The final scene from Voyager

The scene's not the important part, it's the hilarious joke in the comment chain. You have to read this thing for yourself.

Going back through the Trek time travel adventures, OrangeRiver asks when Trek history deviated from our own.

Obviously the answer is "The Big Bang", because I don't think our Big Bang had a starship inside it.

Plus, y'know, we're not descendents of the Projenitors, nor were our dinosaurs capable of making spaceships.

Tomorrow, August 28th, is the thirtieth anniversary of the premiere of Power Rangers!

The original version of the pilot "The Day of the Dumpster"

Zordon (or "Zoltar", I should say): Teleport to us the most dangerous group of ruthless, underhanded, overbearing, self-absorbed, and emotional humans in the area.
Alpha: No! Not teenagers!
Zordon: Correct.
Alpha: I was afraid of that.

The real pilot

Come to think of it, how many of the original cast really counts has having "attitude", anyway? Just Tommy when he was mind controlled by Rita!

Even after all these years, I still think this is the best version of the theme song.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnbOB7EugI4&t]The anniversary special, "Once and Always"[/URL]

I have mixed feelings about this one. I think I'll stick to the uncontroversial stuff and say that I never liked CG zords. Ever. Part of the charm was the clunky movement of the guys wearing rubber suits and cardboard boxes. The OG Megazord should not move that smoothly. But if they have to do a recreation, they have to do it more faithfully than that. It's shocking when a fan does a better job.

The original movie. Cheesy as all get out and objectively awful, but I still have fond memories of it.

The Turbo movie. I enjoy this one more since it's more faithful to the series.

The Z Wave. One of the key events in the series.

A bridge that you can turn upside down with a hand crank so ships can pass under it.


As both a math fan and a structures fan this amazes me.

Dark Materia is well-known for the Picard Song and the Worf Song, but the Riker Song (aka Frame of Mind) is a little more obscure.

I like it when someone thinks way too much about something from my childhood, it makes me feel better.

Someone actually took the time to analyze the RNG of Mario Party 1 to find the most efficient way to play each board.

I spent way too much time playing Mario Party 1 in my youth.

The climatic scene from "The Trouble With Tribbles."

Always a fun scene, but I wanted to point out the hilarious song-based joke in the comments. It's worth it, I assure you, especially for the Disney fans out there.

Somebody strapped model rocket engines to a LEGO car.

I went through a model rocket phase as a boy and of course my love of LEGO is on record, so I enjoyed this.

Enterprise showrunner Manny Coto reveals his problem with the premise of the show.

I find this idea that the problem was all the humans they kept bumping into ludicrous. Absolutely hilarious and completely missing the point.

A TNG tribute video that I've never seen before.

My only problem is the use of that orchestral version of the Inner Light theme that's practically a cliche by now. I know it's a great song, but there are other versions of it out there!

Robert Justman stated that there was no ship-specific emblems in TOS, it was rather split by the classification of postings:

Starship (or Heavy Cruiser, if you prefer) (Enterprise, etc.): Cochrane delta
Spaceship (auxiliary craft like the Antares): Lopsided heart with oval
Outpost and Colonies: Sideways oval/fin
Cadets: Silver Flower (as seen on Finnegan)
Starbase: Gold Flower (as seen in "The Menagerie" and elsewhere)
Flag Officer: Bow/Knot (as seen on Commodore Decker)

The weird thing is that the Defiant crew (as seen in "The Tholian Web") wore Cochrane Deltas in TOS, but for ENT in "In a Mirror Darkly" they were given a special emblem (sideways fin). It is speculated that the costumer for ENT was operating under the "every ship gets its own emblem" theory.

Video link, or you can read the article that it's based on.

A breakdown of saucer separation mentions in TOS

There were only two, and in both cases it almost sounds like Kirk is referring to ditching just the nacelles, not the entire secondary hull.

I still find it interesting that nobody can quite agree on where the hull separation (if any) exists. I prefer the TNG-style "cobra head" left with the secondary hull to the version where part of the neck stays with the saucer.

