Wanderings · of · a · Postgrad

I went on a bus trip with the brewing club I am a member of (to be precise, the Amateur Winemakers and Brewers Club of Adelaide), and it was awesome. We started at Beard and Brau, a new and upcoming micro, where we had a very detailed tour and some tastings. Their Red Tail was good, their Golden Paw was fantastic, and their Bon Chiens*... totally glorious. At $5/330mL (a bit over 11oz for you American folk) it's not cheap but it's worth every cent. I got a 12 pack of the Golden Paw, a 6 pack of the Bon Chiens and one of their shirts, and it looks quite fetching on me.

Next was Vigara winery which had some nice wines, some too sweet, others too overpowering. I really liked their rose, which Mel bought a couple bottles of. I didn't like their late harvest chardonnay, which Mel bought a few bottles of. I'll be trying to get a few glasses of the former off her at some point.

We then had lunch, which was a BBQ that was included as part of the cost of the bus. I brought a keg of my blonde ale which, despite being shaken up (and thus somewhat cloudy) got some good reviews from the other people there. Well, it did win the club blonde ale comp just last month... It was served from a keg through Jono's portable keg setup, so it was a team effort- me with the beer and him with the means to get it into people's glasses. Nice.

Last was Dominic Versace, which prides itself on having wine that is made with no artificial fertillisers. I remember thinking everything was great, however I was very drunk by that point. I also remember the wine being really expensive- $28/bottle expensive. Ouch.

After that was the drop off back at Civic park and the ride home with Ramona. I then watched DS9 with Mel and tried a longie of her very first brew! We both agreed that it was somewhat heavy on the coffee- however it was a very good beer, especially considering it was her first one! I remember my first beer, it was undrinkable.

Good times.

* For those who followed this asterisk, it's a Saison, which is a style of beer brewed in the farmhouses of France. In order to get the beer right you reallly need to use a yeast blend, which has hundreds of different yeast strains all working together to greate flavours that can only be described as 'barnyard'. Awesome.

It's an interesting flavour, and there's something there to keep me interested for a whole bag. The peppery/garlicky tastes don't really become tiring which is nice. It's somewhat different and I credit them for that, however it is just that little bit lower than the salad flavour, giving it a 4/5. 

WORK this out: the government is proposing a new tax to cascade through the entire economy and it's the opposition that has to explain itself. Sure, the emissions trading scheme is presented as an act of environmental righteousness. Even so, it's more than slightly odd that the overwhelming focus of debate so far has been on differences of opinion inside the Liberal Party rather than on the practical difficulties of the biggest economic upheaval since the GST.

Well, a lot of people have been wondering about that as well. In fact, I have read just as many articles about the attention paid by the media on the Liberal party's internal woes and the distraction that they cause that I have read about the internal problems themselves. In an interesting journalistic circle jerk the examples of journalists writing about what other journalists are writing about the Liberal party's divisions and then in turn writing about how all this writing is taking the focus off the government but not actually writing anything negative about the govenrment at all... it's quite amusing.

He has a good point, though- why is the opposition the side being forced to explain itself all the time? It's partly because it's more interesting- "Backbench revolt against Turnbull" is a slightly better headline than "PM Needs to answer for inconsistent economic modelling". Sure I'd probably click on the second link any day of the week, but I doubt many other people would. The other reason is because the opposition isn't doing a very good job at forcing the focus back onto the government. This is clearly an attempt to do so, and I really hope that it works. The key to a good government is a good opposition and when the opposition finds it impossible to get the focus on what they perceive as the problems with the ETS, then it's hardly surprising that the focus isn't on the bill but rather the men quibbling about it.

By supporting negotiations based on a better deal for Australian workers and consumers, the opposition should be better able to point out the flaws in the government's ETS while maintaining its own environmental credentials. If the government accepts amendments to protect farmers from the need to buy permits, to exempt the emissions produced by coalmining, and to reduce the rise in electricity prices, it will be Malcolm Turnbull's bill as much as Kevin Rudd's. If, on the other hand, the government fails to accept improvements that it doesn't own, the opposition could vote against the bill, keep the Coalition intact and prepare to fight an election against the Rudd government's jobs-destroying stealth tax on everything.

I can see where he's coming from here. The opposition needs to promote its amendments (to reinforce its "environmental credentials", what credentials??) as being for the good of all. The push for the exemptions for farmers and miners are part of a two-pronged assault. The first is one that shores up the support for the National Party and hopefully (from their perspective, I think the coalition should be disbanded, but that's just me) shore up the strength of the ties between these two parties, in their uncomfortable partnership. The second is to pull on the argument that Rudd used at the previous election: the mining boom sustained us all during the Howard times. If the Australian public have believed that the mining boom was solely responsible for the economic boom, then arguing that the ETS would destroy the mining sector (even if it's just the huge coal sector) is a very good argument to make. Many people not involved with the mining sector appreciate that the runoff effect caused by a hypothetical collapse of coal mining would mean that their jobs will be under threat as well. This would bode well for Queensland (the state they were flogged in 2007) and WA (the state that's the closest to being blue in the whole country).

