Well my oh me! Could it be Wednesday again so soon? Where DOES the time go?

This week, I've got another oldie but goodie, and one which I THINK is obscure enough that it should be new to a sizable enough portion of the population to whom it would be of interest.

There's this fellow on YouTube, you see. And he creates these amazing short videos by creatively editing footage from episodes of Star Trek : The Next Generation into these absurd, minimalist comedies. He has, creatively, entitled this series "The Next Generation", and there are over thirty of them thus far. While they do stand alone well on their own, there are running gags and whatnot which serve to create an overall violation of the sensibilities of anyone who's ever been a fan of the show which is at times quite breathtaking. I present for your consideration what I consider to be perhaps the best set of four episodes by means of demonstration.








So! What have you got this week, dear friends? What entertaining thing, to be found at the click of a mouse, might we enjoy as you have enjoyed it? It is time, ladies and gentlemen, to Share the Wealth!

Sorry about the lateness of this posting; the virus which I spoke of last week ended up being rather more vigorous than I had thought, and I wasn't able to have it entirely expurgated until late on Saturday, and I knew there was no way I would be able to have it up in any reasonable time.

But we return, now, with chapter 14, in which, I fear, Reginald and his crew come off as a trifle unsympathetic in places. But I suppose that's for you, the audience, to decide for yourselves.

And lo! Chapter 12 cometh!

I wish to extend my sincere thanks to Paula West, who responded admirably to my request for a female voice actor some days ago, the first fruits of whose labours can be heard here.

People sometimes ask me how I can get through some of my lines without laughing, and I'm usually rather blase about this; I laugh out loud when I think of the lines in the first place, but usually by the time it comes to actually recording them, I'm familiar enough with them that I'm no longer that effected by them.

This is the first chapter I really had difficulty getting through some of the lines; they were funny enough that I kept on laughing as I was delivering them. Take that for what it's worth.

A bit of historical esoterica here: The Charles Kingsley referenced in this chapter was a real person, though he did not have a seditious brother named Frederick. I learned of this man as I was researching the life and times of King Edward, and knew immediately how I wanted to incorporate him into the story.




( Read the Full Text of Chapter 12 below the Cut )

This one has one odd little moment which I feel is worth commenting on. There's a minor and nameless character who appears around 3/4 of the way through the chapter, and I was working on this at the time that my friend Heather and her friend Jesse were briefly visiting. I asked Jesse if he'd do the voice of this character for me, and he agreed. There was one line, though, which begins "I suppose there's sense in that, sir...", which, even after twenty or so takes, he just COULD NOT NAIL. Each and every time, he inserted the word "a" between "there's" and "sense", eve though I corrected him after each and every take. Finally, I realized that there was simply something mis-wired in his head, and he would never get the line right, even if we did a thousand takes, and left it alone.

True story.

Anyways! I put a ton of work into this one, for reasons which will become clear at around the half-way mark. So, while I always appreciate those two or three people who regularly comment on new chapters, I would LOVE to hear from a couple of the others out there who are listening to and enjoying this work.
( Read the Full Text of Chapter 10 Below the Cut!  )

This chapter contains not only my single favourite line of exposition in the entire series, and the birth of not one, not two, but three of my favourite running gags. Enjoy!
( Read the Full Text of Chapter 9 Below the Cut )

Oh, I have been eagerly awaiting this chapter's release.

It's a longer one than usual - both longer than previous chapters and longer than future ones - because I needed to introduce most of the remaining main cast in this chapter, and I didn't want to give any of them short shrift. There's also, as a consequence, a considerably larger voice cast than usual for this one, including a memorable if brief performance by Reginald's soft-headed trollop of a maid, Pansie, by izuma_yaki , who responded to a post here some time ago in which I cryptically asked for a female voice actor with a british accent.

Anyways, without further ado...

( Read the Full text of chapter 8 below the cut!  )

Yesterday, I saw this cheery little video which really got me thinking: 



Thinking so hard, in fact, that I felt the need to produce a response.

Today's Chapter sees (or perhaps more accurately, hears) the return of lenimonkey as Miss Rita Elliot.

This is something of a defining moment for the story in a couple of ways. First, I just had a tremendous amount of fun writing it, because the bulk of the chapter grew out of a single joke which was just so funny and so bizarre that it not only ended up dominating virtually the entire chapter, it ended up being a character-defining moment for Miss Elliot and Reginald both.

