Nobody Sits Much on the Starship Enterprise

Sitting is really, REALLY bad for you. Sitting for more than 6 hours a day has been shown to increase your likelihood of dying in the next 15 years by more than 40%, even if you exercise regularly. Because sitting uses almost NO energy, and because people are sitting down for longer than ever before, for longer periods of time (what with the internet and all), the obesity rate has skyrocketed and rates of heart disease have increased dramatically.

Check out this nifty infographic from http://www.medicalbillingandcoding.org/sitting-kills/ which it explains it all in easy to understand terms.

I know for myself that my health has deteriorated rapidly since I've been sitting around, not only have I got really fat but I have often felt like I was about to have a heart attack, my posture has become really bad because my back and stomach muscles just can't hold me upright, my spine has become too curved so I've actually lost height and it sometimes feels like I've broken my tailbone from my own weight pressing down on it. There's a constant cramp in my chest and lungs because my shoulders have started to come forward and inward, crushing them. Maybe this is why people seem to die so quickly once they're put into retirement homes? There's bugger all to do in such places but sit around and watch TV.

I've taken up dancing, walking, stretching and so on like I used to, but that's not enough, so I've put my computer up on a tall shelf roughly level with my chest to force me to stand to use it. I think this will have the added bonus of reducing my time using my computer, because it's really tiring. I have a big squishy pillow under my feet as I stand here typing this, because my knees could get very sore with the concrete floor below and my weight pressing down from above.

Because I need to change my overall way of living, I need role-models - to some extent, to live a bit of a fantasy. I've mentioned before how I believe that there's great value in symbolism, so I think I'll remind myself with a post-it that nobody seems to sit down for long on the Starship Enterprise in The Next Generation era - and look at how thin and healthy they all are!!

Stealing the Enterprise

This is my absolute favourite scene in Star Trek. Ever. Again, it's largely because of James Horner's brilliant score. It's cheeky, dramatic and exciting. Here it is with the dialogue taken out (thanks to timefilm, check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzZBZKqEE-4 )

Appreciation Stations!!

I sent off an email the other day to Chris Neale in the UK, owner of the amazing ChrisNeale-Creative website (which I highly recommend any self-respecting sci-fi geek visit). He has created some extraordinary CG renders of Doctor Who and Star Trek icons, and provides details of how he went about creating them.

I was pleasantly surprised when he wrote back to me, taking the time to offer a few inspiring words, so without further ado, here’s my initial email and his response…


Hi Chris,

My name's Danny and I live across the other side of the world in little ol' New Zealand. I stumbled across your site and I just really wanted to say I love your work, the attention to detail is incredible... I'm a bit of a nerd so your renders of the Daleks and Star Trek are faves.

I wish I had your talent!! But I don't, so I will just continue to appreciate what you put together. And because I'm a cheeky beggar, I took one of your pics and changed it just a teeny bit in Paint (yeah, I really do know nothing about CG imaging techniques!!).

Not that your work isn't perfect, it totally is, and it's awesome to see the Renegade Daleks looking like they're not about to fall apart!! But I wanted to see what one of your pics would look like with the larger indicator 'ears' that I'm so fond of (cos I love the old movie Daleks). I also took out the eyespot cos I'm not so keen on that, I always felt it made the Daleks look less threatening and alien - that's why the original Daleks are the best!! Really looking forward to your Super Dalek, too :)

And I TOTALLY agree with you re: Shatner and the Enterprise. Can't wait to see your finished pics!! What did you think about the new movie?

Anyway, you're a busy man, so I'll quit bugging you, and I don't expect a reply, but your work totally rocks, keep it up!!

Danny in NZ




Hi Danny in New Zealand....

I appreciate your taking the time to write, firstly I don't make money from my work, so it is there purely for people to enjoy. I still get email from people who own one of my Challenger paintings (more than twenty years after it was painted) telling me how it has pride of place in their home. The fact that something I have done has made a small difference to someone else's life means far more to me than any amount of financial reward I could have received for my efforts!

Secondly, the fact that you have an imagination and you are interested in science fiction DOES NOT make you "a nerd". Men like Marconi and John Logi Baird imagined that they could contact the Spirit World with a machine... and accidentally invented radio and television respectively, while attempting to do so (something that is little known to this day)! Men went to the Moon firstly because they dared to imagine how it could be done. The idea was a fanciful one that had only ever been written about in science fiction books. It took a great leader with vision, Kennedy... to imagine the effect that it would have on his nation and it advanced the whole world in ways that most to this day still do not realise.

Sadly, the world is seriously lacking in imagination or great men of vision... when you consider that in 2009, two thirds of the population remain in poverty. The nerds... are the men in suits that exploit this fact in order to make more and more obscene amounts of money. They are the leaders who despite knowing that we have reached the point of no return... whereby the Earth's resources needed to maintain energy production are no longer sustainable... they refuse to accept the fact. The nerds won't let them develop new forms of energy production... because they'll stop making money out of the old ones. The nerds won't invest their cash either... because there's no guaranteed short term return on the investment required.

In short, the nerds are responsible for the dire state in which we now find ourselves... from the collapse of the global financial system to the decimation of the Earth's resources! They are the only ones that have benefited from it and they will either die with it or find themselves surplus to requirement when men of vision not only dare to imagine a better world... but begin to do something about it!

