FLAPJACKS: Let’s make a survival horror video game!
MGK: I’ll bring the random assortment of dentist’s tools!
FLAPJACKS: I’ll bring the creepy doll’s heads!
MGK: Don’t forget to smash ninety percent of the light bulbs! But only ninety percent!
FLAPJACKS: Scary killers/monsters have to see too! It’s only polite!
MGK: Speaking of which, what type of scary killers or monsters do we want?
FLAPJACKS: Well, there are so many options. There are regular people who are grossly facially mutilated. There are body-dysmorphic horrors. And then there are body-dysmorphic horrors who are also grossly facially mutilated.
MGK: It is a smorgasbord of terror!
FLAPJACKS: The important thing is to make people go “ew” when they play our game!
MGK: Speaking of which, what type of protagonist should we have? I think we should have a protagonist whose family have died and who is still haunted by their deaths.
FLAPJACKS: Well I think we should have a protagonist whose family have disappeared and who is driven to find them, no matter how tragic an outcome may result!
MGK: Can we compromise and have a nameless non-entity who is defined only by his abilities which have been mapped onto the keyboard?
FLAPJACKS: My word, it’s like I’m surviving the game myself now! But we’re agreed it’s a dude, right?
MGK: Well of course.
FLAPJACKS: All those little convenient notes people leave behind will have so much more impact if I know my video-game self is a dude.
MGK: It’s only real survival horror if all the notes are in fact voice recordings. You know, as people do. Nobody writes things down any more! It’s the digital age! We talk into our talk-boxes! Voice diaries are a real important thing!
FLAPJACKS: Also with the voice diaries I think we need to give our hero supplies. That way he can fight the monsters. But only briefly, lest he be given some sense of agency! I think we should only give him single, individual bullets. People leave single, individual bullets around all the time! Think how scary it will be when he has only three bullets in his gun – and there are four monsters!
MGK: Bullets? Pffft, you’re not being ambitious enough. He should not have a gun. He should have a knife, which regularly gets dull when he stabs a monster with it, and he needs to find whetstones to sharpen the knife!
FLAPJACKS: He can carry up to four rocks at any time, and whenever he smashes a monster with a rock, it crumbles. He must constantly find additional rocks!
MGK: He doesn’t have a weapon at all, he just has a flashlight!
FLAPJACKS: And he needs to find batteries for the flashlight! Or else he won’t even be able to see!
MGK: What if we don’t give him anything at all?
FLAPJACKS: What if he needs to constantly find vitamins just to not die? Oh wait, I got it, our hero is diabetic and needs to take insulin every so often! He will have to search everywhere for insulin!
MGK: Which will be located in numerous desks, of course. It’s all coming together!
FLAPJACKS: But who will the big villain be? I think we should have it be a crazed scientist. He can make the awful murder monsters from people! All scientists know how to do that.
MGK: I would prefer a demon or maybe an evil ghost. That way the awful murder monsters don’t have to even conform to the slightest hint of scientific logic.
FLAPJACKS: I dunno. I think we want some degree of veracity to make players feel like this could really happen somehow. Otherwise we might as well be playing Mario Kart.
MGK: How about… it is the ghost of an evil scientist who was possessed by demons?
FLAPJACKS: Oooooh, that has some oomph to it.
MGK: Indeed! Who would not want to play this game?
FLAPJACKS: … actually I think I just want to play Mario Kart instead.
MGK: Yeah, me too. Let’s play that.

MALCOLM GLADWELL: So you see, Janey, you’re playing Go Fish incorrectly if you want to play it as efficiently as possible.
JANEY: But I want twos.
MALCOLM GLADWELL: But you asked for twos last round! Since I did not have twos, and since I have only drawn one more card, it’s highly unlikely that this most recent card was a two – in fact, we can calculate its likelihood exactly. We have played six cards between us, I have five cards in my hand and you have eight. That’s nineteen cards before I add my most recent card after you ask for twos, and since I previously had no twos and you have only one two – I assume, since you have played no twos – that means there are three twos in the remaining thirty-three cards, which means you only have a one in eleven chance of correctly getting a two if you ask for a two at this point. Maybe you should ask for another number?
JANEY: *starts crying*

ISAIAH: I want juice.
MALCOLM GLADWELL: Is it possible that you only think you want juice because seven other children so far in the class have asked for juice? Maybe you are being unknowingly coerced by Danny, who wants juice and is what we call a “connector,” because he is friends with so many other children. Danny’s desire for juice reflects on everyone he knows, and some of them in turn decide that they want juice.
ISAIAH: I don’t want juice now.
MALCOLM GLADWELL: Fascinating!

