The New Old Generation

I just got back from the new Star Trek movie. I can't believe it took me this long to see it, but I finally did and thought it was fantastic. I left feeling emotionally exhausted, but in a good way. It elicits a wide range of intense emotions, but leaves you feeling hopeful and satisfied, just like Star Trek should.

I think that folks have been unsuccessfully trying to popularize Star Trek through its movies for a long time. I remember reading that Nemesis was “Star Trek for non-trekkies,” but I’m not really sure it reached much past its base. This new movie could very well do it, though. It’s funny with incredible action and lovable characters, not to mention a good plot full of avenging loved ones and living up to one’s potential. Also, for anyone even remotely familiar with the Original Series’ crew, the baby Enterprise crew was just freaking adorable. And what about baby Spock? OMG - so hot! The dynamic between him and Uhura was almost too steamy for Star Trek. Almost.

I think one thing that helped the movie break through to non-trekkies was that it didn’t try to stick too closely to the original technology. The new (old) Enterprise looked really cool in this movie. If they had tried to stick to the original, I think you would have lost a lot of people. See below.





Also, transporting looked much better than the glitter-over-fade out method employed in the Original Series. That’s really how they did it; you can look that shit up. I actually think the transporting in the Burger King commercials looks the best. They must have perfected the special effect after the movie came out. Anyway, I’m glad they unapologetically went with new technology and special effects even though this is a prequel. I believe it made for a better movie.

Something that really struck me in this movie was the design and layout of the Romulan bad guy’s ship. The first time I saw it, I was reminded of a line about a gun from the Hitchhiker’s Guide, which I’ll just quote for you,

The designer of the gun had clearly not been instructed to beat about the bush. "Make it evil," he'd been told. "Make it totally clear that this gun has a right end and a wrong end. Make it totally clear to anyone standing at the wrong end that things are going badly for them. If that means sticking all sort of spikes and prongs and blackened bits all over it then so be it. This is not a gun for hanging over the fireplace or sticking in the umbrella stand, it is a gun for going out and making people miserable with."

This ship would be so comically impractical in gravity; I can’t even begin to explain. There were so many long “spikes and prongs” that would be constantly breaking off and getting caught on things that the driver of the dang thing would want to just blow it up, probably with him or her still on it. It was clearly designed to look very scary so the people on the wrong end of it know that things are going badly for them, rather than accomplishing star ship-related tasks.

The ship’s interior was similarly impractical and dangerous. Of course, the fight scenes wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting had the ship been in compliance with OSHA regulations (that’s Brian’s joke), but it was approaching ridiculous. There were platforms and planks at varying levels made of what looked like moist slate (read: slippery rock). There were no guardrails or safety structures whatsoever. If you slipped on a narrow pathway walking from one station to another, you would almost certainly fall hundreds of feet to your death. On the other hand, space fights are notoriously full of one opponent knocking the other opponent’s gun onto another level so that the first opponent has to jump onto that platform, missing and hanging off the edge. Then the second opponent jumps down safely and lifts the first opponent up by his neck. Etcetera. So it was good for that, but it was not a ship I would be very happy about manning.

Of lesser note, but still striking: near the beginning of the movie, when we are still learning about the roots of Kirk’s rebellious nature, there is a scene where young Kirk (like 10-year-old Kirk) is driving what the viewer is lead to believe is his step-father’s antique hotrod, and the music playing is the Beastie Boys’ Sabotage. Now, I like this song, but I found it to be disorienting in this context. Stick with me for a second, we know that Star Trek takes place in the future, but this is Star Trek past although we aren’t sure yet how far into the future past we’re talking about. This song is way too much of a 90’s era icon not to elicit feelings of the present past in anyone who was paying attention to popular culture in the 90’s. The song fit with the context of the action, but time wise, it was a little confusing. I’m just saying.

And since I’m talking about the 90’s, I was very happy to see an unexpected Winona Ryder, playing Spock’s mother. I guess I hadn’t been paying close enough attention to the cast of this movie, but I was really delighted to see her in this.

