A Random Anecdote About Perspective

Once upon a time, when the Syfy Channel could spell, they had a show called Trailer Park. As the name implies, they showed old sci-fi and horror movie trailers, typically from the 1950's and 60's. At the end of each episode they'd have some commentary from one of a rotation of guest speakers. His job was to offer a sobering perspective or witty insight into what we'd just seen on the show. I think it was an episode about apocalyptic movies where he offered this little story about a physicist giving a lecture on the sun. 

My memory is a little fuzzy, but here's the best I can do at retelling it. 

A physicist was giving a lecture on the makeup of the sun. At one point, he explained that in 5 billion years, the sun would expand to a red giant, possibly consuming the earth in the process, if not at least making life intolerable for whatever would survive. He was interrupted by someone in the audience who seemed rather panicked when they asked, "How soon!?" Thinking he'd maybe given out the wrong number, he restated, "5 billion years." The audience member breathed a sigh of relief and explained, "I'm sorry, I thought you said 5 MILLION years." 

Requiem: A Reptilian Microprose

"Where is the video of eukaryotic cells forming?" asked the Megaton Fuchs of the museum curator dressed as a teddy bear.

Noah taped over it with his home movies. It was later stolen by reptoids after the flood drained into their arctic tunnels and froze over. They also took his clothes and used their talons to transmit a sulfite-rich neurotoxin with an effect not unlike a drunken stupor. The vineyards provided a serendipitous cover for the operation.

The tape was recorded over yet again during a late night showing of The Invasion of the Saucer Men on a UHF station in Topeka, Kansas. The plan was to use it as evidence in a copyright suit as the aliens in the film had a defense mechanism not unlike that of the reptoids. Sadly, they were crushed by a barge full of animal by-products on the way to the courthouse due to the tugboat captain's blood-alcohol level.

I don't have a point. I only wanted an excuse to use the word "Reptoid."

Hug your teddy bears tonight or be one for someone else. Good night.

---RMJZ, MMXV CE

An Eternity Measured

My entry for the Sci-Fi London 2014 48-hour storytelling competition. Late Friday evening, I was messaged with the following prompts to build the story around: 

"Title: AN ETERNITY MEASURED
Line: As far as I'm concerned you're 31 with a mental age of... Probably 12.
Theme: What if people could reproduce asexually?"

This is the result. It was a challenge, but immensely fun to work on.

Her eyes scanned the topmost shelf of the bookcase, empty save for three black books, each with a Roman numeral on its spine. The rest of the room was far less reserved and enigmatic. The walls were practically covered with black-framed photos of their gracious host shaking hands with various past presidents and other select world leaders. A few more were on some of the other shelves, propped up against photo albums and scrapbooks. The other shelves contained all various manner of mementos, most of them toys. Some she found quaint, even endearing, such as a rusty metal pickup truck, the kind her own grandfather likely would have had passed down to him. Others, though, struck her a bit less flattering, such as a diorama of a semi-nude slave girl chained to a pillar, the base bearing an undeniably barbarian-sounding name in gold foil. The circle of Mardis Gras beads around it didn't help. It was even starting to turn her stomach a bit. She wondered if those little black books up top were full of numbers arranged according to cute little pet names instead of real ones. She took a sip of her wine and tried to tell herself she was only projecting. 
It was late in the evening and the party had quieted down, apart from the occasional fit of raucous laughter from her boyfriend, having made it his mission to match each of her sips with a full glass. She took another sip and pinched the bridge of her nose as she heard footsteps from the stairwell, expecting it to be him. Another laugh from downstairs told her it wasn't. 
"Impressed?" it was their host, a man who'd cheated death three times thanks to modern science. She said nothing. Her boyfriend was convinced meeting this man would lead to some high-tier networking, thanks to all those famous and powerful people he'd met in his multiple lifetimes. She tried to inform him gently that simply knowing someone wasn't the same as having someone's ear or a direct line up a chain of command, but it was no use. "I'd ask if you'd like to see my etchings, but I don't think your guy would approve. He says that's how you met. Surprised he knows that routine, young as he is." It was the last straw. She hated that story. It wasn't true. He only told it to get a rise out of her, and now it was being used as an icebreaker to get in good with someone whose only claim to fame was being one of a dozen successful cloning experiments. 

