Like James T. Kirk, I am dangling from a precipice. A precipice perched over a chasm of full-blown obsession with this movie. I'm gonna have to rein it in or it's going to be hard to get work done over the next couple weeks.

This was written for yahtzee63's Star Trek Reboot Drabble Challenge, located here:
http://yahtzee63.livejournal.com/410178.html

All the drabbles are amazing.

My contribution here:
http://yahtzee63.livejournal.com/410178.html?thread=10919234#t10919234

You know what my favorite part was? It was not the Kobayashi Maru, or the space battles, or even when Spock flips out and almost murders Kirk's ass. It wasn't even any moment with Uhura, though her being a miniskirt-wearing, Vulcan-banging, linguist badass makes her pretty much my favorite female character in years.

( No, it was the goddamn Kelvin. )

It's been almost two years since I've even posted. In that time, I've loved all over Pushing Daisies, Chuck, The Dark Knight, Iron Man and old school Babylon 5. So what brings me out of Livejournal retirement?

Fucking Star Trek.

I was a Next Gen girl, dammit! You know, Dad would finish cooking dinner, Mom would come home from a long hard day at work, I would wash off the blood from soccer practice, the brother would turn off his WoW session and we'd all watch a couple episodes of Picard & Co. together. Wasn't it that way for everyone? Sometimes we'd watch Wrath of Khan, or WhaleFest IV, but Shatner was getting old (is he hitting on Annie Camden?) and what was so great about the Original Series crew anyway?

Oh.

Oh.

That movie was...

Um, okay. And... suddenly I'm twelve again, watching a group of brothers and sisters chase the stars together. God help my dystopia-loving ass, I'm a Trekkie again.

I'm so confuzzled about this episode, it seemed to reverse most of the things I've come to expect from the show in the past season. Tonight was better in the second half than in the first, high on the character, low on the funny. I think it was the least funny this season, but there was something almost cathartic in seeing everybody try desperately to deal with the changes life has bombed them with. Like this was the ep where they all started to freak out and ask themselves what the hell they'd gotten into.

I can't even express how happy I am to have a decent character moment with Jim. I'm all on board with the happy Jim and Pam who do not slay us with their drama, but it's nice to remember that he went through a load of awful feelings that even we never saw that much of. I'm still crossing my fingers, though, that once he becomes completely sure of Pam's love for him he'll start chafing at the torpor of paper sales once more. He's better than this job, and I'll always want more for him, same as I do for Pam.


And now for the meta, which is short, because this episode seriously messed with the normal way I do things:
( Read more... )

Slate had an article on indie music which mentioned a video of Win and Regine from the Arcade Fire playing "Keep the Car Running" at a Springsteen concert in Ottawa with the Boss himself. It's a really fun video, look it up on YouTube, even though the audio sucks, because you can hear the questioning tones of the audience members who recognized Win and Regine, and then their crazed, joyful disbelief when the song began.

( Indie music tl;dr )

( Take a chance on me! That's all I ask. )

You know, I adored tonight's episode, for many reasons. But I think we can say with certainty by now that the one-hour format is problematic. It helps the show without sacrificing any quality only on rare occasions. Not that I wasn't thoroughly entertained; this show would probably have to become a one-hour block of fart jokes to get me to stop watching. But something isn't right, primarily with Michael, and it's just more noticeable when so much of this show is so perfectly and subtly beautiful. I really hope the return to regular schedule will iron out the kink.

One of the busboys got fired, thank god. He needed it, bad. Not only would he stop in the middle of working to stare at the waitresses while we did sidework, he would often stand just behind us while they entered info on the computers and be a general lecherous maggot.

Well, turns out he's either dumb, criminal, or both, because when a waitress noticed some of the money was missing from a table he'd bussed, she asked him if he had seen it. And the moron pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to her.

What? If you're stealing it, then play like you never saw it, ass. If you're not stealing, try to offer an excuse. We knew he was stealing, though. Other waitresses had suspected it before, this was just proof. Busboys do not take money off the tables. Period. Except for the dumb ones.

So I walked in today and got the joyous news he'd been fired when I sat down for a pre-shift drink with the waitress he stole from and a busboy who is pretty much everyone's favorite. He's our favorite not only because he's a funny, nice guy, but because his good English allows him to socialize with us much more than the other busboys. Cold fact of restaurant life.

Anyway, this guy reminded me about a weird day a while ago when Creepy stopped me when I walked by a group of them to say he wanted to ask me a question. Only he was giggling like a little girl and couldn't say it, or maybe didn't know how to in English. I remember that the Favorite Busboy was really embarrassed and was trying to get me to just keep on moving.

Well, he told me the question Creepy had wanted to ask, and imagine my not-surprise when it turned out to be whether or not I was wearing any panties that day.

It's God's little joke that most of the people that deserve to be sued for sexual harassment don't have the money to make it worth it.

Did you know that Yosemite's most famous advocate, John Muir, was sick with malaria when he landed in San Francisco for the first time, but was such a badass that he proceeded to walk the whole way to Yosemite? Even the President of the United States has got to give up whatever a guy like that asks for.

Yosemite Valley is utterly spectacular, and I love how foreign tourists seem to make up at least a fourth of the hiking and climbing populace. It always makes me happy to see foreigners experiencing America in a way that has nothing to do with movies, cities or politics.

New Office episodes make me so damn happy.

( Click for meta )

Dear Chargers,

Please stop losing. You're the same goddamn team as last year. More importantly, no one in the restaurant is happy when you lose.

