OK. So, sitting here at 5am listening to the birds chirp outside rather loudly, I will try to go over the star trek movie I just saw.

Summary: Uhm... I didnt catch anything in the movie. Ok, so not nothing. But there were a lot of things that you would have to actually be a fan of the series for it to make any sense - or for you to catch on at all.

Me, being one who has only watched one or two star trek episodes my whole life, well, I didnt understand about 90% of the story.

********Caution, a few lines of spoilers here.******

So this is what I understood.
Kirk is the son of a famous captain, which fought a losing battle against an alien ship. The alien ship is from the future, controlled by a renegade soldier who is hell-bent on destroying all the planets because someone forgot to pull the trigger on a weapon that should have saved their homeworld. Said alien ship attacks federation, and federation gets beat down - and one of the planets obliterated by means of a black hole generating weapon. Somehow kirk wakes up on a snow planet, and randomly runs from aliens, and bumps into a good guy from the future. Somehow (again) they transport onto the ship, kirk becomes captain, and they chase the alien ship and blow itup, ironically using the same black hole weapon employed earlier. Everyone celebrates.


********end of spoilers******

OK. I probably missed out a few things here and there since it made no sense to me. The nuances of gestures here and there, and the "V" finger thing, and catch-phrases (which some old lady discussing throughout the movie - rather loudly too) all made no sense to me.

My verdict: If you are a fan of the tv-shows, go watch it. If you know your aliens from dudes with pointy ears and other dudes with tattoos and no female counterparts, it probably will all make sense. If you are like me, and do not know anything about Star Trek, this is probably a waste of your time and money - unless you don't care any for plot or character development. Then by all means, go! =D

And...whatever happened to the Klingon? They are so iconic even I've heard of them - and I believe there was only one or two references to them the whole movie.

I was perusing around the net the other day and happened upon this page at Digg talking about a new experimental service offered at BitLet that lets you stream videos directly from torrents. While the idea is definitely an interesting one, though I've yet to give it a try, what really caught my eye was the discussion going on the Digg page.

See, many people on that page had it right that this could potentially be useful in revolutionizing internet TV. The use of torrents can help to diffuse bandwidth costs for content providers and possibly make it easier for movies or TV shows to be available on the internet for free or at least for cheaper than what's out there now.

After dismantling the St Louis Blues in round 1 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Canucks turned thier sights onto a very young, fast and skilled Chicago Blackhawks team. On paper the odds were in favor of the Canucks, and after winning game 1 on home ice, many Vancouver fans may have had the Western Conference finals in thier sights. But the young and resilant Blackhawks team never gave up, and we saw this numerous times throughout the six game series, with the Hawks having to come back from a deficit in all 6 games, including multiple 2 and 3 goal leads that the Canucks had at various points in the series.

With the Hawks winning this series in 6 games with game 6 having a stunning score of 7-5 for the home team, that game in a sense summed up the entire series in 60 minutes of hockey. The Canucks took too many penalties, their penalty kill was ineffective, the young snipers of the Hawks put the puck in the net, the Canucks defense seemed very slow and a step behind on every play, and Khabibulin outplayed Roberto Luongo. Not many people are overly surprised at all the the items at the top of the list, penalty kill, slow defence, etc..., but no one, including myself thought that Roberto Luongo would be the second best, by a fair margin, goaltender in this series.

So, you find yourself within a growing group of people: you have two computers and want to keep all your personal files in-sync between the two of them. Whether it be your documents, or pictures, or even your internet favorites, you want access to the same files whether you're on your desktop at home or on your laptop on the road.

I'll cover an elegant way of syncing your files between two computers using Windows Folder Redirection and Offline Files. You would think that such a function would be easily accomplished considering how many people these days have multiple computers in the home... but you'd be surprised!

In case you haven't heard of it by now, Microsoft's next version of Windows is called Windows 7 and is scheduled for launch later this year. But in the meantime, those keen to give it a try before it's done and ready can download and install the Release Candidate (RC) starting today for free. You can find instructions on how to do this by going to the Windows 7 download page.