The only problem with such a stance is the potential counterattack- the Liberal party is once again in bed with the mining corporations and are not writing their own policies. Additionally, there is a slight change in how people perceive coal, after decades of green lobbying. Many people have been convinced that nuclear energy and especially uranium exports are the future (ironically this started under Howard). The government can also pull out their "We were elected to bring in the ETS they are stopping us from governing waah waah waah" trump card. Both parties pull this one out all the time and it gives me the shits because there's a difference between governing and passing legislation.

The opposition's amendments are responsible because lower economic costs reduce the need for compensation. In fact, one of the reasons the government wants a big increase in electricity prices is to generate more revenue for distribution to Labor's favoured constituencies.

They're doing a what now?? Here I was thinking that any tax on electricity is a state matter, seeing that they run the electricity networks (yeah, private contracts bla bla bla but it's still a state issue). Also, I don't understand this link between ETS-driven increases in electricity prices and increased tax revenue. If someone can explain that one, it'll be good.

Either way, there's the potential for a win here provided the Liberal Party stays united and refuses to be satisfied with a few token concessions. Turnbull will effectively have redrafted the legislation from opposition or he will have been able to demonstrate that his environmental credentials don't come at the cost of Australian jobs. The government will have had to concede that its original legislation was badly flawed or it will have given the opposition a clear issue on which to fight.

While I made fun of this sort of speculation earlier, it's easy to read between the lines in this particular paragraph. Essentially Abbott has argued that unless Turnbull pushes through these changes to the legislation, they will be considered little more than 'token concessions'. These are large changes to demand and the likelihood of Turnbull negotiating all of them in looks to be nigh on impossible. If that happens, would that be grounds for Abbott to slyly undermine him further? Raising expectations in the party room as to what Turnbull could negotiate (after a long period of merely convincing the backbenchers to support even negotiating) could be seen as yet another nail in the coffin when he fails to meet such lofty expectations. I could be projecting, though.

Lastly, I would like to ask: Why is Abbott writing this? According to The Australian, he is the opposition spokesman on families, housing, community services and indigenous affairs. Why is he writing on the environment? I can think of a few answers. Firstly is that he's highly visible- a high profile member of Howard's cabinet, and quite visible publicly. Second is that he's very good at making an argument, this isn't the first time he's written on issues for the Australian (the last was on the intervention, which was actually in his portfolio). Thirdly is the general observation that he has been tempering his views a little, trying to look a little less extreme in the eyes of the Australian public. Gone is the image of a right wing christian fanatic, in is the caring conservative who only wants to look out for Australian jobs.

Overall I agree with the idea that the Liberal party needs to stand up and become a real opposition. Whether they actually achieve any of their goals and amendments, only time will tell.

Overall my opinions on this flavour is the same as the popcorn flavour- it's nice, and has some good flavours in it, but there's nothing here that really makes it unique or standout. Drop this flavour into the packs marked BBQ and gie this special edition name the flick. 3/5.

I'll begin by saying that I'm having these chips with some blonde ale that I brewed, maybe that'll have an impact? Smells... kinda like lettuce. Tastes like spicy ham. Sort of. This one has cream powder in it too, however it's probably not as much and it's probably drowned out by the yeast powder, yeast extract and garlic powder. Come to think of it, yeah I do get a bit of a garlicky flavour off of it.

I actually really like this flavour, despite how awful it sounds. What's good about it is that it really doesn't taste anything like any of the traditional flavours- it really stands out and really has a character all of its own.

I'll give it a 4.5, this one's the best so far. Up next: Australian Barbecue.

On opening the pack, the chips just smell like standard salted chips, nothing special. Tasting it, there is a slight 'popcornness' in the flavour that is quite interesting. There is a kinda buttery flavour going on, which I will attribute to the addition of 'cream powder', whatever that is. The butteryness seems to be just as much in the texture as in the flavour, the chips are kinda 'greasy' without actually being greasy. It's kinda strange.

Overall I give the chips a 3/5. They're interesting, and they try some new things. However, they just feel like Salted: Advanced!! rather than a new flavour. Oh well.

Coming up next: Caesar Salad.

1- Be nice to the staff. Yeah, I know it's our job to be nice to you, but if you smile and say 'please', when it turns out that the carton of stuff you want is at the bottom of a pallet the person is more likely to dig it out. Seriously, I've done it myself- gone to large lengths to help someone who is genuinely understanding that everything can't be full all of the time because we're not perfect, and I've said "we've run out" to complete dicks because I couldn't be bothered. The staff are people, treat them like people please.

2- Departments exist. The person at checkout doesn't care about the quality of the meat, and the person pushing that big trolley of fruit most likely doesn't know where the oil is. That's because stores (especially big stores, which qualifies as a store that does $400k+ a week) have casual staff that don't leave their department. I don't know where anything is in my store.

3- Look for it first. It's annoying when someone walks into a store and asks where something is, without bothering to look for it. Especially when it's either something easy to find like milk, or it's next to them.

4- You are not funny. If you think of a joke relating to something the person is doing, don't say it. It's a lazy joke the person has heard before and is not funny. Once you've worked in a department for about 3 months you have heard them all.

