Conventional Wisdom

[00:00:02] Trek Geeks is proud to have Fansets as our presenting sponsor. You know, Fansets is the place for amazing pin collectibles with over 500 officially licensed Star Trek pins and new releases every single month. Stay tuned for a special discount code good on your next

[00:00:27] order at fansets.com. Fansets, our pins have character. Hi, this is Gates McFadden. You played Dr. Beverly Crusher from Star Trek The Next Generation, and you're listening to the Trek Geeks Podcast with Bill Smith and Dan Davidson.

[00:00:47] From the Unified Communications Division of Podfleet Command, you know, where we do all the cool subspace video conferencing and stuff. Welcome to the Trek Geeks Podcast, in episode number 315. I am your co host Bill Smith, and this is a face for podcasts, audio podcasts.

[00:01:57] Of course joining me as always, as always, my somewhat illustrious co host, Dan, what's your last name again? Hi. What's up bud? Dave Davidson, Dan Davidson. Dick Davidson, everybody. Wow, this is a first man. I'm excited. I'm actually excited to see you, which is something

[00:02:24] I don't say often. So you might as well put that in your back pocket. I don't think these shorts have pockets, Dan. It's a typical Podfleet uniform. You don't have to tell us that. You're really not wearing pants, but that's okay.

[00:02:37] I'm not. I'm really not. I've got this cool, you know, Star Trek Beatles Abby Road shirt on. You know, it's because I'm sitting right under an air conditioner vent that I have a sweater on in frickin North Carolina. But here we are, dude. Episode 315, our first

[00:02:53] live video recording of Trek Geeks. Let's talk a little bit about how this is going to work. So those of you listening to this on audio, we recorded this, you know, for our patrons, our patrionicals. A few days ago, we streamed live to them and they get

[00:03:10] to participate. We decided to do it today because I had the day off. And well, you have every day off. So you can just go to. Yeah. Yup. Thank you. Every day. Every day. You know

[00:03:23] about that boat. We'll get to that later. I know about it all too well. But what we're going to do is, you know, our patrons are watching live during a private YouTube link and they'll get the chance to comment and say hi. If you want to comment patrionicals,

[00:03:40] you have to watch directly on YouTube using the link in your patrion feed. Any comments you make in patrion itself are not going to be visible on screen. Right. So I mean, I

[00:03:52] could create a comment right now that, you know, is kind of an example. Here we go. And I could demonstrate it. Here we go. Although YouTube says it doesn't support comments on private videos, which is kind of a bummer. That's that's good because you were probably

[00:04:09] going to do something that it was going to make me look bad. Well, Dan, if you want to fire up patrion in a separate window and see if anybody comments there. Yeah, I can do

[00:04:17] that. That would be helpful. And we can read them. So apologies, patrons. This is like live television. It's a work in progress. So we will get we will get some of your feedback. However, we can. If you're watching, please understand that there's a first time for everything

[00:04:34] in this one is ours. That's right. But Dan, yeah, we're going to talk about probably one of our favorite aspects of our fandom, and that is conventions, baby convention season. Absolutely. Yeah, we that's all you got. Yeah, I know. That's all I got. We had a fantastic

[00:04:53] time about a month and a half ago, actually. Now, Trek Long Island, it was the first time that we were at that fantastic show. It was their second annual. We had a blast. We've

[00:05:04] got STLV coming up in just under two weeks, which is just mind blowing. So we figured we'd take this time to talk about all kinds of things convention wise. And it's always it's always exciting to talk conventions and reuniting with our Star Trek family. So yeah,

[00:05:20] that's what we're talking about today, my friend. That's I'm so excited. I mean, it's this is the time of year I look forward to the most as a Star Trek fan, because it's

[00:05:29] that time where we get to see the friends that we only get to see a couple of times a year. Right. You know, those those members of our Star Trek family, you know, who we

[00:05:39] have grown to have great bonds with. And and those bonds mean everything. You know, it's unfortunately I have to spend some of this time with you. But, you know, that can easily

[00:05:50] be be changed. I can just like wander off from the vendors table this year if you want. You mean again? Again, again, I did. Yeah. To your credit last year, you did not go anywhere.

[00:06:03] No, I promise you I wouldn't. And I'm not planning to really this much this year either. I'm going to be there and talking to the friends and patrionicals and new listeners and having

[00:06:15] a good time. That's what it's all about. I don't I don't know how many people we talked to last year, but I feel like we should have kept count. Yeah, maybe we'll do that this

[00:06:25] year, like a little scratch pad, you know, with ticks on them. Not like deer ticks. I mean, like I was going to scratch ticks. That's kind of gross. See, this is what it's like,

[00:06:34] ladies and gentlemen. You see, you only hear it now. You get to see it and you get to see his reaction, which is always it's what it's all about. Right. So congratulations. Thanks,

[00:06:42] buddy. Great. Yeah, this this is what it's all about. Yeah. You know what? The best part is, is that I can completely take you out of the stream or mute you and there's not

[00:06:53] a damn thing you can really do about it. So it looks much better like this, doesn't he? His microphone is not on, I can assure you. I know he's not saying anything because

[00:07:03] he's too much of a big softie. So that's a big I love you. And oh, do you don't please? God, Bill. Not this early in the day, and it's not even early in the day. So we call

[00:07:21] this episode conventional wisdom, despite the fact that Dan Davidson is a part of this episode. So we're going to talk about where we've gone, where we're going to. And I've got a surprise after that because I'm going to make a surprise convention appearance. What? At a future con.

[00:07:37] Wow. Thanks. Thanks a lot. You are welcome. But Dan, before we do that. Yeah. You and I. Yeah. Should probably do a little business with the Alpha Quadrant. And of course, Dan,

[00:08:13] I do mean our good friends at Fansets. We want to thank them so much for being our presenting sponsor. You know, without them, it would be a lot harder to do what they do. They've been great

[00:08:24] partners to us and we're excited to have them every single week. We really are. We love all we love all of them. John, Lou, Amity, even Joe. We love Joe. We love the whole team. We don't

[00:08:34] love Joe. All right. That's okay. We love Marine, but not Joe. Oh, she's fantastic also, but we love them. It's another week and it's another round of great releases over at fansets.com. So check it out

[00:08:45] right now. You can get from Star Trek, lower decks, tuxedo, Rutherford black dress, Tendi Gucci badgie, which is an incredible name, logic, e-badgy attack, moopsie, and a very special autograph pin is now available from Star Trek, lower decks,

[00:09:03] Gabrielle Ruiz, who of course plays the Vulcan Talen, an incredible looking pin. I am definitely adding that one to my collection. Also brand new from fansets. It's a new line of acrylic displays. They're now available, including the ships of the fleet display and the enterprises display. Now they

[00:09:20] had these beauties at Trek Long Island a month and a half ago, and you're definitely going to want to add these to your Trek collection and there will be new ones coming out pretty regularly.

[00:09:29] And finally, be sure to check out the new fansets collaboration with Cool Waters production to bring you a ton of autograph pins from some of your favorite Star Trek actors like Doug Jones,

[00:09:41] Elias Tufeksis, and David Jollett, just to name a few. Each one of these autograph pins is going to be strictly limited to a run of 50 pins. So be sure to check out all the details right now

[00:09:52] over at fansets.com. And Bill, Bill, this just in, black alert, black alert my friend. We have a very special announcement here on Trek. I love special announcements. They're awesome. Right now, first look at the exclusive STLV fansets poker chip, what it's going to look

[00:10:15] like. You can see it on your screen right now. It's gorgeous as you would expect from fansets. The 2024 STLV poker chip features none other than Neelix himself playing poker from the season six episode collective. There's glitter. It's Neelix, it's Vegas. You got to have one.

[00:10:33] You got to have one. And this pin, you know, I love the fact we've worked Neelix into this. You know, I was wondering if we were going to see our favorite Talaxian at some point,

[00:10:41] but one of the cool details about this pin Dan is instead of the standard circle, you see it behind the character on the poker chip, it has the Greek letter Delta overlaid on it. And now the scene

[00:10:53] that, you know, they grabbed this from is actually one where Neelix, it's based on a poker game on the Delta flyer that Neelix is in. So just the attention to detail, of course, always there.

[00:11:06] And I might have to get me a handful of these pins. You might notice Dan, you look at the dice on the pin. Yeah, they say 24 to four. What? What? Glitter. But I care about

[00:11:20] an exclusive sneak peek at what you'll see at STLV in just what are we at? 11 days before we touch down. 11 days, my friend. No, 10 days, isn't it? It's 11. I just looked at my phone. Oh, my goodness gracious. That's still that's right

[00:11:34] around the corner. Lots of new releases this week, Dan. So we want everyone head on over to fan sets, get all those pins. And then, of course, a check out. Be sure to enter the special discount

[00:11:45] code Trek Geeks for 10 percent off your entire order. That's Trek Geeks in all capital letters with no spaces. And of course, don't forget, when you spend more than 30 dollars, you automatically get free shipping in ye olde Estados Unidos. Fan sets, our pins have character. And we thank

[00:12:04] our friends at fan sets for being the presenting sponsor of Trek Geeks. Did you just sneak Arnold into our recording? The first of possibly many, especially if we're talking Trek Long Island. Oh, my God, Dan, you got to get out of here. I tell you what, Dan,

[00:12:20] when I go to the Star Trek conventions, it just is so relaxing. I love all these Star Trek. And I tell you, you've got to come down here. Go to the bar, go to the bar, get a drink. It's

[00:12:30] good stuff. Wow. So since we're talking about Arnold, let's just talk about Trek Long Island. You literally spent, and we'll get this out of the way now. You literally spent all weekend doing Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonations for no reason whatsoever to carry forward

[00:12:50] the stupid things you do in our trips. I wouldn't call them stupid. I would call them entertaining, maybe. Oh, sure you would. Okay. Yeah. No, it's just something that popped in my head. And there's a guy I follow on

[00:13:01] Instagram who does the best Arnold impersonation I think I've ever seen. I think that's what kicked it off. So in the walking down the hallway, talking to people as we walked by at the vendors

[00:13:11] table, but especially in the evenings after we turned in, lights are out, we're going to sleep, you're over there on your side of the room, I'm over on my side of the room and I just

[00:13:20] start talking out of the blue just to get you laughing so hard you couldn't breathe. It was great. I think one of the things we were excited about the most with Long Island is that it reminded

[00:13:30] us potentially of so many of those smaller conventions that we went to growing up. Now a lot of those were creation conventions back in the day, but there were a lot of other

[00:13:40] smaller regional cons. And when we got there, we found that that was 100% the case with this show. It's intimate, it's a couple of ballrooms, it really was not this gigantic Vegas-like thing. It kind of forced human interaction, if that makes sense.

[00:14:02] It really does. And I think that's one of the things that was so great about the convention is those interactions. We experienced it at Northeast Trekcon years ago, where we got to have

[00:14:14] conversations with some of the Star Trek actors for half an hour at a time. It was quiet enough, but it was busy enough that they did well, but it was quiet enough that you could really have

[00:14:24] some personal time with these people who will become heroes of ours. And on top of that, not Star Trek actors, just regular people coming in. We talked to so many people at our table at

[00:14:33] Trek Long Island for extended amounts of time about everything from their fandom to what we did on the podcast, what they'd like to see us do an episode of. It was really great. We got to meet a lot of

[00:14:43] new friends and we got to see a lot of dear friends that we haven't seen in a while. You know, so many people raved about Long Island to us last year that we felt like we had to go

[00:14:55] this year. I mean, not just people who listen to the podcast, but also good friends of ours, and also the fansets guys. They were totally on board with the fact that we had to be there this year, and I think they may have told us 3,000 times? Maybe four?

