Spontaneous Musings

1. Finished Picard. Note? You can legitimately just watch Season 3 and skip the first two seasons without too much difficulty. Season 3 for the most part acts as a stand-a-alone. Or, if you want you can watch S1, skip over S2, and watch S3. Or watch all three.

Your appreciation of S3 Picard may well depend on how much you appreciated or enjoyed S2. I didn't like S2. I thought it was silly, badly plotted, and self-indulgent, also spent far too much time spent on time travel, Song, and Q. Those who loved S2 - I've noticed, did not like S3 and were annoyed. Why? S3 barely references it. Outside of the first five minutes, everything from S2 is summarily dropped. Seven and Raffi are really the only characters carried over. And Laris, disappears completely from the story after the first ten minutes of the first episode - and is never mentioned or seen again. In other words, if you don't like S2, don't worry about it. If you loved it? Wait a few years to see S3, by that time you've have forgotten S2 and it won't matter.

I made the mistake of hurrying to watch all of S1 and S2, so I could see S3, only to discover by the second episode that I needn't have bothered. Because it's as if those seasons didn't happen. Sure they give us back story on who Raffi is, and how Seven ended up in Starfleet. But you don't really need it - since Picard S3 fills that in anyhow. It's almost as if the writers were told to write it as a stand-a-lone, and to forget the previous two seasons entirely. The only characters from those seasons that appear are Picard, Laris (briefly - long enough to summarily write her off without killing her), Raffi and Seven.

This is a Reunion Season - with the original STNG cast being front and center. And if, like me, what you want is more of those characters, and to learn more about them, and see one last adventure with them, then you will love S3 Picard, and hand wave the plot and continuity weaknesses, among other things.

There are continuity and plotting weaknesses. And a potential Marty Stu in Jake Crusher, although having watched the entire season now? I'm on the fence. I live in fear of creating one - and remain unclear on the definition of it, which was coined (surprise surprise) by a fan critic of fanfiction.

The trope originated from Paula Smith, who coined it in “A Trekkie’s Tale”, a parody Star-Trek fan fiction. It was intended to mock authors whose characters were clearly based on wish fulfilment, self-inserts and idealized versions of themselves.

In fan fiction, the origins of the term Mary Sue are simple. They describe a character that has been added to an already existing fictional universe and:

* Gains power/ becomes overpowered without any struggle or journey of earning it.
* Gets attention from the original established characters (including those who it is uncharacteristic of eg. if they are anti-social, untrusting).
* Resolves the entire conflict almost single-handedly, removing any obstacles.

Despite beginning in fan fiction, Mary Sue characters are visible in films and TV series of many kinds.

Okay now that I have the definition? No, the character of Jake Crusher doesn't really fit it. He only fits point two. Points one and three, not so much.

I'm also on the fence as to whether Rey in Force Awakens really fits it. I don't think so. She only fits maybe point two.

I thought a Mary Sue or Marty Stu was a character who was unbeatable or overly skilled or had too many skills, say a surgeon and an auto-mechanic. But that just means diverse. Turns out - I don't have to worry. I don't tend to read a lot of fanfic, so I am admittedly oblivious to these definitions.

( spoilers )

To sum up without spoilers? It stuck the ending, and will provide fans of the series a satisfying ride with old friends, and a nice wrap up of their characters arcs.

2. Wolf Pack

Made it through four episodes of this eight episode series. It's not bad.
Among the better series that Gellar has done post Buffy. It helps that she's not the lead, and more in the background. The focus is on the teens, and we're mainly in their point of view. Gellar has graduated to the Anthony Stewart Head and Jenny Carpenter roles.

It also gets better as you go. Episode 4 was spooky. And the cast got a bit more appealing as I went. So clunky to start, improves by Episode 4.

[It's on Paramount Plus.]

3. Shadow and Bone

With the exception of Captain Kirigan (who is kind of moustache twirling), this is a fun series. I love the Crows. Kaz, Jesper, Inel, Nina, and Wylan, are fun. The six, is undoubtedly Matthias. Alina & Mal are okay, the privateer and his crew make them more interesting. As Genya makes Kirigan a bit more interesting.

The leads are kind of boring, the supporting characters on the other hand are rather fun. So much so, I wish I could just watch the supporting characters and ditch the three leads (Mal, Alina, and Kirigan). I think that may well be the weakness of this series.

I'm on episode 3 - I think.

