Terminator Motorcycle

So they were talking about the motorcycle terminators in the commercials before Star Trek this past weekend. I thought I'd post some pictures.

Star Trek

Thor’s Unemployment Blog is proud to give you your first look at the brand new USS Enterprise.

So. Was it the best Star Trek film ever, bar none? Yes. Were all of the actors perfect? Yes. Was Zachary Quinto as Spock just rehash of Zachary Quinto as Sylar? No. The man is an artist.

The film is balls-to-the-wall excitement from the first minute. Not only that, but it’s got plot, character development, and all the other things you’ve come never to expect from a Star Trek film.

Yet at the same time there was chemistry between the actors, believable dialogue, and a sparing helping of situational irony and one-liners.

That being said, this is undeniably not only a good film, but a Star Trek film. Confusing I know, but bear with me. This film had such a great script that it convinced Leonard Nimoy to play Spock one last time, something he swore he would never do. It had all the characters you needed to see, this time portrayed by professional actors. Let it never again be said that Star Trek ruined anyone’s career. Star Trek gave careers to a bunch of washouts who otherwise couldn’t get a job.

No more of that nonsense.

Star Trek has finally reached the moment at which real actors can get excited about being in a cult film. While Simon Pegg’s Scotty was great, and Quinto’s Spock was not short of breathtaking, most impressive was Karl Urban’s portrayal of Bones. Not only did he manage to give the character a tangible soul, he retained every bit off Deforrest Kelley’s charm and inherent weirdness.

To sum up, the acting was extraordinary, the script was phenomenal, there was no time wasted on tedious explanations of why Klingons have head ridges, and just about every character said their iconic catch-phrases. Chris Pine even tossed in a little Shatner tribute at the very end. Subtle, but splendid.

To anyone who’s counting, this will mark the third occasion on which I cried at a movie. Number one was Phantom Menace, when Anakin left his mommy. Number two was Return of the King “you bow to no one.” Number three was Skywalker vs. younglings. But I have never wept uncontrollably (and I’m not ashamed to lose a few man points to admit it) until I heard Leonard Nimoy do the traditional monologue.

"Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Her ongoing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life-forms and new civilizations; to boldly go where no one has gone before."

Mass pike has reflectors down the middle. I hate nysdot.

Make Concrete Look Like Granite

So Kerry said our friends Kim and John wanted to know if I know how to make concrete look like granite. I immediately thought "Yeah! I can do that!" Then I said "Uh... Yeah. Gimme a day or two and I can know how to do that."


So for the past couple of weeks, ideas involving splatter brushes and colored stone and polyurethane basecoats and topcoats have been swirling around in my head. Just now, I found this article at ehow.com that shows how to do it all with paint and funny brushes. I still think my idea of polyurethane basecoat (or two), thick polyurethane coat with crushed red and black stone splooshed into it, polyurethan topcoat is a good one, but probably way more expensive than just paint. Click the photo below for the article.

Airplane On a Treadmill

I saw this over on PaulC’s blog in his post on Hungarian notation. I read the blog and thought I understood the problem. Then Mythbusters did it. The plane couldn’t take off, even with a running start. Somebody explain this to me, as I clearly don’t understand what I thought I understood.

I thought that the plane would take off because it’s not being propelled by the wheels and that running the treadmill under it would simply make the wheels turn faster while the plane maintained speed and would achieve lift. Apparently, that is not the case.

Invisible Car

I'm at work and Earl shows me this photo of this art student who made an "invisible car." My first response was: "holy shit, Batman! An invisible car!" Then I realized what she actually did, which is still pretty kewl. The car is painted to look exactly like the scenery behind it. Genius. Well, maybe but genius, but still pretty damn cool.

Mad-lib Mayhem

Okay. So maybe this isn’t as funny as I think it is. But too bad.

We all know mad-libs are a great place to find new uses for old words. In this instance “slink.” We were all at the Hollywood Drive-In, and Kerry brought a book of mad-libs. She needed a verb and mom said “slink.” I haven’t got it in front of me, but the usage was funny, and I immediately said “slink me, baby.” Then I sent a mobile post to my blog. Use it in conversation, or as a pickup line. “Slink me, baby.”