Moral dilemmas on eBay

Okay, if you've been reading, you know that I've spent too much money on eBay in the past two or three months, and you know I've had some problems with plants being shipping too late in the season, or just being shipped bad plants, or whatever.

Okay, I'm having another problem and would like to hear opinions from others. I bid on Star Trek Voyager seasons 1 and 7. Not seasons 1 thru 7, but just the first one and the last one. I thought that was an odd combination to have in an auction, but I bid on it anyway. I stopped bidding at seventeen dollars, and someone else won.

I guess the someone else didn't really want it, and I got a second chance offer. So I bought two seasons of Voyager for seventeen dollars plus three dollars shipping. And it arrived two or three days later, sooner than I expected.

The package was smaller than I expected. I've seen Voyager seasons before, and they are in plastic things that take up space. These were in cardboard boxes that had the same artwork.

So that was odd. Either I got really nice looking bootlegs, or there's some sort of new "green" packaging that I wasn't aware of.

I asked the seller about it. Seller didn't know.

I did stuff like Google--Star Trek Voyager cardboard box. I found a lot of unhappy people talking about bootleg copies of Voyager. Not bootleg copies in general, bootleg copies of Voyager in particular, mostly on Amazon. Like, most, if not all, Voyager for sale on Amazon turn out to be fake.

I thought at first I had somehow lucked out and either got a really good fake, or maybe the real disks in a fake box? The first disk was just fine.

Only the second disk, not so much.

Third, fourth, and fifth disks also have problems.

But, I have this used divx player, and I can still watch most of them.

So now I have to decide what to do about feedback on eBay.

Now, I don't really think that this particular seller is a crook. I don't think that seller has boxes and boxes of fake dvds to sell. I haven't seen anything else like this in the past month or so, and I didn't find anything like that listed now. Also, seller would refund my money (shipping was not discussed).

I don't really think that I'll take the refund. Someone, probably me or the seller, is going to get stuck with this copy. I don't think that either of us deserves to be out money, much less any more money for return postage. I at least have the divx player so that I can watch most of the disks.

Still, I think that I should report the bootleg dvds, at least in feedback. I think, just in case I'm wrong and seller has more bootleg Voyager to sell later, I should warn buyers. I don't want to leave negative feedback for someone who a.) probably didn't do this on purpose, and b.) would offer a refund. But I'm also thinking that no one reads the positive feedback, except the seller. Buyers just look at the number of positive feedback and then go read the negative and maybe the neutral.

I'm thinking of leaving neutral feedback, saying it is bootleg, but then giving seller high marks and a nice comment about the shipping.

What do you think I should do?

Yesterday's convention

I suppose everything went as well as could be expected. At least it was for me. I think other people might have had different feelings on the subject.

G picked me up at my place, on time, and drove me to a restaurant where he liked to have breakfast. I had never been there before. I liked the place, though what I ordered was not the best for a person trying to lose weight. Even after having breakfast, we were still a bit early, as I had been told that the general admission people would not be allowed in til 11:00, and they wouldn't even be sold tickets til 10:15. So we had time for G to run an errand, and we still arrived around 10:30. Not in any hurry, we spoke to a few people in the parking lot, and then a friend came to tell us that they were letting people in a bit early. So I told G that I would see him later, and I went off with my friend. By the time we found where to buy a ticket, there was no line at all.

At least, there was no line for buying a ticket. There was a long line for getting autographs. I wasn't sure that I wanted any because a.) getting an autograph costs a lot more than it used to, and b.) I wasn't sure if I wanted to stand in this line. So I went off in search of something else to do, thinking that the line would go down some and I might do it later.

My club had a table, somewhere. I looked around, but I didn't see it. I went in the dealer's room, not so much looking at the dealers, but looking around for my friends in case they had been moved to this room. I didn't see them. I ran into a few more friends and talked for a bit, then walked around looking again for the club table. I had walked back and forth the entire length of the place twice without seeing it. I found another friend, who pointed out the table for me. I hadn't seen it before because of all the people in the autograph line in front of it. Okay, mystery solved.

So after figuring out where most everything was, I went back to the dealer's room. I didn't see much that I wanted, which was good, cause I didn't want to spend much money. The main thing that I wanted was Nichelle Nichols' autograph. Getting Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura) to autograph a picture would cost $30, and I wasn't even sure that included the picture.

There were other people there besides Nichelle Nichols. I had met Anne Lockhart (original Battlestar Galactica) before. Erin Gray from Buck Rogers was there. The girl who had played Batgirl in the 60s was there. The medtech from the now cancelled Stargate Universe was there. But I think most of us wanted to see Nichelle Nichols, Morena Baccarin (Firefly and the new V), and Trisha Helfer and Katee Sackhoff of the Battlestar Galactica remake.

Now, at about $30 each, getting all the autographs would have cost me over two hundred dollars. I already have autographed pictures of Anne and Erin, so that would bring it down to $180. Not much of a Batman fan, so I didn't really need that autograph either. And as much as everyone else loved the new Battlestar Galactica, by the end of it I was mainly still watching cause everyone else loved it so much I just wanted to keep up so I'd know what everyone else was talking about. So the remaining three autographs would have cost me $90. And even if I'd had $90, that's just too much. And really, while I'm still a fan of Stargate Universe, I don't really feel that I need that autograph either. If I spent all the money I had I could get two autographs, and it would have been really nice to have Morena Baccarin sign something, but no.

It did not used to be this way. When I first started going to conventions, the actors who did autographs did them for free (or at least, we did not pay them directly, it was included in the price of the ticket). So either the actors would autograph stuff for everybody, or they would autograph stuff for a limited amount of time they had been paid to do that, or they didn't autograph anything for anybody (I was shocked the first time I paid to see Leonard Nimoy and he didn't do autographs, and DeForest Kelley didn't do autographs at public appearances because he had arthritis), depending on how much the convention had paid them and how long they were scheduled, etc.... So if the actor was doing autographs, the only additional money you had to spend to get an autograph was maybe five dollars for a photo for them to sign, but if you didn't have that they might still sign your convention program.

Then came the VIP tickets and the Gold tickets and the preferred seating tickets, etc.... You had to pay to get autographs, and they probably weren't going to do autographs for everyone, so if you really wanted an autograph you should buy a special ticket that put you at the front of the line and such. I have never done that, but some of my friends always do that. The price of getting an autograph went from free to five dollars to ten dollars to twenty dollars.

I pretty much stopped getting autographs then, though I did still purchase a few, and I got five free for volunteering at a Stargate convention. But it's been about ten years since I've done much of this sort of thing. I miss it sometimes. (But I don't miss it enough to spend a lot of money and/or drive to the other side of Dallas.)

Someone from my club stood in that long line and spent $120 getting three autographs. He wanted two more autographs, but Trisha and Katee were late and he'd have to get them later. He ate lunch and then got back in line.

I talked to a few more people and then had another look at the autograph line. It was about half the size it had been, but it was still a line. And that was just the line to get into the room. You had to stand in line again for each autograph.

And the people with VIP tickets got to go to the front of the line, whenever they happened to arrive. So you could stand in line for a long time, nearly get to the front of the line, and then have dozens of people just walk in front of you. And the preferred seating group was also supposed to go before the general admission people, but there seemed to be some confusion about that. Anyway, I thought that maybe most of the VIP group had already gone through the line and there wouldn't be that many of them walking up to the front. But I still had to seriously think about standing in this line and spending $30.

While I was standing there thinking about it, one of the volunteers was trying to explain how the line was now being split into two separate lines, because Trisha and Katee still were not there. If you were waiting for either of them you stayed where you were, but if you just wanted one of the other autographs, you got to move forward quite a bit. You still had to stand in line again once you got into the autograph room, but still, if I got in line right then that cut the wait time by more than half. So I got in line.

Once I got inside the room and found out which line I was supposed to be in, it was okay. There were people waiting for Trisha and Katee. Nichelle and Morena both had long lines, but not near as long as the line outside. There was a very small line of people waiting to get Batgirl's autograph, and a few people talking to Anne and Erin. There was no one waiting for the Stargate Universe medtech. I felt sorry for her. If I wasn't so short on money I think I might have gotten out of line and gone to her table for a bit. It didn't stay that way forever, but she never quite had the line the the actors around her had.

When I was halfway through the line to get Nichelle's autograph, I saw Katee come in. Stuff happens. Planes are delayed, and there are accidents on the freeway, and people are late. It is annoying for them, and it is annoying for us.

I got Nichelle's autograph. I couldn't think of anything interesting to say. I had seen all of the other original cast members in person; she was the last.

Now that I had my signed photo, I went back to the dealer's room to buy a photo protector. I probably had several at home, but I forgot to bring any. It's been a long time since I've gone to a convention. I'm just not organized.

