I have to start out by mentioning that back in the day I used to just skip out of work so I could be one of the very first people to see the latest Star Trek movie on Friday afternoon. Being a UPS driver doesn’t make this very easy, and I didn’t really want to use one of my two option days I get each year. So Katherine and I went to the theater on Sunday afternoon to see what all the fuss is about.
My first impression of the movie was, “Wow– they must have saved a lot of money by using the set of ‘Ugly Betty’ as the bridge of the Enterprise.” Every time they turned a corner on the ship I was expecting to see Vanessa Williams bravely holding up some comically large space weapon with her assistant Marc cowering behind while making sarcastic comments about how the crew dressed such as, “if this is the best outfits the future can come up with, well just phaser me now.” I’m not quite sure where America Ferrera fits into this situation, but I’ll bet she would stick her nose in everyone’s business and find a quirky resolution to the problem.
Here is a run down of the some of the main characters:
James Kirk: fiesty kiddo who spends most of the movie dangling perilously on the edge of things.
Young Spock: realizing that the television show “Heroes” isn’t going to last forever, Zachary Quinto stepped out of the role of the evil Sylar and hopped on board as Spock. His biggest challenge for the role: shaving his facial hair between every take.
Old Spock: according to the movie, Leonard Nemoy was 147 years old when he got sent back in time. I swear he didn’t look a day over 90.
The Bad Guy: Had some strange tatoo on his face and went around destroying Federation planets. I’m not sure if these two facts are related. Too bad Ricardo Montelbon wasn’t around when they filmed this– now there was a guy you just couldn’t help but hate.
And the big surprise at the end: There wasn’t any! None of the main characters were killed because they all have to be kept alive so all the stuff that has already been made at least kind of makes sense. I guess that’s the problem with making a movie that is both a prequel and a sequel in the Star Trek Universe.
I suspect the next film will focus on how William Shatner became such a bad actor.
Facing Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Chrysler announced a new “Employee Pricing Plus Plus,” incentive program Tuesday. A top executive at the automaker explained how the new system works. “Not only will employee pricing be offered for the purchase of all Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge vehicles, but for a limited time customers will also receive an actual Chrysler employee. Have them clean up the yard, help the kids with their homework, or take the dog for a walk in the afternoons. When we start up our factories again we will have the employee shipped back with no charge to the customer.”
I got the day off on Tuesday, so I decided to get a few errands taken off my to do list. I took my car to the shop to get the driver’s side power window fixed, a saw my doctor for my annual check-up, oh, yeah, and I went and married Katherine.
“You did what?” many people have asked. We are having a wedding in June, and we are going on a honeymoon to New York City in May. Since we weren’t really doing anything in the traditional order, we decided to get the paperwork out of the way. It turns out that getting married in Larimer County, Colorado is fairly simple. Katherine filled out the forms online, and the next day we went to the office to get the paperwork. Actually, it is the same place where car registration takes place. The only strange part of the process was the fact that we weren’t allowed to sign the marriage certificate at that office.
So we went home, and in a very beautiful ceremony that involved Katherine, myself, and the dog, we signed the marriage license. We wanted Maury to sign as the witness, but when we put the pen in his paws he kept trying to tear it apart with his teeth. But he watched us– hoping to get a treat when we were finished. The next day Katherine took the paperwork back and now we are officially married.
So now Katherine Herbig is now Katherine Lutfey who gets to change her name. I don’t have do to any of that– I won the coin toss over whose last name we were going to use. We thought of combining our last names, but then we decided that if we have kids and they wanted to get married to someone else with a hyphenated last name they would have four last names, and that just seems like a bit much. So now Katherine has the exciting privilege of changing her social security card, driver’s license, passport, and Starbucks frequent drinker reward card.