Well Okay so that's Odd

Over the last couple of days I've been feeling really strange. I think it has to do with how much soda I've been drinking. Cutting back on that starting tomarrow. Its just that I ran out of viteman water and I hate going to the store. Speaking of which I need to start buying that shit at Walmart cause Publix seems to think we are all made of money or something. I hate Publix so much, seriously from the bottom of my soul.

Oh well lets move on.

It is 2am! And I had many plans for how to spend this last little bit of wakefullness before heading to sleep and for some reason I am here writing. Strange no? You know from poking around other people's blogs I've come to realize that it is customary to put pictures up that are either pretty or somehow relate to your post. What is up with that? Where did it come from? And where the hell does everyone get their pictures from? I don't like looking at pictures on the internet it infects my brain and I can't stop doing it easily. It feels a bit like crack. I dunno it is just not very enjoyable to me. So my blog will go pictureless.

Though if I were to do it I would prolly just go to google and type in a random word and use the 42nd image. ACTUALLY that does sound like a neat thing to do. Maybe 42 days before Douglas Adam's birthday I could type a random word, use the 42nd image and write a blog about whatever the hell is up there. Though this project seems more suited to Burroughs we'll put those trivial sorts of facts aside. I know Burroughs would of, he's a junkie he does things like that. I'm really not a fan of the beats. Its strange because I really do love arbitrary ramblings. I really really do. Yet, at its core, there seems to be something very toxic about the beats. It isn't anything I could put my finger on, but it is something I always kind of felt long before I understood what exactly the beat movement was or who is a part of it. I came across Howl, Naked Lunch, and some other things at very diffrent times in my life and I always tied them together as similar but never as the same movement. I also was impressed with the way they all seem to have this dark undercurrent of destruction.

Undercurrents of destruction are commonplace in surrealism. It is no accident that Jan Svankmajer adapted Faust and Alice in Wonderland. Faust especially is a highly destructive story, and Alice is filmed with an eye on ruin and despair. But their dispair and the one suffered by the beats always seemed very diffrent to me. For the beats it seemed almost unconsious. Like they didn't realize that they were on a path to utter destruction and no one was really doing anything to stop it. Or something. I don't know. I actually haven't read/studied much of the beats. Their kink is not my own. A lot of people seem to get excited about them for the plain and simple reason that drugs were involved.

Drugs do have that really interesting mystique around them I'm not going to deny it. I mean it is coincidence that I own Spun, Trainspotting, Requiuem for a Dream, Naked Lunch, and Fear and Loathing. I love these movies. I also love mafia movies that show how the inclusion of drugs ruins mafia life. Goodfellas is the perfect example of this though there are others. Still it seems to me that to be fascinated by Naked Lunch because a whole lot of drugs were taken while it was being written is a little sad/odd to me. There is much more to the book than drugs, much like there is much more to each of the movies I mentioned other than drugs. Spun in particular. I love that movie because it really shows this sort of sad, terrible, crumpled group of people who wouldn't actually be that bad if they weren't so fried on meth.

Drugs work in the opposite of sex in a way. Add drugs to something and there will be a subsection of people who are immediately drawn to and fascinated by it. Add a lot of sex to something and people freak out and run. Try bringing up Lost Girls to people who know what it is. I can't tell you the number to times I've gotten immediately dismissive viewpoints solely based on the amount of sex the characters of the book have. They pay no attention to the historical detail, story telling, or the fascinating way he turns three victorian books upside down. Nor does anyone pay atension to the time period the books take place in, or anything else. Their immediate response is RAWR SEX R BAD. Woo my spelling is extra bad tonight! I wonder why?

It occurs to me that there are people who are immediately turned off by drug usage. evan for example. Man I hate starting sentences with his name. But I find him to be more the exception than the rule. It is also founded on something where I find that most people's obsession with drugs is just silly.

Then again I have a complete disinterest in doing them. That is one of those strange things. What is the difference between the people who can do them and walk away, do them and get addicted, and people who don't care about them at all. The people who can do them and just get addicted are the least interesting to me. Its a story we've all heard a thousand times before. However, what about the person who can just start and stop at will. Who will one night do a line of coke, and another night decline because it simply doesn't interest them. See that's interesting. Of course I am of the mind that nothing is so great that I would want to become a slave to it. Nor would I ever take some random drugs offered to me by strangers. Man you don't know what people do with that shit.

