As if you haven't seen enough parody "motivational" posters

Well, this one is worth it.

Heh, not bad, not at all bad.

Just in case the link goes dead, this one deserves to be described. The "poster" is of a (I think) CG-created redshirt holding a phaser. "Hirelings. When it's just too dangerous to send a real character."

http://trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=55523

Days like today, I'm proud to call myself a nerd.

Huh?

Yeah, this is a PNQ, but still...

"Bah, soda fizz is easily eliminated by adding ice and letting it melt - hence I never use ice."
"Another nifty trick if you don't like fizz (note that this can only be done with cans...at least, it's only recommended with cans): When you open it, swirl the container. It doesn't matter what direction. After about three seconds, start swirling the other way. Soon enough, there won't be any bubbles left."
"Tapping the lid also helps with more extreme cases, I've found."

Puh-huh? If you don't like bubbles, DON'T buy pop. It's pretty simple. Why PAY for carbonation if you don't want it?

True; if you're that desperate for a fix of teeth rot, just have some sugary water.

I'll bet you like poking sticks at anthills, don't you?

A Stargate Joke

"You are a Goa'uld spy and I claim my ten pounds!"

I forget which game show had the "You are an X and I claim my Y pounds" joke, but this subversion amuses me.

Back in the day, the Trek shows had the almost unheard-of policy of looking at unsolicited amateur scripts. ("Silicon Avatar" was one of those.) In 1999, near the end of that policy's lifetime, David Hines submitted a VOY script which he's now made available on his LJ. Read it and see what you think. I hope to come back to this later in more detail; suffice to say that while it's not my Voyager and the message isn't quite my cup of tea, it's a solid and fascinating fanfic.

So I've read it, and my first response has to be...hallucinotron? Hehehe. Anyway, it's a good story. I can recommend it.

Janis: One time, Tom Paris turned into a newt.
Levesque: A newt?
Janis: He got better.

Good scene, but this is more in the style of a fiver than a Star Trek episode.

Janeway: That is a Wah Chang series neural stimulator.

I love this bit. Wah Chang created a lot of props for The Original Series on a shoestring budget. Read "Inside Star Trek" by Justman and Solow. Seriously, a good read about the inner workings of TOS.

Chakotay: Ever look up the Enterprise-D? Butt of a thousand Maquis jokes? Their holodeck turned on them every week?

THIS is a fiver line. It never would've flown as a televised episode.

The Rules of Cricket

Please tell me this isn't what cricket is really like. Please PLEASE tell me it's not really this absurd.

It's not really that absurd.



What?

Personally, I think it was monotonous, poorly written, barely engages with the issues and beats you over the head with it's moralising.

Typical bad-Trek, really...

I also thought it was wrong. Naturally. :p

@Nate: No, that is somewhat exaggerated. Not much, though.

http://www.20q.net/

Multiple versions of Twenty Questions to play online, including Star Trek 20Q!

http://www.fortunecity.com/rivendell...00/marysue.htm

Supposedly this is the Star Trek fanfic that launched the whole idea of a Mary Sue, written in 1974. Some memes are older than others, I guess...

That can't be the real thing. If it's not a parody, my name is Angela Merkel.

Ever heard of a shaggy dog story?

No? Great. Read this, then punch me for linking it.

Yep, that's shaggy dog story.

http://members.cox.net/djoakes/legoga94.htm

Star Trek LEGO minifigs! They're great!

Why Ctrl+Alt+Del is not funny.

I should warn you that this link contains gratuitous violence and strong language.

Would people please stop the CAD bashing? Everything has some brilliant moments and some clunkers. Heck, look no further than my own OOT fiver to see a clunker.

Err, no? CAD is unadulterated rubbish. There are no brilliant CAD moments. No, actually, it's not fair to say it's unadulterated rubbish. It's lazy and unadulterated rubbish.

Your fivers are not.

I've read the whole CAD archive, though it took me several tries; a couple of times I got as far as this blatant Simpsons ripoff and then decided I had better things to do. But if the comic were totally meritless, I wouldn't have kept coming back. It's not a bad comic; it's just average, almost aggressively so. (Of course, it still has the occasional really good one.)

