"Dude" should probably be a less prominent part of my vocabulary.
i
Ooh! Ooh! Rob Epstein's 1984 Oscar-winning documentary The Times of Harvey Milk is up to watch on Hulu.
Neat-o: a giant cupcake tin.
Heh: Something Awful brings us Star Wars as Classic Art.
ii
I don't remember how I came across Genevieve Valentine (glvalentine) - I think it might have been her costume posts for the upcoming movie The Secret of Moonacre (costumes! Dakota Blue Richards! Ioan Gruffudd! Tim Curry! I am there) - but between her snark about the ultra-creepy Life of Faith dolls and her regular installments of Questionable Taste Theatre (see also: fondness for Strange Days*), I've become faithfully hooked. And then there's this:I got kicked out of CCD so often that I hardly had time to learn anything. It was fine, since I think I mostly missed out on coloring things and gluing cotton-ball sheep together to be lambs of the Lord. It went like this a lot:
[Genevieve is eight.]
Teacher: Let's talk about King David. I hope everyone has read the story in their Children's Bible? Good. Now, when David killed Goliath -
G: In the King James Bible in church it says that David put Bathsheba's husband where he would be killed so David could marry her. Isn't that a sin?
Teacher: Well, in the Children's Bible -
G: Also he lay with her while she was married. Isn't that -
Teacher: OUT IN THE HALL, MISS VALENTINE.
iii
naeelah and I continue to power our way through S3 of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Recently watched:
Note: Trek Core bounces hotlinks back to the main page, so you'll just have to copy & paste the image links into new tabs.
Ooh! Ooh! Rob Epstein's 1984 Oscar-winning documentary The Times of Harvey Milk is up to watch on Hulu.
Neat-o: a giant cupcake tin.
Heh: Something Awful brings us Star Wars as Classic Art.
ii
I don't remember how I came across Genevieve Valentine (glvalentine) - I think it might have been her costume posts for the upcoming movie The Secret of Moonacre (costumes! Dakota Blue Richards! Ioan Gruffudd! Tim Curry! I am there) - but between her snark about the ultra-creepy Life of Faith dolls and her regular installments of Questionable Taste Theatre (see also: fondness for Strange Days*), I've become faithfully hooked. And then there's this:I got kicked out of CCD so often that I hardly had time to learn anything. It was fine, since I think I mostly missed out on coloring things and gluing cotton-ball sheep together to be lambs of the Lord. It went like this a lot:
[Genevieve is eight.]
Teacher: Let's talk about King David. I hope everyone has read the story in their Children's Bible? Good. Now, when David killed Goliath -
G: In the King James Bible in church it says that David put Bathsheba's husband where he would be killed so David could marry her. Isn't that a sin?
Teacher: Well, in the Children's Bible -
G: Also he lay with her while she was married. Isn't that -
Teacher: OUT IN THE HALL, MISS VALENTINE.
iii
naeelah and I continue to power our way through S3 of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Recently watched:
Note: Trek Core bounces hotlinks back to the main page, so you'll just have to copy & paste the image links into new tabs.
- 3x09, The Vengeance Factor: Basically a middling episode, it wouldn't be so laughably bad if it weren't written and acted way too seriously for what it is (although not as deeply godawful as The Price, with its horrible suplot about Troi being romanced by an incredibly creepy, stalkery douche, and the notorious work-out scene where she and Dr Crusher, sporting awful '80s leotards outfits, stretch in front of mirrors. Where was I?). Riker puts the moves, as Riker is wont to do, on a woman with High Angst Factor - given her character's role in the plot, Riker aside, conceptually this could have had some interesting potential. However, that was squandered by putting the plot focus on these dudes instead: Mad Max rejects with some of the most horrendous mullets and cringe-inducing man-sweaters ever. Wesley makes a truly epic OFFS face like right after this frame, but of course the site didn't cap it. And that's really all you can say about that.
- 3x10, The Defector: Romulans! Definitely one of the best episodes of the season so far; much better than TVF. It's a bit high on the melodrama and pompous speeches, but other than that it's pretty good. I think it's the second episode Ronald D. Moore (who went on to DS9 and was sort of the overlord for the Cardassia and Dominion War arcs, and is now the head guy for Battlestar Galactica) wrote for TNG, and it's got his trademark "thorny ethical and/or political dilemma" fingerprints all over it. The Enterprise picks up a Romulan self-proclaimed defector coming out of the Neutral Zone, with a warning about the Romulans planning to start a war with the Federation, and then has to figure out whether or not he's an actual defector or a plant. Even though the guy playing the Romulan defector has popped up on all the Trek shows, I couldn't place him until I read he voice-overs for the Lexus commercials, and then I was like, yeah, that guy.
- 3x11, The Hunted: Decent enough episode, which gets full marks simply for not forcing some terrible pseudo-romance between Troi and the guest of the week, especially since it could have gone there, to the pain of us all, but didn't. There's some melodramatic speechifying from TGotW, but he's at least straightforward and without designs when interacting with Troi, as opposed to smarmy/creepy/sleazy.
- 3x12, The High Ground: Dr. Crusher is kidnapped by underground (literally) rebels/terrorists. There's a lot of tedious melodramatic and self-righteous speechifying. However, no man-sweaters on display; always a plus (although there is this guy; I can't imagine why there aren't better caps of him with his power shoulder pads and high-waisted trousers). Most of the writers didn't like it, either:Ronald D. Moore described it as "an abomination. It's our one terrorist show. We didn't have anything interesting to say about terrorism except that it's bad and Beverly gets kidnapped - ho hum. They take her down to the caves and we get to have nice, big preachy speeches about terrorism and freedom, fighting and security forces versus society. It's a very unsatisfying episode and the staff wasn't really happy with it."
The rebel leader develops the obligatory tendre for Beverly (he arts for her), but thankfully she's not written as reciprocating. Well, okay, it's not all self-righteous speechifying; there are some decent enough/amusing scenes with the crew. Like: Riker's sitting in on the local official's questioning of suspects, and finally is just like, fuck this, and tells the guy, look, we both know you're with them, tell them we'll negotiate to get the doc back, and the guy cuts his eyes around, and the local official goes fine, and the guy scuttles off. Also, Picard tackles a guy.
Next up, Deja Q! Later, Sarek turns up, and we're now thirteen episodes away from "I am Locutus ... of Borg." Yes, I am geeking quietly. Also, I've decided that the next Trek tv series needs to be a retired Picard teaching at the Academy. Katie points out that since Worf probably knows at least twelve ways to kill a person with a handkerchief, he can teach the combat classes. As Colbert would say, great show, or greatest show?
*Wait a minute, I never did do that Near Dark/Point Break/Strange Days write-up, did I?
