Two years later...

So it's been over two years since I've written anything here. Not that big of a deal, since no one really reads it - likely because I never post. I'm actually thinking that this is a good thing, because now I feel the need to vent about something and "put it out there", but I don't necessarily want it known by everyone I know, much less those it's in regards to.

To be honest, I kind of feel a little petty about this... situation. That always makes this kind of thing more difficult, at least for me. I mean, I feel hurt, but I don't know that I have a right to feel hurt, you know? Sometimes when people hurt you it's not really their fault, it's more about them not living up to your expectations of how they should behave. There are certain societal expectations on how people should behave in various situations, but there are many times that we expect people to react how WE ourselves would react. Sometimes you have to really examine a situation and the hurt that it's caused to determine whether you're justifiably hurt or simply reacting like a spoiled child.

Anyways, on to the heart of the matter. I have a brother that I'm not as close to as I'd like. I mean, we get along better now than we did when we were kids, but we're still not that tight. Some of that is my fault, to be sure. I'm not really good at that sort of thing. This is one of the reasons my love life is crap - I'm just not that good at expressing emotions. Well, except for annoyance. I'm more of an actions not words kind of guy. Therein, incidentally, lies some of the source of my hurt - my family didn't do something that I think that they should have.

In any case, my brother and his family live two states away - it's about a 12 hour drive. Because we're not close, we don't talk a whole lot on the phone. We do exchange emails, texts, even Tweets, if we need to contact each other for some reason or another. If something big happened in my life - engagement, great new job, or the like - I'd make it a point to reach out to him to let him know. I would expect him to do the same.

Apparently I'm wrong, and that's where my hurt stems from. You see, he and his wife just had their fourth kid a few weeks ago. Now, I knew they were pregnant, but how did I found out she'd given birth? I happened to look at Facebook at the right time - some 17 hours later - when he posted some pictures of the newborn. Now, the kid was born in the middle of the night. Granted, I was probably awake, but he didn't have to call then. Just a text to let me know the kid was finally born (he was late), that things were well, and the like. I know he was with it enough to post it to Facebook just after the birth. If he hadn't made the second post in the afternoon that I saw, it's entirely possible I wouldn't have found out for days - because NO ONE has bothered to contact me about this. Not my brother, nor my parents.

Last weekend, my parents went up to visit and to participate in the newborn's dedication at my brother's church. My parents and I had discussed going up for the birth, if we could possibly swing it - I was there for their other three kids, after all. We also discussed going up just after the kid was born if we couldn't make it for the birth. Apparently that idea went right out the window.

So, am I right to feel hurt by this? Do I read into it and decide that they no longer want me in their lives? Is that going to far? Or do I just go on like normal, swallow my hurt yet again, and pretend everything is okay next major family holiday?

Star Trek: Everything You Know Is Wrong

So I saw Star Trek last night.

It was awesome.

Really.

I loved it. I'm totally planning on seeing it again.

Casting was spot on. Minor quibble that Simon Pegg's Scotty doesn't sound like James Doohan's, but I'm a nitpicking bastard so it's excusable. Besides, Simon is awesome.

Dialogue was great. Plenty of the one liners and refrences to the show for the long time fans, but still accessible to those who'd never seen Star Trek.

The Enterprise was awesome. You finally get an idea of how massive the ship could be. Of course, it looks nothing like it does on the series, but I'm a nitpicking bastard, remember? Besides, I suppose the differences can be explained by the story in the movie.

*cue spoilers warning*


















So you remember The Original Series? Next Generation? DS9? Voyager? All the movies?

None of that happened.

From the point that Nero shows up, the Star Trek we know and have loved since 1966 has ceased to exist for us. With the exception of "Enterprise", for all intents and purposes, none of those shows or movies will happen.

I know, I know. We're in an alternate universe. I know that, technically, they all happened in the timeline we used to watch. Now we're just watching this timeline. And I totally get why they're doing this. Now they can do whatever they want, and it won't affect what we know from the original time line, right?

So let's look at this. They destroyed Vulcan, and - unlike pretty much every other time they've screwed with time on Star Trek - they didn't undestroy it. So now it's gone. What does that mean?

What are the chances that Tpau and her daughter survived? Also, Spock has a thing with Uhura now. Come his Pon Farr, instead of going to New Vulcan, instead of the epic funky polearm battle with Kirk, he just has to get it on with Uhura. Problem solved.

Kirk grew up without a father in this timeline. Let's assume he still has his son, David, in this new timeline. Would Kirk be more or less likely to try and play a greater roll in his son's life. Would David still grow up to be a scientist, or would he enter Star Fleet to be like his dad? If David becomes a Star Fleet officer, would Genesis ever happen? More to the point, what if Khan is never found?

