Un Souffle Ardent

I'm still here, but...

2007-02-05T05:03:23Z

I've been swallowed by the craziness of the term. AAAAH!

Back from the Frozen Tundra

2007-01-15T16:10:45Z

(The Alpine Tundra, that is.) One of my housemates led a winter ascent of Moosilauke followed by camping in tents at the base - we originally wanted a cabin but they were all booked ages ago for the long weekend. It was really fun, the weather was great, and the summit in winter was a surreal experience. The mountain looks so different with snow all over it - still beautiful and peaceful, but in an entirely new way.

It got pretty cold at night and many of us were using 2 sleeping bags, since most of the winter camping ones from Outdoor Rentals had gone with the trip doing a winter ascent of Katahdin over the weekend. I was pleased with my bag - it's rated 20 degrees and is one of reportedly very few bags which actually lives up to its rating, and it still does even though it's ten years old. It went down to maybe 10 or 15 degrees and and I was very toasty in my bag plus a fleece liner, although admittedly I was wearing lots of layers too. But I stayed warm even when I got the brilliant idea of putting my nalgene in my sleeping bag to keep it unfrozen (an actual legitimate practice) and in my fuddled, sleepy state chose the one that had frozen the cap partly open... so of course, when it melted, it leaked water all over my feet. Then, even more brilliantly, I exiled all of my nalgenes to as far away from me as possible, so they all froze anyway and I had wet feet. But at least my wet feet were warm.

Actually, our body heat sort of melted all the ice under the tents, so we woke up in something of a puddle. I'm glad we didn't have to spend another night out, because all our stuff got soaked. But it was really fun anyway. I love playing outside.

All right, time to go do the all the schoolwork that I've been more or less avoiding for a week.

Tantalus Update

2007-01-09T00:46:25Z

I forgot to mention in the last post: Tantalus came up in our discussion of Greek Mythology in French class, and I found out that the Tantalus Device in "Mirror, Mirror" was appropriately named after all. Apparently in addition to the water that retreats when he tries to drink it and the tree that grows taller when he reaches for its fruit, Tantalus has a huge threatening boulder hanging over his head as part of his punishment.

Still, if I were the writer I think I'd have named the device the Sword of Damocles. The image of the sword waiting to strike is just so much more poetic than the boulder, especially given the emblem of the Terran Empire.

It's funny how answers to life's questions always seem to present themslves in a timely fashion. This isn't the first time I've come across an obscure reference only to have it crop up shortly afterward in a class or a book.

Let the procrastination begin!

2007-01-09T00:28:34Z

Every term I tell myself that this is the term when I'll finally be on top of my shit from Day One, and every term I start off almost immediately by doing everything I can think of except my work. Including posting to blogs. And doing all sorts of other falsely productive stuff like cleaning, organizing pencils, and balancing my checkbook.

Anyway, I'm even more convinced after day 2 of classes that I'm going to love all three of them, which is exciting. The history professor turned out to be a pretty interesting lecturer and very good at running even a 50-person class with class participation. The room, though a lecture hall, is set up in way that isn't prohibitive to students talking, which is nice. She also kept it from becoming a discussion proper and held it more in the form of prof-asks-question, students-volunteer-responses, which kept things under control. I only spotted 1 possible pretentious ass, who according to the Facebook (stop looking at me like that) is a freshman, so he may not be suffering from Pretentious Ass Syndrome but merely Overeager Freshman Syndrome. Memo to all possibly pretentious students: WHEN YOU HAVE BEEN TALKING FOR 5 MINUTES AND THE PROFESSOR CUTS YOU OFF, STOP TALKING! IT IS NOT AN INVITATION TO TALK LOUDER!

Reading over that last paragraph, I want to add that I'm not condemning the practice of speaking up in class. I fully support speaking in class, asking questions, bringing up relevant points, etc. But only if you actually have something to say! Too many people have had it drilled into them that Speaking A Lot In Class = Getting An A. Unfortunately, they're even right a lot of the time, and it means the rest of us have to sit through Mr. I'm Going To Make Sure I Get An A offer us his personal views on every minute detail of last night's reading, even though they are entirely irrelevant to the question the professor just asked.

Personally, I am content to sit and listen to good lecturers without feeling the need to engage in dialogue every other second. I'm also happy to participate in a class where it's expected and part of the procedure. I do not speak often, but I make sure I am heard if and when I have something relevant and contributory to say. I will also sometimes pipe up with an answer or at least a guess during that moment after the prof asks a question and there is awkward silence because nobody knows the answer. But I do not speak simply to show off to everyone that I read the assigned reading, and I especially do not hijack the discussion to make sure it covers a certain topic just so I can give the little prepared speech I wrote last night and showcase my intelligence. That is bullshit.

(end rant)
(deep breath)

My French prof set up 15-minute meetings with all the students and mine was this afternoon. He's the kind of guy that sets you instantly at ease. He assured me several times that if I woke up in the middle of the night conflicted and confused about Oedipe Roi, I should call him because that's his job. Also, in class today he shut off all the lights so that the room was pitch dark and started bellowing (in French), "I am Homer! I am blind, but I see clearly!" We're reading Sophocles, not Homer, but I suppose he wanted a fun introduction to the subject of mythology.

I thought about going to the gym before CnT meeting tonight, but I really can't stomach gym workouts this late in the day. I'm already planning to go for a run tomorrow afternoon, so maybe I'll end it at the gym and hit the weights for a bit.

OK, time to go be productive... by doing laundry.

Finally, a class schedule! (I think.)

2007-01-08T05:36:12Z

As it turns out, Linguistics 15: Historical Linguistics, to which I had been eagerly looking forward for at least three terms, suddenly acquired prerequisites between the last time I checked the course description (must have been this summer, before the new course guide came out for the fall) and now. There are plenty of classes with "prerequisites" that are technically required but not really necessary to do well in the class, but this isn't one of them - Ling 1 teaches you stuff like phonetic transcription that is apparently now a necessary skill for Ling 15. So to make a long story short, after going through the indecision and endless calculations to find my "third" course and finally settling on Psych 1, I was once again plunged into the search for a third course.

My initial thought was that I would take the English class I mentioned in my last non-Star Trek post. But when I looked again at the reading list, I realized that I had already read three of the six books. Sure, I liked them, and that was originally a draw. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I didn't really want to have to discuss, analyze, and write papers about books I've already read several times. I'm not sure I'd learn all that much. Also, one of the books on the list that I haven't read was Our Mutual Friend by Dickens. Dickens and I do not get along very well. A Christmas Carol and A Tale of Two Cities are wonderful books, but I haven't ever been able to finish anything else he wrote. No, scratch that, I think I did make it through Oliver Twist just by the skin of my teeth, but I've forgotten most of it. Someday I would like to try reading a Dickens novel as it was written - one chapter a week, or whatever. It would take a long time, but I think I might actually be able to get through it in small doses. Perhaps I'll even try that this term.

Almost randomly I noticed another course offered in the time slot I'm trying to fill that sounded really fascinating. It's a history course called "Creation of America" that covers from the end of the American Revolution to the Jackson era. It's a period I don't know much about - I know we covered it in AP US History in high school, but my memories of it are vague, and I'm pretty sure we skimmed quickly over a lot of it to save time. The course doesn't seem to have a huge amount of reading, which will make a nice change from my previous history courses and also hopefully provide me with a manageable term. I'm excited to go to the lecture for the first time tomorrow, which is hopefully a good sign. The only thing I'm a little worried about is that the syllabus insists on lots of class participation. When I enrolled the computer system informed me that there are 42 people in the class, and it's held in a large lecture hall. It is incredibly hard to run a class that size as a discussion, and forcing it doesn't work - people start raising their hands and saying whatever, just so the professor sees them speak once per class. It's not worth it - if she'd wanted a discussion class, she should have capped it at or below 25. Although that would probably mean I wouldn't be able to take it, so I guess I should count my blessings.

I hope the people from my last history class aren't there. The prof was a really nice guy, but you couldn't move in the lecture hall without tripping over some pretentious ass who would ask the kind of questions with long-winded lead-ins that are obviously designed to show the prof how incredibly knowledgeable you are, whoop-de-do. There were also people that would raise their hands to answer a simple question and then go on and on and on just to hear themselves talk. It was excruciating. I had to keep showing up because the prof took attendance, but for the first time in my life I brought my laptop to class so I could work on writing assignments for other classes while pretending to be taking notes. (If it seems hypocritical to complain about other people being long-winded, keep in mind that I was trapped there, while nobody is forcing you to read this blog!)

The sad part? Even though I stopped paying attention and doing the reading about halfway through the term, I got an A-. It's not something I'm particularly proud of.

But anyway, despite some disappointment and general scheduling upheaval, I think I'm in for a pretty good term. Fingers crossed!

P.S. Shouldn't LiveJournal's spell check dictionary include the word "blog"?

"Mirror, Mirror" - "The Apple"

2007-01-06T20:07:07Z

I'm letting myself post these now so I can show off the new user icon I made today, inspired by a hilarious scene right at the end of "The Apple."

