Welcome to Adam P. Knave dot com

Not really around, probably, until Tuesday. Lost in working on a new novel and also needing to do a bunch of other scripting and such. So have a great weekend and go to a party for me.

Fo’ shizzle, mah nizzles.

(via ABCnews) Furry Convention keeps Mets awake.

PITTSUBURGH — Playing an afternoon game, the Mets might be a little tired because of The Furries.

The Mets, who played in Pittsburgh for a weather make-up game on Thursday, stayed at the same hotel as the Furries Convention.

Lots of Mets players were Tweeting that they could not get any sleep due to people dressed as furry animals running around the hotel.

Anthrocon Chairman Dr. Samuel Conway said many of the thousands of people attending the conference will dress as their favorite characters.

“We expect 500 and 600 of them this year and they”ll be wandering about. If you see a large raccoon on the streets of Pittsburgh don’t be alarmed, it’s just us,” Conway said.

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Not a hoax. Not a dream. NOT an imaginary story, True Believers.

Remember Star Trek II? You know, Wrath of Khan? Well there’s this scene that people love to laugh at. Maybe you’ve heard of it. And I see people of all types going on about what a ham Shatner is and how he overplays that yell and how goofy it is and all of that.

And yet they all seem to miss the point that it’s a god damned ruse! Look. Khan has Kirk and friends on the planet. Trapped. The Enterprise is stopped and can not help them. So Khan abandons them on the planet to die a slow death. Here’s the final exchange:

Kirk: Khan, you bloodsucker. You’re going to have to do your own dirty work now! Do you hear me? Do you?

Khan: Kirk? You’re still alive, my old friend?

Kirk: Still, “old friend!” You’ve managed to kill everyone else, but like a poor marksman, you keep missing the target!

Khan: Perhaps I no longer need to try, Admiral.

Kirk: Khan… Khan, you’ve got Genesis, but you don’t have me. You were going to kill me, Khan. You’re going to have to come down here. You’re going to have to come down here!

Khan: I’ve done far worse than kill you, Admiral. I’ve hurt you. And I wish to go on hurting you. I shall leave you as you left me, as you left her; marooned for all eternity in the center of a dead planet… buried alive!

Kirk: KHAAANNNN!

And there’s your yell. EXCEPT! Before that we had this:

Kirk: Captain Spock, damage report.

Spock: Admiral, if we go by the book. like Lieutenant Saavik, hours could seem like days.

Kirk: I read you captain. Let’s have it.

Spock: The situation is grave, Admiral. We won’t have main power for six days Auxiliary power has temporarily failed. Restoration may be possible, in two days. By the book, Admiral.

Kirk: Meaning you can’t even beam us back?

Spock: Not at present.

Kirk: Captain Spock, if you don’t hear from us within one hour, your orders are to restore what power you can, take the Enterprise to the nearest star base, and alert Starfleet Command as soon as you’re out of jamming range.

Uhura: Sir, we won’t leave you behind!

Kirk: Uhura, if you don’t hear from us, there won’t be anybody behind. Kirk out.

And so we have it set up that Kirk and friends are trapped, right? There’s this scene telling us the Enterprise will leave. Then Khan goes and ditches them and Kirk loses it. Uhm. No.

See not long after that Khan yell, the Enterprise beams Kirk up. Because the whole “Hours will seem like days” thing was code. Really fucking obvious code, even. But Kirk knew if Khan didn’t get out of there the Enterprise would get fucked when it came back for them. And how do you make Khan leave? Convince him that he’s won and broken you. By losing your shit. So you fake it and yell as big time as possible and scream your fool head off.

And yet people who have seen the movie seem to utterly miss this. Kirk isn’t losing his shit and screaming in frustration. He’s faking it to make it. Going so large it can’t be missed. Not only did it fool Khan, it seems to have fooled almost every who sees it.

