Why Do We Always Land In The Coliseum?

  My interest in Star Trek tends to wax and wane; I loved it as a kid, but by the time of the later movies and TV shows, the franchise was getting a little stale.  As a result, I put off seeing the reboot in the theater and waited for DVD.  I wasn't bad, just good in a "We didn't totally flub up the  'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' movie" sort of way.  In short, better than most remakes.   I didn't even mind the lame time travel plot.  Want to know why?  Because if you are a true Trek fan, than you have to hold Star Trek: The Animated Series as canon, and in the episode "Yesteryear" we find out that Mr. Spock went back in time in order to save himself therefore establishing a paradox and putting all Star Trek in a alternate timeline... HA!

  Somewhere we have the Star Trek roleplaying game from FASA.  One of the hangups is that everything could be solved by application of transporter, phaser, time travel.  Alien on board?  Lock on transporter, beam into deep space.  If it proved difficult, you could always do that "Separate the saucer section, blow it up" thing.  Last time we played, it was for four seconds.  "Yeah, I appear on the bridge from the future and tell myself how to win."  If you tried to argue that time travel wasn't that easy, it was "What about the Guardian at the City on the Edge of Forever thingy?  Screw the Feds; we'll just stun everyone with the phasers and hop through."  Just proves that a good show doesn't always make a good game.

  I occasionally use time travel myself.  I was working at a grocery store when a co-worker came by and asked if that was my brother I had just been talking to.  I usually reply with a classy "Huh?" but for some reason I replied "No that's actually me from the future.  I've come back to destroy the time machine."

  "What time machine?"  He demanded.

  "The one in the walk in freezer, of course.  I'm not going to keep something dangerous like that around the house, you know."

  He laughed, and then I hit him.

  When he asked if I was crazy,  I told him, "Look, the last time a guy in a leather diaper was bearing down on you with a giant salad fork, you told me to hit you if you ever laughed at the idea of time travel."