Episode 6: Three wishes

Taking a break from the story I've been writing (mainly due to the fact that its just not up to my hilarious standards in its current state) I think today i will talk about something different. Now I know what your thinking, and yes, the capital of Morocco is Rabat, but that doesn't have anything to do with the topic of this blog so I don't know where that's coming from, weirdo. Anyways today's topic is about the oft asked question: "If you had three wishes what would you wish for?". I know, I know, its a little cliche but hear me out. Now I've thought about this long and hard and I think I've come up with the best answer. first of all though we need to make some assumptions about said wishes. First lets assume that the wishes are of unlimited power, that is, you can wish for anything (except for more wishes of course), and second we will assume that the wishes don't expire and you can use they at any given time. With that in mind the apparent goal of the three wishes scenario would be to get everything you could possibly want in just one wish. The other two wishes could then be saved for emergency's and things of that nature. Now again I know what your thinking, and no I don't know who the king of Denmark is, what do i look like your Wikipedia? maybe try and pay attention for once in your life eh? Anyways, the wish i would make would to be able to know how to build anything i can think of. Tada! that's it. what, not impressed? maybe I should be more specific. I would wish for the ability to instantly know how to make something that does whatever i can think of, ANYTHING I can think of, even if its a machine that would defy the laws of physics. OK, but how does that get you everything you could ever want? Simple, you can make machines that can do anything right? so what do you want? Unlimited money? Sure I guess, you can make something really cool that everyone wants and sell it to some company whenever you need money, or you can make a device that would make people just give you money. Your still thinking small though, what about the ability to fly? heat-vision? talk to fish? you can do that to with a machine that could give you super powers. Immortality? why not? the ability to stop time? can do. You could even make machines that could alter reality in any way you see fit, from making it rain fish or turning the sky purple, to changing the way gravity works or making vanilla pudding the hardest substance in the universe. Anything would be possible. OK, sounds pretty awesome right? But remember you still have two more wishes left, so what do you do with those? Well the first thing that comes to mind is you might need them for emergencies, if someone gets in trouble and you don't have time to build what you need to save them for example. But one of the first things I would build would be a-in-one-survival kit that would prepare me for anything that could go wrong. So once you have that you wont have any emergencies, OK then, what else could you wish for? I thought about wishing to never run out of ideas of things to build but then you can just build a machine to pitch an infinite number of ideas to you on command. OK, so now were stuck, we have no need for anymore wishes right? not yet, but assuming you decide you build something that makes you immortal eventually you are going to run out of machines to build. At some point every problem in the universe would be solved one way or another by your machines, so then what? you would get very bored very fast. I mean you could use the a machine to change reality every half-hour or so but even that would get boring after a few billion years. You could make new universes but since you can already change anything you want in this one what would be the point? I suppose you could build a machine that makes problems for you so you could build more machines to solve them but all you would have to do would be to build a machine that breaks the one causing the problems. So now your really stuck, you have nothing to do for the rest of eternity, but fear not! with your second wish you could wish to have certain degree of randomness in the universe that your machines could not control, you could only build machines that would work around them. For example, lets say you have people on every planet in the universe, and then one day half of them decide to turn into zombies. You cant do anything to stop it from happening because your wish says your machines cant interfere but you could use them to deal with the problem (making anti-zombie breath spray or something) Anyways, so now you have things to do again, and yet you still have a wish left. I really don't know what you could wish for at that point so I'm leaving that up to you. Post a response of what you think the last wish should be and you may or may not be rewarded.








(more likely not)

Episode 5: The story of a world (part 1)

A number of years ago a sequence of events was set into motion. This is a chronicle of those events.

Part 1: July 2003 - March 2004

I suppose the point where it all began was during the summer of my junior year of high school. I had been looking for a summer job and my mom suggested I go to CompUSA to apply for a job there. So one afternoon in July I drove to the store in Manchester to get an application. After about 15 minutes of waiting for the woman at the customer service desk to find the application form I finally received one and then decided to browse around a bit and see if they had anything on sale. I was walking through the area of the computer games section I had become so familiar with over the past 3 years, when I saw something lying on the bottom shelf in the "bargain area". It was a box proclaiming it contained not one but 4 games in one package. It was covered with stickers indicating it had been marked down several times to its current price of $8.99. Upon further inspection I noticed it contained one game that had gotten good reviews in my latest copy of PCGamer magazine, a game I gladly would have paid $8.99 for by itself. However this box had 3 more game in addition to this one so without a moment’s hesitation I grabbed it and five minutes later I was outside congratulating myself on being such a savvy consumer.

