- Back in the '80s and '90s when I was active on the science fiction convention circuit, one of my favorite celebrity guests was George Takei, Star Trek's Mr. Sulu. George seemed to really delight in being with the fans, and appreciated that Star Trek and it's fans gave him a platform to speak about things that were important to him.

I had the great good fortune to get to know George a little bit in those days as part of the Boston Star Trek Association and USS Chirsta McAuliffe. George was one of our guests at the Star Trek 20th anniversary Platinum Anniversary Convention and was instrumental in giving my friend Towaway his nickname (a story that will not be repeated here, although PAC deserves an entry of it's own someday.) I also had dinner with George several times, and was part of a memorable day when George came to Rhode Island to participate in a fund raising carnival for Special Olympics that was held at the arena formerly known as the Providence Civic Center.

So, I'm thrilled for George to see how his career has been taking off lately. It was culminated with his appearance last week on one of TV's hottest shows, Heroes. He played Hiro's father, and came to the U.S. to order Hiro back to his job in Japan at the corporation George's character runs. The funny thing is that Hiro is a Trekkie, and there were a number of Star Trek references in his dialog in the early episodes. It was also very cool that the dialog in all the scenes with Hiro's family was in Japanese, with subtitles.

Of course, the best part was that the license plate number on George's character's car was NCC-1701.

Congratulations, George, and I hope we see more of Hiro's dad soon!

- Can someone explain to me the morbid fascination with the death of Anna Nicole Smith? I was eating lunch in the cafeteria at my office building, where there is a big screen TV on the wall, typically tuned to CNN. For the half-hour I was down there, it was non-stop coverage of her death, autopsy and whatever else. I don't think President Ford's death got nearly as much coverage.

Really, what has this woman ever done other than pose with her clothes off and marry a really rich guy? I certainly didn't wish her any harm, but enough is enough already.