So Danny... keep on dreaming and if you have children, encourage them to be excited by the endless possibilities that currently can only be imagined in science fiction! Maybe one of them will turn out to be someone that saved the world... from the nerds!

Take care, thanks for your interest.
Regards,
Chris Neale

Nerding Out

I loved LOST from the outset, the opening scenes of the pilot caught my imagination and I've been hooked ever since. The whole pilot episode, aptly titled 'Pilot', with monsters in the jungle (a bit like the Guardian from The Boy From Andromeda from my childhood), hatches buried in the ground (reminiscent of Stephen King's The Tommyknockers), mysterious radio transmissions saying 'it' killed them all... How could I not love it?

My interest did wane a little with the whole pushing the button thing, but everytime we get to see the Black Rock, the sonic barrier fence, the Monster, Otherville or some other such mystery (... yes, even that stupid four-toed statue) I get addicted all over again. I have to say, I mostly watch it for the Others, though. LOST's Juliet is the most interesting character on TV. She's so complicated, so completely unreadable. I love that Sawyer recognises she'd kill in a heartbeat, and yet she seems genuinely moved when revealing that Sun's motherhood will mean her death. I love her tense relationships with Kate, Jack and Ben. Juliet rocks!

Thinking more on my LOST addiction, I have come to realise something about myself, and after all, that's essentially what I hope to do with this blog, to explore my feelings and understand patterns of behaviour. I have realised that it's not just the content of the show that has captured my interest, the survivors stranded on an island, having to forge bonds and work together to survive while they wait for rescue, but the storytelling. I'm not watching it for the character development, in fact, aside from the few true originals like Hurley, Juliet and Locke I don't really care about the character's back-stories, least of all Desmond's, even though his is important to the story. The episodes that dwell excessively on characterisation usually just piss me off, I like the plot-driven stuff much better.

And that's where we get down to the nitty-gritty of it. LOST is a mystery story, a puzzle, and a wonderfully complex one at that. It has ensnared me, caught my imagination, as have other mysteries in the past. I love Agatha Christie and Georgette Heyer novels, when I pick one up I can't put it down. Harry Potter, much to my embarrassment, has had a hold on me since I first read the Prisoner of Azkaban in 2004. I got hooked on The Pretender, wondering just how Jared knew so much about Miss Parker, and I always used to read the Famous Five and other kids mystery books. Even Ecco the Dolphin has a strong Mystery Genre thread through it. There are clues to uncover, hidden agendas and things going on behind the scenes. This sort of addiction has happened for me before, it's going to happen again with something else. There will always be a LOST for me, in one form or another, and it looks like I'm not the only one so fanatically obsessed with it. There are hundreds of LOST fansites on the Internet.

This gets my social psychological machinery starting up. This obsessive devotion - where does it come from? Why do books like Harry Potter and shows such as LOST and Star Trek generate such fanaticism? I think it is because we delight in having the rug pulled out from under us in the safety of our own living rooms or reading chairs. They keep us guessing. That's the crucial point - they KEEP us guessing. Star Trek's been going over 40 years now, there's always been Trek on TV or in the movies, and with such a long run it's generated a Bible's worth of intricate plotting, scheming and technology/character development.

You can completely lose yourself in the Trek universe, it's ever expanding. It gave an interesting premise, and has been constantly elaborating that premise, it's become so complex that a resolution or conclusion is now impossible, there are too many loose ends to tie up, so it can never really finish. It may fizzle somewhat, once they finish producing TV episodes and feature films, but the fans have been able to become involved in the story, and so they will continue it, with fanfiction, artwork and debate, for quite some time yet. Star Trek has been a success.

Harry Potter, after it's inital, quite brilliant first installment, has led readers on a twisted, convoluted chase through Rowling's bizarre world, introducing villains and heroes, promising answers then snatching them away as we think we have them, balancing mysteries within each installment with those that span the length of the greater story. Rowling is a genius mystery writer, and her books generate almost hysterical fervour among fans, old and young alike. But I wonder what will become of Potter fandom, when this last installment is released in July, and the series wraps up? If she is clever, and I think she is, she will leave a number of questions unanswered, not the main ones, but those that are perhaps tertiary, and this will ensure that people continue to buy her books and argue about them for years to come.

Which brings me back to LOST. It is the fact that the story is unfinished, that there is much that we cannot know or guess at, that is at the heart of its success. It asks questions, doesn't give answers immediately, and introduces new questions when answering old ones, and so we're kept guessing, and we as fans can live vicariously through the characters, as if we ourselves were in danger, having to exercise our wits to survive, all in the comfort of our armchairs.

When the story comes to a close in 2010, what will become of LOST fandom? Will there still be questions left to answer? I think there will be, as in the case of the Potter franchise they won't be the main questions, but there'll be some fodder for the obsessive, and perhaps there will be ongoing podcasts from the producers, occasionally throwing fans a bone to reignite debate. It's TV, it's all about the money. Or maybe it's leading up to a big movie finish... who knows? Given that the actors will be nearly ten years older in 2010 than when the series began, and that they're supposed to have been on the island less than a year, I think that's unlikely, but I expect there will be some ongoing fan involvement.

And then the next thing will come along, and we'll all become ensnared again...