What I got for Christmas:

-Transformers Animated Optimus Prime.
-Xbox 360 controller charger and rechargeable battery pack.
-An assortment of cheeses.
-A cheese platter.
-Shiraz.
-Robot Chicken Season 3.
-The last existing copy of my short story, "Heads," as published in "The Claremont Review."
-Chocolates.
-Hot chocolate.
-Bathroom accesories.
-An electronic football game.
-"Mystery Case Files Millionheir" for the Nintendo DS.
-A long sleeved shirt.
-A short sleeved button shirt.
-Pyjama pants.
-Socks.
-Winter gloves.
-Cash.
-American Eagle cologne for men.
-American Eagle boxers.
I'm probably forgetting a lot, but that's the jist of it.
Robot Chicken: Season ThreeMystery Case Files: MillionHeir

King of Nerds

 

Okay, so I've posted a comment over at toplessrobot.com on the subject of most glaring lack of technology in science-fiction. My entry was this:

Strangeman said:

I'd have to say it's the near total lack of seatbelts in the entirety of the Star Trek Universe. At least every episode there's a battle scene where everyone gets thrown from their chairs, sometimes to their own deaths. So every time there's a red alert, everyone has to go to their battle stations. What these stations don't include, however, are seatbelts. So here you are, a human pinball in front of a hard, unforgiving computer terminal that for whatever reason is powered by dynamite that'll explode at the smallest impact, and you have no safety aparatus whatsoever. Why? Would it have cost too much to instal them? You could go to the replicator and make your own, but then Worf or someone would come by and throw you in the brig for violating ship rules.
And what about Worf? He doesn't even get a chair. There he is, at the back of the proverbial bus, and there's no chair. So he's on his feet pretty much 24/7 staring at the back of Picard's chrome dome, while there's a tireless android up front, sitting in a chair. Is it because he black/Kligon? I think so.
I could just imagine someone like Wesley Crusher trying to pitch the idea of seatbelts to the Captain, and being shot down.
Wesley: "Think of all the lives they'd save!"
Picard: "Ridiculous! How would we ever get out?" Picard would reply.
Wesley: "Well, they have buckles on them that... unbuckle."
Picard: "Wesley, just because I'm trying to nail your mother doesn't mean I'm going to put up with your shit."
Mr.Belvedere: "Oh Wesley." *laugh track*

Posted 12/19/2008 at 12:35:53 PM

Now: I'm dealing with nerds here, so of course I expect a rebuteal. I've prepared for it in fact within my comment. This is one of the many comments I receive in response:

Lizana said:

Yes, seat belts in star trek... oh wait they do exist, they were added in in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. And the idea behind seat belts isnt needed unless your on a battle cruiser. Normally, inertial dampaners work so well that you would never need any sort of seat belt or restraint. However, the computers that run them have a slight delay. As long as you are doing something that is programmed into the computer ahead of time, like a predetermined course, even the most complex of turns can be compensated for. However, in battle, you literally have to take the wheel, and moves can't be predetermined, so the ship shakes and people fall over. And, of course, you can't predict getting hit by a photon torpedo. Now, normally you wouldn't be getting into a firefight every freakin' week, so there's no reason to worry about restraints Installing seat belts in a star ship would be like asking you to wear a helmet when your driving your car. Could save lives but still a stupid idea

Posted 12/21/2008 at 11:23:02 AM

Now: read back to my comment about seatbelts. Notice how I say, "near total lack," "NEAR." Why did I write this? Because first I'm certain at some point there was a seatbelt in Star Trek. In one of the movies, most likely. Kirk tries to get the seatbelt strapped around his waist and finally gives up because he's too damn fat. I don't have the time to go back through every TV show, movie, and novel to find a reference. Other people do, however, and they will call me on it.

So these people have the time, the energy, and the focus to find a split-second reference in a over a hundred hours of TV episodes, even if it's just the reflection in Odo's glass as he takes a drink at Quark's. What they can't find, however, is a word I so cleverly inserted into the first line of my sentence. It's not like it's on page fifty in the margin. No, it's in my, "Call me Ishmael," line.

