I know, I know, posting Twitter conversations is the new posting pictures of your cat, but if you'll indulge me one more time, I think some of you will be glad you did:
@levarburton: The Angels have demonstrated genuine character tonite… Unlike the Dodgers who simply punked out!!!
@wilw: @levarburton The Dodgers were as lame and disappointing in the playoffs as the Ferengi were in season one of TNG. THIS IS A TRUE FACT.
@levarburton: @wilw LMAO!!! Genuine spit take.! Seriously…there's Pepsi all over the couch!!!!
One of my biggest, most lasting regrets from the TNG years is that I wasn't closer to the rest of the cast. I mean, we all liked each other, and we had a great time working together, but I couldn't hang out with them after work, because they were adults and I was a kid (and I doubt any of them would have been interested in playing 40K or Car Wars with me while we listened to Boingo, anyway). One of the many things I love about Twitter is that it gave me a chance to reconnect with LeVar and Brent, at a time in our lives when we can relate to each other the way I always wanted to. Technology is awesome.
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Did you go to the Boingo Farewell Tour at the UA? My gf at the time was a huge fan so we went both nights, and I’m so glad we did!
Also so glad I took my family to W00tstock v1.0.1 (we were upstairs, since Paul was nice enough to grant us Reserved status — it’s for the children!) Bummed that it was too late for us to stay in line and maybe get Just A Geek signed (MotF was 1 day too late; just started reading it). As it is, I’ll have to buy Kid Beyond’s merchandise online.
BTW “Surly Wil Wheaton” is supervocalic, so pound that Guinness and proceed to the cursin’!
As many of the comments suggest, we’ve all had these experiences. As with Kurzweil’s theories about technology in general, our ability to reconnect is growing exponentially, with one technology leading to the next. In fact, I’m posting this by signing into Twitter to access your site. Social networking isn’t just some social oddity; it’s business, it’s play, and it’s your life. Of course, I hope it results in face-to-face eventually. You shouldn’t hide behind a screen forever. :^)
Honestly, LeVar wasn’t the only one who did a spit-take seeing that tweet. Made my day, surely. I will never get tired of Star Trek in-jokes, and when it’s the actors telling them it’s even better!
I almost split my sides laughing at your Ferengi tweet to Mr. Burton. The way the Ferengis walked around like apes in the ‘Last Outpost’ makes it hard to believe they had warp drive long before the ‘hoomans.’ What happened to those stupid electric whips? And by the way, your title ‘ugly bags of mostly water’ is my most favorite ST quote bar one. The most favorite? the one from Scottie in ‘The Voyage Home’ that always brings tears to my eyes: ‘Admiral there be whales in here!’
Three? He wrote Dancing Barefoot, Just A Geek, Sunken Treasure, Happiest Days of Our Lives, and Memories of the Future!!
As someone who has never (*gasp shock horror*) been into Twitter (really, just don’t see the point, not when there’s already Facebook and blogs!), I suppose I might just have to make an account so I can Twitter-stalk all you awesome folks and listen in on the fun. =P
ah the tng days…how i miss them! 😛
The (re)connecting sentiment made me all warm and fuzzy inside. And Wil, if you want to “show us pictures of your cats”, I think its safe to say we will trust your judgment that it will be suitable epic and/or awesome.
I actually caught that exchange between you and LeVar while it was happening and was cracking up at it so hard. I don’t think that it’s common knowledge that LeVar Burton is a pretty funny guy. He’s tweeted quite a few LOL worthy tweets, which is kind of disarming at first if you grew up watching him on Reading Rainbow and/or saw him play Kunta Kinte in Roots at a young age, as I did. Brent Spiner can be a little bit over-the-top sometimes, but for some reason I really enjoy his brand of sick humor.
And Wil, you know it could always be worse with showing off your tweets. Imagine a guy in the mall smashing his iPhone in your face repeatedly a la Family Guy style where the guy is literally mugging the shit out of people with his picture wallet, full of pictures of his kids. As long as you haven’t gone to that extreme, it’s all good, man.
