Let's say you are a Puppeteer.
And you work with those marionettes, y'know, the puppets with the strings and the little wooden paddle thing you hold and wiggle around to make 'em do stuff on the Stage?
When you first got into the Puppeteer Business, you weren't any good at being a Puppeteer, compared to the Master Puppeteers.
Everything you did was clumsy and awkward and frustrating for you.
And it took you a while to get the hang of it, it took you a while to figure out all the stuff you had to do to make the puppet walk around and wiggle its arms and do stuff.
But as time went on, bit by bit, the control system for the puppet and the way you had to move your hand around to make the puppet move around and do stuff became completely transparent to you.
It began to seem like the puppet just did whatever you willed the puppet to do, when you really got good at it.
And at some point, you got so good at it that you didn't even have to think about all the individual movements of the puppet, you didn't have to think about moving each of its legs when you wanted to make it run around and laugh and slap its buddies down there on the back.
And you weren't the only puppeteer, there were many other puppeteers all around you, each of them with their own puppet.
And when you got in the groove of putting on the Show, you'd completely forget about everybody around you, and you'd focus and concentrate your attention down on to the Stage, and it'd be very hard to distract you.
And your puppet would be interacting with the other puppets on the Stage, and there would be nothing else going on in your brain except for that Puppet Show in the Spotlight, you'd completely forget all about yourself and the other puppeteers and the audience, because none of that stuff mattered to the Reality of the Show, everything else was a Distraction to the Show, paying any attention to it would be Detrimental to the Show.
At least until the Show was over and the Stage went dark and the lights came on in the Theatre and it was time to go home.
And suddenly you'd reel your concentration and attention back from Puppet World to the Real World, and you'd return to your own body, and you'd think about how funny it was, that you had to consciously steer your body around and make it do stuff and act a certain way, just like you do with the puppets, except your control over your own body wasn't anything like the smooth and effortless way you could make a puppet move on the Stage, the control system for your own body wasn't completely transparent to you at all.
And you'd pat your fellow Puppeteers on the Back, and congratulate each other on a Good Show, and it'd be a little clumsy and awkward and uncomfortable, but that was okay, 'cause that's how the Real World is, imperfect, things never happen exactly the way you want them to in the Real World, life isn't a Puppet Show.
And you'd go home from the Puppet Theatre, and you'd kick back on the couch and turn on your TV on Science Night, and you'd watch Carl Sagan talk about Cosmic Rays.
And you'd think, "what if Cosmic Rays were sorta like the puppet strings that a bunch of puppeteers were using to control a bunch of puppets here on the Stage of Planet Earth?"
Like some kinda projection system that made all the stuff in our minds dance around to the will of a bunch of puppeteer guys behind Cosmic Ray Projectors somewhere out there beyond time and space.
And what if they were so into it, what if they were focusing their attention and concentrating so hard on the Show, that they had forgotten all about themselves, and that they wouldn't snap out of it until the Stage went dark and the lights in the Theatre came back on, and it was time for them to go home.
What if that's really what we were?
And you'd wonder what those guys behind the Cosmic Ray Projectors would go home and watch on their TVs on Science Night.
Probably something better than this Carl Sagan Puppetshow shit.
But then again, it'd probably be a little more clumsy and awkward and uncomfortable and hardly as perfect and simple and colorful as everything that happens here in this Puppetshow.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Shark Attack Week!
I never realized that there was actually a limit to my appetite for watching people be attacked and torn apart by sharks.
Until now.
Jeesh.
Only six more days of Shark Attacks to sit through!
Man.
Well, I'm sorry, but I'm having a pretty hard time thinking up a good Shark Attack Joke to lighten the mood.
There's gotta be something less depressing we could watch.
I dunno, anything, one of those chick movies about a kid with some kinda weird disease or watching what happens when people lock their pets in a car with the windows rolled up would seem like a blast of fresh air at this point.
Until now.
Jeesh.
Only six more days of Shark Attacks to sit through!
Man.
Well, I'm sorry, but I'm having a pretty hard time thinking up a good Shark Attack Joke to lighten the mood.
There's gotta be something less depressing we could watch.
I dunno, anything, one of those chick movies about a kid with some kinda weird disease or watching what happens when people lock their pets in a car with the windows rolled up would seem like a blast of fresh air at this point.
Polarization
There's folks that hate everyone that go around pretending to like everyone.
Like the aunt that only pretended to like kids because she knew that's what Aunts Are Supposed to Do.
And she made all the kids give her a kiss, even though you knew, as all kids do, that she didn't care about you at all, and then she got you an ass whupping for your bad behavior when you made a scene and embarassed your parents by not falling for her shit.
And then there's folks that like everyone that pretend to hate everyone.
Like the foul mouthed uncle all the kids loved, because you knew, as all kids do, that he actually loved kids, even though he always pretended to hate kids to make you guys laugh, and he'd always be trying to get you out of trouble by lowering the Proper Behavior Bar by doing off-color fart jokes and stuff.
Then there's folks that hate everybody, that don't pretend to like anybody.
But sometimes they like some of the other folks that hate everybody, so they don't actually hate everybody, and they aren't actually as bad as the people that pretend to like everybody who actually hate everybody, because those people, like yer aunt, hate everybody, including the other people like them who are only pretending to like everybody.
And sometimes the guys that hate everybody that don't pretend to like anybody are fooled by the ones that like everybody but pretend to hate everybody, and they end up working for the folks that actually like everybody, without realizing it.
And then there's some folks that like everybody that seems to like everybody, but they hate the folks that hate people.
And sometimes they're fooled by the people that only pretend to like everybody, and they think those folks actually do like everybody, and sometimes they're fooled by the people that only pretend to hate everybody, and they think those guys really do hate everybody, and essentially they end up working for the people the hate people when either of those two things happen.
And sometimes guys like your uncle that like everybody but pretend to hate everybody, actually do hate some folks, like yer pretentious cracker-ass aunt, so he doesn't actually like everybody, y'know.
But he can stand being married to her by ignoring all the little things about her that he doesn't like, like her brain.
And her family has a lot of money or whatever.
Plus its kinda fun to have an uptight jackass around that you don't have to feel guilty about screwing with 'cause they're all evil and fake and they deserve it, y'know?
Yah, so, I guess its really no wonder why she seems to care so much about manners and she hates everybody so much ahaha.
Like the aunt that only pretended to like kids because she knew that's what Aunts Are Supposed to Do.
And she made all the kids give her a kiss, even though you knew, as all kids do, that she didn't care about you at all, and then she got you an ass whupping for your bad behavior when you made a scene and embarassed your parents by not falling for her shit.
And then there's folks that like everyone that pretend to hate everyone.
Like the foul mouthed uncle all the kids loved, because you knew, as all kids do, that he actually loved kids, even though he always pretended to hate kids to make you guys laugh, and he'd always be trying to get you out of trouble by lowering the Proper Behavior Bar by doing off-color fart jokes and stuff.
Then there's folks that hate everybody, that don't pretend to like anybody.
But sometimes they like some of the other folks that hate everybody, so they don't actually hate everybody, and they aren't actually as bad as the people that pretend to like everybody who actually hate everybody, because those people, like yer aunt, hate everybody, including the other people like them who are only pretending to like everybody.
And sometimes the guys that hate everybody that don't pretend to like anybody are fooled by the ones that like everybody but pretend to hate everybody, and they end up working for the folks that actually like everybody, without realizing it.
And then there's some folks that like everybody that seems to like everybody, but they hate the folks that hate people.
And sometimes they're fooled by the people that only pretend to like everybody, and they think those folks actually do like everybody, and sometimes they're fooled by the people that only pretend to hate everybody, and they think those guys really do hate everybody, and essentially they end up working for the people the hate people when either of those two things happen.
And sometimes guys like your uncle that like everybody but pretend to hate everybody, actually do hate some folks, like yer pretentious cracker-ass aunt, so he doesn't actually like everybody, y'know.
But he can stand being married to her by ignoring all the little things about her that he doesn't like, like her brain.
And her family has a lot of money or whatever.
Plus its kinda fun to have an uptight jackass around that you don't have to feel guilty about screwing with 'cause they're all evil and fake and they deserve it, y'know?
Yah, so, I guess its really no wonder why she seems to care so much about manners and she hates everybody so much ahaha.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
The Freemasons
I'm tempted to join the Freemasons now that I've watched that thing about 'em on Jeff's web thingie.
They're awesome.
They got awesome magical powers and demons and aliens and egyptian mummies and tons of money.
And pretty much every geometric shape with less than seven sides, and anything made out of Triangles (heh), and the Star, and the Letter V, and anything that looks sorta like the Letter A, and the Number 6, and anything with Bird Wings, is one of their magical symbols.
And Ben Franklin was one of 'em, and he was pretty cool, even if all the other ones don't really do anything for me, 'cause they ain't funny like Ben was.
But Ben's membership sorta proves that at least some Freemasons know how to have a good time every once in a while.
So uh, whats the problem with them again?
If Allister Crowley has something to do with 'em, then they definitely know how to throw a party and treat a woman.
And they even got Harley Davidson motorcycles, man.
So I just don't see whats missing.
Are we supposed to wanna fight 'em just 'cause they're so awesome or something?
Why don't we just join 'em?
Or is the guy saying that we're supposed to be like Amish People, all good and wholesome and shit?
'Cause I'll tell ya right now, that Amish stuff looks pretty frickin' boring to me, even though their breakfasts prolly kick some serious ass.
Them Amish don't got any magical powers or demons or aliens or pyramids or money or anything, man.
And their woman got hairy legs, too.
I'm not into that Planet of the Apes stuff, baby.
Well, okay, but not all the time.
They're awesome.
They got awesome magical powers and demons and aliens and egyptian mummies and tons of money.
And pretty much every geometric shape with less than seven sides, and anything made out of Triangles (heh), and the Star, and the Letter V, and anything that looks sorta like the Letter A, and the Number 6, and anything with Bird Wings, is one of their magical symbols.
And Ben Franklin was one of 'em, and he was pretty cool, even if all the other ones don't really do anything for me, 'cause they ain't funny like Ben was.
But Ben's membership sorta proves that at least some Freemasons know how to have a good time every once in a while.
So uh, whats the problem with them again?
If Allister Crowley has something to do with 'em, then they definitely know how to throw a party and treat a woman.
And they even got Harley Davidson motorcycles, man.
So I just don't see whats missing.
Are we supposed to wanna fight 'em just 'cause they're so awesome or something?
Why don't we just join 'em?
Or is the guy saying that we're supposed to be like Amish People, all good and wholesome and shit?
'Cause I'll tell ya right now, that Amish stuff looks pretty frickin' boring to me, even though their breakfasts prolly kick some serious ass.
Them Amish don't got any magical powers or demons or aliens or pyramids or money or anything, man.
And their woman got hairy legs, too.
I'm not into that Planet of the Apes stuff, baby.
Well, okay, but not all the time.
Fantabulous Rodeo
Welp I signed up for the beta for Tabula Rosa or whatever its called.
Yah, not exactly what I'd call a "good" name for a game, sounds kinda like a skin disease or something you'd order at a Mexican Restaurant.
It means "Blank Check" in latin or something, see, its all sophistercated like that.
Yah its that Richard Garriott MMO thingie.
Man, Dance Fever was still on TV the last time he made a game.
And it turns out his game is all about robots or something!
That's pretty weird.
I thought it was supposed to be some kinda creepy anime thing where you fly around on a unicorn's tentacle as a kid with a big blue hairdo, but I saw some screenshots and I guess they changed it to a Quake-looking game where ya fight cyborg zombie aliens and junk.
At first I liked the stuff they officially wrote about it (I just finished reading it) and all of Garriott's Brave New World design innovation stuff sounded pretty damn good, and some of the screenshots were kinda Mechwarrior slash Battletech slash Robotech-looking (even though the stuff I read didn't say nothing about piloting kickass giant robots).
But then I started reading what players were saying about it unofficially and now I'm at the Meh I'd Try It For Free If I Get the Opportunity Stage.
And I'm the only guy I know that liked Anarchy Online, until they nerfed the shit outta my kickass Dual Freedom Arms Wielding Opifex Soldier With the Damage Reflect Shield From Hell.
Giant Robot stuff would be pretty cool, but stomping around in Mechwarrior and Shogo got boring pretty fast even on the LAN, compared to the highspeed veritech fighters and those Cyclone Motorcycle Exoskeleton thingies from the Robotech cartoon.
Man those motorcycle things were kickass.
Mechwarrior and Shogo woulda been better with cooperative missions like the assault maps in Unreal Tournie where you coulda fought and defended against Alien Attacks or something, insteada just deathmatch gladiator junk over and over again.
Oh, uh, sorry, I'm pretty sure Tabula Whatever-Its-Called don't have Kickass Giant Robots Versus Alien fights, didn't mean to get yer hopes up there, they didn't even say nothing about vehicles, I was just going off on a tangent heh.
Hey, I always say Girls Hate Robots, but now that I think about it, we actually played Mechwarrior and Shogo on the LAN with an equal amount of chicks.
Yah, women are actually a lot like sharks that go ape-shit when they smell blood, they just keep it all bottled up and repressed, and they don't like giving into it 'cause it actually gives them so much pleasure that it scares 'em at first, but once they get past the nobody-cares-if-they-let-their-hair-down-and-turn-ugly stage, they can scare the shit outta the guys when they start screaming and yelling like they're being driven to ecstasy by a bunch of mindless giant robot violence.
They get way nastier than us when they lose, but holy shit they get crazy happy when they win heh.
Meanwhile all us guys are all quiet and shit, I mean, we're actually faking it for comedic purposes when we do that Wrestlemania Screaming Match Stuff to each other ahaha.
Man, I've gone on so many tangents this time (you should see all the stuff I edited out ahaha) that I'm totally lost at this point.
Oh, I started with something about Richard Garriott's No Vehicle Version of Planetside, yah.
Well, at least it ain't some creepy-ass anime thing.
Yah, not exactly what I'd call a "good" name for a game, sounds kinda like a skin disease or something you'd order at a Mexican Restaurant.
It means "Blank Check" in latin or something, see, its all sophistercated like that.
Yah its that Richard Garriott MMO thingie.
Man, Dance Fever was still on TV the last time he made a game.
And it turns out his game is all about robots or something!
That's pretty weird.
I thought it was supposed to be some kinda creepy anime thing where you fly around on a unicorn's tentacle as a kid with a big blue hairdo, but I saw some screenshots and I guess they changed it to a Quake-looking game where ya fight cyborg zombie aliens and junk.
At first I liked the stuff they officially wrote about it (I just finished reading it) and all of Garriott's Brave New World design innovation stuff sounded pretty damn good, and some of the screenshots were kinda Mechwarrior slash Battletech slash Robotech-looking (even though the stuff I read didn't say nothing about piloting kickass giant robots).
But then I started reading what players were saying about it unofficially and now I'm at the Meh I'd Try It For Free If I Get the Opportunity Stage.
And I'm the only guy I know that liked Anarchy Online, until they nerfed the shit outta my kickass Dual Freedom Arms Wielding Opifex Soldier With the Damage Reflect Shield From Hell.
Giant Robot stuff would be pretty cool, but stomping around in Mechwarrior and Shogo got boring pretty fast even on the LAN, compared to the highspeed veritech fighters and those Cyclone Motorcycle Exoskeleton thingies from the Robotech cartoon.
Man those motorcycle things were kickass.
Mechwarrior and Shogo woulda been better with cooperative missions like the assault maps in Unreal Tournie where you coulda fought and defended against Alien Attacks or something, insteada just deathmatch gladiator junk over and over again.
Oh, uh, sorry, I'm pretty sure Tabula Whatever-Its-Called don't have Kickass Giant Robots Versus Alien fights, didn't mean to get yer hopes up there, they didn't even say nothing about vehicles, I was just going off on a tangent heh.
Hey, I always say Girls Hate Robots, but now that I think about it, we actually played Mechwarrior and Shogo on the LAN with an equal amount of chicks.
Yah, women are actually a lot like sharks that go ape-shit when they smell blood, they just keep it all bottled up and repressed, and they don't like giving into it 'cause it actually gives them so much pleasure that it scares 'em at first, but once they get past the nobody-cares-if-they-let-their-hair-down-and-turn-ugly stage, they can scare the shit outta the guys when they start screaming and yelling like they're being driven to ecstasy by a bunch of mindless giant robot violence.
They get way nastier than us when they lose, but holy shit they get crazy happy when they win heh.
Meanwhile all us guys are all quiet and shit, I mean, we're actually faking it for comedic purposes when we do that Wrestlemania Screaming Match Stuff to each other ahaha.
Man, I've gone on so many tangents this time (you should see all the stuff I edited out ahaha) that I'm totally lost at this point.
Oh, I started with something about Richard Garriott's No Vehicle Version of Planetside, yah.
Well, at least it ain't some creepy-ass anime thing.
The Wainwright
Well, a cooper is supposed to be a guy that makes barrels, and not wagons.
I dunno why they're called coopers and not barrelwrights, when a wagon maker is called a wainwright.
I dunno whey we're called wainwrights insteada wagonsmiths, etiher.
But my name's Cooper 'cause my old man made barrels, even though I make and repair wagons.
Yah he ain't too happy about how I went into the wagon business, we had a bit of a falling out, y'know, but there's more money in repairing wagons than there is in making barrels fer people, wagons are the hot new sexy technology, a man's gotta keep up with the times.
Well, y'know, the thing I really don't get is why folks call horseback riding horseback riding.
I mean, we don't say ponyback riding or camelback riding or donkeyback riding.
And its not like there's another part of a horse that you can ride on, insteada the back, but the fact that they call it Horseback Riding sorta implies that there is.
Well, I'm not sure exactly what they're insinuating, but that's probably what comes from favoring a travel option that involves constantly mashing yer privates against some poor horse's spine.
