X-Men 3 - The Development Meeting

STUDIO EXECUTIVE 1: Okay, now the first two movies did alright, but it's up to us to make sure X-Men 3 is going to be the money making blockbuster of 2006. We have the preliminary script here and this time round we have a director who knows how to take direction, if you know what I mean; so how can we make sure this baby brings home the bacon? Just what is it that kids like these days? And when I say kids I mean fat thirty year old nerds who are our main source of revenue.

EXEC 2: They like mutants, that's what they like.

EXEC 1: Way ahead of you number 2. I've already instructed the writers to rework the script so it includes every single mutant in the marvel universe, no matter how obscure or lame. That way the fans of every single marvel comic mutant will go and see the movie because it will have their favourite character in it. For about 30 seconds.

EXEC 2: Kids don't like boring movies with lots of talk.

EXEC 1: Okay, we'll cross out all this dialogue in the script and replace it with explosions.

EXEC 2: And don't forget T&A and muscle. Everyone has to wear skin tight outfits. And if the actresses don't have silicon implants, make sure their costumes do.

EXEC 1: Have we forgotten anything?

EXEC 3: What about the X-Men acting as a metaphor for what it is like to be a minority in the United States, with Dr. X and Magneto standing in for Martin Luther King and Malcom X respectively?

EXEC 1: Don't sweat it. I've already crossed that part out.

The Godbox - Holiest of Gaming Systems

Dear Ronald,

As a God-fearing young woman who constantly brings up her relationship with Jesus in conversations with men in a way that seems to completely sexually neuter them no matter how perky my breasts are, I am interested in buying a Godbox game system to while away my long lonely nights in between bouts of ministering to the fold with my vibrating plastic Jesus alarm clock. So I was wondering what Godbox games do you recommend?

Yours truly,

Fatima Nofatinme



Dear Fats,

Well if you like driving games, “Grand Theft Auto: Sodom and Gomorrah” is okay, but I think you might actually prefer to play “What Would Jesus Drive?” But in that game I always play Muhammad and crush Jesus’s hybrid with my monster truck.

But what ever you do in that game, don't select God as your co-driver. If you do that a message flashes up on the screen saying, "If God is your co-pilot, swaps seats!" And then you're stuck there doing nothing while God racks up a perfect score. And the funny thing is that you lose points for running over innocent people, but it seems that God can get away with killing as many as he likes.

If you’re interested in Role Playing Games there’s not much selection. The Godbox does have one Dungeons and Dragons game, but it's not much fun because as soon as you start to play you go straight to hell and stay there until you turn the console off. Then when you turn the console back on you're still there burning in hell. It's not a lot of fun. I keep trying to restart and play it, but nothing ever works as it insists that damnation is eternal. When I played it the entire game went pretty much like this:

GODBOX: You are in the town of Bethlehem. Demons have been preying on local people. What do you do?

ME: I buy a potion from the Wizard Gandalf.

GODBOX: For the sin of consorting with a warlock your soul is damned. Go straight to hell, do not pass purgatory, do not collect eternal salvation.

Mind Control

I received an e-mail yesterday telling me to write something on my blog, so I shall. I lack the willpower to resist. This makes me think that the CIA might be better off if they just stopped trying to develop mind control technology and just sent people e-mails instead.

Does Artificial Intelligence Exist?

Some people deny that artificial intelligence exists. They say that any apparent examples of machines acting intelligently are just illusions. This makes me wonder if we replace a human with a machine, does that mean that the human we replaced wasn't doing anything intelligent? I don't see how we can avoid that conclusion.

As machines perform more and more tasks formally done by humans, does this mean that less and less human activity will have turned out to require intelligence? At the rate we're going I think we'll soon discover that humans were never intelligent in the first place.