MALCOLM GLADWELL: The wheels on the bus go –
CLASS: Round round round!
MALCOLM GLADWELL: Excellent! See, what you did there was called “thin-slicing” – you continued the song from your own limited life experiences and limited knowledge. You know that wheels go round, so you finish the song yourself!
SHERRY: It was on Sesame Street yesterday.
MALCOLM GLADWELL: That still works.

LACEY: Mark’s hitting me!
MALCOLM GLADWELL: Lacey, you need to deal with Mark by out-innovating him.
LACEY: OW!
MALCOLM GLADWELL: Oh, dear. That looked unpleasant. Lacey, it may end up that you are what we call a “direct hit,” and a “near miss” like Joey over there who Mark hasn’t noticed yet will be the one to out-innovate Mark, by using you as an example of what not to do.
LACEY: OW!

– Blossom ran for five seasons, from 1991 to 1995. It was originally planned to run seven seasons, but after Perfect Strangers ran for eight seasons, the Gods of Television decided that there should not be a second “average at best, let’s be honest” sitcom that would run longer than I Love Lucy, Leave It To Beaver, Barney Miller, Taxi and Sanford and Son. The producers wisely obeyed the Gods of Television, who awarded the producers of Blossom with manna and honey.

– “Opinionation” is actually a scientific term meaning “I think so, but I am not willing to stake my professional credibility on that belief.”

– Michael Stoyanov, who played Blossom’s older brother Tony, has no connections whatsoever to the Spetsnaz and it would ludicrous to suggest that. Ludicrous.

– “Blossom Russo” is an anagram of “Our Moss Slobs” and maybe this means something.

– There were 114 episodes of Blossom. Of these, 173 were “very special” episodes dealing with real social issues in a comedic yet respectful way. This discrepancy has never been fully explained. A mathematician, Henry Snord, who attempted to study this mathematical quandary committed suicide in 2002. His suicide note is simply the phrase “…but Six?” repeated eleven times, with his handwriting growing looser and less defined with each repetition.

– Joey Lawrence was forced to stop saying “whoa!” in 1998 following an honor-duel with Keanu Reeves.

FLAPJACKS: Hey, do you remember that song “Friday” by Rebecca Black? The really bad one? It was famous.
ME: Yes, I remember that song. I have tried to put it well out of mind, but sadly I have failed.
FLAPJACKS: Well, guess what?
ME: She has a new song?
FLAPJACKS: No!
ME: Good.
FLAPJACKS: But the sleazy company that put out her song has made one that is arguably even worse!
ME: Oh lord.

