I’ve been found out!

Both Ian Cullen and BenJGrimm are always after me on the SciFiPulse podcast to talk about things I don’t like instead of things I do. I prefer to be a positive person, so I usually don’t focus on the negative. And I also don’t buy things I don’t like, so it is hard for me to rate them. However, this week I will endeavor to talk about what I know I don’t like.

1. Star Trek: The Next Generation. As a huge fan of Deep Space Nine, I never really warmed up to TNG. In fact, I hated the “galactic reset button” that was hit at the end of each episode. I guess one can tell when I don’t care for something—I laugh at jokes about it. For instance, there was a guy on AOL way back when the show started who used to post about Doctor Beverly Crusher’s hips swinging so far in the hallway that she would knock unsuspecting ensigns to the ground. I still smile or laugh about that one. Then there was the joke about Captain Picard coming down with a terminal disease, which caused Counselor Troi to ask him how he wanted to be buried. “I want to be buried with my buttocks in the air,” he said. Puzzled, Troi asked him why. “All my family ride bicycles, and they need a place to park them when they visit my grave,” he responded. Stuffy “Old Baldie” saying that killed me when I first read it. Yes, I still smile or laugh about that one, too.

My favorite TNG episodes were the ones in which they took chances or upset the status quo. “Best Of Both Worlds” remains at the top of my list, and I consider both parts to make up the whole story. My least favorite was “Inner Light,” in which Captain Picard grows old and dies on a planet while learning how to play something that resembles a flute. Now, Picard’s dying wasn’t the problem–it was the sappy story about his wife and his son and all that made my eyes roll back in my head. Then, too, I hated “Darmok,” in which Picard is sent to a planet in order to share an experience with Darmok so they have common ground. So, the only way to communicate is when someone shares an experience with someone else? Otherwise, you can’t talk about anything you haven’t personally seen before with anyone else? So everyone has to experience everything with everyone else all the time in order to communicate??? GAAHHH! It makes my head hurt just thinking about it. Too bad it didn’t make a lick of sense!

TNG was the price I paid to get DS9. That didn’t mean I had to like it.

2. Barbra Streisand. Ian and I got into a discussion about her on his program when I noticed there was a Barbie doll made to look like the pop singer. Now, I liked “The Way We Were” as a song, but did she get hit in the head several times over the last few decades? She wanted other women to wash clothes on rocks like they did in the “old days” while she has the latest and greatest washing machines and detergents for her personal clothing. Inconsistent much? I could go on about her, but suffice it so say, I’ve lost what respect I had for the lady. And I still want to see what that Barbie doll looks like. (Okay, since I wrote this, I have googled the doll online, and it really does look more like Barbra than Barbie. Sorry, Barbie!)

3. The first tier of Marvel characters. I guess I like my heroes as someone I can look up to, so Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and the rest of the DC Comics characters are special to me. Not so with the Marvel upper level, including the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the Avengers, the Hulk, Captain America, and others. Spider-Man gets a cold. Sue Richards has a bad hair day. Captain America can’t decide if he should wear the red, white and blue or not. Hey, I get that kind of stuff at work! I don’t need to read about people who can’t make up their minds—I live that!

On the other hand, my favorite Marvel characters are considered very low level, including the Black Knight, Stingray, Firebrand, and the male Black Panther. Only one of them has risen in stardom, but I don’t hold it against him.

4. Multiple covers for the same comic. I am a reader of most things, so putting different covers on the same book does absolutely nothing for me. I want to peruse the inside, not worry about the covers. If something is really good, I’ll buy the hard cover edition, though!

5. People who feel we need to find “common ground.” It’s perfectly okay to disagree—thinking people do it all the time. I’m so often disagreed with that I am usually surprised when someone does agree with me. I often say that I learn more from people I don’t agree with than those I do. I don’t take it personally when someone does take a different point of view, either. I also don’t like it when someone demands we must agree on a specific something. I was given free will just like you, so I want the right to agree to disagree every time. I have many friends who I don’t agree with on a variety of topics. It doesn’t make them any less friends than those I agree with most of the time. Oh, and I have never voted for someone who agrees with my views 100 percent. Politics is a matter of degree—do I want to vote for someone I agree with 20 percent of the time or one I agree with 75 percent of the time? If I find a candidate who tells me he or she holds all the same values I do, I am immediately skeptical. I have an identical twin brother, and even he and I don’t agree all the time, for pity’s sake!

6. People who say they know what the “next big thing” is. Honestly, folks, the next big thing is almost always a surprise. For instance, the Harry Potter phenomenon was started by a woman who had to retype her original manuscript in order to have two copies to present to the publisher. The X-Men were a low-level team that very few people liked until they became “Uncanny.” And they had canceled Detective Comics on a Friday, but changed their minds over the weekend. Little did they know what impact The Dark Knight Returns would have. Please don’t insult me by telling me you know what will be big next. You don’t. There, I actually said it!

7. Lastly, Babylon 5. That show was way, way, way too talky, which is why I called it “Babbling-0n 5”. And J. Michael Straczynski is and always will be a “pompous ass,” as Ian might say. I remember watching an episode where Captain Sheridan was underground with some alien on a planet, and all they did was debate the meaning of life. After 10 minutes of that, I yelled at the TV, “Somebody do something already!” There was another week when Sheridan was being tortured. Through that, JMS tortured us, the viewers, with all the hokey dialogue and repetitive storytelling. Yikes! Give me Human Target or 24 any day! I remember when a character with the last name of “Hall” was introduced, then killed in the same episode. I understand that was intended to be the embodiment of my brother Randy and I. If that was supposed to make us unhappy, it didn’t work—instead, I loved it! A character who is me on the TV being killed? Nothing better! I sparred with JMS and his minions online back in the day, and I would say I outwitted them, but they were only half-armed!

8. Oh, rats, I meant to include that I also hate watching a TV show live. I prefer to zap the commercials. I do love my TiVo!

For today’s video, here’s a CGI battle between Voyager from Star Trek, many ships from Star Wars and comparable vessels from Babylon 5.

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