No, really?

Just another German trekker: Some passages in the movie seem to indicate that there’s still some kind of monetary economy in the Star Trek Universe. How else could, for example, McCoy have “nowhere else to go” after his divorce?
Have you been aware of the fact that mainly this plot point (along with other, less crucial, ones) couldn’t withstand close examination given the fact that there is no money in the Star Trek Universe? (I mean: He’s a [physician] - how could he NOT be of service on earth?)

BobOrci: And Kirk offers to pay for Uhura’s drink at the bar, There’s money, or some kind of credit system in this universe.

Source

Come on, is that the only answer we're going to get on this? "Oh, there's money in this universe"? WHY is there money in this universe? Since that's something that really shouldn't have been effected by Nero's interruption/destruction of the known timeline if the change only effected things from the day the Kelvin was destroyed onward. Unless things have rippled all the way back to First Contact and changed everything... In which case, Enterprise isn't even canon anymore as it was (Not that I would really mind that because I hated Enterprise and thought that they did a lot of really cracky, inconsistent things with that series. For example, T'Pol experiencing pon farr because oh, female Vulcans go through that too? Uh, no they don't! Everything we ever had about Vulcan physiology in TOS and Voyager indicates that pon farr was something male Vulcans had to deal with, not female. The females generally just had to deal with being mauled by their husbands for an indeterminate amount of time every seven years until the males got it out of their systems. The writers were obviously just lazy about coming up with a reason T'Pol and Tucker would be getting it on. Fail, writers, fail.)...

We do know that there was some kind of credit system in the Prime universe (that's what I'm going to call the original timeline until given a better name for it), but it wasn't money as we know it today. The first thing that comes to mind is that the Ferengi have gold-pressed Latinum. And obviously, Starfleet personnel sometimes buy things from them... (I'm thinking specifically of Quark's dealing with Harry Kim in ST: Voyager episode "The Caretaker" here, and Harry would have been able to pay him had they struck a deal, so obviously there's some way to exchange their Starfleet credits for Latinum.) But I don't remember anything that is ever really clear on the subject. I hope in subsequent movies, this ambiguity is cleared up somewhat and that we DON'T see someone whip out their VISA card! 'Cuz that would be so ridiculous and upset me greatly (and I know I wouldn't be the only one)! I think something like that would be far more ridiculous than the presence of "Bud Classic" and "Nokia" in this universe. And those product placements were bad enough. (In ST: First Contact, we saw that human society as we know it in the present completely broke down during the 21st century. Knowing that, I have a very difficult time as it is buying that major multinational corporations would survive such economic upheaval to still be doing business in the 23rd century, and I'm not sure what the writers could tell me to make me buy that the corporations are still operating in Star Trek XI's present)...

I just don't like Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman's answer to this question.

Knitting...

I've finished knitting the shawl I'm making for my sister. It took considerably less yarn than the pattern had indicated. Now I have an entire skein of Malabrigo Lace, plus a little more, left and nothing to do with it. It's my sister's colors and very much not mine. I might hold on to it in case I come up with something else to make for her, but I might also put it up for trade/sale on Ravelry (*loves that feature*). Now, I'm waiting for the blocking wires to arrive from KnitPicks. I decided to order them since I really think it will be much easier to use them to block rather than just using pins and my bed. I want this shawl to look really good.

I'm also working on mitts for my friend Lara. She wants gray owling mitts. I'm using Mirasol Qina. I love this stuff! I think it's my favorite yarn at the moment. I'm worried about the mitts not fitting her though, so I've had to put them down for now until the next time we hang out and I can get her to try them on.

So I am out of projects to work on, since I have no yarn available for anything else and no idea what I could make with what I've got on hand. I guess I'm just uninspired to come up with something.

And, even so, my fingers are itching for a project.

I've ordered yarn from KnitPicks as well. Bare Peruvian Highland Wool. 15 skeins. I'm going to use it for the Lace Chuppah pattern that was in one of the Interweave Knit magazines a few years ago... Am I nuts to be working on a Chuppah when I don't even have a boyfriend, nevermind an impending wedding? I don't know... Maybe it will bring certain energies in my direction. One never knows. But I'm going to make it anyway.

The order hasn't even been processed yet, so I probably won't get it for at least a week.

An update on the pumpkin theft...

... since I've just discovered seconds ago what it is that happened. And get this because it's hilarious.