Oh well it is one of those fundamentally alien viewpoints. Like the time time I was talking to this swinger dude. I was saying how, "I don't understand what is with your compulsion for extra marital sex". He got offended that I called it a compulsion. Fortunatly, I was on my toes that day and I told him, "See what I mean about an alien mindset, I can't imagine wanting to have sex with most people I meet without it being a compulsion". We didn't get much further because he had to go and I never saw him again. Still it was interesting though. Truth be told I think I hit a little close to home with the compulsion thing.

No matter. I think part of a relationship is finding someone who will enable your desires while accepting your flaws, and vice versa of course. Yes of course there is more to relationships than that. That just happens to be a nice part of them. Its why I decided that I wasn't dating any non geek girls anymore. They just don't get it, and I mean after fighting all those years with my parents and then with other various girlfriends I had enough. They got do so something be it read comics, play video/bord games, roleplay, just something. Something where they have a hobby, a thing that they do and enjoy so that they understand that yes I want to spend this much money on little plastic figures rather than something practical. Or something like that. Man I don't even know what some of those fights were about. WHATEVER. No wannabie geeks either. There is nothing I hate more than when people will take a superficial interest in what I am doing just so that they can get closer to me. That is a quick way to piss me off. I once chewed out a cell phone salesman for that. That and he was being a dick to one of his employees. On the one hand I feel bad for cell phone sales people, on the other hand when I say no thankyou, then I hear a manager start badgering the poor girl because she didn't chase after me like an asshole, that's when the self rightous dickhead in me rears forth.

I hate shitty managers.

Moving on again. As expected this has been a rough week. Apparently my body is dealing with depression by shutting the fuck down. Though I seriously ate a dumptruck full of food today so I guess I am good to go again which is nice. I really want to get back to work on the post modern porn thing. I am having a little trouble focusing my attacks. So I figgure I will just start writting then I will take out the good parts and rebuild around those while discarding the bad. I've just been really loopy and out of it these past couple of days. I've also temporarly gone back to working 40hours a week. I am mildly annoyed.

I also need to shave. This is because one of my sub bosses is starting a shit storm with another sub boss about appearence. I don't fucking know why. What I do know is that I don't want or need to be anywhere near it. I also just realized via twitter how absolutly absurd and petty the whole situation is. These people need to get lives. Everything is more important than Judy's lip ring I promise you.

Bah these are people you can't reason with. I'd get a new job but I realize that they are everywhere, unavoidable, and usually in charge. This is something I will never understand but holy crap when you stand up to them they just don't know what to do. It occurs to me that there is a severe lack of leadership in our society. I am not talking politics but in everyday normal life. Not a whole lot that can be done about that though. It does remind me I need headphones, if for no other reason than the porno jazz that they play at books a million is slightly annoying.

Well okay then its three and I am out of superficial things I want to talk about. Next month a new akira book comes out, a new vtes expansion, and all sorts of other stuff. What the fuck febuary.
Peaches

Oh well these things do happen

Its funny. Sometimes when things are pretty low I sometimes think that if I cured my migrains my depression would be cured as well. Or vice versa. It is a nice thought. However, my migrains are caused by an unknown factor, lack of sleep, certain odors, and stress. My depression is a large black cloud that floats around in the back of my head and sometimes it ends up in the front of my head for a visit. One is precicise excruciating pain that really does make me redefine the term unbearable. Whereas depression just sort of sits there like a 30 ton load stone which drags me down.

At the moment I am depressed. However! It isn't so bad relatively speaking. I am not pointlessly angry at Sasha over nothing. I do that shit, it is terrible and sad. I'm glad that I'm not doing that now, and I wish it were something I'd never do again. Heck I am not really angry or lashing out at anyone. Tis nice. I felt this growing in the back of my skull for awhile now, and the wave ended up cresting on Tuesday. Now I am just stuck in the undertow. Not even anime club cheered me up, and mostly for their protection I remained withdrawn for the evening. Oh well.

This bout isn't that bad, it certainly isn't the worst I've ever had which is nice. Everytime this happens to me there is that deep down secret little fear of, "what if this doesn't go away this time? What if I stay stuck like this forever?" The answer? Well I'd take up drinking and bad poetry. The combonation of the three would result in the dissolusion of my current relationship but I would exchange it with lots and lots of uninhibited sex.

