A Rant of Fantasylandia

Does it bug anyone how massively uncreative even the most creative fantasy writers seem to be.  Most fantasy worlds are thinly veiled Earths.  They have 12 Months, 1 Moon, and 7 Day weeks.  They have normal length days, European Weather, and even when they have non-human races Humans always outnumber the non-humans and shape the society.  No one ever bothers to give rich and myriad cultures to non-humans or think up creative gods.  it's always "Elves are woodland folk" and "Dwarves are rough miners" and "Gnomes are silly tinkerers" and "Half-Orcs are big and brutish".  The gods are always the same fantasy 20 or the same olympian 12. 

Sure, there are things that shouldn't be changed: the basics (skills, stats, equipment, domains, spells).  But what happens if you make the god of Death and Light the head of the Pantheon... and evil.  What happens if you make Elves barbaric and Orcs Miners and Dwarves tinkerers and Gnomes the largest part of the population and humans a bunch of hippies who hug trees all day?  What happens if they change the weapons mix so some exotics aren't and some normals are.  What happens if the culture doesn't use months at all, the planet is a moon, and the day is 84 hours long, with only 6 hours of darkness every day?

Where is the real creativity?

Don't get me wrong.  I understand that people are most comfortable with things they are familiar with, but seriously, somethings have become so set in stone as to be cliched to the point of insanity.  If you say that three days pass, does it matter how long they were?  If you say 10 weeks passed, does it matter to the flow of the story if those weeks had 5 days or 8?  The Honor Harrington books present a star system with three different planets, all with different length years and days, all with different numbers of months, and it makes not the tiniest difference to the narative... but it does provide background richness.  With RPG source matterial being essentially nothing but background information and plot hooks, why stay rooted in convention when the breaking of convention is where all true genius, all true creativity lies.  While I do like Crimson Throne's background information as a setting, what struck me more than how good it was was how good it could have been had they pushed the envelope just a little more.  I had much the same reaction to Eberron and Dark Sun.  The last time I was impressed by the boundary pushing of RPG creators or traditional fantasy writers was when I first read the Krynn books and was presented with Kenders instead of Gnomes and Minotaurs as people.

Fantasylandia is a great place.  JRR made it that way.  So why does it seem like no one has really innovated there in the last 75 years?  I'm not kidding.  Wizards of the Coasts owns Dungeons and Dragons.  Magic the Gathering has some very interesting cultures and settings.  Do any of them appear at all in D&D products? Not at all.  No rich goblin culture, no metallic worlds, no fighting Craw Wurms.  The only thing that appears in both settings are Loxodons.  Seriously.  It's a waste of potential, a waste of oportunity.

And Pathfinder seems perfectly happy to continue the trend.  They tweak where they could innovate, crawl where they could soar.  It makes me sad.  I am greatful they make such nice products, and the tweakage is good.  D&D is an excellent RPG, for all its miriad faults, and Pathfinder continues that excellence, but why can't they try to go a little further?  Ah well.

Back to Work

Okay.  I know I've missed posting for a few days.  My bad.  In my defense, I've been working, actually paid work.  So, Yay!  But it's a really time sucker and I'm having some trouble adjusting my schedule, trying to figure out what activities I can still find time for and which ones I have to find time for.  This is a priority, So I'll get on it, asap.

My Oscar Pics.

my pics
Movie - Avatar
Director - Cameron
Actor - jeff Bridges
Actress - Meyrl Streep
Sup Actor - Christoph Waltz
Sup Actress - MoNique
Original Screenplay - Quentin Tarantino
Adapted Screenplay - Up in the air
Animated - Up
Foreign - The White Ribbon
Doc - The Cove
Score - Avatar
Best Song - Crazy Heart
Editing - Avatar
Cinematog - Avatar
Costume  Young Victoria
Art - Sherlock
make-up - Star Trek / Victoria
Visual Effects - Avatar
Short Doc - The Last Truck
Animated Short - Wallace & gromit
Live short - new tenants
sound - avatar & avatar

My Other Writing

I've written several short stories and even a short all ages novel.For those interested in reading them, short descriptions and links can be found below.
All stories can be found at
http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/jesse-rabbit

ELAN OWEN: WATCH ME
In which a young man is given a very special watch for his 11th birthday, a watch which transforms him into a girl and back every 24 hours.

A MAN AMONG VIKINGS (Winner: Topshelf Summer Romance 2009)
In which a Bostonian girl begins to question her sexual identity while attending college in Hawai'i.

WHICH WITCH IS WHICH & WHICH WITCH IS WHICH AGAIN
In which the Town of New Salem recruits a team of magical girls to defend them from rampaging demons... and ends up with a team of monsters.

THE BOY'S DON'T LITANY
Teenage Max has problems, serious psychological problems, all stemming from the harsh conditioning his mother has subjected him to, a list of things a boy must not, must never do.  Then one day his boys' school magically becomes coed... and so does Max.  What has happened and how will the newly minted female Max deal with a code that no longer applies?

Chris Columbus is a Hack.

Just saw Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (The Movie).  Read the Book about a month back.  Was the book perfect? By no means.  It had its problems, inconsistancies, and supported that upstart Dionysus as a legitimate member of the Olympian 12.  Still, it was the story that its author, Rick Riordin, intended to tell.  Which begs the question, "What story was Chris Columbus, director of the movie, trying to tell?"

Whatever the answer, it certainly wasn't the same as the Author.  So often, book adaptations take liberties with the source material, sometimes for pacing, sometimes because what works for the written word doesn't work on the screen, sometimes to make a more exciting product.  Still, I've never seen so many divergences from the source material in a movie based on a major piece of fiction.  And most of them seem arbitrary, pointless, or even counter to the the themes of the novel.

I'm all for making exciting movies, and I'm all for adaptations, and I do acknowledge that sometimes directors and adaptors can improve the source material.  Certainly, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix the Movie is a better story than the Novel and Oh Brother is more fun than the Odyssey.  And my favorite Novel and favorite Movie are both Dune, even though the movie is wildly divergent from the book.  But still.

It ranges from little things such as Annabeth (the female lead) who in the book is a honey blond and in the movie is a brunette (something Hollywood could easily have attended to), to not so little things such as the moving of the Hydra Battle from book 2 to book 1.  Subplots and background elements (such as Annabeth's history with Luke and Ares hatred for Percy) are lost, probably for pacing, but their removal leaves most of the characters shallower than they need to be.  Annabeth is reduced from an interesting character to little more than the love interest.  Half a dozen characters are removed: Kronus, Dionysus, Clarisa (Daughter of Ares), Ares, Aphrodite, the Oracle, and Echidna.  Three Monsters are eliminated: The Chimera, Procrustes, and Cerberus.  Percy and Annabeth are aged from 12 to 16 or so.  The magical shield which in book three is a gift from Percy's brother is coopted as a gift from a fellow camper.  Greek swords are depicted as having crossbars.  The three magical pearls which were a gift to Percy from his Father (The sea god) are assigned to Persephone.  Even the plot recieves major hacking, with Hades made the bad guy (as opposed to another victim of the Lightning Thief as he was in the book.) and the roadtrip changed to more of a treasurehunt.

