SoCal GenKhaaaannn

Saturday was the most nerdy -- and most awesome -- day I've had in years.

I went down to Anaheim and spent the entire day at SoCal GenCon, gathering material for Wednesday's Geek in Review, then came home for dinner, before heading up to the Rialto for a midnight showing of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan with Kallberg, Penner, Nickerson and Pollack.

I don't even know where to start (which is why I'm writing this instead of my column) but holy shit man, what an awesome day it was.

Wrath of Khan is still a great movie, even though Nickerson and I found a whole lot of hilarious sexual double entendre that we hadn't noticed the first time around (Bibi Besch says to a post "Khaaaaaaan!" Kirk, "I want to show you something that will make you feel young again." Wakka-chikka wakka-chikka bow bow!) and Nickerson really wanted to MST3K the heartwarming Kirk-is-David's-father scene with, "Hey dad, want to have a catch?" In fact, we may just have to do something like that in the future. I can see ST:TMP including "nobody will be admitted during the exciting viewing of the Enterprise in drydock sequence of the film."

I've written before about how much I like being a nerd, and how much these geeky things, like graphic novels, rpgs, and science fiction mean to me:

My Road is paved with d20s and TRON DVDs and Atari 2600 games. It's lit by the glow of TNG and BSG episodes and the soundtrack is by Vangelis. It's patrolled by Rover and they sell Soylent Green in the rest stop vending machines. The speed limit is 42, but if you flash your Bavarian Illuminati card, you can use the FTL drive to make it to Milliways in time for dinner.

Daily life, with its attendant parenting and bread-winning responsibilities, often casts a fog across the road. While I can feel it beneath my feet, and see it in my memory, it can be very hard to actually see it. Saturday's trip to the gaming con and midnight geeky movie brought it back into view.

Okay, now I know what my column is going to be about.

Comments

[tbug]

Mike Nelson is currently doing Rifftrax , sometimes with guests. Maybe he'd go in with you on this and the two of you could riff a Trek movie or two.

[Mike Maloney]

Wrath of Kahn was actually on TV Land over the weekend. I know because I came home from rehearsal on Friday night and stayed up until 2:00AM watching it like a sucker. Man that movie rules.

[Jack Scheer]

Back in the mid 90s, a movie theater in Chicago did a Friday night marathon of several TOS films that I caught. They showed them out of order for some reason, and TMP was the second one up. Where everyone had just enjoyed the first movie (VI, I think) in the standard fashion, the TMP showing became a spontaneous, live MST session. Even more amazing, it was a uniformly witty crowd. One of the best nights I've ever spent in a movie theater.

[Jaradel]

I still remember seeing Star Trek II in the theatre (ya, I was all of 6 years old). I remember crying when Spock died (even after the subsequent movies came out which resurrected him). It is still today my favorite classic Trek movie. It had all the right elements of what made classic Trek good. They could have skipped the first Trek movie for all I cared and started the movie series with Star Trek II, and I would have been perfectly happy. And yes, I will stop and watch ST II anytime I catch it on cable, even though I have the special edition DVD.

[Cooper]

If they has skipped the 1st movie, the sad folks who liked Voyager would never have had the 'ole so cool nickname: V'ger.

[starshine_diva]

I love the sneak peeks into the mind of Wil, the writter.
Makes me realize I'm not crazy.

[Dataghost]

Just remember that you can always take the backroads in the Delorean and accelerate to 88!

[qwertytigger]

If you're into classic console games (Atari 2600, NES, SNES, and SEGA), check out http://www.CONSOLECLASSIX.com. They were featured on G4 for their 100% legal emulation. It's a great way to revisit one's childhood and finally beat those games that your big brother wouldn't share.

[cryssyer]

There was a Trek marathon of older episodes with Wrath of Kahn at the end on some cable channel this weekend. My 5 year old son wanted to see it ('cause he has declared that he is the captain of our house and we have to do what the captain says, bless his heart) but half way through he was very upset with me. He wanted to know "Where are Worf and Wesley"? I tried in vain to explain the concept of a movie series to him, but he doesn't get it, thanks in part to Michael Dorn showing up in Star Trek VI as Worf's grandfather. Talk about confusion!

At least I know he is a geek-in-training. Hell, he does MST3K style talking through anything!

I would pay BIG money to see you and Nickerson rip on Trek. How about an ACME show that is well publicized (so I can use my frequent flyer miles to come across the country to see you)?

[re6smith]

Your lovely geek-lifestyle paragraph makes me want to ask you: do you like Jonathan Letham?