CAD wouldn't be taking so much fire if it weren't on top of the heap. I don't know how it got there, but it is there, and I respect that. Unfortunately, success has gone to Tim Buckley's head, so he keeps drawing even more fire on himself. Of course, smug and/or defensive webcomic creators are nothing unusual. It's that plus the popularity plus the middling quality that get CAD such disproportionate abuse.

(Same reason I used to resent Sev Trek, actually. Popular is one thing; popular and lame is another.)

All that said, some of the mockery of CAD is spot-on.

In odder news, it seems my ENT parodies came to the attention of some Indonesians a while back. The comments are mostly about the episodes themselves rather than the fivers, but if you want to read any of them, this site does Indonesian. "Lucu-lucuan" is something to the effect of "funny". (And no, as far as I can tell this guy never credited me or the site.)

That is interesting. Once upon a time, several years ago, I stumbled across another Indonesian Star Trek site (startrek.or.id, iirc, but I'm not sure it's a good idea to search for it now) which was one of the more well-constructed and thorough Trek references I have ever seen collected all in one place. Then, one day, it just wasn't there any more. Some time later, this Indo-StarTrek.org appeared, sporting a very similar color scheme and layout, but missing the detailed episode guides and other information which had made the first site special; it was just another fan club site, and the scruples seem to have gone along with the people who had made the other site more than that.

People who hate CAD tend to use controversial aspects of a small portion to taint the rest. People can and have made the same arguments about other webcomics (A Modest Destiny comes to mind), but there's no reason you can't like them either.

A really good article about narcissism from a psychiatry blog. Be warned: if you're anything like me, some of it will sound worryingly familiar.

[ETA: I see upon further inspecting the blog that narcissism is very much this guy's pet disorder, so bear that in mind. Nothing necessarily wrong with having one, of course; lots of doctors do. It just tends to make them see their favourite malady a bit too readily. The shrink I visited intermittently at UW kept trying to fit me into his favourites.]

Fables of Forgotten Things

Children's TV pilot of a very Doctor Who-esque programme with a strong fantasy element, starring Paul McGann, who played the Eighth Doctor in the TV Movie and various audio dramas. Great direction and some nice writing, if a little short. Enjoy. :)

http://xkcd.com/32/

Another month, another webcomic archive binge. Enjoy!

xkcd is truly one of the webcomic greats.

<a href="http://xkcd.com/435/">Citing</a> <a href="http://xkcd.com/440/">evidence</a> <a href="http://xkcd.com/386/">for</a> <a href="http://xkcd.com/309/">it</a>.

I've seen "for" but "evidence" made me laugh.

Uh oh. Quick, someone hide those <a href="http://www.fiveminute.net/forums/showthread.php?p=74045#post74045">before Zeke sees them</a>.
Also hide <a href="http://xkcd.com/409/">this one</a>. :)

Well, yes, it was a parody. (Not that I can vouch for the link, but it looks about like what I've heard about it.) A spot-on parody, I'm sure.


As for webcomics, I've gotten hooked on Savage Chickens. :D

Bah. I still think Zeke'd be a highly successful webcomicist. It'd certainly grow his audience from "people who read TrekToday religiously in 2001."

Plus, if he only had to do one frame, we might get updates more often.

Any Order of the Stick fans in here? Or, while we're talking about webcomics, Zero Punctuation?

Hell yes on ZP. I'm a video game nerd who likes snarky humour; how could I not like it?

By the way, <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CanadaEh">don't click this link if you're easily distracted.</a>

http://www.retrothing.com/2006/04/izek_sewing_mac.html

A sewing machine that interfaces with a Gameboy? Huh...

I've destroyed the afternoons of so many of my friends by sucking them into the TVTropes black hole. I am, fortunately, not so foolish to click it myself.

Well... maybe just for five minutes...

*is sucked in*

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W_oPVMrx5g&eurl=http://kotaku.com/index.php?refId=5070729">This seemed to want to be posted.</a>

Heh, that was fun.