Nevertheless, I am posting it anyhow…

Funny how “Khaaaaaaaann!” never gets old, isn’t it? Happy Monday, everyone…

I’ve just learned that the Book of Mormon — the foundation of the predominant faith here in my home state of Utah, the document which is considered by the LDS to be “another testament of Jesus Christ,” and was once referred to by no less a personage than Mark Twain as “chloroform in print” * — has now been translated into more than 100 languages, including — are you ready for this? — Klingon. Yes, Klingon, a.k.a. Klingonese, the entirely made-up language of that swarthy-skinned or literally boneheaded (depending on which version of Star Trek you prefer) race of imaginary bad guys (or good guys, in some versions, and in some episodes of some versions, since they tend to shift allegiances from time to time; it’s all rather complicated, I’m afraid).

I’m rather gobsmacked by this news. Seriously. I’m one of the biggest Trekkies you’re likely to meet (well, at least when it comes to the old-school stuff… I haven’t seen Next Gen or Deep Space Nine in a very long time, and I didn’t care for Voyager or Enterprise), but I’ve never understood the whole artificial language thing. What’s the point of learning a fake language? Come on, people, isn’t French hard enough for you?

In any event, if there are any young men out there who are about 19 years old and want to begin preparing for their mission calls to Qo’noS, check out the selections from the Klingon BoM on this website. Q’apla!

(I found this tidbit here, along with the wise observation that “…you thought ward basketball was bad now.” Um, yeah… I certainly wouldn’t want to play against these guys.)

* Full disclosure: I’ve never read even a single page of the BoM, so I can’t speak as to its soporific qualities, and no disrespect was intended on my part. Sam Clemens is the one who said it, not me…

Yeah, I know, it’s another lolcat, but this one seems so appropriate coming on the heels of the redshirt-death video…

more cat pictures

Real entry coming soon, I promise!

(For my non-Trekkie, non-nerd readers, the title refers to Dr. McCoy’s oft-expressed discomfort with the process of beaming. He’s always nervous about having his molecules scattered or reappearing inside a solid object. Which would, of course, be bad… I wonder if the JJ Abrams reboot movie will continue this gag, or if Bones will be “reimagined” into a manly man who’s not afraid of such mundane little things. Sigh.)

Any student of classic Star Trek knows that one’s sartorial choices have a direct impact on your potential longevity. So much so, in fact, that the term “redshirt” has come into general usage in sci-fi fandom to denote “the minor character who won’t make it to the end of the episode.” As evidence that color choices matter, allow me to present this amusing video montage:

The music is “I’m Alive” by ELO (that’s the Electric Light Orchestra, for you young’uns in the audience). Extra credit to the first commenter who can name the one episode that racks up the highest redshirt body count (a clip from said episode begins this video, if that helps at all).

Aw, man… I just read over at Wil Wheaton’s blog that Star Trek: The Experience, the museum/ride/restaurant/gift shop/ultimate geek mecca in Las Vegas, will be closing down at the end of summer, September 1.

Continue Reading…

I was planning to write today about that big fire at Universal Studios a couple weeks ago, and how annoying it is that most of the media coverage has centered on the loss of backlot sets and tourist attractions that can be rebuilt, while ignoring or downplaying the far more significant loss of hundreds of 35mm film prints spanning the entire history of both Universal’s and Paramount’s catalogs. (The original elements are safely stored elsewhere, but given the expense of striking new prints and the industry’s determined march toward all-digital exhibition, it is unlikely that most of the affected movies will ever again be seen the way they were meant to be, i.e., projected by means of light shining through a strip of actual film, and I — being the unabashed analog-phile that I am — find that unutterably sad.)

I also thought I’d comment on the sad reports that one of the classiest guys ever to grace a movie screen, the legendary Paul Newman, is fighting cancer.

