You don’t have to be a nerd (like me) to be a little money savvy—just saying

Isn’t this a neat piece of artwork?  It’s the Starship Enterprise on canvas in sepia tones, in the style of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Renaissance art. 

I got it to hang on the wall opposite my bed, and before you call me a nerd like someone else did today, this is only 18” x 25”.  I had originally intended on buying it double in size to hang on the large accent wall in my living room. 

Now THAT would’ve been nerdy!

Anyway, earlier today I got an alert on my phone from icanvas.com that my artwork was being delivered and was two stops away.  When I went downstairs to wait for it’s arrival, one of my neighbors (who shall remain nameless) was down there, waiting for her food order from Aldi.

I asked how she was doing, and she said fine, then added “But I’d be a lot MORE fine if I had a second powder room and a patio.”  She told me she was kidding, her place was big enough already.  (She’s right about that, she lives in one of our building’s twelve 2 bedroom units and they are surprisingly roomy—and expensive.)  But she couldn’t believe she’d been here ten years already, it wasn’t part of the plan.

When I asked what was the plan, she said she’d only intended to live here for a year after her divorce and sale of her home of 35 years.  But 10 years later and she was still here, with the sale from her home still sitting in a savings account.

(Then my artwork arrived, I opened the box to show her—she said it was cool but I was the oldest nerd she knew.)

Anyway, I said “Well, at least that money is earning some nice monthly interest.”  She said “What are you talking about?  It’s in PNC Bank and doesn’t earn enough interest to report it on my taxes.” 

What? I pulled out my smartphone and looked up PNC’s interest rate on their standard savings account.  0.03%.  I said “Listen, this is none of my business but you REALLY need to move that into CDs, or an online savings bank like Ally.  I keep 2 years worth of living expenses in a Money Market fund that pays me $280.00 monthly.  You could make more than double that.”

She said “Don’t you watch the news?  Those online banks are failing left & right.”  I told her those were a couple banks in Silicon Valley.  Online banks are FDIC insured and just as safe as her brick and mortar PNC.  Her money should be earning $600.00 a month in interest, easy.

She said “Well, I’d have to call my financial advisor, she’s the one who has my money parked in that account.”  I said “Financial advisor!  Who is she, your 14 year old granddaughter??”

She laughed and said at least her advisor wasn’t a nerd like me.  Gee whiz, she should be!

Just then, our mutual neighbor Sara walked into the lobby and said hi to both of us, and the other one said “Take a look at Doug’s new artwork.  If you went out with a man and learned he had this hanging in his apartment, what would you think?” 

Sara said “I would think hmm, I met a man who has an interest in art.”  

I’m obviously talking to the wrong woman here. 

 

I like it alright, but what the heck am I watching? My Video Roundup, Vol. 5

For people who have been visiting my blog awhile, you know I like to do a ‘Video Roundup’ on occasion, of music videos I’ve discovered and watched several times over on Youtube.

(In fact, you can check them out right here:   Vol 1 is here, Vol 2 here, Vol 3 here & Vol 4 here.)

In the meantime, here’s my latest favorites but these are different:

1. They’re not really music videos.
2. I searched for NONE of these.

These were recommended to me by Youtube for reasons I both do & don’t get.

Still, the same rules apply.  If I watched & enjoyed them several times over… welcome to the roundup!

7. “This guy is the cat’s—I mean bat’s pajamas”

Shortyverse is a graphic designer, Photoshop expert & Spanish artist who likes to take today’s superheroes and re-imagine them in the year 1920.  Supergirl, Flash, Robocop--I’ve watched them all, but I grew up reading Batman comics, and this one is my favorite.  It’s eerie & otherworldly.  

6. “I’ve amassed a closet that would make ANY woman absolutely jealous…” 

DISCLAIMER:  I do not subscribe to Alice Little’s channel.  I have no intention of traveling to Nevada, visiting the infamous ‘Chicken Ranch’ brothel or hiring a sex worker!

Still, I can’t deny Alice (and her 5 most popular dresses) are a guilty pleasure…  

5. “In order to form a more perfect union…”

Who’s the genius that got the bright idea of making Star Trek Original Series trailers, in the style of Mission Impossible from the 1960s? 

This genius, that’s who!   

4. “Meanwhile, at the Friars Club…”

We all loved James Cagney, right?  And we all knew the man could dance, right?  Well, Bob Hope could too and I DIDN’T know that—he surprised me here.

Do you suppose there was ever a time when old fuddy duddies sat in tuxedos and cheered on middle aged fellas having a dance-off after their banquet?  

I’d be asking where the giant cake was with the showgirl inside!    

3. “Let’s see one more of those Star Trek: Impossible trailers”

These are too good to show just one, and frankly I can’t get enough of the evil starship Enterprise.

2. “I know what you’re thinking—what’s a video roundup without the Osmond Family?”

Since the early days of Hollywood, actors (who would never dream of appearing in American television commercials) would have no problem appearing in Asian ones for the loot.  Leonardo diCaprio did a Japanese commecial in 2013 for Jim Beam whiskey.

The Osmonds were no exception, and in the early 1970s starred in 20-25 Japanese commercials for ‘Calpis’, a milky soft drink.  You don’t have to watch this entire video, just the first 2 commercials—you’ll see an awkward looking Marie Osmond in her first acting performance.  “Umm… Calpis!” 

