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No perusing for me

Like most guys, I think, I really hate to shop. When I need something, I compile a list either in my head or on paper, and make a military-precision, surgical strike. I get in, grab what I need, and get out. There will be no meandering, no browsing, and absolutely no perusing. If I’m not going to buy it, what’s the point of looking at it?

Bookstores are the worst. On countless occasions, I found myself dragged into a bookstore to “see what there is”. This behaviour completely baffles me. What possible enjoyment can you get by looking at books on a shelf? It’s a small recangular object with a picture on it. Unless you actually sit down for several hours to read it, you’re not going to discover anything significant about it by looking at it on the shelf.

In fact, if I can impress you with my pedantry, isn’t the common wisdom that you can’t judge a book by its cover? Seriously, you can’t. If it has a pretty cover, that’s the product of a graphic artist and a marketing team. Even if it has a plot summary and reviews, that’s pretty shallow criteria on which to base a literary purchase.

It seems to me that the entire concept of browsing a book store is based on the premise that you can judge a book by its cover. There are entire shops full of people violating a very fundamental rule against prejudice, and judging willy-nilly.

So really, my dislike of bookstores isn’t just an aversion to shopping. I’m standing up for my principles. I refuse to judge a book by its cover. Except those silly books that litter the fantasy section that are adorned with unicorns, pixies, fairies, and glowing swords. I think I can go ahead and judge those. Oh and the pink-spined novels with a ridiculously muscle-bound man leans over a woman whose ample bosom is virtually bursting out of a partly unlaced corset. I’m pretty sure I don’t need to see what’s inside the cover.

Alright, fine. I judge books by their cover too. But bookstores are still silly. I’ll pick mine up online, thanks. And I’ll have a list.

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Bi-directional pizza

I’m glad I tried Panago’s new “steak and blue cheese” pizza last night. Now I know where to find pizza that tastes the same going down as it does coming back up!

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Star Trek resimulated

Noooooooo!!! Has the TV and movie industry learned nothing? This is a complete bloody disaster.

Today I found out that CBS plans has digitally “resimulated” key elements the original Star Trek series. Special effects, exterior shots, and scenery are on the list of changes.

“We smoothed out the motion of the Enterprise. It flies more dynamically now,” Rossi said. “It occupies real space. It doesn’t look like a model anymore.” (from Wired.com)

Don’t they understand? Star Trek is supposed to look cheesy. We’re supposed to see poorly-lit cardboard sets and grainy images of plastic Romulan warships. The scenery is supposed to be a blurry matte painting. The Enterprise is supposed to look like a model. We like it that way. That’s what makes the show so appealing.

I blame George Lucas. With his Star Wars Special Edition, he started a disturbing trend where filmmakers mangle a popular work with computer effects. Was Star Wars really improved by adding cutsie little droids and mooing dewbacks in the Tattoine scenes? Was it more exciting to the Death Star explode with an inexplicable exanding ring than the original effect?

Should we expect Paramount to animate the tribbles the way Lucas animated the dewbacks? Imagine googly-eyed tribbles bouncing around — maybe even conversing with each other! Or maybe they’ll do what Spielberg did to E.T., and replace everyone’s weapons with walkie-talkies.

Like many people my age, I grew up with Kirk, McCoy, and Spock as gods in the pantheon of popular culture. The show’s production quality — every grainy shot and styrofoam rock — is familiar and appreciated. Re-editing Star Trek would be like changing DaVinci’s Last Supper to include Jar-Jar Binks. Certainly, it would add something new to the scene, but would it make it better?

OK, maybe that’s a bit extreme. Granted, it’s not fine art — it’s just a cheesy old TV show, for crying out loud — but it’s as comfortable and as familiar as the bum prints in our old sofa. I feel that Star Trek doesn’t really belong to Paramount in the sense that they can cut it up and glue it back together as they see fit. It belongs to popular culture. Once it was finished, broadcast, then re-broadcast endlessly for four decades, it because a part of us all.

George Lucas made this mistake. Steven Spielberg made this mistake. Fans hated the changes almost universally. Now Paramount is butchering a beloved show. This is a tragedy for Star Trek fans.

And now I’ll go set up my DVR to record the entire series. But I refuse to enjoy watching it.

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Souvenirs of SLCC

Six days after SLCC ’06, I’m still kicking myself. Want to know how many photos I took while in San Francisco? Let’s see if I can count them all. I took approximately… none. Not even one snapshot to call my own. Even though I was very careful to pack my little digicam in my suitcase, somehow I managed to forget it in the hotel room each time I ventured outside.

I supposed I’ll have to rely on fading memories then to remember sights like the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, the sun-dappled green hills across the bay, Coit Tower, and that pyramid building that’s so incredibly tacky. But I don’t need photographs to remember the hills. No, for that, I still have the lingering pain in my legs from my hike from Fort Mason to the Serrano Hotel. It looked like an easy 2.5 miles on Google Maps. Oh, but evil Google didn’t reveal the grueling altitude changes. It didn’t show that some streets were not only steep, but had STAIRS. Those San Franciscans know how to do hills.

I survived the hills, as did the busload of grey-haired tourists who practically bounded past me to the lookout, which makes me wonder if I should start working out.

Even without photos, I can flip through the Flickr photosets from other SLCC attendees.

  • The Fort Mason Center is, according to my taxi driver, a former naval yard, as you can tell from this photo.
    (LINK)
  • Everyone signed in on the giant sheet (LINK).
  • The lobby at the Cowell Theatre was packed (LINK).
  • I participated in the panel discussion of mainland communities, with Robin Linden, Michi Lumin and Eltee Statosky of Luskwood, and Khamon Fate. I’m the bald one at the mic. (LINK)

And so the weekend wound down and when all those intoxicating — and occasionally intoxicated — experiences fade, we have only the souvenirs of a handful of photos, video footage, and maybe some stains in embarrassing places. One thing I will always keep with me, in the absence of my own snapshots, is… THE CUBE.

It all started with a cube.

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SLCC update: peering at people’s chests

I had intended to haul out my laptop during the event and blog LIVE AND DIRECT from the Fort Mason Center, but I just couldn’t bring myself to pull out my chunky Dell Inspiron when the next guy has a sleek little Powerbook. I mean, my laptop doesn’t glow. I’m just not cool enough to blog from the convention. So instead, I’ve opted to blog from the privacy of my hotel room.

The convention itself is at the Cowell Theater at the Fort Mason Center (I’ll concede the US spellings of “theatre” and “centre” because we are, after all, in San Francisco), which stands at the end of a pier with a spectacular view of the bay. To the left: the Golden Gate Bridge stands shrouded in fog. To the right: the sinister form of Alcatraz. Oddly, Alcatraz looks remarkably like a badly-built island estate in SL. I bet if someone cut down on the prims on Alcatraz, we could turn up our draw distance and get rid of all the perpetual fog.

In this environment, hundreds of SLers milled about, peering at each other’s nametags for familiar names. It’s funny how the tiny world of SL has its celebrities — Flipper and Jennyfur, assorted residents of varying notoriety, and of course the Linden pantheon was out in force. I think, in a way, the SLCC agenda is almost an afterthought to the pricipal activity, which is people-spotting.

I’ll add more after tomorrow’s sessions. Kudos to Flip and Jennyfur for pulling it all together!