Star Trek, Bananas and The Number '666'

A few months ago I decided that it would be nice to re-watch the series 'Star Trek : The Next Generation'. Three months and 178 episodes later, I have taken to mainlining Picard and co. like a junkie chases the dragon. Except my dragon is a popular science-fiction show which aired between 1987 and 1994. Now it's finished and I am in withdrawal, oh sure there are always the movies, but they aren't the same. They won't talk about the time Data got lost in the Holodeck or when Geordie got a pretend girlfriend or when we all had to close our eyes and pretend Riker was a ladykiller.

How long is it before I start looking online at Starfleet uniforms, how long before I start reading the appallingly bad novelisations, and how long before I start saying 'Make it So' in everyday life ?

During this time I have also developed an unhealthy interest in bananas. Right now I have 9 of them (yes 9 !!) sitting in my freezer, stripped, segmented and plastic bagged. Why, well because I use them to make the smoothies that have already destroyed a blender (it turns out that frozen bananas are harder than diamond). But when you blend these babies, mixed with milk, honey and Nesquik, they make for a drink so satisfying (and healthyish) that you'll never want another McDonalds thick shake again. Today frozen bananas, tomorrow the world !!

And finally the number '666'. The number of the beast in Revelations, often associated with the Devil, but more likely to refer to the Antichrist. I know these things, I've seen the Omen films multiple times. What I also know is that the concept of Hell is mentioned sparsely in the Bible, and that most of our ideas about it come from fiction, such as Dante's 'Inferno', Goethe's 'Faust' and Brendan Fraser's 'Bedazzled'. So the next time that you condemn some group of people as 'going to Hell' perhaps because they like to touch each other's bottoms be prepared for them to fire a witty retort back at you about the hazy concept of Hell in the New Testament and the fact that the fear of such a place was routinely used to control the populace. That'll tell you. Nowadays of course we just tell people that we'll take their credit cards away and they run off screaming. But as I noted that my last post brought me up to '666' in total I thought I should do another one quickly, just in case Sam Neill was right in 'Omen 3 : The Not Very Good One'.

Did you want to know any of this stuff, well if you did I would suggest lying down in a darkened room and humming to yourself for some time. Just make sure it isn't the Star Trek music. I had these random thoughts floating around in the toilet bowl of my mind and I needed to flush them. That I've used the rest of you as the effluent pipe I can only apologise for.