The robot kills an afternoon at the movie theatre
August 27, 2013
The robot shuffled into the country movie theatre. Its expectations were low. It was winter and the place was rundown, so it wasn’t surprised to learn that the heater wasn’t functioning. But the robot had a Saturday afternoon to kill, so it bought a ticket anyway and settled into a threadbare seat in the middle of the third row from the back.
The robot and the canary had the day off from the game they played with each other. They both enjoyed following the stock market. They found it intriguing to watch the ups and downs and imagined that profiting from it was much like making one’s fortune with a sword in medieval times, or at least the robot did. The canary wasn’t old enough to know anything about medieval times.
The robot, having traveled from the next inhabited system over, was very old. Its planet had the technology to build it itself and to build a ship to send it off on an adventure, but not to speed up the travel much. So the robot figured it was, well, it didn’t know exactly, so it chose the level of the Nasdaq on the day it arrived, and declared itself to be 3,578 years old plus two, for the two years it had been tested after being built. The robot was 3,580 years old.
The canary had a much easier time with its age. It knew it was the same age as the child in its house, and that was simple to remember because once a year the child’s family would have a party and the canary would count the number of candles on the cake thrust before the child. The canary was four.
The robot and the canary had met purely by accident. The robot’s first assignment was to locate 81RTHD47, another robot. The robot’s capsule had landed in the front yard in a suburban cul du sac, and it couldn’t believe its luck when it stumbled out of the pod and immediately laid its visual sensors on a sign that said “JEREMY’S 81RTHD47 PARTY HERE!” It didn’t know what a JEREMY or a PARTY was but it thought it very fortunate that 81RTHD47’s whereabouts were so conveniently labeled and immediately activated its retrieval mode.
The robot crashed into the building behind the sign. Its auditory sensors registered vocal music that included the word JEREMY. It moved toward the sound but was momentarily held at bay by rubbery pods of air that floated around JEREMY.
The robot quickly ascertained that 81RTHD47 was hidden somewhere in the building. It began smashing any compartments or walls that might be concealing the other robot. When the entire interior of the building was in shambles, the robot reluctantly concluded that 81RTHD47 was not on the premises after all.
As the robot picked its way through the debris, feeling like a failure for lack of success in the mission, it was distracted by a flash of yellow that flitted past its visual sensors. The color was accompanied by a different form of music, this more lighthearted and uplifting than the previous vocal sounds. The canary wished to thank the creature that had toppled its metal prison and set it free. And so the robot and the canary had become acquainted. They shared a beer that had rolled out of the toppled refrigerator and found they had much in common, not least an interest in both swords and numerical patterns.
So the robot and the canary had combined their ages. They were 3,584. For 3,584 minutes at a stretch, they would each play the stock market separately. At the end of the 3,584 minutes, or sixty days (they rounded to the nearest whole number), they would come together and see which of them had played the market most skillfully. The loser had to buy dinner the following weekend. On Monday they started the next round.
And so it was that the robot was passing a Saturday afternoon in an unheated theatre waiting for a bad movie to start, before its dinner date with a canary.
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My blogging topic tonight was the worst movie I ever did see but since I generally don’t get too worked up about movies, I instead went with a random word generator short story. I use randomly generated words (country, heater, robot) to get started, and every time I get stuck I generate another word to move the piece along. The random words are in bold. I try really hard not to censor the words or myself. It’s a good exercise and in the spirit of today’s blog subject prompt, I worked movie viewing into it. Here’s a previous story I wrote this way. This is the random word generator I used tonight.
Hooli G. An versus the robot
December 10, 2010
And so, the robot quickly spat on the green book. It experienced only a moment of remorse. “I don’t suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it!” it monotoned in a metallic voice. “However, that doesn’t mean that things are going as planned.”
The robot shuffled off. It was winter, so it moved more slowly. This meant Hooli G. An had to wait. The stress was enough to give her a nosebleed. Her one goal was to get to the green book before the acid from the robot’s saliva disintegrated it. Time was of the essence. Up until this point, the plan had seemed well-choreographed, but now she was beginning to conclude it was an irreversible misunderstanding between all parties involved. And really, it might not be just the robot who was insane.
As various scenarios ran through the hooligan’s thoughts, she realized she was having trouble breathing. “I’ve come too far for it to end in asphyxiation,” she opined, ‘but I’m a little unsure … “ and things went black.
When Hooli regained consciousness, her first thought was, a happy pair they made, so beauteously laid beneath the gay illuminations all along the promenade. As lucidity set in, she realized that didn’t make any sense. If she were going to complete the mission and depict herself with anything approaching credibility, she had to shake the cobwebs off fast and get back to the business of saving the green book. Dithering about would not do. The time for jocularity was past. She had to get serious.
Hooli sat up and surveyed her surroundings. Wherever she had been taken, the place was definitely in disrepair. And at least her captors hadn’t tied her up or put her in a straightjacket, she thought thankfully. It was just then that her robot adversary entered the space. Hooli didn’t hesitate to give it a piece of her mind.
“I will not let some two-bit, tin-can robot—who might be insane despite the logic of your programming—cost me this mission,” she ranted. “This whole situation”—she gestured vaguely around the room—”is, I have to admit, somewhat unanticipated. But it is not insurmountable.” The robot meeped non-commitally. Hooli went on. “My whole life, I have been self-supporting. Retrieving the green book is supposed to be my last mission and I’m not going to let you spoil it.”