1. “And finally, Clair de Lune for Ampan”

From 2018, Ampan is a gentle female elephant, 80 years old and blind.  She lives on an elephant sanctuary in Thailand, and this brought tears to my eyes the first time I watched it.  I don’t know why.

 

An old girlfriend, long lost treasure & some meaningless trivia: what more can I say

Have you ever lost something, but didn’t know you’d lost it until you found it again? 

This past rainy Sunday, I got the urge to clear out some junk in my storage locker (down the hall from my apartment).  I had a couple of old boxes in there labeled “DON’T UNPACK, KEEP IN STORAGE” that weren’t from my last move, or the move before that—but when I moved out of my first apartment in the city 30 years ago.

Opened one box full of paperbacks and various Star Trek books, digging thru it’s musty contents—and at the bottom was a flat, taped brown paper bag.  Inside was this manila envelope with 40 Star Trek enamel pins.  I couldn’t believe my eyes.  I hadn’t seen these since 1994, when I moved across town to Bellevue.

Unlike today where you can probably buy the whole kit n’ kaboodle on Ebay, back in those pre-internet days I got these colorful pins one at a time—from ads in Trekker fanzines or sci-fi shows at the convention center.  Each pin always felt like a little victory.

I think I know what happened to them—at the time, I’d been seeing a lovely girl named Renee who was helping me pack up my place.  (She was a very organizational person.)  I’m guessing she put these in that box with the Trek books.

Here’s Renee bringing boxes to my place for moving, I lived on the second floor above.  (A nosy neighbor across the way took this photo, to remind me the parking lot was for tenants only.) 

This was Sept 22 1994, the same night the tv show Friends premiered on NBC. 

I wanted to take a break to watch the new show, NBC had been running promos for it all summer; but Renee said no, let’s keep working.  I don’t like watching tv shows out of order, and wound up putting off Friends until it premiered on Netflix—in 2016!

Back to the pins, I can’t believe I used to collect these things, let alone wear them in public.  I often pinned one to my coat, even one to my trenchcoat in my early professional working days. 

That’s all I got—but now that I’m older, silver on top and less inhibited, I’m thinking of getting a denim jacket and pinning the front with ALL of them.  What do you think?

 

Magazine subscriptions in 2022: The good, the bad and the ugly

Look what I got in the mail yesterday.  I was coming into my apt building, Jim the Mailman was in the lobby, said here y’go Doug and handed me a yellow manila envelope. 

When I opened it and looked inside, I did a little tippy-toe dance right there.

It’s a new Star Trek magazine, the first one in several years.  When I heard about it six months ago, the first two issues had already come out and the publisher said there was only a 50/50 chance the magazine would continue. 

I ordered a 6 issue subscription anyway and completely forgot about it.   

Anyway, this is the only magazine I now subscribe to.  Back in the 1980s-1990s, in my “playboy bachelor” days, I subscribed to several and always had a spread of magazines on my coffee table—Playboy, GQ, Omni, Esquire.  My sister used to visit on the weekends, she once told me I had the best “waiting room” because of all the reading material available.

This magazine makes me feel like I’m 15 years old in 1977 again, getting my first issue in the mail of Starlog Magazine.  The lead story then was “Star Trek Plans Big Comeback” and it’s pretty much the same one 45 years later!

And now a word about the bad…

        

A couple weeks ago I got this postcard in the mail from Reader’s Digest.  They wanted to thank me for my order, and since they didn’t quite get my payment information, no worries!  They’d send an invoice out after the first issue.

I never placed a subscription order with Reader’s Digest.

I called RD and politely told them I made no such order.  Juanita (very friendly, very outgoing) said these kind of things didn’t just happen on their own, could it have been my wife or partner?  I told her I was unmarried and single.  She asked if anyone else lived in the house.  For real, Juanita?  That’s none of your beeswax!

I told Juanita I’ve lived on my own since the ‘80s.  She said she was just trying to solve the mystery and in the meantime, enjoy the magazine.  I said thanks, but if I got an invoice I was throwing it away. 

And now a word about the ugly…

Last October I wrote a blog about how desperate TV Guide had gotten—I had a one year subscription with them which ended in 2021 and I didn’t renew.  Seeing how I got rid of my cable months earlier and watch ZERO prime-time television, it wasn’t needed.  

(Along with the fact they were trying to get me to pay $60 for another year, not the $15 I paid before.)

Anyway, TV Guide wouldn’t stop—they sent me a 4th request to renew, a 5th, 6th, 7th… I stopped counting after a dozen.

It took 6 months, but eventually I stopped hearing from them.  And then last week I got this “free” TV Guide in the mail.

It included a postcard that said DOUGLAS—JUST WANTED YOU TO SEE WHAT YOU’VE BEEN MISSING.

 

Watching TV in the future (well, in the 21st century): is it good for you too?

Spock prepares to do battle on Vulcan, on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

I pay $13.00 a month to watch tv.  That includes 70 over-the-air channels (using my Mohu Bookshelf antenna, the white square below my tv), free movie channels like Tubi, 190 streaming channels courtesy of Pluto & LG TV, and premium streaming services HBO Max, Paramount Plus, Hulu & Peacock Premium.

I even have 24 hour news again as ABC, NBC & CBS all have (free) streaming news channels now. 