A bit later I see the guy from our group still in line in the hallway, waiting to get autographs from Trisha and Katee. That surprised me, as I had seen one of them come in and I thought the other one was just behind her. But just before he could get into the room, one of them was called away to do a photo op, and not only are photo ops scheduled for a very short time, they cost more than autographs, so the photo ops were not delayed anymore than necessary. He was still waiting in line when I went off to get a seat to hear Morena speak.

The schedule had been changed. There should have been someone else speaking in the main room when I arrived, but the room was nearly empty. There had been an announcement, but I had missed hearing it in the autograph room. But it was not important.

I went to look for G, and did not find him. This worried me a bit, that I would not find him before the other stuff started, and maybe he would want to leave as soon as Nichelle finished speaking but couldn't find me. I spent about twenty minutes looking for him, gave up, and went back to the main stage room. There were a few more people there now, so I did not have the perfect seat that I gave up, but I still had a good one. K came to join me, and I saved G a seat just in case.

Now there was confusion as to where the preferred seating people were supposed to sit. The VIP sections were clearly roped off, but I didn't see anything that said preferred seating. Someone sitting behind me had paid the extra ten dollars for the preferred seating, and she thought that she the general admission people would be asked to wait outside until all the VIP and preferred seating ticket holders were seated, and that this would be repeated again between speakers. I expected that since no one had asked me to wait that other than roped off areas it was first come first served, and I had a good seat and I would be there for the next three hours or so.

Morena spoke for almost an hour, and then Nichelle spoke. At that point I found G, who was not concerned one way or another when we left. We stayed to hear the last panel, which was Trisha and Katee. The other actresses did not speak that day, and most of them were not scheduled to speak on Sunday.

G and I left. I do not know when or if the other guy from our group (who paid a bit extra for the preferred seating ticket) got his autographs from Trisha and or Katee. Except for lunch the only time I saw the poor guy he was standing in line for something.

I was tired by then, and mostly glad that G was ready to leave. Others were going hang around for a bit and then head to a restaurant. It would have been nice, but I didn't need it, and I'm eating quite enough non-diet type food as it is.

I got home and thought how this wasn't my life anymore. I kind of miss it, but on the other hand I kind of don't. I wish I had something else entirely, but I haven't a clue what or how to get it.

But I am very glad that after all this time I have finally seen all of the original Star Trek actors.

A lot happened yesterday

Okay, the first thing that happened yesterday was that I noticed Hulu has the third season of Sliders. I used to really love Sliders, but I didn't get to see it much after it switched to cable. So now they have the third season, which is mostly stuff that I haven't seen since it was originally on like ten years ago, and maybe soon they will have the stuff that I never saw on cable.

So that was nice. I was just hoping that wasn't the end of my good luck for the day.

My husband had a meeting with someone about the planned business thing. It was all very exciting. He printed out a lot of stuff and put on a tie and went off to meet someone who might hire them for their first account.

And then he locked me out of the house, which I have already written about.

My husband's meeting seemed to go okay. We'll just have to wait and see. He was only supposed to do this thing on Sundays and maybe Mondays, so that he and the other guy wouldn't have to take time off from their regular jobs. Only, with the way things have been, there hasn't been any work at their regular jobs. So this woman he spoke to talked him into working for her on two Saturdays instead of two Sundays, which means that he will have to ask for time off. And if you can't work on Saturday then they probably won't schedule any work for the rest of the week either. So he has basically asked off for two weeks, and he's not even sure that they will make any money.

Still, it is a bit exciting that he will finally get this thing going in August.

So after getting a little bit of work done and making lunch and then washing dishes and such, I watched a couple of the Slider episodes. And then my husband comes in with the mail, and there is this odd package for me. He said that it felt like asparagus plants. Did I order any asparagus plants? No, I did not order any asparagus plants. It is too late in the year to order asparagus plants. And I don't remember ordering any plants. In fact the only thing that I remember ordering for a while in the Star Trek t-shirts, but they are supposed to take ninety days.

But it did turn out to be my medical/science shirt. So that was cool. I hadn't checked on the order since last week, so I went to check, and it had been sent on the 30th. So I checked on the other orders, and another one had been sent on the 30th, and one had even been sent on the 26th. So I called to ask if the other t-shirts had arrived, but so far they haven't.

But it is still nice to have the one, and now I'll know better if I want to order a bunch more.

I won't be doing anything of interest over the weekend. We don't have any money. I mean, we seriously do not have any money. All this time off, and no money. Not even money for little things that I should get at Home Depot to work on the backyard.

Back to watching Hulu.

A reader needs advice on Star Trek and the Borg

I think this is going to end up being much too long to put in a comment.



Okay, this is the discussion so far:



bulletholes said...
i HAEN'T BEEN TO SEE THE NEW MOVIE YET, BUT i'VE BEEN GEARING UP FOR IT.i WATCHED "fINAL fRONTIER (OPPS)because I like that one, then got "Generations".Generations was cute, but on the whole disappointing to a non-Trekkie.From what I understand, I can watch this new one without needing to see the others.For a non-Trekkie who never saw anything after "5", (except the recent view of Generations) which of these newer films, in 20 words or less, would you recommend?
5/29/2009 11:16 AM
laughingattheslut said...
Now that is a tough one, especially since I am a Trekkie, and it is hard to think from the point of view of someone who is not.Generally speaking, I think that most people like the newest movie (the current movie is number 11), though some of us Trekkies from way back cannot get past some of the mistakes.Of the movies 6-10, my favorite is number 8, First Contact. It has both the borg and the man who first invented warp drive (though this version of the character is very different from the one seen in the original series back in the sixties). Without getting too much into what the borg are, just know that they are the type of alien that you have to stay away from or you will become one of them (like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Puppet Masters, Invaders from Mars, or The Thing, etc...)I would think that the favorite Star Trek movie for basic non-trekkies would be number 4, where they go back to our time to get a couple of humpback whales. It is very funny and you don't have to know anything about the Federation or Klingons or any of that to get what is going on. But you said that you already saw that one.Funny that you like number 5. Most people hate it.Number 6 has been compared to us trying to be friends with the Soviet Union after something really bad happens to them, like Chernobyl.Number 7 you saw. I think that they were trying to make both the original series fans happy and at the same time make the Next Generation fans happy, and just ended up not making anyone happy. Fans of the original series just got up and left in the middle of the movie.Number 9 was okay. Some people accidently found the fountain of youth, and some other people try to take it away from them to cure their own illnesses. But it is their own fault that they got the illnesses in the first place, so you can't really feel too sorry for them. Captain Picard and crew to the rescue.Number 10 doesn't seem to be anybody's favorite either. It had Romulans, and scary sort of almost vampire-like relatives of Romulans, and a dopey younger brother of Data. But somehow, it just wasn't what anybody hoped for.For most trekkies, the second movie is still the best, even if Spock dies in it.So if you are going to the theater this weekend you should be able to watch number 11 without much trouble, and if you want to stay home and rent a Star Trek video that you haven't seen before I would go with number 8, though certainly number 4 is also worth seeing a second time.
5/29/2009 4:02 PM
bulletholes said...
Yeah, they had "first contact", but the cover of Generations said it had Kirk in it so I thought maybe it was #6 in the series. I don't think it was so bad as to walk out on, and when Picard found Kirk in that house in the Nexus it gave me a good feel. Then they blew it.I like #5 maybe just for one reason especially...my son and I watched it when he was about five and when Kirk asks the big God dude why he needs a Starship...well...my son mimics that scene all the time.He will raise his finger up and say "I have a question"...he still does that to this day.
5/29/2009 5:25 PM



bulletholes said...
hi laffin1 I went and got First Contact at your suggestion. it got a little tedious in the middle, but any movie that quotes moby Dick and then plays some Steppenwolf all inside of 5 minutes has got to be OK. I can't wait to watch it again, so my question is...what should i watch for, and do the borgs appear in a previous episode.I'd never herard of a borg before. That one, she was kinda hot.
6/09/2009 12:47 PM


Well, that's a lot of stuff to talk about.

Okay, I think most of us are agreed that the borg queen is kinda hot. Alice Krige played her in First Contact. Later, the same character shows up in Voyager, but that actress wasn't available, so another actress got the part for a while. And then for the show's final episode I think that they got Krige to do it again.

Voyager also had a female borg crew member. Most of us are generally agreed that she was also hot.

Some of us Trekkies, including some of us female Trekkies, have been known to dress up as Borg. Some of us are hot, some of us, not so much. Some of us get mixed reviews. I had a Borg parody costume myself, but my last time to wear it was about twenty-five pounds ago.

Okay, that was the only Borg appearance in the movies. Before that they were in several episodes of The Next Generation. I think that the second or third was Best of Both Worlds, which was the end of the season cliffhanger one year, and it is usually voted favorite episode. At least, part one is great. Part two was good, but a bit of a disappointment after all of us spent the summer trying to figure out what would happen.

There were more Borg episodes after that. Some of them involved Data's evil twin brother Lore.

There most have been Borg episodes on Deep Space Nine, but I can't remember any of them at the moment.

