I’m a decidedly out-of-the-closet sci-fi nerd. I even made sure I married a fellow sci-fi addict, just so I wouldn’t have to feel shame for occasionally completing the dialogue while watching reruns of Star Trek: The Next Generation. (All right, fine – even my wife thinks that’s a little strange.)

So when the SciFi channel rebranded themselves as SyFy this month, I joined my legions of fellow nerds in lambasting the switch. The network largely ignored the complaints and went ahead with the rebrand anyway, with president Dave Howe assuring fans that new, stunning shows like Warehouse 13 would win over the naysayers.

At this point, it’s hard to say if that strategy is going to work. Reviews for Warehouse 13 so far have been largely mixed, with many people saying they like the concept (c’mon, what’s not to like about the idea of a secret government warehouse storing away mysterious historical objects?), but they’re not sold on the execution. I missed the premiere on Tuesday, but I watched the two-hour pilot on Hulu on Wednesday afternoon. After taking a gander myself, I tend to agree. It’s okay, but the next Battlestar Galactica it isn’t.

The odd-couple formula of pairing Secret Service agents Pete (Eddie McClintock) and Myka (Joanne Kelly) is tired and predictable. Fortunately, McClintock creates a pretty immediately likeable character. Kelly’s party-pooper, stick-in-the-mud character, on the other hand, isn’t quite so endearing. But they’re both upstaged by warehouse curator Artie (Saul Rubinek, who, in a testament to my nerdiness, I immediately recognized as having played Kivas Fajo in a single episode of Star Trek: TNG in 1990). I’m sure  that if the show becomes successful, Rubinek will be a big contributing factor.

So from the perspective ye olde average viewer, Warehouse 13 is a bit of a wash. For South Dakota residents and visitors, however, the show’s got another let-down up its sleeve: its crummy portrayal of South Dakota’s Badlands, where the titular warehouse is supposed to be located. All the filming takes place in and around Toronto, which isn’t surprising – filming in Canada is fairly commonplace these days, and the scope (read: budget) of the show almost certainly doesn’t justify filming on location here in the Black Hills area. (You know, even though we’d love to have them…)

That said… couldn’t they have tried even a little harder? The closest they come to any actual Badlands scenery in the pilot episode is a broad, sweeping landscape shot of Pete driving his SUV down a hill to the warehouse entrance. Some realistic-looking Badlands footage has been electronically inserted into the background (see above), which makes for a pretty convincing shot. But that’s where the realism ends. Scenes at the warehouse entrance thereafter seem to have been filmed at the bottom of a pebble-strewn rock quarry, which doesn’t really resemble the sandy buttes of the Badlands. When Pete and Myka drive a few miles away to a B&B in an unnamed town, we see lush, green forests as a backdrop – a far cry from the wind-swept and largely tree-free plains of southern South Dakota. And what’s that town doing there, anyway? It’s supposed to be unnamed and unincorporated – but from the few seconds we see of it, it looks even larger than Wall, the most populated town in the area.

Picky? No doubt. And in the scheme of things, it doesn’t detract significantly from the show. But for us Black Hills travelphiles, it’s just one more thing about Warehouse 13 that annoys.

Hey, at least they get their hands on a genuine-looking South Dakota license plate!

I’m a bit of a Facebook junkie. It would be easy to blame Mousehunt, an oddly addictive little game cooked up by a small Canadian company (there’s always a Canadian to blame, isn’t there?) Alas, I was drawn to Facebook long before Mousehunt came along, and if all the Facebook games dropped off the planet tomorrow, I’d still use it everyday.

Facebook has a fair amount of redeeming value — beyond providing a socially-acceptable form of stalking, which is what my wife likes to use it for (“you’ll never guess which of our former classmates just got married/had a kid/got divorced!”). Though that’s a big draw, Facebook is also a nice way to find people with similar interests. Take the Black Hills fan page, which now has almost 5,000 fans who are uploading vacation photos, talking about hiking spots and trading travel tips.

And as you poke around Facebook, you’ll inevitably find fellow users who seem a bit… dubious. Despite Facebook’s strong “real names-only” policy, Bart Simpsons, Santa Clauses and Donald Ducks abound. Case in point: I’m still friends with a fuzzy bovine named HP Cow II, who asked to join my friends list a couple years back. I’m pretty sure he’s the creation of a couple frat buddies from college, but then again, cows have been known to be pretty articulate. And bipedal.