I’m sorry but this blows my mind.  A year ago, I was paying $150 a month for ‘Expanded Basic’ cable and Netflix.  And it seemed like I could never find anything I wanted to watch.  

Have you cut the (cable) cord yet?  If you’re unable to get your local stations with an antenna like I do, and you don’t want to give up cable, you should look into YouTube TV.  $65.00 a month gets you local stations, 85 cable channels & unlimited “cloud service DVR”.

(As for myself, I will never pay more than $20.00 a month again.)

I think what my cable company (Xfinity) did was pretty smart.  When I canceled my cable/internet/phone bundle, they offered me Peacock Premium for free if I kept my internet—and sent me a Flex box & voice remote for free, no monthly fee, no strings attached.

(It’s like a Roku, but with the Xfinity brand to keep a leash on you.) 

I tossed it in my closet, but as time went on I learned how useful it could be.  Sometimes these premium services like Paramount Plus would freeze on my tv, and the only way to unfreeze them was to restart everything, internet included. 

I discovered if I stream shows from HBO Max & Paramount thru the Flex box, it buffers what I watch perfectly.  No spinning wheels, zero glitches.

I never trusted this Flex completely though, until recently.  Every once in awhile, using the voice remote, I’d say “The World According to Garp.” 

(It’s an old favorite of mine, from 1982.)  Flex would come back with “Available to rent from Xfinity for $3.99.” 

That meant it wasn’t available for streaming anywhere else. 

Then in late May, I learned the movie was coming to HBO Max June 1.  (Flex knows what services you subscribe to, so you don’t have to re-enter passwords.)  On June 1, when I said Garp into the remote, it said “Available to watch now on HBO Max.”   It didn’t even give me the option to rent it from Xfinity.  I was impressed.

But good things seldom last forever, and I’ll need to make some decisions soon: 

1)  I currently pay $7.50 a month for ad-free HBO Max, thanks to a 1 year promotion I got last September.  It runs out in 2 months.  Do I want to pay $15.00 a month to keep this?  Or $10.00 a month for the version with ads?  Or drop it altogether?

I just learned if I pay another year in advance, I’ll get a 16% discount.  Still…

2)  I currently pay 99 cents a month for Hulu.  (This was another year-long deal I got last November, on Black Friday.)  This November, my monthly price will increase to $6.99.  Do I want to pay this? 

Yes, I do.  Because Hulu is such a great mix of movies and tv shows, this is the only service I really want or need for enjoying tv. 

3)  I pay $4.00 a month for Paramount Plus (it’s $4.99, but discounted if you pay a year in advance) pretty much for 3 shows only:  Star Trek Discovery, Star Trek Picard & Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.  Do I want to continue this?  I’m not sure.

But it’s only 4 bucks, I’m paid up thru next spring, and I love Star Trek.  Plus it’s nice having all the CBS shows available at my convenience.

The funny thing is, with everything there is to watch, I was curious to check out Apple TV+.  The app is on my Flex, with an offer for a 7 day free trial.  (After that, it’s $4.99 a month.)  But it stopped me from signing up; you’re required to have an itunes account or apple device and idon’t.  Their loss! 

Just as well, I suppose.  I’d almost forgotten about the free streaming service from Xfinity, Peacock Premium.  Now if I just had one of these cool George Jetson chairs…  

 

After twenty odd years, I’m embracing my inner geek—and my secret starship of shame

This is the bookcase in my bedroom.  It has items on it that connect to the kid still inside me, from the Indian drum on the first shelf, to my collection of horror & sci-fi comic book reprints from the 1950s on the bottom one.

There’s been a recent addition to this collection, on the very top of the bookcase on the left hand side.  That is a model of the Starship Voyager, from the Star Trek tv show of the same name that aired 1995-2001.

For over twenty years, that spaceship has been hidden away in my bedroom closet, with an old t-shirt draped over it.  (There’s a reason it’s been hidden, I’ll get to that in a minute.)  Anyway, around a month ago I was cleaning out my bedroom closet, saw it in the far back and thought “I should just throw that away.”

But when I fished it out and removed the t-shirt… why have I kept it hidden?  And up on top of the bookcase it finally went.

Here’s why it was squirreled away so long ago:  back in 1999-2000, when the internet was here but people still shopped in stores & the like, I’d spend my lunch hours downtown browsing various shops.  There was one store I was particularly fond of, that sold sci-fi collectibles.  And one day I saw this model ship on display and was amazed; for a model kit the attention to detail was startling. 

When I asked the salesman what I was looking at, he said “Oh that’s from Bandai, a Japanese company that makes high-end model kits.  They’re expensive, but have great resell value.”   When I asked how much the kit was, he said $76.00.   WHAT!

(Maybe that doesn’t sound so high today, but 25 years ago, the typical Star Trek model was $12-15.00.)   He told me that while the one on display wasn’t wired, the kits did come with wiring & lighting.

I didn’t buy it the first day, but returned a couple times to look at it.  Finally on the third or fourth day, the salesman told me “You should know I only have one of those left.”

I bought it.

You can still buy one today, but the price has gone up significantly

For the next couple of weeks, I’d come home from work and get busy with this model kit, in a thousand pieces on my dining table.  While I had experience modeling, I’d never worked with electrical wiring before and it was extremely daunting.  But eventually I finished, loaded it with batteries and turned it on.

