WTF Files - Facebook Advertising

I am guessing that the combination of having my sex, male, and relationship status, single, is what drives the almost constant parade of "score dates now!!!" ads with pictures of rather well endowed young women on the right side of the Facebook display. I am willing to suffer through this as they eye-candy is about as good as it gets during the work day, although I have always been a little suspicious of whether the hotties advertised are actually available through the various sites which pimp "Hot Christian Girls," which lets face it EVERY guy reads as "Yummy Catholic School Girls-R-Us" (or is that just me?). They are a little TOO pretty and a little TOO busty for me to believe.

Now I finally have proof that my suspicious were not completely unfounded as this series of pictures appeared on my Facebook page just an hour ago:


Take a look at the girl in the center photograph. Before anything else I have to say that I would LOVE to date a chick who could pull off a form-fitting garment with such, well, curvaliciousness, and I do like the short hair, but she might look familiar to a few of you out there. No? Perhaps this picture will help you out:


Still drawing a blank? Fine, hows about this picture:


Yeah, according to the Facebook advert, the H-O-T-N-E-S-S that is Jolene Blalock, who played the Vulcan T'Pol in Enterprise, is single and Christian. I can't speak to the Christian bit; however I am pretty sure she is still married to her music exec husband, Michael Rapino. (If not, she is welcome to give me a call. I am youngish, available, willing to be a happy house-husband and I TOTALLY make her look even hotter by comparison.

I was thinking of writing something about the attractiveness of dating a Vulcan here, but when I had it done it just made me sound kind of pathetic so I think I will just leave well enough alone; although there is something attractive about dating a girl who isn't going to get all emotional on your ass.

Oh yeah, because I love you guys here is a link to a collection of Jolene Blalock galleries. Don't say I never did anything for you chuckleheads!

Random Linkbloggery and YouTubing

Here is some random stuff I have stumbled across in the past week that I thought you kids might find interesting.

Wil pointed us all to the FLICKR group Growing Up Star Wars where one can add their pictures of Star Wars related shenanigans. Original triology only, please. The person who posts the first Jar Jar Binks will be summarily executed.

One of the cats over at the Star Trek Phase 2 forum pointed out these Trek motivational posters. While on the whole they are not as amusing as these motivational posters and a bit flatulence-centric even for my tastes (and that is saying something), this one, this one, and this one had me laughing till I cried. Of course here is my entry in to the realm of Star Trek motivational posters:

Then there is this bit of genius from Terry over at Bent Objects. I keep meaning to write about how much I LOVE his art but thing like YouTube and the Google machine keep distracting me. Bastards! Personally I am looking forward to his forthcoming book and have a no longer secret desire to commission the topper for my wedding cake from this guy.

Nikki shared this bit from YouTube which, I feel, truly demonstrates how I approach humor. About two minutes in this thing gets old but then by the end of the clip I found myself laughing so hard I almost peed myself:

And then, courtesy of Kevin, there is this video from Rex The Dog:


Bubblicious from Rex The Dog on Vimeo.

I really like the low tech approach to what a song which is some where on the borderlands of electronica. This also reminded me of what a friend once told me when I was pitching a stop-motion animation idea his way: "Stop-motion is something you do when your girlfriend has dropped your ass and all you can do is lock yourself in a room for six months. Normal people can't do it."

An item which is completely unrelated to anything else here. It just came to my attention that South Korea has a Ministry of Knowledge Economy. I cannot decide whether this sounds deliciously Orwellian or deliciously Stalinist, however I love the name and this it is tasty either way.

Someone should buy me this to go with my little Takeda Shingen helmet I bought when I was in Japan. Ever since I read The Samurai's Tale by Erik Christian Haugaard I have been fascinated by Japan, samurai culture, and specifically the rise and fall of Takeda Shingen. Heck, my favorite Kurosawa film, Kagemusha, deals with the aftermath of Takeda Shingen's death. If you have even the tiniest of desires to check out either the book or the movie, I can unreservedly recommend both of them and I'll let you in on a little secret; they both make me cry.

