If you enjoy this post, please retweet it.
I don’t like discussing sports here. I keep that on another blog for that, even though I don’t really blog there anymore. However, this blog is certainly a place for goofy Caturday fare, and I do like to point out that this meme will never die, so here you go.
Not nerdy enough? How about this one?
Smudge is my spirit animal.
Follow me on Twitter at @gsllc
If you enjoy this post, please retweet it.
Just like yesterday, I’ve still got nothing. Look, work’s been tough lately, so here are a couple more silly MCU memes.
Is this one better?
I’d be cool with Hemsworth doing this well into his 80s.
Follow me on Twitter at @gsllc
Follow Party Nerdz @Partynerdz
If you enjoy this post, please retweet it.
I’ve been getting crushed at work recently. Today is the first weekday I’ve gotten to the gym since Wednesday of last week, and it’s also the first day since Monday of last week that I didn’t stay a couple extra hours. So with no time even to think of something to write, let alone actually put it to digital ink, here’s a silly meme for you.
It isn’t even that funny. Dammit.
As I said, I’ve got nothing.
Follow me on Twitter at @gsllc
If you enjoy this post, please retweet it.
I’ve never been a fan of Star Trek: Voyager. It’s Star Trek, so it can’t be all bad, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s the weakest entry in the franchise. Star Trek used to be a morality play first, and bells and whistles second. Some of the later series have lost sight of that at times, and so have some fans, which is they’re loss as far as I’m concerned. However, I recently rediscovered season 2, episode 24, Tuvix, and it may very well be the most Star Trek of Star Trek episodes ever.
Spoilers ahead.
I’m assuming that the reader knows something about the series, though you need not know the series to understand the moral dilemma in play. Tuvok and Neelix are merged into a single person due to a transporter mishap. The resulting person, who calls himself, Tuvix, is initially more than willing to have himself separated, but the technology wasn’t there at the time. Two weeks (or so) later, Harry and the Doctor figure out how to do it, but by that point Tuvix has changed his mind (minds?). When Tuvix is told that there’s a “solution” to his “problem,” he essentially responds that he doesn’t want to be executed, and at one point refers to it as murder. He’s developed friendships and has smoothly resumed his professional responsibilities as tactical officer while occasionally cooking for the crew. In fact, there’s a synergy. It’s clear that he’s a better tactical officer and chef then he was before (though one might expect that he can’t do the work of two men).
Seriously, these are the spoilers.
Nevertheless, when Janeway makes the decision to separate him back into Tuvok and Neelix, the major players in the show: Paris, Chakotay, Kes, and Harry are all in agreement. There’s a logic to that sentiment; you can’t replace a relationship years in the making with a new guy who showed up two weeks ago. However, that doesn’t remove the underlying moral dilemma.
My personal view is that the separation was appropriate. Tuvix defended his right to live in part by arguing that Tuvok and Neelix were still alive in a sense by existing within him. That one fell on deaf ears for me, as you could turn that argument around on him. Once separated, Tuvix would exist in the same sense within the reformed Tuvok and Neelix. I think what puts me over the edge is that I feel like we’re choosing two lives over one, as Tuvok and Neelix still exist in my view. They’re essentially in prison.
But you can’t ignore the fact that Tuvix is, in all ways that we understand, a unique person with his own thoughts, feelings, and relationships, no less a person perhaps than a so-called “test tube baby,” but certainly as much as an android like Data, a life form created by technology rather than biology. Even within two weeks, he’s grown as a personality. Whether or not you think he should have been separated, this decision shouldn’t be easy. I was disappointed with how happy everyone (except Janeway and the Doctor) seemed to be when the separation was complete. To my knowledge, this episode was never brought up again later in the series. That’s a shame. I wish that a later episode of Voyager had required Janeway to reexamine her decision, perhaps giving her an analogous scenario where she went in the opposite direction. The fact that it didn’t is yet more reason to view the writing in Voyager as the weakest link in the franchise.
Tuvix is currently available to stream on Paramount+, Netflix, and Hulu (at least in the United States). Give it a watch.