That's why you should buy yerself a proper wagon.
And I'm not just saying that to make you buy one of my fine wagons here, either, y'know.
Nobody ever says what we all think about folks that go bouncing about the world on horseback as if there wasn't anything fishy goin' on in their nether regions.
'Cause we're all too polite.
But that doesn't mean we don't all think it, right?
Mmm-hmm.
Yah, well, this here is one of our newer models, it comes with a Rutmaster Comfort Suspension and pair of front and rear driving lanterns, standard, because the safety of our customers is our number one concern, here at Cooper Wainwrights.
But the dragonskin seat cushions, driver-side wineskin holder, dashboard tinderbox, plug-in-plague-away air fresheners, and the mithril rims will cost you a few more coppers.
But I'm sure we can work something out.
You might be interested in our new Platinum Roadside Assurance Plan, too.
Yah, see, no matter where your wagon breaks down, day or night, you just mail us a letter and the Wainwright Guild will get you taken care of right away, as long as you ain't outside our Seven Baronies Service Area.
I dunno why they're called coopers and not barrelwrights, when a wagon maker is called a wainwright.
I dunno whey we're called wainwrights insteada wagonsmiths, etiher.
But my name's Cooper 'cause my old man made barrels, even though I make and repair wagons.
Yah he ain't too happy about how I went into the wagon business, we had a bit of a falling out, y'know, but there's more money in repairing wagons than there is in making barrels fer people, wagons are the hot new sexy technology, a man's gotta keep up with the times.
Well, y'know, the thing I really don't get is why folks call horseback riding horseback riding.
I mean, we don't say ponyback riding or camelback riding or donkeyback riding.
And its not like there's another part of a horse that you can ride on, insteada the back, but the fact that they call it Horseback Riding sorta implies that there is.
Well, I'm not sure exactly what they're insinuating, but that's probably what comes from favoring a travel option that involves constantly mashing yer privates against some poor horse's spine.
That's why you should buy yerself a proper wagon.
And I'm not just saying that to make you buy one of my fine wagons here, either, y'know.
Nobody ever says what we all think about folks that go bouncing about the world on horseback as if there wasn't anything fishy goin' on in their nether regions.
'Cause we're all too polite.
But that doesn't mean we don't all think it, right?
Mmm-hmm.
Yah, well, this here is one of our newer models, it comes with a Rutmaster Comfort Suspension and pair of front and rear driving lanterns, standard, because the safety of our customers is our number one concern, here at Cooper Wainwrights.
But the dragonskin seat cushions, driver-side wineskin holder, dashboard tinderbox, plug-in-plague-away air fresheners, and the mithril rims will cost you a few more coppers.
But I'm sure we can work something out.
You might be interested in our new Platinum Roadside Assurance Plan, too.
Yah, see, no matter where your wagon breaks down, day or night, you just mail us a letter and the Wainwright Guild will get you taken care of right away, as long as you ain't outside our Seven Baronies Service Area.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
The Dancing Bear
"Dude, relax, I know you aren't totally autistic."
"Dude, I'm not even a little autistic."
"Yah, yah, I know you aren't autistic at all, sometimes."
"Dude, I'm not even a little autistic sometimes."
"Hey, take it easy, man, we're all a little autistic sometimes."
"Well not me!"
"Hey, look, yer preaching to the choir here, kiddo, its not me you gotta convince, its everybody else."
"Yah, that's 'cause you went around tellin' 'em all that I was autistic!"
"Alright, now yer starting to sound a little schizo."
"Dude I'm not shizo!"
"Hey, I'm just trying to help you, I thought it'd make you look cute and harmless to the chicks no matter what kinda freaky outbursts you had on accident, y'know, people treat autistic people nice even if you do all sorts of freaky shit."
"Dude, I don't do any kind of freaky shit!"
"Well, I know you don't do any kind of freaky shit sometimes."
"Dude!"
"Hey, take it easy man, we all do a little freaky shit sometimes."
"Well not me!"
"Hey, denial is a the first hurdle yer gonna have to overcome on the road to recovery from a serious mental disorder."
"Dude, I hope you didn't go around telling people that I have a serious mental disorder."
"I would never do anything like that, unless, y'know, I thought people needed to know that they should try not to get you too excited 'cause you may become a danger to yourself and others, on your first day out of the hosptial."
"Dude, I'm gonna kill you, yer just trying to steal all the chicks by making it seem like I'm all messed up and that you are some Kevin Kostner guy that's just trying to help me! You told people I just got out of a loonie bin!"
"Oh yah, let's just think about how a violent outburst is gonna look to everybody around here, when they think I'm over here risking my neck trying to help a potentially dangerous autistic person who might have forgotten to take his meds acclimate himself to the Outside World, they're gonna nominate me for sainthood ahaha."
"You are the devil! I'm going to tell everybody that you are the devil!"
"AHAHA yah now that's really gonna help your cause."
"..."
"Hey, don't kill yerself over it or anything, suicide is never the answer."
"I'm not going to kill myself!"
"You gotta look at the bright side, bro, at least all the dudes around here can't beat the hell out of you if you go around crying and talking backwards and asking their chicks for cuddles and shit, its against the Rules to give an autistic person a beatdown."
"Hmm.'
"Yah, people will just think its cute and harmless if you go around copping feels and telling chicks they're pretty and stuff."
"Hmm."
"Yah, see, you gotta work that shit to your advantage, holmes, I set yer ass up solid. Heck, you can even do the Napolean Dynamite thing where you suddenly know how to dance all awesome, that's bound to get you tons of chicks, people will love it."
"Hey, waitaminute, you didn't tell them that I knew how to dance all awesome."
"Well, I had to think of something you were good at, y'know, 'cause autistic people are s'posed to be awesome at certain things or something."
"But I don't know how to dance all awesome."
"Dude, you don't have to dance all awesome compared to a regular person."
"Dude, I'm not even a little autistic."
"Yah, yah, I know you aren't autistic at all, sometimes."
"Dude, I'm not even a little autistic sometimes."
"Hey, take it easy, man, we're all a little autistic sometimes."
"Well not me!"
"Hey, look, yer preaching to the choir here, kiddo, its not me you gotta convince, its everybody else."
"Yah, that's 'cause you went around tellin' 'em all that I was autistic!"
"Alright, now yer starting to sound a little schizo."
"Dude I'm not shizo!"
"Hey, I'm just trying to help you, I thought it'd make you look cute and harmless to the chicks no matter what kinda freaky outbursts you had on accident, y'know, people treat autistic people nice even if you do all sorts of freaky shit."
"Dude, I don't do any kind of freaky shit!"
"Well, I know you don't do any kind of freaky shit sometimes."
"Dude!"
"Hey, take it easy man, we all do a little freaky shit sometimes."
"Well not me!"
"Hey, denial is a the first hurdle yer gonna have to overcome on the road to recovery from a serious mental disorder."
"Dude, I hope you didn't go around telling people that I have a serious mental disorder."
"I would never do anything like that, unless, y'know, I thought people needed to know that they should try not to get you too excited 'cause you may become a danger to yourself and others, on your first day out of the hosptial."
"Dude, I'm gonna kill you, yer just trying to steal all the chicks by making it seem like I'm all messed up and that you are some Kevin Kostner guy that's just trying to help me! You told people I just got out of a loonie bin!"
"Oh yah, let's just think about how a violent outburst is gonna look to everybody around here, when they think I'm over here risking my neck trying to help a potentially dangerous autistic person who might have forgotten to take his meds acclimate himself to the Outside World, they're gonna nominate me for sainthood ahaha."
"You are the devil! I'm going to tell everybody that you are the devil!"
"AHAHA yah now that's really gonna help your cause."
"..."
"Hey, don't kill yerself over it or anything, suicide is never the answer."
"I'm not going to kill myself!"
"You gotta look at the bright side, bro, at least all the dudes around here can't beat the hell out of you if you go around crying and talking backwards and asking their chicks for cuddles and shit, its against the Rules to give an autistic person a beatdown."
"Hmm.'
"Yah, people will just think its cute and harmless if you go around copping feels and telling chicks they're pretty and stuff."
"Hmm."
"Yah, see, you gotta work that shit to your advantage, holmes, I set yer ass up solid. Heck, you can even do the Napolean Dynamite thing where you suddenly know how to dance all awesome, that's bound to get you tons of chicks, people will love it."
"Hey, waitaminute, you didn't tell them that I knew how to dance all awesome."
"Well, I had to think of something you were good at, y'know, 'cause autistic people are s'posed to be awesome at certain things or something."
"But I don't know how to dance all awesome."
"Dude, you don't have to dance all awesome compared to a regular person."
Rubberface
Next time you're talking with somebody that starts to bore the shit out of you, start making crazy faces to hold up your end of the conversation.
No noises, just crazy over-the-top cartoon facial expression that don't make hardly any sense as a response to whatever they're saying.
And don't make faces at them, either, y'know, yer going for ridiculous, not scary.
Its gotta be totally over-the-top, though, or you'll look like a mime, and then it won't be funny, it'll just be kinda creepy, and they might punch you.
No, the whole idea of the thing is that you make the other person laugh before you start laughing.
Yah, ya gotta do stuff like the "Fish Out of Water" face and "the Big Fake O" face and the "Hit With a Taser" face.
Oh forget it, yer just gonna get yerself killed.
No noises, just crazy over-the-top cartoon facial expression that don't make hardly any sense as a response to whatever they're saying.
And don't make faces at them, either, y'know, yer going for ridiculous, not scary.
Its gotta be totally over-the-top, though, or you'll look like a mime, and then it won't be funny, it'll just be kinda creepy, and they might punch you.
No, the whole idea of the thing is that you make the other person laugh before you start laughing.
Yah, ya gotta do stuff like the "Fish Out of Water" face and "the Big Fake O" face and the "Hit With a Taser" face.
Oh forget it, yer just gonna get yerself killed.
The Next Generation
The juvenile crime rate plummeted the year after I quit being a juvenile.
So either the kids nowadays are a bunch of ritalin munching disney video zombie wussbags, or its that all us over-sexed over-drugged morally-challenged supervillains are supposed to be the ones catching their punk asses at shit.
And we're all like "pfft, trust me, nothing you Barny Loving Baggy Pants Wearing Underpants Showing Medically Emasculated Emo Assclowns will ever think to do is worth me getting out of this chair for."
Oh don't even try to lie to me, I invented that shit, yer breath reminds me of the way babies smell.
But next time, you gotta steal something that's easier to turn into cash, son, wtf is wrong with you, yer momma musta slept with a whole damn football team to make a kid as stupid as you ahaha.
No, School isn't cool, but you ain't gonna be making out with no cheerleaders in Jail.
Unless you get sent to one of those fancy Federal Prisons where they got cable TV and Horseback Riding and Archery Lessons with those guys that can teach ya how to cheat on yer taxes and shit.
So either the kids nowadays are a bunch of ritalin munching disney video zombie wussbags, or its that all us over-sexed over-drugged morally-challenged supervillains are supposed to be the ones catching their punk asses at shit.
And we're all like "pfft, trust me, nothing you Barny Loving Baggy Pants Wearing Underpants Showing Medically Emasculated Emo Assclowns will ever think to do is worth me getting out of this chair for."
Oh don't even try to lie to me, I invented that shit, yer breath reminds me of the way babies smell.
But next time, you gotta steal something that's easier to turn into cash, son, wtf is wrong with you, yer momma musta slept with a whole damn football team to make a kid as stupid as you ahaha.
No, School isn't cool, but you ain't gonna be making out with no cheerleaders in Jail.
Unless you get sent to one of those fancy Federal Prisons where they got cable TV and Horseback Riding and Archery Lessons with those guys that can teach ya how to cheat on yer taxes and shit.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Tilt
I don't want to make any kind of games.
'Cause they seem like a lot of blood and sweat and sitting-up-straight for a very strange little reward from a very strange little group of people in the end.
And MMOs are the worst waste of artistic energy on this planet, they dump all this effort into making content, and then they put a ton of it behind barriers that a lot of us will never bother to get past.
It just seems like an insanely backwards and inefficient packaging system fer art.
As if the hardware requirements weren't enough, let's add layer upon layer of all sorts of other requirements like timesinks and grouping and reading through shady looking unofficial databases for spoilers and downloading player-made UI upgrades and being able to put up with chatrooms filled with life-hating attention whores and bugs to increase the inaccessibility of any sort of actual entertainment that may be found in our product.
I just don't get it, y'know?
I mean, I feel sorry for the kid that spent all that time making all the cool animated monster models and scenery and whoever wrote the jokes and all the other cool little shit that I never get to see in these games.
There's just so much of it that goes to waste, y'know?
And then to make matters worse, the only people who'll ever know who you are and what you did in a game are the ones that are working with you.
I don't know the name of even one guy that worked on WoW, let alone who was really responsible for the all the clever shit and cool stuff I liked in that game.
Let alone any other games.
So that just adds to the general suckiness of the whole thing as a medium.
And then there's the whole thing where you gotta share everything with the suits and the technical shit like the servers and all that.
Fuck that.
Especially in this day and age where we could just get a couple cameras and drive around in an RV capturing shit that's even better than photo-realistic 3d models without having to put any effort into it and turning it into shitty little "independent" films that'd be worth a lot more money with zero accessibility issues that'd have a far greater effect on the universe in way less time than it takes to make a game.
And because it takes a lot less time to do it, you can learn from your experiments and mistakes faster and your junk will evolve a lot quicker.
Plus, its takes a lot less effort to do all the lies for that shit.
And I can sleep late and there isn't some nasty buzz-killing sobriety requirement.
And we'll get a helluvalot more respect and "critical acclaim" and all that sorta shit for it, too.
Dude, I dunno, but I don't wanna be stuck in some Old Folks Home for Aging Gamers with you guys smelling like pee and lysol and going all insane-o on me, turning purple-in-the-face and slamming your hairy little fists on yer wheelchairs and yelling about RMT and the "damn suits" and how the playerbase turned poisonous on ya and how you were Popular in Korea and how some young whippersnapper in baggy pants stole yer idea for a Virtual World and got all the credit for it and shit.
And we're getting pretty close to that now.
Well, I'm just saying, s'all.
Fuck the Internet, man.
I say we detach a few of these super cerebral brainiacs from the Matrix, pile 'em into a Magic Bus, and go terrorize a small town in the country or something.
'Cause they seem like a lot of blood and sweat and sitting-up-straight for a very strange little reward from a very strange little group of people in the end.
And MMOs are the worst waste of artistic energy on this planet, they dump all this effort into making content, and then they put a ton of it behind barriers that a lot of us will never bother to get past.
It just seems like an insanely backwards and inefficient packaging system fer art.
As if the hardware requirements weren't enough, let's add layer upon layer of all sorts of other requirements like timesinks and grouping and reading through shady looking unofficial databases for spoilers and downloading player-made UI upgrades and being able to put up with chatrooms filled with life-hating attention whores and bugs to increase the inaccessibility of any sort of actual entertainment that may be found in our product.
I just don't get it, y'know?
I mean, I feel sorry for the kid that spent all that time making all the cool animated monster models and scenery and whoever wrote the jokes and all the other cool little shit that I never get to see in these games.
There's just so much of it that goes to waste, y'know?
And then to make matters worse, the only people who'll ever know who you are and what you did in a game are the ones that are working with you.
I don't know the name of even one guy that worked on WoW, let alone who was really responsible for the all the clever shit and cool stuff I liked in that game.
Let alone any other games.
So that just adds to the general suckiness of the whole thing as a medium.
And then there's the whole thing where you gotta share everything with the suits and the technical shit like the servers and all that.
Fuck that.
Especially in this day and age where we could just get a couple cameras and drive around in an RV capturing shit that's even better than photo-realistic 3d models without having to put any effort into it and turning it into shitty little "independent" films that'd be worth a lot more money with zero accessibility issues that'd have a far greater effect on the universe in way less time than it takes to make a game.
And because it takes a lot less time to do it, you can learn from your experiments and mistakes faster and your junk will evolve a lot quicker.
Plus, its takes a lot less effort to do all the lies for that shit.
And I can sleep late and there isn't some nasty buzz-killing sobriety requirement.
And we'll get a helluvalot more respect and "critical acclaim" and all that sorta shit for it, too.
Dude, I dunno, but I don't wanna be stuck in some Old Folks Home for Aging Gamers with you guys smelling like pee and lysol and going all insane-o on me, turning purple-in-the-face and slamming your hairy little fists on yer wheelchairs and yelling about RMT and the "damn suits" and how the playerbase turned poisonous on ya and how you were Popular in Korea and how some young whippersnapper in baggy pants stole yer idea for a Virtual World and got all the credit for it and shit.
And we're getting pretty close to that now.
Well, I'm just saying, s'all.
Fuck the Internet, man.
I say we detach a few of these super cerebral brainiacs from the Matrix, pile 'em into a Magic Bus, and go terrorize a small town in the country or something.
The Robot
I was really glad we had a Robot at first, y'know, but he's starting to freak me out a little.
Its not anything he says, he don't hardly ever say anything, its just the way he turns and looks at you.
Naw, he don't have eyes, or even a face to have facial expressions, I dunno how he does it, exactly, but you can always tell if he approves or disapproves of something.
Well, its like the time we were all like, "somebody needs to clean the carbon filters," and then he turned and looked at me, y'know, the way he does it, and it was like he said "I don't even breathe, so I'm not going to clean that shit," even though he didn't say anything, and I ended up having to do it.
That's how it always is with him, he always plays the Robot Card for everything, man.
"I'm a Robot, so I don't care if we drift in space forever and ever."
And he's bigger than me, he's gotta weigh at least nine hundred pounds, y'know, so he's definitely pretty threatening.
Plus he can shoot them lightning bolts out of his Robotic Power Claws, and he knows I flinch every time I hear his arms rattling around a little in their sockets, he rattles his arms at me on purpose whenever he wants me to get my ass moving.
