Star Trek: Not All That.

Saturday I was talked into seeing the new Star Trek movie by my girlfriend and two of our friends who had already seen it. I saw a trailer a while back and thought, “That looks sorta cool,” but that’s as far as my thoughts on the movie went. I’m not a Trekkie. I was too young to enjoy the original series, and not interested enough to enjoy TNG. DS9 and Voyager didn’t do much for me and I quickly lost interest in both for different reasons. I tried the pilot of Enterprise and did not enjoy it. The movies were either mind-blowingly bad (I’m looking at you, Time Traveling To The 80s Whale Movie) or extended episodes that tried too hard.

But that’s ok, there’s nothing to say that by being a geek I *must* like Star Trek.

A bunch of my friends watched the reboot of the Trek franchise on Thursday and Friday and they gushed so much I was afraid they might start leaking. It currently enjoys the insane Rotten Tomatoes freshness rating of 95%. So I figured that the reboot must be doing something right. I was willing to give the movie a chance, my girlfriend didn’t exactly need to twist my arm to get me to agree to watch it.

So let me start with the good: Lots of in-jokes and fan service for the Trekkies. Lots of references for enthusiasts of the various series. Lots of explosions. Lots of fights where Kirk gets the shit kicked out of him. (Seriously… He doesn’t win a single damn fight and I bet his ribs were broken by the end of the movie.) And Simon Pegg is excellent in everything he does. Even when he was an extra on Land of the Dead.

The bad: The majority of the drama was built using an uber-dramatic score, a hand held camera to give everything that “realistic” look, and blurred out pans to other actors for reaction shots instead of cuts. The bad guy was a plot device that was forgettable other than using him as a method for getting the crew together. New Spock – total douche. New Bones had some great moments but his “Damn it, I’m a doctor not an X,” lines were pretty ham-handed. (The ham-handed scene was pretty fucking funny, though.) The opening scene with a pregnant woman being wheeled past explosions as she was going into labor was funny and lame – I kept imagining studio execs scribbling all over the script and saying, “We need to raise the stakes!”

I did like the movie. It was entertaining. The action was fun, if over the top. I just don’t think it was the second coming of Star Wars like people are saying. The reboot will end up making enough cash that a sequel is guaranteed, and I’ll watch it. But this wasn’t a movie I feel a desperate need to own or watch again.

What sort of geek are you?

I want to see how many readers we have, what sort of posts you’d like to see more of and what flavor of geekdom you more identify with. I realize these options may not best suit you, but pick the answers you like the most.

(This is really just to test the polling plugin I installed on the Basement.)

[poll id=”2″] [poll id=”3″]

Update: I altered the polls slightly because I got tired of the complaints about how limited the choices were.

Nerd is the new jock

It’s no surprise to us, of course, but it seems the mainstream media are finally growing hip to the hipness of nerds and geeks.  CNN has an article up this morning about how nerd cred is now hip, embraced by Hollywood and pop culture.  From Revenge of the Nerds 25 years ago to TV sitcoms that celebrate physics professors, geeks have come a long way.

Why did this happen?  I think Rob Malda, founder of Slashdot, hit the nail on the head when he talked about how some nerds from the 1970s and 1980s got rich.  People like Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak, the nerds who puttered around with computer parts in garages, were suddenly multimillionaires, their products everywhere in business and education.  They became household names, and with such recognition and wealth comes power.  I will leave it to the fan boys to argue whether these two examples have used that power for good or evil, but its presence is undeniable.

So where does that leave us geeks?  Suddenly we’re cool… or not.  Despite the buzz about the new Star Trek film, despite huge crowds for mediocre movies like Xmen Origins: Wolverine, despite A-list stars like Vin Diesel professing love for Dungeons & Dragons, geeks are still looked at as strange by the majority of people.  The same cred that makes us the newest fad also marks us as outsiders: unusual, odd, foreign.  If there’s one thing history has shown Americans distrust, it’s them gol’dang fur’nerz.  Oh sure, this country has a reputation for sheltering immigrants, but it has an equal reputation for marginalizing them.  From Irish Catholics of the late nineteenth century to Hispanics today, those “different from us” are never mainstream.

In truth, I’m perfectly fine with that.  Geek cred works because most geeks don’t care what popular culture thinks.  We do what we do because we enjoy it, popularity be damned.  When pop culture grows bored with us, when the media have moved on to the Next Big Thing, we’ll still be here, throwing dice and wrestling video game controllers.  And maybe sitting up a little taller.

I wish I weren’t lazy, #2

The last time I posted something with that title, it became this blog.  So I’m hopeful….

I’ve finally gotten around to read The Dark Tower.

I *so* wish I could do a DMoTR/Darth & Droids version of the book and I’m only on book 3.

I mean, honestly.  (Spoilers, I guess)  I think it’s a nWoD game.

Roland is completely the powergamer player who has learned that building a huge, complex backstory means your ST will let you get away with a lot more, and maybe even give you free XP.  Hell, he’s me.  The first several games were just Roland and the ST, because they couldn’t find anyone that was willing to join a “post-apocolyptic western-medieval blend humans nWoD” game.  Roland put 5 dots in firearms, maxed out the stats that go to will and initiative, and then took some kind of “survivor” merit.  Then he took Dark Secret, Code of Honor, Quest, and any other flaws that basically meant he could be an asshole that only cared about shooting people, but also get more points for it.  He took “disease-prone” too, cause his survival would let him outlive it.

