oakenguy

Random Question: Would you rather take a squid or a hummingbird into outer space?

"That depends" is an awful answer to almost any question*, but I feel like I have to wheel it out here because, well, spaceship design. Would I want a squid in the Apollo 11 capsule? Would the squid want to be there? Would it have made for really fascinating NASA footage? No, no, and yes omg now I need a gif of Buzz Aldrin and a squid colliding in zero-gee are the answers to these question.

So let's make a couple of ground rules: big ship, with enough food and air that relative size isn't the deciding factor. Artificial gravity. Modified genetics or tech so that the squid could breathe without being confined to a tank of water, and....this is tricky...so that both the squid and hummingbird are uplifted to a point where their intelligence and communication skills make them capable of functioning as crew members.

**There is now a 30 minute pause while the author searches the internet for fanart of either a squid or a hummingbird wearing a Federation uniform. A search for 'star trek + squid' takes you down some strange rabbit holes, people.


ANYhow.

With all that said and done...I'm still torn.

SQUID


Pro:
Amazingly good at multi-tasking
Intimidation factor
Boneless nature allows them to squeeze into small spaces. That + the tentacles + speedy multi-limbed propulsion = EXCELLENT shipboard security.
The whole hentai thing
Already pretty darn smart


Con:
Possible connections to Cthulhu
The whole hentai thing
Squid use of rapid changes of skin color and patterns to communicate may either cause trouble in communicating with humans or create a whole new branch of human body modification
Already pretty darn smart PREDATORS
Perceived pro-whale bias and grumpiness about treatment of world oceans has potential for shipboard tension and even eventual mutiny, in which case all those pros become cons really really quickly



HUMMINGBIRD


Pro:
Fast
Very small. You can fit an entire colony of hummmingbirds in a starship designed for humans.
ZOMG SO FAST
Cute, too
Manueverable
Have I mentioned the speed? I think I need to mention it again. FAST.


Con:
Here's the problem: fast creatures don't perceive themselves as fast, they perceive normal creatures as

moving



very








slow






l




y.

See how annoying that was? Now imagine if you were a hummingbird in a mixed-species crew, and every single conversation was like that. A boring hour-long meeting takes on a new level of horror when your heart beats 1240 times a minute and you're never more than a few hours away from either starving to death or falling into torpor. A Star Trek'ian five year mission would be the equivalent of a 70 year mission for hummingbirds. And say if you tried to compensate for that by bringing a whole colony of them along...now they're enhanced enough, what if their society changes at the same fast rate as their biology? It would be like an advanced race beaming up a town of Dust Bowl farmers, taking a nap, and then waking up to find their spaceship full of hippies.



WINNER:


Hummingbirds would be fantastic scouts. And hackers, now that I think about it. And gamers. And moderators of internet comment sections. But when I think of outer space it's all about slowness and majesty...watching a moon gradually coming into view over the rings of Saturn, or hanging motionless and watching the clouds of Jupiter swirling down below. There's a reason they didn't use "Flight of the Bumblebee" for the Star Wars theme.

Also, sooner or later we'll run into robot space sharks. And I think we all know who we want in our corner then:













*The one exception being "What that on that old person's bottom?", and if your follow-up question is "Why are people at a nursing home communicating in caveman-speak?" I've got a "Why the heck not?" with your name on it.

Intercon M happened! And while outside of game there were a few off-notes that made me aware that my mingle-and-socialize muscles have gotten alarmingly atrophied, each and every larp I was in was awesome.

There was one thing in particular that threw me for a loop, and I think it's a good illustration of how larps can have unique strengths as a game/event/artform. Saturday night I played in Teenage Mystery Dance Party, a game where ALL the teen characters from the Hanna Barbera cartoons get together in the same mansion for a big party. I was part of Team Speed Buggy; the Scooby Doo gang was well-represented, as was Team Speed Racer, Josie and the Pussycats, and even the Jabberjaw group managed to travel back in time from their usual setting to take part (and try to protect their timeline from alien invasion by Zorak's mantis-people). And most of the game was the sort of madcap set of escapades that you'd expect--chase scenes! People in flimsy costumes trying to scare away meddling kids! A battle of the bands! A road race! Plus all the cross-pollination you'd expect from the different shows, with Jabberjaw getting his fins on some Scooby snacks and Speed Buggy and Speed Racer teaming up to trap a villain by blinding him with headlights. Hijinxalicious!

And THEN.

Now, here's the most beautiful thing of all: as far as I know, none of this happened because of anything any of the 5 GMs did. It just grew organically. Valerie from the Pussycats and Velma from Scooby Doo had teamed up to create a device that would increase someone's intelligence because, let's face it, every team had at least one character who could really use it. But out of everyone, by far the dumbest character (and this is a testament to the player's acting ability) was Bubbles from Team Jabberjaw. How dumb? She had a special ability called "Too dumb to be scared" that kept her from running away when a monster appeared. When she was asked if she'd like to help with the experiment she thought they were saying spearmint and offering her gum, so they zapped her, and she went from being the most clueless person in the very large room to being (and this is another testament to the player's acting ability) by far the smartest. Which, considering that Hanna Barbera likes to stock each its teams with at least one gadgeteer/brain/Clueful person, is saying something. So the teen genius group welcomed its new member and/or developed instant crushes, and all was well.

