Robotic Butts: Beware Humanity

I'm worried about robots. They could take over our planet at any minute, and that is just a fact. What? Yes, I've seen Terminator about 5000 times, hasn't everybody?

This worry is totally valid, because it has been firmly embedded in my brain since I was probably about 10 or 11 when I saw Terminator (source of all wisdom) for the very first time. Frankly, and I'm ashamed to admit this, I haven't really thought too much about my robo-fear (since the last time I saw Terminator: Salvation anyway) lately. However, it was recently sparked anew by a silly little article we read during the "Weird News" segment of our podcast (The Firnecast, subscribe on Itunes or listen at www.firnecast.blogspot.com! This isn't shameless self promotion, I really am somewhat ashamed by it). The article was about a seemingly innocent and hilarious "buttocks humanoid robot" created by Japanese scientists. We all poked fun at it and had ourselves a good chuckle.

Since that fateful podcast, I have had some time to think and have now come to the conclusion that this cybernetic tush is no laughing matter. It is actually the first step in creating an entire fake person. First it's the backside, (because of course if you're building an android you start with the butt, that's just good science) then a thigh, then a kneecap, then a calf, then a foot, which the robot will then use to crush all of humanity underneath.

I mean to tell you that robobutts are a harbinger of the merciless mechanical killing machines that will surely be bred from this technology.

You can't tell me that this thing doesn't look deadly.

I'm sure it seems like a great idea inventing these pieces and parts of people that are super realistic... Now proctologists can hone their craft before they ever set hands on a human rear! We can use these realistic fannies to learn how to read human emotions without ever looking at a face! But (no pun intended) what of the consequences? By the time you realize the buttocks have become self-aware, it's already too late. According to Terminator (source of all wisdom) they will get smart and see us as a threat, then it's extermination time. As Kyle Reese once said, "It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead." Powerful and important words.

Right now, as we sit safely and comfortably in our little homes, these bionic behinds are just a big joke.

It's reeeeeeal funny. Until you're walking down the street one day, 10 years from now, and a disembodied set of peach colored fannies attacks your legs like a rabid poodle!!! We can laugh about it now, but when you're laying on the sidewalk screaming, "No, no, no!!!" while staring down the business end of a rubber sphincter, It won't be nearly so funny.

Truthfully, I'm not certain how a pair of buttocks would kill you. Not that I've spent a lot of time thinking about it, mind you, but I feel like the buttocks would have to smother you. That seems like the simplest way. Unless they were going to maybe squeeze your throat between their cheeks or jump up and down on your face? Either way, not a pleasant way to go. Nobody wants to have "death by arse" written in their obituary. Well, I guess your family would have to be pretty insensitive to write that in your obit, but you know what I mean.

Listen, everybody thought Kyle Reese was crazy when he came from the future to save Sarah Connor. He tried to warn them, they thought he was weird (but how could you be weird when you're that damn handsome???), and look what happened. First it's rubber butts, then straight on to the graveyard for all of humanity.

According to James Cameron, we only have about 17 years left before the robots take over, one cheek at a time. I don't know about you, but I'm not sitting here on my real, human butt waiting for it to happen. No, I'm going to use my butt to stand next to the ones I love at a bbq and enjoy this life before it's too late!!!

I hope you all have a wonderful week and may the rubber butts of your life be ever docile.

THE FIRNECAST!!!

Hello my sweet, sweet friends!!! It's Firnecast day!!! Whooooo!!! You might be asking what that means, and with good reason. Well my darlings, it is a podcast my brother and I will be releasing and putting up this evening. It is on our podcast site, www.firnecast.blogspot.com, and we will be submitting it to Itunes. Hopefully you can download it on your ipods in about a week, but until then you can enjoy it through the site.

Will people like it??? I really really hope so. Will everyone like it? Definitely not. The content on the podcast is much more, um, well, dirty I guess, than my blog is or ever will be.

That being said, there are a million reasons to listen to The Firnecast. It's really funny, it's got a kick ass opening song courtesy of Hillbilly Herald (check them out, they ROCK!!!), it's got Todd Misomelius, Dan Firnekas, and me, me, ME!!! Talking into a microphone, which as you know from last week's blog is a dream come true. Since there are a million reasons to listen, I'm not even going to attempt to entice you by listing them. That's a lot of work and I have kids to raise. Instead, I am going to do my due diligence and list the top 5 reasons you should definitely not listen to The Firnecast. If you fall into one or more of those categories, um, just think about maybe listening to This American Life on your ipod instead and continuing to read my blog, of course!

