Well, turns out editing it by hand was pretty darned easy too. It was just adding: class=”read” to the tds. Though my first pass through, I failed to also put it in for the authors. So the titles were the right color, but the authors weren’t.

The most annoying part was adding two year’s worth of lists. Lots of tedious typing.

But, I’m done! You can look at my list of which books/stories I’ve read of the Tiptree winners right over here somewhere. Still plenty I have not read. A few of the ones there that I haven’t marked, I have tried to read, and failed. Maybe they should get their own color.

Ship shaking. Kes wakes up and holds her head. No doubt she senses something, something sad.

Neelix isn’t familiar with the people in the system. You’d think his knowledge of the area would be greater where they picked him up.

Ms. Torres indeed. Just because you don’t want to be called ‘sir’, maybe your crew would still like to be Misters.

‘Four to beam up’, well, you know _that’s_ not going to work.

I guess the translators in the combadges work just as well as the TARDIS now. These guys don’t even realize they’re being talked to in Federation Standard.

Hey, widen a subspace fracture. Why not use that dekyon beam again? Worked well the first time.

The doctor doesn’t know about the Maquis on board? That makes no sense. He’s treated any number of people in the last two episodes. Even if Torres wasn’t technically part of the crew when he mysteriously off-camera cured her and Kim’s incurable disease thingee.

Just like Starfleet, get yourselves involved a riot.

I’m not sure why they would’ve thought the combadges were destroyed in the explosion. I thought the polaric thingee only destroyed organic material.

When did Paris tell the kid that he ate children?

‘Do you honestly expect us to believe all this?’ — I’m betting that gets used again in later eps.

Paris in this ep and the one before tried to explain how something couldn’t possibly happen, it being a paradox and all, and Janeway’s like.. well, that’s understandable you don’t understand. But paradoxes are so passe’. Paris needs to read up on his temporal physics apparently.

The clothes of this planet’s people are starting to grow on me. Paris in a little skirt thingee, carrying a purse. And they’ve got some sort of corset thing built into them too.

And, boom. The episode might never have happened. As in the end, it only affected Kes.

So convenient that the holodeck runs on a different power system.

Paris stands up so Kes can have a seat? Gah.

An our cable went out at this point. Grr. Because nobody wants to watch television this late at night.

So we go from a meeting to the bridge and the whole ship being rocked by something.

Neelix helpfully infodumps under the guise of telling Kes what a singularity is.

Combined with the fact that this is a singularity, the name of the episode is Parallax, and probably a vague memory of when I watched this the first time, I believe the unknown, mysterious ship on the other side is also the Voyager.

And now the cable goes out while Kes is in sickbay chatting with the doctor.

The incredibly shrinking doctor can only appear on the viewscreens, not in person. Too much strain on the special effects.

Oh, look, it’s the Voyager!

Janeway getting her geek on with Torres. Carey, you never stood a chance.

I just Googled ‘dekyon beam’. Doesn’t look like it ever showed up before or since.

Torres apologizes for losing her temper in Janeway’s ready room, which I totally don’t remember. And I don’t think it was one of the cable outages.

I’m unclear why the doctor’s still short even though they’ve left the vicinity of the singularity. But, hey, they did show him in person once!

I just went back to see if she blew up in the ready room. I guess she did get a little backtalky. Just, compared to hitting Carey, a few cross words to the Captain didn’t seem like much to me. So I didn’t even notice.

Anyway, ep over. Should I be rating these things?

At first I thought this would be a quick read, but when I started reading, I changed my mind about that. It has to be read slowly, to appreciate all the jokes. And to take the humor in small doses.

But then I changed my mind again. The episodes after the first couple didn’t seem as funny. I don’t think it’s really because they were less funny, but more that he’d lost my sense of newness and surprise by that point. Which is a key component of humor. But of course I plowed ahead anyway. It ended up being a very quick read for me.

So my recommendation would be for people to read this one episode at a time. Read one before bed. Keep the book in the bathroom. Read it on your lunch break. Don’t read it on the bus or the subway, as you’ll just want to keep going.

What I love about Wheaton’s jokes is that they’re geeky. You could turn this book into a geek quiz if you wanted to. Earn points every time you catch one of his references. More points for a Voltron reference. Fewer points for a Monty Python one. Though unlike when watching a Joss Whedon show and snickering when you get a geeky joke because it makes you feel smarter and in the know, you actually feel a little less geeky when reading Wheaton when you don’t get a joke. You know it’s there, but you don’t get it. Though I don’t feel so bad if I realize it’s a music joke or a poker joke.

