You Know You've Got Phasers Set to "Trekkie" When...

...you go to an exhibit of Star Trek merchandise at a museum and discover that you've got an unnaturally large number of the items behind glass in your closet. And kick yourself because you once had more that you got rid of.

And, well, spend your time seeing if you can identify every one of the hundreds of action figures on display, mentally correcting mistakes made or blanks left by the museum and/or the manufacturers in labelling or production.

The best part was an unlicensed button reading, "Mr. Wesley Crusher, please report to the airlock." The museum wrote, "Date unknown"; I would place it at any point after Encounter at Farpoint.

On a completely different topic, in the latest Tradition, R' Carmy writes a sentence beginning thusly: "If one must talk (and talking is, of course, what many of us do for a living)..."

You gotta love that "us." More to the point, it (and, come to think, much of the previous issue as well) reminds me of Dick Armey's axiom about how "You don't have to be one of the seven 'talking professions' to make trouble, but it helps." Now if only I could find a list of what those seven were...

"We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet..."

From the Norton Anthology's biography of Robert Burns:

Burns is not only the national poet of Scotland but a song writer for all
English-speaking people. Wherever in the world they may be on New Year's Eve,
when, helped by drink and the reminder of their bondage to time, men and women
indulge in their instinct of a common humanity, they join hands and sing a song
of Burns.

Me, I was in bed at midnight. Exciting. (Come to think, the rest of the day was interesting and enjoyable, so that's OK.) But I appreciate the sentiment. (And that's the second New Year's running I've quoted that song in the title of the post.) Even though I missed their event last night, I do hope I can catch something of Gilbert & Sullivan this season. And, for that matter, Coliseum Books before they close, and the model trains at the Transit Museum Annex. (Hmm. I was just at the main branch, but it's looking interesting too.) Busy January, I hope!

On a completely different note, I was reading a bit of R' Schachter's MiPininei HaRav yesterday, and came across this at the end of an anecdote:

('שמעתי מרכ”ב, שיחי)

You gotta love rabbinic writing, huh? Unless you knew (from its being told elsewhere, by the source) that said source is R' Kenneth Brander, and unless you knew that "Kenneth" is, in fact,"כתריאל”, wouldn't you be lost?