I Don't Speak German But I Can If You Want...

Je désire: Carina Bengs' "Ingatorp" dining table she crafted for IKEA. Oh, for $350! It would be a real decorating coup in my current (or future) living situation's dining room.

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J'adore: KFC's Nashville Hot anything. So fucked up, so rica, so spicy! I actually poured the excess sauce onto my tenders and ate it the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks up... Can't really consume their horrid fare more than once a year, but dang, that may change with this new flavor...

(Especially since, with my receipt, I can do their little song-and-dance online, write down the promo code, and, AT THE SAME STORE, be guaranteed a free To-Go cup full of wedges and popcorn chicken or somesuch - AS LONG AS I PURCHASE A DRINK.)

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It seems like just yesterday I was barely educating myself on the super-serious topic of the Sites Reservoir project. Sorry, Muirians, I'm terrible, and terribly in favor of perhaps a low-budget version of it. And as far as I know, they're still in the feasability-study stage of the project. My question: the August 14th deadline to apply for the bond money has come and gone -- is everything still on track? Finding news online isn't easy...

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Wow, has it been a weird Summer or what? Indian and Bear valleys in particular still want to be everyone in Oakley's best kept secret, but in this day of the Internet, and DEA and cartel employees ridesharing on single-prop planes to the Willows airport, right over my little, stoned noggin? Doubtful!

For me, the strangest has been how busy air traffic has been. Yes, the aforementioned flights reminiscent of BLOW, and passenger jets at 30,000 (not to mention well-wished dust-offs out of Beale or Vandenberg, as well as Mr. Tall Blond Hot Stuff with the right stuff airman who flies the sky wagon for Enloewww.enloe.org/ - god bless our first responders indeed!) But I've especially noticed TONS of drones: private playthings, Google Earth and Street-view cheaters, VR mappers, special needs telepresence, local law enforcement surveillance, and other such Unidentifiable Flying You-Know-Whats...

And all that congestion in the skies has seemed to have had a damping effect on tourist traffic to East Park Reservoir, if I may be so bold, or seemingly unkind or unthoughtful or ungrateful - really cramping partygoers' style.

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Much thanks to a (the?) "Star Trek: Original Series" group on Facebook for accepting my application to join. I was on tenterhooks for a bit there, not knowing what admins would think of my citing my favorite episode as "The Trouble with Tribbles." Of the two titles I remembered on the spot (God, now I know what if feels like to interview for a co-op in Hell's Kitchen!), it was the less lame: Damn you Edith Keeler, for making a laughing stock of James T. Kirk! But I digress...

It all comes down to the Enterprise's failing to deploy Yeoman Janice Rand in time to deal with Harry Mudd - she alone I know would have stopped Mudd's nonsense right quick; leave the Klingon menace to the rest of the crew! But she melodramatically was insulated from the Mudd problem - such a quintessential ST episode!

And as we all know, Janice went on to her post as a transporter room operator... Until that horrifying, fateful malfunction prior to the V'jer mission - a malfunction resulting in screaming, half-materialized goo on the platform who in turn Rand screaming to drink her life away in the Spacedock bar.

(Which, by the way - truthesque factoid and canonical - is why Federation scientists invented synthohol - Rand was constantly pestering Starfleet medical for liver regeneration.)

Worst job one could ever have in the 23rd century, it turns out, is to be a transporter room operator or transporter chief.

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Oh, Frank Miller, you kidder, on Artemisia (gamely played by unflappable - seriously, UNFLAPPABLE - Eva Green), the antihistorical, fancy, Greek-born slavegirl who, chinchilla-like, rose through the ranks of the great hen house known as the Persian navy...

"Wisdom, Artemisia!" Golly, your majesty, you might have started by trying to counsel the damn dame to prudence... Just a thought.

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And screw SOUTH PACIFIC: I'm never gonna wash THAT man (Mikey!) right outta MY hair!