My brother went to a wedding today. Can't remember if I had mentioned that or not. So he and two of his friends were driving to the wedding together and one of them showed up here without a gift to bring. So my brother - genius that he is - says to his friend, "Hey, take a pumpkin!" And doesn't bother to ask me. Or anyone else. If that's okay. And his friend - being the kind of guy he is - doesn't think there's a damn thing wrong with taking a pumpkin. To a wedding. As his gift to the bride and groom... ... ... What? If anyone has ever wondered about my brother and his friends and just how stupid they are sometimes, this should give you some indication.

So I didn't even have to ask them. They walked in a few minutes ago and my brother said to me, "I took down that sign. That was really tacky." And I said, "Well, someone stole one of my pumpkins last night or this morning and I don't want them doing it again." And he was all, "Oh, no, we gave it as a wedding gift." And I was all, "What? You took my organic, heirloom, perfect french pumpkin? And you didn't even ask if you could? We thought it had been stolen. Do you even know how much an organic, heirloom pumpkin that size is worth retail? It probably weighed 30 pounds!" And they were very apologetic, though they did say it couldn't have been more than 15 pounds, to which I said bullshit. It was at least as big as the one you got at Walmart last year (or was it the year before?), Ilana. So. His friend has agreed to buy me several hundred pounds of cow manure at the hardware store tomorrow. Because I have a hard time getting it myself since it's only sold in 50 pound bags, and while I can lift and move them, I don't like to, so I'll let them do it. And that will repay me for this inconvenience.

:-(

Someone stole one of my pumpkins out of my front yard either this morning or last night. The biggest one. Had to have been about 30 lbs. If it was last night, it was done while I was sitting just on the other side of the wall from where they were, with the lights on and the tv on and everything (because I was up all night... been having a little trouble sleeping lately). Or it was taken this morning while it was raining. Either way, that took some planning and balls. And I'm fucking pissed off. I can't go ahead and pick the rest because they really aren't ready to be picked yet. They need another week, maybe two, on the vines. But now I'm worried I'm going to go out there one day and more will have been stolen. I'M NOT GROWING THESE FOR PEOPLE TO STEAL! And I know whoever did it wasn't someone who needs it. This is a dead-end street in a fairly well-off neighborhood. Nobody who lives around here is hurting for food. It's some kid being a delinquent, most likely.

I know it was there last night at about 7:30 when I went out to get the zucchini that were ready there because I checked on it to make sure that the damp wasn't making it rot, and it was there and it was fine.

I've put a sign in my yard saying that the pumpkins aren't in fact free to a good home and that stealing is not appreciated. I'd like to sit out there with a shotgun. But I don't actually have a shotgun (yet) and I have things to do other than guard the pumpkins in my own freaking front yard. So I made the sign. I used the frame of the anti-marriage sign I absconded with from the street near the polling place at the end of the block on Election Day last November, but the cardboard on it is different for this new sign, obviously. It's always good to recycle.

Still, grrrrrrr.....

Also. Our oven is broken. We have no oven until at least Wednesday. This makes me exceedingly sad.

Movies and other things...

I've decided on the Victory Shawl on Ravelry. I found yarn at the local LYS's five-years-in-business sale that will be perfect for my sister, so I bought it and am making this shawl for her for Christmas. YAY! I still need to figure out something to make for myself, but I can at least put off making those decisions for a few more weeks.

I'm already on the 11th "module" of pattern repeats (the pattern is in French - thank goodness for my high school French teacher and babelfish!). So far, it's looking good!

Don't scroll down if you haven't seen Wolverine or Star Trek and you don't want any spoilers for either movie. Because spoilers, they are abounding below... Wolverine is first, then Star Trek, so if you're clever with your mouse, you could read about one without reading about the other...

And for those of you who haven't seen Star Trek yet... I'm just gonna leave this here to tempt you a bit (and as awesome as the trailer is, it still doesn't quite capture just how amazing the movie itself is):



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Wolverine was awesome, despite what they did to Deadpool. Lots of people have objections about what was done to Deadpool's character, but I thought it worked for the purpose of the movie and the plot. Others might disagree. Overall: bone claws, backstory, general awesomeness, pimp cane wielding Gambit. I'm a happy girl. Also, I'm easy for Hugh Jackman. I even liked Kate & Leopold because of him and I greatly dislike Meg Ryan as a general rule.

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Saw Star Trek on Thursday at 7pm in an advanced screening. My first reaction was basically that it's THE MOST AWESOME RESET TO EVER BE MADE IN THE HISTORY OF EVER! BAR NONE! NO, I DON'T CARE!

Seriously, I couldn't get out of my seat even to stretch after the movie was over until the credits had completely finished and the houselights came up and even then I was on a cloud of happy for the next three days. That has never happened to me before, even with LOTR: ROTK, and I cried through the last 45 minutes of that movie the first time I saw it. So. This is saying something. I think I also hyper-ventilated due to awesomeness-overload a few times.

