Best license plate ever

A friend from NC sent me this pic he took of a real license plate. Fucking awesome.

Star Trek XI

So after seeing the movie a second time, I have to say I enjoyed it more. The first time, I was too distracted by the new actors and all the changes. I was watching too closely to see how they all did. So when I saw it a second time, I was able to simply enjoy the movie. And while it isn't an instant classic or anything, I enjoyed it. I'd give it 4 out of 5 stars.

But I think my original list of pros and cons still stands.

Pros:

• Bones - Karl Urban nailed it and he was my favorite part of the movie. Bones is easily my favorite character from TOS, maybe ever.
• Alternate Reality - I thought that was an awesome way to free themselves from any restrictions of the shows and movies that came before them. And it's hardly a new concept in Star Trek, so it fits with the canon.
• Kirk - He played it well without mimicking Shatner, which would have just turned into a parody.
• CG - The CG of the ships and worlds were awesome. The Enterprise coming out of the dust cloud around Saturn was sweet. All the little touches on the ship made it feel more real.
• Overall the story was good and to the point. It introduced characters but didn't dwell on origin stories, which could have really dragged.

Cons:

• They did a little of the shaky-camera action bullshit that Hollywood is addicted to. Shaking the camera does not make anything more exciting, it just annoys your audience who is trying to follow the action. Fortunately, this was limited to only a couple scenes.
  
• If you had told me yesterday that there would ever be a Beastie Boys track in a Star Trek film, I would have called you a retard.
  
• Sulu with a katana? The whole point of Sulu's character was that he was one of the first Asian guys on TV that wasn't a martial artist. Sulu was Asian, but he was just a dude, no kung-fu or samurai swords. They kind of ruined that, and I feel like Hollywood has moved backwards. It's like making Chekov a communist, or giving Uhura ghetto slang lines; "I gots kids to feeed wit yo special!".
  
• Spock's Ship broke the Star Trek feel and moved into Star Wars territory. Star Trek doesn't do one man vehicles with pointless moving parts, that's Goerge Lucas crap. I always felt like part of what kept Star Trek grounded in plausible reality was the fact that an advanced ship that travels space needs a large crew to operate and maintain it.
• Spock and Uhura? Really? The guy who came up with that should be fired.
  
• This is really nit picky, but I wish they had stuck to more of the original technology. Such as the solid beam phasers, both with the Enterprise and the hand phasers. It really made Star Trek unique in sci-fi tech and again seemed to be more plausible than most. And power requirements, such as raising shields during warp, shouldn't be possible. Power management was a big deal in TOS. It took time to raise sheilds, and you had to sacrifice engine power to do so. Again, it adds to the plausibility, but also allows for some space battle intrigue, such as when Kirk would hesitate to raise shields in a gamble, but takes a photon for it.

Week 17

"Hello, Computer!" - Scotty

So for week 17 I watched the remainder of the original cast films, 3-6. I also saw the new film, but I will post separately about that once I've seen it a second time.

The odd-numbered movies do suck, the curse was true. I think part of it is whom they allowed to direct. Nimoy directed III and Shatner directed V. III had some redeeming qualities, such as storyline and setup for future movie plots, but the directing, action, and writing were over all poor.

The Voyage Home was a comical break from traditional Trek. The idea is not foreign to TOS, so I feel like it was appropriate. And finally, The Undiscovered Country was a good note to finish on for the entire crew. The plot was great, the directing good, better writing, and the story is very timely where it reflects on a changing world with aging actors. It was a good way to go out and say farewell.

103. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock •••
     
104. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home ••••
     
105. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier ••
     
106. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country •••••

Count 106 of 737

Week 16

This week I've finished TAS and started on the movies. I figure I will watch I - VI of the movies because they are all TOS era. Technically, I will be watching them out of order since I have been following release dates, not chronological time. But I want to have all the movies watched before the new film is out next week.