When I got home I installed the game I had purchased it for: a superhero game called "Freedom Force" that had gotten an editor’s choice award in PCG. After about an hour of villain smashing I decided to inspect the other games that had come with it. The first one I pulled out was a racing game: one of the "Need for Speed" titles I had never had any interest in. "Boring" I said tossing it aside and thinking about giving it to Adamo since he was the only one I knew who liked that kind of crap. The second one was a first-person-shooter type game that I had heard of before. It was an adaptation of a real-time strategy game in the command and conquer series. I installed that next and played it for a little while before getting bored again and going down stairs to find something to eat and to call Nate and see what he was up to. A short while later Nate was on his way over and I decided to pull out the last game in the box. It was something I had seen an ad for in my PCGamer magazine but was never really interested in. The game was called "Earth and Beyond" and it announced it was a Massively Multi-Player Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG for short) that was based in the distant future where everyone gets a free spaceship somehow. Anyway I had never been really interested in playing one of these games, especially since it required a monthly subscription of $12.99 (big bucks in those days) to play. But because it came with the first 30 days free, and because I had only paid about $2.25 for it I figured, what the hell. I installed the game and it told me I needed a credit card, damn, I didn’t have one yet. I went downstairs and after only about 20 minutes of lobbying my dad relinquished his. So I was up and running, I entered the number and selected a server; Pegasus, and created my first character; Golan, the Progen warrior. I poked around in the tutorial zone for about 5 minutes where I learned how to use the chat box and that was about it. I finally warped into the newbie zone where I tried in vain for about 20 minutes to figure out how to shoot things and finally got bored and quit. So that was my first MMORPG experience, unimpressive at best.

A short while later Nate came over, with David and Adamo arriving a few minutes after. After showing them the new games I had just bought we retired to the basement for a few games of Super Smash Brothers. After bragging about having gotten such a great deal on my box o’ cheapware, David, in a jealous rage, challenged me to a bet: if he won the next game of smash I would burn him copies of the games, and if I won he would have to go buy them himself. Now being the undisputed champion of smash (except when adamo uses his stupid camping tactics which we all agree are just cheap) I accepted the bet and we started the game. After about 15 minutes of carnage later while David and I were arguing over the terms of the bet Nate somehow got the upper hand and managed to beat both of us. Having not planned for this event (because it had never happened before) we decided to call off the bet.

(to be continued)....

Episode IV: Episode 4

There comes a point in every series that the roman numerals are dropped and we go back to using boring old arabic numbers (Saw V apparently didn't get this memo). they aren't really as pretty as roman numerals but hey, at least we don't have to remember what side of the V the Is are on to tell the difference between four and six. anyways i really have nothing to talk about today, but i know a trick that I've seen on TV a few times when the writers start to run out of ideas. Its called the "clips show" and its essentially a compilation of the shows better moments. Realizing however, that I have only 3 previous entries the "clips blog" isn't exactly feasible. So instead of that I'm going to put together a list of things i wanted to put in the other entries but couldn't because of time constraints, lack of interest, or just having something better to do. I cant tell you how many times I finish an entry and awake the next day thinking of some hilarious joke i could have put into it. I realize I can just go back and edit them but it would make me feel too much like George Lucas or Steven Speilburg when hes butchering some poor defenseless classic just to put a few computer generated effects in that will look like crap a year later. So I think my way is better, heres an example:

Instead of "... I came out with a nice little segregated cube." from my story of the battle of the Rubik's cube, I should have said: "...I had the colors separated better than the graduating class of Kansas City high school 1954."

and uh...hmm.....well i guess that's it really. I thought i had more but i cant think of any right now.....uh..... Oh but hey do you remember that time Will and Carlton got arrested? or the time Maggie shot Mr. Burns? those were good right? I thought so, Clips blog, AWAY!!


Ok so I kinda phoned this one in but hey you read it and you cant get the last 45 seconds of your life back so mission accomplished!

Episode III: A beginners guide to being a well cultured motherf**ker

At some point someone will invite you to go to an art museum with them and you will go either through a legitimate interest or out of some obligation. either way your going to have to know something about art, or at least maintain the outward appearance of someone who does. Alternately if no one has ever invited you to a museum you should probably go back to plowing your fields / cousins and watching Larry the cable guy stand up special for the forty billionth time. For everyone else I have put together a short guide for looking like you know something about art.

Part 1: Faking it
The best part about art is you can be an expert in something you know absolutely nothing about, the key is to keep your comments vague enough so as not to arouse suspicion. This is much easier then it sounds and, with a little practice, you'll be saying things like "this panting represents the struggle between good and evil" in no time!

Here's a mad lib to help you along:

"I think this (panting/sculpture/poem/jazz music) represents the struggle between (any two different things: man vs. nature, pie vs. Saudi Arabia etc.) you can tell by the obvious symbolism of the (noun) and the way (he/she/it) is portrayed here. This (panting/sculpture/poem/jazz music) is a classic example of the (word ending in -ist) movement."

Try to use this format whenever someone asks you what you think of a piece of art.

Part 2: I like it!

