After all these years, I still can't decide if I am a Star Wars guy or a Star Trek guy.

I guess I love them equally. Though they are very different at their core, the two franchises have followed similar arcs... both starting out with sheer brilliance, then descending into utter crap. Though Star Trek did make a stunning recovery with its 2009 film reboot, which had me leaning to Trek for a while. I don't suppose it's too much to hope that Star Wars will get a similar break? I dunno. There's talk of a television show and wacky rumors of a third trilogy, so one can only hope.

In any event, we've reached the 45th anniversary of Star Trek "The Original Series" which is pretty much the only Trek series that matters to me (as any long-time reader of this blog already knows)...

Though even the Next Generation was in the mix from time to time...

   
So happy 45th anniversary to Star Trek and thanks for everything!

Now if only JJ Abrams would get off his ass and give us another amazing movie real soon now.

Not the best day.

And yet, I should probably be grateful because it wasn't the worst day either.

It was just long and busy and difficult and ended too soon for me to get caught up on the mountains of work that never seems to go away. This puts me in the odd position of wishing that a long, never-ending day was even longer. Which is wholly depressing and surprisingly encouraging at the same time.

I leave on vacation in a couple weeks, so at least there's that to keep me going...

Though, given the absolutely heinous exchange rate for the near-worthless US Dollar, I may have to declare bankruptcy by the time I get back. So even vacation is not exactly the drama-free escape I was hoping for.

Is anything ever?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it was still a good game. You'll get 'em next time, Sox!

And, before I forget... SALTALAMACCHIA!!!

To the person who asked, the cartoon character you see on Blogography is indeed a visual representation of me. Or rather, a representation of my inner child. The story of how the design came about is here. But the design itself is based on a photo of me as a kid. I don't think I've published it before, so here you go...

The hair is based on many, many other photos of how it looked through most of my childhood (and a and a big chunk of my adulthood)...

And there you have it. Thanks for the email!

Nothing quite like losing 15% of your retirement fund in less than two months. So happy I pay a bunch of experts to manage my money! Something tells me I would have been better off investing my money in hookers. Sure it uses my long-term asset for a short-term investment with no long-term payoff... and comes with some really heavy risk factors... but at least I would be stimulating the local economy.

And my penis.

What's odd is that my retirement plan is fairly low-risk. I can't imagine how much I would have lost were I still in the high-risk/high-yield program I was in just five years ago.

And don't think I'm not grateful that I at least have something left in my retirement account. There are many, many people out there who are not so lucky. Stupid economy.

So, yeah, I'm a little worried about my retirement.

But that's quite a ways away. And, as of today, is even further away than it was last month.

The more immediate concern is my upcoming vacation. I haven't worked out all the details yet, but if the US dollar gets much worse, my travels are going to take a turn for the worse...

On the other hand, I would be meeting new and interesting people.

If you happen to have a monkey with a sledgehammer available, I highly recommend them as the perfect solution for insomnia...

Of course, a handful of Nytol will do the trick too...

I remember what it was like to sleep. Good times. Good times.

Except I rarely sleep anymore. I just don't seem to get tired...

...until the minute it's time to get up and go to work, then I'm totally tired.

But then the night comes and the cycle repeats all over again...

I really don't like taking drugs if I can help it, but this is getting ridiculous. You know it's ridiculous when you fondly remember the good ol' days when you were only complaining about getting four hours of sleep instead of no sleep at all.

Four hours seems like something from a dream now.

If I could fall asleep to have it.

Well crap.

How can it be "one of those days" if it's a Saturday?

   
Sometimes I just get really tired of the battle. It never ends.

But you can't win if you don't play.

Some people aren't happy unless they have all the bananas.

This kind of ambition doesn't bother me.

It's what they're willing to do to get all the bananas that bothers me.