   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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Smooth move exlax!
This sounds like it’s a fun Bork Con lol.
So, funny story regarding Nan Desu Kan here in Denver… We had some jacks spray painting styrofoam in their hotel room. Bad news: it tripped the chem sensor on the fire alarm. Good news: We can apparently evacuate the convention floor in about 5 minutes.
Thankfully, we got the clear to go back in and got everyone back inside about 10 minutes before the tornado sirens started going off. So, once again, I can, as a convention staffer, read your comic and say, “Yep, that’s happened to me.”
I have Bad Weather Stories. I have Convention Stories. I do not have any Bad Weather Convention stories, though have heard quite a few.
Keep doing cons long enough, and the odds say you’ll end up with your own eventually 😛
I hope you see this, Trae. I finally made it to your website(s). You gave me your cards at the geek.kon in Madison and I said I’d leave you a note so you knew I actually visited your site.
Anyway, keep up the good work.
Most likely, though as a country boy form Nebraska I confess I’m less worried by bad weather than I might be. So long as the tornado doesn’t hit the house, it’s not worth worrying about.
Not a story about a convention i was involved in, just one i attend every year.
3 days before the convention is due to start there is heavy rain, which follows several months of rain. That night a local river backs up, and all the drainage in the area of the convention hotel goes wrong.
The basement and ground floor of hotel get covered in Sewage. Hotel is closed. Suddenly convention which has been running smoothly, despite having added a massive once off event that would bring in an extra 200 people (normally 500 person con), is now in all sorts of trouble.
They managed to get space in another venue, which had issues but was at least open. They managed to have con booklets with maps for the right venue, and they communicated issues well.
But i can only imagine how bad it was for those poor convention runners.
Yeah! Tornado Con! 😀
Two years (three?) ago I recall the crazy snowfall we had at NBC. It wasn’t “inclement weather” proportions, but my poor friends did run out into said snowstorm to get me medicine. Con plague hit me hard on day one.