It didn’t come as a surprise when the province of Ontario went back into the “grey zone” again last week. But sad to say, when I asked myself “How will this change my daily routine?,” I had to admit that it wouldn’t. Easter wasn’t that different from last year. I did some live streaming, I did some listening, I did some writing.
Actually I did a lot of listening and writing. Andy Curran (Coney Hatch, Soho 69, Caramel) will be on the show this Friday April 9. The guy is fount of rock knowledge so this will be quite a tour-de-force, and I have been doing my research. I’ve been listening to Coney Hatch and solo Andy, on repeat. I have three Rock Candy remasters here with valuable liner notes and bonus tracks. I’ve been reading. Deke will be in seventh heaven getting to talk to one of his heroes. It’s going to be a lot of fun, and that’s one reason I do this. It’s fun.
Friday afternoon I went over to my parents’ house to pick up some mail. Mail theft became a serious issue last year so now I have my mail delivered elsewhere to be collected. In the mail were two Star Trek movies that I haven’t seen in a long time. Two years ago, I made the mistake of donating all my Star Trek DVDs while doing a big purge. I said “No big deal, I’ll just buy a Blu-ray set.” But none of the Blu-ray sets had the features I wanted from the DVDs. I have been slowly buying them back, and this weekend I got to star Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
It has been literal years since seeing The Voyage Home, or “the one with the whales”. Perhaps a decade. What a perfect film, at least as perfect as any movie with time travel conundrums can be. I smiled and chuckled the whole way through.
As for Khan, I know I streamed it somewhere fairly recently, but it has been just as many years since I watched the extended director’s cut. It only adds up to a few minutes here and there, but it was all fresh and new to me. The restored scenes help clarify the identity of young Peter Preston, who dies in the first attack. “He stayed at his post, when the trainees ran!” mourned Mr. Scott. A restored line reveals Peter Preston is Scott’s nephew. “My sister’s youngest,” he says. “Crazy to get to space.” Lines such as this add value to the already perfect film. Others do not. Additional exposition was probably cut because it wasn’t necessary. I did like one in which Kirk explains to Spock who David Marcus is. “That young man is my son”, says Kirk. The only reply necessary from Spock: “Fascinating.”
So I had fun. I made lots of time to play some music. I listened to Paul Stanley’s Soul Station, and I’m trying to find a way to be objective about reviewing it. I like it a lot. But if anybody else with a better voice put out a similar record, would I give it the time of day? Unlikely. So there is a certain hypocrisy there that I must address before I attempt to review it. But I will. I genuinely like the album. But I like it on the same level that I like the Peter Criss solo albums: as a reasonable facsimile of the real article. A forgery through the lens of somebody I already like and am familiar with. Easier to digest.
Tonight: Easter dinner courtesy of Golf’s Steakhouse, via the generosity of my mom who always spoiled us. Friday night’s live stream was Easter themed, and viewers were shocked at how spoiled we were as kids. We got great Easter gifts while other kids got a chocolate bunny. My sister and I didn’t question it, we just went with it!
Thanks mom for dinner tonight. I ordered a porterhouse. It’ll be here in 10 minutes.
Happy Easter my friends.
mikeladano.com 
Awesome Coney and Curran scores along with everything else there, pal. Good on Stanley wanting to do what he wants to do but I dunno man. I will wait til your review and go from that point. Friday will be epic.
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I don’t know if you wanna trust my review man. I’m give a soul forgery a high rating while not owning any Aretha Franklin. Not a good look!
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I remember when Kevin picked his Star Trek DVDs up. Oh, the big purges… and the regret later down the line…I have a few myself.
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I still have TMP and Kahn which are the only two with any major differences. And I kept TNG ones because I have no plans to upgrade garbage, lol
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A buddy was doing a parking lot visit yesterday. He helped me donate all my stuff. Not good memories. “I remember you saying you didn’t wanna do this,” he said. He was right.
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If only we had an infinite amount of space. For the most part I have no regrets with my purge. Those New Order cassettes that I’ll never play tho? Right in the heart, lol
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Happy Easter! I’m sort of with you on Paul’s album. I like it okay, but if not him, I wouldn’t have listened to it at all.
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Exactly. So I’m not sure how to write that up fairly.
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I wish I could tell you how. I am not planning on reviewing any time soon for that reason.
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Get ready for severe trolling when it happens!
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I wrote all weekend but it was just to catch up. Here I am on Monday again with nothing prepared for the week, lol
What extras on the Star Trek Blu-rays are different from the DVDs? Just about everything from the 2 disc DVDs is carried over and they actually add more HD content. The only big differences as far as I can tell are Kahn is a bit extended from the Theatrical version and of course, TMP is a different movie. But I kept those.
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All I could find were box sets with no special features. So I opted to just get the old DVDs back.
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This is what I have. It has 99% of the same extras. And some of the extras that are “missing” are just presented differently. Like a text trivia commentary is now in the new library feature. Of course, the menus are different and you only get the theatrical cuts of TMP and Kahn.
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Sorry, here is the link, lol
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Thanks… I’m pretty happy with having my DVDs back. Upgrading to Blu was just an excuse to donate my originals. “Oh I’ll just upgrade…” But I never had a need to upgrade. I can play the DVDs on any of my computers and also bring them to the lake. I never should have donated them.
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Fair enough. Paramount did a bang up job for a change on transfering the films into HD, so the Blu-rays look amazing on the 4K TV which is where I watch them.
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Thank you. Maybe one day I’ll upgrade on the good films – 2, 4 and 6 in particular. But now I just want to watch them all again. Even 5. Especially 5. The devious thing about watching 4 is that it makes you want more. And more was 5. Lol.
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Yeah, I only brought it up because you said in your post that the special features are missing. But DVDs are more accessible than blu-rays. 5 has its moments. That is all the positive I can say about it.
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Well I sure thought those special features were missing. I went to Sunrise and looked at the movies they had there and saw very little. Must be different versions?
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Happy Easter dude and Dudette!
I had some of those Star Trek DVD sets, though I think they went out on the last purge. If I’d known, you could have just had them, no worries. Damn.
Quiet around here too. We visited my in-laws on Friday, as the restrictions were coming back in on Saturday – under the wire! We had a very distanced driveway visit with my folks yesterday – they just got round one of their shots on Friday.
That Andy Curran show is gonna be brilliant!
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We did the driveway distancing thing on Friday but it was so cold. Hoping for a porch visit soon. By this time next week, the entire family will be vaccinated with their first shots.
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That’s great news. Cindy got her first round as hospital staff, my folks got theirs as their over 70. Just me and the kids left for first round shots, I suppose we’ll get there eventually.
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I haven’t seen those Star Trek flicks in an age. Honestly over 20 years. Must be. Or at least close to 20. I didn’t know there was a directors cut of Khan, so I’ll need to look out for that.
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