Imaginary time capsule

Haaa, this seems to happen every time I check out a new TV series.

ODO. IS. FATHER MULCAHY. OH MY GOD.

That is, René Auberjonois played both Constable Odo on Deep Space 9 and Father Mulcahy on M*A*S*H. I never would have guessed in a million years! And not because of the prostethics I mean (heck, I've seen DS9-era Auberjonois without the makeup and that didn't clue me in) but those are two such completely polar performances!

So yeah, apparently I'm never going to be able to wrap my head around the fact that actors are allowed to play several characters, and those characters can be fundamentally different. Gee.

How did I not know that Majel Barrett played Lwaxana Troi as well? How has that just gone right past me for years?

I had no idea until I watched the DS9 episode 'The Forsaken' (yeah I'm making a second attempt at getting through DS9), saw her listed as a special guest star and though "Wait a minute, Barrett didn't voice the DS9 computer as well, did she? Oh hey, Counsellor Troi's mother, neat! I wonder if I recognize the name of the actreOH MY GOD."

Yes, once again I've been swayed by the promise of big-ass story arcs and captainly badassery in DS9. I'm struggling with keeping up interest for the first season but that's always been a typical Trek problem, hasn't it, the writers taking some time to figure out what to do with the characters. That's not to say that DS9 doesn't show a lot of promise; Only seventeen episodes in and they've completely rehabilitated Quark as a character in my eyes, and since the majority of the main characters are aliens there's a lot of fascinating origin stories. Not to mention that this show has the biggest boner for TOS (AWW HI THERE TERRAN EMPIRE!).

And naturally I start to think about certain Trek archetypes I've come to expect from the franchise, and true to form I like all the ones you'd think.

Like Odo; Odo is the Spock/Data of DS9, the outcast with the mostly undetectable sense of humour and who's oh so Different From The Others (Potential for angsting spotted!). Also I've heard he gets to evolve a lot as a character through the seasons so I'm looking forward to that.

I like Dr. Bashir, the conventionally attractive (oh Alexander Siddig*, what are these feelings that I feel?) slut of the crew with the passionate bromance going on with a fellow officer, like a Kirk or a Riker but with an English accent and kind of awkward demeanor. The creators of this show specifically wanted me, a young female viewer, to like Bashir. The fiends.

And I like Kira, who... I fail to find an appropriate parallel to. But she's fierce! And is oodles more likeable than Jadzia Dax, who's got such an interesting background but who completely fails to engage me.

So I was going to watch Bande à parte tonight, get some fine culture in my system, but I feel more like trucking through DS9 season one, waiting for the epicness to start (I hear I'll get to see Worf again, yay!)


*Let us take a moment to unironically appreciate his full name, Siddig El Tahir El Fadil El Siddig Abderrahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdel Karim El Mahdi, because his awesomeness could never be contained in two mere names.

I caught a link to this very extensive comic cover gallery and of course the first thing I did was check which comics were published the month I was born - you know, let's pretend it had some kind of mystical effect on what course the life of newly-arrived Tilly would take.

So have a spam!

( The top 10 coolest covers from the month Tilly was born )

Ah yesterday's party was great fun (and oh God I can still taste those delicious homemade pumpkin muffins on my tongue om nom nom), and today I woke up all groggy wondering why all my clocks were displaying different times (not that I had a single drop yesterday).

The Star Trek costume wasn't a big hit, though I did get a lot of "Oooh, you're from Star Wars!". I was a polite enough geek to always smile and answer "Close, do you mean Star Trek?" - "Yes God, that's the one! Awesome costume!". So all in all it went better than the one time I was Groucho Marx and no one got it.

Sadly I didn't get any full-body pictures of me in costume (I'm considering a crazy Star Trek photoshoot when my sister comes visiting soon), but you can at least see some of it.

( Boldly going where so many geeks have gone before )

I'm in such a strange mood today. Hm. A mild sense of foreboding. Who knows what that's about.

Might as well tell you about my plans for Halloween. Considering this might be my last year in Bergen I thought it would be neat to for once catch the Halloween party in Hulen. I've been wracking my brain for costume ideas, but the truth is that white girls with dreads aren't exactly abundant in my fandoms. I realized I had to do something recognizable yet customisable: I'm going as a TOS Starfleet Science/Medical Lieutenant. In drag. (Seriously, I'm not getting into one of those minidresses.)

