Electrical Brain! AAh!

The last few nights, I’ve had a dream where I’m standing in front of this gigantic ball of text.  It’s probably about the size of the globe at Epcott Center in Disney World.

Anyway, I know in the dream that this ball of text is all the world’s knowledge… everything I could ever need to know about anything.  In the dream, some disembodied voice is asking me really simple questions, and I know all I have to do is find the answer in the gigantic ball… but I can’t.

It is the most stressful dream I think I’ve ever had.  And the damned thing is recurring.

As a die-hard SG-1 fan, I can honestly say that I have watched every single episode of Stargate SG-1, plus all of the bonus features… at least twice if not more. Seeing as there are ten seasons and over two hundred episodes, that is no mean feat. It’s taken a lot of time and effort… you know, lifting the remote.. switching discs, etc*… to finish the entire series more than once. But it’s a sacrifice someone had to make.

Also, Richard Dean Anderson is my hero. (See picture)

Anyway… I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how many great episodes there are in Stargate SG-1, but up until last night I didn’t have a clear concept of how much the word “many” entails. When I counted them out, I found 60.  And so, after being prodded by Dan to write in our fabulously geeky blog, I decided to figure out which really ARE the best. So starting with this post, I’m going to watch them all and narrow it down (as best I can).

Here are the best episodes of Stargate SG-1, by season/episode: (be aware that there are 60 episodes in this list… so by reading on, you are asking for it…)

Season 1

• Ep. 4: The Broca Divide. Chosen based on the stellar image of Carter as a neanderthal, attacking our beloved Colonel O’Neill.
• Ep. 15: Singularity. Enter Cassandra! Amanda Tapping is amazing in this episode, especially as she leads Cassandra deep below the earth’s surface and can’t find it in herself to leave Cassandra to die alone. Meanwhile, on the surface, O’Neill goes berserk.
• Ep. 19: Tin Man. It’s not everyday you leave an android copy of yourself on a deserted planet.

Season 2

• Ep. 6: Thor’s Chariot. Because the Asgard are awesome, and also little.
• Ep. 16: The Fifth Race. Jack speaks Ancient! Everyone is amazed.
• Ep. 18: Holiday. Michael Shanks is amazing as Daniel, Ma’chello, Ma’chello in Daniel’s body AND Daniel in Ma’chello’s body. God, I love Sci-Fi.
• Ep. 22: Out of Mind. Jack, Sam, and Daniel are tricked into thinking that they’ve been in a sort of cryo-stasis for 75 years. Wacky!

Season 3

• Ep. 1: Into the Fire.
• Ep. 6: Point of View. This may have been chosen out of the sheer enjoyment of Alternate-Carter being married to Alternate-O’Neill. Also, the whole alternate reality thing is endlessly amusing.
• Ep. 7: Deadman Switch. How often do you hear Jack say something like, “you can’t blame a girl for trying!”
• Ep. 16: Urgo. Dom DeLuise joins the cast as Urgo, and he is generally awesome.
• Ep. 17: A Hundred Days. I think insane displays of loyalty and friendship (aka Teal’c going through the gate into a tiny cavern where he could either run out of air or be swallowed up if the stargate was activated) are special.
• Ep. 18: Shades of Grey. I really thought O’Neill was going bad!

Season 4

• Ep. 3: Upgrades. Sam, Jack, and Daniel go out to dinner and have three steaks each. Also, there is angsty lurve going on here… and no I am NOT talking about Jack and Daniel.
• Ep. 5: Divide and Conquer. It’s a beautiful thing. I only regret the loss of a certain Tok’ra.
• Ep. 6: Window of Oppourtunity. This episode is hands-down the BEST Stargate SG-1 episode ever. I mean that.
• Ep. 10: Beneath the Surface. Somehow, amidst a large crowd of strangers working basically as slaves under a domed-city, Carter and O’Neill find each other and have lots of nice moments. “There’s a man… He’s bald and wears a short-sleeved shirt, and somehow he’s very important to me. I think his name is Homer” - Jack.
• Ep. 16: 2010.
• Ep. 21: Double Jeopardy.

