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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I understand this is to compare two types of meetings, the ‘reasonable’ way and an ‘unreasonable’ way (‘right’ and ‘wrong’ may be a stretch)… but I keep thinking without knowing the rest of the situation, this may be an accurate assessment of Joey.
I don’t know if either one is RIGHT — I mean, Bork Con keeps putting a guy in a position of authority who just suggested something that could lead to peoples deaths
I mean, they put a guy in charge who insisted using the ashes of a dead person for some insane ritual.
However, I think this is a prime example of “decorum does not mean maturity within an organization.” I think folks get a random hair up their ass about how an event should be governed and see all these cspan shows thinking that’s how things should be done. Yet fail to realize that ensuring a semi-professional (SEMI, yes, not entirely. fer chrissake you shouldn’t take yourselves THAT seriously) atmosphere instead of a strict decorum is what actually gets things done.
I mean, for ffs, our board once voted on a budget issue in the middle of an auction (to help support another convention, btw) only because 3 members were present. (This ended hilariously and good for those curious)
It has to be the right tool for the right job. Parliamentary procedure isn’t required for a concom of what looks to be seven people. On the other hand, as orgs grow larger, some sort of meeting format is required or it just turns into chaos. Where the sweet spot between needing rules and rules being in the way will always depend on the group.
I’m not sure how the system ended up randomly assigning you the “Glenn” avatar, but it makes me very happy that it did.