While TAS had some good episodes, and I recommend any TOS fan to watch them, I won't miss it as much as I am missing TOS. So the movies are a welcome change, even if everyone does look like hell. For the first movie, they redesigned the entire Enterprise to be boring and sterile. The uniforms are ridiculous; they all look like aging hippies wearing yoga outfits. And to top it all off, the entire plot of the first film was a repeat, WTF? The whole "probe from Earth evolves with outside help and corrupts it's programming before returning to endanger it's creator" was done back in TOS season two. Specifically, "The Changling" had Nomad, and the entire plot is almost exactly the same, right down to humans being imperfect and infesting the Enterprise. Not a good start. But it gets better...

KHAAAANNN!!!

The second film was far better, and arguably the best Star Trek film ever. The uniforms were reworked and actually look like uniforms, so big improvement there. The plot was more complex and involving. The themes were deep and meaningful. The conversations between Kirk, Bones, and Spock were wonderful and timely. Some of the best dialog ever written for any Star Trek characters come from this movie. Just a few examples:

• "Galloping around the cosmos is a game for the young, Doctor." - Kirk
  
• "Damn it, Jim; what the hell is the matter with you?! Other people have birthdays; why are we treating yours like a funeral?" - Bones
  
• "Jim, I'm your doctor and I'm also your friend. Get back your command! Get it back before you turn into part of this collection, before you really do grow old." - Bones
  
• "If I may be so bold, it was a mistake for you to accept promotion. Commanding a starship is your first, best destiny; anything else is a waste of material." - Spock
  
• "It's a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done before. A far better resting place that I go to than I have ever known." - Kirk, on the death of Spock.
  

It doesn't get any better than that. I only wish the writer who wrote those lines was writing for all the movies. One can only wish.

98. TAS: Albatross ••••
    
99. TAS: How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth •••
    
100. TAS: The Counter-Clock Incident ••
     
101. Star Trek: The Motion Picture •••
     
102. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn •••••
     

Count 97 of 737*
*Note, I have updated the total count to include the 11 movies. The original count was TV episodes only.

Week 15

I'm having mixed emotions about TAS. In some ways it's cool to have new episodes of TOS. But I think the animated aspect has freed the writers from budget restrictions and the result is some really wacky episodes with ridiculous aliens and premises. It seems that some episodes made use of scripts that were intended for TOS, but then at some point they ran out of those scripts and let the Scooby Doo writers come up with some shows. There were some bad ones this week. One of which was written by Walter Koenig (The Infinite Vulcan). Bad, just really bad. It even ended with Sulu looking into the camera with a smile and winking. Like a goddamn Hana Barbara cartoon.

Another thing is the opening sequence. While Shatner's voice-over is the same, the music is more like something out of The Love Boat than Star Trek.


But there is definitely some good in the series. There was even a holodeck in "The Practical Joker"! And here I always thought TNG had come up with that. Also, after seeing more Romulans in Klingon D7 battlecruisers, I finally looked up why that was so. Apparently, there was a fire at the CBS studios and the only Romulan Bird of Prey model was destroyed, so they had to use Klingon D7's for the Romulan episodes. I guess non-canon sources (books and manuals) explain the phenomenon as a trade between the empires. The Romulans gave the Klingons cloaking devices and Klingons gave Romulans some battlecruisers. Interesting factoid, or so I thought.

85. The Infinite Vulcan •
    
86. The Magicks of Megas-tu ••
    
87. Once Upon a Planet •••
    
88. Mudd's Passion •••
    
89. The Terratin Incident •••
    
90. The Time Trap •••
    
91. The Ambergris Element •••
    
92. The Slaver Weapon ••••
    
93. The Eye of the Beholder •••
    
94. The Jihad •
    
95. The Pirates of Orion ••••
    
96. Bem ••
    
97. The Practical Joker •••
    
    

Count 97 of 726

Week 14

This week, I watched several episodes of Star Trek: The Animated Series. It's pretty awesome to see new Trek, especially new Trek with Shatner, Nimoy, Kelley and the others. The only one missing is Chekov, but that is a small price to pay. The other main difference, aside from the animated aspect, is that the episodes are only half an hour now. And it shows. Some episodes move along at a breakneck pace, as if they took a script written for TOS and stuffed it into a half hour. The first episode also suffered from stiff voice acting. Uhura and Kirk were the biggest offenders. They sounded like they were just reading sentences from a newspaper. This improved in the next episode and finally I think they became comfortable with the voice acting in the third episode. Overall, this is true Star Trek, not to be missed by any fan of TOS.

