May 28th, 2001 Well son of a bitch. Star Trek: Voyager is over. My editor-in-chief has been crying and crying ever since, but not because he's sad. He's more in great agony over the crapass writing the last several months smacked him across the face with (Disagree? Tell Marc!). Anyway, I made it a point to watch each new episode, because I'm so friggin' cool, and now that there aren't any new ones, I don't know what to do. I'm certainly not going to watch it in syndication. One run-through the bowels was enough for me. So what AM I going to do with my time, now that I've had to say... Bon Voyager By Gary Star Trek: Enterprise suits up for boredom And NOW they're talking about making a new series from before, like, any of that stuff that you see in Star Trek ever happened. Kinda like, uh, now. You know, transporters, phasers, space ships in general - none of these will exist in the "newest" version of Star Trek, which they say will be called "Enterprise," but given the fact that it's set in, oh, I think 2005, it's basically just going to be all theoretical stuff. I think it'll be more like what we have now: A lot of geeks pretending in their hearts that Star Trek is real, dressing like it, learning new languages, playing with dolls and making covert hand signals to one another, all in the hopes that if enough of them believe, the Star Trek franchise really will spawn a spaceship, magically. If it does, I'm hereby naming the phenomenon "The Immaculate Phaser Discharge" (forever to be shortened to: "I can't dooo it, keeptin!"). "Gotta look our best, in case we ever run into an alien life form!!!" You know, as a funny side note, it would be really hysterical if phasers were just being invented during this new series' timeline, and of course they should still have the two buttons, "stun" and "kill," but just like now, they would be unlabeled. Here's the funny part: These things are new, so NObody has the whole "this one means stun" thing down pat, and people are always killing each other and then making a huge fuss about how stupid that "damn button system" is. Haha ha ha. Oh man. "DAMMIT! Why did we put the stun one on the right!? I swear it makes no frickin' sense! GOD, I'm SUCH and IDIOT! That was our best pilot." Ow, my face hurts! I'm still laughing over here... Just give me a second. I can't see my screen... "An ALIEN!!! No wait... it's just my stick again." You know, I've been reading the Star Trek newsgroups (again, because I'm so friggin' cool), and apparently phasers aren't going to be around for awhile in this series, so that whole hilarious episode of which I spake will just never happen. Our loss. Let's just put it behind us. I think the whole Star Trek franchise should let me the hell in, because I have so many ideas for improvements. All the misinformants do, really. Sometimes, I was able to improve Voyager's plot lines, just by changing the channel, or going for a long walk just as it started. What are these improvements, you ask? What could I possibly have to offer the Star Trek franchise? Well. If the whole rippin' each other apart with phasers by accident thing didn't impress you, how do you feel about these gems...? Quests for improving human life, bionically Star Trek is ALWAYS avoiding this topic. Don't give me that crap about "7 of 9" being bionic. That's the Borg making a human into their sultry, blonde bombshell puppet. I'm talking about human advancements. Advancements in the idea of a bionic sphincter system, for starters. I can't imagine that when our society is advanced enough to create a ship that can accelerate instantly to THE SPEED OF LIGHT without killing everyone involved, that I won't be able to press a button on my wrist that allows me to "hold it long enough to make it to the bathroom." In fact, screw buttons. The transporter system should just beam the shit out of me all day long. Not once in any of Voyager's episodes did they even touch on shit beaming© technology, or the complications involved therein. I think it would be great if the shit-beamer© backfired and everyone started inflating throughout one episode. And how long did it take me to come up with that idea? What, 2 minutes? And they have a whole staff working on this stuff? I'm so disappointed. "...the idea being, my shit would go straight into space." Better games You know, every game on Star Trek falls into 2 categories: Standard Issue "Enterprise" Motor Skills Training Kit 1) what we have already You know, chess, except 3D. Video games, in 2D, except displayed in 3D. Voyager went as low as to have this big octagon thing with giant cutout primary shapes. We had something like it in my kindergarten class. I forget what it was called, but it was beneath me even then. It was this black felt board, and the teacher would talk reeeallly slowly, and then to accentuate the words that must not have been accentuated enough, she'd put colorful felt cut-outs of what she was talking about on this black felt board, whatever the hell it was called. I think the main "problem" with that damn board was the fact that each and every one of the kids in that class already knew what television was. Felt people and felt houses on a felt board just wasn't going to cut it for us, and neither do these Star Trek board games. 