4. Question on The Mandalorian S3 - do I have to watch the Book of Boba Fett first - or can I skip it? I'm unclear on this. Boba Fett is 7 episodes - so it's no great hardship - except they are all filmed rather darkly, and I'd need to watch them at night with the lights turned off in order to see them (same was true of Picard and Shadow and Bone. So time consuming. I may do it anyhow - because I like Ming-Li Weng. But is it worth it? That one got bad reviews. (Not that this means anything. Star Wars is like Star Trek -in that the fandom is rather vocal about what they like and dislike about it. And they do not agree. At all. I mean all the Star Wars films and series have gotten bad and good reviews. Depends on who you talk to.)

5. Finished Mel Robbins - Take Control of Your Life: How to Face Your Fears and Take Back Control of Your Life or something like that. I'm horrible about remembering book titles. In attempting to download the companion workbook - I got the workbook and video training sessions instead. I don't think she has the separate workbook that just goes with the book any longer. I think it got updated to the videos and workbook.

My difficulty with pop psychology self-help books - and life coaching - is I get confused. Actually this is true of the therapeutic process in general. Therapists, life coaches, sociologists like to label people or put them in nice neat defined categories. Which, while understandable, isn't really practical.

Robbins does acknowledge and understand that many of us have trauma or experienced traumatic events in our lives without it being familial, sexual abuse, or physical abuse. There's also emotional abuse. Also it may not necessarily seem severe or horrific to an outside viewer. This puts Robbins slightly above the rest, who don't appear to get this. I give Robbins a lot of credit for picking up on that.

However, she does fall into the trap of generalizing, which leads to confusion. I mean, I found myself at the end of this contemplating whether I'm a chameleon like Robbins, or experiencing imposter syndrome, or just run and hide, or quieting my voice? It's hard to know. Possibly a little of all of the above, or none of them? We're not always the best judge of these things.

Robbins example of lying or a chameleon is - apparently she lied to her boyfriend that she was an expert fly fisherman, when in reality all she'd done was trolling - and got caught when she was introduced to his best friend - an expert fly fisherman on a fly fishing trip.

I can and I can't identify? Have I done this? Yes and no. Not quite to that extreme. ( Read more... )

The problem is? I think we all have some of these tendencies? Self-isolate out of fear? (Considering we all just came out of a pandemic...) Imposter syndrome (it's a current psychological catch-phrase)? Not being Authentic or lying to avoid conflict and fit in? (I caught my niece doing it with me in 2021. And I did it with her. )

I'm not sure there's an easy fix here? I just want to meet more people, be more connected, and less lonely. Which takes me back to Picard S3 and why I enjoyed it - it's heavy on the theme of connection. ( spoilers for Picard )

Sometimes fiction provides more and better answers than non-fiction?

Should go to bed, but still up, because of digestive issues. I ate something or drank it, not sure what, that made me gassy.

Television shows...

1. The Company We Keep - this is the one starring Milo V (from this is US and Gilmore Girls), Polly Draper, Sara Wallis Callis, William Fichtner, and various other. We have a Chinese American political family (at least I think it is Chinese-American), and a lower middle class, Italian-Irish Con family. Charlie is a con man, who runs a bar with his family - but the bar is really a front for their con business. Emma is a CIA agent hunting down an Irish Crime Syndicate, which Charlie's family recently conned, and is now forced to work for and with. Charlie falls for Emma, Emma falls for Charlie - neither know what the other does for a living. Oh, and one additional wrinkle - Emma's family is in politics, Washington Politics, and turns out? They might be a bit dirty. It takes place in Baltimore and DC. It's fun, the dialogue is good, the actors likable, and the plotting tight.

Airs on ABC, and can be streamed on Hulu.

It's my new favorite show - that I look forward each week. Mother and I both watch. (I'm waiting for the Citadel to premier on Prime.)

2. Daisy Jones and the Six

God, can this show be any more cliche? ( Read more... )

I'm disappointed by it. It's streaming on Amazon.

3. Picard
( eh...not the best episode on the planet.., cut for vague spoilers )

This is streaming on the Paramount App - which is a horrible app, and possibly among the worst, next to HBO and Amazon. It throws you out, as does Amazon and HBO. All three are hard to find stuff on.

Seriously Disney, Hulu, and Netflix are the best of the bunch, and that's saying something.