Another "I've always wanted to ask": have you ever read any of the slash porn that includes Wesley a character. What must that be like!?!

Love you blog, Wil.
(but hey, I'm straight :-)

[SandieK]

Yay for Geeks! Yay for Trek! Where would I be without Trek????
Um, not far from where I am now, but thats not the point.
Did you change the template on this thing? Cause instead of the blueish, now its beigeish.

[mrfrodothefluffy]

Speaking of MST3King Star Trek and Wesley slash.....(a foreboding beginning, right?)

I found a very short, very hilarious, and very very badly written Wesley x Riker slashfic right after I started watching TNG again (this is the part where I keep from creeping you out... I'm not a Star Trek slasher though LOTR is a different story :P). It was so funny I even made my boyfriend and all of my friends read it, even the ones who haven't seen TNG. Anyway, the next day my bf and I had a blast watching our daily three TNG episodes on Spike. One of them was the one where Wesley asks Riker for advice on love (it's towards the beginning of the series? Sorry I don't know the name of it)....needless to say we MST3Ked the entire episode. bwahaha, I think that's one of my favorites episodes just because of how fun that was. So I would definitely love to watch other people do that.

btw...here's the link to the story....you know you wanna at least look....you know you do: http://tv.adultfanfiction.net/story.php?no=26156

[dnickyb]

I just found this blog after reading about it on the Forbes website. I was a huge fan. I used to watch Stand By Me constantly and even became a trekkie because of you. Funny story though, my daughter started watching Sandlot 2 over and over again. It reminded me of how much I used to watch Stand By Me. Unfortunately, I had forgotten about some details in the movie such as curse words, guns, and kids smoking. So I made a parental oops by renting it and watching it with my 9 and 10 year old. I tried to make it educational by talking to them about those things. Just thought I'd leave a comment and I'll probably read this blog regularly now that I know it's here.

[Kristy]

I love it when you revel in your geekness. It makes me love my own nerditude that much more.

And making up words is also fun!

[SciFiChick]

how boring life would be without my geeky endeavors.

[Fish]

A couple years ago, I started playing D&D after like a 15 year absence. Oh, God, it was wonderful to be a true geek again. It was like waking up from a dream.

I want to do more than one campaign, but my new wife has a bit of trouble with me being gone for gaming every other week as it is.

[TheJay]

I noticed something while in line for a Wii and found it a little familiar. There's something about the Brotherhood of Geeks that (once you've proven your geek cred) is warm, welcoming, and amazing.

I've always wondered if the 'cool kids' ever felt part of a community like that. I mean, they didn't make Lego TIE Fighters or anything, but maybe they had fun somehow as a kid too...

BTW Wil, Negreanu owes you a couple of bucks. Reading your blog got me to look at poker for the first time in forever, and my favorite solo version is Stacked with Daniel Negreanu. I figure that should be worth a Newcastle at the very least.

[Tarrsk]

I have to admit, the drydock sequence in TMP is actually my favorite part of that movie, as Kubrickian it is in its slowness. The refitted Enterprise 1701 ("no bloody A, B, C, or D!") is my favorite of all the Trek starship designs, and it's lit and shot beautifully in that scene. There's a level of detail and solidness in that old model that even the best modern CGI hasn't managed to match yet.

[Robert D.]

Tbug has a good idea. Why not give Mike Nelson a call? If you're going to MST something, you might as well do it with the Master. (He's right down the coast in San Diego, if I remember correctly.) It'd be like someone having the opportunity to study under Bruce Lee...why WOULDN'T you at least try to do it?

While I'm sure "Star Trek II" would provide a number of good riffs, I think it would provide the fewest of all the films. I'm not a big Trek fan, but I've seen most of the movies at some point or another and ST2 was definitely the best of the bunch, overwrought "Khaaaan" and all. It's the one Trek movie I'll actually stop and watch when it's on TV (as long as there isn't a "Mythbusters" or "Scrubs" I haven't seen on).

Now Star Trek: TMP...that one TOTALLY deserves a MSTing, if only for the incredibly goofy, lime-green onezies they wear in that movie.

RANDOM THOUGHT: Ever wonder what Zapp Brannigan would think of a Star Trek movie, if he sat down to watch it?

[napoleondynamitefan]

Woah - I was just in Disneyland the previous day! If I had known that you would have been in Anaheim on Saturday, I could have finally met you!

Alas, life goes on . . .

[Meredith]

Wil, you are teh awesome.