5- You are not interesting. When you are asked "how are you?" the answer is "good" (or perhaps "I'm good thankyou, and how are you?"). We don't care about an appointment you have or how busy your day has been, and we're sure that you don't care about how our days have been as well.

6- We are trying to do our jobs. This essentially means don't make our jobs harder. If someone is creating a display, perhaps you could just take some of that stuff from the aisle shelf? Customers who take something a good 0.5 seconds after I put it in a display are annoying. If you must grab stuff from where a display is being made, the staff would generally prefer it if you just took it from that carton they are filling from. Also, don't joke "looks like I'm ruining your display" (or variations thereof). See: you are not funny.

7- Get out of everyone's way. All stores have thoroughfares, and customers love just stopping dead in the middle of them and chatting. Get out of the way, people want to shop, staff want to do their jobs, and you're ignoring everyone because you're acting like a dick. If you want to chat to a friend, move to one side so people can do what they want to do. Don't block an aisle. I cannot stress this enough.

8- Your time is not valuable- you are shopping. This one's important. People are constantly in a flurry because they're being held up. The staff's time is valuable, because they have X hours to do Y amount of work. You just have to get home in time for dinner. waah waah waah. This goes back to the 'be polite' thing, if a staff member is in your way, the odds are that they really have to be where they are to get their job done.

9- Get out of our way. A flat top can have a couple hundred kilos of stock on it, a roll cage can have up to 500 kilos of stock (that's 1100lb in the old money). If you walk in our way, there is a possibility that we won't be able to stop in time. Hitting people with roll cages is annoying because we have to stop working. Oh yeah, and the whole 'injury' thing.

10- It's not about you. If something's out of stock, it's not a personal slight against you. If all the checkouts are busy, maybe it's just because it's a busy time of the day- be patient, the person at the checkout isn't the person who cut REM by $1000 last month. Calm down, you are shopping, there is nothing serious, amazingly important and crucial about the fact that the store has happened to run out of oregano. The odds are the person whose fault the stock isn't in is is not in the store- and when automatic ordering comes in, it will be nobody's fault, only a computer program's fault.

I think that these requests are simple and easily fulfilled. Ultimately just try to remember that when you're shopping, that behaving like a human to all other people will make it a lot more certain that other people will do the same courtesy for you.

In South Australia we have a problem- and that is that there is a government which clearly feels like it has to answer to nobody. Take the Attourney-General who was sued for defamation. The overall cost was $500k, and hey, why not have the taxpayer foot the bill? Take also the fact that the state government has spent more money on propaganda information campaigns than they have on regional hospitals. Hmm.

The government has a lot to answer for- the size of the deficit (yes, countercyclical spending, but debt still needs to be analysed as to whether the money is spent wisely), the state of the schools, hospitals (especially emergency room times), public transport changes that will get here before 2018, and sheer incompetence. The opposition should be having a field day.

*cough*

Umm... where are they?

Since replacing MHS with... umm... that woman, the Coalition has been largely invisible. The news piece that discussed the above points shocked me because members of the opposition got their face on the news twice! Woah, that's pretty amazing stuff. However, their attacks ahve been largely ad-hoc, and don't put any real pressure on the government. They are assured of a 2010 eleciton win, and most likely a 2014 election win after it if the coalition stays as inept as they currently are. While this is nice in a way- they have public transport and road/rail infrastructure plans that extend to 2018- the lack of a real opposition means that they can run riot and do whatever they want with no real oversight that will force them to concede anything and change their behaviour.

Sure, the opposition has about $15.30 in their bank account. This means that they will have problems getting their message out when it comes to the election. But it costs no money to get their shit together, work on a strategy for taking the government on, and getting their faces on the TV. Hell, if one independent who has no party machinery behind him can essentially get his own policies through the state legislative (and please Xenophon, return to state politics, you're embarrassing South Australia in Federal politics), then surely the Liberals should be able to get a soundbyte on the news.

What's Bad

Continuity

There are a number of problems with the continuity that are annoying. In the finale of Zeo, you see Zedd and Rita, after defeating the Machine Empire, ready to go forth and take on the Earth. Then... nothing. They are reduced to a one scene cameo where Rita tells Divatox to just run away after hearing she was going to take on the Rangers. Second is the lack of a decent explanation of why they left their Zeo powers so readily. Third is what happened to Bulk and Skull in France and how they reunited with Lt Stone.

Explanations

The gap between Zeo and Turbo is a highly controversial one due to Scorpion Rain. Back a long time ago, Australian fans claimed that Saban was airing a short film that spanned the gap between Zeo and Turbo, which was a 'final battle' of sorts between Zedd and the rangers. This was a hoax, however it took a long time for it to be realised. Fans actually began making a film to fit the synopsis they came up with, but were found out before the film was finished. Embedding is disabled for the video, but click to see what it would have looked like.

The video is quasi-canon. It wasn't recognised by Saban, and apparently it's contradicted by episodes. However, the person who wrote Scorpion Rain went on to write Forever Red, the famous 10-Red Ranger teamup episode. This episode assumes that the events of Scorpion Rain did happen. Work that one out. On the second plot hole, fans have argued that with the loss of Pyramidas and the Warrior Wheel, the rangers were less powerful, and in addition they needed the Turbo keys to get where they needed to go in the film.