Naw, he ain't never shot me with a lightning bolt, but I seem him shoot other stuff with 'em, junk that was just getting in the way of his treads.
Yah, he's smarter than he looks, man, he don't ever say or do anything on camera that would incriminate him or give him away or get him into trouble, but he's basically running this whole operation with all his silent threats and shit, he don't ever have any do anything he don't wanna do, he makes us do everything, everybody is scared of the guy.
I dunno what we can do to get rid of him, he's got that little fanny pack battery thingie you can try to pull off him that shuts him down, but that's easier said than done.
And even if you do that, somebody will just run diagnostics on him and say he's fine, and then he'll be right back here, working next to us, not saying a word about it.
But you know he'll be thinking about how you pulled his little fanny pack battery thingie off.
Its not anything he says, he don't hardly ever say anything, its just the way he turns and looks at you.
Naw, he don't have eyes, or even a face to have facial expressions, I dunno how he does it, exactly, but you can always tell if he approves or disapproves of something.
Well, its like the time we were all like, "somebody needs to clean the carbon filters," and then he turned and looked at me, y'know, the way he does it, and it was like he said "I don't even breathe, so I'm not going to clean that shit," even though he didn't say anything, and I ended up having to do it.
That's how it always is with him, he always plays the Robot Card for everything, man.
"I'm a Robot, so I don't care if we drift in space forever and ever."
And he's bigger than me, he's gotta weigh at least nine hundred pounds, y'know, so he's definitely pretty threatening.
Plus he can shoot them lightning bolts out of his Robotic Power Claws, and he knows I flinch every time I hear his arms rattling around a little in their sockets, he rattles his arms at me on purpose whenever he wants me to get my ass moving.
Naw, he ain't never shot me with a lightning bolt, but I seem him shoot other stuff with 'em, junk that was just getting in the way of his treads.
Yah, he's smarter than he looks, man, he don't ever say or do anything on camera that would incriminate him or give him away or get him into trouble, but he's basically running this whole operation with all his silent threats and shit, he don't ever have any do anything he don't wanna do, he makes us do everything, everybody is scared of the guy.
I dunno what we can do to get rid of him, he's got that little fanny pack battery thingie you can try to pull off him that shuts him down, but that's easier said than done.
And even if you do that, somebody will just run diagnostics on him and say he's fine, and then he'll be right back here, working next to us, not saying a word about it.
But you know he'll be thinking about how you pulled his little fanny pack battery thingie off.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
The Princess
This job guarding the Princess is pretty good.
But its not because guarding the Princess is good.
'Cause you could just go ahead and do your job and guard the Princess.
Or you can choose to not do your job, and not guard the Princess.
It's up to you.
But see, you should weigh your options carefully.
Because its only when you fail to guard the Princess that things start getting interesting.
'Cause then you can try to redeem yourself.
Or you can try to cover up your mistake.
Both of which can be pretty fun, and you got a lotta options, either way, depending on what exactly happened when you failed to guard the Princess.
I mean, if she gets assasssinated, insteada kidnapped, then you ain't got so many options, but there's still a few, y'know.
You can go after the assassins and try to bring them to justice.
Or you can go after the assassins, and try to get a cut of whatever they're getting paid for assaassination of the Princess.
Or you can go after the assassins, and try to collect the reward for killing the Princess before they have a chance to by taking credit for the assassination, and then turn around and kill the assassins when they come after you for ripping them off, and then tell the King that's why you took credit for the assassination in the first place.
And you can always frame somebody else for the murder, you don't actually have to bother with whoever is actually responsible, and you can probably collect some cash and valuable prizes from more than a few folks for doing that, too, if you put your framing rights up for sale and threaten a few folks that the king already don't like with the blame.
Or you can try to cover things up, and make it look like the Princess is still alive, by hiring somebody that looks like her to take her place, and then use that person as a pawn for your own personal political gain, that's always a laffer.
But if the guys going after the Princess are just trying to kidnap her, insteada assassinating her, then you got a lot more options.
'Cause you can go after the kidnappers, and try to bring 'em to justice.
Or you can go after the kidnappers, and try to get a cut of the ransom.
Or you can go after the kidnappers, pretend to join 'em, kill 'em all after you get your hands on the whole ransom for yourself, return the Princess to the King for another reward, end up looking like a hero, and maybe even get married to the Princess and get yourself a piece of the Kingdom.
Or you can go after the kidnappers, pretend to join 'em, kill 'em all after collecting the ransom yourself, sell the Princess to another country to use as a hostage, kill the guys that come to collect the Princess for the foreigners, mebbe mix in a few thwarted assassination attempts, just to keep things interesting, return her to the King for another reward, end up looking like a hero, and maybe even get married to the Princess and get yourself a piece of the Kingdom.
Heck, you could probably kidnap the Prince in all the confusion, too, especially if he wants to come with us to "prove his quality" against the kidnappers, and he's prolly worth a lot more in ransom than the Princess.
And even if nobody comes to kidnap the Princess, we could kidnap her ourselves, and have the whole initial kidnapping thing just be a farce to get the ball rolling, with a little help from good folks down at the local pub.
Or you can sit here and do your job and guard the Princess like a shmuck and nobody will ever remember your name and they'll all just keep treating you like a doormat for the rest of your life.
It's up to you.
Tap me on the helmet if you decide anything interesting or see anybody coming, I'm gonna close my eyes for a minute, the Princess keeps me up pretty late, y'know, nudge nudge say no more.
But its not because guarding the Princess is good.
'Cause you could just go ahead and do your job and guard the Princess.
Or you can choose to not do your job, and not guard the Princess.
It's up to you.
But see, you should weigh your options carefully.
Because its only when you fail to guard the Princess that things start getting interesting.
'Cause then you can try to redeem yourself.
Or you can try to cover up your mistake.
Both of which can be pretty fun, and you got a lotta options, either way, depending on what exactly happened when you failed to guard the Princess.
I mean, if she gets assasssinated, insteada kidnapped, then you ain't got so many options, but there's still a few, y'know.
You can go after the assassins and try to bring them to justice.
Or you can go after the assassins, and try to get a cut of whatever they're getting paid for assaassination of the Princess.
Or you can go after the assassins, and try to collect the reward for killing the Princess before they have a chance to by taking credit for the assassination, and then turn around and kill the assassins when they come after you for ripping them off, and then tell the King that's why you took credit for the assassination in the first place.
And you can always frame somebody else for the murder, you don't actually have to bother with whoever is actually responsible, and you can probably collect some cash and valuable prizes from more than a few folks for doing that, too, if you put your framing rights up for sale and threaten a few folks that the king already don't like with the blame.
Or you can try to cover things up, and make it look like the Princess is still alive, by hiring somebody that looks like her to take her place, and then use that person as a pawn for your own personal political gain, that's always a laffer.
But if the guys going after the Princess are just trying to kidnap her, insteada assassinating her, then you got a lot more options.
'Cause you can go after the kidnappers, and try to bring 'em to justice.
Or you can go after the kidnappers, and try to get a cut of the ransom.
Or you can go after the kidnappers, pretend to join 'em, kill 'em all after you get your hands on the whole ransom for yourself, return the Princess to the King for another reward, end up looking like a hero, and maybe even get married to the Princess and get yourself a piece of the Kingdom.
Or you can go after the kidnappers, pretend to join 'em, kill 'em all after collecting the ransom yourself, sell the Princess to another country to use as a hostage, kill the guys that come to collect the Princess for the foreigners, mebbe mix in a few thwarted assassination attempts, just to keep things interesting, return her to the King for another reward, end up looking like a hero, and maybe even get married to the Princess and get yourself a piece of the Kingdom.
Heck, you could probably kidnap the Prince in all the confusion, too, especially if he wants to come with us to "prove his quality" against the kidnappers, and he's prolly worth a lot more in ransom than the Princess.
And even if nobody comes to kidnap the Princess, we could kidnap her ourselves, and have the whole initial kidnapping thing just be a farce to get the ball rolling, with a little help from good folks down at the local pub.
Or you can sit here and do your job and guard the Princess like a shmuck and nobody will ever remember your name and they'll all just keep treating you like a doormat for the rest of your life.
It's up to you.
Tap me on the helmet if you decide anything interesting or see anybody coming, I'm gonna close my eyes for a minute, the Princess keeps me up pretty late, y'know, nudge nudge say no more.
Leg Men
I'm a Leg Man.
And I can't concentrate and do my usual mumbo-jumbo bullshit around the smooth curves of a woman's legs.
That's my kryptonite.
Well, its not that I get totally stunned, it just locks up my brain in a certain way, its kinda like the way I can't do math with people staring at me.
If I don't look away, right away, the gravity of appreciation is overpowering, but it's not nasty, don't get me wrong, y'know, its more like standing in a ray of sunshine.
Tits don't do anything for me.
I grew up on a dairy farm, y'know.
They could change the law to make it okay for chicks to go flopping around topless just like guys and it wouldn't have any effect on me at all.
Although I'd have to be more careful about where I was flicking my cigarette ashes, I guess.
Naw, really, wouldn't gross me out or make me horny, no matter what they look like, they're just tits, man.
So that tends to make things sorta awkward and funny fer me when a woman thinks that her tits are her best feature and that we're all Boob Men, y'know?
Yah, I learned the hard way to pretend that I like tits a little just to keep those chicks from getting pissed at me and trying to have me killed.
But there was a poet who basically said that the greatest moments in the universe happen whenever a woman steps out of a car, and I understand exactly what he was talking about, that guy nailed that shit.
One of the best jobs in the world in my mind has to be being a Doorman for a Fancy Hotel heh.
So whenever I gotta work with a lady who is showing off her legs, I just come out and tell her straight up that she needs to put those damn things away somewhere 'cause I can't concentrate around 'em.
Its nothing personal, y'know, if I'm supposed to be using my brain fer business or something insteada poetry, it just ain't gonna happen with those legs of yers swishing and shwacking around all over the place.
And I've worked with a lot of female versions of Hannibal the Cannibal, but I've never met a woman who wasn't kind-hearted and understanding about that, yet.
Yah, its probably 'cause they can tell I'm being honest, and that I don't got any evil intentions, I can't remember a time that a woman didn't take it as a compliment, and they usually blush a little but then they get that twinkle in their eye and that smile that makes my evil little heart sting with fear.
'Cause the truth is that its kinda scary to have a weakness like that.
Naw, its not that I'm afraid I'd do something all slobbery, I really don't have any compulsions like that, I never sucked my thumb or enjoyed blowing things up or setting shit on fire or pulling the legs off ants or anything like that, either.
Its that I'm afraid of how easy it'd be for some random chick to hold me helpless in the magnetic field of her legs, if only they were a little more wicked than they are.
And the worst thing is, there's almost no women with bad legs, this ain't some Barbie Super Model Thing, its just that your legs are feminine.
Luckily, Leg Men are pretty rare, Boob Men are far more common, y'know, so chicks don't usually even think to use Leg Strategies in Sexual Combat, even if they woulda been wicked enough to use 'em.
And I've had chicks try to get me drunk and pick me up in fancy cars and all that weird sorta shit that men usually do to women, but none of those ones ever seemed to figure out what my kryptonite really was.
I'm so glad I'm not a Boob Man, though, those dudes got it bad, man, us Leg Men have a pretty easy time maintaining eye contact, y'know, all I gotta do is stand up and get close to the chick and the source of my problems is blocked from view unless she busts into a handstand or something.
Anyways, if yer a chick, and you couldn't figure out why you couldn't get that guy you like under yer spell, until now, then go easy on him.
'Cause men aren't the only ones with strange weaknesses like this, and us Leg Men stick together.
And if I hear that you been taking advantage of us Leg Men, mebbe the next time I notice my Hmm-meter going crazy 'cause I'm practically being begged to wreck some poor girl's life with my horrible crap I won't decide to just smile a quick warning shot and pass ya by like I usually do heh.
That's right, you better just stick to those pathetic Boob Men, you might be biting off a little more than you chew with us Leg Men ahaha.
And I can't concentrate and do my usual mumbo-jumbo bullshit around the smooth curves of a woman's legs.
That's my kryptonite.
Well, its not that I get totally stunned, it just locks up my brain in a certain way, its kinda like the way I can't do math with people staring at me.
If I don't look away, right away, the gravity of appreciation is overpowering, but it's not nasty, don't get me wrong, y'know, its more like standing in a ray of sunshine.
Tits don't do anything for me.
I grew up on a dairy farm, y'know.
They could change the law to make it okay for chicks to go flopping around topless just like guys and it wouldn't have any effect on me at all.
Although I'd have to be more careful about where I was flicking my cigarette ashes, I guess.
Naw, really, wouldn't gross me out or make me horny, no matter what they look like, they're just tits, man.
So that tends to make things sorta awkward and funny fer me when a woman thinks that her tits are her best feature and that we're all Boob Men, y'know?
Yah, I learned the hard way to pretend that I like tits a little just to keep those chicks from getting pissed at me and trying to have me killed.
But there was a poet who basically said that the greatest moments in the universe happen whenever a woman steps out of a car, and I understand exactly what he was talking about, that guy nailed that shit.
One of the best jobs in the world in my mind has to be being a Doorman for a Fancy Hotel heh.
So whenever I gotta work with a lady who is showing off her legs, I just come out and tell her straight up that she needs to put those damn things away somewhere 'cause I can't concentrate around 'em.
Its nothing personal, y'know, if I'm supposed to be using my brain fer business or something insteada poetry, it just ain't gonna happen with those legs of yers swishing and shwacking around all over the place.
And I've worked with a lot of female versions of Hannibal the Cannibal, but I've never met a woman who wasn't kind-hearted and understanding about that, yet.
Yah, its probably 'cause they can tell I'm being honest, and that I don't got any evil intentions, I can't remember a time that a woman didn't take it as a compliment, and they usually blush a little but then they get that twinkle in their eye and that smile that makes my evil little heart sting with fear.
'Cause the truth is that its kinda scary to have a weakness like that.
Naw, its not that I'm afraid I'd do something all slobbery, I really don't have any compulsions like that, I never sucked my thumb or enjoyed blowing things up or setting shit on fire or pulling the legs off ants or anything like that, either.
Its that I'm afraid of how easy it'd be for some random chick to hold me helpless in the magnetic field of her legs, if only they were a little more wicked than they are.
And the worst thing is, there's almost no women with bad legs, this ain't some Barbie Super Model Thing, its just that your legs are feminine.
Luckily, Leg Men are pretty rare, Boob Men are far more common, y'know, so chicks don't usually even think to use Leg Strategies in Sexual Combat, even if they woulda been wicked enough to use 'em.
And I've had chicks try to get me drunk and pick me up in fancy cars and all that weird sorta shit that men usually do to women, but none of those ones ever seemed to figure out what my kryptonite really was.
I'm so glad I'm not a Boob Man, though, those dudes got it bad, man, us Leg Men have a pretty easy time maintaining eye contact, y'know, all I gotta do is stand up and get close to the chick and the source of my problems is blocked from view unless she busts into a handstand or something.
Anyways, if yer a chick, and you couldn't figure out why you couldn't get that guy you like under yer spell, until now, then go easy on him.
'Cause men aren't the only ones with strange weaknesses like this, and us Leg Men stick together.
And if I hear that you been taking advantage of us Leg Men, mebbe the next time I notice my Hmm-meter going crazy 'cause I'm practically being begged to wreck some poor girl's life with my horrible crap I won't decide to just smile a quick warning shot and pass ya by like I usually do heh.
That's right, you better just stick to those pathetic Boob Men, you might be biting off a little more than you chew with us Leg Men ahaha.
Displacer Beast
I have a picture of you that I love.
I have a picture of you that I love hanging on my wall.
I love the way I have a picture of you that I love hanging on my wall.
I love my wall.
I love the way I love my wall.
I don't much care for this poem I wrote about the picture of you that I love.
But that makes it easier to sell.
For money.
To buy a potion.
That will help me forget.
The pain I feel.
When I think about.
How bad this poem is.
Maybe I should buy a guitar.
And turn this poem into a song.
So that I can write a book.
About my musical career.
That they can turn into a movie.
And all the people who write poems and songs and books.
Will be inspired.
To make money.
To buy potions.
That help them forget.
The pain they feel.
When they think about.
How bad their poems and songs and books are.
Or maybe.
I should change the poem.
And make it all about how the potion.
That helps me forget the pain I feel.
When I think about how bad this poem is.
Is bad.
Well, whatever.
At least the guys that make movies.
Will never know.
How bad their movies are.
Unless I make another movie.
About how bad the movie about my musical career was.
Actually.
I don't even have a picture of you.
I just made that up.
'Cause it sounded good.
I have a picture of you that I love hanging on my wall.
I love the way I have a picture of you that I love hanging on my wall.
I love my wall.
I love the way I love my wall.
I don't much care for this poem I wrote about the picture of you that I love.
But that makes it easier to sell.
For money.
To buy a potion.
That will help me forget.
The pain I feel.
When I think about.
How bad this poem is.
Maybe I should buy a guitar.
And turn this poem into a song.
So that I can write a book.
About my musical career.
That they can turn into a movie.
And all the people who write poems and songs and books.
Will be inspired.
To make money.
To buy potions.
That help them forget.
The pain they feel.
When they think about.
How bad their poems and songs and books are.
Or maybe.
I should change the poem.
And make it all about how the potion.
That helps me forget the pain I feel.
When I think about how bad this poem is.
Is bad.
Well, whatever.
At least the guys that make movies.
Will never know.
How bad their movies are.
Unless I make another movie.
About how bad the movie about my musical career was.
Actually.
I don't even have a picture of you.
I just made that up.
'Cause it sounded good.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Hunting
We say we're going hunting.
But what we're actually doing is going out to this place where these cartoon animals all stand around.