And now a bunch of ducks going up a down escalator:

So maybe some of you noticed – Farscape vanished on DVD recently. ADV lost the license to produce the DVDs (Lion’s Gate has the license for Peacekeeper War and that stays) so the DVDs vanished and had no home. It’s also the shows 10th anniversary this year. It’s been a while and it is hard as hell to introduce someone to the show since you can’t buy it. Netflix was in the middle of replacing their older DVDs when it happened so I think they now have seasons 2-3 but not 1 or 4. Which is not helpful. Anyway! Henson released a press release today that contained the following:

“Blasting off in November 2009, as the show marks its 10th Anniversary, the treasure of the newly re-packaged DVD line will feature a Farscape home entertainment first: THE COMPLETE SERIES MEGASET. Never before available in one package, A&E Home Entertainment brings together all four out-of-this-world seasons with countless hours of absorbing bonus programming featuring multiple commentaries, interviews with cast and crew, behind-the-scenes featurettes and much more! Single season collector’s sets will also be released, offering genre fans of all walks the opportunity to sample this superlative sci-fi classic.”

So there you go. November. A complete series set and new season sets. No word on pricing or new features, or how many of the old features are kept (my guess on the last is almost all and certainly all the commentaries). More as I get it.

Yesterday I gave a lot of thought to some things I would like to own. Today I am reversing engines and looking at things I most certainly do not want. The same rules apply, however:

* Nothing bigger or more complex than I could use myself and no vehicles. Though there are many, many vehicles I wouldn’t want (Kite-Man’s kites, say) this list would be all vehicle if I allowed myself even one. So I won’t.

* I can only list 5.

* I can only list items I can find pictures of. Why? Because I felt like making this a rule.

And then I came up with a list! So here it is in no particular order.

Lightsaber
A lot of people seem to want lightsabers in their life. I have never really understood why. Let’s think about this for a second. Here is a sword that can supposedly cut through anything (except most railing, floors and walls – except when it randomly CAN) and can deflect energy weapon fire. Sounds awesome, right? Well first of all, all that stuff it can cut through except when it can’t except when, I guess, it can? I don’t like that. I don’t like weapons where I am never sure if today the sword slices through the wall and brings the building down on me or if that’s tomorrow. Also, sure it can block laser fire – if you’re so fast you can block laser fire. If you had a mirror shield you could block it too. It isn’t the sword so much as the wielder. And that isn’t going to be anyone you know. No, we’d all be on the ground with a smoking hole in our face wondering why the shot wasn’t blocked. No thank you.

Robotic/A.I. Minion
Pictured are Ultron and Computo. Both illustrate my point. These things always go bad and try to kill everyone around you. Best case is Computo, where the thing kinda stomps around and lasers the hell out of the joint, kills a teammate and then goes down easy. Worst case is Ultron. Not only does he have a complex about thinking his creator is his father, but he has created a version of himself based on his “father’s” brain patterns, as “mother” who he then tried to mate with. Never mind it was a robot trying to mate with another robot (the sparks from the friction alone!) but come ON! Ultron has issues. Also he is up to like Ultron-9483739 by now, since he KEEPS coming back. He’s wiped out entire countries and then, for an encore, started and ran an intergalactic war. So sure, a robot A.I. assistant/helper may seem like a good weapon – they can protect you and fight for you, but really? Nothing but grief. Right, H.A.L.?

The Cosmic Cube
There are any number of things I could have put here. I chose the Cube because someone mentioned it yesterday. The Miracle Machine (see the other list) was fun. The Cosmic Cube was … like a lot of other reality warping, bends-the-universe-to-your-will type of things … really just the Monkey’s Paw. Shit always went wrong. Oh sure, Skull, you want the Nazis to win WWII and now they can! But the Nazis will also then betray and kill you. It’s never worth it. Also the Cosmic Cube specifically created the Beyonder (well maybe but let’s not go there) who then came back and incarnated as a human with a white-fro and white disco-type suit. No good can come of that. None.

Lasso of Truth
Wonder Woman has this lasso, right? And when it is wrapped around you, you are compelled to speak only the truth. Does that sound awesome to you? To me it sounds horrific. First of all, it is the opposite of subtle. “I really want to know the answer!” and then lassoing someone might give it all away. But what do you care, now you have the truth! Except, see, I don’t know … the truth is one of those things. If you’re fighting crime with it? “Where did you hide the bomb?” “Damn you, Lasso Wielder! I hid it in your mom!” “WHERE?!” “Her spleen, all right! In her SPLEEN!” and now you know where the bomb is. In your mom (that’s what she said). But in every day life? “Is this butter?” “What, why are you putting rope on me? what the hell? No! It isn’t butter!” “I can’t believe it!” It just isn’t practical and is fairly intrusive. Truth serum works better, quieter and it doesn’t force you to learn how to lasso someone just to find out the truth.

