Comic for Friday, May 8, 2009

Posted: 6:30 am, Friday, May 8th

I'm very happy to report that Star Trek is getting good reviews to this point. It's funny. I'm clearly not falling for the trick of hitching hopes and dreams to this flick the way I did the Star Wars prequels that George Lucas never got around to making, but Star Trek is what really got me going on a lifetime of dorktitude. I mean, yeah, I watched Star Wars eight billion times from second to fifth grades, but when I discovered Trek in fifth grade? That was it. I can safely blame my hellish junior high years on Gene Rodenberry, but I can't be angry. It helps that as I grew up, so did Trek - the Next Generation was exponentially more evolved than the original, and then Deep Space Nine had all this philosophical shit going on that I never really understood until later. Thankfully, Voyager sucked ass right when I went to college, so I was able to walk away from it with my head held high, instead of pretending to like it if, say, they had taken the bizarre route of making an entire movie about Kirk as a small boy hanging out with a Jamaican-ish alien and Japanese-ish, I dunno, spice traders or something. I mean, that would just be silly. What am I saying? Oh, right. I'm going to go see Star Trek this weekend. Probably tomorrow, because the last time I saw a movie on a Friday night, I slept through two thirds of it.

I think Homeboy comes to the Dome next week, and there's still fools debating whether or not he should be allowed to. God, I hate the people who are associated with my school sometimes.

Sweaty texted me at 12:36 this morning, "Did somebody say Manny Ramirez?" That's a favorite joke of ours from the '01 season that is actually a riff off MST3K's Fugitive Alien II episode. Remember in 1996, when you could get .ra or .wav files of movie quotes all over the internet? How fucking weird was that, right? Yep, that's my story.

2.0 and 51 are entering the wonderful world of pickling. Those zany girls.

Sweet criminy, the weekend.

I'm midway through the Last Olympian, and it's pretty bad-ass. I do find myself stretching to remember some of the fine points of the Percy Jackson series, though, since I read all four of the books in about a month and a half in December and January. Not every nuanced thing has sunk in like in Harry Potter. My favorite thing about the Last Olympian so far is that Riordan abandoned the road-trip theme of every single other edition in favor of localizing the book in - well, yes, in Manhattan, but whatever. It's a really nice city.

Oh, which brings me to everyone's big gripe on Wednesday, the repeated mentioning of running away to California by the characters. It's more they're talking about the idea of California than any reality. So, yeah, I guess they're kind of like the 1850s go-west-young-man archetype, or "The Simpsons are going to California!" For some reason (the weather), I think LA is kind of like the anti-New York. I'm sure I'm wrong. I've only been in LA for like 10 hours, and was alseep for six of them. As usual, I have no idea what I'm talking about.

Can we all just get along now?

bullfrog

Noxx -- Friday, May 8 2009, 07:59 am

L.A. isn't kind of like the anti-New York, L.A. is EXACTLY the anti-New York. The most glaring difference of course is that in L.A. it's unthinkable to not own a car, but the list goes on and on. I'm born and bred California, but the folks are from Flatbush, and going back is more than a bit alien.

LA is a wonderful and magical place and is the perfect antidote to any persistent new yorkiness.

I turn into Woody Allen in "Annie Hall" whenever I go to L.A., griping about the cars, the distance, the traffic, the sun . . . Their public transportation is actually fantastic, but nobody takes it. And of course the food is good.

I was having dinner with some friends in Paris last week who had just seen REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, where the characters talk often about running away to Paris (as most hip American expatriates did in the '50s). I asked them where people in Paris want to run away to. They couldn't come up with a place.

Interesting. When I went back to Geneseo for the first time after a few years I felt more melancholy than anything else.

For the font buffs: http://shirt.woot.com/

I liked that one. Not enough to actually buy it, but liked it nonetheless.

I just thought it was funny that the guys would spend all this time in New York and dream of anywhere else. Actually we never heard Lissa say it, and Pete has no ambition in general that we know of. If I had to live in California, San Francisco might work for me, but it's kind of small.

Still just three years out of ND? Reminds me of J Jacques saying all of QC so far has been about 6 months for the characters.

I thoroughly believe that California is trying to kill the people who live there - earthquakes, wildfires, mudslides, smog, the possibility for tsunamis, etc.