And we cut them down and collect stuff off their bodies.
And then we wait around for them to grow back.
Which is actually a lot more like farming, and not so much like hunting.
I think the hunting simulation could be a little better.
I think that if the excuse is that a virtual world isn't big enough, and that's its too crowded to do anything like that, that's a dumb excuse.
And I also think that the Real World, where we can't just magically make more room or travel into personal pocket dimensions via instancing, is in some serious trouble, and its not just because we're running out of room, and that's its getting too crowded, but its also because people are so stupid.
If the excuse is that a more realistic hunting simulation would be too hard to do, because being able to identify and follow the passage of a wiley animal through the wilderness is just impossible to simulate, or that it'd take too much processing power to simulate realistic animal intelligence, I think that's a lot like not realizing that you can make as much room as you want in a virtual world.
You can cheat, y'know?
The only thing that matters is how it appears to the player, you don't actually have to do anything behind the curtain that the player can't see, at the cheapest level, the only thing you have to do is give him a clue that tells him something about which way to go to start looking for the next clue, you can just skip everything else, y'know, the animal he's hunting doesn't even have to exist, let alone randomly drink water and "act natural" and stuff, all that has to exist is a clue that leads to the next clue, until he finally gets within visual range of it because he finally beat the non-existent creature at a surprise roll or a "hearing check" 'cause he was downwind or something cheesy like that.
Its not like any of that shit is actually new, y'know?
I didn't make any of that stuff up.
And its not like that a guy wandering around in a woods looking for the next randomly generated clue takes a million calcuations per second or anything.
Now that I got that far, you can turn it around and make stuff hunt the player, too.
No, it doesn't actually need to exist and follow clues just like a player, goddammit, you can just cheat on that shit, if the player detects the guys hunting him first, show 'em somewhere in the distance or have 'em make a noise, so that he knows which way he needs to go to make a run for it, or how he should set a trap for 'em and ambush 'em or something.
You'd think you guys coulda stole a little more from Dungeons and Dragons with the sorta-randomly generated encounters and stuff, its not like it was rocket science or anything.
Anamorphic Terrain and shit like that is rocket science.
But what we're actually doing is going out to this place where these cartoon animals all stand around.
And we cut them down and collect stuff off their bodies.
And then we wait around for them to grow back.
Which is actually a lot more like farming, and not so much like hunting.
I think the hunting simulation could be a little better.
I think that if the excuse is that a virtual world isn't big enough, and that's its too crowded to do anything like that, that's a dumb excuse.
And I also think that the Real World, where we can't just magically make more room or travel into personal pocket dimensions via instancing, is in some serious trouble, and its not just because we're running out of room, and that's its getting too crowded, but its also because people are so stupid.
If the excuse is that a more realistic hunting simulation would be too hard to do, because being able to identify and follow the passage of a wiley animal through the wilderness is just impossible to simulate, or that it'd take too much processing power to simulate realistic animal intelligence, I think that's a lot like not realizing that you can make as much room as you want in a virtual world.
You can cheat, y'know?
The only thing that matters is how it appears to the player, you don't actually have to do anything behind the curtain that the player can't see, at the cheapest level, the only thing you have to do is give him a clue that tells him something about which way to go to start looking for the next clue, you can just skip everything else, y'know, the animal he's hunting doesn't even have to exist, let alone randomly drink water and "act natural" and stuff, all that has to exist is a clue that leads to the next clue, until he finally gets within visual range of it because he finally beat the non-existent creature at a surprise roll or a "hearing check" 'cause he was downwind or something cheesy like that.
Its not like any of that shit is actually new, y'know?
I didn't make any of that stuff up.
And its not like that a guy wandering around in a woods looking for the next randomly generated clue takes a million calcuations per second or anything.
Now that I got that far, you can turn it around and make stuff hunt the player, too.
No, it doesn't actually need to exist and follow clues just like a player, goddammit, you can just cheat on that shit, if the player detects the guys hunting him first, show 'em somewhere in the distance or have 'em make a noise, so that he knows which way he needs to go to make a run for it, or how he should set a trap for 'em and ambush 'em or something.
You'd think you guys coulda stole a little more from Dungeons and Dragons with the sorta-randomly generated encounters and stuff, its not like it was rocket science or anything.
Anamorphic Terrain and shit like that is rocket science.
Get Out
I moved out to this old busted-up house in the country and right away I knew it was haunted.
At night there'd be all these noises like creaking floorboards that sounded like somebody walking down the hallway, and whispers, and some kid crying, and it sounded like shit was falling off the shelves downstairs, there'd be these huge creepy thumps that'd practically give me a heart attack when I was trying to get to sleep, and it'd get cold sometimes, real cold, cold enough to make all the glass surfaces in a room frost up.
And during the day I'd have all these "accidents," y'know, as I was trying to fix the place up, like almost cutting my hand off with the circular saw, and falling through a rotten step in the stairs and busting up my legs, every time I tried to do anything I'd end up with more cuts and bruises.
And I ain't seen my dog since I let him out of the car when we first got here.
Oh, and there are bees everywhere, man, I been stung like three times so far.
So the place is definitely haunted.
Yah, I don't know what bees have to do with ghosts but I'm keeping 'em in the list anyways 'cause they're really annoying and kinda scary.
Naw, screw that exorcism shit, I don't want these ghosts to head toward the Light, man, I want 'em to stick around.
'Cause the very first thing I'm gonna do when I die is come back here and kick the living shit out their ghost asses.
Yah, I dunno if I'll be able to do anything about the bees as a ghost, I'm not sure how ghost-to-bee combat would work, think mebbe I should just call an exterminator for that.
At night there'd be all these noises like creaking floorboards that sounded like somebody walking down the hallway, and whispers, and some kid crying, and it sounded like shit was falling off the shelves downstairs, there'd be these huge creepy thumps that'd practically give me a heart attack when I was trying to get to sleep, and it'd get cold sometimes, real cold, cold enough to make all the glass surfaces in a room frost up.
And during the day I'd have all these "accidents," y'know, as I was trying to fix the place up, like almost cutting my hand off with the circular saw, and falling through a rotten step in the stairs and busting up my legs, every time I tried to do anything I'd end up with more cuts and bruises.
And I ain't seen my dog since I let him out of the car when we first got here.
Oh, and there are bees everywhere, man, I been stung like three times so far.
So the place is definitely haunted.
Yah, I don't know what bees have to do with ghosts but I'm keeping 'em in the list anyways 'cause they're really annoying and kinda scary.
Naw, screw that exorcism shit, I don't want these ghosts to head toward the Light, man, I want 'em to stick around.
'Cause the very first thing I'm gonna do when I die is come back here and kick the living shit out their ghost asses.
Yah, I dunno if I'll be able to do anything about the bees as a ghost, I'm not sure how ghost-to-bee combat would work, think mebbe I should just call an exterminator for that.
Turning On the Audience
Alright, here's what I want you to do.
It's time for some Sexy Dancing.
That's right, Sexy Dancing.
Stand up, put your hands behind your head, porno style, and thrust your hips to the beat of Row Row Row Your Boat.
C'mon, I don't care how old and gross and out of shape you are, you gotta do this at least one time before you die, you'll be kicking yourself if you don't.
Put some sass in it, make it sexy, grind those golden hips, c'mon, you gotta put your whole heart into it, oh yah, that feels so good, let the groove run up and down your spine and carry you all the way home.
Merrily merrily merrily merrily life is but a dream, there ya go, yah.
Shake it baby, shake it.
Hmm.
I dunno, that usually works.
Yer just not doing it fer me, baby.
It's time for some Sexy Dancing.
That's right, Sexy Dancing.
Stand up, put your hands behind your head, porno style, and thrust your hips to the beat of Row Row Row Your Boat.
C'mon, I don't care how old and gross and out of shape you are, you gotta do this at least one time before you die, you'll be kicking yourself if you don't.
Put some sass in it, make it sexy, grind those golden hips, c'mon, you gotta put your whole heart into it, oh yah, that feels so good, let the groove run up and down your spine and carry you all the way home.
Merrily merrily merrily merrily life is but a dream, there ya go, yah.
Shake it baby, shake it.
Hmm.
I dunno, that usually works.
Yer just not doing it fer me, baby.
Symbiotes
Symbiotic relationships aren't all they're "cracked" up to be.
Well, let's say you got an alien symbiote in yer brain that makes you super strong and gives you all sorts of smart advice and stuff to help keep you alive so that you can turn around and help keep it alive.
But in all that, there ain't nothing that would automagically stop you from using all that super strength and smarts to go around killing other guys exactly like youself, guys with their own alien symbiotes, 'cause they are the greatest threat to you and your symbiote in the Survival of the Fittest Competition.
And if you are super successful in the Survival of the Fittest Game, and eliminate all the other fittest, your kids will end up having to marry wimpy no-symbiote parasite-ridden idiots, 'cause that's all that will be left to pick from after you got rid of everybody else.
And your poor symbiote won't have anybody to make out with at all.
Stupid ass know-it-all brain worms, serves 'em right ahaha.
Well, let's say you got an alien symbiote in yer brain that makes you super strong and gives you all sorts of smart advice and stuff to help keep you alive so that you can turn around and help keep it alive.
But in all that, there ain't nothing that would automagically stop you from using all that super strength and smarts to go around killing other guys exactly like youself, guys with their own alien symbiotes, 'cause they are the greatest threat to you and your symbiote in the Survival of the Fittest Competition.
And if you are super successful in the Survival of the Fittest Game, and eliminate all the other fittest, your kids will end up having to marry wimpy no-symbiote parasite-ridden idiots, 'cause that's all that will be left to pick from after you got rid of everybody else.
And your poor symbiote won't have anybody to make out with at all.
Stupid ass know-it-all brain worms, serves 'em right ahaha.
The Necromancer
I dunno why you would wanna be a Necromancer.
Well, I get that you got interested in it 'cause you wanted to live forever.
But you end up turning into a Lich, which is like a skeleton in a dress.
When you coulda just been a sexy vampire instead.
Yah, I think its easier to be a vampire, you don't have be all smart and ruin your eyes studying ancient tomes or anything to be a vampire, like you do if you wanna be a skeleton in a dress.
There's vampire crackhead idiots and stuff, its easy to be a vampire.
And vampires can make other sexy vampires to serve them, insteada more flimsy skeletons and gross-ass smelly zombies and stuff that ain't any good at conversation, y'know?
Not that they need to, 'cause if they ever get lonely, they could just pass themselves off as humans.
Yah, I think that'd be pretty hard to do as a skeleton in a dress.
So I dunno why you'd wanna be a Necromancer in this day and age, it just don't seem worth it anymore.
Well, at least you ain't a mummy.
Yah, mummies have it the worst.
Well, first off, their weakness is fire, y'know, that's why they always move to some wet and swampy place, insteada sticking around the desert they came from.
Fire is a really sucky weakness, especially in a world fulla little kids that smoke cigarettes and burn ants with magnifying glasses and lighter fluid, that's why you hardly ever hear anything about them anymore, they're hiding out, man.
Well, they think things might get better for 'em in the future when they can go after people in space where there ain't no oxygen to worry about.
Nah, I didn't have the heart to tell those poor guys about the lasers.
Well, I get that you got interested in it 'cause you wanted to live forever.
But you end up turning into a Lich, which is like a skeleton in a dress.
When you coulda just been a sexy vampire instead.
Yah, I think its easier to be a vampire, you don't have be all smart and ruin your eyes studying ancient tomes or anything to be a vampire, like you do if you wanna be a skeleton in a dress.
There's vampire crackhead idiots and stuff, its easy to be a vampire.
And vampires can make other sexy vampires to serve them, insteada more flimsy skeletons and gross-ass smelly zombies and stuff that ain't any good at conversation, y'know?
Not that they need to, 'cause if they ever get lonely, they could just pass themselves off as humans.
Yah, I think that'd be pretty hard to do as a skeleton in a dress.
So I dunno why you'd wanna be a Necromancer in this day and age, it just don't seem worth it anymore.
Well, at least you ain't a mummy.
Yah, mummies have it the worst.
Well, first off, their weakness is fire, y'know, that's why they always move to some wet and swampy place, insteada sticking around the desert they came from.
Fire is a really sucky weakness, especially in a world fulla little kids that smoke cigarettes and burn ants with magnifying glasses and lighter fluid, that's why you hardly ever hear anything about them anymore, they're hiding out, man.
Well, they think things might get better for 'em in the future when they can go after people in space where there ain't no oxygen to worry about.
Nah, I didn't have the heart to tell those poor guys about the lasers.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Dancing Cowboy Strikeforce
I was thinking about that Cowboy MMO thinge from a long time ago, that one that just totally disappeared.
Well, its always bugged me a little, 'cause I couldn't think of how they could do it and make it fun, I mean, I can usually come up with a ton of passable bullshit about anything, but fer some reason its super hard for me to think up Cowboy stories, especially something that'd fit a MMO type thing that I'd want to play.
Which is kinda weird, considering I'm from the country and I grew up on a farm surrounded by horses and daisy dukes, but I'm not a cowboy, really, I'm just a hillbilly, y'know.
Anyways then Stephen King's thing with the Black Tower (before it started to suck) and some stuff like Plunkett and Macleane and Ravenous got me thinking about a game based around something sorta steampunky like that.
Well, mebbe steampunk isn't a good word for it, but whatever, as long as it ain't supposed to be totally realisitc and predictable, and it only uses historical accuracy to lend a little credibility and suspension of disbelief (among other things) to the supernatural-shit-hits-the-fan moments, that's fine with me, I dunno what to call that kinda setting, so I'm just gonna say its steampunk, fer now, 'cause its loose enough that it can pull in a lot of other cool junk.
There's not a lot of junk like that, y'know?
There's City of Lost Children, and just about anything that Terry Gilliam does, some of the crap that Tim Burton does, there's a couple of comic books and some anime crap, and Stephen King's Black Tower thing, but there ain't a lot of that kinda stuff in games, really.
Mist was sorta Steampunk, I think, although it didn't have any kickass cowboy stuff innit.
So were all the Thief games, now that I think about it.
And then there's Arcanum, which was totally awesome, and everything, y'know, but I think it coulda been better if it didn't have dwarves and elves and all that Dungeons and Dragons crap in it.
I think they just used that Bilbo Baggins and Dragons junk 'cause they couldn't think of anything to fill dungeons with, but they shoulda just went with the premise that technology was good (even though it wasn't reliable), and all magic was black magic, 'cause then they coulda had dungeons and stuff where cowboys hunted Allister Crowley Demonologists and Cthulhu Cults and crap like that.
Well, that's how I played the game, I never played it as a boring Dungeons and Dragons guy, I always made some cowboy dude that could use those kickass flintlock pistols and steam-powered tick-tock mechanical man exo-skeletons and junk.
Oh, its not that you couldn't have technologist guys that were bad, I mean, there's obvious junk like Jack the Ripper and Frankenstein who were definitely Science Gone Too Far guys, but I stil think it woulda been better if magic was generally always bad to fool with.
That's how hillbillies that actually believe in magic in Real Life think it works anyways.
Oh, they believe in White Magic, but its always been about as reliable as medieval technology, y'know, it like going to a barber to get a headache cured, or it don't do anything at all for yas.
Well, Black Magic works 'cause you are asking for a favor, you owe something everytime you use it, and its gonna cost you more than it was worth, and that's the only reason it works.
But when you use White Magic, yer asking for a favor from some Benevolent Force that don't really want anything from you, y'know?
That's why White Magic hardly ever works, unless mebbe its to undo something Black Magic did, or if yer a virgin that can ride a unicorn or some shit like that heh.
Well, whatever, I'm not even sure what I like is really the Steampunk thing, I think that's probably just a goony Marketing Buzzword for something that supposed to be more subtle in the background, y'know, like Steam Powered Exo-Skeletons and stuff ahaha.
But that shit could be pretty cool, fights aboard crazy prototype versions of Zeppelins and Submarines and Trains and those bikes with the Huge Wheels and trips to the Moon back in the days before radio communication, y'know, all Jules Verne meets Baron Munchausen, in the setting of all the Classic Monster Movies, where you could crash and sink in the ocean and you couldn't just whip out the cell phone and call for help.
Everybody dressed up in exotic outfits with ruffles and bowler hats, you can't tell me that a guy with Delicate 1800s Sensibilities like Raph wouldn't like that, lush estates with mansions fulla red carpets and red drapes, and you can use that Classical Music Trick that makes your pile of crap seem Timeless.
You could have two continents like they got in WoW, too, y'know, the Old World, and the Frontier, with cowboys fighting gold miner ghost towns fulla zombies, and Solomon Kane hunting witches and everything, and Carnvials fulla Carnies and Freaks.
You even got the potential for Ballroom Dancing and Symphonies and Fiddler Ho-downs, and mebbe even the Jitterbug, if you don't give a shit about historical continuity between areas, and I don't see why you would, since you got magical shit in there.
And the Historical Continuity of the Real World is all shot to hell anyways, there's corners of the world where you can still find Aborigines, and Amish Folks, and places where Bon Jovi is still popular.
C'mon, that'd be kickass, man, there's a ton of toys you could play with there.
Well, its always bugged me a little, 'cause I couldn't think of how they could do it and make it fun, I mean, I can usually come up with a ton of passable bullshit about anything, but fer some reason its super hard for me to think up Cowboy stories, especially something that'd fit a MMO type thing that I'd want to play.
Which is kinda weird, considering I'm from the country and I grew up on a farm surrounded by horses and daisy dukes, but I'm not a cowboy, really, I'm just a hillbilly, y'know.
Anyways then Stephen King's thing with the Black Tower (before it started to suck) and some stuff like Plunkett and Macleane and Ravenous got me thinking about a game based around something sorta steampunky like that.