"MIRROR, MIRROR"

Another one that I still enjoy even after many viewings.

Uhura totally kicks ass in this episode, and she does it wearing about a half meter square of fabric. Is the gold swirly thing on her upper arm a rank insignia? Normally it's on the sleeve, but the female uniforms lack sleeves, among other things. Marlena didn't have one, but she wouldn't as an Ensign.

Now all we need is Mirror Spock in a cloak, and I will swoon for sure... normally I don't like facial hair on guys, but Mirror Spock has that sexy pirate look going for him. I laughed out loud when Mirror Kirk, while being shoved into the brig, shouted at Spock "Where's your beard?"

I can't believe I never noticed before that Mirror Spock's bodyguard is a Vulcan.

The scenes with the "Captain's Woman" deserve a little bit of eye-rolling (particularly the look-at-this-piece-of-fabric-I'm -not-wearing moment) but they could have been much, much worse. As it is it contributes nicely to our peek at life in the Mirror Universe.

This episode also features the second best use of the word "apparently" on film, when Sulu dryly utters the lines: "Mr. Spock has orders to kill you. He will succeed... (tilts knife suggestively)apparently." (The best use of the word is at the end of the movie Bean when Rowan Atkinson opens his speech with, "I'm Doctor Bean... apparently.")

Kir says something to Spock during his little speech at the transporter console, something about "Galactic revolt, like the Halkans predicted." Did they predict such a thing? It must have been in a scene that was cut, or something, because I don't remember hearing that. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention.

I recently bought Diane Duane's book Dark Mirror on eBay, and I'm eager to see her (non-canon) version of a TNG visit to the Mirror Universe.

I'm a little puzzled as to why the magic zapping machine in Kirk's quarters is called a "Tantalus" device. Personally I would've called it a "Damocles" device. I wonder if someone mixed up their mythology, or if there's another reason to call it that that I'm not aware of.

I can never help but wondering how this episode would have played out differently if the uniforms hadn't been switched. Probably not as interesting, but you never know. I would also have liked to have seen more snippets of the Mirror landing party in "our" universe. There's potential for some humor in seeing how they got found out, etc. I wonder if any scenes like that were written and cut, or even filmed and cut?

"THE APPLE"

I was initially ready to dismiss this as a ripoff of "The Return of the Archons." The two episodes have exactly the same plot, but we've come a long way from Landru! This time, there is earnest debate about whether destroying Vaal was the right thing to do, and Spock is never quite convinced that it was. Interestingly enough, although in "Archons" Kirk mentioned the Prime Directive, Spock refers to it here only as the "Noninterference Directive." I think it's plain that this idea of noninterference is starting to be adopted by Starfleet Command, but it hasn't assumed the importance it will have in TNG.

This episode features a surprising amount of what you might call sexual innuendo, producing moments of hilarious awkwardness and a few more of 'wink wink, nudge nudge' quality. I wasn't thrilled to have to watch Chekov and Landon's rather painfully trite love scene but at least it had an actual purpose within the plot, unlike many of Kirk's.

It's tempting to start singing "Another one bites the dust" while watching all 4 landing-party redshirts meet their deaths.

The dude playing the Eyes/Ears/Voice/Etc of Vaal reminded me disturbingly of Mel Gibson - he had the blue eyes, the wide-eyed stare, and the distinctive speech pattern. Rather odd.

In the end, I'm not at all disappointed that the show chose to return to this plot idea, because they didn't do it that well the first go-round. The second try produced a thoughtful and well-written episode that actually takes an intellectual look at the question of noninterference vs. the necessity of growth (and the necessity of saving one's ship).

As a bonus, in the last thirty seconds we get what is possibly one of the funniest moments in the show, definitely one of the funniest outside of The Trouble With Tribbles.

I'm already Marquis de Posa, but it was worth trying anyway

2007-01-06T02:06:07Z

I found this quirky title generator at The View From the Foothills. (And yes, I tried it with my real name too, but I'm not telling!)

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is:
Grand Duke Rodrigue the Abrupt of Wimblish upon Frognaze
Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

"Operation: Annihilate!" - "Amok Time" - "Who Mourns for Adonais?" - "The Changeling":

2007-01-04T06:06:12Z

More fun! (Never fear, the pace will slow significantly once classes start on Friday.)

OPERATION: ANNIHILATE!

The plot of this episode had potential, but it's riddled with holes. Making the dramatic buildup hinge on the characters being suddenly, inexplicably stupid is just plain bad writing. There is no reason bar sheer stupidity for Spock and McCoy to have overlooked the brightness of the sun as a possible factor. I'm not a scientist but I do know that the radiation emitted by a star is really all the same stuff, in a loose sense - it's the different wavelengths that divide it into visible light, x-rays, radio waves, etc. McCoy says he was zapping the cell thing with radiation, so it it would be damned idiotic of him not to have run through the entire spectrum of the star. I would almost buy it if he had only omitted visible light from his tests. However, it turns out that what kills the thing is high-intensity UV radiation. Since that's harmful to people, you'd think it would have been on the original list of possibilities.

I also can't buy that they are dumb enough run the test on Spock right away instead of waiting thirty seconds for the report to come back from the lab. And finally, they only half-explain the inner eyelid - presumably, the eyelid is transparent from the outside but entirely opaque from the inside. If its normal function is to cover the eye for an extended period during light blasts, the temporary blindness shouldn't have surprised Spock, given that he knew about the eyelid. They try to pass that off with "We ignore it, as you ignore your appendix" but that's just BS. Yes, humans don't often think about the appendix during normal daily life, but we remember it REALLY FAST when we get the excruciating stomach pain that means it's not behaving itself! Since Spock was surprised by the blindness yet knew about the eyelid, clearly the eyelid wasn't behaving normally.

Somewhere, maybe in the short story of this episode by James Blish, I remember reading a decent explanation for all of this: the author wrote in a scene in which it is explained that the eyelid was supposed to flip open again once the light level was reduced, but the enormous intensity to which Spock was exposed had somehow fried it shut. McCoy happens to notice it while examining Spock's eyes up close and surgically cuts it loose again. I find that decently plausible and will henceforth adopt it into my personal version of canon.

Before I am accused of being overly negative, please keep in mind that I couldn't have entirely hated this episode or I wouldn't waste my time nitpicking it this much. See "The Alternative Factor" in my last recap entry for an example of what happens when I hate something. This one really got under my skin because as I said right up front, it had so much potential!

Season One is at an end. On to Season Two!

"AMOK TIME"
Season Two starts out well - I've seen this one many times, and I always enjoy it. This is one of the few (maybe the only?) time Spock smiles without being under the influence of spores or whatever, although granted you could put it down to "lingering effects" of the pon farr, since it wasn't properly, uh, finished.

The glimpse of Vulcan culture is fascinating. There was already some mention in "Balance of Terror" that Romulans were an offshoot of the Vulcan race, and here they got a bonus of giving us another clue in that direction AND saving props money - the ceremonial Vulcan guards are wearing the Romulan helmets.

T'Pau is a fascinating character and I can fully understand the temptation in Enterprise to explore her backstory. (I haven't seen that so I won't pass final judgment, but I'm not really thrilled with what I've read about it!)

T'Pring goes on my slowly lengthening list of strong female characters, even if she was extremely bitchy. I find it very interesting that she states very clearly that she had no other way to divorce Spock. Does this issue really come up that rarely on Vulcan? I read a fanfic once in which there was a passing mention that T'Pring, by being the first in modern history to choose the challenge, had started a sort of women's lib movement on Vulcan that resulted in the adoption of a procedure for civil divorce. Looking at both sides of the story, you might almost be able to forgiver her if she had just chosen Stonn as her champion. In my book she only really starts earning Bitch Queen status with the have-my-cake-and-eat-it-too selection of Kirk. Even if it was "flawlessly logical" it was a damned dirty move.

I was going to treat you to a long, nitpicking analysis of T'Pau's speech patterns, which use "thee" as both a nominative and accusative pronoun, entirely neglecting "thou." I find the analysis so fascinating that I'm putting it aside for later study - if you're lucky (or maybe unlucky?) I'll give it it's own post later.

"WHO MOURNS FOR ADONAIS?"
Another episode with a hint more than the usual trace of science fiction elements - the idea that the Greek gods were really powerful space travelers is quite interesting. This episode could have been bungled horribly and come out quite absurd, but they did a great job with it, and the result is poetic, moving, and thought-provoking. Has humanity outgrown gods entirely by the 23rd century? Or will we just keep moving on to new ones, as has happened over and over again in the past?

Kirk has an interesting line - he says that humanity has no need for gods, "we find the One sufficient." You can practically hear the capital letter in the way he says it. I doubt they'd have put in that line these days, given that the world is currently violently divided along religious lines. Is the implication that all of humanity has converted to Christianity? There's little evidence of this on Star Trek - the closest this series ever came to having a Christmas episode was a character named Helen Noel. Is Kirk speaking for himself? Is he speaking in a general sense, with the acknowledgment that while nobody agrees on any of the specifics, quite a lot of people (though not all) believe there is Something out there? Is he just trying to say "Thanks, we've got enough gods, we don't need any more?" Hmm.

