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.

————–

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!”

I have the best friends ever.

All weekend I had to work through some stuff, change up some big brain plans, lay new track and still relax. And there ya go. Hooray for awesome friends! Seriously. I don’t hang with many people, those I do have to be the awesomest of the awesome. And they are. I say again, Hooray!

In other news there is a new WORDFISTS live.

And! A special announcement! Over at Legend of the Burrito Blade we begin a six page (two week) experiment! Lauren wrote these six pages, and I edited them. As opposed, you know, to the normal other way around. She’s really good at this, too. It was a lot of fun switching chairs around and letting her take a swing. There’s a chance it’ll happen again as the story goes on, too. So enjoy!

So in a Bollywood film they put on a musical theatre bit about He-Man. It’s like He-Man on ice, I guess, except no ice. It is also oddly catchy. So there ya go. A musical He-Man moment in the middle of the film.

How much do you love ramen? Admit it.

And then I made this:

Should be writing. Today is a mad fiction day. Sadly I smashed my right index finger last night. It involved a door,, scraping the side of my cuticle against a hard metal lock and then some. It isn’t that it’s unusable, just that it hurts like fuck to use. This won’t stop me 100% but it will annoy me pretty badly.

Anyway.

Hi.

What the?! Tito Jackson died? Oh my god! That’s horrible news! I can’t be… oh, wait, what? Sorry, can you … oh. It was Michael what died? Yeah, not feeling bad for that child molesting freak of a crazy motherfucker. Being dead don’t mean I like you more.

(continued from this morning) – Happy Shiny Pink Gundam Warrior Kiki isn’t gruff. She doesn’t speak with a deep booming voice. Kiki just doesn’t understand why you would want to fight in a giant robot that had no sense of style. Sure, you carry your rifle and your giant coffin shield. Of course you protect innocents and wage war against the unjust. And you do it all from inside a gigantic robotic shell. But why can’t that shell be fabulous?