LOL. Thanks to the Space channel re-running DS9 again (Yay!) and Frani pointing me to this page where you can watch DS9 online, I’ve been reminded of how wonderful a show it is and why I really loved it!
Now of course, this once again brings up that most obvious of academic questions that has plagued mankind since the late 90′s:
Leeta or Jadzia?
I became an uncle this morning! Karen had her baby this morning at around 6am at St. Paul’s at just over 6 pounds, a healthy baby boy whose name she has said will be Nestor Evan Jia-Biao Wu… once she gets around to filling out the paperwork. Mom called me on the phone last night to say that Karen was heading to the hospital (around 1:30/2am) and she called me again this morning to let me know.
I met up with mom and dad today for lunch before getting my haircut and then driving them back down to the hospital to see Karen, Zhongxi and the baby (and to drop off food for Zhongxi, who hadn’t eaten or slept all night). I got some pictures on my iphone.
Aside from the happy news, I had an awesome day… got virtually everything I wanted to do today done, and that was a lot. I drove with mom and dad down to Richmond after that – they were gonna get me a new bed and a coffee table for christmas. We first went back and got 40% off the stepping machine we’d gotten b/c the digital timer didn’t work, and then popped over and got me a new coffee table (over $200 down to $69) and the new bed… a comfy double that pops open like a clamshell for storage underneath, and with a brand new Serta matress, yay! I quickly drove back after that – it was already dark and nearly 6pm by then – and stopped by Granville Island on the way to Edie Hats where I’d been looking for a “Cadet”-style hat. I managed to find a decent one before they closed at 7pm and I made it a point to go back another time when they had more stock to get myself a new Driver cap too. Amanda, the sales girl that helped me was very nice, and very well-informed; she gave me great feedback in the 20 mins or so I had to try out hats before they closed and made it rather fun. Next, I drove down to the Blarney and picked up my umbrella that I’d left down there on Halloween which they (luckily) found after a little rummaging through the lost and found umbrellas, went and dropped off my parents at their car where we’d had lunch, and made it down to the Legion on Commercial with 15 minutes to spare. Talk about great timing!
I’m so happy Daniel was able to work tonight instead of me – I’d been promising my Swing classmates and instructors that I’d make it down to the drop in/social swing at the Legion for over 3 weeks now and I finally was able to clear up a Saturday. Last Saturday I’d been intending on going but it was the only night Camille and Shari could see the new Blond flick at Metro, and thanks to sold-out showtimes that night we ended up having dinner at the food court and having to catch the 10:30 showtime. I lugged my swing backpack around with me the entire night. The two weeks before that I’d been madly writing and couldn’t spare the time.
Tonight was super-fun tho. I *reeaallly* wish there were more social swing in Vancouver throughout the week. I practiced a lot of what I’d learned and played around with it with classmates Jacqueline and Kate (and a little with Shannon); learned during the drop-in class how to do a change of places in 6-count lindy where the lead spins instead of the follow and also learned a move in 6-count called the ‘frisbee’; figured out that I could do Charleston in closed position as a sort of eight-count Jig Step; figured out how to do the frisbee in 8 count as well; learned from Adam that doing triple-step fast just means you do a smaller and smaller triple-step that looks almost like a double step of one foot; danced with a lot of people beginners and advanced swing dancers alike; tried doing thumb-wars and swing at the same time with Jacqueline… Suffice it to say, it was loads of fun. It was funny… after the drop-in class portion, I tried to do some of the 8-count moves that we`d been learning on Thursday night classes but I totally blanked on how to start it with the swing out. Must have been the switching between 6 and 8 count that blanked me or the different locale (I can do it fine at the class location) but I had to find Lucy and get her to refresh my memory. After that I was fine tho, and it was loads of fun, even during the super-slow songs when I had no idea what to do (as happened when I was dancing with this more experienced girl named Lisa). lol. We had a decent turnout from our Thursday class there – Jacqueline, Kate, Shannon, George, and I were all there – oddly enough Sarah didn`t make it out tonight. Jacqueline had an emergency (her cousin got locked out of the house) so we had to leave early around 12:15am since I promised to drive her home, but it was still worth it. My legs are rather sore now, but sore in a good way 
I got back to Burnaby after, went to check on Karen’s house and the birds there, came back to my apartment, and here I am, very jazzed indeed.
The Early Enterprises from NX-01 to NCC-1701 (prequel, Star Trek 2009) to NCC-1701 (TOS) to NCC-1701 (Refit, TMP) to NCC-1701-A.
Does it fit?
Oddly enough, as much as I dislike this new take on the NCC-1701 and question how it could ever morph into the TOS version (now Refit 1?), there do seem to be odd design continuities with the NX-01. Viewing the NX first could explain the jarring nacelle pylons being attached at the back of the secondary hull. The warp field grille fairings as they appear on the NX, broken up into segments, seem continuous with the odd horizontal dashed emitter grilles on the 1701-prequel nacelles. Finally, the NX-01′s deflector glowed blue behind the gold dish, which fits with the glowing blue dish on the prequel (but not a recessed blue dish like the Refit) in transition towards simply the gold dish on the TOS 1701.
Rich Sternbach commented that it looked like the Pasteur, which in turn was based off the pre-TOS era Daedalus Class design – however, while the Olympic Class USS Pasteur and the Daedalus Class look similar, the new Prequel 1701 only shares a continuity of design with the idiosyncratic design elements of the Pasteur and not the Daedalus class (the Daedalus has no secondary hull undercut, its connecting ‘neck’ is cylindrical rather than flat, its nacelles and pylons look nothing like the prequel-1701).
[edit: 2009 March 04:
I still think it's ugly.]
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