Author: DOuG pRATt

The U-Files

The 90’s! The decade of The X-Files and the infamous alien autopsy.

Lovely Rena, a member of the monster-fighting GUTS team, encounters a grey alien in an episode of Ultraman Tiga.

Like the 2005 return of Doctor Who after fifteen years, Ultraman returned to TV in 1996 after a 15-year absence. As with Who, each new Ultraman occupies a different body.

With a partial exception during Ultraman Ace, women had played secondary roles. They mostly handled communications at the command center, like Lieutenant Uhura.

Rena in Ultraman Tiga was a featured character. Her presence was obviously intended to attract teenage boys to the series.

This next scene leaves no doubt the studio knew the effect that Rena would have on their target demographic.

Rena was played by Takami Yoshimoto, who is now 51. Takami was literally born into the Ultra family, as her father, Susumu Kurobe, was the first Ultraman in the original 1966 series.

Takami’s popularity quickly extended beyond Ultraman. The LaserDisc store I frequented throughout the 90’s had Japanese “girl watching” videos for rent, similar to this one with Takami.

Click here to see the safest “boudoir” photo of Takami I can share. It is nonetheless NSFW unless you’re working from home.

Takami with her father, November, 2020.

Mem Drive and Mass Ave.

I first thought about mentioning my peripheral connections to MIT after reading this item in Technology Review at the end of June.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/06/29/1053303/how-mit-ended-up-on-memorial-drive/

My conversation this week with an MIT astrophysicist has nudged me into action. Did we discuss cosmic rays? Black holes at the center of galaxies? Or was the topic her particular area of expertise, the search for dark matter?

No, it was something quite Earthbound and mundane. A contractor had sent her to me for a reference.

Unknown to me for many years, when my family moved to Massachusetts, my father’s cousin Jane was at MIT, getting her PhD in Political Science.

Dr. Jane Pratt, 1943-2013

In the 70’s my father worked at the MIT Sloan School of Management for a few years. In the 80’s my twinster Jean worked at MIT while I was working at a nearby company named after MIT, founded by a couple of its grads. A friend who’s reading this is an MIT grad.

A AA Miracle!

I was going to post this last March, when the miracle ended. I’ll do it now before forgetting again.

For Christmas, way back in 1995, Santa delivered a Nordic Track machine. The classic low-tech design that simulates cross-country skiing. I don’t know if they’re even made anymore.

After becoming a dad I gave up running for a few years, to happily meet the demands of being a dad. When I wanted to start getting back into some sort of shape, Nordic Track seemed like the best the way to do that. The machine’s nifty exercise tracker required two AA batteries.

As was typical for Duracell at the time, the batteries were dated five years ahead.

That January, 2000 date was somewhat prophetic. Not because it was the millennium, but because at that time I was stuck face down in a vitrectomy chair, after the second surgery to repair the detached retina in my left eye. What’s a vitrectomy? Trust me, if you don’t need one, you’re better off not knowing.

After being allowed to get up from that blasted chair, my doctor wouldn’t let me run again until he was sure my eye had healed, which took a long time. I had his okay, however, to use the impact-free Nordic Track, and it felt wonderful. The ski machine was an essential part of my recovery.

I continue to use the Nordic Track to vary my exercise routine, and as therapy for my weak ankle. Last March, after more than 26 years, the original Duracell AA batteries were showing their age. The LCD display would work for a while but then turn itself off. So it was finally time to replace the batteries, and I was pleased to see they hadn’t leaked. Which newer Duracells seem to have more of a tendency to do.