Not many days past I shared with you this heartwarming story of triumph. Like an underground railroad for the insect community I transported that dear bug across the city lines, liberating it from its oppressive environment and relocating it to its place of destiny. And all was right with the world. At least that is what my simplistic mind believed.

My naivete was cruelly shattered this weekend. It seems the call for retaliation had went out in the bug community and a hit was ordered. Saturday afternoon found me in the front yard, innocently watering my hosta. I should have been viewed as a saviour. One hundred plus degree temperatures make water a precious commodity and here was I, raining it down upon plant and insect alike, parting the windows of heaven to bring this life giving substance. The afternoon bliss was shattered when my enemies took this opportunity to strike and one of their number stung me quickly and forcefully in the index toe of my left foot. It all happened so quickly that I did not get a good view of my attacker.

Stinging soon turned to swelling and I spent the better part of Saturday evening with a very sore, very swollen foot. The soreness has went away but the swelling remains.

Showing remarkable moxie I got up Sunday morning and returned to the neighborhood of the crime. I swear I could here the laughter of my invisible assailant so I took the opportunity to send a message of my own and killed a very large mafioso-type spider crawling along the wall of the house. I won’t be intimidated.

Though expecting to wake up with the head of a grasshopper in my bed, this morning proved uneventful. Begun, this Insect War has…..

“I’ve giv’n her all she’s got captain, an’ I canna give her no more.”

Gazing at the moon last night on the 36th anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s courageous “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” moment I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sadness at the passing of one of my childhood heroes. James Doohan, most famous for his role as Montgomery Scott, Chief Engineer on the Starship Enterprise, passed away at the age of 85. How appropriate that his death would come on a day in which we celebrate man’s journey to space.

As a child Star Trek had as much of an emotional and inspirational impact on me as Star Wars. I was born in 1968 and didn’t have the pleasure of watching Star Trek on its original run but I do remember seeing reruns at a very young age and being captivated by the adventures of Captain Kirk and his crew. At one particular time in my life I remember my brother and I sitting in front of the television on Saturday evenings to catch Night Gallery followed by Star Trek. Although Captain Kirk was every young boys favorite I remember liking each and every member of the crew. They were a team and each of them was important and special. Star Trek was a show that meant something to me, and it still does.

“Even if we were under full scale attack I couldn’t move any faster, not and maintain a safety factor.”

Now that I’m an adult I can laugh at the silliness of some of the aspects of Star Trek and yet I still love it. The low budget effects and the over-the-top acting didn’t matter then and it doesn’t matter now. This show stands the test of time in large part because the actors made us love the characters and truly believe they were out having wild, fantastic adventures in space. And James Doohan gave Montgomery Scott the life and passion that made him such a beloved, heroic character.

Interestingly enough James Doohan was a hero in real life as well. As part of the Canadian forces in WWII he landed on Juno Beach on D-Day. At approximately 11:30 p.m. on that fateful day he was shot 6 times by a machine gunner. Four rounds hit his leg, one his chest, and one tore off the middle finger of his right hand…a fact they managed to hide on-screen. The potentially fatal chest shot was stopped by his cigarette case.

“I can’t change the laws of physics. A’ve got to have thirty minutes.”

It was announced today that per James Doohan’s wishes his ashes will be launched into space, making the final frontier his final resting place. Details indicate that as early as September his remains could be aboard a Falcon 1 rocket that would be launched from the Vandenberg Air Force base in California.

“Diplomats! The best diplomat I know is a fully activated phaserbank.”

Thank you so very much, James Doohan, for giving us hope and inspiration, in one hour time slots, for decades. It truly was a pleasure.

Over the past 6 months of blogging I’ve mentioned on a number of occasions that old airplanes and dirigibles bring a thrill to my boyish heart thus my curiosity was peaked when I discovered that on this day in 1873 Alberto Santos-Dumont was born. Mr. Santos-Dumont was a weathly Brazilian aviation pioneer who relocated to Paris, France at age 18 to live and study. Santos-Dumont began his flight experimentation with balloons and had his first successful ascent in 1898.

After this he started to construct gasoline powered dirigibles and created and flew fourteen of them.

Achieving success with these flights he began to solve the problem of how to steer these balloons. In 1901 Santos-Dumont entered a contest with a hydrogen-filled airship. The contest was to leave St. Cloud, circumnavigate the Eiffel Tower, and then return to the starting point in less than 30 minutes. On October 19th, 1901 Santos-Dumont won this competition.

Being a true gentlemen, Santos-Dumont distributed the 100,000 francs prize in equal shares to his workers and to the beggars of Paris. After the success of the Wright brothers in 1903 he began working on heavier-than-air machines. In 1906 Santos-Dumont completed the first observed heavier-than-air flight in Europe and in 1909 he constructed his most famous plane, La Demoiselle (shown below), which was the precursor to the modern light plane.

Unfortunately this creative, brilliant man became increasingly depressed over the use of aircraft in wars and committed suicide in 1932. While he was alive he made daring flights in many amazing rigs.

Speaking of amazing rigs, today marks the 67th birthday of Dame Diana Rigg!

Diana Rigg is best known for her role as siren and secret agent Emma Peel in the cult British television series The Avengers. Wildly popular both in Britain and America, Diana Rigg portrayed Mrs. Peel in 51 episodes from 1965-1967.

“For the uninitiated, The Avengers is a stylish blend of espionage, fantasy and quasi-science fiction that appeals to Anglophiles who enjoy witty, sentimental, slightly off-beat television.” Diana Rigg played opposite Patrick Macnee (John Steed).

In each episode a creative message of “Mrs. Peel, we’re needed” ensured that Steed and Peel would be off to solve yet another bizarre case.

