Lieutenant "Broccoli" Learns to Embrace the Real World in Star Trek TNG's Hollow Pursuits

Last week, I was doing some late-night channel surfing and happened upon Genesis, one of the few episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation featuring Dwight Schulz’s nervous, severely socially awkward engineer Reginald Barclay. I was excited to see the character, who I fondly remembered, mainly from season three’s Hollow Pursuits, which introduces him. When I looked that episode up, I was delighted to find that it would be airing on Thanksgiving night. The episode was just as charming as I remembered.

Schulz gives a performance that is extremely comical but also sympathetic. At one point in the episode, he confides in his immediate superior, the kind and competent Geordi La Forge (LaVar Burton), that he is the guy who always writes down things to say before he goes to a party, then ends up spending the evening in the corner studying a potted plant. For a wallflower like me, this poor fellow who has earned the whispered nickname “Broccoli” from his crewmates is easy to relate to.

Not only is Barclay a wonderful character, but Guinan, the serene bartender portrayed by Whoopi Goldberg who is probably my favorite occasionally recurring character on TNG, has a terrific heart-to-heart with Geordi during which she encourages him to show oddball Barclay a little empathy. She relates the story of her brother, the black sheep of the family, who had a fantastic sense of humor that no one else got a chance to appreciate because they wrote him off so quickly. When Geordi explains how unpopular he is with the rest of the officers, complaining that he’s never on time and is always agitated, Guinan responds that if she were surrounded by people who didn’t like her, she’d probably be late and nervous too. Geordi is a very nice guy already, but this conversation is an important aid in helping him give Barclay another shot.

Anytime the holodeck comes into play, it’s a treat, because we get to explore entirely different settings from the sterile starship, often with fancy costumes for those usually stuck in the same uniform all the time and with literary or historical characters springing to life to interact with the crew. One of my all-time favorite posters is the American Library Association’s one featuring the members of Captain Picard’s crew holding their most beloved books. This doesn’t seem like much of a stretch because the show frequently includes allusions to various literary figures, particularly Sherlock Holmes.

In this episode, we get the Three Musketeers, with Barclay programming his idyllic escape from reality with Picard (Patrick Stewart), Geordi, Data (Brent Spiner) as the famous swordsmen and Riker in the role of eager young D’Artagnan. All are accomplished duelers, but none can match the skill of Barclay, who, within his own little world, demonstrates none of his characteristic jitteriness. The Crushers (Gates McFadden and Wil Wheaton) and Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) also have amusing holoworld counterparts, and it’s especially entertaining to see how the real Geordi, Riker and Deanna react to them when they crash the program in search of Barclay.

This is an episode that seems very ahead of its time. Though it aired in 1990, it is the perfect cautionary tale on the dangers of getting too sucked into the Internet, particularly role-playing games. Sally Caves, who wrote the teleplay, seems to have anticipated the extent to which people could get drawn into this illusory world, particularly those who have trouble with real-life social interaction. Of course, the message could apply to any number of fiction-based entertainments, from books to Dungeons and Dragons. But it seems to fit the Internet especially well.

Hollow Pursuits is one of the funniest episodes of TNG, but it’s packed with meaning, with a lesson to the Barclays of the world not to retreat so far into their own imaginations that real life eludes them and to those who know such people not to let them feel so isolated that such pursuits seem like the only way to find peace.

The HP Pavilion dv8000 Could Use a New Power Cord But Otherwise Works Great

Three years ago, I received an HP Pavilion dv8000 for my birthday. I’d had other laptops before at various times; this one was by far the fanciest of the bunch. It had been a few years since my last laptop, and I had grown accustomed to using a desktop, but I fell back into the laptop groove immediately. The only thing that took a little getting used to was the touch pad instead of the mouse. The range of motion isn’t quite as wide as it would be with a mouse, but I quickly adjusted, as evidenced by the large area in the center of the touch pad where the color has been worn away. I’ve never used a mouse with it because my laptop is almost always literally in my lap, where a mouse wouldn’t do me much good.

The keys are about half as deep as the ones on our desktop. This makes typing quicker and quieter. Meanwhile, they are of comfortable size, perfect for long stretches of typing; my mom has a laptop about half the size of mine, and typing on her computer is much slower going for me. My HP Pavilion allows me a lot of speed in composition. Word processing and Internet navigation are the two main things I use my computer for, and it performs well in both of those areas, at least most of the time. I get frustrated by the incompatibility among various word processing programs, and different versions of the same program, but that’s really not the computer’s fault.

