5MV Update History

maintained by Zeke

JANUARY 2006

January 1

Welcome to 2006, a year I'm very glad to see, mainly because it isn't 2005. I'm currently working on this year's summary article, which will recap the past year at 5M.net and let you know what to expect in the coming one. Meanwhile, Jammer's ENT Season 4 Review is now up. I've found him pretty hard on VOY and ENT over the years, but he's always good reading, so check it out.

January 2

Memo to YouAreDumb.net: YOU ARE TWO.

For those who missed previous newsposts on the subject, YAD is a daily opinion site I'm fond of. The concept ("I hate this and this and this") isn't unique, but the execution is, and the humour keeps me coming back even though I'm in several of Bryan's favourite target groups. Anyway, YAD just hit its second birthday (December 31, to be exact), and I've decided to mark the occasion with a merging of his and my running jokes. Here's The Top 10 Signs That Your Girlfriend is DUMB. Call it a "We Disagree a Lot But Here's a Waffle Iron Anyway" present.

(Be warned that the above list will make no sense to a non-reader of YAD. I know at least three 5M.net regulars do go there, though, so it won't be totally wasted.)

There won't be an update tomorrow -- I'll be on my way back to Waterloo. For Wednesday I hope to have the 2005 recap article done, and that'll let you know what's coming up.

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January 5

The summary article is done, so for the lowdown on where this site is going, read 2006: Analogy Two. (That's a reference to the title of last year's article, which, if I may say so, was one of my best titles ever.) There will be near-immediate followup on what I'm talking about here, but a couple of other updates will come first, such as the missing Smallville fiver and at least one of the "presents" I alluded to on December 20.

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January 7

One thing I'm determined to do in the coming months is clear out the backlog of submissions. It stretches back farther than you would believe. That work begins today with the first guest fiver to come through Derek's new automated submission system for 5MD: "Dax," by newcomer ceedj. (This isn't the oldest one by a long shot, but going in order would be pretty much impossible.) Enjoy!

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January 9

So you like DS9 fivers, do ya? You'd better, because we've got more. Next up is "Captive Pursuit" by Nate the Great. You may know him by his forum monicker, Infinite Improbability. Nate is a 5MVer from way back -- he's had two fivers published at this site and many more at Five-Minute Stargate. This is his first submission in a while, so welcome back, Nate.

(On a related note, I can finally appreciate his fiver for Ocarina of Time now that I've played the game -- which is, incidentally, one of the best ever made. My thanks to IJD for relentlessly nagging me to play it.)

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January 11

Hmm... it seems I have an even-numbered-day curse to break. Anyway, as promised, here's Derek's last remaining unpublished Smallville fiver: "Sacred." Smallville is returning shortly with new episodes, for which Derek's fivers will finally start being published on time. (Honest!) By the way, the show is also about to hit a milestone: its 100th episode. That's an achievement worthy of respect for any show, especially in this genre. Congrats to cast, crew, and Krypto.

January 11 Supplemental

WOO! 600,000 hits, baby!

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January 12

This isn't the promised About section overhaul, but it's a start: Derek has updated the 5MD FAQ and written a 5MSV FAQ. This is the first -- and definitely not the last -- update to integrate Derek's new fiver submission system.

(PS: Suck it, even-numbered days!)

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January 13

Here's Derek's fiver for last night's new Smallville episode, "Fanatic." Derek's a quick one, ain't he? For that matter, so's Jonathan Kent -- he just had his first assassination attempt and he's not even in office yet.

But that's not all for today. Remember the three long-awaited things I was going to be doing for the 5M.net community? The first one just landed. Since time immemorial, goofy member titles bestowed at my whim have been the most popular feature of the Five-Minute Forums. They've been gone since I wiped the forum software a while back; I always intended to restore them, but they're not a built-in feature of phpBB, and I wanted to be extra-careful with mods this time around. Now the wait is over! The title mod is back to stay, and members can look forward to plenty of gratuitous randomness in the days to come.

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January 14

After that last post, I got a little mod-happy and added a lot more stuff to the forums. You'll find a summary here.

And another thing! Today is the birthday of MmeBlueberry, aka Amanda Dean, wife of Derek Dean and fivist in her own right. (And the forum tells you so now!) Amanda won the affection of the whole staff last year by embroidering our avatars as Christmas ornaments -- I'll have to upload a picture sometime. Many happy returns, Madame.