If you see a piece of artwork you like, it is important people around you know why you like it. Saying things like "It has pretty colors", "all the people look funny" or "it would look good over my fireplace" might give you away and would all be things to avoid. Instead try to say things that describe the piece while continuing to be as vague as possible. Try things like "it has a very effective message" or "it invokes strong feelings inside me".

Part 3: Is it good?

The cardinal rule of artwork is that the quality of the work is directly proportional to the fame of the artist. People will wait in line for hours on end to see a piece of artwork a famous artist accidentally made in 30 seconds when they tripped over a coffee table and spilled paint all over a canvas, while paying no attention at all to the painting that took an unknown artist 3000 hours of fine tuning every intricate detail. Its kind of like when you go to buy a pair of jeans, people will lay down $200 for a pair with a famous label even though the ones for $20 were still made by the same Korean children. Basically the rule of thumb here is if you recognize the name of the artist its a good piece of art.

I hope you find this guide helpful during your next art experience. And remember: even if you really hate art museums it could be worse, you could be going to an independent film festival.

Episode II: CNN, the mullet, and the Republican party

In an effort to avoid doing any real work today I have entered my schools hub of unproductivity: the computer lab. The computer lab at central contains about 100 or so students at any given time. Out of those 100 I estimate that about 5-6 of them are actually doing anything school related. As for the rest of these people there is a fair amount of email checking, instant messaging, myspace page updating and even some CNN watching going on. Speaking of CNN Id like to share with you one of my favorite CNN moments: About a month ago CCN was covering a speach being given by a one Sarah Palin. Nothing unusual at first, this particular speach was being given in the middle of a large, monoethnic crowd of people, typical republican rally. But as the camera panned across the crowed a man in the front row caught my eye. What set him appart from the rest of the group was the fact that he was sporting a typical red-neck hair style, commonly refered to as the mullet. "How funny" i thought to myself "a perfect example of someone who looks like they would be a Mcain/Palin voter". But then i started to wonder why no one else around him seemed to notice...was this such a nomal occerance at these things that no one gave any thought to the fact that some one with a rediculously hilarious hair cut was standing right in front of the camera on national televsion? Then I started to think about what kind of peson would go to these rallys anyways and I discovered I couldnt do it, I couldnt immidiatly figure out why ANYONE would think this was a good team to be on. clearly this would take considerably more thought then I had first expected, "Id better go get a snack" I thought "this could be a long one".
I returned 20 minutes later and I was still drawing a blank, when I remembered something that happened years ago that i didnt understand the significance of untill just then. The year was 1992, I was in my first grade elemetary school class and since it was an election year our class decided to do a mock election. As some of you may or may not remember the two major canidates for the 1992 election were Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush. Anyways our teacher explained what an election ment and who the canidates were and wrote their names on the board. We each wrote our votes on slips of paper and put them into a hat that was passed around the room. Now, being 6 years old the only things i knew about the two canidates were thier names, and that one had been president for four years and one had not, so when it was time to pick one to vote for I decided to vote for Bush because he had already been president and he had a silly name. Apparently this line of reasoning was the norm for the entire class (being made up of 6 and 7 year olds) because when the votes were counted Bush won by a land slide. From this experiance I concluded that republican voters have a similar mentality to that of a 6 year old. Keeping this in mind suddenly it all makes sense.

Episode I : Man triumphs over machine: I solve a rubik's cube

When I was about ten years old my grandfather gave me a Rubik's cube to play with. After about ten minutes of flipping blocks around randomly I decided that it was the most useless device ever created and deposited it on the nearest horizontal surface. Rubik's cube 1 , Ken 0 or so it would seem. Fast forward a decade or so and i found my self once again staring down an angry looking , albeit colorful, collection of randomly oriented cubes. It was go time, and this time I would be ready. Unfortunately for Mr. Rubik, he didn't bank on me having Wikipedia and Youtube at my disposal, and after about an hour of trying to remember what "left inverted" meant while holding the thing in the right direction; I came out with a nice little segregated cube. Huzzah! I win! but what? Surely i could have spent that hour doing something productive like studying for my calc 2 exam or watching an episode of ghost hunters. But no, I learned how to get a bunch of blocks to fit together nicely without the aide of vaugely russian sounding MIDI music. (tetris referance for those of you who didnt catch that....which would be....most of you...). Anyway I did it, but I still think its the most useless device ever created, with the possible excpetion of devices used to move the plot in an M. Night Shyamalan movie.

And so it begins....

So apparently Ive started a blog, kind of an odd thing to do for someone who never got anything above a C- in any English class. Fortunately for me a cursory glance at the next few blogs on this site indicate that I may not be alone in this matter.

This blog will be updated about once a when-ever-I-feel-like-it and is for the moment, solely for the entertainment of Mikey and Chrissy should either of them choose to read it.

So let the good times roll and look forward to Episode I: Man triumphs over machine: I solve a Rubik's cube.