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The simple rules of Butterfly Derby (plus review: Futurama, “The Butterjunk Effect”)

Though not currently based in North America, BuckBokai couldn’t wait to get his hands on this week’s episode of Futurama, the horrifically-titled “The Butterjunk Effect,” promising as it did another science-fiction sport to record in the annals.

Masters of the online science-fiction editorial universe io9, via reviewer Esther Inglis-Arkell, trashed the ep. Inglis-Arkell noted the out-of-character dialogue and action pressed upon Leela and Amy, and yes, BuckBokai must agree that a lot of the early stuff with catty remarks about shoes and weight seems like character-unspecific stuff written in somebody’s sleep. The io9 scribe did note some good bits to be hand in “the throwaway lines and sight gags that Futurama always excels at”; concurrence on this as well, then.

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21st century sports: Snowboard Basketball

Now that winter’s getting ready to set in over wide swathes of North America and Northern Europe, let’s hope we see a revival of the greatest 21st-century sport invented in 2010: Snowboard basketball.

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What the puck? Hockey goes to Zarmina, Stan Lee to NHL

Could it be that folks noticed the opening week of NHL hockey this year? In the science-fiction sports realm, at least, the Canadian national pastime has been getting a bit of play lately.

Pop astronomy geeks like BuckBokai were certainly intrigued by tales of Gliese 581g, a.k.a. Zarmina, a so-called “Goldilocks Zone” planet 20.5 light-years away on which water may exist and homo sapiens could live – albeit in a narrow band between perpetual scorching sunlight and continuous night.

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Happy Turn Ahead the Clock Week!

Today is July 25th, which means BuckBokai will take this opportunity to celebrate that greatest of real-life sports events ever, namely the Turn Ahead the Clock games held by Major League Baseball in 1998 and 1999.

Begun with a single freaky promotion designed as a parody of “Turn Back the Clock Nights,” the first such game featuring futuristic duds happened on July 18, 1998 in a game pitting the Kansas City Royals against the Seattle Mariners. (Is there anything Seattle couldn’t do in the 1990s?)