[00:15:13] At least. And it's not bad that they did. We don't get to go to a lot of conventions. A, a lot of our friends and listeners said it was a fantastic convention last year. B, fansets

[00:15:28] said they had a blast at the first one. C, it's literally right down the road when you think of the other conventions that we've gone to. It was in New York, for me anyway, because you've moved,

[00:15:39] but being in New York, I just got in my car, drove down to Connecticut, jumped on a ferry, and then boom, was there. It was fantastic to not be flying all day, selfishly. So I thought

[00:15:51] it was great. And the fact that they're doing another one makes me even happier because it's still going to be close to where I live. Not so much you, but that's okay.

[00:16:01] But it was a really short flight. So I flew out of Raleigh because I live within an hour of the airport there. And I had a 50, 55 minute flight to Baltimore, and then I had a 40 minute

[00:16:16] flight to IceLip in Long Island. So as far as flights go, it was not bad at all. I mean, I would do this con a hundred times over as long as you bring all the crap down.

[00:16:27] Absolutely. And I'll be happy to do that. It'd be fantastic to do that. I will be your show for, I'll be your Adam. Let's put it that way. How about that? I'll be your intern.

[00:16:39] Dude, I don't know if you realize this, you've been my intern for almost 10 years. Okay. If that's what you want to say, that's fine. Hey, I do have a quick update regarding the live stream. Comments are showing up on YouTube. So I just pulled up the YouTube channel

[00:16:54] and I'm seeing all of the wonderful people saying hi and throwing insults at you, which I think is just fantastic. Oh, we can at least look at them on YouTube instead of having to go

[00:17:03] to Patreon. So thank you for that live update, Dan Davidson. That's what we're here, live news. That's why we win all the Emmys. Direct, we win Emmys? Emmys. Oh, I didn't tell you about that?

[00:17:13] I got them all in there. No. Yeah, they're right over there. Anyway. You were terrible at this. Just since now we have live comments, I'm just going to let Sarah know that unfortunately you

[00:17:24] cannot pre-order the pin, the STLV poker chip, but rest assured they're going to have a ton of them there and whatever is left over is going to be available on the website after the convention.

[00:17:34] You'll have your chance to get them most likely and you'll want it because I don't know if you can see it right over here. I've got all my display of poker chips right there on my table

[00:17:41] because they're just fantastic. I hadn't even seen that. Which ones you got there? Let's see. I got Data, I got Cisco, I got Kirk from Peace of the Action, I got Picard Season 1,

[00:17:53] Lower Decks and Quark. I know I'm missing at least one. It might be on another page of that little display thing that I have on my desk. But yeah, the poker chips are must-haves. If you're

[00:18:02] going to buy anything from Fansets, you got to get a poker chip. Maybe next year they can do a Fat Galt poker chip. What are you saying? I'm kidding. You look beautiful. That's all. Thank you. Thank you. You are beautiful no matter what they say.

[00:18:23] Keep it going, baby. I love it. I love it. Words can't bring me down, Dan. You know what else is great? Since we're talking about all kinds of things from Trek Long Island and

[00:18:31] Fansets, just the fact that we got to be on stage with Armin and Ethan, who is the Star Trek poker chip this year, is fantastic. I think that's great that we got to talk to those guys and we got to

[00:18:42] actually meet Neelix in person and Quark. But having him on a poker chip the very same time that we did an interview with him, I think it's pretty special. I love it. I think one of the things that

[00:18:55] really struck me was how I expected the vendor hall at Long Island to be a lot smaller. I think it was actually larger than the main panel room. I agree. Yeah, I think it was. It's funny. Helen

[00:19:12] in the YouTube chat says, Bill and Dan, are you going to do a Trek Geeks episode or episodes about Prodigy Season 2? It was so good. It is so good. And Dan would actually have to watch it first.

[00:19:21] Yes. I have not had the opportunity to really watch it yet. And during the outtake, you'll probably find out why. It is something that I do want to do. I just haven't been able to find

[00:19:32] the time to schedule to watch it. But from everything I've seen, I have not seen any... Well, I take that back. I've seen one spoiler, but everything else that I've seen, it is a fantastic

[00:19:41] season of Star Trek. I've seen it. It's fantastic. I loved it. I want 20 more episodes. I'm really bummed that for all intents and purposes, they've ended the show. There's still

[00:19:57] hope. I think there is still hope. But Dan, I think you're going to love it. I think it will... There's a lot of feels from all of the series. I think that's safe to say without it being too

[00:20:10] spoilery. And that's what I love. There's going to be elements that you love from the movies, from TOS, from TNG, from Voyager, obviously. All kinds of callbacks and thematic sort of things that

[00:20:25] are going to really just, I think, speak to your inner fan. Yeah. That's one of the things that I love about this modern Trek. We've talked about it before. You got people that are writing these

[00:20:35] shows that love Trek as much as we do. And these callbacks, we used to talk about the fact that if they talked about something from a previous show, it was just fan service. It is the farthest thing

[00:20:46] from fan service with what they are doing in these shows now with the callbacks and the references and the continuity. So I'm looking forward to it. Like I said, I know about one of the spoilers and

[00:20:55] I can't wait to see it. And hopefully... And you know what? I'm not going to have some nagging guy next to me talking named Bill Smith on the flight. So I'll have a chance to watch a few

[00:21:06] episodes on the way out to Vegas. So yeah, I'll put it on my iPad. So originally my plan was I was going to fly up to Manchester and drive down with you. And can I tell you how grateful I am

[00:21:18] that I didn't have to do that? Because I would have spent four hours in a car with you. And I feel like that would have been like using a cheese grater on my elbow. Not as grateful as I was.

[00:21:35] I'm driving down here. I got the radio blaring and I'm making my own lyrics. I'm not with Bill. Driving down the road. Yeah, it was great. I'm going to see if I can make that a ringtone.

[00:21:48] I would have pitched you over the ferry probably if you were with me. So good things happen by you not being there. That's very true. Burley asks, when are we getting to Vegas? We actually

[00:22:03] get in late, late, late, late, late on Tuesday. So I am the kind of person who likes to get a full night's sleep before we set up on Wednesday to try to acclimate to Vegas time.

[00:22:16] So I try to come in as tired as I can so that I can pretty much hit the hay and then get up the next morning and get coffee and be ready to go. Ready to go. Yep, that's what we're going to do.

[00:22:28] So yeah, it'll be the... So yeah, 12 days from now. Yeah. And it's funny, we're taking different flights, but we get in within an hour of each other, which is kind of cool. So yeah, so we'll

[00:22:39] get there. We'll head over to the hotel. We'll relax. We'll check out the new, what was the I-bar. Hopefully that'll be open by the time we get there because they've made tons of changes to

[00:22:48] the Rio. And then Wednesday, we're going to hit the ground running. I've never really understood that phrase because you're going to hit the ground and then you're going to run. I think we've established that neither of us are runners.

[00:23:00] I hate running. Run, get the hell out of here. You got to get to the chopper. Run as fast as you can, you crazy son of a bitch. I hate you so much.

[00:23:10] Oh, I can't breathe. Let's see. So back to Long Island. One of the things that really impressed me about Long Island was how they integrated as many podcasts and podcasters. So we had three

[00:23:26] shows represented at Trek Long Island. We had big sci-fi podcast. We of course had the amazing sci-fi sisters and us. And for a while, it was looking like it was going to be the Trek Geeks

[00:23:39] convention based on the number of shows. But there were other shows there that Duras sisters were there. A Strange New Pod was there. Captain's Quadrant, a whole bunch of others. And I apologize

[00:23:50] if I've left any out, not my intention, but I have an old man brain. That's true. But they integrated those podcasters into the content hosting panel, which I thought really was just masterful. We've talked about for years that podcasting, especially Star Trek podcasting,

[00:24:10] it is a family. It's sort of like what we talk about our Star Trek family when we go to STLV every year. We have that Star Trek family. Podcasting is its own little sub-family within the family and everybody knows each other. Everybody supports each other. And you're right.

[00:24:25] The folks who put together Trek Long Island had all of the podcasters heavily involved in just about every aspect of every single event. As you decided to take my face right out of everybody.

[00:24:37] See, now everybody's sad. Now everybody's really sad. But there we go. And it was so involved with having podcasters in on all of the events that you didn't even know that we were doing a major

[00:24:54] interview, which we talked about just a few minutes ago with Armin and Ethan. We get there and he's like, so what are we going to do? And I'm like, well, we have that great interview coming

[00:25:04] up on Sunday. And you're like, the what, the what? It was. And I literally didn't know this until you got to the hotel. I'm sitting there in the lobby because I got in maybe 20 minutes before

[00:25:16] you arrived. My Uber brought me to the hotel and I'm sitting in the lobby with my bags and I'm playing Wordle and you walk up. I do. I play Wordle every day. I have not played that in so long.

[00:25:29] I play it every day and a few other games, you know, to keep the old noggin kind of working. Mass. You got to keep it going, man. Put in fresh batteries.

[00:25:37] I need to play more games. Yeah. And you're like, yeah, so it's going to be great. We got our Save My Life panel coming up, you know, and then at the end on your like at the end of the day,

[00:25:47] like last panel on Sunday, we get to talk to Armin and Ethan. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold the phone. What? We're not doing that panel. You're like, yes, we are. Yes, we are. Excuse me now. What? And we did. I looked at the schedule

[00:26:03] because I missed the emails, you know, with everything I was doing for moving. You know, I was I was pretty much, you know, in communicado for a good five, six weeks because we had to move fast. Right. And you were on top of it, much to your compliment.

[00:26:20] First time for everything. Exactly. Yeah. You know that Duolingo and Wordle are not the same thing, right? I do understand that. Yes. Duolingo is my thing. I'm a Duolingo person learning the different languages or language, I should say, because only one which were for those

[00:26:37] for those people that are wondering what the hell why that offshoot on the road just happened is I posted in the YouTube channel that I'm a Duolingo person, whereas Bill is a Wordle person. Although we do have the attention span of Nat. I saw an eagle.

[00:26:54] That was for Matt McGonigal. So so yeah, that it was a wonderful surprise. I mean, we've talked to Armin many times, especially and we had him on the show. We've also talked

[00:27:06] to him through Trek Talks. We met Ethan through Trek Talks in the green room. Two wonderful guys. It was fun to re listen to that panel audio that we dropped last time. Yeah.

[00:27:19] I do think that they had a series of topics and hosts that were perfect for that convention. It wasn't just the typical, all right, let's talk to you about this role that you did.

