These might be relics now, but I am still the Trek Master

Recently, my friend Margaret from the blog 'Stargazer' posted a photo of a little dog with snarling teeth and a horn on his head, and a black cat wearing a gold Star Trek tunic.  She wrote "It's Trivia Time, does anyone know what Star Trek episode this dog is from?"

It took me 0.02 milliseconds to recognize the dog from the Star Trek episode "The Enemy Within", where a malfunctioning transporter begins beaming things up--twice.  It was a brilliant episode, and a frightening one as well when a duplicate Captain Kirk goes on a violent rampage.

After I responded with my answer, she said "Right!  The black cat is from the episode with Gary Seven, do you remember that one?"

I almost spit up my Romulan ale; did she seriously just ask if I remembered the 1968 episode "Assignment: Earth"??  That would be like asking if I knew the name of the spaceship that Captain Kirk & Mr. Spock flew on!

All joking aside, I am very grateful to have good friends like Margaret from Washington, Jase from Colorado, Roger from Georgia, and Chuck & Robin from Canada who enjoy Star Trek too.

I thought I'd use this as an excuse to show off my Star Trek TV dvd collection.  I told my Trekkie friend Roger recently that given the awfulness of the new show Starfleet Academy, I was streaming Star Trek: Deep Space Nine on Paramount Plus instead.

He said "You should consider buying Deep Space Nine on physical media, DVDs are making a comeback."

I do not believe dvds are making a comeback, but I still almost choked on my Tarkalean tea.  I DO own Deep Space Nine on dvd!  I own all the Trek shows, movies, everything!  I am the Trek Master!

But in a way, Roger is right.  I don't own the "official" episodes of DS9.  When they were first released in 2004, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was $599.99 for the boxed set.  I couldn't bring myself to pay that much, so I began looking in some pretty shady corners of the internet.  

I found a Chinese company that sold bootlegs of Trek TV shows, and I got all seven seasons of DS9 for $79.00 total. 

The set arrived in these wonderful silkscreen boxes.  I loved their packaging so much, I didn't feel guilty for buying bootlegs.  The discs were high quality, affordable--and even had an option to hear the episodes in Mandarin!

Finally, a couple years before I retired (and was still in my old apartment) I found a graphics website RixGrafix where you could download his artwork and make your own DVD boxes.

I wanted a more uniform option to display my Star Trek dvds, so I downloaded the art for all the Trek series, and printed them at an office supply store on hi-grade paper on my lunch hours.

I bought 50 dvd cases from a DVD container warehouse, and they turned out really nice.  The first picture below is my Star Trek: The Next Generation dvds in their fan art boxes.  

The second photo shows Star Trek: Enterprise, Original Series, Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager.

When you line them up on your shelf, the spines form a spacey Trek collage.  😏

I no longer display them.  When I moved to my new apartment in 2017, I sold or gave away my bookcases, and all of my Trek dvds went into storage.  As long as I can stream them on Paramount, that's where I'll watch them.

Oh and for the record, I went on Amazon last night to see if ST:DS9 was available to purchase, it is.  But unlike that $599 price tag in 2004, they're only $66.00 now.  I'm not buying, but good to know.