James Doohan (Scotty) Passes

I can't count the number of Scotty "I just can't do it Captain!" I've heard in my life. The impact the original Star Trek had on several generations is amazing. I hate to see him go, just as I hated it when Bones (DeForest Kelly) died. At least he'll always be young in the DVDs of the orginal series. Thanks for being Scotty, Scotty. On a side note, I hope Richard Dean Anderson lives forever. I don't know how I would handle MacGyver's death.

My favorite line of his was when he was trying to operate an Apple computer in the Star Trek 4 movie by talking to it. The 20th century man told him to use the mouse, upon which he picked it up, held it to his face and said "Computer?". It is interesting that the show used the British stereotype of having Scots man the engine room in ships. By the way, Allison, the name of the famous WWII aircraft engine, is a Scottish surname.

Yeah, Star Trek 4 was second only to The Wrath of Kahn of the movies for me. Scotty was brilliant in both, of course. When he introduces his nephew(?) at the begining of Kahn, you know it's bad news. Those facts about his name is cool, I didn't know that stuff. Sounds like something they would do though.

The BBC reports that Doohan's ashes are to be sent into space at his request.

Scotty's advice to promise something later than you think you can do it works great in the software world too. This happened in the Dyson Sphere STNG episode where Scotty was pulled out of a transporter buffer that he set to loop forever (to avoid death). Geordi tells Captian Picard it would take 4 hours to fix something, and Scotty asks him how long it will really take. When Geordi say "4 hours", he gets an earfull about the correct way to be seen as a miracle worker. Great stuff!