Then came Voyager, and after spending all that money on new Borg stuff for the eighth movie, they seemed to run into the Borg all the time so that they could use the expensive costumes and props.

There was even an episode of Enterprise where they find a couple of frozen Borg on the north pole or something.

Anyway, there are a lot of Borg out there in the Star Trek universe.

As for what are the best parts of First Contact and what you should watch for if you see it again, I'm not sure. It was all good. I personally don't care too much about the holodeck scene, but the producers of Star Trek do love their holodecks and use them often.

I think that my favorite lines belonged to Lily. "Sorry, it's my first ray-gun." and "Borg? Sounds Swedish."

Also, as a non-Trekkie you might not know that the Emergency Medical Hologram (Robert Picardo) is the chief medical officer on Voyager. In fact, after the first episode, he is Voyager's only medical officer. This computer program that is only supposed to help the real doctor in an emergency ends up being online all the time in that series. So that part was really funny to fans of Voyager, even though there's really nothing that funny about the scene itself.

Not sure what else to suggest at this point. Maybe other readers have some thoughts on the subject.

We don't need no stinking badges Part 2

Yesterday, I sent off for my first free Kellogg's Star Trek T-shirt. I asked for a medium size blue one. I hope that I wear medium, and the blue one probably looks the most like something that was worn on the show. At least, that is what I think. We can't really be sure, because I have yet to see any actual photos of the shirts.

This month we ate three boxes of Corn Pops, a box of Frosted Shredded Wheat, a box of Cheeze-its, and about six packages of Fudgeshoppe cookies. In addition to that I bought another box of crackers, five boxes of Cheeze-its, a box of Eggo waffles, and I'm not sure how many boxes of cereal. I have enough tokens to mail off for the second shirt. Possibly, I have enough tokens to send off for the third shirt. And I have fourteen assorted badges, which are mostly command and engineering, but I got an extra Romulan and traded it for a Klingon. So now I have all five badges.

I have the science badge.

So now the question is, do I keep it or put it on eBay and try to get fifty dollars for it.

And the other question is, should I buy some more cereal and such and get a fourth or fifth shirt, or maybe more badges?

I found one science badge. Maybe there's another one out there.

More about the Star Trek movie weekend: Part III

Okay, so now it is Friday, May 8th, the day that the film officially opened. I have already seen the movie, and someone in our group had already seen it before I did and watched it again, and someone else had already seen it four times before I did. And I had spent two hours on Wednesday dressed as a Vulcan, and I had spent Thursday evening dressed as a Starfleet Deep Space Nine science officer.

So I already had the science officer uniform top in the car, and I already had the green robe and gold dress in the car. And I had my makeup and such in the car, which I forgot and left in the car so I had to go and get it out of the car and put it on, and then I put that stuff back in the car. So I thought that I had everything that I would need in the car, and I would be ready to go whenever.

But the thing was that I was supposed to go to someone's house first, so that she could make me up as a Vulcan before I went to the the theater. At first I was scheduled to be at the theater from twelve til eight, but then they changed that to four til ten. So that was fine.

And then someone my husband worked with asked us to lunch.

Okay, so should I go to my friend's house first and get the Vulcan ears put on and then just hide them during lunch? Or should I go to lunch first and then go get the Vulcan stuff done after lunch. I was totally okay with doing the first, except that I didn't think I should just show up at my friend's house that early unless she asked me to. By the time we were figuring out what to do for the day, it was almost time for lunch anyway, so we decided that after lunch would be better.

My husband's friend was a bit late, but not that late. Still, by the time I got to my friend's house I seemed to be an hour behind schedule. She told me not to worry, that putting on the ears didn't take that long. But I didn't want her to rush anything, cause I wanted to pay attention to everything so I might get the ears on by myself in the future.

So in between explaining things to me, she has to answer the phone and do her normal business, in addition to talking to other people about the weekend and what costumes they should wear and such as that.

So we get all done with the ears, and they don't look bad at all, and they don't feel bad either, which was a surprise to me. I thought gluing something to my ear would feel just as bad as the tape, but it didn't. Great. So then we deal with the eyebrows.

Wednesday, I had just put lots of brownish eyeshadow over my own eyebrows, but this time I was going to shave them off. Or, at least, I was going to shave half of them off. The funny thing was that while I was out buying stuff on Monday, I found a thing especially made to shave off parts of eyebrows. I don't think Vulcan makeup is what they had in mind when they made the thing, but I found it on clearance and I bought it anyway. So right amount of eyebrow was easier to remove than I had imagined.

It was also a bit later in the day than I had imagined. It was about an hour before I was supposed to be at the theater. It usually takes me about an hour to get there from my house, but I wasn't at my house. But then I couldn't think why I should have to go back to my house, and maybe there was an easier way to get there.

My friend suggested that at three in the afternoon the traffic wasn't that bad, and I could just go straight through Dallas on 35.

I hate Dallas.

No way. No Dallas on 35. But I did figure I could get there another way. And all went fine and I was making good time until I was nearly at the theater and I was supposed to made a left exit.

And then I somehow missed wherever I was supposed to go and ended up way north of the place before I found something I recognized and could turn around.

So I did not quite get to the theater by four, and whoever would have been able to see me then missed out. Sorry about that.

So I'm at the theater, and I'm wearing black pants and a black t-shirt, and I take in the green robe and gold dress inside and I fix my hair a bit and put on my costume.

And then I remember that I left my good shoes at home.

Well, we had a lot of discussions about what was appropriate to wear at this event, and I'm sure that my shoes would not pass inspection. But I wasn't going to go home for better shoes, and the green robe hid them most of the time anyway. And they were still black shoes, they just were just old and at some point I was wearing them while working on some project and got a bit of paint on them. I borrowed a black marker and covered up the spots of paint. Not great, but better.

So we were there greeting the customers for the seven o'clock and seven thirty shows. The woman who had seen the movie four times before I did went in to watch it for a sixth time.

I had wanted to get something from Burger King between shows, but there wasn't one around. The Klingons fed me nachos instead.
My friend who put the Vulcan ears on me had planned to come in green makeup, but something went wrong and she washed it all off. So she came by after the seven thirty show in one of the Starfleet uniforms, and she brought some of us cheeseburgers.

I can haz cheeseburger.

So we had some fun with that. And we asked people trivia questions, and the theater manager is all into it. The theater manager wants us to come back for Harry Potter. It will be fun.

One Halloween I made a sleestak costume. Well, not really a sleestak, but an Enik, so close enough. It could be better. Anyway, someone said that I should wear the costume for the opening of the Land of the Lost movie.

Not going to happen. First off, the costume is damned uncomfortable and I can't stay in it very long. And second, I have no intention of promoting that Will Ferrell movie. I want no one to pay to see this movie. I almost want to say that I hope no one sees this movie, but that isn't quite true. What would really be nice is if everyone figures out how to get to see this movie without paying for it (I have suggestions), so that they can still make fun of it without the people responsible for making the awful thing being able to make any money from it.

Okay, so we got that discussion out of the way, and went back to talking about Star Trek. And then we also talked a bit about Fringe and Terminator and Day of the Triffids. So that was fun too.

And then after the ten and ten thirty shows, I was just tired. I'm afraid that I didn't even wait for other people to pack up their stuff. I just told everyone that I'd probably see them the next day and just left.

When I got home I had to take off the Vulcan ears. Getting them off was easy enough, but that left spirit gum on my ears. And I forgot to ask if mineral oil would help with that, so I didn't buy any, and I didn't see any just already in the house. So I'm picking this dried glue stuff off of my ears before I try to get some sleep.

Saturday, I wasn't scheduled to be at the theater, but I planned to be there anyway, because there weren't as many people on the schedule for Saturday and Sunday. Still, since I hadn't promised any particular part of my time, I just stayed around the house and watched TV most of the morning and part of the afternoon. I got there in time for the four and four-thirty shows, and I decided to watch the four-thirty show myself. So that was my second time to see the movie.

Someone in my group watched it four times before I saw it the first time, so now she has seen it at least six times.

This time I was wearing the green robe, but I wore it closed without the gold dress. You wouldn't think that the gold dress would be warm at all, but somehow I wasn't that comfortable in it to start with, and later the theater had some trouble with the air-conditioner. And while the ears had been perfectly comfortable on Friday, I had rubbed my ears raw trying to get off all the dried glue, so they were a bit sensitive. So I didn't feel great on Saturday, and I left right after the ten-thirty show started and didn't help with the packing up and such.

Saturday and Sunday we had some problems with people wearing odd things. If you have ever been to a convention, you have probably seen some odd things. You have probably seen some costumes that just aren't that good, or costumes being worn when they don't fit anymore, or parody costumes. I have a parody borg costume, which I have worn to every other Star Trek movie premiere weekend since I made the thing in 1993. But I did not wear it this time because a.) I have gained some weight since I last wore it and wasn't sure how I would look in it, and b.) we were all sent emails asking us to wear only really good costumes that fit and looked like what was actually worn on the screen. So I took that to mean that we should not wear parody costumes.

