The Real World: Olympus Mons

Ray Bradbury (author of, among other things, The Martian Chronicles), died yesterday at 91 which is mostly sad. Don't get me wrong, it's a bummer that he's gone and I really hope someone's preparing to preserve his neural pattern so we can build some sort of android duplicate, but still, 91 is a damn good run.

Pictured: one of the many rovers we sent to Mars to prove
everything Bradbury wrote wrong. Thanks NASA.

Above: The first Martians.

Fortunately, Bradbury did live long enough to see this Dutch company announce plans to colonize his favorite planet. They hope to have a permanent colony established on Mars by 2022, which is amazingly soon. But before you start packing your oxygen tanks and wooden shoes keep in mind that this isn't so much a noble first step into the final frontier as it is a reality show in one-third gravity. The plan is to get four people to cram into a spaceship, fly seven months to the Red Planet and live there like, forever.

Because people going about their daily lives
in free fall has always made riveting television.

Cameras will then record every minute of their lives and beam it back to Earth for our voyeuristic amusement. To keep the colony growing, new colonists would arrive every two years or whenever the ratings start to dip. Finally we'll be able to see what happens when the first humans on Mars stop being polite and start to go batshit insane at the crushing realization that they've agreed to spend the remainder of their lives with each other. It is, I'm sure, totally not a recipe for disaster.

I always thought that the people on reality shows were about one and a half episodes away from bludgeoning to death and eating their fellow cast members as it is, and that's without being locked in a biodome hundreds of millions of miles away from the tulips and fjords of their home planet.

Watch next week's episode to see who gets voted out the airlock.

Mulligan and again and again...

After all, we wouldn't want to
be rude to the hate-mongers.

So the good news for gay people in California who want to get married is this: the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals won't re-hear the bullshit arguments of homophobes who maintain that same sex marriage causes earthquakes and plane crashes. The bad news is that our legal system affords every sandwich board-wearing whackjob with a megaphone and a selective interpretation of the Bible the right to appeal the appeal of the appeal. Sure, everybody deserves their day in court but these guys have had like fifteen chances to make their case and the courts have repeatedly come down on the side of 'if you don't like it then don't get gay married.'

"No, it's cool, we'll just endure second-class
status until you get your paperwork together."

-Gays

So what's the problem? I mean, they lost right? Well, despite being struck down, Prop 8 is still functionally in force until jackholes like Focus on the Family and National Organization for Marriage can mount yet another appeal, this time to the Supreme Court and while that's going on same sex weddings will have to wait. So Prop 8 gets passed and presto: gay marriage is banned. Then gets overturned because it was designed only to '...lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California...' and gay couples still have to wait. What the hell? Shouldn't there be some sort of constitutional right or clause that protects people from arbitrary crap like this?

To put this in nerd terms, it would be like if after destroying the Empire once and for all at the end of Return of the Jedi, the Rebel Alliance had to give the bad guys a few extra years to keep on oppressing the Galaxy and build some more Deathstars.

"My Death Star? Destroyed? I call a do-over, and no attacking until I'm ready!"

-Emperor Palpatine exercising his 'Mulligan Rights'

as guaranteed by the Imperial Constitution

Thanks science, thanks for nothing.

Researchers employing a new radio telescope technique to look for alien transmissions were again disappointed by our vast, godless universe as they turned their dishes to Gliese 581, a star with several planets in the 'habitable zone.'

Again we're left with the terrifying notion that the only intelligent life in our
Galaxy is a species that produced not one but four sequels to The Fast and the Furious. 

Above: 3 billion years
of evolution.

That doesn't mean we should give up though, I mean the universe is pretty big and pretty old and we're banking on the presumption that aliens even have god damned radios. Perhaps they've evolved beyond the need to win concert tickets by being the 17th caller. Or maybe we're running into the opposite problem, it took life on Earth 3 billion years to come up with plankton. Assuming for a moment that Gliese or any other planet we probe even has intelligent life, there's a decent chance they're living in the bronze age or something. For all we know they could be sitting around an amphitheater wearing togas and watching Space-Oedipus bang his own Space-Mother, blissfully unaware that we're here, making more The Fast and the Furious sequels.

Behold Newt, First of His Name,
God-Emperor of Gliese 581g.