79. Beyond the Farthest Star ••••
    
80. Yesteryear ••••
    
81. One of Our Planets is Missing ••••
    
82. The Lorelei Signal •••
    
83. More Tribbles, More Troubles •••
    
84. The Survivor •••
    

Count 84 of 726

Week 13

This last week was a bitter sweet one. I finished all episodes of TOS. That's right, all of them. While I will miss watching Season 3 Kirk holding in his gut, I am also excited to move onto some new Trek. Well, sort of new. Next up is The Animated Series (TAS). Yes, TAS is a new acronym in my Star Trek vocab. I've never seen a single episode before. Looking forward to it.

This last week of TOS was a pretty good one. It featured some hotties, had cut back on the dramatic camera effects, everyone's hair is back to normal, and the stories are more interesting, even if they are a little Shatner-centric. The Lights of Zetar was notable for it's love interest actually being between Scotty and a girl, even getting in the way of Scotty's only true love, the Enterprise. Requiem for Methuselah has Kirk falling in love with a robot and fighting over it. The Way to Eden had a dumb hippy cult get their bare feet burned by the acid grass of Eden. All Our Yesterdays was a good episode co-starring hotty Mariette Hartley. And finally Turnabout Intruder was a very fun episode just to watch Kirk act like a woman, which I think he did pretty well.

I can see how the show was canceled. The budget had gotten too large while the viewers had shrunk. The sets for the planets in the 3rd season were very elaborate when compared to the simple one room sets of season one. Heck, half the time season one just went to the mountains outside Hollywood to film alien planets.

In any case, TOS, you will be missed.

72. The Lights of Zetar •••
    
73. Requiem for Methuselah ••••
    
74. The Way to Eden ••
    
75. The Cloud Minders ••••
    
76. The Savage Curtain •••
    
77. All Our Yesterdays ••••
    
78. Turnabout Intruder ••••
    

Count 78 of 726

Week 11 & 12

Been a slow two weeks for my Star Trek fix. It was compounded by the fact that my neighbor tilled up my Comcast connection and so I missed a couple nights, on the weekend no less. So for the past two weeks I've only seen 6 episodes. While the content of this batch of episodes is better than the early Season 3 ones, the art direction is still out of wack. I'm not sure who they hired, but the guy should have worked on some Stanley Kubrick wanna-be, not Star Trek. But in any case, there were a few episodes that were thinly veiled exploration of some issues here on planet Earth, such as racism (Let That Be Your Last Battlefield), overpopulation (The Mark of Gideon), and even political marriage (Elaan of Troyius). Definitely an improvement over the last batch.

66. The Empath •••
    
67. Elaan of Troyius ••••
    
68. Whom Gods Destroy •••
    
69. Let That Be Your Last Battlefield ••••
    
70. The Mark of Gideon ••••
    
71. That Which Survives •••
    

Count 71 of 726

Star Trek: Legacy

Yesterday I finished Star Trek: Legacy on the Xbox 360 (also available on PC). The game is a bit old now (2006) and you can find it used for $15 at GameStop. It took a beating in the reviews when it came out. They ranged from 5/10 to 8/10. Remember, with game reviews anything below an 8/10 is considered shit. The scale pretty much starts at 8. However, I think a lot of people were too harsh. I thoroughly enjoyed the game. I enjoyed it so much that when I brought RE5 home on release day, I actually put in Legacy first and played a stage before I finally opened RE5. Maybe my enjoyment had something to do with how I am literally entrenched in Star Trek right now, watching an episode almost every night. Or maybe also because I played the game on Admiral (hard) difficulty, so it was more challenging than some reviewers had played. But I liked it so much I plan on playing it again and trying for some extra achievements.

