Nuadha Prime
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "nuadha_prime" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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09:54 am
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Gaming
I ran a Star Trek RPG yesterday for some friends. It went really well, I think. I dumped the official ST RPG and used some diceless rules. I had some good players and they seemed to enjoy the plot of recovering a stolen Starfleet ship from Garth of Izar. Posted via LiveJournal.app.
Current Location: United States, Michigan, Washtenaw County
Tags: gaming, star trek
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03:00 pm
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Writer's Block: Space Wars
It often depends on my mood.
It is usually between the original Battlestar Galactica (1979), Star Trek (TOS), and Star Trek DS9.
Out of the three, DS9, was probably the best made. The quality of the show, especially in later seasons, was extremely good. However, BSG and and ST: TOS are such old-school fun. The characters are some of the most likable characters I have ever seen on TV.
Movie-wise, Star Trek II wins hands-down. The closest to come in second would be Serenity.
Tags: joss whedon, star trek
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11:01 pm
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Speaking of Riker....
Flavia gave me a new copy of the first Star Trek: Titan book for my birthday. Star Trek: Titan is a series of novels following the adventures of Captain Riker and the crew of the USS Titan. I had started reading the first book last year and was really in to it when it went missing. I think I must have left it in a doctor's waiting room or something. I didn't want to pay full price for it again and was waiting to find a used copy someday to finish it. Flavia said that by giving it to me, I didn't have the guilt of paying for it twice.
Tags: books, star trek
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10:57 pm
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Star Trek Quiz
I always felt a kinship to Worf, but because of the questions they asked, I think, Worf ended up low on my list. Still, the #1 person on this list is another character I can feek kinship with. In fact, other than Worf, this is about the order I would list them as characters I feel most like.
( Read more... )
Tags: meme, quizzes, star trek
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06:30 am
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The Onion Reports on Star Trek Film
Trekkies outraged by new film, calling it fun and watchable!
Tags: links, star trek
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10:14 pm
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Movie Review: Star Trek (spoiler-free)
Thanks to a friend, I was able to see a preview showing tonight of Star Trek.
This is a movie that anyone who is not a Star Trek fan and loves the blockbluster movies should love. If you are a Trek fan, you will probably still love it, or at least like it a lot. Certainly, it is going to be a good jump-start for the franchise.
One of my fears when I first started reading about the new movie was reading Abrams saying that he was more of a Star Wars fan. Star Wars is fun, but it and Star Trek have very different feels. When the trailers started coming out for the new Trek movie and I saw all the huge space battles that would have been at home in Revenge of the Sith, and all the flashy special effects and action, I thought for sure that this was going to be more of a Star Wars movie than a Trek movie.
It kinda is. That isn't completely a bad thing. It is a fun action-y roller coaster with lots of laughs, and stunts....and just "wow" moments. It is much better than the Star Wars prequels were, so comparing it to Star Wars is not meant as an insult.
Now, I assumed this would have to be a bad thing because I had been burned so many times before by the Next Gen movies trying to be Hollywood blockbusters rather than being Star Trek. Nemesis being the worst example of a Trek movie that tried to be all about special effects and action at the sacrifice of the "feel" of Star Trek.
Of course, this is the original crew and Kirk lends himself a lot better to action. He is a "by the seat of his pants" kind of Captain and they really play up the devil-may-care aspects of his character in this movie. (Keep in mind, this is young Kirk, not the matured and more responsible man we see in the movies.)
This movie keeps some of the more important elements of Trek. Most importantly, the characters. I mentioned already that the movie had a lot of laughs. This was because of the interactions of the characters. Like Star Trek IV, this movie used the interactions of these personalities to make for a lot of laugh-out-loud moments.
The actors do a fantastic job of capturing the personalities of the characters without making their performances a parody of the original actors. Most obvious is Kirk. Chris Pine said in an interview that he started studying Shatner's performance but eventually put it down and decided to make it his own version of Kirk. This was so wise. If he had done Shatner, it would have come out as a joke. No one can do Shatner besides Shatner. However, he pulls of all of the cockiness and head-sureness of Kirk. The guy playing Bones does a great job of playing the crankiness of Doctor McCoy. Sulu is as swashbuckling ever and Scotty....was just brilliant. Suprisingly, the only performance that I was disappointed by was Quinto. Maybe because I expected a lot from him. He was my favorite casting and he still does a good job, but when compared to Nimoy's Spock, he just falls short.
Another element that seemed to be captured well was the idea of Starfleet and The Federation. This wasn't a "dark re-imagining" like BSG. No, Starfleet still had that shiny clean look and a theme of humans and aliens working together to make the universe better that the original Trek was built on.