Only some lights on top of the saucer came on, but they were yellowish and flickered, and made a buzzing sound.  After a few minutes, I smelled wires burning and those few lights blinked out.  It wouldn’t light again.

I remember feeling both angry & embarrassed, spending so much money on such a thing.  I was going to throw it away, but couldn’t bring myself to do it.  So up in the closet it went, where it remained for 22 years.

That is, until recently when I thought “Even if it is broken, it’s still a beautiful model and deserves to be seen.”  And for a couple weeks, I’ve been admiring it greatly.

But that isn’t the end of the story. 

A couple weeks ago, I reached out to an old friend of mine, Tom from Tom’s Sci-Fi Modeling and asked if he remembered me.  (We used to hang out on a science fiction message board in the early 2000s.)  He said he sure did, and we caught up on things since we last spoke in 2004.

I told him about my Bandai Voyager model, and sent him the photo above.  He said “It looks brand new.  Those are worth a few bucks.”  I said I thought so, but had no intention of selling it.  Further, I wanted to make it work like it was supposed to 20 years ago.

He told me I’d have to scout around for a .PDF of the assembly manual if I wasn’t comfortable opening it without one, but the good news was I wouldn’t have to break any cement seals.  He offered to sell me a small bundle of model wire and pack of microbulbs for $11.00 total.   I got them in 3 days.

I did write Bandai (for a copy of the manual) and left messages on a couple of sci-fi sites, but got no responses.  I wound up spending most of one evening figuring out how to open the model without breaking it, but found the issue right away; one of the main wires had been looped around a cluster of bulbs and melted through.  I replaced a couple sections of the wire and all of the bulbs coated in black, and made buffers using old corks.  

After I closed it up, I installed fresh batteries and said a silent prayer to Gene Roddenberry.  “Oh Great Bird of the Galaxy, make this damn model ship work again!”

I flipped the switch and light POURED from the model like I’d never seen.

(I’m sorry for the grainy photo, but I have an old camera and took this with no flash and all the lights out.)

Well, on the tv show it took Voyager 7 years to make it back home from the Delta Quadrant; as for my own starship, it took 3 times that long to be seen again.

But I’d say it was worth the wait!

Shopping at Amazon.com: The Happy Homemaker meets the Trekkie

I hope you’re not thinking “Oh no, Doug—not again” but I TOLD you I planned to track my online shopping for the next year or so…

Anyway, I didn’t think I’d be ordering again so soon, but:

1)  My neighbor asked me what she thought was a silly question; it was more like a eureka moment for me

2)  Amazon let me know something I put in my wish-list close to a year ago was finally available and I wasn’t taking any chances

3)  Someone from my past told me of an amazing elixir that I had to try for myself—and boy she wasn’t kidding!

 

1.  OXO Good Grips 3 piece Mixing-Set

• My own tag-line:  You won’t know you needed these until you have them!
• Price: $27.88
• Bought at:  Amazon (click here)
• Remarks:  Recently my neighbor Opal asked me if I used steel mixing bowls or plastic ones for my baking, as her daughter said the steel ones leak trace amounts of metal.  Waitaminute… mixing bowls??  I’ve been using a heavy ceramic spaghetti bowl from IKEA for baking the last 27 years! 
• I love these even more than I thought I would.  The set contains a 5 quart, 3 quart & 1.5 quart size bowls with silicone grip handles, pouring spouts and weighted silicone bottoms that SECURE the bowls to the counter.  Gee, I even love the colors.
• My Grade:  A for it’s amazing how some single guys can be so simple minded!

  

2.  Star Trek: Picard (Season One)

    

• My own tag-line:  Just when you thought the Star Trek you knew was gone forever…
• Price: $27.99
• Bought at:  Amazon (click here)
• Remarks:  I know, I know; DVDs are so 20th century.  Well, call me old fashioned but I have this thing about owning Star Trek as physical media, not digital.  And since this new show was only available on discs or a monthly CBS Access subscription… plus you get 2 hours of bonus material when you buy them on dvd.
• Here’s the just of it:  It’s been 15 years since Captain Picard retired to his family’s French vineyard… when one day a young woman approaches him with a question.  Do you know me?  Jean Luc suspects he does—but who is she?  And why are Romulans after her?  It’s big!
• My Grade: W for WOW—I’ve watched the first 3 episodes and I am honestly stunned with what I’m seeing—a gorgeous, first-rate sci-fi spectacle set in the Trek universe.  If this ain’t Heaven, I don’t know what is.

3. McCormick Pure Lemon Extract

• My own tag-line:  This ain’t your mother’s lemon juice!
• Price: $3.88
• Bought at:  Amazon (click here)
• Remarks:  Last April when I was baking lemon sugar cookies, Pen (an old classmate and very dear friend) reached out to let me know she tried my recipe, and her cookies just weren’t lemony enough.  She wasn’t into zesting lemons and all that jazz, so she got this.
• After searching local stores, I found it on Amazon.  THIS STUFF IS POTENT.  Here, it says on the box: For lemon cookies, use 1/4 teaspoon per 6 dozen cookies.  If you’re not baking for an army, have an eyedropper handy! 
• My Grade: Z for Lemon Zest Plus  (It really is terrific, thanks Pen!)
  