My only complaint besides the overdone Romulan ship: not enough Scotty. He was freaking hilarious.

City Living Pt 2

I mentioned the other day that I live close to the baseball stadium, right? Overall I feel neutral about this. Sometimes it's cool. Other times it's annoying. Tonight, however, there were fireworks, which I watched from my balcony. This was definitely one of the cool times. Of course the batteries in my camera died as soon as I turned it on, so these pictures are from my phone.



Happy weekend, everyone. Hope you're doing something fun!

He showed me his squirrel skull…

I had an adventure today.

One of my final tasks to complete before departing my internship was getting a background check at City School Headquarters. All volunteers are (supposedly) required to get background checks prior to spending time alone with kids in the schools, which makes sense, except that I have been working with kids in these schools for about 5 months and now that I will not be doing it anymore, I will have finally completed the requirements to do so. The assignment isn’t as futile as I’m making it sound. The point was for me to go through the process so I could guide (via written summary) future volunteers through the process.

I drove myself up to HQ and found a nice little parking spot (to my utter shock). The problem is that in this part of town, they still have the old-style parking meters. You see, once I finally got good at carrying change around in my car to feed meters, the city switched to meters that accept all payments except change. So now, I’ve gotten used to not needing change, but of course, I needed it here. Anyway, I had a couple of dimes and nickels, so I jumped out to see if this meter accepted those coins without realizing that I had locked my door and left my keys in the car. To be more specific, I left my keys in the ignition… with the engine running. Miraculously, this is the first time I have ever done this. I really only panicked for a split second before I just resigned myself to shifting priorities. “I was going to get a background check. Now I’m going to figure out how to get my keys out of my car, preferably before it runs out of gas or starts raining.” I’m grateful for the gift of calm headedness. I know others who are not so fortunate.

I called a locksmith. They said it would be between 30-40 minutes, which ended up being more than two hours, but whatever. Meanwhile my car is spewing exhaust into the atmosphere, while I stand around, entertaining myself by texting people who I think have a minute to share in the amusement of my predicament. I actually learned that one of my friends locked her baby in her car! That made me feel a little bit better.

During the two hours or so I waited for the locksmith to come, I got hit on by roughly 10 guys. I can also expect to get hit on just about daily, either on my way to or from work. This city has the most aggressive… uh, flirters I have ever encountered. Now I am not particularly attractive… average at best. I dress modest to frumpy, so there is nothing special about me that renders men unable to control themselves in my presence. And I do not understand what is going on. Do some women find hitting on any girl you find attractive enough to fuck once flattering? To be clear, I am not talking about good ol’ fashioned flirting, which is necessary for the propagation of our species. I’m talking about the cat-calling and mindless, blind flirting (I feel like there is a better word than flirting) that happens as women walk down the street, generally minding their own business and usually trying to accomplish things totally unrelated to love (or sex) interests. I just don’t get it, and I can’t imagine it’s very effective. OK, rant over.

The locksmith finally came, and in under a minute he had my door unlocked. It was actually pretty anticlimactic. I filled out a bunch of paperwork for the background check and got fingerprinted by a woman who couldn’t be bothered to be nice to me or explain what was going on.

Has anyone else been fingerprinted lately? They had me clean off the ink with this disgusting stuff that looked like warm margarine and smelled like lemon-scented motor oil. You smear the stuff on your hands and wipe off the ink with paper towels, but you cannot get this stuff off your hands to save your life. It was nauseating I can assure you. I wish I were allergic to it, so I would have an excuse never to use it again.

And that was my adventure. I came back to the office. Tried to tie up loose ends. Cleaned out my desk. And went home. Just like that.

So long, UMB, and thanks for all the fish.

City Living

I have lived in a lot of different places, which we will visit as soon as I introduce my main idea. I prefer living in a city over other locations, but it isn't perfect and I'd like to share some of my grievances. I was concerned that a list of city-living grievances would make it seem like I don't like living in the city, which I do. But these things have got to be said, so I'm going to say them. But first, a trip down my list of habitations.

