I was just cleaning out my e-mail archives and ran across a little gem, forwarded to me a while back by my buddy Dave, which I will now share with my Three Loyal Readers. Note: if you have small children hanging around your computer desk as you peruse the blogosphere, you may want to distract them by pointing out the imaginary caribou in the corner. I won’t be held responsible for any future psycho-therapy bills:
Mmmmmmm… celebrity sushi!
Speaking of Star Trek (well, I was yesterday), today is the 40th anniversary of the premiere of that obscure little TV series that nobody’s ever heard of. Forty years of split-infinitive goodness (referring, of course, to the show’s motto: “to boldly go”; it may be grammatically questionable, but it is undeniably catchy, even soul-stirring). Incredible. I can’t imagine how weird it must be for the surviving cast members and behind-the-scenes folks to still hear people talking about this show after all this time. (Granted, it’s not talked about as much as it was ten or so years ago, but it hasn’t exactly dropped off the pop-cultural radar, either.) Shatner has taken a lot of heat in the past for saying in that infamous SNL “Get a Life” sketch that, for him, Star Trek was just a job he did years ago, and he’s baffled by the enduring loyalty of its fans. However, I think he’s being more honest than other folks associated with the show who tend to wax poetic and/or philosophical about it, claiming that they knew all along they were involved in something special and revolutionary. I don’t buy that. Back in 1966-69, it really was just a TV show, just another job for all those involved in its production, and I highly doubt that anyone truly thought it would still be remembered, let alone revered, four decades later.
I know this is getting to be a familiar (and no doubt tiresome) refrain, but I’ve been feeling extremely frustrated lately because various demands on my time (notably my job, which has gotten very hectic now that Labor Day is past) are preventing me from blogging as much as I would like. There are a great many topics I’d like to say a few words about, but they’re slipping past me and sliding down the chute to irrelevance because I just can’t seem to set aside a few minutes to write about them. I am feeling, in fact, very much like Lucy and Ethel in that classic chocolate factory gag:
http://youtu.be/-ZmwIVAfHaM
Just an FYI, in case you’re sitting around out there waiting and wondering why the fresh content isn’t flowing: it’s because I’ve got a bunch of chocolates down the front of my blouse…
A couple of items that caught my eye last week and that I’m only now finding the time to blog about:
I’m sure you’ve all noticed that the InterWeb has been buzzing with news and commentary about the untimely death of Steve “The Crocodile Hunter” Irwin, the, um, energetic TV personality who was killed yesterday in an underwater encounter with a stingray. I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t surprised in the least that his life was ended by a wild animal. The only unexpected aspect of this story was that his killer wasn’t reptillian in nature.
And so, just like that, another summer is behind us. Oh, the days are still plenty warm, and I anticipate good shorts-wearing weather for another month or so (although in this goofy state, it isn’t at all unusual to see people wearing shorts in the dead of January… and it gets pretty damn cold around here in the dead of January, just in case you didn’t know), but the open-furnace temperatures of late July are long gone and the nights are acquiring a bit of a bite. I’ve got that same feeling you have when you realize the emotional energy is spent and the party’s over, but the guests haven’t yet started to leave.