As a complete non-sequitur, let us begin with this: I want to applaud the brilliance that came up with this magnificent weapon. A German with an armament oriented dedication to More Awesome nearly 500 years ago created this beauty. When I saw it in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, all I could think of was Fighter from Brian Clevinger’s webcomic 8-Bit Theater and his mastery of the deadliest of weapons, the Sword-chuck. I think I said that out loud at the Met and confused a docent.
In this round of the Scientific Drinking Tour 2011, my Lovely Assistant and I have taken it upon ourselves to gather together some interesting folks. We then did the most important thing we can do: feed them alcohol and let the talking begin. I like to think of this as a debauched and excessive salon-like event except, knowing my history like I do, that we will never hold a candle to the revels & extremity of pre-Revolution France. At least, not without getting arrested in modern America.
I have dubbed these gatherings the Shadowy Cabal For Global Domination (or SC4GD as Test Subject Scott dubbed them). Currently, DC/Baltimore and New York City chapters exist (oh, plus San Francisco but I can hardly help that) and I can only hope the folks that have brought together keep drinking, talking and thinking. Who knows what wonders may come out of them. At the very least, some new friends.
Just to give a feel for the expertise of the assembled NYC attendees, allow me to list them by field of expertise: economics, immigration law, PR, chemistry, freelance comic artist, physics. This is an impressive collection of skills fit to tackle damn near any topic. Admittedly, discussion was rather beer-centric as we sampled the fine wares of The Ginger Man in the wares of yours truly, a ginger man. As I recall, and things got hazy, other topics discussed were:
- The robustness of certain camera lenses when dropped from various heights on hard surfaces. A conclusive declaration that a lens that can be reassembled and used with only minor problems after bouncing down a mountain was a Good Lens. No, I can’t remember the manufacturer.
- When trying to make a new start in comics, possibly graphic arts in general, trying to dive into print has good nostalgia value…not necessarily the best business plan.
- Black Blood of the Earth has allowed everyone, save the Economics Cabalist who has not yet partaken, to make great achievements. Cabalist Mr. Black declares that this is because caffeine allows the creative mind to focus and actually Do Something. We all need to meditate upon this wisdom further.
In other news, I have always been a proponent of learning new places by making it a point to urinate in different toilet each time, if practicable. I did it to learn all the buildings of Antarctica, all the accessible area of LLNL and the much greater task to get out of my normal science haunts at UC Berkeley.
At the NYC Main Library, as made famous in Ghostbusters, their bathrooms are magnificent which makes their modern toilets seem all the more cheap and tawdry by comparison. I wasn’t expecting much out of the United Nations Headquarters, but peeing there completed one more step in my plans for global domination.