Renew! Renew!

"Galloping the cosmos is a game for the young, Doctor."
-James T. Kirk

As a point of illumination with regards to this week's headline, I am, as of this writing, in the midst of Berfday. My 30th birthday, to be exact. Thank you, thank you. So I'm going to give myself a quasi week off from the WP. But not without saying this; some matter of introspection and temerity predescribed by the milestone age:

On this day, looking back on my adult life I realize that most of what I can see is your faces, the customers, employees, and friends of this establishment. I've been working at the FP since I was released from the prison of high school- all of my adult life. So that means you and I have have shared the best years of mine, together, and I wouldn't have traded it for all the tea in China. You guys and girls make this dimension a sheer pleasure and I'm blessed to know you. You hear me? I'm very fond of you all, and I can only hope that we will share even more of it together. Talking comics and Star Trek, ringing you guys up on Wednesday, basking in the geek oasis of Forbidden Planet, whatever the case may be. Let's live long and prosper.

This week's Hugo winning book and featured SF recommendation?

The Forever War - by Joe Haldeman. Private William Mandella is a hero in spite of himself -- a reluctant conscript drafted into an elite military unit, and propelled through space and time to fight in a distant thousand-year conflict. He never wanted to go to war, but the leaders on Earth have drawn a line in the interstellar sand -- despite the fact that their fierce alien enemy is unknowable, unconquerable, and very far away. So Mandella will perform his duties without rancor and even rise up through the military's ranks... if he survives. But the true test of his mettle will come when he returns to Earth. Because of the time dilation caused by space travel the loyal soldier is aging months, while his home planet is aging centuries -- and the difference will prove the saying: you never can go home... Vietnam vet, Purple Heart recipient, and super talented writer Joe Haldeman's masterpiece!

Rock 'n' Roll,
JEFF