Top 5 Reasons NOT to Listen to The Firnecast:

1. You are a hobo. The Firnecast may include content that is offensive to hobos and those that love them.

2. You are offended by things. If you are offended by things, The Firnecast may not be the podcast for you. Topics such as perverted Japanese vending machines and the contents therein, Todd's seductive buffalo dance, and necromancy are offensive to some, and with good reason. Also, a few little cuss words here and there. If I weren't such a terrible person I might even be offended by such talk myself.

3. You are my Gramma. If you are my Gramma, you might not get a kick out of listening to your granddaughter talk about your hatred for the band Twisted Sister and all it stands for. I love you, Gramma, so very much, but it was hilarious how upset you got at Dan for possessing a demonic mix tape of bad 80's hair metal.

4. You are Jim Davis' biggest fan. If you love the articles in our local paper written by Jim Davis, aka The Sage Up 15 Mile, you may not enjoy The Firnecast. His May 15th article may or may not have been lampooned during the podcast, and he may or may not have been referred to as "senile" and a "racist," which his fans probably wouldn't appreciate.

5. You don't enjoy laughter. It is possible that The Firnecast will make you laugh if you let it. It made me laugh, a lot, audibly, and that may annoy you. If you have a broken rib and can't laugh for medical reasons or if you don't enjoy the sound of my laughter, best to skip The Firnecast.

I hope you all have a wonderful week full of stardust and podcast dreams.  Thanks for reading!!!

MicroDiva

I love microphones. I love them so, so much. It is a love buried so deep within that I can't remember a time in which they didn't hold an overwhelming fascination for me. That and the buttons on pay phones, but that's another story.

What is it that makes me love them so? That super satisfying "puh" sound they make when you say a word with a "p" in it? The shiny, tidy little silver squares marching across the top? The smooth heavy weight of them in your hand? The sizzle when you turn them on?

Nah, I'm pretty sure it's the attention. When you have a microphone in your hand, you're super loud and everybody pays attention to you. Oh yes, I'm quite the little attention hussy. Me, me, me!!!

Sadly, there was an appalling lack of microphone availability in my childhood. I know, it's hard to hear. I don't enjoy calling my Mom and Dad out because I know they did the best they could, but it is a fact. My entire childhood I had a little microphone shaped hole in my heart.

Actual photo of my heart.

As a result of this dismal lack of sound transmission capability, I was forced to turn to the beater thing.

I know the beater thing sounds like some kind of torture device, but in actual fact, it was a wire whisk. A wire whisk that in my hands became a magical silver tribute to the microphone that should have been there. Though not nearly as satisfying as a real microphone, it made a fair substitute and definitely added something to the melodious "Yeah-yeaaaaah-oh-yeaaaaaaaaaahyeaaaaaahyeaaaaah"s that I regularly belted out to embellish the songs on the Kenny Rogers Christmas Album. I really can't explain why I listened to the Kenny Rogers Christmas Album all the time, but I did. On my Mom's flat silver tape deck on the floor of the kitchen. Maybe it was the only tape we had? I really hope so, because the idea that I was truly enjoying the Kenny Rogers Christmas Album really bothers me.

Anyway, now that I've explained my deep love and affection for all things attention and microphone, I'm sure you will understand my irrational behavior when I was actually given the opportunity to be around a real one as a child.

It was around Christmas time when I was three years old, or so the story goes...

I was in the church Christmas pageant, along with the rest of my Sunday school class. The beautiful, beautiful microphone was eye level, and practically sang "Hallelujah" every time I looked at it. Having appointed myself the star of the show, it was only natural for me to assume that I, and only I, belonged in front of that microphone. So naturally, as was my right as the star of the show, I grabbed it out of its stand at a tasteful and appropriate time during the first song.

Unfortunately, there are some people in this world that like to tear you down. "Haters," I believe, is what the kids are calling them these days. This night was no exception. A certain "hater," and I won't name names, dared to remove the microphone from my happy little hands. Not only that, but she then raised it up and out of the reach of my flailing chubby arms. Honestly, what an outrage!!! The star of the show, albeit self-appointed, not having unfettered access to the microphone? Unheard of!!!

