The Downeaster “Alexa” 09/05/2010

The radio is having a Billy Joel weekend and I heard this song today for the first time. It’s one of those things one might call “hauntingly beautiful”. To explain the name: A Downeaster is a type of fishing boat. Billy Joel actually owns a Downeaster named “Alexa”, after his daughter. I borrowed the image from thesisprocrastination.com.

The man and his boat

If I close my eyes, I can see the dark skies and faraway soft lights of boats out at see, when I listen to this. The strings make up the sounds of seagulls, the drums – the beating of the waves agains the hull. Wish I could do this song justice.

I made an approximate route, mentioned in the song.

Here are the lyrics.

Ladies Home Journal 15/03/2010

Courtesy of Igor.

Some ideas may seem silly but translate well into what happens today. I promise not to give anything away. Please click here.

Fall into you 21/02/2010

Randomly ran across it…

Tattoos: Steampunk 20/02/2010

Wikipedia says:

“Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction and speculative fiction, frequently featuring elements of fantasy, that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used — usually the 19th century, and often Victorian era England — but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or real technological developments like the computer occurring at an earlier date. Other examples of steampunk contain alternate history-style presentations of “the path not taken” of such technology as dirigibles, analog computers, or digital mechanical computers (such as Charles Babbage’s Analytical engine); these frequently are presented in an idealized light, or with a presumption of functionality.”

Been playing Arcanum all day (but giving up, slowly) so I thought I’d do a steampunk type post. Here goes. As always, original artwork available via click on the thumbnail.

StarTrek: Comments&Rants 08/02/2010

1. Teehee *giggle*. Cameron is Kirk’s mom. I find that funny. Also, I’ve never liked blond Cameron much.
2. No matter the time and technological advances made, hardhats and hospital gowns remain the same even as humanity is half way across the galaxy.
3. On that note: You’d think that someone along the 300 or so years from now would have thought to come up with a fully automated wheelchair, so you don’t need some dude pushing you around. Guess not.
4. Hellz yeah for Eric Bana’s make-up. I would have never thought that was him.
5. Nice to see that Nokia survives all to bring us that annoying ringtone even in the future.
6. Now, James T. makin’ it with a green lady, that’s something which is often made fun of and I’m so glad they chucked that one in there. Mind you, if you look at the shot of the graduating class, there’s only one green person.
7. WTH is up with the red jumpsuits? Conspicuous much? If I remember Wesley Crusher at all, he never wore a bright red uniform. I don’t think he ever wore a bright red anything, but I mean in school. Never saw red uniforms.
8. I’m confused. Is Uhura a language expert or some sort of radar/sonar expert? If she’s a languages expert, why do they need her? There’s that universal translator thingy. Surely that has some use. And the sonar radar thing… In space, no-one can hear you blip 🙂 Dunno where I was going with this, but would somebody explain what she does?
9. Apparently the Enterprise is the TARDIS. It’s bigger on the inside and has no space restrictions what so ever. Did you notice all the piping? Notice the space between the pipes? That’s a whole lot of unused space and as any half-decent engineer would tell you: you don’t waste space. You try for the smallest, lightest, cheapest way to build something. You don’t leave two meter gaps between tubes, for frak sake!
   
10. Bones is a bit trigger-happy with that syringe, isn’t he? In a time period of about 3 minutes (which I think is about 40 minutes on the ship) he stabs ol’ Jim a total of four times. Not that I don’t enjoy Kirk’s pain/discomfort…
11. Is the Romulan ship coming out of Suron’s eye?
12. What is up with the lens flare? Does that give the appearance of cleanliness to the ship? Every 20 seconds or so, there’s a lens flare over the screen. It might be shoddy camera work, but I think it’s on purpose. Erm… why?
13. Also, is that how people are made first officer? Just by being there? And saying “My dad died in a storm in space”?
14. Crew member who is not on the regular cast goes down with regular cast. Wears red. Guess what happens to him… And of course, he had the explosives they need. Which you couldn’t tell by the unspectacular grilling of said crew member. Makes you think… how do these people make it through basic training?
15. Ooh! Ooh! Anybody else love Sulu’s blade? When he said fencing, I thought “Really? Pansy fencing?” but it’s totally cool. And he fixes his helmet hair before the fight. Yay!
16. Ya kno… Just because you were born in Leningrad… Does anybody else hate Anton Yelchin’s accent? I know many Slavic people. I even know a few Russians. I have never in my life heard an accent that thick. Though the softness of his t’s is extremely cute.
17. How do you beam up ten thousand people in several minutes? Especially without Scotty. Mind you, I think it might have been slightly easier with Vulcans, since there’s no logic in panicking and running around, they would just stay where they were, which would make them easier to locate and beam up.
18. Even in space, Uhura can get black nail polish 🙂
19. To quote Simon Pegg’s fansite: “This odd-numbered Star Trek won’t be shit with Simon playing Scotty.” and I tend to agree. Simon lends the much needed comic relief to the otherwise gloomy StarTrek.
    

