   Current Post On Trae’s Blog:
So I'm just going to come out and say it: My favorite episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation is "Conundrum." It's episode fourteen of season five, and I just deeply love it.
I don't know if it's because I literally just assumed Erich Anderson's Commander McDuff was a random Enterprise officer of the week (which we saw quite often during the show) when I watched it as a kid during the original run, so the twist actually worked on eleven year old me. I don't know if it's because I just like a good "everyone has amnesia" story. I don't even know if it's just because it's a good Ro Laren episode. I don't know if it's just because we learn that Starfleet doesn't give a crap about lasers.
I just like it. It's neat.
And I rewatched it last night, and feel that it holds up -- which is why I found it deeply weird that the folks who wrote the episode actually think it's not that good. My favorite episode of the entire seven season run of the show was a failure according to the folks who wrote it.
And maybe, as a writer and creator, I should remember that.
Like the hardest part of releasing creative works to the public is that often, after a while, I'll start to judge those things far more harshly than when I first made them. Or I'll compare it to the potential I thought an idea had in my head. And if I don't reach that potential, I'll think of it as "bad" -- when it might just be slightly different than that idea. I have one hundred percent published stories that I thought were just sort of okay and later had someone tell me how much it meant to them to read it.
*cough*I Hate November*cough*
So I should make sure I remember Conundrum. That one of my favorite things to rewatch is considered one of those failures by its creators. That the things I make might have value, just not in the way I originally thought they should.
It's just sort of how things work out.
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Why do I find it awesome yet somehow disturbing that Veronica is cosplaying Attack on Titan?
because she’s obviously Potato girl
I’m from New Jersey and I’ve been going to cons since 2009; literally the only mention of room parties I’ve heard was from your comic series.
Same here.
Jesus. Didn’t we have this discussion…oh a few months ago, Trae?
I think we’ve got a soft spot for the ol’ room party at NebKon, otherwise we wouldn’t have started a room party block…
Either way, agreed its a dying art. Part of it has to do with several cons adapting late night programming…part of it. The rest of it I think just stems from some conventions just not wanting to deal with it anymore. I know Naka in KC has greater difficulty with room parties due to Kansas laws (Kansas laws suck donkey balls btw).
A few months ago? More like a year or two ago. 😛
bah, it hasn’t been that long
I also think the interest has died too. One year my brother and I had bought food like Doritos, Ramen cups, and yes even marshmallows as a way to barter at room parties because we knew food might be an issue at the parties.
However that year there was a huge lack of parties. I also think behavior has also contributed like 2 years in a row at No Brand Con, some drunks have shattered glass bottles in the pool area prompting the staff to drain the pool.
Overall the room party is a dying art but overall i feel it has to do with a lot of different factors.
I don’t even want to think about where that poor hairbrush had been…
No, just… no
Anime cons in the NE region of the US doesn’t have room parties like the ones in the strip. It’s usually just a friends thing. Sci Fi cons however are Saturday night dens of nerdy debauchery that Baccus would love themselves. Comic cons and other cons has there’s too.
So. Many. Stories.
Room parties are still huge at SciFi cons here too — they were a thing at Wisconsin Anime cons for a long time, I think, because most of the early Anime cons there grew out of people who had planned SciFi cons previously… so we promoted Room Parties.
Because that’s a thing you do.
(hey look, I’ve caught up!)
Tables are far more productive, so we’ve been leaning towards those.
I’ve noticed a decline in the notion of the room party at furry cons, but the room party hasn’t been something other cons use to promote themselves. It’s just “Hey, let’s hang out, maybe with some modest theme.” FurFright was the big Room Party con during its Waterbury years, due to half the rooms facing a central atrium.