4. Alaska Daily ended well. It's done a good job of focusing more on the investigative process than on the characters personal lives. Reminds me a little of Lou Grant. However, it does get preachy at times on social issues, albeit necessary ones. I could do without the nasty father and the attempts to take down the newspaper and the free press, however realistic it might be. But the season long arc on finding the missing Native American girls, and bringing one of the abusers to justice, was good. As was the attack on the government not doing a better job regarding it.

Plus, good cast and acting all around. I rather like Hillary Swank, Dove, and the actor from Scandal. Plus all the other supporting characters. It's a well cast series.

Clearly filmed at least partially on location, it works well overall.

It's available to stream on Hulu, I think. Although the episodes don't stay up there very long - due to distribution rights.

**

The change in temperatures - has resulted in thunderstorms. We went from 66 degrees to 32 degrees in less than five hours. Hence thunderstorms. And lots of lightening. I tried to photograph it - but got nowhere close.
Shame - there was one that looked like it came from the ground, it had five lightening strikes clicking out from it. I could see the streaks come down from the sky - as if someone were actually throwing them at us.

Hello, Climate Change.

Just finished watching Episode 1.3 of The Last of Us - the Last of Us kind of reminds me of Station Eleven at times, or what would happen if someone melded Station Eleven with the Walking Dead or Zombieland or The Passage?

Still sticking closely to the trope - the old guy, young girl traveling through an apocalyptic landscape, and the nutty people they run across along the way. I don't know how many of you are familiar with this particular trope? I've run across it a lot - it's very popular in dystopian fiction, horror, and well comic books. Very popular in comic books. The film Logan kind of did it, and Wolverine comics do it a lot.

Last of Us, the way it's set up, is very similar to the comic version of The Watchmen, also Citizen Kane, and Station Eleven (also the television series Lost), in which little short self-contained short stories are kind of told within the main thematic arc. It's not an anthology style, the short story pertains to the actual through thread not just the theme, and lends itself to the plot and character arcs. You could legitmately watch it on its own, but it really works better with the whole series. Station Eleven, Game of Thrones and Lost played with this narrative style as well. To date - I found Station Eleven to be the most interesting and innovative regarding it - Station Eleven feels like a puzzle box or like opening one of those Russian Doll sets.

As the critic Alan Sepinwall pointed out to me, when I had no idea what everyone was talking about in regards to Episode 3, this is an old narrative style or gimmick. He's right it is. I've seen it a lot too.

If you loved Episode 3? You really should go watch Station Eleven. (Although I guess it depends on why you loved Episode 3?) I'm guessing Episode 3 surprised a lot of folks who thought they were going to get something more in line with the Walking Dead or a video game? I wasn't surprised, but that's because this reminds me more of Station Eleven in how its narratively constructed and less like the Walking Dead. The focus here really isn't on the diseased or infected, its on those who survived (hence the title The Last of Us, while the focus in The Walking Dead, World War Z, Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead and 28 Days Later was well on the zombies or dead menace and trying to avoid joining them.) And they've been doing little flashback stories about various people along the way, with Elle and Joel as the connector. It may have helped that I watched Station Eleven first? Also have seen The Passage, which tried a similar set up and failed at it miserably - but it was also on network television, this is on HBO.
Plus all those comic books - which do this a lot. And well, Lost.

It's hard to shock or surprise me. I'm a jaded culture junkie.

( spoilers because it's hard to discuss this in any real depth without them )

****

Ah, blood sugar has balanced out finally. I no longer feel woozy. Note to self - be careful with the sugar intake.

Other Television Shows

1. Company You Keep

The second episode was even better than the first, mainly because we saw more of the supporting characters. ( Read more... )

[Television still has the annoying wave, which I often forget about if I get engrossed in the show - I forgot about it in The Last of Us for example]

2 Picard S3 Episode 3 - Eh, it works and it doesn't work. ( spoilers )

3. True Lies

It's okay. I like the female lead, and her role. The guy is kind of just there and fairly bland. ( Read more... )

(CBS on Wed's - I think).

4. Astrid - PBS (this is a French Detective Series made in partnership with the BBC).

Astrid is an autistic woman who gets involved with a police detective (commander) and helps her solve crimes. They have an off-beat friendship, and the mysteries are interesting. As is Astrid - who can figure things out logically.

Okay, off to bed.

Finished Picard Season 1 - which was really good, except for one thing - the dashing Romulan double agent and spy, Narek, disappears at the end. And doesn't reappear. Harry Treadway apparently left the series. He reminded me a lot of the love interest in Discovery - who also disappears mid-way through the second season of that series. Apparently Alex Kurtzman likes to do that?

