In this, the first of a few posts that I co-wrote with the girlfriend (Aydika), we talk about the nice little time we had at the Star Trek: The Experience attraction at the Hilton in Vegas last December.

These posts have been a long time coming. We’ve been learning how to write collaboratively, and it’s tough. I can knock out a post of this size on my own in about a half hour, but working with someone else stretched it out over days, and then weeks. Not because either one of us writes particularly slowly, but because the collaborative writing experience, from a technical perspective, is pretty lacking right now.

I’d use OneNote and its collaboration features to do this, but she’s writing on a Mac, so that’s out. Of course, there’s great software on the Mac to do this, too, but it’s not compatible with my Windows stuff.

The words “god damn it” come to mind.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this. Aydika’s a fun writer, and we had a pretty good time in Vegas. I think the next few posts in this series will be a bit smoother as we used this first one to figure out just how to do this. With the next, we ought to be able to focus entirely on content.

The way the post is structured is as follows: I wrote the main body, and Aydika commented on those bits. You’ll know when she’s commenting because it’s very clearly marked. In later posts, we’re going to be switching back and forth on writing the main body.

So, yeah.

Yeah.

The Star Trek Experience is like Voltron: It has the appearance of being one large robot, but is actually made up of many smaller robots. Thus, when you decide that you would like to "experience" (HA HA HA) [Aydika: HA HA, HA] the whole damn thing, you’re given a small stack of tickets that are redeemable in various lines throughout the building rather than one Master Ticket which would give you entrance to everything the STE has to offer.

This wouldn’t be such a big deal if the ticket-tearing guy were a little more helpful.

Ticket-tearer: Ticket.

Me: Which one?

Ticket-tearer: Ticket.

Me: Well, yeah, but I’ve got a whole stack of them he-

Ticket-tearer: TICKET.

Me: I understand, but-

Ticket-tearer: [jumping up and down] TICKET! TICKET! TICKET! TICKET! TICKET!

[A brief and uncomfortable pause ensues before the ticket-tearer belches up one more…]

Ticket-tearer: TICKET!

[I fumble around and grab a ticket at random which I then hand to Mr. Crazypants]

Ticket-tearer: OTHER TICKET!

Me: OK, fine! Fine! But which one? I don’t know wh-

Ticket-tearer: OTHER TICKET! OTHER TICKET! OTHER TICKET! OTHER TICKET! OTHER TICKET!

And so on.

We eventually slipped him a drugged Romulan Ale and moved on.

[Aydika: Our STE gatekeeper had the air of a man who once, in the glory days of his youth, proudly straddled the heights of coolness in the greatest city on earth, yet now remains, defiantly aging, merely to operate another gaudy Vegas attraction. Bitterly, humorlessly, he was making the most of his authority. Pity was last thing he wanted, yet it was all his "’tude" commanded.]

After disabling the STE guard with a rigged drink [Aydika: Which we didn’t do but highly recommend from "experience" - HA HA HA], you will find yourself walking down the Corridor of Star Trek Memories Past. That’s not what it’s really called, though. If you ask where the "Corridor of Star Trek Memories Past" is, you’ll get laughed at, and then someone will aggressively ask you for your ticket, so don’t do it.

It’s actually called the "Museum," and as far as museums go, it’s about as compelling as the hall of stupid baby pictures that your parents (your parents – not mine) have of you, and which your parents’ dinner guests must suffer through on the way to the dining room.

Lining the walls are memorabilia from all the various incarnations of Star Trek. You’ll see things from the movies, the original series, the "Next Generation," and that one where you could "Boldly go where no man has gone before" as long as it was inside that stupid space station (Deep Space Nine). There was also a lot of crap from that newish one with that woman captain who has the stupid nose (Voyager).

You’ll see cardboard "phasers," communicators, and the sexy-ass outfit that McCoy wore during Star Trek III and Star Trek IV (without taking a bath or changing even once along the way, I might add).

In addition to the supplied exhibits, Trekkies of every shape, size, gender, and species, in all the colors of the intoxication rainbow (hey – it’s Vegas), can be found along the way making spectacles of themselves. I had never before this day seen someone try to French kiss a Klingon war knife (or whatever they’re called) through a pane of glass, but I guess there’s a first time for everything. I don’t have a photo of it, but here’s the disturbing thing: Somebody, somewhere, does.

As you exit the stupefyingly incredible "Star Trek: The Experience: The Museum Experience: Experience," you’re greeted by what appears to be an arthouse hipster with a camera, dressed to the 8.5s in corduroy trousers and "ironic" tartan sweater-vest (ironic because it’s so uncool that it’s cool).

And he is not happy to be there.