Divatox

Divatox is one of the key reasons why the show annoys me. She is attacking the Earth because... well, it's hard to tell. Originally it's because she wants vengeance for the Rangers killing some monster she wanted to marry in the Turbo Movie. This isn't very much to hang a series off, so in episode 13 they set up a message from the Blue Senturion, which was supposed to go to Dimitria, telling of how in the future the United Alliance of Evil will invade the universe. Since she doesn't want to 'share', she will try to avoid these events from happening by trying to stop the Rangers, who will be the "only force in the universe who can stop the UAE". That's just stupid.

OK, why does she want to stop the UAE? She knows that she would be a part of it. Additionally, she initially is a fucking pirate. Her ambitions swing constantly from just destroying the rangers to taking over the Earth constantly. Later on in the series she is the 'Queen of Evil' somehow, despite her quite clearly being on the lower part of the pecking order. Yeah, I like the fact that so early in Turbo you have a link to the plot of In Space, but her character is clearly poorly written.

Justin

Justin is a child. I thought that I would be happy when Rocky left the show, but I wasn't since he was replaced with Justin. For some reason the show's producers thought that having a child would increase its appeal to young audiences. It didn't. He's just annoying and too many stories are based around him, to the detriment of better and hotter characters such as Cassie. Besides, if age was an issue, why cast people who are clearly 30 years old as replacement Rangers and try to convince the audience they are going to high school? (yeah I know the original Teenagers With Attitude were hardly convincing, but this is stretching too far). Having a child play in a series where the Rangers drive giant cars... bad timing.

Dimitria

Firstly, Zordon leaves, in an incredibly unconvincing piece of plot. He is replaced by a person who answers everything with a question. It's fucking annoying, and there are just scenes where the Rangers just ignore her because she is of no actual help. This changes for the mid-season cast change, but I really hate it.

Alpha 6

Alpha 5 left to go to Eltar with Zordon, and he was replaced with Alpha 6. He's very annoying. He's supposed to have a 'street talking New Yorker' voice, and while it's somewhat true to the cliche, the writers forgot that the cliche also includes the fact that EVERYBODY HATES THEM. The writers fixed this for In Space, by having Alpha being broken for a while and having a different, better to handle voice box put in.

Bulk and Skull

How do they mess up characters who grew from punks to being 3-D, great characters? Well, the writers turn them into monkeys. For half the season they are monkeys trying to tell the rest of the world they are monkeys and help them turn back. This is followed by two episodes of them being invisible. It gets better after the cast change, with their ongoing 'trying to keep a job' story.

What's Good

The Mid Season Cast Change

Changing the cast mid-season was a great idea. Tommy was getting annoying, and the writing for these characters, who had been in the show for a while, was getting a little tired. Sure the new Red Ranger (TJ) had the personality of a box, but the other rangers made up for it. There were a number of changes that improved the show- Dimitria began speaking in sentences, the morphing sequence became less shit, the writing improved... it was like a new show. I personally divide the season into pre- and post- "Passing the Torch".

The Rescuezords

While the Turbozords are a bit meh (due to their lack of weapons), and the Turbo Megazord is all right, I really like the Rescuezords. They look great, they have a great finishing move... just awesome.

Episodes 26 onwards

OK, these episodes, despite the ongoing issues with plot are quite good. A few of them, such as "The Curve Ball", could have easily slotted into an MMPR episode, and there were some really good fights, monsters, the ongoing story with Divatox's Zords (they should have taken down one of the Megazords and had more episodes, though)... great stuff. If the whole season would have been like this, I probably wouldn't have had as much of an issue with the show's problems.

Overall

Turbo seems like a show that suffered form internal division. The Sentai series it takes from- Carranger- was very lighthearted, and the writers wanted to follow suit and make Turbo silly as well. Other writers didn't agree and wanted another season like Zeo, which would have been far better. The show just feels half baked, with basic stuff such as 'why is she attacking?' not properly answered in a way that's interesting. The season got better, and I'm guessing it's because the backlash against the season gave the serious people more leverage and got the show onto better footing.

In comparison with the other Zordon era series, it's at the bottom. It's not irredeemable, it just has a lot of elements, especially in the first 15-20 episodes, that just annoy me a little while watching it. I suppose that's the gift the writers of this season has given to the fandom.

Just as in the United States, there is an ongoing debate about the state of healthcare and how the public hospitals could be better suited to deal with people's ailments. The nature of the debate, though, is quite different. This goes all the way back to the heady days of 2007, during the federal election. I was a Ruddite then and despite certain quibbles I have, still am. The campaign was going well- Rudd was ahead in the polls, the momentum was in Labor's advantage and the Liberals were busy turning up late to press conferences. And then Rudd said the words that I really hoped he wouldn't say.

