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| Hawaiian Shot upon Arrival |
Great ocean view with no crowds; walking distance to fresh food; great internet connection; well-furnished tiny house all to me and my friends; and backups good enough for scheduled brownouts: Casita Real is one of the best beach vacations I’ve ever had.
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| Provincial road trips may be trickier |
I didn't see motorcycles in the expressway - duh - so I thought nothing of it. And then when we hit provincial roads they appear. One or two, here and there and then it became five or more. More than once our van was trying to overtake with only the space of a two wheeled motorcycle holding us back.
We were stuck in traffic in Tiaong, Quezon for hours. I didn't think of the possible significance then when I took this Instagram video. When a neighbor in the resort of Doña Choleng noted the same - those motorcycles - it hit me.
First impression sucked.
The first impression and truly
worst, ironically, is the star studded cast: Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Adam Driver, playing Jean de Carrouges, Pierre d’Alençon, and Jacques
Le Gris respectively.
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| This is a Bajoran station - Kira |
Even with a half-baked plot device the episode, Dramatis Personae, was interesting. The story could mean two things.
Its title, dramatis personae, is Latin for characters in a play. There was a recreation of a past event (the Play) of which the senior crew (the Characters) of Deep Space Nine was caught in its web.
Or, the episode wants to be philosophical. Shakespeare said: “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
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| You see, Odo, even us non-shape-shifters need to change who we are once in a while. |
On the surface, he is the powerful alien shapeshifter; Deep Space Nine’s security chief, incorruptible, just, and a talented investigator. He frowns at imagination and romance. His natural form is liquid and every 16 hours he rests, somewhat undignified, contained inside a bucket in his office.
Buckets notwithstanding, he’s clearly a being you don’t want to mess with. There is another side to that: Odo really is pretending 16 hours a day at being a solid.
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| Did US Special Forces face ship or creature? |
Spoilers
You know the standard alien
invasion story package: aliens attack worldwide; earthly weapons have no
effect; aliens do terraforming. Invasion stuck to just that list. 10 episodes
in all and I did not see the alien race that wants to take over the Earth. I
can barely even remember a ship.
But why isn’t there one well defined ship? Why not a fleet and do an alien blitzkrieg?
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| My Oct 8 and the uploaded GIF I couldn't see |
This is to document a technical issue I experienced from blogger.com. Out of the blue my pictures appeared selectively to various readers. It would have been simpler if everything was down, as catastrophic as that may be.
I couldn’t see it on desktop, I couldn’t see it on my mobile while on WiFi, but it is there if I am on data connection. Some friends can see it and some don’t, with no discernible pattern – at least in the Philippines – on who gets to see the pictures.
From story to title, I always thought The Next Generation episode Where No One Has Gone Before was designed beautifully. The USS Enterprise was thrown millions of light years away from Federation Space because of the Traveler who was powered only by thought.
Simply put, to go where you haven't been you must first think. Imagination has always been the cornerstone of many science fiction stories. This episode, If Wishes Were Horses, will only be the latest in that long tradition.