Without a smile, without a "hello," and without even a split-fingered "live long and prosper," he’ll instruct you to stand up against the wall and prepare to be shot.

For a photo, of course.

He’s extremely vague about the purpose of the photo, but will lead you to believe that it’s for an "ID card" that you’ll be picking up… later. Attempts at clarification resulted in shrugged angst-shoulders, and a few "idunno" type answers, almost as though I were one of his parents asking him if he had ever thought about trying drugs.

Me: Where can I get my ID card?

Him: [shrugging his shoulders]

Me: HAVE YOU BEEN TRYING DRUGS?

Him: [shrugging his shoulders] idunno.

You can’t really blame the guy. I mean, here he is, hipper than bloody hip, camera slung around his neck comme un vrai artiste, and he’s working the Museum crowd at a Star Trek show. This would be like letting your born-again toupee-wearing father drive you to prom in a mini-van. It’s just not cool.

That said, he’s still a miserable little curmudgeon who deserves a Warp-Nine-Vulcan-Battle-Meditation-Death-Wedgie.

[Aydika: I later discovered that Mr.Uber-Cool Camera Boy doesn’t even work for the Hilton STE. Mr.Bitterly-Aging Ticket-tearer had informed us that the next Captain’s Chair photo session would be at 3:45 SHARP, thus we made an effort to arrive at the (very poorly marked) waiting area five minutes early. We waited until 3:45. Another hesitant couple arrived. We waited until 3:50. Concerned we might be in the wrong area, I walked over to Mr. Uber-Cool Camera Boy for information. He had, for the duration of our wait and presumably more, been slouching against the railing and staring intently at the floor, and seemed genuinely annoyed that I had distracted him from his state of doing nothing. Toying with his camera, he coolly informed me that he was not actually an employee of the Hilton Star Trek Experience, but rather a hired contractor from some outside tourist photography company. His tone suggested that working for the tourist photography company was way, way cooler than being a geeky Star Trek Experience employee. The now familiar shrug that followed then informed me that he knew about as much about my dilemma as he cared.]

The wonderful thing about the photo opportunity is that it ends.

Turning the corner from the Museum exit, you will find yourself walking down another corridor, but this time it’s one with a purpose.

Depending on which tickets you purchased (and it can be quite difficult figuring this out), you can stand in line to attend either Borg Invasion 4D or Klingon Encounter.

"Borg Invasion 4D" is a movie that’s presented in "4D." We’re all used to the idea of 3D movies where we’re given those stupid red and blue glasses that make the stupid red and blue monsters on the screen look like stupid two-dimensional monsters that are, gasp, purple, but we’re not used to the idea of a "4D" movie.

A "4D" movie is like a "3D" movie, but with an extra "D." What the extra D is for is anyone’s guess [Aydika: My best guess was smell – like Smell-O-Vision - and I had a great time in line trying to imagine what a Borg might smell like]. It’s certainly not time, which is often thought of as the fourth dimension, although you might make that mistake given that "Borg Invasion 4D" is so short that it seems to begin and end simultaneously (we need to get Stephen Hawking on this shit fast). Rather, the extra D seems to be in reference to the clever use of hair dryers installed in the seat in front of you.

Let me explain.

When you enter the theater, you’re given a pair of polarized 3D glasses that will make the movie appear to be three-dimensional. That’s nothing new, and nobody cares.

[Aydika: I’d like to mention that the distribution of 3D glasses comes only after about fifteen minutes of "Let’s Pretend We Are Really on the Starship Whatchamacallit and All Hell Breaks Loose." This little warm-up involved being led, with well-versed panic, from one room to another in a dramatized version of an actual Borg invasion. Rumbling floors, tricky lasers, and some high B-grade acting accompanied this atmosphere-building part of the "ride." Eventually, they led us into the final room: the passenger ship that is to transport us to safety.]

When you sit down, you’ll observe that your seat is pretty meaty. The reason it’s meaty is that there’s a hair dryer in it.

The hair dryer is important because it adds a new dimension (a fourth dimension, if you will) to the movie watching experience, really bringing you into the action on screen.

Mounted in the headrest of each seat, the hair dryers face backwards. So, when something happens up on the screen that’s meant to be exciting, the hair dryers turn on and blow wind in the face of whoever happens to be sitting behind them. It’s like you’re actually there, in space, except you’re not. You’re in a movie theater, but it’s hard to tell because of all the hair dryers.

Like when the Borg Queen came out and gave us a stern talking to – she walked up to the screen, said something snappy, and then whoosh! The hair dryers turned on, blew some wind in my face, and I was all like, "Is this real? Somebody pinch me."

The hair dryers aren’t like regular hair dryers, though, because they also have the ability to spit liquid, which would make them, in addition to hair dryers, hair wetters.

