Its difficult to swim for exercise when you're taller than the pool.  I also seem to forget that the main purpose of the pool is not swimming but sitting next to it fully clothed and talking loudly on your cell phone. In the words of Charles Schulz, "I love humanity, its people I can't stand."

I just watched the Star Trek episode where Will Riker falls in love with this androgynous alien.  The episode serves as a metaphor for the LGBT struggles but I have to say that one thing irks me- the way, so often, Star Trek TNG would introduce a new character who defies the cultural norms of their home world and try to break free, only to ultimately return to their kind and re-conform.  Its almost as if the writers just didn't want to deal with the baggage of incorporating all of these new characters, even though they had an audience that would have gladly followed every conceivable plot thread.  There were other characters, like Data's "daughter" or the scientist who Lwaxana Troi falls in love with days before he is to commit ritual suicide, that were such compelling characters who were created and flushed out in the course of a single episode.  At least one of my favorite one off characters, Hugh the Borg, returns for the season 6/7 finale/premiere, but wouldn't it have been great to have him become a regular character on the series, especially since the Borg are arguably not only the greatest villains in the Star Trek universe but some of the most stunning foes in all of fiction?  Strangely, the few recurring secondary characters that are introduced are some of the least interesting, Worf's insolent son being a prime example.

I haven't watched Next Generation since I was a kid and its always been the only Trek series I've really enjoyed.  Thanks to Netflix I've got every episode of every season sprawling before me and I'm debating whether or not to get into them.  DS9 is interesting, but the others just seem like pale attempts at redoing what TNG did right the first time.  (And I do mean first time.  I don't count the original series as being even in the same universe as TNG with the exception of Harlan Ellison's stunning classic "City on the Edge of Forever.)

On a side note, there's an odd documentary out there called The Captains which is meant to be a set of interviews with all of the actors who have played star ship captains on the various Treks.  Patrick Stewart is far and away the most interesting and I would recommend the movie except for one small factor... Shatner.  The whole thing is his idea, his direction, his project... and he kills it.  Instead of letting the other actors talk, he dominates each interview, rambling on at length with asinine personal anecdotes while the people he's supposed to be interviewing stare blankly, waiting for a chance to speak that seldom comes.  To top it all off, he presents himself in the film as trying to work through some sort of persecution/low-self esteem complex about how embarrassed he is to have played Kirk despite the constant montages of him being showered with affection from legions of adoring fans.  This, combined with his abysmal rendition of Black Sabbath's Iron Man, brings my already dubious opinion of Shatner to a new low.