[00:27:31] There was a lot of real world things. There was a lot of social concepts. There was a lot of real space type things. I thought it was a great docket of content for everybody that attended,

[00:27:48] no matter your age, but also a hefty amount of Star Trek stuff. I thought the mix was just damn near perfect. It really was. And they were bringing people in even when people weren't

[00:27:57] scheduled. I think the very first night there were going to be a discovery panel and I had no idea that was going to be happening. And then all of a sudden I'm being invited to it. And so I'm

[00:28:07] doing the discovery panel talking about the finale, which took place while we were there, which is kind of cool in itself. So the thing that I found interesting about being on that panel is there was what, seven podcasters up there at the same time? At least.

[00:28:25] And I thought that was one of the best aspects of it. It was great to get different opinions from different podcasters. And some of it was based on what they actually podcast about on a regular

[00:28:36] basis. And it was great to be sitting up there getting all that information. I was not part of that panel. I figured you should take it because I really just wanted an hour to just watch. It was a fantastic panel. Exactly. It's funny because Yvette from

[00:28:50] Sci-Fi Sisters is the one who said, we need one more person. Can you come to the discovery panel? I'm like, yeah, absolutely. And she was late. Well, Yvette actually does stuff for her podcast. Wow. Thank you. That was a nice little subtle dig. I appreciate that.

[00:29:08] Yeah. I'm nothing if not subtle. But yeah, there were, I really think that one of the things that continues to surprise me is no matter how many times we do the Star Trek save my life panel,

[00:29:20] it's always a different reaction. There are different parts of the story. I probably talked more about my own experience and revealed things that I hadn't before simply just because they didn't immediately come to mind. A lot of therapy has been incredibly helpful, but also incredibly

[00:29:41] hard work. But I think that it was probably one of the most successful times we've done that panel. I really was, I was touched by the people who talked to us afterwards. I really was.

[00:29:54] I was as well. There were three gentlemen who came up to talk to me afterwards and they all three of them were crying. And it was, it hit me very hard as well because it was,

[00:30:04] it was directly related to what had happened with me. They could relate and they were, they were very supportive, very understanding. And it makes me under, it makes me realize every time we do that discussion that we have the best fandom on earth with the acceptance

[00:30:27] and the forgiveness and the love that everybody shows each other in this fandom. And it, and at times in the world where it really seems dark and nothing is ever going to get better again, going to these conventions helps. It's therapeutic because you see that people are

[00:30:43] the way they're supposed to be. Yeah, you really do. I think it conventions bring out more often than not, because I'm sure there are exceptions to the rule as there are with everything. But I feel like Star Trek conventions bring out the best of our fandom.

[00:31:01] If that makes sense. I mean, some people are going to think that's probably a little too idyllic and a little too sort of Miss America or Pollyanna-ish, but I really do think that the best

[00:31:10] qualities of our fandom are on display every time there's a Star Trek convention, because it's about love and it's about passion and it's about being with other people who love this thing the same

[00:31:23] way you love this thing. And I think that that really is what this all is about. I don't think our fandoms would be the same without these types of gatherings. It's interesting you say that.

[00:31:33] It's also great to see the love that people have of the fandom that's different from what we love. I think that's one of the great things about the different parts of Star Trek. There are so many

[00:31:44] different ways that you can love the show and it's great to get a different perspective. We've talked about it before on just things like, oh, you should see this episode. I love

[00:31:54] this episode because of this. Maybe you should rewatch it and see if you like it again. How many times have we done that? And I've ended up loving the episodes when you've told me

[00:32:01] the reasons why you love it. I think that's one of the great things also about fandom is that there's so many different opinions of love that it makes it easy to love it even more.

[00:32:11] No, I agree completely. So there was really only one thing we didn't love about this convention and that was the booth that was directly across from us. Now with smaller conventions like these, sometimes corporate sponsorship is the difference between being able to have a convention and not

[00:32:33] being able to have a convention. And the table across from us was for some replacement window company in the area. I don't remember the brand, that's really irrelevant to the story.

[00:32:44] I do, but I'm not going to say it. Okay. The two people working this booth were so aggressive in their sales tactics, almost kind of like when you go to Vegas and you get the condo sales people

[00:32:58] at the booths who try to follow you and say, Hey, you want to go to this free presentation? These guys were just, they were a little too much. And half the time they were impeding the aisle.

[00:33:08] Yes. And practically on top of our booth, it's like, guys, chill out. It was probably poor placement for that table. I think it could have been better served by having it somewhere else. Absolutely. I understand if you're going to have corporate sponsors and maybe they have

[00:33:24] certain demands, but at the same time, this is a Star Trek convention. Corporate sponsors. How many people did we see outside in the hallway who were part of the Star Trek community with a vendor

[00:33:34] booth? That kind of stuff, in my opinion, and I'm not knocking anybody who made these decisions at Trek Long Island because we love them. Right. Absolutely. That booth, if it was going to be in the main room, should not have been right at the front entrance,

[00:33:47] A and B shouldn't. Well, I'll say it should not have been in the vendor's room at all. It should have been outside somewhere. The thing that was frustrating is they were very aggressive so much

[00:33:57] so that sometimes they were like grabbing people by the arm literally, which is such a no-no these days. And the other thing, and I'm sorry, you're at a Star Trek convention. No, a little bit about

[00:34:08] Star Trek, dumb dumbs. They didn't know anything about it. So somebody talked about something and then they're like, Hey, do you want your board cube to look better with these windows? It's like,

[00:34:17] God, dude, I'm going to come over there. I'm going to punch you right in the throat. Well, I thought you were saying that to me. Well, this one time, there's always an exception. I can say it to one other person.

[00:34:30] This one time, you're such a jerk. That really, to me, that was really the only bad element of this convention, which is to really say there weren't really many, there were no bad elements. Anyone considering going to Trek Long Island should do so. I mean,

[00:34:48] it's a wonderful con put on by hardworking fans. The hotel was not bad at all. I've actually kind of liked the hotel. Actually, speaking of the hotel, I'm going to just put this out there

[00:34:59] for them. It was a great hotel. It's now two years that Trek Long Island has been done. It's been a tremendous success last year's or this year's was much bigger than last year's.

[00:35:11] Put some extra staff on Hyatt Regency. Have the people in the restaurant area, in the bar area, because you know, as Trek fans, that's where we're going. On top of everything else, they had like

[00:35:22] four weddings that Saturday. So yeah, that was crazy. It was pretty busy. There was a lot of wedding people intermingling with Star Trek fans. Got to have the appropriate staff. We've run into

[00:35:32] this before with our fan geeks party in the past where they don't think we're going to pull in 300 people and we do, and they only staff for like 75. So that would be one thing that I would say

[00:35:42] to Hyatt Regency is have more people on for next weekend because it would be worth it. Well, before you move on to Vegas, let's talk really quickly. Trek Long Island has announced

[00:35:51] new dates for next year, May 30th through June 1st, 2025 at the same hotel. Their first two guests, the first one is the doctor from season three of Star Trek Picard, Tiffany Shepas. Yep. Who was fantastic. She really did a great job. Who wasn't at Picard season three?

[00:36:07] Fair. You can see her here in this sort of little one shot with Gates, you know, that's playing the Trill Doctor. I can't remember her character's name. Was it Dr. Ohm? Dr. Trill. Dr. Trill. You're an idiot. You're an idiot. And then the other guests announced so far

[00:36:27] is Bonnie Friderici, also known to the world as the significant other of John Billingsley, Flox and Enterprise. Bonnie was in an episode, the episode Regeneration. Love that episode. She's played one of the scientists who get turned into one of the Borg.

[00:36:45] I know that was really good. You should do that more often. Maybe as a member of the Borg collective when it happened, she should have gone and talked to those window replacement people. Idiot. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about Las Vegas. Viva Las Vegas, baby. Yeah.

[00:37:05] Viva Las Vegas, yes. Can you do Burn in Love by Elvis as Arnold? Do you have that capability? I can't do it on the fly. I'm going to have to listen to it just to make sure I get the right, inflection, but I can do that.

[00:37:25] You are worthless. I just want to say that. I hate you so much right now. I know. So Vegas, let's talk about the bad stuff up front. And that is this year, you and I are not doing a lot of things in Vegas. Not a lot at all.

[00:37:55] So let's start with panels because there is no Roddenberry stage this year. We are not presenting any content, not the convention. Zero. As I understand it, it was creation's decision to not have a Roddenberry stage this year.

[00:38:16] Although theoretically there might be a stage still in that room presenting content, but they brought on other podcasters like the Inglorious Trexpert to program the second stage, the one that would be the smaller of the three theaters. Sorry, the middle of the three theaters. Right.

[00:38:31] And they are doing lots of content there, but there will be plenty of other podcasters who are represented at STLB. Just none of them are Bill Smith and Dan Davidson. Okay. It is their loss. Sorry. It's disappointing. We had some great stuff planned.

[00:38:51] I am personally disappointed. We were going to do a Geek the Stump live in Vegas this year because we've done Stump the Geek the last two years. And we're hoping to do some other panels, maybe some other fun things. But

[00:39:07] as of right now, and this will not change, Trek Geeks does not have a presence in the content of STLB. Yeah. And I would say that even if they came to us next week and said,

[00:39:19] hey, can you do this? Chances are we're going to probably say no because we haven't prepped for anything because we've known for a while that we were not going to be involved in anything. So it's going to be difficult to throw together something that

[00:39:30] would be worthwhile and successful on such short notice. So I'm not thinking we're going to be doing anything. No, I mean, there are plenty of other podcasters who are involved. They do some great content,

[00:39:43] probably more recognizable names to some people than Dan Davidson and Bill Smith, and that's fine. Yep. I just am. I'm not. I'm not thrilled. I'm I'm I'm disappointed and we'll get into all the other things that are happening that aren't

[00:40:04] great in terms of what we're hoping for in a few minutes, but we got nothing to do this year. Pretty much. Yeah, pretty much. That's how I'm feeling. That's how I'm feeling. Yeah.

[00:40:21] Not a lie. I had a big face back then. You got a big face now, jerk. Well, everybody loves that though. Dr. Oak was what- I was close. I said, oh, yeah, I was thinking, you know, electricity and all that.

[00:40:39] Thank you, Helen. I appreciate that. And I agree with Haley, boo creation. Yep. Brad to mag time to put tribbles in their stockings this holiday season. At Burley, we will party with the rest of you. We will. It won't be at the Trek Geeks party

[00:40:55] because there's no Trek Geeks party this year. Band Geeks, boo. Yes, that was that was OK. I'm going to be right up front. That is the event because I love getting together with everybody.

[00:41:10] The event that I was looking that I have been looking forward to the most for several years now. It's so much fun. There's great prizes. We get to hang with fan sets and we get to see

[00:41:20] so many great people. But unfortunately, we could not find a venue this year where we went last year. Unfortunately, that space is no longer available. So we kind of don't have a location. We tried,

[00:41:34] Bill, as usual. You busted your ass to try to find a place and nothing panned out. So unfortunately, this is this is not going to happen this year now. So let's let's provide a little more context

[00:41:48] and detail for those who who may not be aware. So last year we had our party at Millennium Fandom, a wonderfully geeky sci fi themed fandom bar in Las Vegas. And they have this annex room,

[00:42:02] which is off to the side. Worked out pretty great. It was tight. I'm not going to lie. We probably had too many people for the space, but it is what it is. None of our parties have

[00:42:16] gone perfectly. And last year was was no exception. But we had a fantastic time with amazing special guests from Star Trek. This year, the plan was to have it pretty much at the same place,

[00:42:27] although scale back the number of attendees. And then when Lou and John from Fansets went to Vegas last month, about a month and a half ago, right after a month and a half after Long Island. Yeah.