A couple of weeks ago Danny Choo of Tokyo Dance Trooper fame made a post titled "Tokyo Photo Walk 3" to his blog however since his blog is blocked by the Websense firewall at work, I only just got around to reading this post. While I love the pictures and am jealous of his mad night-photog skillz, it is the text which really spoke to me. In the text he talks about fear and not letting fear limit you, something that I struggle with every day. You ought to bop on over there and check it out. Of course clearly the guy who can do this has no fear:



Okay, I have watched this more than once since it popped up on the net and I just noticed something. After the Shibuya 109 title, right at the 1:10 mark of the video, watch the couple entering from the right of the screen. On one foot the guy has a normal shoe and but WTF is on his right foot? Also I have totally been to Hachiko crossing!

Thanks for the encouraging words and dance moves Danny!

Kitumba Teaser Poster Released

Some months ago it was announced that the next episode of Star Trek Phase 2 to go before the camera was going to be John Meredyth Lucas' "Kitumba" which is a Klingon-centric script which centers around the Enterprise travelling to the Klingon home system on a secret mission. You can read a very brief synopsis of the script at Memory Alpha and a much longer one in the now out-of-print Star Trek: Phase II - The Making of the Lost Series, a book which is a fascinating read even without the episode synopsis'. The production team has released the teaser poster created by Jeff Hayes of PlasmaFire Graphics and I thought I would share with you:

You can d/l an approximately 8.5X11 version of the poster here.

"Enemy: Starfleet" Teaser

Here is a quick teaser scene from the forthcoming Phase 2 episode "Enemy: Starfleet"



This is the episode I was fortunate enough to work on this past June and I am SOOO looking forward to seeing the final product!

In this bit Alersa is played by BarBara Luna. While I was on-set I had the unique privilege of being Luna's (she insists we call her Luna) assistant for the duration of her stay. One of the very first things I did after I was assigned as Luna's PA was run lines with her. This was the scene we were reading through and it was very difficult for me to keep a straight face when I came to the line, "Call me...Jim." I also had to fight the urge to Shatner the line up. Doesn't it just beg for a Shatner-esque delivery?

Star Trek: Phase 2 Update - 12-22-08

The Phase 2 team has finally released the first part of "Blood and Fire" to the general public. I had the opportunity to see a rough cut of this episode when I was on set this summer and as much as I enjoyed the episode then, I REALLY enjoyed watching the final cut after I downloaded it last night.

• You can access the official download page here. This has several download options available.
• Here is Anthony Pascale's review on TrekMovie.com. The review is spoileriffic and this continues in the comments.

This episode has generated quite a bit on controversy in fandom due to the inclusion of gay crewmen and I have to say that while I did find the scene between Peter and Alex a little too long, I know it pays off in part two of the episode. And the bloodworms? Ewwwww.

In other Phase 2 news, they released an official DVD ISO for their third episode, "World Enough and Time" which features the return of George Takei to the role of Hikaru Sulu. Written by Michael Reaves and Marc Scott Zicree, the script was nominated for the SFWA Nebula award, a nomination which caused some controversy (you can read more about that here). Additionally the episode was nominated for a Hugo award and won the T.V. Guide Online Video award beating out such professionally produced shows as the BSG webisodes. In the beginning Phase 2 would release high-quality DVD ISOs of the episodes for download however there was a problem with people d/l'ing the episodes and then selling DVDs at cons. Since this practice could put the agreement between Phase 2 and CBS/Paramount the powers that be at Phase 2 decided to stop releasing the DVD-quality ISOs. This is a pleasant return to days of yore and one that I hope is here to stay.

• You can access the official download page here.

Blood and Fire Trailer

The Star Trek: Phase 2 crew has finally set a release date for the first part of their next episode Blood and Fire. The script for Blood and Fire, of BaF as it is referred to, was originally written by David Gerrold* for Star Trek: The Next Generation however TPTB decided that certain facets of the story were too controversial for Star Trek and thus the script was never produced. The Blood and Fire script lensed by Phase 2 was significantly expanded and altered to set the story in Kirk's time and take advantage of the expanded cast present in the Phase 2 world. I had the privilege of watching rough cuts of both parts of BaF and you are in for a treat when part 1 hits on December 20th. Here is the trailer for part 1 of David Gerrold's Blood and Fire:

For more about this episode you can check out these links:

• Here is a selection of behind the scenes photos from the shoot.