I feel I must mention there are typos that need fixing. Mainly in the area of excess punctuation or extra spaces, but occasionally an extra word or a weird word. It’s the sort of error you expect to see in self-published or small press works. As opposed to missing words, which you expect to see in ‘professionally’ published books. Jeesh, now I’m getting geeky about typos. Anyhow…

I thought this book was great. I could relive the episodes without having to watch them again. And I had forgotten quite a bit. He’d be starting to describe an episode and I’d be.. ‘When did this happen? I don’t remember this.’ Though eventually there will be enough there to finally jog my memory.

It’s interesting to see Wheaton’s take on things from an actor’s point of view. He keeps saying how awesome Patrick Stewart is, and while I know he’s a great actor in theory, I certainly never realized it when I was watching TNG during its first run. Picard was not a favorite character. He was above Pulaski and Troi, granted, but he was far below Tasha, Data, and Wesley. And when people go all ga-ga over episodes that feature him strongly, I’m left thinking ‘eh’. There are FOUR lights! Whatever.

But speaking of Wesley, that’s my major problem with this book. Wheaton keeps making jokes at Wesley’s expense and characterizing all fans as rejoicing when he gets shot by an arrow (which I totally don’t remember) and loving it when Picard tells him to shut up. And yes, there’s a contingent out there that was doing that, but it wasn’t all of us. Heck, I wasn’t even aware of it until I went to hear Wheaton at a con and/or in college when I got onto the Internet.

Don’t paint all fans with the same brush! Some of us were just a year younger than Wesley and loved him. Sure, saving the ship multiple times is silly. But, you know, it’s not unrealistic that a genius kid might do that once in awhile. Starfleet’s all about teamwork and if you don’t recognize that that geeky, dorky kid has some skills you might use, you’re failing at teamwork.

And yes, Wesley said some really lame things. But there were kids like him out there also saying really lame things. And we didn’t have the excuse of writers putting those words in our mouths.

Don’t you see? Wesley showed that you could be geeky and dorky and lame, but still have something to contribute. Could still do really cool stuff like sit on the bridge of the Enterprise.

I just wish Wheaton would realize Wesley did and still does have fans. And I think he knows this. But by not acknowledging it and by going on and on about ‘the fans’ cheering when Wesley gets a smackdown, he’s perpetuating the idea that Wesley fans don’t exist, and never existed.

And I’m tempted to wax all psychological about the group of fans that did hate Wesley with a passion, but that won’t make for a concise, cohesive review.

Especially as I nearly forgot to mention Tracy Torme!

Tracy Torme, who I thought was a woman. Who I was convinced was a woman. Who I preferred because she was a woman. Who I swear I had looked up somewhere to find her relation to Mel Torme (after watching Night Court). Wasn’t she Mel Torme’s daughter or something?

Well, apparently not, because apparently Tracy Torme is a man! What the heck?! When did that happen?

Way to blow my mind, Wheaton.

And D. C. Fontana is a chick. Slightly less surprising, that, though my first guess would not have been that.

Weird.

So, to sum:
Very funny. Best read in short doses rather than all at once. Few too many ‘boo Wesley’ comments. I do look forward to reading more of these, and I hope he has plans to go through at least all the episodes he was in. Though I would love it if he wrote summaries of every single TNG ep. I’d like to hear his take on things.

4 stars out of 5. You dissed Wesley too many times.

For those who don’t know, yet somehow manage to be cool anyway, Wil Wheaton was the kid version of the narrator in the movie “Stand By Me”, he was Wesley Crusher in what most people consider the second best Star Trek series, he’s a geek, he’s a blogger, he’s a poker player, he’s an author. He’s like one of the top people being followed on twitter. How do you not know who he is?!

****

He wrote a book. Several, in fact. Collections of blog entries, loosely themed. If you haven’t visited his blog, it’s over here. Called Wil Wheaton Dot Net, though it’s not longer at dot net, or WWdN if you’re in the know. And now you’ve read this, you’re in the know.

The Happiest Days of Our Lives is one of the books he wrote. Or, if you prefer, collected. It’s a collection of some of his favorite blog entries, about being a big old geek, and about growing up in the 70′s and 80′s, and a bit about Star Trek. I gather more of the Star Trek and lots of other geeky stuff is in the other two books, which I had fully intended to buy, and to read. I cite lack of money at the time they came out and plethora of too many other interesting books coming to my attention since as to why I haven’t bought or read them.

****

Summer, York Beach, Maine, near that cheesy animal park. In a camp right next to the cheesy animal park, so you could hear the lions and things at night. Which, okay, maybe made the camping experience a little more surreal and I shouldn’t call the park cheesy. It wouldn’t be, really, if it’s wasn’t the biggest amusement park in all of Maine. And that’s just pathetic. (I grew up near Great Escape; I am, perhaps, jaded.)

