I’m back!

That’s right folks, I’m back! It’s hard to believe that I haven’t posted in well over a year. Truth be told, I had completely forgotten about this blog! It’s not hard to do, as I only have roughly 3 readers, but a few days ago I remembered about the blog, and I read all of my postings — yes, all eight of them. It reminded me of how much I love writing, and I don’t give myself enough time to do it. Who knows if this time I will write consistently, but that doesn’t matter, maybe I’ll write once a day, once a week, or just whenever I feel like. Reading my blog reminded me that this is, first and foremost, for me. And as long as I have one reader, that’s all I need!

On to the good news/bad news: I was reminded about this blog two days ago, but I have not written until today for a very good reason — I am experiencing some difficulty with my ulnar nerve. Briefly, that is the nerve that controls sensation to the pinky and ring finger. Making a long story short — and perhaps I will share the fascinating tale another time — it isn’t fun to type for long periods of time. Therefore, I was excited to begin writing again, but not for the typing that it would require. Here comes the good news! I remembered hearing about a program at Mac world 2009 — MacSpeech Dictate. It was supposed to be a very good speech recognition program. And I can vouch for the fact that it is! I have dictated this entire post using the program. It is fast, it’s accurate, and it means not having to type!

Now, ostensibly, this page of mine is about science fiction. So, I will make a connection to science fiction. In the future world of Star Trek, computers are run virtually entirely using vocal commands. So I think that it is pretty cool that I am dictating this to my iMac! The program says that it can open applications on the iMac, and in a few years, I’m sure that even more progress will have been made in controlling computers with speech recognition.

That’s all for my first post back, it is late and I should get some sleep, especially having just returned from jujitsu training. Trivia for all of my readers: which Star Trek character specifically trained in the martial art of jujitsu? Answer in my next post!

Sci Fi Dad not ready to live in “Star Trek” universe

I guess I’m slightly racist. Have you ever heard of the Implicit Association Tests from Harvard University? These tests use images and words to test our automatic preferencea between two categories. They have a race test which tests your preference between Black and Whites, a Gay-Straight test, an Asian-White test, a Fat-Thin, and many others. My sister-in-law first told my wife and I about these a few years ago. I took the Black-White at that time and I came out with a “Slight automatic preference for White people compared to Black people”. I recently re-discovered the tests this morning and I came out with the same preference. So, hence, I’m slightly racist and not quite ready to live in the Star Trek world of the 24th century Earth where there is no racism and everyone is treated equally. Here is a bar graph of the results of all people taking the Black-White test:

Now I recognize what the Implicit Test website says which is to not take the tests too harshly since we are a product of the society we live in. Yet when my wife took the test a few years ago, she scored “Slight automatic preference for Black people compared to White people.” For the record she is White! Maybe I can take a little solace in the fact that 70% of people who take the test are as or more racist than I am. That puts me squarely in the majority. Yet being so “liberal” and “progressive” and a Star Trek fan, I should have scored in “Little to no automatic preference.” I mean, Sisko is my favorite Captain. Or do I just tell myself that??

I also took a newer test they have for McCain-Obama preference. I CAME OUT WITH A MODERATE PREFERENCE TOWARD THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES….BARACK OBAMA!!!!!!!!! Fuck yeah! But this test ALSO showed I have a slight preference toward Whites. Gosh, shoot me with a phaser on stun twice in one day. 1 step forward, 2 steps back I guess.

If you want to test yourself: go for it. Let me know how you do.

Bill Shatner Is A Douche

Take a look at the video William Shatner released about not being invited to George Takei’s wedding.

A few weeks ago, Shatner also released a video about not being asked to participate in the new Star Trek movie by JJ Abrams. Apparently, Shatner plans and video tapes these and then releases them. I don’t know about the Abrams Woe-Is-Me-I’m-Not-In-The-Movie Video but in this video, not only does he have the “interviewer” but there is also a cameraperson since we see zooming, panning, etc. So Captain Bill Shatner employes at least 2 other people in making these videos. What a douche bag. Poor guy can’t be the center of a real movie production so he has to be the center of his home made video production. Pretty sad.