Follow me on Twitter @gsllc
Follow Paramount+ @paramountplus
Follow Star Trek on Paramount+ @StarTrekOnPPlus
Follow Netflix @netflix
Follow Hulu @hulu
Follow Star Trek @StarTrek
If you enjoy this post, please retweet it.
Well, it’s Tuesday, so my second Facebook suspension is winding down. During this “one-day became three-day became four-day” suspension, I was unable to manage my charitable fundraiser for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, all because Facebook is afraid of people having opinions (though my expressed opinion was clearly a joke).
I see no reason to delete my Facebook account, because I’m still able to communicate with people via Messenger. After all, the whole point of social media isn’t to solve the world’s sociopolitical problems, but rather to connect. And share cat memes. However, I’m quickly shifting my focus to MeWe. My profile can be found here: https://mewe.com/i/robertbodine1. The problem with MeWe is that it’s not very good for building networks, which, again, is the point of its existence. The only way to find people is to know they’re there. So please, if you’re considering an alternative to Facebook, give MeWe a try, and invite as many people as you can to do the same. I suspect it’s only a matter of time before Facebook runs afoul of antitrust law. You may find yourself making a change eventually.
Facebook should be ashamed of itself, but it isn’t.
Follow me on Twitter @gsllc
If you enjoy this post, please retweet it.
This image hit my Facebook stream last Saturday.
Of course, I had to do some research to make sure it wasn’t a photoshop. It’s real and located in Lancashire, England. As soon as I saw it, it reminded me of a a guilty pleasure of mine, Reign of Fire, which took place in London. According to Rotten Tomatoes, neither the critics nor audience liked it, though Metacritic users liked it. I was disappointed that the article to which I linked didn’t mention Reign of Fire, instead stating, it looked “like a scene out of Indiana Jones or a J.R.R. Tolkien novel,” but I’m not surprised. What’s really interesting about it is that it’s an optical illusion, or at least a trick of the camera lens. It’s actually a flat surface.
Still a cool thing.
Follow me on Twitter @gsllc
If you enjoy this post, please retweet it.
Going forward, Sundays are lazy days for me. I either post something silly or other people’s work. Usually both. Today, I introduce you to a superhero that could be the best yet.
Let the bidding war begin, Marvel and DC!!!
Follow me on Twitter at @gsllc
If you enjoy this post, please retweet it.
Less than an hour ago, I deleted a post from this Twitter account. It’s my daily, automated paper, and because this account is meant to be fun and/or silly, I use every filter at my disposal to make sure nothing too serious appears in that paper. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always work, and today’s paper included articles I simply didn’t want appearing on this stream. That said . . . .
I have to share this bullshit. I just got this message from Facebook.
This is clearly a joke, I can’t imagine why they would even hide the post, let alone give me a 24-hour ban (UPDATE: 3 days now, including my birthday). Ironically, I received this ban on the day I received my first vaccine shot.
Let me remind you of the problem with Facebook, et al. In the old days, the ordinary citizen’s standard means of political discourse was to stand in the middle of town square, get on a soap box, and bitch. Such acts would result in counterarguments from the crowd, but even more importantly the bystanders got to listen and form opinions somewhere in the middle of the lunatics. Because town square is public property, the Free Speech clause protected such discourse. Now the ordinary citizen’s standard is to use social media, and it’s what everyone relies upon for such discourse. The problem is that social media platforms are private property, and even clear jokes can be censored legally. Speech is going to be chilled at a time when we need reasonable discussion — and a sense of humor — the most. Our only recourse will be antitrust law, and Twitter has certainly flirted with that in the Parler case (see the section entitled This Isn’t the End of the World, but It’s No Small Matter), but it’s going to be a long time before that dust settles and the common person’s everyday speech will once again be free.
UPDATE!!!! Facebook has decided to extend my suspension to three days, which means I won’t be able to thank anyone for all the birthday wishes I’m sure to receive on Monday. If you’re reading this, thanks in advance. Also, my MeWe profile is at https://mewe.com/i/robertbodine1. Just sayin’. No reason.
Side note: I tried to use the back door that used to work but apparently no longer does. I posted to Instagram, which shares to Facebook automatically. Unfortunately, my post violated community standards over there. I’m going to try again but with a picture of a kitten. We’ll see what happens.