I've got the shirt ready, and I'm sure I can fix up some secondhand trousers with ten minutes at the sewing machine. The real challenge is going to find some cheap but serviceable boots, and decide what I'm going to make the chest insignia of (I'm thinking felt, if I can find some goldish one. Failing that, cardboard?). It's going to look cheap and homemade, but hey, it's quite dark at Hulen.

- Dr. Doom rules over Latveria, not Latvia.

- The lyrics to the theme song of Linkara's Atop the Fourth Wall goes "Anyone who's ever had a bad comic published, it can be your turn", not "it can be returned". That wouldn't make sense.

- Morgan Freeman is an actor. Gordon Freeman is a video game character.

- In Joan Baez' 'Prison trilogy (Billy Rose)' the titular character was a "low rider" and a "night fighter". He was not a Knight Rider.

- In 'Turnabout Intruder', Kirk says that Spock's accusation of him not being the real Kirk is "insane at its base", not "insane in space" (which admittedly describes the third season to a tee). Thanks downloadable subtitles!

It seems I failed both my exams this semester. I've never failed anything school-related ever, and suddenly an entire semester went down the drain. Fascinating.

Well, good on me for taking it this well. I thought this would be much more painful, I thought I'd cry and hate myself, but this is no more than annoying. So I'll take those exams over. Fiddlesticks.

Thankfully playing copious amounts of Dragon Age Origins slaying darkspawn is very therapeutic. I also have this uncanny urge to watch men in brightly coloured velour shirts and too tight trousers run through pastel corridors, but that'll have to wait till Monday when I return to Bergen.

Again, I've no idea where I was going with yesterday's longwinded whiny entry, but to make up for it I'll post just one image to spread some Trek-related joy.

( Cut for size and toothbrush )

We have normality. Carry on.

Okay so I've been gone for a couple of days. The reasons for this are: I've been freaking out over my upcoming exams (the first one of which is on Thursday), I've been watching various vintage scifi with Maria (Come on Undiscovered Country, you were made in the nineties, how hard can split screen effects be?) and the fact that yesterday was Norway's birthday (Hooray!)

So, catching up on the movie meme:

Day 12 - The movie you’ve watched the most
and
Day 13 - Favorite childhood movie

These can efficiently be answered with the same movie: The Lion King. I was six years old when it premiered and there's a special kind of obsessive behaviour I think only children below ten really understand. Me and my sister would watch it again and again and again, we'd memorize the lines, we'd play with our Lion King toys and listen to our Lion King CD. My mum was even groovy enough to let me have curtains adorned with Simba and Nala.

I still think it's a great movie too. Hamlet with an all-animal cast.


Day 14 - Favorite male character

I've been giving this some thought for the last couple of days. My first instinct was to say Harry Lime from The Third Man (as portrayed by Orson Welles) - but how could I know I hadn't been influenced by the spinoff radio series, where Harry Lime is less of a unscrupoulus villain and more of a charming anti-hero?


I was trying to think of someone else when I happened upon the movie blog Sunset Gun where writer Kim Morgan evocatively reflects on Harry Lime's entrance in the movie:

A window opens, and light flickers on Lime, and the camera holds a mysterious, mischievous and disarmingly smiling face. Welles (as Lime) looks back at Holly with eyes that [...] makes you understand what Anna later says about Lime: "Harry never grew up. The world grew up around him." You forget about the terrible things he's done. You just want to follow him, anywhere, no matter what the repercussions.

YES. Harry Lime it is. Unscrupulous and the culprit of gruesome, heart-wrenching crimes, and yet so irresistibly charming, so disarmingly jovial.

Bitch bitch bitch.

"Hi we're MovieGoods, the web store specializing in posters! It's great that you've found an awesome poster from one of your favourite movies. The checkout is this way - oh by the way we did mention that we ship internationally UNLESS IT'S A BIG POSTER?"

Or "large oversized posters" as it says in their shipping details. "Oversized" makes it sound like I should be ashamed or something. It's 27 x 40 inches, where I come from that's a regular movie poster, argh.

And so the search continues.

Out of idle curiousity I checked out the sites stock of Trek posters - not that I would hang one up in my room of course (...yet), but I don't know WTF is going out with some of the choices. Who in their right mind would want this on their wall? Listen, if you liked 'The Gamesters of Triskelion' immeditaly report yourself to the police. NOW.