TREK YEAH!

I know you've been breathlessly awaiting my review of the new Star Trek movie, Star Trek: Into Darkness. Here it is: TREK YEAH!!! I trekkin' loved it.  Everything I'd hoped and dreamed. In fact, you can count me among the members of every single social group below:

(Maybe more of a "Yelchick", "Peggster" or "Urbabe" if I had to narrow it down, but don't tell 3of8.)

Yeah, yeah, I know there's all the hubbub about plot holes, gratuitous underwear scenes, and issues with canon, etc.... to those people, I hold up my hand in  a vulcan salute and say "Klingon, please. It was trekkin' awesome!" Haters gonna hate. Star Trek: Into Darkness was everything I wanted from a Star Trek movie. It was a lovely escape from reality, into a future that while imperfect*, offered hope that at least people will continue to try to be the best version of themselves and will strive to do the right thing, not just because someone told them to, but because it's the right thing to do. What more do you want?

My only real concern is when I saw the redesign of the Klingons, (which I'm cool with...kind of liked them better) and was worried that the bat'leth would also be redesigned, rendering my traditional bat'leth obsolete. This was not the case, so we are "go" for bat'leth battle with my current model. Suh-weet!

But I have to say, my absolute favorite part of the movie happened while waiting in line with my husband 3of8, his sister 2of8, and her husband Yoda. Here's the gist of the exchange:

Yoda: So, do you remember when the three of us (Yoda, 3of8, and 2of8) were walking through those automatic doors years ago, and I mentioned how they sounded like the doors of the Enterprise?
3of8: kind of...
Yoda: The two of you made so much fun of me for being a Trekkie. In fact you, (3of8) would not let up.
3of8: umm....

Yoda: [Broadly gestures at me, the only person at the theatre wearing a Starfleet uniform, a Bat'leth necklace that I made myself, and wielding a tri-corder]

Yoda: LOOK WHO YOU MARRIED. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

I could tell that Yoda had been dwelling on my husband's mockery for many years, and this was his moment. For Yoda, and for trekkies everywhere, I am proud to be the vehicle for your vindication. You have trained me well, Master Yoda.
I'm sure you were looking for a more in-depth and thoughtful review of the movie...but true trek love means never having to over think. Just enjoy it. Plus, Star Trek Online just released the new expansion pack, so I need to go start my new romulan character.

Live long and prosper bitches!

Jenny Lee out!

 

*As if an accomplished Starfleet officer like Uhura is going to pitch a hissy fit about her half-vulcan boyfriend being unemotional in front of her captain, while headed on a dangerous mission. Not trekkin' likely. But she does make up for it by showing off her mad Klingon skills a few moments later, so, we're good Zoe. We're good.

No Girls Allowed

My neice, Chell*, just got her tickets to THE Comic Con. I'm so proud of her, but at the same time, I can't help thinking about  how different it is for her, growing up "geekly," than it was for me.

My dad and I always toyed with the idea of going to the Star Trek Convention every time it came to Phoenix. We never did. I was still closeted about my passion for the Trek, and back then, it was best to lay low, and NEVER admit publicly that you liked Star Trek, or video games, or astronomy, or anything dubbed "uncool." In many ways, Chell and her friends have it WAY better than I did.

And in many ways, I'm sure she suffers just as much for her passions. Lately, there's been a lot of drama in the geek world about the "fake geek girl." Some guys are protesting that women who pretend to be interested in sci-fi, comic books, gaming, and other geek past times are just "faking it" so they can dress up sexy and tease the geeks.

I've addressed this several times in my blog, and come to terms that there will always be a double standard. And, don't fool yourself into thinking that geek guys are the only ones who are bullied, teased, and afraid to be who they are. Geek girls get the same treatment, but not just from the non-geeks, but also from the  guys who actually share their same passions. Essentially, as geek oriented girls, we get shut out of all worlds. This "fake geek girl" drama is just another way of shaming women, and telling us we "don't belong."

