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Today is the 58th anniversary of Star Trek‘s first appearance on teevee. On this date in 1966, an episode called “The Man Trap” of a new science-fiction show aired, and I guess that at the time this seemed like just another airing of some new show. New shows arrive every year, most of which are completely forgotten eventually…but somehow that particular new show made enough of an impact that it lives on as a huge franchise, over half a century later. Most of the people involved with making that very first episode are gone now…but their memory endures through the legacyDown the rabbit hole….

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Today marks the 47th anniversary of the release of George Lucas’s “little space movie”, which wasn’t even 20th Century Fox’s projected “Big Movie” of that year. Little did the world know what was about to happen…and certainly a five-year-old kid in LaCrosse, Wisconsin had no idea how his world was about to be shaped forever. I wrote this post in 2017 for the 40th anniversary of Star Wars, and I wouldn’t change anything. I’ll probably write something completely new for the 50th, though…my God, we’re almost at fifty years of Star Wars…. I didn’t see Star Wars on opening day. In truthDown the rabbit hole….

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Today is the 57th anniversary of Star Trek‘s first appearance on teevee. On this date in 1966, an episode called “The Man Trap” of a new science-fiction show aired, and I guess that at the time this seemed like just another airing of some new show. New shows arrive every year, most of which are completely forgotten eventually…but somehow that particular new show made enough of an impact that it lives on as a huge franchise, over half a century later. Most of the people involved with making that very first episode are gone now…but their memory endures through the legacyDown the rabbit hole….

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“You cannot sow a million seeds without reaping one potato.” –Ian Fleming, From Russia With Love I suppose it had to happen eventually…but nevertheless, it’s totally unexpected. When I say it “had to happen eventually”, I figured “eventually” in the sense that those million monkeys banging away on a million typewriters will, given sufficient time, eventually produce the works of Shakespeare. It had to happen eventually. I found myself nodding with agreement to something written by Ben Shapiro. If you have no idea who Ben Shapiro is, you’re lucky. He’s one of the most obnoxious voices in the American right-wing today, and he isDown the rabbit hole….

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A friend sent me this meme today: And I, of course, took this as an opportunity to exercise my overflow of geekosterone, telling him the story that some actors couldn’t make the Vulcan salute and would get their hands in position, sometimes with the aid of tape or fishing line, and then lift their hand into view when the moment came for their character to make the salute. Also, the title of this post is a line of Dr. McCoy’s, from the episode “Journey to Babel”, when he and Kirk and Spock are awaiting the arrival of Ambassador Sarek. McCoyDown the rabbit hole….

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I first wrote this on the old blog six years ago, on the 50th anniversary of STAR TREK’s first airing. Today that anniversary rolls around again, now the 56th, and all these words still apply, so here they are! And you people, you’re all astronauts on…some kind of star trek? –Zefram Cochrane, Star Trek First Contact Wow. Star Trek made its official US debut fifty years ago today. That’s…amazing. (The show aired for the first time anywhere on September 6, 1966, in Canada.) Star Trek came and went and was already in syndication when I was born, but my sisterDown the rabbit hole….

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So, the NFL season kicks off next Thursday! And playing in the 2022 season’s very first game are the Buffalo Bills, taking on the defending Super Bowl Champion LA Rams! Wow! It’s been an interesting ride with the Bills in the last five years or so. The fifteen or so years before that were pretty much of an unending era of bad football. Somehow every year the team would manage to do something in the offseason to make fans think “Hey, maybe they’re turning the corner, maybe they finally won’t be crappy this year,” and yet…every year another terrible season. Records like 6-10 andDown the rabbit hole….

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Forty-five years ago today, Star Wars opened in theaters. Here is a post I wrote in 2017 for the movie’s 40th anniversary. I didn’t see Star Wars on opening day. In truth I don’t even remember exactly when I saw it, but it was later in the summer of 1977. We had just moved from Wisconsin to Oregon, and in that time I was not even aware of this enormous movie phenomenon whose popularity was sweeping the nation. I finally saw it, though, with my sister, who is six years older than me. I didn’t like it. It was veryDown the rabbit hole….