As a strange aside I was talking to two girls the other day about long disatance relationships. One girl I like and I am glad I met her. The other girl I half like and I am glad that I don't talk to her outside of work. Anyway both were talking about how they have needs and that they wouldn't be able to handle a long distance relationship. Its funny though. See, I explained to them that I could pretty easily open my relationship up. I wouldn't be hard. I would just have to look her in the eyes and say to her, "Look I miss you and as a result I need to get my pole waxed by girls who I don't like enough to date/love/take care of, but I do want to fuck. You don't mind right?". She would say it would be okay and I would see the hurt in her eyes but that's okay because I could just fuck that pain away with some other girl. Yeah see that isn't worth it. Its sad because one of those girls I was talking to was like 32, and she hasn't figgured out that there are some people worth sacrificing imeaditate gratification for. Oh well. The shit I do isn't for everyone and I hope her own path is a happy one.

Anyway. Back on topic. Its strange. I cured my whole anemia thing with just one pill, it was amazing how quick and easy it went. So it is almost like maybe I could do the same thing with the migrains and everything else. Or something like that. It is a nice fantasy that I don't think I'll indulge in for to much longer.

So anyway. This shit needs to be over by Tuesday evening. That should be enough time. Tonight I clean up the hause a bit. Cleaning always makes me feel better, at the very least it is productive and it keeps me moving and when I am finished it looks like I did something. So I am down with all of these things. Sunday night I am going to do laundery. Again something nice, productive, and feel bettery. It also gets me out of the house. Sunday is also my night of choice because Books A million closes early. Anyway yeah. Saturday night I think I am going to try and write or something. Something creative and productive. Maybe another SLA bpn. Or I could shore up a couple of the other ones I wrote. Something like that.

Oh well at least my Kingdom of Loathing run is going well. I should be in aftercore by saturday evening. YAY! Hooray for small favors I guess.

Alright back to work I go or something like that.

Insurgancy

America is a funny place. I'm not sure how many are active and I am in a crappy mood so you can go look it up your fucking self, but there are a shit ton of anti government organizations running around in the US. It's strange because they people vocally hate the government, and sometimes black people. They rail against the current establishment and hell some of them even stock pile weapons. There are large numbers of people who live in fortified compounds in the woods with amassed weapons. Sometimes this goes tits up on them like in Waco. However, for the most part we have these large groups of people who can snap at any moment an cause huge amounts of damage. Oklahoma city was two people. No financial backing or training. Two people who leveled a building. Imagine what could happen if a 100 of these fuckers decided it was time to rise up. Sure sure they would be beaten down like dogs eventurally, but not before throwing a couple of major cities in complete disarray and causing untold amounts of deaths.

So why don't they?

See when we look at the stuff going on in Iraq, Afganastan, Pakastan, or what have you maybe we should take a peek into our own back yard. It isn't religious fervor, I mean these organizations are almost universally christian in origin and ideology. So it has to be some other factor. There is something that is keeping these people in check, some sort of social pressure, or some sort of fear, there is something. Something that keeps these people in check, and makes other people strap dynamite to their chests and charge a cafe. I think learning the diffrences between the taliban and our own collection of insurgent organizations is key to understanding the conflict there and dealing with conflict here.

It is one of those stunningly simple ideas that no one has really picked up on. But I mean good god damn we got some scary people running around our country. There has to be some reason why they aren't acting on their hate, fear and anger.

This kinda goes back to all the research I did into Neo Nazism/KKK awhile back. They always talked about the future, where the war is going to happen. The great war of the races or something like that. He said the war will start when the races unnite, the blacks will seize power, and the jewish banker conspiracy will take down the finacial system. It wasn't to much latter that we had a finacial crash with a black president. You know I half expected a waco style flair up of violence but it didn't happen. The thin is though is that they didn't talk to the real leaders of any movements. They talked to people who were more interested in putting up a respectable front, people who masked their fear and ignorance with a snappy uniform along with shouting Hail Hitler. What is up with people who still shout that, the main is dead there is no reason to shout that anymore. Find a new charismatic leader and shout his name. Good heavens.

Ignoring the looser brigade though there are people out there who are legitimatly really fucking scary. Figguring out why they are marauding would be advantageouse. After all the Taliban has shown the world that we really suck at stopping gurilla tactics. Eh okay I am fucking starving. Home times activate!

Hrmph

I shouldn't be here right now. I shouldn't be. I should be in the car. I don't like the car but I should be there. I should be crossing through Alabama into Mississippi and eventually into New Orleans. I should be walking through rain slicked streets looking for a place called Ruby Fruit, I should be getting a hug from the only person I really want one from. Instead I am in Books a Million.