2) what we have already This is the holodeck version of scrimping on budget. You see, people in the 24th century, or whenever the hell it is, like the stuff that WE have. It's amazing. From billiards in dark bars, to baseball, on baseball fields, on Earth, to fencing, in a room, with a rectangle drawn on the floor, nothing cuts budgets as fast as pretending the future versions of ourselves will time-and-again, choose to relax by imitating the things we do for fun today. If that's hundreds of years in the future for me, I'm staying here. I'd rather play pool for real, where I can accidentally fall and die than wait 500 years to pretend to slip on a wayward cueball and only fake die. 3) So here are my ideas Pick someone and kill them! You know, draw straws - "uh oh, ensign Foreigner lost! Well, everybody KILL HIM!!!" Then they just swarm after the guy like nobody knows him, and everyone pummels him to death, or maybe they could give him a head start, and then go after him with phasers. No one really dies in the future anyway, and if they do, it's only 'cause they're from Earth, but not North America, or else their contract's up. So, until then, RUN!!! Get this: "Survivager." The title's lame, but the idea is all the same. Each episode, they vote someone off the ship. <PSSSHhhhh!> Eject 'em out the airlock! Then everyone watches from the window as the ejectee slowly fades into the murky darkness of space. Alliances would form all over the ship, people would talk trash about each other to the camera. Think how this would help in negotiations: Alien scum: Wazzzup!? Surrender your vessel!!! Janeway: Hell no, we're in the middle of a vote here. Alien scum: A vote? For what? Janeway: Well, we just voted you the supreme asshole of this entire region, but now we're going to pick one of us to blast into space! Could even be me! Supreme Asshole: But, aren't you the commanding officer? I fail to understand this. Janeway: Yeah, I'm the Captain. I don't get it either - wanna watch? Ass: I, uh... Well yeah! Janeway: Cool, you wanna vote, too? Ass Voter: Sure, uh, I choose you. Janeway: It's supposed to be a secret ballot. Alien Castaway: Am I disqualified? Janeway: Oh no. I suck. I even voted me off this week. Alien Voter: Cool! You guys know how to party! Janeway: Shit yeah! Call off your attack and let's rock this quadrant! Alien Pacifist: Attack sequence canceled. It's more likely the show would be canceled, but man, I'd pee myself if even one of the episodes of Voyager went anything like that. They wasted 7 years. 7 of MY years, when I could've had girlfriends. So What's Gary Gonna Do Now??? Well, I think it's fairly obvious from this feature alone that I have what most would call a flair for invention. So, aside from trying to pay my rent on time, I'm going to be inventing. I'd like to share some of my more outdated inventions with you, because my more recent ones you can't hope to comprehend, but also, because you'll just steal them before I can get around to the patent office. The Replacement Pacman... " Hackman" One idea, I've had since the mid 80's is "Hackman." Not much to say here, except it would be a more gruff version of Pacman, starring Gene Hackman. I don't know. I guess there's a lot of other ideas waiting in the wings for this, but I haven't been able to get past the original idea of seeing Gene's head flying all over angrily gobbling up pellets. Heh heh - it still gets me... Digital Yes Man ©2001 - Gary Fixler One idea I'm still trying to get up and running is the Digital Yes Man Service. This would be a bank of weasely men (and women) that would basically make themselves available in endless shiftwork, online. Whether you're an ICQ man, or an IM woman, or you just need the daily affirmations in a "Yesmail," this staff off brown-nosing, butt-kissing, at-your-command drones would be there morning through following morning, agreeing with all your best ideas. Think how bad it would be if that amazing thing you came up with didn't become a reality because you were too insecure about whether or not it was a worthwhile venture. That's exactly the kind of problem the Digital Yes Man Service would seek to eliminate. You can go everywhere from business meetings to your cozy bed at night, knowing someone, somewhere, thinks you are the man (or woman). Also, I want a cellphone version of these guys to be with you from roadside emergencies to those long, boring, insecure train rides. WEENIES! - you know, for kids Here's a little snapshot from my misinformer.com notebook. If you can't see the genius at work by now, I'm wasting my time. "It would be funny if a hot dog company started advertising w/ sports-figures - and it would be like this:" C'mon - it gets very little better than that. So yeah, I've got my hands full. Voyager sucked, now it's over. We can just go forward from here, into the past with "Enterprise," which is still the future, but sucks anyway. Hey, I remember as a kid that 2000 was gonna rock. What do we have? No flying cars. No robot lovers. We've got rolling blackouts. Cats and dogs, living together. Mass hysteria. And if we did have flying cars, the $2.00/gal. would keep 'em all in our garages. I've said my piece - go outside and play in the sun.