I had to skip the Obama’s Bollywood-themed State Dinner last night, due to a conflict with the Syracuse basketball game (where my alma mater beat Keith Olbermann’s alma mater). Not that I actually went to the game either, mind you. Instead, I finally got around to watching the new (OK, maybe “latest” would be more accurate) Star Trek movie. I won’t post any spoilers here (to protect both those who haven’t seen it yet, and those who really don’t give a shit), but I will say a couple of things. First, Uhura was pretty darn hot back in her academy days (not that Nichelle Nichols wasn’t good looking, mind you, but Zoe Saldana, oh my; a good reason to go see Avatar, even if she is just computer generated).

Saldana’s body isn’t even in Avatar; Cameron used motion-capture technology to transform her into Neytiri, a blue, 10-foot-tall kung-fu-fighting creature. But she didn’t just read lines in a sound booth. “Motion capture isn’t like shooting,” Saldana explains. “You’re in a suit with all these dots on you, and whatever you do, they get it. Sam and I did all sorts of stupid shit. If you burp, your character burps. I’d shake my booty, and you’d see my character shaking her booty.”

Indeed. I see great potential in this technology.

Also, why did they cast Billy Bibbit as Chekov? And the Sulu in this movie didn’t look at all gay. Not that it matters, I guess, except for historical accuracy, and the fact that anybody who is trained in fencing ought to be at least a little bit flamboyant, don’t you think (I mean, you gotta put the swash in swashbuckling, no?). Anyhow, it was a good movie – perhaps the best of the Trek bunch. And if they cheated a bit with the Trek time line, at least they came up with a creative way to explain it away. Too bad Mark Lenard wasn’t still around to be in it (since when does Sarek have a British accent?).

There have been a bunch of news stories on this morning regarding the danger of sharing more than food across the holiday table. Yes, that’s right: go to Thanksgiving Dinner tomorrow, and you run the risk of contracting (and therefore dying of) something even worse than the dreaded swine flu. The way I understand the science, swine flu has the potential to jump onto and embed itself into your turkey’s dead flesh (be especially careful with the gizzards, and for God’s sake, don’t use pork stuffing), thereby causing it to mutate into a form of zombified swine-avian flu (the terrifying SDCMG – Sus Domestica Cadavarus Meleagris Gallopavo – virus, :omg: seen here under an electron microscope) – potentially causing a pandemic of unprecedented proportion. If it spreads, soon millions – perhaps billions of people will begin sneezing their brains out, which they will then feel compelled to devour.

I’m usually not much for all this fear mongering stuff, but, in order to protect my relatives, I’m willing to make the supreme sacrifice of staying home tomorrow and watching some crappy football (Dallas and Detroit…why is it always Dallas and Detroit? Though there’s a night game this year between the Giants and Denver that might not be bad) after a quick trip to the dog park.

You see, my in-laws aren’t regular Americans, and therefore I don’t get to indulge in the T-Day tradition of consuming copious amounts of poultry, with the menfolk waddling off to the couch to watch football while the womenfolk wash the dishes and prepare the coffee and pumpkin pie (instead, I’ll probably have to suffer through a showing of the 1954 musical classic “The Student Prince,” starring “the singing voice of Mario Lanza” – where I’m supposed to suspend my disbelief sufficiently enough to pretend that a bunch of 40 year old men in lederhosen are German university students).

Oh, how I love musicals. :barf:

Oh, well. If you’re traveling today, you have my deepest sympathies. If your relatives are coming to your home, my advice is: run. Now. It isn’t too late yet, but you’re gonna have to hurry.

As for me, time to head to work. I have to drop Star Trek in the mailbox; maybe they’ll get my next one here by Friday.