Toto the Bio-Sphere Demolition-Bot wondered what it was all about. Did life really mean anything? There had to be more to existence then the senseless destruction of countless inhabited worlds at the bidding of his master, Dorothy Bunny Slippers and her noxious cohort of flying syphilitic space monkeys.

Maybe it was time for Toto to settle down. Find a nice Species Eradication-Borg and construct a family of Cybertronic Death-Bots equipped with plasma field generators.

Or maybe he should write a novel.

From Toulouse Le Grandfig in the Land of the Future.

Alltop and humor-blogs.com are also feeling a little blue.

Can science fiction help roboticists create robots that humans are comfortable interacting with?

Initial reports are promising. They have already discovered that most people are not comfortable with automatons constructed of stainless steel in the form of gigantic human skeletons. (The skulls with pointy dental work and red glowing eyes are particularly off-putting, the research shows.)

On the other hand, small robots with large oracular equipment and cute signaling noises (beeps and woops are most popular) seem to be okay.

“It’s surprising how often people make nervous jokes about robots taking over the world. I don’t want to make too much of that, but I think there’s something there,” roboticist Bill Smart told The Skwib. He and literature researcher Lara Bovilsky, both at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, held a workshop on the topic at the RO-MAN conference in Germany.

“People have a theory in their head about how something will behave, and if a robot doesn’t fit with that theory, people get nervous,” he explains. “It’s like standing next to the twitchy guy at the bus stop. He goes against your expectations and you get worried.”

Yes, that’s exactly it! Robots are like the twitchy guy at the bus stop. Except they have powerful hydraulic servo-motors capable of crushing a human skull.

Here are some of the initial findings from their workshop, where participants were asked to describe the robots:

You can find more information at the New Scientist. Other robotic research of a humorous kind is available at humor-blogs and alltop.

This re-run was brought to you by Elegant Robot Week

As we approach the end of 2008 and start to get excited about all the new and exciting things that are going to happen in 2009 — will there be a depression? Can Obama possibly live up to expectations? Will Canada have YET ANOTHER federal election or will Canadians just say “fuck it” and hire a phalanx of baby-seal clubbers to execute our political class? (If we do, I’m going to suggest we replace their clubs with tack-studded waffle bats and high-voltage stainless steel probes that are designed to be “inserted”.)

Few people realize that 2009 is also the year in which the robotics industry really gets going, in its lead up to the technological singularity (and own redundancy). So, I say we celebrate robots this week. (Not necessarily elegant robots, but I like the idea that an elegant robot is possible, even though it’s not.)

For example, the Texter 8000 is anything but:

Are you like me, wondering what AFDN means?

More excellent (and humorous) robots can be found at ExtraLife’s 42 Robots Project. And don’t tell anyone, but I suspect Alltop and humor-blogs.com are some kind of technologically supported uber-funny human societies.

Well, technically speaking, right now I’m an evil alien advice columnist, but I do hope to land another overlord gig someday soon.

Funnily enough, I started out in politics. My own home planet, Neecknaw, once had a system of government similar to the quaint representative democracies of your Earth nations. So before I became an overlord, I was elected Prime Primate.

Now, winning an election is not an easy thing to do, but I managed through a combination of inspiring oratory, good organization, and the secretions of the Pfluugen Slug from Planet Muguulgar. (This colorless and odorless liquid is quite powerful, and renders imbibers of it very suggestible. Okay, it makes them you’re willing slaves, but only if you know how much to use and what to say afterwards.)

Oh, I can see what you’re thinking: how could he possible give that every voter? I didn’t have to. I only had to slip a little bit in to reporters’ drinks at the Press Club.

Next time: You always seem nattily dressed (for an intergalactic overlord who looks like a tiny chimp). Who does your tailoring and does he dress humans?

Alltop and humor-blogs.com should lay off the Pfluugen Slug secretions during the holidays.

Oh electricity, is there anything you can’t do?