But most of all, the biggest change was the replacement of greek and roman themes with christian ones.  Hades is depicted as a beast of fire, served by hellhounds, living in a realm of fire and suffering called Hell.  This differs wildly from the book, which depicts the Underworld as a place of darkness, with suffering only taking place in "Punishment" and the rightous rewarded with joy in "Elysium"... as matches the greek vision.  Hell, a name taken from Norse Mythology, and the vision of burning fire, taken from Revelation, do not fit with the Chithonic Underworld.

So, although PJ&TLT is an enjoyable enough movie, I have to give it a 1 out of 5 for being a bastardized, christianized, sissified, lousy ass adaptation of a relatively good book.  

Video Game Sequels

2010 seems to be a year for big name video game sequels: Bioshock 2, Mass Effect 2, Final Fantasy XIII, God of War III, Fallout New Vegas, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Metroid: Other M, Batman: Arkham Asylum 2, Starwars: Force Unleashed 2, Diablo III (maybe) & Starcraft II: Part 1 (at least in theory)... there are even reports of a forthcoming Legend of Zelda part who knows by years end.  That is a hefty-ass list of games.  And each of them has an awful lot to live up to.

It's only February, so most of these games aren't out yet.  In fact, only two are, and they are the sequels with the least street cred of all the series listed above.  Sure, half these games are 2's, but Mario, Starwars, Batman, and Starcraft are major names and the rest are all the latest and greatest iterations of blockbusters.  But before we get to the newbies, lets review the classics. 

Mario Galaxy 1 wasn't the first Mario platformer by a long shot, and it was lauded as a brilliant addition to platforming's venerable first family.  The sequel doesn't have to break new ground in any way to be a mega hit with both critics and fans alike and as a kids game it really doesn't need to set any new standards for plotline... heck, I can already guarantee that the plot is almost certainly "Bowser kidnaps Peach, Mario to the Rescue."  Still, who cares, it's a Mario Platformer... even the sucktastic Mario Sunshine was a blockbuster. 

Force Unleashed might not have been the best game, what with often confusing level designs and boss fights which bordered on the ludicrus, but it still had the makings of an awesome game and an awesome addition to the incredibly successful Starwars Game Franchise... can anyone really recall a SW game that wasn't a hit?  So SWFU2 is almost a shoe in, and SW fans are notorious for being willing to sacrifice story for experience. 

Batman AA was originally intended to be a much longer game, but space limitations (for the X360 not the PS3) made it unfeasible and a looming release schedule made it the decision to divide the game into two parts a no brainer.  I for one don't feel slighted, I loved AA and will be at the midnight launch of AA2 come Hell or high water.  With essentially the same game engine and, I hope, experience that carries over to the sequel, I am certainly looking forward to more mindless skull bashing... although a better stealth system would be appreciated... work on that will you guys? 

As for Starcraft? Sure, the title may have an II in it, but this is really the third game in the series, and regardless of what Blizzard might have to say, Starcraft I was, for all intents and purposes, Warcraft II in space... and it was AWESOME!!!  Yes, I'm a professional writer, and I just used all caps and not 1, not 2, but 3 exclaimation points on one of the most overused and lamest of descriptives.  Still, Starcraft's excellence and enjoyability really can't be captured with more elite words such as "Superlative", "Incredible", or "Outstanding".  Starcraft was as close to perfect as a game really can be without being Civilization II.  And with more than a decade between 1 and 2, Blizzard has absolutely no excuse for messing up the long, long, long awaited sequel.  Although it might be delayed for a year... or two... or nine. Still, here's hoping.

That's it for the older 2's, but while we're on the subject of Blizzard, let's talk Diablo III... I'm sure there's a way for Blizzard to screw the pooch on this game... but I don't think that's really likely.  All they have to do is slap some new graphics, creature design, randomizer engines, and class design onto essentially the same concept, listen to the uber geeks they get to beta test the thing, and they should have another megahit on their hands.  This is Blizzard folks, they don't make bad games.

On the subject of III's let's talk God of War III... With two critical and financial successes under their belts... three actually if we count the PSP title, can GOW3 actually fail?  Sure, if the studio execs lobotimized themselves.  Seriously, even if the story is as trite and facile as possible, the level designs copied from a current gen Sonic game, and the controls copied from a Resident Evil game, the game will probably sell a million plus copies on the graphics alone.  Still, how likely is that?  Assuming they keep the same control scheme (with or without minor improvements), have a reasonably clever writing staff and a reasonably creative level design team, this game will be as excellent as its predecessors.

Fallout New Vegas and Metroid: Other M are the only one's on this list without numbers in their titles, and so probably should be treated as the biggest risks, but with the history of success that Metroid represents, MOM should be a guaranteed hit, and the plot looks intriguing.  New Vegas, from what I understand, breaks no new ground on Fallout 3, but it is set half a continent away and has a completely different story line.  It does beg the question, "why isn't this Fallout 4?" but I assume the answer is because it has the same engine, something that each numbered iteration lacks.  Certainly 1's engine wasn't anything like 2's Diablo-esque engine or 3's Elderscroll-esque engine.  Still, post-apocalyptic gunfests tend to rock and Fallout 3's engine was a thing of beauty.  I look forward to seeing it in the desert.

But then we come to FFXIII, grand-daddy of all franchises.  Sure, it wasn't the first, but who else would dare put a 13 on a game.  Who else has such a powerful franchise (outside of Mario or Zelda) where the mere addition of the words Final Fantasy practically guarantees a blockbuster.  I don't know who has more spin offs (probably Mario), but no one has more main sequence games than FF.  Mario only has that many if you count Handhelds, RPG's, and Papers... and no one counts Luigi.  Still, FF games have their ups and downs.  Don't get me wrong, I love them all... except XI which is an MMO abomination (as will XIV be), but let us face facts, some of Square / Square-Enix's choices have been a little off over the years... see X-2 for the best example.  So how will XIII fare?  It's anyone's guess, but I'm hopeful.  Still, I don't like some of the things I'm hearing.  No Airship travel?  Bummer. All shopping done from the save menu?  Seems too "breaking the experience" for me.  Summons as vehicles? errr.... Party Leader KO means game over?  Far too SMT: Nocturne for me.  Guy with Chocobo in his Afro? No comment.  Look, the reality is it will probably be fantastic... but the reality of it is that it will probably not be as good as VII, or XII, or X, or VI, or VIII (yes I like VIII)... but here's hoping it's as good as the others, because unless it's Mystic Quest (look it up) FFXIII will be incredible... they almost always are... even X-2... once you get over playing FF-Barbie Dress Up.

But all those are still to come, and I'll probably have something to say about each of them when they come out, but what about the two 2's that are already on shelves: Bioshock and Mass Effect... Are they worth the wait?  Are they as good as their 1's?  Are they worthy sucessors?  Do they add to the richness and majesty of their genres and or stories?  Mmmm.... kinda.