Season 5

• Ep. 10: 2001. Similar to 2010, this episode is about the Aschen and their deviously destructive ways. I find it very intriguing that someone decided to look at this issue from another angle so quickly after 2010 aired, but I’m also glad… it’s great!
• Ep. 11: Desperate Measures. With Jack and Maybourne teaming up to save Carter? Classic.
• Ep. 12: Wormhole X-treme. “And yes… it DOES say Colonel on my uniform…”
• Ep. 17: Fail Safe. Funny, intense, interesting and heroic… this episode covers all the bases.
• Ep. 21: Meridian. Daniel tells Jack and the others to let him go. Don’t gooo Daniel!!!

Season 6

• Ep. 3: Descent. How many ways can you put the lives of SG-1 in danger? Should we count the ways? I really love the part where Carter and O’Neill almost drowned. It’s the moments where they want to say something but choose not to that say it all!
• Ep. 5: Nightwalkers. If only for the joy of watching Jonas and Teal’c drink ginger ale in a bar with a bunch of angry Goa’uld who are trying to pretend to be normal.
• Ep. 6: Abyss.
• Ep. 8: The Other Guys. Who can deny the hilarity of Felger and Coombs?
• Ep. 15: Paradise Lost. Maybourne and O’Neill hallucinate on a remote planet full of dead people.
• Ep. 20: Memento.

Season 7

• Ep. 1: Fallen. Jack, Carter and Teal’c find Daniel on a planet. Jack exchanges fables with a local story teller. Daniel asks Carter if they were an item (hah!) and eventually goes back to the SGC with the team….
• Ep. 3: Fragile Balance.
• Ep. 5: Revisions.
• Ep. 6. Lifeboat. Once again, Michael Shanks’ copious skills as an actor are extremely obvious. With something like 12 or more different personalities trapped in his brain… it’s just unbelieveable.
• Ep. 13: Grace. Hallucinations of Jacob Carter try to convince Sam that the only reason she loves Jack is because she knows she can’t have him. He convinces her to move on, but not before Sam and Hallucination Jack make out. Yay!
• Ep. 16: Death Knell. Carter somehow survives being chased by one of Anubis’s super soldiers.
• Ep. 17-18: Heroes, Pt. 1 & 2. All major character deaths notwithstanding… these two episodes are emotional, yet amusing.
• Ep. 21-22: Lost City, Pt 1 & 2. Once again with the Ancient’s repository of knowledge in his brain, Jack saves the day and also has a nice emo moment with Carter.

Season 8

• Ep. 1-2: New Order, Pt. 1 & 2. Personally, I think the Elizabeth Weir of these episodes far exceeds that of the Weir of Atlantis (Tori Higginson), but who am I to judge? These two episodes are crucial. I thought I’d have to give up Stargate when Richard Dean Anderson left, but starting with New Order, he leaves gradually (and visits often)… so it’s not too bad.
• Ep. 5: Icon. Daniel is Captain Kirk!!!
• Ep. 12: Prometheus Unbound. Vala Mal Doran takes over the Prometheus with only one captor… Captain Kirk I mean Daniel Jackson!! Hijinks ensue… a great intro to Vala, Vala’s relationship with Daniel, and the making out.
• Ep. 15: Citizen Joe. Jack always thought it was normal that he saw the life of a barber in his mind.
• Ep. 19-20 Moebius, Pt. 1 & 2. Aside from Window of Oppourtunity, and several season 4 episodes, these two are my very favorites. Time travel, Jack and Sam making out, Daniel and Carter as super nerds… who could ask for more?