This is where things like the commercialization of space and space tourism for the ultra-rich scare the shit out of me: what* is to stop Bill Gates or Newt Gingrich or some other one percenter from building himself a warp drive, flying to the Gliese system and waving an iPad at some primitive Gliesenoids? They'd worship him as a god. It was the plot of 7 out of every 10 Star Trek episodes.


It's a well established fact that technologically less advanced cultures will instantly yield to high tech wizardry. Like if I had a time machine and a phone with Angry Birds I would be absolute ruler of the 1970's.

Above: President Nixon handing over executive power to Elvis whom
he mistook for a time traveler from the future. Fun fact: for twenty minutes
in 1970 Elvis Presley had nuclear first strike authority.

*Ok, I suppose the hurdles of working with anti-matter and the face-melting distance between stars are to stop him, but isn't it only a matter of time before someone digs up a Stargate or something?

The Dorn Identity

Above: Worf's mighty Klingon brow
once disguised this be-polo'd nerd.

Check this out: Michael Dorn, the actor who spent like 15 years in Worf makeup was approached about an appearance in Star Trek 2 (or 12, or my favorite: Star 2rek: The Ensequeling). Of course Dorn would most likely have been playing Worf's great great whatever ancestor or something since the movie is set in the past of the alternate-whatever universe but still: Worf! Unfortunately as quickly as he was approached, he was unapproached and Trek 2 will be Worf-less. So what happened?

William Shatner, best known as the
Priceline Negotiator actually originated
the role of Captain Kirk. Who knew?

I suppose director J.J. Abrams is unwilling to open the door for future cameos. If he lets Worf show up in this movie what's to stop a William Shatner hologram or a time-traveling Wesley Crusher from popping up in Trek 3? Nothing that's what. Mass hysteria. For whatever reason the only original Trek actor allowed to appear in the re-booted Trekiverse is Leonard 'Mr. Spock' Nimoy. Sure, he's retired, but he seems more than willing to put on the ears if you give him enough money. In fact, if rumors are to be believed, he might even been Spocking it up in the sequel. That's cool, I mean, who wouldn't want more Spock?*

Ok, I'm a little ashamed.

Anyway, back to Michael Dorn and other Worf-related spin-off projects. Is anyone else totally up for The Adventures of Captain Worf: Space Ranger? Because I am and I'm not ashamed to admit it. At the Phoenix Comicon Michael Dorn revealed that he's been developing a direct-to-DVD movie about Worf flying around in his own ship doing Worf shit. Will it ever happen? Probably not, as the studio is understandably not so eager to dilute the franchise so soon after saving it from irrelevance. It makes sense, but still, it's kind of a bummer.

Sure, Lore was evil, but at least he
could carry on a conversation.

J. J. Abrams' alt-re-boot Trek movie was great and all, but is was kind of aimed at casual fans or people who'd avoided Trek altogether in favor of sports and mating. What about those of us who grew up on TNG and DS9? It's been like 10 years since the corebreach that was Star Trek: Nemesis, and I for one would like to see what's up with Jean-Luc and Beverly. And did Geordi ever hook up with that hologram? And what about Data's other brother, B-4? Is he still, you know, an idiot? Where's our shameless fan service?

Sure, I guess there's always the internet (Paramount is surprisingly cool about fans with green screens and ill-fitting uniforms making their own Star Trek shows), but it would be nice to see some TNG Star Trek that wasn't produced in some guy's laundry room.

If your babysitter can team up with your 7th grade math teacher
to make their own Star Trek show, why can't Michael Dorn have a go at it?

*But still...

Above: A goddamned time portal.

As much as I love classic Spock, I maintain that including Leonard Nimoy in the 2009 movie or its sequel is a bit of a plot hole and a clean re-boot would have been a better idea. You see Spock Prime comes from the future (of the future, still with me?) and in his long life has made use of like 15 different methods of time travel (one of which he invented himself) which he could very easily use to save his mother, the planet Vulcan and restore the timeline to its original pre-Eric Bana condition. It's what you're supposed do when someone screws with history, and don't give me any of that 'alternate-reality' crap either, I know of which I speak.

Why are Birthers even still a thing?

"I am so getting you pregnant tonight."

-Trump to Romney

I love Donald Trump. I mean, I loathe everything he stands for: his politics, his hair, his fake-ass religion, but I absolutely love the fact that he's Republican (it's official) Presidential Nominee Mitt Romney's BFF. Why is that so amazing? Because he's a Birther and no one in the GOP seems to mind. Yeah, it's 2012 and Donald Trump is still looking for the secret evidence that President Obama was born in some other country and Republicans desperate to lock up the 'ignorant racist' vote have yet to show him the door.

