Goddamn Linux Crap of Wonderfulness

My DVD player doesn't work, my CD burner doesn't work, and I keep forgetting how to use the command line to do the things I want to do. Flash won't install and no one wants to help me and I tried to download a new RPG with my boyfriend but it won't run in Wine.

But the cool thing is I get to try to fix these things myself. I feel powerful. This is wonderful.

The Lost World

There were a lot of things that went wrong with Voyager and I'm not even bringing Genvieve What's-her-face into it. This makes it tough. On one hand, I love Star Trek. On the other hand, sometimes you just look at the TV and go, "Really????"

I think Wil Wheaton must do that a lot.

But I digress.

My three year old cousin once said to me, "Auntie, do you still love me when I'm being bad?" She was intent on testing the limits of my love that day, running in circles and screaming when we were trying to eat and sticking nails in power outlets.

"I love you good and I love you bad," I told her. She frowned. "But how can you love something that's bad?"

Out of the mouths of babes.

Remember The Lost World? What a big fat annoying donut hole that was for our troubles? How disappointing and frustrating and sad that movie was (and Sam Neil hadn't even sold out yet).

Remember the Voyager that came with it?

The worst part is that I can't even play The Voyager Game with this one, which is the only props I can give them. It's bad, but at least it's original. Sort of. Except they were clearly trying to do a piece on Evolution vs. Creationism.

Now I'm not gonna touch that one, probably mostly because I don't actually care. I figure we're here, and since no one could write when we were being created I doubt either record is entirely accurate. If you need a description of how accurate paleontology can be, look at this episode. They make some interesting observations about the crew from the scientific standpoint.

Two things bug me. First, since when do we let the computer do our thinking for us (*cough* Janeway *cough*) and second, what happened to the line? You know the one. The one that kept Shatner's monster at the end of 5 from being Satan? (You know it would have been better if it was.) That line. The one where we don't talk about religion in the future, unless you count McCoy's "Goddammit, Jim!" Or we're on DS9, but that's another story. For a show that didn't take risks, they sure tried to here.

And failed because they fought the wrong battle. This isn't an evolution story at all, I realized. It's Galileo. The establishment censoring the man who uses science to find his answers because they don't want to lose their control.

From that standpoint, and without the dinosaurs, we might have an episode.

Snerkles Snerkles! Look out Wesley!

Brannon Braga Confesses

There it is in black and white. During a 24 panel, Brannon confessed to killing Star Trek.

Maybe now some of the people who haven't healed yet can begin to.

WHY????

Why does it bother me when people recognize my Trekkieness? I got this tattoo for a reason after all. This morning when I was waiting for the bus, a woman approached me. "Oh, you like Star Track," she said. "That's so cool. I love Star Track."

Somehow, I wasn't convinced, and I hate it when people over the age of ten say Star Track. Until then I figure it's forgiveable.

She continued trying to make small talk. The bus was late and I hadn't had my coffee. My grim outlook on life in general from my lack of caffeine did not deter her in the slightest. I wanted to be really nasty and tell her to shut the bleep up, but I see this woman waiting for the bus every day and somehow that didn't seem conducive to good neighbor relations. So instead I just stared in a direction that was not hers and grunted occasionally, playing up the no-caffeine thing, which did not take much work. She prattled on about the weather and Star Track and how they made a new movie, or maybe a TV show, she wasn't sure.

The bus arrived and I let her get on first so I wouldn't have to sit by her.

I transferred to the MAX and while I was sitting there with my computer, playing NetHack like a nerd should, I notice this guy trying to maneuver into my line of sight. Trying really hard. He gets to where he knows I can see him and flashes me a Live Long and Prosper! I kid you not!

Now what this says to me is that this stranger has been staring at my boobs.