Anyway, George Takei is not the only Star Trek cast member to harbor ill will towards their ol’ Captain. It was well known that Jimmy Doohan did not like, nor get along with, Bill either. From what Jimmy and George have said/written, Bill liked very much being the star of the Star Trek universe and treating everyone else (except Leonard Nimoy & DeForest Kelley) as if they were little revolving planets moons comets meteorites. You can truly see his self-centeredness in the following quote from the video talking about how little he knew/knows George:

…he would come in for a day or two as evidenced by the part he played. [ouch!] And then on the movies, he was there occasionally. I didn’t know the man.

First, Bill, you worked together for almost 3 years on a tv show and then made 6 movies together over the next 25 years. Were you too big of a fucking star to try to get to know and spend time with your recurring cast? I know that I try to get to know the other teachers at my school and we are never even in the same room together when we work. There is a heck of a lot of down time while acting so why didn’t you chill with Uhura, Chekov, Scotty, and Sulu and get to know them over 30 years?

Second, from your own words, you didn’t know the guy. So why do you give a fuck that you weren’t invited to his wedding? I wouldn’t invite somehow that “I didn’t know” to my wedding either. Why whine and make this little production?

As if there wasn’t already enough evidence that William Shatner is a douche, there you have it.

The Heroes/Matrix Connection

I previously talked about how Heroes is dead. I wanted to talk about one reason it died. At the end of season 1, both Peter and Sylar had become incredibly powerful. Too powerful. From all of the build up of season 1, as well as from interviews with Heroes creator Tim Kring, it seemed clear that major characters would die in the season finale. But no one did. It would have made sense for Peter and Sylar to die when Peter exploded due to being Radioactive Man, and then the 2 most powerful characters would have been removed, leaving room for the “new heroes” that were supposed to show in season 2. With the show become wildly popular, perhaps Kring feared losing 2 of his most popular characters and their accompanying ratings. But how the heck do you create credible stories when you have 2 incredibly powerful characters? One loses his memory and the other loses his power. Pretty stupid shit.

How does this tie in to The Matrix? At the end of The Matrix, Neo is all-powerful. He stop bullets, takes out a few Agents, and calls the Matrix to tell it He is going to kicks Its ass; then He flies away. What more to the story do you need? Neo is The One and He is going to rip the Matrix a new One. So why do we need movies 2 & 3? Just like Heroes post-season 1, they are superfluous. How do you create credible stories when The One is all-powerful and is ready & able to reign destruction upon the Matrix? You get a 30 minute car chase, 100’s of people dancing like they are on E, and other stupid shit.

Often times, less is more. In this case, 24 episodes of a TV show or 1 movie would have sufficed – and both would have ended as incredible stories (in the case of The Matrix, arguably one of the best sci-fi movies ever). But by stretching it out, you lessen their greatness tremendously. Heroes is now a shell of its first season and The Matrix trilogy is still a good series (simply by virtue of #1), but not one of the greatest ever, by far. I regret having my sister see Matrix 2, but she has avoided seeing the 3rd movie and I envy her. And if I can get away with it, I will tell my daughter that there is only one Matrix movie.

Star Trek movie images

Paramount has officially released 7 images from the upcoming Star Trek movie. I was really excited to hear that, well, until I actually saw the images. Most are ok, but there were two in particular that just bothered me. I asked my wife, HipHopMama for confirmation of the weirdness of the images and she agreed. Here is the first image in question.

Ok, on initial thought, a shot of most of the crew together is pretty much what we all want to see. Except for Spock, they are all there. My problem with the shot was that it looked artificial, fake. Chekov with his curly, little hair and mouth slight ajar; Kirk, looking all macho like he would solve the movie’s main plot by fucking it, if it were only an alien female; Scotty off in the background, basically pouting; Bones, doing something weird with his hand; Sulu, to the right, crossing his arms in confusing; and Uhura, ok, well she is the only one that actually looks natural.

