http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/northern_california/13014774.htm

George Takei, ‘Mr. Sulu’ of Star Trek fame, comes out

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES – Actor George Takei, best known for his role as Mr. Hikaru Sulu in “Star Trek,” comes out as homosexual in the Oct. 26 issue of Frontiers, a biweekly Los Angeles magazine covering the gay and lesbian community.

[...]

“The world has changed from when I was a young teen feeling ashamed for being gay,” he said. “The issue of gay marriage is now a political issue. That would have been unthinkable when I was young.”

The 68-year-old actor said he considers himself as “having been out for quite some time.” Takei and his partner, Brad Altman, have been together for 18 years.

Takei, a Japanese-American who lived in a U.S. internment camp from age 4 to 8, said he grew up feeling shameful about his ethnicity and sexuality. He likened prejudice against gays to racial segregation.

“It’s against basic decency and what American values stand for,” he said.

Getting a wild hair up my ass (ow!) I decided to finally sit down and author a DVD for myself of “Dark Side Of The Rainbow.”

For those of you who aren’t aware of this, the trick is to take “The Wizard Of Oz,” and watch it while playing a soundtrack composed of three Pink Floyd albums. You start “Dark Side Of The Moon” at the third roar from the Lion, then after it’s complete, segue right into “Animals,” then start “Meddle” at track 2 when that’s done.* You’d be surprised how well it syncs up, especially in the case of the tracks “Time,” “Us and Them,” and “Pigs (three different ones).”

Years ago, we decided it would be easier to just make a video tape with the movie’s soundtrack replaced. We did it…a few times. Unfortunately, our copies kept getting lent out and not returned, or broken.

So, I finally decided to just create a DVD image I could burn a disc from, and we could watch it whenever we wanted. And if someone didn’t return our disc, I could just re-burn it from the DVD folder files I had created.

Of course, when I start these stupid projects, I go overboard. Knowing I was going to author a DVD, I knew I needed menus. Good menus have either backdrops or animation. Refusing to make the animations, I did two backdrops for the menus. I post them here for all of you who want to make a disc as well to have artwork to use. And for the rest of you, you may revel in how much of a nerd I really am…but a nerd who knows how to use Photoimpact.

This is the artwork for the main and “select audio track” menus. I hate the ones I’ve seen out there using the Tin Man’s hat for the prism. I always preferred the idea of Glinda being the mistress of refraction.

This is the one from the “jump to song” menus. I don’t know why, but just the thought of the four adventurers happily dancing down the Yellow Brick Road, only to find it leads to the Battersea Power Station (from the cover of “Animals”) strikes me as amusing.

*The reason you start at track two is that track one, “One Of These Days,” perfectly syncs up with the last six minutes of “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Don’t believe me? Try it.

Our friend, Brett (““) Fauver is battling cancer for a third time. He’s in serious need of a bone marrow transplant, and his insurance is screwing him over royally.

He’s about a third of the way to what he needs, so if you can spare a buck or two, I’d really appreciate it if you could….