CARINA Cantina

One of the best ways to find a good book is to ask the people who never read. While avid readers can list off dozens of books that you know you'll never have the time to read, a few of the non-readers will tell you that although they don't have the patience/time/interest to read much of anything, there was this one book that they couldn't put down. There was just one book that caught their eye, and was wonderful. That's why I love people who don't read even more than those who do. For a book to catch their eye, it really has to be something special.

Of course, as an avid reader with no time to read, I'm reading the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov, which I of course recommend to anyone interested in one of the best examples of great storytelling in existence.

I got accepted to the University of Western today! Exciting, I know. Although happy as I am to finally be accepted to a school that I can actually afford going to, it's still sort of bittersweet knowing that Guelph, where I really want to go, has yet to let me know the time of day. Still, you never know, I certainly wouldn't mind going to Western, so maybe you'll see me posting about my life in London, Ontario six months from now (so close!), giving you the ups and downs of majoring in Animal Behavior.

While on the subject of schools, my course-load for the last semester of grade 12 has been really quite nice lately. I have only three courses, two of which are Communications Technology and Earth and Space Science, so the only hard subject is Chemistry. Although I do suspect that my lack of work is due to the fact that we're doing Organic Chemistry right now, which is incredibly easy (and therefore I love it). That and Carnival, easily the biggest holiday in Trinidad, starts this Monday. I'm hoping to see it this year before I go. I don't really think that being in anything is something I'd enjoy (not even going 'on the road'), but I do want to see it. The majority of Carnival I'll leave for another post. It's a five day weekend.

More exciting right now is the trip that my Earth science class is going on! I'm going to a star party! My art teacher (I love it when art gets associated with something awesome like space) is involved with an organization called CARINA, the Caribbean Institute of Astronomy, which already sounds awesome, and they host these parties on a regular basis from what I understand. Trinidad has got to be one of the best places for seeing stars. You may remember earlier postings of the wonderful mountains that are literally everywhere you look here.

I remember first coming out of the airport and thinking "FUCK it's hot" right before jaw-dropping at the mountains. The site we're going to is atop one of these majestic beauties, at an old tracking station that my Dad tells me was built by the Americans in WWII. The sky should be clear and free of interfering lights from towns and such, and the best part is that Mars and Saturn are supposed to show up. I'd be upset that my favorite planet, Jupiter, is a no-show, but I've seen Jupiter before, and Saturn should be cool (just not as cool as my main man). One of my brothers left an old telescope in his closet, which I stole before finding it broken, but this led me to the discovery of my Dad's binoculars. I adore finding old things from my parents. Like when you're a kid searching through old drawers of stuff that you never knew existed. Finding the binoculars was like finding the slide rule all over again. Only they didn't require hours of Wikipedia to figure out how to use. So, I spent the day watching people at the local grocery store, and investigating the houses on the mountain, waiting for some sort of catastrophic event to take place. No murders occurred, so I didn't get to go all Rear Window, but it was still a lot of fun. I can't wait to use them next Saturday at the star party. We're supposed to show up in time to see sunset. I love sunset because there's that certain time where the sky turns that one colour that tricks you, and for just a moment you're on Tatooine.

And yes; eventually everything ends with Star Wars.

Deep Space Galactica.

While making my way through the only Star Trek series whose re-runs had never really matched my TV watching, Deep Space Nine, I've had a few interesting surprises.

First of all, I'm becoming pretty attached to the show.

I'm just making headway into season two, and it's taken a long, long time to get this far. Season one was rough, and only started to turn the corner towards the end. Eventually, though, something wonderful happened: I started to like the characters.

You know how when you first start watching the show, even more so if you've already heard little snippets of information about it, you're always trying to guess which characters you're going to like? I'm always picking sides within the first five minutes. It takes a lot of time and development to sway me from these early biases, but a few characters in Deep Space Nine are starting to wear me down.

My initial impressions were that I hated Sisko. Star Trek fans will be happy to know that this feeling stuck. To this day I can't understand what possessed them to hire that actor. Anyway, I had also decided against Major Kira, feeling that she was one of those poorly done strong female types(Lookin' at you, River Song). I liked Odo 'cause he seemed cool and Quark because... well, I challenge anyone to not like Quark. Ferengi, man, that's where it's at. I swear it has nothing to do with the fact that he was in Buffy for a couple years. Nothing at all. I loved Dr. Bashir simply because I'd heard him be compared (with a grimace) to the great Baltar of Galactica, and Dax because I've always been a hardcore Star Gate Gal.

Then as the first season progressed (roughly), Odo seemed less great, Dax was getting boring, and the show didn't seem to know how to focus on anyone but Sisko and Kira. Towards the end of the season, things started to change. First of all, the relationship between Odo and Quark is quite possibly my favorite part of the show. It's pulled off extremely well, and the lack of Sisko makes for some great acting. It's one of the best frenemy bromances I've seen.

Through a lot of hard work on her part, I'm actually warming up to Kira. Kinda. Sorta. Sorta-kinda. I still dislike her a lot, and find many of her little Bajoran rants and tantrums boring and worse, aggrivating. But I'm starting to like HER. Also, Bajoran clothes are fucking great, I'm loving the 90s Sci-Fi hippie look. It being probably the only fashion I'd ever get behind, I really can't see it coming back (not that it ever came) any time soon.

While watching the show today I had a strange thought- I really wanted to watch Battlestar Galactica again. It's then that I realized that Deep Space Nine is really a corny 90s version of that sci-fi drama that started really well, before getting really confused.

In an era of light and fluffy science fiction shows, Deep Space Nine is more gritty, the Federation feels out of place on the old Cardassian station. I love O'Brian, in likeness to the Chief he adds a lot of realism to the station with frequent mechanical problems (also- Kaeko meets Boomer, anyone?). There's also the heavy use of politics, which yes, is a common theme in most Star Trek shows, but none more so than in DS9. Then there's that general feeling of being forced into an unlikely and very unstable situation. Even similarly weird and cokey religions are used.

Plenty of 'lols' to be found in this comparison since Ron Moore's Battlestar Bible thingy places a lot of stress on NOT being like Star Trek, it seems as though BSG was more of a modern twist on an old Trekkie idea, Deep Space Nine.

But here's hopin' that DS9 continues it's trend of getting better and better with time, unlike it's successor.