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Here's to more than 40 years of
keeping broad stereotypes alive. |
I hope you remembered to pick up your lycra body suit from the cleaners because Federation Day has come again. Don't know what the hell I'm talking about? That's because you lead a well rounded life and probably mate more than once every seven years. Congratulations. Here are some previous blog posts that will fill you in on this nerdiest of holidays:
bu-bam and
ka-pow. With me? Good, as you now know, Federation Day is the day we set aside to remember the future founding of the United Federation of Planets which is due to happen about 149 years from today.
How are you going to celebrate this year? Here're some ideas:
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"Stop making fun of my ears you racist son of a bitch!" |
Abandon human emotions and devote yourself to cold, unfeeling logic! Why the hell would you want to do such a thing? Well, if the Vulcans (the green-blooded space elves on Star Trek) have taught us anything, it's that smug superiority is not only not an emotion, but a necessity. There is nothing more badass than remaining aloof while the rest of the bridge crew has a good laugh at your expense. Also, as an added bonus, when you finally do loose it, you can bet your bottom credit that everyone will be paying attention.
Speak Klingon! All day. Go on try it. Yeah, if you didn't already know, a linguist
named Marc Okrand was hired by Paramount back in the 80's to invent the Klingon language. Now there are dictionaries, translations of
famous pieces of literature,
opera and even a goddamn
Klingon version of Charles Dickins' A Christmas Carol. What's that? You don't speak Klingon? No problem, chances are no one you run into will either.
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Of course if you're hanging outside ballroom C at the Buffalo Hilton and run into people dressed like this,
there's a decent chance one of them will be on to your shenanigans. |
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"Bullshit bullshit, warp bullshit bullshit bullshit polarity bullshit."
-Geordi, explaining things
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Technobable your way out of a problem! On Star Trek there was nothing the characters (or really the writers) couldn't bullshit their way out of through the power of sciency-sounding double talk. Transporters off-line? Re-route power from the plasma junction from Jeffries Tube four. Temporal distortion (a.k.a. time hole) ripping the fabric of reality apart? Just modify the main deflector to emit an inverse tachyon pulse. See? It's that easy. The trick is to say it with a straight face so that the viewers at home feel like they totally just understood what you just said.
There's no reason this shouldn't work in real life. Did someone at work just catch you googling Seven of Nine/Harley Quinn erotic fan-fiction? No problem. An EPS power surge caused a cascade failure in the starboard computer core creating an emergent sentience which tried to frame you. Obviously.
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"God damnit Tim, I can see you! And don't give me that sentient
computer virus crap again, I saw that episode."
-Tim's boss, shorty before asking security
to escort Tim out of the building
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There are those who think that Klingon to be the international language, rather than Esperanto.
ReplyDeletePretty useless to compare Klingon with Esperanto. Especially because Esperanto is designed to be an international language, whereas Klingon is not.
Probably less than 10 percent of all educated people have even heard of Esperanto so do not know that, for example, the Esperanto Wikipedia has about 150,000 articles, (which get about 400,000 views per day). By contrast the total number of articles about Klingon in Wikipedia total only 189, and nothing has been added since 2006.
The World Esperanto Association enjoys consultative relations with both the United Nations and the Council of Europe. Does Klingon ?
A pity also that it is not generally known that you may find Esperanto speakers in more than 130 countries. Or that more people in Burundi per head of the population speak Esperanto than in any other country. Thirty schools in Burundi teach Esperanto ; how many teach Klingon?
For those who think Klingon should be the future international language please see
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8TQGVh025E4
totally hilarious!
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