"The Apple"-Vaal has rendered the antimatter inert. Kirk seems to think that the Enterprise should ditch the nacelles and escape with impulse engines. Cue obligatory "space is big, really big" quote. I suppose the idea is that Vaal can only affect things in orbit and the Enterprise just needs to escape the operational range to get a message out asking for a rescue (I'd imagine once you leave orbit you can just let the planet move away from you). But in that case you wouldn't want to ditch the warp drive if it can be refueled.

"The Savage Curtain"-Yarnek is affecting the matter/antimatter seal. Kirk orders the nacelles to be jettisoned. This situation is more immediate, warp core breaches are nothing to sneeze at. This seems more like a traditional saucer separation is warranted.

Atomic Abe does reviews of backdoor pilots, so of course he made one for "Assignment: Earth."

I still think it would've made for a cool show, and I still recommend their appearances in the John Byrne comics.

This year's weird candy from Lofty Pursuits is carrot-flavored.

This guy was having trouble getting an artificial carrot flavor to work, so he actually freeze-dried real carrots into powder to mix with the hot sugar.

Not really a link but I had to share this. I’ve seen my fair share of misspellings on Reddit, but this one takes the cake. I get that Nerys might be hard to remember for the casual fan, but “Norise” is laughably bad.

Certifiably Ingame tackles single-nacelle ships.

Apparently in recent years these things have been made official canon. I was never a fan. I still abide by the original Roddenberry rules:

1. Nacelles must be in pairs. (I'm more okay with third nacelles than single nacelles, but I feel that the Galaxy-X class could've done it better).
2. Nacelles must have at least 50% line of sight to each other. (There's a screed to be had here about Voyager and Defiant, but that's a story for another day).
3. Nacelles have can't be blocked from the front. (You need an adequate operational angle for the Bussard collectors, after all).
4. The bridge has to be at the top center of the primary hull. (For dramatic purposes if nothing else, remember that even the battle bridge follows this logic when the ship is separated).

The rule that has been violated most often in canon is the line of sight rule. The rule that seems to be exploited most often is the bridge on the top center, which allows for different bridge modules (most often seen in the TOS movies).

Ex Astris Scientia has an entry specifically bashing the Galaxy-X class, be sure to read it.

I've mentioned ViHart in passing before, but it's time for her to get a proper schilling.

She's a YouTuber who does stuff with math that nobody else does, usually through drawing cute little drawings. In particular she tackles pi vs. tau and how to use everyday objects to demonstrate mathematical ideas.

Turning candy button strips into Mobius Loops to make eating them more efficient.

A sillyband fight that has nothing to do with math. Sillybands were a fad back in the nineties, rubber bands that were deliberately made to be shaped like objects and not just circles. Stay tuned for the Hitchhiker's reference.

Playing with those jointed plastic snakes that you buy at the arcade with tickets.

Playing with Dragon Curves

Last month was the 25th anniversary of Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time!

David Erick Ramos' 10th Anniversary video. I saw this when it came out 15 years ago (it seems like a different lifetime). David does a lot of ocarina videos, both playing and reviewing the many ocarinas in his collection.

David Erick Ramos plays OOT music:
Title theme

Kokiri Forest (combined with Lost Woods from A Link to the Past)
Shop Theme
Zelda's Lullaby

Studi Ghibli-inspired fan film.

The Return of Ganondorf, a fun film that I used to watch all the time on Newgrounds.

Robin Williams commercial for OOT 3D

Medley by the Guitar Brothers.

OOT medley from Smash Brothers Ultimate

Something about Ocarina of Time. Think of it as a fan animated abridged series of sorts.

Ocarina of Time With Lyrics. If you're not subscribed to Brentalfloss yet you're really missing out.

Parody from Powerpuff Girls.

Lindsey Stirling does a Link cosplay and plays a violin medley. Lindsey is someone else you should be subscribed to, here's my favorite Christmas video from her as long as we're in the festive season.-

Life with Navi. I think I also saw this one on Newgrounds first.