***

Speaking of veterans, I must end this column on a somber note: some ugly statistics are coming out of the VA (and I consider them in light of the recent incident at San Francisco's Crown Hotel, where 55 units are reserved for homeless veterans - an incident which thank the gods ended without a loss of life), and they include the following: women veterans commit suicide at a rate of 250% that of their counterparts among the men.

Truly sobering, truly harrowing.

www.22kill.com

www.ploughshares.org

Squaw Creek Inn

Ron turned up the volume on the bar TV.  It was his favorite show, STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, and one of his favorite episodes, the one about the colony of Indians who settled on the planet Dorvan V.  In the episode, Wesley Crusher has a vision during a sweat lodge session in which he sees his father and chooses another, better path in life.  The bar was empty save for William, who was high and toasty on well vodka.  Ron was hip to William's drunk, and since it was just that, put up with his commentary.

"Jesus, Ron, could you imagine us on that flying freakshow, the USS Enterprise?"

"No.  I guess I've tried, but I can't."

"Picture it:  'Computer, please locate Ensign Wesley Crusher.'  You know what?

"What?"

"Crickets chirping, that's what.  And if you'd pressed her, she would have lied, because Majel was a good wife and treated Gene better than he deserved.  That computer, like every other sentient being aboard the Enterprise, loathed Wesley.  He was that precocious whippersnapper everybody prayed would die.  And I think he's the only redshirt who didn't.  (Probably because his mother, Doctor Beverly Crusher, was scarier than a Cardassian in-law at your holodeck wedding.  She was a horrible physician, and malicious.)"

"William, I like this show."

"Oh," continued William, drunk and so far oblivious,"but Deanna Troi was the worst:  'Captain, I think he's hiding something.'  I can't for the life of me figure out why no one just came out and said it:  'Damn, Counselor Troi, you want to know the truth?  We all rein it in around you.  Everybody has something to hide.  Bitch, give the man some privacy.'  She was the most terrifying member of the Enterprise crew."

"So, you headed home?"

"Yeah, I can't watch this shit.  That ship is scary."

William knew he had been 86'd and wobbled to the door."

"Oh, and one more thing, Ron."

"Yeah?"

"Never get quarters with a window.  That's just asking for a heart attack..."

"Transporter Room Four"

[Transporter technician emery-boards his nails at the console.  Sitting down, legs crossed.]

[Second man in circuitry cabinet on wall, to Technician's right.]

Technician:  Jenkins, I told you to stop fiddling with that.  Nothing in here works right.  You're just going to make it worse.

Jenkins:  Do you know how many times I've had to share the turbolift with Lieutenant Del Toro?  I can't even look him in the eye.  THE MAN LOST HIS ARMS.  I just stand there, looking at everything but him.  And he won't stop clearing his throat the whole time.

Technician:  Well, even if you fixed every glitch in this room, including the coordinate resolver terminal, it wouldn't bring his arms back.  Besides, he can get prosthetics, make himself the arm-wrestling champ of every shore leave.  He would win every bar fight.

[Phone rings.  Technician lifts receiver to ear.]

Technician:  Transporter room four here.  [Pause as someone else is talking.]  No, I really don't think that's a good idea [Pause.]  Oh, a red shirt?  Really?  What department?  [Pause.]  Engineering?  Well has everyone else got their digs in?  Yeah, cos this is pretty final.  Yeah.  [Pause.]  Let me guess, he thinks Scotty's his best friend...  [Pause]  Ha, what a sucker.  Yeah, send him down.  I don't know, that's your job.  It's not going to be an intra-ship transport, that's for sure.  Could you imagine if he materialized in the galley?  No one would eat for a week.  [Pause]  Well come up with something, and I'll hack a fudge for the transport log.  [Pause]  15 minutes?  Sounds good.  Just one more thing...  He isn't cute, is he?  {Pause]  Well, that's a shame.  God, I hope he's wearing clean underwear...