By Michelle
June 20, 2004 - 1:08 PMHello World! It's Midsummer in my hemisphere - the summer solstice, or Litha if you celebrate it according to the old ways - which means that my children have been out of school for a week, it's hot, it's muggy, and keeping everyone entertained until camp starts is not easy. We've already taken the road of least resistance twice, namely the movies: we saw Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban again last week, and I managed to stay awake through the live-action Garfield film. But we've already seen Shrek 2 and they're too young for The Day After Tomorrow, so to save them from all-day video games, we've been trying to get outdoors.
This weekend was the Alexandria Red Cross Waterfront Festival. In addition to amusement park rides and a craft fair, the festival had tall ships -- the Kalmar Nyckel (a reproduction of a ship that brought Swedish immigrants to America in the 1600s), the schooner Sultana, and the Gazela, which was built to transport fishermen to Newfoundland and later starred in Interview with the Vampire with Brad Pitt. There was also a truck from the Virginia Marine Science Museum with a touch-tank.
And to our great delight, a group that's been at the Maryland Renaissance fair, the Noble Blades, was performing on the pier right in front of the Kalmar Nyckel. They'd been giving out balloons to kids all afternoon, and right when we came off the tour of the ship, they had started a mock-tournament with men culled from the audience who had been given pink balloon swords. Then they split into factions - some sort of pirate versus legit sea captain battle, though I'd be hard-pressed to say who were the pirates and who were the authorities - and at some point one of the guys started singing "Double, double, toil and trouble", and one of the other guys yelled, "Oh no! You sang Macbeth!" and the singer objected, "I did not! I sang Harry Potter!" Okay, maybe you had to be there.
From the waterfront we walked to Bilbo Baggins restaurant, decorated, as the name would suggest, like sketches of The Shire as illustrated in the 1970s. One doesn't go to Bilbo Baggins without getting dessert -- the Lord of the Rings, for instance, which consists of alternating layers of white and dark chocolate ganache and mousse. This is definitely the way to end a summer Saturday.
Trek BBS Today Below are some of the topics currently being discussed at the Trek BBS:
-Will the NX-01 be the flagship in the Romulan War?
-Who on Voyager would you want to hang out with?
-Did anyone like the Generations score?
More topics can be found at the Trek BBS! Trek Two Years Ago These were some of the major news items from June 2002:
- Nemesis 'Rough Cut' Review Online
Aint It Cool News offered a writeup of a very early cut of Star Trek Nemesis, saying that the climactic battle was excellent but that Picard's scenes with Shinzon were too reminiscent of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader in the Star Wars trilogy.
- New 'Nemesis' Behind The Scenes Pictures
A Canadian television network aired a behind-the-scenes look at the tenth Star Trek film, revealing the mould for a sinister-looking Reman mask, the model for the set of the Romulan Senate, and a look at one of the vessels in the movie.
- First TNG Season 3 Reviews Appear
Season Three, regarded by many as the high point of Star Trek: The Next Generation, was released on DVD to excellent advance reviews.
More news can be found in the archives. Poll Results Below are the results of the most recent TrekToday poll:
Will you buy the Star Trek: The Animated Series on DVD?
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Yes |
 37.5% - (526
Votes) |
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No |
31.7% - (445
Votes) |
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Depends on how it's packaged and how much it costs |
30.5% - (428
Votes) |
Total Votes: 1400
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Please vote in our new poll on how long Enterprise is likely to run! | Are you happy about the victory of Blu-ray over HD DVD? | | |
Happy Birthday! Today is the birthday of Mariette Hartley, who played Zarabeth on the original series, while tomorrow is the birthday of Tim Russ, who played Tuvok on Voyager. Best wishes to both! Today's Television Listings Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, UPN will show the Enterprise rerun "Exile". Here's the official synopsis of the episode:
A powerful telepath makes contact with Hoshi and offers to help Enterprise find the Xindi ... for a price.
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