How Much for Just the Painting?

In John M. Ford's How Much for Just the Planet?, one of my favourite media tie-in novels, Kirk and a Klingon get involved in a slapstick chase. At one point, Kirk escapes through a window in the bathroom, and the Klingon pursuing him attempts to follow. Unfortunately, the Klingon is too heavy for the toilet seat to support, so the lid shatters and the Klingon winds up getting his foot stuck in the toilet. Because I have the sense of humour of a two-year-old, I still find this scene uproariously funny. 

That's why, a few weeks ago, I tried to recreate the scene with Gemini. Alas, it appears my prompt was insufficient to the task. I should have commissioned Jeff to paint it for me. Maybe that can be a birthday present to myself someday. 
 

Mystery of the Missing Miscellany

When you have a lot of books and movies, it's easy for one or two titles to slip through the cracks and disappear. I know for sure that I'm missing my copy of John M. Ford's hilarious Star Trek novel, How Much for Just the Planet?, and both volumes of The Outer Limits on DVD.

I only noticed the absence of the Ford title because recently Sean asked me if I could loan him some classic Trek books, and How Much is certainly one of the best. I discovered The Outer Limits set was missing when I had a hankering to watch "The Forms of Things Unknown"a couple of months ago.

These items, of course, are easy to replace, so their loss is no great tragedy. But I've misplaced at least three things in my life that I really do miss:

1) The Realm, a movie I made in high school with Keith Gylander and Mark Lede. I had the only VHS copy, and in a moment of foolish desperation I used it as part of a video resume while job-seeking in those desperate summer months of 1991, just after I graduated from the University of Alberta. Unfortunately the place where I dropped off my resume and video package was in an area of the city I wasn't familiar with, and to top it off I lost the newspaper ad I'd used to find it (and the prospective job) in the first place. The employer never called me back, so I had no way to get my stuff back. Pure idiocy on my part.

2) "Ozone" soda pop commercial, another short film I made for a communications class during high school. Besides the commercial itself, the tape had a whole bunch of footage of my friends at the school, footage I'd dearly love to have today. If my memory serves, I accidentally taped over this with an SCTV special, then threw the tape away in disgust when I realized what I'd done.

3) One of two notepads full of story ideas from the early 90s. The notepad I lost included a very detailed and funny as-it-happened record of "Scuba Trek," describing the time when the University of Alberta Star Trek and Scuba clubs travelled to Los Angeles in February 1992. I have no idea where this might have gone, and what a shame; I could have turned it into a couple of memorable blog posts.

I suppose it's possible that VHS tape with The Realm is still sitting somewhere in that office, and the notebook might still be kicking around somewhere. So if by some miracle someone spots this stuff, please let me know...