Hot Nerd Girl

Tag: william shatner

  • Star Trek night at Dodger Stadium

    I’m that rare combination of girl who is a huge nerd but is also a big sports fan. I’m pretty much in 7th heaven right now with the Olympics being on.

    My favorite non-Olympic sports to watch are football and baseball. I’ve never been to a professional football game (it’s on the bucket list) but I’ve been to tons of professional baseball games. It’s one of my very favorite things to do.

    I happen to have a family member who has amazing season tickets for the Dodgers. So I’ve gone to a few Dodger games in my day even though I’m not actually a Dodger fan. No, I have the sad misfortune of being a Padres fan (one of these days we’ll get there!) But that’s beside the point. If I don’t care about either team I root for the Home Team. It’s just good manners.

    So when cousin Chaney discovered that Friday, August 3rd was Star Trek night at Dodger Stadium, we got the invite to attend. Not gonna lie, I was pretty frakking stoked. They were playing game 1 in a series against the Cubs.

    I debated whether or not I should dress up in one of my three Starfleet uniforms. I have a number of Star Trek t-shirts and I was thisclose to wearing one of them but my Mama Jedi is constantly telling me to be big and brave and bold so I opted for the uniform.

    Thankfully no one in my group was completely mortified by this. In fact, they were even more gung ho than I was. I was worried I would embarrass them but they all thought it was pretty cool.

    Sold.

    It turned out that I was the only one in attendance who was big and brave and bold. I didn’t see one other person dressed up. Chaney saw one Star Trek t-shirt but that was it. In fact, most people who stopped to ask me why I was dressed that way had no idea it was even Star Trek night.

    Sigh.

    Oh well, I’m used to being the only weirdo in the room. Or in this case, the packed stadium.

    In honor of Star Trek night the Dodgers were giving away Spock jersey t-shirts. They were actually pretty awesome and I totally wanted one but it turns out they were only giving them away at one entrance and they ran out pretty quickly.  Sad robot 🙁

    The second we sat down I looked up and the eyes immediately zeroed in on a figure standing on the field. I yelped and said “holy shit, it’s William Shatner!” much to the surprise of my companions.

    I went down to try and catch his attention to see if he’d come over for a picture since I was the ONLY PERSON in the entire stadium in costume.

    I’m 99% sure he saw me. He was looking right at me and when I waved he looked away and avoided looking in my direction for the rest of the time he was on the field. That was kind of depressing but I have to admit that it’s only been in the last couple of years that I’ve even started to like William Shatner. To be clear, I have always loved James T. Kirk, just not always the person who portrayed him. It seemed like he’d warmed up to his Star Trek fans in the last couple of years though. Especially in his documentary The Captains (which is fantastic by the way). Apparently he has to be in the mood. Oh well. I was still ridiculously excited to see him. I was literally less than 20 feet away from him at one point. Star Trek actors are really the only people I get star struck by and that was a doozy.

    Shatner did all of the announcements and the roll call and even threw out the first pitch.

    I filmed it for you…

    [youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lW9MS3NthI]

    –

    You’re welcome.

    I’m not going to go into the whole game or anything (Dodgers won) but one cool thing happened that I’ve never experienced before. Having a foul ball fly right at my face and having someone in my group nab it. It was the first foul ball of the game off the bat of David DeJesus from a pitch by Chad Billingsley. It bounced off the chairs in front of me, landed on the ground to the right of us, then rolled back in front of us before it was scooped up by Christian who had propelled himself over a row of seats to get to it. It happened very fast and frankly, I was relieved to have my face intact, but it was one of the coolest 2.5 seconds I’ve ever experienced at a ball park.

    Every once in a while I would catch a player turn around and look right at me (I wasn’t hard to find, I was bright red in a sea of white and blue). At one point that player was Matt Kemp. I was pretty excited to see Matt Treanor. I could really care less about him but he got Misty May to marry him and she’s awesome so he must be doing something right.

    The evening ended with Friday night fireworks set to the theme songs of the various Star Trek shows. They started off with a little film that was pretty much just a love letter to The Next Generation.

    Then the music started and the fireworks began.

    They did the theme songs in bizarro order. First Star Trek, then DS9, then Voyager, and ending with The Next Generation.  Enterprise got the shaft. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen fireworks and I really truly seriously LOVE fireworks and these were set to music from my very favorite franchise ever. It took a long time for me to wipe the goofy grin off my face.

