Midnight Ramblings XVIII
NOTE: Yeesh! Ramble, ramble, ramble! Remember when this guy used to write stories about
his life, virginity, and angst? Now, we get all these pop culture ramblings. Bring back the
angst-ridden lifeless virgin!
Hey Neelix!
I HATE NAPSTER!! Ever since they got their little copyright filters, I can't find anything
anymore! I'm trying to find this song I heard on MuchMusic a few weeks ago. It's the best
crazy/weird song I've heard in ages. It's called "Doin' Dishes" by Melanie Melody and the Pop
Machine. Let me sing the chorus for you:
I love to do the dishes I love to mop the floor I have my coffee and some Prozac And then I do some more
And the whole song plays out over some sort of sampled 50's do-whap song. It was just crazy,
man. But, thanks to greedy recording artists, I can't find this indie artist's song on Napster. My
geek friends recommend a similar program called "Gnutella." I guess I'm going to have to look
into that. But, in the meantime, I've got my DVD player.
Actually, I'm thrilled with DVD. Disney just made a big announcement telling the public about
their DVD strategy. See, Disney's finally getting behind DVD 100%, and their going to be
releasing all their DVD's in four lines:
The Vista Editions - These are the 2-disc, special editions of their live-action blockbusters. The
first one under this label, Unbreakable, comes out in the weeks ahead. This summer's hit Pearl
Harbor will probably be a "Vista Edition" in time for Christmas.
The Gold Editions - These are the DVD's of their contemporary animated films. They're
already on the market. They tend to be full screen, and bonuses generally tend to include
similarly-themed animated shorts.
<No Name> - Of course, they will continue producing bare-bones, movie-only discs under no
fancy label whatsoever.
But the one that's thrilled me is the Platinum Editions. These are the 2-disc, super special
editions of their classic animated films. Now, Disney has done something truly unique with
these. See, Disney, being the all-encompassing conglomerate that they are, did their market
research, and they came up with something interesting. The average DVD owner wants all the
bonus materials, but doesn't watch them. I know we watch them, but remember, we're not
average. So, Disney's question was how can they get the average DVD owner to watch this
stuff? The solution. Disney's hired a whole bunch of celebrities to be "tour guides" on these
DVDs, walking you through all the bonus material. And of course, for the above-average users
like ourselves, we can turn off this "tour guide" and just do it the old fashioned way. I don't like
how Disney's releasing these, though. There's only 10 DVDs in the collection, and they're
releasing one a year over the next 10 years! The first one, Show White and the Seven Dwarves,
comes out this November. Then, between now and 2011, they'll be releasing (in an order to yet
be decided), Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Bambi, Cinderella, The Jungle
Book, The Little Mermaid, Lady and the Tramp and 101 Dalmatians. As previously hoped,
Disney's big prototype for this was the Fantasia boxed set, which is still one of my favorites.
But let us move now from Disney to Pokémon. I've just discovered that there is yet another
edition of Pokémon coming out for the Game Boy! We've had the red, blue, yellow, gold and
silver editions, but make way for the crystal edition! Like how yellow edition was just a "special
edition" of red and blue, crystal is a "special edition" of gold and silver. But what's new in the
crystal edition? Well, Nintendo, like Disney, does their market research. Nintendo discovered
that only 11% of pokémon players are female. The question: how can they get more girls and
young women playing Pokémon? The solution: Crystal Edition is the first edition where you can
choose a female character instead of Ash to play! All the online review sites I found didn't have
an American translation for her name, yet. Actually, all the online review sites I found had
better get moving. All the ones I found said that they were doubtful the Crystal Edition would
be coming to North America. Well, I first found out about it in a CompuSmart flyer! They're
taking pre-orders for its North American release next month!
And from the future, into the past. One of my guilty pleasure is watching reruns of Petticoat
Junction. You ever see this show? It was from Paul Henning, the same guy behind The Beverly
Hillbillies. This one centered on the Shady Rest Hotel in the town of Hooterville. The Shady
Rest was a family affair, run by Kate Bradley and her three daughters: Billie Jo, the singer and
blond, Bobbie Jo, the intellectual and brunette, and Betty Jo, the tomboy and redhead. Also
helping out at the Shady Rest is Kate's old Uncle Joe, who's got a scheme for every season.
(Man, was that Henning guy stuck on the name "Joe" or what? But I digress.) Anyway, the run
of the show I'm watching right now involves a guy named Steve. He's a crop duster pilot whose
plane crashed in Hooterville and he just never left. After a while, he settled down there and
married Betty Jo. Now this is where I find it odd. As I said, Betty Jo was the tomboy. She
played on the local baseball team and even honed her skills as a mechanic. But then, she got
married. Suddenly, she's wearing her hair longer. Gone are the baseball uniforms, only to be
replaced with simple, wifely house-dresses. No longer a strong, independent woman, now she's
a "good wife." In fact, Steve even referred to her like that. "Just be a good wife." This just
makes me do a double-take.
I have to ask, what the hell happened to you, Betty Jo? You completely sold out your value
systems and who you were just so you could be a "good wife." But, how good a wife is she
being? I mean, she and Steve seem to fighting in every episode. It also doesn't help that the
actor and actress portraying these two seemed to have zero chemistry together. I don't know. I
just get the impression that Betty Jo and Steve would have ended in divorce. Betty Jo was the
youngest of Kate's daughters, perhaps this marriage was just one of those young, impulsive
things. But still, I find it weird. That transformation Betty Jo made from independent to kept. I
guess I mainly find it weird because most of the women I know would bitch-slap their
boyfriends if they ever called them a "good wife" or some such nonsense. Yup, Petticoat
Junction is OK, for the most part, but it's truly a relic of its time.
Not like Star Trek: Voyager. There's a show that looks into the future! I'm still reeling from
that finale episode, "Endgame." It just wasn't the grand, epic finale I wanted it to be. It just
came across as a really good episode. I remember reading one complaint about Return of the
Jedi. This critic asked, "That's the best George Lucas could come up with? Another Death
Star?" My complaint about "Endgame" is similar. That's the best the writers could come up
with to get them home? Another mysterious array? Sure, this one was run by the Borg instead
of the Caretaker, but it was still an array. But, there were some cool elements. Having the array
be run by the Borg gave us one final appearance of the Borg Queen. But this time, she was
played by Alice Krige, who originated the role in Star Trek: First Contact. And there were some
cool effects, like Voyager's Borg armor. Remember the Batmobile's armored cocoon in the
Batman movie? Just like, only on Voyager. I guess I was just expecting more.
Now, all my hopes lie on Enterprise, the next Star Trek series coming this fall. It's set in the
22nd Century, 100 years before Kirk and Spock. We follow the adventures of Captain Jonathan
Archer, the first commander of the first starship to bear the name "Enterprise." All I can say is
the show is in good hands when the only previous work of one of the actresses is a
Maxim pictorial she did a few months ago.
And that's all for now. I'm all rambled out.
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