Like I know this guy who wears half a Klingon costume with a kilt. He's been wearing it like that for so long, I don't think he still has the pants that originally went with it. So he got the message that his costume didn't count as a "real" Star Trek costume, and he wasn't invited to participate without pants. We have a lot of stuff like that going on. If we hadn't been specific, we would have had a lot more Klingons at this thing, but the four or five that we did have looked just perfect.

Still, other people did not take the hint. I just wanted to strangle someone who kept saying he was going to wear this shirt that was like a Starfleet uniform (only it really wasn't that much like a uniform at all). And then he wanted to wear this other thing that was just like a uniform, only it was something that they only used for Star Trek V, and I don't think that anyone would recognize it as a Star Trek costume. Finally, it is agreed that he can come dressed as Mr. Scott. Only (except for them both being fat) he doesn't look anything like Mr. Scott. Again, he doesn't have a real uniform, just some regular clothes that sort of look like some Mr. Scott wore once, and then he's wearing the next gen badge instead of the one that Mr. Scott wore. So except for the people who read the email, no one knew that he was supposed to be Mr. Scott.

And then there was a group of three who were sort of doing this parody thing of a group of people who were in an episode of the original series.

At least, I thought it was a parody. Apparently, one of the women thinks that she's really hot, and wasn't trying to make a joke. We later found out that in certain light her dress is very see-through, and you get this same problem whenever someone takes a photo with a flash.

So we found out that not only does this woman think that she's all that, she wasn't wearing a bra either. And all of these people that we had hoped to impress with our authentic costumes now have pictures of this woman in a not so great costume that is see-through and doesn't have a bra.

So some people got into it with her. But I'm sure she still doesn't get why people were upset.

Saturday night I had less glue to take off of my ears, and I had mineral oil to help with that, so Sunday my ears were not giving me any trouble. Again, I wasn't on the schedule, but there weren't that many people signed up for Sunday because it was Mother's Day. So I wanted to be there, but because it was Mother's Day, I thought that I would probably be going to lunch with some of my family, which I did.

To save time with getting my costume on after lunch, I put the Vulcan ears on before lunch and just brushed my hair in such a way that they would probably not be seen.

So I went to lunch with my family, and my brother knew that I had the ears on, but I don't think that anyone else could tell. But during lunch my mother is really looking at me, and I think that she sees them. And my brother sees us and he's laughing. But she doesn't see the ears and doesn't know what he is laughing about. She just hasn't seen me since the haircut, and she really likes it.

So my brother is still laughing, and I pull back my hair so my mom can see what he's laughing about. She tells me to put my hair back down.

My mother hates Star Trek. Odd that. My dad was all into science fiction, and she just hates it. I never got what my parents had in common before we came along.

But a long time ago, my mother didn't hate Star Trek. She didn't like it as much as my dad did, but she didn't hate it and she watched it with him. In fact, way back then, my mother did like some weird stuff, and her favorite show was One Step Beyond. But now she just really hates all of that stuff.

So we finished lunch, and she asked if I'm going with them to see my grandma for a bit. Only I have to go home and put on the costume right away if I'm going to get to the theater in time for the four o'clock show. So then I ask if she thinks I should show Grandma the costume. But then I think that is silly, since my grandma can't see that well, and I then think I should just skip it and see her later. But no, my mom says that will make her laugh and I should do that.

So I go home and put on the brown dress that I wore Wednesday night, and then I put my hair up and go to Grandma's house. Only when I get there she isn't feeling well and she's gone to sleep. But I get to see three other relatives, who all tell me how nice I look.

My mom and my brother are like, no, really look at her.

So then they see the ears and the eye makeup and are impressed. So I'm getting ready to leave, and my mom comes and grabs one of my ears. "Is it glued on?"

"MOM!"

Really, I put the ears on hours before so I be done in time, and now she's pulling on one of them and it might come off.

But I guess that she's so happy that I'm wearing a nice modest dress instead of the borg thing or some other thing that she really hates. So I don't have time to go home and check on the ear, and I think even if it does come off that someone else at the theater will have something to fix it.

I get to the theater, and the friend with the makeup kit isn't there, but everyone else assures me that the ear damage minimal and no one will notice it.

Some people left to go to the dinner. I decided to stay at the theater. I had practically just come from lunch anyway.

The original plan for Sunday was to pack up after the seven-thirty showing, so I was going to help them do that. But then they decided to stay til ten-thirty as usual. I wasn't up for that. I went home.

We are now planning stuff to do to promote the Harry Potter film in July. We are all tired and have decided to tone it down a bit and limit it to three days.

More about the Star Trek movie weekend: Part II

Thursday morning I didn't do much, cause I didn't want to get too tired. Some of us were going to meet at the theater at about four, which meant I would be leaving the house around three. I decided that the gold trim I had added to the green robe needed going over again, but that was all I had time for. Someday I will probably make that other white piece to go over it, but it will have to wait.

Then I remembered that I had a gold dress, so I got that out of storage to see how it would look worn under the green robe. It wasn't quite as I remembered. I thought it had a high neck, but I guess that I was thinking of the silver dress. I buy a lot of stuff to use for costumes, and then I forget what I have. So I tried on the gold dress with the green robe, and decided that I should keep on the black t-shirt under the gold dress because the neck was too low, but other than that it should work.

So at three I put my gold dress and my green robe in the car, along with a Deep Space Nine science uniform shirt that someone had loaned me, and I headed out to the the theater. I stopped somewhere to grab a taco, cause I thought that I wouldn't get another chance to eat til after ten. Getting the taco took a bit longer than I thought, so I was a few minutes behind schedule, but no big deal.

None of the others were at the theater when I got there, but I noticed that our main props were already put up. So some of us had already been there, but apparently they had already left.

The assistant manager told me they would be back about 5:30.

That sucks. The reason for meeting at four was so that some of us could get into alien makeup and such. Someone was going to put Vulcan ears on me, or at least, that had been the plan. So now I had no Vulcan ears, and an hour and a half to kill.

I got a soda and went in to various theaters to watch previews. I could have gone to dinner, but I was hungry after rushing to eat that taco.

A few other people started to show up a bit after five, and weren't happy to find that I was the only one there. And then the first group that had been there came back, saying that they had left to try to fix problems with the props. So the problems were all fixed, and at about six most of us were all there ready to go.

And there wasn't time for anyone to put the Vulcan ears on me. Glad that I hadn't shaved my eyebrows yet. I tried on the gold dress and green robe, just so that my friend could see what it looked like, but then I took it off because it would be silly to wear that without the Vulcan makeup. I already had on the black pants and t-shirt, so I just put on the science uniform top. Not the greatest costume, but it works, and I was glad that someone had thought to loan it to me.

News people came and took pictures and video, as they did the night before, but I don't think that I am in the final cut of anything. Thursday night I did not have the best costume, and Wednesday night the guy kept trying to get pictures of me while I was wearing my glasses, and I kept trying to wave him off or get him to start over, which I guess that he didn't want to do. But friends of mine are on tape saying this and that, and we all had a good time bugging the customers with trivia and such. We ended up with four Klingons, two Vulcans, a Romulan, and lots of people in Federation uniforms. We even had some of the new uniforms.

The manager was very impressed with us, and he wants us to come back later and help promote Harry Potter.

We stayed til about ten or eleven, and then it took some time to get the smaller props and such packed away. I wasn't very helpful with that, since none of the props are actually mine and I didn't want to move anything without being instructed to. But I stayed that first night until everything was put away, so I didn't get home til after midnight.

More about the Star Trek movie weekend

This will probably go on for a while. And then when I finally get tired of posting about the events of the weekend, I'll go back to writing about Kellogg's stuff and toys from Burger King. And then maybe by that time I'll have the novelization and I can post something about that.

Probably, I should go back to the beginning.

It was Wednesday afternoon, and I had put a collar on my brown dress and attempted to add some fabric to the skirt to cover a slit that went to about my knee. The skirt didn't look good with the added fabric, so I removed it. I will just have to work on that later, and until then I'll wear boots to make the dress more modest. I gave up trying to decide what to do with the rest of the fabric and just sort of draped it over my shoulder.

I had added a hood to the green robe, along with some gold trim and some additional green fabric. I was trying to make it look a bit less like a bathrobe. I had wanted to have this white piece to go over it, sort of like the Vulcans wear in the first and third movies, but I decided that I didn't have time for it. Maybe later.

I went and bought some things for my hair, and some mounting tape. I had these really stiff elf ears which I trimmed down and attached to my own ears with the mounting tape. Then I put this mostly elastic hair thing on, and that covered part of the ears so that the cut part didn't show. This is how I used to wear the alien ears that I had twenty years ago that looked really good, but I didn't remember the tape being so uncomfortable. And the elastic thing was too tight, so my head hurt. And the brown dress was a bit warm, so I was uncomfortable in general. But the place I was going was like two miles from my house, and I was only planning to stay for a hour or so. I figured that we would talk to people til about six, and then they would go in to watch the movie, and there wouldn't be much to do after that and I would go home.