The game is technically a Real Time Strategy (RTS). You control up to four federation ships in campaign mode. You start with only one, the Enterprise NX-01. You quickly rescue a second ship and take control of it. The combat is fairly straight forward. You have phasers and photon torpedoes. Phasers works better on shields and photons work better on hulls. You can redirect power to engines, weapons, or shields. You start in the Enterprise era so none of your own ships have shields yet, though your enemies do. There is a tactical map where you can issue orders more easily. The combat is essentially dog fighting. The missions vary from rescue, search and destroy, defense, recon, all kinds of things. No two missions felt the same. The game reminded me a bit of X-Wing, the old PC game. I loved X-Wing. While Legacy is far less complicated than X-Wing, it also means that Legacy is far easier to pick up and play. Legacy is not a number crunching strategy game. It is by no means a "casual" game, but it is certainly accessible. The strategy is small tactical deployment. You have four ships, a limited resource. Losing one can cost you in future missions. So you try to keep them together, but once in a while you want to send one of your faster ships off alone to achieve an objective while the main fleet defends another. You earn command points with which you can buy new ships. And those command points are restrictive enough that you don't want to lose a single ship if you can help it. I had a TOS era Constitution class ship right until the final stage, which means it was vastly outgunned and under shielded. But it was still very helpful as one more gun and one more target to distract enemy fire. If I had let it be destroyed in a previous mission then I would have been at a big disadvantage.

The game was a great fan service, IMO. They had every captain from every series with the real voices of the actors. Archer, Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, they're all there. Every version of every ship is there: NX-01, NCC-1701, NCC-1701-A, NCC-1701-D, NCC-1701-E, NCC-74656 (Voyager), NX-74205 (Defiant), and even DS9 makes an appearance. As far as I can tell, it has a complete roster of every Federation ship ever seen on screen. The same is probably true of the Klingon, Romulan, and Borg fleets.

Finally, I'd like to address some of the "problems" of the game, which I think have been greatly exaggerated in other reviews.

1. Pizza Box map - The maps are 3D but limited in the Z-axis, resulting in a pizza box shape. Honestly, I see this as a pro, not a con. It keeps the tactical map and the world at large much easier to manage and navigate. A large Z-axis would have just really complicated the UI and had you flying around trying to find things that are a million miles above or below you.
2. Flaky Controls - The controls do flake out once in a while. Your camera will suddenly jump 180 degrees, or one of your other ships would suddenly forget the command you gave it. While it would have been nice for these to have been fixed, it by no means ruins the game. The camera jump is harmless, and the lost commands are not very often and you are always monitoring all of your ships (or at least you should be) so you will notice rather quickly that Janeway has suddenly decided to go AWOL and is flying out into space.
3. Ship AI does not repair - You are always in direct control of one of your four ships, and the other three will be on AI unless you jump to it. I've read more than one reviewer complain that the AI ships will not conduct repairs no matter how damaged they are. These guys obviously didn't play the game very much. If they did, they would realize that if the AI did enact repairs on its own, it would be suicide. Enacting repairs on any part of the ship redirects a large amount of the ship's power. This means your engines, phasers, and most importantly, your shields will suffer. My guess is these systems lose at least 50% power. This means shields and phaser banks pretty much do not regenerate at all, and your ship is flying at half it's regular impulse speed. That ship is a sitting duck while conducting repairs. If the AI started repairs at the wrong time it would go down in seconds. Repair management is left to the user, and for good reason.

This is not a AAA title, and it seems some reviewers only want to see and play AAA. Well, in my mind, the game has to be first and foremost fun to play. And that automatically makes Star Trek: Legacy better than most of the so called "AAA" titles out there. I loved the game. I think any Star Trek fan with a 360 or PC should play it.

Week 10

Four down this week, and nothing special. This season, while not bad, has been a little lackluster. Also, the weekly women are not always drop dead gorgeous; big disappointment. They did finally fix Scotty's hair (no more greaser look). I don't know who decided to change everyone's hair this season, but they were all bad decisions. They fixed Kirk's pretty quickly, but Uhura is still sporting her horrible new dew. In addition to the new hairstyles, someone decided Star Trek was a good place to start using artsy camera work. In truth, it's the worst place to do it. It's like the studio is trying to kill the show. "If it aint broke, don't fix it!" I'm pretty sure they had that expression back in the 60's.