Unfortunately, we also have yet another woman bought by a pretty dress and the promise of being more than human. (See "Shore Leave" and "Space Seed".) She comes through for the crew in the end, but reluctantly. However, in a surprising nod to girl power, we see Uhura in what looks like one of McCoy's scrub shirts, doing delicate repairs and adjustments to the communications board. Spock even compliments her abilities. Uhura kicks ass.

Kirk's rather snide comment to McCoy about Scotty's (rather awkward but cute) pickup lines in the opening scene is uncalled for, given his track record - as was the ensuing commentary about female fickleness, which made me snort. Begging your pardon, Captain, sir, but you're the one who sleeps with a new girl every other episode and then ditches her in the end!

"THE CHANGELING"
It's fascinating to watch Star Trek deal repeatedly with the struggle of man vs. machine. The creators of the series felt the need to prove over and over again that man is superior to the computer. Computers were still in their earliest stage of development at the time, and it's fascinating to see how important the question was then. Not that it isn't still important - you might almost argue that it's more so, given the ubiquitous technology we are surrounded with every day. My ability to watch this episode on a little disc played on a computer I can hold in my lap would have seemed almost as futuristic as the Enterprise during the 1960's. Then, the computer was a great unknown, a rather frightening realm of possibility. The question is still with us, but now it is different - are our super-technological lifestyles making us overdependent on the machine? What happens if the machines break?

Or even worse, we could still ask the same question: what happens when the machines realize that we need them more than they need us?

The scene with Uhura re-learning to read is hilarious. Did someone suddenly decide that in Season 2 Nichelle Nichols needed more screen time? I back it. We also hear more of her gorgeous singing voice, which I don't think we've heard since "Charlie X."

I would also like to point out that the plot of Star Trek: The Motion Picture was virtually identical to this episode, only much, much longer and consequently very boring.

Also that it was very, very tempting to start singing "Daisy" as Nomad went into logic overload. But I didn't.

Happy (belated) New Year!

2007-01-03T15:58:22Z

I'm back on campus and trying to get everything in order before classes start on Friday. Actually they technically start on Thursday, but I don't have any classes that meet then. At this point it looks like I will be taking some pretty good classes. My French course for the term is called "French Theater Goes Greek" - I'm taking it for the prof, not the subject matter. He's one of the big names in second-language acquisition and is the one who developed the concept of "drill" sessions for beginning language classes - his methods are now widely used, I think even by organizations like the Peace Corps. I've met him once or twice before and heard him speak in public, and he's a very nice and funny person, so the class should be fun.

Next on the list is "Historical Linguistics" which I'm taking because it sounds interesting and is taught this term by a reportedly excellent prof, and also because it satisfies my requirement for a "quantitative and deductive science" (read: math) course. Yes, that's right, I'm satisfying my math requirement with a linguistics course. Ha. Take that, O Evil Spirits of Calculus.

I was going to take "American Fiction before 1900" as my third class but I looked at the reading list and cringed. I've already read four or five of of the novels on the list, and two of those were for high school. I really don't want to have to read Huckleberry Finn in a classroom context again, and I refuse to read The Scarlet Letter again at all. (Well, not really, I'll probably give it one more try someday, but I developed a mortal hatred for that book when I read it the first time.) I like Moby Dick but I've read it twice and still can't remember much about it, so analyzing it could pose problems if that happens again. I don't remember what else I had read, but there was at least one more. I'm grumpy that another English class "The 19th century English Novel" is meeting at the same time as the Linguistics course, because that reading list looked excellent - I'd read a few of those too (Jane Eyre, Frankenstein, etc) but I wouldn't mind reading those again, plus some of the other books (including The Moonstone) have been on my "To Read" list.

I think I will end up taking "Introduction to Psychology" - I think I'd find it interesting, especially having grown up with parents who specialized in psych. (In fact, the family joke was that they met at a mental hospital.) Dad was a psychologist, Mom's a nurse practitioner - she switched to working in allergy and asthma a little before she had me and stayed there until last year, but she's back in psych again now, taking care of crazy old people at the local hospital's inpatient geriatric psych unit. She loves it, and keeps telling me she wants to take some of the "cute old people" home with her. One of these days I'm going to get home for break and she'll have stolen some of them and put them in my room. Anyhow, it will be interesting to get a basic glimpse of the theories behind the practice.

Now I think I'll go join the throngs of enthusiastic New Year's Resolutionists that are probably at the gym. I guess I'm sort of one of them, since I've decided I should go to the gym more often. But to be fair to myself I started working out a few weeks before the end of the last term and have remained active since then - I think the stretch between the expiration of my temporary gym membership at home last Friday and today is probably the longest stretch of between some kind of physical activity I've had in over a month, be it running, gym workouts, hiking, or trailwork.

Off to get burly!

More Episodes!

2006-12-30T23:15:51Z

When I said I cleared the last of the backlog a few days ago, I lied... this time it's really true, though. This is a long post because I watched a bunch of episodes yesterday, and I had to intersperse some more that I already watched some time ago and made notes on for later posting. This really is the last of my pre-written stuff though - I have some notes about one or two Season 2 episodes that I set down after watching them with housemates, but in all likelihood I'll re-watch those when I get to them in order anyway.

A random thought that I mentioned before but didn't fully develop: William Shatner is not as bad an actor as he is cracked up to be. Or at least, he is now, but he wasn't in 1966. Many of his worst scenes aren't entirely his fault - sure, his delivery absolutely sucks whenever he does that "hmm, this is profound, I should pause a lot" trick, but the lines he is given to deliver at those moments are often somewhat pompous and awkward anyway. So yes, he's not a good enough actor to save a bad script, but that doesn't make him unconditionally terrible.

"RETURN OF THE ARCHONS"
This was an interesting one to watch with people who are much more familiar with TNG. They kept commenting about the Prime Directive, particularly since Kirk dismisses it rather offhand in one scene. Perhaps he ought to have thought about it a bit longer, but his ship was in a rather tight spot, and I agree with his basic reasoning - the computer was a negative influence on an unhealthy society. Given that they rarely mention it, I think it's fairly clear that the Prime Directive is slightly less of a concern in the TOS era than it comes to be later.

The concept behind this episode is interesting, but it wasn't well developed. Too much is left unexplained for too long; the Red Hour is never explained at all, or even questioned by the landing party. It's clearly a method of releasing of built-up emotional energy, but it might have been nice to actually establish this, even with just an offhand line or two. The Enterprise crewmen spend most of the time sitting around in various stages of captivity, which is boring. Finally, the idea of Kirk taking only about ten seconds to outthink a computer that has run an entire planetary society for six thousand years is a bit laughable. If it were Spock, I might be willing to buy it. Kirk, no.

Can I just say that Spock looks amazingly good in a cloak? Not with the stupid towel around his head, but the scene in the random dungeon when he had discarded the towel but was still wearing the cloak. Wow. I wonder why cloaks aren't more of a fashion statement these days. Everyone looks good in them.

"SPACE SEED"
I didn't make notes on this one when I watched it, and I didn't feel like watching it again in order since it's one I've seen several times, but for the sake of completeness I'll try to jot down a bit about it now. I don't remember a whole lot of the specifics other than Ricardo Montalban having real chest muscles as opposed to the obviously fake ones he sports in The Wrath of Khan. Also the opinion that Lt. Marla McGivers should be publicly shot as a disgrace to womankind.

It's amusing to note that we're clearly in some alternate, divergent timeline from the one that produces the TOS era, since the 1990's have come and gone and we haven't had the Eugenics Wars. Oh well.

"A TASTE OF ARMAGEDDON"
This episode has what may be the greatest line ever written for TOS: "Sir, there is a multilegged creature crawling on your shoulder." In all seriousness, I liked this one - it brings up some interesting intellectual questions about the costs of war and the alternatives of dealing war and dealing peace. I've heard it said elsewhere that it takes so much cooperation to fight a war, couldn't people just cooperate a little bit more? It's also one of the few episodes in which Kirk doesn't kiss the hot lady, which is surprising given that there actually is a hot lady present. (I mean, nobody was surprised when Kirk didn't score in "Devil in the Dark." Or were we?)

"THIS SIDE OF PARADISE"
In a surprising twist, in this episode it's Spock who gets the Blonde Of The Week (TM). This episode was rather touching - without diminishing the amazing work of Leonard Nimoy, I think Spock's character development owes a ton to the imagination of one D. C. Fontana. I did have to groan when Spock instantly came out with "I love you" after being showered in spores, but the way I choose to read it is that he did, at least at some point in his life, feel that for Leila - he just couldn't honorably act on it because of his betrothal to T'Pring. Nimoy's work in this episode is stellar - he gives in to his emotions, but in a quiet and reserved way that is still recognizably his own personality. He's still Spock, even when he's laughing. I was ready to hate Jill Ireland - she looks like the typical blonde space cadet in that first shot with all the soft lighting and ridiculous gooey music. In fact she was actually one of the better actresses to play a love interest on this show. The scene in the transporter room at the end was particularly well done.