[00:42:38] Yep. Oh yeah. Thank you. Right after Long Island, they met with Alex, who is the wonderful owner of Millennium Fandom. And he felt really sad to inform us that the space there annex that they

[00:42:50] used was no longer available to him because the landlord for the building found a tenant for that space. Yeah. They were allowed to use it as long as there was no tenant. That's why it kind of look

[00:43:02] almost like a kind of like a pop up art gallery in a sense. Yeah. But that's why we were able to use that room last year. That space is now leased out, according to Alex. And that means he doesn't

[00:43:18] have enough room to do a party for us. And considering he told us we gave him the biggest night that bar has ever had in its history, that was something that we took very seriously because

[00:43:33] we don't want to cause a problem. We don't want to put his staff under duress. We don't want to jam more people into a space than really ought to be there again. It just wasn't going to work out.

[00:43:42] I looked for spaces, Lou looked for spaces. And really the problem is if you want to do a party in Vegas, just about every venue wants either a buyout or a minimum per head. So for a buyout,

[00:44:02] you'd spend like say $10,000 to get the entire place to yourselves for the duration of your party. Mm-hmm. For a price per head that's they want to be sure that there's a minimum spend for food and drink and anything that doesn't meet the minimum gets charged back to us.

[00:44:19] Right. And we don't have that kind of budget because we're again, we're talking about in the thousands of dollars. Right. The goal with us and with fan sets was to always keep this party

[00:44:30] free to attend. And that kind of shuts us out of pretty much every other place on the planet. Oh, and by the way, we only had a few weeks to figure out where to try to have it if we could.

[00:44:41] Right. A few years ago for the first year, I guess this was last year, the first year back at Rio, I contacted the Rio to see if we could get the voodoo lounge at the top of the Rio,

[00:44:55] even for just a couple of hours. And at a minimum, this is under Caesar's ownership. So please temper your reactions. They wanted $15,000 up front and then an additional $5,000 in guarantees. Right. Sorry. 20 grand for the space at the top of the Rio, which nobody was using.

[00:45:20] So it's a severe bummer because I work really hard to try to pull off this party every year. Yeah. We put together resources and content and the fan sets always brings amazing pins and the

[00:45:37] like, and it wasn't meant to be this year. Right. It really is unfortunate. Like I said, that's the event of the entire convention that I look forward to the most.

[00:45:51] And it's really a shame. I love the fact that we were able to give Alex so much business that night, but that the bar without the annex, it is impossible to even fit a fraction of the

[00:46:07] amount of people that would show up for our party. And that's not patting us on the back. That's just patting the fandom on its back for being part of an event that is such a great time.

[00:46:19] It's depressing to be honest. And there's been times, and I'll be honest, I don't feel that way right now. There've been times when we're like, why are we even going? But it's the people. That's what's important is we're going to see our people and our family

[00:46:33] and our friends. But it just seems that for a couple of weeks, it was just one hit after another of things that we weren't going to be able to do. So yeah, very sad, very, very bummed, but

[00:46:44] we'll still have a great time. We will still have a great time. We may not have any panels. We may not have any party, but we still have us and we still have a bunch of Star Trek fans.

[00:46:54] We are going to take over a bar somewhere. Yes, we are. And we're going to say we're going to meet up here. It's not going to be officially a party. We may say meet us at this place.

[00:47:04] Yeah. If you want to go, whether it's on property or off, we'll try to keep it on property. But we come to see people. We come to have fun and to laugh and to talk about Star Trek and

[00:47:18] not about Star Trek and just to enjoy the people who love this thing the way we love this thing, which is the way I always phrase it. And so we're going to do it. But here's the thing.

[00:47:32] So fans that still put together a bunch of pins for this. Yes. Yes. So there are. I put together the link. You think I would remember it? But while you're digging it out, I will say that, you know, the the the Fan Geeks party pin has

[00:47:50] become somewhat of a of a treasure for people that attend the event. It's if you can only get it if you're if you're if you're going to to the party, we're still going to have a pin this year. There

[00:48:00] it is. Bill found it. He's putting it up right now. I mean, it's, you know, John, as usual, does a fantastic job. This one's a nice, subtle pin for this year because we don't have an official

[00:48:09] place that we're doing it. So, yeah, we are still going to have a pin. So all those people that have gone out to the link to get their quote unquote tickets, you're still going to get a pin

[00:48:19] that is still going to be available at the fan sets booth in the vendors room. Yeah. So what this does, you go to, you know, Fan Geeks Party dot com. That'll take you out to Eventbrite and the

[00:48:29] the voucher that you can get for a pin. You can get a max of two. We ask people to exercise, you know, some responsibility here. Don't try to load up on vouchers. But you can take that voucher to the fan sets booth at any time during the con

[00:48:45] and you can get your pin, which looks exactly like this. The other thing is you may also get a prize. Yes. I mean, that's another big part of the party is we give out prizes, right? Huge.

[00:48:56] Everybody with a voucher will be entitled at a chance for a prize. Yeah. So all you have to do is go to the fan sets booth, which is right next to us in Vegas. Bring your voucher. There are still some left, which is amazing because usually maybe it's

[00:49:11] because there's no party. That's what I'm thinking. Yeah. Yeah. There are a few left. So if you're going to Vegas, the voucher is not redeemable through the website. It's not redeemable anywhere else but Vegas in person. So get on out to Fan Geeks Party dot com

[00:49:28] to get that. Yeah. And if correct me if I'm wrong, Bill, because, you know, sometimes I don't pay attention during staff meetings. When you go to the fan, excuse me, the fan sets booth, not the

[00:49:38] fan geeks booth, the fan sets booth and you show your voucher, you're going to get a raffle ticket like we used to do at the parties. I think that's still a plan so that that will put.

[00:49:47] I don't know the plan. We're going to make the plan up as we go along, folks. So maybe we'll have that. Maybe we won't. Maybe we'll just throw stuff on the floor and see people scramble like

[00:49:54] ants. I don't know. The way I understood is the pins will probably have a number on the bag and then you draw out of the box or bag or whatever it is. Gotcha. Will determine whether

[00:50:05] you win a prize or not. Oh, all right. OK, see, there you go. So what's going on? I think I know what's going on. Maybe there'll be a raffle ticket in the bag. I don't know.

[00:50:13] OK, maybe it'll be a number on the bag. Couldn't tell you. I'm not doing that part of it. My part's done. Quitter. The thing is, this also means is we are bound and determined to have a party somehow next year

[00:50:32] and it means we have a year to find a location. Right. I will say to the Rio's credit under the new ownership, they did look very hard to try to find us a space to accommodate.

[00:50:47] To have some kind of gathering this year. And I had a couple of meetings with them on Zoom. They were fantastic. They didn't have to try to help us. Right. And their food and beverage

[00:51:03] director tried to pull strings, try to go above and beyond. It wasn't meant to be this year, but we're hoping that we can do something next year, you know, and still keep it free to attend.

[00:51:14] That's really the key. So fingers crossed. They were trying to help faster than I could see. It just wasn't meant to be. Sorry. I had to throw in a little TNG. I have to throw a quote in once

[00:51:27] an episode, pal. Sorry. That's not a quote. It's not a direct quote. Well, all the times you have. The last part. No, no, no. For all the times you have called me out for not making an exact quote,

[00:51:40] I'm telling you, go to hell. That's not a direct quote. Well, if I had done a direct quote, which I easily could have, it wouldn't have fit in with the conversation, which means you should have shut your mouth. Okay. Muted.

[00:51:54] That's my mother used to say. Which means close your mouth in French, you moron. You don't know English. Plenty of people have pointed that out to you today in the YouTube chat. I know. I'm like, what the heck? It's like they know me.

[00:52:14] They've only had 10 years. So does that mean we're not looking forward to Vegas? Not at all. I am psyched to get there. This is my vacation this year. You know, I'm working it. We're going to be at the booth with the exception of the time

[00:52:30] I'm not getting autographs. By the way, Dan, I'm stepping out of the booth to get some autographs this year. That's all right. I'll go with you. Yeah. But also, I mean, let's bring this up to sci-fi sisters is going to have a booth at Vegas.

[00:52:43] They are. They are. They got some amazing stuff there that they're going to that they'll be selling. Plus, you can meet the sci-fi sisters in person. There may be other members of the Trekkeeks podcast family in Vegas, and hopefully you'll get a chance to meet them all, especially

[00:53:00] when we meet up. Yeah. What? What? Hey, I got to throw out a special hi to Brad to Mag. He's in the YouTube channel. Haven't seen that freak for a long time. How you doing, pal? I only called his

[00:53:12] name out a little bit ago. You didn't say a damn thing. I don't listen to you. I was probably trying to find something because you couldn't find it. I don't know. What? What? Yes, Ryan, that

[00:53:23] Duolingo does seem to be working, doesn't it? Dan's learning English for the first time. Yep. Yep. And Burley, the sci-fi sisters have an amazing podcast, and we are so grateful that they trust us to have them on the network and to get their content out there. Absolutely. It's

[00:53:40] one of the smartest things we ever did was to bring them on because we adore them. We don't ever really get to attend the convention as fans anymore, and I'm fine with that.

[00:53:52] Mm-hmm. I really don't feel upset by that at all because I get to talk. I mean, we'd spend half the time in the vendor's role anyway. We do. Absolutely, we do. I think the only panel

[00:54:04] that I have been to in the last six years was the Picard panel when Patrick Stewart showed up to announce the show, which was like the most incredible moment ever. But other than that,

[00:54:14] I can't even tell you the last panel I was at. Maybe... Oh, you know, I do remember it. The Discovery, when Discovery was announced way back when, and they had their first screenshots of what the first episode was like. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:54:28] Like that, yeah. Yeah, there was the first picture of Cole. Yeah, yep. Because we decided we were Team Cole for life. Yep, yep. And stuff like that. So I do just want to call up really quickly. I want to call up the

[00:54:42] event site for STLV. They were at 177 guests. Again, neither of them named Bill Smith or Dan Davidson. Good thing, probably. But there is going to be people from GalaxyQuest like Enrico Colantoni, who was on so many great things, including the sitcom Just Shoot Me. Yep, yep.

[00:55:01] Who was kind of like the lead Thermian, I think they were called. Is that what they were called? I think you are correct. I'm sure I learned from it. Yes, yep. Mary L. Trump and Bob Saska, who host a Star Trek politics podcast. And yes,

[00:55:13] it is that Mary Trump. But so many other folks, if you take a look down the guests page, I just had it. It used to be right there. Is it down for... Oh, there it is. There we go. Scroll down a little bit more.

[00:55:29] There's going to be like a mini 12 Monkeys reunion, because Aaron Stanford and Amanda Shaw and Stashwick and Terry Metallus and other people. But I think the entire Strange New Worlds cast will be there, which is amazing. There's Bonnie, Carole Kane. I mean, dude, she's an Oscar

[00:55:49] nominee for God's sake. And if I remember correctly, I read somewhere that they're going to have like a special, you don't know who it's going to be photo op, where you pay for a surprise photo

[00:56:03] op and boom, you're going to get a photo op with someone who you don't know what it is. So maybe it could be Bill Smith and Dan Davidson. Maybe it could. Oh boy, that's not worth money. I will wear pants for that photo op, just to be clear.