Which is stupid, I mean I got this tattoo where I got it for a reason. It's where it would be were I wearing a uniform, which I'm not. I'm not that chick on Trekkies whose boss lets her wear her uniform to work. That's just nuts. You have to live in the real world sometimes, sorry. So anyway, that's when it hits me why this annoys me so much. I do live in the real world. I work hard to stay here. I play normal sometimes and I have a job where people come to me for my expertise on something normal and not Star Trek. I fit in with my friends, most of whom aren't Trekkies (although some are nerds) I have a boyfriend (who is a nerd, but has also learned to live in the rest of the world too) and I like it here. It's a delicate balance between compromising who you are and coexisting with the rest of the planet.

So when someone pulls me apart from them, comments on my obvious Trekkieness, suddenly I know that they see me as other, unique. I don't have any identity here. At work, I am Gillian the Bra Knowledge Person, and my tattoo shows but that's okay because it helps to demonstrate the uses of lingere tape. At home, I am just Gillian and I don't have to be anyone else so who cares about my tattoo. No one even mentions it, although they do mention Star Trek. So what? I take notes on Star Trek for fun, for crying out loud. It's allowed there.

But here, I'm just the chick with the tattoo on her boob, being noticed for my association with a TV show. The worst part is that these people are trying to be nice, trying to include me, but they just point out my obvious isolation without meaning to. If John Travolta hijacked this train today, I wouldn't be the passenger in the background, I'd be the one that stands out. My function in the plot is to give the crowd a face with my quirkiness.

And now I just realized that I never should have seen Pelham 123.

TodayTonight (Spoliers)

Australia's Today Tonight has indicated there is a love interest between Spock and Uhura in Star Trek.

The fans may be confused.

Let me explain.

No, let me sum up.

Watch "The Man Trap".

Now tell me you don't see it.

So now it's the last four weeks

Hard to imagine it was all just rumors once, and we were huddled around our computers going, "Is it true? Is it true?" And people said it was dead, and people said, "You know what would be cool? The Borg." And some of us were scared and some of us were happy and some of us believe Star Trek died in the seventies.

In four weeks all that can change will change should change.

Four little weeks.

So it's been a while...

Sorry it's been so long.

Got a boyfriend.

It's a funny thing about geeks and relationships. You lose the time you used to spend downloading everything you can find about the Star Trek movie, blogging becomes a chore, and generally life gets more complicated - you lose some of the ability to spend time doing what most would consider nothing.

So what? I ask myself. I like having a boyfriend. And he's losing his geek time too. He's not complaining. And neither am I, really. After all, he is pretty damn cute.

And it's about time we got past the honeymoon stage and started getting out lives back - so I'm back to my blogging, back to checking trekmovie, and still having three-hour text conversations about Warhammer (his obsession, not mine).

I have to say, I love this.

I love some things I find

I love this story. My only question: Why wouldn't they let him use a BlackBerry for crying out loud?

On a more serious note, President (God, I love saying that) Obama decided to close Guantanamo today. For further information, see the TNG episode "The Drumhead". I'll leave you with this quote:



"You know, there are some words I've known since I was a
schoolboy: ' With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech
censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains
us all irrevocably.' Those words were uttered by Judge Aaron Satie as wisdom and warning. The first time any man's freedom is trodden on we’re all damaged. I fear that today..."

-Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Favorite BBS Post of the day:

How many As in Kaaaaahn!

I come back from my crazy life and this is what I find

Ricardo Montalban is dead.

You heard me.

The immortal Kahn, the genetic superman, the legend himself.

"To the last, I will grapple with thee. From hell's heart, I spit my last breath at thee."

A good line. And his last on Star Trek.

The first encounter between Kirk and Kahn in Star Trek II.

Star Trek 1x22 Space Seed Remastered Trailer

WWKD?

Manny Coto just said something (okay, last August said something) about how they did the third season of Enterprise that makes a lot of sense to me. Essentially, that if you do a big story, you put it  in a three-parter. Oh, if Brannon had only thought of that when he made "Macrocosm".

Anyway, it's kind of exciting to hear that someone had it figured out, at least for the one year.

