I am still working on getting the widgets the way I want, [...]]]> While the insides of the old blog were a mess, I was able to export the posts and comments and such before removing the old place. Looks like they arrived in one piece! Huzzah! Even the embedded YouTube videos seem to work! Excellent!

I am still working on getting the widgets the way I want, and yes, will decide on what social media doo-dads I will use… there will be less buttons once I get that organized.

And all those tweets were done automatically, although they stopped last November… don’t know why. Since I wasn’t able to write normal posts during the dashboard messup, all that went up (until November that is) were those. I’m currently looking for a way to keep the tweet on a separate page, auto updated but more organized. I don’t want it to look like all this blog is is a bunch of tweets! Haha…

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I have had so many things I have wanted to write about [...]]]> Yes, after having my blog hacked last March (dashboard really… blog looked fine and dandy from the outside… insides was eeeeWWWWWW!), I restarted the blog. I tried to revive the old one but, alas, it was not to be. So I start anew.

I have had so many things I have wanted to write about but it’s been a mixture of not having enough time, tired, sick, tired of being sick and sick of being tired (went through bronchitis twice within 3 months, along with the kids).

So…here we go…

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Basil Rathbone (left) and Nigel Bruce play the crime fighting dou

detective and and his trusty companion.  We were reading Hound of the Baskervilles (considered by many fans to be the best of the Holmes stories) and watched the [...]]]> I have to thank my 8th grade English teacher for introducing me to the great

Basil Rathbone (left) and Nigel Bruce play the crime fighting dou

detective and and his trusty companion.  We were reading Hound of the Baskervilles (considered by many fans to be the best of the Holmes stories) and watched the 1939 film version starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce  it in class.  We had an assignment of pretending to be a news reporter covering the murder.

I’ve never cared too much for mysteries. It was usually someone gets killed (kind of a downer). Detective investigates and usually solves case. Killer is usually hateful/jealous/mean streaked.  Then justice is done.

But the characters of Holmes and Watson really got my curiosity.  Holmes was stand-offish and not social. He could tell you where you came from and what you do for a living within the first second of meeting you.  But he was not a romantic, but rather preferred facts when dealing with people… or rather, people’s cases.  Along with his cocaine addictions, violin playing, and pipe smoking.

Watson was loyal.  Ready to help his friend when needed. And wrote about the cases that he and Holmes took on.  Handy with a revolver.  If Holmes asked him to go off and do something, Watson went without question.

I happened to mention about the story to my mom, telling her that I thought it was really interesting and not hard to follow the decades old story.  So when I graduated the grade, my parents gave me a book that had several stories in it (most of the Holmes stories were short stories), including Hound.  The book had the original illustrations by Sidney Paget, which were originally with the stories when they were originally published.  Considered to have cemented the “look” of Holmes to the public.

I read those stories. Inhaled them is a better way of putting it.  The stories were also out of the ordinary.  Some were murders, though the cause of death no always easy: an animal in self defense or the victim died out of terror or a guilty conscious.  Or perhaps faked their own death.  Or something was stolen.  In addition to that,  I watched more of the Rathbone/Bruce movies on the local tv channel. I believe it was every Sunday afternoon.  Rathbone was my Holmes.

Until…

Jeremy Brett as Holmes (left) , Rosalie Williams as Mrs. Hudson (center) and David Burke as Watson standing in front of the infamous 221B residence

I saw Jeremy Brett and David Burke.

Oh. My. Gosh!!!

(that’s right, I said gosh. Deal with it! )

The performances of those two men really shot the characters out of a canon and onto the small screen.  Brett’s portrayal was spot on. He set a very high standard of how someone should play Holmes. And Burke’s Watson as well as Edward Hardwicke’s Watson was much more faithful to the Watson that Conan Doyle wrote about.  And the rest of the cast: Rosalie Williams who played their landlady Mrs. Hudson, Colin Jeavons as Inspector Lestrade, and a bunch of others who appeared looking like what I had pictured in my head when I first read the stories.

And shooting it out of a canon can be taken another way… it was almost 100% Canon (canon – meaning the original stories).  The stories were as close to word-for-word as one could fit into less than a 60 minute program.  Costumes were beautiful. Sets were marvelous.  The Baker Street residence was not too ornate.  Everything was so… well…. perfect! (Except for the last few episodes. Production got lazy, and Brett’s health got worse and passed away in September 1995 :’( ).

Even when I watch them now, they do not look like they are 25 years old.  I

Brett again as Holmes, and Edward Hardwicke picking up the role of Watson

am picky when it comes to period films and if there is too much 1980s in something that is supposed to be 1880s, then I’m not happy.  But this was, as I already said, perfect.