[00:56:14] That's the guy right there that I'm looking forward to seeing. Christopher Lloyd. I've come a long way for the power of Genesis. It's really the only halfway decent impersonation that I do.

[00:56:28] I know I've talked about it before, but that was the line in Star Trek III where I actually realized it was Christopher Lloyd. Up until that point, I had no idea the first time I saw the

[00:56:38] movie. And then I'm like, that's Jim. We're only in the Ds and I'm still scrolling. The Traveler, Eric Maniuk, good old lobster claw hands will be there. Lobster claw. A big lower decks presence. That guy's a gal. Jeff Coopwood, who was the voice of the Borg in

[00:57:00] Star Trek First Contact. He's there every other year. Super, super nice guy. He's there this year. Of course, Jeffrey Combs has been every other character in Star Trek. Just a bunch of people. People we know. Young Sarek from Star Trek V. There you go. So human.

[00:57:21] Oh, Kirk Acevedo is the other one from 12 Monkeys who's going to be there. It was also in Picard. Yes. A lot of great stuff. A lot of great people. A lot of great people. So 177 people. Again, none of them named Bill Smith or Dan Davidson.

[00:57:38] They'll figure it out for next year. Don't know what they're missing. They will. Aside from meeting people at the con, aside from the things we would normally do in Las Vegas, is there anything you're looking forward to as far as being back in that city again?

[00:57:58] I just love being at the Rio. As weird as that may sound, but also the fact that it's a redone Rio. It's under new ownership. We have seen several pictures of what things are looking

[00:58:09] like now. It looks great. That's where we go to be home, so to speak. We went to a convention a couple of years at STLV that was not at the Rio and it just was not the same. I am going to Bali's horseshoe.

[00:58:23] Exactly. I have never been to a Star Trek convention in Vegas that has not been at the Rio. It was before my time that you were there prior when it was over at the Las Vegas Hilton.

[00:58:36] So this is our home and I'm really looking forward to it. I always love, even though we have to walk the 17.65 kilometers down that hallway to get to the vendors room, it's worth

[00:58:50] the walk and I'm looking forward to it. I said this before, and you get this at every convention, but it's a whole nother level at Vegas. I love what people do to come up with new cosplay ideas

[00:59:05] and I love seeing the new stuff. I'd love to do Thanos again. I'm not going to do it this year, maybe next year or the year after because I really enjoyed doing that one. But I love seeing

[00:59:16] the creativity that people come up with and the people that do the same thing over and over and over again. I love seeing those as well. So that's what I'm looking for.

[00:59:24] That's the thing. There are so many cosplays that are done there that people just do all the time and they find different ways to change them up every year. They maybe do something else in

[00:59:34] addition, but I got to tell you, I love seeing what everybody does, even if it's the same thing year in, year out. I want to take a moment here to pull up some photos of the Rio. Yeah, absolutely. This is where the buffet used to be. Wow.

[00:59:52] It's now this beautiful food court called the Canteen Food Hall. Love it. That's one of the redesigned rooms, which looks a lot better, quite honestly. The casino is going to look a little different. The carpet looks fresher. That's the bar that's replacing iBar. Wow.

[01:00:14] As of last month, it was still under construction, but it is supposed to be done. I think anytime now it may in fact already be done if it hasn't hit any delays. But this is, I don't remember the name of it, but this is the new iBar.

[01:00:28] That's cool. Maybe it'll be the uBar. I hate you so much, but it's gorgeous. And of course, this is a space we all recognize. Boom. Yep. What's going to go in the middle of this year? I hope it's not that stupid Borg thing from last year. Okay.

[01:00:45] I'm going to call it crazy Ivan here. I'm going to go back to the home page. Yeah. And if you look at this video, that's at the top of the page, you see that ugly thing right in the middle, right there. It's an upside down pyramid. Yeah.

[01:00:58] Well, it looks completely dumb. I'll tell you what. It looks almost as dumb as Dan Davidson. Almost as dumb, but not as dumb when I'm wearing my Admiral outfit from Picard season one, which I will be wearing again this year.

[01:01:09] I'm sure. And I'll tell you what I have looked, anybody listening, if you have any idea where I can get it, I've been looking for the things to make a cause play for Q from Picard season two

[01:01:20] for two years now, and I have not been able to find it. So the things you mean like the clothes, like the clothes, yeah, it's very specific outfit. And I'm sure I could hire somebody and tailor it. I just haven't looked into doing that.

[01:01:33] But I'm surprised that there is nothing out there where it's like you do a search for Picard or Q cause play, and you're going to get all kinds of ones. You're going to get them as a judge. You're going to get them as TNG.

[01:01:43] There's nothing from Picard season two, which is too bad. So if you decided to do that Q from Picard season two, would you wear a hair piece? Yep. I definitely would. Oh, interesting. Absolutely. Yep. Absolutely. I've never seen you with hair. It's been a long time.

[01:01:59] It's been a long time since I did not have either a flat top or a no top. Yeah. Yeah. You used to have a really like cropped, very tightly flat top when I started. When I started losing it, when it was out to here, I could do it.

[01:02:14] But when I started losing it, I'm like, yeah, what's the point? I don't care. Good part is, is nobody sees the gray like they do. Like you can see it right here. Sorry, right here on screen. Just look at my chin, bro.

[01:02:24] There's a great coming out of my temples. Yep. Yep. It's funny. You should you should see your ass. There's a hell of a lot more gray there. One big giant one. That's a big giant. Well, it also looks like snow blindness.

[01:02:41] The only thing I've ever seen that's that wide are the walls of my new house. Very nice. Very nice. Here we are talking about Dan's ass. Yep. It happens. Vegas, 12 days.

[01:02:52] If you see us, even if it's not at the booth, if it's just walking around, if it's in the casino, please, please, it's not an imposition. We beg you. We implore you still come up. Say hi. We absolutely want to meet you. See you again. Yep.

[01:03:09] If we've met you before, we give us we give hugs. If you don't want to hug, that's totally cool. I'll ask you. But please, please feel free. Please feel empowered to come up to us and say hi because we love to see people.

[01:03:25] It's the reason we go and you'll not be interrupting. You will not be in an imposition. We guarantee Dan. Absolutely. Like I said, we don't have to go to the panels. We don't have to have the events that we do, but we have to have that interaction with

[01:03:40] the people that we love to see and the new people that we're going to meet. So yeah, it's coming right up, man. It's hard to believe I'm going to start packing this weekend. Actually, I was back early. So yeah, I already sent a bunch of stuff out there.

[01:03:52] So yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Yep. Very soon. Yeah. Burley has a question. Is creation still not allowed to use certain photo ops because they're not official? They're not the official convention. I believe that's true. So you won't see the Guardian forever.

[01:04:04] You won't see the official transporter room. I think they should do it anyway because what's going to happen? Yeah. They're going to say, you don't have a license anymore. Well, they don't have a license now and they're doing just fine.

[01:04:19] They're doing Star Trek conventions that are literally called Star Trek conventions. It's called STLV now. I know. Officially. Yeah. The 57 year mission. Yeah. So Dan, I want to drop a little surprise on everybody. Speaking of conventions as we look to wrap up the episode,

[01:04:40] I am actually making an appearance just as me, not as part of Trek Geeks at a convention coming up later this year in November. And I'm happy to announce that I will be with the fan sets folks at Star Trek New Jersey. See STNJ. What an asshole.

[01:04:59] I believe the ST stands for Star Trek. I will be there at Trek to New Jersey all weekend long. You'll probably find me at the fan sets table because I'm not going to any panels or anything. I'm there just to hang out and have fun.

[01:05:14] But I will be there also there, Dan. You know who I'm bringing with me? I'm bringing Anson Mount and Jerry Ryan, Ethan Pack and Doug Jones and Gates McFadden. So I want you to know that I am bringing them with me.

[01:05:28] I was talking to Anson the other day, I said, yo bud, what do you say we go up to Jersey? He's like, cool. And you're covering everybody's dinners every night too, which is pretty good. Thank you. No, actually you are.

[01:05:37] Even though I'm not going to be there, but okay. You look at the full guest list. Obviously, Bonnie Gordon is one of the co-hosts for the weekend. Our dear, dear friend, Bonnie, whom we love. Casey Biggs, Sally Rose Gooding, Christina Chong.

[01:05:51] It's a great, great lineup for New Jersey coming up November 8th through 10. So if you're not thinking about going to Jersey, you really should because I've never seen a smaller con with a lineup like this, Dan. Yeah. Scroll up a little bit because unfortunately, I mean,

[01:06:07] you're going to be able to get your Neelix STLV poker chip in a couple of weeks. But unfortunately, Ethan's not going to be at STLV from what I've seen on the guest list, but he is going to be in New Jersey.

[01:06:16] So take your poker chip to Jersey and have him autograph it. Buy a spare boom, get to wear one display one. You are a smart man. You make so that is at the Meadowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus, New Jersey. November 8th through 10.

[01:06:35] There are a lot of hotels in that area. So odds are you'll find something. And if not, there's something you're just an Uber away. My wife and I actually went to an office convention at that same convention center a couple of years ago.

[01:06:46] We stayed about two miles away. We Ubered over back and forth because it's much easier than driving. Those roads in New Jersey are a nightmare. If you get, you take a wrong turn, it can take you half an hour to get back to where you want to be.

[01:06:58] Yeah. So it's a great little venue based on all the talent. It's going to be a great convention. So I'll be there November 8th through 10th and I hope to see some of you there. Dan, are you going to be in New Jersey? No.

[01:07:17] Well, now that I know that you're going, there's no reason for me to go. The spotlight's going to be on you because everybody wants to see you. So what's the point? I don't even know why I'm going to Vegas. I don't know why you're going to Vegas either.

[01:07:33] No, I'd love to go, but I'm going to be sitting that one out and I hope you have a fantastic time, man. Of course, you're going to be hanging with the FanSets kids. So how bad a time can you have? You're going to go to Dave & Buster's?

[01:07:44] It'll be me. Funny story, folks. Inside joke. Inside joke. Well, we'll share. Go ahead. Trek Long Island. The Hyatt did not have a lot for venues for eating and the area didn't have a whole lot.

[01:08:00] I mean, we looked around, but about five minutes away, there was a Dave & Buster's. So we ended up going there one night or one afternoon for lunch, just like a light lunch. And we liked it.

[01:08:10] We ended up going there five nights in a row and it was good. The drinks were fantastic. They made a special drink that Joe Halibut had texted his dad Lou about. And so they made it for us. We loved it.

[01:08:23] We went there every night and had a great time. I never thought I would ever go to a Dave & Buster's that much. I know, right? Honestly, I was fine with it. The food was actually really good for a Dave & Buster's.

[01:08:36] I mean, you don't expect much when you go, but the food was actually really, really great. Yeah. And plus it was easy. Plus they were open late. Very late. Yep. Because we were out late every night eating, drinking, talking to Arnold at the Dave & Buster's.

[01:08:49] You got to go play that game. Get over there right now. Put in your tokens, your quarters and then get a drink at the bar. You're so... At where? The bar. You almost sound like you're from Massachusetts. At the bar.

