Robots

Everyone knows robots are awesome and will one day destroy us all in a well-deserved orgy of robo-destruction. Four Terminator movies have predicted it and I refuse to believe Arnold Schwarzenegger would put his support behind a piece of fiction that wasn’t at least 50 percent prophetic. It’s not surprising then that, as a child, I was pretty much all about robots. I think I may have planned to be a robot at some point in my life but of course that’s silly. As a Canadian, I had limited access to any decent robo-schools as our government focused more on beaver hunting and innuendo. Anyway, just because robots are cool doesn’t mean all robots are cool. Muffit II from Battlestar Galactica Back then Ian – This thing is wicked awesome. It’s a robot but it’s also some kind of panda dog thing and it will attack Cylons. Fucking Cylons! (I swore a lot as a child--bad parenting.) One time it saved them from a fire and I don’t even care if every single episode that featured a space dog fight used the same footage because this awesome robo-dog-panda is in the show! Apollo rules!

First we mastered space travel. Then we mastered this bullshit.

Today’s Jaded Ian - I don’t know how this thing got axed from the new Battlestar Galactica because clearly it was important as shit. As shit. I’m almost positive the special effects guys melded some tin cans and duct tape with a musty old bath mat to make this asinine thing and then jammed a midget with scoliosis inside to make it seem alive. On the show, the original Muffit was an actual dog and somehow, in the future where there’s a race of sentient androids and intergalactic space travel, the best they could do in terms of a robotic replacement was Teddy Ruxpin’s mongoloid cousin. Twiki from Buck Rogers Back then Ian – This dude got to hang out with Gary Coleman and he sounded like Yosemite Sam. So honestly, even if his head looks like a delicately polished penis and he seems to be wearing a mini skirt, that’s OK. Today’s Jaded Ian – This is a robot with a page boy haircut who carried Dr. Theopolis around his neck like a futuristic Flava Flav. The more I think about it, the more I’m positive Flav actually stole this gimmick from Twiki, settling on a clock when he couldn’t make a similarly sized artificially intelligent computer that could hang around his neck.

Honestly, the only thing I remember about Twiki besides what he looks like is that he said “bidi bidi bidi” all the time, like a robot Rain Man. And while, for a second, that sounds awesome, I assure you that by the end of this article the idea will have firmly settled itself into the reality of absolutely fucktarded. Soundwave from Transformers Back Then Ian – Holy shit! He’s a Walkman and there’s cassette guys and they fight and listen to his voice he’s awesome! Today’s Jaded Ian – I have never been so on the fence about something as I am at this moment. My gut is telling me how awesome Soundwave is, how undeniably awesome he truly must be, but then I stop to imagine Cybertron and the Autobots and Decepticons picking teams for a fight, and how completely disgusted both sides must have been with the prospect of having to pick the fucking Walkman.

Autobots - Inferior. Mixed tape featuring Bel Biv Devoe - Superior!

Try to imagine the Decepticons grabbing guys who can turn into tanks and helicopters and a team of construction equipment who can merge together to form Devastator. Then imagine who else must have been sitting on the field when they settled on the Walkman. Arguably they were down to Perceptor and Blaster when Soundwave got picked. The only thing lamer would have been if the Go-bots showed up and that nancy Scooter tried to join in.

Songs

Someone once said music is the gravy that slathers your soul, I bet. If that’s true then I’m one greasy son of a bitch, because I love music. Sometimes I sing in public restrooms. Sometimes I poo. Public restrooms are a mixed bag for me. Anyway, point is, over time my taste in music has changed, as anyone’s will. And with that change comes the realization that some songs just don’t live up to my pre-pubescent hype in retrospect. Which is disappointing because I was an awesome hype machine back in the day.