I wanted a friend to see me in the brown dress so she could tell me if it was good enough to wear on Thursday. At six she still wasn't there, so I decided to wait ten more minutes. And then she still wasn't there, and I decided to wait a bit longer, and then she still wasn't there, etc....

So while I was waiting for my friend, the head of our group got a call from the other theater manager saying that our sneak preview was back on. Earlier that day, he had told us that he couldn't get one of the film reels opened. But now that the problem was fixed, we were invited for a 9:30 show, if we could still make it.

So I went home and posted the information and sent out emails. And then I took off those ears and the brown dress and put on jeans and a T-shirt. And no one replied to my email, which surprised me a little, cause I at least thought people would ask if I was sure and want to confirm the location of the theater or something. But no one said anything about it, and I ate dinner. And then I checked the email again, and still no one replied. So I replied to it myself, thinking that would at least get the title of the email to pop up again so maybe if they missed it the first time someone would see it. And still no one replied, so after a few minutes I left. The theater was an hour drive away from my house, and I hadn't been there in a long time and wanted to make sure I could find the place, so I left half an hour early.

Right after I left, someone replied to the email saying that they hadn't gotten the message that there was to be a sneak preview.

Was I not clear? That was the message. But, I guess for them it would have been too late anyway. I think people had time to get there, but they didn't have time to eat first or hire a babysitter or finish whatever else they were doing. Still, everyone who wasn't there complained that they weren't told, why weren't they called, etc....

So I had no problems finding the place, and I was there half an hour early, by myself, with nothing to do. I left to go buy some ice cream. I came back. I was still by myself.

So at about 9:25 I was starting to worry that I would be the only one there and that the manager would not show the movie just for me by myself. But then two people came in and said they got my message and were a little surprised that no one else was there. And then people started coming in from the other theater, in costume, which we were not supposed to do. But it was a Wednesday night, so it wasn't like a lot of people saw us to wonder what was going on.

So there were less than twenty of our group there, and I was surprised that most of them were in costume cause they had been at the other theater, and most of them had bought tickets at the other theater to watch the second and third and forth movies, but they left the theater after watching Wrath of Khan so that they could watch the new movie. I don't think that I would have left the other theater if I had paid ten or fifteen dollars to watch the other films. But they did, so we had three Klingons and five people in various Federation uniforms.

So whatever complaining I might do later about things not being quite right and not matching up with what happens in the original series or the animated series or any of the other series, I just want to say that it is a good movie and that for the most part I liked it. So everyone should go see it, unless you are one of those people who just cannot stand remakes.

Okay, so that is enough for this post, and I'll write some more later.

I do not have my ears on

Yesterday was the first day in several that I spent as a regular human. Friday, Saturday, and most of Sunday I had on a costume and Vulcan ears. I was supposed to be a Vulcan on Thursday as well, but there was a scheduling mix up and I ended up being dressed as a human Starfleet science officer instead. Even on Wednesday I spent almost two hours as a Vulcan.

But I am done with that for a bit. It was fun, but it is good to be able to relax now.

This was my first experience with using spirit gum. It really wasn't a big deal. I wonder why I resisted it for so long?

Maybe I had spirit gum confused with surgical glue?

Anyway, having spirit gum hold proper Vulcan ears on was considerably more comfortable than other things I have done in the past (though possibly some of the other things looked just as good or better). So it is good that I have them now and have had some practice getting them on by myself, and I can do it again if something like this happens again.

I was disappointed with the way I looked.

Not that the ears themselves looked bad or that the costume looked bad, just I looked bad. Sunday, after it was all over, my husband took some pictures of me in the ears and costume. And I just had no idea I looked that bad. I just don't look that good anymore, and I especially don't look good when I'm not smiling, and for the most part Vulcans do not smile.

I looked horrible.

You might think that I would have noticed this when I was looking in the mirror to put the ears on. Well, we don't quite see what we look like in the mirror, we see a mirror image that we get used to looking at. To see exactly what everyone else sees, we either need a second mirror or a photograph. And somehow seeing myself other than in the mirror always bothers me a bit, but Sunday seemed especially bad.

Anyway, no one seemed bothered by my appearance except me. But I will have to seriously rethink being a Vulcan or wearing any other costumes that require me to stop smiling.

My sneak preview of the new Star Trek movie

First we were getting to see it, and then we weren't getting to see it. And then when most people had made other plans for the evening we were getting to see it again. And then we were about a half hour behind schedule, so some of the people who said that they couldn't make it at 9:30 probably would have gone if they had known it wouldn't actually start until almost ten.

I was the second person to hear that it was back on again. And I was the closest person to a computer, so I was the one who sent out the email. I was surprised when almost an hour later no one had replied. I expected some reaction. I expected someone to at least ask if I was sure and to confirm which theater we were supposed to meet at. So I replied to my own email, just so that the title of the first email would show up for a second time, but that didn't seem to help much. So I didn't want to be late for the show myself, and I left. Hardly anyone got the message in time, except for those people who got the message in person right after I did.

We weren't supposed to bring a lot of friends, but we were allowed to bring a few. I tried to invite a couple of people in my family who were interested, but again they didn't get the message in time to get to the theater at 9:30. So there were less than twenty of us there.

The odd thing was that one guy had already seen the movie somewhere else, and one lady was watching it for the fifth time.

The fact that someone would want to watch the same movie for the fifth time should tell you something.

The sneak preview was supposed to be sort of a secret, but most of our people had just come from another Star Trek event where they were watching the second and third and fourth movies in costume. I had time to go home and change, but most of them didn't. So we had with us three Klingons and five people in various Starfleet uniforms.

I don't want to give any of it away to those who haven't seen the movie yet, but I wanted to say something to the people are wondering whether or not to bother with it since it doesn't have the original actors (except for brief appearances by Leonard Nimoy). Remember The Next Generation episode "Rascals" where Picard and three of the crew become children in a transporter accident. So that was an episode where other actors were playing the characters, and it still works. And it's funny when you watch the actors do or say something just like the character should say, and it's even funnier when they say or do something that is just the opposite of what the character should say.

I don't feel great at the moment. I tried wearing the brown dress last night, and it was a lot warmer than I expected. And I wore the not so great Vulcan ears and an even less comfortable hair ornament. I wanted out of it almost as soon as I put it on, but I decided to go and make an appearance. I thought that I would stay for about an hour, but the main person that I wanted to see me in the costume was running a bit late. So I thought that maybe I could stay for two hours. In the middle of the second hour we learned about the sneak preview, so I waited another ten minutes or so and then went home and peeled everything off, except that I did not wash off the excessive eye makeup.

I wondered if everyone would stare at that. But since I spent most of the rest of the evening with three Klingons, I guess no one really noticed.

Today is the big day...sort of

Okay, so today is the beginning of the Star Trek movie premier weekend, which will start at about five or six or so tonight when some of us start putting up tables at a local theater which is showing the second and third and fourth of the Star Trek movies. The plan is to put on our costumes to advertise our club and help collect for the canned food drive and all of that before some of us (not me) spend ten or fifteen dollars on tickets to actually watch these three movies.

The rest of us were supposed to head to another theater to watch the new movie. In theory, new movies are tested on the Wednesday or Thursday before opening day, just to make sure that the print is okay and that it has all the previews with it that it is supposed to have and all of that. So we were supposed to go and do that, so that we would get to see the movie ourselves before we do all the other stuff that we have planned to do the rest of the weekend.

And I noticed yesterday that I hadn't been told what time to meet everyone at the other theater.

Okay, so I didn't expect that the time would just be listed out for everyone to see, because only certain people are invited to the thing. If you aren't helping out this weekend, you don't get to see the movie before everyone else. And if you don't have an appropriate costume, then standing around the theater in your regular clothes doesn't count as helping out, and maybe you just aren't supposed to know when the early showing is.

So I wasn't really worried that I hadn't seen the time posted, but I did wonder that no one had sent me a private email about it. And then I thought that we had been emailing about so much other stuff that they probably thought that they had told me already and just forgot to send me a separate email. So I sent them some questions, which didn't get answered right away.

So it turns out that the movie might not get to the theater until Thursday morning, which kind of ruins our plans.

I could watch the movie Thursday morning, but I don't think that anyone else can. And I'll need to get ready to do this other stuff by maybe four or five, so I doubt that they will make an effort to get us in Thursday.

So that sort of sucks.

So today of all days, when I really need my sleep, I wake up at four in the morning and can't get back to sleep. I'm still hoping that we get to see the movie tonight, which means that I'll be up til at least one in the morning, and then I'll have a busy weekend after that.