While they argue that seatbelts are completely unnecessary, because of all the technology involved, they fail to mention that this technology is precisely why seatbelts are needed, because EVERY episode, someone goes flying across the floor because all the future technology crapped out on them. I'll say EVERY episode of EVERY Star Trek series, even though I know it to be false because that's how often it happens.

Imagine this: you're a classically trained Shakespearean actor. You've given up on your dreams and you're in a Star Trek series. Every day, you have to come in, and pretend that you're in a giant space ship and that the floor is moving violently beneath your feet. Every day, more than once, because you failed the first take. Patrick Stewart didn't overact his imaginary fall, so you have to shoot it again.

Or you're an extra. You're wearing a red shirt. You're sitting in front of computer terminal. It explodes, because a photon torpedo hit the ship, five hundred feet from where you're sitting. The computer terminal is not connected to this part of the ship in any way, and there's layer upon layer of sturdy, reliable space metal in between you and this explosion. You go flying like you're a leaf in a tornado.

This is what life is like in Star Trek.

I want to be the Ralph Nader of the future. I want to be the one to say, "Hey, people are getting hurt. Put some seatbelts on those chairs, and quit filling the computer screens with nitro glycerin."

FLASH!

LiveJournal Tags: comics,Flash

Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun. FLASH! AHAHA! You saved the whole universe!

I was reading the old, old, old, old, old Flash Comics issue one, published in January 1940, featuring the origin of the Flash. Not THE Flash, mind you, but Jay Garrick, the original Flash who inspired the 1960's red costumed Flash, Barry Allen, who's only recently returned to comics. I mention this because I realized that the Flash has the most awesome origin story ever conceived of by man. He gets his powers... by having a cigarette. That's right, by smoking a cigarette. He pauses to light a smoke, and while leaning back knocks over some vials of hard water, thus granting him super-speed. Thus we have proof positive that smoking is good for you.

Here's an excerpt:

 

So there he is: a horny college student thinking about his cock-teasing 1940s girlfriend as he takes a long drag and BOOM! superpowers.

Awesome.

I also realized as I kept reading, that this issue includes the first appearances of two of Justice Society of America superheroes: Johnny Thunder and Hawkman. All this for ten cents, which in 1940s money is $10,000.000.000.

Your Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man

The problem with fantasy is not the glaring plot-holes, or huge leaps in logic, it's the tiny, insignificant details that fanboys obsess over. Take for instance: Spider-Man's web-shooters. Spider-Man is bitten by a radioactive spider, thus gaining super-powers and not dying from a combination of radiation/spider-venom poisoning. His powers do not include, however, the ability to spin webs like a spider. Why? Who knows. Perhaps being able to shoot webs out of your wrists was considered too silly by creator Stan Lee, but I highly doubt that of the man. Instead, Stan Lee decided to focus on the science-minded aspect of his character, Peter Parker, and had him invent his own web-shooters, presumably from everyday items and his chemistry set. It's fairly far-fetched but then again it's basically just silly-string. It's certainly not as odd-ball as an ordinary spider becoming so completely radioactive after a split-second burst of radiation during a scientific demonstration which is supposedly so safe that people are able to watch up close without any kind of protective gear or equipment that it's able to pass on all of it's D.N.A. to a human being who mutates only enough to inherit the positive aspects of being a spider without growing eye-clusters, extra legs, etc.. In a sense, web-slinging was the key idea for Spider-Man, and the whole relative strength of a spider was just tagged on after, just like Wolverine was a Canadian with claws before they tacked on the mutant healing powers. It's what people take the most away from him. Without that, he's just a guy who sticks to walls like a human booger.

So dirt-poor Peter Parker creates these fabulous devices that can shoot steel-strong, sticky webs a ridiculously long distance for next to nothing cost-wise, and he proceeds to try and make money as a professional wrestler instead of marketing the web-shooters. It never occurs to him when he's trying to buy a car, or else trying to scrape together some extra money so Aunt May can pay the bills to go over to his friend, Mr.Fantastic, or Iron Man and say, "Look, I've got this invention and I want to try to sell it." Instead, he spends the rest of his life scrapping with thugs who kill his girlfriends and working for a man he hates without any kind of promise of a permanent position.

