Since Saturday, I've been almost bed-ridden with a nasty bout of bronchitis just two weeks after finally recovering from one of the worst flus I've ever had.

I actually felt well enough to put in a half-day at the real job Thursday, and before that was editing Dan Compora's SciFi 101 column wondering if I was hit with the Captain Trips virus. Say what you want about Stephen King, but I think he described my suffering this past week almost perfectly.

Although being sick means I complain, moan, groan and complain some more while missing work, one of the good things is that I have nothing better to do than catch up on television programs I'm extremely behind on. And this week's lucky winner was the remaining episodes of "Heroes" Season 2.

All I can say is, "Neener, neener neener! I found an Easter Egg!"

I love Easter Eggs, despite being Jewish. To me, adding Easter Eggs is a great way to add another layer to a story that I'm already enjoying, and I like it when my favorite shows and movies try to do this. And no one seems to enjoy doing it more than "Heroes." So imagine my amazement when I found a cool Easter Egg, and no matter how hard I look, I can't seem to find a single other person who has found this. I was shocked! I looked everywhere I could, but no one had it. So if you did find it way back when the episode first aired, my apologies for laying claim to it. But if you write me, I'm just going to stick my fingers in my ears and start singing about how, believe it or not, I'm walking on air.

In a real sad part of "Cautionary Tales," our Japanese hero, Hiro (Masi Oka) says good-bye to our original Japanese hero, Mr. Sulu ... er, Kaito (George Takei) in a moving eulogy. During several camera sweeps of this stunning cemetery, a Japanese character kept popping up on the screen, which grabbed my eyes at first, but something I dismissed.

I'm no expert in Japanese, but the character translates to "center" and I thought it was weird that not only was it appearing on Kaito's tombstone, but a few others. Maybe it's part of Japanese tombstones, and I'm just a moron. Which is why I dismissed it the first couple of times I saw it.

When Hiro gave his eulogy, however, that Japanese symbol took front and center stage, and I'm like, "That can not be by accident. "Center" had taken over the center of the scene, sitting there as an unspoken part of Hiro's sentiments, and showed us yet another hero was in our midst.

That hero? Ralph Hinkley of course. You remember him, right? The school teacher who gets a visit from some aliens in 1981, who give him a pair of "red jammies" that give him powers. The series was "The Greatest American Hero" and was meant to be kind of an anti-thesis to comic book heroes who were making their way to television in the form of the Hulk and Spider-Man.

I was barely in kindergarten when this show premiered, but my dad loved this show, and we watched it faithfully every week until it was finally put out of its misery in 1983. As a kid, I wondered why this "superman" didn't have a big "S" on his chest. Instead, he had another symbol ... 中 ... which just happens to be the Japanese word for "center," and a symbol that appeared quite prominently on Kaito's tombstone.

Yes, I know, the Wikipedia listing of "Greatest American Hero" already has my "Heroes" connection listed ... but I only beat myself to the punch here, because I'm the one that made the Wikipedia entry.

So if this was a shout-out to the "Greatest American Hero," does that mean Takei is our Greatest American Hero? Or are we going to learn that the powers of the chosen group of mutants ... er, people with special abilities really came from aliens?

Or, will I come to learn that 中 is on every Japanese tombstone, and I'm just a moron?

Please ... don't answer that.

SyBits

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Michael Hinman, a cult leader twice awarded "Best Kool-Aid Drinker," is the founder and site coordinator for Airlock Alpha, writing out of Tampa, Fla. He can be reached at mhinman@airlockalpha.com