Lightspeed Follow up

So - while I posted my formal column about the recent Lightspeed Celebrity Charity event at Terilynn's Trek new home at AIRLOCK ALPHA, I had been asked to show the pictures that I actually had taken at the event - I'm only going to post the two - the one w/Frakes and the one w/Burton. Look at me! That's a squee wrapped up in a smile right there!





Yes. They were wonderful.

Sigh.

12/1/09 A New Computer and a New Energy

Last week I finally broke down and bought myself a new computer. I went with a big ole laptop (18.4" screen - so it's a hefty muther) but it has pretty much everything I need.

I have actually found myself interested in playing the upcoming Star Trek Online. Yes - I'm over 40 - a girl - and I want to play an MMORPG. I needed a computer that could play this thing. So I went to the store and looked for a computer that would allow me to play the game.

Thing is? I must have blown away the sales guys by asking for a computer that could allow me to do this. Just to make sure, I had three sales guys on the net looking at the Star Trek Online website looking up the minimum spec requirements for the game. By the time I walked out of the store with my new comp - I think I sold three people on the game.

ST ONLINE - you owe me. :)

Now. I am waiting patiently until this game comes out - because I know I'm never going to be able to Beta - namely because I put in an application LONG before I bought a computer that would be able to handle it...sigh.

The screencaps for it are looking pretty cool too.

Oh well - February isn't that far away.

So I'm going to talk about this weekend - briefly. The Hubby and I are off to Orange County, CA for this year's Lightspeed Fine Arts Celebrity Charity Event.

I went to last year's event and had the time of my life. I'm really looking forward to this year's scheduled attendees as well as the auction. (I'm actually running around happily for finding out that Genie Francis is attending as well!)

I'll probably actually use it as the subject for my next Airlock Alpha article which is due that following Monday - the 9th.

So - I'm gearing up to get a little more Trek in my life.

Now - if I could just find that muse that will allow me to start writing the rest of Heritage Book Two, I'd be MUCH happier. Bill (my main character) has been arguing with me for months now and I just don't want to give into his demands. Bastard. He's such a Riker.

*GRIN*

Yikes! Has is been that long? Really?

Wow - I can't believe it's been 6 weeks since I last posted. That's NOT normal for me.

Let's see, since my last post we've gone on a Star Trek cruise, my mother died and my father moved out.

Yes, it's been rather busy and losing my mother was a really awful experience. Just in case you really weren't sure??? CANCER IS FUCKED UP. Especially pancreatic cancer. I may not believe in a devil or the like, but if there ever was an evil presence on this planet - cancer is as close as it comes.

So now that things have settled down (and by settled down, I mean have been deafeningly quiet) I'm getting back into the swing of things.

After my mother's funeral and after the family all flew home, I was able to actually read a book and review it for Terilynn's Trek at Airlock Alpha. It was a welcome respite from the insanity of the mourning rituals.

I also got to finish a small fiction challenge over at Ad Astra Fan Fiction, called It Had Been a Day. The story was a response to a challenge about what a children's story in the universe of Star Trek might be like. I used the opportunity to build another scene where my created character, Cassidy Riker - the youngest Riker progeny - is four years old and gets a book from her "Grampa Picard." It ended up being more melancholy than I had originally intended it to be - namely because the Cassidy Riker character ends up defecting to a terrorist organization later on in her life. So the sweet child she is in this scene conflicts so greatly with the hardened woman she ends up in my series.

It felt good to write a little fan fiction. I needed the outlet and really haven't focused on writing anything for almost 6 months. I am hoping that I can concentrate a little more on writing again, because I find if I do, I somehow also "clear space" in my brain to concentrate on my real-life job as well...

I also attended my first Virtual Drinking Skeptically meeting in almost a month. I am really liking where these chats are heading. I still consider myself to be a complete noob to the skeptic "society" and I have much to learn about the different meetings, challenges and organizations that are affiliated with skeptics and this seems to be a very nice way to get introduced to a lot of it!

This Thanksgiving will be one of the most different for me in the past 20 years. It will be just me, The Husband and the doggies. And I must say, I am REALLY looking forward to it.