If there's a Khan and no Genesis, Spock doesn't get reborn. If there's a Genesis and no Khan, Spock doesn't die. Either way, there's no Search for Spock. So now the crew may not be together - or worse yet, on Earth - when the whale probe appears and starts jacking everybody up with it's "Whale Song o' Doom". They can't go back in time to get more whales, and there goes Earth. So now TNG, DS9, etc won't happen even in some bizarre, unrelated way.

Maybe.

Like I said, I loved the movie. I want to see it again. I just don't think they thought it through, is all.

On the bright side, maybe in this timeline Kirk won't die on some backwater planet saving half a million lives on a podunk preindustrial planet that aren't even aware that aliens exist. "Oh, my." WTF? That was just a lame, lame death. Yes, I'm still bitter about it.

They're remaking what?

So apparently Hollywood is remaking "Drop Dead Fred". My first question is, "Why?" My second question is, "Why does Hollywood hate us?"

I absolutely hated this movie. I thought it was stupid just based on the previews, and had had no intentions of seeing it when I was a kid. But it was a friend's favorite movie back in high school, and she insisted on watching it. It stars Phoebe Cates, so I figured getting to watch her in it would make up for the inanity of the rest of the movie.

I was wrong. Phoebe Cates failed me. That's how much I hate this movie.

And now Hollywood wants to attempt to inflict this movie on me again. Only this time, their draw isn't some gorgeous creature like Phoebe, but Russell Brand. Um... ok? Which brings up an unrelated subject - where the hell did this guy come from? I'd never heard of him before "Forgetting Sarah Marshal", and now I hear about him all the time? WTF?

Now, I realize that Hollywood remaking movies is a touchy subject. I mean, I'm not a fan of the movie, but even I recognize they couldn't really improve on a movie like "Gone With the Wind". On the other hand, in 20 or 30 years when we're all watching holographic movies, I could see them "remaking" the LotR movies. Or the Harry Potter movies, even. Actually, truth be told, I've already pondered remakes of those, but that's because they started making those movies before the books were finished, and they started writing out characters that became so important in later books. :|

At least they're going the intelligent route and making a sequel to "Tron", and not actually trying to remake the original. That way, when it sucks, it will soil my childhood a little less...

Hmm

Just messing about a bit with Scribefire and copying over a few old posts from my old Myspace blog.

The New Adventures of Old Christine

So last night, Kyle, Josh and I decided to get together for dinner. For some reason, when this happens, there is often an increased chance of adventure (see the Adventures of the Simple Minded blog for reference). Last night, adventure laid the smacketh down upon us again.

We took of from Josh and Kyle's about 8:30 or so. I'd been running late because I got sucked into a movie at home, and so got to their house late (however, none of this is my fault, despite Kyle's protestations). We still hadn't decided where we were going to eat (a bit of a theme with us), Kyle decided that he wasn't going to decide, and Josh apparently decided we were going to Bed, Bath, & Beyond for some reason. Unfortunately, we had to pass post King's game traffic to get there. Some woman cut Josh off, so he rode her bumper for a bit because he was annoyed. Then this cute police chick pulls up beside us and asks him if he always drives that bad. It was pretty funny, and she was pretty cute. I, of course, have no game and kept my mouth shut.

The whole situation should have been enough warning for us to just turn around and go home. But... We're stupid.

So we get up to BBB, which is of course closed, as it's nearly 9 on a Sunday night. So we whip through the parking lot back to a light controlled intersection. As we pull up, Josh and I (we're sitting in the front seat of Josh's Dodge 4 door pickup) see this woman standing on the corner. We both knew she was going to be an issue for us. We could tell that she wanted something. But the gorram light wouldn't change, and wouldn't change, and she walked out into the intersection asking us something. Finally Josh just rolls down his window so he could hear her.

"Do you guys know where 80 is? I have to get back to Marysville."

Now, you don't take I-80 to get to Marysville. However, she was obviously intoxicated, and had it in her head she had to go there. Unfortunately, she had walked the wrong way from Arco Arena and ended up where we were, a couple of miles from I 80.

Apparently, she and her boyfriend had come down for the King's game from Marysville, but her BF was a total idiot, jackass, and a variety of repetitive swear words because he kept choosing dope over her. So she left him at the game. We let her in the car, to give a her a ride to the I 5 (which you would take to get to Marysville), though both Kyle and I were pretty sure as soon as Josh let her in the truck that we were going to Marysville that night.

As we get close to I-5, in between her offers to pay us for taking her home, she mentions that her son is waiting for her at the Applebee's (figures) by I-80. So we're all, "Um... why didn't you just tell us that before?" So we hop on the freeway down to the loop, come around, and head into where the restaurant is. We drive up to it, but she doesn't see her car. She borrows Josh's cell to call home to find out where her son is, who apparently had no idea he was supposed to come down to pick her up. Apparently, he just started driving a few weeks ago, and didn't want to drive down one America's bloodiest highways to come pick up his drunk mother on a late Sunday night. So there's a bit of an exchange between her and her son, when Josh says, "I need to get gas."

