Trek Thursday: Spectre of the Gun

#49: Spectre of the Gun

In case you forgot: On orders to make contact with the reclusive Melkotian race,The Power Trio, plus Scotty and Chekov, are stuck on a planet that's a half-finished Tombstone. Seems like Kirk pushed the Melkotians a little too far and now they're facing justice in a moment "constructed from Kirk's memory." Spock convinces everyone not to believe in the bullets and so the landing party is safe for another day.

It's been a while since we've had a good case of backassing in this countdown. This time it seems less for plot contrivance ("how do we get Bones to jump into the time portal?") and more for filming practicality ("how we do we get the story happening on a set we've already built because we are way behind schedule?"). At least, I hope it's backassing, because otherwise that means someone thought the Wild West shootout at the O.K. Corral was a great idea.

Don't get me wrong, I'm always a fan of Matrix-style "it's all in your mind!" premises, but the setting really limits the coolness factor.

Well, the setting and the internal inconsistencies within the logic established by the story. Spock figures out that everything is just in their heads because a sleeping gas that should have knocked him out doesn't. Somehow he makes the leap that because the laws of science are not working as they should, they must be in a weird Matrix-style construct. That's a far leap there, but okay.

But if just believing is enough to unravel the whole thing, why wouldn't the Melkotians have, I don't know, made sure that sleeping gas actually worked? It's such a massive oversight, especially for a race of super intelligent, super powerful god-like beings. And even if the Power Trio convinces themselves that the bullets are fake, can't the Melkotians still kill them in a thousand other ways?

Also, why does Spock know about the Tombstone shootout? How much Earth history has he studied? If they're still on the bridge, what is going on around them? It would have been nice to have a couple shots of the Power Trio et al. ignoring the rest of the bridge and babbling nonsense about the O.K. Corral.


On another, non-Trek–related note, I'm sorry to have disappeared from the blogging world. I am (1) fighting back a not particularly nasty but incredibly persistent and lingering cold and (2) NANO. On top of my usual Swedish studies and editing work.

I am already at 30,000 words, though!! I am really into this particular story—maybe a little too into it, considering how mentally unhinged most of the characters are—so I am extremely confident in my ability to clear the 50,000 goal before the deadline. I thought my idea this year was going to be a hard, difficult one but it's turning out to be the easiest I've done yet. Maybe this means I need to see a therapist or something?

I promise that once I hit 50,000 words, I'll slow my relentless pace and spend some of those words here instead of in my NaNo. I do have some exciting news that I CAN'T WAIT to share with you guys but it is a little premature so I'm sitting on it....for now. But don't wander away!

Five Fandom Friday: CANDY

5 Fandom Friday is a weekly meme hosted by The Nerdy Girlie. I've been following it (or rather, blogs that participate) for a while, but haven't felt compelled to answer.

Until now.

My participation in fandom is minimal and subdued, shall we say. But no greater love hath a man than I do for chocolate and candy. Or something.

The Halloween Candy I Always Hope(d) For When Trick-or-Treating:

1. 3 Musketeers

I was a picky eater as a child, even when it came to candy. I don't like peanut butter in my chocolate (at all, ever), and since I probably got burned some time with a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, I was wary for YEARS about having anything else ever with my chocolate. Ever. I don't think I had a Twix bar until I was in college. So whenever a house was giving out 3 Musketeers I got super stoked, because a lot of them always had nothing but "chocolate + another thing" candy.

Fortunately, I could always trade with my brother, who was happy to get more Snickers and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

2. Kit Kat Bars

Another safe, pure chocolate bet. Also, they are really satisfying to snap into pieces.

3. York Peppermint Patties

The only safe bet to mix with chocolate is mint. I would always save these for last and eat them in teeny-tiny nibbles to make them last as long as possible. 

4. Swedish Fish

I'm sure I got a few small bags of these suckers here and there from trick-or-treating, but I'll admit I probably ate more of them during my brother's baseball games than at Halloween. 