Other than that small blip, the first season is excellent. Not sure I'll like the second season - because I've never been crazy about time travel and alternate dystopian universes in sci-fi. It's one of the reasons time travel stories annoy me - because we end up with the dystopian alternate time lines. It's a recurring trope in sci-fi, particularly sci-fi with time travel. And not a favorite of mine. But I'll watch the second season anyhow because I like the characters. I also like John De Lancie.

The first season of Picard delved into the morality of not killing those we are afraid of, or allowing fear to be the guiding force. To do so, lacks imagination - there's always another route besides "violence". It also looked at the AI conundrum from both ends of the debate, and did a rather decent job of examining it. Along with all the various angles. I always felt that Star Trek Next Generation handled the AI and robotic ethics better than most sci-fi films and series, examining what it means to be human and sentient life. Along with our responsibility towards it.

But at its route Picard is an in-depth character study. We see the characters from various angles. In particular Picard and Seven, but also side characters such as Chris Rios, Dr. Jurati, Raffi, El Nor, Soji, and Laris. STNG did a better job than most in delving into the supporting characters and exploring them in depth. You'd have whole episodes on them and their arcs - which distinguishes it from Original Star Trek - which only really focused on Spock, Kirk, and Bones. (I watched it for Bones and Spock's banter, Kirk got on my nerves.)

***

Not doing that much else of note. Did some errands. Streamed the UU church service - which focused on Art of Gentleness or basically how to be kinder to oneself. I think the Universe is trying to tell me something? All week long people have been telling me not to beat up on myself or to stop it. Culminating with this service. And Picard - where people were telling the characters the same thing.

It was an interesting sermon though in that it talked about the problems of a society based on meritocracy. And how capitalism requires meritocracy to survive - the constant competitiveness, comparison, acquisition of accolades, awards, medals, wins. When in the end? All of that is rather hollow and meaningless. It's as if we're all stuck in the Boy and Girl Scouts and the acquisition of a endless number of merit badges is all that matters.

It's meaningless. No one cares. People forget stuff like that. At the end of the day - all that matters is if you were kind. Or at least tried to be.

At any rate, this song by Radiohead...kind of made cry, it was sung by a woman at church. Creep by Radiohead.

The version at church was closer to the Pretenders remastering of it Creep remastered by the Pretenders

I didn't want to call this entry shootings...or anything like that.

What continues to haunt me from all the news reports of the grocery store shooting in Buffalo, NY - is the story about the 86 year old mother who stopped there to get a quick bite to eat after visiting her husband in the nursing home. Only to be killed by an 18 year old gunman.

According to the blurb in the New York Times this morning..."Ruth Whitfield, 86, was a mother of four and “a mother to the motherless,” her son told The News. Her husband had moved into a nursing home years ago and she still visited every day. She had just visited him when she stopped at Tops to get something to eat, WGRZ reported."

She apparently visited him every day. And on that day, she decided to stop off at the grocery store to get something to eat, as opposed to going home or to a fast food joint.

This haunts me. I cannot get it out of my head.
( Read more... )

***

Been binge watching "Star Trek Discovery" on Paramount Plus all weekend long. Did take a break today, and took a walk to the two health food stores to pick up supplies. (I don't go often - they are a thirty minute walk, and expensive, and it's a chore to lug the stuff back. But it was a lovely day in the 70s, clear blue sky, after nothing but rain on Saturday.)

"Discovery" - the second and third seasons, I've found to be very comforting. ( Read more... )

I'm finding the series comforting, inspiring, and hopeful. I kind of need that right now.

****

Also been watching New Amsterdam - which has one season left. It's been renewed for a final shortened fifth season. I've found it to be one of the more realistic medical series on television, with extremely interesting and multi-faceted characters. Reminds me a little of St. Elsewhere.

**

On the reading front - in a bit of a reading slump. Am still making my way through book one of the Throne of Glass series. I bought on Kindle an 8 books in One for $5.95. We'll see if it holds up, though. I read reviews that some of the later books didn't transfer well to the Kindle.

