Gaffer Tape

Aw, come on, Warbler. I come back after all this time and already there's a *sigh*.  I really do want to know... when you're using the bathroom, a state most people regardless of orientation would consider less than attractive, what does someone's sexuality matter?  Why does it make you feel more comfortable to pretend all men are straight when you're in there?  If you happen to catch an accidental wandering eye when you're peeing, does it ultimately make any practical difference what that person is attracted to, even if you somehow managed to find out with no uncertainty?  Is there going to be any other outcome besides you finishing your business, washing your hands (hopefully), and going about your life?

Darth Solo said:

Come again.

No!  That's what the gay men watching you in the bathroom WANT you to do!

Where is BigotLand?  'Cause I either want to stay very far away from it or flounce flamboyantly through it and cause them to gnash their teeth in frustration.  I'm not sure which.

As for Mrebo, I agree that that was uncalled for, and I wish humans as a whole would stop being so immature and squeamish when it comes to natural bodily functions.  Still, I have a hard time finding an exact corollary between doing your business in public where anyone can see it whether they choose to or not and doing it in a place specifically designed for it where people who choose to enter will do so knowing full well that other people will be using the facilities.

And I've never seen Ally McBeal, so the comparison is lost on me.  I have, however, seen Boy Meets World, and the co-ed bathrooms in that show seem pretty similar to the situation Bingo described.

^ That was to be my next question.

Warbler said:

oh good God.

I know I should feel insulted by that remark, but I can't help imagining that line as said by William Daniels's John Adams, and that makes me smile.

She should considering she just won RuPaul's Drag Race this season.

greenpenguino said:

I don't get why items of clothing should be segregated either.

If you've been following a few of my latest videos, you will know that I vehemently agree.  Therefore, I make sure I don't segregate them.

Related:  here's me meeting Jinkx Monsoon!!!  Hope this shows up...

Since we're on the topic, I greatly prefer urinals that have dividers.  Not that I'm worried about someone looking at my junk, but I hate having to be real obvious about *not* looking at someone else's junk.  Especially at work.  I always feel like an idiot looking up at the ceiling.

And if you see my edit to my earlier post, Frink, you'll see that I tend to agree

Warbler said:

Gaffer Tape said:

  I'm all for eliminating gender-segregated restrooms anyway.

but then we'd have to get rid of the urinals, wouldn't we?  I mean would it really be appropriate for a man to stand at a urinal, do his business, while females could be walking around the bathroom?  

Why?  Men's bathrooms already have both.  Women just wouldn't use them, like they already don't.  As for the latter portion of your post, do you tend to look at men in urinals when you're in the bathroom?  Do you worry about men looking at you when you're using the urinal?  If not, why are you worried about women?

That said, and you may find this related, I think urinals should have partitions, and I absolutely hate those communal trough-style urinals like you find in sports stadiums.

Awesome, bkev.  As you know, I do love me some DS9, and it does indeed get O'Brien better as it goes along.  I'd say if TNG's first two seasons were terrible and then it get great, DS9 is similar, only its learning curve wasn't quite as extreme.  It's just something of a TNG-lite towards the beginning before developing its own identity.

That's weird.  I almost always see changing stations in the men's room.  And, barring that, there's usually a "family restroom."  But at any rate, you did the right thing.  I'm all for eliminating gender-segregated restrooms anyway.

Watching a Leonard Nimoy Star Trek restrospective from around the time of TWOK.

When talking about the origin of the Vulcan Nerve pinch, he said it served two valuable purposes:  It increased the mystery of Spock and "it also allowed Leonard Nimoy to avoid a lot of running and jumping and fighting."

Yeah.  Wouldn't want Spock to do too much of that, huh? ;-)

I do think these writers need to learn a fun little rule:

When characters act out of character, it can be a disturbing, emotional turn for the audience and signify great change in the character.  However, if you have them constantly act out of character, then you suck at writing without turning to gimmicks to grab the audience's attention.

Case in point:  I think, over the course of the two movies, Spock has beaten the crap out of so many people that it's no longer even remotely outside of his character.  This new Kirk is a fratty douche, and the new Spock likes to scream and beat people up.  Fabulous...

I'm not disputing that, but I don't think the floodgates would have opened like they did (and I certainly don't think it would be remembered fondly today) if not for the likes of Michael Piller taking the reins from Gene Roddenberry and Maurice Hurley in season 3.  As has been said, the first two seasons were comprised largely of elements that made it seem like a pale imitator of the original series and filled with smug, flawless, unrelatable characters who were also pale imitators of their namesake.  Maybe that was still (somewhat) head and shoulders above other contemporary fare, but I'm of the mind that, had it not changed, it would have died a smug little death and be remembered in the same breath as such classics as After-MASH, What's Happenin' Now, The New WKRP in Cincinnati, and any other television sequel that failed to establish an identity outside of its successful parent.  It's season 3 onward that not only gave the show its steam but launched the '90s Trek franchise and the TV sci-fi boom you speak of.

In my opinion, of course... ;-)

CP3S said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

 

I'm surprised it managed to survive cancellation to last seven seasons.

 

It lasted seven years, spawned two spinoff series, and four feature films because it is freaking awesome.

Very true, but that doesn't stop its first two seasons from being crap.

Starfleet Admirals Behaving Badly sounds like a softcore porn direct to video franchise that really needs to be made.

I swear I'm going to go back and read the rest of this thread but right now I really need to get this off my chest right now.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!

What the fuckety fucking hell is wrong with this franchise?!  I really, really wanted to like this movie.  Despite how lukewarm (at best) I felt about the 2009 one, I was trying to believe that now that they'd wasted two hours justifying the existence of a reboot (rather than just, you know, rebooting) that they could actually tell a story this time.

