ST:TNG I'm really not very thorough

So it looks like some super nerds over at tor.com have started an in-depth rewatch of all the Next Generation episodes.  It's kind of embarrassing posting my stream of consciousness crap after seeing how thorough they are!  Embarrassment has never been a problem for me, just acknowledging it.

ST:TNG 1.7 The Lonely Among Us

Hot delegate transportation action!

Delegates from alien species 1 seem closely related to the Goombas from the Mario Brothers movie.

Ooh, enter the 'unusual energy object'.  Considerable energy is changing patterns and.. travelling at warp speed!  Be still my quivering geekiness.

Ugh.  Worf got zapped while working on the sensor array.  Zapped so hard his forehead prosthetic nearly blew off.  

We get to see Dr. Crusher sporting the latest in.. weird medical skullcaps?  Enough of that, though, she's apparently caught some energy transference from Worf.  In other news, Picard "loves mysteries".  

Not a whole lot to actually say about this episode.  Can I really continue talking about Wesley's sweater?  Very much looking forward to Crusher doing more than walking around looking creepy.  

13 minutes in and I think they blew the writing budget on the alien costumes, but they've only been used in one brief scene each.  

At this point this episode has lost me.  The alien species are both dicks and.. wait.. huh.. Data has begun channelling Sherlock Holmes, including pipe, as they try to figure out what the delegates have to do with the ship problems.  Ah, the moment has passed.  Return to boredom..

Energy whatever has possessed Picard.  Actually kind of loving cocky Picard.  Wondering what the Federation would be like if every ship had all this random crap happening to it all the time.

How did this energy being not decide to go after Data?  

Energy/Picard used the transporter to beam both of them out into the energy cloud, supposedly because Picard wants to explore the universe as energy.  Turns out that won't work, so Energy version of Picard gets back into the circuitry of the Enterprise.  But when they reverse the transporter beam, they essentially recreate the captain from the transporter buffer.  Don't they have the ability to just create a few more Datas using the same technique?  Is this how the replicators work?  I need more detailed mumbo-jumbo to explain this..

Ultimately the delegates seemed there to fill time in the episode and give the crew a false trail to follow as to why an engineer was found dead in the engine room.

This episode is possibly too pulpy for me.  Maybe if I was reading this in a magazine from the 50s, but..

Great finds this weekend

Went to Louisville, KY this weekend for the first time.  Found some great media sources.  Picked up the following at great prices.

• MST3K Collection Volume 12 - The one with Parts:The Clonus Horror.
• MST3K - Beginning of the End - long out of print!
• Freaks - I've seen it, but really look forward to the commentary.  Unless I've actually watched it before..
• Battle Royale

The latter two of those I found at Wild and Wooly Video in Louisville - fantastic horror, import, sci-fi imports for rental.  

ST:TNG 1.6 Where No One Has Gone Before

Riker is getting younger by the episode.

This episode is about tests and tuning on the Enterprise's warp engines.  EXCITEMENT.

BUT, I suspect that those testing fellows from the USS Fearless might be werewolves, or something.  Yeah, that's a reasonable direction for this episode.  LET'S FIND OUT.

Geordi not being the chief engineer is a little disorienting.  Perhaps he's off filming Reading Rainbow?  Oh, no.  He's just on the bridge.  Hrm.

Apparently Wesley has screwed up something and the Enterprise has passed Warp 10?  What does Picard do?  Jams it into reverse.  BAM.  2.7 million light years in minutes.  Over 300 years to get home at normal warp.  Is this Voyager?

If this were X-Files they would be investigating what supernatural sources this Kosinski guy's douchebagginess come from.

Oh, this must be that Traveller guy that eventually removes Wesley from the series as the assistant to Commander Douchebag..

Interesting aging of the special effects in the show.  Kinda neat that this ep is where that picture of Picard falling out of a turbolift into space comes from.  Ah, then everything goes totally haywire.  Lovely.  They must be about to all assume their pure energy forms, being at the end of the universe as the hallucination of Picard's mom claims.

