If you're going to be celebrating your Thanksgiving holiday anywhere near Indianapolis this year, you have one more thing to be thankful for...an awesome Star Trek convention!

That's right! It's that time again, and Starbase Indy is having their yearly convention just in time to celebrate the holiday twice. The convention starts on Friday November 29th and spans the whole weekend. They have a bunch of guests this year, including three big names from Star Trek. Rene Auberjonois (Odo), Armin Shimerman (Quark), and Suzie Plakson (Worf's mate K'Ehelyr) will be guests this year, along with several actors from Stargate SG1. We love the big DS9 presence, considering that it's the show's 20th anniversary, this year!

As we reported last month, Jonathan Frakes is directing a brand new episode of the hit show Castle guest starring Armin Shimerman. It looks like the first images from the set are starting to appear online. Zap2it.com has posted several pics from the set featuring both Frakes and Castle star Nathan Fillion.

Here’s a fun one for all you Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Castle fans out there. Later this fall, Armin Shimerman is set to guest-star in a Castle episode that revolves around a sci-fi convention. It also, just happens to be directed by TNG’s Jonathan Frakes.

The amazingly talented, and Life After Trek-er, Armin Shimerman will be taking on the role of Ross in The Antaeus Company's production of "Macbeth". As you may know, Ross is Macbeth's cousin and a Scottish Nobleman in the Bard's tale of treachery, murder, & mysticism. Like other Antaeus Company productions, Armin will be partnering the role with John Sloan. As an added note, Tessa Auberjonois (daughter of fellow DS9'er Rene Auberjonois) will be playing Lady M. in the production.

Armin Shimerman will be appearing in the play, The Seagull with the Antaeus Company in North Hollywood. Previews of the play begin tomorrow, February 23rd with Opening Night on March 1st & 2nd at 8pm.

We’re pleased to announce episode 17 of our “Life After Trek” podcast, featuring Armin Shimerman. We've been looking forward to talking to Armin since we launched Life After Trek. He was a fantastic interview and a true class act. In this episode we talk in great detail about Armin's start in Hollywood, the stage, and dive deep into his past, present, and future work. For those of you who haven't heard, Armin is also an author. Penning not only a Deep Space Nine novel about his loveable Ferengi alter ego (The 34th Rule, available in ebook & paperback), but also a science fiction series called "The Merchant Prince" (available here). Armin is also working on a new film called the The Sublime and Beautiful, which we talked about last year, and is set to start filming this month.

This completely slipped under our radar and if we'd known about it, we would be live blogging from there this weekend. For those of you in the Orlando, FL. area, head down to the Hilton Orlando Resort Lake Buena Vista to get your Trek on. Vulcan Events is hosting it's Away Mission: Orlando with a slew of Trek stars from the captain of the Enterprise to two famous Ferengi brothers and many others in-between. Sir Patrick Stewart will be on hand with David Warner, Armin Shimuerman, Max Grodenchick, Larry Nemecek, Rick Sternbach, Lolita Fatjo, Phil Morris, Jennifer Hetrick, & Grace Lee Whitney. For the Stargate / Firefly fans, Jewel Staite & David Nykl. The show starts tomorrow (October 28th) at 5pm and runs through Sunday.

Armin Shimerman (Quark DS9) is onboard a brand new project called The Sublime and Beautiful that's seeking funding through the every popular Kickstarter. With various donation levels, one in particular caught our attention; for a $60 donation you can have a personalized outgoing voicemail message from Quark. This is limited to the first 60 donors, but how cool would it be to have that fabulous Ferengi on your voicemail message? Maybe he could berate the callers for being to cheap, or maybe blame his idiot brother Rom for your not being able to answer the phone. The possibilities are endless. Not only will you get the personalized greeting, but you'll also be helping an independent production get off the ground. The film has an interesting premise that deals with the heavy subject of grief and loss and has been on the drawing board for nearly eight years.

Today we stumbled upon a great reason to bid on and buy your favorite Star Trek actor’s autograph and photo…to help cure breast cancer via Project Teddy Bear.

Project Teddy Bear was started by Lisa Spodak in 2004 as a way to raise money for her third Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. On her website she says, “I’d wait outside theaters, talk shows or other events for celebrities and explain to them that I was doing the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer and trying to raise $10,000. I’d ask them to sign a little tag that said “Thank You for Your Donation to The Avon Walk for Breast Cancer” and to pose for a picture with the stuffed Avon Breast Cancer Crusade bear. Then I’d post all the pictures on the web and conduct an online auction. Voila! The almost $4,000 that I raised with Project Teddy Bear helped me raise a total of $15,000!” Read the full story here.  Since then she has risen over $150,000 for The Avon Walk for Breast Cancer, and is still going.