Snotty, I need those engines working

I dragged little E to the pediatrician today, where we learned he’s got a garden-variety cold that’s being made that much more miserable by an ear infection. So no Trekking for me this weekend, barring some unusual incident where I’m able to step into an alternate timeline where the boy’s healthy enough to leave with his grandparents so we can go to a movie. 😛

While I’m waiting though, I wanted to give a hearty recommendation to a blog called My Star Trek Scrapbook, run by a fellow named Frederick who I’d swear is kind of like my slightly older self from an alternate timeline – think of him as Earl Prime, maybe: works in the media, has a love for Star Trek, and has occasionally-mentioned step-parent-from-hell issues. Anyone else a little bit spooked out by this yet? Anyway, his blog concentrates on news clippings, merchandise and other minutiae from the “lost years” between the original Star Trek’s syndicated success and the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. And even though there hasn’t quite been the ten-year wait between the last Trek to hit our screens and the latest movie, there are some definite similarities at play. His captions and mini-articles are a joy to read, and really recapture what it was like to be excited about Trek’s return in 1979, as well as what it was like to be a Trek fan during that strange period during which the show had never been more popular or more ingrained in pop culture, and yet wasn’t being currently produced. The merchandise is curiously barely-related to Trek – i.e. disc guns with a picture of Kirk and Spock on the box, and other curiosities from the age when reprints of the old Gold Key comics were manna from heaven. The current spate of Burger King ads with “the Kling” cheerfully put me in mind of this period of Trek history – the studio wasn’t being so precious about whether or not it was pissing off the entrenched fan base, and maybe that was a good thing. Frederick is one of the few random folks I’ve stumbled across on the ‘net where I think, after reading his blog for a bit, “Man, I’d like to meet this guy, because he sounds just like me.” If you have even the slightest interest in Star Trek, check his blog out. Be prepared to spend hours there gawking and stuff and going “Oh. My. God. I remember that!”

I also wanted to give a shout-out to my friend Anthony, with whom I worked for many years in the teevee nooz trenches, and now has his own blog where he can be as opinionated as he likes without worrying about it violating some vaguely-worded clause in the employee handbook (like me, Anthony is also a refugee from the teevee nooz wars, and I think he’s discovering, as I’ve done over the past two years, that it’s nicer on the outside). His observations are funny as hell, and yet he can be pretty topical too, and doesn’t hew to either extreme of the political spectrum. It’s refreshing, funny, and makes you think too. Not bad reading at all.

Okay, that’s all the plugging-other-people’s-blogs I’ll do for now – I’m just gonna sit here and cry in my Dr. Pepper, which is swirling slowly in a plastic Star Trek cup from Burger King which, for the record, I plan to display next to my vintage 1979 Star Trek: The Motion Picture happy meals.

In the meantime, I’m preparing for a gap of – in all likelihood – weeks before I get to see the movie, because I’m also developing a runny nose and a scratchy throat since little E is wallowing all over me – he wants me to hold him, or hold his hand, or let him sit in my lap. I’m sure I’m getting quite an exposure to what he’s got, and I have a feeling that all the Zicam I’m talking isn’t going to make a dent in that. Maybe we need to page Dr. McCoy…