Dear Lord. Thank you that Dad was only joking about eating the cat. Amen.

Folks, I'm going to be at the 'rents through about Sunday (turkeyturkey!), and since my uncle will probably be sleeping in the only room with an internet connection, blogging is not likely to occur. See you again on Sunday!

Haha. That totally counted as today's post. Win.

Knit one, purl two, shoo cat, purl one.

I haven't been sketching in the last week or so (somehow got busy again), but I thought I'd share a picture of the scarf I finished a few weeks ago, just in time for winter:



And because you can't really tell from the above picture how absurdly thick and long and burly and ...thick it is, here is it on:



(That's a very ...dramatic picture of me.) You still can't tell how long it is, but it's going to stick out from under my coat (if it even fits inside my coat), and it's too thick to wrap around my neck more than once. I almost unravelled it to try to make it thinner, but eh. It'll be warm.

Things I like

The vocal stylings of Alexi Murdoch.
Fun, stupid movies.
Gracie coming over to me on the couch and without provocation attacking my sweatshirt string.
My Star Trek screensaver.
Low lighting.
The soundtrack to Ghost.
Feeling accomplished.
Holidays on the horizon.
This goat.
Did I mention Alexi Murdoch?
A basket full of knitting materials and a recently finished scarf.
Rearranged, visually appealing bookshelves.
Alexi Murdoch.

All this on the same night? Yes please!

Kaboom.

I just spent the evening at my parents' talking about politics and the economy, which is what we ended up talking about the last time I was there as well. I think we need to get it out of our system before Thanksgiving... because Thanksgiving brings with it, as usual, the potential for the perfect storm. This year's cast includes the extremely conservative in all things religious and political with a short fuse Uncle, and the extremely liberal in all things religious and political with an even shorter fuse (and louder voice) Friend of the Family. As the catalyst, we have the three members of Holly's family who are used to not having to worry about what they say around the dinner table.

My dad is particularly good about zeroing in on exactly those topics one generally avoids at dinner parties; it's not a good conversation if we don't talk about religion and/or politics. (Which, to cut him some slack, are I admit the things I find most interesting to talk about, too... but we sometimes disagree on when one should and shouldn't bring them up.) However, he's trying now. Serious snaps for effort. When I was a kid, he'd set'd off rounds of familial fireworks practically for kicks and giggles, and I remember more than one summer at the grandparents' where I was told to pack up, we're going home early.

But the last few times someone's blown up or stalked off, it's generally been triggered by something small and only vaguely related to the economy (or insurance, or the environment, or affirmative action) which someone (usually not my dad) has accidentally said without thinking. People's fuses are getting shorter and shorter these days, including mine, to be fair. I'm so very very glad I'm not dating Ex-Boyfriend-of-the-Crazy-Politcs anymore. I still tend to project all of my political frustrations onto him a year later, and I think I'd have murdered him or had a coronary by now if we were still dating. (Or, y'know, be engaged to someone I have little respect for, but that's a completely different blog post.) At any rate, think peaceful thoughts for the Holly Household on Thanksgiving if you think of it.

Ugh.

Nothing can leave me feeling depressed like sitting on the couch and staring at a screen for hours. Gaaahhh. I've been working on a header for my blog since dinner, and, well, this is the part where being a perfectionist sucks. I'm not done yet, my muscles have all atrophied, my eyes are strained, I'm very sick of ST:TOS, and my life feels empty, empty, empty [echo, echo...].

I'm sure I'll feel better tomorrow, but what all this adds up to is that I've sorta put in my blog dues already and I don't feel like a very long post tonight. More tomorrow!

Picard's *way* hotter than Kirk. (Sorry, Shatner.)

So here are my reactions to last night's introduction to Trek:

William Shatner doesn't look like William Shatner.

5 Year mission? This is sounding like Gilligan's Island. Also, that's negativity for you -- assuming your show's only going to last 5 years. Of course, it only ended up lasting three. (And, like, a million movies, to be fair.)

Am fascinated to learn that the first Redshirt was actually wearing blue.

The sexism in TNG is subtle. The sexism in TOS is ...not subtle. (Although snaps for effort.)

Uhura's a cutie! I think I'd only ever seen the actress when she was older. She's very, very young here.

So, I got on IMDB to double check the title of this episode and noticed there's a Season One: episode zero ("The Cage"). I paused and read up on it a bit, and it puts together a lot of random scraps of information I knew -- the Captain Pike background story, the fact that Roddenberry originally wanted Majel Barrett to play the first officer and was told it was too controversial, ...this, etc. I love behind the scenes info.

Kirk's an ass.

It is SO WEIRD to see William Shatner acting serious. I'm way too used to Boston Legal Shatner.

I've seen major elements of this plot in at least four TNG episodes so far that I can think of.

The sound effects are A. May. Zing.

There's some remarkably cutting edge camera work in this, and a surprisingly engaging plot.

BLAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Sulu. (I swear all I'll ever think when I see him is the Scrubs episode where Carla and Turk get married.)

Uhura's supposed to be Swahili?

The phasers. Ohhh, the phasers. So cute!!! There's like a half second pause before people react.

Aww, I heart McCoy.

I love how truth serum is a staple in any/every sci fi or fantasy story.

Woah, Kirk just had a Picard moment! He got all introspective and philosophical for about a second and a half. I gather this won't be a trend.

The background stills during the credits are all from episode zero, not from the episode I just watched. I love it. Giggle, snort.

That just about wraps it up. I've actually been up to some non-trek-related activities lately, but stuff like this is so irresistibly bloggable. Not, like, birth of Christ bloggable, but fun nonetheless.

Where no Holly has gone before

Readers, I'm about to watch my first episode of Star Trek: The Original Series. I'll let you know how that goes.

So far, the DVD menu design is even cheesier than TNG's (which, actually, I think is kind of cool, in a cheesy, geeky sort of way ...sort of like the show).

Folks, this is going to be epic. I can feel it.