   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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this is why I have 2 alarm clocks to wake me up for work
My radio-alarm rings first to wake me up, and again to tell me it’s time to get off the computer and head to work. If something important is happening, I also set my phone to go off as well.
I find setting my cell phone to play long bits of increasingly harder to sleep through music. Usually the long “Climbing the Down” sequence from Watership Down, or Rascal Flatts singing “God Bless the Broken Road”. In case of seriously anticipated emergency, “Ride of the Valkyries”. 🙂
I have a Twitter bot that’s notify enabled on my phone.
It sends tweets over and over every morning until you reply to it with “Ohayo!”
It took me a little while to realize the Z’s were the alarm and not Megan snoring.
It was supposed to be Megan snoring because her alarm never went off, but now I guess it’s whatever people want it to be. 😛
I love the light through the blinds at 10:30. Actually I love that whole overhead view – a nice new perspective.