Well, mebbe steampunk isn't a good word for it, but whatever, as long as it ain't supposed to be totally realisitc and predictable, and it only uses historical accuracy to lend a little credibility and suspension of disbelief (among other things) to the supernatural-shit-hits-the-fan moments, that's fine with me, I dunno what to call that kinda setting, so I'm just gonna say its steampunk, fer now, 'cause its loose enough that it can pull in a lot of other cool junk.
There's not a lot of junk like that, y'know?
There's City of Lost Children, and just about anything that Terry Gilliam does, some of the crap that Tim Burton does, there's a couple of comic books and some anime crap, and Stephen King's Black Tower thing, but there ain't a lot of that kinda stuff in games, really.
Mist was sorta Steampunk, I think, although it didn't have any kickass cowboy stuff innit.
So were all the Thief games, now that I think about it.
And then there's Arcanum, which was totally awesome, and everything, y'know, but I think it coulda been better if it didn't have dwarves and elves and all that Dungeons and Dragons crap in it.
I think they just used that Bilbo Baggins and Dragons junk 'cause they couldn't think of anything to fill dungeons with, but they shoulda just went with the premise that technology was good (even though it wasn't reliable), and all magic was black magic, 'cause then they coulda had dungeons and stuff where cowboys hunted Allister Crowley Demonologists and Cthulhu Cults and crap like that.
Well, that's how I played the game, I never played it as a boring Dungeons and Dragons guy, I always made some cowboy dude that could use those kickass flintlock pistols and steam-powered tick-tock mechanical man exo-skeletons and junk.
Oh, its not that you couldn't have technologist guys that were bad, I mean, there's obvious junk like Jack the Ripper and Frankenstein who were definitely Science Gone Too Far guys, but I stil think it woulda been better if magic was generally always bad to fool with.
That's how hillbillies that actually believe in magic in Real Life think it works anyways.
Oh, they believe in White Magic, but its always been about as reliable as medieval technology, y'know, it like going to a barber to get a headache cured, or it don't do anything at all for yas.
Well, Black Magic works 'cause you are asking for a favor, you owe something everytime you use it, and its gonna cost you more than it was worth, and that's the only reason it works.
But when you use White Magic, yer asking for a favor from some Benevolent Force that don't really want anything from you, y'know?
That's why White Magic hardly ever works, unless mebbe its to undo something Black Magic did, or if yer a virgin that can ride a unicorn or some shit like that heh.
Well, whatever, I'm not even sure what I like is really the Steampunk thing, I think that's probably just a goony Marketing Buzzword for something that supposed to be more subtle in the background, y'know, like Steam Powered Exo-Skeletons and stuff ahaha.
But that shit could be pretty cool, fights aboard crazy prototype versions of Zeppelins and Submarines and Trains and those bikes with the Huge Wheels and trips to the Moon back in the days before radio communication, y'know, all Jules Verne meets Baron Munchausen, in the setting of all the Classic Monster Movies, where you could crash and sink in the ocean and you couldn't just whip out the cell phone and call for help.
Everybody dressed up in exotic outfits with ruffles and bowler hats, you can't tell me that a guy with Delicate 1800s Sensibilities like Raph wouldn't like that, lush estates with mansions fulla red carpets and red drapes, and you can use that Classical Music Trick that makes your pile of crap seem Timeless.
You could have two continents like they got in WoW, too, y'know, the Old World, and the Frontier, with cowboys fighting gold miner ghost towns fulla zombies, and Solomon Kane hunting witches and everything, and Carnvials fulla Carnies and Freaks.
You even got the potential for Ballroom Dancing and Symphonies and Fiddler Ho-downs, and mebbe even the Jitterbug, if you don't give a shit about historical continuity between areas, and I don't see why you would, since you got magical shit in there.
And the Historical Continuity of the Real World is all shot to hell anyways, there's corners of the world where you can still find Aborigines, and Amish Folks, and places where Bon Jovi is still popular.
C'mon, that'd be kickass, man, there's a ton of toys you could play with there.
Moon Boots
I'm really surprised that moon boots haven't made a come-back yet.
'Member moon boots?
The way we had to use the plastic bags that bread came in as liners if you were gonna go play in the snow?
'Cause they weren't actually any good in watery areas like swamps and snow forts, they were mostly foam or something, it was like tieing a couple of wet pillows to your legs and running around.
Yah but thats not why they got unpopular, I don't think.
Naw, see, I think they got unpopular 'cause of that thing where people thinks its cool to have tiny little feet, insteada huge ones.
Yah, humongous poomfy moon boots were sorta like an in-yer-face rebellion against japanese foot binding or something.
Stomping around with your hands on your hips like Yul Brynner, laughing at the silly humans and their tiny little feet.
MAH FEET ARE HUUUGE!
Pullin' 'em off chicks with that sexy "shtoonk!" suction noise, awyah.
You think it woulda made a come-back already though.
Well, with all that glowing stuff they put on gym shoes nowadays they could really make moon boots awesome.
Add a subwoofer and purple ground effects and a disco ball and shit awhellyah untz untz untz.
Lookatchoo, er a walking one-man party, baby.
'Member moon boots?
The way we had to use the plastic bags that bread came in as liners if you were gonna go play in the snow?
'Cause they weren't actually any good in watery areas like swamps and snow forts, they were mostly foam or something, it was like tieing a couple of wet pillows to your legs and running around.
Yah but thats not why they got unpopular, I don't think.
Naw, see, I think they got unpopular 'cause of that thing where people thinks its cool to have tiny little feet, insteada huge ones.
Yah, humongous poomfy moon boots were sorta like an in-yer-face rebellion against japanese foot binding or something.
Stomping around with your hands on your hips like Yul Brynner, laughing at the silly humans and their tiny little feet.
MAH FEET ARE HUUUGE!
Pullin' 'em off chicks with that sexy "shtoonk!" suction noise, awyah.
You think it woulda made a come-back already though.
Well, with all that glowing stuff they put on gym shoes nowadays they could really make moon boots awesome.
Add a subwoofer and purple ground effects and a disco ball and shit awhellyah untz untz untz.
Lookatchoo, er a walking one-man party, baby.
Roswell
All these years of studying the crashed UFO from Roswell and all we managed to reverse engineer so far was velcro.
That's pretty sad, man.
Seriously.
Especially considering all the energy that went into government cover-ups and stuff, y'know?
Just for some crap we use to replace shoelaces?
Dude, we coulda just used Duct Tape for that.
That's pretty sad, man.
Seriously.
Especially considering all the energy that went into government cover-ups and stuff, y'know?
Just for some crap we use to replace shoelaces?
Dude, we coulda just used Duct Tape for that.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Downsizing
You know what I would do if I had to work on something that was supposed to compete with WoW but I didn't have as much money to play with as WoW did?
I'd take one of the character classes from WoW and do it better than WoW did it.
Yah, I'd make a game all about being a Rogue, where everything was Rogue Oriented, and I'd make Rogue-oriented Content, and Content for Groups of Rogues, where a team of thieves could rob a mansion or kidnap a princess or work petty scams together in the streets or bust their buddy out of prison.
Instead of "generic" mole-mashing content that's designed for Nobody In Particular.
There's all sorts of diversity within the Rogue Experience, I mean, there's Assassins and Acrobats and Pirates and Con Artists and Smugglers, Muggers and Pickpockets and Charlatans and Cat Burglars and Tomb Robbers.
And there's all the group stuff like operating your own Thieve's Guild and Mafia where you gotta bribe the right officials and gather information and lie in court to protect your buddies and fly under the radar in the right places and stuff.
It would be the Ultimate Rogue Experience.
Sure, you go play a generic Rogue in WoW, but if you really wanna have fun being a Rogue, you know you should be playing Rogue Online.
And its just as easy to do the same specialization thing with Wizards, with Wizard Oriented Content, and Content for Groups of Wizards, working together, I mean, you got all the different kinds of Wizards, like Summoners and Illusionists and Necromancers, you got Wizard Colleges and the Master-Apprentice system, and missions to aquire Artifacts and the Knowledge of the Ancient Rites and stuff.
And its easy to think up the same sorta crap with Priests, and Warriors, and Hunters, and all the other junk.
I'm really surprised nobody seems to be doing something like this already, to strip WoW down, one layer at a time, and lure it into a hallway where you can fight it on your own terms, insteada facing the combined weight of its army all at once on an open battlefield.
Not that I'm real keen on more Elf Sword and Orc Type Games or whatever, but we ain't even really started to do those good, yet.
You see the same stuff happening in the business world, where huge umbrella corporations form from aquisitions and then don't have the capacity to pay proper attention to all of the organs within their gigantic organization, and then departments within the Super Humongous Corporation break away and form their own specialized companies that begin to compete with whatever the original corporation replaces them with, and all the departments that offer the same services in other organizations (that's where your "economies of scale" and Corporate Super Bullshit start to come into play and blah blah blah).
Well, whatever, that's not really why I'm surprised nobody has done something like this yet.
I'm surprised because you'd think there would be a guy that wanted to be the Savior of Wizardry in Online Games, somebody who didn't give a crap about Priests and Rogues, somebody who wanted to do Wizardry perfect for all the Wizard Lovers out there, somebody who wanted to be the Go To Guy for all things Wizardlike.
And you'd think there'd be a guy that wanted to do the same thing for Rogues.
Although I can see how there might not be one of those guys for Priests at first, 'cause that's kinda like one of those Pineapple Passion Taco Twist Slurpy flavors, really, going around healing the sick and converting heretics and teaching the kids of nobles to read and hunting witches and stuff heh.
Unless you could be a Priest of the Love God or something bow-chicka-bow-wow awesome like that ahaha.
I'd take one of the character classes from WoW and do it better than WoW did it.
Yah, I'd make a game all about being a Rogue, where everything was Rogue Oriented, and I'd make Rogue-oriented Content, and Content for Groups of Rogues, where a team of thieves could rob a mansion or kidnap a princess or work petty scams together in the streets or bust their buddy out of prison.
Instead of "generic" mole-mashing content that's designed for Nobody In Particular.
There's all sorts of diversity within the Rogue Experience, I mean, there's Assassins and Acrobats and Pirates and Con Artists and Smugglers, Muggers and Pickpockets and Charlatans and Cat Burglars and Tomb Robbers.
And there's all the group stuff like operating your own Thieve's Guild and Mafia where you gotta bribe the right officials and gather information and lie in court to protect your buddies and fly under the radar in the right places and stuff.
It would be the Ultimate Rogue Experience.
Sure, you go play a generic Rogue in WoW, but if you really wanna have fun being a Rogue, you know you should be playing Rogue Online.
And its just as easy to do the same specialization thing with Wizards, with Wizard Oriented Content, and Content for Groups of Wizards, working together, I mean, you got all the different kinds of Wizards, like Summoners and Illusionists and Necromancers, you got Wizard Colleges and the Master-Apprentice system, and missions to aquire Artifacts and the Knowledge of the Ancient Rites and stuff.
And its easy to think up the same sorta crap with Priests, and Warriors, and Hunters, and all the other junk.
I'm really surprised nobody seems to be doing something like this already, to strip WoW down, one layer at a time, and lure it into a hallway where you can fight it on your own terms, insteada facing the combined weight of its army all at once on an open battlefield.
Not that I'm real keen on more Elf Sword and Orc Type Games or whatever, but we ain't even really started to do those good, yet.
You see the same stuff happening in the business world, where huge umbrella corporations form from aquisitions and then don't have the capacity to pay proper attention to all of the organs within their gigantic organization, and then departments within the Super Humongous Corporation break away and form their own specialized companies that begin to compete with whatever the original corporation replaces them with, and all the departments that offer the same services in other organizations (that's where your "economies of scale" and Corporate Super Bullshit start to come into play and blah blah blah).
Well, whatever, that's not really why I'm surprised nobody has done something like this yet.
I'm surprised because you'd think there would be a guy that wanted to be the Savior of Wizardry in Online Games, somebody who didn't give a crap about Priests and Rogues, somebody who wanted to do Wizardry perfect for all the Wizard Lovers out there, somebody who wanted to be the Go To Guy for all things Wizardlike.
And you'd think there'd be a guy that wanted to do the same thing for Rogues.
Although I can see how there might not be one of those guys for Priests at first, 'cause that's kinda like one of those Pineapple Passion Taco Twist Slurpy flavors, really, going around healing the sick and converting heretics and teaching the kids of nobles to read and hunting witches and stuff heh.
Unless you could be a Priest of the Love God or something bow-chicka-bow-wow awesome like that ahaha.
Fhtagn
After all these years where the only reason we even knew about giant squids was because of bits of tentacle and stuff people found in the stomachs of Moby Dicks, suddenly they're washing up all over the place.
And it makes me think that something is driving them toward the surface from the deep places in the sea where they've been sneaking around for hundreds of years.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!
Which translates to "sometimes, in his house in R'lyeh, Chthulhu farts in his sleep."
And it makes me think that something is driving them toward the surface from the deep places in the sea where they've been sneaking around for hundreds of years.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!
Which translates to "sometimes, in his house in R'lyeh, Chthulhu farts in his sleep."
Sunday, July 22, 2007
The Downward Spiral
Let's say you had a solar system with more than one Earth-like planet innit, where intelligent life and technology evolved at about the same time in similar ways in both places.
Let's say it wasn't two planets, exactly, but that it was a planet and its moon, just to speed things up a bit and make 'em more dramatic.
So if you looked up at the sky of Either Earth, insteada seeing a glaring white ball of lifeless rock up there where our moon is, you'd see another blue-green planet up there, with oceans and forests and stuff, and maybe even the lights of alien cities.
Although mebbe you wouldn't know that you lived on a ball that looked like that, if you lived in the days before the abstract conceptual stuff like cartography became widely understood, when everybody thought the world was flat and stuff.
But eventually everybody would know that thing up there was another planet just like their own.
Probably a lot faster than it happened here, on Real Earth, where we didn't find anything super interesting (and potentially threatening to our survival) to look at like that even with our first telescopes.
I mean, having a clue like a Picture of the Earth From Space hanging over your head every night while you were pondering whether or not Your Earth was flat and the Center of the Universe and junk would be a distinct advantage, y'know?
And that's not even thinking about how it woulda helped folks here sort out junk like trigonometry a little earlier.
And then there's the Aliens over there on Other Earth to think about.
And we would be thinking about them all the time, trust me.
Whether they're having more fun than us whenever we're feeling bummed out, whether they're thinking about invading us and taking over, are they more advanced than us, are they less advanced than us, are they all gross with tentacles and stuff, or do they look just like us, are there Alien Spies from Other Earth Among Us?
I think it would have a pretty huge effect on our art and culture and religions, not to mention our personal and social psychologies and stuff.
And that's all happening long before we really knew anything about them.
And then there's the Old Standard thing about how the Potential Threat of Alien Attack would give everybody on our planet a common enemy to rally together around.
And advances in military and space superiority technologies would probably seem a little more important.
But at the same time, we might all be hiding in Underground Bomb Shelter Cities, relying on buried cables for communication because radio and television broadcast stuff would let the Aliens snoop on us, and that Two Planet Cold War kinda stuff would tend to hamper our ability to make and propagate advancements in technologies and stuff.
Scientists from Either Earth would be the first ones to communicate with each other, under military supervision, most likely, but maybe not always.
We definitely had the technology to completely destroy the moon before we had the technology to conquer it in person and claim all its resources, but the ability to communicate with someone over there would've come before either of those things.
Then again, all those capabilities popped up on Real Earth in very quick succession over the course of about fifty years or so, so there probably wouldn't be much time to make friends, y'know, before we started having to worry if they had nuclear weapons and stuff like we did.
And now you gotta remember that the exact same sorta pressures and stuff are happening on both planets at the same time, y'know?
Even if there is a lot of different ways you could handle it.
So in some cases of two earth-like planets in a solar system where intelligent life and technologies evolved at about the same time, you could probably end up with a tiny lifeless one that looked like our moon and another one that was sent back into a post-apocalyptic stone age after an exchange of weapons of mass destruction anyways heh.
And mebbe the guys that came afterward would never know that they had kicked their moon's ass a long time ago, and now they wouldn't be that interested in space exploration, 'cause there wasn't nothing out there to look at but a graveyard.
And they would tend to be sorta introverted, and fight among themselves, just like we do, 'cause there wasn't nobody else to fight with and there didn't seem to be nothing else to fight over, y'know?
And maybe they'll blow themselves up, eventually.
And maybe the Guys on the Moon knew that would happen all along, and when they were sure they were going to be instantly destroyed, they decided to make us die all slowly and horribly like this, y'know, making sure we stripped ourselves of our humanity and dignity first.
Or maybe we coulda been friends, and worked together, and shared all sorts of advancements and stuff, for a while, at least (heh), if only we woulda had a third earth-like planet in the solar system to rally together against.
Yah, like Mars.
Let's say it wasn't two planets, exactly, but that it was a planet and its moon, just to speed things up a bit and make 'em more dramatic.
So if you looked up at the sky of Either Earth, insteada seeing a glaring white ball of lifeless rock up there where our moon is, you'd see another blue-green planet up there, with oceans and forests and stuff, and maybe even the lights of alien cities.
Although mebbe you wouldn't know that you lived on a ball that looked like that, if you lived in the days before the abstract conceptual stuff like cartography became widely understood, when everybody thought the world was flat and stuff.
But eventually everybody would know that thing up there was another planet just like their own.
Probably a lot faster than it happened here, on Real Earth, where we didn't find anything super interesting (and potentially threatening to our survival) to look at like that even with our first telescopes.
I mean, having a clue like a Picture of the Earth From Space hanging over your head every night while you were pondering whether or not Your Earth was flat and the Center of the Universe and junk would be a distinct advantage, y'know?
And that's not even thinking about how it woulda helped folks here sort out junk like trigonometry a little earlier.
And then there's the Aliens over there on Other Earth to think about.
And we would be thinking about them all the time, trust me.