That’s why I was a bit surprised to read this article about Facebook cracking down on suspicious-looking names. Though my buddy HP Cow II has gone under the radar (at least so far – sorry if I’m outing you by writing this post, little bovine buddy), Robin Kills The Enemy didn’t. Facebook recently flagged her account and cut her loose based on their real-name policy.The problem is that Kills The Enemy is an actual last name, and not at all uncommon among people of Lakota (and other Native American) ancestry. Growing up in the Black Hills, I went to school with kids who had similar last names, and being friends with the “Two Bulls” or “Little White Man” families wasn’t terribly unusual.

Of course, when you don’t grow up going to school in South Dakota (or if you’ve never seen Dances With Wolves), it’s understandable that “Kills the Enemy” would raise a flag or three in somebody’s head. I’m sure the Facebook bureaucrats were only trying to do their jobs.

But what’s really rubbing people the wrong way is the way this situation was handled. Based on the Reznet article, Facebook treated Kills the Enemy with all the cold, sterile hospitality that strict procedure has to offer. And, based on comments posted to a Facebook group devoted to the issue, she’s not alone. In one case, a user with Native American ancestry and a matching surname claimed that Facebook took several weeks to even approve his account.

And then there’s the issue of all the Bart Simpsons, Don Ducks and Santa Clauses still in the system. No one seems to be picking on jolly old Saint Nick.

The story hit the Associated Press wire over the weekend and has been in several newspapers by now, so I don’t think we’ve heard the end of it. In the meantime, I think it’s a pretty remarkable indicator of just how much the culture of a region can differ from the rest of the country. We tend to think of the United States as pretty homogonized in the 21st century – but the truth is, there’s still a lot we can learn about this country (and our fellow Americans) simply by getting in the car and taking a short road trip.

I was on my way home tonight and noticed some strange lights hovering above Sturgis. It wasn’t Mister Spock – it turns out the U.S. Forest Service did some prescribed burns this afternoon, and a few of them ran a little late. The result was a nice orange glow on the hills in Boulder Canyon.

Forest officials intentionally burn off the thick undergrowth in certain places, especially in the winter, to keep the possibilities of summer wildfires low.

I took a couple of shots of one blaze with my pea-shooter camera. The results weren’t spectacular, but at least you can tell what’s going on.

This one is a little tough to make out, but you can see the light orange glow of the fire at the top of the picture. Below, the taillights of a car streak along Highway 14A, which runs along the bottom of Boulder Canyon.

Not as good as the first, but you can tell that the flames are only burning the underbrush. The large, mature trees aren’t affected.

CLICK ON THE PHOTO ABOVE TO VIEW MORE NASA IMAGES OF THE BLACK HILLS.

NASA is good for all kinds of things. Researching the origins of the universe, for example, or promoting international cooperation. And sure, those things are great and noble and all, but when it comes down to the cool factor, it’s NASA’s photos that take the cake.

The NASA Image of the Day site is fairly popular at my office, and my coworkers with a nerdy streak aren’t above using the occasional image for their computer desktop. The Mars rovers have made pretty regular appearances, in fact.

I’ve seen some pretty stellar pictures of Earth lately, so I thought I’d root around and see if there were some nice satellite images of the Black Hills. The Booster Bunch didn’t disappoint. I found a really nice and detailed image, above. (Click here if you want to download the full image from NASA.)It was taken as part of a study on drought. You can see Belle Fourche Reservoir at the top of the picture, Keyhole Reservoir (in Wyoming) on the left side and Rapid City sprawling out from the edge of the hills on the right. I think the division between the Black Hills proper and the Bear Lodge Mountains, the part of the Black Hills that spills into Wyoming on the northwest side, is pretty striking.

So’s the difference between the green hills and the brown plains. Anyone who’s driven to the Black Hills in the summer can attest to the sudden change from brown, dried out grasslands to emerald ponderosa forests. The distinct change in landscape led some early travelers to describe the Black Hills as “an island in a sea of prairie,” and it’s easy to see why when you look at a photo like this.

Dan has been a video-posting fool, so I thought I’d jump into the party and add one of my own. Jerry Bryant, our friendly neighborhood archeologist, passed along this MySpace vid of the entrance to the Two Bit mine just a couple of miles outside Deadwood. The camera person doesn’t go past the entrance, but it’s some great scenery – and a little creepy.

