November!

No, I didn't dress up for Halloween.

But if I did, the "Green Orion Slave Girl" costume would be a good choice, don't you think?

In the book "The Making of Star Trek," there's a story about this scene: When the film came back from the lab* for screening, the Director wasn't happy. The slave girl was no longer green! Bummer. They slathered even more paint on her, shot the scene again, and sent it off for processing. And again, she came back looking completely caucasian. Investigation revealed that the lab had worked overtime to adjust the chemicals to "fix" the scene, because they couldn't imagine that the girl's green skin tone was intentional.

Good thing they didn't see the carrot people on "Lost in Space", eh?

*NOTE for younger readers: Back in olden times, photographs and video were captured on a substance known as "film", which was a strip of cellulose acetate coated with light-sensitive emulsion that could be exposed to light and then run through a chemical bath to produce a small reproduction of the image. In the case of motion pictures (what we call "video" today), this film consisted of thousands of separate photos that would appear to be moving when projected at 24 frames per second. These long strips of photos were wound up onto a circular device known as a "reel" and were copied and distributed as physical objects. Instead of existing as a few gigabytes of computer files, these ancient entertainment programs took the form of several heavy canisters of film reels, and were vulnerable to a variety of damages, such as scratches, melting, and breaking. Despite this hideously primitive technology and its clumsy distribution system, the simple people of those times were able to derive entertainment from those sources. Amazing, but true.

Anyway, the point is that if I were Captain Pike, I might very well have stayed on Talos IV and contentedly lived out my days dining and dancing with imaginary green chicks. Hey, if they really are "slave" girls, they'd have to do the dishes, too, am I right?

I hate doing dishes.

But I digress. What I really meant to discuss is the arrival of a new month. Even though nary a single costumed hobgoblin showed up at my door to beg for candy last night, I am content to leave October behind. It had its frustrations, to be sure, but the good news is that I accumulated my highest monthly running mileage total in over a year, enjoyed numerous gorgeous days of Fall colors, and had a relatively stress-free month at the office as well. Lack of tantalizing Talosian illusions notwithstanding, I'm living a pretty sweet life right now. Every morning, I'm finding it easier and easier to talk myself into running, and my friends on the swim team continue to inspire and entertain me.

I can tell that November is going to be a good month. We'll have new nerd quizzes coming soon, and you can also expect to hear the tale of my triumphant return to the pool, perhaps as early as next week. As always, thanks for dropping by, and have a great day!