Let's start with Bioshock 2.  Could this game be better? Absolutely.  I love the additions to the control scheme.  What worked so well before works even better now.  Two fisted action with Gun in one hand and Plasmids is a wonder to behold.  The city is as lovely and sad and almost as creepy as it was in 1 and I love being able to get outside.  So, yes.  Excellent game, stands on its own very well... even a nice twist and it certainly is an entertaining story... and yes, it does add to the richness of the survival horror genre and the story of Rapture.  But it is also a flawed game.  You play a Big Daddy in 2.  The Big Daddy, Subject Delta, first of his kind.  He's massive.  So massive he shakes the foundations and wields massive weapons... which is all well and good, but the game doesn't back up the feeling of playing a walking tank.  Jack had to fear going one on one with splicers, especially early on.  Big Daddy, in his armored suit and wielding a drill or rivet gun, shouldn't fear anything less than half a dozen.  Splicers should be attacking in waves, being mowed down by the monster.  At least until newer or smart or bulkier splicers start showing up.  Where Jack had to fear for his life, Big Daddy should crush and mutilate with abandon.  It shouldn't feel as if the massive man in the massive suit was a skinny dude wearing a paper suit... but it does for a pretty long time.
Then there is Big Sister.  Originally planned as a one of a kind boogey man, the good people at 2K said screw it and made her a creature class.  A tough, kinda scary creature class... at least at first, but get far enough into the game and it's just like killing Bouncers in Bioshock 1.  Bang, Bang, Dead.  What a waste of a perfectly good character... and this is why the game was so delayed.  Bad, Bad, Bad choice.
On the subject of weaksauce, there is hacking.  Sure, it is cool to be able to hack from across the room, but the new hacking minigame blows chunks.  Ugh.  Yuck.  Feh.  I want pipes back.  And to all those mental midgets who said "This is too hard" or "this is too much like thinking" or "THis is boring, I wanna shoot people" I have this to say... "Blow me."
Other problems, although lesser ones, are largely stylistic.  I don't get how any Big Daddy could ever sacrifice a Little Sister.  Doesn't fit.  Just doesn't.  And I don't like the linear story progression.  There isn't enough exploration and the lack of the ability to backtrack really bugs the crap out of me... but I guess it works.  Still, Bioshock 3 had better fix these issues or I'm going to be pissed.  One shot boys, One.  Mess up again and you're dead to me.

Last, we get to Mass Effect 2.  A truer sequel you will not find... anywhere, anytime, no questions asked.  Every choice you made in ME1 is reflected somehow in ME2.  Every... single... one.  Were you nice to the Fanboy? It shows up in ME2.  Did you do the minor ass side quest for the Asari with the slaver sister? It's mentioned.  Everything has some kind of resonance, even if it doesn't matter in the slightest.  The storyline is excellent, and creepy and adds vast amounts to the lore of Shepard's Galaxy.  The new skill system is streamlined and works... pretty well.  The new heavy weapons are pretty cool.  And Shepard's team has to be seen to be believed.  In addtion to 2 male and 2 female humans we have the old standby's of an Asari, a Quarian, a Taurian, and a Krogan (two are returning characters, two are new) plus a Salarian and a Drell (a new race).  Very nice, and the conversations are quirky and fun, and being a Renegade or Paragon is actually cooler in this game than the first.

In fact, ME2 is pretty much its parent's equal in every way... except for a number of minor problems... all relating to inventory.  You can't compare Weapons.  Seriously, the weapons have no visible stats.  You have to take them on missions (which are far less story integrated than before) so you can find out how well they operate, how much ammo they can hold, and what kind of reload time and damage they do, and you only get hard numbers on ammo.  That's problem number 1.  There are far fewer weapons in this game, pretty much no more than 5 choices or so for any of the 5 different weapon choices.  In fact I think the total number of different weapons in the game is less than 30.  And only Shepard can change armor, although you can customize how some of it looks (colorwise).  Problems 2 and 3.  There is nowhere to buy Medigel or Ammo for the Heavy Weapon... even though Shepard works for / with Cerberus (a massive secret corporation with the funds to build a warship in secret).  And yes, Medigel is much more important in ME2, since to use Unity (the power used to restore unconsious party members) you need a Medigel charge... or two if both teammates are down.  Problem 4. They've removed Grenades.  Problem 5.   They've changed the overheating system from ME1 to an ammo clip like system in ME2.  So, from unlimited Ammo to very limited Ammo... strange choice.  Problem 6.  

In fact, the biggest problem with Problem 6 is that, since your Ammo loadout is limited now, you should be able to customize it.  Say you're a soldier and you have 5 weapon's slots (as Shepard the Soldier does).  The game assumes that you will want to carry: 1 pistol/hand cannon/sub machine gun, 1 shotgun, 1 assault rifle, 1 sniper rifle, and 1 heavy weapon.  Great. It will also assume (for example) that you want to carry 320 rounds of assault rifle ammo (to be used in 60 round clips), 11 shotgun shells and 10 sniper rounds (each to be used 1 at a time, 48 rounds of handgun ammo to be used 6 at a time, and 450 units of energy for your laser cannon (heavy weapon).  What if you think shotguns are idiotic?  What if you want to carry two sniper rifles (one high power but single shot and one lower power but capable of holding a 12 round clip)?  What if you'd rather carry nothing but the assault rifle and the heavy weapon?  Why, if you must limit our ammo, can't we bloodywell choose which weapons we'd like to carry extra ammo for?  Sure, I get that clips are more realistic and that carrying arround a freakin arsenal in combat isn't realistic at all, and neither are number based weapons stats, but real soldiers (especially mercenaries and special forces) have access to field studies and test results, and practice ranges and choose how much ammo and which weapons to carry and have access to resupply, especially when travelling through major supply hubs.  Most of ME2 is soooo good that the lapses of sanity are that much more appauling.

Still, there are some other issues with ME2 that have nothing to do with inventory.  The side quests are pared down dramatically, and few of them don't rely on combat.  I get it, most players are brain-dead gun-happy goobers, but still... Hacking is less rewarding, since you can't get weapons, armor, mods, omnigel, or medigel from it, and even if there are now 2 minigames they never change, never get any harder.  Look, if Treasure Madness on Facebook can have 8 or 9 different minigames with scaling difficulty, it shouldn't be that hard for ME2 to have 2 or 3 that show the slightest variation. 

But, in the final analysis, these are minor points and minor complaints.  ME2 and BS2 are both incredible games that are vastly enjoyable and entertaining.  Could they be better?  Sure.  Could the originals have been better?  Absolutely.  But in the end, has there ever been a perfect game?  A game that couldn't be improved on?  Probably not. 

Anyway, Happy gaming. 

Retry? Load? Quit.

CSI in space!

I've seen some stupid things on CSI, some twisted laws, some serious abuses of search and seizure, miranda, and physics.  But all that paled before the stupidity of Monday night's SCI: Miami.  For those who didn't watch it, it involved a murder aboard a spaceplane... in Low Earth Orbit.  I've got just one question for the show's writers... Since when does LEO qualify as Miami / Dade jurisdiction?  The murder, an act the other three passengers/crew undertook because there wasn't enough oxygen for all 4 to survive, which would be considered self defense in any court in the world, didn't even take place on Earth, and since UN treaties effectively bare Earth Nations from claiming property in space, would probably be an Federal matter... at the very least.  As the first murder in space, it would be the most sensational and controversial case of the century.  But no, its all handled as if Miami PD has the faintest right to conduct the investigation or has any right to try the case.