Facebook should be ashamed of itself, but it isn’t.
Follow me on Twitter @gsllc
If you enjoy this post, please retweet it.
I’m sure she’s fine.
Cats have plausible deniability.
Follow me on Twitter at @gsllc
If you enjoy this post, please retweet it.
Well, time for my second mean post in about a month.
I unfriended someone on Facebook last weekend. He kept coming onto my posts and ruining jokes by asking dumb questions, explaining the joke, or trying to change the joke’s premise so he could leapfrog off my sense of humor. That’s literally the only thing for which I have no tolerance. I don’t care if you make differing, or even objectively stupid, sociopolitical statements. People are doing the best they can in a complex world with little time on their hands to properly research. Talking with each other helps us learn (if we’re open to it). But there’s no excuse for ruining a joke. We’re all just trying to have fun, and ruining a joke kills that fun. There’s a science to comedy, but this is intended to be a short, simple, and one-sided analysis, focusing on common audience errors. Let’s start with a very basic, if antiquated, joke.
The Joke: A horse walks into a bar. Bartender asks, “Why the long face?”
Asking Dumb Questions
Do not respond: “How did the horse fit through the front door? Why didn’t they throw it out? Why did the bartender try to speak with a horse? Horses don’t speak.”
None of these questions are relevant. You shouldn’t care how we got to this point. Just roll with the joke.
Explaining the Joke
Do not respond: “That’s because horses have long faces, but having a long face is a way of saying someone is sad, and so the bartender thinks the horse is sad, but it’s really just a pun, and ….”
Explaining the joke is just your insecure way of telling everyone you were clever enough to get the joke. No one’s impressed, but they’re usually disappointed. Explaining a joke ruins it. Everyone stops in their tracks and doesn’t have anywhere else to go.
Subverting the Premise
Do not respond: “But the horse didn’t have a long face. He had a short face, which is funny because horses don’t have short faces.”
It’s okay to continue the joke with a chain of responses that build on it. That can be very useful because the initial telling of the joke shouldn’t ramble on too much. Sometimes the original joke must leave out some funny stuff because you don’t want to say too much, especially if it results in internal conflict within the joke. However, what this response does is completely changes the premise, which invalidates everything that came before it in the chain. Even if the chain at that point consists of only the original joke, invalidating it removes the humor, making your task of replacing that humor insurmountable. In other words, whatever you say will probably fail anyway because you’ve killed the vibe. If you don’t like the premise of the joke or legitimately think you can do better with your own, walk away and post your own joke on your wall. However, if you don’t understand why your redirection is going to running the original joke, don’t be surprised if what you think is funny turns out not to be.
None of these responses make you funny, and all of them ruin the joke. I know you want to be a part of something, but sometimes you’re just a spectator. Try to be satisfied by the fact that you got a good laugh. Even remarkably funny people know when to sit one out.
Bonus Point #1: The Geneva Convention
Much like the “horse in a bar” joke above, it’s never funny to say, “That line was so horrible it’s a violation of the Geneva Convention.” Some lines, even if they’re still somehow relevant decades after their creation, have worn themselves out. Unfortunately, that’s something you sometimes must learn through trial and error. It’s okay to bomb, but don’t go running in circles through known minefields.
Bonus Point #2: In-person Jokes
I was with some friends before the pandemic. I told them two of my favorite jokes, but one of them required a set up. I asked a friend a question, but because he knew he was about to be the butt of the joke, he refused to answer, bringing the entire joke to a standstill. Because everyone knew the joke was coming, it was already going to be a tough sell, but by refusing to answer and forcing me to turn to a less insecure friend and repeat the question made it even tougher to get a good laugh.
Don’t do that either. For Shatner’s sake, just roll with it.
I am a comedy god!
Follow me on Twitter @gsllc
Stories and photos from Scotland
Don't Take This Too Seriously. I Don't.
An Ennie Nominated D&D Blog & Podcast. Home of tutorials, advice, and downloads for new DM's
No rules but my own.
The Official Blog of Obsidian Portal
A site about all things bound up within me.
Play What You Want 