A few years later I became a huge fan of Charlie Chaplin.  And to my delight, one of Chaplin’s early acting childhood gigs was that of Billy the Pageboy in the Sherlock Holmes play written by William Gillette.  There were two men who played Holmes for the play, Gillette and H A Saintsbury, and Chaplin worked with both of them, commenting in “My Autobiography” that he thought Saintsbury was the better Holmes.  Many years later when he was making Limelight, he brought on Nigel Bruce to play Mr Postant, largely due to his Watson role.  Which is another reason why I have kept the name Calvero for so many years… it connects some of my favorites together .

And speaking of the Holmes/Chaplin crossover, there is the “Sherlock Holmes” movie to be released later this year starring Robert Downey, Jr. who playrf Charlie in the 1992 film “Chaplin”.  Loved him in that!  And now he’s playing Holmes.  While I can’t think of anyone better to play Chaplin than him, it will be real tough to even equal Brett’s Holmes.  But he can do a very good British accent (he did a couple different ones in Chaplin).  Jude Law has a very very good look for Watson (He also had a small part in the Granada series, “The Disappearance of Lady Carfax”).

The trailer looks good:

I’ll just have to put Brett’s image to the side when I go to see the new movie.

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• My Favoite Sherlock Holmes videos – part 6
• My Favorite Sherlock Holmes videos – part 5
• My favorite Holmes videos – volume 4

The 4th Doctor, aka Tom Baker. One of my, and Kristi's, favorite Doctors

I remember when Kristi was 3 (she’s now 10), she saw one of my old Doctor Who VHS tapes in the cabinet, “Full Circle” [...]]]> It is strange and funny how what is laying around the house affects what your kid watches.

The 4th Doctor, aka Tom Baker. One of my, and Kristi's, favorite Doctors

I remember when Kristi was 3 (she’s now 10), she saw one of my old Doctor Who VHS tapes in the cabinet, “Full Circle” starring Tom Baker as the 4th Doctor.

She put it in the machine and started watching it. And then she watched it again. And again.  And again.  I had a few others but for some reason she liked this one a lot.  She would get scared of the monsters and laugh whenever the Doctor who give off his big toothy smile.

I should add that I did not watch Doctor Who much when Kristi was awake. Usually it was her shows like Blue’s Clues, Sesame Street, Dora the Explorer, etc. so it’s not like she just watched it when I watched it.

Since then she has become a fan of the renewed Doctor Who series and likes David Tennant as much as Tom.

And just yesterday I was watching Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights while folding the

Could it be that I have a future silent film fan in the making?

laundry.  Kristi was watching Pokemon videos on Youtube (She loves Pokemon!).  When I got up to put some clothes away, I left the movie playing.  I came back a couple minutes later and there was Kristi laying on the sofa watching City Lights. Not her Pokemon!

Since she caught it in the middle of the movie, I explained some of what was going on, like why the millionaire treated Charlie different drunk versus sober, and that the young lady who Charlie falls in love with is blind.

Now that Katie, my other daughter, is almost 3, she has discovered something even more off the

The controversial brothers from the 1960s got the attention of my almost 3 year old

wall. The Smothers Brothers.  She often sits on my lap watching YouTube videos, and the other day she saw the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour Season 3 DVD set sitting on my desk where my computer is. She pointed to it wanting to watch it.  She likes watching them sing. Even when they are talking she will sit there glued as they talk about the Vietnam War and student protests and so on.  I don’t go into explaining what happened back in the 1960s, what the protests were about or anything… I’ll wait to explain that when she’s older .

But it’s weird how my kids pick up on my interests like that.

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• Best Doctor Who fan videos – part 1
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I have thought of other things that I wanted to add to it:

Random thought: Was anyone else surprised that Winona Ryder was in it?  And that she played Spock’s mom? Assuming that you did not know who was in the [...]]]> First, thanks to those who told me how much they liked my review.

I have thought of other things that I wanted to add to it:

Random thought: Was anyone else surprised that Winona Ryder was in it?  And that she played Spock’s mom? Assuming that you did not know who was in the movie prior to seeing it, that is . That surprised me when I was watching the credits and thought “She was in this?”

More on Roman history: And while watching the TOS episode “Amok Time” (the one where Spock returns to Vulcan and first does the Vulcan salute),  I suddenly remembered the relationship of Vulcan (the Roman god of fire) and Spock’s home planet (D’oh!). It’s because the planet is volcanic (ah, the wonders of Roman mythology on the English language!), and therefore hot and the air is thin. And then I remember the scenes in the movie seeing the outside shots of Vulcan. I knew there had to be something connecting the two!  My mind just went blank when writing my earlier review.

And to talk about something not directly related to the movie, here’s a connection with TNG:  Back in 1976, BBC aired a 12 part television series called “I, Claudius” about the goings-on of the Julio-Claudian household from Claudius’ point of view (like a soap opera, but with more literal knife stabbing and poisoning and it’s pretty close to being historically accurate). Claudius was one of the family members and would later become emperor.  It had a big cast, among them Patrick Stewart who play Sejanus, the captain of the Praetorian Guard (the emperor’s elite bodyguards) under Emperor Tiberius, and who is believed to have tried to become emperor by killing off people.