And then we all realized that the effect was temporary.

In the last half hour of the game, with almost all of our special abilities used up, we'd just entered/created Flowers for Algernon: the LARP.

I can't really describe the honest panic as the smartest characters from four different shows pooled their brainpower to try to figure out how to help Bubbles, who was (have I mentioned this was a good player?) losing her intelligence bit by bit and getting more and more distressed as people came up and asked her questions that she knew she used to know the answers to. We were in the last 90 seconds of game when we got everyone together with what we hoped was a functioning device that would make her intelligence permanent...turned it on...and saw everyone from Team Jabberjaw suddenly vanish. And then GAME END. With none of us knowing whether we'd saved her brain, or erased her entire timeline.

This game was supposed to be my light, fluffy vacation from the angst of the other larps!

(For the record, during the post-game wrap-up the lead GM confirmed that Bubbles and the rest of Team Jabberjaw had just gone back to their own time. Except they'd also never been here in the first place, so they hadn't won the Battle of the Bands. Except we remembered them. I think. By that point in the night I was a little wiped out.)

Pluses and minuses:

++ Halloween is coming up!

- I have no skill crafting costumes.

+ Ebay exists

++Ebay not only exists, it means it's possible to get cool little origin stories of costume bits you buy, in a way Goodwill won't give you

+++The costume bit I bought was part of the debris when a Beatles tribute band in Branson, MO, finally broke up.

+++++BEATLES TRIBUTE BAND FROM BRANSON, MO

-To fit into this, I canNOT gain weight between now and Halloween. Like, not a single ounce.

+++++BEATLES TRIBUTE BAND FROM THE CAPITAL OF ALT-COUNTRY, Y'ALL

So Saturday I went to my friend Jim's birthday party, which was at an indoor trampoline bounce-a-rama place. And there was much bouncing, 2/3 of it controlled and 1/3 of it of the "oh gracious, I did not mean to go here, no no I did not mean to go here at all" sort, and after the bouncing was over we had pizza and cake and it was a good celebration, hooray.

On Sunday I woke up and didn't feel bad at all after the previous day's unusual activity. And I felt a bit smug, as this was proof that I was a studly stud of studliness.

Today.....oh. Oh, today. Picture if you will a super-fun-ball placed inside an inflated balloon. Put the balloon in a little bit of motion, and watch as the ball inside makes with the wacky and bounces all over. That's what was happening with my internal organs on Saturday, based on the messages I'm getting from my muscles today. Owwie.

Dear Random Anime Boston Teen:

At some point in life...well, I think a sage named Hoots said it best when he told Ernie that sometimes you have to put down the duckie, if you want to play the saxophone.

Or, in your case...you can dye your hair black, have two lip rings, and stand outside the hotel scowling as you smoke your cigarette. Or you can dress in a full-body yellow Pikachu suit with little red circles painted on your cheeks. But when you do both at the same time YOU BREAK MY BRAIN.

On today's events calendar:


Coffee & Doughnuts with the BUPD

Dean Elmore will make a guest appearance at Coffee and Doughnuts with the Boston University Police Department on Wednesday, March 21, 2012 from 12-2 p.m. at the George Sherman Union. Students will have the chance to fend off the dean using Rape Aggression Defense (RAD) tactics, while enjoying complimentary coffee from Starbucks and doughnuts from Dunkin Donuts.

This is a true story.

A little background first: my boss's grandson is 3 1/2, and her son and daughter-in-law are artsy folks with Ideas about how to raise young Rowan. One of the Ideas is that while they won't enforce a total ban on pop culture, they'll draw a line in the sand and ONLY let him watch movies and TV shows that came out before 1960. So he, being 3 1/2, has been gorging himself on the Three Stooges and Little Rascals.

(Yeah, I know. I KNOW.)

So last week they had a holiday party and one of their neighbors, a sweet elderly woman, was approached by Rowan. Rowan with his golden curls and big sweet smile. Rowan said, "Ask me what the number after one is!" So she bent down, her face level with his, and asked "Rowan, what's the number after one?"

And Rowan gave the answer...which, as Stooges fans will remember, is "pTOO!" as he spit in her face.

I decided to try something a little different with my pumpkin this year. Fish-o-lantern turned out pretty well for a first try...




Totoro, though, looks more like a Pikachu when his ears are visible, and more like an owl when they're not. Hrrmph.






I do think they look good together, though.

I'm not going to say it's a fair trade, but one thing I notice about Tropical Storm Irene is that the air smells really, really good. I've been going outside during the calmer moments and inhaling deep lungfuls of it. Is this what air from the Bahamas smells like? I should've gone there a long time ago.

We've gotten off lucky compared to a lot of folks--so far the biggest damage we've seen is that our neighbor's tomato plant has tipped over. The direction of the wind means that there's a corner of the house that actually provides a nice little windbreak; as I type this, I'm looking out the window at five sparrows and a robin who are taking advantage of it, hunkering down and eating the seeds I've tossed out.