Category Archives: Unsorted

Looking Into The Mirror : A Theory On The Future of the J.J. Abrams Trek Universe

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Terran-Empire-Insignia

Warning: Spoilers Ahead!

I have a theory about the J.J. Abrams Star Trek universe. It’s likely wrong, because Abrams seems pretty well content to just do whatever he wants regardless of whether or not it makes any kind of sense (see : The Enterprise at the bottom of an ocean), but it’s a theory I have nonetheless.

The Abrams Trek universe is actually an alternate Mirror Universe.

What follows is a whole bunch evidence that demonstrates, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I spend far too much time thinking about this kind of shit. Some of what follows here isn’t necessarily canon, but it’s the best info we have so I’m going to go with it.

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How To Survive A Raptor Apocalypse

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I mentioned on Twitter and Facebook that I had selected a “silly” topic for my final project in the Advanced Technical Writing class I am taking at the University of Maryland University College. Several of you said that you’d like to read it, so here in all of its glory is “How To Survive A Raptor Apocalypse”.

P.S. At the end of the post I’ve uploaded a video of the PowerPoint presentation I made to accompany the paper.

Big thanks to my buddy Ned for giving it the once-over with this Technical Writing mojo!

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INTRODUCTION

In 1993, Steven Spielberg amazed the world with his blockbuster film Jurassic Park. The movie, based on the novel of the same name by Michael Crichton, was a cautionary tale about the potentially horrible consequences that could result from attempting to clone dinosaurs in the modern world. While many audiences were thrilled by the movie, they all went home from the theater that night safe in the knowledge that it was entirely fictional, and that nobody could actually clone dinosaurs.

They were wrong.

A team of Russian and Japanese scientists has announced plans to clone a wooly mammoth sometime in 2012. By combining the DNA of an elephant with marrow cells from a thigh bone of a deceased mammoth, the researchers believe they can re-create an animal that has not walked the planet in more than 10,000 years (Poeter).  When Jurassic Park was released back in 1993 it was impossible to imagine that science would ever be able to actually re-create the fictional experiments that were portrayed in that film, but not even 20 years has passed since then and mankind is playing with fire by reaching back thousands of years to defy the laws of Natural Selection and raise a species from the dead. If these scientists are successful, it’s only a matter of time before they reach even further back in time to satisfy their mad desires to see dinosaurs walking the Earth again.

When they do, it will be a sad day for us all.

If you wish to survive the inevitable dinosaur apocalypse, the time to prepare is NOW. If you wait until the creatures have broken free from their mad creators it will be too late. This guide will help you prepare yourself and your home for the horrible day when science trumps logic and we are thrust head first into a war with a vicious and deadly foe.

Raptors.

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1 in 3200

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At some point today a satellite is going to fall out of the sky. As much as I love the folks over at NASA, and scientists in general, I have to admit that occasionally they say some really stupid things.

This particular scenario represents one of those occasions.

The quote that is getting thrown around the most about this event is the one in which a scientist stated that there was a 1-in-3200 chance that a piece of debris from the satellite was going to hit “a person.”

This, of course, led to internet panic. Just this morning Simon Pegg mentioned it on his Twitter feed as well, which is likely to cause a slew of re-tweets and a heightened call to alarm about there being a 3% chance you’re going to be hit my satellite debris today.

Calm your sphincters, folks.

Pay attention to what NASA actually said – There is a 1-in-3200 chance of debris from the satellite harming a person. They did not say that debris from the satellite was going to hit one out of every thirty two hundred people. Out of all the people on the planet, there is a less than 3% chance that the debris from the satellite will strike one of them. The Washington Post ran the numbers, and the actual odds of you personally being struck by debris from the satellite are something more along the lines of one in twenty-two trillion.

Keep calm and carry on, folks. It’s not quite time to call up Bruce Willis to save the day just yet.

Republican Presidential Debate – Now With Drinking Game!

