   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.
Remember that on April 5th at 11AM Eastern/10AM Central you can join me for the Critical Thinking Witches' Collective's April Brew virtual event! Attendance is free, and you can register here!
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Well it’ll all be fine.
is it just me or is kurtz style person running Yakisobacon’s table?
It’s a homestuck cosplayer.
Oooh. nice banner, BorkCon!
I forgot to add something, I know we do it all the time but has the hotel staffs of all these hotels ever complain about their being like 12 people in a single room? Because I know on a normal occasion growing up in a 7 person family that hotels cap out usually 4 or 5 people in a room so in my family’s case we always had 2 rooms because of this.
But has there ever been any complaints from the hotels about this?
…not if they don’t find out about it! 🙂
Offically, hotels don’t allow ‘extra’ people in a room, in part because it’s a safety violation. If the Fire Marshal were to catch that many people staying in a room, the hotel could get into legal trouble. Plus, having all those people stay in several rooms is more money for the hotel.
On the other hand, the hotel is generally aware that all those people wouldn’t be there if they couldn’t share, which would mean no money for the hotel. And the Convention, which gives money to the hotel, wouldn’t be happening without all those people. So hotels tend to not look too hard at how many people are actually staying in a room. But if you’re blatant about it, they can, and and sometimes will, take action.
Exactly. My con very strongly pounds a “Four people in a room!” now, but in the early days, we had 15+ people in a staff hotel room for several years running. A big ol’ suite, which meant room for everyone (I brought an inflatable bed and claimed the spot behind the minibar), but still cramped.
Most people I know keep to the 4-person limit. Pushing beyond that point gets so cramped folks don’t try it again unless there’s desperation points.
For a conference in Belgium we once rented a suite with I think six beds, for a dozen or so people to sleep there. (Plus a few more that met there in the evening, but didn’t stay for the night.) The staff was looking funny when more and more people kept arriving, but they didn’t say anything…