Many women find that when they finally get the courage to come out of the turbolift, there's a test. It's as if we are not allowed to declare our passion for something, unless we know more about the product than the people who created it. I sometimes feel like I'm expected to call upon the ghost of Gene Roddenberry every night, and ask him about his inner most thoughts before I can declare myself a Trekkie. If I were a guy, I could probably get away with watching that "tribbles" episode, and call it good.



Source: sailorsway (aka Meghan Danger)

There seems to be the assumption that a true geeky woman is only that way becuase she's trying to impress someone. Since my husband is not a geek (he's a "Deadhead") this is obviously not the case. I'm nerd-y, because I am. Many other women are nerd-y, intelligent, fangirls, because they are. The sooner this is accepted, the sooner we can just move on and geek out over the things we love.

I think part of the problem is that we are all so used to being bullied and rejected, that it becomes standard for us to proclaim "I don't have a girlfirend / boyfriend because no one shares the same interests I do." If geek guys had to admit that there are women who actually did share the same level of passion for the same things that they enjoy, they might actually have to get up the courage to ask her out, and even risk rejection. For those of us who spent our formative years being rejected, it's just too big a risk.

So, I sympathise with the men who are threatened by the women who are now confident enough to enter the geek culture, but I ask them also to maybe cut us a little slack. As women, we know what it is like to be shut out of things, so you don't have to work that hard to make us feel your pain. In fact, most women are pretty much experts at having the provervbial door shut in our faces, in many areas of our lives, and many of us have developed some great coping techinques which, ironically, has given us the courage to join the geek world. You could actually learn something from geek girls!

And for the many, many men who have welcomed us into this world (and not in a perv-y way), I applaud you. There's room enough for all kinds of nerds in the galaxy, and I thank you for recognizing that.

Until we can just all get along, and have some empathy for each other, I'm painfully aware that I will always be the "token female" in fleet, my Starfleet uniform will always be considered a pathethic attempt to "fit in with the boys" and I will forever hear the words "Is that your husband's bat'Leth?"  But, I have hope for the up and coming geek girls, like Chell,  that are breaking through these imaginary force fields and boldly going where I wish I had gone before.

My geek flag is pink, girly, and "Scottsdale Fierce," and I will waive it proudly, right alongside yours.

 

*Portal is her thing, so we'll call her "Chell" after the main character in Portal.

You never forget your first time...

...wearing a Starfleet uniform. Here's the story of mine:

Several weeks ago, Think Geek introduced the Star Trek Bat'leth Letter Opener. It took me all of 5 minutes to order that bad boy, and then I patiently waited until it arrived.



When it did arrive, I lovingly placed it on my desk at work, much to the dismay of the librarians I work with. I can't help it. I must yell "Q'Plah" and raise my bat'leth in the air every time I open my mail at work. Sometimes, I feel like my co-workers just don't understand me.

Emboldened by the fact that my car is one of the "customer action shots" on the Trek Fish Car Emblem page, and confident that I was probably  one of the first people to spend the $29.99 to own a mini-bat'leth, I felt it was important, no, it was my duty to send a picture of me using my letter opener. I knew I could be the first "customer action shot" featured on the page for the Bat'leth Letter Opener. After I enlisted the help of my friends, here's what I sent:

A few days later, I received this email:

From: Lily Chau [mailto:lchau@thinkgeek.com]

Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2012 9:21 AM

Subject: ThinkGeek Action Shot Winner - Congratulations Jenny!

Good Morning Jenny,

Congrats! You've been selected as the Action Shot winner of this week. Your photo tickled our fancy and has earned you a $100 Gift Certificate to our store. (This reward is also for making sure you only use that letter opener for letter opening purposes!)

Thanks for participating & enjoy!

Lily Chau
ThinkGeek, Inc.
Social Media Monkey

Yep. I won. One. Hundred. Dollars. in geek stuff...Which to me, is better than real money. If I had won real money, I would have spent it at Think Geek anyway, so we really just cut out the step of converting money into geek stuff.