The Two Bit mine wasn’t a huge operation like Homestake, but it did help feed a small mining town of the same name. The town is gone, to my knowledge, but the Library of Congress has some great Depression-era photos of the abandoned mining camp before it was razed.

Let’s face it – it’s wicked cold outside. Way colder than normal, and not just in the Black Hills. Everyone in the country seems to be chillier than average, as the poor folks at Soldier Field found out last night firsthand during the Bears-Packers game. The ESPN camera crew would pan over the crowd and reveal tight masses of people huddling for warmth and puffing out quick clouds of steam. It reminded me a bit of machinery – or a giant cigar parlor.

It’s extra depressing that it’s so cold, since there are a lot of excuses to be out and about this year. Snowmobiling, skiing, making snowmen, making snow angels, burying your loved ones in the snow… not to mention shopping and entertaining all your visiting friends and relatives. Usually that entertaining has something to do with seeing holiday light displays, which tend to get pretty competitive in some neighborhoods.

If you’d like to get a sample of some pretty impressive Black Hills holiday lights without leaving the toasty warm comfort of your chair, the Rapid City Journal has put together an online collection of this year’s top Christmas displays. It’s a little clunky – the photos are low-resolution, for starters, and it opens up a new browser tab for each video you want to watch – but it gets the job done.

The videos are the most entertaining. Check out Joe Lanoue’s home, where he’s got a river of lights cascading down the hill in his front yard.

Remember oobleck? No, not the non-Newtonian fluid. The Dr. Seuss-invented kind of weather. It goes something like this: once upon a time, a king got tired of rain and snow and sleet – boring weather – and had his magicians invent oobleck, a sticky green glob that fell from the heavens and caused havoc.

There hasn’t been any oobleck (or havoc) here recently, but we did get some good snow early this week. It was really pretty stuff – hanging around the trees and buildings like a thick coat of white frosting. It was so thick and wet that it didn’t quite seem like snow. Frosting was the closest thing I could come up with, and as a result, I ended up thinking a lot about cake yesterday.

I wandered around Deadwood yesterday afternoon and snapped these shots. Some of the snow melted off today – it was a balmy 50 degrees and sunny – but fear not, all ye powder hounds! We’re supposed to get another couple of inches tomorrow and today.

So, does it look like frosting, or was I just hungry?

I got a call late yesterday afternoon from my friend Kenny over at BlackHillsVacations.com. They’ve just launched a new feature that allows visitors to the site to write reviews of hotels, attractions, special events – even entire vacation packages. Just click on the tabs for packages, lodging or activities, and you’ll see reviews start to pop up for the site’s listings.

All the reviews are done on the standard 5-star scale, with the option to leave specific comments. If you’re feeling a little cloak-and-dagger, you can choose to leave your real name and e-mail address off the public side; just be prepared to fork it over to the site administrators, who need to know you’re not a mindless spam-bot out to take over the world.

One feature I really dig: when people submit reviews, the dates of their vacation also get posted. That really helps you put what you’re reading into context. For instance, if you’re looking at two very different reviews of the same property – say, one recently-posted positive article and an older, negative one -you can reasonably assume that the property owners have done a shakedown and improved things since the first reviewer added his comments.

At the moment, the reviews are a little sparse (it just launched yesterday, for cryin’ out loud!), but that should change pretty quickly. Anyone can leave a review, even if you didn’t book your trip through the site, so there isn’t anything in the way of restrictions. In fact, Kenny told me that review editing will be kept to minimum. I’m sure they’ll filter for the profanities to keep things family-friendly and all, but other than that, what you say is what they’ll post.

So, if you’ve got a great hotel experience or some fun hints about your last family vacation to the Black Hills, feel free to share. There are a ton of travelers who could use your help planning their next trip.

Holidays inspire all kinds of gimmicky things. Peeps, for instance, are at the top of my list of favorite holiday tackle, as are those chalky Valentine’s Day hearts, thanks mostly to this episode of Futurama. (“This concept of ‘wuv’ confuses and infuriates us!”)

It doesn’t really matter that even the most entertaining of this stuff is pretty useless for 364 days of the year. Somehow, we think it’s cool anyway, and new holiday paraphernalia pops up every year.

