Here are the engagement photos.  There were initially about 70+ but these 20 are those that made the initial “yes/no” cut.  After that we narrowed it down even further, purchasing only a few for our wall, and as presents for our family, but the photographer was nice enough to include the 20 on a disc as a freebie, so I thought I’d share.  I dusted off my Flickr account, so click the photo above if you dare to see more!

Because I know you care, here’s what I think. Actually, watch it here first, or if you’re too lazy to go somewhere else, or are anti-Quicktime, watch a lower resolution below:

Okay what do I think.  I think…

• Of course Kirk is a rebellious youth.  It makes sense.  No way a guy like that can function in a utopia, he’d be too bored.  Good thing he ultimately finds a job pioneering through the unknown.
• Interesting to see Earth vehicles that aren’t starships or shuttles or something made to be in space.  In all the series, you don’t really see Earth too much, and when you do, it’s usually at a Starfleet location, so you get shuttles flying around and people walking and that’s about it.  What’s a taxi look like in the Trek universe?  We don’t know.  But now we know what police motorcycles look like, so that’s cool.  I wonder how much “Earth” will be in the movie, and I look forward to seeing it.
• Is that cop a robot or a fan of Stormtroopers?  If a person, the uniform seems a bit much, considering the world he patrols (no poverty, crime, etc.).  If a robot, uh…what?  Maybe it’s a special uniform for cops who ride fast in the desert, y’know…’cause of all the dust?
• Lots of people bitching about the “My name is James Tiberius Kirk!” line but if I had that handle, I’d declare it like that too.
• The Enterprise looks pretty good sitting there being built as Pine pines over it.  Maybe the original image released a few days back was just a bad photo.  The scope of that shot is fantastic, makes the thing seem HUUUUGE, which of course it is!
• Vulcan looks cool.  Spock looks cool.  I like the upgrades to the pajama uniforms, the black undershirt really makes the colors pop.
• The Enterprise on the move is a great shot!  Don’t know if it’s going to warp or if that’s what it looks like at impulse, but I really dig how it looks like it’s punching through space, the light streaks flying all around it and junk.  Much better than rainbow streaks, as seen in the first few films.
• Lots of space fighting.  I guess for a trailer it’s important to focus on the action, but I hope it’s not all about “wars” because that’s a different Star franchise.  Please let there be a little exploration, people?  A little unknown?  A little “fascinating?”
• “I will not allow you to lecture me…” Yeep!  Do not piss off Spock!  Well…unless you’re Kirk, then go ahead because you can probably hold your own.  Hot headed full of himself Kirk vs young can’t control his emotions Spock = awesome.
• The bridge and ship insides may look different, but they still have the WHOOP WHOOP red alert noises.   Whew!
• Hey, Kirk with his shirt off, way to uphold tradition.
• Hey, Uhura with her shirt off!  Thank you for the new tradition!  First Star Trek bra?  Maybe.
• Scotty seems like Scotty, at least based on the one line.  Definitely a more youthful vibe to him, but that’s the point of the movie, I suppose.
• Sulu sword fighting = win.
• McCoy, the last of the Big 3, doesn’t get much representation on this thing, oddly.  I don’t feel him in the one line he delivered, at any rate.  He seems all bugeyed and paranoid, but it’s also out of context.  “Space is evil and we’re all going to die!”  Actually, that does sound like McCoy…hmmm…
• Big alien monster.  One of the many pluses to having a big movie budget.  We get big alien monsters.
• More space battling.
• Nero looks pretty cool.  That Bana guy is in shape.  Wonder if that’s the new look for Romulans or just for his sect.
• Love the retro theme at the end, nice touch!

All-in-all, this trailer makes me foam at the mouth with a desire to see this thing, so mission accomplished, I guess.  Trailers of course, mean very little, when it comes to reflecting the merets of a film, and are often better than the film. But I like what I’m seeing so far. Interesting that there is no Nimoy in the trailer, I would have thought they’d have played up his appearance to get the old-school on board.  I’m somewhat glad he’s not included though, let the new kids have a go without him.  Much like Generations, I almost wish he wasn’t involved at all, and they let the new (old) cast stand on its own.  But oh well.  Cool trailer though! (So I don’t end this on a down beat.)

Off to watch it again!

Denied! The PTB revealed an image of the new fangled Enterprise and…yuck! I don’t get this at all. Of all the designs related to the Original Series, the ship still looks fairly up-to-date to me. There was no need for such an extreme change. Looks like they changed it for the sake of changing it, rather than an attempt to improve on something. “Pajama uniforms? No let’s keep those! Change the ship? Heck yes!” Dumb.

Obama won: w00t! Prop 8 won: boo! Those are the main two I cared about, so I guess I’m half happy. I haven’t even looked up the other props to see how I did, how funny.