The web-shooters are the ultimate non-lethal weapon. Some crook trying to make a break for it? Web him. Someone pulls a knife on you? Web him. Helicopter about to crash into the World Trade Centre (pre-9/11 Spider-Man movie trailer reference bonanza!). Web it.

When the Spider-Man movie came out they tweaked it so Spidey now has organic web shooters, which are far more disgusting. That's bodily fluids sticking to the Green Goblin's mask like Japanese Bukkake. If I was Norman Osbourne, I'd kill his girlfriend too. Ever wonder why Spider-Man has so many people with grudges against him? That's why.The comics followed likewise with very little in the way of explanation. Previously, with the black costume Spider-Man, he was able to spin webs organically, although it was the costume doing the work.

There's so much B.S. involved in the Spider-Man origin story, even in the reworked genetically altered spider version, that none of it makes sense. Changing the fact that Spider-Man no longer invents the web-shooters does not make more sense. It's just like in the first Hulk movie where they say that his dad tinkers with his genetic makeup before nanobots and gamma radiation fucks him up more somehow is more palatable than saying he got hit by an experimental bomb that fucked up his D.N.A..

Star Wars is the ultimate source of this fanboy wrath, with people arguing over who shot first, or if a parsec is a unit of time or measurement, that they completely ignore the fact that everything in the movie is a complete bullshit lie perpetrated by a deranged madman. Much of the first three movies were spent explaining minor plot points in the last three movies, effectively wasting precious time and further convoluting every point of contention. Minichlorians. Need I say more?

So why do we do it? Why are people so taken in by the illusion of the illusion that they have to start poking holes into thin air? There's no arguments you can make to make everything seem more real. The answer to any question you might have about the work is that the creator was a complete hack.

Humans are naturally curious creatures, so obviously we want to know how things work, even when we know that logically they cannot. That's why there's books mapping out the blueprints for the Starship Enterprise. It's like putting together a model kit that doesn't look like anything when it's done.

LiveJournal Tags: Spider-Man,fanboy,fantasy

Quarter-Life

So I've gone back and I'm playing more of Half-Life II, and I've come to the conclusion that the weapon which would be more useful than the gravity gun is a metal spike on your face. If you had this, half of your problems would go bye-bye in regards to walking Thanksgiving Dinners trying to latch onto your skull.

Figger!

So they had a special weekend with GTA IV online-multiplayer where you could compete against the game's designers at Rockstar, so I decided to jump on. Of course, I'm immediately assailed by racial slurs through my headset, which isn't surprising in the least. Quite frankly, at this point, I'd be more surprised if people were polite and friendly, like Canadians. When I say, "immediately," I mean before the screen has even finished loading. During that five second interval, I heard the words, "faggot," and "nigger" at least twice apiece.

Considering that the game contain swearing at least once every sentence no matter what the situation, it's no surprise that this trend is carried over. I play GTA with younger people in the room, but during this time all I do is drive from point A to B, and perhaps try bowling. Good, clean, wholesome fun in a game that is designed to give into a pre-teen's violent hormonal daydreams. I have to do this with the volume on mute, however, because even if you're standing still, pedestrians will walk by and swear at you. If you walk out on the street and get clipped by a car, Niko Belic will exclaim, "Shit!" If a car slams on it's brakes to avoid hitting you as just mentioned, Niko will shout, "Fuck you!" at the driver, in his Commie accent. The writing is really stellar in this regard.

Here's the breakdown of every conversation in the game.

Character A: "How are things going?"

Character B: "How the fuck do you think things are going? My life is shit." (Character will continue to bitch for several minutes, then engage in off-screen sex).

So after playing this crap for thirty plus hours, of course a person is going to repeat it during a multiplayer session. Only, even if it's their first time picking up the controller, they're still going to act this way, because there's only two people who play this game: wiggers and rednecks. Sometimes these people cross both lines and start rapping about how they hate niggers. I call these people wignecks.

Ever mistakenly walk into McDonalds, and its filled with teenaged boys in printed hoodies (Michael Jackson calls this Heaven), and you realize that you've come during their high school lunch break. That's what GTA IV online is like.

