johnbowman.net

Some Star Trek fans have put together an eight-minute “trailer” to a proposed movie called Bring Back Kirk.

The plot, such as it is, involves co-operation among characters from every era of the franchise, from Star Trek to Enterprise, to resolve the “temporal Cold War” introduced in the current TV series.

The trailer uses clips from the TV series, movies and Star Trek computer games, as well as homespun CGI.

The video is entertaining, if crude (a generic Starfleet officer’s body from a computer game with Kirk’s animated head perched on top is not very convincing), but it raises a more interesting issue.

How long will it be before fans will be able to produce their own Star Trek movies using computer game engines?

People are already making animated shorts with Halo, and game engines are getting better all the time. The new Half-Life engine includes lip-sync technology so you can provide any dialogue and the characters will look like they?re speaking it.

It could happen. Of course, having read some Star Trek fan fiction, anything they would come up with would probably suck.

(Found on Joey’s blog.)

If there’s something that will keep me away from my blog more effectively than the beginning of the month, it’s being sick. I took two days off work last week with a sore throat, but I’m much better now.

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon playing games at a friend’s place, including Puerto Rico, a colonial economy game, and an excellent time-travel game called Chrononauts.

And on Saturday, I saw Dawn of the Dead (along with millions and millions of other people, apparently). And, because I went to the middle of nowhere to see it, I only paid $7.50 for my ticket.

Which is cheaper than my ticket for Love, Sex and Eating the Bones on Friday night, and that was with a $6-off coupon. Ouch.

OK, here’s my idea. Combine this suit with these military super-legs and create…

Team X-4! Protecting the city of Villagopolis from crime and terror.

Sure this American poster of a Canadian soldier from the Second World War looks kinda goofy.

But have you seen the Dutch sailor? Or the Russian guy?

Riot.

I just got an e-mail from someone asking me to appear at Comedy Off Broadway in Lexington, KY. Apparently they were impressed with my last appearance there in 1999.

I can only assume they meant this guy.

Another click-around-and-find-the-keys puzzle.

Mystery Of Time And Space Adventure.

Declan Patrick O’Kane was born today around noon.

Considering the identity of the most famous Declan Patrick, I’ll probably end up calling my sister’s kid “Elvis.”

Another Vreenak sighting on Fark (about two-thirds of the way down).

Our favourite Romulan senator, by the way, was played by Canadian actor Stephen McHattie, who also does the voice of The Shade on the new Justice League cartoon.

Lindsay: “Woah! That just brought back memories of things I didn’t even do.”

What prompted this reaction? Well, I’ll leave that up to the reader’s imagination.

I almost don’t wanna know how lame the TTC would look on this page comparing the world’s subway systems.

(Found on Metafilter.)