Mind of Kavura

  Huntsville Comic & Pop Culture Expo is an expo in Huntsville, Alabama that has comics and pop culture stuff. LOL! The name is a mouthful, but at least it’s appropriate. Now in its seventh year, this convention, or “con” as we like to call it, has pop culture celebrities, gaming, and vendors. It is very family-friendly. Huntsville is a beautiful city that also has the US Space & Rocket Center, if you needed even more reason to visit. Lea Thompson, of Back to the Future fame, was there signing autographs, doing photo-ops, and doing a Q&A panel. Her photo-ops were in front of a DeLorean that looked just like the one from the Back to the Future movies! She recently directed two episodes of Star Trek: Picard and did a cameo in one episode. We were so happy to see her at her first con as part of the Star Trek family! We spoke to her at her autograph table and during her panel, and she said it was a wonderful experience working on Star Trek. She admitted to being a longtime ...

                It was very successful in syndication, paving the way for other sci-fi shows in syndication. Hercules, Xena, War of the Worlds, Superboy, and the first few seasons of Babylon 5 all gained success as syndicated shows after TNG. And doing a new version of an older show, which Star Trek did first, also caught on with other sci-fi shows like Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who. Of course audiences still complain that nothing new ever comes out of Hollywood. But bringing back the classics, when done right, can be a wonderful thing. Later on, when all the Star Trek TV shows and movies were referred to as a "franchise", it was the first time the word "franchise" was used to describe a TV show and its offshoots.                David Gerrold had a monthly column in Starlog magazine reporting on TNG before it came out. He was one of the writers on the show during the first...

  Every Trekkie knows this is a great time to be a Star Trek fan. More and more details are released every day about the new Picard series. Star Trek: Discovery is soon to have a third season. There are two animated series in the works. There is a Section 31 series coming. And the huge turnout at Shore Leave convention shows that Star Trek is still alive. Shore Leave is a fan-run Star Trek convention that focuses not only on guest actors, but also the writers who round out the fandom with their own original Trek stories. Not only that, but Shore Leave likes to add in a few actors from other genre shows, just to attract more fans and make it more interesting. Shore Leave 41 was July 12-14, 2019 in Hunt Valley, Maryland, right outside of Baltimore. This was my first time going to this one. (Actually, I went once, 12 years ago, but that was so long ago that I hardly remember any details, so I think I still qualify as a newbie.) The spacious convention hotel    seemed pretty ...

  My mother bought an ornate tea set for each of her five sisters in 1971 when she went abroad with my father, who was in the Air Force. Many years later, my mother passed away, and eventually, so did all of her sisters. When her last sister died, my cousin asked me if I wanted the tea set that my mother had given my eldest aunt. By that time it was practically a family heirloom, and we had always been a close family. I said Yes, I would most certainly like to have the tea set. It was made of fine China and very old, and I treasured it. It was a wonderful keepsake, not to be used, but to be admired. It did remind me that I loved drinking hot tea, something I picked up in my adulthood as one of the great pleasures of life. And of course, after Star Trek: The Next Generation, I had an affinity for Earl Grey tea! My mother and her oldest sister, Thelma Tea set that my mom bought for my Aunt Thelma I was in some "geek girls" groups in Atlanta, where I lived at the time, that held...

  Cincinnati Comic Expo was September 20-22, 2019 at the Duke Energy Convention Center in Cincinnati, OH. The programming was pretty full with celebrity and fan panels. Like all corporate cons, there was a huge vendors room that included comic artists and celebrity autographs. The venue was just the right size for the amount of people at the con. It was pretty crowded, but not too crowded. The vendors room and registration were on one floor, while the panels were on another floor, with an escalator in between. The rooms weren't as spread out as they are in a lot of convention centers. For once, I didn't do so much walking that my feet started hurting. Mostly what I attend cons for are the celebrity Q&A panels. Star Trek: The Next Generation actor Brent Spiner is always a thrill to see. Of course, at this con, everyone already knew that he is going to be on the new Star Trek: Picard series. He said he signed a Nondisclosure Agreement, so he wasn't allowed to say much abo...