Ironically, now that I live in Sweden and can get "candy fish" from the candy section of the grocery store any time I want, it's been ages since I had any.

5. Candy Corn

Far and away the best Halloween candy of all time. It's more the province of school crafts and party gift bags than proper "grab a fistful" trick-or-treating, but either way this is the candy I looked forward to the most when the calendar switches to October. Or, in my broke college student days, when the calendar flipped to November and all of the Halloween candy went on massive discount. 

Apparently a lot of people hate candy corn. I can only surmise they hate all that is good and beautiful in this world.

Trek Thursday: The Man Trap

#50: The Man Trap

In case you forgot: A shape-shifting salt vampire, whom Bones believes is his beloved ex-girlfriend, chows down on some redshirts. She spares McCoy because he has such strong feelings for her (she also feeds on love...?), but turns on her husband and the captain. McCoy is the one who has to shoot her to save Kirk and the ship, of course, because of the Rule of Drama.

Getting to see the rest of the crew of the Enterprise have some more lines and some more personality is a nice change of pace. This could be either a good or bad thing, depending on how you feel about the somewhat painful exchange between Spock and Uhura; personally, I wish it had carried over into later episodes (though written more competently). Regardless, a salt vampire is kind of a cool idea for a monster, shape-shifting or otherwise, and the pathos of the species' extinction at the hands of the good doctor doesn't feel at all hamfisted.

Also, I'm probably the only person in the world who thinks the handpuppet flower in Sulu's botany laboratory is a cool, cute effect.

But what potential this episode had is squandered pretty quickly. (There's a reason it's not ranked higher, after all.) McCoy may get a backstory, but what he gains in character development he loses in smarts. We all do stupid things for love, but Bones makes some decisions that are just, well, bone-headed. (Hah, hah.) To be fair, McCoy isn't the only one holding the idiot ball: Kirk and the crew seem to be pretty unnaturally slow on the uptake that they're dealing with a shape-shifter.

There's also far more shots of the creature wandering around the Enterprise looking for a meal than is really necessary. Smells like filler, to be honest.

November is Coming

NaNoWriMo—"National Novel-Writing Month," the mad dash where thousands of people around the world try to write 50,000 words of the first draft of a novel in November—is almost upon us. This year, in addition to all the writing, I'm helping (in a small way) to organize local NaNo events in the Stockholm area. This will be interesting, as I'll also have work and class to keep up with as well.

If you've always wanted to write a novel, NaNo is the perfect crash course in getting started. It's also a great way to meet lots of great, geeky people. (NaNo attracts a lot of geeks and nerdy types. I'm not sure why.) And, finally, it's lots of fun. It's a great way to to perk up the cold, dreary month of November.

Some things I have found useful in NaNos past:

100 Questions to Answer Before You Start Writing Your Story

Assorted Generators

World-Building Questions (Fantasy)

Many people like to use Scrivener or Ywriter or some other fancy software, but I don't. The bells and whistles are too distracting for me.

Will you be participating in NaNo? What will you be writing?

Foodie Friday: Pre-Prepped Veggie Life Hack

Show of hands: how many of you browse Pinterest at least a few times a week? Now, how many of you ever follow through on the things you pin?

Yeah, me too.

But this spinach and tomato quesadilla recipe from Budget Bytes looked good and easy. The beauty of the stuffing is that it is super versatile and you can use it in a variety of dishes. If you make a whole bunch over the weekend, you won't be tired of it by the times it runs out on Friday! You can even be super ambitious and double the recipe and freeze it for when you don't feel like feeding yourself. (Hint: this would be a good one to save for NaNoWriMo!)