    I filmed the Star Trek and TNG parts of the fireworks. You can see them here:

    Star Trek: The Original Series…

    [youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-DnKN7DKOw]

    –

    Star Trek: The Next Generation (and the grand finale)…

    [youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArjSpHIZdAg]

    –

    All in all, a pretty awesome way to spend the evening.

  • Star Trek Captains Podcast (Ten Forward)

    This is a very sleep deprived HNG coming to you from New York City. I’m here visiting my nieces and having a great time with them. Unfortunately for me, I usually go to bed around midnight-2:00am California time. Combine my sleeping habits with the time zone change and my body wants to go to sleep between 3:00am-5:00am New York time. Since I’m typically waking up around 8:00am that’s not working out too well for me. 5-hour Energy has become my new best friend.

    It’s time for another podcast with the awesome guys over at World’s Best Podcast and their section dedicated to all things Star Trek – “Ten Forward.” This time around we discussed the Captains from Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise. It made for a very entertaining discussion, let me tell you!

    Oh, and we recorded this a while ago when I was very sick so my voice is all scratchy and Janeway-sounding. I was also suffering a bit from sick brain so it was difficult for me to put my thoughts together at times.  But considering how awful I felt, I thought I did pretty good.

    Thanks to Mark and Isaac! It’s always fun to talk Trek with you! Listen to the podcast here:

    Or if, as per usual, if the above player takes too long to buffer, just click here to listen: http://tinmanfrisbie.podbean.com/2012/06/04/ten-forward-season-1-episode-2/

    Previous podcasts I’ve joined in on:

    Daredevil

    Star Trek Universe

    Marvel Cinematic Universe

  • Red shirt, blue shirt, gold shirt, no shirt

    Oh captain my captain, what has time done?

    Now there’s a Dr. Suess book I could get behind.

    Poor, poor redshirts. They never stand a chance.

    If I was a gal going in to Starfleet Academy in the year 2267, I would request a job that required a blue or gold uniform.  Why were the redshirts always the first to go?  I could give you the technical answer about how red uniforms are worn by Engineering and Security personnel and one or more of them would be required to go on away missions to protect the Captain or go in first to investigate.  But let’s be honest.  It’s the “black dude dies first” rule but since Star Trek is so enlightened they had to find another way of going about it.

    You know it’s true.

    At my first Star Trek Convention in San Francisco we were treated to some short films produced by fanboys.  One of them (and by far the most popular) was one about redshirts.  I don’t know if this was the exact one but it is equally as humorous:

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3cL1Aofy90&fs=1&hl=en_US]

    The term “redshirt” has embedded itself in pop culture.  Anyone expendable is now a redshirt.

    Personally, I like to think about how Ensign Ricky would have felt about all this.  I’m sure his mama would be proud that her brave young son will always be remembered for taking one for the (away) team.

    By 2364 the red and gold uniforms had been swapped. I think this was a good move.  Red is more regal and commanding than yellow is.  It demands respect.  The Next Generation understandably didn’t want to become a joke by continuing the redshirt joke.  But they still needed a way to show that the bad guy was bad without killing off the main characters (Tasha Yar being the exception, but hey, she wanted out).

    *bitch slap* "Don't you know who I am? I am the borg! Resistance is futile, A**HOLE!"

    This is where The Worf Effect comes in to play.

    Worf is the biggest and most badass of the good guys so if a bad guy can throw Worf across the room (which they often do) they MUST be really bad!  Of course, Worf is a Klingon so he never really gets hurt (they leave that to falling cargo containers – far more deadly than the Borg apparently – but wait! He’s got back up organs!)

    So the goldshirt never really took off like the redshirt did.  Which is probably for the best.

    The blue uniforms have always been for Medical and Science personnel.  Let’s face it.  They are far less interesting.  Sure Dr. Crusher and Councilor Troi were hotties but Crusher covered hers up with a lab coat and Troi ditched hers altogether after the first two episodes in favor of cleavage.  If it wasn’t for Spock, the blueshirt wouldn’t even be purchased by fanboys for ComicCon and Halloween.  It’s a fact.

    And lastly, the no shirt. Made famous by Captain James Tiberius Kirk.  Whichever Orion slave girl made his uniforms had an ulterior motive because there is no reason for his uniforms to fall apart at the seams during every episode while everyone else’s stay intact.  Even while battling Spock in “Amok Time” Spock’s uniform manages to stay in one piece while Kirk’s is ripped to shreds.  I’m not complaining, I’m just saying that shirt shredding should be equal opportunity amongst all of the handsome men…

    …and maybe some of the women.