Archive | April, 2011

Ask General Kang: How should I cast my vote at the next election?

Ask General KangAh you puny humans and your democracy delusion … It is so amusing.

I can only tell you how I plan to cast my “vote” at the next election, which is to evaluate the parties and their leaders and decide which would be best for me when my armada finally arrives.

My first choice would be Stephen Harper and the “Conservative” party; I have run a personality profile on him, and it reveals a deep streak of self-loathing that I can use when my invasion force arrives. In addition to a pathological hatred of anyone who does not do what he says, at the same time, he worships those entities who are more powerful than him — the US, the G20, his imaginary god. This bifurcated personality will be easily swayed when my attack ships appear in Earth orbit. I imagine one look at a troop of gorilloids wearing fezes and armed with broadswords will convince him of Neeknabian superiority, and he will put Canada’s people and resources at my disposal.

The second-best choice would be Jack Layton and the “New Democratic” party — should they win, they will be unprepared to rule the country, and will leave it weak and confused and easily beaten by a phalanx of Über-Chimps decked out in gold spandex and helmets that look like the business end of a whale phallus. (Their plasma weapons will also be impressive and devastating.)

What about the other parties?

I would prefer not to have the Liberals in power, as they tend to do whatever circumstances demand, no matter what they said they were going to do during the election, and the Greens worry me, but only because I suspect Elizabeth May could be a formidable war-time leader.

Next time: How often should you floss, and does that have any impact on the space-time continuum?

The importance of backups

aliens about to destroy earth

Having had a hard drive flame out on me once (and losing the electronic text of a novel in the process), I am cognizant of the importance of backing up my data. Still, I probably don’t have enough redundancies to deal with this situation.

Don’t worry, the novel wasn’t very good, and I have a paper copy somewhere. (Though orbital bombing would probably erase that too.)

Alltop welcomes our new alien overlords.

The Zombie Attack on Dr. Nicolaes Tulp

Dr. Tulp tries to dissect a zombie

Many art historians believe this painting is called The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, but they are sadly mistaken. What Rembrandt has portrayed, quite brilliantly, I believe, is the moments before the attack of the first ever zombie.

Dr. Nicholaes Tulp was regarded as a highly moral doctor and surgeon, and he taught anatomy. However, he was getting frustrated with the limitations of only being allowed to dissect the corpses of criminals, which were only usable until they started to rot. He experimented with several “reanimation” processes so his students could see muscles in action, as well as extending the “life” of the corpses they were examining. Up until the time of this painting, he had been unsuccessful, but during the middle of this particular examination, the corpse, a recently executed Aris Kindt woke up.

The first to die was Kris Vandenclod, who was about to graduate from the college, and who is pictured, his head pushed forward over the corpse to get a closer look at the arm muscles. His throat was fully exposed, and quite easy to rip out, even for a newly re-animated zombie.

Art historians have noted “the whole scene is bathed in a dramatic light, imbuing the composition with a sense of action and suspense” [source]. This drama makes SO much more sense when you consider that Rembrandt painted this to celebrate the Dutch victory over the zombies.

Dr. Tulp, surprisingly, avoided becoming a zombie himself by reverse engineering his “animation” matrix, and played a prominent role in the Dutch victory.

Later, he invented the tulip, which he named after himself.

Feel free to check out Wikipedia’s entry on this painting, but they have most of this wrong.

Alltop doesn’t believe that tulips exist.