Combine that with this shot:

Kirk looks SOOOO artificial and McCoy doesn’t look much better. Ugh.

And you figure JJ Abrams and Paramount wanted to release the “great” pics that will get people excited. So if these are the best ones…

Now I’m being overly critical of 1/24’s of a frame, but if you read this blog you’ll find that I am not hating on the new Star Trek movie for having new people or for being a reboot of the Star Trek franchise or anything. I thought/think that was/is a great idea, and am excited that JJ Abrams is in charge. And I was super excited to click on the link at Sci Fi Wire to look at the photos. But these were just my initial feelings upon laying my eyes on the photos.

What do you think?

“The Road” delayed

The adapation of the Cormac McCarthy novel was due to be released in November, but looks like it’s been delayed, possibly until 2009. That’s actually good news for all of you who have yet to read the novel. Read it! With Viggo Mortensen starring, I’m pretty sure the movie will be good but with the way the novel is written, there is just no way that the movie can approach the power of the novel. So, take this extra 2 month opportunity to read it. You’ll understand why it won the Pulitzer Prize. Then, we can be disappointed with the movie together.

Battlestar Returns

Battlestar Galactica will return January 16th for 10 straight weeks, finishing its 4 year run. Through 3 and a half seasons, there is no doubt that BSG is the greatest sci-fi series ever. It would have to have some Heroes style turnaround in the last 10 episodes to change that for me. From the first hour of the mini-series, I was completely hooked, although in all fairness, I made a conscious decision to NOT watch BSG when it first aired on the Sci-Fi channel. I remembered the original BSG and I thought to myself, “What is Ron Moore doing even involving himself with this trash???” I knew Ron Moore well from his writing days at Star Trek: The Next Generation as he had penned some of my favorite episodes. I’m the first to say that I was 100% wrong. I should have trusted how much I loved his episodes and I would have been on the BSG trip from the beginning. I came into the picture two seasons in, but it’s been a wild ride since. In terms of story, drama, visual effects, characters, acting…whatever criteria you want to use, BSG kicks all other sci-fi ass. It will be a great final 10 week, and I can’t wait!

The New Terminator

Pick up Ice Cube’s “Raw Footage” offering. Great stuff. More to the point, the cover for the CD makes me think that Ice Cube should be the new Terminator in “Terminator: Salvation” instead of Sam Worthington. You decide:

For an added bonus, Cube includes references to Terminator and Sarah Connor in one of his new songs “Take Me Away”:

Dream ticket, Ice Cube and Obama
American dream, Ice Cube and yo' mama
The Terminator, are you Sarah Connor?
Arnold Schwarzenegger, can kill who he wanna?

Heroes Is Dead

My wife and I really enjoyed the first season of Heroes. This is not surprising for me, but my wife is not a big sci-fi fan, so it’s saying a lot about the writers of Heroes and what they were able to do with the story to pull in my wife. Starting with the Season 1 finale, Heroes has been on a steady decline. We kept watching through Season 2, though the thrill of Season 1 was definitely gone. We enjoyed the first season so much, we kept the faith, hoping that the writers would find the magic again. Alas, they never did, and the Season 3 premiere was the last chance for the writers to hold on to two of their fans.

Within the first 10 minutes, all hope was lost. Hiro created his own problems by opening up a safe that Sulu told him in no uncertain terms not to open; Sylar sadly couldn’t open a closet door held closed by a chain (or whatever the fuck that really strong metal was), and Sylar SOMEHOW finds confidential information in a box labeled “Dad’s Office.” Are you serious??? They couldn’t even create novel ways to put their characters into peril in the season premiere… I mean, you have 3 months (more since the writer’s strike cut Season 2 short) to at least create 1 compelling episode that might keep people for half a season or more.

Apparently we weren’t the only fans to feel this way since Heroes has experienced a 22% decline in ratings, the biggest decline in the show’s history. Adios Heroes…it was fun while it lasted.