According to the New Scientist:

Pass an undrinkable, raw red wine between a set of high-voltage electrodes and it becomes pleasantly quaffable. “Using an electric field to accelerate ageing is a feasible way to shorten maturation times and improve the quality of young wine,” says Hervé Alexandre, professor of oenology at the University of Burgundy, close to some of France’s finest vineyards.

You don’t have to be an oenologist to know that crude, young wine can be kind of nasty — going in and going out. But now there is a process to flash-age wines, producing some of the same effects that loving care, years of training and hard-earned experience can.

Essentially, you let the plonk flow between two high-voltage electrodes, bathing it in a delicious electric field. Much of the research has taken place in China, which is well-known worldwide for the quality of their wines.

Apparently you have to get the voltage and the amount of time right, or the hoped-for tasty vintage will actually become less drinkable; if you pump up the current too much, the plonk will actually cause your head to explode, though a few prisoners have escaped with only having their tongues drop off.

Naturally, this technique will only work if the purported vintage is actually well-made to begin with — if the wine is laced with formaldehyde or lead, it probably won’t work. (Though I’m sure they’re working on that too, and I bet they have a hell of a kick.)

So load up on the cheap wine this holiday season, and let the good times (and electricity) flow!

How to make cheap wine taste like a fine vintage [New Scientist]. Alas, even electricity is unable to help make Alltop and humor-blogs.com more palatable.

You must be writing from Canada, right? Surely you know more about dealing with cold temperatures than I do. I’m the wrong interstellar overlord to ask, because generally speaking, I only take over star systems that have warm, humid planets.

That was after the ill-fated expedition to capture Edmontovia XIII, known amongst the simian conqueror set as the “Monkey’s Tomb”. I invaded with a pert little army of she-chimps decked out in tutus and plasma weapons, but we were not adequately prepared for the surface conditions on the planet.

The ambient temperature dropped to thirty below on a pretty regular basis, and then with the wind chill effect added it, whoa nelly! You know the phrase, “cold enough to freeze the balls of a brass monkey?” You probably think that has some old naval connection, but it actually originates with my great-uncle, General Karg — the original interstellar overlord, who had the family jewels encased in bronzed iridium after an unfortunate “incident” with a Bleblonian pleasure ape, you know, to protect them.

Turns out in very cold temperatures, they just fall off.

But, back to my question: How do you stay warm?

I find drinking single malt in a down sleeping bag works pretty well if you don’t have pleasure ape handy.

Next time: If you are trapped in a spaceship on the event horizon of a black hole, what’s the best way to get your shirts laundered?

More primate pleasures available at Alltop and humor-blogs.com.

Welcome to the wintry and depressed 108th edition of the Carnival of Satire. We begin, as always, with hobos:

GrrlScientist found this clip of Jon Hodgman’s meisterwerk on the American Experience: Hobo Matters:

And if that wasn’t enough proof, Madeleine Begun Kane reassures us (in poetry) that Irony Has At Least Seven More Lives . Phew.

Will the economy get bad enough to see a resurgence in hobos? Archer at Lawyerworldland has four scary scenarios in which we would be so lucky!

Monkey Breath learned the following, which must be a bad sign: IRS Going Out of Business.

In entertainment news, Satire Patch has the news that David Caruso Will Receive Bailout Money To Pay For Acting Lessons

Politics! Sammy Benoit makes his case for why a Yid with a Lid should be Senator: Governor Patterson PICK ME, Not Kennedy.

The Brain Twinkey has a harrowing tale: Lost Hiker Survived by Eating His Frozen Nuts

But at what temperature do nuts freeze? In this editions’ non-satire slot, Poobomber explains freezing and the difference between Fahrenheit and Celcius.

