Bionics.

Presently, when someone starts talking about Steve Austin, most people think of professional wrestling. I want to talk about the Bionic Steve Austin. The man barely alive. Oscar Goldmen's Steve Austin. Personally, I would hate to have seen his twisted, charred torso when he was pulled from his space craft wreckage. For all the parts they replaced, he was a mess. It is a wonder they found his legless, one armed, one eye near remains at all. What is more of a miracle though, is that in the mid 70s they had the technology that saved him. I think in the 70s, even if they could have put his body back together, his skin still would have looked something like noggahide. I have a sneaking suspension as well that Steve Austin might not have had an operating unit after such an accident, but that is a whole other discussion.

Of course, with my keen interest in physics and science as a whole, I recent;y got to thinking about his crazy bionic strength. His bionic eye I am really going to over look. Although bionics made one of his eyes see like the scope of a sniper rifle when needed, no one really has any idea how eyes actually work, It is a mystery for the ages that has dumbfounded scientist worldwide. However, everyone knows how arms and legs work, there is hardly anything to them. Some muscles, a few nerves and veins, an arm..or leg. Easy to believe we were making bionic people parts then as well as now.

What I don't get is how you put them together. For instance, Steve Austin has an arm capable of lifting a car. Amazing. I am sure he showed that off at parties. What I don't get is how the arm stayed attached. They didn't go over that in the show. And sure, if he planted both bionic legs, he could curl the car from the bumper with the one bionic arm. Oh yeah, except the muscles referred to in the field as "core brute strength" muscles, i.e. your back and stomach, are in between those bionic parts. (for the record, Steve Austin's core brute strength is normal and average, not bionic.) Even if I had bionic legs and a bionic arm, I don't really see my core brute strength supporting the weight of a car. I think the first time Steve went to lift a car, his bionic arm would have torn off in a bloody mess of wires and noggahide and bionics. I also bet he would get a pretty bad hernia.

Next time NASA decides to turn one of their astronauts into a cyborg (which I am all for), I think they really ought to make the whole dude bionic. Or at least 99% of a whole dude.

LARPing

While I've heard of this before, I recently read a bit about it in Wired magazine. If you are not familiar with LARPing, and I don't know why you would be, you can read something about it in this article, or search it on Google. I had to do both. To me, reading about this practice is something like passing a bad car accident. I don't want to see dead bodies, blood and hair all over the asphalt, yet I can't help but to slow down and really stare either.

I checked out a site that sells LARPing weapons. I still am processing what I have seen. Swords made out of pvc, foam and latex that real people carry around with them, and might do real combat (with foam weapons) to determine an outcome and continue a story line. A story. This is like using your real life to act out a different life you cannot or do not have. In a way I wish more people did this, I would love to be eating at Applebee's and see some random guy walk in and LARP another dude while he is eating. Did that sound dirty?

In some LARPs, people use magic. Being that no one seems able to really use powerful combat magic in real life*, LARPers might throw objects that represent magic, or just stand and point while yelling what there spell is doing. If I was LARPing with someone like this, and I have no clue why I would be LARPing, I think I would tell the magic guy that I am putting on my shove your magic in your buttocks magic shield and taking out my shut the hell up amulet. My amulet makes you have to be quiet while I am wearing it and you are around me, magic guy.
*(if there was real combat magic, and I can hardly believe I am saying this, but I think people that could do it would be Navy SEALS and they would be taking our style of crippling magic to terrorist everywhere. You loose, terrorists, "I am casting burning magic on you, it is causing your skin to burn mildly, but causing searing white hot pain right on your taint." Take that terrorists.)

LARPing....I couldn't fight in a battle where my sword might get ripped. This is a jury I would like to sit on.
"Your honor, I LARPed home and I found my wife in bed with Enormotron. He was LARPing her furiously from behind. When he saw me, he reached for his Pulsating Plasmatic Phase Gun. I didn't want my character to be banished to another dimension, so I LARPed his head off. My wife is a druid, so she quickly through bean bags at Enormotron's limp, lifeless body while yelling 'my healing spell is causing your head to reattach to you body, you are feeling better and not getting anymore blood on my carpet' but her spells were not powerful enough and his head remained LARPed onto the floor."

If I was the defense attorney, I would plead insanity. I take that back, if I was the defense attorney, I would quit and look for a job with the DA.

Toy's aren't Us.

Over the weekend I had occasion to go to Toy's r Us. What a sham. What a farce. They didn't have what I was looking for. In fact, they don't have much of a selection at all. I will tell you what they do have though...baby clothes, cribs, strollers, bedding.... It is in the name. Toy's R Us. Toys! These items are not toys. They have a whole other store for that crap, Babies R Us. Seriously, I don't go into Babies R Us looking for Legos, GI Joes, Barbie's, Thomas Train stuff, Blue's Clues paraphernalia... Why would I go into a toy store looking for sheets, cribs, bottles... It makes for a store that is neither a good toy store, nor a good baby accoutrement store. I am going to start a toy store and I am going to call it Crappy Selection R Us. I am going to get the buyers from Toys R Us to buy for me. I want exactly the same thing they buy for them. It should be no problem, if you order it for them, order it for me too. The only difference is, I will offer my crappy selection at reasonable prices. I will make up for it by paying my people less for the work they don't do. I will have less people too. However, I will openly embrace the entrenched philosophy of my competitors. I will tell my workers they don't have to help anyone unless they feel like it. "I don't know" is a perfectly acceptable answer. If the customer doesn't like it they can sit on a tack. Long waits are good, and so are invasive procedures in the check out line. If you see a customer approaching you, RUN FOR IT!, they probably want to bug you, and I don't pay you enough to be bugged. If you start off being short with customers, it saves all that foreplay. Cut to the chase I say. My employees will have awesome black uniforms. Whatever the Hot Topic employees are wearing is what my employees will wear. I am not going to have some lame, creepy animal mascot either. Crappy Selection R Us needs something like a flaming skull. Nothing says toys like an obsidian flaming skull. I can't wait to design the graphic and write the employee manual