"Suck on the improved job market losers!"

-President Obama

Birthers, if you recall, are the xenophobic, racist loonies who subscribe to the cockamamie theory that the Liberal Media in concert with Democratic leaders, Al Queda, the State of Hawaii and Cobra (why not?) concocted a massive national conspiracy designed to trick the American public into electing President Barack Obama so he could bring us to our knees with health care and moderate foreign policy. And yes, 4 years and two (long and short-forms) birth certificates later they still get a mic with which to express their crazy.

Check out this amazing clip of a phone interview in which in a moment of omega-level irony a man with the name 'Wolf Blitzer' tells Donald Trump that he's beginning-BEGINING-to look ridiculous when he espouses his Birther horseshit.

Wolf Blitzer is an appropriate name only if you look like this guy.

Let's Celebrate Towel Day!

There, done. Happy Towel Day.

Holy crap, today is Towel Day! It's apparently an international celebration of the works of Douglas Adams. I'm not sure how this one has eluded me for the last 11 years, but there you go. The titular towel is a reference to the super-imporatant piece of space hitchhiking equipment recommended by the equally titular Guide in Adams' Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. To celebrate, one just carries a towel around all day. That's it. No cards, no gifts, just carry a damn towel.

Above: Thurmond, shortly after
drinking from one of the fake grails.

Why does Douglas Adams get a day? I'll tell you, but first off, why the sass? Anyway, he was of the greatest writers ever and he had absolutely no business dying back in 2001 at the age of 49. Fourty-freaking-nine. Like seriously, let's analyze the exact amount of fairness in a universe where Strom Thurmond, a noted racist, hypocrite and U.S. Senator lives to 101 while the guy who came up with Bistromathmatics doesn't get half that many years. It works out to exactly 0.02 justice units (or less than .01º Ginsburg).

Really God? No Willow 2? Four
Crocodile Dundees but no Willow 2?

For this reason, I'd like to propose a new holiday: we'll call it something like 'Kvetch Day' or 'What the Hell, God? Day.' Unlike Towel Day, this will be a solemn day of reflection whereupon we...uh...reflect upon ridiculous injustices like human suffering, war and the fact there was never a sequel to Willow. Now at first glance it seems a little depressing, but once we all start celebrating it I think we'll find that it's really quite cathartic (cathartic means depressing, right?).


No one will get it off of work, because hey, it's 'What the Hell, God? Day' and it's supposed to be kind of a bummer but there will be games. Like what you ask? Here's one: people can get together and go around the room bringing up things that just suck and then everyone will will say 'I know, right?' followed by some angry skyward fist shaking. It'll be a blast.

Nicole: "I mean, sure, it was no E.T, but if you figure in home video,
the oversees box office and cable TV rights, Willow made a profit."
Alan: "I know, right?" 

p.s. Oh, and incidentally...

Oh and Incidentally...

...while doing an image search for the picture at the end of the post about Towel Day, I typed 'people playing a game' which the internet elves took to mean video games. The result? I got a lot of stuff that looks like:

this-

 and this-

-aaaaand this. I mean look at those tools.

So obviously I'd like to have a frank and open discussion with people who don't play video games yet for some reason are in charge of staging photo shoots of gamers: Guys, please stop doing what you're doing.

Is this what you look like when you

watch TV? No? Thought so. 

All told I've probably wasted a master's degree worth of time playing video games and I can tell you from decades, yeah, decades, of experience that no one looks like that (see above) when playing video games. Ever. Yet whenever there's a picture of people playing games in a news story or in an ad it's always the same: Well-lit, neatly dressed people perched on the edge of their couches, faces twisted in orgasmic bliss while they struggle to keep a hold on the controller which threatens to be torn from their grasp by some powerful, unseen video-game wormhole of x-hyphen-treameness.

This almost never happens.

Seriously dude, put your arms

down. You look like an idiot.

With video games having been around since the 70's and something like 67% of Americans owning at least one game console, you'd think the people responsible for taking these pictures would have seen one being played before before. Despite the best efforts of things like the Wii and anything that requires the player to strum a plastic guitar, it's still a pretty sedentary experience. Go to a Gamestop at watch the people at the demo units. Note the dead-eyed stares and slightly gaping expressions. No, that's not awe, that's mouth-breathing.