Boldly taking the franchise where its never gone before…

So, I went to see Star Trek this weekend.  Like a lot of hardcore Star Trek fans, I had mixed feelings about J.J. Abrams’ vision of the venerable franchise.  I mean, the trailers looked good and all, but I’d heard the rumors that this was going to be a younger, hipper Star Trek (“Star Trek 90210”, anyone?) and I wasn’t sure I was going to like that.  Boy, was I completely off-base.

I LOVED this movie.  Really!  It was very well done.  Let’s start with the casting:  Chris Pine as Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, and Karl Urban as McCoy.  These three guys ARE Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.  It’s uncanny.  I found myself completely believing I was watching the younger versions of these iconic characters.  Quinto, in particular, had Spock down to a “T”.  The rest of the casting was top-notch as well.  I was particularly pleased with the choice of Simon Pegg as Scotty.  He brings a manic twist to the character which I found quite fun to watch.  John Cho (of “Harold and Kumar” fame) plays a very good Sulu as does Zoe Saldana as Uhura.  I felt the Chekov character (played by Anton Yelchin) was perhaps a bit overdone.  His Russian accent made his dialog hard to understand at times.  However, I didn’t dislike the character, so I’m willing to give him another chance.  😉

Of course the visuals are top-notch.  No surprise there.

I won’t give away any of the plot, as I don’t want to be labelled a “spoiler”.  Suffice to say that this is the Star Trek universe we’ve all come to love, but with key elements turned on their heads.  The nice thing is that there’s a reason behind it all, so I never felt like things were changed just for the sake of “being different”.  Plus, it gives Paramount somewhere to go with these characters in future films.  Let’s face it, I feel that there’s so much existing Star Trek lore that any attempt to make a new movie without introducing a new approach will seem like so much repetition at this point.  Personally, I’m happy with the way this movie turned out and I’m looking forward to future movies.

Please…eat me. Seriously!

I saw this sign in Subway recently to sign up for the “Pound for Pound Challenge“.  Basically, for every pound you lose,  General Mills will donate 10¢ to Feeding America, an organization that provides food to local food banks.  That 10¢ provides roughly one pound of food to the food bank.  So, for every pound I lose, they donate a pound to the food bank.  Clever, eh?  Also a bit creepy.

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I’m a card carrying member of the Free Software Foundation!

So, I recently installed Ubuntu 8.04 (the Hardy Heron release) on my desktop machine at home and I’m loving it.  I have an AMD64 processor, so I installed the 64-bit version of Ubuntu.  Holy freakin’ cow, this OS flies.  It’s amazing how the same hardware works so much smoother when compared to Windows Vista, which was installed on here previously.  Granted, I was running the 32-bit version of Vista, so it’s not completely an apples-to-apples comparison, but still!  What a difference.  I’m totally a Linux fan-boy now.  So much so that I joined the Free Software Foundation as an Associate Member.  Check out the snazzy button in the widget panel on the right.

Indiana Jones and the…return trip to my childhood?

Ok, I admit it.  I’m pretty psyched to see the latest installment of the Indiana Jones franchise, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull“.  But, it’s not without some trepidation.  Why?  Well, I grew up with watching Indy battle the baddies on the big screen.  Heck, I even remember playing the Atari 2600 version of “Raiders of the Lost Ark”.  On an actual Atari 2600, not an emulator.  (And I’m talking the big-ass clunky one, too.  Not the sleeker, streamlined version they released later.)  Yep, Indy got me through the trials of childhood as easily as he handled hordes of spear-wielding natives or gun-toting Nazis.

So, why do I have mixed feelings about all this?  I think it’s because watching Indy on the big screen will remind me that I’m getting, well, older.  I mean, I’m only 40, so I’m certainly not ready for the old folks home anytime soon.  And don’t get me wrong — Harrison Ford looks pretty good in Indy’s dusty fedora and leather jacket for his 65 years of age.  It’s just that (ahem) he is starting to look a little long in the tooth.  Indiana Jones?!! Han Solo?!! Getting older??!!  NO!!!  Say it isn’t so!!

But the truth is, I can only hope I look (and function!) as well as Harrison Ford does when I’m in my sixties.  I know I can’t crack a bull whip without certainly injuring myself and others now, never mind 30 years from now.

I can’t wait for the next installment in 20-30 years from now:  “Sean Wall and the Totally Bankrupt Social Security System”.  Now that should be an adventure.

Customer service…who knew it still existed?

I created an account on Chess.com recently since I like to play chess but there’s no chess clubs in my area.  It’s a very nice site with great layout and nice features.  When you become a new member, a “greeter” invites you to play a ‘Welcome game’ and tells you about the site and answers any questions you may have.  I was so impressed I decided to upgrade my account from freeloader to paying status, which I suppose is the point in having greeters and such.  But it was nice to experience it.

What’s that?  How did I do in the ‘Welcome game’?  I lost.  Badly. But my opponent was gracious in victory and even awarded me a virtual ‘trophy’.  I think he/she was just being kind.

Grails is THE FUTURE!

So I’ve been playing with Grails lately.  All I can say is…I’m amazed.  I worked through the “Getting Started With Grails” tutorial and it’s incredible how quickly you can get a functioning webapp framework up and running in no time.  My friend James got me interested in Grails and I’m glad he did.  🙂

Dammit man! I need a plug!

You know, funny thing about these developer conferences – they’re being attended by, well, developers.  What do developers carry with them?  Why, laptops of course!  And what do laptops eventually need? Hmmm, power perhaps?  What is eternally in short supply at every developer conference I’ve ever been to?

Power.

So the net result is you get a bunch of developers huddled around the few outlets that are available, guarding them with the same fervor of Gollum protecting his “Precious”:

“Yes, my Precious….we don’t likes the nassssty Java programmers and their thieving plugssss….”

Perhaps the venue is afraid we’ll blow out every circuit breaker in the place if we all plug in at once.

XML is evil…EVIL!!!!!!! Apparently.

I sat and listened to Neal Ford this morning at TSSJS talk about the problem of increasing complexity in Java frameworks and using Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) to help the situation.  While I found his talk informative and entertaining, it wouldn’t be a Neal Ford talk without the usual jabs at XML.  Is XML really all that evil?  I mean, honestly now.  Am I the only person who thinks XML isn’t really all THAT bad?  Do you even care?  No?  Well, fine then.  Be that way.

Attending The Server Side Java Symposium

Hi guys!  I’m currently at the TSS Java Symposium in Las Vegas!  It’s being held at the Venetian Hotel, which is an INCREDIBLE venue.  More comments to follow… 

Web Apps…of the FUTURE!!!

So the main sessions of the Future of Web Apps (FOWA) conference in Miami, FL finished up yesterday.  It was very cool.  It was pretty inspiring to see all these folks come up to the stage and talk about how they took their initial idea for “something cool” and turn it into a half-million user (or more) mini-empire.  One definite take-away from all this…ALL of them were passionate about what they did and the users they served.  That was obvious.  And I think that’s awesome.  I’ll post my impressions about the main speakers later.  See ya!