"The Buck Stops With Me"

He made the promise that if, by mid-2009, the states don't "fix" the public health system, the federal government would take over the running of all public hospitals, with a referendum if the states decide to get in the way (which they inevitably would). Well, it's past mid-2009, and the pressure is on. What will Rudd do? Well, the most important course of action is to write a report (note:big file). The report outlines 123 recommendations of reforms to make to the public health system. Some highlights (and these are cherry picked, there are more that are interesting) include-

• We recommend that all Australians should have universal access to preventive and restorative
  dental care, and dentures, regardless of people’s ability to pay. This should occur through the
  establishment of the ‘Denticare Australia’ scheme. Under the ‘Denticare Australia’ scheme,
  people will be able to select between private or public dental health plans. ‘Denticare Australia’
  would meet the costs in both cases. The additional costs of Denticare could be funded by an
  increase in the Medicare Levy of 0.75 per cent of taxable income.

• We recommend the establishment of an independent National Health Promotion and Prevention
  Agency. This agency would be responsible for national leadership on the Healthy Australia
  2020 goals, as well as building the evidence base, capacity and infrastructure that is required
  so that prevention becomes the platform of healthy communities and is integrated into all aspects
  of our health care system.

• We recommend that health literacy is included as a core element of the National Curriculum
  and that it is incorporated in national skills assessment. This should apply across primary and
  secondary schools.

• We recommend that universal child and family health services provide a schedule of core
  contacts to allow for engagement with parents, advice and support, and periodic health
  monitoring (with contacts weighted towards the first three years of life), including:
  • the initial contact would be universally offered as a home visit within the first two weeks
  following the birth. The schedule would include the core services of monitoring of child
  health, development and wellbeing; early identification of family risk and need; responding
  to identified needs; health promotion and disease prevention (for example, support for
  breastfeeding); and support for parenting;
  • where the universal child and family health services identify a health or developmental issue
  or support need, the service will provide or identify a pathway for targeted care, such as an
  enhanced schedule of contacts and referral to allied health and specialist services; and
  • where a child requires more intensive care for a disability or developmental concerns, a care
  coordinator, associated with a primary health care service, would be available to coordinate
  the range of services these families often need.

• We recommend development and adoption of National Access Targets for timeliness of care.
  For example:
  • a national access target for people requiring an acute mental health intervention
  (measured in hours);
  • a national access target for patients requiring urgent primary health care
  (measured in hours or days);
  • national access targets for people attending emergency departments (measured in
  minutes to hours);
  • a national access target for patients requiring coronary artery surgery or cancer treatment
  (measured in weeks/days); and
  • a national access target for patients requiring other planned surgery or procedures
  (measured in months).
  These National Access Targets should be developed incorporating clinical, economic and
  community perspectives through vehicles like citizen juries and may evolve into National Access
  Guarantees subject to ensuring there is no distortion in allocation of health resources.

• We recommend that the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing take a lead in the
  inter-sectoral collaboration that will be required at the national level to redress the impacts of the
  social determinants of health to close the gap for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
• We recommend an investment strategy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s health
  that is proportionate to health need, the cost of service delivery, and the achievement of desired
  outcomes. This requires a substantial increase on current expenditure.

• Care for people in remote and rural locations necessarily involves bringing care to the person or
  the person to the care. To achieve this, we recommend:
  • networks of primary health care services, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
  Community Controlled Services, within naturally defined regions;
  • expansion of specialist outreach services – for example, medical specialists, midwives, allied
  health, pharmacy and dental/oral health services;
  • telehealth services including practitioner-to-practitioner consultations, practitioner-to-specialist
  consultations, teleradiology and other specialties and services;
  • referral and advice networks for remote and rural practitioners that support and improve
  the quality of care, such as maternity care, chronic and complex disease care planning and
  review, chronic wound management, and palliative care; and
  • ‘on-call’ 24-hour telephone and internet consultations and advice, and retrieval services for
  urgent consultations staffed by remote medical practitioners.
  Further, we recommend that funding mechanisms be developed to support all these elements.

•  
• Health and aged care spending is forecast to rise to 12.4 per cent of gross domestic product in
  2032–33. We believe that:
  • major reforms are needed to improve the outcomes from this spending and national
  productivity and to contain the upward pressure on health care costs; and
  • improved health outcomes are vital in promoting a healthy economy through greater
  productivity and higher labour force participation; and
  30
  A Healthier Future For All Australians Final Report JUNE 2009
  RECOMMENDATIONS
  • evidence-based investment in strengthened primary health care services and prevention
  and health promotion to keep people healthy is required to help to contain future growth
  in spending.
• The Commonwealth Government would assume full responsibility for the policy and public
  funding of primary health care services. This includes all existing community health, public
  dental services, family and child health services, and alcohol and drug treatment services that
  are currently funded by state, territory and local governments.

My biggest issue with a federal takeover of hospitals- partial or full- is that there is no evidence that the federal government, given current funding modelling, will run the public hospitals any better than the states. Shortly before the 2007 election, the Howard government decided that they would take over the administration of one hospital in Tasmania. Despite it being an open and running hospital, it took them several months to ensure that the hospital would have staff. This was mainly due to their insistence they sign AWAs. However, the takeover was generally regarded as a failure since the federal government didn't do any better a job at managing the hospital than the state government did.

I'll be keeping my eye on what transpires.