I had recently gotten into watching TOS and reading science fiction. I had and/or bought a copy of the novel Enterprise I was reading on that trip. But also, a Starlog. (Okay, I’m not entirely certain it was Starlog, but odds are pretty good it was Starlog and I just heard Starlog published its last issue this month, which totally bums me out, so.. if it wasn’t Starlog, it is now.) This Starlog had a whole big article on a NEW STAR TREK. Totally awesome. Totally confusing. Because I’m reading along, and it’s saying how the doctor has a son. And I’m like.. chyea, dudes, McCoy has a daughter okay. Get it right.

Somehow I totally didn’t spot the cast pictures going along with the article until I’d read more of it. So eventually it dawns on me that this is a whole new Trek. Android. Awesome. Kid. Awesome.

(Totally unrelated, but the other thing I remember when I think about this campsite is War and Peace. So I must have read that along about this time. Or, started to, all the names eventually bogged me down and bored me to tears, so I stopped.)

I’m not sure if I realized it then, but TNG was about to become my Star Trek.

****

Back at school. Junior high cafeteria. Sitting at a table with some girls (with the girls may be pushing it) and they’re looking at Teen Beat. And there’s a picture. A full page picture of Wil “Stand By Me” Wheaton. My friend must’ve noticed me wanting it. I demurred. Much giggling. I didn’t want them to think I had a crush on him or anything, because I really didn’t. Not even on Wesley. But regardless of what they thought, I did want that picture. (Even though it shocked me that she’d even offer to tear a page out of bound, written material for any purpose!) It hung on my wall, with an accumulation of Star Trek posters, for a good long time.

I totally did not have a crush on him.

****

Wesley was treated badly by the adults. Especially Picard. How can you hate kids?! How can you treat him like a kid? He’s my age! Probably even a bit older. He’s totally not in the same category as the little kids you made him run around with in a couple episodes. You suck, Picard.

But at least Wesley didn’t die and make me cry in the first season.

Stupid mumblegrumblegrr writers.

****

I started going to Star Trek conventions with Dad. Mostly Creation run. This is probably about the time I started hearing rumors that people didn’t like Wesley. (Pre-Internet, at least pre-WWW) That kinda hurt. Because he was one of my favorite characters. And everyone seemed to hate him just because he was a kid. And/or smart.

You’d think Star Trek geeks would have more sympathy for the smart kid. But what do I know?

****

Wil Wheaton, at a con. TNG is over by this point, I think. Wheaton’s only about a year older than me, but at this con, he seemed so far beyond my comprehension. He was dressed in what then I would’ve called a dangerous kind of punk style. I was afraid he’d turned into, or always was, one of those kids into drinking, smoking, music. I’m not sure if I thought him unChristian or unCool at this point, possibly both.

But he was involved with Video Toaster, which was used in seaQuest. And seaQuest, of course, is totally cool. And he was funny on stage. So I left that con not quite sure what to make of him.

I realize now that he was just being a teenage geek. I just couldn’t recognize it at the time.

****

College – alt.wesley.crusher.die.die.die and strek-l, and well, it’s college. I had moved on to DS9 and Pern MUSHing and occasional attendance of classes.

****

At some point I started hearing about this blogging thing, which was somehow different from a website, but not. And I’m sure someone, possibly K, must have pointed me to Wil Wheaton’s blog. And I discovered all over again that he’s a geek. I started reading his blog pretty regularly.

But then he got into playing poker. And blogging about poker. Incessantly. I have little to no interest in poker. Though I did watch him in a game on TV. I stopped reading the blog. I haven’t actually gone back. Relying on other people to tell me he’s going to be in an upcoming episode of something. Or that his book is going to a new publisher, so it’s the last chance to get this version.

****

There are two entries in this book that I read on his blog. And they’re very, very good ones, that I remember reading. How many blog entries do you remember years later?

The one is about being a stepfather to teenage and near-teenage boys, music, and the generation gap, and being a geek.

The other is about a beloved cat.

Yea, those freaking cats are everywhere around writers and bloggers. But it had me tearing up when I reread it in this book anyway.

****

Reading these, you feel like Wheaton is a fellow geek. A fellow child of the 70′s and 80′s. And I get a glimpse of what it’s like to be a father, and an actor, and even a boring old poker player.

I don’t know if it’s from growing up being an actor, how he was raised, his genes, or what, but he’s really, really good at telling an honest, emotional story.

All of the entries in this book are worth reading. All in one gulp, or one by one when you have a spare five minutes.

