Engage.

For those of you who missed the last incarnation of this blog of mine ... what exactly is "Trek-Ease"? I chose that title 'cause it seems to best reflect my current, more laid-back level of Trekkerdom in particular, as well as geekdom in general. I like to think I maintain a good balance between getting caught up in Star Trek's continuity ("Why did the writers have Tuvok pose as a Maquis? Wouldn't he believe their cause to be illogical?") and relenting to its artistic context ("Because he was really the only primary character who worked in that aspect of the plot."). Many moons ago, I was one of those who debated the implications of Dr. Crusher becoming head of Starfleet Medical and being replaced by Dr. Pulaski, as well as the credentials and qualifications of both, as though they were flesh-and-blood people, even though I never actually lost sight of the fact that they were not. I won't kid anyone here ... Star Trek: The Next Generation is in a perpetual tie with Quantum Leap as my favorite television show of all time, and I have this pathetic mental disorder whereby a person can describe to me the plot of any TNG episode and I can immediately respond with its title as well as approximately when in which season it aired, but my overall fandom nowadays is much more casual. It's still a pretty fair part of my life, and probably always will be, but I think I'm quite a ways from being approached by Roger Nygard and Denise Crosby for a chapter in the next Trekkies movie.

I started "Trek-Ease" a couple of years ago, and it sputtered out after a few months of extremely occasional posting. Then, about a year ago, I tried doing a blog (which I called "DVD-1701" ... I’m now declaring that title officially up-for-grabs if anyone wants it) intended to chronicle my episode-by-episode viewing of all four of the first Star Trek series, but although I'm still watching two episodes per week -- just finished off The Original Series and started in on The Next Generation, in fact -- it too peetered out midway through TOS's second season. For one thing, I found it more and more difficult to think of witty things to say for each and every episode. Plus, it was such a structured routine that, to paraphrase the late George Carlin regarding doing regular updates on his own website, "it started feeling like homework -- f**k that shit." I like to think of it this way: they never showed hide nor hair of Robert April's five-year mission, and Christopher Pike's command never got past the original pilot episode ... so maybe the third time will be the proverbial charm in the case of this blog, too. This time, I'm shooting for a more informal and off-the-cuff blog, in which I'll ramble on semi-aimlessly, and hopefully at some semblance of a regular interval, not only about my thoughts on various aspects of the Star Trek universe, the various knicks and knacks of my Trek collection, and so on, but also about whatever other sorts of geek-culture randomness tickle my fancy.