[01:09:03] Burley and Ryan, I will not be in Nashville and neither will Dan. There's a chance I could do Charlotte next year. It's only because that's just a two and a half, three hour drive from where I live now.

[01:09:14] But I don't think I'm going to be able to squeeze in Nashville this year. Yeah. I thought about it. It's like, well, why don't I do Jersey? Right. Because that seems like it's got a great lineup and it'll be cool to see

[01:09:30] four fifths of the Fansets crew there because the only one who won't be there is Joe. Right. Lou and John and Amity and Lorraine will be there. So it'll be a great, great weekend. Yeah. Vegas is my last one for the year. It's hard to do extra ones.

[01:09:46] I'm glad we were able to trek Long Island this year and I'm hoping to do it next year. I'm planning on it, but getting the extra time to do stuff. Sands of the misses is kind of hard to do. So yeah. Well, that's just because we're married.

[01:10:05] I don't know why she likes being married to you. I've met you and you're kind of an asshole. Kind of at least that's what they say. Yeah. Dan, you know who are not assholes?

[01:10:16] I have a good idea, but I'm going to let you say it so I know if I'm right or not. Well, it's not just the people in chat on YouTube right now are patrionicals. They're not. But that's what I said. And five year mission. They are amazing.

[01:10:31] Every bit of music you hear in the audio podcast. Oh, let's let's take a break here for a second. The reason you don't hear five year mission on the live stream is that it would be a copyright strike.

[01:10:42] And actually, if you use it in the live stream, YouTube will take down your live stream. So unfortunately, we can't use five YM in the live stream on YouTube. But when the audio version comes out, you will hear track gigs as you normally do. Yes.

[01:10:56] But when you listen to it in your ear holes, you will hear those mellifluous tones of our favorite Star Trek band and doing one song for each of what you say? Ant Far. Ant Far. Ant Far. You'll hear one song for each episode of the original Star Trek.

[01:11:16] And there, as we stress, these are not song parodies. These are brand spanking new compositions about each individual episode that give you a different way to look at these these things that we've watched for decades.

[01:11:29] So get on out to five year mission dot net, get all their CDs, ship them right to your house, pop that in your 1990 CD player and go to town. Because you're guaranteed in you're going to be a huge fan just like we are. Absolutely.

[01:11:43] And you mentioned it and they're not parodies. They're they have meaning every every episode, every song that I do for each episode has meaning, which is what we were talking about. It's a different perspective of of the show and what you love about it.

[01:11:55] And it's great to get those fucking awesome perspectives every single time. Was that the parkism? That's all I had this week. I didn't do one. I'm on a break from parkisms for a few weeks. Really? This was not brought up at the staff meeting.

[01:12:10] Everybody's like, oh, parkism incoming. Here it comes. Yeah. Yeah. You really just, you know, you're the one who's always saying that they're terrible and people are probably better off if they didn't hear it.

[01:12:21] But then we have my real fans just going crazy right now because I didn't have one. I do have one all prepared for next week, so he will be back. But with everything going on with me the last couple of weeks, I didn't have time to write

[01:12:32] a parkism. I wanted to bring one that was going to be just perfect. And that that takes time because perfection takes time, as anybody but Bill will know. So next, does it take roughly 10 years?

[01:12:48] I don't even have something to I don't even have a comeback for that one. That was great. Is that the clock on perfection in this relationship? Yep. That's I'm going to say yes. Oh yeah. So you're all fart. Yep. Uh huh. There you go. Even spark me running.

[01:13:03] Pretty good. Yep. Yeah. Fark me running, Dan. Yep. I I don't know what to I have to shut up. I don't do now. What did you just tell one of my own patrionicals to shut up? I did. He he should know better. Love that guy.

[01:13:24] But now my feelings are you should you should know better. You dope. He knows I'm just joshing with him. See, that's right. You know, I feel like we should start like one of those lawyer commercials. You see during daytime television. Have you been injured in an auto accident?

[01:13:39] Has Dan Davidson really ruined your day with lack of barkism? If so, call now. Oh, one nine nine nine. Dan sucks. No, no. I'm sorry, everyone. I thought everybody would be like breathing sighs of relief. Oh my God. We got a episode without a word.

[01:14:01] Episode without Dan making a fool of himself, which that doesn't really actually happen. But if you want to think that way, that's fine. But OK, next week, next week it's back.

[01:14:10] And and don't bitch at me when you think it's not awesome, even though it will be just saying that number in case you missed it scrolling across the bottom of your screen right now. It's the things you can't do. It is.

[01:14:23] It actually says those of you in the audio version one nine nine nine. Dan sucks just repeatedly scrolling across the screen. You may be entitled to compensation because Dan is a huge a-hole. I can't even take it. Dan, don't forget that you too. Yeah, great.

[01:14:42] Well, maybe not you, but everybody listening can join our patrons here in the official YouTube chat of the exclusive live stream for Patrion goals. And just becoming by becoming a member of the track each Patreon. Yeah, absolutely.

[01:14:58] And we want to thank all of those people that are on the live stream today. It's our first one. We're very excited. We're very happy. Also, for any of you, Patreon tour at the level to get a fan sets pin and are going to be in Vegas.

[01:15:09] You just come see your favorite Farc is a maker, Dan, because I will have your pin for you in Vegas. Won't have to ship it to you. You'll get it hot in your little hand or in your hot little hand faster than anybody else.

[01:15:20] So if you're going to be in Vegas, come see me and we'll take care of Bill. You have a question. I do. Are you going to let them down on that too? No, I already they've already been sent out.

[01:15:29] I've got the spreadsheet ready to go as long as you're in Vegas and you're at that level and I can confirm it. You will have a an incredible looking Patreon pin for this year. I just you're on record now. It's on video. You can't take it back.

[01:15:43] You can't take it. I don't want to do. I did not. The only reason that the only way that that's not going to happen is if they get lost, which is not my problem. I got OK, look at this, you little son of a bitch.

[01:15:54] I got the FedEx tracking slip right here, right there. You just look at that, Mr. The only reason it won't happen is if they get lost by FedEx. I'm Dan Davidson. Right. Wow. You've got to get the packages. You've got to get the- You know what?

[01:16:08] You can take your Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonation and stick it right up your chopper because you're not even my friend anymore. Stick it up your chopper? Oh God, I'm crying. Take your Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonation and put it up your chopper. Oh, son of a-

[01:16:27] Dear, dear great bird of the galaxy. We went way off the rails here for a second, so I'm going to bring us back in. Is that OK? Can I do that? Yeah, let's- Get a producer. Somebody should. All right.

[01:16:37] So, you know, as we're talking about, come see me, get your pin. But right now I want to thank all of the associate producers and track geeks. We love them. And they are Vikram Bhatt, Chad Clark, Corey Clay, Brad DeMag, William Edward M Jr.,

[01:16:48] Andy Fark, Kimberly Francis, Jonathan Hamilton, Ryan Jeffs, Sean Lynn, Rick Mason, Jamie McGregor, Ross McKinney, Aaron Mollenkopf, Sarah Ledoux, Helen Reed, Sarah Rutlinger, Tim Robertson, Desi Rogers, Greg Rozier, Eric Sakian, Adam Sanders, Tim Sirdar, Heather Sohn, Blake Strike, Lisa Tomlinson, Ron Roble, Kalea Zawacki, and the Gracious-

[01:17:12] Oh, wait a minute. I can't even do it like that. I gotta jump. Ready? Ready? Gracious, the wonderful Connie Hutchins. Connie Hutchins is going to be in Vegas. He's going- She's going to be there.

[01:17:21] She's going to be partying with us and drinking and going to the bar and dancing. And I can't wait. Choppers are not dangerous. I just stole that from the Patreon chat. Very nice. Sorry. Sorry, Lionel. But you're still fired.

[01:17:43] Of course, we want to thank our Trek Geeks producers. You know, everybody whose name we're reading off and the associates and the producers, they make all of this stuff possible. And genuinely, after 10 years, we wouldn't be able to do this without any of you.

[01:17:58] So sincerely grateful thanks from the bottom of our hearts because it means the world to us even though Dan's a giant ass. So our producers, Mike Bovia, Steve Bovia, Jeff Caliendo, Kyle Castillo, Peter Craig, Andy Davenport, Craig Ewing, Jackie and Chris Hackney, Brian Hackwith, Kimberly Hartman,

[01:18:18] David Hood, Lionel Marchand, Matt McGonagall. Finally, people can see the way I say that. Jim McMahon, Darren Metcalf, Charlie Mulvey, Sean O'Halloran, Casey Pettit, Jamie Rogers, Casey Shafsky, Terry Shull, Jim Stoffel, Chris Trebuzio, Christina Werther and the lovely and talented Jess Vashon.

[01:18:41] Dan, the senior producer of Trek Geeks for now and all time. All time. In perpetuity, in permanency is the one, the only Jude Tapman. Jude Tapman. Who just celebrated a birthday. Happy birthday, Jude.

[01:19:00] And now he kind of really is the senior producer because it's his birthday and he's older. So that's fantastic. Welcome to adulthood, Jude. It really doesn't get any better. It does. It doesn't. It doesn't. Because Jude Tapman is awesome and how can you get even better than awesome?

[01:19:18] So yeah. You know, Jude, you know it's important. Hey, Jude, don't make it bad. I knew that was going to happen. All right. You know, thank you. That was a very good bill. You too can become a producer of Trek Geeks.

[01:19:32] And I'll tell you what, it is so easy to do that Bill Smith could even do it if he wasn't already part of Trek Geeks. So head on over to patreon.com slash trek geeks for all the details.

[01:19:44] I was so thrown by that that I lost my place on the copy and now I'm struggling to find it. Dan, next time, because that's where we are. You know, it's our pre Vegas episode and what better way to get ready for Vegas

[01:20:00] than for a vacation to talk about an episode that was in fact. A vacation. It was, you know, I like your thinking partner. Vegas is right around the corner. And what better way to celebrate relaxing and having a drink than talking about Captain

[01:20:18] Picard trying to relax and have a drink? Y'all know how that's going to go. It's Vorgonz and Horgonz, Vash and Jemaharan. It's the captain's holiday. And it's next time on the flagship known as Trek Geeks before we go to Vegas. It's going to rock.

[01:20:36] You got to be there. You got to be here live. Boom. Live. Not Memorex. Well, you can do the Memorex version, too. You just don't get all this great interaction that you get in the YouTubes. Right? The YouTubes. Yeah, on the tubes.

[01:20:50] Of course, Dan, for more great Star Trek podcasts, we want everyone to check out the other shows here on the Trek Geeks Network. There are so many shows. Look at that whole list of them there.

[01:21:00] And they're all created by Star Trek fans who just want to share their love of Star Trek and Gene's vision. You can find all of the shows, including this one you're listening to right now by going to trekgeeks.com slash listen. That's right. Trek Geeks.

[01:21:17] No one talks like we do. Wait, wait, wait. I got to go back to this view. Do that again. Trek Geeks. No one talks like we do. Apparently no one talks shit like we do either.

[01:21:32] And of course, for all the news on all the Star Trek show, please visit our great friends at treknews.net. For now, this has been episode number 315 of the Trek Geeks podcast. Hope you all live long and prosper. Coconut. Really? That's what you brought?