In an effort to expand these people's dialogue, and to make things easier, I would suggest the creation of a new word, "figger." It's faggot and nigger combined into one. Think of how much time they'll save. So when that teenage geek starts singing some American Idol song in a falseto voice until you have to decipher how to permanently block/boot them while getting shot at using the clumsy control system and text that's too small to read even in HD, all you have to do is call them a, "Figger," and that's that.

I wanted to find the Rockstar players and congratulate them on a game populated by some of the biggest fuckwads the planet knows, but then I'd have to play an entire match without getting booted or dropped seconds before the timer runs out and I gain actual credit for the kills I've ranked up during the last 30 minutes.

LiveJournal Tags: GTA IV,online,multiplayer,racism

My Mind is a Fucked up Place.

I've been having a number of weird dreams lately that I attribute to waking up early, running some chores, and then going back to bed for a few hours.
It began a few days ago, before the weekend, when I was dreaming I was working on a cargo ship trying to transport a mysterious blue living goo that could transform into any shape. The Autobots and Decepticons wanted it, because to them energon is like cocaine, but this stuff was their crack. After their epic battle ended, we returned our shipment to the government officials who wanted it secured. Only, they had been taken over by aliens and two of our crew mates had sold us out to them, knowing this. The aliens creatures attacked us, and began devouring our cargo. They ripped off one woman's head and regurgitated the goo on her bloody stump of a neck, which became a new head oddly remeniscent of the cyclopian O.M.A.C.s from DC comics.
Then I dreamt I was watching a download of the Justice League of America movie, which as of yet does not exist. It starred Jim Carey as the Flash (Barry Allen) complete with red hair. Carey looked much older, and his rubber face was all crinkly. For some reason, he was a perfect fit. The Flash is more a comic character than a serious one, so why not have a comic actor portray him, and Carey's scrawny enough to fit in those red tights. The Flash was helping local police investigate a supernatural phenomenon surrounding a beached submarine off the coast. A time wall was surrounding the submarine, that froze whatever came near it. The Flash acted like he was completely familiar with the phenomenon, like a mechanic telling you that you need a new muffler. He immediately attributed it to Mr.Freeze.
Later, after I woke up, I wondered why Flash's own freeze ray-themed villain Captain Cold wasn't the culprit, but it was a dream about a Hollywood movie about a comic book, so shit's bound to get mixed up that way.

Technorati Tags: the Flash,dreams,JLA

Magnetic Acceleration Perpetual Motion Machine (M.A.P.M.M.)

LiveJournal Tags: science,ideas,perpetual motion,magnets

Perpetual motion is a theoretical impossibility due to the laws of thermo-dynamics, but that doesn't stop people from trying to invent one, including me.
My current idea involves much of the technology behind a railgun, which is a weapon that launches a projectile at a massive velocity along a line using the principles of magnetic acceleration. Think a bullet in the barrel of a gun, but instead of gunpowder, it's being propelled along by a series of magnets. My idea was to basically have a more simplified magnetic acceleration array using boring balls and a wooden frame much like this. Instead of having the projectile exit, it would instead travel along a rail returning it to the end of the line, much like a Hot Wheels track loop, I suppose, or a roller coaster. The force of the magnets would propel the ball upwards through the loop, where it would lose momentum until gravity takes over and drops it back down, returning it to the array, where the magnets will then project it forward again. Since it takes little or no physical force to begin the loop, the overall effect is that it doesn't lose any momentum along the straight rail. If you place a turnstile gear in there for it to push as it goes through, much like the paddle on a steamboat, you have the beginning of a very rudimentary motor.
I could build one to see if it would work, but I'm very lazy.
So very lazy.

This Shit is Bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

Dear America: Imagine if today, John McCain was suddenly declared President Elect after being so soundly defeated in the election to Barak Obama? Say it was part of the fine-print in a Constitutional Amendment that everyone's forgotten about. It could be a mirror of what happened during the 2000 Presidential Race, only it did rest on the difference between a handful of votes, but millions upon millions?  That's basically what's happening in Canada right now. Stephane Dion, who suffered one of the worst defeats a Liberal leader has ever gone through, now has the opportunity to become Prime Minister. This is less than two months after we had our election, where the Conservative Party clearly was the victor. Yet, since we don't have a two-party system (yet), he doesn't hold the majority. The majority is split between three different parties. Now they've banded together to form a Coalition Party, meaning we now have a two-party system, only a big part of that Coalition is completely and fanatically obsessed with splitting up Canada in two halves and taking a big chunk of it and making it a new country ruled by them. Let's say that someone in the States decided they wanted to take everything from Detroit down to New Orleans and make a country out of it, and call it Middle America, people would think it'd be a pretty bat-shit insane idea, bordering on high treason. Not so in Canada!