I also loved all the new takes on the uniforms. They kept the look of the old uniforms but by simply changing the fabric, gave it a more modern look. The ship interiors were also really well done. My only complaint with the visual design elements of the movie was the Enterprise itself. It combined visual elements of the original Enterprise, the redesigned Enterprise of the movies and the Galaxy-class enterprise of TNG. This left it feeling off to me, particularly the nacelles. Maybe with a second viewing, it will feel better.
I have a big tip to my fellow Trekkers: Don't even try to consider this movie connected to the old series. There are plot elements that try to explain why everything is different, but there are still glaring continuity problems that will not go away. Please, go in as an open book regarding this. I am a huge fan of the original Battlestar Galactica. When the new BSG came out on Sci-Fi, I had to put that aside while I watched it and keep reminding myself that this is a complete reboot. That same tactic will work really well with this new movie. As a complete reboot, it rocks. As a continuation of the classic series (as the producers want us to think of it as), it has far too many problems.
The movie left me wanting more, so I hope this means we are seeing the birth of a new series. This may be what Trek needed to reinvigorate the franchise. I will even go as far as to say that this could do for Sci-Fi what Spider-Man and X-Men did for Superheroes: making it more acceptable to mainstream audiences.
Tags: movies, reviews, star trek
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02:17 am
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Star Trek: Enterprise
I just started season 3 of Enterprise and while I can see the drastic change in tone they have done for the third season, I can not yet see why so many people seem to have disliked the show. Season three is the season that people seemed to like least, but I still am finding it better than Voyager was. I am guessing that a lot of people dropped it in the first season when it was still finding its footing. Sure, there were some bad episodes of the first season, but besides the original Trek, I can't think of a Star Trek series that didn't have a slow start.
( Read more... )
Tags: links, reviews, star trek, television, youtube
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02:46 am
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Star Trek: Where are the bad guys?
Continuing (sorta) from my last post, I'd like to share this thought.
Star Trek lost its bad guys.
You see, when I became a Trek fan when I was young, one of the things that most impressed me with the show was the way that most villains were not black and white. The Horta were my favorite example of a villain that later turned out not to really be the bad guy. (For those of you not wanting to click the link, the Horta was the blob thing that was killing humans but was eventually revealed to be a silicon life-form and mother protecting her young.)
However, Star Trek had a few good villain groups in the classic pulp style. First-and-foremost were the Klingons. To paraphrase a bit from a book I read years and years ago about the making of Trek, "Klingons were the ultimate bad guys. They sharpened their teeth for fun. They liked to kick old ladies. Their ships didn't have bathrooms because it made them nastier."
Then, Roddenberry's vision of the future was brought into the 24th century and the 23rd century Klingons were revealed to be pretty misunderstood. In Star Trek: The Next Generation, we learned that the Klingons were very honorable race. Suddenly everyone loved the Klingons. We even had a member on the Enterprise! (Okay, fans of the comic book series already had a Klingon Starfleet guy, but hey....)
Likewise, Romulans were also revealed to have much more depth than we were originally given.
The Cardassians were created to replace them as Star Trek's classic baddie and when they started, boy were they bad! They seemed to relish torturing Picard and were always up to something.
Gul Dulat was introduced in DS9 as the ongoing bad guy, but by the time the series ended the Cardassians weren't as bad as we originally thought them to be and Dukat....well, he was still a villain. He just was kinda pathetic and a little sympathetic.
Over in Voyager, they did the same to the Borg, for crying out loud!
Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
-Obi Wan Kenobi
Personally, I love this aspect of Trek. I don't want mustache-swirling bad guys all the time and I like that Trek has morality that isn't always black and white. However, I don't think most people want this. I think one of the reasons Superheroes are doing so well in the movies these days is people want bad guys and good guys. Moral greys just aren't appreciated. So, Star Wars with its Darth Siddious and bad guys that come along with "we're-so-bad music" works. The good guys struggle against the dark side and there is never any wonder who is on which side.
One of my bigger worries about the JJ Abrams Trek is that its just going to be Star Wars with the names switched to Trek names. Looking at the Romulan bad guys, he seems to have tried to give them the "we're evil" visual cues that Star Wars does and the trailer looks like the same kind of popcorn-munching action-fest that Star Wars did well. Maybe that is what Star Trek needs to do to survive as a franchise, but I keep hoping for a plot that will challenge people to think just a little bit...like the plots of Star Trek that I've enjoyed most.
Tags: star trek
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02:27 am
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It's all about hope.