In other news, I saw Frost/Nixon last night, and it really touched a chord with me especially in regard to my own first encounter with Brannon Braga and people's reaction to my question and my take on his answer. It was important to many that someone in power acknowledge their responsibility for what happened, and I think that Brannon has done that. Too late in the game to change what's happened, but at least he did it. I've managed to switch from intense anger to a grudging admiration for the man, and that's in large part due to his repeated appearances at conventions, allowing us to rake him over the coals. As he deserved at one point, although I'm not sure he does now. At some point, doesn't he get to be absolved of that guilt? Star Trek has an overall message of forgiveness, after all. What would Kirk do?

Reconcieving Preconceptions

What if?

What if, for all it's faults, Enterprise explains why everyone seems to hate Spock in the first season of TOS?

What if for just an instant in The Man Trap, Kirk resembles Chris Pine.

What if Spock teaches Kirk to play chess in the new movie?

What if it had come out today and I hadn't been able to get there and I'd been stranded in the snow and couldn't see it?

Maybe some things are for the better.

I've been trying

I've been trying to think what to say.

Yesterday was my cousin's seventh birthday, and I didn't allow myself to dwell. Now I don't have that excuse and, yeah.

Sad.

So I decided to let Majel do the talking for me.

"Star Trek will live because - look around you."

"Star Trek is Gene Roddenberry's. No one else's."

Those were the only quotable things she said at our one encounter. Rod did a lot of talking for her. I think it annoyed her.

The woman had spunk.

Actually, it wasn't our only encounter. I was in the vendor's room and there she was, right next to me, in a wheelchair.

She looked right at me, just for a second. For a moment I was in the gaze of someone who was not just an actress or the wife of a producer but a symbol. And she knew it. I don't know what she saw in me. No words were exchanged. It was over in a second and she was gone.

But I felt, in that moment, something we all should know, that the thing that has comforted her through the last twenty years of Gene's demise and death was knowing that his legacy will continue. She was a symbol of his legacy, and now she is dead and we are left to carry on without her. In that second, she unspeakingly charged me and all those like me - not by words or actions, but by the simple act of her being - with the duty and responsibility and honor of carrying on that legacy in her name, as she has carried it in Gene's. She didn't need to speak more at that convention. It has all been said. Her feelings, her thoughts, and her desire for the future of Trek have been made clear. The torch has been passed, her approval of J.J.'s movie has been firmly stamped by a computer voice, and today a thousand, a million, a hundred million fans cry out the words with which our lives began -

"There's still something out there."

Countdown

Just a reminder: in 160 days, the trailers will give way to the movie.

So now all that remains is to decide how I'm going to spend those 160 days.

I work in retail, so my life is basically over for the next six weeks. But after... is after. After that's all over (by which I mean Christmas), I'll be working on something entirely different.

Watching all the TOS, TAS, and the first seven Trek movies in preparation for whatever it is that's gonna be happening here in just a few short days. Precisely 160 of them.

For the record, that's less than six months. Less than five even. Practically no time at all.

New Trailer! New Trailer!

163 days left, folks, and what do we have here?

Booya.

Check it out, Nimoy's in it!

That's a new order to things. Yeah.

I think I have it figured out.

So, J.J. can't work within canon, but he didn't want to violate it either. So what he did was he changed the rules. Very TWOK. Anyway, He goes back to before the beginning of TOS and alters something, throwing the entire thing into an alternate universe where anything can happen.

Cool.

Or maybe I'm wrong. That could be too.

Fringe

I'm falling head over heels in love with Fringe.

No, it has no relation to Dawson's Creek, although, Joshua Jackson... My oh my. No, it's something entirely different. It's season 7 of The X-Files in a shiny new wrapper (you know, before there were Super Soldiers). It's wonderful, it's awesome, and it's pure Abrams all the way. And funny! And there's a cow, and a mad scientist, and... well, I just love it madly.

I'm gonna stop now, because I'm starting to sound insane.

Watch Fringe.

So I was on Facebook today...

And there, playing in an ad, was the trailer, with a little note: "Star Trek, May 2009".

It's nice to be loved.

Spoiler Alert

Kirk can drive a stick.

But in "A Piece of the Action," did stick shifts work the exact same way?

Huh?
Huh?

Yeah, I thought so.