Well, that’s all I have for now.  I have a couple new items in my Amazon cart, but they’ll have to wait until until I have more to qualify for FREE SHIPPING.  (You can still get free shipping if you’re not a Prime Member… you just have to spend a minimum amount, say $50.00). 

I was wondering where I’d be storing those mixing bowls, it turns out I had just the right amount of space with my dishes (it helps not to have a lot of dishes).  If you look on the top shelf, there’s my ceramic spaghetti bowl (with 8 spaghetti dishes stacked inside).  It sure was a pain to take down and put back when I needed something large enough for popcorn or to make a meatloaf.  Rest in peace up there!

 

Just a hopeful thought about Joe Biden & Kamala Harris, and “The Rediscovered Country”

Saturday night, as I sat here watching President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris come out on stage in Delaware and address the nation, I confess some tears welled in my eyes.  My chest swelled with pride as Biden spoke to the “folks” about healing and unity.  He is kind and decent, and good.

(I want to add that as much as I respect Joe, I love his wife Jill.  She’s a force to be reckoned with!  I would’ve been just as happy to see her run for office and win.)

Anyway, as Jill Biden & Kamala’s spouse Doug (heh) joined them on stage, I felt some uneasy stirrings in my stomach.  I’m not the type to pray but I did say quietly, “God please watch over them.”   There are 70 million Americans who did not want this, and that’s a very frightening thing.

I laid in bed that night and thought “This would’ve been so much better if it had been a landslide.”  Not to gloat to die-hard Trump supporters, but to show Donald Trump our country had come to it’s senses. 

America had seen thru his barrage of hoaxes and conspiracies, and villifying entire countries like Mexico or religions like Islam. 

But it turns out, half of us hadn’t.  Trump has more supporters in 2020 than he did in 2016.  71 million.  How?  He’s never hidden the awfulness of who he was.

I think I understood better this morning, when (taking a break from the news) I watched Star Trek V: The Undiscovered Country.   Bear with me!

In the movie, Klingon’s moon Praxis explodes (from years of excessive mining of it’s ore).  This ore is what powered their ships & homeworld; in months they will freeze to death, if they don’t starve first.

(I see the Klingons as Trump supporters, and their moon Praxis is... Fox News.)

The Federation (Democratic Party) wants to help, and sees this as a chance for unification.  They order Captain Kirk (Joe Biden) to escort the Klingon Chancellor to peace talks on Earth.  Kirk complies, but is unhappy about it.  He is NOT a fan of Republicans—I mean Klingons.  But after meeting the Klingon Chancellor, Kirk second guesses his feelings; the Chancellor shares the same dreams for unity & peace as the Federation. 

A reader of Earth’s Shakespeare, the Chancellor compares their future to Hamlet’s “Undiscovered Country”.

Tragically, the Chancellor is assassinated.  The Klingon Empire blames Kirk and the Chancellor’s daughter takes her father’s place at the peace talks on Earth.

Soon, chaos erupts—and the Chancellor’s daughter and President of Earth are close to being killed.  When it’s discovered that a small group of humans AND Klingons (Democrats and Republicans) conspired to murder the Chancellor and cause this mayhem, the Chancellor’s daughter is outraged, mystified—“WHAT IS THE MEANING OF ALL OF THIS?”  

Captain Kirk tells her “People can be very frightened of change.”  

And that’s what I choose to believe, maybe not for all but for most.  How else could so many avert their eyes from Donald Trump’s hatred these last 4 years?  All we can do is hope more of his followers try to see that Captain Kirk—I mean President Biden—is on their side, and join the rest of us in looking ahead with hope. 

Man, I am such a nerd!

Take my antagonizer, please (really… what would you do?)

In the classic Star Trek episode ‘Mirror Mirror’, Captain Kirk and his officers are on a planet, beaming up to their ship when their transporter beam is caught in an ion storm.  Their atoms are pulled into a parallel universe where they materialize on another Enterprise.

How do they know they aren’t where they’re supposed to be?  Well, for starters they’re greeted by a pretty sinister looking Mr. Spock, who’s sporting a goatee and instructing the transporter chief to hand over his personal agonizer.  “No Mister Spock—it wasn’t my fault!  Aargh!!”

(On this parallel Enterprise, the crew are forced to carry their own torture devices—yikes.)  Anyway, this “agonizer” episode has been coming to mind a lot lately, namely whenever I encounter Betty, a resident in my apartment building.  She’s MY personal agonizer—well, more like antagonizer—and right now I’m wondering what to do about her.  Help her or kill her.

Okay, I made a promise to myself (and to people who read my blog) a year ago that I wouldn’t talk maliciously of my neighbors… I just can’t believe how much one of them is getting to me and NOT IN A GOOD WAY.

This all began a couple years ago.  While the younger residents in my building keep to themselves, the older ones want to know you, especially if you’re of the retired type.  I was befriended by one--Betty (a widow, 70 years old) who somehow got it into her head I was a widower like her, Catholic, and a conservative. 

It took me awhile to learn this though, and once I set the record straight I was none of those things (and only went to Assumption Catholic Church on Fridays for their fried fish), everything changed.  She couldn’t seem to talk to me without sounding snarky.  This is just in the last week:

MARYLOU:  Doug is it true that management painted an accent wall in your apartment and it didn’t cost you anything?