Prior to this, I had been vaguely considering this as my Halloween costume:

It had been a few years since I had dressed up for Halloween, and I thought this would be subtle, but appropriate for my "advanced" age and stature. But now that I had ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS, I thought "maybe I should just go for it" and get this:

I may not be able to pull off the "sexy" look like I used to, but looking at the "customer action shots" I decided I could probably hold my own in the dress. Besides, I was going to need something to wear to the midnight premiere of the new Star Trek Movie (May 17 2013 - squee!) and really, now that I'm "out" as a Trekkie, I could probably get a lot of use out of a Starfleet dress. Bonus, I already had the perfect boots to go with it...So I did it. I ordered the dress. And a pink tribble. (and an Enterprise Pizza Cutter, some gifts for the co-workers who helped me with the picture, and some other stuff. $100 goes a pretty long way with the geek stuff.)

Then, I took the Amazon points I'd been saving for an iPad, and used them for a phaser and tricorder. (Meh. Who wants an iPad, when you can have a tricorder?) I did show some restraint, and decided to get the communicator later. Regardless, my Halloween costume was complete, and totally free! All I had to do is wait for it to arrive.

When the dress arrived, I immediately put it on. It, was, um, a bit more "gynecological" than I had expected. 3of8 dutifully told me I looked "GREAT" and that I should totally wear that in public. I wasn't quite sure he was right, so I had him take a picture so I could send it to Riker for an "honest" opintion. She has never let me go out in public in something that I shouldn't. So, here's the picture we took:

Ok - I sent some others, but this one isn't too bad...I have to admit, this is all lighting and angling. The profile view was not good. not good at all.

As I was taking off the dress to hang it up in preparation for Halloween, I noticed that the dress was a small...They had sent me the wrong size! So, I still sent the pictures to Riker so that we could celebrate that I fit into a small...not well, but I didn't tear it or anything, and this close to being 40, I'll take what I can get.

I let Think Geek know that while I was superflattered that they thought I could wear a small, I really was going to need the size I ordered if I was going to wear it in public for Halloween. They kindly obliged, and sent the correct size.

So here's the official picture for the costume contest at work:

..and then, here's the same picture, after Yoda photoshopped it:

..which is why he's my favorite brother in law. (We're making plans to see the new Star Trek movie together, so that 3of8 and his sister 2of8 can try to pretend they don't enjoy being "Trek-adjacent." May 17, 2013 - squee!)

I was actually quite surprised by the number of people who felt they should inform me that wearing a red uniform meant "certain death" in the original series. um. yeah. I'm wearing a name badge that reads "Lt. Expendable" -  and I have an entire blog devoted to the fact that I am a Trekkie. I really don't need anyone to explain the rules of Star Trek to me. I've got this one.

But, if you have been reading my blog, you're probably thinking "Wait, don't you have a full sized bat'leth? Where is that?" And my response is: PAH! As if I would miss this opportunity to bring my bat'leth to work!

So, your reward for being the one person who follows my blog is this: 

You're welcome.

Needless to say, the costume was a hit. There was a slight incident, in which I had to go to the store to buy, ahem, a "personal" product - and not only did I have to run this errand in a Starfleet uniform, there was a "special needs" man in the store who was so excited to see me in my costume that he followed me around the store yelling "HEY! YOU'RE FROM STAR TREK!"  So that was pretty much my worst nightmare come true.   But my real victory is that even though I brought along a pair of "sensible shoes" to change into, I never did. I wore those boots the entire day. They're like, what? 4 inch, 5 inch heels? So yeah, if you've ever worn heels to work, then you will understand what an acomplishment that was. Q'Plah!    jIl moH ghajjaj jaghHomlIj!

Alpha 117 Canine Companion

The team at Star Trek Online are marketing geniuses. Seriously. They practice some sort of subliminal messaging, or Vulcan mind meld or something because they can make me want things that I don't even know I want. I like to think that it's this genius I am supporting when I go after a new item with my usual obsessive zeal.

Right now, it's the "Alpha 117 Canine Companion." But, I MUST have the very rare pink Alpha 117 Canine Companion. These are hard to come by...and I'm not just talking about the process it takes to procure one.