Please, think of my tips.

Thank you.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070926/ap_on_re_us/polygamist_leader

Rot in prison, Warren Jeffs. Rot in prison like the accessory child-rapist you are. Should a lengthy stint in hell immediately follow, I might even be persuaded to throw a party. It'll commemorate an America that is just a little less infested with lying, power-hungry roaches.

My roommate watches So You Think You Can Dance. Because reality shows are a creeping, virulent disease which infects at will and even at great distances, I have also become addicted. And then on the elimination show yesterday, they did the opening group dance to a Tom Waits song. I've only been watching the show for a couple weeks, but I still would have laid money down that not one of those dancers knew who Tom Waits is. It's possible they didn't before this routine, but who knows? Wade Robson knew who he was. And that dance fucking rocked. Wade Robson earned himself my undying affection for it, because he made it creepy and weird, which is really the only kind of dance you can even do to a Tom Waits song.

Goddamn, I love that man. Every time anything reminds me of him I spend about eight days or so with my iPod's Waits playlist set on loop.

If you love good guitar-based rock/folk music, find a way to see "Once" in theaters. For Christ's sake, see it now. Then go look up the artists, because you will want to know more about them. I hate to watch any character settle for less than greatness in film, especially if it's a woman, but when it's done with this kind of sensitivity, and this same sense that there is still beauty around you even if you do settle, I can exit the theater with my rage suppressed. This is one of those films that helps me believe that even if I never get everything I want, I'll probably get at least a few of them, and come out on the other side with memories.

After we left Beckham's unfortunately injury-ridden debut, we had approximately one hour to reach a bookstore and buy the new Harry Potter before they all frantically bolted their doors in order to restock and rouse employees from exhaustion comas.

I spent most of last Sunday and Monday reading it, and my initial reaction to Book Seven: Where's Hogwarts, Again? was that I feel an almost unexpected sense of loss that it's all over, and that this book had better make one damned rockin' movie.

Not to undermine the wonderful things Rowling has done for the written word, popularized reading with a video game generation...yadda yadda yadda. But I want more Potter, I'm not ashamed to say so, and the only continuance of Potter I'm going to get is going to arrive in movie form. In fact, I'm really hoping that with this one, the producers throw up their hands and say "fuck it, we're making two three-hour movies, or one six-hour movie, whatever, let's just go nuts." They're paying Radcliffe some obscene amount of money; they ought to be able to make him do a six-hour movie and some kind of elaborate dance routine besides. Fuck child labor laws.

Why not throw every last damn thing in there? Because there are a hundred stories in these books, but the one that really, truly works is the rambling narrative about outgrowing every last vestige of childhood, about the abruptness and the violence of it, all made painfully literal. And on top of all that, it piles on what happens when a teenager is forced to truly face death, something few adults ever manage. I don't know that I've ever seen that story on the big screen, and I'm kinda looking forward to it.

( More thoughts on the Boy Who Cultivated a Massive Fanbase )

The Running of the Hottie Footballers

There were two reasons why you would be at the Home Depot Center in Carson last Saturday: You love soccer and live in or around LA, or you are one of the many Hollywood stars David Beckham and his wife have befriended.

I am (shocking, I know) the former. My mother's been a rabid fan of the Galaxy for years, having become so after she no longer got her soccer fix from carting me to tournaments every weekend, so she already had two of her extra season passes lined up to see Becks limp onto the field for the first time. Anyone who wants to hear about the celebrities must know this: I saw Jennifer Love Hewitt walk by on her way to her seat, I saw Posh on the giant viewscreen that shows replays, and I saw Drew Carey at the VIP exit on the way out. That's the long and short of it.

Oh, and we saw Bob Bradley, the coach of the US men's national team, and we were way, way more interested in him. That'll tell you a little bit about me, right there. I am just that uncool.

Anyway, there was a guy in the crowd holding up a sign that said "I didn't come here to see Beckham," and that guy probably summed up the sentiment of lots of soccer fans in the crowd. Most of us would go without Beckham, but all of us are lying if we say we're not intensely curious and excited to see him.

( More... )

I have Wilco tickets! Whatever happens to me this week, and stormclouds seem to be a-gathering, that will put a smile on my face. Not coincidentally, so does this week's Office Meta episode.

( Email Surveillance! )

Wherein I don't really feel all that inspired, but the meta shouldn't suffer because of my ill-mood.

( The Client )

I missed last week's, because I am lame. But now, fire! As anyone who really knows me is aware, I am nothing if not a big ol' pyro. I love fire. Therefore, this episode cannot but be wonderful.

( It's Billy Joel time! )

Sexual Harrassment!! Yay!

Ever noticed how the British emphasize the "hair" in harassment and Americans emphasize the "ass?" There's a really pervy joke I'm missing out on there.

( Jump for the meta )

And sometimes it isn't something you particularly wanted to know.

Ever taken a CPR class? Ever experienced the creepy sensation of feeling fake ribs on a rubber dummy that you're meant to compress nearly to the breaking point? Ever felt a white-hot flash of rage at students who inevitably viewed the dummy — if it was female — as a sexual object, and ominously thought that the jackass is about to be thankful he's in a room full of lifesaving professionals?

Well, now you can be even more disturbed. One of the dummy retailers models it's face after the death mask of an anonymous girl fished out of the River Seine in the early 1800s.

http://www.laerdal.co.uk/mainnode.asp?nodeid=10928993

I don't care if it was a semi-famous incident at the time, a company would have to have one retarded PR director to allow that line to go into production.