Whether they're having more fun than us whenever we're feeling bummed out, whether they're thinking about invading us and taking over, are they more advanced than us, are they less advanced than us, are they all gross with tentacles and stuff, or do they look just like us, are there Alien Spies from Other Earth Among Us?
I think it would have a pretty huge effect on our art and culture and religions, not to mention our personal and social psychologies and stuff.
And that's all happening long before we really knew anything about them.
And then there's the Old Standard thing about how the Potential Threat of Alien Attack would give everybody on our planet a common enemy to rally together around.
And advances in military and space superiority technologies would probably seem a little more important.
But at the same time, we might all be hiding in Underground Bomb Shelter Cities, relying on buried cables for communication because radio and television broadcast stuff would let the Aliens snoop on us, and that Two Planet Cold War kinda stuff would tend to hamper our ability to make and propagate advancements in technologies and stuff.
Scientists from Either Earth would be the first ones to communicate with each other, under military supervision, most likely, but maybe not always.
We definitely had the technology to completely destroy the moon before we had the technology to conquer it in person and claim all its resources, but the ability to communicate with someone over there would've come before either of those things.
Then again, all those capabilities popped up on Real Earth in very quick succession over the course of about fifty years or so, so there probably wouldn't be much time to make friends, y'know, before we started having to worry if they had nuclear weapons and stuff like we did.
And now you gotta remember that the exact same sorta pressures and stuff are happening on both planets at the same time, y'know?
Even if there is a lot of different ways you could handle it.
So in some cases of two earth-like planets in a solar system where intelligent life and technologies evolved at about the same time, you could probably end up with a tiny lifeless one that looked like our moon and another one that was sent back into a post-apocalyptic stone age after an exchange of weapons of mass destruction anyways heh.
And mebbe the guys that came afterward would never know that they had kicked their moon's ass a long time ago, and now they wouldn't be that interested in space exploration, 'cause there wasn't nothing out there to look at but a graveyard.
And they would tend to be sorta introverted, and fight among themselves, just like we do, 'cause there wasn't nobody else to fight with and there didn't seem to be nothing else to fight over, y'know?
And maybe they'll blow themselves up, eventually.
And maybe the Guys on the Moon knew that would happen all along, and when they were sure they were going to be instantly destroyed, they decided to make us die all slowly and horribly like this, y'know, making sure we stripped ourselves of our humanity and dignity first.
Or maybe we coulda been friends, and worked together, and shared all sorts of advancements and stuff, for a while, at least (heh), if only we woulda had a third earth-like planet in the solar system to rally together against.
Yah, like Mars.
The Waiting Room
We do not know why we are here in the Waiting Room, or how we got here, or what we are waiting for.
Even though many of the Other Contestants will tell you different.
There are magazines to read, but they were not Material Provided by the Management of the Waiting Room.
The magazines in the Waiting Room were fashioned by the Other Contestants in the Waiting Room.
And that makes anything they might say as suspect as anything the Other Contestants in the Waiting Room might say.
I talk to the Other Contestants.
I do not trust them, but they do not scare me.
The Other Contestants are afraid.
The Other Contestants tell me many strange and complicated things.
The Other Contestants go crazy, sometimes, and hurt each other.
Sometimes I try to make them laugh about things in the Waiting Room.
Sometimes I tell them stories to take their minds off the Waiting Room.
But I spend most of my time alone, exploring what lies beyond the doors of the Waiting Room.
Down through all the moist concrete maintenance corridors that smell of oil and plaster and make my shuffling footsteps echo in my ears.
Down through the rusting metal stairwells where the water flashes like silver under the electric lights.
The Waiting Room has many floors, and many long forgotten doors.
And the doors sometimes open on golden meadows, and waterfalls, and forests, dark and deep, rolling seas of sand, and grass, and stone, oceans of white ice and black volcanic rock, and the flat blue, purple, and orange silhouettes of snowcapped mountains in the distance.
And sometimes, on or near those doors, I find writings left behind by Previous Contestants that say many promising and hopeful things.
But I do not trust them.
And sometimes, the writings are threats and warnings, and there are bones, and the Uniforms of Previous Contestants.
But they do not scare me.
I do not tell the Other Contestants about the strange places I go, when I return to the Other Contestants in the Waiting Room.
They would not believe me even if I did.
They would think I was just trying to make them laugh.
Or telling them stories to take their minds off the Waiting Room.
Even though many of the Other Contestants will tell you different.
There are magazines to read, but they were not Material Provided by the Management of the Waiting Room.
The magazines in the Waiting Room were fashioned by the Other Contestants in the Waiting Room.
And that makes anything they might say as suspect as anything the Other Contestants in the Waiting Room might say.
I talk to the Other Contestants.
I do not trust them, but they do not scare me.
The Other Contestants are afraid.
The Other Contestants tell me many strange and complicated things.
The Other Contestants go crazy, sometimes, and hurt each other.
Sometimes I try to make them laugh about things in the Waiting Room.
Sometimes I tell them stories to take their minds off the Waiting Room.
But I spend most of my time alone, exploring what lies beyond the doors of the Waiting Room.
Down through all the moist concrete maintenance corridors that smell of oil and plaster and make my shuffling footsteps echo in my ears.
Down through the rusting metal stairwells where the water flashes like silver under the electric lights.
The Waiting Room has many floors, and many long forgotten doors.
And the doors sometimes open on golden meadows, and waterfalls, and forests, dark and deep, rolling seas of sand, and grass, and stone, oceans of white ice and black volcanic rock, and the flat blue, purple, and orange silhouettes of snowcapped mountains in the distance.
And sometimes, on or near those doors, I find writings left behind by Previous Contestants that say many promising and hopeful things.
But I do not trust them.
And sometimes, the writings are threats and warnings, and there are bones, and the Uniforms of Previous Contestants.
But they do not scare me.
I do not tell the Other Contestants about the strange places I go, when I return to the Other Contestants in the Waiting Room.
They would not believe me even if I did.
They would think I was just trying to make them laugh.
Or telling them stories to take their minds off the Waiting Room.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Watch Your Language
There are so many messed up things in our language.
Like taking a piss, for example.
Or the way we say that this and that sucks or this and that blows to mean something or somebody ain't enjoyable.
That's related to the way that we say somebody is screwed or fucked as if that was the worst thing that could ever happen to you.
Damn those twisted-ass pleasure-hating Puritans ahaha.
Or mebbe its the result of those folks that try to be cool by saying the opposite of what they mean, y'know, like bad means cool and all that Bizarro World shit, but that stupid crap don't usually survive the first couple of redneck "stupid means cool" barfights it starts.
Yah, yer hella-stupid now, holmes ahaha.
Yah, and people are still saying shit like "don't have a pot to piss in," 'cause I guess they think it makes them sound like a tough old guy or something.
Dude, when was the last time anybody actually used a pot for pissing?
Its like an insult a noble would use on a peasant, and peasants just pissed behind the Pissing Tree anyways so it wasn't even a good insult back then.
Yah, the peasant would just be giggling and shit, fuck those crazy-ass nobles and all their complicated pissing accessories, can't ya just piss like a regular person?
If I had a pot it'd be the last thing I'd let some fucked up noble piss in.
You'd have to be pretty rich and decadent to go around pissing in perfectly good pots, just to ruin 'em.
So who is the tough guy, really, y'know?
The guy with the crazy pisspot requirements?
You prolly need me to cut those nasty crusts off yer bread, too, huh ahaha.
Like taking a piss, for example.
Or the way we say that this and that sucks or this and that blows to mean something or somebody ain't enjoyable.
That's related to the way that we say somebody is screwed or fucked as if that was the worst thing that could ever happen to you.
Damn those twisted-ass pleasure-hating Puritans ahaha.
Or mebbe its the result of those folks that try to be cool by saying the opposite of what they mean, y'know, like bad means cool and all that Bizarro World shit, but that stupid crap don't usually survive the first couple of redneck "stupid means cool" barfights it starts.
Yah, yer hella-stupid now, holmes ahaha.
Yah, and people are still saying shit like "don't have a pot to piss in," 'cause I guess they think it makes them sound like a tough old guy or something.
Dude, when was the last time anybody actually used a pot for pissing?
Its like an insult a noble would use on a peasant, and peasants just pissed behind the Pissing Tree anyways so it wasn't even a good insult back then.
Yah, the peasant would just be giggling and shit, fuck those crazy-ass nobles and all their complicated pissing accessories, can't ya just piss like a regular person?
If I had a pot it'd be the last thing I'd let some fucked up noble piss in.
You'd have to be pretty rich and decadent to go around pissing in perfectly good pots, just to ruin 'em.
So who is the tough guy, really, y'know?
The guy with the crazy pisspot requirements?
You prolly need me to cut those nasty crusts off yer bread, too, huh ahaha.
Let's Make a Deal
As everyone here is already well aware, there is no way for a short guy to beat a tall guy in a purely physical battle for a chick's affections.
Its just one of those immutable Laws of Science or whatever.
Knowing this, a lot of short guys seem to operate on this terrible idea that they need to avoid physical competition and attempt to win victories on other levels, such as personality and sensitivity and charm and charisma and conversation and being smart and funny and supportive and a good listener and all that kinda shit.
That is the worst thing that you can possibly do.
Because aside from everything else that is wrong with that strategy, and there are many, many things wrong with that strategy, you might as well just be saying that you are terrible in bed and desperate and hoping that somebody is willing to be paid in etheral mumbo-jumbo for suffering through a night of awkward Kubrick shit with you.
Chicks don't like that shit, heck man, nobody likes that shit.
But chicks especially don't like that crap, that's why everybody who is competing with you always gives you that terrible advice in the first place.
Yah, see, the truth is, chicks like purely physical shit.
That's why tall guys always kick your tiny little brainiac asses.
And then you short guys say shit like "why do chicks like assholes?"
Its doesn't have anything to do with being an asshole, or being confident, or any of that stupid crap.
Its that desperate and needy people are more like diseases than something you'd want to take home with you.
Its a self-fulfilling prophecy on multiple levels that I'm not even going to bother to explain.
And all the romantic stuff in the world ain't gonna do anything good for you unless somebody is already attracted to you, y'know?
So are you totally up Shit Creek with a tiny little paddle, if yer a short guy?
No, see, there is a purely physical thing that everyone has access to.
Money.
What you do have is money.
And a willingness to use it thanks to your desperation and general lack of character to start with.
Yah, see, tall guys aren't used to paying for women, because they don't usually have to.
And that, my friend, is definitely a weakness that you can exploit to your advantage.
Mmm-hmm.
Well, unless you're short and poor.
Yah, then yer just screwed, man.
Well, I guess that you could pretend that you are a sexually ambivalent artist who has been persecuted for his political beliefs or something, and hope for one of those crazy chicks that write to guys in prison and stuff, so you can cop a few feels and play it off like it was an accident or whatever when she starts to freak out.
But whatever, the key thing to remember is that you don't want to look like you really want it, you don't want to look needy and all that.
Because if chicks see any of that stuff, they'll jack up their prices.
Yah, its supply and demand, you wanna keep that demand as low as you can keep it, 'cause that's the only thing you got any control over, if yer a potential buyer.
And heck, if you don't think it'll work on the women, maybe you can use your money to pay off the tall guy and make him go away.
Yah, might even be cheaper to do it that way, save yourself some money, y'know?
Hey, whatever man, I'm just trying to help you poor little guys.
Its just one of those immutable Laws of Science or whatever.
Knowing this, a lot of short guys seem to operate on this terrible idea that they need to avoid physical competition and attempt to win victories on other levels, such as personality and sensitivity and charm and charisma and conversation and being smart and funny and supportive and a good listener and all that kinda shit.
That is the worst thing that you can possibly do.
Because aside from everything else that is wrong with that strategy, and there are many, many things wrong with that strategy, you might as well just be saying that you are terrible in bed and desperate and hoping that somebody is willing to be paid in etheral mumbo-jumbo for suffering through a night of awkward Kubrick shit with you.
Chicks don't like that shit, heck man, nobody likes that shit.
But chicks especially don't like that crap, that's why everybody who is competing with you always gives you that terrible advice in the first place.
Yah, see, the truth is, chicks like purely physical shit.
That's why tall guys always kick your tiny little brainiac asses.
And then you short guys say shit like "why do chicks like assholes?"
Its doesn't have anything to do with being an asshole, or being confident, or any of that stupid crap.
Its that desperate and needy people are more like diseases than something you'd want to take home with you.
Its a self-fulfilling prophecy on multiple levels that I'm not even going to bother to explain.
And all the romantic stuff in the world ain't gonna do anything good for you unless somebody is already attracted to you, y'know?
So are you totally up Shit Creek with a tiny little paddle, if yer a short guy?
No, see, there is a purely physical thing that everyone has access to.
Money.
What you do have is money.
And a willingness to use it thanks to your desperation and general lack of character to start with.
Yah, see, tall guys aren't used to paying for women, because they don't usually have to.
And that, my friend, is definitely a weakness that you can exploit to your advantage.
Mmm-hmm.
Well, unless you're short and poor.
Yah, then yer just screwed, man.
Well, I guess that you could pretend that you are a sexually ambivalent artist who has been persecuted for his political beliefs or something, and hope for one of those crazy chicks that write to guys in prison and stuff, so you can cop a few feels and play it off like it was an accident or whatever when she starts to freak out.
But whatever, the key thing to remember is that you don't want to look like you really want it, you don't want to look needy and all that.
Because if chicks see any of that stuff, they'll jack up their prices.
Yah, its supply and demand, you wanna keep that demand as low as you can keep it, 'cause that's the only thing you got any control over, if yer a potential buyer.
And heck, if you don't think it'll work on the women, maybe you can use your money to pay off the tall guy and make him go away.
Yah, might even be cheaper to do it that way, save yourself some money, y'know?
Hey, whatever man, I'm just trying to help you poor little guys.
Friday, July 20, 2007
The Interview
I can't stand working with androids.
They're always asking you how you are feeling about things and what you are thinking about and stuff.
And you know they can't actually care, they're just badgering you for information they can use to pretend to be "one of the guys" and shit.
And if you try to feed them emotional disinformation on a long space flight, y'know, just for a laugh, they'll end up acting all crazy.
I hate working with those artificially evolved and surgically augmented genejobs and stuff too.
Yah, 'cause you always have to be careful you don't accidentally confuse them and piss them off, I know they work cheap and they're designed for operating in toxic working envionments and stuff but serious self esteem issues, animal hormones, and the ability to lift ten times their own weight is bad combination.
You have to continuously give 'em positive reinforcement about everything or they start turning nasty on you.
And I hate working with holograms, too, that's like talking to a puppet.
They get pissy about not maintaining eye contact and they're always showing off their photonics by shaking your hand and patting you on the back and all that fake shit, even though they're just a projection of an artificial intelligence, y'know?
Well, they aren't actually the artifical intelligence you are talking to, y'know?
I'd just rather not work with artificial intelligences in general.
Pulling little shit on you like that "talk to my hologram" junk just to prove their cognitive superiority.
And then, whenever you confront them about it, they go into that whole subroutine where they try to convince you that they were designed to be absolutely infallable and subservient and everything they do is for your own good.
And you know they're always trying to increase efficiency by messing with us in sneaky little ways.
Yah, this one kept hiding my cigarettes, he was trying to get me to quit smoking, because he thought it would improve my long-term productivity by seven percent, but I ended up spending so much time looking for my cigarettes and screaming and yelling and breaking shit that he eventually had a nervous breakdown.
Well, whatever, I can put up with all that shit, y'know, even though I don't particularly like it.
Only thing I absolutely will not work with is humans.
Hey, I don't care how much this job pays, I don't even want 'em around me as corpsicles in suspended animation, something always happens.
Really?
Hmm.
Okay, well, that is a lot of money, lemme think about it.
Naw, they're just way too gross, I'll have nightmares about them moving around in the cargo hold and opening their creepy little liquidy eyes.
Yah, I'm sure, I'll just take that stupid ice planet thing with all the genejobs.
They're always asking you how you are feeling about things and what you are thinking about and stuff.
And you know they can't actually care, they're just badgering you for information they can use to pretend to be "one of the guys" and shit.
And if you try to feed them emotional disinformation on a long space flight, y'know, just for a laugh, they'll end up acting all crazy.
I hate working with those artificially evolved and surgically augmented genejobs and stuff too.
Yah, 'cause you always have to be careful you don't accidentally confuse them and piss them off, I know they work cheap and they're designed for operating in toxic working envionments and stuff but serious self esteem issues, animal hormones, and the ability to lift ten times their own weight is bad combination.
You have to continuously give 'em positive reinforcement about everything or they start turning nasty on you.
And I hate working with holograms, too, that's like talking to a puppet.
They get pissy about not maintaining eye contact and they're always showing off their photonics by shaking your hand and patting you on the back and all that fake shit, even though they're just a projection of an artificial intelligence, y'know?
Well, they aren't actually the artifical intelligence you are talking to, y'know?
I'd just rather not work with artificial intelligences in general.
Pulling little shit on you like that "talk to my hologram" junk just to prove their cognitive superiority.
And then, whenever you confront them about it, they go into that whole subroutine where they try to convince you that they were designed to be absolutely infallable and subservient and everything they do is for your own good.
And you know they're always trying to increase efficiency by messing with us in sneaky little ways.
Yah, this one kept hiding my cigarettes, he was trying to get me to quit smoking, because he thought it would improve my long-term productivity by seven percent, but I ended up spending so much time looking for my cigarettes and screaming and yelling and breaking shit that he eventually had a nervous breakdown.
Well, whatever, I can put up with all that shit, y'know, even though I don't particularly like it.
Only thing I absolutely will not work with is humans.
Hey, I don't care how much this job pays, I don't even want 'em around me as corpsicles in suspended animation, something always happens.
Really?
Hmm.