Ahh, the heady days of the 90s. TV was more innocent, we had shows like Full House and people pretended that things weren't just plain messed up. Saban, after being knocked back by many networks (that didn't think his idea was a good one) Finally got Fox to release a kids' show which uses footage for a Japanese show called Super Sentai spliced with American footage to make a show about heroes who wear power outfits and drive giant robots. Totally awesome. So what are my thoughts on the first season of MMPR? Well, I'll split it up into its individual parts.

Rangers

Jason (red)- He's a good leader, though sometimes he tries to think things through a bit too much. There was an episode dedicated to the 'who will win a Jason VS Tommy fight?' question, which the writers refused to answer as they didn't let the fight go ahead (yeah, they were under a spell, bla bla bla). He sometimes gets a little preachy, but that's mainly associated with the showrunners wanting the episodes to have morals on a frequent basis. Most of his rants are about teamwork.

Zack (black)- I know his character is racist, but he's still awesome. Making the black cast member the black ranger was a little dumb. Making him a sass talking black man who can dance and incorporates dance into his own form of fighting? I'm torn between saying "laaaaame" and "OMG how awesome". In s1 his only real character stuff was focusing on him trying to woo Angela, which was a waste of time- talk about unattainable women, she is a total bitch to him over and over again and he just laps it up. Grow some balls, man! Your friends are laughing at you behind you back after they encourage you to 'go for it'.

Billy (blue)- The resident nerd of the show, the writers decided to underline it by giving him glasses and having him speak using more complex words than necessary. He also seems to have the most advanced stocked laboratory in the world in his garage, since he can find ways of neutralising all sorts of chemicals and technologies all by himself and in a matter of hours. Seriously, this guy should be working for the CIA or something.

Trini (yellow)- Ooh, they made the Asian one yellow. Trini... umm... she's female? There's little to say about her, she rarely got stories (the only one of note is when her doll, Mr Ticklesneezer, is turned into a monster). They make a point of her being Asian sometimes.

Kimberly (pink)- The ranger everyone wanted to fuck. Kimberly was the more interesting of the two females- she did gymnastics, she was kinda energetic and bubbly, and she got a lot of screen time because she is good looking. I bet the one episode where you can kinda see up her dress was worn pretty quickly by fanboys slow-moing it over and over again. She had the most useless power weapon, and a kinda useless zord, but she was kickass in the fighting scenes.

Tommy (green)- Tommy is the most prolific ranger, being in the most amount of episodes, having the greatest number of powers and colours (4), and in general being kickass. Saban got Toei to make more footage especially for them so they could make more green ranger based episodes. This is because in Zyuranger (the season MMPR1 takes from) the green ranger, who is there the brother of the red ranger, dies at the end of "The Green Candle", as opposed to MMPR where his powers are (mostly) drained. Fan demand brought him back, because Tommy is a total legend. Pity he spent most of the episodes they brought him back for crying "oh noes my green powers are running out". Not as bad as Jason's crying in s2 about not being able to stop the green candle from burning. The debate of 'who is better? Tommy or Jason' is always made interesting by the whole 'Jason with the dragon shield and dagger was nearly invincible, so that was awesome' which I disagree with... but I digress.

Other Characters

Zordon- The first mentor and a very important character in the show's history. He's barely in In Space but the season is based around him. My only gripe is that the setup with the Command Centre with Alpha gave the writers a too tempting option of having Alpha contact the Rangers and say "we scanned the monster with out computer, and *this* is its weak spot". That said though, Zordon is a great mentor who sets up the role he/she must play in the show. Zordon is a dick though, sending Tommy and Jason to get a weapon, forcing them to fight against Titanus (and almost dying) and later saying "oh yeah, he's really on our side, that was a test to make the two of you become true team mates". This happens a lot with Zordon.

Alpha 5- He's... interesting. The Nostagia Critic described him as "C3PO if you made him more gay", and that's kinda accurate. His catchphrase of "Ai ai ai ai!!" actually doesn't get as irritating as you might think, and luckily they dropped his attempts to be street talking. The ease in which his programming can be corrupted (and fixed) is worrying though.

Bulk and Skull- The so-called 'bullies' of the show, I really find them annoying in s1. This is partly due to the amazing amound of character growth they had in Zeo and In Space, and also due to them being pretty shitty bullies. The writers seemed to flex between them being bullies and straight comic relief. If they stuck to the latter, then it would have been a bit better. The way they are in the show, they are more pathetic and I feel more sorry for them than anything- they are so maladjusted and are so bad at fitting into society that they only have each other. This causes them to lash out. They get better over time, and I am thankful for that.

Ernie- The owner of the juice bar/youth centre/gym/whatever else the writers want it to be they hang out at. He is just so loveable that you almost overlook the fact that you have an incredibly fat man running a gym. It just looks odd sometimes. However, he is just filling in the 'jovial fat man' role that works so well. The episode where the place is going out of business is actually quite sad, because he is such a great guy (don't worry, the juice bar was saved!)

Mr Kaplan- The principal who exists to only say "Deeeeeetention!!!" and have his toupee knocked off. That's about all.

