Best Looking Man in the World

Who is the best looking man? On the 10th day of the 10th month on the 10th year at 10:10AM. This Kids in the Hall classic "The Best Looking Man in the World" taken from the Kids early years. Who is the best looking man?

Kids in the Hall

A man walks into a bar and says...

A man walks into a bar and says, "Give me a beer before problems start!"

Again, the man orders a beer again saying, "Give me a beer before problems start!"

The bartender looks confused. This goes on for a while, and after the fifth beer the bartender is totally confused and asks the man "When are you going to pay for these beers?"

The man answers, "Now the problems start!"

I've been away for a while. Not out of town away but away from writing. I had seven stories started and no ability to complete any of them. A few days away does a wonder of good. Not to mention the triple shot cafe latte I had at Starbucks about an hour ago. My brain is fired up. Let's see if I can sit still long enough to compose this post.

I usually drive my car to work but decided to take the metro the other day. By subway it takes me just short of an hour to get to the office. By car, about 40 minutes. I have done the calculations and weighed the benefits of car travel versus public transit.

In terms of cost on a monthly basis I would save money with public transportation. Not a lot, but some. A $70 pass compared to $50 for parking at work and the price of gasoline covering about 35 kilometres a day.

I suppose the greatest benefit would be to the environment. But at a loss of 30 minutes of my time each day, I would have to consider it a little more.

Now the reason I took the metro was because I was heading downtown with my colleagues for a team building event. Parking downtown ain't cheap, and since the team building event was taking place in a bar I figured it best if the car stayed home.

Six pints and some tequila proved me right.

Starting off in the morning I pictured a great story about the violence or crime I witnessed on the metro. Luckily for me, but unlucky for the story, I did not witness a crime. It is Montreal after all, and while not crime free, by North American standards, it remains pretty safe.

The best story I could muster, developed on the trek back. Sitting with three of my colleagues in the metro car, I started making fun of them for getting on the train heading in the wrong direction. As it turned out, I was the one heading in the wrong direction. It's not as bad as it sounds. Or maybe it is. I only went one stop out of my way.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

I have been watching repeat episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I am running through the seventh and final season and I have found that some of the strongest episodes came in its final two years. The series finished its run of original episodes in 1999. It ended with one unresolved storyline. Everybody went their merry ways except… 

The main story revolved around a new space station commander and his son. There were hundreds of other characters and plot twists but Benjamin Sisko was the central character. Perhaps as foreshadow of events to come, throughout the series, Sisko’s death, potential or actual was examined more than once. Each time, the bond between son and father could not be severed, emotionally or sub-space physics-ly. Each time the son was not yet capable of, or mature enough to handle Sisko's death.

The series ended with son Jake left to contend with his father’s departure and finally capable of being on his own.

But what happened to the Sisko? We know he went to the Celestial Temple to study with The Prophets but he was supposed to eventually come back. While not a pure cliffhanger, the other story-lines were resolved and we are left with this one big question.

Similar to the series finale of Angel, don’t you want to know what happened to Angel, Illyria and Spike after the battle with the demons?

Due to the failure of the later TNG films it is unlikely we will ever see a conclusion to the DS9 story arc on screen. I am curious as to what a J.J. Abrams re-imagined DS9 would look like.

The show was filled with great characters and some fun stories. Last week I watched the DS9 baseball episode Take Me Out to the Holosuite.

During play on the diamond, Sisko encourages his team – who have never played ball before - to chatter at the opposing batter.

In response to,”Batter, batter, batter…” Worf yells, “Destroy the opposition.”

A later scene has the mystified Ferengi catcher not knowing what to do when the runner misses home plate.

Worf yells, “Find him and kill him!”

Of all the ST series DS9 remains my favourite. TNG was more consistent in terms of plot. It also had the luxury of a young and undeveloped Star Trek universe for the writers to create. The darker edge of DS9 appealed to me more.

Each of the Star Trek series dealt with social issues, DS9 took it a step further and dealt seriously with themes of bigotry, genocide, terrorism, racism, stress of combat and the consequences of war.

Top 60 Jewish Ghetto Names

The Top 60 Jewish Ghetto Names is a riff on Top 60 Ghetto Black Names which had some 13 million hits on the YouTube.