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) thechrishaley posted this excellent post where he collected several good bits from Grant Morrison's recent interviews about All-Star Superman and connected it to why he voted for Obama. I couldn't agree with him more.
I had several good responses to my recent post about Star Trek vs Star Wars and I have a whole lot of thoughts about people's responses, as well as other thoughts that have come to me over the weekend about the topic....especially with the new trailer for Abrams' Star Trek out. (Perhaps it is one of the true signs of the geek in how they can obsess over something, but all weekend my brain kept popping in with thoughts about how Star Trek works and how it failed....)
The first thought that really struck me though from people's responses was that there seemed to be a theme that the positive view of the mankind's future was unrealistic. I'm not sure that I get this. Is it unrealistic to think that mankind can put aside his differences and make a better society? I like to think we can. Some people said that the Pollyanna nature of the Star Trek future meant there were no threats, but there were. Not just from alien races, but often from greedy humans like Harry Mudd or Cyrano Jones. You see, though Star Trek shows a world where most humans have adopted a better world and set aside and greed and such, it still exists in the future. However, I like Roddenberry's vision of a future where most of mankind and do things for the greater good. Like my belief that Superman is not an unrealistically good character but a role model that we can all attempt to emulate, I also feel that the future of Star Trek is the world we should be striving for.
It is said that we should visualize the future for ourselves we want to create. This works on a personal level. It also works on a society level. If everyone puts aside their natural cynicism and starts believing that mankind can create a better world, what could stop us?
Yes, we can.
Of course, if you want a "grittier" Trek, there was Deep Space Nine, my personal favorite of all the Trek shows. It still showed a positive future where mankind is working to make the galaxy a better and safer place for all sentients, but also included a cast that included some roguish types. I truly feel it managed the perfect blend of fallible, yet still likable and mostly-noble characters (with the exception of the before-mentioned roguish types).
Tags: comics, links, obama, politics, star trek, superman
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03:27 am
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Star Trek vs Star Wars
As I rediscovered my love for Trek over the last few years, I was kind of bummed to find out that Star Trek has so little following these days. The last movie, Nemesis, was a flop. Rightfully so. It stunk. It basically fell into the same problems I had with most of the TNG films and even more so. It was the Picard & Data show in a flashy story with almost no substance.
Enterprise was also a bit of a flop. I am half-way through the second season right now, and I don't think it should have been. Sure it was not as fantastic as some of the earlier Treks, but I still think most of the episodes so far have been been pretty good.
The thing that baffled me even further is the continued success of Star Wars. Sure, Nemesis was bad, but Star Wars had a trilogy of sub-par films. Even upon re-watching the original trilogy last year, I found that even the original movies were more colored by my childhood memories than actually being great movies, but they at least weren't as groan-worthy the prequels.
Both Trek and Wars has suffered a bit from the prequel problem, I think. We know where the universe is supposed to be going, so there is no great big suprises when you do a show like Enterprise or the prequels. You can't blow up the Earth in Enterprise, because we know it is still around in Kirk's era. Anakin falling to the dark side was predestined and we all knew it, so there was no sweating whether he would, it was just waiting to find out how the hell that whiney-ass character was going to become the cosmic bad-ass he would be in the originals. (Which I certainly didn't buy.)
It baffled me for a bit how Star Wars could have all of this successful merchandising and shows these days while another classic sci-fi series is having to put all of its hopes on one last movie. (If the Star Trek movie next year is a flop, CBS will probably not do anything more with Trek for a long time.)
So, I tried to dive mentally in to it recently and understand what the appeal of Star Wars is these days. Since I discovered Star Trek when I was a teen, I kinda of shrugged of Star Wars as kid's stuff...the stuff I liked when I wasn't mature enough to like the more cerebral stories of Trek. The craptacular prequels made me even more sure that Star Wars had little to offer me any more.
With that going in, I think I understand it more now. A few fans have told me, "yeah the prequels sucked, but it is all about the extended universe." The extended universe of books, comics and games for Star Wars are all intertwined so well and exist as canon parts of the universe. If a character is introduced in a book, it is a matter of time before there are action figures, appearances in video games, stats in the RPG, etc.. Who is Mara Jade Skywalker? She is a character who started in the books, but has gone on to make appearances in comic books, video games and more.
Star Wars starts out as a nice pulpy sci-fi setting and with the all-canon extended universe, it becomes so much more than you see on film. Many sci-fi fans love a large, complex universe (or multiverse) and its a huge bonus. I recently read the first several issues of Star Wars: Dark Times, a comic from Dark Horse (Thanks Sol!), and it is exactly the Star Wars universe I always wanted to read about. No whiney Jedis. Just a badass Jedi and a group of smugglers fighting against the Empire.
