To Boldly Go…

A few months ago, Amanda decided to start watching Star Trek: The Next Generation while using our treadmill. An episode is about the right length for a workout.

At the same time, I was playing virtual board games with a friend a couple of times a week, and so she continued to watch TNG while I was gaming.

After a few nights of this, I wasn’t watching anything of note, so I thought I’d just watch a few episodes with her now and then, but I got hooked.

Next thing you know, we were watching two to three episodes an evening most free nights of the week (after the kids were in bed, natch).

At that rate, it only took us a couple of months to burn through the entire series.

One of my first takeaways from this experience is that I watched way less TNG back in the day than I thought I had, but at the same time I was quite familiar with far more of the later episodes than I had expected.

I don’t know whether I’ve just read about the episodes, whether they’ve become memes, or whether I did, in fact, watch them when they aired at some point, but there were several episodes I was excited to watch from the title alone.

So, having now watched pretty much all of TNG, what did I think?

Well, first, it has more continuity than I remembered. Past moments are brought up on a fairly regular basis, particularly in the later seasons. It becomes clear that these characters have shared experiences. They’ve gone through some tough things and survived, coming out the other side stronger.

Second, I’d have to say that the show is (mostly) at its best in the final few seasons, which surprised me. There were several episodes that were highlights of the series in seasons six and seven, and ignoring a Sub Rosa here and there, included a large percentage of the major episodes I remember from when the series first aired. I had always felt and thought that it was at its best in seasons three and four, but for the most part, I’d almost say season seven was just about the show at its best, which is unusual for any program that continues that long.

Third, TNG has a surprising number of “before they were stars” celebrity guests, including Kirsten Dunst, Famke Janssen, and Teri Hatcher among the more known examples like Stephen Hawking and Ashley Judd. I knew about the latter, but there were a surprising number of times when I went “is that…” and it was.

Fourth, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed both Troi and Worf. I mean, I knew I liked Worf, but he was one of the stronger characters to me, and I understand why he was chosen to bring over to DS9. For Troi, I felt she was given some strong episodes later in the series, and I think she really got a chance to shine. Sure, Picard and Data are the standouts, as one would expect, but the other characters each got some great opportunities to be in the limelight, for the most part.

Fifth, I’d say the exception to the above was poor Dr. Crusher. She had some of the weakest focus episodes, including the aforementioned Sub Rosa, and that really hurt her character. There was nothing wrong with her as a part of the ensemble, but I think her focus episodes were the weakest of the series overall. And yes, I am including the Wesley episodes in that, but too be fair, I didn’t watch as much of the first season this time, so that may have inoculated me to the annoyance many have with him.

Fifth, and finally, TNG is a lot funnier than I remember, particularly in the middle seasons. And to be clear, I mean deliberate humour rather than the unintentional comedy that comes with some of the episodes.

Overall, I quite enjoyed watching the show, more than I had expected. It was definitely a good one to binge, and only now do I understand why it’s so popular.

A Lullaby?

This is a few years old, but it struck me as hilarious despite it starting in German.

I hope you’ll appreciate it, too.

Greetings From the Future

Hi there! It’s only been 10 years to the day since the last time I posted here.

When last I posted, I had a one month old daughter. Now I have a 10 year old and an eight year old to go with her. I’ve been busy with kids and work.

When last I posted, I had a different job and far more time to spend here, and I had more time to delve into various media. I was pretty good about tracking what I read, watched, and played for a few years there. That was pretty cool.

Over the recent past, I’ve reread what I used to write here, and I find myself desperately wishing I had devoted more time to recording what I experienced in Japan. Now, 14 years later, I have memories I didn’t share, but they’re fading along with my knowledge of the Japanese language.

So, why am I posting here now? I’m not sure.

Maybe I just thought it would be funny to update this place a decade after its best-before date.

I make no promises that this will become an active blog again, but that’s my hope. Maybe I’ll even create a new Media Explored page. Maybe I’ll use this to reconnect with some old friends.

I also plan to update The World of Volara page, so there’ll be new info about my world as I prepare to launch a new campaign there. If you’ve stopped by here, feel free to visit there and see what’s been added.

For now, I send you greetings and hope this finds you well.

Warning: Contains rambling

Well, it’s been two years to the day since I last posted anything here (other than on the Media Explored pages), and I’ve found that in those two years my time spent communicating with certain of my friends has decreased enormously.

That being the case, I hope for this to be the first of what I hope to be at least weekly updates to the site.