"As far as I'm concerned, you're 31 with a mental age of... Probably 12." She shot him a dirty look. She didn't care anymore; she wanted to leave. If it meant offending the host, so be it. 
"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but passive-aggressive quantifications of my emotional maturity make head feel no good, then all better." Considering she was expecting him to go for the obvious and make some snooty remark about how, once upon a time, having a childhood was a mark of distinction and class, that he went the mocking manchild route was something of a relief. She tried to hold back a smile, but gave in, a small chuckle coming with it. Looking down into her wine glass, she waved her free hand around, trying to think of where to start and how to phrase an apology. He cut her off, "I'm sorry. I'm not very good at entertaining. I'm more used to being a guest. Even then, I'm lucky if one joke or story clicks." 
She motioned to the diorama and beads with her glass, "If you want to try for two, I'm sure the story behind this is hilarious." He looked a little embarrassed, giving an "aw, shucks" sort of smile. 
"They're only technically mine. Old Mister Zero knew the guy who drew those comics when he was about half my age." he said, reaching up and taking down the first book, holding it as a preacher holds up a bible, putting his other hand to his heart and donning a comical Irish accent, "I was a different person back then, poppet." He replaced it and took down the second, this time only pinching its corner between his thumb and forefinger, waving it side-to-side, "You don't want to know what this guy was into." he put it back and took the third one down, flipping through a few pages. "This one's a work in progress." She could see they were simple notebooks, informal journals, and realized the reason for the shelf space. 

"Old Mister Zero? Not number one?" she nodded to the shelf. 

"He was ninety when he submitted his original material. Died about a year later. No memoirs."

"No family?" She asked, knowing the answer, and the awkward reason for it. 

He turned toward the pictures on the wall, turning the notebook over in his hands, "Clones are perfect copies, flaws and all. You need good genes to pass on. Luckily, he was the kind of guy insurance companies loved; no pre-existing conditions. No heart problems, no cancer, no diabetes... extraordinary by being ordinary. Almost a perfect specimen." He saw her blush a little, but gave a comforting smile before going on, "One hundred total candidates passed. Only half were successful, and only about a dozen of us have carried on. Number four will put me in the top three after I'm gone."

"What happened to them, the ones who didn't carry on?" She asked. 

"They decided to solve the birth rate problem the old-fashioned way, settling down and having families."

"I'm sorry," she said, feeling she'd put him on the spot. 

"I'm not. It's win-win, really. They get normal lives, and guys like me get their appearance gigs." He looked around at all the photos, sighing, "Of course, talk shows and garden parties can't pay bills forever. My stand up career clearly isn't going to take off, though I think my Irish accent's getting better." 
"So, what are you going to do to fill the book, besides your Father Ted impression?" 
He thought for a moment, "I've heard etching has become kind of a lost art." 

PSYSTAR: WRAITH SYMPHONY

Released as RABID RALPH'S ROCKET RHAPSODY in the US with terrible, terrible box art not unlike the image above because we're uncultured swines like that. 
Anyway, just something I farted out in GIMP in ten minutes—including a bathroom break—after watching that Futurama episode where the Martian doomsday rocket leaves earth, cutting a lovely blue streak against an orange, cloudy sky. 

Also, someone somewhere posted this diatribe (against a gradient background they probably labored over for hours) about how science has ruined their imagination, making them second guess and scrutinize every piece of fantasy art they either come across or make. To that person, I offer this image and these words:  SUPERNOVAS TURN OXYGEN INTO GOLD. That fantastic enough for you? 

Weblogs, V-logs, A-logs?

this is reposted from my Gamespot weblog. I decided to post it here as well for two reasons: 1)It involves a weblog I found here on Blogger and 2)The topic actually harkens back to an entry I wrote all the way back on Yahoo!360 (archived on Multiply), where the awesome phenomena of Cryptomnesia struck me and caused me to re-discover podcasts (which I called "A-Logs" in my ignorance of the obvious).

I have my PSP.

I still have my PS2.

There's also my roommate's Gamecube and the XBox a friend of mine gave me.

The only next-gen console I have is my roommate's Wii, to which I've contributed over half the games.

Suffice to say, I'm a little behind.