Season 9

• Ep. 1-2: Avalon, Pt 1 & 2. Cameron Mitchell aka John Crichton aka Ben Browder is hilarious and endearing in these first episodes of season 9.
• Ep. 3: Origin. Daniel and Vala inflict the wrath of the Ori when they visit a distant galaxy to see what’s up.
• Ep. 4: The Ties That Bind. Wallace Shawn as Arlos graphically describes his love affair with Vala. It’s painful but hilarious. Also, Mitchell and Daniel wear a lot of leather, like John Crichton in Farscape. It’s good times…
• Ep. 13: Ripple Effect. Alternate SG-1’s… some with less than honorable intentions… arrive at the SGC. I love this episode, but especially the part where Dr. Frasier arrives, and her departure.
• Ep. 19: Crusade. Vala’s pregnant! It’s great.

Season 10

• Ep. 2: Morpheus.
• Ep. 3: The Pegasus Project. The team is in Atlantis, and Mitchell learns all about McKay’s citrus weakness.
• Ep. 6: 200. Parody abounds! I didn’t realize it until later, but the Farscape parody is just lots of alien swearing. Love it!
• Ep. 8: Memento Mori. Heartbreaking. I love the part where Vala remembers Daniel.
• Ep. 9-10: The Quest Pt. 1 & 2. I don’t love Morena Baccarin as Adria, but this episode is one of the better season 10 episodes… also, love Ba’al.
• Ep. 14: The  Shroud. Daniel is a Prior! Yikes… Jack yells at him. Vala just sits on his lap and asks silly questions. Love it…
• Ep. 20: Unending. As far as last episodes go, this one was awesome.

I have no clue how narrow I want to get with this list… but I’m working on it.

* I am not completely lazy. I was JUST joking. I lift the remote with great ease, I swear. Also I have a job, go to school, have friends, I get up off my couch often, and a forklift is not necessary to move me.

Windows 7

Vendor and OEM hardware issues aside (I hate you, ATI… I hate you so much), there are a few things that bother me about this newest version, but there are many (fairly obvious) improvements.

The first nitpick is that the Windows key + E doesn’t immediately go to My Computer like it has in every previous version of Windows.  This same area is available by clicking “Computer” on the left pane when you open this window, but I literally use this key combination to get to My Computer dozens of times a day.  This extra step is a small annoyance that adds up during the day.

The second is one that I know the Microsoft team is touting as an improvement.  The Mac OS X Dock “Superbar.” Maybe it’s just personal preference, but I like having my quicklaunch and taskbar seperate things.

As for the improvements, the most noticeable is the speed. Windows 7 runs MUCH faster than Vista did. On my laptop, Aero doesn’t bog down the OS at all. I’d try gaming, but (as mentioned above) ATi and Dell do nothing but cause me heartaches when trying to get their drivers to do anything useful at all. On my desktop, Warcraft gained about 15fps. In Vista, I have all games turn off Aero when they start because I have two monitors. This increase was without turning the visual theme off.

Other than speed, there’s been a significant decrease in the number of UAC messages (especially when doing day-to-day things). They’ve even added controls so you can change how much you want the UAC to notify you about things.

Then there are little things that don’t matter much to me. Themes with sets of backgrounds you can have change every few minutes, for example. The taskbar itself is also prettier (with some nice mouseover, glowing effects).

The next step (other than using the crap out of the OS to see what else there is in there) is to wait and see if MS makes us any kind of deal on upgrades. They’re touting this as a “major upgrade,” but there’s little in here that warrants it, I think.

A Level 80 Paladin - with friends.

I’ve quit World of Warcraft at least four times.  Each time I quit, I think I won’t be coming back.  I think about how raiding takes so much time.  I do the mental calculations in my head about how long it would take to get another character to max level and, if I did, what would be new about it?

I go off and play other MMOs, be it Final Fantasy XI, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer Online, City of Heroes…

And yet, every time I’m with another MMO, I can’t do anything without comparing it to WoW.  And every time I come back, eventually.  Why, though?  What’s Blizzard done with Warcraft that makes it compelling?  I mean, when you break the game down into its component parts, it’s pretty much the same thing as every other MMO out there. You have your FedEx quests; you have your ‘kill 30 kobolds’ and ‘bring me 25 crocodile scales’ quests; you’ve even got ‘go into this dungeon and kill Stabby McKillerstein, Scourge of the Whatsit.’

