T-shirt #72: Science Blue STNG & Star Trek: Into DarknessThis is a relatively new T-shirt. I bought it after some beef juice was splattered on my other Blue Science Star Trek shirt (featured in T-shirt #11), and I feared that the stain was too noticeable.
This is the shirt: Star Trek: The Next Generation Science Emblem Costume Men's T-Shirt.
Yes, yes, the original series shirt is not the same as the STNG shirt. I KNOW. Big deal. Now I have both.
Yesterday, I went to see the new Star Trek film: Star Trek: Into Darkness.
For today's blog entry, I will share various random thoughts on Star Trek.
If it's not obvious already, I love Star Trek. I have posted on Star Trek four times so far in the seventy-two day history of this blog: T-shirt #39, T-shirt #13, T-shirt #11, and T-shirt #4. This makes time number five. I currently own two more Star Trek T-shirts for a total of seven. I suspect that this number may soon increase. Is ten too many? Lucky 13?I loved Star Trek: Into Darkness. I am not going to attempt a review here as there are many reviews available on the web, such as my favorite go-to geek blog by Charles Skaggs: Damn Good Coffee and HOT!
Here are three other notable reviews
GIZMODO
Ain't It Cool
Geek Of Doom
SPOILER ALERT: Do not read the next paragraph if you have not seen the film or do not want the film content spoiled: I am not going to review the film. You can do a Google search and read a lot of reviews if you wish to explore. I will say this: I am obviously not as bugged about the revision/retread of Star Trek The Wrath of Khan as some people. One reviewer claimed that you CANNOT re-do the classic death scene of Spock from STWOK. Bullshit. The scene was filmed 30 years ago. Give me a break. Star Trek: Into Darkness is fun. It synthesizes a great amount of Trek lore into a newly spun and intriguing package. The film is a wonderful joy ride for those who know their Trek lore well and a heck of a great action-drama-comedy for those who just like a good movie. But people need to keep their critical chops by not seeming to be push-overs. Whatever.
I post links to Charles Skaggs' blog most often. Check out his review. Charles, I agree: 10 x 10^16%. "LIKE."
MORE RANDOM THOUGHTS
As a kid, I used to play Star Trek games with a plastic toy helmet, a toy phaser, and my "captain's chair" (an old office chair). I also owned some toys (dolls) and play sets. Don't judge me.
As a young boy, I constructed, decaled, and painted many Star Trek models. I gave one to my father as a gift, and it still hangs in his garage (the Galileo Seven Shuttle).
From about 1990-1994, I wrote a Star Trek novel with a friend of mine (F. Greg Andrews), which I used as my MFA project. (Yes, you read that right.) This was my big "F.U." to the "it must be literary or it's crap" mind-wiping, brain washing excrement pandered at most colleges and universities. The book featured Kirk and his original crew and a deadly new weapon. The first line of the book has Kirk crying out: "What do you mean you're going to sell it to the Klingons?" The book made it to the publisher's desk, and our agent told us there was interest in what we had written for the, then, plus-sized novels the company was publishing, such as Enterprise and Spock's World. Alas, we did not get published. Ultimately, our agent did not know what she was doing and a better agent would have been able to steer us a better course to publication. (Either that or our book sucked, and I prefer to believe the former explanation.)
I have attended a couple of Star Trek fan conventions. At one, I saw and briefly shook hands with William Shatner. I also met and spoke with James Doohan (original Scotty: may he rest in peace).
In college, I used to quote random lines from Star Trek TOS with friends and laugh. Favorites: "bitter dregs, bitter dregs" ; "brain, brain, brain. All this talk of brain. What is brain?" ; "Only Ma-coy may touch!"; and "NO MORE BONK BONK ON THE HEAD!" Classics all.
"I am a doctor not a brick layer, dammit!"
I bought a Motorola flip phone a few years ago because it worked like a communicator from Star Trek.
I have watched all the Star Trek TV shows, even all the episodes of Enterprise. I may be one of the few people on the planet who actually liked the Enterprise theme song and sang along each time an episode began.
After two episodes of Star Trek the Next Generation, I declared that it was awful crap and I hated it. I stopped watching and did not resume until late in season two when it began to pick up (after they killed Tasha Yar). By then, I was hooked. I kept watching and did not stop. I caught up on the re-runs of what I had missed, too.
In the 1990s, a back log of Deep Space Nine and Voyager episodes plus a great deal of re-watching kept me sane as I wrote a massive research project for a reference book company, logging days of writing for 12-16 hours while playing one episode after another to keep me from losing my mind. Star Trek is very verbal. When the characters are not talking, often, there's kissing or battles with phasers or torpedos that provide a brief respite for the eyes from all the writing.
Insane as I may be, I DO NOT own all the Star Trek on DVD or have quite as many doo-dads as many crazy Trek fans.
Two years ago, my wife gave me a Star Trek flask as a gift. I keep whisky in it.
Star Trek makes me happy.
I am very happy.
- chris tower - 1306.01 - 15:06