Been working on place cards for the wedding. Done except for the printing, I think. Fancy, eh?

Next up, menus, seating chart and table numbers, oh my!

Halloween has come and gone and went off pretty well.  Luckily the weather changed to gloomy, just like I like.  Had it continued to be in the 80s and sunny like it had been right up to 24 hours prior, I would have been bummed.  But instead, overcast and cold, with a touch of rain.  Awesome.  Took The Kid trick or treating around the neighborhood, along with my sister’s baby we were sitting, The Girl, her ex-husband and his (boy)friend, who seemed like the kind of guy who’s been kicked in the head one too many times by a horse.  It was a weird cast, four adults escorting one little Supergirl door to door, but she had fun, so that was the important part.

I didn’t dress up as anything this year. I do that more often then not, but didn’t regret it much this time around, as there seems to be enough on my plate. Next year I will go over the top and make up for this year’s laziness. The Girl was supposed to join me in my non-celebration but caved and came up with a horribly perfect golfer outfit to go to work in, complete with clashing colors and argyle socks. I have never found her less attractive, so mission accomplished!

The weekend was otherwise pretty relaxing. We were supposed to accomplish all these things, but instead used the bad weather an excuse to stay in, enjoy the fire, and watch movies. The Girl did get the wedding invitations done, so I suppose I’m the only one who truly accomplished nothing. Go me! And speaking of weddings, our rings just arrived via Fed Ex and are sitting on my desk as I type this, so think I shall stop typing this so I can open the box and check out its prizes. Peace!

So they showed this proof-of-concept trailer at Comic Con, apparently.  I wish I could find a better version, but even still…excited!!!!!!!!!

Again, proof-of-concept, so who knows how much of it, if any, will be in the real movie (if the real movie even gets made) but AWESOME!  Hard to make out, but is that Clu?  AWESOME!  Jeff Bridges returns?  AWESOME!  Fan applause at all the right moments?  AWESOME!  Modern and updated but still containing a classic “Tron” feel?  AWESOME!  My only nitpick would be that I think the light cycles move a little too much like motorcycles, I miss the right angles.  But it still looks cool, and I’m excited!!!!!!!!! even though it probably won’t come out for like 10 years.  But AWESOME!  Did I say that already?

Oh and TR2N doesn’t actually spell anything, but…AWESOME!

The Girl and I have gone to the gym a whole two times this week, so go us! We had engagement pictures to pick up on Tuesday and we’re meeting her brother-in-law tonight for dinner, so that cut down the frequency a bit. But we’re riding bikes after work and we have a Kid-less weekend coming up, so hopefully we’ll throw in a few more sessions. I am a bit sore today, so mission accomplished, at least on some level.

The engagement photos came out pretty good. I think there were 58 total, which we narrowed down to three for purchasing purposes. Unfortunately it takes three weeks for him to process the order, which includes some sort of tweaking on the computer. Isn’t that cheating in the World of Photography? Whatever makes me look good though, I don’t care.

I have become addicted to two games on Facebook.  One is called Vampire Wars, where you try and get blood through missions and fighting, and you get through missions and fighting by buying abilities and adding to your clan count (through friends).  Missions costs energy and fighting costs rage (and hit points and blood if you lose), but like any good vampire, those costs heal themselves.  Of course, the more abilities you have, the more blood you need to spend to sustain yourself, so then you have to possess minions to get you blood on a regular basis.  My current Blood Flow (income vs expense) is 161,715 per house, so not too bad!  The more missions and fights you succeed in, the more experience points you get, which opens up more abilities, missions, minions and people to fight.  And the bloody cycle continues.

The second game I am addicted to is Knighthood.  This one reminds me somewhat of civilization in that you build your castle, adding defenses like walls and towers, or social things like marketplaces and hospitals, all in an effort to try and be big enough to defend against and attack opponents to get even bigger.  If you were invited into the game, you start out as a vassel to someone else, though you still get your own castle.  In my case, I am a sovereign, which isn’t much different, except I have no higher person to help me out.  I could swear my allegiance to someone bigger than me, but I haven’t yet.

The cool thing is, one way to get vassals is by recruiting friends, but unlike most applications, if the friend doesn’t say yes, I still get to use them in my army, the downside being their power ranking stays at 10.  But still, thanks Squire Jenna for your hard work in my Marketplace generating me money, and to my sister Squire Rebecca for patrolling my wall.  And kudos to my brother-in-law for actually playing the game and becoming my most powerful vassal so far.  I could not build as fast without you!

Now stop reading this and get back to work!

