ch-ch-ch-changes, among other little ditties

I've received a few critiques of my blog, and am now trying to alter things in order to make those nay-sayers happy. IS THIS OKAY NOW?

It's going to be difficult, retraining myself to hit the shift key when appropriate, but hey, technically speaking, you readers are my customers, no? I also changed the template. Apparently, my blog as it was bore a few resemblances to another one here, and that in and of itself is a bad thing. So please, dear readers, comment on this particular column with any other problems you may have with the way I'm doing things here, if applicable.

I kinda like it here in my cozy little corner of the intarwebs. I find myself feeling rather accomplished when I check out my blog on Site Tracker and see the total of people visiting. Most of said visitors only visit my page for 0.00 seconds, but I'm going for quantity, not quality, so my ego is satisfied.

For now.

Anyway, onto the meat 'n' potatoes of today's writing exercise!

Way, way back in 1987, when I was a young, charming lass of 9, I took my first wobbly steps towards femme-geekhood, by way of primetime television. Star Trek: The Next Generation aired its dubious pilot, and, without knowing towards which I reached, I was hooked. I watched almost every episode the night it aired, discussing them at Sunday school later that week with another girl just as enraptured with the series as I was. Without knowing how unerringly, stunningly nerdy the whole thing was, we discussed theories, characters, alien races, attractions between characters, attractions TO characters (hey... we WERE girls, after all). Together, we wrung every tasty drop of juice out of that series that we possibly could.

I cut my geek teeth on that show. Through seven seasons, I watched every episode I possibly could, mourning the weeks where other obligations would keep me from parking my kiester in front of the television the minute that gloriously symphonic theme would start. At the end of the final episode, I cried. It was over! Of course, the next Star Trek series had started by then, but I'll talk about DS9 later.

Once the series was over and done with, I lost touch with it. Until, about 10 years later, I walked into Salzer's Records used DVD section to find Season 3 for sale. I bought it without a second thought and carried the package lovingly cradled to my chest until I got it home to watch it. I made it my temporary life's goal to collect the entire series.

Over the next couple of months, I scoured the used section of Salzer's, and every time I saw a shiny silver box, I gravitated towards it, snapping it up with alacrity if it was a season I hadn't acquired yet. After depleting the used versions, I bit the bullet and found a few missing seasons at Best Buy, ignoring the hefty price tag (did I mention I'm Jewish and like to save money?) in order to feed my Trek hunger. I fell asleep to episode after episode, sometimes watching two or three in a row before bed, not getting to sleep until many hours after I'd actually gotten IN bed.

When Spike TV bought the syndication rights to Next Gen, I immediately set up the TiVo Season Pass to record each and every episode aired, despite the fact that I owned the box sets. It was still Star Trek, it was still good, and I got to watch 6 episodes in a row without having to change DVDs! The lazy part of me was happy with that little arrangement.

A year or so later, by way of a friend ALMOST as into the series as I was, I discovered the novels. Unaired episodes! How neat! After many many years of watching the episodes, I could read the books and play out the scenes in my head, so I didn't even miss the lack of visual stimulation in that particular format.

To this day, if any friend of mine has a Star Trek universe question, I'm the first person they call. A dubious honor, to say the least. Nice to be recognized for my knowledge, kind of annoying to know that I'm the first they turn to. It's kind of like having 'GEEK' tattooed on your forehead, but it's better than no recognition at all.