And that’s it for the 108th edition. Thanks to these fine folks for helping us with webby-stuff: the Blog Carnival for their form; and the listings at the Ubercarnival, Ferdy’s permanent floating ping festival, and for the listings at the Blog Carnival too. Also, you may find some satire here if you poke around a bit. Here too. Thanks to horizontal integration for the pic of some guy who’s nuts are freezing.

In 1170, King Henry II says, “What a parcel of fools and dastards have I nourished in my house, and not one of them will avenge me of this one upstart clerk.” Said fools and dastards decide that this means they should kill Archbishop Thomas Becket.

In 1600, Queen Elizabeth grants a formal charter to the London merchants trading to the East Indies. This doesn’t work out very well for the East Indies.

In 1777 George Washington’s Continental Army is given “cozy winter quarters” at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

In 1888, artist and talented loon Vincent Van Gogh cut off the lower part of his left ear, to give to a prostitute named Rachel, who worked at a brothel nearby. Um, thanks, but does it come in, like, not bleeding?

In 1912 the Parisian literary review, Nouvelle Revue Francaise, rejects an excerpt from Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust. Doh!

In 1915 Sir Douglas Haig is made the commander-in-chief of the British army in France, and eventually gives his soldiers the thoughtful and exploding gift of the Somme.

In 1972 Pepe Lopez is invited to join the Stella Maris rugby team, and gets a free trip to Chile on Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 over the Andes. He proves to be very tasty.

Another parcel of fools and dastards can be found at Alltop and humor-blogs.com.

Yes, and if you don’t give me a 700 billion dollars the old elf dies.

Just kidding. No, we didn’t have Santa Claus when I was growing up. We didn’t have Christmas. Heck, we didn’t even have the concept of religion.

We did have the concept of gift-giving, and something we called Consumer Day, when we tried to boost our Neecknabian economy and give gifts. And we did have a folk tradition similar to your jolly Saint Nick. We called him Troglor the Consumer, and if you didn’t buy at least a thousand pargnags (that’s roughly $700 US in the current exchange rate) in gifts, then you were put on the “naughty” list.

Now, in your quaint custom, getting on the “naughty” list means no more than receiving a lump of coal in your stocking, or at worst, having some dude dressed up as the devil coming to your house to scare you.

Troglor was not so innocuous. If you got on the “naughty” list, you didn’t find yourself invited to sexy parties, oh no, you found yourself in receipt of a shitload of hurt. Most of the time you would find yourself auctioned off — organ by organ — to the highest bidder at the yearly “Boxing Off” Day sale. Sometimes, if you were really bad, he’d just put a Neecknabian Rectal Weasel in your bed before Consumer Morning.

Nasty.

I always gave at least 1200 pargnags worth of gifts, just to be on the safe side.

Next Time: Is it normal for things to explode for no reason?

Alltop and humor-blogs.com are also working hard to stay off Troglor’s naughty list.

Once again, Dr. Tundra woke with a splitting headache, the feeling that he’d fallen asleep with a mouthful of half-masticated rat, and a pain in his lower back that could only be called apocalyptic.

He opened his eyes; it felt as though his eyelids were covered with coarse grit sandpaper, wielded by a demented carpenter.

The walls were swimming a bit, and he could just barely focus on the floor, where he could see the empty pizza boxes, Coke cans, and what … was that a pair of panties?

He sat up in bed, and realized that at the tender age of 37, perhaps it was time to admit he had a problem. This was worse than his days of pretending he was Carlos Castaneda — the peyote days. He’d fallen under the thrall of a new mistress, and not the nice kind decked out in leather and handling a whip either. No, he’d sunk into a new addiction. One that could ruin him — ruin his relationships, his work, his life.

At the far end of the bedroom was his desk, and sitting on top of that, the device. And within it, the software that caused his cravings:

Civilization IV.

As we enter the gift-giving season, it is wise to consider what you may be doing to your loved ones when you buy them that latest game: Gaming fanatics show hallmarks of drug addiction. Thanks to maxf for the eye. Alltop and humor-blogs.com also have a series of addictions.