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Ok, so I’ve gone through all the trouble to get the Live Blogging plugin working the way I wanted to on my site, so I guess I’m going to have to go through with my plans to live blog yet another GOP Presidential Debate

The things I do for you people, I swear.

So here’s the deal – For one, I’m likely to be broadcasting from a Google+ Hangout while I watch. You’re welcome to join me if you like by visiting my wall over there. If you’re following me on Twitter or Facebook you’ll get notifications whenever I update this post for as long as the API lets me do so before it breaks (I killed the Twitter to Facebook link about half way through the last debate). If you really want to stay up to the minute on the updates the best thing to do is monitor this page. There is a script running in the background that will automatically feed new posts to the parent.

Now, on to the fun part…

If you want to play along with my debate drinking game, the rules are pretty simple. I will announce it is time to drink whenever any of the following events happen:

  • Any candidate says “Obamacare”
  • Any candidate mentions Class Warfare
  • Any candidate uses the phrase “The American People”
  • Any candidate mentions Ronald Reagan
  • Any candidate mentions 9/11. Finish the whole drink if the candidate says we were attacked because “they” hate the American way of life.
  • Rick Santorum complains about his “Google Problem”
  • Ron Paul hungrily lips his lips while staring at another candidate.
  • Newt Gingrich says anything that makes him seem like he’s done anything at all relevant in the last 15 years.
  • Mitt Romney’s hair moves.
  • Gary Johnson…wait, holy crap! Gary Johnson is actually there? Dude, I like that guy! He was on Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me! He gets an honorary toast the first time he answers a question.
  • If any candidate compares Herman Cain to the Noid finish the whole bottle. Every time Herman Cain actually proves he has a sense of humor, drink.
  • If John Huntsman…I can’t think of anything funny about John Huntsman, which is probably a good thing…least as far as I’m concerned. Dunno how well that works for him. I wanna say to drink if he actually face palms over being forced to try and make sense next to the rest of the lunatics up on the stage.
  • Every time Michelle Bachman…Flying Spaghetti Monster, save me…Every time she’s on the screen stop me from slitting my wrists or throwing the bottle through my television.

If you guys have any suggestions for the drinking game let me know in the comments and I’ll modify accordingly.

[liveblog]

[sociable]

Distracting from the show

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Shortly after I graduated from high school my friends DeWayne Bowen, Jeff Morgan and I decided that we were going to go to work for the Walt Disney World Resort. Jeff was already working there part-time as a character actor, and he told DeWayne and I that we could come and stay with him in Lakeland and his grandparents place. He was house sitting for them over the summer and we figured we could spend a few months working and raising money before they came back to town. I was leaving for Alabama in the Fall anyway, so for me it was the perfect idea for a summer job.

I didn’t actually HAVE a job at the resort when I moved my stuff over to Lakeland. I was 17, and I think that at that age you are legally required to perform every action with as little though and planning as possible. The bottom line was that I wanted to get a job at Disney World, so obviously it was going to happen.

Turns out I was right…Mostly.

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An Open Letter To President-Elect Obama

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President-Elect Obama,

I am writing this post with a full awareness that you will likely never read it.  I am not writing it for you per se, but I am directing the message at you and anyone who feels that you were elected out of some kind of blind hope or reckless idealism.  I am writing this to explain, and in some ways I am writing this as a warning.

Mr. Obama, we will be watching you.

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I Want Some Peanuts

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So….the Tampa Bay Devil (fuck all that dropping the Devil business…they only did that to try and get the religious freaks into the stands) Rays beat the Boston Red Sox tonight 9-1 in a playoff game.  Let me state right here and now that I do not give a damn about baseball.  At all.  I think it’s a mind-numbingly boring game, and the only time I willingly go to a baseball game is when my son is in it (and even then I get bitchy about it).  If it weren’t for the fact that Tampa Bay was in the playoffs I wouldn’t even be aware that the playoffs were going on.

I just don’t care.  Really.

But…

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