So while what they're doing is perfectly legal in our political system, it's basically a big glob of spit in the eyes of every voter. The fact that this is happening a month and a half since we went to the polls, and nothing of any major consequence has happened since then except for some grumbling over the budget, makes that proverbial loogie just a little bit bigger.

Let's say that you actually voted for the Liberals (you're in the minority), or for the NDP (you're in the minor-minority), or the Bloc Qubecois (ie: you speak French), you didn't vote for this. You're not getting a Christmas present early, because the political party you voted for is sacrificing all it's morals and judgement by making a deal with the devil. These aren't people who are the same page, no matter how much they borrow from each other.

So no one knows what's going to happen. Steven Harper, our Prime Minister for now, has got a week or so to come up with a plan. Then we either go back to the polls and vote again (because our votes apparently mean so much, after being thrown out so quickly by back-door politics) or else we get a new Prime Minister that no one elected and who had to announce his pending resignation in shame a few weeks ago.

Even if all this goes away and they decide, "Whoops, what were we thinking?" and break up their ill-conceived Coalition, we're still screwed, because the Canadian and Global Economy is in the crapper. We're a short step away from packing all our belongings into kerchiefs on a stick and riding the rails, so who really gives a shit what these people are doing? It's not like these clowns have any good ideas for how to get back on track. We're Canada: we've got fish, we've got trees and we've got maple syrup and that's fucking it. We can't turn that into money.

I might as well move to American and have me a sexy half-black President.

Dracula R.I.P.

LiveJournal Tags: dreams

I woke up at around 4:35 a.m. from a nightmare involving Dracula's castle. Now, it's interesting fact: the Transylvanian castle commonly associated with Count Dracula, in fact has nothing to do with the historical figure of Vlad the Impaler, which relates to my dream in that it was not specifically about Dracula, but rather a much more frightening female antagonist, possibly the vampire Goddess Hectae. I can't go into many details, as they are hazy, but extra arms, talons, feathers and wings were involved.
Much like Jonathan Harker in Bram Stoker's novel, I was a prisoner of this castle, though I was not confined to my quarters. There was a creepy old man in robes who ensured I did not stray, and who held a near fanatical devotion to his vampire lady. He kept careful watch over me, ensuring me that his lady already knew of my careful indiscretions. Despite this, he kept himself to the floor above my own basement dwelling, and was seen mostly from doorways. He would never look right at me, but faced sideways as he spoke.
I was aware that others might be in the same predicament that I was, but I never saw them. The vampire lady was often away at night on hunts, and never showed herself during the day. During these absences, I would try to affect my escape. Escape was possible, but I was certain of being recaptured by the flying fiend, who would likely make me her next meal.
In time, I came to understand that the only way to escape my prison was to destroy it. Without her castle, she would have nowhere to return once the sun came up. To those ends, I discovered a cache of dynamite, which I planted in nook between the ceiling beams and the pillars supporting them. I heard warnings from the old man upstairs, but I was determined to see my plan through.
Even with the dynamite, I found I had nothing with which to light it. I had only one match, which went out before I could bring it to the string. By holding the head of the match to the wire, I was able only to scorch it a little. I made a desperate search for another source of flame. I tried scratching two rusty nails together to try and produce a spark, but it wouldn't work. I tried a flint and tinder set, but again to no avail. I had a feeling my time was growing short, and that the vampire would soon learn of my deeds when I was able to procure a small flame from a candle. Lighting this, I made a mad dash upstairs, where the old man shouted profusely at me.
Fearing the dynamite was wet, I set about a second plan. On the floor above the old man, I began to set furniture on fire, hoping to burn the castle down if I couldn't blow it up.
That's roughly where the dream ends...