Oh, obviously.  They're in a place where mind, time, and space are one.  Why would I ever have suspected werewolves?

This guy is actually the Traveler and foreshadows Wesley becoming some kind of fancy lad.

This episode could have ended so well with somebody thinking of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and having epic battle with the Enterprise.

Instead it turns out the Traveler manages to somehow convert Kosinski's douchebaggery directly into motive force behind the Enterprise.  Douchebaggery strong enough to throw the Enterprise hundreds of millions of miles.  That, or channeling the hideousness of Wesley's sweater.  I don't know.  This is all new territory for me..

Picard decides to nurture Wesley on the Traveler's advice by making Wesley an ensign.  Hooray.

ST:TNG 1.5 The Last Outpost

Oh, this one is about T9 energy converters.  Awesome.

First impressions, why is Geordi on the bridge so often instead of in engineering?  Probably for the same reason the captain goes on so many away missions..  Or does he just lead the way in the movies?

Starting to suspect I may have hallucinated that Riker ever had a beard.  I may have to put it down as a wonderful dream, never to be fulfilled.

Tasha Yar isn't dead yet.  Bah.

Oh, first encounter with the Ferengi!  Although they never met before, they subscribe to the same verticality rules as the Federation.  No problems with ships meeting at odd angles to each other.

WTF.  The entire ship is losing power and Geordi is still sitting in the bridge updating Facebook or whatever..  I guess he's cool as long as gravity doesn't fail..

Data gets caught in a chinese finger trap.  Apparently he lacks the upper body strength to defeat that friction..

Pretty sure the Ferengi were designed while drunk.  "Let's just give them butt heads.  OK?"  "Winner! "  And thus, the douchebags of the Star Trek universe were born.

They officially did decide to still devote power to their gravity systems as they RAN OUT OF OXYGEN.  Maslow's hierarchy was lost in the mid-21st century wars.

Oh crap.  I got distracted at the end.  Now I'll never know if they got their energy converter back.  Why even bother continuing with the series?  That lack of knowledge will haunt me.  Always.

ST:TNG 1.4 Code of Honor

Hey, let's have a racist episode!  British Captain will attempt to negotiate with backwards African planet for unique vaccine only available there.  Unfortunately, jungle love is in the air, as Tasha Yar is kidnapped by their leader.

Still no beard on Riker.  Such disappointment.  Still, a discussion on shaving between Geordi and Data.

Only sign of Wesley is a peek out the turbolift.  Oh, dammit.  Mom is making a thing out of it.  Oh, god.  Picard is seating him at the Ops console.  It's amazing how instantly I'm channeling the Wesley rage of the time.

Seems like a waste of an episode.

Crusher has epic 80s hair.

ST:TNG 1.3 The Naked Now

Episode appears to start with a raunchy pop-up ad, which is apparently a ship of infected drunks.

Of course the black man gets drunk first on the away mission.  

Wesley built a machine that satisfied his hero worship by resampling Picard's announcements into commands as if he were working on the bridge.  Disturbing.

Pretty much everybody gets the intoxication virus and starts getting it on.  On the second mission with that crew.  Expect many references back to this.
Second episode and it's the second episode with direct reference to the original series, with them encountering in the logs an encounter Kirk's Enterprise had with a similar infection.

ST:TNG 1.1 Encounter at Farpoint

Separate the saucer section!
Riker doesn't have a beard!
Picard hates children.  AND HE'S GOT AN ACCENT.
Data needs a cat.
Q is a dick.
Wesley Crusher was not thrown out of an airlock.
Lots of high speed character definition.

ST:TNG-quest engaged.

Planning to attempt watching all episodes of Star Trek:Next Generation in the 2 years that Netflix has it licensed for streaming.  Encounter at Farpoint.. begun.

Fascinating bit on Germanic Tyr from Wikipedia

According to the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda, at one stage the gods decided to shackle the Fenris wolf (Fenrir), but the beast broke every chain they put upon him. Eventually they had the dwarves make them a magical ribbon called Gleipnir. It appeared to be only a silken ribbon but was made of six wondrous ingredients: the sound of a cat's footfall, the beard of a woman, the roots of a mountain, bear's sinews (meaning nerves, sensibility), fish's breath and bird's spittle. The creation of Gleipnir is said to be the reason why none of the above exist. Fenrir sensed the gods' deceit and refused to be bound with it unless one of them put his hand in the wolf's mouth.

