‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the crew,

Nobody was moving except for bridge crew.

Kirk was resting with Rand in his bed,

whist Spock had Chapel deep in his head.

Scott was drinking a long aged Scots whisky in hand,

whilst Riley was getting Irish to stand.

Sulu was manning the helm in this this dread,

but visions of Checkov returned to his head.

The ship was rocked by a horrible jolt,

according to Spock a Gigavolt.

Kirk arose and leapt to the lift,

forgetting that Rand had given her gift.

He got to the bridge with very fast dashing,

Just as the Klingons then were attacking.

The Romulans joined in with the attacking,

then an alien crew was just laughing.

He transported into the ships just like a lark,

and shut down main power so it was dark.

The Phasers were shut down and the cannons were null,

and the alien just laughed with harm not at all.

“We are Organians and study you all, so resistance to us does nothing at all.

“Remember that we were  once just like you,

but these flimsy bodies we finally outgrew.

“We are logic and peace and just nothing more,

so we show you what is wrong with your sad, sad lore.”

Then all sorts of folks came into the space,

and Kirk said “Good Wishes” to every race.

“A good evening to all of you folks”,

and Kirk went away in transporter smoke.

Kirk went back to bed with his yeoman of fun,

the Organians went back with a bit more of stun.

I hope that this is amusing for everyone.

Happy Christmas and Channakh, and other celebration to everyone now.  I know that the spelling is sort of rough, but this is my new take.  What do you think?

Warmest regards,

Doc

Copyright Paramount Pictures for the the characters and Dr. David W. Smith for the concept and dialogue 20091225.

Warmest regards,

Doc

Warmest regards,

Doc

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The Geek took hiatus last week to attend, and be part of, the marriage between Eldest Son and his very wonderful bride.  It was a very traditional Methodist service, and it went off perfectly insofar as no one fainted, no one objected (there was not a “If anyone objects…” clause in this particular service, so no one did.

The Geek also took today off and did not write a scientific column for several reasons.  First, I stayed up too late last night reading the news and weather.  Second, I could never come up with a good topic for tonight.  I will do better for next week, I promise.  Third, The Geek has just been feeling a tiny bit under the weather, but not horribly ill or anything.

Hello, folks!  Sorry to take a hiatus from Pique the Geek last night, but I was enjoying the bonds of family, not something that I am able to do often.  As much as I love all of you, please excuse me for loving those really close to me more.

Eldest Son was married to his sweetheart of eight years Saturday afternoon.  Yes,  choked up and damn near cried.  His mum, the former Mrs. Translator, was about the same, but it hit her more the next day.

Botox is in the news all of the time because of its use as wrinkle reducer, but it has many more uses than that, and a very long history.  The proper name is botulinum toxin, and is a neurotoxin produced by the common soil bacterium Clostridium botulinum.  This bacterium is an obligate anaerobe, meaning that it is poisoned by oxygen.

As a matter of fact, many bacteria of this genus are obligate anaerobes, and more than one are causes of human and animal disease.  In addition, they are also spore formers, which is the mechanism that they use to survive times when they are exposed to oxygen.

Well, it is the time of the year for holiday cooking.  You know, those things that we all love but do not often eat.  I suspect that if we ate throughout the year like we do during this season, we all would be more corpulent.  However, eating heartily during the cold season has a biological function, or at least it did as we evolved.  We need energy to produce body heat, and, not that long ago, caves, hovels, tents, cabins, and other dwellings were just cold in the winter, so we needed the extra energy.

Unfortunately, our lifestyle has become in conflict from our biology, so we must eat these highly calorific foods with caution.  That is no reason to avoid them, but certainly it is a good idea to eat them in moderation.  None of the recipes that follow are what you would call low sugar nor low fat.  By the way, dinner for me tonight is homemade beef stew with lots of vegetables added.

I have not told you very much about myself, actually.  But I will tell you what it has like to have been a woman for untold centuries.  It sucks.  Not because that I do not like my sexuality, in fact I really am comfortable with it (I would not be a man for anything), but how we as an important part of society have been treated.

With the gift, I have been able not only to be an historian, but actually wrote down much of it (we Neanderthals DID have the written word) and remember it.  Part of the gift is complete memory.  By the way, NEVER wish for that.  There are thousands of things in my memory that I would prefer to extinguish.  Give thanks for putting bad things out of your mind.  If you ever get the gift, not only will those memories come back, but the ones of those in my lineage, or of the half a dozen of my kind.

Atomic theory had been pretty well established well before the turn of the previous century, but no one knew much about the nature of atoms other than that the atoms of different elements had different masses (later advances revealed that they have different numbers of protons), and were composed of a positive nucleus and negative electrons, with positive and negative charges being equal in number so that the net electrical charge was zero.

Electrons were definitely established by J. J. Thomson in 1897, and he postulated that atoms were more of less continuous lumps of matter matter with positive charge in which lumps of negative charge (electrons) were embedded, although they had some freedom of movement.

Atomic theory had been pretty well established well before the turn of the previous century, but no one knew much about the nature of atoms other than that the atoms of different elements had different masses (later advances revealed that they have different numbers of protons), and were composed of a positive nucleus and negative electrons, with positive and negative charges being equal in number so that the net electrical charge was zero.

Electrons were definitely established by J. J. Thomson in 1897, and he postulated that atoms were more of less continuous lumps of matter matter with positive charge in which lumps of negative charge (electrons) were embedded, although they had some freedom of movement.

Atomic theory had been pretty well established well before the turn of the previous century, but no one knew much about the nature of atoms other than that the atoms of different elements had different masses (later advances revealed that they have different numbers of protons), and were composed of a positive nucleus and negative electrons, with positive and negative charges being equal in number so that the net electrical charge was zero.

Electrons were definitely established by J. J. Thomson in 1897, and he postulated that atoms were more of less continuous lumps of matter matter with positive charge in which lumps of negative charge (electrons) were embedded, although they had some freedom of movement.