If you're not familiar with the game, or MMOs in general, here's how it works:

First, you play the game. When you play, different items "drop" when you kill your enemy. Sometimes, you get a "lock box." That could be something common, or something so rare, only a few people have it. The thing is, you don't know until you open it.

To open it, you need a key. Those are available in the zen store. So, once you get a lockbox, you have to go to the Perfect World site, and charge your actual credit card with actual money to get "zen." Then, you transfer your zen to the game. From there, you use your zen to buy a key to open the box.

Still with me?

OK, so now, you've got your box, you've got your key, you're ready to see what's in the box, right? So, you open the box, and you get an item of some sort and some "Lobi Crystals." It's the Lobi Crystals that are important here. When you collect them, you can cash them in at the "Lobi Store" for cool stuff. This is where you can get the Alpha 117 Canine Companion.

But, when you buy the Alpha 117 Canine Companion, you have to open another box to find out what color you have. I can't tell you how many Lobi Crystals I've spent on Alpha 117 Canine Companions trying to get the pink one. It's not that I'm embarrased about how much money I've wpent or how many times I've gone through the process above just to get a pink "space dog" -  I can't tell you because a) I'm not really sure how much I'm spent on this and b) I don't want my fleet mates to know because they might be mad that I spent all my Lobi Crystals on Alpha 117 Canine Companions, when I could have bought a really cool ship. (They don't understand how much I hate switching ships...it takes so long for me to get everything "just so.")

So, I've got a ton of brown and grey canine companions, a few blue, green, orange and white ones, but so far, no pink. Of course, I can't use all these non-pink Alpha 117 Canine Companions, so I sell them on the "exchange."

That's right, I've started a virtual "space dog puppy mill" in Star Trek Online.

In the midst of all this opening boxes and selling virtual critters, I decided to do some research and find out how these critters tied into the series. Here's what I found:

That is a schnauzer in a fake fur suit. Even I recognize this. But more importantly, I recognize that only Gene Roddenberry could take a dog, throw it in a bath mat, and convince the world it is a "space dog." And he did it so well, that 50 years later, I'm spending money, opening boxes, and feverishly trying to acquire a virtual critter that does nothing for my game except follow me around and look cute.

This, I think, nicely sums up the pure genius of Star Trek.

NOW SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!

Reporting for Duty

In the 80's, I tried to get in with the "Dungeons and Dragons" crowd, but they didn't want a girl. Same thing with "Magic: The Gathering" in the 90's.  I can't really blame them for not wanting me. Role playing games can be a safe place where geek guys can be themselves, without fear of being judged, and including a girl could really throw off that dynamic. For a long time, it seemed I was destined to be shut out of that world, as fictional as it was.
And then, in the new millennium, and two amazing things happened: MMOs, and Felicia Day.

MMORPGs (Massively Multi player Online Role Playing Games) brought the whole thing online. Now, it's possible to get involved without anyone knowing who you are. You can immerse yourself in the character, and there will be people all over the world, who will only know you as only the character you create.

Felicia Day embraced this, and has been a leader for geek and gamer women, like me, who have waited for our chance to get in on this. About a year or more ago, I started watching her series "The Guild." Immediately, I wanted to join my own guild.
Do I even need to mention that the game I chose to focus on was "Star Trek Online?" Seriously, duh.

I started playing in November of 2011, and quickly became addicted. For about 9 months, I played on my own, venturing out on a few missions with my friend Data, and then some other strangers. It was about a month ago that one of these strangers invited me to join a fleet, and I accepted.

I have to admit, being invited to join Starfleet Elite Force is in the top 3 exciting invitations I've received in my life*. Not only did it mean that I didn't totally suck as a fictional Starfleet Officer, but it felt like the invitation to the "cool table" at lunch that I had always been waiting for.

But of course, that night, I couldn't sleep.What if I had accepted too soon? Was this the right fleet for me? What if they were mad when they found out I was a girl? What if I just couldn't "hang?" What if? What if? I agonized on this for about a week before I went on my first mission.