I wish you all the best if I don't post again before Thanksgiving. But knowing me - I probably will! See ya!

A different sort of place

This area will be renamed now that Terilynn's Trek has moved to Airlock Alpha. I'll use this spot to be more of a personal blog now...and fill it with stuff that will be less Trek and more me. I'll be posting Terilynn's Trek article twice a month at Airlock Alpha The next article is set to go on October 7th!

In the meantime - this gives me a place to talk about other stuff now - and two things that I want to talk about is BOOBIE WEDNESDAY and VIRTUAL DRINKING SKEPTICALLY.

Boobie Wednesday was created by two women on Twitter (you can follow me at @TerilynnS)namely @honey_is_evil and @shimmer418 who decided to have a little fun while spreading information about breast cancer.

Having lost a sister-in-law from this horrific disease as well as knowing FAR TOO MANY women and at least one man who suffer from its affects, I decided to participate.

While I have always supported the Susan G. Komen Foundation, I really like the quirky, and quite frankly EFFECTIVE way these women have decided to get into the act.

Every Wednesday participants change their Twitter avatar to one that "shows their boobies." This ended up being really fun, and damn - if it didn't start getting the guys in on it! I had to laugh. I started changing my avatar on 9/23/09 and I will every Wednesday from now on. While I don't really "reveal" anything - my breasts are totally covered for the avatar - it's a pretty eye-catching pic I don't mind saying. :)

The second thing is a group that a new Twitter friend @briandgregory called VIRTUAL DRINKING SKEPTICALLY.

For those of you who may know me (or couldn't tell from the big A on the side of my blog) I am an atheist and also a "skeptic." A skeptic - at least by my definition - is one that supports critical thinking. That's it. Critical thinking.

To me that means using the brain I was born with and cutting through the bullshit that surrounds us all. From paranormal bullshit, to the bullshit of using sugar pills to cure oneself of a real medical condition - I have been seeking the company of others who share a passion for truth.

There are Official Drinking Skeptically groups that meet all over the place and I have always wanted to join in on one - but two things always kept me from doing so - my physical location and time to be able to go when I'm near a meeting. Virtual DS has been the wonderful answer to my desire to meet other skeptics in a casual environment to talk about the raft of issues skeptics are faced with. We all meet ONLINE in a video chat room! We all get to talk, socialize and better yet...drink without having to drive anywhere!

If you're interested - click on the link above and join us! It's very fun!

Well all - off to work again. Please look for Terilynn's Trek on Airlock Alpha and support Boobie Wednesday and come drink with us during the next Virtual DS! Look forward to meeting you!

8-7-09 One Door Closes - Another Opens

Note: This is the blog posted at Trek United. I haven't decided how I will handle things here at Blogger.com - I will likely continue here. However - as this blog is "connected" with Facebook, I wanted the announcement to carry through.

_________________________

It's with both excitement and a tiny pinch of sadness that I'm writing this short entry.

You see, I'm going to be moving Terilynn's Trek to a new home for the foreseeable future and no longer posting entries here at TrekUnited.

TU has been a very cozy little blog area for me, but when offered an opportunity to bring TT wider exposure in a more formal setting, I had to take a little of Mr. Roddenberry's advice and tell myself to go boldly.

So I am.

I'm not exactly sure when things will get underway at the new place, but it should be sometime this month.

I want to thank everyone here at TU for their support and for the corner where I've set my soapbox for the past 1 ½ years. I'll still be active (hopefully more so, actually) in the forums here and on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerilynnS

Keep your eyes peeled to www.airlockalpha.com to see when Terilynn's Trek debuts.

Again…thanks for your continued readership and support!

Love - Terilynn

8-2-09 Can Swallow Redeem Titan from Bennett's Misdeeds?

Those of you who have read my blog over any length of time may remember that I used to like to read the licensed – official – authorized – whatever books published by CBS' company – Pocketbooks.

That's right – I USED to like to read them. That was until the authors grouped together and decided to make their own "canon" by starting to synch up storylines. It might have worked, but in my opinion all it did was serve to box-in all the characters and stories in ALL the series – whether it's from The Next Generation to Titan to DS9 to great and original works like the Klingon series and the Starfleet Corps of Engineers.