"THE DEVIL IN THE DARK"
This is one of my favorite episodes, because it addresses such a universal concept in such a creative way. I think the development of Kirk and Spock's realization that they've judged too quickly based on appearances, that the Horta's actions are completely justified, is very well done. It's also interesting to note that Spock can get at least a peripheral mindlink with the Horta without touching it.

Of course, another reason I like this episode is that it provided the springboard for Diane Duane to develop her wonderful character, Lt. Naraht.

"ERRAND OF MERCY"
This is another one I think I missed the first time around; I really enjoyed it. I love the character of Kor. The scene where he and Kirk continue bickering after all the weapons superheat is priceless. I also like that Kirk and Spock get to walk around looking fabulous in Renaissance garb. We've already discussed how good Spock looks in a cloak. This episode makes it fairly clear that the Prime Directive isn't as stringent in this era - Kirk and Spock just beam down onto Organia and start offering technology and protection to an apparently pre-industrial society. Even in a war situation, I doubt Picard would be allowed to do this - he would be expected to somehow protect the planet from the Klingons without letting the inhabitants ever find out anything was going on. I'm sure there's probably even an episode with that plot.

"THE ALTERNATIVE FACTOR"
This was the most boring episode I have yet seen. It consists of endless scenes of Lazarus ranting nonsensically, endless slow-motion fight scenes in the weird blue lighting of the "corridor" between universes, and endless stupidity on the part of the Enterprise crew who let Lazarus wander around freely, light the ship on fire, and steal shit. Some episodes are bad because they have silly premises, or bad actors, or terrible scripts, but those at least are usually amusing. I literally dozed off during this one.

"CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER"
At least I got to follow up a bad episode with a good one. This is easily the best piece of science fiction written for TOS - it's very different from the other episodes, much more tightly plotted. Each time I watch it I like Joan Collins as Edith Keeler more - not only is the acting good, her lines are really well written, which is a rarity for TOS love interests. And I love the scene where McCoy pops out of the wall and scares the crap out of the homeless guy.

It's almost too bad they didn't reuse the idea of the Guardian of Forever later in the series. We don't see it again until "Yesteryear" in TAS, and of course A.C. Crispin's novel Yesterday's Son. Although I guess TOS did enough mucking about with time as it was - the Temporal cop guy in DS9's "Trials and Tribble-ations" mutters darkly about Kirk's large rep sheet of temporal violations. But you can hardly blame them, after all - it's a fun plot device, and if they go back to Earth you get a bonus of actually having a semi-legitimate reason to use somebody else's leftover period costumes instead of buying your own.

One episode to go, and then I'm finished with Season One!

Wow, what a ride!

2006-12-29T05:47:50Z

Tonight I finally finished the last of Diane Duane's "Rihannsu" novels, The Empty Chair. I've said before in this blog that Diane Duane is one of my favorite Trek authors, and I'll probably say it again. The very first TOS novel I read was her excellent Doctor's Orders, in fact - can you imagine if I'd picked up one of the crappy ones? I'd probably have read half of it, put it down in disgust, and never looked back. Instead I got hooked. Life is funny like that.

Anyway, the series is amazing. It was one of those reads that refuses to let go of you even after you finish it and put it down; for the next hour or so the world doesn't seem quite big enough to contain the inside of your head. I'll admit I was skeptical when I heard that the Rihannsu stories were being continued, because the first two books were written many years ago, and I find that most attempts by authors to revisit their past successes tend to fall flat. Not so for this one. There are a number of good Star Trek authors out there, but a lot of them are good at some things and only acceptable or even bad at others - Duane is possibly the only one who has it all: character development, action, thought-provoking social commentary, originality, snappy dialogue, you name it.

Duane took some criticism for the fact that nothing really seems to happen in books three and four except a lot of sitting around and plotting, and she stuck the readers with a cruel cliffhanger at the end of Honor Blade and then left them hanging for seven years until The Empty Chair finally got published this month. This is all more or less true. Luckily those years of waiting coincided with my hiatus from the Star Trek fandom, so I never got around to reading any of it until now. I'm thankful I was spared the waiting because it would have driven me nuts - although I have to say, I'm inclined to think the conclusion was worth the wait. Given the relatively short length of both Swordhunt and Honor Blade and the fact that neither is really a stand-alone story, if I were the Powers That Be I would eventually publish all three newer books in one volume (ooo, maybe in hardcover?) and ditch the pretense that they are three separate books. It would require some minor editing of things like the brief introductions of recurring original characters, which aren't really necessary if you're reading straight through in order. They've gone a step in the right direction by combining Swordhunt and Honor Blade into one volume in the new omnibus edition, and I couldn't really tell where one ended and the other began. I probably could if I really thought about it, but I was going hell-bent for the conclusion at that point.

I don't want to post spoilers, so I'll stop this here, with the statement that I expect the final three novels to stand up with flying colors (just as the first two did) when I eventually reread them more slowly later on.

"Tomorrow Is Yesterday" and "Court Martial"

2006-12-28T21:56:59Z

"TOMORROW IS YESTERDAY"
I remembered finding "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" rather boring the first time I watched it all those years ago on the Sci-Fi Channel, so this time I was pleasantly surprised to find it entertaining. It's nothing special, but there's quite a bit of humor in the script - I especially liked the second guy they accidentally beamed up, who did nothing but stand around the transporter room and gawk. There's some good Spock-McCoy banter as well.

The plot isn't very well constructed and there are about 612 holes you can poke in it, especially in their solution to the don't-change-the-past problem. The implication seems to be that nothing can exist at the same time, so that because traveled back again to the time of the episode's beginning, it meant they weren't in the atmosphere for the Air Force to look at, so Captain Christopher was never beamed aboard, and the dude who went to check the disturbance in the base never found anything. I can come up with a couple of more plausible ways for them to have done it, but then again I can't write the characters as well as D.C. Fontana, so I'm inclined to suspend my disbelief and cut her some slack.

It would have been pretty fun if they'd done a two-parter and had them accidentally shoot into the future at the end of this one. Although actually this was originally the second half of a two-parter, the first being "The Naked Time" which ends with accidental time travel.

Of course, I thoroughly enjoyed the requisite scene in which Kirk single-handedly beats off four armed military guards (although they do manage to arrest him in the end).

It's very interesting to note that this episode accurately predicts the first Moon Landing by a mission with 3 astronauts launched on a Wednesday in "the late 1960's" - even though it was written and filmed in 1966, well before that actually happened in 1969! A pretty neat coincidence.

"COURT MARTIAL"
Star Trek meets Law & Order! I enjoyed this one - decent courtroom drama and a relatively strong female character, even if it did have the tendency to be overly theatrical at times. Shatner's acting is surprisingly good in this one - his reputation as a ham is deserved, but when he's not trying to utter Profound and Meaningful Thoughts he's actually a good actor. Too bad nobody sent him that memo early on.

One of the recurring inconsistencies in TOS is the technology - the ship tends to have certain technologies when she needs them and then conveniently not have them when they would provide an easier, less dramatic solution to the problem. Part of this is sloppiness, and part of it happened just because they were making it up as they went - joking aside, the reason they didn't have shuttlecraft in The Enemy Within is that they hadn't come up with the idea yet. Here, we have the ridiculous scene with the heartbeats when a simple scan of the ship for life signs would have done. Even if there was some plausible reason for the heartbeat method, I'm sure the computer could have merely been instructed to exclude the bridge the same way it was instructed to exclude the transporter room.

Question: Why must they ruin an otherwise good fight scene with gratuitous and unlikely shirt-ripping? Has anyone involved in any stage of production of this show ever torn a piece of clothing? If it rips it's almost always because there was already a hole or a frayed spot, otherwise it isn't the fabric that tears, it's the seams. There are fabrics that tear easily, of course, but I am guessing that Starfleet does not make its everyday uniforms out of one of them... unless of course somebody in the purser's office is getting major kickbacks from the supplier...

Three French Hens, two Turtledoves, and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

2006-12-27T22:22:33Z

My mother insisted that I make a Christmas list this year, since otherwise she wouldn't have any idea what to get us. When I pointed out that this also applied in reverse and that she should make a list for Little Sister and I, she waved it off and said, "Oh, there's nothing I really want." What do you get the woman who has everything?

I sent her a short list, because honestly there's not much I really want either. I'm probably the only kid in the world who asked for flannel-lined Carhartt pants and wool socks for Christmas, but I did get them, and I'm very happy. Mom is apparently dead-set on turning me into a full-fledged caffeine addict (and oh, how I say that as if I'm not already there) because I also got an espresso machine, which is awesome but has FAR too many parts for it to be safe in my rather chaotic off-campus house. I said as much to Mom, suggesting that I could leave it at home and use it on breaks; she revealed that she had anticipated this, ran into the basement, and came up holding ANOTHER espresso maker, only this time one of the old-fashioned kind that you put on the stove. Espresso maker #2 has fewer parts and is generally a sturdier thing that won't get totally wrecked by the throngs that occasionally pass through our kitchen. My mother rocks!