Well, I was kinda right.  There is *something* of a story here.  But it's really nothing more complex than a bad guy needing to get shot down with a little bit of character development for Kirk.

But the thing is, it just kept teasing me over and over and over again that this film might actually be *about* something.  Ooh, maybe it's about this primitive race worshiping Starfleet as gods and some good discussions about the Prime Directive.  Oh, wait, no, it's just a throwaway gag.  And explain to me again why submerging the Enterprise underwater was supposedly necessary.

Then I thought they were really gonna backtrack on the idiocy of the last movie and actually show that Kirk truly is not ready to be in the captain's chair and really have to work his way back up, unlike the last time where it just got thrown in his lap with no justification.  Like I said, they did kinda end up doing that, but first they spend about twenty minutes just dicking around for no reason.  "Oh, you're back in the academy.  No, wait, you're actually first officer now.  Oh, wait, no, you're still captain.  Just like you were before.  What was the point of this again...?"

Then I thought it was going to be about Section 31 and the ethics of militarism, and there was a good scene between Kirk and Scotty about that before Scotty runs off (and what is it about this franchise that seems dead set against Scotty actually being the engineer of this ship?) and then it's never, ever, ever, ever, EVER dealt with again.  The admiral (who is the same, underdeveloped Texan warmonger from Avatar) just becomes a bad guy that needs to be thumped.   He is, and Starfleet's actions are never mentioned again.  It's just there to give Khan a big ship to do big ship stuff with.  I'm not the guy to go harping on about Gene's vision because I usually disagree with it, but even I have to say the man would probably be rolling over in his grave over how casually members of Starfleet just up and turn evil in this movie!

So, yeah, once again, this movie is about nothing.  It's just a long stretch of boring as hell action sequences that go on for too long.  I thought it was going to be cool that Chekov was the chief engineer, but that didn't amount to anything.  I thought it was going to be cool that Carol Marcus was in this movie... but she didn't do anything.  Why was she even here?  What?  Did Zoe Saldana refuse to take off her clothes again, and we had a bra and panty quota to fulfill?

And then there's the death scene flip, which is, quite frankly, self-parody.  I will say I did like Kirk's line about being scared, but, really, I just didn't feel like this Kirk and Spock were close enough friends to justify this.  It just didn't work for me.  And while, for half a second, I thought maybe they'd have the balls to actually kill Kirk off, I then realized, "Oh, yeah.  Magic Zombie Tribble.  That's the key to bringing him back to life."  So, yeah, Kirk died a pointless death that didn't affect the story in any way.

But what really pisses me off the most is what positive reviews this and the last one have gotten.  I swear that I want to understand why people think these are good!  Please!  Make me understand!  Because all I see are two pointless, shallow, action flicks, and that's not why I watch Star Trek!

SilverWook said:

Watching a bit of TWOK on Sci Fi today reminded me about an upcoming documentary recalling the most infamous Star Trek convention in history.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wotq-0GCTJg

I read a lot about this near fiasco in the pages of Starlog back in the day.

 

Pfbttttttt.... what?!  When the hell did Walter Koenig go completely bald?!  He looks like Picard now!

Why is the Klingon wearing a Starfleet uniform?

Upon closer inspection, you might be expecting me to ask why the Klingon is wearing Uhura's Starfleet uniform, but I'm the last person to criticize gender non-conformity.

Yeah, but couldn't the Talosians have conjured up a fiction of a court martial that actually made the slightest bit of sense?

To go back to The Cage/The Menagerie for a minute, I love The Cage, and I love the idea and most of the execution of The Menagerie, but the frame story as a whole, or at least upon getting to part 2... sucks.

Everything before the courtroom malarkey starts is pure gold.  You have a mystery, intrigue, confusion.  It's a clip show that REALLY makes you WANT to see the clips rather than dread them.  Unfortunately, as soon as you get to the clips, the frame acts like, "Oh, well, here we are.  I guess my job is done," and then just wanders off and gets incoherently drunk only to stagger back on to the set and piss itself.

"How do you plead?"  "Guilty."  "Okay, then, that should be the end of it, but I'll let you show clips now."

*clips*

*return from clips*

"I'm really angry!  You're going to jail now!"

*commercial break*

"I forgot why I was angry!  Keep showing the clips!"

And it just goes on and on like that, with the frame only coming back to make it look like Spock is in really deep poop so the cliffhanger seems tense... only for them to come back and act like nothing ever happened.  And then it wraps itself up by the antagonist being in on the plan the whole time.  You know, the one who spent the entire episode trying to STOP the proceedings and thereby jeopardize his entire plan?

Eh.  I chalk up The Menagerie as Kirk falling asleep watching old Starfleet log tapes and hallucinating the whole thing.

I still own it, though!

Sigh... Still haven't watched Inception...

DBD:  The Red Ribbon Army Arc Part 2!

The Dragon Ball Dissection continues.  Goku gets a wacky, comedic robot.  He crossdresses (again!).  And he begins to scale the manliest-named tower of all!

I thought the little tongue face gave it away.  Kinda like your little winky face gives it away for me.

=P ;-) ^_~

I was being sarcastic.  I mean, in all seriousness, I know she loves me, but.... damn!

Phew.  This has to be, by far, the longest time I've ever spent on a video.  For those who don't remember, last year I did a viewer request contest, and while I fulfilled my obligation to the first winner, I had yet to do the video for the other winner.  So now I present the most bizarre thing I've ever put to film:

Fish Farts: A Pokerap Adventure (The YouTube Edit)

Fish Farts:  A Pokerap Adventure (The Facebook Edit)