For the past couple of years, I have had a digital camera, so I’ve begun storing quite a few pictures on my laptop. I have upwards of 7000 photos saved, and my computer is in no danger of running out of space. Of course, my documents take up far less room than the pictures, so I’m in good shape spacewise. I’ve typed hundreds of documents on here and saved them with no difficulty, and on those occasions when my computer does freeze up while I’m working on something, most of the data can usually be restored.

Internet navigation has worked very well for me, aside from some occasional connection problems. Most of the time, it takes seconds to hop from site to site, which is especially handy when I am answering questions for ChaCha, a mobile answering service. Working as a guide there requires downloading the ChaCha Tool Bar, and installing that was a very quick and easy process for me. I am always able to watch videos on YouTube and take advantage of the Instant Viewing on Netflix with few hiccups. Same goes for uploading photographs on Facebook.

On the downside, I have had to take my computer in for repairs a few times. It seems rather vulnerable. I’ve replaced various aspects of the laptop, and at the moment I am operating without a working USB port or sound of any kind. Because of the other computers in my house, I don’t really miss these capabilities much, but if I were on my own I would definitely mind. I can’t really say if the problems I have had are indicative of a flimsy computer, or if I’m just very hard on mine. I use it a lot. The biggest issue inherent with my laptop is the power cord, which breaks easily. I’ve had to replace it several times; the design seems to be inherently impractical.

Despite a few issues, I’ve loved my HP Pavilion and hope to get much more use out of it in the years to come. I’m not very technically oriented, so I don’t know how it all works; I just know that when my computer is cooperating with me, I am a happy camper. While I wish the company would reconsider this model’s power cord design, for the most part, the HP Pavilion dv8000 is the perfect machine for me.

The iPod Touch Is Perplexing But Fun For This Bear of Little Brain

Many who know me well might say that I practically live on the computer. Nonetheless, I consider myself a bit of a Bear of Little Brain when it comes to embracing new technology, so when I found out in September that I was the winner of an iPod Touch, I was delighted but also rather intimidated. This is a gal who owns a cell phone that spends most of its time on the kitchen table waiting to be recharged. A gal who is still occasionally befuddled by her portable CD player. A gal who relates disturbingly well to Jeremy’s parents in the comic strip Zits. So I celebrated my acquisition but proceeded with trepidation.

I’ve now had the iPod for two months, and we’ve had a little more opportunity to get to know each other. My first observation is that the iPod seems to be designed for tiny fingers. I’d say there’s some truth to that, as teenagers seem to be the biggest target for these devices, but how much larger do fingers actually grow after the teenage years? The trouble is more that my fumble fingers haven’t adapted quickly enough. I discovered that they do make styluses specifically to aid in iPod navigation and text-typing, and I may have to invest in one of these; it looks like they run as cheap as a couple of bucks. Still, I can’t help thinking it might have been a nice gesture for Apple to include one of these with the iPod itself. I would think this would be a common problem.

Along those same lines is the issue of my eyes. I find it very hard to read much of what comes up on my iPod because the screen is so small. Generally, I can zoom in by tapping the screen, but I seem to have to hit it in just the right spot in order to elicit a response, and if I’m not careful I wind up zooming out again before I have the chance to read whatever it was that interested me. Moreover, I also have a tendency to accidentally click on links while trying to increase the font size or scroll to a different part of the screen. In addition to the stylus, I’m considering investing in a magnifying glass.

Once that stylus comes in, I’ll probably make more use of the Notes feature, which allows me to type in and save my ruminations with the help of the pop-up keypad. I always carry a notepad or two around with me in case inspiration strikes, and it’s much easier to jot things down by hand than on the iPod, especially if it’s something of any length. On the other hand, I have a tendency to misplace things; one notebook containing a number of rather useful notes went missing on me for the better part of a year, much to my consternation. So if I have something I’m especially keen to remember, the iPod is a pretty good place in which to store it.

I always wear a watch, so I really don’t use the Clock feature much, but it’s neat to be able to look up different locations throughout the world, and the Alarm, Timer and Stopwatch might come in handy sometime. Same goes for the Calendar. The Calculator is a nifty feature for a right-brainer like me, and given the fluid state of the climate in Erie, PA, I can always use a Weather update.

My main association with iPods is iTunes, but while my brother helped set me up with that, I’m not quite brave enough to venture into that territory without his further aid. I blame that partly on an episode of The Simpsons in which Lisa has a fictionalized version of an iPod and accidentally racks up thousands of dollars in bills downloading songs. Terrifying. So come Christmas break, Nathan can give me a hand with that one, hopefully in time for me to bring my iPod along on our traditional post-Christmas trip. By then, perhaps I will have become fully accustomed to the feel of the tiny ear buds.