As soon as he said that, Kyle and I knew the deal was sealed. We were going to Marysville.

So I spent last night traveling the hour or so trip to Marysville to take some poor, drunk woman home, and listening to her stories. She's 40 (a cute 40, though, we were surprised), owns her own business, has 3 kids, and her boyfriend is a druggie dink. I know all this because she repeated it multiple times. Kyle, of course, kept hitting on her, but apparently she was practically laying on him in the back seat so I guess he figured it was worth a shot...

We finally got to eat about 10:30. Thank God for IHOP.

Adventures of the Simple Minded

So yesterday (at this point) my friends Kyle, Josh, and I went down to Milpitas to Dave & Busters. There were supposed to be more of us going, but everybody else bailed. Boy, did they miss out...

We had planned on leaving earlier in the day than we did, but we had to wait around for one last hold out. After he fell through, we ended up getting involved in a small project of Josh's. Once that was done, we loaded up into Josh's Dodge pickup and took off at about quarter after 6. It's generally a 2-3 hour drive to D&B, depending on traffic and whatnot, but we managed to make excellent time and got down there about a quarter to 8 - an hour and a half. Remember that, it's important later in the story.

So we go in and put our name in at the restaurant, and head over to the Midway to use the bathroom, recharge our game cards, and try to play some games before dinner. We'd been told it was about a 45 minute wait, but were buzzed back after about 20 minutes. Turns out we had been given a pager that was originally given to a 7 top that had pulled their reservation and weren't scratched off the list. So the hostesses were nice enough to give us the next available normal table, about 5 minutes later.

We ended up spending 5 hours in the restaurant. Literally. That's what happens when you're drinking and have a cute, fun waitress that refuses to give you your check. I had more fun in the restaurant than I did out playing games. Melissa was a blast. Don't worry, nobody did anything to be ashamed of. Well, except for maybe Kyle, but that's Kyle.

So we finally left the restaurant area a little after one, and go play some games. After all, we'd driven all this way and that had originally been our main goal. So we mess around for an hour until 2 am, when they close up and kick us out. Make note of that - we literally left at 2 am.

Now, Kyle had lived down in the Bay Area a few years back, and Josh wanted to go back on 580 so we didn't have to pay the toll. At least, I think that's why we took 580. I was kind of dozing at that point. Anyways, we take off over the mountains on some back road that supposedly saved us some travel time from the 680. We get over to the 580, and stop at a gas station who's mini-mart was closed for the night. No potty for me. We get back on the road and see some poor girl with a flat on the side of the road. We pull back off the freeway, loop around, and come back an help her. It was about 2:30 at that point, and took us about 20 minutes.

After helping her out and turning down the proffered payment, we went over to an office for the company that Josh works for so we could go pee and wash tire dirt gunk off our hands. We farted around there for another 20 minutes or so, with Josh showing off this and that, like the big crane that they have (that's what he works on).

So we take off a little after 3. Less than 20 miles down the road, Kyle says, "Wow, that guy behind us is really having trouble staying on the road." The guy was swerving all over the place, to the point where Josh actually called 911 to report a drunk driver. The best part of that conversation came when the dispatcher told Josh he was speeding when he told her we were doing 75 (because we were trying to stay away from the guy). But the guy started taking an off ramp to Tracy (I think that's where we were), so we slowed down and let him swerve past us so we could get the make of the car and the license plate number. It was a two lane exit, so we actually followed him off the freeway because Josh was still reading off the plate number. We then got to watch the guy swerve to the left, hit some bushes, and then over correct to the right, shoot across the road, and flip over. Josh was like, "Oops, oh, he's about to crash. Yep, he crashed. He flipped over."

So, of course we stop. The guy was okay, and thankfully alone. Apparently he was just really tired and couldn't stay awake. None of us smelled alcohol, and he didn't seem to be acting like he was on drugs. Kind of hard to tell, though, since he spoke little English and had trouble using Josh's cellphone. He also kept asking us to give him a ride, and we were like, "Well, the cops are coming, so we'll give you a ride after wards." Finally the CHP showed up, and talked to Josh for what seemed like forever. Then the cop finally arrested the guy and sent us on our way.

By this time it was around 4 am. Because we had taken this off ramp, we were now committed to finding our way through Tracy back to the freeway. We managed to do so without incident, but passed a few restaurants along the way and realized we were kind of hungry. We finally ended up stopping in Stockton (I think) at a Denny's around 4:30. Of course, by that time, it had been nearly 8 hours since we had last eaten. So we grubbed some breakfast, and took off around 5.

We finally got back to Josh's about 6 am, 1 minute after his wife called to see where he was at. It had taken us 2 and a half hours longer to get home than it did to get to D&B...