The Star Wars books and other products are all carefully checked by Lucasfilms to make sure it fits into their view of the universe and I think that also leads them to making sure that they are all quality.
Meanwhile Star Trek has stuff like Konom, the first Klingon to serve in Starfleet. You thought Worf was? You're correct as well. You see the Star Trek licensed fiction is always non-canon. If it didn't appear on film , it never really happened. So, Konom and many other creations of characters you may have loved in books and comics never appear out of their source material. Even the books will conflict with eachother, because they are all basically just fanfics. Each author has their own view and take on the universe.
I also think that Paramount (and now CBS) has taken very little interest in keeping an eye on the quality of the products being produced with the Trek name. So, a lot of the things coming out don't have the same quality. From what I have seen and heard of the novels, they are still quality, but the comic books from IDW have been OK at best. The video games have all been poorly reviewed. (Playing Star Trek: Legacy on the 360, I don't think it is all bad, but certainly not good enough to pay $50+ for. I picked up mine for $20 and I felt that was a fair price for the game it is: fun, but nothing fantastic. (Also to be honest, I almost never pay more than $20 for a game, since I don't mind waiting til they go on sale or I find them used.)
So, I think that is one of the things that has contributed to Star Wars being a success in the 21st century while Star Trek is slowly dying.
Another thing I think has kept Star Wars ahead of Trek is the Video Games. Let's face it, Star Trek does not have the action-based setting of Star Wars that would make it a fit for video games. In these days, video games are huge. They are almost as big as movies. Star Wars is a natural fit for video games (as well as mini games, RPGs etc.). Its setting is all about action and swashbuckling adventure. Star Trek is about mysteries, morality, and other things that don't make a good translation into video game format. There is a Star Trek MMO in the works right now and I have no clue how they will make that work. Meanwhile, Star Wars can have games that run like D&D in space. It can have fast-paced spaceship battles. It can fit into almost any genre of video game. Hell, there was even several racing games based on the pod-racing in the prequels. Every major system since the Super Nintendo has at least one big hit Star Wars game. Most systems had several. Rogue Squadron on the N64 is one of my personal favorites. These days the KOTOR games from the XBox and PC get a lot of love, as well as the new Force Unleashed game.
I don't know how Star Trek can adapt to the 21st century. I don't think the reboot is going to be the way, but it did work for Battlestar Galactica.
Tags: movies, star trek, television
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06:06 am
[Link] | Reading the wikipedia article on the new Star Trek movie coming out, there are some things that make me a little more hopeful that it will be good....and two big things that bother me.
( Read more... )
Tags: movies, star trek
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03:15 am
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Writer's Block: The Final Frontier
Outside of my own personal changes in life, I think that if there had been no Trek, there would be a lot of differences in the world. After all, I've seen How William Shatner Changed the World. (It's available from Netflix and is William Shatner hosting a show about all of the stuff inspired by Star Trek.)
In my personal life, I know it would be radically different. For one thing, it was Star Trek that turned me into a comic book fan. I was an avid Trek-reader when I was in junior high, and my family was at the book store and I had money to buy a book, but alas I had read all the Trek books they had. I found a Star Trek comic on the comic rack and bought it, along with two Superman comics. (I had always kinda liked Superman back in my Superfriends days.) I was hooked. I started collecting Star Trek and Superman comics immediately and have collected comics of some sort constantly ever since.
Would a world without Trek be darker? I don't know. There would be less Sci-Fi in the world, probably. Would I want to live in a world without Trek? No.
Tags: star trek
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06:32 am
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Current Games meme
Okay, so this has been going around my friends list: people posting about the RPGs they are currently in/involved in. So, behind the cut...
( Read more... )
Tags: gaming, pooh, star trek
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10:53 pm
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Star Trek Movie pics
barryreese posted some preview pics from the new Star Trek movie coming out this next Summer. You can see them here.
I like the updated uniforms. They keep enough of the old look with enough of an update in materials so it doesn't look dated. I HATE the uniform and the new Kirk looks way to boy-ish. Kirk always had a boyish charm and was supposed to be the youngest Starship captain in the history of Starfleet...but he looks like he should be on Dawson's Creek or something, not Star Trek.
Zachary Quinto looks good as Spock. The guy from Harold & Kumar as Sulu will be kinda distracting since I will probably keep waiting to see him get baked.
God, I hope this revitalizes the Star Trek franchise. I said something to a teenager the other day about Star Trek, and got a "what's that?"