Pre-Prepped Veggie Life Hack

(because it's too easy, lazy, and basic to really be a recipe)

What You Need

• Half a pound/200 g of fresh spinach
• 3–4 diced Roma tomatoes (2 is just not enough, IMO)
• One pound/500 g of shredded cheese (if you're not feeding vegans)
• One half to one whole shredded onion
• One shredded chicken breast or equivalent amount of your favorite vegetable protein (if you like)
• Favorite spices
• A big-ass bowl

What You Do

• Dump the spinach in the bowl and shred the hell out of it with some scissors. Or you can use a blender, if you like, I'm not judging. Set aside. (Budget Bytes uses frozen but I find it easier to hack up a giant bag of fresh spinach than mess around with thawing frozen and then squeezing out the water.)
• Dice the tomatoes. This is the most time-intensive process for me. If you want to be lazy, just slice 'em up. If you want to be a little fancier, squeeze all the pulp and water out of the tomatoes and then dice 'em up. Add to your bowl of spinach.
• Slice the onion. I never know how much I use because I always use what's left over from our last dish. JV likes to cook with onions and he'll slice however many he bought that night, regardless of how much the recipe needs, but I would say it's probably "mostly one" onion. Add it to your bowl of spinach and tomato.
• Add the cheese if you have it.
• Set it aside and prepare your chicken breast however you like it. This is the other time-intensive part but I skip it by asking JV to prepare and shred the meat (I trust him with preparing meat more than I trust myself). Add the chicken to your bowl of veggies and cheese.
• Add your spices and combine well.

That's it! This was enough to last two people for four dinners (in this case, quesadillas) each and it takes about 15 minutes, maybe like 20 if you include chicken or a vegetable protein. If you keep it in a sealed container or bag in your fridge, it'll easily keep for five days. It's good to use in quesadillas, burritos, omelettes, scrambled eggs, sandwiches, wraps, or just on its own. Other things you might like to add:

• Beans
• Bell pepper
• Mushroom
• Shredded carrots
• Corn
• Arugula 

Whatever you think is tasty and have the time and energy to prep!

Bon appetit!

Trek Thursday: Bread and Circuses

#51: Bread and Circuses

In case you forgot: It's Roman times with television, with Christianity thrown in as a bonus plot twist.

This episode has always felt like a script that could have been really cool and awesome if it didn't have to go through the assembly line sausage factory that was TOS filming. Televised gladiatorial combat as entertainment? Within the realm of possibility—contemporary audiences can't seem to get enough of things like The Biggest Loser or Big Brother. A culture where slavery is still the norm? For sure. It's not like we don't still have slavery today, after all. But society that's just a straight Roman empire clone with TV thrown in? Come on, Genes. You can do better than that.

The whole Sun/Son switch-up at the end is what sours this episode for me the most, though. Whenever religion crops up in TOS (or any kind of progressive science fiction from the middle of the century), it just sucks. It seems like token attempt to placate the more conservative, Christian viewers at the time, and it's at total odds with Roddenberry's original vision of the future: "everyone is an atheist and better for it."

What I Played: Lord of the Rings: War in the North

This got a brief shout-out from me both on Twitter and in my latest Read Play Blog response. But I think it's worth sparing a few more words here because I don't think Lord of the Rings: War in the North (PS3, 360, PC, and OS X) got the acclaim or recognition it deserved. On Metacritic it has something like 63 / 100. Google aggregates it as 3.5 / 5.

War in the North is basically the first LotR-inspired game I've played all the way through. I've dropped in on a couple of LEGO Lord of the Rings sessions, and there was some weird isometric puzzle one for the GBA for Fellowship of the Ring but I quickly lost the patience for that one. I've also heard tell of the LotR MMOs but MMOs are not my bag. There are games that predate the Peter Jackson movies, mods for preexisting games, and on and on, but despite my love for the books I never played any of them

I am a LotR video game noob and that is where this review is coming from.

JV picked up War in the North because he heard it was a fun hack 'n' slash game to play co-op and we can always use more co-op games. This was to tide us over until Reaper of Souls launched (and then dropped in price), and it ended up being incredibly fun in its own right.

The story of War in the North is contemporaneous with the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. Your party engages with Sauron's forces in his northern outposts and, it's implied, help the Fellowship by keeping Sauron distracted. Yeah, being unsung heroes!