ME:  Yep, you just have to choose one of their 3 colors:  Honey Mustard, Green Apple or Summer Suede.

BETTY:  Whoa, funny how you remember those fancy names!  Most men just call paint by their color!

Here’s another:

OPAL:  Doug, would you like a pumpkin scented candle?  My daughter got me a real pretty one but it’s making my cat crazy.

ME:  Haha—um, no thanks Opal.  I’m not into scented candles… guess it’s a man thing. (wink)

BETTY:  You have to guess when it comes to man things?  That doesn’t surprise me!

I just shake my head, roll my eyes.   Oh Betty… how I want to throttle you.

Anyway, earlier this week several of us were sitting outside on our building’s stoop getting a little sun & talking about the latest Trump lunacy, when one (Mary Lou) said she wished she could vote in this election, but she wasn’t registered (her husband used to say it was how they tagged you for jury duty).  Another admitted she never registered either, and my friend Mary Bean said she meant to, but it was too late now.  

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.  I said I was called for jury duty a few years ago, and it was an exciting experience.  (I wrote about it here.)  I added that it wasn’t too late to register, they could do it from home (online) but it takes a couple weeks to get your registration card, so they’d have to do it soon.

I asked “Do you ladies have a computer?”   All three smiled and said no.  Wow.  I said I could help, and both Marys thanked me and said okay. 

Sure enough, word got back to Betty who confronted me downstairs this morning and asked who elected me mayor of the building.  I smiled but didn’t say anything.  She said “Does that offer of yours extend to everybody?  Because I want a mail in ballot.”  I said I guessed so, and she said “Good then you can help me.  But if I were you, I wouldn’t ask who I’m voting for.”  

Aarrgh!!

Stop that potus before he wrecks the world! (Happy Holidays from ApacheDug’s Teepee)

Y’know, I began reading comics in the late 1960’s; not yet my own, but my brother Duke’s friend Jeff Tewell & his books (his mom worked at GC Murphy’s and he got free comic books: unsold ones, minus a 1” strip off the top of the front cover).  He had quite the collection.

I can still remember the first time I saw this cover of Spectre at his house and how it made my heart beat real fast, just like my ticker does now every time I turn on the tv, it seems.

Watching an unhinged Donald Trumb these past two years (let alone these last 2 weeks), his need for attention, the chaos he creates daily with his ignorance and corruption of power—it reminds me of this Spectre story, a comic I haven’t seen or read in close to half a century.  

You can’t help but wonder if things in the White House are going to come to an end before we do;  Wall Street certainly hasn’t been optimistic, my retirement portfolio has taken a giant beating these past couple months and my slated annual withdrawal isn’t happening in January, that’s for sure.  But I know I’m still more fortunate (luckier, more like it) than most out there who aren’t middle-aged white men like me. 

Back in early November, I took a lot of comfort in the fact that the Democratic Party would be taking control of the House in 2019, now I’m not so sure.  Trump holding government workers paychecks hostage to get his STUPID BORDER FENCE PAID FOR WITH AMERICAN WORKERS HARD-EARNED DOLLARS may become his modus operandi if the Dems give in.  Today it’s the National Park Service, EPA & NASA; who knows who he’ll go after next?  Nancy Pelosi, hang tough! 

Christmas 1982, Dad watching the news and looking like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders.  I don’t know what he was thinking, but I know how he feels

I’ve often wondered these last couple years what Dad would think of the news today.  Sometimes I’m almost relieved he’s not here to see it. 

And sometimes, I have to admit I wonder what side of Trumb’s lame “steel flats” fence he’d be on.  My youngest sister (a Trump supporter for crying out loud) almost had me convinced he’d support the office of the President regardless who was in it.  No… I can’t see it.  My dad was no liberal, he had his prejudices, but he was Democrat thru n’ thru and always insisted Republicans “had it in for us”.  I don’t think that’s ever been more apparent than today.

(BTW, I showed this photo to my friend Danielle and said “My dad was 45 here, he looks older to me than he should” and she replied “Everybody looked older back then.”)  

Well, I don’t really have anything to say here (I’m sure it’s obvious), I just wanted to put something out here and wish everyone a Merry Christmas & Happy—no HAPPIER New Year.  I for one could do with less kidney stones & Republicans in the year ahead!

And if things get bad enough, I have this shiny “Star Trek Pizza Cutter” my sister Shawn got me for Christmas.  I went on Amazon to read some of its reviews, one wrote “Be real careful with this thing, it’s sharper than a straight razor!”   Hmm… one good swipe under the chin should do it. 

Happy Holidays

Halloween 1975: Yep, I think I’d like to go back to being short again

My niece Sophia recently celebrated her 14th birthday (it was a real gala from what I heard, the social event of the season) and I couldn’t help but remember my own 14th birthday, a literal lifetime ago.

It was in 1975, Halloween Day to be exact.  It was a more modest celebration, but I certainly wouldn’t say it was a less happier one.  Here’s a couple things I remember most from that time:

1)  My mom got it in her head that I should go trick-or-treating with the other kids “one last time”.  I insisted I was too old and besides, I didn’t go the year before on my 13th birthday either!

She said “Honey if you wear a mask no one’s going to know you’re a teenager.”  Haha, that was the LAST thing I wanted to hear.  I said no, and she still got me a Batman mask in case I changed my mind.  

