As regular readers of the Mercury know, we've been trying since 2000 to find a great new columnist to share the space currently held by Ann Romano's One Day at a Time. And while these "New Columns!" may have excellent pedigrees—such as "One Hulk's Opinion," "Frank Cassano's Imbecile Parade," "I Slipped the Banana to Hannah Montana by Carlos Santana," and many more—none have had the staying power that's necessary for a weekly column.

In order to break this vicious cycle of mediocrity, we recently reached out to the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation in hopes of finding the world's next great columnist. Unfortunately all we ended up with was the wildly uninteresting "Worf on Wharfs" and the sexually grotesque "Porkin' in the Columbia River Gorge with Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge." Despite these utter failures, the mere publication of these two columns made the rest of the Next Generation cast so green with envy, nearly all of them wanted columns of their own!

In fact, they've given us so many column ideas, we don't know which to choose for next week. THAT'S WHERE YOU COME IN! Using the handy poll below, choose the column you'd most like to see in next week's Mercury, and we'll commission the winner to write it. HERE ARE YOUR CHOICES.

WHICH NEXT GEN COLUMN WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE IN NEXT WEEK'S PAPER?

Write in votes are welcome! Provide them in the comments below, and we'll contact the cast member (except for Guinan—we hate Guinan)!