I’ve been getting a bit off track with both my running and my reviews, so here’s a catch-up post.
I skipped S4E16, Galaxy’s Child, because… well… “As Geordi La Forge finally meets the real Dr. Leah Brahms, a tragic first contact leaves the Enterprise with a gigantic galactic infant suckling the ship’s energy” sounds excruciating. I already endured an episode with Geordi fawning over a holographic simulation of Dr. Leah Brahms, and if I recall correctly this episode has an awkward moment where the real life Dr. Brahms discovers Geordi’s holoprogram. And “a gigantic galactic infant suckling” is just too much. So we move on…
#52
Night Terrors
Season 4 Episode 17
Original airdate: March 16, 1991
Netflix Synopsis
The Enterprise has finally tracked down the missing starship USS Brattain, but Troi senses trouble with the life on board.
My Brief Review
No one on board is dreaming except Troi, who has a recurring nightmare of floating in a green void with the binary stars they’re orbiting floating far above her (yet she somehow can’t figure out that that’s what they are). An alien voice keeps saying “Two eyes in the darkness. One moon circles.” After a couple of weeks they finally figure out that some aliens are trapped just like they are, and are telepathically asking for hydrogen so they can set off an explosion to free everyone. It works. The end.
Memorable Moment
When they finally figure out the hydrogen thing.
Crew Rando
Fightin’ Ensign Gillespie. Chill out, dude!
Distance Rating: 3K
IMDb score: 7.2/10
#53
Identity Crisis
Season 4 Episode 18
Original airdate: March 23, 1991
Netflix Synopsis
La Forge’s friend Leijten expresses concern about the whereabouts of their former crewmates. Soon both begin suffering worrisome ailments.
My Brief Review
For some reason this episode gets an extremely middling review from IMDbers, but it’s one of my most memorable. I didn’t recognize it from the synopsis, but within 5 seconds, I knew it immediately! The one where Geordi recreates a mission log video on the holodeck and discovers the shadow of an unexplained figure. I love that moment. Eventually Geordi, like the others who had been on that mission 5 years earlier, begins to transform into a weird alien species that blends into its environment, acts solely on instinct, and glows like a Tron character in UV light. But his friend talks him off the metaphorical ledge before his transformation is complete, and we get our old friend Geordi back!
Memorable Moment
That moment.
Crew Rando
Honestly, Lt. Cdr. Leijten is kind of a rando even though she’s one of the main characters in the episode, because although we’re told what her relevance to the story is, I don’t think we’re actually told how she ends up on the Enterprise for this episode. Oops.
Distance Rating:
IMDb score: 6.8/10
I’ve always been into electronic gadgets. I’ve also always been into carrying a bunch of crap that I “need” (or perceive that I need) around with me. My dream since I was a kid was always to be able to carry “everything” with me at once, in a convenient way.
In the mid-’80s, the Sony Walkman was the symbol of portable technology. As CDs overtook the popularity of cassettes in the ’90s, and Sony finally figured out how to make a portable CD player that didn’t skip if you so much as breathed on it, the Walkman was gradually replaced by the Discman.
As cool as the Walkman was, you couldn’t actually record with it (at least with most models). You could always lug a 
When I went into writing this post, I really hoped to at least give 1986 the original Game Boy, but my research says it wasn’t actually released until 1989. I never had one, so I didn’t remember. Yes, it’s true… if you wanted a handheld video game device in 1986, the best you could do was one of Nintendo’s single-game “Game & Watch” devices. As rudimentary as they seem today, their design was a clear inspiration for Nintendo’s current line of DS portable game devices.
Calculator watches were so cool (at least, if you weren’t) in the ’80s, it’s hard to believe they would ever fade into laughable irrelevance. They were pretty impressive technology for the time though, and were irresistibly futuristic. It’s no wonder Marty McFly conspicuously sported one on his journey back to 1955… it bolstered his “future boy” cred in a way no nylon vest ever could.
If you were too cool for a nerdy calculator watch back in the ’80s, your only option when traveling was to purchase a dedicated travel alarm clock. Some of these were pretty well-designed, but such a single-purpose device is anathema today. Besides, I’m sure the sight of one of these in a carry-on would raise a TSA eyebrow or two.
Pocket calendars have come in countless variations for almost as long as printing has existed, some more useful than others. Wallet card calendars like the one shown here are about as useless as they get, but that didn’t stop me from having at least one of them in my wallet at all times as a 12-year-old… especially since I didn’t have any money to put in it.
I admit, I’ve never really had much use for a compass. I don’t spend a lot of time out in the wilderness, and I think a compass would only confuse my natural sense of direction in the city. But I recognize the importance of these devices, and thanks to the iPhone’s various internal sensors, all of the capabilities of a real magnetic compass can now live in software.
Ah, the trusty Mead memo book. My dad wrote a thousand grocery lists in these while I was growing up, and the little bits of paper that tore off the spiral binding over repeated openings and closings were everywhere. These days there are 
Sure, there were plenty of pocketable point-and-shoot cameras back in the ’80s, and of course the venerable Polaroid instant camera was still going strong. But no camera — truly, no device of any kind — epitomizes pointless ’80s novelty technology better than the Minolta Talker. I wasn’t able to verify that the Talker existed in 1986 — I think more likely it dates to 1987 or 1988 — but we had one, and I’ll never forget such helpful photographic advice as “Load film” or the classic “Too dark… use flash.”
Ah yes, the JVC VideoMovie. That distinctive red and black camcorder, immortalized by my hero Marty McFly. We owned one of these. It was the stuff of legend. It also, despite its considerable size, used the bizarre VHS-C format tapes. These were about 1/3 the physical size of a regular VHS cassette, but the tape itself was the same width and was compatible with regular VHS VCRs… with the help of a VHS tape-sized adapter that the VHS-C tapes would snap into. Unfortunately, since the cassettes were so small, they only had enough room to hold 20 minutes’ worth of tape. I hope Doc packed a couple of cases of blanks along with his plutonium.
When you look at early cell phones, it’s a wonder the devices ever caught on. Of course, they didn’t really catch on when they were the size of a small refrigerator and emitted enough radiation to make your head glow in the dark. But the fact is, you could own a cell phone back in 1986 and, well, that’s saying a lot right there, isn’t it?
I recently watched the classic 1964 James Bond movie Goldfinger, and was amused by the GPS-like device Bond had in his car. (GPS was just becoming available to civilians in the ’80s, and it looked like 
No industry is reeling from the iPhone (and the iPad) the way publishing is. Newspapers, magazines, books… publishers of all kinds are trying to discover viable business models in the world of paperless publishing. (And here I thought we’d already worked all of this stuff out with the web over the past 15 years.)
Yes… a portable LCD TV in the mid-’80s. Don’t believe it? I had one of these, exactly as shown. It had a 2-inch black-and-white screen. And, strangely, the screen was in the top of that flip-up lid. The bottom part had a mirror, which was what you looked at to view your program. Why? Well… backlight technology was feeble and battery-sucking. The lid was translucent, and if you were in a bright enough environment, the ambient light would shine through, illuminating the screen. There was also a bulky snap-on backlight attachment for use in dimmer surroundings, but if this was in one of your pockets, the rest of them better be filled with AAA batteries or you wouldn’t be watching much.
OK, OK. This flashlight is from the 1960s. But my grandparents had one exactly like this when I was a kid in the ’80s. The big black thing on the side had magnets in it, allowing it to stick to the side of the refrigerator, which is where they always kept it.
It’s a bit of a stretch to call the iPhone a portable computer, at least when compared to 
