Heroes

Sulu and I

Allow me a little moment here to fully dork out. I have a few secret "shames" (quotation marks because I'm not ashamed of them at all, though others tend to be). These include such things as ABBA, video games, professional wrestling, comic books, and anything Star Trek (and all other SciFi by extension). Well, yesterday, thanks to the National Arts Centre, I got to fully geek-out at their Sci-Fi Spectacular with the NAC Orchestra. In what I consider to be an absolutely brilliant marketing move, the NAC sought out local bloggers and not only gave them free tickets to the show, but also the chance to meet the evening's narrator, George Takei (Mr. Sulu himself!) I think this is a fantastic idea since it gives the NAC an incredible web presence and shows that they are open to new media in order to attract an audience. The show was really good though everyone was wondering when George Takei would show up. Suddenly, the lights went out and there was that ever familiar hum... of course he would BEAM in! I got to chatting with a few others in Blogger Row (the very last row of the NAC balcony seemed to be set aside solely for us - no worries though, we still got an incredible view). I demonstrated my ultimate dorkdom when I pointed out that Mr. Takei wasn't narrating the text from the original Star Trek, but the one for The Next Generation. You see, in the original series, Kirk would say "it's five year mission" and "where no man has gone before" whereas Picard updated the mandate to "it's continuing mission" and made it more PC with "where no one has gone before." Contrary to what you may be thinking, I was respected for my knowledge.

After the show, Blogger Row was ushered into the NAC Salon for a private meet and greet. I have to say that Mr. Takei was a very warm and genuine individual. I could listen to him speak all day. For those who are curious, apparently his character will be coming back to Heroes in the new season. Though we were pressed for time (a fan line was quickly growing outside the Salon), he was kind enough to sign my ticket stub and pose for a photo. Though I don't have the photo yet, here's my stub.

georgetakei1

A big thank you to the NAC and @jcovert for organizing all of this. You can still get your very own glimpse of Sulu with one more performance by the orchestra tonight at 8 p.m. It's well worth it!