set, but when the Space Lego came out it soon became my favorite. Ships and bases and astronauts, oh my. And they came in different colors – first red and white, then later yellow, blue (and black) which made them perfect fodder for your own version of Starfleet. I remember I named all of mine after characters from Star Blazers. The red figures were pilots and command personnel, the white were techs and engineers. I think blue was science and medical.

I mention all of this by way of linking to Gizmodo’s massive post showing all of the Space Lego sets. Just catching a glimpse of this set off my nostalgia sirens and I wanted to link it here so that I can go back and peruse at my leisure.

Just scrolling through it now, I can remember the Radar Truck. I think the 1970s sets are missing some images, but it’s still a nice walk down Memory Lane.

[Disclaimer – Gizmodo’s navigation once you get into the images can be very frustrating]

Recently I have been feeling a kind of television fatigue. A lot of this rests on the shoulders of Battlestar Galactica, and the almost tiring march to the end, but I’ve been following more series than usual this year and doing my best to keep up with them all. The finales of BSG, Life, and Sarah Connor Chronicles bought me some reprieve, but there is, of course, Lost which I’m eagerly enjoying. Other series that I enjoyed at the beginning of the year – House, The Mentalist, even Bones – have failed to engage me much lately and while I’m enjoying Castle, there’s something a bit off with the show that I can’t quite put my finger on.

This television fatigue is why I was surprised to find myself watching ABC’s new cop show, The Unusuals. I chalk it up to being a sucker for shows about quirky people and a willingness to follow actors like Harold Perrineau (who I think got a little screwed on Lost) and Adam Goldberg. It also helps that I saw Amber Tamblyn in a few scenes and she surprised me with her portrayal of police officer Casey Schraeger.

The Unusuals is a bit formulaic in its setup. It focuses on the NYPD’s 2^nd Precinct and the unusual cops who work there. Each person has his or her thing – Perrineau’s character, Leo Banks, is afraid of dying and always wears a bulletproof vest, Goldberg’s character, Detective Delahoy, has brain cancer but won’t get treatment or tell anyone, so he risks his life in the line of duty. There are other secrets, too, and a few characters with dark pasts.

While the individual episodes are interesting, usually dealing with an “A” storyline, and a more humorous and lighter “B” storyline, there’s also an overarcing “mystery” of sorts. The precinct’s Sergeant feels that things aren’t quite kosher in his department and he brought Detective Shraeger in to help clean it up. This plays up the usual tension of Shraeger having to ingratiate herself in the department while simultaneously investigating her fellow officers.

In addition to the quirkiness of its characters, The Unusuals succeeds for its portrayal of its police officers. These characters are corrupt, imperfect and damaged. They don’t always do the right thing, they’re not always stand-up people. But they are cops and they put their lives on the line, often for each other. Impressively, these imperfections only serve to make the characters seem more admirable and depicts a cost to a job that most people wouldn’t want anything to do with.

So The Unusuals is now on my DVR for as long as I still have cable. Though with ABC’s move to Hulu, I hope to be able to watch the rest of the episodes of this first season(only 10 have been ordered so far). Anyone else watch it?

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this here yet. I will be attending Wiscon this year. At least a few of the days. I’m flying into Madison on Saturday morning and flying out on Tuesday evening. It was the easiest way to handle it in regards to cost and taking time off. And this way I still get to see all the wonderful people who will be there.

In addition to Wiscon, it looks like this will be my year of cons. So far, it looks like I will be attending Readercon and World Fantasy and I may make it up to Worldcon in Montreal as well.

Hopefully, at some point, I’ll have something to “promote”.

With the launch of my new website, Fermented Adventures, I am now involved in five different sites. Since I even get confused, this is a list.

RajanKhanna.com – this site and where my personal stuff goes and everything that doesn’t fit elsewhere. My personal writing news goes here as well.

FermentedAdventures.com – my site about my adventures with wine, beer and spirits

YourMomsBasement.com – a site I started with friends of mine. YMB, newly renovated and relaunched, focuses on geek culture items, though often from a humorous or satirical angle. The new approach allows for anyone who’s interested to start a personal blog on the site and the front page will feature posts from those blogs as part of its content.

Tor.com – I’ve been contributing articles to Tor.com about television, comics and a variety of other topics. I am continuing a series of posts on post-apocalytpic themes as well as some comic-related material and more (The posts that I’ve written can be found here).

AlteredFluid.com – the website of my NY-based writing group. Focused on writing and the industry, but delving into a number of other topics based on the interests of the group.

So that’s where I am. Now to be more diligent about updating them all.

I neglected to mention this before, but a little while ago a wrote a short “prose poem” specifically for Jetse de Vries’ Twitter project, Outshine. Apparently he liked it, because he offered me money for it. It’s only 14 words, but with the payment that comes out to more than 35 cents per word and that’s the highest I’m likely to ever be paid for a piece of short fiction.

I’m not sure when it will appear, but I will link to it when it does.

I find the whole concept of Twitter “fiction” fascinating, as well as other nano-forms, and I like what Jetse’s been doing.

I may have to put something together for his Shine anthology, too, now…