Worse – they have married and impregnated two characters that should never have been put together to satisfy a minority group of sappy fangirls (Crusher and Picard); and Christopher Bennett had the audacity to name the Riker/Troi progeny after his dead cat – all while he wrote 349 pages of dreck hashing out his own internal struggle with women he perceives as being irresponsible and can only gain self-fulfillment by changing their male superior's diapers.

Okay – SO maybe I am a little bitter about Star Trek: Titan – Over a Torrent Sea. It was after all, the WORST book I have yet read in the post-Nemesis world created any member of the team at Pocketbooks and found a way to insult everything about women, Starfleet, and The United Federation of Planets in one foul swoop.

So you can imagine why I'm SO nervous about the new book I just pre-ordered. Star Trek: Titan – Synthesis.

*bites nails*

The cover has what could only be deemed as a "Harlequin Romance" style – a generated shot of Riker holding a character we all know from season one of TNG – Minuet.

For those of you who may not know why I'm so hesitant about this book, one must understand how…creepy Minuet is.

She's a hologram – a very UNUSUAL hologram created by the Bynars – she was incredibly life-like and Riker essentially fell in love with her. The "depth" of her holographic character was lost at the end of the episode when the programming to get his cooperation was no longer necessary, but Riker always had a soft spot in his heart for her. Hell, she was supposedly his perfect mate. (No – not that Perfect Mate, that's a different TNG episode.)

In any event, Minuet played well as a plot-device in a subsequent episode called "Future Imperfect" when Riker is taken captive on an isolated planet and made to believe it's 15 years in the future. The woman he is led to believe is his dead wife is revealed to be Minuet and he knows that he is being fooled as she is really a hologram.

So – now that I know that her character will play a part in the new Titan book, I can't help but gird myself against the angst I feel, as in…

Oh crap – now what are they going to make Riker do?

He's a new father, a loving and loyal husband (even though EVERY book plays to the cliché that he's somehow a male whore) and a very honorable man.

I fear that this book will be…well…atrocious.

I am going to remain hopeful that James Swallow – the author of this book and also the author a wonderful DS9 Terok Nor book called Day of the Vipers – has the mental capacity to redeem Riker and the Titan crew from the dreck that Bennett dragged them all into in OaTS.

But I have to remain skeptical.

I'm not bolstered by the cover and I remain very nervous about the "guest character."

Flying Spaghetti Monster forbid that Swallow has a deep-seeded psychological condition that leads him to write Troi as new mother who ignores her husband and Riker as going to seek "solace" from a long-lost holographic old flame.

*screams*

I would never forgive them.

Synthesis comes out in October. I'll let you all know how things go then. In the meantime…I'm starting on Season 5 of DS9 and I'm really beginning to see what it was that people loved about that show. More on that later.

7-16-09 Hollywood has Nothing to Fear...Except Fear Itself of Course.

A ha!!! Yes – Surprise – it's a SECOND blog entry today!

Over the course of the last day, Twitter has been…well…atwitter with people who have just gone off about the worsening problem of the "reboot/rehash/remake" disease that has infected the very soul of what used to be a pretty wacky and original place. Yes – I used the word "original." There was a time when Hollywood used to produce some pretty creative things. Sure they produced a lot of crap too – but back then, at least it was creative crap.

So imagine how thrilled I was to read this blog: (Once again I must thank my Twitter acquaintance "Broadus" who said he wanted to read my thoughts on this piece.) So please do yourself a favor and read this! Not only did it have me weeping with laughter, it also had me shedding bitter, bitter tears.

http://www.tvsquad.com/2009/07/15/tv-101-do-we-have-more-tv-channels-than-we-do-tv-talent/

Jay Black, the comedian and author of the eloquent article puts forth...

(*mumble* phloxing grammar – an hypothesis? A hypothesis? Huh – according to the little green thing in Word it says it's "a hypothesis". Yes, "a" before a consonant "an" before a vowel. Duh, Ter.)