62. For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky •••
    
63. The Tholian Web •••
    
64. Plato's Stepchildren •••
    
65. Wink of an Eye •••
    

Count 65 of 726

A New Star Trek TV Show?

Bryan Fuller wants to see a new Star Trek TV show. And he might be the guy to make it happen. Could he replace Rick Berman and revive Star Trek? The guy says TOS was his favorite and would like to return to that era, or at least the feeling and attitude of that era. To me, it sounds great. He wrote for the first season of Heroes, which was the only good season of Heroes, so he's got a thumbs up from me!

New Star Trek Fragrences

Two colognes and a perfume coming soon. Maybe a gift pack of all three? Being entrenched in Star Trek as I am now, I actually thought for a minute that I'd buy this. But really, I doubt it.

• Tiberius - Boldly Go
• Red Shirt - Because Tomorrow May Never Come
• Pon Farr - Drive Him Wild

Week 9

Seven episodes down this week. So far season 3 is unimpressive. If the season continues on this way, then there is no wonder why there was no season 4. This week had some disappointments, and only one stand out episode, "Is There In Truth No Beauty?" "The Paraside Syndrome" was notable for one of the worst Shatner scenes ever, in which he elates at his impending marriage to Pocahotness.
Scenes like this gave Shatner his bad rap. I blame the director for letting it by. Can you say "take 2!"

55. Spock's Brain •••
    
56. The Enterprise Incident ••
    
57. The Paradise Syndrome •••
    
58. And the Children Shall Lead ••
    
59. Is There In Truth No Beauty? ••••
    
60. Spectre of the Gun •••
    
61. Day of the Dove •••
    

Count 61 of 726

New Movie Trailer

A new trailer for Star Trek is up! Pure awesome. The only reservation I have so far is Bones. He better raise that goddamn eyebrow sometime during the movie, or I will be greatly disappointed!

And I love the desperation in Eric Bana's voice when he shouts "Fire everything!" Can't wait.

Week 8

8 down this week and TOS: Season 2 is done! I'm getting sad that TOS is going by so fast. But also, I'm looking forward to TAS (The Animated Series) and the movies. Everything was good this week. I'm seeing a pattern of alternate history type episodes, where planets are exactly like Earth apart from one or two major changes. While they are entertaining, they should have spread them out a bit more.

"The Ultimate Computer" was a really good episode that explored computers and automation's role. It was also particularly good to see Kirk almost lose it when he realizes the computer may well replace him and he may lose his ship. Also, "By Any Other Name" was notable in that the Enterprise was taken over by a pair of runway models gone bad.
We are Runway Model. Resistance is Futile.

47. The Immunity Syndrome •••
    
48. A Private Little War •••
    
49. Return to Tomorrow •••
    
50. Patterns of Force ••••
    
51. By Any Other Name ••••
    
52. The Omega Glory ••••
    
53. The Ultimate Computer •••••
    
54. Bread and Circuses •••
    

Count 54 of 726

Week 7

Four episodes down this week. First is Wolf in the Fold, a pretty good episode where Scotty is accused of murder on a pleasure planet. Supernatural activity abounds, including a seance. A little out of the ordinary for Star Trek, but fun none the less.

Then comes the Tribbles. This is by far one of the most well known and memorable episodes. But I hated it. It had a lot of cheap, juvenile humor that is usually reserved for other types of shows, like The Brady Bunch or Andy Griffith. It was also memorable, for me, in that they recycled an actor from season one's The Squire of Gothos (William Campbell). He has a very distinct face, voice, and mannerism that made it immediately obvious he was the same guy. But in addition to that, he was memorable for being the worst Klingon ever. He was not tough, cold, crass or violent. He was rather gay, spoke eloquently and jovially in a rather melodious voice, and was a pussy to Kirk. How did he even survive a Klingon childhood?
Worst. Klingon. Ever.
The Gamesters of Triskelion was ok but unmemorable. And A Piece of the Action was a good "holodeck" type of episode with a lot of humor about the landing party trying to fit in with the locals. Also to note, Kirk did not know how to drive a manual transmission car, despite the new movie trailer clearly showing him driving a manual classic Corvette off a cliff, and knowing how to handle the clutch. Who on the new movie failed to do their research! I've read that each series has a team of people who are essentially Star Trek historians and science fact checkers, but they totally missed that Kirk can't drive! I'm kidding of course, I don't really care, but I find it funny anyhow.