After that first mission, I realised that while I'm not the best player, I'm not the worst. In fact, we all have our strengths, and what's great about being part of a fleet, is that we all learn how to work within our strengths, and the strengths of our team mates, in order to become the strongest team possible.

In fact, in 9 months of just trying to figure out the game on my own, here's what I learned:

• Don't ever mix muscle relaxers and wine before logging on. It only leads to an akward "warp of shame" the next morning.
• Tribbles breed. A lot.
• Don't get your ship lodged in a starbase.

In just one month of playing with the fleet, I've learned so much more, that will actually help me be a better Starfleet officer. For instance.

• It probably wasn't a good idea to use my porn name** as my character name. I'm now forever known as "Tingley" to my fleet. I guess it could be worse, as far as nicknames go.
• Rainbow Ships are ships that have multiple kinds of weapons.
• Rainbow Ships are bad.
• I have a Rainbow Ship. (It seemed like a good idea to diversify my weapons. Apparently not.)
• Even though it's not real, it's still OK to totally geek out when you meet McCoy or Scotty in the game. Everyone else does.
• Don't piss off the Borg. (OK, I knew that before, but now I know that that's called "Agro.")
• Other terms I've learned: DPS, PUG, and SOP
• Star Trek humor is funnier when everyone gets it.
• When you go off course, and someone on TeamSpeak politely says "Tingley, where are you going?" - They don't actually want the story of how you were going to shoot at something, and then realised you were flying too close to something else that was going to kill you, and you swerved out of the way, forgetting that you have no real turning radius until you separate your saucer section. Just apologise, and get your ass back to where you're supposed to be. They will forgive you.
• There is no shame in putting post it notes on your monitor that say "Right" and "Left." (OK, there's some shame in it, but being able to go in the correct direction makes up for it.)

• Don't remind your fellow fleet members that their female avatars would actually be too top heavy to fight the borg in real life. Just let them have their fantasy alien woman.
• Don't get wedged behind your own cover shield. But if you do, fess up before you begin the mission. Your team will forgive you if you are just honest.
• And, most importantly of all, have fun.

...And it has been fun. All of the fleet members have been super-great, and patient, and I've been improving every day. I'm sure there are loftier goals in life, and more noble pursuits, but right now, I'm perfectly happy trying to be the best part of the team I can be. What I do online may not make a difference to the world, but I can be an important part of SFEF, and that can make a difference in the fictional, future galaxy that I, and almost 200 other people in the fleet, call "home."

See ya in the Alpha Quadrant!

Jenny Lee


*In order:
     1. Marriage proposal from 3of8
     2. Very first internship offer from the morning show at Power92
     3. Invitation to join Starfleet Elite Force

**Your porn name is the name of your first pet, and the street you grew up on.

My other passions

Just so you know, I am very passionate about things other than Star Trek. I thought I should share a recent email exchange between me and Riker, who is also my lawyer.*

From: Jenny Lee
Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2012 19:07:36 -0600
To: Riker
Subject: Major Decision


I decided today that I want Taco Bell Meximelts, and Mountain Dew served at my funeral, as this is the meal I want to be remembered for. Can we put this in my will?

Jenny Lee



Subject: Re: Major Decision 

To:Jenny Lee
From: Riker
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2012 01:12:09 +0000
Absolutely. BUT I suggest leaving some leeway or suggested alternatives in the unlikely event neither is available when you die?

Riker


 
From: Jenny Lee

Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2012 19:15:36 -0600
To: Riker
Subject: RE:Major Decision
If neither of those things are available, that will be the cause of my death, because I just don't want to live in a world without Meximelts and Mountain Dew.
Jenny Lee


Live long and run for the border!

*Much like the "real" Riker  in the TNG episode "Measure of a Man." I must admit, I pick some pretty kickass aliases. They work on SO many levels!

Being a Geek

I'm still working on the "Extended Director's Cut" of my trip to Phoenix Comic Con. In the meantime, I had to share this, sent to me by my brother-in-law, Yoda:

 

This sums up my feelings so precisely I may never have to post anything else on my blog again. 

But I will.