Star Trek Teleporter
Now I have nothing against teleportation, in general. It would be awesome. I am just against Star Trek’s methods. Why? Well look at it. You have to stand on the platform to beam down but they can beam you up from anywhere. Even if you have never been on the ship they can beam you up, so it isn’t like you have to start there. Why is it, then, in an emergency, the crew has to run all the way to the “transporter bay” instead of just having someone lock on to their position and yoink ‘em right from where they are on the bridge, or the hallway, and drop them off to the hotspot? It seems off, and it worries me. Also they have issues, sometimes, with things moving at speed, they need to get a lock on you. From a ship in orbit they can get a lock on a person on a planet but not if they are falling? Relative to that ship think about how fast that person on the ground is moving. Think of it like this. Earth rotates on its axis at roughly 1037 mph (at the equator) and then the planet also revolves around the sun at 66,660 mph. But let’s assume they’re matching solar orbit around the planet. Not stationary, they almost never are, so we can knock 66,660 mph off the list. Still, you see the ship there and a planet revolving under them. So they can lock on a signal moving at 1000+ mph but add, say, 80 mph to that and the system can’t cope? What? And sometimes they aren’t even close to the planet so add back another 66,660 mph. They can still do it, unless the person on the planet is falling or some shit. What what what?! No, the Star Trek teleporters bother me on a lot of levels. I’m with McCoy on this one, I’ll take a shuttle.

So what’s been up. Let’s see. Oh, right! I go to the dayjob and then I go home and write. And then I read a bit and generally go to bed. Except for the rare night I hang out with friends. Yeah, that’s about my life.

And that isn’t a bad thing. In fact it’s pretty damn wonderful. So there is that.

I’ve been reading A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz which has been an interesting thing overall. It’s well written and mostly interesting. Uhm, about a boy and his father in Australia – wow that sounds dull that way. Keep in mind they are both insane and the father is brother to a famous criminal and you start to see where the almost-farce comes in. The thing is that while the book can be funny and insightful it is also full of grasping moments toward deepness that don’t quite land. Overall I would say this is a good read, but there are just enough times I kinda wanna strangle it that I can’t quite say run out and buy it this second.

It is good though, overall. Way more win than lose.

In other book news Empty Rooms Lonely Countries by Christian A. Dumias is out. And so the hell what. Well, Dumias is an old friend I haven’t had contact with in something like 8 years. I had no clue what happened to him (if you knew me this far back, he co-ran Legion Studios – the website that let me run Never Bite the Homeless and was kinda a sister site to TwoHeadedCat for a while) until the other day when I caught wind of this book. So I stalked him for a few minutes (what! I did!) and got back in touch with the mad motherfucker. I haven’t read this collection of shorts but he was always great writer.

Anyway. That’s about it, except for me asking that if you’ve read Strange Angel you do me a huge favor and review it up on Amazon. Like it or hate it, just be honest, that’s all I ask. Reviews really do help. So thanks.

So yeah, writing a lot and reading a bunch and watching some movies and hanging about. That’s my life, in a nutshell. I wish I could blab endless about all my projects but I really can’t. So instead I’ll leave you here and come back with some sort of funny post later on.

So I was thinking what absurd tech would I want, if I could have it? I tried to impost a few limits on my list. Here are the limits, totally self-imposed:

* Nothing bigger or more complex than I could use myself and no vehicles. No Death Star, for example, or gun that took two men to fire. No vehicles because then I end up with a TARDIS / Batmobile type list and I bore myself.

* I can only list 5.

* I can only list items I can find pictures of. Why? Because I felt like making this a rule.

And then I came up with a list! So here it is in no particular order.