But somehow, every time I’m doing these same things in another MMO, I’d rather be doing them in Azeroth.

I’ve thought a lot lately about why that is.  It really boils down to the fact that Warcraft has been around for a long time; basically, it has momentum.  And really, ‘momentum’ here has a few meanings.

The game is stable.  There are very few technical issues with the engine.  Amazingly, the graphics don’t look dated despite being four years old.  To top all that off, the system requirements are very low.  They may not be the prettiest (Lord of the Rings Online is almost inarguably prettier), but they’re consistent.

Having a game that’s had this much time in production also means that Blizzard has had a lot of time to hone their skills.  Wrath of the Lich King is a showcase of this improvement.  In a lot of cases, not only are the quests better, but features from the other MMOs I’ve played that are ‘cool’ have been integrated.  Achievements (City of Heroes, Lord of the Rings Online) are a great example of this.  Some of the changes have been more subtle.  This expansion added a lot of areas where you’re able to do two or three quests at once - something I liked about Lord of the Rings Online.

Momentum also carries with it a large player base.  And I think this is really what keeps bringing me back.  You can’t have MMO without Multiplayer and I have quite a few good friends I’ve met through WoW (the co-author of this site included).  Every time I play another game, there’s just not enough social stimulation to keep me interested.  Somehow, killing those 30 kobolds or finding those alligator teeth is a hell of a lot more fun when you have four or five friends hanging out with you.

In their review for Lord of the Rings Online, Eurogamer said it was the game everyone would be playing if their friends played it. I’ve used that phrase a lot since I read it. It makes me think of when I played FFXI and WoW came out. “Good,” I thought, “now all the 14 year-olds will leave FFXI.”

But as time dragged on, more and more people were making the switch. And I kept hearing about how fun the game really was. I made the switch a year into the game being out and… well, I’ve only looked back once, very briefly. It was not a pleasant experience (FFXI’s graphics have NOT aged well at all).

So Illuminaire, my pally on Draenor sits at home, waiting for me to login and meet up with all the other people’s characters who are doing the same. And so it will (probably) continue ad infinitum (ad nauseum, maybe?).

-Dan

If someone were to ask me right now what Farscape is about, I would say love. Or maybe more specifically: making out with aliens. It occured to me about halfway through the first season, after Crichton’s little fling with Gilina, a Peacekeeper from Aeryn’s past. If I remember correctly, and I DO for the record, because I’m awesome, Crichton soon after realizes that he has feelings for Aeryn. Regardless of this, he makes out with EVERYONE. In one episode, in fact, I’m pretty sure he even kisses D’argo. And makes a pass at Rygel. But mostly, Crichton kisses lots of aliens, sometimes directly in front of Aeryn (which, if you as me, probably does not help one bit), and he likes it.

He is also partially crazy. He screams a lot. But I guess that I would do that too, if I were lost in a distant part of space with strange aliens who sometimes screw me completely.

It applies to more than just Crichton, though, because there is a lot of love on Farscape. Crichton loves Aeryn, but he also loves D’argo, and Zhaan. Chianna, too, but in a different way. Chianna pretty much only loves Crichton and D’argo. Zhaan loves everyone, except maybe Rygel. Aeryn has a deep connection with Pilot because she has his DNA embedded in her own, and she has strong feelings of love for everyone else except for Rygel. Zhaan loves Stark. Pilot, Moya, and Zhaan have their own weird little love triangle, incited mostly by Zhaan’s singing.

And that’s that.

This performance of Adew Dundee: Early and Traditional Music from Scotland will cover musical selections from the 16th to the 20th century and from Scotland to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia and Tennessee. Join us for a delightful afternoon with joyous, accomplished musicians.  Founded in 1980 to perform the instrumental music of Shakespeare’s time, the Baltimore Consort has explored early English, Scottish, and French popular music, focusing on the relationship between folk and art song and dance.