Well, no self respecting diva would stand for that. And I, my friends, even at such a tender age, was a self respecting diva. I began jumping, trying to reach the microphone. It was too far away. No! Nooooooo!!! I needed help. I couldn't do this on my own. "Mom! Mom!!!! I can't reach the beater thing!!! I can't reach the beater thing!!!!!!!!!!!" I screamed in desperation, knowing that help would soon arrive to save it from the little black half-circle prison commonly known as a mic stand. But no help came. My own Mother, rather than rushing to my aid, just sat there in her chair and looked embarrassed... My own Mother. Unbelievable. Realizing that I was on my own, I continued jumping, desperate to reach it. It was no use. My sparkling silver friend was impossibly far away.

Would I admit defeat and fall back in line with the other children? No, a star never admits defeat. A star holds her head up high, and when she notices her father arriving late to her show, takes the opportunity to welcome him in a fashion becoming the father of said star.

When I spotted him, I stopped my jumping, waved, and happily called out, "Allen! Allen!!!" (a star is also far too cool to refer to her father as "Dad") before I ran down to greet him as everyone waited for me to return to the stage. Oh, don't worry, the show did go on. Eventually. And I'm sure it was amazing... Or at least, I can reasonably assume that it was.

Yes, the microphone. Forbidden, but irresistible. I would feel badly about "ruining" the Christmas pageant, but really... When one spends hours of her childhood pretending that a wire whisk is a microphone then a real one is placed in front of her, what would you expect? For her to just sit by and "share" the thing with the other kids? I think not. My poor Mom... You can still hear the embarrassment in her voice when she tells the story. I'm sorry Mom, but fame has a price, and in this case it was the complete an utter humiliation of the person that gave birth to me.

I wish I could say that I've grown out of my little obsession, really I do... But I'm starting a podcast and attempting stand up comedy, so...

I can't help it! There is just something about the sound of my own voice that makes me happy (as anyone who has met me knows), and the light that winks at me off the beautiful curves of a microphone, well, it will never cease to be magical.

I hope you all have an unbelievably wonderful week, and may the mic stands of your life always be within reach.

Germ Watch 2012

I'm dying. Well, not really, but I'm super sick and I have a flair for the dramatic, which translates to basically the same thing. I won't disgust you with the details, but let's just say my nasal passages are a mess. It's a freaking abomination in there. Do you know how dangerous it would be for me to attempt a blog in my current condition? My head could literally just fall right off. Well, maybe not literally, but again, I feel it's important to sprinkle in a little drama. Trust me, you wouldn't want to read a blog I wrote in my present state. The only think I can think about is how to get my ears to pop so I can hear again and some of the ideas I've come up with are not pleasant. But ya know what? I may be too busy laying on my death bed and wallowing in misery to blog, but I would never, EVER leave you hanging. Therefore, I submit the following for your reading pleasure... A short conversation between my husband and I that made me laugh and hopefully will do the same for you. Enjoy!

Me: "You know what I hate? Those people who have to constantly correct you. Like if you accidentally spell something wrong or type the wrong word, they'll have to make sure to "jokingly" tell you you were wrong or correct your grammar. That is like my freaking pet peeve. Aaaaargh!!! It's like they might as well say, "I'm smarter than you. You're stupid, I'm smart, so I just wanted to let you know what you did wrong." It's sooooo annoying!!!"

Kyle: "You mean, you don't just say the most cutting and terrible thing you can think of when they do that? So they never do it again?"

Me: "What? What do you mean?"

Kyle: "You know, if someone corrects your grammar you just say the meanest thing you can think of."

Me: "Seriously? Um... Babe, that's not normal."

Kyle: "It isn't?"

Me: "So someone says to you, "It's whom, not who." And you scream, "Well you're fat and I've never really liked you!!!"

Kyle: "That's not normal?"

Me: "No dear, I'm afraid not."

*End Scene*

I'm truly sorry for leaving you blog-less, but I'm going to try and write something this weekend when I'm feeling a little better to make up for it. I hope you all have a wonderful week full of open nasal passages and unfettered hearing!