Then someone else shows up.  He’s the asshole, so he picks flaw “child” cause everyone hates the guy that plays a child.  Then he flakes out, and they kill off his character.

Then Eddie’s player joins, and hasn’t played much.  Roland convinces the ST to let him run a big backstory game, with Roland “advising” by being in his head.  And then he says “Since this guy hasn’t spent much time playing, let’s give him 20 xp to spend after the first game, when he knows what he wants.”  Then he helps him pick flaws.  Addict is easy – just make a roll once or twice a day.  Twisted upbringing just means you don’t care.  Criminal past, cause it means you can fight cops too.  Then Eddie comes through, and Roland convinces him to dump all *his* xp in to guns too.

Another dude shows up.  Roland and Eddie explain how awesome flaws are, so this guy takes the highest points he can find, and goes for “no legs” and “deranged.”  He doesn’t really know what schizophrenic is, so he just sort of plays it like an MPD, but with 2 personalities.  And he *sucks* at acting.  I see the scene – “DUDE, seriously.  Have you ever *met* a real black woman?  *NO ONE* talks like that.”  He tries to spend his XP to buy off the stupid schizo flaw when he comes through, because it’s annoying everyone.  But Roland’s player convinces the ST that he should get the stats from both personalities if he continues to keep it up, just at a lower level.

Then the dude that played Jake shows up out of nowhere again, and swears he’ll keep showing up, so they write him back in to the game.

Think about it.  Get back to me.  ;)

Free Comic Book Day!

Plan on taking the kids out to Rogue’s Gallery after breakfast and the boy’s guitar lesson.

Also, a good chance for dad to sneak in and buy gaming stuff the day after payday. Mmmmm, come home and teach a new game while they read their comics. Just another day in geek paradise. Reminds me that I need to find out where the gaming/hobby shops are in Leeds. (Moving to the UK in August so that the blog can have that global feel)

Architectural Geekery, Part I

Architecture is like beauty; its worth is commonly in the eye of the beholder.  What may be an architectural treasure to one person may be a derelict ruin to another.  Even two architects can disagree on whether or not a particular building or style is appealing.  My advisor in grad school, for example, once half-joked that we needed to demolish everything built in the 1970s before it turned 50 years old and we’d have to work to save it.  Can’t say I disagree with that sentiment… ok, maybe there’s one or two buildings worth saving from the Decade of Disco.  I kid, it’s more like a handful.

Anyway, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a powerful advocacy group dedicated to saving our nation’s built heritage, released their annual list of the top endangered places in the United States.  Looking at the list, all of these places are worthy of saving in my mind for one reason or another, and no doubt they probably will be.  The Trust is pretty powerful, and when they throw their weight behind a property at this magnitude, chances are it will be saved.  In the decade or so they’ve been producing this list, I think only four named properties have met a grisly end.  The rest were either saved or continue to exist at some level of limbo.

You’ll notice several recently historic buildings on this list.  We’re talking things built in the 1950s, mainly, although the 60s are on the edge of that magical 50-year mark (in the United States, federal law defines “historic-age” as 50 years or more).  Many people don’t appreciate 1950s architecture, but I’m not one of them.  I love it, I think it’s swell.  A recent survey report I authored argued that several 1950s Ranch houses were worthy of recognition.  The state reviewer at TxDOT looked at me like I was crazy.  “They’re classic examples!” I tried to argue, but he just shook his head and started rattling off a variety of reasons why they were not special.

Number one, of course, is that Ranch houses are everywhere.  He’s right, of couse, they are everywhere.  You can’t throw a rock in a mid-century neighborhood and not hit one.  Most are rather sub-par specimens of mid-century architecture, too.  Thinking about these particular Ranch houses, I realized he was correct.  They weren’t all that special, so I gave in.  They were not really in danger from the project anyway.

It did get me to thinking, though.  One decade’s crap is a future decade’s treasures.  Early twentieth century homes were destroyed by the hundreds in the 1930s through the 1960s, because they were old and busted, not the new hotness.   Such urban renewal was one reason the preservation laws we have today exist.  Now we look at that lone surviving 100 year old house on a street and try to imagine what the entire neighborhood must have looked like back then, when they were everywhere.  It’s good we have places like the Trust to help promote the worth of more recently historic buildings, but sometimes I wonder if it’s enough.  Will people 50 years from now do the same with a lone Ranch house from a 1950s-era neighborhood once filled with them?

I Love Honest Reporting

I hate when national reporters smooth a quote for print. SI.com and ESPN.com both used the sanitized AP version of San Antonio Spur’s coach Gregg Popovich’s quote about the beatdown they received from the Mavs last night. Not the Statesman, however. The Statesman went with full verbal honestyin printing this from Popovich:

“They kicked our ass every which way but loose,” Popovich said. “Their energy and aggressiveness was great.”

Not bum, rear, butts–or whatever other safety word would pop to mind. And frankly, asses is what Popovich meant, and it’s the word that most exactly fits the Spurs miserable showing. Kudos to the Statesman for sticking to the truth of the matter. That’s some honest reporting.