The lime-green lasers of the robot’s eyes shone into Hooli’s. It appeared to be unfazed by her declarations. It stood there calmly, maddeningly. She didn’t actually know what to do. Hooli furrowed her brows and considered options as quickly as she could, given her puny human brain. When this was over, she’d need therapy for sure.
The rules of her employers were restrictive, that much was certain. But with each passing minute, she believed the guidelines were less and less relevant. Then she saw the hutch against the side wall of the room and, more importantly, spied the green book on the far end. She glanced up to the single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. Insects orbited it like planets around a sun. An idea began to take shape.
Earlier in the day for lunch, Hooli had eaten some Chinese take-out. The fortune cookie had advised, “Don’t eat any Chinese food today or you’ll be very sick!” Robots, of course, didn’t eat food, but they still needed additives in order to maintain their functionality. It was winter and the robot looked stiff. Hooli took her one, her last, chance.
“You haven’t gotten your winter weight robot oil yet, have you?” she wondered with what was, she hoped, an air of nonchalance. “Your joints must be rubbing like a molar on a canker sore.” Once again, the robot meeped non-commitally. “I had a sneaking suspicion,” she said.
Hooli drew in a deep breath. This was her best chance to destroy the robot. “It’s your lucky day, robot, because for some mysterious reason, I happen to have winter weight robot oil with me. It’s right here in this glitzy canister.” She pulled a rhinestone-encrusted object from her bag. She shook it so that the motion caused the myriad of facets to catch and reflect the light from that single lightbulb. The robot was bedazzled. To add to the confusion, she made a finger moustache.
The robot, who had initially looked rather roguish when it had been spitting acid on the green book, now had the air of a crumpled soda can. It was powerless to defy the sparkles coming from Hooli’s blinged-up reusable water bottle.
“Sorry, robot, but you’re going to have to take a rain check on world domination. I know that as a machine, you’re used to dealing with exactitudes, but that’s where I have the upper hand. I am not logical. This is not a tug of war. I’m taking the book. You may not admit to being insane, but I am a lunatic!”
The robot waved its arms rather lamely as Hooli continued to waggle her rhinestone bottle in the light. She grabbed the green book and was pleased to see that the aqueous coating on the cover had slowed the effects of the robot’s acid. She exited via the wrought iron fire escape ladder and gave a satisfied nod of her head once she was clear of the building. Hooli G. An was back in control.
Credits: Phrases and words in bold came from random generators. I went where they took me, for better and for worse. The initial sentence came from here. Subsequent words (other than the “Hooli G. An” name, which was inspired by a friend’s comment elsewhere) were generated here. Alien poster from here. All in all, a fun creative writing exercise.
Moon walk to the world
August 13, 2010
If we were to take a little moon pie a la monde and establish the first colony on Earth’s satellite, what would we want to have with us? It’s interesting that as each person noted their own favored item, we actually ended up with a pretty well-rounded selection of near-essentials.
My own answer was fresh food. I do my best to stay away from processed junk and I’m not sure that freeze-dried rations wouldn’t just send me over the moon, so to speak. I love my steak, I love my grilled veggies, and I love salad, lots and lots of salad. I weighed these things against other things that I love, such as music, my computer/the internet, my pets, beer, and so on. Really, my answer should have been drinking water, because more than all those other things and the things yet to be noted, I love feeling hydrated.
So, what else would we take with us?
After taking care of his own need for SPAM, @jackcomrie thoughtfully added a grill on which I could prepare said steaks and veggies. And I’d be happy to cook for everyone. I know it’s grueling to work your way up through the ranks, but I bet I’d be a good restaurant chef. It was probably mere coincidence that there was red wine on the grill leaf. I do really like a good Sonoma zinfandel with my beef. Or Bell’s Oberon beer.
@a_noob took care of a couple of things. He brought the beer so I didn’t have to. And then he decided what the hey, bring the whole damned Honor Oak pub and our friend @rabbitdan. To that I say huzzah! Because the pub is the perfect place to go with your friends, and reluctant as I am to admit it, in the end I do like having people to do things with every now and then. On the moon you’d probably get bored a lot and be glad there were others to do things with.
And one of those things I like to do with someone who is my friend, @merendis brought along—a lover! Really, if you were establishing a colony on a previously unoccupied celestial body, there’d end up being a whole lot of loving going on between all sorts of interesting pairings, appropriate and not appropriate.
When you were hanging out in your moon quarters having some quiet time, you’d want some comforts of home. That would include scratching your furry sweetie’s ears (@thedigitalghost) while surfing the internet (@discomeg2) via satellite and downloading the latest best-sellers (@stephie) and syncing it all via your laptop (@jenaissance).
Of course to run it all, you’d need some sort of power, which @philos-phobos thought to provide, and you wouldn’t want to overlook some basic creature comforts such as water (the elixir of life and universal solvent, thanks to @cigee25). With those spacesuits, you’d probably quickly develop a huge appreciation for the right kind of toilet paper. I am currently stuck with twelve double rolls of a kind I don’t like. It’s only six dollars or so, but I can’t bring myself to bale on it. I will very much more appreciate the other kind when I go back to it.
Let’s not forget aesthetics. @saxchik is taking care of the decorating with some color stimulation. Even with all these other fantastic things we’re bringing along, we might still go crazy if all the walls were moon-ash grey. Three cheers for the color spectrum.
If all else failed, I suppose we’d be quite happy for those freeze-dried rations. @mandy716 and @chaomancer are skipping over the meat and going right to the pudding. And that’s okay. Because as the first moon colony, we would almost certainly experience some insanity, and if a little dish of ice cream, freeze-dried though it might be, was enough to assuage you, well, that would be perfectly acceptable.
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