ironSoap

As it happens I’ve been keeping a separate weblog specifically about my video gaming over on GameSpot since I’m already using the site and I figure most people around these parts barely tolerate me babbling about video games in a disconnected observer kind of way and really would flee in droves if I started yammering about how last night’s gaming session went.

However, if you’re one of the precious few individuals who actually would be interested in something like that or perhaps you’re just masochistic enough to read pretty much anything I happen to belch into a text editor, I’ve included a link to the blog and a link to the RSS feed over in the Meta section yonder left column.

Now let us speak no more of these alternate writing outlets.

You be the judge. [Thanks, Ryan]

Slashdot is carrying a story about the new JJ Abrams-directed Star Trek movie casting Matt Damon as a young Captian James T. Kirk.

Now, I’m not a huge Trekkie. I do like Star Trek—as a card-carrying geek it’s part of the bylaws—but I don’t obsess on it the way some folks do. Still, I like the original series (campy old SF TV gets the thumbs up) and The Next Generation was often very good and occasionally awesome. Deep Space Nine was intriguing but I sort of drifted away from it during the initial run and I haven’t made time to go back and watch it on DVD yet. Voyager and Enterprise somehow inspired no interest from me and I haven’t see a movie since Generations, probably because it wasn’t very good and didn’t bode well for the direction they were taking the series. Honestly if you think about it most of what Rick Berman has done to the series has made me like it a lot less than I might have otherwise. Roddenberry knew what he was doing. Berman’s a hack. And that ain’t opinion, baby.

Anyway the point is that JJ Abrams directing a Star Trek movie is intriguing although I fear that Abrams is becoming the new go-to pseudo geek that people tap because of his success with Lost to do stuff that is really wild but popular. The thing is I don’t know that he’s really that guy because what he has done is come up with two very interesting shows with some memorable characters. He’s a start-up guy: He has the good high-concept ideas that get other people’s creative juices flowing. That’s a good thing, entertainment needs people like that.

But what he hasn’t shown any indication of is that he can take existing properties or ideas (including his own) and come up with some way to move them forward past the initial idea point. Alias, anyone? Mission Impossibe 3 (which I haven’t seen but was a huge disappointment in the box office)? I’m not sure that handing the reins to him and saying, “Save our franchise, Mr. Abrams!” is really the correct path to take here.

Especially since they’re talking about doing the flashback thing.

Here’s something funny about SF: It really needs to go forward, as in, toward the future. It sounds strange since most SF is futuristic anyway, but there is more than just this one example of SF universes that have a hard time moving past their own initially fabricated realities. Pushing foward and making up new things to happen to a cast of characters is something that should be obvious in SF but frustratingly often isn’t. Star Wars prequels anyone? The problem lies in the fact that once you start flashing back and doing prequel-type stories you run into the problem of the anticlimax: Since we started with these characters (or this universe or whatever) at some point in the future, some of the dramatic license is sucked out of the stories from the relative past because to a certain extent, we know how it ends.

I once had an English/writing teacher tell me that flashbacks are only useful as tools which shed new light on events happening in the current setting. If they exist solely to flesh out a story that can otherwise be alluded to, better the allusion than the full on exposition in flashback form. What happens with all these Episode Ones and Temple of Dooms and Animatrixes is that things we don’t need to be told in gritty detail are fully fleshed out to the point where we physically can’t form a sense of suspense because we know how it ends. How can you fear for Indiana Jones’ life if you know he lived to experience the events in Raiders of the Lost Ark? Did anyone really need to know for sure that Anakin Skywalker lost most of his limbs and was put into the Darth Vader suit because of lava burning off his limbs? We could have lived our whole lives and never needed to know that particular tidbit, but it was supposed to be the ultimate climax of six hours worth of films.

In the end I don’t care if they cast Matt Damon or Tommy Lee Jones as a young James Kirk: I don’t want them to have to cast a young James Kirk at all. Move on, people. Let’s get on with the story: There are plenty to tell that don’t involve re-visiting characters that have practically been cast as 24/7 reality show stars as much screen time as they’ve had. Isn’t it maybe time for a new group of characters? Why can’t we have the next Next Generation?

• If you haven’t seen the video of Darth Vader being a jerk, you should. As a co-worker pointed out, it’s random but hilarious.
• I’d like to post a snippet of an email I received from Bosslady:
  

  On the Nintendo DS Lite…I actually bought one. I saw it on TV and thought it was cool. It was the commercial with the Brain Age game. I guess they should hire that marketing firm again, since I have never wanted a video game in my life.

  Does this suggest that Nintendo’s plan to expand gaming to non-gamers might be working? As a note, the link to the commercial video is a guess; she didn’t specify anything more descriptive about the ad and that was the best I could find.

• I started working a sort of strange shift at work: They needed someone to help with the early morning coverage while one of our team members is out on personal leave. But I’ve been commuting to work with Nik since she started expanding her hours at her job. So as a compromise I log in from home at 5:00 am and watch the phones, take new tickets and follow up on things until 7:00 when Nik is ready to leave. Then I pack it up and head in to the office like normal only I get off of work sometime around 3:00 pm instead of 5:00. Unfortunately with the two hours of work-time spent doing other things (commuting and lunching) that makes for pretty lengthy days although they’re talking about doing four ten-hour days instead of five eight hour days anyway so maybe I’m just ahead of the game. The weird part is when I’m off at 3:00 Nik still works until 5:00 so I have to figure out a way to fill the time. I’m sure I’ll come up with something.
• If you’re using Netvibes (and you really should be), check out Netvibes Ecosystem. The Sudoku module is really cool.
• If you’ve voted in the poll, you probably noticed that the results looks pretty screwy. Apparently the polling software doesn’t care too much for links in the answers (which is really dumb, by the way). Sorry about that. I could pull the links but it would ruin the effect. Such that it is.
• So the Giants finally snapped their nine-game skid. It’s funny because when baseball season starts I’m in full hockey mode (usually). In a few weeks I’ll be all hyped on football and in a couple of months it will be back to hockey as well. So late July and early August are pretty much the only times I actively follow baseball (I pick it up again in the fall if the Giants or the A’s are in the playoffs). A couple weeks ago I started catching a few Giants games and they beat up on the Padres enough to earn their way to first place in the National League West. Two weeks later they’re in dead last, 3.5 games out. Funny what losing nine games in a row will do to you. I’d suggest that they started losing just because I started watching, but I know that isn’t true. The Giants lose regardless. They lose the way the Red Sox used to lose. Forget the Cubs, the Giants are the new Red Sox. Perpetual losers, revelling in their ability to choke at the last minute, to fall apart right when they need to step it up. Why not? They’re my team, after all.
• A lot of modern pop music is pretty crass, in the way that it is lowest-denominator, self-referential drivel with little redeeming value. But I like pop music in the sense that I like artists who can craft an accessible song provided they can do it in an original way or present within it original ideas. Maybe “original” isn’t even the word since nothing’s original; I can settle for unconventional. If you’re like me, you might want to check out Jem‘s Finally Woken album. It’s good, unconventional pop music and the whole album is solid. I knew it was something worth trying when perpetual death metal advocate HB recommended it to me.