At the moment, I’m using the iPod mostly for Internet navigation via the browser Safari and YouTube. I was surprised to see this website has its own application icon; I guess it’s just an indication that it’s one of those sites that meteorically rose to become a part of everyday life for a huge portion of the web-browsing population. I’ve been hooked on YouTube ever since I discovered it while hunting down Saturday Night Live‘s Lazy Sunday four years ago, so having such easy access to it is a nice little bonus, especially since my own laptop’s sound hasn’t functioned in some time. I was getting my YouTube fix on my parents’ computer, but the iPod is even handier. Annoyingly, my laptop’s USB port is also not speaking to me, so I have to plug it into the desktop to charge it up. Which makes me wonder whether my iPod’s battery power will survive my upcoming trip... So far it seems to keep a charge for a decent length of time, though, so I’m not too concerned about it.

With so many different applications available - and there are quite a few I have yet to try, both built-in and downloadable - there ought to be something on the iPod Touch to please anybody willing to embrace a bit of new technology. While I haven’t figured out all the ins and outs of mine yet, it works well and has a lot of nifty features that would be especially handy to me away from home. I just need to get in the habit of toting it around and find a good way to protect it. I suspect that this slick little gadget will find its way inside many a brightly wrapped package this Christmas, and that once they get the knack of it, the recipients will find it a gift that keeps on giving.

Ohhhh Noooo!!! The Next Generation of Tetris Lures in Unsuspecting College Student...

I first became acquainted with Snood last year, when I discovered that most of the members of the school's newspaper staff were addicted to this odd-looking game. Whenever an editor was late to a meeting, a fellow editor would announce, "Oh, they're probably playing Snood." Sometimes the game would even find its way into the meeting via someone's laptop.

I viewed this phenomenon with some bemusement, not entirely understanding the obsession but still itching ever so slightly to try it myself. Imagine my surprise when I returned home from my overseas travels to find that my brother had installed it on my computer in my absence.

"Wow," I thought. "This is that game that everyone at school is so obsessed with. I ought to give it a shot."

And so I did. I just started playing and figured it out as I went along. When I was younger, I used to spend hours playing Tetris. Now I found myself doing the same thing. Snood is quite a bit different from Tetris, but it still operates under the basic premise that keeping the board as clear as you can is a good thing.

In Tetris, you must navigate oddly shaped blocks into recesses of the same shape. When you complete a solid line, that line disappears. The goal is not to let the blocks touch the top. As an added frustration, you have a limited amount of time in which to rotate and maneuver each block.

In Snood, each object you are working with is a single unit whose shape and face depends upon its color. The blue Snood is a small circle that looks like Mr. Bill. The red one is roughly the same size and has a less definite shape. It resembles some sort of demon. The orange Snood is a large sun-like circle, green is a large square, purple is a triangle, and light blue is a square-like shape surrounded with fringes. Time is not an issue. You can take as long as you want to launch that Snood. Try to line it up with another of the same color, or start a new color group. In order to latch on to harder-to-reach Snoods, try ricocheting off of the side. You'll have less control over where it goes, but it might just lead you to eliminate a whole string of Snoods.

This is a game of strategy. You have to line Snoods up in groups of three. Sometimes a group much larger than that will be there when the level begins, and all you need to do in order to disperse it is attach a Snood to the whole lot. The bigger the group the better, and the more Snoods are supported by it the better. You get the highest points by dispersing large clusters of Snoods with several random Snoods attached to them with nothing left to cling to.

Snood comes in five basic levels: Child, Easy, Medium, Hard, and Evil. I started out always playing Journey, which takes you through the levels until you are unable to clear one, but now I stick to Evil, which is very populous, moves down towards the bottom of the screen very quickly, and includes many skulls, which are dead Snoods that can only be removed by shooting down the Snood clusters that support them. An additional option is Puzzle, in which Snoods are not laid out in rows but are arranged in a strange pattern. I've only played this a couple times. It's pretty tough.

Snood involves only the motion of waving around a mouse and clicking it. It can become monotonous, and if you've been staring at the screen for a couple hours playing it your arm will probably start to hurt and your eyes will start to water. The problem is that this game is so darn addictive! You get on your computer to do your homework and say "Oh, I'll just play a quick game of Snood before I write my paper." There is no such thing as a quick game of Snood. One leads to another, which leads to another, which leads to another... Don't let it happen. Be warned, Snood will grab hold of you and will not let you go willingly. Be prepared to fight back. If you try Snood, just know what you're getting yourself into...