Also it's very juvenile - both in writing style and plot. I have a feeling the writer wrote this for a young adult audience, and geared her writing to the less well-read portion of that audience. Makes for easy reading - I can skim - so there's that. I think it's also why these books sell so well? People don't have to work that hard at reading them. Tolkien or Marlon James or Octavia Butler or Ursula LeGuinn they aren't. I'm not even sure they make it to Andrea Norton or Anne McCaffrey, or Joan D. Vinge. A lot of modern fantasy writers in the YA field are kind of boilerplate - they seem to copy each other, and their writing styles are rather simplistic.

It's disappointing if you've studied writing technique most of your life and worked hard on mastering it. It's not if you haven't. Also, I expect more from the fantasy genre than the romance genre - I have no clue why, considering the publishers are more or less the same. Fantasy writers appear to fall into one of two extremes - juvenile YA writers interested in lackluster love triangle romances or academic writers interested mainly in the world building and little else. I want something in between the two with a focus on character development. And I can't find it.

Recs are welcome, if you have any and you aren't terrified I'll rip apart a favorite. (I probably won't, I hate conflict. It's exhausting). Note: I'm not interested in children's fantasy novels or middle grade. (I don't have any kids and am in my 50s. So it's the wrong demographic for me.)

***

In other news...

Niece is improving. She appears to have gotten the same variant strain that I did. Which is fairly mild. It knocks you out for about two days. You turn a corner on the third day. Feel winded on days four and five and six. Better on day seven. Almost normal on day eight, and just tired after that.
Each day, I'm less tired. And the fatigue pretty much lifted on day six.

So she might be able to do her exam on Friday. It's apparently on Friday not Monday, but she needs time to study.

So, I dragged my sorry ass to the office today. (For those who haven't been following along? I live in South Brooklyn and work in Jamaica, Queens - which is an hour and a half commute give or take. I walk, take a subway, walk, train, walk. Plus lots of steps in between - because trains being trains aren't at street level.

The commute is mostly exhausting because of other people. It's public transportation. And the public is annoyingly self-centered.
( commute )
By the time I got to my cubicle, put away my lunch, went to the bathroom, and filled my water bottle - I was about ready to collapse on the floor in a bedraggled heap. Instead of sitting down though - AA waylaid me and proceeded to throw a ton of information my way on a whole new process that management had bugged him to tell me first thing this morning.

I'm not a morning person, normally. Add recuperating from COVID to the mix, and well. I just stared up at him...in bewilderment. Up, because I managed to make my way to my chair somewhere in the midst of the diatribe, and collapse. Afterwards, I told him that I got maybe half of it.
( Read more... )
At any rate, Crazy Workplace decided to come at me full force, in the face, guns blazing. "WELCOME BACK! HERE'S WORK! YEA!"

And I'm like, frigging hell, back off, work. I'm here. What do you want? You gave me this bloody virus, now back the fuck off.

It did. Kind of.
( recovering from COVID in nutty workplace )
I swear, I'd have been better off if I had tested positive on Monday - then I'd have gotten the week and the weekend.

The cough, sneezing, runny nose, watery eyes, head ache, are pretty much gone. Well there is still some congestion in the chest, and an occasional cough here and there - but nothing major. I never had much of a fever to speak of. I honestly can't remember the last time I ran a fever over 100 degrees or even a 100 for that matter. It may have been in 2019. But god, the fatigue and brain fog are the absolute worst.

I felt like I'd run a marathon by the time I got to work this morning. Or climbed fifty flights. I felt dizzy, and kind of wobbly. Also very winded, like I had to pause for a bit to catch my breath.

The brain fog is also present and comes in waves. I be going along, and then forget what I was doing. Or head to pick up something from the copy machine, get interrupted and forget about the copy machine completely.
I can't do Wordl at all - not that I was brilliant at it to begin with.

None of this is helped by the hot flashes. I'm averaging three - four a day at the moment. And they bring on the wobbly and light-headed off feeling.
I get hot, sweat, and suddenly cool down. Body's air conditioning system is out of wack. Doctor refuses to fix it. And I'm hoping it passes. It does eventually. But I have noticed that COVID does tend to cause it to spike. The vaccines did. And so does getting sick with COVID, apparently. COVID and its vaccine throw my body's heating and cooling system out of wack.

Messaged Doc about these entertaining side effects, and she informed me that they were normal, and unfortunately the fatigue would last a while. They'd monitor it of course, and keep them updated.

Anyhow, after about two or three hours at work - I was more or less fine. Although, in hindsight, deciding to eat the five day old chicken salad I made myself last Thursday night, probably wasn't the brightest thing I've done. I picked at it, and ate a little. I threw out the rest. It was disgusting. It's a minor miracle that I didn't have digestive issues.