[01:21:56] You didn't write a coconut in it either, did you? I never write a coconut. Always comes right off the top of this here thing. That's the problem. Music for Trek Geeks is provided by 5 Year Mission. They're writing an original song for each episode of Star Trek.

[01:22:11] Hear more of their music at 5yearmission.net. Trek Geeks is a production of Coconut Media Works, executive producers Bill Smith and Dan Davidson. For more great Star Trek discussion, discover the other shows of the Trek Geeks podcast network

[01:22:26] at trekgeeks.com or find us in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast app.

[01:23:10] Wow. Bing bong, Dan. Bing bong, Bill. Oh, this is so weird. All right. Before we even start, we've been doing this for 10 years. This is like the second time that we've ever actually done an outtake

[01:23:24] at the end of the episode, and I don't even know where my head's at right now. Well, typically it's up your ass. Up your ass and to the left. Right. Yeah, up your ass and to the left. Yeah. Thank you. So yeah, bing bong to your face.

[01:23:36] Bing bong. So you have had quite the eventful few weeks, and it's kind of like what my summer was like last year. Yeah. It's been interesting, to say the least. I'll try to give the breakdown in as quick amount of time as possible.

[01:23:54] So several weeks ago, I started feeling weird pains in my chest whenever I would go to the gym, or even if we just go walk the dog, or if I would mow the lawn. Very simple exercises, but it was like really tight here. It was really bothering me.

[01:24:09] And so it's like, you got to go to the doctor, you got to go to the doctor. And I'm a stupid idiot. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'll be fine. You are. Go away. It'll go away.

[01:24:15] And I wasn't planning on calling the doctor because A, I hate going to the doctor, and B, I hate taking the time to make an appointment because it's always like a month away. And C, I felt it would get better, but it wasn't getting better.

[01:24:26] So she was really on my case. And I literally got a text one night from my doctor's office reminding me of the physical that I had set up as an appointment a year ago. So I'm like, oh, good. I've got a physical in two days.

[01:24:39] I'll be able to tell my doctor about it then. So I go to my doctor, tell her what's going on. And she goes, well, this is literally what the doctor said. And it was funny. She goes, congratulations, Dan. You just won yourself a stress test. So I went.

[01:24:53] Yep. So let me also say that during that appointment, I had an EKG, which was fine. My blood pressure was what it normally is, which is a little on the higher side, but nothing to be worried about. Go to the stress test.

[01:25:03] Three and a half minutes into the stress test as the blood pressure cuff is constantly taking readings, it shoots up to 237 over 96 within three minutes of being on the treadmill. That's not optimal. That's a problem. And I'm like, is that really the blood pressure reading?

[01:25:20] Because that just looks wrong. She goes, yeah, it is. The woman actually shut down, like hit the shutdown button to stop everything. And she took it manually. And sure enough, the nurse is like, yeah, that's an accurate reading.

[01:25:31] So luckily at that moment, which never happens, there was a cardiologist available at the hospital who could see me right then and there. I didn't have to schedule an appointment. Didn't have to do anything. So I got to see a cardiologist. He didn't like what he saw.

[01:25:44] We were talking about what was going on. He goes, all right, we're going to have to do a, I forget the name of it now, but they're going to basically put a tube up my arm into my arteries to see how they got a cardiac authorization.

[01:25:58] Could something like that anyway. So I'm like, okay, that gets, he goes, we're going to call you and it'll probably be a week or two out. And I'm like, okay, no problem. They called me and it was two days later.

[01:26:09] So from the time I had my stress test all the way till I had the procedure was two days. So that was pretty awesome during the procedure. I'm sedated, but I'm watching everything that's going on. There's a big giant TV.

[01:26:20] I can see the X-ray of my heart and everything going on that day. So he's looking and now mind you, I've never had any symptoms except for those, that two weeks prior to the incident, I had a 90% blockage in one of my arteries in my heart, which was

[01:26:34] shocking. So we had to put a stent in, he put the stent in and that caused a small rupture of a vessel, which caused the downflow to stop. So I felt like I was having a heart attack. So he had to put two more in.

[01:26:46] So I have three stents in my chest now during my recovery later that afternoon, I had an episode where my pulse dropped to 30 and my blood pressure dropped to 60 over 40. It's called a Vegas nerve reaction or something like that.

[01:27:00] But basically something fired at my system because of everything that happened. And it kind of just kind of shut my system down for a few seconds within dude. It was incredible. Within like 10 seconds, I had seven people around my bed in the recovery room working on me.

[01:27:16] I heard somebody say, I've got the crash cart ready if needed. So, I mean, it was pretty serious. Everything was fine within a few minutes and I have been fine since they kept me overnight

[01:27:26] for observation, but I haven't fined since I've since getting my, I've gotten a hundred percent clear from my doctor to start going to the gym, all the other stuff that I normally do and everything's fine. So that's good.

[01:27:36] Little bit of scare there, but I'm happy to say, and maybe much to your chagrin, I'm fine and I'm very happy. And I will never ignore my body when it tells me something's wrong again. Okay. That's part one. I still got more to go.

[01:27:49] If you haven't fallen asleep yet. Well, have you seen the crawl at the bottom of the screen? I have not. Spoiler alert, Dan's arrived. What an asshole. Well, there's. Wow. Okay. Okay. So I'll take that. It's like Iron Man. So I appreciate that.

[01:28:06] Part two was the following week. And I have to be nice for contract contract contract. My company laid off 2,500 employees the day before the 4th of July, and I was one of them. So I, I had heart surgery and then lost my job all within six days.

[01:28:27] So I am now in the boat that you were in last year at this time, uh, where I am looking for gainful employment again. It's the first time. And I don't know how it's the first time I've ever been laid off in my entire career.

[01:28:39] Do you remember last summer when you kept referring to me as not having a job and jobless and all that stuff? I'm not doing that to you. Would you, if I haven't had a heart condition? No. So, yeah, I mean, it's like you said, it's your first off.

[01:28:59] You know, by the time I was laid off last year, I think it was my third or fourth in my career. Um, it getting laid off can do a number on you, especially mentally. Um, and it's important to remember it's got nothing to do with you, you know?

[01:29:14] Exactly. Now I will say that. Yeah, I've been involved in companies that have had layoffs and have companies that have shut down, but on the two companies that shut down while I was still there, they asked

[01:29:25] me to stay on because they wanted, you know, things to be shut down, you know, over the course of time and they wanted my services still. So that's good. No, it has nothing to do with me.

[01:29:35] I know that, um, you and I have been talking for two years that I wasn't overly happy with being there to put it lightly. I knew it was going to happen at some point and it happened.

[01:29:46] And so I'm, I've put that behind me and I'm looking for stuff now. I have no doubt that I will get something at some point in the near future and I'll just start over somewhere and be happy. That's the way I got it.

[01:29:58] Like I got to look at it that way. Well, that's the thing. I mean, the next thing will be the best thing. Right. Yeah. And that's the way I've always looked at it.

[01:30:07] You know, it will be a success to him because I know you have worked with you now at least twice. Yeah. In addition to we talk every day. Yeah. I know you and I know your work ethic.

[01:30:17] I know that you will make whatever you do next a success because that's who you are. And, and, and as weird as it sounds, I'm kind of glad that both things happened at the same

[01:30:27] time, because as I said to my wife after this happened I'm not taking anything for granted anymore. We're going to do the things that we want to do. Well, I'm going to look positively towards the future because you never know when your

[01:30:39] future is not going to be there for you. Just since everything happened with me, I've, you know, a dear friend of mine lost her mom unexpectedly. So you never know what's going to happen. Live your life to the fullest. Enjoy it. Don't let work be a burden.

[01:30:54] And that's the new mindset that I'm going to have. And it's, it's the, it's the healthiest thing I can do for myself. I think what it really is. And then the other thing is, is that this whole job seeking process sucks. Yeah, it does.

[01:31:07] It sucked for a long time. So, I mean, don't let that get you down because it's, it's the way that your resume probably will not be seen by most people you send it to because they have, you know, scanning software

[01:31:21] and all kinds of the ATS system that will, you know, decide whether or not you should make it to another round. But what, what does, what does that say? Spoiler alert, Dan will be stealing money out of Bill's wallet in Vegas. What the hell?

[01:31:37] If you had money in there, hey, you know what? I'm just looking at my email. I just got an invitation for an interview. Look at that. Oh, wow. All right. Cool, cool. So yeah, it's, it was a weird couple of weeks.

[01:31:50] You knew what was going on pretty much from the get go and everything. I obviously kept you updated. But that's where I'm at. So, and I'm okay with it. So when you got the email, did it say, you know, inviting you to your appointment for your layoff?

[01:32:06] Did it say important business update in the subject line or something like that? Let's just put it this way. It was not handled correctly. Oh, that's right. Yeah. And I don't, I can't get into details unfortunately, because I don't, I can't say anything negative.

[01:32:22] It was not the best way to do it. It's a human capital resource company and it wasn't handled correctly. But it happened. Whatever. I wish all the people that are still there, the best of luck because it's going to be,

[01:32:35] it's going to be a very difficult transition, maybe more so difficult than my transition. But you can't say anything, but I can. Yes, you can. It's been a year. So this, this company, which was also the same one I worked for up until last summer,

[01:32:51] handled this layoff so poorly that there were people who found out the day before they were supposed to be laid off because they got a notification of a FedEx tracking label for their address, for the box that they're supposed to send their laptop and stuff back in.

[01:33:10] So, and it, it caused a lot of rumors. It caused a lot of hubbub. You know, employees were talking with other employees and it was just so mishandled. And I got this from people other than you.

[01:33:25] So, I mean, I can testify on a stack of Bibles that you are not my source for this. It was all over the internet. Yeah, it was. In Reddit and everything.

[01:33:34] So yeah, so it was, it got to the point where they had to execute the plan, no pun intended, early to let people go because people were finding out that they were let go because of a FedEx label.

[01:33:47] And they did it and they, they did it via an email and not even being able to talk to your manager or HR about it. Yeah. So that phase of your career is behind you. Yep. Thankfully. Yeah. And on to bigger and better things.

[01:34:01] That's the way to do it, man. And anybody who goes through a similar situation, you got to look at it that way. Everything happens for a reason. Sue and I believe that with every fiber of our being, everything happens for a reason

[01:34:12] and it's always for a positive reason. And that's the way I am looking at it. There are stressful days. There have been days over the last week and a half where I have told you I am fed up. I am frustrated.

[01:34:21] I am depressed, but they, that it's only been one day that that's happened. Maybe two. And I put behind me the next time the next day and I start fresh again. And that's the way I'm going to do until I find something.

[01:34:32] And I'm going to go from there. And if I can't find something, I got time to spare before I have to really worry about it. And I don't have any, any worry that that's going to happen. I will have something sooner rather than later. Yeah, I think.

[01:34:47] And luckily you get a chance to blow off some steam in Las Vegas. Right. I, I got to tell you, so for those of you going to Las Vegas or even considering going

[01:34:56] to Las Vegas, one of my favorite places in the world to go in Las Vegas is an amazing Mexican restaurant right on the strip across from the wind. It's in the fashion show mall. It's called El Segundo Soul. Hands down the best Mexican food in Las Vegas. Yep.