I was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where my parents were going to massage school. There is a tree planted there, celebrating my birth. Legend has it that my placenta nourished this tree as it too began life. Why yes, my parents are hippies. What makes you ask?

My family then moved to Bend, Oregon where my sister was born. I do not remember Oregon at all because I was between 1 and 3; I'm just trying to give you a flavor of my upbringing and maybe shed some light on why I find it difficult to grow roots.

We drifted for a while after this, but ultimately we landed in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia where I spent most of my childhood. This is a beautiful place to visit, but a god-awful place to grow up. It's a tiny, small-minded place. It's the kind of place that validates West Virginia jokes.

From there we moved to Hagerstown, Maryland, which seemed like the big city when I first moved there. And to be honest, it was probably a good transition city for me: just big enough to get into trouble, but not enough trouble to do permanent damage. I moved there when I was about 13 and didn't leave for 10 years. I briefly experimented with moving back in with my mom when I was 23, which didn't go over well at all, so I moved to Baltimore, Maryland.

I lived in a kitschy neighborhood, but didn't explore much beyond school, work, and the grocery store, mostly because I didn't have time. Then I met a boy and moved in with him out in suburban hell. It took a year and half, but I convinced him to move away from his hometown with me to Baltimore, where I think we'll stay.

But back to my point. I love the fact that because I live close to work I drive so infrequently, I actually forget where I parked my car. I love how easy it is to get involved in all kinds of interesting social movements. I love that people are different and culture is celebrated.

On the other hand, parking is a pain in the ass. I live near (a block away from) the baseball stadium, so whenever there is a game, you can't park anywhere near your apartment. Do you know how long baseball season is? It's freaking 9 months long or something. I lived in suburbia long enough to feel entitled to free parking, so there's no way I'm paying to park my car in some garage for like $150 a month. If I had an extra $150 a month, I would do something much cooler than park my car in some stinkin' garage. But that just means I have to walk varying distances from undisclosed, unrestricted street parking.

Also, getting a haircut is harder than in other places. I have gotten one haircut since I moved to Baltimore 5 months ago, and I drove up to Hampden to do it. I don't want some fancy-pants haircut. I just need someone to cut off the dead ends and help me not look like a spaz, but all the places around my apartment are all boutique-y and expensive. I'm used to hittin' up the mall for a Hair Cuttery or whatever, but they just don't exist downtown. If you have advice for good, cheap haircuts, please let me know. My hair is starting to get frazzled again.

So that's basically it. The benefits outweigh the costs, but the costs are still annoying. I think Baltimore is a charming place not without its problems, but I'm a fixer-upper by nature so the problems don't discourage me.

If I had a point, I think I made it.

Jeepers!

I didn't realize it had been so long since I last blogged. I'm going to try not to get all apologize-y about it because that doesn't make for a very interesting blog post, but dang; it's been more than two months.

So... I graduated. Yup. I'm a master now. Remember when I blogged about my internship last September? My last day is tomorrow, which is sad. I do have a job lined up, but it only has funding for a few months so I hesitate to get all giddy about being a grown-up until I secure something more permanent. There. Now you're caught up.

Maybe I need to rethink this blog. I'm not going to blog about my professional life (I don't think). I might be over blogging about crafty stuff. I like crafting, but I'm not that good at it. Plus I'm really lazy about taking pictures so even the stuff that turns out OK ends up looking shitty because I took a terrible picture of it. I thought I might blog about the things I do around Baltimore, which I could still do, but there are plenty of other, more interesting people doing that already. I could get really personal, but I think I would come across as less mentally stable than I manage to be most of the time (I tend to want to write when I'm particularly moody and broody, which could get old real quick).

I guess I'll just stick with the tried and true: write what you know. If I'm doing something neat, I'll blog about it. If you think it's boring, too bad. It's my blog. I mean, that's the whole point right?

So tomorrow evening I'm going to another Bread & Puppet show at 2640. These are always a good time. There are lots of potential activities for this weekend, but Brian and I haven't really talked about plans yet, so who knows what we'll get into. Maybe I'll blog about it.