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Not your father’s Star Trek

Two words: Alternate Universe.

I’ve never really been a fan of people “rebooting” or “reimagining” well established franchises, especially when they try to justify it by saying they’re trying to reach a new audience. Aside from some wicked cool special effects, I wasn’t really expecting much from the new Star Trek movie. I figured as long as they didn’t totally screw up things and alter the Trek universe, then it would be at best a pretty decent movie.

Without spoiling things, I have to say I was pretty impressed with the way Star Trek turned out. The story deviates pretty far from canon in a few aspects, but given that it’s sci-fi, the writers have given viewers a way to accept the changes. Purists will probably still be mildly annoyed, but I think JJ Abrams has managed to give us a new Star Trek in a way that is still palatable to die-hard Trekkers.

The Terrace Hippodrome isn’t too different from the former IMAX. Decorations are pretty much the same. The new seats are nice, cushy and comfortable. The screen is smaller than an IMAX screen, but still pretty big. After seeing movies in IMAX format, and now in the jumbo Hippodrome size, it’s pretty hard to go back to the “small” regular sized movie theater screens. The sound system is pretty impressive and loud. Not quite as immersive as IMAX sound, but still pretty good.

I think I’ll make the Hippodrome my default theater from now on.

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Anniversary meetup

Plans to meet at Harbor Grille prior to tonight’s showing of Star Trek at the Hippodrome got me thinking about the first Lowcountry blogger meetup, which was held there (it was Toucan Reef back then). Delving in to my blog archives, I discovered that tonight’s meetup almost coincides with the third anniversary of the very first Lowcountry Bloggers meetup.

If anybody’s interested, I propose that to celebrate the third anniversary of blogger meetups (you Tweeters can come too) we all return to the scene of the crime for an anniversary meetup.

What: Lowcountry Bloggers 3rd anniversary meetup
Where: Harbor Grille
When: May 16, 2009 6PM to whenever
Who: You (and whatever friends you want to bring along)
Why: Because it’ll be a fun time!

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Wild Olive

I’d heard about the Wild Olive a few weeks ago and was delighted to hear about another Italian restaurant on my side of the Charleston area. Sunday I went to check it out for the first time with a few people from one of the Meetup groups.

Although the decor was nice, my first Wild Olive experience was somewhat underwhelming. I opted for the Sunday spaghetti and meatball dinner special ($15), which includes salad and garlic bread. The salad with balsamic dressing was pretty good. Nice cool, crisp greens. The spaghetti on the other hand was kind of disappointing. The spaghetti was more like angel hair pasta (pretty thin) and came out rather overdone. The sauce and meatballs were still quite good though.

Not wanting to pronounce judgment after just one visit, I went back tonight for dinner to try something else on the menu.

This time the experience was much better and a 180° change from a couple of days ago. I opted for one of the specials of the night: the Legare farms porterhouse steak with gorgonzola mashed potatoes and wilted swiss chard. On the pricey side, but totally worth it. It was big enough that I could probably get 2 more meals out of it. The steak was probably one of the best I’ve ever had here. Preparation was very simple: salt, pepper, grill. Cooked to medium, the steak was very tender, and just plain delicious.

I was initially a little skeptical about the gorgonzola mashed potatoes, and not being a fan of blue cheeses, I wasn’t expecting to like it much. Again, I was delightfully surprised. Smooth and creamy, the potatoes had enough gorgonzola to make it yummy, but not overpowering. I could have easily made a meal out of a pile of those mashed potatoes.

At the end of my meal, I started thinking about if, given the choice, would I rather go to Oak or Wild Olive (Oak is one of my favourite meat places to go to in Charleston). Tough choice, but I think if Wild Olive had the Legare Farms steak as part of their regular menu, Wild Olive would definitely win.

Wild Olive is definitely worth the trip.

4 stars out of 5.

$$-$$$$ (can be a little spendy)

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Las Vegas excursion

Travel pain aside, my weekend excursion to Vegas was a pretty good time.

On the way, there were cool sights like this to see. Not entirely sure where the plane was, but the pilot said we were passing by the Grand Canyon when I started taking these pictures.

Went to Vegas mostly to meet up with Rick and Mike and hang out. Since Sara is in that area too, we met up with her also. We were supposed to be there for Mark’s “wedding”, but he stood us up. We still had a good time anyway.

Took me a little bit to track down Rick when I got into Vegas, but eventually I tracked him down. After dumping my stuff off in the hotel room, we headed off to wander the strip and find some grub. First stop was the Vegas Hilton to see what was left of the Star Trek Experience. The Experience is gone, but oddly enough the Starfleet logo remains on the Hilton’s sign out front.

Remnants of the Star Trek Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton

Then we hopped on the monorail to the end and decided to wander the Strip starting at the Luxor back to our hotel (Circus Circus). Turns out the Strip is a lot longer than it looks on the map.

The next day we met up with fellow geek Sara and spent a good chunk of the morning in the geek nirvana known as Fry’s. After, we decided to go for wings at, fittingly enough, Buffalo Wild Wings (a bit of an inside joke).

The rest of the evening we spent hanging out and talking at one of the hotel bars.

The trip home took almost as much time as I spent in Vegas.

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Home Team meatup

I think BBQ needs to be its own food group.

There was a very good turnout for tonight’s Cin-cue de Mayo BBQ meatup at Fiery Ron’s Home Team BBQ. To commemorate the occasion, Chrys had some appropriately themed door prizes

The BBQ meatups are always a good time. For the next meatup, keep an eye on the calendar at LowcountryBBQ.org.