After passing the kidney stone, William Shatner recalled "It was so big, you'd want to wear it on your finger. And "If you subjected it to extreme heat, it might turn out to be a diamond."

A few days later, Shatner appeared on LIVE WITH REGIS AND KELLY and talked of his ordeal with the stone. "The purity of the pain--they had to give me morphine...It was just unbelievable pain, he said. "It made you kind of think about what pain is. It was awful."

To bad Ol' Bill couldn't have used some of the futuristic medical techniques from his classic STAR TREK series. Here's how it could have gone:

Captain's Log: [STARDATE: 5928.9] "On my last trip to planet Omicron Seti III, Dr. McCoy noted an anomaly in my transport pattern. He diagnosed it as a developing kidney stone. Arranging a visit to sickbay, "Bones" used transport technology to "beam" the stone from my kidney. The procedure took less that a minute. I felt no pain or side affects. I reported back to duty within the hour."

A few months later, Shatner handed over his calcium specimen in January, 2006, after he accepted an offer from the CEO of GOLDEN PALACE casino, a Canadian-based online betting site, to buy his kidney stone.

Initially, Shatner was offered $15,000, but after a little negotiation a deal to sell the stone was made for $25,000. Taking things into perspective, Shatner had earlier received over $100,000 for his STAR TREK-related garment, so the price seemed to be in order for his celebrityhood.

The auction price included the surgical stint and string used to permit passage of the stone. The bizarre deal was brokered by Darren Julien, president of Los Angeles-based Julien's Auctions.

However, there were two conditions to the sale. First, all the proceeds (100 percent) were to benefit HABITAT FOR HUMANITY to build a house. And the second condition? Shatner retained visitation rights to his now famous body part.

After the purchase, Golden Palace, CEO Richard Rowe jokingly eluded to the opening lines of the STAR TREK series by saying "This is a 'bold' new addition to our fleet."

What were Shatner's feeling on the whole bizarre auction? As he said, "This takes organ donors to a new height - to a new low, maybe."

Late night talk show host, Jimmy Kimmel, who originally wanted to conduct an on-air auction on his show, called the Shatner artifact, "the ultimate 'Star Trek' collectible."

For those of you who want to see, Shatner's kidney stone, the Golden Palace will soon launch a traveling Museum that highlights their unique collection of strange items.

When it comes to your town, keep an eye out for such weirdness as a partially eaten cheese sandwich thought to contain the image of the Virgin Mary, a Britney Spears' positive pregnancy test, the infamous soccer ball David Beckham miss-kicked to lose a game for England at the Euro 2004 tournament, a walking cane allegedly possessed by a grandfatherly ghost, a cooked pierogi with the likeness of Jesus Christ and a Abraham Lincoln-shaped plastic French fry from a McDonald's Super Bowl XXXIX ad (worth $75,100).

In June of 2005, GOLDEN PALACE.COM also paid $10,000 to a woman named Karolyne Smith to ink a permanent tattoo of their corporate logo on her forehead. She allegedly performed the stunt to obtain money for her son's education. The tattoo artwork was done by SI TATTOOING in Salt Lake City.

TRIVIA NOTE: Another Shatner related medical story appeared in the satire website PugBus.net (a site filled with fictional editorials). Their Shatner related article featured the results of two so-called psychiatric research fellows at Edinburgh University (Paul Fleet, FRCPsych, and James Alexander, FRCPsych) who wrote a paper in 2005 which identifies a syndrome called Epiomnistic Shatnerism which is found predominantly in adult males.

As explained to Raymond Reith of The Lancet, by James Alexander, "The isolation of Epiomnistic Shatnerism basically started with the recognition of a variant form of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), which generally shows itself in the form of delusions of power and self-importance."

How did William Shatner feel about the whole thing? Well, let's just say that I heard it from a friend, who heard it from a friend, that during a swank Hollywood party as the music of Carly Simon's "Your So Vain" played in the background, William Shatner was allegedly heard saying "Beam me up, Scotty. I think I've just been insulted!"

• William Shatner (IMDB)

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