Talk nerdy to me: Wesley Crusher’s Mommy Issues edition

In honor of Mother’s Day. After all, “A boy’s best friend is his mother” (Mr. N. Bates, Psycho).

The child’s relation to his mother, as the first and strongest object of love, becomes the prototype of all subsequent love relationships. The character of all later relationships is established by that first unparalleled love relationship. Whether the child is breast-fed or bottle-fed, whether he receives all the tenderness of a mother’s care or not, the development is the same.

No matter how long a child is fed at his mother’s breast, he will always feel that his feeding was cut short too soon.

These considerations of the relationship between mother and child prepare us for the intensity of what Freud has called “the Oedipus complex.”

(Hollitscher, Walter. Sigmund Freud, An Introduction. London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., Ltd. 1947. 33-34. Print.)

Yes, Wesley. You should think about this.

PSA: Actor, writer, and renaissance man Wil Wheaton is awesome and hilarious and this is his website. If you merely think of him as Wesley Crusher or Gordie LaChance, you are missing out — check him out!

Hippo Birdie

Happy birthday, I guess, to Gates “Dr. Beverly Crusher” McFadden, who turns 61 today.

Still from Star Trek: The Next Generation. “Thine Own Self,” Season 7, Episode 16.

This was the one where Troi must undergo the holodeck test to become a commanding officer, proctored by her pigdog ex Riker, and the first time through the simulation, everyone dies — including the doc, here — but the second time, after really annoying counsel from a predictably arrogant and slimy Riker (get this, he squints and tilts his head lecherously! wow! the moves!), Troi forces Geordi to sacrifice himself and everyone else lives.

Insert some kind of “Riker’s boner” joke here. Pigdog.

Lesson being greater good kind of stuff. That’s what matters. Not the first picture, which I mainly selected because, in it, Dr. Crusher has a typically bitchy look on her face. (I am a big anti-Crusher guy from Way Back, so I approach her scenes with a bias. Sorry.) That was the subplot, actually; the main thing of the episode was Data’s memory crashed and he was stranded on a planet where people thought he had the plague.

Actually, in my search for the above shot, I found the below one, and I take back almost all the mean things I’ve said over the years.

I said goddamn, Gates McFadden. Haters to the left. And this time, that’s me. Happy birthday, madame!

Daily Batman — Take this phone and shove it

Oh, my stars and garters, yes. I hate the telephone. I had to spend all kinds of time on the phone yesterday wading through officious folklore and bureaucratic shenanigans, and, as a consequence, I’ve kept my phone off almost this whole day. I only turned it on when Miss D, knowing me too well, alerted me to the fact that she’d be calling in the late morning and I ought to turn my cell on at least until I heard from her. I did, and, once she called, I silenced it again.

I warned her that I think I am slowly transitioning toward abandoning phones as a method of communication altogether. It started with my hatred of texting and has steadily devolved since, to the point that I scowl any time I see someone with so much as a bluetooth earpiece strolling around. Ass, I think to myself, and actively begin to draw wide Borg comparisons. Go ahead, everyone else on Earth it seems, and do join the collective hive-mind of buzz and nothing-talk, but resistance is not so futile in my book. People will claim to hate their cell phones and act like it’s such a hassle to be tethered to everyone they know at all times, shrugging and alluding to the convenience of being able to instantly hear from colleagues or family, but the truth is mainly that you have just allowed the phone to become necessary, and to paraphrase Ms. Steinem, it is no more needed than a shrimp’s hipster fixie bicycle, even if he does have the coolest nalgene bottle evah, with a special attachment for him to hook it on the bike so he can take drinks at intersections and look like hot shit. (You know how shellfish care about appearances. Pfft. Sooo shallow. You’d never catch a catfish pulling that manner of chicanery.)

Look, I’m sure Alexander Graham Bell was a nice guy with nothing but good intentions who could not possibly have foreseen the midnight calls of drunk out-of-touch friends or robo-dialing mortgage adjusters who interrupt dinner, but when I run across him in Heaven, he’s getting a punch in the gut just the same.

Bonus Patricia Highsmith sketch because I can and she was the source of the quote that started this chain of luddite fit-pitchery. I do not have a Graham Greene sketch or I’d post one of him as well — The Destructors is a favorite short story from Way Back.