Friday I've been invited to lunch at a very nice restaurant, but I will have to decline. By noon I am already supposed to be at the theater, and before that I will need time to get into costume and such. I volunteered for the early shifts on Friday, because I don't have a job. See?

So I'm sitting here when I should be asleep, and after checking my email there's a message that they still don't know if we will get to see the movie tonight.

Yesterday I decided to make one last shopping trip before working on one of the costumes. And my first trip was to Walmarts, where I did not quite get what I needed, but still managed to spend thirty dollars on this and that. Now, some of that was just stuff that we needed anyway, like soap. But most of it was stuff that I wouldn't have bought except for the movie being this weekend. And not having found some of the stuff I needed at Walmarts I started to go to Jo Ann's, and then I thought, I've already spent thirty dollars at Walmarts, so what am I thinking going to more stores?

So I ended the shopping trip and went to lunch instead. After lunch I went and bought eight more boxes of cereal that was on sale. I now have all the badges except the Klingon, and I think that I will just have to do without that one. I also have twelve more packages of cookies (mostly Grasshoppers) and the tokens that came with those. So I'm now just waiting to hear from Kellogg's if I can use those to get a T-shirt or if those are only good for flash drives. As soon as I get an answer I'll send off for something.

With DVDs of Star Trek movies playing in the background, I went to work on one of the costumes. It started with a brown dress that I thought needed to be altered somewhat. First, it has a slit to about the knee on one side. And second, I thought that it was cut a bit low in front for a proper Vulcan lady to wear it. So the first thing that I did was buy a yard of fabric that I planned to use to correct those two things.

Only then I thought that the fabric might look better draped over my arm. I found two other pieces of clothing that I thought could be cut to alter the dress. One piece would fix the neckline, and the other piece I would cut fabric from to close up the slit. I finally got the neckline all fixed, but then I noticed that the piece I meant to use on the skirt looked really good sort of draped around my hair. I got a haircut recently, and while I don't hate it as much as I did, my old hair looked better for a Vulcan.

So now I have nothing left to fix the skirt with. But I guess it doesn't show that much skin, and I'll probably wear boots with it anyway. But now I really should go out and find some more stuff to fix my hair with, even though I had said that I wasn't going shopping today, cause I should stay home and rest.

I probably won't work on the green robe now. It will just have to wait for some other occasion. It will probably double for some Harry Potter type thing. But I probably won't wear it myself for Harry Potter, cause I am planning to make a really nice hat, and they just wouldn't go together.

So I guess I'm going to go watch Hulu, cause I can't get back to sleep.

More wardrobe and other malfunctions

Okay, so this is the week that all the stuff is happening, and I'm still working on costumes. I shouldn't worry too much, since someone will loan me a science department shirt if the new stuff doesn't work out. Still, it is annoying.

I am working on two Vulcan costumes, one is a brown dress and one is a green robe. I had originally thought that I would wear the robe open and have the brown dress underneath, but I have since decided that the green robe is going to be too warm to do that, so it will probably be worn closed over a T-shirt and shorts or something like that. And since I'm going to wear it closed, I thought that I would have this white piece over it, like they have in the first and third movies, so I went out and bought some more fabric. This particular fabric is thick and stiff, somewhat like denim. And since I had planned to paint it and such I thought that I should wash it first.

Big mistake. I've spent a long time trying to get the stuff ironed, but it still doesn't look as smooth as when I brought it home from the store. And at some point I got a bit of makeup on it, so I'm not too happy about that either. I'm debating if I should go and get some more of it or just deal with it the way it is. Whatever I am going to do I need to go and buy the last of the supplies today and be done with it. I will briefly need something to wear tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow is the big day. There just isn't time to shop for more stuff.

The brown dress is okay, though there is nothing about it that really screams Vulcan. (I could put some symbols on it, but I really don't want to do that since except for the Idic I don't know what any of the symbols mean.) The original neckline was a bit low for what I thought a proper Vulcan lady should wear, so I was fixing that and almost got it perfect but I just cut something just a little too much and there is this tiny little hole showing in between the original neck and the new collar, and now I'm debating should I go back and get more fabric and try again or buy a brown T-shirt to wear under what I've already done, or maybe I should just pin it somehow and hope that no one notices.

As you can see I get frustrated with one, almost give up on it, then work on the other for a while until something goes wrong there, and then I go back to the other one and see if it is worth fixing. So I am not quite finished with either one of them.

Someone is holding a blue shirt for me. I should give up this nonsense and find my girdle and a black pair of pants that don't make me look fat.

Other people in the group are giving me a headache. Miss Allergies has decided not to participate at all, in spite of the fact that she was recently given a nice uniform with all of the pins, so that all she would have to do is find nice black pants and shoes, or else a short black skirt and black boots. If she wasn't going to wear the thing, the thing could have been given to me.

Also, despite having repeatedly asked for a certain level of costume, a few people just don't seem to get it. Some people don't have any costumes or uniforms, or they bought a uniform many years ago and it doesn't fit anymore. But they want to do something this weekend anyway.

Well, that's not the way it works. People want to see you in costume. People do not want to see you standing around in T-shirt and jeans saying that you used to have a costume.

This one person in particular just doesn't seem to grasp the concept of a uniform. Some shirt you buy at a regular store that resembles a uniform is not a uniform. Some other shirt that you have that looks like a uniform except that it is green instead of blue is not a uniform.

I'm not talking about the different colors in fabric. That one is bad enough, but it happens. The homemade uniforms and the store bought uniforms aren't ever quite the same color. And then if you really have money to blow and you send off for the exact fabric used by the studio and have a red uniform made exactly the same as those worn by the actors...

...well, you end up with a purple uniform and don't match anybody. Some stuff just looks different on film than it does in real life.

Still, those people had really good intentions, and they are to be thanks for their efforts, even if I am really envious of their disposable income.

No, that's not what I'm ticked about. I'm ticked about this guy that keeps coming up with stuff that looks like something he saw on one of the movies, but to most of us it just isn't a recognizable uniform. I think that the thing he's talking about is from Star Trek 5 and doesn't even have the Starfleet logo on it.

Jokes about Star Trek 5 aside....

Even if he bought this thing right from the studio (which I know he did not, he just bought something that looks like it) most people wouldn't recognize it from Star Trek.

I mean, if you have to tell someone that it looks just like a movie costume instead of people recognizing it as a movie costume, it just doesn't work.

Okay, so we have people with perfect costumes who can't be bothered, people with no costumes who won't take a hint, and most of the rest of us have put on a few pounds and would never be mistaken for real Starfleet officers even with our uniforms.

I know that I have stuff to do and shouldn't be wasting my time with this little rant. Except that it is too early in the morning for me to seriously attempt anything else.

On the bright side, there are now 97 of the new Outer Limits that I can watch on Hulu next week when things get back to normal. And later, I'm going to go to Burger King for lunch and see if they have toys yet.

We don't need no stinking badges

But sometimes, we like them anyway.

I've been eating a lot of Kellogg's cereal this week. After receiving some information from my friend of the great white north, I decided that I had to have this little plastic freebie toy that resembles a Starfleet Command badge. After looking online I found out there was other free Star Trek stuff from Kellogg's.

Okay, so now about a week later, I am the proud owner of four command badges, two engineering badges, eight assorted tokens, a box of Cheez-its, a box of Eggo Waffles, three packages of Keebler Fudge Shoppe Grasshoppers, and nine boxes of sugary kid cereal.

Okay, the Grasshoppers are going to go pretty quickly, but nine boxes of kid cereal is probably more than I have eaten of the stuff in the last three years. But the box says it will keep until March of 2010, so I can probably eat it before then.

And the good news is that if we all really get into a panic about the Swine Flu and stay in our homes, I won't starve to death. Even if the power goes out for a while, I'll be okay, cause I've got all this cereal that doesn't even need to be cooked. And I don't even think that sugary kid cereal needs milk. You can just munch on it straight from the box. So I'm all set.

Now I just have to decide how much more of this stuff do I really need to buy?

I addition to some of the cereal having free badges, others have mail-in offers for T-shirts and flash drives and plates. You have to either send money or collect tokens to get those. I just need to find out if they are interchangeable. I probably don't really need a flash drive or a plate, but I think I'd really like a T-shirt. If all of the tokens count the same, I only need one more. If not, I have one towards a plate and about a third of the way towards a T-shirt and about the same on the flash drive.

Maybe I'll post more about this later.

Okay, enough about cereal.

Next week is the premiere of the new Star Trek movie. And while we have long been told that the opening day is May 8th, some of us will be going to see it on the 7th. And a few of us will either be seeing it on the 6th, or else we will be going to some other Star Trek related event in costume. After going back and forth on whether or not I should bother with making a new costume, I have decided that I should go ahead and do that. So that means I will be rather busy for a bit.

So you might not hear much from me until about a week from Tuesday.

