Conor - The Blue Light

I was thinking about it earlier today, and I can't remember how it came up. We were driving through New Orleans, packed into this car and talking about something that wasn't our collective fear of death, the inability to deal with our mortality and whether or not we're in charge of our own fate when all of the sudden the conversation shifted and we were talking about the Blue Light.

The concept is simple, and probably very indebted to the brilliant Machine Of Death book which you can read in its entirety at that link right there.

The idea is this. Shortly before your death a blue ball of light will appear above your head. It could appear seconds before your death, or it could appear a week or two before anything happens.

It's a fun thought exercise.

I don't want to put too many rules into play, I just want to think of the possibilities.

You're walking down the street and you pass a stranger with the blue light. What do you do? What do you say? Do you apologize? I think I'd just apologize. I'd smile at them. I'd hope that they were on their way to do things they really wanted to do.

Would society embrace death? I mean, it would torture us in some ways, but we'd get more of a heads up than we usually get. That would be nice. Would there be "blue light parties?" 'Oh, sorry man, I'm busy Saturday, my friend's having his blue party.' What would you do if you couldn't make it to your friends blue party? How could you possibly make it to them?

One of the tempting ideas was to allow a friend to kill me in an awesome and preferably painless way. But if I did that, why did the blue light come on in the first place? I would be dying because of the blue light. It be both causing and forseeing my death. Can you beat the blue light?

My roommate Michael brought up how many euphemisms and slang terms we would have for the blue light. "She's been lit." "Feeling blue" would have a new emotional punch. We also talked about maybe the light changing colors, towards a red or maybe a white as you neared your death. You could watch the second tick away. One guy got his years ago, maybe, and there's been no noticeable change. Some unlucky people watch their light wither away before their eyes so quickly.

What if one day you woke up and you had an orange light, or a green light, or something?

I imagined all of my roommates and I in our living room, when all of the sudden all of our lights were there (would there be an accompanying sound? Something terribly inappropriate) except for one person. Let's say Caitlin. I feel like we'd all try to kill Caitlin. And according to our new lights, we would fail.

Could you die without a blue light or would it just appear a second before the event?

People are on a plane when everyone's lights suddenly appeared. Every single person on board. Somewhat reasonably, mayhem ensued. The pilot, fighting the urge to react in the exact same manner, manages to calm everyone down and he lands the plan successfully. Everyone walks away completely unharmed, but dies within the next of couple of days.

It's a fun thought exercise, I think.

The Bum Diaries

Brian McMahon Posting for Robert Langeiweird Late!

GONZO JOURNALISM:

Robert, a dog, and I just departed Robert's back porch with five ounces of mescaline, three syringes full of heroine, and twenty five capsules full of hydro codine. My associate Robert, a journalist, is assigned to cover a story of the turtle races of significantly high importance at the Henson Robinson Zoo this Saturday.

But that is not our main priority.

Right now, it's getting all these damn bees off my arms. The dog, well it think its a dog, an hour ago it was a cat, or a penguin. I dont know what fucking animal it really is. All I know is it's name, Rufus. Or I think it's Rufus, thats what the penguin told me, or the dog. Fuck, where am I? Anyway, about three hours ago Rufus knocked the last bottle of ether off the table and licked it up. In a rush, Robert and I sniffed up what we could. What would you do, thats five hundred dollars worth of fucking ether man! That shit doesn't grow on trees man!

Anyway, where was I? Oh, right. Robert is passed out in a pool of his own piss right now while I'm trying to figure out what to do with this damn dog. I need something to even me out. Five pills of the hydro should give me the fix. 

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Shit man, that was the ex. What fucking dealer did Rob get this from. Why is Abraham Lincoln tapdancing with Nazis in Rufu's kennel right now. Oh shit. I think I'm getting it again. The fear.

I hope all of you are doing well at your colleges and universities. LLCC is crazy!!!!

-Brian

Nick - Chao!!

This post is written in loving memory of my TV, which broke two days ago, my Nintendo Wii, which broke two months ago, and my Sega Dreamcast, which has been out of commission for a long time.

If you're a regular reader, you may recall my undying love for Sonic Adventure 2: Battle. However, in that post, I didn't even get to the good part of the game: Chao!

That is a chao. (Pronounced "chow.") They are the most adorable creatures in existence. And you get to take care of them! You can breed special colored chao, you can change your chao's shape, you can even train your chao to race.

Aww look at them racing

Your chao will have different attributes depending on how they're raised. Up there you can see, from left to right, a running-type, a flying-type, a power-type, a neutral-type, and a swimming-type. They can also become hero or dark chao depending on how they're raised.

Hero flying and dark running

Friday Conor and I have had many chao in our day. We dominated the chao races and chao karate. Also his chao died and I don't think he ever quite got over that.

One more fun note: you can make immortal, supremely powerful chao. (That's right, this game runs pretty deep.) They are called chaos chao, and there is one for each alignment.

Dark chaos chao

Neutral chaos chao

Hero chaos chao

Chao are adorable and awesome. I guess really the whole point of the post is to add further evidence that Sonic Adventure 2: Battle is the greatest game ever created.

I was going to put a video here but I decided not to.

-Nick.