[01:35:17] I cannot wait. It is one of my, it's, it's, I go every trip. Um, sometimes I go to the pepper mill. I don't go as to that as much anymore because I really feel like it's, it's kind of had

[01:35:29] a downslide, but, uh, El Segundo Soul, you can bet your ass we're going there this year. And I, I've already got the reservation. Yeah. Um, I think, yeah, pretty sure it's Wednesday night. Um, and we're going and I can't wait. It's going to be fun.

[01:35:42] The food is fantastic. The drinks are phenomenal. Blueberry margarita. I know I'll have a couple of those. But yeah, I'm looking forward to it. And that's the other thing is, is I'm kind of on a vacation right now, but I'm still

[01:35:54] working that I'm looking for something that's going to be a vacation. It's going to be, and it's a real vacation because we don't got shit to do anymore. So yeah, it's going to be chill out. Relax. Relax. Y'all relax. Yep. So I can't believe I just used chillax.

[01:36:10] I should be taken out and shot. That's all right. Okay. Yeah. Uh, no, no, no, no. Here we go. Oh shit. That's the wrong one. Also the wrong one. I'm playing with, I'm playing with stuff just to try to figure out how to use it.

[01:36:23] Cause I'd never used before. So whatever. Yeah. Um, great job, Dan. Yeah. Well, you know, everybody likes to do it. Yeah. Well, you know, everybody likes to see your smile and face. Um, they actually, because I'm, I'm pretty, pretty amazing to look at.

[01:36:39] Uh, well that's, I mean, that's true. I, um, I'm looking forward to Vegas because I mean, I took a week off earlier this year to, you know, move. Right. And that was no vacation. Nope. Never is. Um, I took some time off to come look for a house.

[01:36:55] It was fun, but it wasn't really a vacation. Yeah. Uh, but this is like my, my one big vacation of the year. So, uh, unfortunately I've taken it with you. Yeah. Sorry. Well, yeah, you asked for it. Um, no one's more story that I am.

[01:37:09] It's funny that you say that because with what's happened with me at work, um, Sue and I are no longer really locked down to this location anymore. Um, unfortunately my parents have both passed away and if something comes up where I, you know,

[01:37:24] I want to work remote a hundred percent of the time, so that's hopeful. But if I need to move for any reason, there's really nothing preventing that from happening. So, you know, everything's anything's a possibility right now.

[01:37:37] Now we don't want to get out of the new England area because her mom's still up in Maine. Um, but, uh, it's certainly, uh, you know, I don't have to stick around Merrimack, you know, Nashua area anymore. So we'll see, we'll see what happens. Yeah.

[01:37:50] You never know what it's going to bring. Right. I mean, um, you, you could, you could find the next best thing. I mean, who knows? Yeah. Um, you know, it's all very exciting. I'm excited, you know, um, for whatever it brings.

[01:38:03] It's a chance to, it's a chance to do something new and different. If that means you guys move somewhere else and, you know, and that's the case, then that's what happens. And you'll make the best of that too, because it will be the best thing. Absolutely.

[01:38:17] You got your wife have to move with you because I'd like for her to be happy at some point. Wow. I will have, you know, that she will have to go with me and she will be happy because she is happy under duress. You are so mean.

[01:38:37] My God. Yeah. No, I, if people know you, they know I'm not being mean that I'm being realistic. Um, I want to, I want to just dovetail cause, um, uh, Helen makes a comment moving sucks so much. Yes. Yeah, it does. It really does.

[01:38:53] Although I had really the best experience of all the times I've ever moved. Um, and it happens to be the longest move. Well, the second longest we've ever made when I moved to Denver in the early nineties,

[01:39:05] it was a different story because I shipped all my, the few things I had and I drove my Volkswagen rabbit out to Denver this time. I was packing up 14 years, right. Living in one spot and moving 750 miles away.

[01:39:19] Um, we used a great moving company that's local to the, the, the New Hampshire, Massachusetts area. They gave us a great price. They took a bunch of stuff in, in barter to knock off our bill for moving. Right. Um, I would hardly recommend them to you, Dan, anytime.

[01:39:36] Yeah. But it's also a company that gives second chances to people. Um, which I thought was really kind of cool. Yeah. You know, people who maybe have, you know, uh, maybe some minor jail time or, you know,

[01:39:48] maybe they've got a couple of things on their records, minor offenses, um, or maybe they're getting sober, you know, that kind of thing. It gives them an opportunity to get a good job. Nice. And get a leg up.

[01:39:59] And so I, uh, when I found that out about that company we booked in, I gotta tell you, it was the best movie experience I had ever had in my life. And that's on either end, whether it's Miramac, New Hampshire or Raleigh, North Carolina.

[01:40:12] Um, it was, it was fantastic start to finish. Nice. We had our stuff a day late and that's simply because they couldn't find people to unload the truck down here until the day after. Right. But, um, no major breakages, no major damage. Everything was on time.

[01:40:31] Um, it moving does suck, but they made it suck a lot like packing sucks. Yeah. I'm going to stand on that mountain a hundred percent of the time. It does. If I ever move again, I'm spending the money and somebody else can pack this shit. Yep. Yeah.

[01:40:47] I remember when we did, uh, seven years ago, it was no fun. And that was after, uh, 15 years of, of, of living in the same spot. So, and soon they're even longer. So yeah. Yep. So dude, we're going to stop.

[01:41:01] And you don't realize that you've had stuff for 15 years and you're like, when did I get that? Exactly. And why do I still have it? I haven't used it in 15 years. It's time to get rid of it. Yep. Absolutely. We went through that phase. That's for sure.

[01:41:13] So I'll see you in less than two weeks, pal in person. I know that's really weird is we have to travel now great distances to see one another. Yeah. Yep. Oh, well, I guess it'll make it all that much better.

[01:41:31] Although I don't have to worry about you coming to my front door, leaving something on my doorknob and then flipping off my ring doorbell camera. So this legit happened. I'll post the photo in, in Patreon. Um, it was during the pandemic. Yeah.

[01:41:47] And you came to drop a fan set, send some other stuff over to the, to your house for me. Yeah. Instead of just mailing it to me to save themselves some postage, which I endorse. Yep.

[01:41:56] And you said, you called me up and said, Hey, I've got some stuff for you. Okay. If I just come and leave it on your doorknob, you know, we'll do the whole contactless thing. I said, absolutely. So it was dark out. You're wearing your Patriots jacket.

[01:42:10] I want to say it was cold. It was probably close to winter. I think so. And, um, I watched you on the ring as you, as you pulled up, you called me to say, Hey, I'm in front of your front door.

[01:42:21] And then you're like, you turn to the camera and you're like, I'm like, well, you've got some thoughts. I do. I'll post that photo. Excellent. People will know how our relationship really is. It really is. You big jerk.

[01:42:37] Um, usually every year in Vegas or wherever we traveled, there's something that occurs for the entire weekend, whether it's Aaron Neville or Schwarzenegger or Sammy Davis Jr. Baby, you know, 11, 11 someday I'll have me a show for an a block long limousine. Here we live.

[01:43:04] I, um, I love that movie, but do you, do we have any indication as to what that thing's going to be all weekend long this year? Not yet. There will be something though. It just sort of happens on its own. It does. It really does.

[01:43:18] We don't plan for it. We don't plan for these things. They just happen like a lot, like a lot in an order that would surprise you. I get the feeling Schwarzenegger could happen again. Cause I think it might drive some people crazy. It might.

[01:43:32] I think that's ultimately our goal. We wanted to do a live stream from the booth in Trek, long Island, and I was going to be Schwarzenegger for the whole thing. And it never happened. We might have to, we might have to do that in Vegas.

[01:43:46] One word from Burley and chat anticipation, anticipation commercial. Yeah. I was thinking the Carly Simon song, but okay. Um, well, yes, you're right on both counts. Yes. Yep. This is the third or fourth times I have broken out into song. That's because you're a happy person. Recording.

[01:44:08] You're happy that we're able to do this live together and, and, you know, kind of this, you know, I think it's because I'm in a place where it doesn't regularly snow. Yeah. Oh, that is perfect. Yes. Wow. Anticipation. I like that. It's making me hurl.

[01:44:32] Did I say that? I do not want a lawsuit from FARC. No, we've already had that happen. Yeah. No, you have. With your help, you helped them. You jerk. My podcast partner, you signed it. Because I am considered a member of the band.

[01:44:49] I work directly with them to ensure that we have everything we need for track weeks. Don't care. Maybe if you cared more about our relationship with five-year mission, you would care. I really wish we could use the five-year mission music on the live stream. Yeah.

[01:45:05] It's I have to try to find something that works as a placeholder so that I can cut it out when I do the audio. But kind of just having these gaps with silence is kind of weird. It is. Hey, Ryan, musical outtake yikes, dude.

[01:45:22] I you're the I'm not taking you seriously because you love generations. I don't want to hear it. But I love you, Ryan. Yeah, you see, you just say that. You say that to me and you don't. No, I don't say that to you. You don't say that.

[01:45:36] You do. You have no people. I'm sure you have proof in the recordings. I'm sorry, anybody on this chat right now has heard it. I'm sure. Don't lie. They are all delusional anyway. We probably there's no clear usually see when we would record the outtake first.

[01:45:58] Would you just say, hey, you're ready to do this? Right now? But there's nothing. There's nothing like it. Bye. Can we not license it for use on YouTube? No, actually, we we can't use it because it is pre-produced music.

[01:46:17] So what it does is it generates a mechanical royalty. And because that's the case, it would automatically take our thing down. Right. We could technically pay to use it. But licensing, especially for YouTube, gets expensive so that it's easier to

[01:46:41] use things that are in the clear for copyright. Right. I'm sure that five year mission wouldn't have a problem with it. But the YouTube algorithm is not always that smart. Right. In which case it goes up, that's copyright and shut the stream down,

[01:46:54] which is part of the reason we use different music for track talks. Right. Exactly. So exactly. There you go. See, there's your lesson on Internet law and licensing 101 for today. I brought to you by. Didn't. Thank you.

[01:47:09] I didn't even say it to Dan when he had his massive heart blockage. There's no proof of that. You can't prove it. No, that you didn't say it. Yeah. Yeah. There's no proof. There's no proof whether you know. There's no proof that I did or didn't actually.

[01:47:21] I did express surprise that they found a heart. Wow. See, see, see Helen, what I got to deal with. You asked the question. So there you go. I think I expressed great surprise that they found your heart.

[01:47:33] I might have proof that you said love you when this happened in my. I'll have to go back through my Facebook instant message. I mean, it's possible. My phone was hacked at one point. Wow. Okay. Okay. All right. All right.

[01:47:52] So you ready to get on with your life and do things you actually enjoy doing? Yeah. I got to go schedule an interview. That was a nice little surprise there a few minutes ago. So we'll see. Fingers crossed. Good luck, buddy. Thanks, pal. Thank you, patrons. Yes.

[01:48:06] We love you. Yes, we are incorrigible. Absolutely. No, Ryan, Dan would have to have a brain to have a blockage. Thanks, Ryan. Thanks. Yeah, thanks. We will see you guys all next time. All right. Live long and prosper, y'all. See everybody.