Tags: movies, star trek
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03:53 am
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Writer's Block: I Love Lucy
My first impulse was to say Homer and Marge. However, as I listed in my head all of the TV couple I could think of that I have enjoyed over the years, it came to me:
Worf & Jadzia Dax (Deep Space Nine)- The episodes dealing with their relationship and the wedding are some of my favorite DS9 episodes. I loved watching to see how their different personalities meshed.
Related youtube links:
Worf gives Wesley dating tips
Worf & Jadzia's wedding
Tags: star trek, television
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11:06 pm
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Star Trek game
The first "episode" of the Star Trek RPG was today. For the first game, there was only three players, but that seemed best as I was still working out a feel for both the system and how the games would feel.
Since the PCs were an engineer, a doctor, and a "redshirt," I tried to make the first plot one that would be of definate interest to each of them, so the first plot dealt with the discovery of an ancient space station created by "The Preservers." The satellite was once used to take genetic samples of races and seed them through the galaxy and is one of many once created by the Preservers and the cause for all the humanoid species in the galaxy. (In my mind, another one of the satellites was to be the "Caretaker" from the pilot episode of Star Trek: Voyager.) It was now capturing the crews of starships with the plans to seed these "new lifeforms" across the galaxy. With genetic stuff and rare diseases, there was something for the doc. With ancient technologies and computers to talk to, there was something for the engineer. For our daring, "man-of-action," there was things to sheet, a "bad guy" to punch and a woman to romance.
It was awkward at times, as I expected it to be. It was the pilot episode, afterall. However, I think the series has promise and look forward to the next episode.
Tags: gaming, star trek
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10:11 pm
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Zombie Meme
You are in a mall when the zombies attack. You have:
1. one weapon.
2. one song blasting on the speakers.
3. one famous person to fight alongside you.
Weapon can be real or fictional, you may assume endless ammo if applicable. Person can be real or fictional.
Weapon: I want a type II phaser from the original Star Trek. It completely disintegrated who you shot and never missed. It could also be spread to wide-beam for massive zombie killing.
Song: Girl from Impanema. 'cuz it would be funnier that way. OK.... maybe not. How about "Zombie Stomp" by Ozzy?
Person: This is a no-brainer. Ash. Hail to the King, baby! (Okay, a more logical choice would be someone like Batman or Superman if I wanted to live....but if I just wanted it to be damned cool, Ash is the man.)
Tags: meme, movies, star trek, zombies
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12:05 am
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Star Trek: The Roleplaying Game (A Review of Decipher's RPG)
Starting the Star Trek Roleplaying Game campaign I have been talking about is on hold as I have been dealing with sinus/migraine headaches for the last few weeks and now the kidney stones. All this has made me stop from planning anything new, particularly social things. I just don't know how I will feel.
However, this has not stopped me from thinking about it and planning for it. In particular, it was up in the air what system I would use. I wanted a system with a dice-rolling mechanic, but a simple one without a lot of bookkeeping and rules like D&D. In particular, I was thinking about something like the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG.
So I have ordered the books for Decipher's Star Trek Roleplaying Game off of eBay. This game is out-of-print, but readily available on eBay. I have five of the six books that were published for the game and paid a total of about $45 for them. The main rulebook can easily be picked up on eBay for $6-10 and has all the rules you need (although I would suggest the Aliens book and Narrator's Guide to anyone who wants to run the game). The supplements I've bought are the Narrator's Guide, Starfleet Operations, Aliens, and Creatures.
( Read more... )
Tags: reviews, roleplaying, star trek
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11:45 pm
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Update
No stone yet. Thankfully, it was just medium to mild pain all day with some nausea (which is common with kidney stones and also a side effect I usually get from Vicodin).
Flavia came over late in the evening and treated me to my favorite pizza (the Spinach & Artichoke pizza from Aubrey's), which thankfully the nausea had cleared up by then and I was able to enjoy. We then watched Star Trek IV. I have not seen STIV since I was a teenager. It is now a little dated in some ways but is still a lot of fun. Flavia had never seen it before and says she loved it. It is much more light-hearted than the other Trek movies, but still manages to build some suspense in to the plot. (SPOILER ALERT: Flavia was on the edge of her seat when the whalers were chasing George & Gracie.)
Tags: health, kidney stones, life, star trek
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03:32 am
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Shatner
Best thing I found out that has cheered me up while watching the youtube videos is that after passing his stone, William Shatner sold his stone for $75,000 in an auction for Habitat for Humanity. The man is too awesome. moonspiralz once asked me what was with my "strange obsession" with Shatner. I like Shatner because he is the kind of guy that would do something like that.
Sadly, I don't think anyone will pay for my stone.
Tags: kidney stones, star trek
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