Is This Cool or Weird?

Okay, I loved the mid-80s TV movie version of Alice in Wonderland, which, of course, prominently featured "The Jabberwocky."

I also like filk music, at least older stuff (classics like Julia Ecklar's stuff, Leslie Fish...that kind of stuff).

This sounds like a filk recording of "The Jabberwocky," but I'm not sure if it's cool or not.  Something about the phrasing or pacing, especially at the beginning, seems a
bit...off:

Personally, my favorite nonsense phrase was always: "the vorpal blade went snicker-snack."

Incoherent Spluttering

Okay...so...there will be Romulans in the Star Trek movie.  They made up a language.

Good for them.

But...but...the comments. Oh, the comments.

"We’re space pirates,” Collins explained. “Think of Johnny Depp as a Romulan.”

Pardon me over here while I gibber in a corner.

Are you frelling kidding me?

(Note to self:  Stop sounding like a rabid fan girl.  Thank you very much.)

Romulans aren't pirates.  They -- they -- they're an Empire, for the love of....

I can't....

Okay, seriously?

NOT PIRATES.

(Hello, self?  This is your other self.  Seriously.  Stop sounding like a raving fan girl.)

You don't have to be the cos-playing nerdy Trekkie at a convention, lugging around your well-worn copy of The Romulan Way** (see how I snuck that in?), to know that the Romulans aren't pirates.

And to invoke Johnny Depp-type pirates....

(Self?  This is your not-insane self pointing out that Battlestar Galactica is very good and Baltar isn't a weirdo sitting on a really tall chair.)

...

I must quote.  Other people's words actually make sense.  "Oh Great Bird . . . guide our Trek on its course."  (Go here and download "Born Again Trek" if you need a visual -- even though I wasn't with the "midwest crowd" and actually have only ever watched Wrath of Khan once, because of the earwigs (ewww) and Kirk watching Spock die (sniff).)

** Written by the very, very good Diane Duane, who wrote two of my other favorite 80s-ish era Trek books:  Spock's World (awesome, awesome exploration of Vulcans) and Doctor's Orders (freaking hilarious except when I felt bad for how scared Bones was).

***  Also?  While I was googling for "Born Again Trek," I found Pigs in Space!

Vid Rec and Heroes

So, I made it through the first season of Heroes, and the premiere of the second.

A few thoughts.

*  Hiro is awesome personified.  He did what all us geeks wish we could do: wake up one day with super powers and have the strength of will to use them for good.

*  I used to say, "Every Frodo needs his Sam."  That is now interchangeable with, "Every Hiro needs his Ando."  Ando is also made of awesomeness, especially when he goes to confront Sylar alone.

To that end, check out the first vid on this page, "Sawatte Kawatte."  I downloaded the subbed version, but it would probably work just as well as an "instrumental" -- possibly even better.

*  I like that no one is one hundred percent good or bad.  I really, truly felt bad for Sylar when he was with his mom, even though he'd been slicing open people's heads (GROSS).  I vacillated with Mr. Bennett -- which, I think, is what I was supposed to do.  Mohinder was mostly so focused about helping people, but then almost killed Sylar.  No easy answers.  Nifty.

*  I find it interesting that Peter and Sylar both have the same gift.  I like the idea (was it the dead guy Peter saw at the end of the season? I forget.) that it's ultimately empathy that's his gift -- and through that, he absorbs others' powers.

*  The LA police officer...hmm....  I mean, what an awful power, if you can't shut it off -- can you imagine hearing a stray unkind thought about yourself?  Even if the person who thought it was just frustrated?  I don't quite get him working with Nuclear Dude -- it seemed like a plot device to get all of them in New York so Peter's dream would be mostly accurate.

* I find myself wondering if Hiro's dad had a gift.

*  I also found it interesting that Hiro can't be that much older than Claire -- when he was playing his Game Boy as Hiro's dad handed 1-year-old Claire to Mr. Bennett, he didn't look much older than 7 or 8.  That means current Hiro is in his early 20s.

*  Sylar.  I don't buy that Sylar's dead.  If Peter had absorbed Claire's healing powers enough to jump off that thing at Homecoming, and he had just been fighting with Sylar -- wouldn't Sylar have absorbed it too.

*  Mrs. Bennett and that dog drove me freaking insane.  And, yes, I know her brain looks more like Swiss cheese than a brain, thanks to Haitian Guy, but...seriously?

*  I warmed up, a bit, to the Nikki/Jessica story-line.  I think it got old, and I'd like to know if it was multiple personalities, or really Jessica's spirit, but...I did stop fast forwarding through them.

* Mohinder could say the alphabet for me, and I'd be enthralled.

* As if I weren't having enough trouble with the upcoming Star Trek movie....  The guy who plays Sylar had better be, like, the second coming of the Acting muse, if he wants me to look at him and see Spock, and not Sylar.  Geesh.

* I am endlessly fascinated (it's that language thing) by the fact that Hiro pronounces his last name differently when he's speaking in Japanese than when he's speaking in English.  I don't know why -- I just find it fascinating.  When he speaks in Japanese, the accent is on the "ka" -- NaKAmura -- and when he speaks in English, it's on the "mu" -- NakaMUra.  Coolness.

* I want to talk to ATM machines.  Seriously.

* I'm not quite sure whether Nathan -- or, actually, most of the Petrelli clan -- are in the "good guy," "bad guy," or "motivated self-interest" camp.  Which, I guess speaks to the above that no one is wholly good or evil.

*  Obviously, the symbol that keeps cropping up -- Jessica's tattoo, on Hiro's sword, and so forth -- means something.

* I felt absolutely awful for Hiro when he couldn't save the waitress.  :-(

*  I still don't quite get how saving the cheerleader = saving the world.

*  Will Claire age and die?

*  And, finally, having seen just a bit of the second season:  I rather thought for a moment that the Japanese hero guy would be Hiro's dad (revealing his power was immortality).  Now, I wonder if Hiro either talked the British guy into doing the heroic stuff, or did them himself.

Now, go watch the video.  And smile at Hiro's awesomeness.

Finally

While nowhere near as momentous an occasion as Cat finishing her computer class, I am currently typing the last chapter of Little House on the Prairie into Writing With Symbols.

One thing I've noticed re-reading this book as I've done it with my class is the deeply loving relationship that existed between Charles and Caroline Ingalls. Though the book is written through a child's eyes, it's very apparent, both through actions (e.g. Pa's buying Ma some calico to make a dress) and through descriptions (the way Laura describes Ma's reaction to the gift).

Of course, as an aide in my classroom said, she'd have to love the guy to follow him across open wilderness...without getting a 'convenient' divorce by leaving him for hostile Native Americans! :-)

By the way -- I've not seen Memoirs of a Geisha, but Charmax has made an absolutely breathtaking vid for the movie. (The link is to an imeem stream; I recommend going to her site and downloading the actual thing).