The character setup is your standard thief/fighter/mage trilogy: a human ranger, a dwarven fighter, or a lady elf mage. (You also get a giant badass bird after the first dungeon, but he's strictly NPC.) Each class has its own set of skill trees (AW YISS SKILL TREEEEEEEES) for you to puzzle over. Whichever character isn't controlled by a player is controlled by the AI. After meeting Aragorn at the Prancing Pony, off you go to kick some ass and take some names.

The control scheme is intuitive: you have heavy and light attacks and you can defend and counter. Simple, but elegant. Overall the controls are responsive and the fighting is very fluid and easy to get used to. The level design is also fantastic and mostly succeeds at balancing the challenging-versus-fair tension necessary for every successful game. There are long runs of minion hordes, endurance fights against siege weapons, wave survivals, and rewarding bosses and minibosses. (And no bullshit escort missions!) 

Other reviews judge War in the North for being too repetitive, and I see how it could be, but since my personal heaven is an endless hack 'n' slash, I could not give a flying fuck about "repetitive." It's what it says on the tin! MASH THE BUTTONS. KILL THINGS. KNEEL BEFORE ZOD.

The loot system is also impressive. Each helm, armor, or weapon has its own unique style. The same helm will still look different on the ranger than it does on the dwarf or the elf, so every item in the game has been designed three times over. The artists for War in the North did a superlative job with the design.

I freaking loved this game. I did. I loved the hell out of it. It is just sheer fun to play. You can go back and replay previous missions (though you won't be able to fight the unique monsters, minibosses, or bosses) or, if you want to grind or just see how much ass you can kick, you can choose one of two bonus "survival" levels: Lorien or Osgiliath. They're not part of the story in any way. You can just go and kick ass for the hell of it, or to grind a bit for the next dungeon, or to stock up on ammo and potions. Not to mention there are, of course, a wide range of difficulties you can complete the game on if you want to go for that True Completionist Mode. 

I do have a few beefs, however.

1. The story is just too short. You can finish the game (which takes place over the entire trilogy) in a weekend, and that just doesn't feel right for something as epic as Lord of the Rings. I mean yeah there are some sidequests and things, but that's not enough. It could have benefited from some Fallout level NPCs, sidequests, and world exploration.

2.  Ally AI is just dumb as a sack of bricks. Theoretically you can tell your AI player (if you're not playing with two other players) to "attack" or "defend" with up and down on the D-pad, but in practice it's useless and overall the AI-controlled characters are idiots. JV and I played as the mage and the dwarf, respectively. The mage has a pretty essential spell called Sanctuary that blocks enemy missiles and (after some early levels up) heals. It is the backbone of the game. And every time JV would cast it when we needed some healing, the AI-controlled ranger would just stand RIGHT OUTSIDE the dome unless I maneuvered my dwarf as far away from him as possible (without stepping outside the AOE). 

However, the game was designed to be co-op, so I can see why the developers wouldn't want to sink a lot of time into complex AI. The game is designed to be played with other people, not with the computer and definitely not on your own.

3. But the worst issue, by far, is bugs. Game-breaking bugs. This might be less of an issue if you play online or on PSN (which seems to be the style of play the devs were considering the default), but playing co-op with JV was riddled with issues. At one point near the end of the game, because we teleported back to town to do some maintenance before facing a boss, the boss never loaded. The save was totally ruined and we had to start all the way from the beginning. Dying also seemed to trigger some weird buggy issues, as did trying to drop into a game with a higher-level character. We were able to play around these by playing the game on Easy (no dying), doing dungeons in straight runs (no teleporting back to town), and always playing together (no significant level discrepancies). 

Despite these issues, War in the North doesn't get the love it deserves, and I'm bummed that in the 3 years since its initial release, there hasn't been a sequel, a reboot, or at least some fucking patches. It's easy to get into, it's fun, and overall it's designed well.