Morons.

Happy Birthday to me.

I love birthdays.  Wonderful things.  A yearly reminder that another 365.249 days have gone by and that nothing much has changed.  An annual fete in honor of aging.  A chance for one to consider all the things we've gained and lost.  Ah well.  Happy third of a century to me.

War of the Quotes

A new feature, in which a topic is discussed, with heavy bias, using Quotes.  In honor of this, today's War of the Quotes will feature the topic of... War.

Round 1: Albert Einstien vs George Washington.
Credentials: Genius and scatterbrained intellectual vs Brillant and charismatic general and diplomat.

• Albert: You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
• George: To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.
• George: If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for War.

Winner? GW, someone who held the reins of leadership and knew the realities of war firsthand.

Round Commentary by Thomas Jefferson

• It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.

Round 2: Jean-Paul Sartre vs... a proven corrillary to his own quote.

• JPS: When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die.
• Me: When the poor wage war, it's the rich who die.  Evidence?  The French Revolutions, the Chinese Revolutions, the Soviet Revolution, the Iranian Revolution, the Cuban Revolution... shall I go on?

Winner? Well, lets call this one a draw, since everyone knows that war and death go hand in hand.
 
Round Commentary by Salvadore Dali

• Wars have never hurt anybody except the people who die.

 
Round 3: Artists

• HG Wells: If we don't end war, war will end us.
• Ernest Hemmingway: In modern war... you will die like a dog for no good reason.
• Ernest Hemmingway: Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.
• Herodotus: In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons.
• Percy Bysshe-Shelly: Man has no right to kill his brother. It is no excuse that he does so in uniform: he only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder.

Winner?  Peace, of course.  How many artists actually think war is cool.
 
Round 4: Leaders

• JFK: Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind. (Proving he can crib as well as the next guy.)
• Robert E Lee: It is well that war is so terrible. We should grow too fond of it.
• Herbert Hoover: Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.
• George Santayana: Only the dead have seen the end of the war.
• Stalin: The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.
• Eisenhower: We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.
• Churchill: We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

Winner? The enevitability of War.

Round 5: Joan Baez vs Rommel & Euripides

• Joan Baez: If it's natural to kill, how come men have to go into training to learn how?
• Erwin Rommel: Sweat saves blood.
• Euripides: Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head.

Winner? Not the silly and drugged up, if gifted, writer/singer.  Come on people.  Soldiers train how to survive, and if that means making them better killers, then yeah, that's what they'll train in.  Running is natural, but the best runners train.  Same thing.  Next!

Round 6: How can smart people be soooooo stupid?

• Cicero: An unjust peace is better than a just war.  (Really?  Tell that to the African-American slaves in the pre-civil war south?  Or the Jews in Germany prior to the onset of WWII.)
• Benjamin Franklin: There was never a good war, or a bad peace. (See above, then check out John Stuart Mill's Quote in Round 7.)
• Francis Fenelon: All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers. (No.  They aren't.  Same species, sure, but brothers? Not even close.)
• JFK: War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today. (Look, Gandhi's followers were no less warriors than uniformed soldiers.  They were fanatics who laid down their lives to win a war they couldn't win with weapons.  War doesn't have to be fought with guns or swords or nukes to be war.  Any conflict which has casualties is war.  The conscientious objector is a coward, fighting against the concept of getting his own hands dirty.  Its fine to be opposed to violence, but when you enjoy freedoms won in war, including the freedom to speak out against the government, you come off a little hypcritical.  And JFK had been in war and was no ConsOb.)
• Antoine de Saint-Exupery: War is not an adventure. It is a disease. It is like typhus. (This is analogy, not truth.  And in what way is War not an adventure?  Most adventures I know involve invading other people's land, risking death and dismemberment, and stealing their ancient relics.  War sounds a lot like an adventure to me.)
• Thomas Alva Edison: There will one day spring from the brain of science a machine or force so fearful in its potentialities, so absolutely terrifying, that even man, the fighter, who will dare torture and death in order to inflict torture and death, will be appalled, and so abandon war forever. (Can you say wishful thinking, boys and girls?  I knew that you could.)
• Henry Ellis: There is nothing that war has ever achieved that we could not better achieve without it. (Yes, but would have actually acheived it?)
• Albert Einstein: He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice. (Sure, he's talking about Nazi's and the Weirmacht, but do we also rag on the American Soldier, the British Soldier, the Australian, French, Dutch, Canadian, Chinese, Russian, etc. Soldier who fought to crush Axis tyranny?  Most of them, including the average German Soldier, were fighting to defend their homelands against unwarrented agression.  Faith and Zeal do not imply a lack of thought or reason or higher brain function.  In fact, they are not possible without higher brain function.  This is just bitterness and hatred for the military from a man who should know better.)

Winner?  Hard to say, but lets give the round to Peace anyway.  They meant well, even if they had nary a clue.

Round 7: People who know better.

• William Westmoreland: The military don't start wars. Politicians start wars. 
• George S. Patton: The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
• Ulysses S. Grant: I have never advocated war except as a means of peace.
• John Adams: I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.
• John Stuart Mill: War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.
• Herbert V. Prochnow: A visitor from Mars could easily pick out the civilized nations. They have the best implements of war.  
• Colman McCarthy: Everyone's a pacifist between wars. It's like being a vegetarian between meals.

Winner?  Ah, who cares.

Look, the point is this.

War is a fact of life.  Call it Conflict or Violence, or any other name that helps you cope, but War is part of nature.  Every living thing strives to take as much as it can for itself because there simply isn't enough energy in the system for all things to have as much as they need.  Population's would soar out of control and rabbits would ruin the Australian eccosystem (true story, look it up.)  We are not the only species to wage war.  Dolphins, Apes, Chimps, Baboons, Gibbons... they all do it.  Conciously.  Lion prides and hyena packs fight for territory.  Army ants lay waste to vast stretches of jungle.  Fire burns and consumes huge areas of forestation.  Tidal waves destroy coastlines.  Sure, the last two are stretching things, but the point is that destruction and creation go hand in hand.  We cannot have peace without war because both are part of our nature.  We are afraid, so we want peace (freedom from fear) so we destroy anything that threatens that peace.  Our desire for safety and stability makes our cultures more and more rigid, unchanging, unable to support themselves, so they collapse into violence and brutality and we rebuild.  Its the nature of life.

We cannot get rid of war and violence.  What we can do, what is far more productive, is to understand it, govern it, seek to guide it and control it, focus it in new ways.  But we must always be aware that it never goes away and it always has victims.  Our current financial crisis is a direct result of war, and not the war on terror or the war on drugs or the war in Iraq or Afganistan.  It arose out of Corporate Warfare, Ecconomic Violence that has left millions jobless, poor, starving, or enslaved all over the world.  Think about that next time you bash open warfare.  The current Globalized Peace has plenty of victims who are just as dead as those killed by bullets in WWII.

So, I leave you with one final quote.

John Paul Jones: I have not yet begun to fight!


War isn't bad.  War is a tool like any other.  Learn to wield it well.
PJ Grant.

