More Latent Memories…

Let’s talk a little about my Star Trek interest. If you’re groaning about that keep reading I think it’s an interesting story. For as long as I can remember I have been a HUGE Star Trek fan, I was interested in all aspects of the TV Show. The interest was so strong that I was occupied in the brain constantly by Star Trek and things that went along with it.

And by the way, when I say I can remember quite a ways back my earliest Star Trek memories are watching the fifth season when it was on for the first time and 1991/92 convention seasons. Star Trek: The Next Generation was still immensely popular at that time, believe it or not, even more popular than it was on TNN/Spike TV! Star Trek was my life…Seriously..until about November 2005. I have been able to get away from it more recently but until then it was in every thought process, every comparison, every schedule…”Will it cause me to miss Voyager? Enterprise?” “Oh my god! That tricorder is from DS9 and Seven Of Nine is using it!” incidentally that happened, in the episode “Dragon’s Teeth” of Voyager’s 5th season to be more precise. On the right there is a photo of me in a First Contact uniform I once had.

Anyways, back to the story. So, yes, my brain was cluttered with useless Star Trek knowledge, loads of everything Star Trek, things I wanted to buy, and most of all things I had to have or build from the show. Ah, the building, I have always been a bit of a builder, very good with my hands, but not at all good at DIY, seems I can assemble a tricorder from cardboard or resin but when it comes to putting a nail in the wall or replacing a door-knob I am as useless. Anyways, so my prop habit started about 1996 where I first became interested in the actual things that were used on the set and began to realise that they were not just the toys painted on the show. I will say however that way back in 1991/92/93 I had a few of those TNG Phasers, and the first few my brother and I had, my dad painted the emitter tips black, unlike the clearish pink that they came out of the box like.

Anyways my prop collection grew into something more than toys and I had some very impressive built pieces during my Star Trek prop tenure. I can say that I had a rare TNG Tricorder, the kind with the electronics on the front, phaser rifles, Voyager tricorders with double ratcheting doors…the list goes on and on. The photo on the right here shows a Voyager Tricorder Mark X, this particular prop I built and was a fantastic piece and recently sold at auction.

My interest in Star Trek drove me towards working in film and television and during my hiatus from college in 2005, I worked a great deal on “home-made” Star Trek films/scenes. I worked with a simple digital camera with a microphone and caught some of the coolest video I have ever shot. The props loved the camera more than I did since they were exactly what was on the TV screen I was ecstatic with what I saw. -A great example of the prop looking awesome is when my “Voyager” phaser had the “shine” on the handle like they do on the show- Talking a little about my Star Trek filming I should cover that by the time I was finished shooting home made movies with the digital camera I was able to beam, fire a phase pistol and do multi angle stunt shots! Here are a few examples of the beaming and phaser firing effects I created in photoshop. Shown on the right here is the title card that displayed at the end of one of my film productions back when I first started. The entire episode lasted just under 5 minutes had about 3 scenes and about 400 cuts.

My prop interest finally closed in December ’05/January 2006 as my interest in podcasting, technology, and writing settled in their place. My interest in media is still there but it lies further towards the business aspect, writing and less the production.

I hope this entry has helped readers further understand where I have come from with my Star Trek interest and where I am now.

-Comments Welcome

(Please note that Melting Clock Productions is Copyright 2005 SProoth and is not to be used without the permission of the holder. All photos placed in this entry are of my private collection or creation and are not to be duplicated or linked to without permission.)

Gadget Share…

I thought I would share a few of the gadgets that I use in my everyday life. The photo on the right, my Motorola V3 Razr and my PalmOne Tungsten T. They are sitting ontop of my office away from office, Dell Latitude D600. people are always saying I have way too many gadgets or I am a “gadget man” well I have just proved it by writing about them.

My Ipod Video 30Gig and Iriver T30 512 will feature in the near future they have not arrived from Amazon yet. Should be fun to do a couple of reviews on those.

The Gadget List is something I am looking into creating for my Podcast and Blog. this new list would not only detail the gadgets I use and own, but the podcasts that I listen to on a regular basis. Will be fun to share some of this stuff, even though it is not the newest of what can be bought it still does the job.

I am starting to write the outline for the article for Podcaster User Magazine. The article is about the people of the younger variety who are podcasters. If you are under 25 and a podcaster, please get in touch, I want to hear from you. Your stats, story, web address could be used in the article.

New friend down under…

I want to share a recent connection I made with someone in the podosphere. I am so incredibly excited about knowing this person that I have decided to write about what exactly I am excited about.

It all started when a person who I started talking to randomly from the Ecademy service networked me to another “podcaster.” She described him as Australian, and very interesting.

So I thought, Interesting is cool, I am going to call him up, so I opened up Skype and added him. Boy, was I glad that I did! I started talking to Dave Gray a Podcaster, Blogger and tech geek….sound familiar? Well if you didn’t make the leap, he sounds like me! And maybe that is why our first conversation lasted in the region of two hours, and today we spoke for a whopping 5 hours. Obviously have way too much to say, both of us. But we speculated today, that us podcasters do have rather large egos.

So yeah, had a really great series of conversations that have spanned from exchanging ideas about podcasting, to creating a podcast that we both host, to exchanging helpful links, programmes and tips..and loads of other things! I have Dave to thank for the new professional look of my Podcast show notes! I will go ahead and describe what is used now to do them, NuVu, it is a get WSYWIG editor for people like me who are dumb-asses with HTML coding. Just check the new notes out at the podcast main site. He has also hooked me up with FeedDemon a RSS Aggregator which is pretty DAMNED awesome. I went ahead and bought it already, 29.99 USD seemed like a steal…

Yeah look for some interesting things coming from David and I working together, I think something is bound to come of this friend down under.