mj

I was able to do it without slipping up at a quick pace. Twice. But I had to pay attention.

Blue jeans and a reddish sweater.

Is there a way you could get a personal trainer, who could work with you and give you a true assessment as to what kind of shape you are in, and how long and at what cost it would take you to get into shape for semi-pro athletics, which is far more intense than a few pick-up games?

I think one of the most important parts of the question is your physical condition.

I think you won't have much problem participating in a team sport, even if you haven't done so since you were 17, since you have been coaching and been in the military.

I echo the above questions about making sure you understand the impact on your young family, including finances, and emotional commitment.

Someone to Watch Over Me is quite good. I also liked ExPost facto, and the Year of Hell parts I and II.

I liked it from season one, and continued to like it.

I hope they do begin to air Voyager, especially if they eventually lose the rights to air TNG. I ocassionally get to see episodes of TNG when I come home from work in the afternoon, and I would hope to see them put some Star Trek in those slots.

I liked Endgame.

Haven't seen any of them. Haven't even heard of some of them.

Starship Troopers is based on a book by Robert Heinlein, a great sci fi writer. The first movie was okay, as long as you could accept the style of the film, which is cartoonish and includes inserts of heavy military propganda. But Heinlein often wrote stories with positive military themes, and was himself very pro-miliatary. There was good characterization in the first film, and the youths doing the fighting were connected to one another. It wasn't just a lot of fighting and dying...there was a feeling of the loss and the difficulty of going on. One minute you were fighting with your good friends at your side, the next minute they are all violently killed, and yet you keep going, focused on the fight.

Who knows who wrote this second film. The second film is dark, and intially hard to follow. I mean, even the battle scenes take place in the dark. You don't have many of the massive battles you had in the first film. You don't know much about the people in dire circumstances, and it is kind of gross. The bugs have found a way to infiltrate the human body, take it over, and they are planning to replace human commanders. That's the idea. It is a watchable film, and I did watch it. It is just that I do not feel compelled to rewatch it. It is defintely of lower quality than the first film.

I watch Starship Troopers whenever it comes on television, if I get to decide what we are watching.

mj, are you aware that she does not have to get rid of the retirement plan?

 

 

 

Her retirement plan required her to registerfor Meidicare D. They started the whole ball rolling. There are changes coming because of what the government is doing. All I know is that we have done all the registering that they have asked us to do..... B) I think.

 

 

I am sorry to learn that. According to the Aetna meating I attended, some retirement plans did not require the change. I guess it depended on the plan.

That was indeed the case. And while I was home I talked to the relative who had initially warned us about the changes. He insisted that I make one more call to be in compliance, and sure enough, he was right.

After registering for Meidicare D we had to officially inform her old plan. They are moving to a status of secondary provider, with Medicare being the primary provider. The alternative they offered to people who did not register for Medicare D was termination.

Now, we ARE, completely done with this registration process.

I can't watch this year, except in little time intervals when my mom is asleep. She does not like Twilight Zone at all.

But I hope everyone enjoys the shows!

My resolution is that I be even more responsible in doing what I need to do to improve my health. This includes diet, exercise, and weight loss. This is because of my diabetes.

It is also because of the enormous health costs related to diabetes, which my state health plan has been harping on. They are right, of course. If those of us with this disease would at least now do what we should be doing, that could help control health costs in the future, as it could reduce or avert some of the worst consequences of being diabetic, and the costs of treating those consequences.

I agree that this is one of the best Star Trek TNG episodes, and I do not have any difficulty with Picard returning to his usual routine after it, with perhaps some very private help from Troi.

Two things mentioned above are explanation enough as to why Picard did not appear to have an adjustment from the experience.

As Troi said to a surprised Vash when none of them had heard of her: Captain Picard is a very private person. He very rarely lets his private feelings out for public viewing. That is what made the last episode of TNG so compelling.