Eleven years later Stewart would become Captian Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) , a much more noble man.

I hope to write a review of that BBC series. I’ve seen it a few times and love it.

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• My Favoite Sherlock Holmes videos – part 6
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I’m a casual Star Trek fan.  I don’t own any ST memorabilia, VHS tapes, DVDs, soundtracks, or anything like that. I just enjoy watching the show.  And I was looking forward to seeing the new one that was released a couple weeks ago.  The last one I saw in theaters was First [...]]]> (warning: some spoilers)

I’m a casual Star Trek fan.  I don’t own any ST memorabilia, VHS tapes, DVDs, soundtracks, or anything like that. I just enjoy watching the show.  And I was looking forward to seeing the new one that was released a couple weeks ago.  The last one I saw in theaters was First Contact.  I heard so many bad things about the last two that I did not bother.

I watched it a few days ago and it still is running through my head.  This new one really kicks! Oh my gosh! It throws you into the action right away and doesn’t let go until the credits.  I think I blinked 3 times, maybe 4.

PROS

First, the cast was great. The main characters look and act the way you expect them to be.  You didn’t need to try and keep track of who was supposed to be who.  That was awesome!  Except for Nero. I’m no expert but I don’t remember ever seeing bald Romulans.  That took a little while to figure  out and remember.

Leonard Nimoy is in it as an older Spock! And I’m not giving away anything with that.  He appears in the trailer.

Time travel.  Always love time travel stories.  There have been some complaints that it using time travel has been used to much in sci fi.  But then again so has using aliens and traveling around in space .  I say, if it’s used wisely, go for it!  And I had no trouble with it.

Roman history.  Having been a huge history fan and currently writing a time travel story taking place at different times of the Roman Republic and Empire, I was enjoying spotting the ancient Roman references.  I had never really paid attention to them before in Star Trek, until I began to study more about Roman culture and history while writing my time travel story.

No secret that the T in Kirk’s middle name stands for Tiberius.  Tiberius was one of the big Julio-Claudian emporers of Rome, sandwiched in-between Augustus Caesar and Caligula.  Then there’s the villain of the movie, Nero, who shares the same name as one of the other Julio-Claudian Roman emperors.

And then there’s Spock’s race, Vulcan.  In Roman mythology, Vulcan was the god of fire and blacksmiths and walked with a limp because his mother, Juno, thought he was an ugly baby and threw him off of Mount Olympus (that’s gotta hurt!). After falling for a day and a night, he landed in the water, breaking his leg.  I have not figured out any connection with Spock’s race and the Roman god though :/

Then there are the Romulans.  They have two home planets Romulus and Remus, which are also the same names of the twin founders of Rome.  The Romulan form of government is modeled after the Roman Republic (which existed between the Roman Kingdom and Roman Empire)

Sherlock Holmes. For the second time (or would it be the first? hmmm… )  Spock quotes the great detective “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”. Being a long time Sherlockian, I was sitting there lip syncing the quote .  The first time was Star Trek VI “The Undiscovered Country” where Spock credits a ancestor of his.    The quote is originally from one of four Holmes novels, “The Sign of Four”, and one of the best of the 56 stories  (To see the quote in action, watch this it’s 6:18 of the way through, though I recommend the whole video. The amazing Jeremy Brett plays Holmes, with Edward Hardwicke as Watson). For more Sherlock Holmes/Star Trek connections check this page out.

Lack of nude scenes/unnecessary language

The trailer made it seem like there was a heavy making out scene between Kirk and another woman. Turned out that he was wearing shorts and the girls was green (classic TOS green skin) and wearing a bikini. (gasp!) No nudity? What was Abrams thinking?? (and yes, I am being sarcastic )

And I didn’t realize it until after it was over, but there was only a couple bad words in it.  Kudos for that as well!

CONS

There isn’t a whole lot of negative things I can say about the movie.  Other than there being bald Romulans.  And I’m not to crazy about the Spock/Uhura matchup.   Also Chekov had blond curly hair which was different.  But the personality and accent was good.  Funny scene when he’s trying to give the computer a command and the computer does not understand because of his thick Russian accent .

Favorite scenes

Just about every scene with Scotty was great.  James Doohan would have liked him.

Leonard Nimoy is awesome (as always) as Spock!  In this case he’s referred to in the credits as Spock Prime.  And wow to young Spock meeting older Spock.  In fandom, that would definitely be a squee! moment.

New, unknown crew member? You know what that means!

Nice fight scene on the drill with Kirk and Sulu versus the two Romulans.  And the diving was pretty cool.

A tear for the destruction of Vulcan :’(

And just about everything was great.  As I said earlier, I barely blinked.  It moves along at a good pace. I’m getting the DVD for sure!

Below is the trailer for it:

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