I'm over it for the most part. The senario I just played out for you above will happen on Tuesday night, 6 days from now. I won't be looking for Ruby Fruit though but whatever. Delays happen, and in all other times I have handled them with varying amounts of grace. This one however, I am handleing the worst. This is because I can't go because of work. See work is one of those things. I generally let it have as little effect on the rest of my life as humanly possible.

So when my boss told me I had to come in on my day off for an hour long meeting I told him to take a flying leap. When I was asked the other week to come in on my day off I told them "no". I rarely if ever stay after to help out. My job is there to support my life, it is not to unduely interfere with my life nor is it my life. Most people seem to get this backwards.

Most people seem to think that work is life. One time I had to sit my mom down and explain the diffrence. She still doesn't get it, that's okay though. My boss also doesn't seem to understand what is so horrible about having to come in on my day off so he can drone on about things I don't give a fly fuck about. Its sad in a way because I do think that work is the sum total of his life and he is lost without it.

No matter. So yeah I am annoyed, but it is one of those things where my hands are tied. Calling in would more or less break the uneasy truce I have with the idea of work. Explaining the uneasy truce would take to long and I don't understand it all myself. I know enough about it that it is fundamentally hypocritical, flawed, and if I talk to much about it I will realize the full depths of both of these things fly off the handle and get myself fired.

AND SO! It is one of those things I try not to question to hard. I'm still grumpy though, and more than a little sad.

Most of my initial anger I took out on someone at work who deserved it. So that's always nice. Then I read War of the Kings, which was relaxing and FUN! I've also been playing a lot of Dwarf Fortress. Man I love that game. It is why I am here actually. Were I to go home right now I would prolly re-read war of the kings, andf play Dwarf Fortress all night long. However, I want to take a stab at doing something productive so I'm... bitching.

Oh well I guess I should move onto a topic...yeah it will get its own post.

Not Candy Corn

The Secret Warriors. Its the prefect idea really. It is Nick Fury's return to the forefront of the marvel universe with all the piss and vinegar that is associated with him. Man Nick Fury is one of the few things I really love about the Marvel Universe. Back in the day he is low brow pulp action at its absolute finest. When written right he is a bastard who gets the job done no matter what the cost. He is athe sort of person who rides a motorcycle through a window, guns in each hand, mowing down the bad guys. He gets laid constantly. He is the ultimate spy.

So now he is back. In his own shiny new book and there I am sitting around reading it. Then it happens. And all the sudden I understand.

See when people talk about the Marvel Civil War they usually fall into two camps. My camp that is primaraly focused on the fact that we are all happy that the marvel universe is no longer a frightfully boring place and now something interesting is on, and the camp that sees charecters they have loved and charished for years being fantastically altered to fit a new world view. These people are still angry. Personally I think they should move with the times.

I still think this way because, you know, why not. Anyway I kinda of get it now. See in the secret warriors all the sudden Nick Fury makes a starteling realization, he has been working for Hydra the whole time. TO put this in perspective it would be like GI JOE secretly working for Cobra, or James Bond secretly working for the russians. Potentially this is a brilliant twist, it brings tension and drama back into the series, and gives the fights some sweet personal touch that is always fun. See and it could work, if say Iron Man found out a lot of his stock was owned by Hydra, or if the Fantastic 4 discovered they have accidently made some tech for them, or even if Hydra had been pulling the strings of the Avengers. However, this isn't the case. Instead Hydra has been pulling Shield's strings. In a way it works. It works if you've never read anything about Nick Fury or Shield before. At that point it works perfectly, he breaks into a data cache, grabs some secret information, and makes a discovery, goes on rampage. It works.

However, Nick made it his buisness to know everything that went on at shield. That is just what he did. So the idea that he has never visited this paticular data core where the information is stored is just bad. It makes him look like an idiot who has been played his whole life instead of one of the greatest soldiers ever to walk the earth.

Like I said a better role for Iron Man.

The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth. The thing is that the rest of the comic is fantastic, the action is well done, there is moral ambiguity, and there is Nick Fury taking the low road and still getting the job done no matter who it pisses off. It is a good book and once I get over my silly prejudices I am going to really enjoy it. I guess that's the way of it though.