...a hypothesis that television sucks big donkey Richards because there simply aren't enough good writers out there; that they have reached a critical mass so to speak, and not only are all the good writers being used, the "suits' have backfilled the void with the leftover crappy writers.

While I laughed all the way through his article, I simply can't agree with this statement. I think there are hordes of incredibly talented writers that just can't get a job. And while I can see his point that the expansion of available channels should actually bring more opportunity to the writers/actors, etc – I'm afraid it all rolls right back around to the same problem that's affecting ALL of Hollywood – fear of the new, the original and the untested.

It really does all come down to money and, using Mr. Black's own method, I'll be working off of two axioms here:

1) Studios aren't openly willing to pay anyone for anything and
2) They only spend money either due to desperation or because they are legally required to do so in some instances.

I know of many, many incredibly talented people…writers, producers, actors – all of whom would love to just get a crack at a role, or having their script produced or a studio buy their show, but the studios simply haven't shown much of an interest in original works, original looks or original ideas.

They fear originality for originality equals risk, and in the post Enron/Sarbanes-Oxley world in which we live risk = possible failure and possible failure = potential shareholder lawsuit and potential shareholder lawsuit = death. And using the ever-loving transitive theory, since death must be avoided "at all costs" therefore originality must be avoided "at all costs."

Literally.

(I also joked that maybe the really good writers know better than to waste their time putting forth their creative efforts knowing that they'll either be shot down – OR WORSE – losing all control over their creations to some set of paid hacks who assure the soul is surgically removed from most work, so they're not even trying to sell their wares anymore and learning how to enjoy their work by sharing it on the net…GASP…for free.)

I'm sure it's different for the actor – those who would love to stretch their creativity by playing a role – ANY role, as long as it's a challenge.

OMFSM – Another tweet from Broadus produced this gem of an interview: (Ahem, Ms. Megan Fox! You may want to read this! You could learn a lot from this woman!)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/jul/16/question-time-sophie-okonedo

Damn, what a gorgeous woman…in more ways than one.

Ms. Okonedo speaks directly to the heart of the problem I think – there is a lot of phlox out there. She's incredibly forthright to be able to tell the powers that be "no" when she's offered that stuff too. She's also built a reputation for taking meatier and better-written roles too. She wields a power that very few actors hold – the ability to say no and still know that they will be sought for another role in the future. She and others like her are simply THAT GOOD.

All of the actors I personally know don't get that luxury. They're faced with either not working – or taking that role in the poorly written dramedy, or cry with joy when they land a commercial, something – just something that gives them a few things more on that resume and headshot. There's simply not enough "good stuff" out there to be able to say no to. It's not that those people aren't capable of being "THAT GOOD" they just don't have the material that allows them to show it.

Mr. Black has a lot of great points but I don't think expansion of the market has caused dissolution of the talent-pool.

When studios stop producing scripted shows in order to save money and they turn to filming "unscripted" dreck – that is what I believe is television's greatest problem. It's not that there are less good writers – the good writers just aren't being used!

Yes, we're getting a lot more material thrown at us as viewers but we're just getting less material that has a plot. We're not getting more dramas, comedies or musicals – we're getting American Idol; Big Brother; Big Brother After Dark; Ghost Hunters; Haunted Castles; Haunted Ships; Haunted Pool Halls; Dark-Haired Survival Guy; Lighter-Haired Survival Guy; Nasty Chef Yells at Poorly Trained Food Service Industry People; Deadliest Catch and Ice Flow Truckers of the South Pacific (where I understand driving a truck on an iceberg is really dangerous!)

Now – I know the writers of these "unscripted shows" don't get paid diddley for their work and I can't imagine that a majority of the people in them are now suddenly members of SAG…

I would have hoped that with the influx of cable channels that we would be able to see a greater degree of opportunity for the writer/actor/electricians/musician/set-builders etc – but when Hollywood realized it could bypass the unions and make money hand-over-twisted claw by avoiding having to hire anyone but a camera operator, a boom operator and maybe a few grips…yeah – cheap to make and huge on the profit ratio.

Sorry Mr. Black – I think the Earth is swimming in talented people and you're definitely one of them.

I just think Hollywood is dying from its own fear.