FLAPJACKS: We begin with a Chinese man talking Chinese over phat synth beats, as one does.
ME: Also I note that this owner of the ostensible Chinese restaurant is cooking noodles on a Mongolian grill. So Alison Gold is apparently in favour of fusion cuisine.
FLAPJACKS: That would certainly explain why the noodles are glittering and emitting rainbows.
ME: I think that’s just how Korean food works. ALL THE ASIAN FOODS IN ONE RESTAURANT!
FLAPJACKS: There is something inherently creepy about a 14-year-old girl singing about heading home after a night of clubbing. She’s fourteen. Is she supposed to be a baby-raver? Where is her glitter pacifier?
ME: You’re complaining both that her song lyric is creepy and then asking where her pacifier is, you realize.
FLAPJACKS: Only ironically.
ME: I bet Miley Cyrus says she is being ironical all the time.
FLAPJACKS: Oh man she is kicking over a trashcan because she’s SO MAD about being hungry. Alison is punk, y’all.
ME: Her lip-syncing is awful in this video. She goes from not actually being able to lip-sync along with the lines she supposedly sings to lip-syncing along with the HEY-shouters in the background of the chorus.
FLAPJACKS: I’m more impressed with how the girl taking her order is totally stoked to be working in food service. Look at her. She is so excited that this white girl has come in and is pointing excitedly at what she wants to order, presumably because said white girl thinks there is a language barrier and cannot simply say what she wants in case the strange foreigner doesn’t understand proper English, even when sung.
ME: Why would the order-taking girl be excited about that?
FLAPJACKS: I don’t know, but I don’t judge people for enjoying their work.
ME: She definitely operates that cash register like a touch-typist. That’s impressive.
FLAPJACKS: I see we’re at the “point at the different types of Chinese food” part of the video, where she names all the Chinese foods she can think of.
ME: So… broccoli, chicken wings, egg rolls, wonton soup and fortune cookies.
FLAPJACKS: I know I was making fun of her for being white before, but man, that is so white. All that’s missing are the sweet-and-sour chicken balls.
ME: …why is she befriending a man in a panda suit oh god this suddenly became terrifying
FLAPJACKS: Look, I’m sure there is a perfectly rational explanation for why they are… uh… skipping through the park together and frolicking… okay, this is definitely weird…
ME: OH GOD THEY ARE HAVING A TICKLE-FIGHT ON THE GRASS THIS IS SOME BIZARRE LOLITA SHIT RIGHT HERE
FLAPJACKS: Don’t worry, it turns out that Panda Suit Guy is actually just ARK Music Factory’s house rapper.
ME: House rapper?
FLAPJACKS: You know how restaurants have a house wine, something not fancy but which will go down acceptably enough with your meal and isn’t too expensive? ARK Music Factory has a house rapper for the parents of the kids who pay for these awful videos. The theory is roughly equivalent.
ME: OH MY GOD IS HE RAPPING IN A FAKE CHINESE ACCENT
FLAPJACKS: …yes, yes he is.
ME: WHY DID YOU MAKE ME WATCH THIS OH GOD MY SENSES SO MANY PAINS
FLAPJACKS: Oh look, they’re playing Monopoly and he landed on Oriental Avenue.
ME: AGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH
FLAPJACKS: Also, what is the deal with all these subtitles? Why are they all in different languages? Are they hoping that this will give the song “international appeal”?
ME: “Look, Alison Gold’s Parents, we know you’re spending your life savings on this video and you want to hit as many markets as possible. We’re going to do that by translating each line of the song into a different language. Then all those foreigners will see the translations of their one line of the song and teach themselves English so they can enjoy the whole song. We have charts demonstrating this.”
FLAPJACKS: “Can we see the – ”
ME: “DO NOT ASK TO SEE THE CHARTS. TRUST THE FACTORY. TRUST THE SECRET CHARTS.”
FLAPJACKS: Aaaaaaand now they’re all dressed up as geishas because all Asians are the same!
ME: I note that Alison Gold’s signature dance move is the “half-hearted shrug.”
FLAPJACKS: And the video ends with the panda flying away on a rainbow, after tossing Alison a fortune cookie with a fortune that says the panda will fly away on a rainbow.
ME: “In bed.”
FLAPJACKS: FORTUNE COOKIES ARE NEVER WRONG!
ME: But fortune cookies don’t work that way! They’re not supposed to tell you what already happened, they’re supposed to tell you the future.
FLAPJACKS: Or compliment you in a sort of kiss-ass way.
ME: “In bed.”
FLAPJACKS: But I was right, wasn’t I? I mean, this was a must watch video about food.
ME: Eh. It’s no Pizza Kids.