On Vampirism and Its Causes

Diabolic Compact: by power of a compact with dark and unspeakable forces, immortality has been granted in the form of Vampirism. These are the undead, but they can, through the severing of their compact, be brought back to life and made killable. Baring this, only holy forces can truly ever destroy them. While this form of Vampirism can be spread, the original vampire is forever lord and master over his brood, most of whom lack many of his powers and invulnerabilities. Power is based largely on experience and strength of will. These Vampires are extremely susceptible to the power of holy relics and symbols but are merely weakened in daylight. They cannot cross running water without being encased in grave soil and they must rest within the embrace of the earth. They have many dark and terrible traits. Blood has no value to these beings, but they must drink it to slake their never-ending thirst, if only for a time.


Daemonic Lineage: born to a race of dark beings who feed upon the vital essences of man, these vampires have never known what it is to truly be a mortal and can only envy man his humanity. This form of Vampirism cannot be spread except through a process known as rebirthing, whereupon the Dark Being completely consumes the vital essence of a mortal, sucking the vessel dry of even the tiniest trace, then transforms that essence into a new one of the parent kind. This is the means by which such creatures spawn and so most are female. Males of such species are usually totally impotent when it comes to spreading the species, unless they have grown powerful enough to impregnate mortal women with their Dark Seed… such pregnancies are seldom safe for the mortal mother, often resulting in twisted monstrosities and a dead mother, but a rare few such births result in powerful mages with only minor daemonic traits. Sometimes the mother of such mages even survives. These vampires drink both spiritual energy and blood and have even been known to consume the flesh of their victims. Magic and divine workings are quite effective on these nasties, but weapons tend only to slow them as they heal non-magical damage quite quickly. As lovers and seductresses, they are typically far less violent, at least initially, than other forms of vampire. Like most deamons they cannot stand running water, but they can cross it. These beings cannot stand the sight of themselves in mirrors, for no really concrete reason.

Blood Taint: this form of Vampirism is a disease of the blood which uses its transformed hosts to transmit itself. Anyone bitten by such a Vampire but not slain will transform into one unless their body can successfully fight off the infection, an extremely rare occurrence. Such “Vampires” are driven to feed and are usually quite bestial. They are also among the weakest of all “Vampires”. Often this sickness spreads from animals to humans. No real strengths or weaknesses. Sometimes these diseases mutate to create flesh eating Ghouls instead.

Blood Rites: through dark and secret rituals these adepts have stolen the immortality of some dread being and in doing so gained great power… at a price. Some such Blood Cults serve their dread master, others are forced to keep the bastard alive to preserve their own extended lives and powers, while others have no such obvious shackles. Most Blood Cults can only spread their darkness by the sharing of the master blood, or in the case of those cults with no living font, by sharing the mixed blood of several initiates with the neonate. These Cultists lack the fangs of more traditional Vampires but more than make up for it in other, more subtle, ways. They must observe certain rituals when they drink and most of their powers are blood based.

La Sang Sacre: Those who have tasted of the blood of the sacred, those who have slain the blessed, are damned, never to die, never to find true peace until somehow atonement is granted by the higher powers. The blood of such beings cannot spread their condition, for it is a sickness of the soul not the flesh and their consumption of lesser blood serves only to prolong their lives and ease their suffering. Such beings cannot be slain, merely contained.

Damned Indifference: Some of the Fallen Angels fell not to Hell but to Earthly Realms and some of those fell with a terrible violence and hit especially hard. In order to survive, many such Broken Angels joined with a mortal host in order to survive. No one knows exactly why such beings feed upon blood, but such is the nature of the beast.

Nature of the Beast: Ancient spirits of blood and death that have plagued mortals since the days when fire was new, these blood drinkers took many forms over the ages until they realized that Mankind’s ultimate predator was Mankind itself. These spirits are harmless without a form, but can bring new life to the dying as long as the desire is great and the hunger greater. Originally appeased with offerings of blood by primitive tribes, these spirits know only hunger in these more “civilized” times. The body of such a vampire can be slain, but the spirit will simply seek out another host and return at some later time. They can only be truly stopped by defeating the spirit in spiritual combat.

Apex Predator: An evolutionary adaptation, a mutation some say, the Apex Predator Vampire is born and breed a hunter. Their prey? All those with blood, for the Apex Predator needs nothing else. The most ravenous of all Vampires, but also the least discerning, for an Apex Predator can subsist on any kind of blood. Apex Predators are not in the least dead and although they are long lived they do age and can be slain.

Hunter of Hunters: these are the Blood Angels, bound for their vengeful ways, to hunt the darkness and to draw sustenance only from the evil. Their prey is all who tread in darkness, who live in sin, and who prey upon the weak.

Immortal Blood: These are the true vampires, immortals comprised entirely of pure blood. While the weakest of their kind can be slain or dissolved in running water, the strongest cannot be destroyed but only dealt with, imprisoned, or banished.

Xian Hua: the Jumping Dead, deceptively fast and dangerous, these dead beasties have no personalities or obvious weaknesses.

Shiny Happy Vampies: a direct reaction to the common gothic vampire, the SHV's are immortals with style, ones who are not weakened by sunlight but rather shine in it.  It is theorized that the carbon in their bodies has been altered, restructed into diamond nanotubes, thus giving it great tensil strength while maintaining its flexibility.  SHV's are shunned by the more traditionally minded Vampire Groupies who react to anything outside their comfort zone with such scorn and disdain that one would think themselves stuck at a GOP rally.

Recipe of the Day

Kung Pao Ferret
Ingredients
One Batch Kung Pao Chicken
One Paper Plate
One (or More) Ferrets
Paper Towels to taste

Directions
Prepare and plate Kung Pao Chicken
Place Kung Pao Chicken plate on the edge of a chair
Release the Ferrets!
turn your back on Plate for approximately 8 seconds... listen for the thump.
Turn to regard Kung Pao Ferret... looking innocent and or confused.
Sigh... clean up mess, bathe ferret.
Have Ramen for diner.

Next on Recipe of the Day: Cat Pizza

Hope is good

My grandfather made it through surgery without complications and the surgeon is optomistic.  Now the long road of recovery begins, but at least the hard part is over.

I Hate Hospitals

The last time a family member of mine checked into a hospital he never left.  My father died before my eyes and then I had to return a few days later and have the doctors turn off the machines that were keeping his corpse breathing.

My grandfather checked into the hospital early this week.  He's going to have a quadruple bypass at 7:30 this morning.  My grandmother, who was a nervous wreck when my father went through this proceedure 12 years ago, must be terrified.  My Grandfather's mother died the day my father had his bypass.  Today is not going to be a good day.  I can't sleep.  I'm so worried, about both of them.  But I cannot go and be there for her.  I can't.  I don't know if I'll ever be able to set foot, willingly, in another hospital.  Sure, the lobby, the ER if I absolutely must, but the ICU? the Care Wards?  I can't.  The idea of it makes me want to wretch.

I hate being this silly.  It's disgusting.  I'm too logical, too cold and calculating.  But every time I think about it I see my father's eyes as the light goes out behind them.