• Here is a report on the showing of the rough cut at the Shore Leave convention in July.


• Here is a link where you can download the first four minutes of the episode.

* David Gerrold is best known in Trekkie circles as the author of the classic episode The Trouble with Tribbles however his award-winning novella The Martian Child hit the big screen as a feature starring John Cusack last year. I HIGHLY recommend The Martian Child. At least the movie, I have yet to read the book.

Star(t) Trekkin'

Over the last few weeks the Paramount publicity machine has been indicating that the veil of secrecy surrounding the JJ Abrams helmed re-boot/imaging/wtf-ever-we're-not-calling-it-this-week of Star Trek was going to begin to slip a little. All this is being done in order to build up to the release of the first full trailer for the movie which is going to be attached to the new Bond flick hitting theaters November 7th. (This news has moved the Bond flick from the "maybe I'll make it to the theater to see this movie" to "I guess I'll go either Saturday or Sunday." I am also hoping there will be a Rain Fall trailer attached to the movie but I suspect that is still going to be a Japan-only thing for a while.) The first major step in peeling back the veil was a release of several pictures to several different websites including UGO, AICN and TrekMovie.com. The second step was a cover story in the issue of Entertainment Weekly which should be hitting the stands today.

I think we all know what is really going to happen as this veil is pulled back for the fans.

That's right.

Let's get ready to RAMPAGE!

Okay, maybe there was too much build up here because I really just want to cut to the chase. I thought it would take a little time for a fan to go for the most obscure canon complaint possible. Boy howdy was I wrong. It took less than a day for someone to go FTW on this one; and I quote, "I just realized, doesn’t Captain Kirk have hazel eyes? Did they decide he didn’t look good with contacts on."

I was hoping to have a little fun with this but seriously? Four comments in and we're already talking about the color of Kirk's eyes? Oh Trek fandom how I underestimated your powers. I promise it will never happen again.

Also, for the record, I am TOTALLY looking forward to this movie and am firmly planted in the, "Let's wait and see how it is before we get the torches and pitchforks," camp.

BOOK REVIEW - House of Cards

House of Cards (Star Trek: New Frontier #1)
Peter David
Pocket Books, 1997
168 pages

I suppose it is a good thing when my biggest complaint about a book is the value proposition in buying the book itself, something we have seen in my other book reviews so this should be old-hat for you guys. With a cover price of $3.99, which is a purchase price of $4.32 after taxes, I would like to think that I am getting more than the approximately 168 story pages offered by this book. As I am typing this it occurs to me that I buy comics every week which offer only 22 story pages for a dollar less so maybe I should just shut the hell up on this particular topic. Perhaps it is best if we just move on to the actual contents of the book and forget this ever happened, shall we?

House of Cards introduces us to the new characters of M'k'n'zy, a Xenexian freedome fighter cum Starfleet officer, and Soleta an half-Romulan half-Vulcan scientist who seems to, despite her desire to be Vulcan, have a slightly rebellious streak to her. The book begins twenty years in the past with M'k'n'zy, who eventually changes his name to Mackenzie to get around people mispronouncing his name, as he fights the Danterian occupiers of his home planet as a teen. I will admit that at first I was concerned with how this might turn out, particularly since rather than just a short chapter this introduction to M'k'n'zy takes up over a quarter of the book, however in the end David's storytelling instincts were correct and this introduction does an excellent job of creating the character who will be central to the forthcoming tales.

After introducing us to M'k'n'zy, David then spends about twenty pages introducing us to Soleta and another twenty or so introducing us to Selar, the Vulcan medical officer who appeared in the TNG episode "The Schizoid Man," before we are finally brought to the present day (that being the time shortly after the events depicted in Star Trek First Contact). In the present we meet several familiar faces from the Enterprise-D as well as Admirals Jellico and Nechayev and are brought up to speed on the collapse of the Thallonian Empire, the ensuing humanitarian concerns, and Starfleet's response, which is to dispatch a single ship to observe and render aid where necessary.