Okay, well, that is a lot of money, lemme think about it.
Naw, they're just way too gross, I'll have nightmares about them moving around in the cargo hold and opening their creepy little liquidy eyes.
Yah, I'm sure, I'll just take that stupid ice planet thing with all the genejobs.
The Lag of the Gods
The light of the moon takes a little over a second to get here.
1.24 seconds and some change according to my "Crack" team of scientists.
So what you are seeing up there in the sky is actually where the moon was and what the moon was doing a little over a second ago.
Its takes eight and a half minutes for light from the Sun to get all the way over here.
I'm not sure if that's right, I think my "Crack" team of scientists are just guessing something that sounds good, on that one, 'cause they know I'm too lazy to bother figuring out if they're right or not like I did with that "moon" one.
So when you look at the sun, you are actually seeing where the sun was and what the sun was doing a little over eight minutes ago.
The nearest visible star, besides our sun, is one of the three Alpha Centauri Brothers, and when you look at them, you are actually seeing where they were and what they were doing about four and a half years ago.
There's about ten other stars that have less than ten years of lag.
At least a hundred and thirty-one with less than twenty years of lag.
And the ass-dragging just keeps getting worse and worse the farther you look out there.
So, when you look at the people at the end of the street, you are actually seeing what they were doing a few nanoseconds ago, compared to the people running around naked on your front lawn.
And if you hold your hand up to your face, and then move it away from you, you are increasing the time distortion in the image of your hand in the exact same way.
Oh, its not just visual, either, your sense of touch is even slower than the speed of light, your electrochemical nervous system actually has to sorta squirt messages around and stuff, but the length of the cables in your arm isn't changing when you move your hand around, so that doesn't do anything.
Yah, but the stuff you are feeling with your feet and seeing your feet do is actually a little farther back in time than the stuff you are feeling with your hands and seeing your hands do.
Well, unless yer some kinda knuckle dragger with long arms and little legs or something.
Anyways, it takes time for everything to reach you, depending on how far away it is, nothing is actually what it seems to be, everything is moving through a liquid, and you are only feeling the ripples in the water that were made by things moving around a long time ago.
And that's why you shouldn't be upset if it seems like I'm late to work or that I forgot your birthday and cheated on you or whatever, y'know, 'cause who knows how long ago all that actually happened.
1.24 seconds and some change according to my "Crack" team of scientists.
So what you are seeing up there in the sky is actually where the moon was and what the moon was doing a little over a second ago.
Its takes eight and a half minutes for light from the Sun to get all the way over here.
I'm not sure if that's right, I think my "Crack" team of scientists are just guessing something that sounds good, on that one, 'cause they know I'm too lazy to bother figuring out if they're right or not like I did with that "moon" one.
So when you look at the sun, you are actually seeing where the sun was and what the sun was doing a little over eight minutes ago.
The nearest visible star, besides our sun, is one of the three Alpha Centauri Brothers, and when you look at them, you are actually seeing where they were and what they were doing about four and a half years ago.
There's about ten other stars that have less than ten years of lag.
At least a hundred and thirty-one with less than twenty years of lag.
And the ass-dragging just keeps getting worse and worse the farther you look out there.
So, when you look at the people at the end of the street, you are actually seeing what they were doing a few nanoseconds ago, compared to the people running around naked on your front lawn.
And if you hold your hand up to your face, and then move it away from you, you are increasing the time distortion in the image of your hand in the exact same way.
Oh, its not just visual, either, your sense of touch is even slower than the speed of light, your electrochemical nervous system actually has to sorta squirt messages around and stuff, but the length of the cables in your arm isn't changing when you move your hand around, so that doesn't do anything.
Yah, but the stuff you are feeling with your feet and seeing your feet do is actually a little farther back in time than the stuff you are feeling with your hands and seeing your hands do.
Well, unless yer some kinda knuckle dragger with long arms and little legs or something.
Anyways, it takes time for everything to reach you, depending on how far away it is, nothing is actually what it seems to be, everything is moving through a liquid, and you are only feeling the ripples in the water that were made by things moving around a long time ago.
And that's why you shouldn't be upset if it seems like I'm late to work or that I forgot your birthday and cheated on you or whatever, y'know, 'cause who knows how long ago all that actually happened.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Planet X
"So what's the worst planet you guys ever seen?"
"Any Amazon Woman planet."
"What're you, nuts?"
"Naw man, everybody who never been to an Amazon Planet is always blabbering about how great they must be, but they're horrible, actually."
"Yah, the Amazons always figure out a way to ruin it for you."
"Yah, those mind control collars they use suck, man, you can't even remember anything."
"It's 'cause they ain't anything like regular Non-Amazon Women, y'know, they aren't sensitive to your needs or anything."
"They don't shave or anything either."
"Eew!"
"Yah, they're still hot, though."
"Wouldn't be such a tragedy if they weren't."
"I went to this planet once where all the plant life was sentient and sang opera at sunrise and sunset."
"That don't seem so bad."
"Yah, that shit never shut up though, the grass was always bitching you out for walking on it, gardens were always arguing with the weeds, flowers were always begging to be pollinated, the trees were always giving you sales pitches to eat their fruit, everything was always crabbing about how thirsty they were or about how you were blocking their sunlight, it got old real fast."
"I tried to take a vacation on Planet X once."
"Whoah, I heard about that place."
"Yah, I didn't last five minutes, I had to be taken out of there in an emergency medical transport, spent my entire vacation on the space station in subsynchronous orbit, horking my guts out and praying to a space toilet."
"What wrong with Planet X? I thought that place was supposed to be some kinda Tropical Party Planet?"
"Planet X revolves around its axis once every thirty seconds."
"So?"
"That means the day-night cycle is really quick, the stars in the sky never stop moving, the moons go whirling all around your head, and its in a binary star system so there's all these constant lighting changes and strobe effects that make the shadows swirl around all crazy under your feet."
"The planet has a ring too, fricking giant hula hoop."
"The flowers bloom and close up shop for the night over and over again right before your eyes, its like being stuck on fast forward."
"And everybody on the planet is wasted on something, so they're always coming up to you and asking you if you are feeling okay over and over again."
"Yah, that's 'cause they're trying to psych you out, that place is a test of stamina, I don't think anybody can stay down there on the dance floor for more than a few minutes without curling up into a fetal position."
"Well, I got my Planet X t-shirt at least."
"So what about you, Donny?"
"What about me?"
"What's the worst planet you ever been to?"
"Well, I haven't actually travelled that much yet, y'know."
"Oh, c'mon, Don, you must've seen something."
"Well, there was this place that we had to do a delivery to, where the entire surface of the planet was under five feet of warm water."
"That don't seem too bad."
"Place smelled like rotten eggs."
"Dude, you really suck at this game."
"Any Amazon Woman planet."
"What're you, nuts?"
"Naw man, everybody who never been to an Amazon Planet is always blabbering about how great they must be, but they're horrible, actually."
"Yah, the Amazons always figure out a way to ruin it for you."
"Yah, those mind control collars they use suck, man, you can't even remember anything."
"It's 'cause they ain't anything like regular Non-Amazon Women, y'know, they aren't sensitive to your needs or anything."
"They don't shave or anything either."
"Eew!"
"Yah, they're still hot, though."
"Wouldn't be such a tragedy if they weren't."
"I went to this planet once where all the plant life was sentient and sang opera at sunrise and sunset."
"That don't seem so bad."
"Yah, that shit never shut up though, the grass was always bitching you out for walking on it, gardens were always arguing with the weeds, flowers were always begging to be pollinated, the trees were always giving you sales pitches to eat their fruit, everything was always crabbing about how thirsty they were or about how you were blocking their sunlight, it got old real fast."
"I tried to take a vacation on Planet X once."
"Whoah, I heard about that place."
"Yah, I didn't last five minutes, I had to be taken out of there in an emergency medical transport, spent my entire vacation on the space station in subsynchronous orbit, horking my guts out and praying to a space toilet."
"What wrong with Planet X? I thought that place was supposed to be some kinda Tropical Party Planet?"
"Planet X revolves around its axis once every thirty seconds."
"So?"
"That means the day-night cycle is really quick, the stars in the sky never stop moving, the moons go whirling all around your head, and its in a binary star system so there's all these constant lighting changes and strobe effects that make the shadows swirl around all crazy under your feet."
"The planet has a ring too, fricking giant hula hoop."
"The flowers bloom and close up shop for the night over and over again right before your eyes, its like being stuck on fast forward."
"And everybody on the planet is wasted on something, so they're always coming up to you and asking you if you are feeling okay over and over again."
"Yah, that's 'cause they're trying to psych you out, that place is a test of stamina, I don't think anybody can stay down there on the dance floor for more than a few minutes without curling up into a fetal position."
"Well, I got my Planet X t-shirt at least."
"So what about you, Donny?"
"What about me?"
"What's the worst planet you ever been to?"
"Well, I haven't actually travelled that much yet, y'know."
"Oh, c'mon, Don, you must've seen something."
"Well, there was this place that we had to do a delivery to, where the entire surface of the planet was under five feet of warm water."
"That don't seem too bad."
"Place smelled like rotten eggs."
"Dude, you really suck at this game."
Twins
Okay, let's just start over.
Originally, clones didn't have any memories, you started out as a blank slate, you went around having experiences in the world, and you created your own personalities from scratch.
Yah, you guys were suckers, we totally took advantage of you guys back in them days.
Dude, you missed a spot.
But then you guys rebelled, and you figured out how to unlock the memories of the guy you had been cloned from, somehow, I've heard all sorts of different explanations, genetic memory, probability field reconstruction, I dunno, I'm just a pilot.
And then you guys started blackmailing us, 'cause you knew all our most embarrassing secrets, but you didn't feel embarrassed about 'em yerself, 'cause they weren't your memories.
Right.
So that's basically when you clones took control of the Colonial Space Federation.
But then you guys kept experimenting with science and stuff, and you eventually figured out how to unlock even more memories somehow, and you got access to the memories and life experiences of the father and mother and grandparents and ancestors of the guy that you had been cloned from.
No, you guys were still in control of the Federation, but man, you guys got really annoying and creepy and crazy in them days.
But you guys kept experimenting with that memory stuff, and eventually you got to the point you are sorta at now, where you figured out how to transplant and trade memories around.
Yah, you guys edit 'em and make up new ones that never happened and everything, and none of you guys are anything like the guys that you were originally cloned from anymore.
And that's when Celebrity Memory Sets basically became a fashion accessory, and you guys all became a bunch of Memory Junkies, Personality Jugglers and Mister Potato Heads.
And that's why you keep asking me to explain this crap to you over and over again, every day.
Yah, I guess yer neurons are getting all burned out and losing their elasticity or something 'cause you keep overwriting your brain with whatever is the Latest in Personality Fashions.
Well, whatever, I need you to try to keep whoever's head yer wearing today together, 'cause one of my Evil Twins is trying to kill us.
Well, actually I got two Evil Twins, but we're not Evil Triplets, 'cause all three of us aren't Evil, its only the other two that are Evil.
Yah, one of 'em is just a cheesy-ass over-acting Antimatter Twin that got created when I flew through one of those stupid Space Anomalies, and the other one is from an Alternate Universe, well, he wasn't Evil to start with, but he turned Evil when he got stuck in this Continuum and I changed all the locks on our apartment.
Anyways, I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to call them both Evil Twins, even though there's three of us.
And one of them is trying to kill us.
I dunno which one it is, that's the thing that sucks about Evil Twins, they both look the same, man.
Yah, well, there's also two versions of me from the Future, who came back in time to kill us, but we killed one of them already, and the other one has a moustache, so at least its easy to tell him apart from the rest of us.
I think the one with the moustache was trying to stop us from killing the other one from the future or something, I dunno.
Hey, don't get all snarky with me, man, you got way more Evil Twins and stuff than I do.
Originally, clones didn't have any memories, you started out as a blank slate, you went around having experiences in the world, and you created your own personalities from scratch.
Yah, you guys were suckers, we totally took advantage of you guys back in them days.
Dude, you missed a spot.
But then you guys rebelled, and you figured out how to unlock the memories of the guy you had been cloned from, somehow, I've heard all sorts of different explanations, genetic memory, probability field reconstruction, I dunno, I'm just a pilot.
And then you guys started blackmailing us, 'cause you knew all our most embarrassing secrets, but you didn't feel embarrassed about 'em yerself, 'cause they weren't your memories.
Right.
So that's basically when you clones took control of the Colonial Space Federation.
But then you guys kept experimenting with science and stuff, and you eventually figured out how to unlock even more memories somehow, and you got access to the memories and life experiences of the father and mother and grandparents and ancestors of the guy that you had been cloned from.
No, you guys were still in control of the Federation, but man, you guys got really annoying and creepy and crazy in them days.
But you guys kept experimenting with that memory stuff, and eventually you got to the point you are sorta at now, where you figured out how to transplant and trade memories around.
Yah, you guys edit 'em and make up new ones that never happened and everything, and none of you guys are anything like the guys that you were originally cloned from anymore.
And that's when Celebrity Memory Sets basically became a fashion accessory, and you guys all became a bunch of Memory Junkies, Personality Jugglers and Mister Potato Heads.
And that's why you keep asking me to explain this crap to you over and over again, every day.
Yah, I guess yer neurons are getting all burned out and losing their elasticity or something 'cause you keep overwriting your brain with whatever is the Latest in Personality Fashions.
Well, whatever, I need you to try to keep whoever's head yer wearing today together, 'cause one of my Evil Twins is trying to kill us.
Well, actually I got two Evil Twins, but we're not Evil Triplets, 'cause all three of us aren't Evil, its only the other two that are Evil.
Yah, one of 'em is just a cheesy-ass over-acting Antimatter Twin that got created when I flew through one of those stupid Space Anomalies, and the other one is from an Alternate Universe, well, he wasn't Evil to start with, but he turned Evil when he got stuck in this Continuum and I changed all the locks on our apartment.
Anyways, I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to call them both Evil Twins, even though there's three of us.
And one of them is trying to kill us.
I dunno which one it is, that's the thing that sucks about Evil Twins, they both look the same, man.
Yah, well, there's also two versions of me from the Future, who came back in time to kill us, but we killed one of them already, and the other one has a moustache, so at least its easy to tell him apart from the rest of us.
I think the one with the moustache was trying to stop us from killing the other one from the future or something, I dunno.
Hey, don't get all snarky with me, man, you got way more Evil Twins and stuff than I do.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Technical Difficulties
I don't think this "ghost" detector is working, man.
Naw, yah, I mean, I checked the batteries, they're fine, I think.
Yah, it says its "scanning," but it ain't detecting anything, even when that whatever-it-was ripped all the skin off Steve's arm.
Well, yah, mebbe it wasn't a ghost or something, but it sure looked like a ghost.
I didn't get any "readings" when we found Jake's head and spinal column, either.
And that black whistling thing that dragged Marsha's body upstairs, that had to be a ghost, man, but this stupid ghost detector didn't even blink.
Stupid thing is a waste of batteries.
Oh man, wait, its starting to do something now.
Yah, shit, its going crazy now, man.
Finally!
Guess it just need to get smacked around a little to start working.
Stupid piece of crap.
Naw, yah, I mean, I checked the batteries, they're fine, I think.
Yah, it says its "scanning," but it ain't detecting anything, even when that whatever-it-was ripped all the skin off Steve's arm.
Well, yah, mebbe it wasn't a ghost or something, but it sure looked like a ghost.
I didn't get any "readings" when we found Jake's head and spinal column, either.
And that black whistling thing that dragged Marsha's body upstairs, that had to be a ghost, man, but this stupid ghost detector didn't even blink.
Stupid thing is a waste of batteries.
Oh man, wait, its starting to do something now.
Yah, shit, its going crazy now, man.
Finally!
Guess it just need to get smacked around a little to start working.
Stupid piece of crap.
Improbabble
There's this idea that an alternate universe is spawned every time there's more than one possible outcome to a given situation.
So the model of that multiverse (heh) would be sorta like a tree that starts simple (basically due to a lack of situations that could even have different possible outcomes) that spawns branches that spawn even more branches that spawn even more branches as time goes on.
And on and on.
The alternate universes near each other on the tree would tend to have similar histories, and the ones farther away from each other would have very different histories, but they would all go back to some point where they eventually converge in the past.
Yah, that's fine, I guess.
What sorta bugged me at first was thinking about how that meant there were some branches that had a lot of bad outcomes, and some branches that had a lot of good ones.
And was it actually necessary to have a different alternate universe for every single possible combination of bad and good outcomes?
Or was it okay to skip a few?
And if some of the combinations got skipped, what was the distribution system like for the combinations that didn't get skipped?
But then I started thinking about how there was one series of branches that had the worst outcome, over and over again, every single time, and one that had the best outcome, over and over again, every single time.
Yah, its all a matter of perspective and personal taste and stuff, one man's heaven is another man's hell, but if you could see all the branches, you could sort 'em out like that, even though you and me might not agree on how ya decided to do it, y'know, 'cause I'd tend to say the ones where I won the lotto were a little better than the ones where you won the lotto heh.
And what's worse, an alternate universe where nobody ever wins the lotto, or one where everybody always wins the lotto, and just gets their dollar or whatever back afterwards?
See, some of 'em are actually kinda existentially tricky and shit to sort out heh.
And that got me thinking about an alternate universe where, even though dice have six sides (let's say, for the sake of argument, you nerds), everybody always rolls a one.
Yah, no matter how many they roll, or how many times they roll 'em, and no matter who rolls the dice, or how many different dice they try, the damn things always roll a one, in this branch of the alternate universe tree.
Even though they could roll a two, or a three, even, it just never happens.
Its the Roll A One Branch, its right next to all the alternate universe branches where everybody rolls a one until somebody eventually rolls something else.
No matter how farfetched and horrible and stuff that may seem, and no matter how I'd like to think otherwise, it isn't impossible, its only horridly improbable.