A buddy and I were chatting and somehow (I know how but it is inconsequential, much like the details of Dr. Evil’s life) we got to trying to list bands where we know every member by name. I’ve come to find that my list is very short. Here are the three bands who’s members I knew without looking:

Apparently I care about lead singers and lead guitarists and dismiss bassists, drummers and backup anybodys completely.  I almost got Queensryche, but couldn’t come up with Ed Jackson (bassist) without cheating.  Oh well!  I think I used to know Metallica’s roster as well, but drew a blank on most of them.

So three is my count.  I lose.  How about you?  Here are your rules:

1. You’re on the honor system.  No cheating by looking online or in your CD collection (as that would defeat the purpose).
2. A “band” consists of three or more members.  “Simon and Garfunkel” does not count.
3. Lineup changes count if they are important.  i.e., You should know both Dave Mustaine and Kirk Hammett to count Metallica.  “Important” is subjective and up to you.
4. Nicknames count to a point.  i.e., I can name all the Spice Girls by their “spice name”, but I’m not bragging about it.

I’m having a hard time massaging my brain into remember what I did this weekend.  Seemed like it went fast, though it was fairly uneventful.  I’m tired this morning all the same.

We had The Kid this weekend.  Friday we stayed home and talked about how we were going to start saving money.  Saturday we went out and spent a lot of money at Mervyn’s, Target, Trader Joe’s and on a gym membership.  Then we went to a birthday party in Salinas for about 40 minutes (a kid birthday party, with face painting, a jump house, trampoline, etc. - so 40 minutes was fine by me) and then met The Girl’s BFF for dinner out Outback.

Sunday we spent more money at Black Bear for breakfast and then went to Santa Cruz to pick up The Girl’s wedding shoes, which were finally delivered.  They fit tight so they told her to walk around with them at home with heavy socks on, so that should be entertaining.

Then we returned home and decided to test out The Kid’s new bike (which we got for free via The Girl’s work - woot!) and so I busted out all our bikes and inflated the tires and installed training wheels for the first time, which went fairly well, despite my limited ability to use tools and install things.

It went fairly well, though The Kid of course rides very slow and crashed a lot.  Her bikes keep getting taller but the training wheels stay the same width, so are less and less affective, especially when she leans too far to the left or right, which she does often.

I saw some dad riding around with his kid in tow on one of these trailer bikes earlier in the weekend, so maybe I’ll get one of those, and then we can all ride faster and further.  Or maybe she should lose the training wheels altogether, though I’m not sure at what age that is supposed to happen, and besides which, I think I’ll let her dad be the one who runs back and forth down the street with her issuing false promises of “I won’t let go, trust me!”

So today we work out.  EEP!

Did you know that if you press the middle rollie ball thingee on a mouse when it’s hovered over a link, that the link opens up in a new tab?  Well I didn’t, and now I do, and I figure I just saved my self at least 3 minutes and 58 seconds a year.  Score!

Random question: Does anyone out there reading this know of a current book, film, comic, television show that has to do with a government sanctioned group hunting witches?  Or just someone hunting witches period?  It doesn’t matter why, just answer the question!  Geez!

FINALLY they are leaking out pics of the upcoming Star Trek film, with the promise of a full blown trailer to come in November! Click for bigger:

The entire crew, minus Point Ears! From UGO Movie Blog.

Spock has to choke a bitch. From Ain’t it Cool News.

Where’s the iPod hook-up? From MTV Movie Blog.

I am sexy and brooding. From JoBlo.

The U.S.S. Kelvin kicking butt! From TrekMovie.com.

This never happened to the other fella! From IGN.

The trailer will be more telling, I think, in terms of style.  Hard to take pictures like this out of context and judge them.  But I am excited, if anything because we nerds have been desperate for something since the initial teaser was released.  I still don’t know what I think.  I still think they should move forward instead of backwards, and I’m still not sure replacing the classic cast will even work.  (Does Cho and Pegg look weird standing there in Trek uniforms, or is it just me?)  Or, if they’re not going to move forward (because apparently only Kirk and crew sell tickets), then revamp it completely, ala Battlestar Galactica, not this half-ass revamp that tries to keep continuity when really it won’t.

But I’ve said that already and still no one is listening, so okay moving on!  As for the actual pictures? I’m surprised how retro they kept the uniforms.  They look like old-school uniforms, except for the thicker neck and hint of texture pattern.  Equally surprising is how completely different the bridge looks, as if Steve Jobs was the designer or something.  This seems backwards to me, as I would have thought the uniforms would have got the update and the bridge few modifcations.  I don’t like the new bridge, based on that one picture.  Too “fancy restroom,” is the only way I can think to describe my objections.  The uniforms look the same, so likeable but outdated.  (And why is Kirk always wearing black?)  Nero looks cool.

That’s all I got until the trailer.