he awoke to find himself trapped in the past
i just watched an episode of quantum leap. man, i love(d) that show. it's kind of goofy looking to me now when i watch, with the last of the great eighties television theme songs, but it really was a pretty great show. time travel is cool stuff, scott bakula was excellent, and watching it now i realize how much it reinforced my understanding of history. i'm amazed when i think how the show had the two main characters and all the rest were mostly actors for that episode only. so not always the best acting, but scott bakula was excellent and dean stockwell was if nothing else consistent. and it was smart and funny and clean. good stuff to watch in junior high. i often think about the shows i watched regularly from junior high through high school. quantum leap. star trek: the next generation. northern exposure.
if you're the type of person who freaks out when people start talking about star trek, you should probably skip the next paragraph, but after that there's some good stuff about books, movies, tv, and my new instruments.
i've started watching star trek: enterprise, which has scott bakula as the captain of an earlier enterprise, something like 50 years from now. it's not great, but it's pretty good, and it's kind of neat to get to experience something interesting in the star trek universe. and it's early, so it's much more about the exploration and forging alliances and learning about what's going on out there (which i guess is what the others are about, but this one is so palpably close to our time that it's a little more engaging, a little less geek-cool-factor. the writing isn't always the best, but it is what it is. it's not like the other star treks that came out after TNG (deep space nine, voyager) which were okay but basically just trying to repeat what the next generation was. it's orisginal, but with the same universe.
i always like it when an alternate story universe from a book or a movie or a tv show is used over a long period of time, and the creator(s) can fit their story into the history of this big, interesting universe they've created. isaac asimov's foundation series is a great example of that. something like seven books written over 40+ years, and some of the later ones take place before or between previous ones, and it all (mostly) fits. Tolkien did some of this with his world. Star Wars. Star Trek. Dune. (Okay, I haven't actually read Dune yet, but i think it's like this.) i guess i just love the way that a good narrative can have a big long arc that isn't completely crystalized and decided until someone imagines the details for that part, but even if no one has done that the overall universe is consitent; i can internalize it and imagine things there that haven't happened.
which i guess makes me sorry that i haven't been reading as much lately. (what happened to my fierce excitement about jorge luis borges and umberto eco?)
also, i don't really ever write anymore. i make half-hearted and attempts at writing songs which i never follow through to completion, but not much else. these days my life is mostly work, music, manda, tv, internet, and video games. but then that'll get stale and it'll be books, news, politics and programming. and then maybe meditation, movies, poetry, and history channel. and then? and THEN???
. . .
so i got a bunch of new instruments. none of them really expensive, but together a bit of cash. i decided rather than spending a lot on a single thing that i may or may not like or want to pursue, i'd get a few lower quality items and let my creative curiosity run amok. anyway, i now have a ukelele, an electric lap steel guitar, a sorta crappy mandolin, and a second acoustic guitar.
the guitar is pretty crappy, but i knew it was going to be. i just wanted to have a cheap one for travel and so on, give my takamine a break from the elements, so to speak. the mandolin i haven't tuned yet, but it basically came free with the guitar so i'm not expecting much.
the ukelele sounds pretty good, and it's sounding better and better as the strings settle down, and as i learn how to tune it faster, and as i learn how to strum it properly, and as i learn chords. which i am. which is fun. i played one of my old (incomplete) songs "your face" tonight.
i just got the lap steel tuned tonight, and i can definitely see myself getting into this. i doubt i'll be any good for awhile, but it's great to have a new sound, new clay to work with. (ditto for the uke.)
and cory brought my strat over to my apartment (it's been at his house for over a year, i think), so i have all this gear here now. it's great. it's great to be able to practice on the strat, because for the last year (?) i've pretty much only been getting electric practice in at cory's, a couple times a month, which is much slower than
so anyway, i went to look quantum leap up online and i found this, which i am excited about in the same way i was excited about this, though perhaps my natural rate of growth. so maybe i'll get some time opened up, stop working so hard, and do a little solo jamming.
if you're the type of person who freaks out when people start talking about star trek, you should probably skip the next paragraph, but after that there's some good stuff about books, movies, tv, and my new instruments.
i've started watching star trek: enterprise, which has scott bakula as the captain of an earlier enterprise, something like 50 years from now. it's not great, but it's pretty good, and it's kind of neat to get to experience something interesting in the star trek universe. and it's early, so it's much more about the exploration and forging alliances and learning about what's going on out there (which i guess is what the others are about, but this one is so palpably close to our time that it's a little more engaging, a little less geek-cool-factor. the writing isn't always the best, but it is what it is. it's not like the other star treks that came out after TNG (deep space nine, voyager) which were okay but basically just trying to repeat what the next generation was. it's orisginal, but with the same universe.
i always like it when an alternate story universe from a book or a movie or a tv show is used over a long period of time, and the creator(s) can fit their story into the history of this big, interesting universe they've created. isaac asimov's foundation series is a great example of that. something like seven books written over 40+ years, and some of the later ones take place before or between previous ones, and it all (mostly) fits. Tolkien did some of this with his world. Star Wars. Star Trek. Dune. (Okay, I haven't actually read Dune yet, but i think it's like this.) i guess i just love the way that a good narrative can have a big long arc that isn't completely crystalized and decided until someone imagines the details for that part, but even if no one has done that the overall universe is consitent; i can internalize it and imagine things there that haven't happened.
which i guess makes me sorry that i haven't been reading as much lately. (what happened to my fierce excitement about jorge luis borges and umberto eco?)
also, i don't really ever write anymore. i make half-hearted and attempts at writing songs which i never follow through to completion, but not much else. these days my life is mostly work, music, manda, tv, internet, and video games. but then that'll get stale and it'll be books, news, politics and programming. and then maybe meditation, movies, poetry, and history channel. and then? and THEN???
. . .
so i got a bunch of new instruments. none of them really expensive, but together a bit of cash. i decided rather than spending a lot on a single thing that i may or may not like or want to pursue, i'd get a few lower quality items and let my creative curiosity run amok. anyway, i now have a ukelele, an electric lap steel guitar, a sorta crappy mandolin, and a second acoustic guitar.
the guitar is pretty crappy, but i knew it was going to be. i just wanted to have a cheap one for travel and so on, give my takamine a break from the elements, so to speak. the mandolin i haven't tuned yet, but it basically came free with the guitar so i'm not expecting much.
the ukelele sounds pretty good, and it's sounding better and better as the strings settle down, and as i learn how to tune it faster, and as i learn how to strum it properly, and as i learn chords. which i am. which is fun. i played one of my old (incomplete) songs "your face" tonight.
i just got the lap steel tuned tonight, and i can definitely see myself getting into this. i doubt i'll be any good for awhile, but it's great to have a new sound, new clay to work with. (ditto for the uke.)
and cory brought my strat over to my apartment (it's been at his house for over a year, i think), so i have all this gear here now. it's great. it's great to be able to practice on the strat, because for the last year (?) i've pretty much only been getting electric practice in at cory's, a couple times a month, which is much slower than
so anyway, i went to look quantum leap up online and i found this, which i am excited about in the same way i was excited about this, though perhaps my natural rate of growth. so maybe i'll get some time opened up, stop working so hard, and do a little solo jamming.