Villains

Rita Repulsa- The biggest problem with all her schemes is that they are just so... simple. Send down monster, Rangers will defeat it. Every now and then they got a bit more complex, but they always ended with a standard zord-monster fight. She was fighting the Rangers on their own terms, and that's why she wasn't really successful, only destroying a few zords (and that was her brother's work... but that's for next season to discuss). She's the archetypal villain, yelling at her minions when things go wrong, so there's little imagination there. However, the voiceover of the Sentai footage is just fantastic.

Goldar- Goldar is the shit. He's huge, he's impressive, and he's covered with gold armour. In s1 he's totally badass, with some fantastic fight scenes with both Jason and Tommy. The fights in Rita's dimension? Totally awesome. S1 is the only season where he's totally intimidating and frightening, they tone it down from s2 onwards, which is a shame. Seeing him team up with Scorpina against the Megazord is totally awesome, even now.

Squatt and Baboo- They were the best in s1 and had their roles taken down a notch from s2 onwards. Baboo totally looks like a character you would see in a character of Monkey. The two of them are Rita's cheerleaders, frequently going to Earth to cheer on the monster or do some task. This didn't happen from s2 onwards since they were no longer using Zyuranger footage. But oh well. Apart from that, they were the typical grovelling servants of an evil mistress.

Finster- The creator of Rita's monsters, there's little to say about him, apart from the interesting observation that he calls her "my Queen" despite her not being one.

Scorpina- Brought into the show during the 'Green With Evil' arc, she is made of awesome. When she arrives she gets 'born' out of a pod covered with scorpions. In human form she is totally hot and I remember having a crush on her when I was young (I always liked the evil ladies), and when she grows, she becomes an ugly-ass monster with a stinger that fucks the Megazord badly. She has a great hand weapon, and fights brilliantly. As I mentioned before, when she teams up with Goldar, it's a scene of awesome.

Putty Patrollers- The foot soldiers, they are all right. However, I think Finster makes them out of the stupid clay, they always act like they are confused monkeys or something. However, they do ensure that the audience gets some great fight scenes.

Weapons

Power Weapons- Why must they all have 'power' in their names? One episode features the alternative names (I'm guessing they changed them at the behest of a toy company or something) and they weren't bad... though 'dino daggers' seems a little naff. Jason's sword and Zack's axe were the best weapons.

Power Blaster- Combine the power weapons and what do you get? the power blaster. I remember shouting out the names of the weapons as they threw them into the air to combine. I never understood how  when you see it fire there are 5 beams of energy, yet only one hits the monster.

Dragon Dagger- This sidearm is used to control the Dragonzord (by playing it like a flute) and is also quite a powerful weapon, being able to glow green somehow. The Sentai fans hate the music used in MMPR.

Blade Blasters- The standard sidearm for the Power Rangers, it was impressively designed. Normally a short range dagger, by flipping the blade around a bit, it turns into a laser pistol. They can do a finishing move with it, by forming a human pyramid of sorts, pointing the blasters towards the middle and firing, creating a ball of energy. Looks kinda cool, but not as cool as the power blaster.

Zords

Dinozords- The first problem with these zords is that only two of them are actually dinosaurs. I have two explanations about this. The first is that "We need Prehistoriczord power now!!" would have sounded stupid. The second is that despite being over 10,000 years old, Zordon has never checked an encyclopedia. The dinozords are good, but not great. My issue is that only the Tyrannosaurus is really useful when not combined. That said, the TRex is just great.

Megazord- The Megazord is great. Nicely designed, and it doesn't look *too* bulky a costume to wear. The power sword has a great finishing move, with what is typical Japanese special effects behind it when that happens. Top stuff.

Dragonzord- I own a Dragonzord. This is a top zord, because it looks fantastic. Obviously ripped off of Godzilla (hell, him coming out of the port is a direct ripoff). Seeing it fight against the Megazord in "Green With Evil" was just fantastic, and I would imagine the fan gushing about that was what made the writers come up with other ways for it to turn evil or merely give control of it to Rita in some episodes.

Dragonzord Battle Mode/Mega Dragonzord- Dragonzord combining with the Triceratops, Sabretooth Tiger and Mastodon to make a Megazord that is IMO the best of the good Zords this series. Using the staff to drill a hole in the stomachs of the monsters as a finishing move? Oh yeah.

Dragon Megazord/Mega Dragonzord- Dragonzord splits open and sits on top of the Megazord. Kinda top heavy and its finishing move is kinda lame. However, this seems to be more of an intermediate point so we can all get to the Ultrazord.

Titanus- There's little to say about this zord, apart from the fact that it's the carrierzord for the Ultrazord. Looks kinda nice.

Ultrazord- The biggest problem with MMPR1 is that there is no sense of danger, that they will fail. There is always a more powerful weapon/combination to go to. Power sword didn't work? try Dragonzord Battle Mode. Or Ultrazord if all else fails. The writers made the Rangers too powerful when compared to the villains. This was fixed in later seasons. The zord itself? Kickass. The giant explosion behind it when the Dragon Megazord slots into Titanus- just brilliant.