Enter Astraware, a software publisher for mobile devices. They’ve released a pretty hokey little application just in time for Independence Day. Like Peeps and dancing Santas, I’m not sure what its purpose is, so let me tell you what it does: when you start the program – aptly named “Fireworks” – you’re given the option of choosing from four backgrounds and three patriotic songs. When you make your selection and hit the ‘launch’ button, animated fireworks buzz around your chosen picture as the music plays.

And that’s pretty much it. Play the 40-second video above and you’ll get a good idea of what it looks like in action.

This isn’t something I’d ordinarily download, but since Mount Rushmore is one of the four backgrounds you can choose (the Statue of Liberty, a flag and the Iwo Jima Memorial are your other options), I had to check it out. I found it oddly compelling. I’ll probably delete the program in the next day or two, but not before I run around the office and show all my coworkers. It’s got an undeniably kitschy appeal, a novelty that somehow inspires you to call your friends over so you can have a couple of good laughs.

Part of the appeal might be my choice of music: Liberty Bell March. Thanks to Monty Python, who used the tune as their theme song, I have a strange affinity for the Sousa composition. If you’re feeling a bit more patriotic – or a bit less absurd -you can also choose the Star-Spangled Banner or Stars ‘n Stripes Forever.

It’s certainly no replacement for watching the real Fourth of July fireworks show at Mount Rushmore, which starts tomorrow. But if you can’t make it, this little program might (in some small way) give you the means to be there in spirit. Or something.

It’s available for free download (although you will have to give them your name, phone and e-mail address) from Astraware’s website. It took about 1 MB of space to install on my Dell Axim X51v, which is reasonable. The program loaded quickly and ran without a hitch. Astraware Fireworks is available in versions for standalone Pocket PCs, Pocket PC smartphones, devices with the Palm OS and Blackberries.

Merci beaucoup to my friend Mason for finding this clip, which may be the most inspiring video I’ve ever seen about the Black Hills. You know, in that completely un-hokey kind of way. Seriously, I was a bit surprised this didn’t turn out cheesy, but it’s actually quite good.

Up on the IMDB under the National Treasure: Book of Secrets entry, there’s a video clip that looks like it might have come from the DVD’s special features. It’s only about 90 seconds long, but it’s all about how the cast and crew of the movie were utterly thrilled with the Black Hills and western South Dakota.

“…it really represents the souls of these guys,” Jon Voight says about the presidential sculpture on Mount Rushmore, and particularly the quality of Gutzon Borglum‘s work.

“There was something about that place,” Justin Murtha continues, noting that he’d never been to Rushmore before, and that it was a real special experience for him.

Okay. Kind words, one and all, but certainly nothing new. Most visitors to Rushmore say the exact same thing. But then Helen Mirren comes up on screen.

“It’s a really extraordinary part of the world,” she says in her lovely English accent. “I mean, Mount Rushmore was fine. You know, it’s an amazing man-made achievement. But the power of the natural world around Mount Rushmore I found much more effective.”

As an epic flyover of the Badlands switches to some aerial shots of The Needles, Nicolas Cage starts to talk.

“The Black Hills were unique to me,” the actor says. “They were very, very special, because it’s a sacred area, and still something of a secret. I don’t think people realize how beautiful that is, in our own backyard.”

As if that wasn’t enough of a glowing endorsement, director Jon Turtletaub cuts in and starts talking about the history and culture of the Black Hills, and particularly the American Indian aspects. He finishes with this:

“Everybody who went to Paris or London said, ‘Wow, this is great, I’d love to come back here, visit,’” Turtletaub said. “We were looking at houses in South Dakota.”

So are a handful of other movie stars. An anonymous friend of the blog reports that Julia Roberts has constructed a comfy pad away from it all near Sheridan Lake, while Kevin Costner – who owns property in the Black Hills – flies into the Deadwood-Spearfish airport with some frequency.

Aside from the natural beauty, history, culture and spiritual appeal, the Black Hills are pretty attractive to celebrities because they’re relatively isolated. As Nicolas Cage said, they’re still a bit of a secret. That doesn’t mean we don’t have a couple of shopping malls, great restaurants, broadband cellular coverage and all the trappings of civilization. It just means that the wider world usually doesn’t pay much attention to us, which can be a huge advantage if you’ve got paparazzi hounding you. For unfamous types like the rest of us, that translates into another bonus: lower land costs. The Black Hills are far less expensive than ‘discovered’ places like Aspen, Colorado and Jackson, Wyoming.

For now, anyway.