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The demise of Not a Planet Anymore

September 22, 2009

It’s apparent that this site has received little attention in the past few months. Sadly, this blog, a collaborative project, lost its other collaborators back in May. As I don’t have the time or energy to concentrate on keeping two blogs going, I’ve decided to abandon NAPA and will focus my efforts on my original blog, harrysaxon.com.

While I am sorry to do this, I just don’t feel right about continuing a project that reflects absent authors at least as much as me.

I have no plans to delete Not a Planet Anymore, but will not be updating it. I have moved all posts individually authored by me; the posts here were replaced with links to those posts at harrysaxon.com. These obsolete posts have comments disabled, though any comments on those blogs are still preserved there for posterity.

Thanks for coming to visit us here at NAPA, and I hope that those of you who enjoyed my writing will come over to harrysaxon.com and continue reading!

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Confessions of a Canadian Red Sox fan

May 20, 2009
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Quick review: “1 vs. 100″ Xbox Live beta

May 9, 2009
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iPhone games

May 5, 2009
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Vulcans get their “Trek”, sort of

May 2, 2009

startrekCBC is reporting that Paramount is bringing 300 residents of Vulcan to Calgary for an advanced screening of the new Star Trek movie. Residents of Vulcan, Alberta, that is.

The small town southeast of Calgary has capitalized for years on having the same name as the homeworld of Spock. For several months residents had been lobbying the studio to stage the world premier of the much-anticipated prequel in their town. Spock himself, Leonard Nimoy, even added his voice to their cause. Paramount wound-up choosing the Sydney Opera House in Australia instead.

As a gesture of goodwill, the studio will be holding a special screening of the movie in Calgary for some of Vulcan’s residents on May 6th – two days before the North American premier. Actor Bruce Greenwood, who plays Captain Christopher Pike in the film, will also be on hand for the event.

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Joss Whedon’s past and the future of “Dollhouse”: Conclusion

April 30, 2009
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Will the Devil get his due on “Reaper”?

April 30, 2009

Ray WiseWarning: SPOILERS

Lately I’ve been beginning to wonder if the Devil (played by the gleefully malicious Ray Wise) might actually be succeeding (if slowly) in turning Sam (Bret Harrison) to the dark side on Reaper. Not through any obvious, direct means like repeatedly encouraging him to do bad things, or trying to wear him down with a cynical world view, or pitting him against his half-brother last week in a soul-catching contest. Rather, it’s the result of a subtle manipulation of circumstances that makes it seem as though Sam is doing it all on his own.

In season 1, Sam operated on a fairly straight-forward basis: he didn’t like the contract that bound him to the Prince of Darkness, he wanted out of it, he kept Andi in the dark, but he did his job. Sure he whined about what the Devil put him through, but that was the extent of it.

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Top 5 worst moments from the “Star Trek” films

April 30, 2009

Star Trek 2009With the new Star Trek reboot just around the corner, I thought it was fair to take an unflinching look at where the franchise has gone before in film – especially the moments that were so bad the audience couldn’t help but flinch.

5) The 5-8 minutes of excessive trippy cloud special effects and gratuitous reaction shots as the Enterprise creeps toward V’Ger in Star Trek I: The Motion Picture
Okay, it’s a weird alien cloud, you’re amazed, we get it. 1-2 minutes would have done it. This was a lame-duck copy of what Kubrick did with Dave Bowman’s journey at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

4) “Don’t mince words, Bones, tell me what you really think.” Jim Kirk in his condo in The Wrath of Khan
Perhaps The Shat’s most foppish and needy delivery of a line of dialogue. Ever. Pity it was there to mar an otherwise incredible film.

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Recap: “Lost” season 5, episode 14: “The Variable”

April 29, 2009
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USS Enterprise-inspired car

April 29, 2009

Having just arrived in Canada we were thinking of purchasing a new car but my Google search must have got intermingled with the release of the new Star Trek movie and found this interesting little vehicle.

Until shuttle crafts become available on the general market I think the Nissan Terranaut will do for our tech travelling needs for the time being.  Nissan announced its Terranaut concept at the 2006 Geneva Motor Show; it would be a “three-seat SUV for explorers and scientists designed to cross ice, deserts and other remote hostile environments with its 19-inch puncture-proof Goodyear tires”.  There are two regular seats in the front but the single seat in the back can swivel 360 degrees and is surrounded by USS Enterprise-inspired consoles.

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