Trek and omnipotent beings.

Watching "Encounter at Farpoint" for the second time, I realize that what Q is accusing the human race of, savagery, seems to be a bit of a Western concept.

While he seemed quite cool when I first saw it, when I was ten years old, now he seems more like Trelane from the original series, a little spoiled child whose daddy bought him omnipotence for Christmas.

And I think his main function is to make Starfleet commanders look cool when they defy him despite his omnipotence. We all like to think that if Q appeared next to us and started judging humanity at us, we'd tell him to sit and rotate. But, looking at the way I've seen humans treat omnipotent beings, historically, they'd probably say "You're so right, we are pretty savage. How can we fix ourselves? I'll write it down and make sure everyone follows it, and then I'll have them write songs about how awesome you are! By the way, can you do me a teeny favor and conjure me up a Gamecube, and make my neighbor's stereo short out so I can get some Z's? If it helps, I can sacrifice my ferret. I can make an altar out of these leftover Ikea parts."

(no subject)

My stuff from Esperanto League of North America arrived at work today. I ordered some books, and an assload of pins. But, only one of the pins arrived; the rest were either discontinued or out of stock. Damn.

One of these books was Gerda Malaperis!, the short Esperanto novel written for beginners. It seems to be a sort of rite of passage for learners of Esperanto, and it's, like, sixty pages.

Can something be called a novel if it consists completely of dialogs, and no narration? It looks more like a script to me.

I also got some promotional material for some Esperanto conventions: one in Boston, and another in Sweden. I'd like to go to one, in my never-ending quest to chase myself out of the safety zone.