I can’t emphazise enough just how much fun this show truly is. It is an extremely fun, wacky, creative spy series and the characters of Emma Peel and John Steed are wonderful. I have a few episodes on DVD and long for the complete collection. In August of 1999 Diana Rigg was voted #1 in TV Guide’s “Top Ten Hottest Stars of All Time” and watching the show it is easy to see why. She was (and frankly, at 67, still is) very attractive and her character was always dressed in flashy, “modern” 60’s outfits. Her admittedly cheesy karate-style butt-kicking is a precursor to Sarah Michele Gellar as Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

In addition to years of experience on the stage, Diana Rigg starred in a James Bond flick, Her Majesty’s Secret Service, was fair Helena in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Twelfth Night (which I have on video and talked about here) and more recently can be seen as the host on the PBS series Mystery!

Lest I be accused of spending too much time mooning over Mrs. Peel let me say a heartfelt Happy Birthday to Dame Diana Rigg so that we can shuttle off to an anniversary.

On this date in 1969 Neil Armstrong leapt out of the Apollo 11 module Eagle and uttered his famous line, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”.

Buzz Aldrin followed Armstrong 19 minutes later and described the moon as “magnificient desolation” . They brought with them a plaque reading, “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot on the Moon July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.” They planted an American flag and spoke to President Richard Nixon by radiotelephone.

I was not quite one year old when this event occurred and yet seeing the footage thrills me as much as it would have had I been old enough to realize what was taking place. The crew of the Apollo 11 truly did take a giant leap and that leap fuels the hopes and starry-eyed imaginations of science fiction geeks like myself to this day.

Happy Anniversary gentlemen. On that day you were not only Americans but you were men of the world, making the kind of history that any kid any where could be excited about.

As I was turning onto the on-ramp this morning I noticed a winged, bee-like insect walking across my windshield. My first thought was, “you better take off now or you’re done for”. I felt an unaccountable compassion for this creature who was about to be battered by gale force winds as I spend down the interstate and briefly considered turning on my windshield wipers to encourage her to fly away. I determined that this course of action would most likely result in the death I was hoping to avoid and so I left it up to Fate.

As I merged into traffic and accelerated to 65-70 mph I noticed that she was standing still and holding on for dear life, wings and body flattened against the windshield. Against seemingly impossible odds she stood fast throughout the interstate trek of my journey. After exiting the interstate and reaching my first red light I assumed she would take wing. Instead she started slowly walking across the windshield and quickly had to readjust to death-grip mode as I was off again.

The closer I got to my office the more desperately I wanted her to hold on. I found myself encouraging her…out loud…to just hold on a few more minutes….we’re almost there. Amazingly enough she was still holding on as I pulled into the back lot. I parked, shut off the engine, and anxiously waited to see if there remained a semblance of life in this otherwise unremarkable insect. After a few seconds she stretched her wings and then soared off into the trees. It was utterly amazing and triumphant. Despite daydreams of a more ironic ending in which she launched herself at me upon my emergence from the vehicle and stung me with wild abandon I was quite pleased with the end results.

Just hold on.

Another full weekend has come and gone. Friday night was, of course, Fantastic Four. Saturday continued the comic book madness as I attended the small but entertaining annual MO-KAN Comics Conspiracy. I was excited to attend primarily to see Ryan Sook. Mr. Sook is currently doing the artwork for the Zatanna run of DC’s Seven Soldiers event.

The series has been very entertaining thus far and though few and far between I’ve always enjoyed Zatanna comics. Ryan Sook’s previous work includes the Arkham Asylum: Living Hell 6 issue miniseries and a run on the Hellboy spin-off comic B.P.R.D. (Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense).

I was able to attend the con with Jeff and his children. To quote Jeff it was fun to see the convention through their eyes. They were each promised one purchase so it was fun to see them look at action figures and collectible cards. I managed to make it out of the convention with my pockets only $15 lighter. I hadn’t purchased anything when Jeff pointed out that Ryan Sook had practice pages that he was selling for $5 so I snagged one with a loosely drawn Zatanna sketch and one the view of a woman’s head and shoulders from just behind her. It had a Phantom of the Opera reference on it so I’m assuming the sketch was of Christine. Mr. Sook was quite kind and he gave a sketch with some cars drawn on it to Jeff’s son, Zack. It was a very nice gesture.

I was finally able to eat at Bate’s City Barbeque! You’re right Julie, the fries are incredible!

Afternoon found us with my wife’s penguin-loving cousin at the local independent theatre viewing March of the Penguins. It was a delightful little movie that I’ll post a review on this evening.

Speaking of movies I saw a wonderful new trailer for Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride which makes me even more excited for this September release.

Go here for the newest trailer (click on Quicktime Trailer, not Teaser).

Also saw a very fun preview for the first full-length Wallace and Gromit movie:

Two fun animated Halloween-ish offerings this fall…how ghoulishly delightful!

The rest of the weekend was spent fixing (I hope…fingers crossed) Abby and Mike’s computer and watching the second disk of Firefly. I’ll be posting about that as soon as we’ve finished the other 2 disks. For now I’ll just mention that it is go se, fong luh awesome!

Happy Monday to you all.

Today I raise my DVD player on high in recognition of July 11th, 1895 when the first motion picture was shown in Paris by the Lumiere brothers. Without motion pictures I would have far less to post about and Tom and I would have to reserve our disagreements to cave drawings.

This date also marks the birthdate in 1274 of one Robert the Bruce who would grow up to be King of Scotland. He would also go on to be wonderfully portrayed by Angus Macfadyen in one of my favorite motion pictures, Braveheart.