Secondly, it could have been like emerging from a dream state. I have very complex dreams at times that appear to range over years, even decades, of my life. Sometimes my dreams even raise my blood presure, being so intense. Picard could have placed his experience in such a context.

With the beard. He looks more mature and experienced with the beard. He looks fresh out of the Academy without the beard.

That was a thoughtful review, but I think Kirk had more feelings than just being someone who had to whittle Apollo down to human size. He felt a twinge of regret in having to bring him down, and if there had been another way to get himself and his crew released without crushing Apollo, I think he would have taken that route, and left Apollo WITH his power.

It was not suurprising to me that Apollo was grieved to the point of tears when he was reduced to powerlessness. He had expected to be worshipped and adored, and that any act of his or command would be admired and obeyed with the appropriate deference to 'who he was.' Instead he was rejected and stripped of all the trappings of his 'godship.' In addition to being devasted ( especially by the loss of love) he was shocked. It was over...all his waiting and hoping to be adored and worshipped as he once had been.

If you have ever dealt with people with remarkably huge egos, you would not be suprised by Apollo's response.

These remarks refer to the article to which the above link led.

Originally, this post was a request for people to recommend movies I might like based on some examples given. I have a hard time finding anything I want to see. But it's been interesting to read what movies people like.

 

Many of the recommendations I have already seen.

 

I do want to see Metropolis and Apocolypse Now.

 

I'm still looking for any obscure, plot driven (as opposed to special effect driven) gems you might find.

I may have one for you. I have not seen this one mentioned in the lists above.

I recently rented a DVD from Blockbuster called " 2009". ( NOT 2001 or 2010). It is a Korean film, and to me its only drawbacks were that it was a bit violent, and the English dubbing was at times annoying.

It was a time travel sci fi with very little time travel. The Japanese went back in time and changed one event in history, which changed the outcome of WWII. The US and and Japan were ALLIES in WWII and the bomb was dropped on Germany, not Japan.

The nation of Korea did not exist....Korea was just a province of Japan.

One interesting element was the new timeline where some events of the old timeline were still in tact, like when Japan hosted the Olympic games.

The hero is a Japanese policeman of Korean descent, and his best friend is a Japanese policeman of Japanese descent.

There is a Korean 'terrorist' organization that the police are bent on stamping out, and it is the mysterious motives of this organization that drive the plot.

It is a heartfelt drama, and even though some of the plot twists could have been predicted, the film is well done, and very engrossing.

It asks tough universal questions such as: if history is changed, how would you know? How would you know that there was a nation named 'Korea'?

It asks many culturally specific questions, connected to the Japanese and Korean cultures.

Another important theme is cross-cultural friendship. The film carefully builds the depth of the friendship of the two main characters, before it is challenged by cultural loyalties. To me, the ending was full of heart, compelling, and satisfying. You keep thinking about the film, about the characters.

To me this is one of the best sci fi films I have seen, and I love that it is told from a different cultural perspective, and that I experience a different culture speculating on the possibilitiy of a different history.

There are no Americans to be seen. Everyone is Korean or Japnaese.

I recommend it if you have not already seen it.

mj, are you aware that she does not have to get rid of the retirement plan?

Her retirement plan required her to registerfor Meidicare D. They started the whole ball rolling. There are changes coming because of what the government is doing. All I know is that we have done all the registering that they have asked us to do..... I think.

I confess I voted other only because I could not decide between one of the greatest mathematician/scientists of all time ( and one of the inventors of calculus) Sir Isaac Newton, and the immortal bard, William Shakespeare.

Two of the most brilliant minds to grace this planet, and today still impacting the intellectual development of human beings.

I think I still have old Bill Cosby LP's, but do not own a record player. I beleive they are actually in my mother's home, where there IS still a record player.

I did not vote in the poll, because you specified guys only. But it is true that some women have problems with facial hair, especially as they get older, and waxing can be a standard part of their beauty regimen! : :blink:

Here, around 2844 posts, as of this post, since 2003. And I read far more than I post , so I have probably read tens of thousands of posts.