I did get a lot done today - things that would have been harder to do at home. (Although not impossible). More than expected, actually. And I didn't let work overwhelm me - so kudos.

The main side-effects of this thing seem to be:

* Irritability
* Exhaustion (most likely the cause of the irritability)
* Fatigue
* Brain Fog
* Hot flashes/night sweats (which may just be menopause)

It's so much fun to go through menopause during a pandemic.

Tomorrow, I've got to do laundry when I get home. And hopefully make my bed up clean.

***

Discovery S2

As stated in a previous post - I finished S1 Discovery on Monday, I think. The ending was better than well, everything prior? Fuller and Star Trek are unmixy things - keep show-runners like Fuller out of the franchise. They don't understand Trek. Really, you should just have Trek fans run Trek, anyone else will just muck it up.
( S2 Discovery )

1) Star Trek Universe Panel at ComicCon

Includes: What's coming up in Star Trek Universe, Panels and Q&A with Discovery (they do a read through of the final episode of the season - Act I), Q&A and panel discussion with Picard, and with Lower Decks

( Star Trek Universe Panel at Comic Con )

2. ) I saw the Twenty Years of Dresden with Jim Butcher but it wasn't very good. Butcher isn't great at these things. I like his books better than I like Butcher, who apparently married one of his fans. He didn't have much to say about Peace Talks. And kind looks at the books as popcorn and he's gotten better by writing less or learning what didn't need to be written.
He is a huge Robert B. Parker fan (Spenser series) and Amber Series. Which explains a lot. Also why I like Dresden - I love Robert Parker's novels and he reminds me a lot of Parker.


3.) His Dark Materials Panel

Includes trailer for S2, which is really good. It's at the start.

( Q&A with His Dark Materials Cast )

4.) The Collider Panel - Directors of Film and Television discussing the process of directing a film

"Robert Rodriguez (Alita: Battle Angel), Colin Trevorrow (Jurassic World: Dominion), and Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick) take part in a wide-ranging and in-depth discussion about the craft of directing and projects past, present, and future. Moderated by Collider's editor-in-chief Steven Weintraub."
( Directors on Directing )

1. Enjoying the new Vamp Diaries spin-off - "Legacies" - weirdly it reminds me a lot of Buffy, more so than Vamp Diaries or anything else has. I think it's the monster of the week format admist the wackadoodle high school setting. Also Alaric reminds me more of Giles than Dumbledore or anyone else.

2. Been pondering this for a while now..

Some (not all) fans get REALLY upset if another writer reboots or adapts a story they've fallen in love with in a new or different way, with the same characters.
( rather long discussion of rebooted favorite television series and stories with same characters etc as opposed to just exploring the same verse, and why I'm all for that approach, in fact much prefer it to just exploring the verse. )

You ever write something and then think..wait a minute, but what about...

I'm admittedly of two minds on the above. Similar to fanfic. Or cooking for that matter.

How to explain this?

( Read more... )

Sigh. I may delete this tomorrow. Not sure it made a whit of sense. Although let's face it...I'm probably just talking to myself anyhow. ;-)

3. Whoa...Luke Perry died of a stroke at 52

Well, I finally got to see Star Trek - the maintenee showing at 11:30 am this morning for $8.50 - this is a bargain in NYC. Right now in the city it is $15, and here, $11.50.
I remember when maintenee's were $5.50 and the regular showing was $8.50. Heck, I remember when it was $1 and the regular was $5.50. Annoying, since movie theaters have just gotten worse as opposed to better, along with the audience - people, please don't check the time by turning on your cell phone. It's like shining a flashlight. It's rude and annoying. I kicked the guy's seat in front of me twice for doing it, he stopped, but couldn't do much about the guy three seats to my right. Honestly, I'm starting to wish they would just confiscate them the same way they do at Golf Tournaments and at Court Houses.

Outside of that? YAY! And okay, am a trekkie. I admit it. I mean, I got an excited chill down my spine when they did the quote at the end and the theme music. Also, really loved the inside bits for true fans. The Kelvin. The Tiberus joke. The Bones nickname. The whole warp-drive bit with Scotty. Sigh. It's a fun movie. My only regret? Damn we're back to the women being sex kittens in mini-skirts and bikinis. Oh apparently Winona Ryder was in this movie - I did not recognize her, but she played Amanda Grayson - whoever that is.

