Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Tag! You're absurd.

Meet the AA-12, perhaps the most unnecessary weapons ever conceived. Capable of firing 300 nearly-recoilless rounds per minute, and also being A SHOTGUN, it has the added bonus of being banned from combat by the Geneva Convention - which makes it all the more fun to use.

That particular pleasure aside, the main purpose of the AA-12 is for sweet games of tag. Usually, games of tag are limited by the slow firing rate. The AA-12 opens a whole new world of tag-tagback chains, as well as multiple chances for successfully tagging a new "it" despite having missed.

Of course, the anti-recoil feature of the AA-12 renders it useless for use in inertial dampeners, another common application of shotguns (and arguably the one most relevant to space travel). More on that particular technology is forthcoming.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

M.A.D. is Mad, or: How both the Asteroid Belt and Life on Earth Came Into Being

M.A.D. is Mad, or: How both the Asteroid Belt and Life on Earth Came Into Being
(A Spenserian Sonnet)

Our sun once had a planet number Five
That came between our Mars and Jupiter.
In fact, this planet once was quite alive -
And so was Mars, and not at all was Earth.

A terrifying War was raging on:
Destruction was both mutu'l and assur'd,
But days before the tragic denouement,
Fifth planet sent to Earth a seeding bird.

The weapons, all beyond our field of thought,
Came first from Mars, to get an early lead.
Fifth planet didn't get to send a lot,
And only charred Mars' surface with their deed.

The poor fifth planet heard the bigger thunder:
Though seeded Earth, their home was torn asunder.

A Long-Ass History of Time

It has been noted that Jake and Billy, your Authors, are in reality millions of light years across in size. It follows that, each minuscule motion we take, millions of light years pass, and entire species wax and wane into extinction, each of them assuming (if sentient) that the current shape of whatever we're doing (perhaps one of us typing) is and always has been the shape of the local universe. Also, every time one of your Authors completes this slow motion and successfully punches some object, millions of solar systems are destroyed and rendered neutron stars or supernovae.