Saturday, May 11, 2002

From the AP wire: Professor Uses Comics to Teach Physics.

Why couldn't I have had this guy in college?
12:13 PM  < To return to this entry, save this link

A few months back, my posts here seemed to fall into weekly themes. While this was never planned, the pattern was undeniable. It hasn't happened in a while, but this tendency may be resurfacing. This week's topic: fictional characters who just got cooler in my eyes because they share my predilections.

Enterprise ran two new episodes this past Wednesday, and I watched them with my roomie Hutch on the TiVo the next day. A sub-plot in both eps is the crew's impending shore leave on Risa (a "pleasure planet" first introduced during the enjoyable third season Next Generation romp, "Captain's Holiday") and each time an unexpected mission sidetracks them.

Right before this happens for the first time, Trip (already in the running for my favorite humanoid character) shows up on the bridge ready for some serious R&R. How do we know this? Well, he's not drinking. That's a different chief engineer. No, we know he's all set for a tropical paradise because he's wearing a multi-colored, obnoxious, glorious Hawaiian shirt.

I figure if a guy who wears Hawaiian shirts can make chief engineer on a starship, there's hope for me finding a job yet.

Sadly, I can find no pics of this sartorial wonder online. I'll post one if and when I do.
11:48 AM  < To return to this entry, save this link

Wednesday, May 08, 2002

Samuel L. Jackson racked up some more cool points this week (adding to a total currently described by theoretical mathematicians as "friggin' huge") when IMdB revealed his character Mace Windu will be wielding a purple lightsaber in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones at his explicit request. It's the color I, as a prepubescent, always wanted for my own lightsaber, and knowing Mr. Jackson shares my affinity for the royal hue is just pretty damn neat.

Between this and the general impression I'm getting that Lucas may have learned from and corrected his Episode I mistakes, I may actually be getting excited for this movie after all. But it's going to have to really blow me away to surpass the more-than-excellent Spider-Man, which I've already seen twice (and about which I owe my friend Steve a lengthy e-mail; it's on the way, buddy).
1:50 AM  < To return to this entry, save this link

Monday, May 06, 2002

Like many Star Trek fans, I've often contemplated the idea of a mixed-cast Trek movie. Y'know, maybe take Picard and Data from Next Gen, O'Brien and Odo from DS9, the Holodoc and Kim from Voyager and throw them all together on a ship for some cross-series fun. In this interview, the concept is floated past Trek grand poobah Rick Berman, and it turns out he's thought about it some, too.

I think this is the logical evolution of the films, as some folks from Next Gen (most likely the two I name above) refuse to come back or are dropped because of budget-straining salary demands, and people from the other shows look to supplement their convention-appearance income. The experience of seeing the 24th century Trek populace interact would be a great deal of fun, and would reinforce the grand epic scope that helps make the best of these films what they are. I guess we'll see what happens after Trek X bows this Christmas.
11:43 AM  < To return to this entry, save this link