    this must be underwater love... 🙂

20. Is it just me or is the pipe-traveling-Scotty sequence a bit reminiscent of the Jetsons? And how does he make those 90° turns without damaging his spine?
21. Jim’s about 25 years old, Bones is around 30, Scotty’s in the 40s, Chekov is 17. Does Star Fleet Academy have no age restriction or time frame for finishing?
22. Why does the Romulan ship guns that can fire on the inside of the ship? Aren’t they afraid they might hit something important that’s theirs?  And why so many platforms, but no railing? Are Romulans immune to gravity, so they won’t slip and fall by accident? Maybe it’s some kind of selection process: If you can’t jump from  platform to platform, then you don’t deserve to live, you inept tattooed pansy. I’m surprised Spartans didn’t practice something similar…
23. How epic was it when the Enterprise just swoops out of nowhere and the dogfight starts? Soundtrack commendations on that one. Hats off to master Michael Giacchino.
24. Think Leonard Nimoy ever thought his character would be this famous? Or this awesome? Or that he’d still be playing it some 40 years later? Spock’s got some staying power. Gotta give him that 🙂
25. I think it’s funny when Jim comes up to admiral Pike and says “I relieve you, sir”. I imagine that line is said by health care workers, holding variously shaped bowls and pots in which a patient can be relieved. I realize this might only be funny to me.

To end, some quotes:

“One tiny crack in the hull and our blood boils in thirteen seconds. Solar flare might crop up, cook us in our seats. And wait till you’re sitting pretty with a case of Andorian shingles, see if you’re so relaxed when your eyeballs are bleeding. Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence.” – Leonard “Bones” McCoy (he sounds like me in a moving vehicle)

“So, the Enterprise has had its maiden voyage, has it? She is one well-endowed lady. I’d like to get my hands on her “ample nacelles,” if you pardon the engineering parlance…” – Montgomery “Scotty” Scott

“However, if crew morale is better served by my roaming the halls weeping, I will gladly defer to your medical expertise.” – Spock

Never has the inflection of this phrase been more sarcastic ❤

Disclaimer: images property of Paramount Pictures, Spyglass Entertainment, Bad Robot and MavroCine

StarTrek:Shipping

So I watched it yesterday… And… Um… *stands up in front of people*

“My name is Tash and I’m a Uhura/Spock shipper!”

Oh, get over it! I’ve been waiting for Spock to get his freak on since I first watched StarTrek. So if it’s with a glorified receptionist, so what! Ok, so Zachary Quinto scares me a bit. Must be the whole Sylar thing. But the man does a good Spock. Gotta give him that one. I would have liked to see me some more Spock nookie, but hey, I’ll takes ’em any way I can gets ’em. Hope lies in the sequels and the screenwriter’s wish to comply with fanservice (also known as the screenwriter’s wish not to be trampled by rabid fangirls).

image property of Paramount Pictures, Spyglass Entertainment, Bad Robot and MavroCine

All the other comments will be in another post.

The Weepies – World Spins Madly On 05/02/2010

Fragile Flora 20/01/2010

As much as I doubt anybody apart from my friends and occasional family member reads these posts of mine, I would like to make a suggestion to the public in general and I will rely on said friends to pass it on. My friend, David, showed me this and I’m forwarding it to the world at large, if at all possible.

click on the image to visit the original article

CuriousExpeditions seems like an awesome page to visit and look through, which I fully intend to do, as soon as my bloody exams are over. For now I will stick to this one article about glass flowers. Yes, they are glass. Not dried. Imagine the time and virtuosity it took to make just one of these, not to mention an entire collection. So, dear reader, be you friend, family or a passerby, take a minute to appreciate the amazing work shown in the Fragile Flora article. Thank you.

Also, if you happen to have a twitter account, here’s another link.

Placebo – Running Up That Hill

The original, with Kate Bush, always freaked me out. The video was very, very freaky. Just plain strange. And then there was Within Temptation. I don’t like how that  girl there wants to pass shrieking off as singing. So today I hear Brian Molko’s vocals giving this song the creepiness it deserves. Have a listen.

Learn a few chords… 17/01/2010

CollegeHumor did this video a while back. It’s called “Learning guitar to get laid”. Here’s the video:

And just to prove learning very few chords does work for many a song, cue The Axis of Awesome:

Thanks to my jazziest friend Jazzva, for showing me the AoA video 🙂