I have costumes to work on, which need to be done before Wednesday night. And then I will be at theater on Thursday and Friday, and if I'm not totally worn out by then I will also be at the theater on Saturday and Sunday. And then of course there will be the normal stuff going on here Monday, so that's a lot of stuff going on until Tuesday.

Okay, so don't get offended if I don't want to chat and I don't post much and I don't much answer your long emails. Not that you can't still send me long emails, just that it will be a while before I'll get around to answering them.

So that's about it for now.

Live long, and be happy.

A Saturday by myself

It finally does not smell of smoke outside. Or maybe I am just noticing it less. Outside I smell plants and dirt.

I have spent most of my time fixing up last year's hastily dug garden bed. I am using my new screen to sift out the rocks and weeds and large lumps of clay. Unfortunately, I have sifted out a a lot of earthworms. I have put them back, but I'm afraid that after such rough treatment that they might die anyway. I suppose that a few dead bugs are good for the soil too, but not as good as live earthworms. Anyway, it is a lot of work, and not the most pleasant work either. I quickly tire of it and go inside to rest for about an hour. So while I worked on it most of yesterday, I am still not finished. I feel awful, but I don't have that much left to do and I'm pretty sure that I can finish up today. It is going to rain Sunday, and it is best if I can get it all done before then.

I received another odd email. Same person, but with an altered name. I did not answer it. At this point I am pretty convinced that a.) it is just someone trying to sell me something, and b.) even if it wasn't someone trying to sell me something I probably wouldn't be interested anyway.

I was looking at the first season DVD of Star Trek Voyager, and as usual I had skipped over the special features part. But this time I went back and had a look at it. There were some scenes filmed with the first actress selected to play the captain. It had been so long I'd almost forgotten about that. I had thought she would have made a good captain, but in these scenes she looked a bit stiff.

My mother called again, and I told her that I was very busy with the garden (which is true) and would not be able to have dinner with her yesterday, and probably not lunch or dinner with her today either.

My husband will come home tonight, and after having tomorrow and the next day off will have to work for the next two weeks straight, maybe more. It is unusual that they are scheduled to work on Sundays, but for some reason this account has had them work a lot of Sundays, and they are probably only getting off tomorrow because it is Easter. Anyway, as much as we need the money, and this particular account has had more good days than bad, I still don't think that he's going to be very happy when he sees the two week schedule.

Yesterday we got a note on the door reminding us to conserve electricity and water, or they will have to raise the rent. I pay no attention to such things. I know that they send these things so that we'll remember to turn the lights out, but I didn't forget to turn them off, I did it on purpose. I don't like the total darkness when I'm by myself. And I also leave the hall light on when I'm away because there isn't another light switch at the other end of the hallway. Odd that. All these little annoying things about the place that I didn't notice until long after I moved in. So you either have to leave the hallway light on all the time, or you have to leave on a light at the other end of the hallway, or you are in a completely dark hallway.

As for conserving water, does not washing the dishes count? Probably not.

Not ready to get up and garden just yet, so it's breakfast and one more episode of Voyager.

Is Friday night still the kiss of death?

When I was young, maybe six years old, I got to stay up late on Friday nights. I can't really define what "late" meant back then. I can't really remember what time I was normally supposed to go to bed. I keep thinking that my parents normally sent me to bed at eight, but until recently it just seemed unreasonable that anyone went to bed much before ten.

Now that I'm older and have a different schedule, I find myself drifting off to sleep at nine or sometimes earlier, so maybe they did send me to bed that early, just so that they had a hour or two for themselves before they fell asleep too.

Anyway, when I was very young I got to stay up late on Friday nights and watch stuff on TV. And that was the only night that I was allowed to stay up late, because Saturday morning was the only day that I was allowed to sleep late. When I was six or so, I watched a scary show, which I think was probably Ghost Story/Circle of Fear. (I'm not entirely certain that this was the show, but I've now found some of them on YouTube, so I'll watch some later to be sure.)

So I grew up thinking that Friday night was the best night to watch anything on TV, though after Ghost Story went off the air I don't really recall watching anything in particular most of that time. I think eventually The Powers of Matthew Star came on Friday nights. But in between that and Ghost Story I don't really remember anything. I just remember thinking that was the best time to watch TV, and I remember wondering why there wasn't good stuff to watch on Friday nights.

"Good stuff" being defined by pre-teen me as either horror or sci-fi. I remember seeing a lot of stuff, but I don't remember when most of it was on, and except for Ghost Story and Matthew Star they weren't regular series. Most of what I liked turned out to be pilots of shows that didn't sell, which were turned into Movie of the Week stuff, which may or may not have been shown on Friday nights. I don't remember.

When I got older I learned that the Friday night schedule was the kiss of death for TV shows. This I learned from reading behind the scenes stuff about Star Trek. It seems that for other people Friday Night was date night, not TV night. On the one night of the week that it is okay to stay up late, you're supposed to actually go out and do something with the evening, not stay home and watch TV. So if you're an actor or director or producer, you don't want your TV show to end up on the Friday night schedule, because in theory most of your desired audience is out doing something cool and cannot possibly watch your TV show.

So, even after you found something you liked to watch on Friday nights, this was bad, because the show was probably going to get cancelled.

As for Friday night being date night or anything like that, I didn't get to do much of that until 1985.

A bit before that, we got a VCR. I think that a lot of other people also got VCRs. My family got a BETA, which was a better machine than what most of the other people bought, but that's another story and we won't get into that.

I got married, and then Friday nights stopped being date night. Between our work schedules and not having much money, we didn't go out much, and certainly not on Friday nights.

In the early nineties I joined a Star Trek club, so then I again had something to do on Friday nights. A bit after that there was a show called The X-files. By then most of us had VCRs, so we were able to go to the club meetings and then watch The X-files afterwards. Of course, since it was both a good show and it was on Friday nights, we all expected that it would soon be cancelled.

It wasn't.

Later came the Sci Fi Channel. I didn't have cable at the time, and I still don't. But I was aware of it and sometimes watched it at a friends house or in a motel room when we went out of town. There were a few interviews with actors and directors and producers, some behind the scenes stuff, but mostly lots and lots of reruns. So people could spend time watching stuff that had been made years and decades before, like Lost in Space.

And then the Sci Fi Channel started making new programs. The first one I remember was Farscape. Stargate moved to the Sci Fi Channel from Showtime. Farscape and Stargate were on Friday nights.

I don't know if the Sci Fi Channel assumed that we all had VCRs and it didn't really matter what night they picked, or if they figured that none of us were dating.

Stargate was on for ten years, and it's first spin-off lasted five years. There is supposed to be third series coming soon.

So is Friday night no longer the kiss of death because we all have VCRs?

Now Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Joss Whedon's new Dollhouse are on FOX Friday nights. FOX has had a lot of good sci fi on Friday nights, but except for The X-files they usually cancel the show before it's had a chance. But I think now there's another problem.

Why move all the sci fi to Friday nights, when they must realize that most of the sci fi fans are already watching something on the Sci Fi channel? What was wrong with leaving Terminator on Monday where it was?

Of course, that caused us to miss The Big Bang Theory....

500th post--Why one should not kill bad guys with your favorite Bat'leth

I should have posted this sooner. I meant to, but I didn't. I apoligize.

Okay, time has gotten away from me and I wasn't paying attention to the count, and here it is time for the 500th post.

Actually, it was time for the 500th post last week, but I forgot, and I wrote something completely silly. I cannot have that be my 500th post, so I will delete it once I finish this, and it will be as though it never really happened, like several episodes of Star Trek Voyager and the season of Dallas before Bobby steps out of the shower.

I realize that some of you have heard this from me before, but due to recent events I've decided to write it all down again, as I cannot remember how much was said before or whom it was said to. And I think that there would be similar reasons why one should not attempt to rob a 7-Eleven with a Bat'leth either.

(And, yes, I do know that the weapon in the recent news story turned out not to be a Bat'leth, but I thought it was still relevant anyway.)

Reasons not to murder whomever needs killing with a Bat'leth (or Ren Faire sword, or Jackal, or other collectible blade, or one-of-a-kind handmade weapon):

First of all, you never want to go after someone with something fancy like a Bat'leth. You want to choose the most mundane weapon that you are comfortable using. Common weapons include scissors, steak knives, letter openers, ice picks, and gardening tools. If it is known that you have some motive for killing the victim, and that the victim was killed with a Bat'leth, and that you have a Bat'leth, then you very quickly become the main suspect. But if the victim was killed with scissors, and just about everyone has scissors, then you may become lost among a number of other suspects.

Ideally, the murder weapon will be something that belongs to the victim, and it will not point to anyone. Or else the weapon will be something that belongs to another suspect and will at least not point to you.

Second, you will want to clean and dispose of the murder weapon. And you don't want to part with your Bat'leth, do you? You probably really like your Bat'leth, or you wouldn't have one in the first place. Most of the time a Bat'leth will cost more than scissors and scissors are easier to replace. In addition to whatever problem caused you to want the victim to die in the first place, don't let this final act cost you something that you value.