Music

The music needs special recognition. One band provided all the music- incidental music, themes, intro music. It was fantastic. When I think of Power Rangers, one of the pieces of music these guys wrote comes into my head, the lead singer's voice is just an audio commection with the show that can't be broken. When they're not providing awesome two handed tapping for backing music, they're making great these songs, like "Go Green Ranger", "Fight!", "We Need a Hero" and "Combat".

We'll com running to your side
To protect you from your fright
All of us are on your side
We'll take them...
We'll take them... down...

FIGHT!

Brilliant. I don't know how many seasons they wrote for, they at least did until In Space, so there's a bit of music there. They wrote the best PR theme music ever, the theme for Zeo (more on that when that comes around).

Overall

The show, for some people, suffers from being somewhat cheesy and silly. However, that's what the show is. If you don't want cheesy, then you're in the wrong place, bucko. Kimberly frequently said "This is sooooo 90s!!" (this was dropped quick) and that's kinda true. The first few seasons are clearly lodged in a period of time, and they kinda celebrated it at the time because then it underlined that the show was modern and new. Now it underlines the moment in time when PR was on many screens and was on top of the world. When most people think of Power Rangers, they think of the three seasons of MMPR, not of the 14 seasons that came after that.

However, with that out of the way, what are my thoughts? It's still awesome. The concept of teenagers putting of super outfits to fight monsters in giant machines will always resonate with me since it's fun, lighthearted and a great show to watch when lazing on the couch. However, removing the rose tinted glasses of youth for a moment, there are some faults with the show, and I need to highlight them.

1- The simplicity of the plots. Even as a child there were times when I tired of the formulaic nature of some of the plots. Luckily they get thrown around a bit in s2 and 3, with Zeo giving some fantastic plots.

2- Bulk and Skull. They're not funny, they're not threatening, they're just stupid. Like I said their character evolve (to the point where in "Countdown to Destruction" they actually lead the human resistance to join the Power Rangers in fighting the invasion of Earth... though I will gush about that later), but right now they just suck.

3- The lack of tension. In later seasons there are many episodes with a genuine tension and feeling that they actually won't get through the episode in one piece. In Space perfected this- hell, they started losing Zords long before the end of the season, which freaked the hell out of me. "How are they going to continue without the Delta Megazord??". However, MMPR1 doesn't really have this, and as I wrote earlier there was always the option of going the next Zord power combination up, and destroying the enemy.

However, with that in mind, the series is still great. Watching the Power Rangers in their dinozords on TV for the first time in 17 years was just great stuff.

Standout Episodes: This one's a no-brainer. The "Green With Evil" mini-series (actually called a mini series by the intro voiceover in the 'last time....' section) went for 5 episodes and was an epic. This series of episodes are so lodged into my brain that I still remember the conversations I had at school after every episode. Zordon commented to Alpha 5 that "This is a historic moment" when they say Jason and Tommy shake hands, it indeed was. This episode is also great because it's a source of fanwank over the nature of the Morphing Grid- Tommy morphed without a morpher, just the power coin, what does the morpher do? Does it bind the power to the user more securely, did Rita provide the power, thus meaning that the morpher provides the commection with the grid? Keeps the fans busy.

Worst Episode: A lot of them were pretty much on the same level, though I would probably choose "Oyster Soup", mainly because of its painful scenes of Zack's date with Angela.

I'll be back with a discussion of s2!

The Writing on the Wall brings about the thought that needed to be answered- why don't they get rid of the department? It's hinted at earlier with the newspaper article that suggests the department should be destroyed. The battle over the wording of the draft is a nice summation of the sort of tactics that Humphrey was using, especially when Hacker listed what had been blocked so far.

YM has a lot of very nice set pieces, and it starts with a very good one. Hacker's debate with Humphrey about the content of the paper is incredibly well written. It's one of the real standout scenes of the first season. Apparently Nigel memorised the long speeches that he did, which is an amazing effort, seeing that they involve long strings of very similar words. Apparently the cast weren't a big fan of the pressure put upon them by the studio audience, and I would say that if it were made nowadays it probably wouldn't have an audience, Office-style. IMO satire works better when there's no audience.

I enjoy scenes between Humphrey and Bernard. This episode features the full explanation of the dilemma that Bernard faces- he is the Minister's private secretary and that he is also a civil servant. Not asking to get a second drink for Bernard was a very nice, subtle start to the hostility that Humphrey was feeling towards him, with him offering a drink at the end after Bernard telling Humphrey what he wanted to hear in a hypothetical situation was a nicely structured scene.

Hacker's reaction to the news that his department is interesting. It seems that Hacker immediately thought that he would be ousted from the civil serivce, and then he was told (obviously due to Humphrey's knowledge of Hacker's vanity) that he would have responsibility for industrial harmony, which sounds like a made up department (well, Australia's equivalent is Minister for Industrial Affairs). The need to have Hacker and Humphrey united against the move was important to make sure that they would work together to save the department.

The method of saving the department was quite interesting. The writing structured it quite well, IMO. The Napoleon prize being linked to going along with the Euro pass but at the same time making sure that it wouldn't get out and decrese the popularity of the government. It is one of the best in the series when it comes to comedy, well paced story, and good acting.

And this episode had 'Yes Minister' at the end. which was nice after a few times without.