When it was published in 1997 House of Cards represented a new and risky venture in the Star Trek universe. Peter David, John J. Ordover and Pocket Books were going to slip free of the bonds of Star Trek's familiar characters and explore new main characters, moving beyond the various cults of personality that each individual Star Trek series represents and pushing Star Trek as a setting and a theme. This was a risky move, despite the acclimation David's work had met with in fandom, due to the nature of Star Trek fandom. As I rule I dislike lumping a diverse group of people together however, with the notable exception of hardcore Transformers fanboys (and don't get me started on those chowderheads) Star Trek fans seem to truly be the most hidebound and vocal fans in sci fi, often dismissing new things out of hand before even giving them a chance to succeed or fail on their own merits.* Fortunately for all concerned it appears that the New Frontier experiment succeeded, quite possibly beyond anyone's expectation. With sixteen New Frontier novels now published, the recent release of the first New Frontier comic from IDW and the start of the Vanguard line of novels in 2005 it seems that perhaps fandom is more open minded than I give it credit for. Of course it does not hurt that this initial book was an enjoyable read. It was nice to escape the familiar faces and concentrate on new characters and new stories.


* For example look at all of the hubbub about J.J. Abrams changing the design of the Enterprise for the new movie, much of it coming before 99.99% of fandom had seen ANY smidge of the ship. I would also like to note that this sort of attitude is THE EXACT OPPOSITE of the ideals enshrined at the core of Star Trek. I think there are some interesting parallels between hardcore and hidebound Trekkies who have lost sight of the forest for the trees and many modern Christians who have done the same and this just furthers the idea that radicals of ANY stripe are not a good thing.

BOOK REVIEW - World Without End

World Without End
Joe Haldeman
Bantam, 1979
150 pages

World Without End arguably predates the Pocket Books Star Trek publishing bonanza with which I was to become far too familiar during my teenage years. While I am a confirmed Trekkie and have enjoyed many thousands of pages of Trek fiction I was not aware of this book's existence until I stumbled across it during a recent visit to the local Half-Price Books. I snapped it up, along with a 1968 edition of Whitfield and Roddenberry's The Making of Star Trek, for a couple of bucks and brother, those two bucks were the best money I have spent on books in a long while.

In World Without End the Enterprise encounters a spherical spaceship which uses a primitive Bussard ramjet for propulsion. The hull of the vessel is disguised as a planetoid and lined with an impossibly heavy metal which makes communication difficult at best. Then when Kik, McCoy and the away team get into a tight spot with the indigenous beings, a type of sentient bipedal flying squirrel, they realize they cannot beam back to the ship. Meanwhile the Enterprise itself has been trapped by the alien ship and is loosing power.

As I indicated earlier, I really enjoyed reading this book even if the resolution owes more to a deus ex machina than the ingenuity of the crew and I highly recommend it to any Star Trek fans out there and would go so far as to suggest it to someone looking for a light sci fi adventure along the lines of Heinlein's Have Spacesuit, Will Travel or Starman Jones. No obtrusive social commentary here, just good adventure in an alien world.

When I sat down to finally write this review I was trying to quantify what it is that I like about these early Star Trek novels. So far both of them I have read (you can check out my review of Gerrold's Galactic Whirlpool here) have been mush more enjoyable than the average Star Trek novel. I think part of this may be due to the authors involved as both David Gerrold and Joe Haldeman are masters in the field of science fiction, however other Trek authors are no slouches. I think it can be boiled down to the fact that novels which predate the released of Star Trek: The Motion Picture do a better job of preserving the feeling of the television series where novels written after 1979 seem to be trying to be more cinematic in scope and thus loose something which makes Star Trek work for me.

BOOK REVIEW - Foreign Foes

Foreign Foes (Star Trek: The Next Generation #31)
Dave Galanter and Greg Brodeur
Pocket, 1994
276 pages

Foreign Foes opens with Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise hosting delegations of Klingons and Hirdans at a peace conference intended to end the seventy-year-old conflict between these two races as well as bring about a modicum of cooperation as they both face internal issues which the opposing party can assist in resolving. The Hirdans, having suffered decades of oppression and war at the hands of the Klingon agressors, are blinded by their hatred of the Klingons and with the death of the Hirdan ambassador, apparently at the hands of the Enterprise's own Worf, things quickly spin out of control. While Picard struggles to hold things together on Velex, Riker and Troi have gone AWOL and Data begins to act irrationally.