Little Sister and I also got a bunch of Guinness apparel, because Mom was in Ireland in October to run the Dublin marathon with her running club, the aptly-named Thirsty Irish Runners. (They bring beer to races and practices for a post-run refresher.)

I went with the Former-Roommate-from-this-Summer (I need to find both former roommates new pseudonyms pronto) gift-giving strategy of giving cookbooks. Mom got Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home (as well as some Starbucks coffee and a Peace on Earth mug) and little sis got The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion and a Sudoku book. The latter was something of a last-minute inspiration. Little Sis and I were driving somewhere and she wanted me to stop by the supermarket so she could pick up some of that instant chocolate chip cookie dough. I absolutely refused to let her buy that stuff and made her get cookie ingredients instead. Once I walked her through it, I think she was pretty excited by how easy it is to make real chocolate chip cookies. She's been poring over her new cookbook trying to decide what to make next, so I think it was a good choice.

We are having both of our bathrooms completely gutted and redone, so the house is a bit chaotic. The downstairs bathroom is still technically in operation, but we still can't really use it during the day, because they've taken out the upstairs bathroom floor and the downstairs bathroom ceiling, so you can see right up or down through the spaces in the boards. I'm not about to ask the plumber to step out for a moment so I can pee unless I really have to. At least I'm going back up to school in a few days.

"Arena"

2006-12-21T17:08:42Z

This episode is the last of the backlog; I overlooked it in the last post. I watched this ages ago with some of my housemates.

"ARENA"
A really fun episode to watch with housemates and poke fun at. First, the nameless redshirt predictably dies almost instantly. The plot device of the superadvanced alien race that is pissed that the Federation ants are in its territory was already used in The Corbomite Maneuver but they trot it out again in order to set up the conflict between Kirk and the dinosaur Gorn captain. Kirk proceeds to spend the whole first half of the conflict soliloquizing into his microphone, apparently unaware that it's not a Livejournal, it's actually a direct cell phone to his opponent. We get plenty of the classic Shatner delivery, complete with unnecessary pauses. The Gorn, meanwhile, is busy making weapons. Everybody tosses around styrofoam rocks for a bit; Kirk throws a watermelon-size one and the Gorn tosses one back one in the size range of a small car.

We get several practically pointless "Meanwhile on the Enterprise" segments that basically consist of Spock and McCoy arguing, with Spock dropping the word "logic" all over the place. Memo to the scriptwriters: We all know Vulcans practice a philosophy of logic. That doesn't mean they mention it EVERY FIVE SECONDS. Toward the end the Enterprise gets to watch what's happening in the fight, and we get to watch them watch their TV. To borrow a phrase, Faaascinating.

Using randomly placed caches of crucial cannon-making supplies that just happen to be hanging out on the planet surface, Kirk constructs a cannon, fires diamond shrapnel at the Gorn, gets a chance to kill the Gorn, and decides instead to soliloquize about mercy. Inexplicably, this endless moralizing actually causes the omnipotent beings to develop respect for humankind, and they decide to play nice.

The best part is, you probably got the impression from the above description that I hated this episode. You're wrong. I actually really like it. It's entertaining as hell, even without the extra entertainment added by mocking it.

My Ultimate Christmas Mix

2006-12-21T05:32:00Z

I love Christmas music. Despite this, I find it impossible to listen to the radio for more than about 5 minutes at this time of year. Everyone and their mother now has a Christmas album, which means there is quite a lot of crap out there. Somehow the radio stations seem determined to play ALL of the crap, every last bit. I don't know why they can't pick out a smaller quantity of good stuff and put it on repeat. It's not as if they don't play the same songs over and over again during the rest of the year.

Inspired by Bullfrog over at Five Bucks to Friday , I decided to post my own Ultimate Christmas mix. Here are my top 10 Christmas songs, although since picking only 10 was difficult enough, they're in a completely random order.

***DON RODRIGUE'S ULTIMATE CHRISTMAS MIX***

"Snoopy's Christmas" - The Royal Guardsmen
I heard this on the radio a few years ago and fell in love with it. Interestingly enough, I haven't heard it on the radio since, until earlier this afternoon while I was in the shower. Go figure.

"O Du Fröhliche" - Thomas Hampson
This German carol is just so joyful, I can never resist singing along - though my own voice is nothing next to Hampson's light, full baritone. The exhortation "Freue, Freue dich O Christenheit!" (Rejoice, Rejoice, O Christendom!) always strikes right to my heart. Hampson is one of my favorite opera singers, and his Christmas album is one of my December staples.

"The Holly and the Ivy" - George Winston
My favorite part of Christmas music is singing along, so my inclusion of a few instrumental tracks in this list is a testament to how wonderful they are. This one is my favorite track from George Winston's enchanting piano album "December" which provides my background music during the entire winter season.

"Il Est Né, Le Divin Enfant" - Unknown
I am not sure who sings the version of this I have, but it's very lively and joyful. I'm a French major, and I love singing this. My mother learned this song in elementary school, and forty years later can still sing it with quite good pronunciation, even though she doesn't speak a word of French.

"The Little Drummer Boy / Peace on Earth" - David Bowie and Bing Crosby
Once you trim off the cheesy spoken intro in the beginning, this is a lovely song that blends two very fine voices in a heartfelt and touching appeal for Peace. I've never been able to resist good counterpoint.

"Carol of the Bells" - Windham Hill Artists
I have yet to find a vocal version of this that moves me the way this one does. The version done by Trans-Siberian Orchestra with Metallica is also excellent, but this one is my favorite.

"Adeste Fideles" - Thomas Hampson
Hampson scores another spot in the mix with the most beautiful Latin rendition of this carol I have yet found. This only narrowly beat out a gorgeous choral version by the Boston Camerata, but theirs uses some rather obscure non-Christmas English lyrics, and I much prefer it in Latin.

"O Holy Night" - Anthony Warlow
Anthony Warlow has long been one of my favorite singers of Broadway tunes. I found this rendition of one of my favorite carols back in the glory days of Audiogalaxy, and it is hands down the best version of this song I have ever heard.

"Bring a Torch, Jeanette Isabella" - Mannheim Steamroller
I haven't been able to find a good vocal recording of this in the original French, so this beautiful instrumental version serves as my backup while I bellow out the French lyrics. Stuff just sounds better when you sing it in a foreign language.

"Joy to the World" - Boston Camerata
Boston Camerata missed the "Adeste Fideles" spot so I have to get them in on this one - I love to sing this carol, and this choral version really captures the spirit of Christmas rejoicing, beautifully rendered in zillion-part harmony by this talented group that I just recently discovered. I particularly like that this version relies on the power of the human voice rather than including a thundering organ.

ALTERNATE: "Hallelujah Chorus" - The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir
OK, so I couldn't pick just 10. I feel justified in including this as an alternate because although it definitely creates the right atmosphere, it's not actually a Christmas song, but an Easter song, appearing in the part of Messiah that deals with Christ's ascension into Heaven and God's triumph over evil. But it's still a popular selection at Christmas concerts - we played it every year when I was a violinist in my high school orchestra. Almost any recording you find of this is effectively joyful, the one mentioned above is simply from an excellent recording of Messiah I have.

Honorable Mentions go to Canadian Brass for their fun classical-music twist on "The Twelve Days of Christmas" and to Boney M (yes, they of "Rasputin" fame) for an irresistibly joyful dance version of "Mary's Boychild."

Recent Reading

2006-12-20T04:54:09Z

Being on break always gives me a chance to catch up on pleasure reading - even though I wasn't taking classes this term, I was still very busy and didn't get as much reading done as I wanted to. I've zoomed through 4-5 books already in the past few days, and there have been some thoughts bouncing around in my head that I figure I might as well set down.

The most recent thing I've read was A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller, on the recommendation of a good friend. What a wonderful and thought-provoking book, easily on par with Brave New World or 1984 as prediction of where the errors of today's society might lead us. I hardly wanted to put it down until I finished it. The book is divided into three parts, each of which takes place several hundred years apart from the others, and I have to praise the author for making all three parts equally compelling and also for weaving in connections between all three. This book is going on the select list of "Books I Need To Own." There is apparently a sequel, but I'm a bit skeptical, given that it was written several decades after the original. I may check it out at some later date, but I have some other stuff to get through first - including an unabridged French edition of Les Misérables I bought while I was in France last spring.

I also just finished the final book in A Series of Unfortunate Events, which I liked, although I think I would have been disappointed if I hadn't already lowered my expectations when my sister told me she wasn't impressed. It wasn't quite as exciting as I originally expected, but I found it a fitting conclusion to the series, with a few good twists and revelations toward the end. If it didn't answer all my questions, at least it answered enough, and kind of explained why it didn't answer the rest. The story of the Baudelaires is over, but there's always the possibility that Lemony Snicket is not done writing. (That would make me quite happy... I fully admit that a large portion of the enjoyment I get from these books is trying to spot all the literary allusions, most of which are entirely irrelevant to the plot.)