What I didn’t tell Mom (or anyone else), I was in the second month of my “prayer-thon”, a personal plea to the Big Man Upstairs to make me a couple inches taller.  At the start of the school year, our Phys-Ed teacher remarked how tall many of the guys had gotten over the summer.  He looked at me and joked that I went from third shortest in the class to second.  I was never self-conscious about my height until then!  (It took awhile, but in a couple years I’d become the towering figure of 5’8” I am today.)

2)  Also at the start of that school year, a foster-girl named Penny had moved in with the Davises, our neighbors up the red-dog road from our house.  She was short, curvy and a year younger than me.  I was in love with her the first time I laid eyes on her at our bus stop, and the day after these pics were taken…. well, you’ll see.

Holding my baby sister Courtney, and that’s my sister Donda Lin wearing our brother Steve’s Evel Knievel Halloween costume. 

Notice the Batman mask hanging on the fruit bowl? 

Getting back to my birthday, I remember asking my mom for a ‘homemade’ birthday cake that year, like the one she baked for my Dad that summer.

I wanted a german chocolate cake; I’d never had one before, but my brother Duke was taking German lessons after school (with a paid tutor—WHY) and verdammt, I was going to have something German too!

But what I wanted more than anything was a REMCO STAR TREK PHASER.  It had just hit the store shelves and was more than some toy, it was ‘transistorized’.  This sucker was the very first ‘Star Trek’ item with lights & sound, and from the commercials on tv, it definitely looked regulation size and then some.  (It also included a secret compartment with ‘light-discs’ of various spacecraft you could beam on a blank wall, a ‘Trekkie lightshow’.)  

I was at the age where I was pretty much done with toys, but if I was getting out, I was going out with a bang—or a phaser burst!  I had to have this in the worst way.

My mom came through of course, and I was blown away; it was bigger and even better than expected.  (It’s considered a real collector’s item today and verdammt, what happened to mine??)  Along with this gorgeous gat I got a pack of artist notebooks & pens (I went thru a LOT of drawing paper back then) and an awesome set of ‘monster candles’—a ghost (which she plunked on top of my cake), a bleeding skull, a witch & vampire. 

Along with that weird chocolate cake, it was a good haul.   

The day after my birthday (a Saturday), I was sitting on the stoop in front of our house with my new phaser, marveling at the size and… heft of the thing (and wondering if I was too old to pretend I was Captaiin Kirk in my back yard) when I heard:

“What is that?”

I look up— Penny!!  The new foster-girl from up the red dog road, she was on her way to get the mail (our rural mailboxes sat together on the main road). 

I said “It’s um… a replica of a weapon from a science fiction show...”  I thought for sure she’d laugh and say I was too old to be playing with toys, but she didn’t.  She asked where I got it, and when I told her it was a birthday gift from the day before, she said “You were really born on Halloween?  That’s the weirdest thing I ever heard!”

   Heh!

She asked if the phaser did anything, so I played her some of its annoying sound effects and explained it could also shine various spaceships on the wall, too bad we didn’t have a dark space to bounce images off of.  I tagged along with her to our mailboxes, and after retrieving her mail, she left her box’s lid open and said “Hey, shine your gun in there!”   I nervously fumbled the first light-disc into its slot and narrowed the beam.   

We both peered inside.  U.S.S. Enterprise, Klingon ship, UFO….  our heads were so close together our cheeks were almost touching.  If I thought I loved this girl before today…  I swear to God if I had a ring handy (especially a diamond one) I would’ve got down on one knee & proposed to her right there.

The following Monday morning at our bus stop, I secretly handed her this note:

Penny, will you be my girlfriend?   Signed, the Halloween Boy

That same day after school on the bus ride home, Penny handed me a note:  it said “Dear Halloween Boy, yes I will be your girlfriend.  Love, Penny”   JOY!  RAPTURE!

A week later we began sitting on the bus together, a week after that we began holding hands, and the weekend after THAT I went on my first hay-ride with Penny & her church group.   Oh, there’s a lot more to tell but I’ll save it for another time.  Until then…

Happy Halloween!

Yep, here’s my gun—and I’m not afraid to use it

Early this morning while watching tv, I was sipping a cup of coffee and looking down at my carpet & thinking it could probably use a good vacuuming.   So I moved some stuff out of the way, hauled out my sweeper & got to it—but hey, now I couldn’t hear my tv and the King Sisters (from the 1967 holiday special “Christmas with the King Family”) were singing “Have a swingin’ Christmas”, so I grabbed the remote and jacked up the volume.  Ah, better!

I’d just finished the living room, and was now in the hallway leading into my bedroom when it hit me—it’s 8:40 am and I am making all kinds of racket.  The young man who lives next door to me happens to work nights (as an office electrician) and was probably sleeping, or trying to.  I made a whoops face, turned off the sweeper, ran back into the living room, turned down the volume and waited.  Silence; no one was pounding on my front door.  

As I was putting things back in order, I began to wonder about him.  He’s such a quiet fellow, rarely makes a sound over there.  I’ve always taken it as a blessing, but you know what they say about these quiet types… for all I know, he’s over there pounding his fist into his palm, ready to take me out!  Wait, does he own a gun?  All the maniacs have one it seems, and they’re not afraid to use ‘em.  All I have is my phaser from ‘Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan’ and it’s bark is definitely worse than it’s bite.  Jesus, I’m 54 years old and live alone!  For all I know, I’ve got a killer living next door! 

