From: "Benjamin D. Hutchins, Chief of IP Operations" <gryphon@hq.ipo.zc>
Return-Path: <gryphon@hq.ipo.zc>
Delivered-To: skuld@q.ipo.zc
Subject: Re: My latest invention!
To: "Skuld Ravenhair, Chief Technologist" <skuld@q.ipo.zc>
Date: Tue Jul 20 2410 13:29:31 -0500 (AST)

> You don't like it?

Well, no, it's not that I'm not impressed. As reproductions of fictional artifacts go, it can honestly be described as nothing less than a stunning success. It does exactly what its fictional exemplar did. I agree that it represents a tremendous achievement in the field of... whatever you'd call something like that. And I recognize that you need to undertake little side projects of this kind from time to time as a sanity break - what you've got on your plate right now is some heavy, heavy work.

... I'm just not sure what use our field agents might have for a magic ring that, when twisted, instantly teleports the wearer to the nearest Burger King.

It's sure cool, though. I can't argue with that.

--G.

I have to wonder if Washuu-chan is starting to rub off on her. That is flippin' hilarious. If anything, it might provide for a quick getaway. After all, if your being hunted down by the big bad goons, how would they expect you to suddenly teleport to the nearest BK? :)

Black Aeronaut Technologies Creative aerospace solutions for the discerning spacer "To the commissary we should go," Yoda declared firmly. "News of this kind a danish requires."

>I have to wonder if Washuu-chan is starting to rub off on her.

Are you kidding? That's classic Skuld.

Oh no no no no no...

Classic Skuld would be that she builds some strange looking bot out of household appliances that is just as likely to blow-up and leave everyone soot-stained as it is likely to do what she meant it to. ;)

I could be wrong, though. ^_^

Black Aeronaut Technologies Creative aerospace solutions for the discerning spacer "To the commissary we should go," Yoda declared firmly. "News of this kind a danish requires."

>Classic Skuld would be that she builds some strange looking bot out of
>household appliances that is just as likely to blow-up and leave
>everyone soot-stained as it is likely to do what she meant it to. ;)

Some people might suspect that this was exactly what she meant it to do...

>Some people might suspect that this was exactly what she meant it to
>do...

I bet she'd do it to Keiichi early on, or to Urd on a regular basis. It'd be pretty damn funny to see the UF Skuld prank Urd for old time's sake. ;)

Black Aeronaut Technologies Creative aerospace solutions for the discerning spacer "To the commissary we should go," Yoda declared firmly. "News of this kind a danish requires."

Given how fast Burger Kings are disappearing around here, I might actually find that useful!

"Fictional artifacts"...? So where does a neat gadget as downright weird as this come from?

p.s. - <dememted laughter>

--
Unable to save the day: File is read-only.

>"Fictional artifacts"...? So where does a neat gadget as downright
>weird as this come from?

Burger King TV ads, circa the late '70s.

God, I'm so old.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

>God, I'm so old.

(UF-Gryphon points at RL-Gryphon and laughs.)

-- Bob
-------------------
The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

>>God, I'm so old.
>
>(UF-Gryphon points at RL-Gryphon and laughs.)

Yes, well. He's been having his own bouts of that lately too...

--G.
(a 10x multiplier is good in videogame scoring, not so much when you're mentally calculating the relative age of your date)
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

LAST EDITED ON Nov-26-07 AT 09:43 PM (EST)
 
>(a 10x multiplier is good in videogame scoring, not so much when
>you're mentally calculating the relative age of your date)

Well, Detianism sort of throws the whole "half-your-age-plus-seven" thing completely out the window... Who cares about multipliers if you're not actually aging? Plus, it seems to me that -- whether it was intended or not in your writing -- one of the less obvious benefits that Detianism brings along with everything else it does is that its recipients retain the mental flexibility of youth, regardless of the years they live. To paraphrase Harlan Ellison, "Gryphon is twenty. He's always twenty." (Substitute appropriate age as necessary.) He's just twenty with five centuries' worth of experience.

As for your midlife crisis, sorry, Gryph, but no help there. I'm barely coping with my own. <grin>

-- Bob
-------------------
I intend to be a freak for the rest of my life, and I shall baffle you with cabbages and rhinoceroses in the kitchen and incessant quotations from Now We Are Six through the mouthpiece of Lord Snooty's giant poisoned electric head. So theeeeeere...

>it seems to me that --
>whether it was intended or not in your writing -- one of the less
>obvious benefits that Detianism brings along with everything else it
>does is that its recipients retain the mental flexibility of youth,
>regardless of the years they live.

This is true. One of the other odd side effects of being "frozen in time" like that is that you never quite shake the tendency, very common at college age, to jump in with both feet, emotionally speaking. On the one hand, it's given the early Wedge Defenders the intensity they needed to accomplish the things they've done; on the other, it means you do goofy things like wander into the crime lab and take investigators you've never met out for ice cream.

>To paraphrase Harlan Ellison,
>"Gryphon is twenty. He's always twenty."

True, although as another philosopher put it, "It's not the years, it's the mileage." The longer you rattle around the universe, the more often you run into people who've never seen the Burger King ads, as it were. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

And here I was thinking of the Burger King commercials circa the release of the LotR films. Because I'm positive at least one had Frodo doing exactly that with the One Ring. Maybe it was a real old homage.

The concept of Skuld forging a faux-One Ring just for the double-takes she'd get would certainly be amusing around Asgard though.

"One ring to cook them all, one ring to find them. One ring to bring them all, and with salt and deep-fat-fried foods bind them"?

Depending on its effective range and the distribution of BK franchises, that could be very handy indeed for field agents who need to be on any other planet right now...

--The Evil Midnight Lurker what Lurks at Midnight
"An object at rest--CANNOT BE STOPPED!!!"

LAST EDITED ON Nov-26-07 AT 04:07 AM (EST)
 
That or, you know, you just want a Whopper and some Fries.
And if it weren't so damn late I'd do some serious Youtube Searching for those commercials about now, so tomorrow it is.

>Depending on its effective range and the distribution of BK
>franchises, that could be very handy indeed for field agents who need
>to be on any other planet right now...

As they've tried to avoid any sort of real Deus ex machina equipment or abilities (like, I dunno, CLULESS) in recent years, I'd have to believe that the ring wouldn't have a range of more than, say, an AU or two. Useful for getting to a Burger King from most anywhere in the ZC Dyson sphere, but not useful for interstellar travel.

Although, it would have been really funny, way back in Valient Rose, if the various groups could have escaped from their captors by simply zapping to the nearest BK. Even funnier if the nearest BK was on Titan.

"They escaped HOW?! By magic decoder ring?"