Jonathan Frakes

Gwen, the Cappie, told me her sister ran a bed and breakfast in Belfast, ME. I'd never been there before, so I thought I'd give it a try.

The first thing we did was grab a pizza some place called Alexei's or something. I was kind of annoyed when this chubby older guy bumped me in line. He was apologetic, so I let it go. Then Gwen got antsy.

"That's... th-th-that's..."

"What? It's what?"

"He's..."

This weird smile popped up through chubby guy's salt-and-pepper beard. He held out his hand.

"Jonathan Frakes, don't you remember me?"

I racked my brain. How could I know this guy? Wait, did he say Jonathan Frakes?

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry," I said. "Yes, I remember you."

"How is your Norwegian companion? He was in pretty bad shape from what I remember."

He laughed and slapped me on the back.

"Yeah, Mads and Jaeger isn't good."

Well, needless to say, Gwen was shocked that not only did we bump into Jonathan Frakes, but that I knew him from a party Patrick Stweart threw a long time ago. So long ago, in fact, that I didn't recognize the inflated version of Cmdr. William Riker sitting in front of me. He invited us over to lobsters with his wife, Laura of Luke and Laura fame. It was kind of annoying, because Gwen acted like a fool around him the whole time. It was worse than when I introduced her to Stan Lee.

The Spiner Femme

Gwen, the Cappie, dragged me to another one of her conventions. Well, I shouldn't say dragged me… because I'm kind of starting to dig them. At one point Brent Spiner approached me with a desperate look on his face.

"Hey man, it's me… Brent… you met me at the Aviator premier, remember?"

"Yeah, man… what's the problem?"

"I need to hide out at your place for a little while…"

He dove into this harrowing tale of how a chick dressed as a cleaning woman got into his room and started giving him homemade calendars with his pictures all over them; and she showed him pictures of his appearances at various conventions, which were so numerous, she could stack them and flip them and make a de facto video of his time on stage. Then he saw the fan fiction and erotic drawings. He thought he was safe when the maid whose clothes she stole called the cops, and the crazy woman was arrested. But no, somehow she ended up at the convention.

I took him back to my place, and it just so happened Star Trek was on Spike. He did not want to watch it.

"I hated this episode," he said. "In it, I put on some mystical mask that takes over my mind and body. Do you know how badly I deserved an Emmy for having to act this crap?"

Ringers

Mads, my Norwegian companion, and I play in a local rec basketball league. It's not a big thing, just a little three-on-three half-court type thing. In addition to Mads and me, there were two girls on our team: my neighbor Jody, and her friend Steff, who played college ball at BU.

Our first opponent was a group from MIT. I figured we'd have this in the bag, but when I saw them, I wasn't so sure. They were all real big: two twin white guys that stood about 6'8", and two twin women that were like 6'2". To give you an idea, Mads and I are about 6' even, and we're the tallest people on our team. I thought something was weird, though, when I noticed the guys looked just like Data from Star Trek. I found out later that the girls looked like Tasha Yar, another character from Star Trek, but I didn't notice at the time.

They shot for first possession, and one of the Data guys hit it, so they started with the ball. One Data guy started it behind the arc, and I covered him, while one of the chicks was out on the wing with Jody covering her, and the other Data guy was down on the block, covered by Mads. He went to dribble, and I took the ball from him immediately, dished it to Jody, who hit an easy lay-up. They got the ball again (no make-it take-it, unfortunately). I went to swat the ball out of the guy's hands, and I took his left hand off, revealing frayed wires and sparks. Without missing a beat, he used his right hand to dish the ball in the post to the other guy, who was stuffed viciously by Mads as he turned to shoot. The ball went back in his face, knocking his eye out.

That's when Mads lost it. He referred to them as abominations of nature, punched the guy's head clean off, and then grabbed a folding chair from the sidelines with the intent of destroying the machines. Two nerdy guys with MIT shirts on ran on to the court, trying to protect their inventions. I hit one of them with a solid open field tackle, knocking the wind out of him. The other one made it to Mads, and tried to wrestle the chair out of his hands. Mads, an avowed atheist, was now claiming his rampage in the name of God. The referee had called in the police, and they shot Mads with a taser and pepper spray. They almost arrested him too, but I took them aside, explained the situation, and being good God-fearing Americans, they understood. Jody and I brought Mads home, promising not to cause anymore trouble. Aye, aye, officer.

A Run-in at Carl's jr.

I was out on the West Coast with Mads, my Norwegian companion, and we decided to grab a bite to eat at a Carl's jr. Inside were a bunch of people in weird outfits with long, black, kinky hair and huge bumps on their foreheads. They made absolutely no sense to me. The clerks behind the counter were obviously annoyed with them. The freaks looked in my direction, and I shot back a derisive expression.

"I don't know what you kids are up to," I said. "But you'd do best to stay as far away from me as possible."

One of them, a male I think, made a move in our direction. Mads jumped forward, and in one motion he fell to one knee and punched the guy right in the balls. I picked up a high-chair next to me and hit him across the back as he was doubled over in pain. The others ran over to protect him.

"What are you doing? Are you nuts?" A female one said.

"Us? We're not the ones in crazy outfits with bumps on our heads."

"We're Klingons. You know, from Star Trek?"

"I don't know, but if you're dressing up like morons and going out into public like this, you deserve whatever you get."

The police were called in, and though the "Klingons" wanted to press charges on us, the cops agreed with me, and refused to hear their complaints in those silly outfits. They were equally disappointed when the clerks refused to corroborate their story, and said they would never go into their establishment again. The clerks were so relieved that the freaks wouldn't be coming back, they gave us our food for free.