ME: So I was watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine last night and
FLAPJACKS: Ugh who cares I wanna talk about the Batman show with no Batman.
ME: Oh, yeah, Gotham. That sounds a bit odd, doesn’t it?
FLAPJACKS: Well, I don’t see what the point is of a show about Batman with no Batman.
ME: For starters, the show is about Commissioner Gordon, not Batman.
FLAPJACKS: Look, that’s a cheat. First off, it’s not like anybody asked for a Commissioner Gordon show. Would you want a show about Alfred, too? Back when he was a British spy and secret agent and wait that actually sounds great so never mind that, but a Commissioner Gordon show is basically just Law and Order unless you put in super-villains. And if there are super-villains, then where the hell is Batman in this show?
ME: Maybe it’s no super-villains and it’s like a show where Gordon is a Good Cop and the rest of the force is corrupt because it’s Gotham City and they are the true villains.
FLAPJACKS: They already did a corrupt cop show and that was The Shield.
ME: Except that I just described the exact opposite of that show. Jim Gordon is the anti-Vic Mackey.
FLAPJACKS: EXCEPT except that thanks to the early promo material for the show we already know there are gonna be supervillains. They all but said so.
ME: They also said that Rage was gonna show up in Agents of SHIELD and that turned out to be a guy called Mike Peterson, which is like the least superheroey name ever.
FLAPJACKS: Was that official promotional buzz or was that nerds trying to guess things by randomly naming black characters from Marvel with super-strength?
ME: I personally cannot tell the difference any more.
FLAPJACKS: Anyway. Look, part of the thing about Batman that people like is that his villains are obsessed with him. Let’s assume that some supervillains are going to show up in this Jim Gordon show, because seriously, why would they not put supervillains in the TV show set in Batman’s city? Isn’t there already a cop show without supervillains on the air?
ME: Well, there’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine –
FLAPJACKS: Sitcom, doesn’t count.
ME: Maybe Rookie Blue?
FLAPJACKS: That’s a coming-of-age show that happens to be about cops.
ME: Almost Human?
FLAPJACKS: Robots are basically supervillains anyway.
ME: Blue Bloods?
FLAPJACKS: That’s more of a family drama than a cop show although you do have to admire Tom Selleck’s moustache, which is very Jim Gordonish.
ME: NCIS?
FLAPJACKS: No.
ME: NCIS: Los Angeles?
FLAPJACKS: That’s the one. See? We’re covered. We have a cop show without supervillains already! We don’t need another one!
ME: I bow to your inescapable logic.

FLAPJACKS: So we have stars. Is this Star Trek? Or Star Wars?
MGK: I doubt it. If it was an established franchise this would make sure all the nerds knew it was an established franchise, right? There would be some ambiguity, but by the end of the trailer there would be an “oh that’s exciting” money shot.
FLAPJACKS: A tease-en-scene, if you will.
MGK: Very well done.
FLAPJACKS: I actually thought of it last month but now I get to use it.
MGK: Guy staggering through the surf.
FLAPJACKS: Maybe it’s Aquaman.
MGK: What did I just say about established franchises?
FLAPJACKS: I know, but I would counter with “nobody cares about Aquaman.”
MGK: …okay, fair point.
FLAPJACKS: Also, the guy is tied up, so that would make sense, right? Aquaman being exiled from his home planet.
MGK: Ocean.
FLAPJACKS: Whatever. He can breathe underwater so being tied up in the ocean, that’s no big deal. In fact he’s being driven to shore because that’s how underwater people execute criminals!
MGK: You’re saying that in Atlantis, beaching is a form of execution?
FLAPJACKS: Yes!
MGK: But why don’t the prisoners just walk back to the ocean?
FLAPJACKS: That’s why they tie them up! But Aquaman can breathe air, so he survives the beaching… and… um.
MGK: You didn’t have any idea as to what happens next, did you.
FLAPJACKS: Not really, no.
MGK: We call that “the Aquaman problem.”
FLAPJACKS: So. There’s also another guy with his lips sewn shut.
MGK: You know he’s probably evil because he has to drink his meals through a straw.
FLAPJACKS: …I have no idea what this is supposed to be.
MGK: You’re not supposed to. Remember when the Cloverfield teasers first came out and people were all “is this Godzilla? Is it a superhero movie?” because the idea of something new scared them, much like the dancing scared the rural people in Footloose.
FLAPJACKS: So in this metaphor I am the strict country preacher who doesn’t get today’s youth?
MGK: Pretty much.
FLAPJACKS: Dang.