Like the Beta version of Windows 7, which was made available to the public in January, the RC version will be time-limited in that it will function normally until March 1, 2010. By that time, it's expected that Windows 7 will have already been released, and users should be using the full version anyways. Also keep in mind that, because an RC is still an incomplete product, you may experience bugs or oddities. From my own trials with the Beta earlier this year, however, and from what I've read elsewhere it's already as stable as Windows Vista.

All-in-one desktop machines have always been a forgotten form factor in the PC world. Even though many have attempted to make a successful machine, none have come close to achieving the same degree of success as, admittedly, the iMac did for Apple. Maybe it's because PC users generally appreciate more customization and upgradability than an all-in-one can offer, or maybe it's simply because the offerings haven't been good enough in both specification and appearance.

After a quick four game sweep of the St. Louis Blues, the Canucks have been on a extended break waiting for the second round to begin. In the meantime the Blackhawks have been in a tough and physical series with the Calgary Flames which went 6 games and was filled with emotion, hits, fights and bruised bodies. Although many picked these two teams to be first round combatants with about a week to go in the regular season, the Canucks surged past Calgary to win the division and have home ice both in the first round and now in the second against the Hawks as well. And after the Hawks going 1-2 on the road and the Canucks 2-0 at home in the first series, home ice may be the difference between these two teams.

Canucks 45-27-10 (3) vs. Hawks 46-24-12 (5)

After a tragic end to his season, with the death of his fiancée in an accident in Jamaica, Taylor Pyatt is ready to return to the ice, and has started skating in Vancouver. Just because he has started skating, it doesn't mean that he is both physically and emotionally ready to step into a playoff game. The one thing the Vancouver Canucks have is time after their four game sweep of the Blues. With the 10-12 day layoff the team faces, this allows Pyatt to get into game shape along with gives him time to get his emotions and mental game where it needs to be.

But all this begs to question the fact if the Canucks even want or need Pyatt in the line up. During the season he was bounced around on all four lines, but spent most of the time on the 3rd and 4th lines as a checker and an energy guy. In 69 games he tallied 10 goals, 9 assists and had an even rating. As the season went on he was used more and more on the penalty kill as Coach AV was more comfortable using him in situations on the penalty kill and in key defensive situations. He was skating well, as skating is not one of his great skills, using his large frame and was a great compliment to the third line with Wellwood and Bernier.

It wasn't more than a few years ago that 64-bit computing was meant only for servers and workstations. Even after a 64-bit version of Windows XP was released, the transition to 64-bit computing was slow at best. Now, with the increasing adoption of Microsoft's memory-loving Windows Vista and the affordability of computer memory, the promise of 64-bit computing is finally here. Many new computers now come pre-loaded with a 64-bit versions of Windows Vista, and that trend is only going to accelerate.

So what does this all mean for you? What exactly is 64-bit computing? I'll introduce you to the concepts of 64-bit computing and share with you some pointers as to why you would need it. I must warn that there will be some technical speak, but I promise I'll try to keep it as simple as possible.

Ever since the Canucks wrapped up their first round series against the St Louis Blues, all the talk has been about the very realistic chance that the Canucks wont hit the ice for their second round series for about 10-12 days. Yes the Canucks do have their fair share of bumps and bruises, as do all playoff teams, but when does the line between rest and rust get crossed.

The talk around the team was that both Sundin and Salo would be ready to go if there was a Game 5, so either their injuries weren't that serious, or the Canucks PR team is just twisting the story to make it seem that way. Even after the game 4 win, goaltender Roberto Luongo needed 40 minutes of treatment before he came out to address the media. No one on that team is going to admit that they are in fact injured, as no injuries are ever disclosed during the playoffs, but all the players agree that a quick sweep of the Blues is a good thing and will allow them to be fresh and healthy for the second round.