Don't get me wrong, I like the Wii, but I'm not totally in love with the motion control scheme (though I can't wait to play Dead Space: Extraction). At the end of the day, I'm all about kicking back on the couch with a controller in my lap, an experience the Wii makes me feel guilty for indulging in, especially considering most of the games I play the most on it are available for other consoles like the XBox360.

My present financial situation prevents me from buying an XBox360 (The only thing that makes me interested in the PS3 are Linger in Shadow, The Last Guardian, and Valkyria Chronicles... and that last one's getting a sequel for PSP anyway). There's a shortlist of games I'd want for 360, but the more I find out about them, the less inclined I am to make that wanting justify indulging myself. It's not that I find the games disappointing (not in each case, at least) but I definitely look upon this new generation of game consoles and think, "what am I really missing out on?"

The worst part of the answer I get, really, is that what I'm missing out on isn't even all that innovative. In fact, it's incredibly primitive to such a point that I've experienced them before in PC games, Myst and Marathon to be precise. To be more precise, the "missing element" I'm referring to are audiologs. In Myst, they took the form of little holograms or pieces of correspondence left on desks or bookshelves. In Marathon, they took the form of the on-screen text of the computer terminals scattered throughout each level. Similarly, Final Fantasy X-2 had you gathering spheres, which showed little video clips of bygone times and places. Metal Gear Solid had Snake's video briefings (which made me fall in video static and grainy video images in a way I didn't think was possible). Metroid Prime 2: Echoes has you cataloging various alien species you encounter and collecting logbooks and journals from past explorers long since passed on, survived only by their... er, echoes.

Some time ago, on The Escapist, I thought I'd started the perfect forum thread: "What was your first gadget?" I shared my first gadget to get the ball rolling, an RCA microcassette recorder. I did all the typical things that kids do with tape recorders: sing silly songs, do interviews or impressions, divulge thoughts and rants, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't start at least one recording with "Captain's log, stardate..." and so on. Anyway, time went on, my little handheld studio faded from memory, and I ended up giving it to my parents to help them get some recordings for a little legal trouble they were having. Suddenly, a few years ago, I was in a computer store when I suddenly started to miss my little RCA and found myself buying a Sony IC Recorder (ICD-P320). Now, I've got a small collection of digital voice recorders, at least five. I keep them scattered about and in different pockets of different jackets. I use them for everything and anything imaginable from grocery lists to driving directions to rough drafts of stories that float around in my head.

More recently, after the release of Bioshock, and all its subsequent discussions and reminisces of System Shock, made me aware of these funny little things called Audiologs. I'd never heard this term before, even though the items themselves have existed since the beginning of gaming, right down to the books on library shelves in any a number of RPGs. At first, I thought it was just referring to audio recordings. Under that narrow definition, the only past-gen experience I'd had with the things were the various audio cassettes scattered about the house in Fatal Frame. Of course, now I've learned that audiolog need not refer specifically to audio recordings, though those do seem the most interesting, the most recent to fully develop, and, in a way, the easiest to produce. Obviously, written text is the easiest in technical terms, but given that CD-ROM technology got its start back in the early 1990s, it's surprising that only a scant few games released in that era (namely System Shock) employed audio recordings as part of the game's atmosphere. Sure, Myst had sound-based puzzles, but they didn't aid the narrative backstory in any way.

Audiologs also seem like they'd just be flat out fun to make. They don't need to be long, they can be fragmented, and they needn't even be of the highest fidelity as, even in the far future, crackly static gives that extra added layer of authenticity to the game's atmosphere.

Although my forum thread didn't get many replies, The Escapist did lead me to an article written by Graeme Virtue, who I found out is the author (and principal actor) of a series of "sketches" for the One Life Left podcast, entitled "Science Officer Logs." Taking a cue from Dave Hollins, Space Cadet (the Son of Cliche radio sketches by Red Dwarf's Rob Grant and Doug Naylor), the Science Officer's Logs parody not only the concept of an audiolog, but also several gaming conventions, from ice and lava levels, to even damned escort missions. They can be found here.

In addition to that, I've just spent the past few minutes watching YouTube videos of people collecting the audiologs from Halo: ODST. I stopped out of guilt, thinking, "No, no, I should play the game, or at least own it before I go cheating like this."

So, here I am, an audiolog junky with no real way to satisfy my habit. I really hope I can afford an XBox 360 soon.