Jellyn’s Collection of Curiosities

We’re one step closer to Star Trek, and Harry Potter!

Canadians can regrow teeth and bones.

Hopefully in a dental office near me before I lose any more teeth.

When I saw a commercial for the ‘all natural’ 7-Up, I was interested. I like 7-Up and I was all for an all natural version. I don’t like diet sodas, because of the taste and because of the artificial sweeteners. I’d drink more natural soda if it was cheaper and available in more quantities and varieties in the grocery store.

Well, I had a look at the ‘all natural’ 7-Up and high fructose corn syrup was like the second ingredient. So what was the point? So it’s not artificially colored or something? Exactly what did they remove?

I wondered if high fructose corn syrup was legally ‘natural’ or not. I went to look it up on Wikipedia and found this tidbit:

“In May 2006, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) threatened[1] to file a lawsuit against Cadbury Schweppes for labeling 7UP as “All Natural” despite containing high fructose corn syrup. While the FDA has no definition of “Natural”, CSPI claims that HFCS is not a “natural” ingredient due to the high level of processing required to produce it.”

Don’t threaten, dudes, do it! Cuz right now 7-Up is just lame.

I decided I was going to try to read all of the Tiptree Award winners. I think I should’ve counted them first. Or at least counted them before I decided to copy them all into a page to keep track with. Here’s my list. I only got up to 1994 before I decided I needed a break. I’ll update it more later.

Some entries I may have read, but I don’t remember for sure. So I didn’t mark those.

I totally don’t remember any gender issues in A College of Magics. I only remember it as boring. Unfortunately, I read it just before I started writing Epinions reviews, so I don’t have a review of it to refresh my memory. Was it only because it was set at an all girl’s school? That’s a lame reason. Totally baffled.

Update: I’ve finished the list. It’s freaking long! I’ve read about a dozen out of something like 350.

I’m not sure of my opinions on the issue of copyright. Though I do think things should go into the public domain faster than they are currently. I’d want to see more details about their exact stance on the matter, but The Pirate Party sounds interesting, at the very least. And, well, who wouldn’t want to declare themselves not a Republican, not a Democrat, not even Independent, but a Pirate?

Arrrrr!

So I downloaded some episodes of Hidden Voyages. I’m not sure if I’ll download more or not.

Summary: Post-DS9, I think. All original characters, except for Robin Lefler. I think. I’m not quite sure what the overall plot is.. there’s some ships and a space station. I might have had a clearer idea if I’d finished watching DS9. (We’re in season 5 on Spike now.) I might have also had a better idea if I could’ve paid better attention, but more on that further down.

Good Bits:

* The music was really good. It wasn’t familiar to me, so I think it was original or some sort of Trek mesh. Or maybe it was from one of the movies I never saw. (Boycotted the last one because Wesley was cut.)

* Sounds effects were also good.

* Special effects. The shots of the ships and station and things like that are pretty good. Obviously not professional quality, but definitely watchable.

* Costumes. Again, I’m not sure if these were from one of the movies or if they came up with them themselves, or what. They’re like the DS9 station uniforms, but with the color on the inner shirt and grey on the bits where the color is. I vaguely recall the movies had something like this. So maybe they’re from the movies.

Okay Bits:

* The writing has its moments.

* They seem to know their Trek pretty well, though there are a couple things which I question. For example, one of the characters is wearing glasses. That was a questionable point even in the movies! (The Voyage Home is the best one, so that one I know.) Even if you’re allergic to Retinax, surely surgery could fix it. Especially given how they helped out Geordi. And by the time this fan show takes place, Geordi’s got his really cool eyes. If it’s a fashion choice, you’d think Starfleet would have something to say about it. They don’t like Bajoran earrings at first.

Not-So-Okay Bits (I hesitate to say bad, because it’s better than I could probably do.):

* I would’ve preferred a larger file size (and a torrent download). It would’ve made the video better. Also, the dialogue seemed off sync sometimes.

* They’ve made the decision to not use sets, but to film everything with static computer backgrounds. This wouldn’t be quite so bad, if they put everyone in the scene against the same background. As it is, they rarely put even two people in the shot together. As a result, you get a bunch of talking heads interacting with their props — really big on spinning around dramatically in their chairs.

* The Trill’s spots don’t look like they’re in the right place to me.

* Robin Lefler is quoting way too many of her rules. And she keeps hitting her combadge after she says ‘Lefler here’. And is it canon that she doesn’t want to be called ‘sir’? It really ticks me off when the chicks say they don’t want to be called ‘sir’. Heck, ticks me off when O’Brien says it!

* Some of the acting isn’t too bad. Some of it is worse. I don’t like the Captain in particular. He looks like he’s enjoying himself too much.

* I don’t know if it’s the talking heads, the writing, or the acting, but I had trouble paying attention enough to follow the plot. Whenever they’d explain what’s going on, I wasn’t really interested. I was much more interested in the personal plots and interactions and getting to know the characters than in what ship just shot what ship.

Random Question:

Was the Titanic the HMS Titanic? I thought HMS was just military ships and I didn’t think the Titanic was a military ship.

Conclusion:

I haven’t hit any of the gay plotlines that the article said it had, which kind of interests me to try out some more episodes. They’ve also had several years to improve upon the first episodes which I watched, so some of the things I said above may not apply for the later eps. So I kind of wonder if I should just jump in with a later ep, to see how much better they’ve gotten. But then I might be a bit lost. And.. you just have to watch stuff from the beginning, don’t you?

If you’re into conspiracies, here’s one for you. God’s Next Army. It was a UK program that aired a month ago (or perhaps it was a couple years ago, the website doesn’t give a year), but the article describes it. There’s further articles there which seem to pin the year as 2003.

I think maybe the UK fears us as the US fears the Middle East. And for many of the same reasons.

I’ve appreciated writing on WordPress blogs and also appreciated reading them, especially being able to find posts by topic. So I’ve moved my blog to WordPress. Although ‘moved’ is not exactly accurate. I don’t think I’ll be importing all my old posts. This is going to be a new start.

The old link should work (and hopefully without deleting any of my prior blog… fingers crossed). So presumably you had no trouble finding this new blog.

The old one can now be found here. And hopefully I haven’t broken that.

I will be spiffying this up in the future. More concerned that it works at the moment.

I have decided I hate pages that pull information from external sites. It slows down the page loading and ticks me off, especially as they’re most likely ads doing it. So, no more stupid non-paying Google ads for me. If I can figure out how to track web traffic without the hitbox tracker, I will be doing that too.

Still need to hit on a theme.

I have to say I also like the new features in the upgraded version. Even if the only one I’ve used so far is adding new categories right from the post writing window. Might have to upgrade my other WordPress blog too.