I just found this comment added to an incredibly old thread (link removed):

“Debora said on August 10th, 2013 at 1:14 pm
If i could possibly clone myself ten times the will perform all other Search-engine Optimization business I require by hand.
I can’t therefore I exploit Ultimate Demon in place
my homepage: freelance blogging delhi (Debora)”

I want to frame this. I want to develop it into a screenplay, about a mad computer programmer who becomes obsessed with developing the perfect software for optimizing her search-engine. “No, it’s not fast enough. “It’s not good enough!” she rants to her assistant. “1.6 million results in .30 seconds? What if they need one result, and only one? We need a search-engine that can know–truly know–what the searcher wants! We need the Telepathic Master Engine! And I will code it!”

And in Act Two, she realizes that she simply can’t code it by herself. She needs someone as intelligent as her to collaborate with, someone who can truly understand all her revolutionary ideas about search-engine creation. So she instead begins work on human cloning technology, planning to create an army of Deboras to work in parallel and create her infinitely powerful search-engine optimizer in a fraction of the time!

Then finally, in Act Three, she’s been abandoned by her assistant. Her love interest has told her that he loves her, but he can’t watch her tear herself apart with this obsession. She’s finally realized that she can no more clone herself ten times than she can perform all the search-engine optimization business that she requires by hand. So instead, she turns to the last resort of the mad. She kidnaps thirteen infants and prepares to summon and exploit the Ultimate Demon. With the power of the occult backing her computers, she will create the perfect search engine. She will optimize and organize the Internet! All human knowledge will bow to her command!

I haven’t figured out how it ends yet, but I think that it has something to do with the assistant challenging her Ultimate Demon to find a single specific piece of lesbian porn and failing. But we might have to change that to get a PG-13.

1. Trade Rudy Gay to the Cleveland Cavaliers in exchange for Tristan Thompson, Alonzo Gee, Tyler Zeller and draft picks/cash.

2. Exercise draft rights on Tomislav Zubcic, sign to rookie deal.

3. Send Linas Kleiza to spy school. Kleiza learns arts of secret killing.

4. Trade Linas Kleiza to the Dallas Mavericks for a second-round draft pick.

5. Linas Kleiza assassinates Dallas owner Mark Cuban.

6. Send Quincy Acy back to college. Acy majors in theoretical physics.

7. In 2086, an elderly Quincy Acy invents time travel, returns to present day, shares secret of time travel with younger Quincy Acy.

8. Elderly Quincy Acy promptly vanishes in puff of causality.

9. Use the Acy Engine to travel to 1870s America and ensure that Mark Cuban’s wife’s great-great-grandparents never meet.

10. Travel to 1960s and make sure Mark Cuban, instead of reading The Fountainhead, instead becomes obsessed with The Westing Game.

11. Through further time travel, ensure that DeMar DeRozan is made sole heir to Ellen Raskin’s estate.

12. Return to present day. Mark Cuban’s estate donates the Dallas Mavericks to Ellen Raskin’s heir. DeMar DeRozan now owns the Dallas Mavericks.

13. Dallas trades Dirk Nowitzki to Toronto for Andrea Bargnani.

14. DeMar Derozan sits down with New York Knicks owner James Dolan for a game of high-stakes poker, and in an epic hand wins the Knicks from Dolan with three jacks against a seven high.

15. DeMar DeRozan offers to trade the Dallas Mavericks and the New York Knicks, together, for the Miami Heat to owner Mickey Arison. Arison accepts.

16. However, the Knicks were rigged to EXPLODE after the trade takes place. “Caveat emptor,” sneers DeRozan.

17. DeMar DeRozan trades LeBron James to the Toronto Raptors for a set of old encyclopedias, executes a three-way trade with Toronto and the Clippers to send Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade to the Clippers, Chris Paul and Eric Bledsoe to the Raptors and a set of old encyclopedia dustcovers to Miami, then announces the dissolution of the team.

18. Toronto sacrifices Kyle Lowry to the Dark Basketball Gods. Instantly, the Boston Celtics wink out of existence and indeed never existed in the first place.