Yes, I had to work with getting my mother registered for Meidcare D. It has been extremely frustrating and confusing.

Currently my mother is living with me, but her official residence is Indiana. The person I talked to originally said I should get plans availble in the state in which I currently reside. I sent off for the paperwork, and fortuneately everything looked so unfamiliar that I called back ( this is weeks later), and they said I should register her where her legal residence was.

So we went with going through a telephone registration process, and everything is now supposed to be set up for the change. ( The last time we waited for paperwork to come through the mail, 5 to 7 business days turned into almost three weeks! My uncle has yet to receive anything.)

She had alredy had a prescription benefit through the retirement she receives from being my father's widow.

Now we have to wait and see what all this does. We are nervous and, and have relatives waiting for that new medicare card to come in the mail, in Indiana.

What about the seniors who are alone? How are they going to get though this mess?

I am really not sure. I was trying to remember my own country's history to make up my mind, but I can't bring those details to mind.

So I''ll throw this out as a possible comparison, and if I have my facts are wrong, feel free to correct them.

Didn't the United State operate under something called the Articles of Confederation until the Constitution was written and ratified? I think our nation is regarded as having begun when we declared independence in 1776. I cannot remember when the Articles of Confederation were written, but I think they served as an interim constitution.

When the Constitution was finally ratifed and the federal government set up in the 1780's, it was still the United States.

I state this to say that I am leaning toward the first choice, that this was the actual beginning of the Federation.I still have not cast a vote however.

I feel very sorry for the parents of the girl, dealing with a sudden loss of a child. It is indeed quite a sad situation.

I voted for The Offspring. While Data resolved his loss by downloading his daughter's memories into himself, he never attempted to reproduce again, which to me communicates that Data was unwilling to ever risk undergoing such a loss again.

Many of these episodes deal with loss through death, and Star Trek gives interesting solutions to handling the problem of the ultimate loss.

In this episode, Data downloaded his lost child.Like the crew I found myself greatly saddened by his loss, no matter what he said about her still being with him. It sounded the same as human loss in death.

From my perspective, science starts out assuming nothing and searching for truths, while religion starts with assumptions and tries to prove those... but I see the best scientific mind and the best religious people as doing the same thing, searching for the truth, for their place in the universe. The religious have nothing to fear from science if their religion is true, as science will eventually lead to what they've been saying all along. It's those with shaken faith who are afraid science will discover contradictions.

I disagree with this characterization of science and religion. Science does not start out with 'nothing': it starts with a perspective about how truth can be demonstrated, called the scientific method. That restricts what it will accept as truth. It is scientific truth, not TRUTH with a capital 'T', that science yields. Similarly, in mathematics, formal logic excludes all 'sentences' for which we cannot make a decision about whether it is true or false. This leaves a very small subclass of language which can be investigated through methods involving logic and proof.

On the other hand, religious truths are upheld by faith, not proof. While it is nice when scientific truth is consistent with spiritual truth, the believer will not be swayed by whatever science claims to have proved to be truth if it contradicts fundamental tenets of the faith. I do not worry about creationism vs evolution because in Hebrews 11 there is a scripture that captures my perspective completely: "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God...." (One version more succintly states 'By fath we know..').

How this applies to Sisko in my opinion is the following. I am not convinced that Sisko ever took a religious perspective like that which Kira held. There was no element of faith. I think his relationship to the prophets, over time, became one where he repsected what the wormhole aliens had done for Bajor both culturally and in terms of stability, understood their special ability to live outside of 'linear time', hence givng them true 'prophetic' abilities, and understood and accepted (eventually) the role that the wormhole aliens had destined him to play. It's just that all of this development of the role he had to play as spiritual icon never quite assumed a true spirituality. I am also not convinced that the wormhole aliens saw themselves as 'gods'. I think the difficulty in communication between 'linear' and 'nonlinear' species contributed to the mysteriousness, and the development of a religion on Bajor centered around the attempted communications. Just an opinion.