Happy Birthday, Captain Kirk!

William Tiberius Shatner, born this day in 1931 in Montreal. Here's his Oh-fficial website.

You can say what you like about Shatner (and Mom routinely refers to him as "Captain Gut"), but the fact remains that the man is a positive genius, boldly charting the frontier between self-absorption and self-parody better than anybody else in the bizz. Indeed, he's reached the point where he's not so much an explorer as a creator, probably why when you google "William Shatner, God" you get 600K hit results.

Yips! from Gary:
Speaking of Shatner and God, I recently read a review of "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" that (rightly so) rips the film but lauds the last five minutes where Captain Kirk mouths off to a being claiming to be God. Only Shatner. Which is why we love him so much. Definitely worth a read.

Yips! back from Robbo: It's a sad truth that I watched that film on my very first (blind) date with the Missus. Not only that, it was a rental. And not only that, one of the very first things I said when she appeared was that I hoped she didn't mind that I really wanted to watch the movie, i.e., that I hoped she wasn't going to talk a lot. (I hadn't seen it before and didn't know how awful it was.)

The fact that the Missus and I are still together some seventeen years later is, I think, conclusive proof that (contra Clint Eastwood) God doesn't always hate idiots.