Third, a Bat'leth is a bit difficult to carry about in an inconspicuous manner. A Bat'leth will not fit inside of your purse or briefcase or book bag, while scissors and steak knives will. People will see you carrying your Bat'leth and wonder if you're about to kill someone with it. People who see you with your normal book bag, which may contain scissors, will not wonder about much of anything.

So that is about it. I think that my earlier bit was a little longer, but these were the main points. I just happened to have worked all this out one day, long before the guy started robbing convenience stores.

Now that I have written it down again, it seems to me that there might be a few reasons that you would want to kill someone with your Bat'leth.

Everyone who knows you knows that you are a nerd, and that you don't even take your action figures out of their packages, because it ruins their value as collectibles. If you can't stand the thought of ruining a toy, it is even less likely that you would want to risk damaging your Bat'leth by actually fighting someone with it. Actually killing someone with it would be even worse, as that would mean you would have to get blood on it and possibly get blood on the hand grips. Blood stains, and if you killed someone with your Bat'leth you might never get it clean again. So everyone would know that you would never deliberately kill someone with your Bat'leth. People would think that it had to be an accident, or something done in self-defense, or else you didn't really do it at all and someone did this with your weapon to try to frame you.

Or perhaps everyone already knows that you want to kill a certain person, and there is absolutely no way of that person ending up dead without everyone knowing that you are somehow responsible. You decide that your only option is to go ahead and do it yourself, but you're thinking ahead and planning an insanity defense. And of course you would have to be insane to kill someone with your beloved collectible Bat'leth. You can go ahead and skip all attempts at stealth and subterfuge and just kill the guy in front of everyone. Maybe to be on the safe side you should say something about believing the victim was a shape-shifting alien invader. That would explain why you disliked this person in the first place.

So I think that's about it now. If you don't want to get caught, don't use your Bat'leth. If you're sure that you would get caught anyway, use the Bat'leth and say it was an accident or self-defense, or else claim temporary insanity.

If you missed The Big Bang Theory...

And of course you probably did miss it, because you were watching Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, then you have to watch it now.

This is the best part, Penny's Christmas Gift to Sheldon, but if that's all you watch you won't get all of the jokes.

There's the rest of it:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Why some of us put up with bad science fiction movies

There's a story that a couple of well known science fiction writers were invited to discuss being involved with Space 1999. The show wasn't yet on television, and perhaps at this early date they had yet to film anything. I'm not sure if they were just trying to get these two authors to write scripts for them, or if they were looking to hire more people to work directly for the show as consultants, or if they were just thinking that maybe these two authors would give them some advice.

I'm told that the two writers were Ben Bova and Isaac Asimov. But I did not read the story myself, so I might be remembering the wrong names.

So the two writers listen to the plans for the new show. If you're not familiar with Space 1999, let me explain. The story is about the men and women of Moonbase Alpha and their adventures in outer space, which all happen after a nuclear waste explosion sends the moon out of Earth's orbit, causing them to visit other planets and meet aliens, etc.... Somehow, the explosion that is big enough to part the Moon from the Earth doesn't destroy either. And somehow the out of control moon ends going fast enough and going through wormholes and such that it ends up visiting a different planet every other week.

This seemed like a good idea to someone in 1975. Someone invested money in this show. Really nice sets were built, costumes were made, models of spaceships were made, special effects experts were hired, etc....

So the two writers were in this meeting listening to all of the plans for Space 1999. At some point they all took a break, and Ben Bova said that he and his colleague were going to go outside and discuss a few things. Bova left and Isaac Asimov followed him. Bova just kept walking, and Asimov asked where they were going.

"As far away as possible."


My husband says that I will watch any bad sci-fi thing that comes on TV. This is possibly true. I did not get to watch Space 1999 when it first aired, when I was only ten and probably would have really enjoyed it, but I tried to watch it a few years later when one of our local stations was showing reruns. I was a teenager by then, and could see that it didn't quite make sense. Also, a lot of the episodes involve fighting with rubber monsters. But I didn't have much else to do and watched it anyway. I have recently watched them all again on DVD. I needed an excuse not to do housework, so I borrowed the longest thing I could from my brother.

This is probably not even the worst thing that I have watched. There's some really awful episodes of Lost in Space. And there are other series that I'll watch again just because I liked them as a kid. And there are still even other things that I will watch just because they are on the tube.

Notice my husband says that I will watch any bad sci-fi thing that comes on TV. I probably won't watch any bad sci-fi thing that is made into a movie. Going to the movies usually requires time and effort and money. Turning on the television is much easier.

We have found the exception to the rule. I will not watch whatever monster movie that ends up on The Sci Fi Channel on Saturdays. Those are usually really bad. And they are two hours each of really bad. Some of the stuff that used to be on at 2am on One Star Theater was better than most of these. Saturdays on the Sci Fi Channel often include movies about dinosaurs, giant spiders, sea creatures that Peter Benchley decided not to bother with, etc....

I've been told recently that I have to suspend disbelief....

No, I don't. I don't have to suspend disbelief, and neither does anyone else. I am well aware that this is the saying, but it is more properly said that if you can suspend disbelief you might enjoy the movie. Sure, that is true, but I might also enjoy the movie if there were not so many logic gaps, more interesting characters, properly thought out motivation for what everyone is doing, and maybe a bit more plausible science in the science fiction.

So it isn't that I have to suspend disbelief, it is that most of the time I want to suspend disbelief. I want to suspend disbelief for an hour or so to watch Star Trek or Stargate or Babylon 5 or The Outer Limits. I'll even suspend disbelief and watch those first few episodes of Lost in Space. But don't make us go that extra bit and make us suspend disbelief in places where you've just written a bad script and haven't thought things through or done the homework on the science. Our suspension of disbelief limit has already been used up by stuff like most aliens look like humans, act like humans, live on planets with the same gravity and air as Earth, and usually speak English.

And why is it that we want to suspend disbelief?

Because we like science fiction, but we really don't want to spend two hours watching a movie length version of "Cold Equations". One hour on The Outer Limits was good enough. Padding it for another hour with special effects and longer discussions of why someone has to die wouldn't help anything.

And we don't want Disney buying it and giving it a happier ending either.

So we don't have to suspend disbelief, but a lot of us want to. Not all of us do. When Star Trek first aired, it was not universally loved by the readers and writers of science fiction. It wasn't serious enough for them. For some people, science fiction should be left entirely to the written word, or very rarely made into a movie or an episode of The Outer Limits. So for some people, Star Trek was not taken seriously as science fiction, not seen as a good thing at all.

Some thought it was end of civilization as we knew it, rather like The Beatles.

For some of us, Star Trek is the standard by which we measure everything else. Other people will have other standards like Star Wars. Maybe there are others who would choose Plan Nine from Outer Space. A few people still go the other direction and measure everything against 2001: A Space Odyssey. But I think that most of us first saw Star Trek or Star Wars, and for us one of those is the ideal of science fiction, and we are either okay with people on the other side of the galaxy looking and talking just like us on Star Trek, or maybe we go with the idea that no matter what you look like or sound like you can still breathe the same air and still drink beer at Mos Eisley. Star Trek explains things with universal translators and such, while I suppose in the case of Star Wars that The Force might keep beer from doing more damage than the usual hangover.

If you measure things against Star Trek, you expect that most of the science stuff has been thought out to a certain extent and that except for the English speaking human looking aliens you don't have to suspend disbelief too much. If you measure things against Star Wars, you expect that the science stuff is going to be very limited, that spaceships work a certain way and that weapons work a certain way, etc...and for the most part other science is going to be left out of the story. If there's no science in your science fiction story other than having spaceships and lasers around to give the movie a certain look, then you can't ruin the story by messing up the science. If you try to add other elements of science to something like Star Wars, then you are probably going to screw it up.

Still, there are films that try to use varying degrees of science, which is often used incorrectly. While I might watch these films and even enjoy these films, I would prefer that the person writing the story would do the research and not make these mistakes. Or, at least, the writer needs to do the research and realize that things don't really work that way, but it just works out better filmed a certain way, such as explosions in space that make noise and spaceships that travel here there and everywhere without dealing with stuff like time has passed on the planets involved that the people on the spaceships did not experience.

And then there are films that just out right do things wrong. But we go see the film anyway because we enjoy watching the actors, we like most of the storyline, and most everything makes sense until the cable guy gives the alien spacecraft a computer virus. Or we go to see a film that makes even less sense, because we like Bruce Willis and scenes of stuff being blown up.

So what happens when your script has scenes that don't make sense and characters with no motivation, and Bruce Willis doesn't want the job, and whoever might be interested in it doesn't have the budget for good special effects?

If the script doesn't go straight into the trash bin, it might be sold but never made into a movie. Or it might go through so many rewrites that your name gets taken off of it.

Or it might show up on the Sci Fi Channel on a Saturday.