cellio | weekend short takes

I'm currently thinking of November 8 for the party.

I'm having fun with the Small Worlds project (that six-degrees-of-separation experiment). Tonight I got a new target, instantly knew whom to send it on to, and decided to try my luck again. And I instantly knew whom to send that one on to, so I tried again. That's when the site told me "no more targets for you". Oops.

None of my chains have reached targets yet; the longest chain so far is four people (not counting me). I have seen no targets living in Europe, though a couple in North Amaerica and some in places much more remote. How peculiar. Only one target has sent me to Mapquest to figure out where the heck that country is.

Tonight we went to an SCA pot-luck dinner. I needed to make something that could be served cold (Shabbat issues), and when browsing a cookbook I came across an allegedly-Turkish recipe for stuffed peppers (vegetarian) that specifically said to serve them cold, so I decided to try it. (Yeah, peppers aren't SCA-period, but the host had already announced he was serving chili. We don't always strive for authenticity.) They came out well and were popular; I'll have to make them again. I used red and orange peppers; I loathe green (bell) peppers. Because there was also an informal "hot food" theme going, I also stuffed a couple jalopenos and some other small hot peppers. (They were mislabelled in the store, so I don't know what they were. But definitely not the advertised banana peppers.) The stuffing is rice with onions, raisins, pine nuts, dill, mint (that surprised me), tomato, oil, and lemon juice (and salt and pepper). I realized after I'd made them that this was not dissimilar in principle from stuffed grape leaves. Mmm, grape leaves. I've never made those.

Shabbat services went well this morning. Today's torah reader did a good job with both the reading and conducting the service. We went longer today (she gave more of a drash and also read haftarah); some people complained that it was too long (violated their expectations), so we'll have to see how this works out over time. I won't be there next week (SCA conflict), alas. I feel bad when I miss this minyan, and especially now when we're doing something new that I'm shepherding. I'll get someone else to collect data and feedback for me next week.

The new season of Enterprise is off to a reasonable start so far. I hope they can actually pull off this story line convincingly; we know (because it's Trek and because this series is a prequel) that the good guys will ultimately succeed in reversing the Xindi attack on Earth. Now from what we know so far, the Xindi are operating from the vantage point of several hundred years in the future. Thus, they ought to already know what happened when they took on the Enterprise. It must be the same timeline, because if tinkering with the past creates a branch and an alternate reality, nothing they do can change the future they come from. I just hope the authors have spent more time thinking about this than I just have. :-)

We're up to "Acts of Sacrifice" in the B5 reruns. When the episode started I found that I remembered it entirely for its silly (non-arc) plot, and not for the serious (arc) plot. I enjoy watching Andreas Katsulas (G'kar); even under all the makeup and prosthetics and stuff, he can convey oodles with just a look sometimes. And everything comes through a lot better on a 32" TV and a DVD than it did on a 25" TV and videotape.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm not sure if I like the new Enterprise. The jazzed up theme song definitely turned me off but I guess the previous one was too relaxed for the new story.

Oh, did they change the theme music? I automatically fast-forwarded through the credits because it didn't change between years 1 and 2 and I didn't like it then. (I pretty much always fast-forward through credits, even if I like the music (like B5), but I try to listen once to see what they're doing.)

actually, i have occasionally gotten very unhappy with

max1975 for not FFing quickly enough so that we end up hearing the first couple of notes to the Enterprise theme song. eewww.

although i was in control of the remote for the season premiere and a little late on the trigger button (a summer off really dulls one's reflexes), so we did hear a tiny bit, but it sounded just the same for 1/2 a second or so. i'm not sure they could improve it enough that i wouldn't want to puke listening to it.

it's just way too earnest lyrically and not all that interesting musically.

Hmm. I almost always listen to the theme music, to set the mood, unless I'm watching a bunch of eps of the same show in a row. (And in a few cases, even then. The Season 5 theme for B5 remains one of my favorite scores for anything, ever, and I can listen to it any number of times.)

But I've taken to skipping the Enterprise theme, because I despise it to my core -- it just feels horribly wrong to me. I'm still enough of a Trek geek to have opinions on such things.

I'm not sure that "jazzing up" is an encouraging description, but I'll have to listen to it, and see what it's like...

I do really like the B5 theme music (pretty much all of it). At one point they were selling soundtracks to (some) individual episodes for pretty cheap and I picked up a few; if they had excluded the voiceover on the opening credits they would have been perfect. B5 makes good background-while-working music, but "it was the dawn of the third age" etc is quite intrusive.

Enterprise surprised me with lyrics. Very un-Trek-like IMO.

weekend short takes

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B5 music