There’s record numbers of people appllying for gun permits, maybe it’s time I got myself something with a little more firepower!

I know, I’m being silly.  I went back to watching the King Family, and the next time I see my neighbor, I’ll be sure to apologize for this morning’s ruckus.

It is a far, far better resting place you go, then you have ever known…

Words fail me.  Today one of my heroes died, and it feels like the passing of a family member too, a beloved uncle.  Leonard Nimoy—actor, director, author, poet, Spock.  Gene Roddenberry called him “the conscience of Star Trek”, and I along with tens of millions of other fans grieve for his family’s loss, and ours.

A few years ago, a friend gave me a copy of Mind Meld, a 2001 documentary of a lengthy conversation between Leonard Nimoy & William Shatner that took place in Leonards’ backyard, dealing mostly with their years on Star Trek and how it impacted and influenced their lives.  As Shatner sputtered and defended his theatrics (both on Star Trek & in real life) and questioned the show’s appeal and others animosities towards him, Leonard sat there listening, offering his own take on things, always kind words but always in earnest. 

He possessed an inner peace and acceptance of things that filled me with a peace as well. 

At the end of the documentary, as Nimoy took Shatner into his home and showed him his collection of Trek memorabilia, Shatner stood there gawking, surprised that Nimoy kept all these things (as was I, quite happily too).  Leonard smiled and put his arm around William Shatner’s shoulders.  He said “Bill, you’re my best friend.”

We should all be so fortunate to have such a friend like you, Leonard.   Goodbye, I’ll love you always. 

This man’s on a mission—to boldly go where no fan has gone before

A couple nights ago, I was browsing through ‘Recommended for you’ videos on the YouTube Channel on my Tivo (gosh, I love that contraption) when I saw this familiar looking image.  My first thought was “another Kirk wannabe, he looks good though.” 

Still, I almost skipped him over—I’ve seen enough of these ‘amateur Star Trek’ videos before, and as much as I admired their efforts, they didn’t do anything for me.  This one though, was about to prove me wrong.

His name is Vic Mignogna and he hails from Greensburg, PA.  (Wow, that’s only 40 miles from here!)  He does a lot of voiceover work for Japanese toons, and he’s probably the greatest Star Trek fan on the planet. 

But he’s more than just a fan—he’s a walking, talking, real-life 1960’s Captain Kirk.  And in 2013, Vic (along with a talented bunch) began churning out new TOS (Star Trek-The Original Series) ‘webisodes’.  Why?  Vic says “Because the show never completed their 5 year mission, NBC canceled the series in it’s third year.” 

So far, they have 3 full episodes completed, with 2 more underway.

(Unlike a ‘real’ television show, with a production crew of 200 and network sponsors, this group makes do with 20 people and whatever funds they can raise online.  A new episode takes months, not a week or so.) 

In Episode 1 ‘Pilgrim of Eternity’, Michael Forest returns as the Roman god Apollo; he was the original actor from Star Trek’s ‘Who Mourns for Adonais’ in 1967 too!

Besides Michael Forest replaying Apollo, Erin Gray (from Buck Rogers) is here as a Starfleet Commodore.  Lou Ferrigno plays an Orion slave trader & even Michael Dorn & Marina Sirtis (Worf & Troi from ‘The Next Generation’) supply the ship’s computer voices! 

Scotty making repairs in a Jeffries tube; that’s not James Doohan but he’s close enough—he’s Chris Doohan, James son!

The attention to detail is nothing short of startling; the Enterprise bridge, sickbay, transporter room, ships corridors & Captain’s quarters have all been painstakingly duplicated, down to the smallest detail.  (They currently have a Kickstarter campaign underway to raise money to build Engineering and some alien planet sets.) 

But it’s even more than all that—from the scripts and backlighting to the angle of the camera shots and even hair and makeup, it’s all meant to make you feel like you’re watching Star Trek in the 1960s again.  Amazing.

To get an idea of what I mean, just watch the FIRST 4 MINUTES of their second episode ‘Lolani’, where an Orion slave-chick gets aboard the Enterprise.

I need to share one more video; in Episode 3’s “Fairest of Them All” (which was just completed a few months ago) the first 2 minutes are an EXACT re-enactment of the final 2 minutes of the 1967 episode “Mirror, Mirror”. 

Now we know what happened on that ‘Evil Enterprise’ after our own Kirk & company made it back to their own universe!  

Besides the three full episodes on YouTube, they also have a slew of other clips online; tours of their sets, ‘making of’ videos, even a celebration or two after completing the episodes. 

More power to ‘em, they’re not making a cent for all their efforts (per their agreement with CBS which owns the Trek franchise). 

The shuttlecraft used in ‘Fairest of Them All’ was the actual bus-sized prop from the original 1960s series!  It was found rusted and abandoned several years ago, and restored to like-new condition by a fan who loaned it to ‘Star Trek Continues’ for this episode

Okay, now I’ll be the first to admit that nothing (short of clones or 23rd century holograms) could possibly capture the magic of the original series.  There’s just something about the original Star Trek that could never be duplicated.   But doggone it, these guys come pretty damn close!

Star Trek Continues is a labor of love, pure and simple.  And this crew deserves the accolades, and more.