43. Wolf in the Fold ••••
    
44. The Trouble Tith Tribbles •
    
45. The Gamesters of Triskelion •••
    
46. A Piece of the Action ••••
    

Count 46 of 726

Week 6

7 down this week. Catspaw had some real crappy effects and cheap sets, but was not a bad story. Journey to Babel stood out this week. It was a real nice political intrigue episode with politics and assassination. It also introduced Spock's parents. Friday's Child was notable for the absolutely stunning Julie Newmar guest starring as a warrior's wife. The Deadly Years, in which the away team artificially age rapidly, was fun to watch and compare to how the actors really aged, which was not nearly as well, lol.

And finally, Obsession was a good story in that it dove into Kirk's past a bit. Which raised questions for me about the upcoming movie. Kirk didn't live his entire childhood on Earth. He lived on Tarsus IV at age 13 for an unspecified period of time. He then went through Starfleet Academy (starting in 2250) and served on at least two other Star Ships before being awarded the Enterprise in 2264 at age 31. I'm not sure how long Starfleet Academy trains officers, but that's almost 14 years of service before he even set foot on the Enterprise. So now my curiosity about the new movie is at an all time high! Can't wait to see it. I'm also very glad I am watching all the original episodes before the new movie.

36. Catspaw •••
    
37. I, Mudd •••
    
38. Metamorphosis •••
    
39. Journey to Babel •••••
    
40. Friday's Child ••••
    
41. The Deadly Years ••••
    
42. Obsession ••••
    

Count 42 of 726

Week 5

Only 3 episodes this week! I've been getting to bed later than usual. I end up either falling asleep mid show or foregoing it altogether. This week I will get back on track.

33. Mirror, Mirror ••••
    
34. The Apple •••
    
35. The Doomsday Machine ••••
    

Count 35 of 726

Week 4

Another 7 down this week. Good episodes this week were Errand of Mercy, City on the Edge of Forever, Operation Annihilate and Amok Time. Errand of Mercy introduced us to Klingons as they declare war on the Federation. City on the Edge of Forever had a cool plot where Bones changes history and Kirk and Spock must fix it to restore the present (I think this episode won an award at the time). Operation Annihilate was a cool episode where Kirk races into space to save his brother's family from a mysterious disease that is driving everyone mad. And Amok Time offers our first glimpse of Vulcan and it's culture.

The Alternative Factor is worth mentioning because of the horrible special effects sequences in the inter-dimensional paths. While the story was ok and the guest actor was blah, the effects really stand out as horrible. They were the type of effects that make most Sci-Fi shows unbearable by the general populace. The type of effects that Star Trek generally avoids. They basically had two guys struggling with each other and they did a inversion on the palette and moved the camera in and out and side to side to simulate chaos and action. The camera even spun around completely as it zooms in and out. The result is a blue and red glowing mess that goes on for way longer than it should.

I had to switch from Netflix to CBS for season 2, which I am not happy about. CBS doesn't provide the remastered versions, the video is grainy from over-compression, the player won't actually go full screen, and there's commercials! I tried to find the DVDs locally, but the video stores and libraries only have random discs; I have no hope of consistently tracking down each one in order. It was almost enough to make me buy the DVDs ($170 for the set on eBay) but I'll make due with CBS for now.

26. Errand of Mercy ••••
    
27. The Alternative Factor •••
    
28. The City on the Edge of Forever ••••
    
29. Operation Annihilate ••••
    
30. Amok Time ••••
    
31. Who Mourns for Adonais? •••
    
32. The Changeling •••
    

Count 32 of 726

Ultimate Man-cave Accessory

I have to admit, if it were a bit cheaper, I would buy one. I would buy it and it would be the centerpiece of my living room. It would be the crown jewel of the game room. I would wire the buttons to real functions, like turning off the lights and maybe a power projector screen. It would be glorious.