Hello World!

Living in Washington, as a general rule, means that late September and early October are a dismal time of year for sports fans. Even during seasons when they end up playing well, the Redskins usually manage to blow a game early on to Dallas - resident messiah/coach Joe Gibbs has not been able to work miracles - and, of course, we don't have a baseball team (at least not this year, though indications are good that Montreal's loss may be our gain).

I did, however, enjoy the "Baseball As America" exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Having grown up on my father's stories of the Brooklyn Dodgers (the great tragedy of his childhood was their move from Ebbets Field to L.A.), I am a great aficionado of sports stories even if I sometimes get bored with the sports themselves. There was a lot of neat memorabilia, including letters from Babe Ruth to handicapped kids, collectibles from the Negro Leagues, and my all-time favorite Oriole Jim Palmer in his underwear. But who puts together an exhibit on baseball as American myth without any of Walt Whitman's articles from his career as a sports reporter? I had to console myself with Robert Redford's bat from The Natural, plus Jackie Robinson's Brooklyn jersey.

The theme of our day at the Smithsonian, however, was volcanoes, which was unnerving as Mount St. Helens was doing a great deal of rumbling on the west coast over the weekend. We saw an exhibit on the excavation, exploration and restoration of the Roman seaside resort of Stabiae, which was destroyed by Mt. Vesuvius in 79 during the same eruption that covered Pompeii. Then we went through the minerals and gems exhibit upstairs in the geology section, which contains two exhibits on volcanoes and earthquakes. There's a running readout on quakes around the globe there so we had constant reminders that the Pacific Northwest was shaking.

It seems to have calmed down now, but I will never forget the World Series game from the 80s where the TV cameras began shaking and the next thing any of us knew, the San Francisco Giants no longer had an intact stadium in which to play. That's one of my personal most memorable moments in sports.

Trek BBS Today

Below are some of the topics currently being discussed at the Trek BBS:

-Countdown to the fourth season of Enterprise!

-When do the Andorians first appear?

-Remember season one Picard? Anyone like him?

More topics can be found at the Trek BBS!

Trek Two Years Ago

These were some of the major news items from October 2002:

• 'Minefield' Sparks Ratings Increase
  "Minefield" brought in the highest Wednesday night ratings for Enterprise since April of its first season, earning a 5.1 rating / 8 share in the overnights and beating out the Dawson's Creek season premiere.

• Logan Recalls 'Nemesis' Pitch
  Though previously nominated for an Academy Award and an Emmy, writer John Logan said that when he went in to pitch the story that became Star Trek X, because he had been so inspired by the series, "I was terrified. You know, I can sit in a room with Oliver Stone or Ridley Scott and never break a sweat. Rick Berman, I'm terrified."

• Westmore: Nosferatu Inspired 'Nemesis' Viceroy
  Makeup artist Michael Westmore explained that Nemesis director Stuart Baird came to him with a picture from the classic horror movie Nosferatu and said, "I need an alien that looks like this" for the Viceroy.

More news can be found in the archives.

Poll Results

Below are the results of the most recent TrekToday poll:

Now that 'Enterprise' is no longer on Wednesdays, what are you watching? The television is blissfully silent at 8 29.4% - (406 Votes) 'Lost' on ABC 25.6% - (354 Votes) 'Smallville' on the WB 24% - (332 Votes) Something local or on cable 12% - (166 Votes) 'That 70s Show' on FOX 6.3% - (88 Votes) '60 Minutes' on CBS 1.3% - (19 Votes) 'Hawaii' on NBC 1% - (15 Votes) Total Votes: 1380

Please vote in our new poll after you have seen the season premiere tonight and rate it!

Happy Birthday!

Today is the birthday of Todd Bryant, who played Captain Klaa in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and performed stunts in other Trek films. Tomorrow is the birthday of Barbara March, who played Lursa in The Next Generation and Generations.

Today's Television Listings

Tonight at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, UPN will broadcast the season four premiere of Star Trek: Enterprise, "Storm Front, Part One". Here's the official synopsis of the episode:

Archer and the NX-01 find themselves in Earth's past, with events of World War II altered by the Temporal Cold War.

Discuss this news item at Trek BBS!
 Add TrekToday RSS feed to your news reader or My Yahoo!
Also a CSI: Crime Scene Investigation fan? Then visit CSIFiles.com!