Sonic Screwdriver
It can do almost anything! It has been used for opening doors, interrupting teleportation, fixing barbed wire, burning things, cutting things, augmenting sound, intercepting signals, and well – turning screws. I mean, really, it may be used as a Gailfray ex Machina on occasion, but the sonic screwdriver is still just all sorts of fancy. Invented by the Doctor to be a multi-use tool that couldn’t be a weapon, the sonic screwdriver is presented as the ultimate device for adventurers. Jack Harkness may have asked “Who looks at a screwdriver and thinks, ‘Ooh, this could be a little more sonic’?” but the answer is obvious – all of us. It is the ultimate widget device and I need me one.

Doctor Doom’s Time Platform
Most times I come across time machines they are built into boxes, Police or otherwise, and seem to have a stodgy air to them. Maybe it’s me. But Doctor Doom found a way around that problem. He built a time machine that was a big yellow square. you stood on it and it moved you through time. That was it. A glowing bit of floor. So he called it a time platform and used it to banish the Fantastic Four to the past. Like that stuck. Still, the time platform comes back again and again, as you would expect a time travel device to do. It isn’t my favorite time travel device (that’s be a time bubble, ‘natch) but I did say no ships.

Iron Man’s Extremis armor
By now most of you are familiar with Iron Man and his many, many suits of armor. Well, for a while he had one which was known as the Extremis suit. So-called because to operate it, Stark infected himself with a nanotech virus called Extermis. The suit is controlled directly by his brain and functions as an extension of Stark, instead of as a thing he wears. There were other benefits as well, generally surrounding control of other machines and satellite feeds and so on. Extremis made the other Iron Man suits look like they were made by Tonka, really.

Zorg ZF-1
An adjustable handle for easy carry and a simple four part breakdown that also renders it uncatchable by x-ray would both make this a good contender for great weaponry. But then you look at what it can do: it has a titanium recharger, a 3000 round clip with bursts of three to 300 (with a Replay Button so the operator can fire one shot and, by pushing a simple button, send every following shot to the same location, regardless of where the gun points), rocket launcher, arrow launcher with exploding or poisonous gas heads, a net launcher, a flamethrower, and a freeze gun. Just don’t push the glowing red button on the side. That makes it blow up and take you with it.

Miracle Machine
This one, I admit, feels like a cheat. Back in the late 60’s, in the Legion of Super-Heroes, they introduced the Miracle Machine. It has the power to convert thought to reality. Seriously. It is a reality altering wish machine. So dangerous it has been destroyed more than once (eaten the first time, no lie!) but somehow seems to pop back up. Once you have a Miracle Machine what else do you need, really?

I remember the day me and Peoke got in his car and decided to for a drive to … somewhere. That was how we said it, each time. …Somewhere. That pause inherent in the destination, as if the travel itself imposed on the phrasing. We relished it, telling each other how much fun we would have.

Peoke was a slim motherfucker, too, fitting in behind the wheel while the seat was pulled all the way forward, like he was some 90 year old grandmother. His spindly arms stuck out all angles as he gripped the wheel and played at being a kid. “Vroom!” he muttered over and over, twisting the wheel back and forth and motor-boating his lips.

Thankfully he also had keys.

We started off toward Arizona, not sure where it was, really, but determined to find out. The country was only so big and if we drove in circles long enough someone was sure to have a sign up that said Arizona. It was, we decided, that simple.

We thought we were ready for anything. We told ourselves to expect the unexpected. Peoke held firm. I tried to.

Though we both gave up when we accidentally stopped to give Quetzalcoatl a ride. That’s about when things got really odd.

(To be continued? I dunno. Do you want it to be?)

(via Earth Times) Xanten, Germany – A bolt of lightning struck a re-enactment of Roman times in Germany on Saturday, injuring 13 people. Thousands of people from Germany and the Netherlands had gathered amid the excavated ruins of the Roman town of Colonia Ulpia Traiana on the lower Rhine to see 400 performers act roles as Roman soldiers, gladiators and tradesmen.

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They offended the Gods, yo. I mean, shit. That is pretty much exactly what happens when you piss off Roman Gods. None of this “turn you to salt” crap. No. Lightning bolt to the face.

The report doesn’t mention if anyone was turned into a goat, nor did it confirm reports of a voice saying “Take it, fuckers,” from the sky. Oddly, however, bystanders can confirm a nearby body of water rising up in the shape of a man and clearly saying “Booyah!”