Thoughts on Star Trek

When I watch Star Trek, I wonder: Why do all the doors swoosh? Why must everyone wear clingy unitards? Why do all the aliens look like iguanas and not like cute fuzzy pandas? And then it struck me yesterday: the replicator that makes their meals, their hot chocolate or chili cheese dogs or Caesar salads, really doesn't make any sense. Each ingredient, let alone whole dishes, contains hundreds to thousands of different types of molecules, and a machine just whips them up out of nothing?

True, New Jersey has perfected artifical flavors. But let's face it, fake butter powder isn't the same as fresh butter smeared onto soft hot pan de sal, nor is artificial strawberry flavor anywhere close, really, to a bowl of fresh summer berries.

Therefore, I conclude, we will always have cooking.

A really good Star Trek series would have Guinan cooking sweet potatoes more often. Sweet potatoes, I'm sure, would keep well for space travel.

And did you know Vulcans aren't supposted to eat with their hands? Sez Jolene Blalock (who has had to do far too many shower scenes on Enterprise), while complaining about the writers:

There's the characteristic where Vulcans don't eat food with their hands, and yet they'll write scenes where T'Pol is eating popcorn at a movie or Trip will bring T'Pol a peach.

In case you're interested, some dork(s) has compiled a list of all the foods eaten on the Star Trek series and the episode it appeared in. No sweet potatoes.

And by the way, if you are thinking of seeing Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, I think it's a cross between Mars Attacks! and one of the Star Trek episodes where Picard dresses up like a detective in the Holodeck.