Month: September 2006

Nope. None at all. Knew they’d clinch it tonight. Never thought anything other than that.

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The fact that the Mets continue to hover on their magic number of one, only to be shut out by the Pirates while the Phillies continue not to lose, has me wondering about the possibility of watching one of those “historic crashes” one sometimes hears about. You know, like when the Yankees crashed and burned to the Red Sox.

Can you imagine if the Mets lose every single game to the end of the season while the Phillies win every single game? I know, I know…very unlikely.

Ridiculous even to think about it.

They’ll clinch the thing tomorrow. I’m almost positively 100% sure, I think.

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Took Ariel into the city to meet Ken Jennings, Jeopardy’s all-time champ, who was doing a book signing at the B&N in Union Square. Nattily attired, he kept the audience entertained with a discussion and selected readings of his latest book, “Brainiac” (which, tragically, has nothing to do with supervillains) while discussing his slow progression from closeted trivia master to the poster boy for knowing tons of information others would deem useless (although how anyone can deem something useless when you can use it to rake in $2 milliion-plus is beyond me.)

Sometimes I wonder about the wave of genuine hostility to knowledge that many in this country possess. Whether it’s the disdainful description of experts on topics as “geeks” or “nerds,” or the fact that a minuscule percentage of the consumer base is responsible for the vast majority of books bought, or…let’s face it…that so many people would embrace someone as intellectually stunted as George W. Bush, twice, for the presidency…there just seems to be this antipathy toward intellect that I find disturbing.

I’d like to claim that Jennings’ book is next on my list to read–we got two signed copies, one for Ariel, the other for Kath and myself–but it was abruptly displaced when I noticed to my shock that there was a John Mortimer “Rumpole” novel out that somehow slipped under my radar when it came out in 2004. It’s entitled “The Penge Bungalow Murders,” which Rumpole fans will instantly know as the case the British barrister (so memorably played by the late, great Leo McKern) regularly cited as his career highlight. It’s like stumbling over a Conan Doyle manuscript entitled, “The Adventure of the Giant Rat of Sumatra.” But “Brainiac”–which is not merely autobiographical, but instead an overview of the grand obsession of trivia–is right after that.

Strangest question Jennings got: An arena battle between a T-Rex and one thousand turkeys. Who would win? Jennings opined that it would likely be the T-Rex, but I’m not sure about that. Assuming that the T-Rex would probably be eating the turkeys as he went, I’d think all that tryptophan might start to make him drowsy, and the turkeys could eventually wear him down. In terms of pointless discussions, it’s probably right up there with cavemen versus astronauts.

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People keep talking about how the world changed on 9/11.

It didn’t. The world was filled with terrorists, and bombs, and people living in fear, and attacks on home grounds. The world remained exactly the same. Only our perception of it changed. We became both of and in the world.

It’s five years later. Anyone feeling safer?

I also find it interesting that the Democrats have surrendered the moral high ground in terms of TV presentation. Here the GOP managed to get the Reagan biopic banished to cable because they didn’t like the way it presented their political saint, and now the Democrats managed to get the miniseries on 9/11, based on the findings of the bi-partisan committee, re-edited so that it wouldn’t seem as if President Clinton was too distracted by Monicagate to go after bin Laden…except I find it difficult to believe any reasonable person could think that the harassment over Lewinsky didn’t impede Clinton’s effectiveness on any number of levels.

Quick, kids. There’s some history. Let’s rewrite it.

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Two pretty different entries. Whad’ja think?

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So we’re watching Trek episodes on TVLand to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the launch of “Star Trek.” Fortunately such episodes as “City” and “Tribbles” don’t require me to restrain my “Mystery Trekkie Theater” reflexes. The visual quality of the episodes is quite good, although I was torqued to see that they’ve cut dialogue in order to accommodate the boundless commercials. It’s the 40th Anniversary and they couldn’t run them intact, for crying out loud?

It’s also funny to play “six degrees” with the cast members and writers. I sit there going, “Met him…met him…he was my best man…wrote his autobiography…he came up to our hotel room at Dragon*con for spare ribs and fried chicken…he was the story editor on the first season of “Space Cases,” and so on.

I met both my wives because of Star Trek…the first at a convention, and Kathleen because she was selling a Klingon muppet that I bought for Mystery Trekkie. So four children literally owe their lives (and I, to some degree, my writing career) to Star Trek. Not bad for a TV series that was cancelled after three seasons of less-than-impressive ratings.

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