Backing up to the civil war I gotta say that I still stand behind it being a great event. It made the marvel universe interesting again, and it has shaped events for literally years. YEARS. The whole thing was done with a purpose. Not only that but the books itself took a moral stand against the side that Won. All the pro registration people now have serious egg in their faces now that a fucking super villian is running everything. More to the point, it shows what happens when we give into fear and ignorance. The whole arch is a brilliantly played out satire of what happens when people follow instead of act.

Maybe that last sentence is wrong. So lets start breaking things down. First an accident on par with the Hiddenburg happened. This is divergent from other books that explore the same topic. Sometimes, super heros are banned because they make people uncomfortable (watchmen), sometimes it is because superman goes crazy (powers), but this is just a balls to the wall acident which caused the deaths of a school bus full of children.

The solution is to make all heroes register. Set up a government program, train them up, make them accountable, have heroes in every state the whole deal. The problem was that this really hurt street level heroes like Daredevil, Spiderman, and the Punsiher. Some of these heroes have families, some of them have lost families to super villain attacks. Were something to happen and the information get out they had a lot to loose.

On the other side were people like Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic who have been operating out in the open for years without problems. I mean the frantastic 4 have a giant building in the middle of a city with a big ass 4 on the side of it. Everyone knew where they lived and what they did there.

However, there was a third side. A side that doesn't get talked about very often. This is the side that is to powerful to care. Most of these people showed up either after the war, or in the middle. Thor for example, he kicked Stark's ass when Stark tried to get him to register, the Eternals blew Iron Man off as if he didn't matter (and truely he didn't), Namor doesn't even like dealing with the surface world and on it goes. These people bring a dynamic to the war and its after effects which is most interesting. See super heroes have always been concepts that are above the law. On some sort of level we realize that they shouldn't be doing the whole hero thing, and we watch as they go through the motions of establinshing their reasons for doing so. So when it becomes against the law to be a hero unless you are getting a government check, what do you do when there are people who are above the law? A law enforced by other heroes? It doesn't work.

Captin America didn't give up, rather he realized that Stark would burn down half the damn world if he kept fighting and that is when he realized that this is a war of the heart not of fists. However, before he could convince anyone he was shot.

They almost lost the secret invasion because they had a difficult time getting a unified front going, and now with Norman running things all the sudden registration seems like it is the same bad idea most people made it out to be.

Alright I'm done, I haven't really been into this very much tonight. Sorry. It's been kinda a day. Oh well.

Comic book roundup round whatever

This was going to be short because I had to go back to work from lunch but now I am home, my tummy and head hurts, and I feel like doing this. So now all of that is happening. Awesome!

Things read!

DMZ book 7 - This book is good! Really good! Let's put it this way, the book used to be on the instant buy ZOMG so good list. However, book 4 was kinda lack luster, book 5 wasn't very good at all, and 6 reverted to I'm 16 and mad at my mother. Seven though the series recaptures its stride and it seems to be back on track. It had a fantastic little two part story, and a decent 4 part story that advanced the main plot, and a one shot that had the medic girl running around. So first of all it made for quite a meaty read. So I guess ts back to that series for me.

One of the things that really makes this volume stand out from the other two is that Brian Wood really spreads out and gives himself space to let his fantastic prose style run rampant. Prose in comic books is a strange beast, and it is amazing how much information people can pack into a word bubble or a tiny box. Brian Wood is paticularly good at doing this, but for whatever reason he hasn't been doing it recently. Glad to see he is back at it again though. He brilliantly captures the desperate beauty of the warzone and desprite the fact that how hard life is there people make do with the best they can. Still, it is the little side things that make this series sing, I really wish the main story would just go away or something, I dunno. I'm picking this one and the next one up though that is for sure.

Secret Warriors- Its good but it requires more space than I have here really to effectivly talk about it. I mean the man who wrote this book is basicly writting the entire marvel universe, by himself. It seems like as he goes on he is writing more and more. People give him murderous amounts of flack for some of the changes he's been making and for the first time I understand why. He moves around the marvel universe like a kid with hammer. He smashes whatever he wants to and rebuilds from there. Now he is the man directly responciple for me caring about what goes on in the marvel universe again so I cut him mucho slack. But man...MAN I am starting to see where lots of people are coming from. More on that later though.

Road to The Siege- This book is good if you haven't been paying atension to anything that has been happening in the marvel universe at all since the Secret Invasion. Otherwise just grab, Dark Avengers (great read) and The List (I'll get to it next week) and you will know everything you need to. Disapointing. Sometimes these books are really good, like the Road to the Civil War or Road to War of the Kings. They do a great job of catching the reader up on the current events. However, the lead up to the Siege and the events surrounding the Siege are compact enough so that you don't really need a lead in book. The same thing happened with the Accept Change Trade where they introduce the Dark Reign. Strange, in fact I think both trades share a number of stories. I dunno not even worth writing about.