Before we go any further I have to let you know that of the various Star Trek novels I have read for some reason I have consistently found the Next Generation novels to be my least favorite of the bunch. This holds true across the line, regardless of the author therefore this novel started out behind the eight ball as far as I am concerned. I am not certain why this is as I enjoy the television series. Enough about me, let's talk about the book, shall we?

I picked this book up because I have recently become acquainted with Dave Galanter via these fancy internets* you kids go on about and felt it would be good for me to acquaint myself with some of the man's work. To be brutally honest the book did not grab me from the get go and thus it was difficult for me to grind through the book. Galanter and Brodeur are clearly capable authors and it shows that this was their freshman effort. I look forward to reading some more of their work and seeing them grow.


* It's pipes, dammit!

Nebula Kerfuffle

This past Friday (Feb. 22nd) the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (abbreviated SFWA) released the final ballot for their annual Nebula awards. The most recent Star Trek: New Voyages* episode "World Enough and Time" made the final ballot in the Script category, which is to say the script Marc Scott Zicree** and Michael Reeves wrote for "World Enough and Time" made the final cut rather than the episode itself. This has caused quite the stir in some areas which I thought was worthy of comment.

Before going any further you should go and read this post from author Keith R.A. DeCandido. His professional credits include several Star Trek novels*** as well as a host of other media tie-in work. I mention this so that we all understand that DeCandido is not one of those authors who loathes media tie-ins in general or Star Trek in particular, a point which I believe he makes quite clear in his rant however I wanted to drive it home.

I would also like to make it clear right now that I am a fan of Star Trek: New Voyages in general and "World Enough and Time" in particular, so I am biased for them. Also I am not a member of the SFWA. I just wanted all that out in the open before we delve in to things.

Here are the issues I have with what is going on:

First - What is professional? (Or as I like to think of it the "What is the meaning of 'is'" Argument)
While the words fanfic and fan fiction get thrown around quite a bit this distracts from the core rules argument which is about the definition of professionally produced. The Nebula award rules define the script as, "a professionally produced audio, radio, television, motion picture, multimedia, or theatrical script." Does this strictly mean work for which one was paid or does it expand to include work which was done by professionals?

I took a look at the membership requirements for the SFWA hoping to get some help. While the rules are quite explicit in what sort of sales qualify for prose fiction, even delving into what are considered proper markets and venues, the qualifying event for a screenwriter is, "One professionally produced full length dramatic script, with credits acceptable to the Membership Committee." Well this did not help one bit in refining the definition of "professionally produced."

This lack of information does not help us resolve the argument one way or the other and returns us to the question: What does "professionally produced" mean in this context?

Personally I believe it means produced by professionals, regardless of whether anyone got paid for it or not. If you scan the list of people involved with WEaT you will see the overwhelming number of them are professionals in their field and therefore I would say WEaT qualifys.

Second - Barracks Lawyers
I am getting sick of the discussions around fandom about the legality of fan fiction and fan films. Well, that is not strictly true, I am tired of people playing at being lawyers and making sweeping statements about whether something is legal or not or more to the point throwing around the word illegal. Ultimately copyright and trademark law are VERY complex and nuanced fields and very smart people can make convincing arguments on both sides of the issue. I prefer to take the stance that until a court tells someone they are doing something illegal then they are not doing something illegal. In the case of New Voyages this complex question becomes even more complex as there is some sort of agreement in place with CBS that allows New Voyages to continue producing episodes as long as no money is made from the episodes. Therefore while the New Voyages episodes are not licensed by CBS they are acknowledged and approved after a fashion.****

Third - If You Can't Keep It In Your Pants
At least keep it in the family. In posting this rant on his blog rather than addressing this issue internally I think DeCandido and others did both the SFWA and fandom a major disservice. The SFWA is a professional organization and as such certainly has internal mechanisms for handling complaints of this nature. This issue should never have come out of the private SFWA forums. Everyone who went running to the blogosphere with their complaints about WEaT being on the ballot, and this is ignoring whether I feel the complaints were valid or not, were behaving in a manner which I find unprofessional and reprehensible. Sweet monkey Jesus people, science fiction fandom already has enough splits and cliques in it to make South Africa circa 1980 look unified we do not need to go adding to the fire. Particularly if the award in question is, as DeCandido says, "...quite possibly the most useless award in the history of award-giving."

