Hello World!

I've spent this week trying to track down wristbands for my son.

See, Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong started a campaign to raise money for the Lance Armstrong Foundation to help people with cancer by promoting these little yellow wristbands. The bands, which sell for $1 with all proceeds going to charity, say "Live Strong" on them. They've been so successful that 1) Nike has sold out of them and 2) lots of other organizations have followed suit and created similar rubbery wristbands for charity with slogans. And 3) apparently these are all the rage in elementary schools these days.

Now, as peer pressure goes, inexpensive wristbands that raise money for charity are a pretty good fad. When I was my son's age, everyone had to have Levi's jeans, and I like this trend much better. But it's so big that actually finding wristbands has been quite a challenge. By the time I was informed that my son absolutely had to have one, the yellow bands were impossible to find anywhere but eBay (and it is against my religion to pay $10 to someone for something that's supposed to be sold for charity).

My son announced that he would settle for a different color wristband, since (and he made sure to explain this) even the boys at school are willing to be seen in the pink ones, which say "Live Long" and raise money for breast cancer research. These were actually available locally in a girls' clothing store before they sold out of them, so I happily got him a pink band. A day later the store called to tell me they'd gotten in blue bracelets to raise money for autism research (these say "Enable Expand Express Embrace Engage"), so we got one of those, too.

The only drawback is that, since the wristbands were at the girls' clothing store, my son insisted that I needed to pretend I was shopping for myself there. As if I could fit into a girls' size ten!

Trek BBS Today

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

-How do you reconcile Enterprise with the rest of Trek canon?

-Isn't "The Tholian Web" good?

-Did Voyager have too much Seven of Nine?

More topics can be found at the Trek BBS!

Trek Two Years Ago

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

• Bakula On Archer's Development
  "He's loosened up a lot," Scott Bakula said of Jonathan Archer in the second season. "I've known a lot of military men and women in my life, and certainly this guy is a military guy. So I incorporated certain mannerisms there...he's become a little more universal and global as he's started to travel."

• Stewart: I Almost Didn't Play Picard
  Patrick Stewart admitted that he would not have accepted the role of Jean-Luc Picard if he had guessed that The Next Generation would run for seven years, but added that he was glad he did, because it changed his life:

  "I did reject the offer at first because I didn't had the intension to connect myself to a drama series for such a long time because I had too many other things to do...they tried to convince me by saying that 'The Next Generation' wouldn't have had a chance to be successful at all. They would guarantee us one year but after that it would be very unlikely that the series would be continued. Maybe a second year because something like the revival of such a famous TV show like Star Trek hadn't happened before. So I was told, I could sign the contract with a good conscience because there just wasn't an opportunity that the show would run seven years.

• Paramount Pleased With 'Nemesis'
  "'Nemesis' is done and finished and locked up," executive producer Rick Berman announced, saying that studio executives had seen then completed print and "they could not be more pleased."

More news can be found in the archives.

Poll Results

Below are the results of the most recent TrekToday poll:

How would you rate 'Cold Station 12'? 9-10 53.1% - (938 Votes) 7-8 28.5% - (503 Votes) Wasn't able to see it 8.3% - (147 Votes) 5-6 4.8% - (85 Votes) Didn't want to see it 2.8% - (51 Votes) 1-2 1.1% - (20 Votes) 3-4 1.1% - (20 Votes) Total Votes: 1764

Please vote in our new poll after you have seen "The Augments" and rate this week's episode:

Happy Birthday!

Today is the birthday of Max Grodenchik, Deep Space Nine's Rom, and tomorrow is the birthday of Whoopi Goldberg, The Next Generation's Guinan.

Today's Television Listings

Tonight at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, UPN will broadcast the new Star Trek: Enterprise episode "The Augments". Here's the official synopsis:

In defiance of their "father," Arik Soong's Augments devise a heinous plot against the Klingons which will surely lead to interstellar war.

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