Jet Lag Pinchhard As Captain of the Enterforaprize, with an age greater than the rest of the crew combined, Captain En Route Pickhard politically correctly goes where noone has politically correctly gone before.
		Willing Piker Although he considers himself the Casanova of the Cosmos, First Officer Willing Piker is at a loss to explain why Captain Pickhard manages more romances per season.
		Beta An android unable to feel emotion, Lieutenant Commander Beta is on a quest to become more human. That's right, an idea stolen right from Pinocchio (although it was even more accurately stolen from Asimov's Positronic Man).
		Gaudy Regurge Chief Engineer Gaudy routinely performs the impossible: saving the Enterforaprize from certain destruction all the while wearing a cheese grater stuck to his face. Unfortunately, Gaudy’s skill with warp coil inducers does not help him with relationships, as is seen in Sev Trek: The Comic Strip.
		Barf Being the only Clingon (an alien race with nearly exactly human physiology apart from a distinguishing cowpat formation on the forehead) in Sev Fleet makes Barf a unique crew member (apart from Beta, the only android in Sev Fleet and Gaudy, the only man with a cheese grater for glasses in Sev Fleet)
		Doyawanna Tryhard Coming a close second to Measly Crusher as the most irritating member of the Enterforaprize, Counsellor Tryhard poses a problem for the script writers: what use is she?
		Heavily Cruncher Ship’s doctor and mother of the intensely annoying Measly Cruncher (for which she must be punished!), Doctor Cruncher has somehow toed the line between friends and lovers with Captain Pickhard for seven consecutive seasons.
		Measly Crusher One of the most popular members of the crew, boy wonder Measly Cruncher (what's a sci-fi series without one?) has inspired his own Usenet newsgroup: alt.measly.cruncher.die.die.die.
		Ensign Row Larynx Ensign Row came aboard the Enterforaprize to spice up the interpersonal relationships among the crew, but before long her personality became as bland as the rest of them.
		Subplot The feline equivalent of the red shirt ensign, Beta's cat Subplot has suffered some horrific mutilations. While devolving into a lizard was traumatic, that was nothing compared to the inexplicable change of sex between seasons.
		Guano The smug, all knowing bartender Guano has lived many centures, and yet still has appalling taste in headwear. What's with the hat? A deflector dish? A pizza tray? A serving platter? Or maybe just something to make the Sev Fleet uniform look good.
		Caffeine Pavlovaski The female version of Doctor McCorduroy was introduced to make Captain Pickhard look young and vital. The experiment failed and Pavloaski was discarded... Noone can make Pickhard look young!.

(original archive here)

Legacies: Book 1: Captain to Captain by Greg Cox
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Quite an interesting kick off to the 50th anniversary novel special (if you'd call it that). This story deals with characters that were seen in the original pilot (the one that was never picked up), with Number One (Majel Barrett's character) coming to Kirk's enterprise to take a piece of tech that allow s for interdimentional travel. Why? In order to save her crew (of course) that were (presumably) stranded in another dimension - this happened 18 years ago while the Enterprise was commanded by Robert April, and she was the third in command. Interesting story, interesting characters. I do wonder if we ever get to see "number one" again.

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The Art of Case Study Research by Robert E. (Earl) Stake
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book reads well, and its nice narrative (for the most part) style of writing really gives the reader a good overview of the Case Study method and how to research and write using this approach. It was fairly easy to read through, and it would be good to read this again as you embark on your case study. That said, I wish someone would copy edit a little better, there are some (minor) issues with editing that got in my way of fully enjoying this :-)

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Εδώ και κάτι εβδομάδες μου έχει κολήσει στο μυαλό το τραγούδι του Weird Al το οποίο λέγεται Eat It και είναι μια παροδία του τραγουδιού Beat it του Michael Jackson. Όχι πως είναι και κάτι που θα τραγουδούσε κανείς έξω (αν και θες να σε πάρουν για τρελό) αλλά σου κολλάει στο μυαλό η μελωδία όπως και το ορίτζιναλ.

I came across this (really short) fan film a few weeks ago but I had not had time to watch it up until now.  The design aesthetic is definitely NuTrek, but that doesn't bother me.  It does fit within the CBS/Paramount fan-film guidelines, and in doing so it really lacks much engagement.

The more brutal star trek fans out there say that it sucks, for a variety of reasons, including that it's NuTrek and that people are using warp speed in a solar system (OK, let's not be THAT picky!).  I think the fact that we don't really get to see a ton of people and we don't get to connect with them is the bigger issue, but there is only so much you can do with short videos.  This reminds me very much of the intro to an episode and I expect to see more.  For what it is, it ain't bad.

Love thyself? 

(original archive here)

This past weekend I took the opportunity to wrap up the resident evil movie collection and saw Resident Evil: Retribution, and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter.  I had seen Resident Evil: Afterlife in the theaters in 2010, but I had been putting off the rest.  All movies pick up from another another (well, at least the last three did), so I think they are better seen consecutively :-).

Resident Evil: Retribution picks up from Afterlife. Retribution is really an attack of the clones movie.  An underground Umbrella facility with different towns  built to simulate real cities across the world, where Umbrella simulated the outbreak of the T-Virus. Alice needs to escape from here and save the world (or move on to the next movie to save the world).

The final chapter is final chapter-ish.  We finally find out who Alice is.  Remember the little girl at the end of the first movie? (it was the first movie, right?)  The one whose father developed the T-Virus for in order to fight her progeria?  Well, Alice is her clone, but cured of progeria.  That's why she has no memories of her childhood.  Alice is the woman (or a version of anyway) of who that little girl would have grown up to be. And the psychopathic computer program known as the Red Queen?  Well, that's the little girl also, or at least it was made in her image.  At the end, the little girl (who looks like an older woman at the end) takes down the facility, helps Alive escape with the cure to the T-Virus, and gives her a copy of her memories.  Now Alice is complete (well, as complete as you can be in post-apocalypse).  The cure is airborne, so it starts killing the resident evil zombies and mutants right away. But because it's airborne it will take a while to make its way throughout the planet.  Until then, Alice will keep slaying the remaining beasts - the end.

Retribution was a 6/10 (maybe 7/10), and The Final Chapter was an 8/10 for me.  I liked the ending. It felt like it was nicely wrapped up.  Now that it's done, I don't think there is a need for a reboot (not for another 20-30 years anyway).  I guess now it's time to go see the CG movies I've missed ;-)