Or is it?
I mean, it just doesn't seem right to me.
And it'd really mess our understanding of the universe up (and mess up our universe) if we had some curse like that Roll a One thing working against us heh.
Y'know, some scientist would say "I think we're just really unlucky, rolling ones all the time, I think, mebbe one day, we might roll a two, or a three even!" and the church would probably excommunicate him or some shit and that'd be the last we ever heard of that stupid idea ahaha.
Yah, you kinda need an alternate universe like that, y'know, just to eventually get to the alternate universe where folks rolled a one all the time, and then started rolling sixes over and over again, and never rolled anything else, and all the other possible combinations.
The Always Roll a Five Universe isn't so bad, I guess ahaha.
Well, junk like that just makes me go back to the drawing board and analyze exactly what a "possible outcome" is.
Yah, I mean, could people really throw the dice different in different alternate universes?
Is that something that could be different?
Or no?
I know dice rolling isn't hardly as random as it looks, I mean, if you were slightly superhuman, or a halfway-decent cheater, it wouldn't be random at all, you can make a six sided dice roll anything you want.
But even then, the folks that could choose what they wanted to roll might always choose to roll a one in the Roll A One Universe, for some reason, like peer pressure, or fear of excommunication, or something.
I'm probably looking at it on a level that's way too macrocosmic.
It probably has to be boring little quantum level probability field crap, and not anything big and fun to think about.
Or mebbe it only has to be that boring little quantum level probability field crap in this alternate universe.
'Cause that's only one of the possibilities heh.
Well, whatever, yer definitely stuck in this crappy alternate universe where I think of this shit ahaha.
So the model of that multiverse (heh) would be sorta like a tree that starts simple (basically due to a lack of situations that could even have different possible outcomes) that spawns branches that spawn even more branches that spawn even more branches as time goes on.
And on and on.
The alternate universes near each other on the tree would tend to have similar histories, and the ones farther away from each other would have very different histories, but they would all go back to some point where they eventually converge in the past.
Yah, that's fine, I guess.
What sorta bugged me at first was thinking about how that meant there were some branches that had a lot of bad outcomes, and some branches that had a lot of good ones.
And was it actually necessary to have a different alternate universe for every single possible combination of bad and good outcomes?
Or was it okay to skip a few?
And if some of the combinations got skipped, what was the distribution system like for the combinations that didn't get skipped?
But then I started thinking about how there was one series of branches that had the worst outcome, over and over again, every single time, and one that had the best outcome, over and over again, every single time.
Yah, its all a matter of perspective and personal taste and stuff, one man's heaven is another man's hell, but if you could see all the branches, you could sort 'em out like that, even though you and me might not agree on how ya decided to do it, y'know, 'cause I'd tend to say the ones where I won the lotto were a little better than the ones where you won the lotto heh.
And what's worse, an alternate universe where nobody ever wins the lotto, or one where everybody always wins the lotto, and just gets their dollar or whatever back afterwards?
See, some of 'em are actually kinda existentially tricky and shit to sort out heh.
And that got me thinking about an alternate universe where, even though dice have six sides (let's say, for the sake of argument, you nerds), everybody always rolls a one.
Yah, no matter how many they roll, or how many times they roll 'em, and no matter who rolls the dice, or how many different dice they try, the damn things always roll a one, in this branch of the alternate universe tree.
Even though they could roll a two, or a three, even, it just never happens.
Its the Roll A One Branch, its right next to all the alternate universe branches where everybody rolls a one until somebody eventually rolls something else.
No matter how farfetched and horrible and stuff that may seem, and no matter how I'd like to think otherwise, it isn't impossible, its only horridly improbable.
Or is it?
I mean, it just doesn't seem right to me.
And it'd really mess our understanding of the universe up (and mess up our universe) if we had some curse like that Roll a One thing working against us heh.
Y'know, some scientist would say "I think we're just really unlucky, rolling ones all the time, I think, mebbe one day, we might roll a two, or a three even!" and the church would probably excommunicate him or some shit and that'd be the last we ever heard of that stupid idea ahaha.
Yah, you kinda need an alternate universe like that, y'know, just to eventually get to the alternate universe where folks rolled a one all the time, and then started rolling sixes over and over again, and never rolled anything else, and all the other possible combinations.
The Always Roll a Five Universe isn't so bad, I guess ahaha.
Well, junk like that just makes me go back to the drawing board and analyze exactly what a "possible outcome" is.
Yah, I mean, could people really throw the dice different in different alternate universes?
Is that something that could be different?
Or no?
I know dice rolling isn't hardly as random as it looks, I mean, if you were slightly superhuman, or a halfway-decent cheater, it wouldn't be random at all, you can make a six sided dice roll anything you want.
But even then, the folks that could choose what they wanted to roll might always choose to roll a one in the Roll A One Universe, for some reason, like peer pressure, or fear of excommunication, or something.
I'm probably looking at it on a level that's way too macrocosmic.
It probably has to be boring little quantum level probability field crap, and not anything big and fun to think about.
Or mebbe it only has to be that boring little quantum level probability field crap in this alternate universe.
'Cause that's only one of the possibilities heh.
Well, whatever, yer definitely stuck in this crappy alternate universe where I think of this shit ahaha.
The Worst Alternate Universe
On the first bodyguarding job we ever had, the guy we were supposed to be bodyguarding got killed.
But that one definitely wasn't our fault, 'cause we weren't even there at the time it happened.
And that second guy we were supposed to be bodyguarding, well, that definitely was our fault, but it was an accident, I mean, I wasn't trying to shoot him, I was trying to shoot that guy that was trying to kidnap him.
The third guy we had a bodyguarding job for didn't die until the day after we were done bodyguarding him, so I don't think that should count.
But the fourth guy counts, I guess.
We saved the fifth guy's ass like six times before he finally died from bleeding so much, so I think that should count as six good ones and one bad one.
The sixth guy died from natural causes, he fell down some stairs, that was an Act of God, wasn't nothing we could get in the way of there, so that don't count, either way.
And there wasn't even anybody trying to kill the seventh guy, he was just all crazy and paranoid, thought people were out to get him even though nobody was, but then he killed himself when we told him all about our work history, so I don't even know how to count that one.
And so that finally brings us up to lucky number eight.
Hmm.
Aw shit, he's dead.
But that one definitely wasn't our fault, 'cause we weren't even there at the time it happened.
And that second guy we were supposed to be bodyguarding, well, that definitely was our fault, but it was an accident, I mean, I wasn't trying to shoot him, I was trying to shoot that guy that was trying to kidnap him.
The third guy we had a bodyguarding job for didn't die until the day after we were done bodyguarding him, so I don't think that should count.
But the fourth guy counts, I guess.
We saved the fifth guy's ass like six times before he finally died from bleeding so much, so I think that should count as six good ones and one bad one.
The sixth guy died from natural causes, he fell down some stairs, that was an Act of God, wasn't nothing we could get in the way of there, so that don't count, either way.
And there wasn't even anybody trying to kill the seventh guy, he was just all crazy and paranoid, thought people were out to get him even though nobody was, but then he killed himself when we told him all about our work history, so I don't even know how to count that one.
And so that finally brings us up to lucky number eight.
Hmm.
Aw shit, he's dead.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
The Wolfman
Yah, vampires are just so cheesy, man, they're like the weekend warrior accountants of the Monster World.
Yah, they're like, into all that freaky psycho shit, y'know, like city people or something.
Plus they're all gross and dead and stuff.
Yah, so, werewolves are just way better, man.
Well, first off, we're all cheerful and stuff, y'know, we're allowed to drink beer and smoke cigarettes and fart all we want and shit, and everybody just laughs.
'Cause of that whole comedy thing where everybody blames the dog for farts?
Yah, so that's a definite plus.
Yah, and we love life, we're always sticking our heads out the car window and trying to smell the roses and shit, and we get all excited when somebody cooks steak on the barbecue, and we just love to be petted, we sorta help people appreciate the simple shit that they woulda taken fer granted or something.
So folks like us.
Yah, those fucking people that dress up in animal costumes like us a little too much heh.
Oh sure, there's that whole thing where we might go apeshit and tear some people up if we get pissed off, but that only happens if we're getting close to starvation or somebody's torturing us by pretending to the throw the frisbee over and over again or something, y'know, man, that frisbee thing really pisses me off, those smug trick-frisbee bastards deserve to die.
Yah, regular people go apeshit for the same stuff, it ain't like its just us werewolves.
Other than that, we're all about loyalty and working in packs and stuff, we're social animals, it ain't like they show on TV.
Yah, we ain't all savage monsters that go around tearing people apart with our claws, man, werewolves don't even have claws, I dunno where people got that claw shit from, we use our teeth fer everything, y'know, like opening bags of potato chips and stuff.
Well, yah, my toenails are kinda sharp and gnarly and shit but they're not really for fighting with heh.
Yah, well, no, I mean, actually, I dunno about all that silver bullet stuff, never been shot with a silver bullet, I don't think.
Wracked my nuts on a dirtbike jump once, though, holy shit, man, I thought I was gonna die for a week.
Yah, so silver bullets are probably overkill, I don't think a wolfman got any kind of crazy magical indestructable powers like that, I mean, where the hell did that shit come from?
Yah, no, I ain't immortal or anything either, I'm getting a gut from drinking all this beer, look at this shit.
I have no idea where you guys got all that shit from, I mean, I can see how you guys came up with all that full moon bullshit, 'cause of the way wolves howl at the moon, but that immortal-silver-bullet stuff doesn't make any sense to me.
Hmm, I dunno what would happen if a werewolf bit a regular wolf, that's a good question, man, like mebbe he'd turn into a were-human or something, shit, I dunno how you think up shit like that.
Oh jeeze, yer such a nerd, man!
Well, I still love ya, and that ain't just the beer talking, y'know, I'll hump yer nerdy little leg anytime, bro, you just say the word.
Oh relax, I'm just kidding.
Sorta heh.
Dude, go easy with the sweat glands, yer burning my eyes with that panicky pheromone shit.
Yah, I wouldn't hurt ya, I'm a good boy.
Well, I won't hurt ya unless you try to make a run for it, y'know, 'cause then you might trigger some predatory instinct or something, so don't do that.
And don't stare at me like that, either, jeeze man, quick glances are okay, but that sustained eye contact shit ain't.
Yah, I dunno, its some damn animal instinct thing, makes the short hairs on the back of my neck go crazy.
Yah, no, werewolves don't sweat, actually, we just pant with our tongues hanging out to keep cool.
Yah, its kinda gross, and I gotta fight back the impulse to lick the shit out of people I like, too, but there's some subtle benefits to the whole werewolf tongue thing, trust me, that's why our breath stinks but we're all so damn happy looking all the time.
So, y'know, there are some serious perks to think about.
Yah, ain't no vampire that can pull that trick, man, I mean, that's prolly why they're all so mopey and miserable and uptight and shit.
And then on top of it, they gotta live forever without being able to do that.
Yah, I dunno how those poor suckers manage, seriously.
Yah, they're like, into all that freaky psycho shit, y'know, like city people or something.
Plus they're all gross and dead and stuff.
Yah, so, werewolves are just way better, man.
Well, first off, we're all cheerful and stuff, y'know, we're allowed to drink beer and smoke cigarettes and fart all we want and shit, and everybody just laughs.
'Cause of that whole comedy thing where everybody blames the dog for farts?
Yah, so that's a definite plus.
Yah, and we love life, we're always sticking our heads out the car window and trying to smell the roses and shit, and we get all excited when somebody cooks steak on the barbecue, and we just love to be petted, we sorta help people appreciate the simple shit that they woulda taken fer granted or something.
So folks like us.
Yah, those fucking people that dress up in animal costumes like us a little too much heh.
Oh sure, there's that whole thing where we might go apeshit and tear some people up if we get pissed off, but that only happens if we're getting close to starvation or somebody's torturing us by pretending to the throw the frisbee over and over again or something, y'know, man, that frisbee thing really pisses me off, those smug trick-frisbee bastards deserve to die.
Yah, regular people go apeshit for the same stuff, it ain't like its just us werewolves.
Other than that, we're all about loyalty and working in packs and stuff, we're social animals, it ain't like they show on TV.
Yah, we ain't all savage monsters that go around tearing people apart with our claws, man, werewolves don't even have claws, I dunno where people got that claw shit from, we use our teeth fer everything, y'know, like opening bags of potato chips and stuff.
Well, yah, my toenails are kinda sharp and gnarly and shit but they're not really for fighting with heh.
Yah, well, no, I mean, actually, I dunno about all that silver bullet stuff, never been shot with a silver bullet, I don't think.
Wracked my nuts on a dirtbike jump once, though, holy shit, man, I thought I was gonna die for a week.
Yah, so silver bullets are probably overkill, I don't think a wolfman got any kind of crazy magical indestructable powers like that, I mean, where the hell did that shit come from?
Yah, no, I ain't immortal or anything either, I'm getting a gut from drinking all this beer, look at this shit.
I have no idea where you guys got all that shit from, I mean, I can see how you guys came up with all that full moon bullshit, 'cause of the way wolves howl at the moon, but that immortal-silver-bullet stuff doesn't make any sense to me.
Hmm, I dunno what would happen if a werewolf bit a regular wolf, that's a good question, man, like mebbe he'd turn into a were-human or something, shit, I dunno how you think up shit like that.
Oh jeeze, yer such a nerd, man!
Well, I still love ya, and that ain't just the beer talking, y'know, I'll hump yer nerdy little leg anytime, bro, you just say the word.
Oh relax, I'm just kidding.
Sorta heh.
Dude, go easy with the sweat glands, yer burning my eyes with that panicky pheromone shit.
Yah, I wouldn't hurt ya, I'm a good boy.
Well, I won't hurt ya unless you try to make a run for it, y'know, 'cause then you might trigger some predatory instinct or something, so don't do that.
And don't stare at me like that, either, jeeze man, quick glances are okay, but that sustained eye contact shit ain't.
Yah, I dunno, its some damn animal instinct thing, makes the short hairs on the back of my neck go crazy.
Yah, no, werewolves don't sweat, actually, we just pant with our tongues hanging out to keep cool.
Yah, its kinda gross, and I gotta fight back the impulse to lick the shit out of people I like, too, but there's some subtle benefits to the whole werewolf tongue thing, trust me, that's why our breath stinks but we're all so damn happy looking all the time.
So, y'know, there are some serious perks to think about.
Yah, ain't no vampire that can pull that trick, man, I mean, that's prolly why they're all so mopey and miserable and uptight and shit.
And then on top of it, they gotta live forever without being able to do that.
Yah, I dunno how those poor suckers manage, seriously.
Permanent Shmermanent
Permanent Death is easy.
You ever play any of the Syndicates?
Where you were an untouchable evil mastermind guy in a satellite or a blimp or whatever, that kidnapped scientists and forced them to design improvements to the cyborg terminator-y trenchcoat agents you sent out to capture more scientists?
Well, yer cyborg agents could get killed, permanently, in all sorts of entertaining ways, actually (running around on fire, screaming, with those last-resort take-one-for-the-team self-destruct nukes in their chest).
But it just cost you some money to replace 'em.
While back at the ranch where yer captured scientists lived (and where most of yer achievements and "level" advancements in the game were actually stored) you didn't really lose anything (although mebbe losing money slowed down yer research and yer ability to shop for and outfit yer cyborgs with the latest improvements, and blah blah blah, I don't remember exactly).
There ya go, yer cake-and-eat-it-too, and that's from before the pentium was even invented heh.
Yah, the whole trick is you just gotta store most of that advancement shit somewhere else, insteada having it all be character-centric.
Woulda been cooler if yer cyborg agents woulda got all beat to hell with bits of robot metal sticking out of their skin and stuff, y'know, semi-permanent injuries and all that, 'cause it'd be all kickass and heroic if a really busted up one managed to finish a really tough mission, but whatever.
And then you wouldn't want him to die, but as long as it wasn't super hard to get another guy into a position to be all cool like that, it wouldn't be so bad if he did, 'y'know, cause then you could get all nostalgic and weepy and shed a tear for poor Agent 05731, 'cause he was just so awesome, man.
And he had to do everything he did with that crappy old Prototype Model of the Persuadatron!
Five miles through the snow barefoot...
You ever play any of the Syndicates?
Where you were an untouchable evil mastermind guy in a satellite or a blimp or whatever, that kidnapped scientists and forced them to design improvements to the cyborg terminator-y trenchcoat agents you sent out to capture more scientists?
Well, yer cyborg agents could get killed, permanently, in all sorts of entertaining ways, actually (running around on fire, screaming, with those last-resort take-one-for-the-team self-destruct nukes in their chest).
But it just cost you some money to replace 'em.
While back at the ranch where yer captured scientists lived (and where most of yer achievements and "level" advancements in the game were actually stored) you didn't really lose anything (although mebbe losing money slowed down yer research and yer ability to shop for and outfit yer cyborgs with the latest improvements, and blah blah blah, I don't remember exactly).
There ya go, yer cake-and-eat-it-too, and that's from before the pentium was even invented heh.
Yah, the whole trick is you just gotta store most of that advancement shit somewhere else, insteada having it all be character-centric.
Woulda been cooler if yer cyborg agents woulda got all beat to hell with bits of robot metal sticking out of their skin and stuff, y'know, semi-permanent injuries and all that, 'cause it'd be all kickass and heroic if a really busted up one managed to finish a really tough mission, but whatever.
And then you wouldn't want him to die, but as long as it wasn't super hard to get another guy into a position to be all cool like that, it wouldn't be so bad if he did, 'y'know, cause then you could get all nostalgic and weepy and shed a tear for poor Agent 05731, 'cause he was just so awesome, man.
And he had to do everything he did with that crappy old Prototype Model of the Persuadatron!
Five miles through the snow barefoot...
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