Sort of sad he can't use his own real name, though. Got to be irritating.

Um. why can't he? I always wondered why he changed it.

I read that he found his real name, Siddiq El Fadil, was too hard to pronounce. And his uncle is Malcolm McDowell.

Yeah, I suspect it was one of those things where he was just tired of people fumbling his name, and decided to make up a new one. Like Martin Estevez becoming Martin Sheen. I always wondered if stars who change their names sign their checks that way, or if they keep their legal names the same. (I suppose Sheen kept his legally the same, if most of his kids use it.) (I suppose if you didn't, family reunions would be tense and confusing.)

I remember back when he changed his name, I was rather surprised to see Alexander Siddig instead of Siddig El Fadil. I do remember that it was supposed to be hard to pronounce and hard for people to remember. I'm not sure about the hard to pronounce part because I never actually heard his name officially said out loud so I may have been butchering it myself.

Alexander wasn't totally pulled out of a hat, I can't remember where it came from (where are the hardcore Star Trek fans when you need them!) I want to say it was his dog's name but that just sounds to weird.

He was married to Nana Visitor but they're divorced now and they have a son, I don't remember their son's name but it's something unusual. I believe they named him for a musician they both liked.

Alexander wasn't totally pulled out of a hat, I can't remember where it came from (where are the hardcore Star Trek fans when you need them!) I want to say it was his dog's name but that just sounds to weird.

I think it was a family name, somehow.

He was married to Nana Visitor but they're divorced now

Oh, are they? Clearly I don't keep up with enough of the Trek gossip.

I saw him at a con very early in DS9's run...maybe first season. He was adorable and charming and very nice to all the fans.

Hmmm, my tape ran out right after the show broke for commercial post quickening -- did anything interesting happen in that last scene? (I'm talking Highlander yesterday -- the Byron quickening which was cheese cheese cheese.)

I adore adore adore "Our Man Bashir". The writers of DS9 so got the nature of the Star Trek phenomenon, and pop culture, and how their characters would define themselves in terms of 20th C ideas and so on. And then they had all these excellent actors to act their hearts out with those ideas.

Wrod. DS9 is my favouritest Trek ever.

I'm practically teary at finding DS9 love here. Engaging characters, good actors, interesting stories, arcs, follow-through, humor, epic-ish battles, James Darren, Principal Snyder. I mean come ON. Show rocked.

Also, Tom Welling (sp?) is so pretty. But, do they botox him or something before each episode? I just want to scream, "REACT!!!!" sometimes. He is very pretty, though.

Hmmm, my tape ran out right after the show broke for commercial post quickening -- did anything interesting happen in that last scene?

It was very short. Duncan shows up at the bar. Joe looks relieved that he's alive. Methos is inscrutably Methos. They have a drink. Methos says that Byron's life had become a tragedy, and Duncan says, "And we all know how those end."

I'm practically teary at finding DS9 love here. Engaging characters, good actors, interesting stories, arcs, follow-through, humor, epic-ish battles, James Darren, Principal Snyder. I mean come ON. Show rocked.

Totally. The awareness that what they're writing is a series, rather than an endless set of stand-alone stories-- and the skill to make that work. And things that are meant to be funny that actually are! And Jadzia Dax.

Also, Tom Welling (sp?) is so pretty. But, do they botox him or something before each episode? I just want to scream, "REACT!!!!" sometimes. He is very pretty, though.

Yeah. The thought that comes to my mind, reading this, is "pretty like Spike, wooden like Angel." Which is either an insightful comment, or a really scary look at my brain.

I want to say it was his dog's name but that just sounds too weird.

No weirder than Burrell or Java Cat. You know, when I was growing up there was a news guy in New York on Channel 4 who was Ti-Hua Chang, and he was just Ti-Hua Chang, and that was that. (He grew up in the US, I think, so he did switch the order of names from the Chinese style.) I don't know if he's still on Channel 4 or not. He was kind of cool.

Then again, I still live in the city of Jorge Quiroga. We're getting better at this stuff.

I just want to scream, "REACT!!!!" sometimes.

He is in a perpetual state of surprise. The world is shocking to a man like Tom Welling. One wonders if he has anterograde amnesia. (Like in Memento without the scruffiness factor, nor the driving force, nor the tattoos, nor the coolness.) I sort of think this must be true of all Abercrombie models, or else you would never be able to convince them that standing around naked is a way to sell clothes.

Enterprise is a very bad show, but nothing on it is quite so bad as the AWFUL AWFUL REALLY BAD STUPID SONG!!!!!