On Sunday night, I actually went through and read most of the old posts, and I realized that I miss doing my mini-reviews/commentary on whatever I’d recently read, watched or listened to. Thus, my aim is to provide those random musings into what-have-you, while also sharing my thoughts on whatever. I may also post any pictures that I feel are good or interesting enough to share.

I’m certain this blog will continue to be varied enough in content that I won’t be able to develop any kind of major following, but that’s okay, I guess.

There will be a few bits of political commentary that I can’t write about for The Record after the jump, along with some other thrilling bits and pieces about site stats and what I’ve been up to media-wise.

Vodpod Test Post

This is a test of the Vodpod video embedding method. I like this song an inordinate amount, but if you’re visiting my site, you’ve probably already seen it.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Galactic Empire State of Mind “, posted with vodpod

On The Gathering Storm

Yesterday, I finished reading The Gathering Storm, the twelfth book in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time fantasy series and the first published since his death.  Before reading it, I had heard many positive things about it from friends, some even suggesting that it might be the best book in the series thus far.

As far as I know, I am the only one in my circle of friends who went back and reread the entire series before reading this new book, and I think that had an effect on how I viewed this text.  While I agree that the book is quite good, I certainly can’t say that it’s the best, but I can understand why it would be received so positively.

Closure.

In Western Culture, we’re big fans of closure.  We love to have our stories nicely wrapped up at the end, and fans of the fantasy genre are no different.  The Gathering Storm is beginning to give us what we, as Western readers, want.  It’s tying together all those loose ends that have been dangling for years.

(Spoilers after the cut)

Coincidence??

I spent the better part of an hour this evening chatting with a friend.  She commented that there are many televisions where she works and that they were all tuned to the 2010 Winter Olympics.

I commented that the Olympics mean so little to me that I would have to make an effort to care less.

She said that she didn’t really care either, so I dared her to see what would happen if she tried to change the channel.  She said she’d try.

Not five minutes after our conversation ended, another friend messaged me saying, “Canada’s hockey team is playing for the gold” or something to that effect.

My response was “So?”

He didn’t reply to that.

Help Me Choose a Laptop

Our laptops are ailing.  Amanda and I bought a pair of lappies in summer 2006.  That being almost 4 years ago, and laptops being notoriously difficult to keep alive, we’re thinking about getting new laptops.We’re getting to the place where not all the keys are working and where the computers sometimes announce their hatred of the universe and stop working for no apparent reason (admittedly, this has happened more with Amanda’s than mine, but I have times when it just chugs for several minutes and I have no idea why).

I am somewhat of a gamer.  I like a variety of games in a variety of genres.  I prefer PC gaming to console gaming.  What I’m saying is that I’d like a system that has some juice.

Amanda, on the other hand, is an artist.  She has done some graphic work on her Lappy, but it’s a little chuggy for her to do anything serious.

BSG Mistakes (Mine, not Theirs)

Apparently, the ‘reimagined’ Battlestar Galactica began with a miniseries or a two-part pilot, depending on how you want to look at things.  I didn’t know that.

Honestly, if you were to acquire a TV series, you would think that Season 1 was the place to start, too, wouldn’t you?

So, there Amanda and I were, watching the first season, and we had no idea what was going on.  I thought to myself, Hey! It begins in media res, obviously they’re going to explain some stuff as the show goes on.  Then an episode went by, then a few more, and we found ourselves with only the two-part season finale left, scratching our heads. 

Amanda suggested that it was unnecessarily confusing with far too much left unexplained and that she didn’t really care about the characters because she was confused.  I was doing my best to keep a positive attitude, but it seemed like the revelations were coming too slowly.

Of course, I was chastened when Amanda said, “Look it up,”  and I learned about the miniseries. 

Last night, we watched the miniseries.  Now, we know what the deal is with Baltar.  We know why everyone keeps dissing Laura Roslin.  We know what the tension was/is between Commander Adama and Apollo.  We know why Helo is on Caprica and why he was so surprised to meet Boomer there. We know why everyone’s in a massive space convoy (I made an assumption beased on the old series while we were watching, but it was nice to have it confirmed).  We know how they know what some of the Cylon’s look like.  We know Number Six’s name. 

We actually care about the characters. 

It’s amazing what a difference a few hours of introductory material make. 

The real question, though, is whether we weren’t more careful in our viewing simply because we didn’t know what was going on.  We’ll never know.

Thanks, All

I just thought I’d put up a quick post to say thanks to the gang for all the fun over Christmas.  We really enjoyed our time with family and friends.

And to think, Santa Claus is safe because of a bugbear, a centaur, a minotaur, a treant, a kender, and a mind flayer. You guys rock. 

I’m going to attempt to update this thing more often this year, so we’ll see what happens.