Reboot yo’self: the Cappy will soon leave The Building

Fuck to the yeah: the Cappy and I are just doing the usual, chatting, but it happens to be while he packs to leave that hellhole, thank you very much! I could not oversell my happiness right now.

So we were talking about how he’s going to return soon to his apartment in Krautland after having been gone for a year, in this whole other life in this whole other country, like it’s a reboot to a previous setting of existence, and I can only think what a trip that is in general for any serviceman, but in the specific for my friendoh (hey, I’m selfish, what can I say). Especially emotionally, being in a different place in life and all now but with all these former trappings waiting for him.

Naturally, because we are awesome and you wish you were cool like us, we segued into discussing “Tapestry,” Season 6, Episode 15, Star Trek: The Next Generation. This is not the first time we’ve discussed this episode and the trend of do-overs in TNG. I’m serious: it came up earlier this year. We are consistent, okay? Plus, it also reminds me that I haven’t yet shared all my Ashley Judd pictures! I’ll get on that ASAP, I promise.

Elizabeth: we have, in the last thirty minutes, discussed chicken wings, heavy emotional shit, an episode of star trek tng that we’ve even discussed before, divorce, rebuilding one’s life, and legos

the Cappy: I rule. I know.

Yeah, legitimately, now I’m lego-shopping thanks to his link. I should totally get him some Star Wars ones for when he comes to visit at Christmas! ‘Cause it is making him happy to browse through this site, and I believe that everyone in the Army who is super-important and dignified needs quiet time with legos in the comfort of their own apartment, okay? Haters to the left. I’m just giddy that he’s getting out of the Middle East.

the Cappy: I’m glad you sent that
the Cappy: because I totally was thinking of the wrong episode
the Cappy: it wasn’t tapestry
Elizabeth: it wasn’t?
Elizabeth: which one was it
the Cappy: The Inner Light

the Cappy: its where the Enterprise finds a probe in the middle of nowhere
the Cappy: and it zaps Picard
the Cappy: and he ends up living this second life on another planet in his mind
the Cappy: and has a wife and kids and everything
Elizabeth: OH YEAH

I’m sorry, but your father and I talked it over. You can’t come back to the Enterprise ’til you cut your hair and get a job, Captain.

I totally see the comparisons. That’s a very poignant and moving episode, by the way.

Biggest. Dorks. Ever. I love this boy!

PSA: Did You Know? Wesley Crusher’s Butthole is in Constant Jeopardy!

PSA: Wesley Crusher’s Butthole is in Constant Jeopardy!

Did You Know?

It gets lonely in deep space, and Starfleet chicks are mainly bleah (we’ll spotlight non-bleahs as time goes by, don’t you fret). Consequently, Wesley Crusher’s butthole is in constant jeopardy.

PICARD
A bit of good news, as well.
We’re to rendezvous with a
shuttlecraft carrying Wesley
Crusher. He’s on vacation from
the Academy.

Riker reacts, pleasantly surprised.

RIKER
Wesley… good. We’ll need an
extra hand around here.

Picard smiles — it’s clear they’re both looking
forward to seeing Wesley again.

— Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 5, Episode 106, “The Game.”

Makes you feel sorry for the kid, yeah?

Remember how I mentioned not long ago that I’d spent an entire morning downloading pictures of Ashley Judd in this and her other featured episode as Ens. Robin Lefler on TNG? Yeah, I’ve finally had enough private time with that, and I’m ready to share. So look for that!

Je ne pas regrette

I meant to write a lot today, to explore my feelings and seek some epiphanies, and schedule some of the usual ghost posts way ahead of time because I have a busy afternoon, but instead I have spent the entire morning downloading pictures of Ashley Judd as Ensign Robin Lefler in two episodes of season five of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

No regrets.

GEORDI
You know Robin Lefler.

RIKER
Of course.

GEORDI
Her performance around here has
been sensational. I’ve decided
to make her a mission specialist.
—Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season Five, Episode 106: “The Game.”

Oh, I’m sure you have.

Razzle dazzle ’em Redux: Lieutenant Troi edition

Advice for the day: Razzle dazzle ’em! Lieutenant Troi most certainly is.



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