My least favorite is probably the last one, because it’s about poker. But it’s also about being a minor celebrity in the land of television. It’s a good wrapup to the book. And well, he did need to end it with something more light-hearted than the cat entry before it.

****

Buy his book. Read his blog. Enjoy being a geek with him.

The writing right off the bat did not impress me. It started in the middle of a basketball game, but was riddled with backstory and flashbacks and it just was not handled well at all. Fortunately the game, and the majority of the flashbacks, ended and the writing improved from there.

The amount of typoes in the beginning really bugged me too, but fortunately they mostly disappeared at some point as well, though I still saw some here and there.

But then the writing bugged in another way. The main character is on a bus when it gets attacked by some supervillains. He (who is also narrating) says he didn’t know who those supervillains were at the time, yet he keeps calling them by their names in the narration. No, no no. Yea, okay, you can do that, but you have to handle it better. Like.. ‘I later learned their names were… Blah, Blah, and MegaBlah’. But I still think it’s preferably to refer to people by characteristics until you learn their name in the course of the story. Such as the author did do when it came to Dark Hero, who’s first known as The Man in Black. (As you wish.)

I liked the main character, and I liked the group of superheroes he got paired with. One guy’s superpower is making people sick! And one superhero is an old lady. Moore’s definitely broken out of some of the tropes in coming up with characters. But then at the same time, he annoys me by having some of the heroes be far too closely aligned with actual superheroes from comic books. By which I mostly mean the one character who is clearly a takeoff on Superman. Not only is he an alien, but his adopted parents live in freaking Kansas. It couldn’t be Ohio or something? I wish he’d changed more details there.

There were also a couple of moments where I couldn’t understand the character’s motivations.. not necessarily behind their actions, but behind their emotions. Miss Scarlett flips out a couple of times and I don’t quite know what prompted it. Yea, you can have all this pent-up rage or whatnot, but it’d be nice to have a trigger before it’s unleashed.

So, some good stuff in here, but I do wish he’d been a little better edited. If he writes another novel after this one, I’d hope to see some improvement.

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I have no intentions of seeing it. Hellboy II looked somewhat interesting, but still isn’t something I’d go out of my way to see. The Batman movie looked dark and creepy — yea yea, purists will love it for that, but it doesn’t incline me to go see it. I would still like to see Hancock, but it may wait for DVD. Ditto Iron Man. Except.. wait… Hancock isn’t out yet? I totally had the impression it had been out at least as long as Iron Man…. In that case, maybe I will still go see it. I shouldn’t known a Will Smith movie was a July 4th movie.

Hrm.. I thought there was one more superhero movie coming out. But it wasn’t the Punisher movie in December.

I don’t think it was Wanted either that I was thinking of.

At any rate, give me another Spiderman, I’ll be happy. Give me another Xmen, I’ll be optimistic. Give me Wonder Woman and I’ll be.. interested. Give me one of those gay superheroes and I’ll watch it no matter how horrible it’s reported to be.

In other news: “Charlie Jade” is a total snorer. Though kudos to Sci-Fi Channel for bringing us a Canadian/South African show I hadn’t heard of. It’s just that I hate hard-boiled detective narrators. :P

Thank you very much for your email regarding “Blood Ties,” which will not be
returning to Lifetime.

Lifetime has heard your complaints in regards to the cancellation of “Blood Ties”
and we have never canceled a show without a great deal of consideration for you, the
viewers. However, “Blood Ties” did not meet the viewership requirements to stay on
air.

Okay, one, you only ran it once a week! Who does that anymore?

Two, you didn’t even play the entire first season as far as I’m aware. Consistency and followthrough help.

Three, you totally would’ve had more viewers to start with if you’d kept Henry bi.

The letter then went on to say that they don’t have the rights to make DVDs, but hey, you can purchase the episodes from Itunes! Or, you can watch the reruns on Lifetime Real Women (LRW), because doesn’t everyone get all the random spinoff channels nowadays? And, whoopee, you can log onto their website to play games and stuphs!

And “There you can access the most up-to-date
information and read more about the show as well as participate in discussions with
other fans.”

What up-to-date information? Why do I want to read more about the show? You cancelled it! There’s nothing left to discuss except for the fact that you cancelled it!

I’m considering writing to the SciFi Channel. If they want to be more girl-friendly, then what better way than to revive a Lifetime show? :P

Spoilers behind the cut.

Smallville went all Da Vinci Code on us. And this episode is really, really, really dark and rather creepy. And not in a good way, like Blink.

Holographic doc slices up Lex and Clark both. Now they can compare scars in their next slashfic.

It can’t say it’s the worst episode ever, but it’s certainly the least appealling.