Saw a magazine subscription on sale at one of the daily sale websites. It's called ReadyMade and bills itself as "Instructions for everyday life." When I look at that cover, it strikes me that it's not a new concept. It reminds me strongly of the old Apartment Life magazine, before it became the hoity-toity Metropolitan Home. Cover blurbs include "47 ways to transform your cramped corner into a roomy retreat," "Recycle everything," "Kill kitchen clutter," "Build floating shelves," "Home-brewed hard cider" and "Make art you can sit on." If there were no photos, I'd swear these articles were published over 30 years ago in Apartment Life. And maybe that's not such a bad thing. In these uncertain economic times, we should be going back to basics. Metropolitan Home focuses on fancy furniture that goes for thousands, set in the typically sprawling late 20th/early 21st century American house. Its predecessor and ReadyMade write about making the best of what you have, without breaking the bank and in cramped confines. That can-do DIY spirit we used to have 30 years ago (also seen in Popular Science and Popular Mechanics issues of the day) may just may a comeback. Times were tough then as now. Let's just hope in a few years, we don't lapse back into the wretched excess of the 1980s.

I recently was loaned some DVDs of the "remastered" original Star Trek show. Only they did a lot more than remaster them. They completely replaced all exterior space shots as well as a number of interior special effects. Some of the new effects looked good. Others betrayed a complete ignorance of physics, perhaps unintentional, perhaps not. And some were simply unnecessary, but the CGI artists just couldn't resist. Even with the best of the new effects, I'm not completely happy about it.

I think about the men (and presumably women) who were responsible for the original effects, and how all of their time, effort and ingenuity has been consigned to the dustbin of history. Nobody will see what they did ever again, and what they achieved was pretty impressive given the era, the technology and their limited budget. But how would you feel if you were special effects man Jim Rugg or somebody who worked at photographic effects shop Westheimer Company and you watched these episodes today? Your grandchild might see your name in the credits and say, "Hey, that was good, grandpa. How did you do that?" And you'd have to admit, "We didn't do that. Everything we did, they took out and replaced." I doff my hat to these unsung workers, who deserved better than to have their footage on the virtual cutting room floor.

I call this the George Lucas Effect, for the man who started this whole, "We can do it better now, so we'll just go back and fix that old movie" trend. Or perhaps in a nod to "retcon," the term in comics which describes retroactive continuity (changing the history of a character), retfx, for retroactive effects. Why not just make something new instead of tinkering with history? What's next? Should they dig out the Wizard of Oz and replace all the flying monkeys with CGI monkeys? Take Forbidden Planet and make a CGI monster surviving in the crossfire of the ship's cannons? Maybe the Crimson Pirate deserves a more realistic pirate ship? Oh, I know! Charlton Heston's parting of the Red Sea would be so much more impressive in a CGI-enhanced Ten Commandments! Plus the Hebrew God's flaming finger carving out the two tablets, the staves turning into snakes, etc.

When people reach a "certain age," we have a tendency to wax nostalgic about our childhoods. It's why many of us pick up editorships for old, nearly forgotten TV shows here on TV.com.

One website I recently discovered in my online travels is treasurycomics.com, which chronicles the rise and fall of the tabloid-size comics popular in the 1970s. Wow, that brings back the memories. Any American boy who grew up in that decade will remember those oversize comic books, called Treasury Editions by Marvel and Limited Collector's Editions by DC. Unlike dinky, little run of the mill comic books, there was something special about these jumbo tomes, thanks to their large pages, irregular schedules and sometimes unique content not seen in the smaller books. Seeing those covers again brings back the joy and youthful innocence of a time when comics weren't all grim and gritty. If you remember these special issues, the site is a must-see.