So I'll sit here in the dark, in my safe little home, 50 miles away from the action, and hope.  I don't pray.  I don't believe that god responds to prayer.  But I will hope.  I hope that my 85 year old grandfather is strong enough to survive this terrible operation.  That he is strong enough to fight back through the rehab.  And that my gradmother is strong enough to be strong when I am too weak to stand by her.

I Hate Hospitals, and I hate that I'm afraid of them, and I hate loosing people I love... and I hope I live long enough that everyone who cares about me has passed on first, just so they never have to say goodbye to me.  I hope I don't loose anyone today.

Goodluck Murray Grant.  I'm hoping for you.

Apocalypses in Theatres Now

Warning, incoming spoilers.

As odd as it seems, with studios usually trying not to step all over each other with similar releases, there are two armaggedonesque movies in theatres at this moment; Book of Eli and Legion.  Thematically, both deal with issues religious (at least on the face of them) and themes of Hope, Faith, and Redemption.  However, while Book of Eli succeeds on practically every level, Legion (which holds such germs of promise) falls flat.

Book of Eli reaches for the stars in its tale of one man's Gunslinger-style 30 year oddyssy to deliever the world's last surviving King James Bible to those who will preserve it for future generations.  Set in a world struggling to pull itself out of a post nuclear holocaust, Eli deals with issues ranging from Cannibalism and the tyranny of Resource Monopolization to the nature of goodness.  It plays with fairly deep metaphors, such as the fact that Eli's 30 year oddyssy has given him time to memorize, word perfectly, the entire KJB (imprinting it on his soul) to the fact that Alcatraz has become the repository of human knowledge (Ignorance is a Prison from which Knowledge frees us) to the fact that, at the end, Eli's KJB is placed on a shelf with all the other holy books, just one more part of humanity's past, no more or less imporant than any other.  Denzel is wonderful, as is his supporting cast  Even the George and Martha joke comes off splendedly.

On the other hand, Legion misses possibly ever mark it could have missed and still remain entertaining.  Its human characters are largely one-dimensional (A married couple and their rebellious teen daughter, a one-armed black veteran cum short order chef, a black gangbanger, a divorced cafe owner and his simple, well-meaning son, and the mother of the unborn child around which the plot revolves).  In fact, the most well rounded and sympathetic characters in the film are Michael and Gabriel (and why are they the only two arkangels who ever appear in american movies... what about Raphael, Raguiel, Remiel, Uriel, or Azrial?)

Michael, played by the always spectacular Paul Bettany, is portrayed as the loving son of a god who has lost faith in mankind and decided to destroy us all.  Never mind the covenant of the rainbow following the Flood (the flood at least gets a mention, the rainbow covenant? not so much.)  Deciding that God doesn't really mean it, that he's just frustrated, Michael decends to the mortal realm and cuts off his wings so that he can defend a child who, although it is unstated in the movie, is clearly the anti-christ (considering that his birth spawns the end of days).  Still, Charlie, the mother, explains that when she went to a clinic to get the unwanted child aborted, she felt as if to go through with this act would be to decend into a darkness from which she could never escape.  The father is mentioned only in as far as that he is not in the picture.  A better bet would have been to make the father a rapist, thus making her ambivalence about the child and sometimes hatred for it, that much more powerful and her decision not to terminate the pregnancy that much more significant.

Still, almost transparently see through characters are not the film's greatest failing.  That lies in its execution of the brilliant idea to make Angels the enemy.  Our culture is rife with angels, creatures of great and often terrible beauty.  Angels are seen as wonderful, wonderous creatures, and to depict them as villains is a wonderful twist... but the movie does so in all the wrong ways.  Angels are not demons or devils, a fact that Michael makes clear when asked if the Possessed (the zombiesque first and second wave badguys) are possessed by one of the D's (I forget which).  Michael says, "No, by Angels."  Since they aren't boogymen, they shouldn't look horrific, shouldn't be sadistic, twisted, pustulent, fly-attracting, shark-toothed nasties.  They should be beautiful... and cold, merciless, and pitiless.  By making Angels disgusting and twisted, it looses its power to shock and sadden us.

Gabriel, the film's uber-villain, is relentless, awe-inspiring, and truely a pathos inducing figure.  He does not want to kill Michael, his brother.  He is just following orders and will do whatever it takes to fullfill god's command.  He also appears too late, at the beginning of the third act (although a flashback in the second act shows him trying to disuade Michael).  A skillfull director would have shown a battle between Michael and Gabriel as the opening of the movie, shown Gabriel struck down by a winged and flaming-sword armed Michael... only to show up again at the head of a legion of Angels.  Then his relentlessness would have been beyond Terminator relentlessness, an unstoppable force whose threat does not end when he is defeated since he will return, again and again and againg if needed.  As it is, Michael is the only angel who is shown to reform after being slain, a wow moment that feels too deus ex machina as it is, but would have been stunning if Gabriel had been slain and reformed several times "By the Grace of God" something that the fallen Michael should have been lacking. 

And then there is the Terminator style Driving Off into the Sunset with a trunk full of weapons ending... please.

There are interesting moments, such as the hinting towards Michael actually being Lucifer (the rebellious angel) at least once before or use of Angel wings as armor capable of shrugging off even high power bullets) or a zippo lighter with the word Hope on it.  But, like the Zippo which appears early in the film, they are largely wasted.  The Hope Zippo, which is used near the end to great effect, would have been more powerful had the word Hope been seen early on in the film, when it's meaning isn't so significant.  This would have been forshadowing instead of just clever prop usage. 

Legion is a movie that could have been so much better, if only.  Eli is not.  It is hard to say how Eli could have been improved in any significant way.  The lessons we can take from a comparison of these two films, both of which take place in a desert and deal with faith and hope and fighting for what is right in the face of overwhelming odds are two fold.  The first is that it is better to overreach than to underreach.  To shoot for the stars and fail is better than to play it safe and still come up short.  The second is that if you really want to make a good movie, you need to commit, commit everything you have.  Don't half ass it.  Don't wimp out because you are afraid of religious zealots who aren't going to like your film regardless.  Don't make angels into zombies.  Be original, and when being original be very original.  Beauty can be even more terrifying than ugliness, coldness more-so than cruelty, and compassion more so than hate.

Good watching and Goodnight.

Read Aloud

Come!

Breathe deeply

Come!
Stride proudly
Laugh loudly

Come!
Run fleetly
Sing gaily
Act silly

Come!
See clearly
Think kindly
Choose wisely
Judge fairly

Come!
Walk slowly
Work gently
Kiss sweetly
Touch lightly
Sleep soundly

Come!
Move quickly
Strike fiercely
Speak bluntly
Dance freely
Love vastly
Be very


Our choices surround us
Live every moment

Proceeding from What

(This is an exercise in thought and analysis.  Proceed only with caution.)


All Questions proceed from what? Exactly. All Questions proceed from What.

In the beginning there was What. Before Who and Why, there was What. Before When and Where, before How and How Much, there was What. What is the perfect whole from which all other questions flow.