Before that I read Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less by Jeffrey Archer. It was my first by this author and I believe it's quite different from his usual stuff, but it was an enjoyable light read. I was a little bothered by the style in which it was written - the narrator was far too present, given that he wasn't a character in the book. Archer creates his characters' backstories by giving us pages and pages of narrated info that's all entirely outside the story. I'm a firm believer in "Show, don't Tell" as a general rule in writing fiction, and Archer most definitely Tells us almost everything about our characters. But the plot is amusing, the characters likeable if firmly two-dimensional, and the twist at the end did get a chuckle out of me. I recommend it for an airplane or a beach read, when you don't want to have to pay attention or think.

I've also been rereading some of the early Discworld novels. I've previously made my way through about three quarters of the whole series, sticking as closely as possible to the order of publication. Going back for a second look at the earlier stuff was a bit of a shock. Discworld in The Colour of Magic is a very different place from the world it eventually turns into. Magic seems somehow grittier, Unseen University is a more powerful and interesting place, and in my latest outing (Equal Rites) we get to see Granny Weatherwax on her own, before she becomes quite as legendary and confident as she is in later novels. While I don't think I've ever disliked a Discworld novel, I think that in some of them Pratchett has gotten a little too set into his ways. Part of the fun of those earlier novels was how bizarre and unexpected the Discworld is... when he keeps coming back to old characters, the world gets a little bit less unexpected and more recognizable. However, Pratchett at his worst is still a hundred times funnier and more entertaining than about ninety percent of authors. I think I'm going to reread the Death books again, those are particularly enjoyable. If you haven't read any Discworld, I strongly suggest you do so in order of publication. If you're really skeptical, read Small Gods first, and then once that has convinced you, start at the beginning.

Next up on the list are the Rihannsu books by Diane Duane, hands-down my favorite Star Trek author. On a whim I spent a Barnes and Noble gift card on a new compilation of the first four books (that may have been a mistake - the thing is awkwardly huge) plus the just-released fifth book, "The Empty Chair." I've read the first two (My Enemy, My Ally and The Romulan Way) several times, and both are excellent. I've heard mixed reviews of the newer novels, but I find Duane entertaining even when she wanders away from the plot, so we'll see.

Episode Backlog

2006-12-18T21:26:12Z

I did a real entry, which means I'm allowed to clear out more of my Star Trek episode backlog. Lucky you. Most of these I watched a month or two ago and simply haven't posted yet.

redcoast is doing much longer, funnier recaps of the TOS episodes over at __recapitulate_. Check it out, the recaps of "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and "The Corbomite Maneuver" had me in fits of laughter. If I had it to do over again, I'd watch the episodes that way, in the filming order, instead of the airdate order as they are on the DVDs.

Other news from the Trek world: my DVDs of the Animated Series came the other day. I cheated on my watching-things-in-order rule (which is all to hell, anyway, given that I started letting my housemates pick episodes for group viewings) and watched "Yesteryear." Yay.

"THE CORBOMITE MANEUVER"

Decent episode. You wouldn't think a show about waiting to be destroyed would be be very good, would you? In some ways this is a forerunner of "Balance of Terror," showing us that you actually can get good drama out of a standoff.

Gotta love Ron Howard's little brother. Bring out the tronjia.

On the Spock front, there is still evidence of the shouting-orders persona but also a beginning of his sense of humor - he cracks a not-quite-smile during the poker conversation. There's also an interesting moment under pressure where he starts to say "I'm sorry," stops, and says something about regretting not having a logical answer. Great stuff.

Spock's comment that Balok reminds him of his father is interesting, coming this far before Sarek's appearance in the show. Given their estrangement, it could be taken as a really bitter remark, but that doesn't quite match the tone of its delivery. So was Spock being bitter but hiding behind a lighter tone? Or was he actually paying Balok a compliment? We shall never know...

"THE MENAGERIE" (Watched & Written 9/26)
This is a really cool episode. They did a fantastic job weaving in bits of "The Cage" but making the court-martial scenes equally important and relevant. I got a bit bored during the flashback scenes, but I suspect that's mostly because I watched "The Cage" fairly recently.

The Talosians are one of my favorite alien races - little old ladies with pulsing butt heads! They're an interesting concept, and I like their dignity, even though they do have a rather annoying superiority complex.

It's too bad McCoy wasn't sitting in on the court-martial. I'd have liked to hear his comment on Spock's smile early in the videoclips.

I liked the scene where Spock turns himself in to McCoy. McCoy was appropriately dumbfounded, had no frickin' clue what to do, and had to consult his prisoner on the proper procedure for confinement. Perfect.

It's also interesting to watch this from a "future" perspective. Years later, Kirk will steal the same ship (admittedly, this time with the approval of the crew) to get Spock back from the Genesis planet. You gotta wonder if anybody was thinking of this.

One of the very, very few episodes where Kirk not only doesn't get the hot girl, but somebody else does!

"THE CONSCIENCE OF THE KING"

I really liked this one but was disappointed by the end - the actress playing the woman of the week (who this week was also a murderess) was just plain terrible. She was fine in the scenes where she behaved like a normal human being, but she didn't play a very convincing crazy person. I would be willing to buy that she snapped when she realized she had killed her father and started the random Shakespearean mumbling - that was actually a cool touch. It was the fact that she acted completely out to lunch during the entire conversation with her father that threw me. It was badly acted, unrealistic, and absolutely crappy character development. Someone told the actress that all she had to do to seem "crazy" was to look vacant, smile, and speak in an unusually high-pitched and breathy voice. Pitiful. To continue the Shakespearean theme, this character was played as an Ophelia when she should have been Lady Macbeth - cold, cunning, and ruthless.

One really good moment is when Leonore Karidian gets invited to the bridge (wearing what looks like a torso-sized fur muff) and then starts to leave just as Yeoman Rand exits the turbolift. No words, just a look from Rand that could have bored holes right through the starship hull. I never really noticed Rand before but I'm starting to really like her. She has attitude. Even if the scriptwriters do occasionally make her fall into Kirk's arms in fear during times of danger.

"BALANCE OF TERROR"

I already commented about "Balance of Terror" a few weeks ago but here are a few more notes:

Um... this is the 23rd century. There are no paper books anymore, everything's digital. Why is there a paper-bound "Table of Comets" on the briefing room table? Especially since comets don't even become relevant until the end when Spock notices one on the sensors? Nobody could have foreseen that and brought the book. Who has ESP?

And the bit with the nuclear warhead. "Captain, the debris contains a metal-cased object!" "Cool, let's shoot it!" BOOOM! I mean, come on, Kirk.

"SHORE LEAVE"

If "The Naked Time" features the Most Pointless Ripped Shirt, this episode gets the award for the Most Inexplicable Ripped Shirt. Kirk gets flipped over by Finnegan, and we we see him land on his back, his shirt still entirely intact. In the next shot of him, his shirt is ripped all to hell, and not only that, but his exposed chest is all muddy, as if he'd been doing some of the fighting and crawling around with his shirt like that. Whoops.

Actually, this episode should have been titled "Continuity Errors." There are a few more. The female crewmember named Angela that follows Rodriguez around smacks herself into a tree and keels over as they are fleeing the airplane strafing. This is never addressed. She just mysteriously reappears sometime after McCoy does. I suppose you're supposed to infer that she too was taken underground and patched up, but it's a little confusing since it was never properly established that she was "dead" in the first place.

Also when Kirk and Spock run into the samurai and just sort of bulldoze through it, Spock doesn't quite make it and falls over. The camera keeps following Kirk as he's running until the tangle of Spock and samurai is off-camera, then stops and waits for Spock to run furtively across the picture a few moments later. I'm highly skeptical that that was intentional.

All I can say is, they must have suddenly been on a REALLY tight shooting schedule!

Perks of this one are watching Kirk have the time of his life beating the crap out of Finnegan, and also the look on Spock's face very early in the episode when he springs the trap forcing Kirk to order himself to take shore leave. I remember a passage in some TOS novel that discussed Spock's style of chess - it may have been My Enemy, My Ally, as there is a fair amount of chess in that one. He was described as being very attached to setting precise, elegant traps. This fits in very nicely with the rather smug look of amusement that crosses his face.

Watching McCoy get a girl for once is also nice, particularly since he gets the real girl and not the fake one provided by the planet. Personally, I am disgusted with his choice, though. If I was on a planet that could give me anything I wanted, what I would wish for would NOT be a pretty dress. (And any Don Juans I conjured up would probably be singing in Italian!) Also, shouldn't Starfleet training prevent one from having a mental breakdown when a colleague is killed? I realize that they were developing romantic attachments, and I'm not heartless, but it kind of goes with the job. I will grudgingly admit that she does snap out of it well when Kirk shakes her.