19. Toronto spends $50 million to convert Amir Johnson into a cyborg superhuman known as ROBO-BALLER. ROBO-BALLER can dunk from the other side of the court and has laser targeting on his jump shots to give him a .997 shooting percentage.

20. Current-day Quincy Acy goes back in time, assumes identity of Reggie Evans. In present, “Reggie Evans” leads rest of Brooklyn Nets on a “fun trip” to a curiously unlabeled warehouse. They are never seen again.

21. Jonas Valanciunas’s mutant powers emerge. At a pickup game in Indiana he screams “WIKTORY BABY” and the sonic vibrations destroy all of Indiana along with the Pacers.

22. 2013-2014 NBA regular season ends with a Toronto team whose starting lineup is Chris Paul, LeBron James, Clone of LeBron James, ROBO-BALLER, and a giant crocodile with human intelligence named “Dave.” Rest of Eastern Conference has ceased to exist; teams not destroyed in pre-season are eaten by Dave.

23. Despite this, during the NBA Finals, they still lose in six games to the San Antonio Spurs.

24. I dunno, tank for Andrew Wiggins, I guess?

“See, the thing is, I’m not sexist. I respect women just as much as the next person. But as a male, I have certain basic biological instincts, and it’s not like they can expect me to simply ignore them. That’s setting aside millions of years of evolution.

“I mean, I don’t even think I’m that bad. There are way worse guys than I am. You don’t even want to be in the same room with them, you know? But by the same time, I don’t think I should be blamed for my biology. It’s just the way I’m wired, you know? I’m not going to lock myself away in a little room for the rest of my life just because some chick can’t handle it.

“And it’s not like they don’t have any alternatives. They chose to come here, you know? They had to know there were going to be guys here, but apparently it’s my job to just undo generations of basic urges just because they’re not ‘comfortable’, whatever that means. That’s the problem with feminists, you see. They think that people can somehow be educated to stop being people. But we’re animals at heart, and it’s not like you can just make that all go away, no matter how much you want to. Scientists all agree on that. It’s basic evolutionary psychology.

“And yet, somehow, whenever I shit myself in public and spatter them with human feces, they keep insisting I should be able to just ‘hold it in until I get to the bathroom’. Like I can just choose when my bowels and bladder get full. You know, if she didn’t dress in something so skimpy and difficult to clean, it wouldn’t even be a problem for her! …hey, where are you going?”

Okay!

continue reading "This act of creative and historical vandalism is not technically my fault"

The logic in my head went thusly:

1. Edward Norton was utterly wasted in ‘The Incredible Hulk’, a movie about a man with a split personality who was destructive and at odds with his ‘primary’ self.

2. Prior to that, Norton was probably best known for ‘Fight Club’, a movie about a man with a split personality who was destructive and who (came to be) at odds with his primary self.

3. Previous Hulk stories have featured the Hulk at varying levels of intelligence. You could, without betraying the source material, write a Hulk who was as eloquent and charismatic as Tyler Durden. And the potential for stunt-casting with Brad Pitt would be too hard to pass up. In some alternate universe, we got a version of ‘The Incredible Hulk’ written as a superhero homage to ‘Fight Club’.

4. When writing dialogue from this alternate Hulk movie, it’s worth remembering that Hulk dialogue is always funnier when written in Roy Thomas’ green Hulk argot.

As such…

“First Rule of Hulk Club: Hulk not talk about Hulk Club.”

“Second Rule of Hulk Club: HULK NOT TALK ABOUT HULK CLUB! RRRAAAARRRRGGGGH!”

“Third Rule of Hulk Club: When puny human say ‘stop’, go limp, tap out, Hulk stop smashing them.”

“Fourth Rule of Hulk Club: It not fair to gang up on Hulk.”

“Fifth Rule of Hulk Club: Hulk will smash you when Hulk finished smashing other puny human.”

“Sixth Rule of Hulk Club: No shirts. No shoes. Only purple pants.”

“Seventh Rule of Hulk Club: Hulk will smash as long as Hulk has to smash.”

“And Eighth Rule of Hulk Club: If this your first night at Hulk Club…you must SMASH!”