Chilling out and hanging around
Happy belated birthday to southernsinger!
Almost done with the project that’s been breaking my back for the last month; a small measure of my sanity should return when it’s finally done. It’s not helping that the server room has moved to my floor, so everyone’s office is chilly all day. I may have some good story news in the next several days (hope hope).
I’m finally catching up on my Enterprise episodes. I’ve now seen the first three of the season, and I’ve been satisfied with them – nothing yet to go in my “favorite Trek episodes ever” file, but I’ve had fun and haven’t felt insulted. The mention that the NX-01 class was designed by “Captain Jeffries” was a nice nod. I’m going to try the first non-pilot Battlestar Galactica episode this week – I’ve heard that the individual episodes are much more appealing to my kind of fan than the pilot was, so I’m crossing my fingers.
Oh, yeah, Lloyd Eldred has made it into one of Decipher’s card games. (This is a old VTSFFC Halloween in-joke.)
Spock for President
Voting was painless, and didn’t take more than ten minutes. I was a little displeased to see the Diebold voting machines, but I must admit that the voter interface is quite adequate – clear and easy to use.
As I walked out, the Kerry guy approached me, and I braced myself; but he had only seen the Starfleet insignia on my denim jacket, and and jokingly asked how the Federation was voting this year. I replied with a grin, “As the members’ individual convictions dictate, of course,” and he accepted that with a smile. We chatted Trek for about 5 minutes, then I headed to work. I didn’t even need my extra voting hour.
Uncomfortably numb
I was right to be worried yesterday. I had a slightly rough day at work – nothing that wasn’t handled by the end of the day, but it was a little draining. As I headed home, I felt worse and worse despite efforts to center and clear my head, and by the end of dinner, I needed to lie down for a bit. The bit lasted the rest of the night, as it turned out I had a fever, sore throat, and nausea.
Feeling a little better this morning; I think I kicked it. Didn’t help that it was a chilly morn in Norfolk today: the car heater has been turned on for the first time this fall. We have separate thermostats for hot and cold air, so I think we’ll be planning to re-balance them soon.
I did miss the Enterprise premiere Friday, we had other things to do and I’m not going to let TV programming run my life. I suppose the people at UPN assume that their target audience all have TiVos. 🙂
Review: Starship Exeter
If you don’t have any interest in the original TV Star Trek, or low-budget film-making, you can skip this. A couple months ago, I was reading a back issue of Star Trek Communicator and I found a link to a Trek fan film called Starship Exeter. rattrap posted a similar link not long afterward, and this weekend I got around to downloading and watching this 2002 production.
Let’s start with what they did wrong. The script has a few “well why didn’t the characters do X?” moments. The aliens are a bit oddly acted in places, and the production crew admits to regretting a certain monster model.
That’s all. Everything else is freaking perfect. The costumes are right. The sets are right. The props are right, the sound effects are right, the characters are right out of 2270’s Starfleet. They even made their gorgeous CGI Constitution-class starship wobble at the same place the Enterprise used to wobble in certain shots. I was completely transported (no pun intended) back to a time when a determined humanity was making its mark in the Trek universe, whether alien races liked it or not.
This brings me to another point. Say all you want about certain cheesy aspects of classic Trek, it was one of the most high-budget TV shows of the 60’s – nobody did anything with better production values back then. Starship Exeter is so well-done that if it was showing on cable right now, it could fool you for a moment into thinking that you were watching another Roddenberry spin-off pilot. Low-budget film-making is catching up to Hollywood faster and faster – one reviewer stated that he’d rather watch Exeter than Nemesis.
This was a joy to watch, not just for the nostalgia overload, but as the herald of what’s to come for those of us with DV cameras and a few thousand bucks. I highly recommend it.
Tonight’s ST:Enterprise
After seeing the first few episodes of the season, I began to feel quite good about where the third season was going…
Spoiler and ranting protection activated
Plot a course, Mr. Arex
Today was video day… finally watched the Miyazaki DVD raininva purchased for me, “Spirited Away” – very good, much superior to “Princess Mononoke” in my opinion. Not sure if I like it better than “My Neighbor Totoro” or “Kiki’s Delivery Service”. but it was a good way to spend two hours.
Also, I acquired all the episodes of the Star Trek animated series, so I was treating myself to some good mid-seventies flashbacks. That show was definitely ahead of its time – weak animation and writing compared to much modern anime, but compared to the Saturday morning cartoons it was aired against, it was solid stuff. Besides, animation can do much wilder aliens than all the latex forehead bumps in Hollywood.
I even got some dishes and laundry done, so I’m all productive and stuff today.
Puppet violence on the increase
A gentleman named Laz Rojas makes new character “skins” for the Voyager: Elite Force shooter game. Thanks to his work, one can clothe the Voyager characters in uniforms from any series except Enterprise, play Original Series, Next Gen, or Deep Space 9 characters, or even some unusual creations such as Tom Paris as a Blues Brother, or the feline Lieutenant M’Ress from the Animated Series. (trenn, take note!)
But with the upcoming Thunderbirds movie in the works, Rojas has apparently decided to go even farther afield… soon, Scott Tracy will be able to take out all those long-held frustrations on the other players!
(Click for a larger image)
All Rojas’ skins and practice bots can be found at his Elite Farce website, and most can be modified for use in Quake 3, No One Lives Forever, Medal of Honor, or other Q3-based games.
Battle Fury
Every time I see a hostage situation in the movies, the angry, violent part of me wishes I was watching the Klingon version, where the good guys sorrowfully declare the hostages martyrs, sing songs of their brave sacrifice, and blow up the building.
One of the worst times was actually during a Star Trek episode, where some culture had gotten hold of a space probe of ours, reverse-engineered the matter-antimatter technology (wrongly), and wrecked their planet. They then had the gall to blame us, and kill off a hostage to show that despite their idiocy, they still had really big sex organs. And to make it worse, our captain starts feeling guilty about the whole thing!
On the other tentacle, the Klingon version:
Terrorist: “Despite the fact that you were agreeing to our demands, we’ve killed one of the hostages. I bet you regret your mistake now, huh?”
Klingon captain: “I sure do. Good-bye, honorable landing party.”
Klingon landing party: “Bye! You’ll find some death song ideas in our personal logs – we’ve been working on them just in case!”
Terrorist: “What? Hey! Wait! Wait a minute!”
The landing party’s communicators, being really sturdy, register the first half-second of incoming photon torpedo fire.
Klingon captain: “Too bad. Let’s go find a planet with some real warriors!”
Now, I want to make it clear that I’m not suggesting this as a solution to any real-world situation. Whatever the flaws in the idea, though, I bet it would cut down on hostage crises.