Still an enjoyable episode.

"THE GALILEO SEVEN"
It's nice to see an episode that centers on Spock but DOESN'T involve him getting emotional due to spores or atavachrons or Vulcan PMS. This episode delivers nicely in that respect - we get to see quite a bit of character development.

Boma's aggression toward Spock was a little too cliché, and it seemed forced. I find it slightly unbelievable that every other random character on this show can, while knowing Spock is Vulcan, react to absolutely every little thing he does with open hostility because he didn't do it with more emotion. There are scenes where it works and scenes where it doesn't - I find hostility in response to Spock basically ignoring Latimer's body to focus on the spear quite probable, for example. That particular action does come off as callous and you can also factor in the shock of suddenly losing a crewman. However, the reactions to his refusal to go pray at Latimer's burial and his objections to the second guy's (forgot his name already) getting buried at all seemed overblown. I'm sorry guys, but it makes sense not to let you risk death just to put some dirt on top of a guy who is already dead. This is the military, after all, and I would expect Boma to be more in tune with A) the idea of first things first and B) the possibility that Latimer himself may not even have given a damn if they buried his body or not. I mean, personally, what happens to my body after I'm dead isn't really something I'm interested in.

"THE SQUIRE OF GOTHOS"
William Campbell getting in touch with his inner child makes this a wonderful episode. He's obviously having a great deal of fun playing Trelane, and it's hard not to enjoy it with him. People have tried to poke holes in this episode by pointing out the inconsistencies in period of Trelane's castle. If he only knew about Earth culture up to 900 years before the 23rd century, that puts his knowledge in the 1300s, so he shouldn't know anything about America or have a tricolor French flag or any number of other things. These people are annoying. I've always figured that Trelane had multiple ways of looking at Earth, and that he simply forgot about the time-delay in the visual method. Plus, he's a little boy, he's not all that concerned with checking his facts...

Tangent: men should still dress in whatever the hell period Trelane is wearing. It looks great. The coat is very Scarlet Pimpernel. Douglas Sills wore one very like it for the musical, only scarlet instead of blue. And CLOAKS!

This episode is definitely one of the better uses of a "period" setting. Especially by the end of the third season you get really sick of them beaming down to parallel Earths just so they can use someone's leftover Nazi uniforms or pinstripe suits instead of having to spend the budget on new alien clothes. In this case, they were able to use period clothes and props, but still keep things within a science fiction context. Very nicely done.

There's really not much else to say except that this is one of the good ones.

But, given the semi-canonical reference in TAS to Spock's childhood pranks, one has to wonder whether his puzzled expression in response to Kirk's jibe at the end was really concealing an "Oh fuck, what does he know?" reaction.

(And yes, I know the official line on TAS is that it's not canonical, but really - all the major cast members reprise their roles except Walter Koenig, and he got involved too by writing an episode. You can't get much more canonical than that, in my humble opinion. Paramount be damned.)

Offensive good wishes?

2006-12-10T22:01:57Z

A very good friend of mine who is Jewish recently got grumpy when somebody wished her a Merry Christmas. This always gives me a pause. I mean, I've always been fond of the admonition "Pick your battles." Is it really worth it to take issue with someone who offers you good wishes? Being non-Christian doesn't prevent you from being merry on the 25th of December, and the person who said it meant well.

The fact is, I don't wish people a Merry Christmas because I'm assuming they celebrate it. I do it because *I* celebrate it, and extending good wishes to my fellow human beings regardless of their race, gender, creed, or crankiness is part of the celebration. I will gladly accept "Happy Hanukkah" or "Happy Kwanzaa" or "Happy Solstice" or "Thanks, you too" or even just a smile as a reply.

In the same way, if someone walked up to me and said "Happy Hanukkah" out of the blue, I'd probably just smile and say "Thanks, you too." I'm not Jewish, but I can be happy during Hanukkah all the same.

Political correctness can be carried too far. So lighten up, and have some eggnog.

Actually, no, don't have some eggnog. I think eggnog is vile. Have some cookies instead. Or a candy cane. Or whatever.

Do I get points for knowing there's actually a THIRD Tribble episode?

2006-11-19T04:28:22Z

I've had it with these motherfuckin' snakes on this motherfuckin' plane!

2006-10-29T16:05:32Z

I went to see Snakes on a Plane last night, since the college film society had a special showing with $5 student tickets. I didn't love it, but surprisingly enough I didn't really get bored, either. I didn't expect much, and the film didn't deliver much, but hey, I only paid $5 to see it. I was somewhat surprised by how gory it actually was, having somehow forgotten that it was an R-rated horror film. I also expected it to make fun of itself slightly more obviously. I found the line about the motherfuckin' snakes slightly disappointing, partly because the large group of possible drunks in the back of the theater were shouting it at the screen so loudly that I didn't actually hear it, partly because it was not followed by Samuel L. Jackson personally ripping the head off of a snake or anything exciting like that.

I was also slightly surprised that I wasn't really scared by it. A couple of the surprise snake-strikes made me jump, but the movie absolutely failed to inspire any terror whatsoever. I think it was partly because I managed to entirely detach myself from caring at all about the plot. If there even was a plot.

I can't say I recommend it. I'm not sorry I went, because at least now I know what the fuss was about, but I can't shake the feeling that those two hours of my life would've been better spent doing almost anything else.

Axes

2006-10-06T01:45:39Z

I belong to an outing club that lets me play with axes. For free.

Life is good.

"Charlie X" "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and "The Naked Time"

2006-09-20T18:52:15Z

Finished off the first DVD this afternoon. "Charlie X" is a fairly enjoyable episode, not the best, but enjoyable. I wanted the floating head at the end to say "I am the great and powerful Oz," but no such luck. I really like the scene with Spock playing the lyre, even if he smiles just a little too much. It's a great moment - even Vulcans can tease.

I understand why they didn't want to start off with "Where No Man Has Gone Before" - "The Cage" got rejected as too cerebral, and the second pilot improves somewhat in that respect, but only a little bit. The problem with showing them out of order, though, is the serious inconsistencies between this episode and all the others. The uniforms look even more pajamalike than usual, there are no red shirts, Spock is wearing gold, and most of the rest of the regular cast is missing - including Dr. McCoy. Easy to explain canonically when you realize that this one comes first, but less so when you stick it third in line. Also putting it right after "Charlie X" makes even less sense, since they have almost the same basic plot.

I remember reading somewhere that it was almost impossible to see through those silver contact lenses, which explains why Mitchell keeps peering down his nose at everyone. That and the fact that he develops the Largest Ego Known to Man.

Favorite moments: Kirk asks Kelso if the ore base has a self-destruct switch. No, but he can put one in this random useless panel that just happens to be here so that they can use it for that.

I already watched "The Naked Time" while I was at home, but I watched it again because it's such a great episode. I never quite figured out what the reasoning was behind Spock suddenly snapping out of it. Was being slapped across the face actually effective? Was it the emotional release he got from backhanding Kirk across the room? Maybe he just couldn't resist the intellectual fascination of figuring out the formula to cold start the engines. Who knows, the possibilities are endless.

I was disappointed by Spock's pronunciation of the name "D'Artagnan." I would have thought a Vulcan would have taken care to pronounce it with the proper French pronunciation, or at least put the accents on the right syllables! But that's the French major in me speaking. Regardless, George Takei was obviously having the time of his life chasing everyone around with a sword. I love the shot where he touches the tip of the sword, pokes himself, and then quickly looks around to make sure nobody noticed.

We also have what is possibly the Most Pointless Ripped Shirt when McCoy gives Kirk his shot, especially since we will later see hypos administered through clothing. I suppose we can write it up to McCoy being pissed off at having to do everybody else's job in addition to his own (he seems to have had to go synthesize the antidote himself since the lab techs were incapacitated).

Why didn't Uhura get the disease? If Chapel got it just from having Riley lightly touch her face, Uhura should have gotten it from being embraced by Sulu. Maybe it was most effectively passed off through the hand and face, that seems to be how everybody else got it.

I'm already thoroughly enjoying Season 1. Next we get to watch Shatner ham it up in "The Enemy Within."

donrodrigue @ 2006-09-19T22:47:00

2006-09-20T02:48:43Z

The human mind is a strange thing. Today I found myself soaked to the skin, tired, sore, hungry... and happier than I've been in a long time. My day started rather early this morning with three hours of work (yay! earning money at last!) and meeting the new Master Electrician, who seems very nice. Afterward I grabbed some free food at the barbecue celebrating the beginning of a new academic year. The hamburger was terrible but at least it was free. Then I headed with a bunch of outing club types to do some trailwork. I was the only one who knew anything about the brush saw, so I got to use it, which was wonderfully fun. A brush saw is like a weedwhacker, only with a circular saw blade that spins instead of a little string that whips around. It's a seriously cool instrument. Shrubs and small trees topple in its path.