The manner in which many of these writers talk about the SFWA could damage the institution in the eyes of younger writers, something that is already an issue in the wake of the DCMA debacle and webscabs comments of the last year. While I do not believe in censorship and thus certainly acknowledge the right to post these things and bring them into the public eye, I think it is wrong and unprofessional behavior. Having said that I do love me a good blow up on the internet and would be eating popcorn right now if I could.

Fourth - Fighting the Good Fight
I saved this one for last because I did not want what may devolve into an ad hominem attack on DeCandido to distract from my other points. I want to say that I think the core question in DeCandido's argument is a good question and certainly needs to be debated, particularly in the SFWA which seems to have a generational gap issue amongst the membership, and is a question which has come up in other venues (such as are bloggers journalists?). I find his construction of his argument objectionable. To begin with he spends too much time making the argument that WEaT is fan fiction which is a point I would think any rational adult would be willing to concede. If not at first then on the technical grounds that it is not licensed by CBS/Paramount. The repeated invocation of "but it is fan fiction" argument distracted me at first and, in my more uncharitable moments, made me wonder whether this had more to do with what was right or whether DeCandido was pissed that none of his fan fiction, and lets face it that is what tie-in novels are regardless of their status as authorized or not, had made it that far. (Here is the list I was working from when I said that. If I was wrong let me know in the comments and I will eat the appropriate amount of crow for trusting Wikiality.) Or I might be completely off base here and DeCandido might be making the argument that fan fiction does not deserve to be on the ballot and hiding it beneath the veneer of rules lawyering. Finally at one point DeCandido says, "I swear, if anybody trots out the, 'Well, yeah, it's a fan film, but it's soooooo well-written and -produced that it may as well be professionally produced argument...I will personally go to their house and show them what I can do with my brown belt." Seriously? Are you really going to undermine what could have been a decent discussion about the rules and some rather ambiguous statements within the rules that may need to be corrected by whipping out your karate-cock? As the kids say, WTF man? If you are THAT pissed about all this then you are welcome to swing by my house and take a shot at me. I think we can all agree as long as there are no pay phones handy and I am not in my hockey gear you should be pretty safe as you assert your manliness and thus the righteousness of your cause on me.


Guess what? None of this matters as WEaT will stay on the Nebula ballot. (Of course in the big picture none of this really matters anyways but being fans it is more fun to be fighting mad about this than the suffering in Darfur, for example.)




* On the subject of Star Trek New Voyages I have a couple of pieces of information. First the decision has been made to rebrand Star Trek: New Voyages as Star Trek: Phase II. You can read more about it here in the news release from the Star Trek: Phase II website. According to an email I received from one of the P2 people I am still in the running for the production assistant job for the shoot in June however there are still a couple of hurdles to clear. Keep on sending those positive vibes.

** Marc Scott Zicree and David Simkins recently began the Zicree/Simkins Podcast which you should check out. Each week they talk with a person or persons in the entertainment industry. Usually their guests are writers or writer/producers with one or two exceptions so far. The discussions are fascinating and wide-ranging and should be required listening for anyone seriously considering writing in Hollywood. Go check them out.

*** This includes the recent Next Generation novel Q & A which has created some buzz in the Trek world as being one of the best Star Trek novels published last year.

**** I am not privy to the details of this arrangement however James Cawley, the brains behind New Voyages, has repeatedly stated that he would like to get a more formal licensing agreement in place with CBS at some point.

Star Trek + White Rabbit

Blame Brian. I find doing that is usually safe.

Watching Star Trek

So no post for you. Go play on YouTube or icanhascheezburger.com or something, I don't really care as long as you damned kids stay of my lawn!

BTW, this picture? Halo armor, are you fucking kidding me?