I Wasn't the Only One Thinking Reboot

I've blogged a couple times about how I feel the best thing for the Star Trek franchise would be a reboot ... unbeknownst to me, at least one pretty big name was thinking along the same lines -- J. Michael Stracyznski wanted to create a Universe B and reset the mythology.

Here's the post on Zabel's (Stracyznski's collaborator) blog with a link to the treatment. One strength of the treatment is that it has a clear vision for limited series, just as I had proposed, with a five year mission and each season being one year of that mission. My thinking was to cherry pick and remake the best episodes, which is an element in this vision, but they have the idea of the Enterprise crew seeking out advanced race that seeded the universe being the driving story arch, which I feel is too remniscent of Stargate (although there's plenty of precedent in the Star Trek universe for this already as well) and detracts from the pioneer spirt that made the original so compelling. The universe as frontier, as wild, untamed nature is so much more engaging than the universe as the garden of an advanced race, at least to my thinking.

Instant Trivia

Quick, no Googling ...
Who is the Stupendous Yappi?

No prize for winning, just pop culture geek kudos.

"I left some Love Stains in the back seat. You'll see."

Neil Patrick Harris has a great cameo in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. (SVU's Christopher Meloni is unrecognizable and hilarious in his cameo as well.) It's one of the those stupid, vulgar comedies in the vein of 40 Year Old Virgin and Wedding Crashers, so I figured it would make sense to watch it at 6am this morning with my mom while we tried to get Blake to sleep. I lmao. It could've just been the exhaustion. Oh, and my mom thought it was funny too.

It occurs to me, suddenly, that it's a surreal life I'm living these days ... I'm eating bagels that were fedexed direct from Manhattan to the woods of rural Rhode Island while I watch dope-smoking, titty movies with my newborn son and my mom at the crack of dawn.

Let's Not Get Ahead of Ourselves

New York Daily News - Home - Earth's days are numbered, Hawking says
Hawking suggests we colonize Mars to guarantee our survival against the possibility of a cataclysm on Earth. Kim Stanley Robinson disagrees. He suggests we treat this planet like it's the only one we have. " ... Mars is poisonous," he points out.

Where Have the Organ Grinders Gone?

Where Have the Organ Grinders Gone?

only 10 other organ grinders in the country still use live monkeys — four in California, others in Boston, Virginia, Ohio, Texas, North Carolina and Florida. That number probably won’t grow. Many states take a dim view of entertainment involving capuchin monkeys, which are categorized as dangerous, exotic animals.

Just for the heck of it, I decided to see how organ grinders are represented on Flickr ... results.