It rained rather steadily on us, which was the cause of me being soaked to the skin, but luckily it wasn't cold. I may think twice about wearing Carhartts for trailwork when it is supposed to rain, but then again I don't think I would have been more comfortable in something else, especially since it wasn't cold. We got a lot done, and it was really satisfying to walk back down over the nicely brushed trail. We didn't finish all of what needed to get done out there, but we made some seriously excellent progress.

I'm psyched about this term. I am semi-hoping that the research I'll be doing with the French prof is something I can do on my own time outside of business hours, because I'd love to be able to leave a free afternoon in the week for hiking stuff and/or forestry practice. I've already got trailwork built into my schedule, since I'm teaching a PE class. Hopefully. Assuming people sign up for it. They better, I'm counting on getting paid for it.

I just had to pay my October rent (we all pay one of the housemates and she gives one giant check to the landlord) plus the phone/DSL and heating oil bills, and I'm realizing that I am starting to be in dire financial straights. I'll be OK as long as I start earning money pronto. Luckily I won't starve, because I have a nice reserve of pasta my mother sent up with me, and also I have all kinds of meal plan money left over from the summer term that I'm still allowed to use even though I'm not enrolled. But I also would like to be able to pay my credit card bill when it comes due...

Um... why does my LJ suddenly say "Update Captain's Log" instead of "Update Journal"? I don't recall telling it to do that.

And so it begins...

2006-09-18T19:51:59Z

I was finally able to pick up my Star Trek DVDs from my mailbox today. I just finished watching "The Man Trap," which was the first episode to air. I understand why they picked that one to throw out there first - it gives a solid if brief introduction to pretty much all the major characters and has a decent plot as well. There is adventure, or rather there are Kirk and Spock crawling around like idiots on the planet waving phasers. Kirk seems to take extra-special pains to crawl under lots of big heavy rock structures that Crater could send down on top of his head with a single shot, but unfortunately this exciting event never materializes.

I couldn't help thinking that this must have been sort of fun to film, since a whole bunch of different people get to play the salt vampire.

Interesting points of note include Uhura flirting with Spock, crewmen wearing things that look like weight lifting belts with their uniforms, and a phaser stun setting that leaves the victim conscious and able to talk - do we ever see this again, I wonder? We also get to see Spock shouting "It's killing the captain!" with a rather emotional level of panic in his voice after he barges into McCoy's quarters and proceeds to start beating the salt vampire in the face, getting himself backhanded across the room for his pains.

Hmm, the very first episode aired, and the counts for both McCoy saying "He's dead, Jim" and Spock getting smacked are at 1.

1 down, many more to go. Next up: "Charlie X." This is going to be fun!

donrodrigue @ 2006-09-17T23:54:00

2006-09-18T05:28:09Z

I just talked to my mother on the phone... she caught a nasty chest cold from her patients and sounds awful. I think I will be forever worried about people who sound terrible over the phone because of what happened to my Dad. I'll probably tell that story someday. I don't feel like it now.

She wants me to go home next weekend to feed the pets. (There go my illusions about being faraway from home. Normally I find it convenient that I can get a bus into Boston and then a train home.) The situation is that she's going to visit relatives in Canada for about a week, straddling her weekend off, and the neighbor who usually looks after the pets is going up to Loon Mountain for the weekend. I told her I would do it if she couldn't find anyone else, but I'm hoping she does find someone, because the prospect of spending 48 hours home alone with no car. I know perfectly well I will slip right back into my funk of lying on the couch and doing nothing, then have to come back and readjust to being social all over again. I feel guilty for not wanting to do it, especially since she's sick and probably doesn't want to deal with stuff. She did say she'd pay for the bus ticket. At this point, I would've had to ask her to if she hadn't offered, because I'm beginning to realize that if I don't start earning money soon I'm going to be in some serious financial shit. The people I mentioned in my last post had better start getting back to me ASAP.

Tonight I watched a movie with the housemates. One of the housemates, who I dated briefly about a year ago, is apparently dating this other girl we both know, since she was there and they were holding hands. I wasn't jealous, but I was forced by circumstances to sit on her other side on the couch. Not a problem for me, I just hope he didn't think anything of it except "Oh, that's where the empty spot is, of course she sat there." Am I over-analyzing? I think I am.

I forgave this guy a long time ago for the somewhat insensitive way he chose to break up with me. Neither of us had ever been in any kind of relationship before (or since, for me), and he probably thought he was doing the best thing. I eventually came to see that he was right, it would never have worked out, and if he chose the worst possible moment to say that to me, it was because he was just as clueless as I was (still am) how to go about all of it. We're both sadder and wiser for the experience, I guess. It would be really nice if some other guy would come along and allow me to practice some of this wisdom, but no such luck so far, I am unfortunately one of the founding members of what a good friend of mine refers to as the Perpetually Single Club. When you're a little kid the adults around you make up all this shit about not judging a book by its cover and how it doesn't matter if you're not pretty, guys will fall for your personality, etc. Fuck that. The sad truth is that if you do not conform to the general male idea of what a pretty girl looks and behaves like, you don't get any attention. I'm not saying that one must be drop-dead gorgeous to get a date, I'm just saying that if you don't fall within certain parameters, there isn't much hope.

I have been thinking about this a lot recently, partly because I recently snapped out of this longtime crush on a guy I've known since freshman year. It's a moot point now since he is gone for over a year doing various amazing study-abroad projects. This is a guy I consider a fairly good friend; we run in several overlapping social circles and have a lot of common interests. I don't think he has ever noticed that I am a girl. I mean, clearly he knows intellectually that I am female, but I am beginning to believe that something about me makes it impossible for guys to even place me in the widest possible pool of potential girls. I don't know what it is. The fact that I don't wear makeup? The fact that I wear t-shirts and jeans instead of miniskirts? The fact that I don't spend three hours on my hair in the morning? The fact that I have a job that involves power tools and like 'masculine' things like chainsaws and playing with axes? I know plenty of other people who also don't do at least some of those things and none of them are stalwart members of the Perpetually Single Club like me.

I think being at this school makes this situation even worse than it might be elsewhere. Here, the main form of dating takes place around a pong table, and people go instantly from new acquaintances to couples. There is no actual dating here, in the sense where a guy gives a girl his phone number and they go to a movie, or a club, or a science fiction convention, or wherever the hell they want to go in order to get to know each other a little better and see if they like each other. If there were, I might have got up the nerve to casually ask that guy I had the crush on to eat lunch with me or grab some coffee. But the only kind of date anyone understands here is a pong invitation, and I have learned to hate the Greek culture and everything it stands for. The most common type of "relationship" created around a pong table or elsewhere at a frat party is the one-night stand, and that's not something I want at all. But even though I wouldn't do that, it would be nice to know that I could if I wanted to. But I'm fairly sure that I couldn't. Or at least, I would have to get some guy very, very drunk first.

It would be one thing if I could counterbalance whatever I'm lacking in the physical department with a great personality or a gift for conversation. I have neither. I'm shy, quiet, socially inept, and awkward to the extreme. For various reasons that make sense to me now but still don't change anything, I never learned to participate in conversations. When I do have something to say, it's so hard for me to get a word in - I'm softspoken to the extreme and not very forceful, and often find myself starting a sentence but getting cut off by a more enthusiastic talker. When this happens almost every time you open your mouth (and for me it does), it gets discouraging and you eventually stop trying and just listen. I love to listen while the people around me talk, but I've come to realize that nobody wants to hang out with that person who never says anything, and sometimes it makes me try too hard, and I say stupid or obvious things just to say something. The thing is, I can talk forever if you get me started on something that really interests me or pisses me off, especially if I'm with friends I'm comfortable with or in a small group. But those subjects are either uninteresting (nobody really wants to hear me spout off about my pet peeves) or obscure. I'm clueless about pop culture - TV shows, popular music, recent movies, my knowledge of all of these together probably fits in my little finger. I know absolutely nothing about professional sports and have no loyalties in that area other than a persistent but entirely cultural attachment to the Red Sox. I never feel knowledgeable enough to discuss politics or world events, because inevitably when I say something it gets contradicted, usually argumentatively, and I never feel like I know enough about anything to argue. I've begun to suspect that the other people don't know all that much more than I do, and that the difference lies mostly in how confident we are about our respective knowledge bases, but I'm just not eloquent enough while speaking to engage in arguments. I'm better with the written word, I hope. I still rant, but at least I do it coherently and I say things in the right order.

So to come back to where this self-indulgence started, I promise I'm not jealous of my ex's new girlfriend. I know her and like her a lot, she's a nice person and I think they'll be cute together. I have absolutely no interest in getting him back or any crap like that. But I am jealous of them in general for having each other. I get an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach when I see a couple, whether I know them or not, holding hands or walking together or whatever else. I know they aren't flaunting it at me. It's not them I'm ever angry at, it's the world. Oddly enough, I actually have come to feel a great deal of unexpressed gratitude to my ex, because whatever happened, he was the first and so far only person ever to even consider that I might be an attractive person.

If you've made it all the way to the end of this self-pity-fest, I apologize for subjecting you to it.