Tyr, known for his great wisdom and courage, agreed, and the other gods bound the wolf. After Fenrir had been bound by the gods, he struggled to try and break the rope. When the gods saw that Fenrir was bound they all rejoiced, except Tyr, who had his right hand bitten off by the wolf. Fenrir will remain bound until the day of Ragnarök. As a result of this deed, Tyr is called the "Leavings of the Wolf"; which is to be understood as a poetic kenning for glory.

On rapture

If you think you can predict the end of the world, what would you accomplish by doing so?

Hoping to get into the afterlife with an 'I told you so'?

If you're spending a hundred million dollars advertising when the end of the world is going to be, you're obviously trying to get some kind of action out of the audience.  I haven't seen any kind of exhortation towards accepting God or Jesus in the Camping advertisements, so they must not give a damn about that.  Camping has been interviewed now saying "he could not give financial advice to those who spent their life savings in the belief the end was nigh."

Chalking this down to the hubris and desire for attention of an old man.

Microthought - Game of Thrones, Tyrion

In Norse mythology Tyr is the god of single combat, victory and heroic glory.  Taken into account when naming Tyrion?  Somewhat ironically, I mean.

Aside - Tyrion is, hands down, the best character in the tv series.  Not that I didn't love him in the book, but.. Nailed.

Mississippi flooding near Memphis - May 2011

I had a chance to film some footage of how the flooding of the Mississippi river looked down near Memphis right when it was about to crest.  Not that I was standing around with a camera.  No, I attached my camera to the rental car to get some footage of just how long it took to cross the Mississippi's new width.

I'll start off with some before and after satellite pics.  I can't claim to have taken these..

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=50549

Then we have the north view off Interstate 40 going from Memphis over to Arkansas:



And the south view off Interstate 40 on the drive from Arkansas to Memphis:



I'll be honest and say that Memphis proper wasn't really affected by the flooding.  Memphis is a city on the bluffs.  It's the people that bought into the developments down into the river and on shallow islands that got hit more.  Over on the Arkansas side, though.. As you can see from the satellite pictures, the land was just swallowed up..

I don't have any footage, because it wasn't very interesting to look at, from down in Mississippi state.  I drove down there hoping to find a better vantage.  Driving through all these farmed areas with smaller and smaller roads, all of the promising looking roads were closed.  So, imagine some dramatic footage of road closed signs.  Sorry, I wasn't going to go exploring forbidden areas with a rental Jetta..

Good morning, world.

OK, so I've got a few things I'm working on.  Nothing all that exciting, but I think they'll be neat.

• Video reviews of Tiger LCD games - I've unearthed a goodly pile of them.  Will be reviewing prior to selling to make room.
• Board game instructional movies - I spend so much time teaching people how to play different games, might as well put together a video.  Yeah, there's a million of these out there, but.. Don't really care.
• Documenting what is actually worthwhile in Indy.  Will be trying to track down restaurants that aren't parts of chains.  Up first?  The very worthy King David Dogs.
• OK, I guess that wasn't very many, but it's what I'm actively working on.

Is anybody reading this?

Just sitting, mildly intoxicated, curious if I should delete this blogspot app.



-- Post From My iPhone

Location:W Twelve Mile Rd,Novi,United States

Places I need to check out in Indy – List 1

Courtesy Yelp.com – places I need to check out around Indy



Will post as places are tried.
 
Spendy, unique, American

http://www.yelp.com/biz/recess-indianapolis


 
Classic lounge – midspendy

http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-ball-and-biscuit-indianapolis


 
Trashy looking but really well reviewed.. ANTISPENDY

http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-ball-and-biscuit-indianapolis


 
Wait.. A hot dog place in Indy? WANT.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/gourmet-franks-indianapolis