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But first, I saw They Might Be Giants again! I wasn’t planning to, but they were playing near my home (Tarrytown Music Hall) and it was only $28.00 for the ticket, so I thought “wot the ‘ell” and went. B. told me they had rewritten “The Sun Is A Mass Of Incandescent Gas” and sho’ nuff, TMBG performed the new version. Turns out they got all the facts for the song (song lyrics here) from one of those 1950s Golden Books everyone had as a kid. And, it also turns out, that in the 1950s, the scientists were wrong about a lot of their sun information. So the new song is sung as “The Sun Is A Miasma Of Incandescent Plasma”. I still like the original better, so even though the information is outdated and incorrect, I will continue to sing it and I hope TMBG will too. At least they have other informative songs, like “The Mesopotamians” and “Mammal” (where I learned the term ‘monotreme’ – Go Echidna!).

Yep, saw the Star Trek movie. In the IMAX, no less. And it was explosionalistical to the max. I was concerned when I went to go see it, because I am not a Star Trek fan of any kind. I know very basic rudimentary information on the show, and here is the length and breadth of it.

James T. Kirk is Captain of the Enterprise.

He’s got a doctor on board named Bones who says, “Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a (something)!”

Kirk also has a guy on board named Scottie who’s an engineer or something, and says, “I’m givin’ it all she’s got!” in a heavy Scottish accent.

There’s a nice black lady named Uhura who Kirk kissed and it was the first interracial kiss on TV, I think.

Them there’s Spock, who’s a Vulcan and doesn’t have emotions and has pointy ears.

Also, tribbles.

Aaaaand that’s it. So when I went to go see the movie, I was justifiably wary. I think I caught all of it. Here are some things of note:

– Anybody else think the Romulan ship looks like a Bloomin’ Onion as interpreted by Geiger?

– Speaking of Romulans and They Might Be Giants, the actors playing Romulans has prosthetic foreheads on their real heads. Which caused me to sing the chunk of the song ‘We Want A Rock” by TMBG (Lyrics: Throw the crib door wide / Let the people crawl inside / Someone in this town / Is trying to burn the playhouse down / They want to stop the ones who want / Prosthetic foreheads on their heads / But everybody wants prosthetic / Foreheads on their real heads). See, I never got that song. Obviously it’s about Romulans coming and destroying your planet. I understand now.

– Kirk makes out with a chick who’s completely normal-looking, except she’s painted bright green from head to toe. COME ON. Really. She looks exactly like Elphaba in the musical Wicked. There’s no reason for her to look like that, it’s distracting and stupid. She could have at least had funky scales, like Mystique in X-Men.

– Uhura and Spock are clearly gettin’ jiggy with it, which doesn’t make sense for two reasons. One, why would you want to have intimate relations with someone who doesn’t really express emotions? And two, isn’t Kirk supposed to be romantically involved with Uhura?

– I LOVE that Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead) played Scottie. Have you seen Shaun of the Dead? The first half is absolutely fabulous. So, yay, Simon Pegg.

That’s all I can think of. I don’t really get the whole Star Trek obsession, but it was a nice film that had lots of neat-o special effects, and that’s pretty much what I was looking for.