January 15

Today I did some more modding at the forums -- the thread linked in yesterday's newspost will fill you in if you're interested. I know not everybody who comes here is a forumgoer, so I'm done with mod updates for now. However, I'm not done with those three presents for the community... speaking of which, it makes sense to give three gifts around Epiphany rather than Christmas anyway, doesn't it?

Meanwhile, we've got another 5M.net birthday to celebrate. Today it's Gatac's turn. Now Gatac is fond of many things, but perhaps none more than the movie Equilibrium. So happy birthday, Gatac -- have a The Top 10 Ways Grammaton Clerics Kill Time.

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January 17

Just a micro-update today. Derek did in fact have a picture of those embroidered 5MV ornaments, so you can now see them for yourself.

Tomorrow? Macro-update.

January 18

The macro-update will have to wait another day, because today I suddenly found the courage to do something else, and I couldn't let the opportunity pass.

That's right: I watched The Ring 2. The unrated version. All the way through. Without chickening out.

I AM THE MAN!

Look, if you were as terrified of Samara as I am, you'd be proud too. Anyway, this means you can expect the overdue Ring 2 fiver shortly; I had a lot of it planned already, but didn't want to actually write it without having seen the movie. (For one thing, none of my sources covered the unrated version's extra scenes.) As for the macro-update -- which, not to be too coy, I'll tell you is community present number 2 -- tomorrow should still be a go.

By the way, great hitcounts lately. Let's keep 'em rising!

January 21

Here's Derek's latest Smallville fiver, "Lockdown." Next week is the big 100th episode, Kryptonian Nazis and all, so don't miss it.

(Sorry the macro-update's still not done. Lousy couple of days. Fortunately, tomorrow is the perfect day for it.)

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January 25

Yes, you read that colour code correctly. Today is the first Five-Minute Andromeda update in more than 3 years!

Tarn-Vedra is one of the "youngest" members of the 5M.net community, but since his arrival in summer '04, he's definitely made his presence felt. In particular, he doubled our big-Andromeda-fan population (hi, Arzosah!). So it was no surprise when he asked to write a guest fiver for 5MA. He did, and it was great, but I held it back -- I figured this was the perfect opportunity to start working toward a relaunch of the subsite. Typically, I never got that moving... so Vedra has had to wait over a year to see this published.

Well, no more. For your reading enjoyment, here's "All Great Neptune's Ocean" -- the first of hopefully many fivers from Tarn-Vedra.

(Note on the macro-update, a.k.a. second community present: I swear to God it exists. Current ETA is Friday, since I have something time-sensitive for tomorrow.)

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January 28

Smallville's 100th episode, "Reckoning," has passed -- taking a much-loved character with it -- and so has Derek's fiver. But that's not all. Considering the significance of these events, I felt they merited a little something extra. I really wanted to get this out before the episode aired, but better late than never. Here's TJI #46: Smallville to kill Lois Lane.

Don't touch that dial -- because tomorrow, THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY.

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January 31

The second community present, aka macro-update, is here... and I didn't call it that for nothing. Find something to hold onto, ladies and gents, because TJI just hit the big 47 -- and the eTrektion is back.

For the uninitiated, back in '04 I started This Just In's second multipart storyline. (The first was the Zuke saga, chronicled in issues 13, 19, and 20.) I'd been toying with some "X becomes new executive producer of Star Trek" ideas, and it occurred to me I could do them all at once. Two things happened that I didn't expect: one, the name "eTrektion" stuck; and two, several readers asked if they could run. Before I could control it, half the forumgoers were declaring their candidacy. Deciding not to fight a big surge in reader interest, I wrote the new candidates into the storyline (with the understanding that this is a story, not a real election -- I haven't even revealed who the voters are).

Then I dropped the ball, and I don't really know why. What I do know is that when you drop a ball, every day it gets harder to pick up. (I may possibly be straining the metaphor.) And so I haven't done anything with the eTrektion since September of last year. But the various "parties" are still around and have kept campaigning in their sigs, waiting for... well, this.

So read the article. Check out the eTrektion page, a work in progress. Bone up on the past articles if you need to, and stay tuned for more.

(Oh, and see if you can spot the hint to the final community present.)

Up next: Doctor Who!

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