But you know what? After all the crapstorms I’ve weathered the last couple of weeks, I’ve about had it with the doom ‘n’ gloom stuff, so why don’t we just watch a fun video clip? The audio here is William Shatner performing Pulp’s “Common People” — stop rolling your eyes, this is actually a good song, a cut off The Shat’s album Has Been, which I found to be a surprise in about a dozen different ways, not least of which is how much it doesn’t suck — and the video is footage from the old animated Star Trek series, an early-70s Saturday morning classic. Enjoy:

I love how the mouth movements actually kinda-sorta synch up with the vocals, at least as well as they ever did back on Saturday mornings. As for that last scene with Kirk and Spock… well, that’s why these two have an entire genre of homoerotic fanfiction named after them.

This is a little too long, but it’s pretty amusing:

What? I’ve never claimed not to have a dirty mind…

(Actually, this clip makes me want to go back and re-watch The Next Gen, at least the TV episodes. Not the dreary movies. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen any of the TV eps, and I’ve just realized that I kind of miss them…)

Via.

For the record, I answered “yes” to items 1 and 3 only. And I can rationalize that I noticed the missing apostrophe because I’m a proofreader, right? Right?

(I suppose I shouldn’t mention that, while I don’t have a bat’leth, I do own a replica of Duncan MacLeod’s katana. No, I really shouldn’t mention that at all…)

Source via.

Ack! I am ashamed to admit that I’ve been remiss in my fanboyish duties: I forgot to observe The Shat’s seventy-seventh birthday on Saturday!

Luckily, E.E. Knight was on the ball; to honor the One True Kirk, he posted up a photographic tribute to the lovely ladies of the original Star Trek. I could be a little nitpicky with some of these choices — several of these ladies were Spock’s, Scotty’s, or even Chekov’s love interests, not the captain’s, and some of them were simply there on the show and not any kind of love interest at all — but that would be churlish. It’s a fun entry with some nice eye candy (well, it’s nice if you like 60s-style women, which, as it happens, I do).

Each lady gets her own poll question — the adolescent and somewhat misogynistic “would you hit it?” — but many of the answer options are funny, especially the bizarrely meta-textual ones. (My favorite is the first option for Elinor Donahue: “I’d hit it until Robert Young told me to stop hitting it for medical reasons. Then I’d ignore him because he only plays a doctor on TV.” You see, Elinor played Robert Young’s daughter on Father Knows Best, and Young played the title character in Marcus Welby, M.D., so that one’s funny on something like six different levels. At least I think so. But then I really am a geek…)

Anyhow, click on over to Knight’s tribute, and join me in wishing Bill a belated happy birthday. Let’s hope there are many more to come!

A number of my regular blog-reads have already mentioned this, but in case you haven’t heard, CBS.com is now offering all 79 episodes of the original Star Trek series as free streaming videos. They’re supposed to be full-length and uncut (although they do seem to have unskippable commercials inserted at the original act-breaks), and based on my random sampling of a few scenes, they’re clean transfers presented in fairly decent quality. Interestingly, they are the original un-“enhanced” episodes — no modern-day CGI intruding on all the “living color” 1960s yumminess. So apparently not everyone thinks the revised editions are now the only official version of Trek. How refreshing.

(On a somewhat-related tangent, Toshiba’s announcement last week that it was abandoning its HD-DVD technology has left the Star Trek: Remastered project — i.e., the CG’d version — in limbo. Toshiba was funding the update and counting on the series to be one of the prime movers of its HD-DVD format. Now the question is whether sales of the first season of Trek: Remastered have been sufficient to encourage anyone else to take up the reins and finish the final two seasons. This old-school, purist Trekkie would be perfectly happy to see the whole idea fade away…)

Star Trek is being presented as one of several “TV Classics” offered on the site, and I’m thrilled to see the unaltered version of the show getting some respect and some exposure. I will say, however, the CBS.com has a curious definition of “classic.” In addition to Trek, they’re also offering the ’60s-vintage Twilight Zone, Hawaii Five-O, MacGyver, and… Melrose Place? Without getting into any debates over the merits of Melrose as a series, is it even old enough to be called any sort of classic?