When something happens on screen that isn’t obviously wind related, the chair in front of you will spit in your face.

Like when this Borg shot at me with his laser thing – he pointed his laser at the audience, fired, and then dribble! The hair wetters turned on, spat some liquid in my face, and I was all like, "Is this real? Somebody pinch me."

[Aydika: There are also some kind of hard, fist-like devices fitted into the seat and back of your chair. These abruptly begin molesting various parts of your back and bum during the Borg’s attempted brainwashing, and it really is creepy. It’s creepy because you are sitting in a seat in Las Vegas that has been shared with countless other bodies from all over the world with countless variations of hygiene practices, and you have all the sensations of being spit on, blown on, and manhandled from below. It was rather disgusting. It made me giggle uncontrollably.]

Then the show’s over, and you’re neither wet nor dry because of the opposing special effects. Kind of convenient, really.

What you are, however, is sick. And not sick like "Michael Jackson thinks he’s Peter Pan and likes to touch children in the ‘bad’ places" sick, but sick as in "I think there might have been large quantities of feces in the food, because I feel like a loaded barfzooka that’s about to blow" sick. There’s something about those polarized 3D glasses that leaves your brain confused and weak, which is just plum-dandy as far as the people who left all the sales merchandise by the show’s exit are concerned. On your way out, while seeing quintuple, there’s a bastard in a Klingon outfit trying to sell you a gigantic "Official Klingon Mating Ritual Fluids Mug," and you consider purchasing it simply because it looks large enough to hold all your vomit (and also because, thanks to your disorientation, it looks like you’re getting five mugs for the price of one, and that’s a deal).

After you recover from the temporary brain damage caused by the "Borg Invasion 4D" show, it’s time to discover the purpose of the other set of tickets you’re holding.

After much head-scratching, it will become clear that their purpose is to allow you entrance to the "Klingon Encounter" ride.

It’s interesting what different people consider to be a "ride."

The "Klingon Encounter" is one of those small movie theaters mounted on hydraulic legs that’s meant to shake you until you vomit in your throat. Amusement is an entirely secondary goal, falling behind bodily injury as one of the attraction’s priorities. It’s built on pretty much the same platform as "Star Tours," if you’ve ever "ridden" that, except that "Klingon Encounter" seems to have been turned up to eleven.

I don’t remember much about what happened on-screen. My eyeballs were shaking around a lot, which made it hard to focus. I do recall smiling and trying to convince myself that I was having a good time, but I wasn’t very successful.

At one point, while dodging a gigantic blur on screen (I think it was a spaceship of some sort), the theater underwent a particularly violent maneuver which resulted in my head smacking against the wall. The only thing that saved me is that the plastic molding of the walls was much weaker than the high-energy force-field which surrounds my brain, placed there at the time of my birth by an advanced alien race bent on using my genetic information for an intergalactic experiment in human/alien hybrid biotechnology battlebots. Without that, it would have been my head getting dented rather than the wall, so kudos and thanks to the little anal-probing bastards who have been visiting me at night for my entire life.

The enthusiastic jerks with which the theater attempted to convey a sense of movement seemed a little crazy given the setting. In Vegas, it seems like a given that at least half of the people at the attraction are going to be totally shnockered. The "Klingon Encounter" could very easily be made into a "4D" experience by audience participation, and I can imagine the joy of taking a full proton-torpedo-barf in the face while sitting next to a drunk with an upset tummy after chasing a Klingon Bird of Prey through a class 10 wormhole (whatever in the hell that is). Fortunately, this experience currently lives exclusively in my imagination and fantasies, although I have little doubt that more than one unhappy space-traveler has exited the ride wearing someone else’s regurgitated margarita. The closest I’ve ever come to that scenario was when Corey Dunn threw up on me in the "Octopus" ride at a school fair in 1986. The ride paused, with us at the top, and with me inching towards a life of post-traumatic-stress syndrome with each second that passed in the company of his stomach contents. I felt very nauseous and wanted to throw up on him so that we’d be even, but couldn’t manage to bring anything up. I still owe him, and I’ve been practicing spontaneous barfing techniques that I learned from a Tibetan Revenge Monk during a trip to the far east a few years ago, and I’m going to give Corey what’s coming to him one of these days. If anybody knows where to find him, then please contact me as soon as possible.

What’s Next

 In the next few posts, we’ll write about our incredible experience being photographed in “The Captain’s Chair,” a small movie we made (which will be posted), some indiscriminate ass-grabbing that went on, and how we harassed some Ferengi in “Quark’s Bar.”

Here’s a photo to whet your whistle. You may provide your own bloody caption: