#June2013

Opinions Vary: Pushing Forward Back

OV times

If you folks are anything like me, you’ve often thought how cool it would be to have super powers.  You also love avocados.  However this Opinions Vary has nothing to do with super powers … avocados might play into it later on.

This week’s Opinions Vary is about Time Travel.  More specifically, where would I like to visit in the sands of time?  Hit the jump and let’s do this thing.

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OL STORE: Biff’s Secret to Success

Hey, come over here! Don’t worry, there’s plenty of parking in front of the OL STORE! Hell, the spaces are spacious, too — you can comfortably park any vehicle, even that DeLorean of yours. Give the Flux Capacitor a chance to cool down, and come on inside!

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‘LOOPER’ INTERNATIONAL TRAILER: Time Travelling Telekinesis Time

…okay so I couldn’t help but gloom onto a little thing is this glorious international trailer for Looper. There’s a quickly passing scene where a billboard advertises some sort of product giving you telekinesis. It’s the little, the minute, that’ll populate and build this world I can’t help to experience. Can’t wait.

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Monday Morning Commute: Goddamn `98

I could’ve sworn I filled the tank.

I mean, if I was goin’ to risk my life time-travelin’, the best false sense of security I could’ve had would’ve been having enough fuel. As such, I spent countless weeks double-checking my math, the calculations whirring around around my mindscape even as I slept. The formula for post-temporal diesel was arcane knowledge, and if I wanted to concoct it myself I’d have to be super careful.

And when I finally felt that the arithmetic lined up, I got a big `ole metal barrel and mixed the ingredients:

– 1/2 gallon of gasoline
– 20 ounces of Pepsi Max
– 3 gallons of liquid zebra feces (grassfed animals only)
– 1/2 hour’s worth of tears

When the sludge was uniform in color (and pleasant to the taste), I poured it into the Toast-R-Oven I’d outfitted as the energy converter. I plugged in the converter, took a whiff of paint thinner, and then hopped into my combination broom closet/time machine.

I closed my eyes. Waited. Exited.

And here I am, trapped in the year 1998. Ugh. If the 1990s were an orgy, `98 would be the unwashed hippie who’s shown up despite having never received an invitation and hopin’ that some cooze grants poon-access to his scabby semen-dispenser. 1998 brandishes neither the novelty of the earlier 90s nor the enthusiasm of the turn-of-the-century. And yet it still cries for attention, hoping and pleading and wishing that someone will give a fuck.

I could’ve sworn I filled the tank. Next time I’ll check more carefully.

–-

Welcome to the MONDAY MORNING COMMUTE. I’m going to present semi-coherence in the hopes that you’ll validate my role as a member of Team Omega-Level. In the process, I’ll detail the various ways I’ll be keeping myself entertained. Fuck human tragedy, let’s all have a swell time!

Your mission – if you’re as brazen as you wished your prom date thought you were – is to hit up the comments section and share the bits and pieces of fun-debris that you’ll be sifting through this workweek.

Let’s dance.

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The Late Night Ramblings of a Madman

Its 3AM and my mind is melting.   I saw this post on the interewebs the other day.   It’s been in my dreams ever since.   The premise is that a Wizard appears out of nowhere and offers you one of these objects.   Hit the jump if you dare.

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Strange Moments in Solid Movies: Can You Read My Mind, Superman?

In 1978, a year after Star Wars catapulted audiences into the alien cosmos, Warner Brothers did humankind a solid by bringing the alien to modern-day America with Superman: The Movie. With the appropriately rousing–if not a bit biologically misleading (it’s marketing, people!)–tagline “You’ll Believe A Man Can Fly”, Richard Donner’s adaptation found the right balance between honoring the rich mythology of the character’s comic origins and reconfiguring it through the epic scope that only the big screen can hold. And thanks to this steady footing provided by the saga’s terra firma that stretches from the distant Krypton to Earth’s Smallville and Metropolis, it is no wonder why, when push comes to shove and heroics are called for, Superman can leap buildings in a single bound (and the like) into the stratosphere: the ground is set for success, which makes the flying leap that much more believable. Indeed, Superman takes off, soaring to immense heights as it is still one of the best comic book adaptations in film. (Slight tangent: its structure, still an unbeatable beacon for doing a great origin story, has “inspired”–or, more cynically, motivated the lazy–makers of subsequent comic films to follow Superman’s shining light too much, too closely, like moths to the flame. Some men just can’t fly well, it seems–and Superman’s mastery becomes all the more apparent.)

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DEFEAT. 032 – Postscript Three

[DEFEAT. is Rendar Frankenstein’s truest attempt at fiction.   Presented in weekly episodes, the novella tells the tale of Daryl Millar – a hero who dies at the intersection of pop culture, science-fiction, war epic, and fantasy]

I woke up gagging on the thick air of history. I then proceeded to spew blood all over my shoes. I never knew my stomach could hold so much of the vital fluid.

Then again, I guess it couldn’t.

I’d always hoped that the journey would be pleasant. Some sort of transcendent joyride in which I’d be bathed in bliss. It was an appealing prospect, the idea that by attaining my most desired aspiration I’d also be stumbling into a world of spiritual enlightenment.

During my preliminary research, I even spent quite a bit of time investigating the potential ramifications. Of Nirvana via science. But this was just another dead-end that I’d come across during my explorations. And I should have seen it as such.

Just think about the fragility of the human body. Even the most finely tuned and well-kept of our bodies are still laughably feeble. Take one of these bodies and put it in a relatively low-speed car crash. The potential for serious injury while traveling thirty miles per hour in an automobile is astronomical. Even in the safest of automobiles. Even buckled up.

Now imagine the potential for injury while traveling thirty years per hour.

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