Also, the end of this chapter - specifically around the 8:20 mark - contains perhaps the most outlandish conceit in the entire story so far, which, I feel, more than anything else, makes it plain just what sort of a world we're looking at in this story.

And so, without further ado...



Comments, as always. are appreciated and welcome.

A conversation I had with my friend Ray yesterday - yes, two posts in one day based upon yesterday's conversations; we're talkative guys - recounted in part here, and with me maybe misrepresenting Ray slightly for comedic effect.

I'm sure he understands.

Chapter 6






Download Chapter 6 directly here

Download Chapter 5 directly here

Download Chapter 4 directly here

Download Chapter 3 directly here

Download Chapter 2 directly here

Download Chapter 1 directly here


( Read the Full Text of Chapter 6 Below the Cut! )

Chapter Three begins a brief prologue, of sorts. One might argue that a prologue more properly belongs before the beginning of chapter 1. Such a one fails to grasp the avant-garde nature of what I'm doing here.

Even if you haven't checked out chapters 1 or 2, I would strongly recommend you give this one a whirl. Not only do I consider it the funniest chapter so far, it's also the most technically challenging to have created in Audio-Rama Format. Moreover, it's more purely representative of what the story is like from here on out; where I think I really hit my stride writing it.

And, as always, let me know what you think of the end result.

( Read the full text of chapter 3 below the cut )

Ray: “I’m going to get some utensils to eat with.”

Me: “Because you are a lady, and don’t wish to soil your dainty fingers with chicken flesh.”

Ray: “A really manly and awesome sort of lady!”

Me: “Such as one with a penis?”

Ray: “I was going to say one that likes to fuck other ladies... with her dick.”

Me: “So, a hermaphrodite, then?”

Ray: “That’s right!”

Me: “A hermaphrodite in a tuxedo.”

Ray: “Because of the awesome part, yeah.”

Me: “Well, they say clothes make the man.”

(Edited to add: I should hope that to readers of this journal this would be obvious, but in case it is not, my denigrating his desire to eat with utensils is used in the same sense as I might denigrate one's desire to, for example, wipe one's bum after pooping; which is to say, in order to be completely ridiculous and intentionally moronic. I by no means wanted to offend my fellow males by implying that only a woman, or indeed a tuxedo-wearing hermaphrodite, would ever be so concerned with hygiene and cleanliness. I don't need to be fielding charges of sexism here)

Because a dead horse which has not been beaten is no dead horse at all, I have, for the past couple of months, been working on something for you all, and incidentally, for myself.

Some of you may recall - and some fewer of you may have commented on - my serialized pulp adventure series, "The Curse of the Rhino King". It failed to make the splash that I thought it should, and so I took the pulse of the readership, and came up with a couple of possible reasons why. First: Digestibility. I've touched upon this before, but not everyone is looking to read four pages of text as they skim their friends page. Second: Schedule. Not everyone wants to wait four weeks between chapters. Third: Convenience. Maybe some people would like to be able to take it in in different manners. Fourth: Presentation. It needs a spiffy title graphic.

Therefore, a group of friends and colleagues of mine have been busily working behind the scenes for months now on this project, building up a great and powerful backlog of story for you. The current plan is this: Every Tuesday and Saturday for the foreseeable future, you'll get a new chapter, in text format, in MP3 format (which can be played directly with the touch of a button), and in podcast format, which is to say "download the latest chapter from this link" format, so if you should wish to listen to it later, in an MP3 format, you can do so.

We've put many, many hours of work into this, we have, and I'm quite proud of what we've accomplished creatively. Already, some twenty chapters have been banked, with more on their way. I only ask that you give it a go.

With this having been said, I'm going to begin with the audio version of chapter 2, as the audio version of chapter 1 is already out there. Further chapters will be forthcoming on a regular and predictable schedule. And so, without further ado...

Hey, dickweeds.

It's come to my attention that some of you - you know who you are - don't know how to make eggs good-like. I'm gonna kick the motherfucking shit out of your ignorance, though, and teach you what your parents should have taught you in order to keep you from growing up stupid and bad-egg-cooking.

Hold on to your asses, ass-holders, because I'm gonna teach you how to make some cockpunchingly awesome eggs right the fuck now.

( Keep reading, assholes! )( Keep reading, assholes! )