Geeks in the Mist: Star Trek Captains
niners-hat

So American he makes eagles cry.

I’m a Saint Louis Cardinals fan.  Cubs fans receive nothing but mockery from me, Royals fans, even more.

Some might wonder why I’m such an ass to people that are fans of different baseball franchises.  Why should I care?  They don’t know me, the players would leave in a heartbeat for more money if it weren’t for their contracts and it’s expensive.  Baseball players get millions of dollars to hang out and play a game, so why give a crap?

I’d ask the same about the low, yet unending argument over Captains in Star Trek.  Usually Jean Luc Picard and James T. Kirk are the centers for such geeky word exchanges (Which pisses me off since Ben Sisko was easily the best.  He had the most soul) It has settled down in recent years, but I have heard the rumblings resurging with the impending release of the new Star Trek movie directed by J.J. Abrams.  For some reason, people think this man walks on water, but they obviously haven’t seen Cloverfield or half of the episodes of Lost

In all, there have been five Captains (Try to name them all, FULL NAMES with actor names, no peeking, and yes, we are counting Enterprise.)  James Kirk, Jean-Luc Picard, Ben Sisko, Kathryn Janeway and Jonathan Archer.  Each has varying degrees of competence and strengths  I think for this column, we can lay out everything and you, the reader, can decide for yourself which one is worthy of your worship. Read the rest of this entry »

Written on May 9th, 2009 , Columns, Geeks in the Mist, Movies & TV, Star Trek Tags: , ,
Geeks in the Mist: Star Trek Enemies?
gorn_05

Love me love me, say that you love me, fool me fool me, go on and fool me

As a fan of the Star Trek franchise – and in keeping with Star Trek Week here at IoM – I thought it might be prudent to do a few entries on Star Trek.  Since I am just as much a whore as any other geek, I’ll use this opportunity to talk about some of the enemies faced by the many Captains.  I’ll save the cliché “which-captain-is-the-best” entry for next week.

Not every enemy stayed an enemy, and not all members of a single race were necessarily bad.  We don’t want to think that Roddenberry was ultimately racist in the things he created.  Klingons were bastards at times, but Worf was fun, and they weren’t all trying to bring down the federation.  The real question posed here though is, “are there any real enemies?”   I don’t mean the Klingons or the Ferengi, I mean the real dangers to the Federation.

Read the rest of this entry »

Written on May 3rd, 2009 , Geeks in the Mist, Star Trek Tags:
Geeks in the Mist: Conventions
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A likely scene from a convention room.

If you’ve ever wanted to see a bunch of geeks in one place, check your local listings for conventions.  Gaming, anime, science fiction or just a mixture of all kinds of geek related culture.

Depending on the size and the theme of the convention, you can see quite a few different aspects of the geek community.  GenCon, held in Indianapolis, is arguably the biggest in the Midwest, dwarfed only by a few others, most notably Dragon Con.

I’ve only been to one in my life.  Archon, held in Illinois outside of Saint Louis, was three days of insanity that will stay with me for the rest of my life.  While geeks can be fairly geeky during the evening, their propensity and ability to drink is matched by none other than the staunchest of alcoholic football fans. Read the rest of this entry »

Written on April 19th, 2009 , Columns, Conventions, Geeks in the Mist Tags:
Geeks in the Mist: Joss Whedon
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Buffy Season 8? The slayers fight vampire roller girls!

I may get a few phone calls for this one…

Proper geeks will know all the big names in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Tolkien, Roddenberry, Heinlein and dozens of other writers, producers and directors who feed the geek DVD and book shelf.

In our modern day, we have a man by the name of Joss Whedon. He got his writing start on Roseanne back in 1989, followed up with a few writing credits on Parenthood and then broke out with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Not the TV show, not yet at least. The god awful movie version that will either elicit groans or fiery arguments from the geek sect. Read the rest of this entry »

Written on April 12th, 2009 , Columns, Geeks in the Mist, Movies & TV Tags:
Geeks in the Mist: TV show Fandom
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It's like this, but with more robots in space

There is a phenomenon that I’ve noticed in the geek culture. I’ve watched the first Season of Heroes and part of the second. It started to slow down and I felt my time could be better spent drinking cheap booze and watching infomercials.

Now, however, I hear about Season 3 of Heroes on a regular basis. The last few episodes, the powers of the characters, all kinds of stuff. I hear excuses for the second season, especially since it happened during the writers strike, and I am told on a regular basis that I should go back and grind (a term which will be later discussed) through the bad episodes so I can get to the current good episodes.

I’ll be honest, I watched the first season just to keep up with my friends. I liked the idea of X-Men without the odd outfits, but the story was lacking a bit for me. I’ve felt no need to pick it back up. Read the rest of this entry »

Written on April 5th, 2009 , Columns, Geeks in the Mist, Movies & TV Tags:
Geeks in the Mist: Introduction

I have a dark secret. I’m not a real geek.

I’ve tried to be, I really have. I played D&D, watched a lot of Star Trek, gotten into arguments about Return of the Jedi being the best Star Wars movie. I’ve been to conventions, ran games, expressed outrage at the canceling of Firefly, all kinds of things.

But I’m not really a geek. There are so many things my geek friends rave about that I am at a loss on. I didn’t really like World of Warcraft, Battlestar Galactica or Stargate SG-1. I don’t read comic books, gaming manuals or most science fiction books.

I masquerade as a geek so I can be accepted with them. Maybe I can’t keep up with every conversation, but I can at least fake it until I can throw out some Nathan Fillion news.

But I am a geek. I love Star Trek and Doctor Who, I read a lot of Heinlein and Haldeman and I’m in school for network engineering.

This puts me in a strange place in the geek culture. I live near a border that I cross on a regular basis. A Schrödinger’s geek, if you will. When you open the box, you don’t know if I’ll be installing Linux on a computer or watching WWE wrestling. This means I get to watch and observe. I get to take a look into the world of the geek without becoming completely immersed in the fanboy culture. I can look at things passively and give both the geek and the outsider’s viewpoint. I am perched on a stack of Anime quietly studying them.

These geeks in the Mist

Stay tuned for observations…

Written on April 4th, 2009 , Geeks in the Mist

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