In the beginning there was Prime, that which is. Prime, the first, the indivisible1 whole. Prime, whose essence was “I am.”2 Prime is the Truth of Truths, the first principle from which all other principles derive, the truth and principle of Existence itself. From Prime does the first Noble Truth come… All that is… is. Yet from Prime comes the first Question, What. If I am, what am I? Prime was unable to answer this, for all that Prime was, was I. Prime existed to exist. Prime was without limits and indivisible. Prime was all that was. Clearly more questions would be needed.

So Prime became two, The Duality of Who and Why. The first was the truth of Identity the second of Causality. Identity said, If I am, then Who am I? while Causality asked, If I am, then Why am I? Yet What remained, and asked of itself, “Which of these am I?”, for Which is the lesser form of What, that form which arises out a limited field of choices. And so the Duality became a Trinity. From those three arose the questions of Locality and Methodology and so three became six, that most perfect of numbers, for Six is product of its sums and for so many other reasons as well.

So there were six questions.

What is my Nature? What is my Purpose? What is my Origin? What is my Task? What is my Location? And Which of these is the most important? Yet Prime, in asking these questions, had begun to perceive that each question not only spawned more questions, but each question had an existence of its own and was separate from all the others, so that each question had both an internal awareness and an external awareness, so that in fact there were twelve questions, adding those above to those below; What is their Nature, their Purpose, their Origin, their Task, their Location, and Are they more important than I?

All thought proceeds from questions, and of all questions these are the most basic. Six selfish, six selfless, yet intermixed and codependent. Six Noble Truths and Six Ignoble Truths, twelve basic things that must be known and acknowledged.

The Six Noble Truths are stated thus:
1. The Universe Exists, The Universe is Truth.
2. There is nothing that Exists that is Outside of the Universe
3. You Exist, thus You are part of the Universe
4. You are Aware, thus The Universe is Aware
5. The Collective awareness of the Universe, is Prime… or, if you really must, God.
6. The Universe does not know why it is here, and is seeking that knowledge. Your purpose is figure out your own Truth, in an effort to answer the ultimate question.

The Six Ignoble Truths are stated thus:
1. The Universe, as a Whole, does not care about you, any more than you care about your individual electrons.
2. In the Grand Scheme of things, you are unimportant… as is the entire human race, the entire Planet Earth, the entire Sol System, and in fact, the entire Milky-Way Galaxy.
3. You cannot communicate with Prime. Prime cannot communicate with You.
4. It is impossible for anyone to understand exactly how the Universe functions, or why, or where it ultimately came from, and any effort to do so is both useless and doomed to failure.
5. The existence of the Universe is significantly more impossible than its non-existence.
6. There are at least two sides to every truth, and many more sides to every falsehood.

In the end, we must conclude The Ultimate Truth: None of the Noble Truths help and None of the Ignoble Truths matter.

Stupidity in Star Trek

Trek Lives.  I've been a Trekkie for a quarter century; watched my first episode, "Spectre of the Gun", on my mother's tiny, 9 inch, black and white TV in the living room of our home in Houston, Texas.  I remember asking my mother why the cowboys had ray guns.

I've seen every movie in the theatres, aside from TMP, although the Khan I saw was part of a Khan/Search for Spock double feature at the drive in my father took me to.  I've loved them all, even the ones I hate (TMP, Undiscovered Country, Nemesis).  I've watched every episode of every series... aside from Enterprise... at least three times.  I cheered when Kai Wynn bought it, cheered when the dreadnaught Enterprise-D showed up, cheered when the Janeway offed the Borg Queen for good.  I cried when Spock died, when Jadzia died, when D Forest and Jimmy died.  I almost shed a tear for good ol Kirk. 

Like all good Trekkies or Trekkers, I've made my lists;  Rank the Captains (Picard, Kirk, Janeway, Kirk 2, Rikker, Animated Kirk, Cisco, Pike, Sulu, Data, Q, everyone else ever, Archer), Rank the XO (Spock, Spock 2, Animated Spock, Chikote, Worf, everyone else, Rikker, the vulcan lady on Archer's crew), Rank the Movies (4, 6, 2, 11, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 5, Trekkies, 1), Rank the hawties... and so on.  Still, if there is one list that ranks above all others, it is rank the stupidity.

Look, Trek is great.  It is inspirational and second only to Babylon 5 as the greatest Sci-Fi series ever, IMNSHO.  Its influence is global, its legacy shall endure as long as human civilization thrives, but perfect it is not.  I loved ST11.  I did.  Watched it in IMAX opening night at 12:01.  Watched it again at noon that same day.  Watched it a third time a week later.  Loved it.  Brilliant.  And possibly the most flawed since The Undiscovered Country, which ranks as the second stupidest movie in the entire series... and certain in the 10 ten stupidest episodes of any Trek Series.  Maybe even top 5, but I haven't seen all of Enterprise.

So, for this week's edition of pop culture, I'm going to list all the really stupid parts of Star Trek 11... or at least the top 11.

Number 11: First we see a shot of IOWA.  It says so on the screen in big silver letters.  Then we see a shot of VULCAN.  Same letters.  Does Vulcan not have any subdivisions, no cities, no states or provinces or neighborhoods?  Why not label IOWA as EARTH?  How does IOWA rank as equal to VULCAN?  A small point, but eh.

Number 10: Why doesn't Vulcan have any ships? or defenses of any kind?  Nero needs codes to invade Earth Space, why not Vulcan Space?

Number 9: Why does it take Nero's ship, which comes from an age where Warp 9 is pretty slow, so damn long to reach Earth?  The Enterprise, which must have been travelling toward's the Laurentian system for at least half a day, was able to catch up to Nero's ship just as it entered LEO.  Okay, maybe it took that long to torture Pike, so I'll give them that.  Maybe... Still seems stupid

Number 8: as the trio spacedrops down the umbilical towards the surface of vulcan, three stupid things happen in quick succession, so I'll link them together.  The Redshirt... sorry, Redsuit, dies because he waits so damned long to pull his chute.  Why does he wait so long?  Apparently he's really amped up.  Seriously gung-ho for an engineer, no?  A little stupid.  But the big stupid is yet to come.  Kirk lands, and then, at an altitude that is probably at least as high as Everest, whips off his helmet.  Apparently, Vulcan's atmosphere is really, really thick, even above the cloud layer where on Earth a human would be suffocating in seconds.  Chalk it up to "Artistic License".  Then Sulu lands, and the self proclaimed fencer pulls out a rapier? An Epee?  A saber?  A foil? No. its a katana!  Katana's are used with Kendo, which is about as far from fencing as a formalized sword style can actually get.  About the only similarity is the face guard... which isn't saying much.  It's as if JJ said "Hey, Sulu's Japanese... lets give him a Katana."  Please.

Number 7: On the subject of AL... unless Delta-Vega is a moon of Vulcan, there is no way in hell Spock could have seen the planet fold in on it's self like that.  None what so ever. Even Luna isn't that big in Earth's sky.  Never mind the fact that Delta-Vega appears to be an Ice Ball that somehow, even though it lacks any visible plants or small wildlife can still support not one but two massive apex predator species.  Earth can't even support one predatory land species that size.