It was really great.

James T. Kirk is a badass. Who likes 20th century rock music, vintage cars, motorcycles and leather. I approve. Spock is pretty badass too. Together they are unstoppably badass. As it should be.

Sulu kicks ass and takes names. Really, really, loved his character in this.

McCoy... OMG, Karl Urban is an amazingly underrated actor. He became McCoy more than any other new actor became their character in this movie. He had down the way DeForest Kelly spoke as McCoy, his facial expressions, the way he walked... Everything! It was incredible. Also, he had some of the best lines. Really quite funny and I loved him.

Scotty and Chekov and Uhura are completely brilliant. Uhura could have been given more to do other than being a love interest for Spock, but there were a lot of other characters and she is, after all, a language specialist. She translates. So... yeah... she's important, but not exactly necessarily in the thick of things a lot of the time. Also... Spock is her former professor... making their relationship a little... questionable on the ethics scale, imho (and if I understood that situation right), because he's still has authority over her at Starfleet Academy. However, I can see why they did it given how much Uhura flirted with him in the early days of TOS.

Others have complained about a few things and I'll tell you why I think these complaints are nit-picky and dumb.

• #1. That the make-up they used for the Orion (the would be the green girl who was Uhura's roommate) Kirk was trying to bone looked fake and was jarring.
  
  Dude, she's supposed to be that color green. That species looks like that. They have green skin, just that color with bright eyes and often times (any more) brightly painted lips so that there's somewhat of a - what I like to call - radioactive cats effect. It's not supposed to look like Rebecca Romijn did when she played Mystique in the X-Men movies, even though you might think that's a "cooler" effect. Just no. Orions always look pretty much just like they did in TOS. Always. It's the way it is. Accept it or GTFO. And if you still thought it looked like the most fake effect ever and you were startled by it so much you laughed and thought she looked ridiculous, I suspect you're not really a Star Trek fan to be perfect frank about it.



• #2. Tyler Perry's cameo.
  
  I didn't even notice it a little bit, and I've seen it twice now. The second time, I knew he was in there somewhere and still didn't notice. I think someone's been watching too much Madea.



• #3. Kirk and Spock Prime were suspiciously marooned on the same planet.
  
  Delta Vega is what it is. It's the planet that people get marooned on apparently (see TOS episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before"). Go with it. Also, one can easily see that Kirk and Spock would have been put on the same planet since there probably aren't that many M-class planets near Vulcan... Delta Vega being one of the planets in the Vulcan system. Also... It's the planet that Nero and his crew were mining when Romulus was destroyed. So, yeah, makes sense Spock would get dumped there by them.
  
  My little issue with this: Why is Scottie necessarily on the same planet? That was a bit convenient. And I find it a wee-bit coincidental that Kirk and Spock were dumped off close enough together to actually find each other just by chance before making it to the base, but I guess since they were in proximity to a Starfleet station, they were both probably intentionally placed there so that, after trudging through the ice and snow for a while, they would eventually find shelter and not die of exposure. But really, I'm more than willing to let these points slide.

Also didn't have a problem with:

• Winona Ryder being Spock's mom


• Any of the casting


• The new look for the ship


• That Kirk became captain at 25. If you saved Earth from being imploded, I think Starfleet would give you your own ship too.

Things I did have a problem with:

• I have no logical explanation for why there would be water on the floor in some parts of Nero's ship. Were their bilge pumps not working or something (not that they'd have bilge pumps on a space ship as opposed to a regular floats-in-water ship)? I really want an explanation for why they wade through ankle-deep water in space...



• The Nokia thing being in the car, and the "Budweiser Classic" at the bar... Because Earth in Star Trek is supposed to be post-capitalism. I'm not sure they really have brand names in the Trek universe. I'm not sure what explanation there could be for it other than product placements are "the thing to do" in these kinds of movies these days, and personally, that just doesn't fly with me completely when we're talking about STAR TREK for the love of all that's holy in science fiction. I certainly have never seen them in any other Trek movies or shows. So that did give me pause once I thought about it. But, really, I'll let it slide...

Other than that, I think I loved every nanosecond of the movie and can't wait for it to come out on DVD, and can't wait even more for the sequel(s? - please, I pray).

Oh, and he's funny too!

I love our president. My love, in fact, is ever-growing, really...

Word!

"Fat Judges Need Not Apply" <--- That this sort of thing needs to be said is sad. I hope the President can rise above such ridonculousness...