Learning to Fly

In the recent past it was discussed that Eoin Coifer (of the Artemis Fowl series) would be writing an authorized sixth book to the ever-increasingly-misnamed trilogy in five parts that is better known as Douglas Adams’ The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

The book, And Another Thing, seems to be the greatest/worst thing since the discovery of DNA (if you don’t get the joke — Douglas Noel Adams was born in the same year that Watson and Crick discovered DNA). Most sequels to famous books/series end up being pale imitations of the originals, and in some cases just completely lousy. So I have been looking forward to this book with mixed anticipation and trepidation. I loved the Artemis Fowl series (the first three books — the later ones seems tacked on), but H2G2 is a tough act to follow. Wouldn’t it have been better to complete the third Dirk Gently book first?

In any case, Nicolas Botti was one of the (un?)lucky few who was given the opportunity to read the first half of the book — some three months before it is due to be released. His review states pretty much what I expected.

Is it funny? If you read Hitchhiker to have a good laugh, maybe you’re going to be disappointed. I didn’t find it very funny. There are some good funny moments (mainly at the beginning) but Colfer’s ideas being less original than Douglas’, you are less surprised. And he has not the same grip on comic timing than Douglas had.

However, he ends by saying that,

I don’t want to give the feeling that it is a bad book. It is not. But maybe I was expecting too much.

Still, I’m going to read it the day it hits the stands!

The Gwent Police in Wales came up with this video as part of a 30 min Public Service Announcement on the dangers of sending an SMS while driving. It’s quite gruesome, and hopefully may make a difference.

Dustinland has this great comic for today…

Recently on the Guardian, former American President Jimmy Carter has written an article “The words of God do not justify cruelty to women.” He talks about why he left his church, the Southern Baptist, because the leaders ordained that women must be “subservient” to their husbands.

He goes on to say: It is simply self-defeating for any community to discriminate against half its population. We need to challenge these self-serving and out-dated attitudes and practices – as we are seeing in Iran where women are at the forefront of the battle for democracy and freedom.

Way to go Jimmy!

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Jimmy Carter is now a part of the community of Elders, an independent group of eminent global leaders, brought together by Nelson Mandela, who offer their influence and experience to support peace building, help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity.

Recently, on Slashdot, a member from the UK asked the question “Which country should I move to?” His point being that the UK is becoming increasingly less free, and he wants to know which country would be better.

Of course, the more common answers were Canada and the Nordic Countries, but it was pointed out that most countries have varying degrees of lack of freedom.

There was also the debate about Iran being so bad, so why should you worry – which was commented down, luckily.

In India, we have a worse problem. We’re not really a free country, no matter what our guiding principles may be, but we have even less chance of being able to get out. Most countries in the world have increasingly tighter laws against immigrating Indians, and of course, there’s the whole world of racial prejudice against the brown man.

Maybe the best solution is to try and fix our problems ourselves. At least support human freedom in all forms. Join the Queer Pride Parade on Sunday.

So, finally, I got to see the new Star Trek movie. And the best part was that I watched it in a proper movie hall – not one of these itty bitty 100-seater tiny multiplex large screen home-theatre jinks.

I have always been a fan of the original Star Trek  – more so than any other SciFi programming out there.

Why? Primarily because I prefer to read my SciFi and secondly because most SciFi films and TV serials are either too cheesy and filled with only action/sex/idiotic robots or too complex to be attempted without some form of interactivity with the audience. (Actually I can’t really think of a SciFi flick that was too complex – any suggestions?)

Star Trek : TOS (The Original Series, as it’s apparently now known, in order to distinguish it from the Next Generation, Voyager, Explorer… whatever, you get the idea), was brilliantly conceptualized by Gene Roddenberry in 1964. Some of the obvious devices in the series included the Warp Drive (faster than light propulsion) and a variety of alien encounters. But some of the more unique features were the teleporter and the logic-over-emotion Vulcan species.

But my biggest draw in terms of the series itself was the fact that most technology was a theoretically logical progression from our times and most critically, this technology was rarely more important than the people who used them.

Of course, for a ten-year old boy watching Sunday television on Doordarshan, there were the usual cheesy fights; the fact that Capt. Kirk was a mostly lousy fighter who always managed to hang on to the cliff edge but still get the girl at the end; the brilliant single-eyebrow lift of Spock (which I learnt to imitate to show off – now I can do both eyebrows independently!); Bone’s corny “He’s dead, Jim!”; and all the shots of the crew members throwing themselves at the corridor walls to indicate the ship under attack!

The new movie manages to keep the spirit of the series alive, without being too much of a by-the-numbers kind of film. Using a slightly illogical plot-device of an alternate time-line being created due to a supernova meeting with red matter – the movie sets itself in a world similar to yet different from the world of TOS.

James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) finds himself born in a escape pod after his father dies battling the villain Nero (Eric Bana) and turns into a wild young man who is persuaded to join the Starfleet after a fight with a bunch of cadets. He manages to be Kirk without being overshadowed by William Shatner’s original portrayal, but doesn’t really get to kiss the girl.

Spock is brilliantly portrayed by Zachary Quinto and more than manages to hold his own against the original Leonard Nimoy in the brief sequence they have together. (Yes, Nimoy makes a guest appearance – but Shatner does not.)

The relationship between the two is more reminiscent of the fourth Star Trek movie (The Voyage Home), with Spock, in conflict with his half-human nature, coming into direct conflict with Kirk – who doesn’t originally start the show as the captain of the Enterprise – over the latter’s unconventional approach to solving their problems.

At the end of the movie, I felt a longing to watch the next in the series (I guess it is likely to come out sooner rather than later) and that is a good sign for the future of the new crew.

There were a lot of deft touches like Zoe Saldana’s portrayal of Uhura (and her relationship with Spock – of course, I should’ve guessed it before!); Karl Urban’s funny man Bones McCoy; and Anton Yelchin’s young Russian Chekov having problems with his Ws and Vs!

Nero was the least strongly defined character, what with a bunch of snarling and nothing much else – but possibly this was the only way to allow the other characters to be defined more clearly before coming into conflict with him.

You can watch this movie even if you’re not a Trekkie. It’s far far better than any of the Star Wars prequels – think more along the lines of Batman Begins. J. J. Abrams has managed to set a good foundation for a future Dark Knight-like movie.

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RANT: Why do movie halls in Bangalore, at least for the night show, cut the closing credits. It’s terrible to hear Leonard Nimoy say in the closing, “To boldly go where…” and nothing more.

And here comes the bowler from the Royal Challengers. He bowls a Vodafone No-ball and now has to pay the price of a ICICI Bank Free Hit. This match is turning out to be a Big Bazaar humdinger. Now the Deccan Chronicles (sorry Chargers) have to make a Hero Honda Dhak Dhak number of runs to secure the Nokia charged win.

And that’s a big hit, it looks like it may be… yes it is DLF MAXIMUM.

Now we are going for a Pepsi Strategic Timeout. Come back after the break (if the sponsors let you) to watch the rest of the match.

This is what cricket commentary has come to. Is there any point in watching this any longer?

Demetri Martin has taken a bunch of palindromes and strung them together to make a “poem”. It’s interesting, and has it’s virtues – but I’m not so sure it’s a good poem after all! What do you think?

A 224-Word Palindrome – Neatorama

 

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