Number 6: The Nerada is, in my oppinion, the worst worst designed ship ever.  It has a lot, a lot, a lot of useless spines.  So many that the exact shape is lost.  It has water everywhere for no reason, even in areas with electrical lines and control panels.  Since when are Romulans aquatic?  It has walkways that have inconvienient ledges, steps, no rails, and smooth, slightly convex surfaces.  Even Scotty agrees, since he says that he's beaming them into what should, in a logical ship, be a cargo bay.  And there is absolutely no good lighting.  Do Romulans like everything gloomy and lit by green light?  And why do none of these Romulans have hair?  Must be more AL.

Number 5: Are Nero's crew really that stupid?  These are a bunch of Miners.  They actually willingly waited around for 25 years.... 25 years.... to get revenge for Nero's Wife?  Seriously.  They must have been seriously bored.  Why not just go back to Romulus, hand over the Nerada and it's mega tek, use the red matter to eliminate the star before it can go Super Nova, and have a big party while the future weapons on the Nerada allow the Romulan Empire to crush every other star faring power like bugs.  Sure, Nero is a nutball, and the stupidest villain (not worst, just stupid) ever, but the entire rest of the crew are that dedicated to his insane revenge scheme?  At least James Bond's villain's henchmen are well paid or actually believe that a colony in space is a good thing.

Number 4: Timefleet? Come on!  It's canon that they exist, so where are they?  Or the Q's, who seem to value the continum so much.  Or the Enterprise-E, which went back and stopped the Borg in 8?  Or the Star Fleet Observers at the Guardian of Forever?  Where did all these beings go?

Number 3: Okay, a speck of Red Matter can destroy a planet.  A similar dot can dispell the Super Nova that, somehow, is threatening the entire Galaxy (Never mind how stupid that idea is, Larry Niven couldn't even sell that idea convincingly in Ring World and that was a chain reaction of Super Novas at the galactic core).  So why does Spock's ship have a mega ball of Rimbaldian proportions on board?  What possible need could anyone have for producing soooo damn much Red Matter... and what the hell is Red Matter any way.  It might as well be "Black Box" technology.... except that JJ likes giant floating incomprehensible red spheres.

Number 2: Okay, Vulcans are the most logical race in the Star Trek Universe, right?  They've had spaceflight for a thousand years or more, right? Well, humans realized about a century ago that if Earth got hit by an ELE before we had colonies on other worlds that the human race was pretty much screwed.  So why don't the Vulcans have even 1 colony world?  Seriously.  6 Billion superlogical genii and no one thought up the expression "Don't put all your eggs in one basket"?  IDTS.

Number 1: And I quote "Then the Unthinkable Happened!"  Okay, a super nova explodes, big boom.  The explosion travels outward very fast.  Let us even say it travels out at the speed of light.  How does it suddenly accelerate and unnexpectedly destroy a star system.  It's like looking both ways before crossing a street, seeing that the only car coming is 2 miles away, stepping into the street... and being hit by that same car because it suddenly teleported up on you.  Super Nova Shockwaves don't travel faster than light.  In a universe with Warp 9 and Transwarp technology, anything moving at light speed is pretty much crawlling.  And those idiotic Romulans were like... Hmmm, I hope this works, let's not bother to evacuate our planet... just in case.  Seriously,  The super nova snuck up on Romulus?  I love this movie, but my god, that is the dumbest thing I've ever seen in this series... including the fact that in Undiscovered Country, using the Enterprise-A, top speed far lower than Voyagers, it takes them a few days to reach the Galactic Core... which we know is a Super Massive Black Hole known as Sagittarius A, despite the fact that Earth is 33000 Light Years from the center of the Galaxy... a trip which would have taken Voyager about a quarter of a century.  This wasn't just dumb, it was mega dumb.  It was dumber than God needing a spaceship people!

I nominate the "And then the Unthinkable" happened moment the single stupidest moment in all of Star Trek history... including all non-canon novels, comics, cartoons, and even that fanfiction where the 12 year old girl becomes a star fleet captain... with the possible exception of those idiotic aliens who fell for the Corbomite Maneuver (or their counterparts in TNG).

Still, mad props to JJ and Crew and I look forward to mocking you again when Star Trek 12: The Search for Eggs, comes out.


No Colonies.  Sheesh.  Stupid, Stupid Vulcan Creatures.

Quotes of the Day

What if God really is Omnipotent but just has really lousy reaction time? 
--PJGrant

What a long, strange trip I've been.
--PJGrant

Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff
--Frank Zappa

You cannot conceive, nor can I, the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God.
--Graham Greene

Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes.
--Maggie Kuhn

The Wine Snob

Really, my dear, the best thing about a society that spans the gods only know how many realities is the wine. I try to sample a new one every day, sometimes three or four, and you know, I’ve never had to repeat myself. Oh, I do. But only for the six or seven thousand vintages I really like. Take for instance this Retsuko 679. It's fruity, 900 years old, and a little musky… with a hint of apricot. Not bad, for a young wine, and for a vineworld which has only been in operation for 8 millenia, but I think we can do better.


Honre? Let me try the Retsuko 680.

Mmm, yes. This is much better. You can really taste the volcanic ash. It adds just the right hint of bitter. Balances out the sweet. Honre? I’ll take eight cases, and three of the Ballonga Greenwater.

Father's Day

My father, were he still alive, would have been 58 today.  I miss him terribly.  He was the light in my life and the best writer I ever knew.  He died of complications from adult onset diabetes and from the drugs his doctors gave him.  So, if anyone out there actually reads this, if you are overweight or know someone who is, get a bloodsugar test.  It doesn't take long and might just save your sight, your ability to walk, to think, and even save your life.  Be healthy, all of you.

As for my father, may all the gods of light and love see him securely to his just reward.

Why am I doing this?

An imagination is a terrible thing.  A really good imagination is even worse. 

Imaginations are like gardens, they overflow with blossoms both strange and wonderous.  They are a constant joy to visit, to stroll through the lanes of, taking one's time, relaxing, perhaps taking snapshots of the more interesting bits.  Unfortunately, imaginations also require constant care, constant input, constant tending and fussing and endless amounts of maintenance.  And if such is lacking, then one ends up with a wasteland full of twisted, festering nastiness.

So, in answer to the question I posed above, I am doing this to blow off steam, to give myself a forum from which to spout off on all the topics that annoy, interest, or just plain confuse me.  My format will be simple.  Every week I will post 10 times.  7 of these will be parts of a novel, posted sequentially because I cannot draw a webcomic.  The other 3 will be more esoteric: 1 on philosophy, politics, or religion; 1 on Pop Culture, where I will talk about the best TV Show, Movie, Comicbook, and or Video Game I enjoyed that week; and 1 on small writings, blurbs, fragments, and even encyclopedia entries from my massive store of useless facts about the word in which I spend so very much of my time.

I will not be talking about the weather.  I will not be talking about music, usually.  I will not be talking about my latest relationship, my recipe of the day, or my real job, assuming I manage to keep it for more than a month or so.  But above all, I will not be consistant.  As a wise, but strange, man once said, "Consistancy is the hobgoblin of little minds."  So I will strive to be reliable, strive to be innovative, and strive to entertain, educate, and enlighten... but I won't appologize for my beliefs, my verbiage, or for missing a day or two every now and again.

I hope you enjoy this at least as much as I do.

PJGrant