Anywho...after I saw it, I found myself really wanting to see the original trek again, especially Star Trek Wrath of Khan and Voyage Home. This one, of course, is so not in that universe. We are in a very different Trek verse this go around. A parallel one. Which I have mixed feelings about, but it does allow for the characters to have new journeys and a new existence. Also provides the writers with the ability to kill people off, and provide new twists on old tales. But I'm not going to bore you all with a review - since you've already seen it, possibly three times by now, and reviewed it in your own journals. I'm betting you can spell Ururha's name, while I can't.

But enuf of that - a meme:

How Big a Trekkie are you?

1. List the Star Trek Series that you have seen. Indicate if all the episodes or some of them.

Star Trek (all)
Star Trek the Cartoon - came out in the 1970s after the series was cancelled ( a handful)
Star Trek the Next Generation (all but a few during the last two seasons)
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (all in the first three seasons, couldn't find it so missed the middle two seasons, caught the last four episodes of the finale season and a few of the season before that)
Star Trek: Voyager (all the episodes)
Star Trek: Enterprise ( a handful)

2. Name your favorite episodes of each series or just what you can remember?

(I can't remember the names of any of them but Mirror, Mirror. Horrid I know.)

3. Name the movies you have seen:

Star Trek - the first one they did which can't remember the name of
Star Trek Wrath of Khan
The one after that one, which can't remember the name of
Star Trek Voyage Home
Star Trek the Undiscovered Country
Star Trek the Final Frontiere
Star Trek First Contact
Star Trek Generations
Star Trek Nemesis
Star Trek

4. Favorite Characters:

Spock
Picard
Data
Lt. Kira
The guy Robert Duncan McNeil played on Voyager (he's the producer/director of Chuck now)
The female Klingon/human on Voyager
Kirk
Kate Mulgrew's Captain Janeway
Odo
Q

5. Favorite Character in the movie?

Kirk

(sorry but I liked Spock better in the series for some reason, I'm guessing that it may have something to do with the fact that I've been watching Heroes and Quinto is good as Spock, but I kept seeing Sylar and having to push that off to the side. Loved Nemoy's appearance. Love Nemoy as Spock - sorry but Leonard Nemoy is Spock in my opinion. While I actually preferred Chris Pine to Shatner's Kirk, odd I know.)

6. Favorite Movie?

Wrath of Khan and the Voyage Home with the Whales. With First Contact - a really close second.

7. Favorite writing team?

Ron Moore in STNG and DS9. (not a huge Rick Berman fan). Also Lindeoff did a good job in this one.

10. Favorite Trek Spoof?

Galaxy Quest

11. Favorite Villian?

Khan

(although Q is a close second)

12. Least Favorite film?

Final Frontiere.

13. Most underrated film?

Undiscovered Country - lots of intellectual political metaphors in that one, plus a murder mystery.

14. Written anything on it, fanfic, anything?

Nope.

15. What got you into Trek?

My parents watched it, then in reruns. I didn't appreciate it then - too scarey, I was 6.
Then in the 1980s, they took us to the movies - which I loved, so I watched the series in reruns religiously, then watched STNG religiously.

16. Have you met anyone who wrote or performed in Trek.

I met one of the writers for DS9 at a party once in NYC. He wrote the episode about the Commander's son as a science fiction writer in the future, who wrote about his Dad, who was caught in a time stream. Can't remember the name of the episode. Or the writer's name, but do remember having this long discussion about the logistics of time travel, temporal anomalies, and Star Trek writing with him.

17. Favorite Series?

STNG (with Voyager and original Trek a close second. I think Babylon 5 ruined DS9 for me. They were on opposite each other for a bit. And I liked Babylon 5 better. Apparently the back story was - or so I'd read at the time, that the writer of B5 had pitched his tale to Star Trek head cheese, they turned him down because he was too dark for their universe and had too much conflict. Then went ahead and did a similar tale with DS9 - the writer of B5 was pissed and claimed copyright infringement, but he didn't win - since you can't copyright an idea just how the idea is expressed, and the shows were different.)

18. Star Trek or Star Wars or BSG?

They are different and shouldn't be placed up against each other. But Star Trek is the most optimistic and comforting. BSG had the most complex and fascinating characters. Star Wars was the joy of my childhood.

19. Create an icon for me?

20. Add your own question