You Know You're a Trekkie When...

[Aquarius]

You know you're a trekkie when . . .

I pushed the buttons "B" "4" to get my Coke from the vending machine and thought of Data's twin.

This post went right past me before. My best friend's apartment number is B-4, so I think of RainData every time I visit her.

Cripe, it must be a disease now. "be-fore"..."B-4" I'm gonna see it EVERYWHERE now.

[Alelou]

I must completely suck as a Trekkie because I saw every episode of TNG religiously and I have no idea what you're talking about. Apparently I've lost a lot of that series to the sands of time.

Or maybe I just blocked out all the Data stuff.

[Aquarius]

The movie Insurrection. We meet Data's slower brother, B-4. My friends and I called him RainData after seeing the film for the first time.

[TPoptarts]

The movie Insurrection. We meet Data's slower brother, B-4. My friends and I called him RainData after seeing the film for the first time.

Wasn't that in Nemesis

[Aquarius]

The movie Insurrection. We meet Data's slower brother, B-4. My friends and I called him RainData after seeing the film for the first time.

Wasn't that in Nemesis

Sorry, you're right. This getting up at 5am crap is still getting to me. I was ready for bed like two hours ago, but notice I'm still here...

Tell you what: YOU keep custody of my brain for a bit, okay? Seems like it's better off with you at the moment.

[TPoptarts]

Well your brain's always welcome, there's plenty empty space in my head to fill

Hey I woke up at 5am too. And spent like 6 hours in the buses and trains and one train got stuck because the doors didn't open, in the time it took to fix it I missed the next train of course, yay so then I was late

[Alelou]

Ah, that explains it. I blocked Nemesis out of my memory shortly after I saw it. Even when my son was on a ST kick and got it from Netflix and I watched it with him, I just couldn't remember having seen it before. Actually, maybe I really never saw it the first time around. I think it's highly possible that after seeing Insurrection I swore off ever paying good money to see another TNG movie ever again...

[Aquarius]

Well your brain's always welcome, there's plenty empty space in my head to fill

Hey I woke up at 5am too. And spent like 6 hours in the buses and trains and one train got stuck because the doors didn't open, in the time it took to fix it I missed the next train of course, yay so then I was late

Well, I finally had a good night's sleep, so theoretically I won't need someone to do my thinking for me until I go back to the plant again on Friday, so I'll let you know!

What were YOU doing up so early???

Alelou--My main problem with Nemesis was that in many ways, it was just a retelling of The Wrath of Khan, but with the TNG cast. And being left with RainData was just disappointing.

[Alelou]

You know, I never thought of it that way. I still can't think of it that way, because I can't remember it well enough to draw the parallels! The Wrath of Khan, on the other hand, is burned into my brain as firmly as The Three Little Pigs . Khan was great, straightforward storytelling. You didn't have to be a Trekkie to love the ride but if you were a Trekkie it was just heaven.

[Aquarius]

^ Well natch, much of the window-dressing changed, but you have the fundamentals of obsessed-crazy bad guy hell bent on revenge against Kirk/Picard, and Spock/Data makes the "ultimate sacrifice" to ensure the survival of the ones he cares about, and both end with a hint that the character isn't "really" dead (Spock had hope through Genesis; the implication was that Data would somehow live on through RainData). The formula is there if you watch for it, but it's not as well-executed so it's not as memorable as Khan.

[Alelou]

Mmm, yes, you're right. I wonder if that's how they pitched it to the studio?

Thankfully Khan was not some wacko clone of Kirk but an interesting villain we'd already met. And I know it's just me and I'm a mean old hag but losing Spock meant a lot more to me than losing Data. You just couldn't say that Picard and Data or anyone and Data had a legendary friendship like Kirk and Spock did. To me Data always felt more like a cute mascot useful for the occasional AI/what-does-it-mean-to-be-human plot and light comic notes.

I honestly find it odd how poorly that TNG crew has aged for me. I still have enormous affection for TOS, although the original shows are kind of laughable now. I'm obviously still entranced with ENT. But TNG has really just thoroughly faded from my affections. I find it weird because I was REALLY into it while it ran.

[Aquarius]

Personally, TNG made an indelible mark on me, but then I was 17 when it started so I was still "impressionable" at that age, especially when a show like that affected my artistic development as a writer. Tasha Yar actually actually made the biggest impression on me at first--imagine being a 17-year old girl and seeing a female chief of security for the first time, in a time when women were actually gaining and holding equality in the workplace. It was my first tangible exposure to Girl Power as a young adult. (Well, that, and I was thinking about this the other day: I remember an episode of TOS where Uhura had on a pair of coveralls and was actually under a console fixing something, and I remembered thinking as a little kid that this made her really smart and badass! ) That, and for the late 80s, that hairdo was really rockin', and it was the reason I finally got my mom to cave and let me start coloring my hair--so I guess we may have Denise Crosby to thank for my career choice! Any way, each individual character made impressions on me, some I liked better than others, and some dynamics I enjoyed more than others (ie I got more into Picard/Crusher than I did Worf/Troi...running the risk of blasphemy here, W/T was just "Really? Are you kidding me right now?" for me.)

The lack of a Big Three type friendship was, I think, because they really did try to do something different with TNG and make it truly an ensemble cast, with no character being (that much) more important than another. You actually got a Geordi episode here, a Worf episode there, a Troi episode later on...with TOS, you had Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and sometimes Scotty, and the rest were written in such a way that they were just there when you needed someone else to say lines. That's how television was done at the time. Nobody was really doing ensemble cast shows back then. Plus TNG was groundbreaking in that meaningful romance was even hinted at let alone delivered (though I still don't dig the Worf/Troi thing) in a Star Trek show, versus the occasional "Wham, bam, thank you, Alien Ma'am."

So I guess to me I would just say that I loved each just as much, just differently. Cliche, I know, but it really is apples and oranges to me.

[evcake]

Picture!! PLEASE

I'll be there next Monday. I'll try to remember to take a phone pic.

[Alelou]

Personally, TNG made an indelible mark on me, but then I was 17 when it started so I was still "impressionable" at that age, especially when a show like that affected my artistic development as a writer.

I wonder how much of the difference here is simply that? TOS hit me when I was fourteen, and therefore very impressionable. It imprinted on me! They say you never lose those early affections. When I'm in a nursing home I expect my fellow old fogies and I will be begging for the Muzak to be stuff like "Bohemian Rhapsody" and the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever :lol:

[Alelou]

You read this fascinating article in the NY Times and all you can think is that Phlox was right!

Worms for Health

In studies in mice, Dr. Weinstock and Dr. Elliott have used worms to both prevent and reverse autoimmune disease. Dr. Elliott said that in Argentina, researchers found that patients with multiple sclerosis who were infected with the human whipworm had milder cases and fewer flare-ups of their disease over a period of four and a half years. At the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Dr. John Fleming, a neurologist, is testing whether the pig whipworm can temper the effects of multiple sclerosis.

In Gambia, the eradication of worms in some villages led to children’s having increased skin reactions to allergens, Dr. Elliott said. And pig whipworms, which reside only briefly in the human intestinal tract, have had “good effects” in treating the inflammatory bowel diseases, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, he said.

Full article: Babies Know: A Little Dirt Is Good for You