SRSLY? OMG where have *I* been o.o *opens Amazon*
Is it just me that always thinks about the Cardassians every single time one of those vapid Kardashian sisters gets mentioned on TV or they’re staring at you creepily as you scurry past the tabloids in the Supermarket?
Thats awesome! I’ve always been curious… how much of the rest of the cast are you still in touch with besides LeVar and Brent? Glad to see you’re still keeping up 🙂
…that’s…doubly creepy. Now I won’t be able to *not* think that :p
Sorry about that! But at least now I’m not alone in my Kardashian phobia. One of these days, my friends and I are going to snatch Bruce Jenner away from them and have him deprogrammed. The man seems like he’s been taken hostage by that awful family! I honestly think he’d be better off being a hostage of the Cardassians than those people.
Actually, I just followed you on Twitter after reading Levar’s post and wondering who could’ve caused him to spit-take and discovering you and all your weblog-y glory. I never woulda imagined that one of TNG’s cast would end up being a *computer* geek.
So anyways, I’m grateful y’all are connecting too — cuz I now have two fascinating people to amuse my brain on Twitter.
wow…it rocks to have former coworkers like LeVar Burton and Brent Spiner…when i re-connect with a former coworker online it is usually someone like the odd guy in the mailroom or the gossipy receptionist i was so glad to escape when i left the job in the first place!!
I have a couple hundred STOS, STNG, STDS9 and STV books stashed away for re-reading. One of my favorites is the one were some aliens refer to humans as “ugly bags of mostly water”, however I can’t remember which of the titles it belongs to. Did it also appear as dialog in the TV series and I missed it? (BTW when I am annoyed at a co-worker I do often refer to the offender as an ugly bag of mostly water – so far no one gets it. It’s as satisfying as French for insulting someone)
Reading the tweets by Brent, Lavar and yourself reminds me of what a great show ST:TNG was. Watching Trek was like being invited to a place where everyone liked each other while accomplishing something that was important. While the episodes weren’t always the best, there was a consistency – a clarity of purpose.
The cast seemed to really like each other and proved through the writing and acting that anything was possible when people tried to work together. There wasn’t anything that couldn’t be done or over-come with that attitude.
Every episode of ST:TNG’s first episode was better then anything else on TV because it was trying to do what no one else was doing… it was about going out there. Pushing boundaries.
Even episodes like “The Last Outpost” were good because it was about exploring what could be, what might be, and what could have been. What other series tried to do that?
Star Trek, the cast, crew and writers inspired me to be a better person. While I know that Tasha Yar was just a character played by Denise Crosby for just one season, she inspired me to get over my abused past and not let the guff I was told about myself hold me back. The episode “Tapestry” in the one of the later seasons gave me the final push to get into college and do some thing more with my life.
Were it not for TNG, would I be where I am today? I’m not alone in asking this question. How many other fans were also inspired to be more, to be better people, too? TNG taught us to have a broader view of the world and the universe. Star Trek TNG (and DS9, and Voyager to a lesser degree) made me want to travel the country and learn about history and other cultures. What other franchise tried to do that before or since?
And I think that’s one of the sad parts of your “Futurecast” audio shows. I don’t think you understand how much you folks impacted our lives for the better.
I never understood why people disliked Wesley Crusher – your character served as a metaphor for who and what we in our teens and twenties could have been with the right guidance, with the right mentors in a near perfect society that we could create if we just try to understand each other and work together.
I hope you folks understand what your show meant to us. If you do, it’s great that you’re modest about it and didn’t let it get to your heads.
Ad Astra, Scientia…
Ren Fisk
Of course, the age difference also isn’t as important as you age — now that you’re 37, if your former castmates are now 50, for example, that’s a much smaller age difference than when you were 13 and they were 26…