An April Fool's movie trailer for a fake OOT movie. It's sad to think that the real movie won't be as faithful as this.

It's been four years since I schilled Pocket83.

He's mad that his favorite brand of pencils are now garbage.


While I'm not obsessed with pencil quality (although I do prefer 100% wood shafts to this pseudo-plastic nonsense they use these days), I can respect his anger. I've certainly been passionate about much sillier things myself, I am not one to judge.

I may have posted about John C. Worsley's Trek music videos before, but I can't seem to find it. Anyway, he likes to do a Christmas-themed one each year:

Santa, When the Claus Fell
You're a Mean One, Mr. Spock
All I Want For Christmas is Q
Wonderful Deep Space Nine
Tuvok, the Vessel's Vulcan
Enterprise Rock (I'll call a Christmas truce with Enterprise)

Other Trek/Christmas filk songs

Make it So
Twelve Days of Star Trek
It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Starfleet
Janeway Pi Rock

And now some miscellaneous Trek/Christmas crossovers (mostly just appropriate Trek clips to a popular Christmas song)

Santa Baby
All I Want For Christmas (if you're not a Janeway/Chakotay shipper I'd stay away from this one)
Let it Snow
Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

Times when Christmas appeared in Trek

Picard's Nexus fantasy
Voyager is now a Christmas tree ornament

I've known about Kate Mulgrew's role as Mrs. Colombo for awhile now. My parents were big fans of Colombo (and a lot of other independent detective shows for that matter, a list would quickly become exhausting).

Well, here are the first ten minutes of the pilot. Seeing a babyfaced Mulgrew wasn't the surprise, seeing René Auberjonois was. I haven't seen him in a beard since his cameos on Frasier!

Wintergatan continues to work on the Marble Machine 3, and this week he visited an antique musical instrument museum to get some inspiration. Or to put it more simply, he's going to build music box tech into the part of the marble machine that reads the music.

What fascinated me was the notion that you could have the music box cylinder move slowly along the axle like a screw to make new pins available to be played.

To celebrate Christmas Disney posted "Once Upon A Studio" on YouTube.


My biggest complaint is that for a 100th anniversary tribute, some of the voice doubles that they found were just awful. And I mean awful.



But fair is fair, I was touched by Elliot pushing Cody like Marahute would do.

So Walmart cashed in on the popularity of the Grinch in a commercial


So yeah, this is offensive.



And I thought that the Singin' in the Rain VW commercial was the worst exploitation possible.

Yeah, that's offensive. Capital One's been running ads with the Grinch too but I don't think they're outright rewriting the book's moral.

If you want a fast way to feel old, here it is.


I scored 4, how about you guys?

So Steamboat Willie is in the Public Domain now


I hadn't watched the whole thing in years. It's not as good as I remembered.

Glynis Johns died today.


I'll skip right past the obvious Mary Poppins links.


The only other Johns movie that I've seen is The Court Jester



The Pellet with the Poison's in the Vessel with the Pestle (Third base!)


How could I forget that she cameoed on Cheers?


Costarring with Jimmy Stewart in "No Highway in the Sky."

Steve Harwell of Smash Mouth died last year, and I just found out.


I can't articulate what Smash Mouth meant to me growing up. I tried, but it was a fairly long and boring screed. Let's just say that I encountered the band's music a handful of times before I tied it all together and became a fan. The band's music represents an important period in my life.

It's always nice to see two of my favorite YouTubers do a crossover

Simon from Cracking the Cryptic explains a Sudoku trick on Numberphile

Saturday Night Live sketch where Patrick Stewart and a bunch of people pretending to be the TNG crew serve on the Love Boat instead.


It must be seen to be disbelieved.

It's been five years since I shilled for James Lileks, but in today's rummage through his archives I found a Star Trek joke.

https://phrontistery.info

Collections of unuusal, obscure, or specialized words.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAer4rDnA6I

Hummingbird pool party!

Junkball gives a retrospective on the USS Jenolen.


Stay until the end for Doohan's Data impression from the Relics audiobook! For some reason he makes Data sound like a TOS android.