Authority: World's End- After Millar left the Authority it went rocketing down hill at the speed of light. It then crashed into rock bottom, bounced a few times and came skidding to a halt right next to the world's end. Well okay after the world's end. From what I can gather, the carrier crashed into the planet and brought an alternate reality with it. Bad shit y0. I picked it up because Dan Abbet and Andy Landing wrote it and they did a brilliant job with the marvel space stuff. Let me say that again because it is worth emphasizing, they did a fucking brilliant job with the marvel space stuff bringing it from hokey and stupid to some of the most amazing hero comics put out by either Marvel or DC. Seriously, their work is amazing. Then again their work on the Punisher was ultra average so...

Fortunatly, they manage to make the Authority interesting again. A lot has happened to them apparently. The Doctor is no where to be found, and Jenny Quantum is also conspicuously vanished. Still both of these charecters were of only minor concern to me. As is how the world managed to get itself ended. From the looks of things it was the Authority that actually did it so I am down with that. MOVING RIGHT ALONG, what drew me into the story is that it is, for all intentents and purposes, a post apocalyptic story. Apollo and Midnighter are separated, Apollo has to stay up near the sun because of a cloud that is covering the earth and Midnighter? Well you know he can't survive in space, or fly and stuff. So their contact is limited. I always cringe when I see the two of them hit the page, they are comic's premire gay duo and I am always terrified that some writer will not be able to handle it, or fucking it up somehow. Ellis for example largely ignored their homosexuality. Okay ignored is the wrong word. Rather the two of them were gay, but nothing special was really ever done about it. Suprisingly enough it was Mark Millar who took their relationship and made it special. I really like that. I mean the two of them share some really wonderful moments throughout Millar's run and it genuinely makes me happy to see them together.

Abett and Landing really manage to knock it out of the park though. Holy crap the moments they spend together, while brief is just so amazingly sweet that it is worth the ticket price just for those couple of pages alone. When he wants to talk the Midnighter sends up a balloon. You really just have to see it, it just so stupidly tender and they really get the idea of love pulling through the apocalypse. Its a good statement.

I am greatly looking forward to the next volume which comes out in March. As a result I began poking around the Authority trades to see if there was anything else worth reading. Apparently Brubaker did a run! YAY and it looks solid so I'll be getting that because he is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers.

So I'll be looking into that pronto. Poking around it looks as if the Authority runs haven't been as dire as I thought, moar investigation is in order.

Start Trek TNG

Considering I recently power patched a couple of seasons of star trek I should take some time and write about it. I mean after all I did spend a lot of time doing it and it is one of those core things that makes me a geek. Going back and rewatching the first season I got to understand a little bit of the show. It is clear that none of the writers knew what they were doing. An example would be when they came upon some alien ship they had never seen before and he tells Jorde to go get a better look at it. Now logically you would think this would involve a shuttle craft, or a probe, or some sort of gadget. Instead he ran to a window and started out of it for a minut using his fancy eye visors. I think the fact that hs fancy eye visors have scanning ability that is above and beyond a state of the art galaxy class star ship is a little crazy. But that's how it was in the early days of the show. The holodeck was just a place where people could go and look at nature images and there was a real honest to goodness sense of exploration, and exparamentation. Not just within the cast but also within the writting. They were carving out the history of a new future, and there were things they didn't understand, like Data. People talk about how everyone knows how to do everything in star trek and yet there sits someone who no one properly understands.

More so than anything else the main thing I noticed is how much extra crap everyone on the enterprise does. The episodes will start with people playing instruments, painting, riding horses, building a model ship, fencing, or just plain old reading. Even throughout the episode they will show Picard contimplatng math equations that have no answer. There people were more than just explorers they had hobbies, interests, they were a ship of geeks and the show did an excelent job showing what it would be like to live in an isolated area with disciplined people who were all really interested in things.

Ultimatly, that is my favorite part of the show, the thing that redeems it over everything else. These were people who are more than their jobs, they are interested in the past, in music, literature, poetry, and exploration. This is the way exploration should be, not all capitalism and shit.

Oh well that's that really.

Around season three they reached their stride and episodes became more formulatic