it's irish @chroiagusanam - Tumblr Blog

Sex and the City / Season 4 Episode 14

The core conceit of Lord of the Rings is pretty funny. You are a twenty three year old in a suburb of Maine. The little bracelet in your grandpa’s attic has an inscription on it that is the password to the world’s entire nuclear arsenal. It is up to you to walk to the only hydraulic press in the world, located in Arizona, before the FBI finds the bracelet, kills you, and enslaves the suburb of Maine you currently live in

anthraxofeffervescence

Also the 90-year old hobo that your grandpa beat in a rap battle for possession of the bracelet while hiding from the Romanian secret police really loved the bracelet because it was coated in small amounts of LSD and tried to hunt and kill your grandpa to get it back. He was then apprehended by the FBI and instantly gave them your grandpa’s address. Seal Team Six is about to break down your door and shoot you, says your local congressman who can also do cool magic tricks

bloodyraven1001

There's a guy in NY who MIGHT be capable of destroying the codes but won't coz he simply wants to spend time with his wife. So it's up to your grandpa's old friend in rural Ohio to get you the friends capable of finishing the task.

ariaste

And we must not, at any point, remember the existence of aircraft and ask aloud why we can't just fly to Arizona

horizon-penblade

We can't use aircraft because the fbi has access to all the flight data how many times do we need to go over this

wordfather

not my circus not my monkeys but thanks to my mutuals i know some of the lore

dashdotshows

[start id: a black and white drawing cropped from p.29 of the Usborne Guide to Computer and Video Games (1982). The image shows a chessboard with lights and mechanical arm built in.

Image caption reads: "The robot arm on this chess-board makes all the computer's moves, and removes your pieces when the computer captures them. If the computer loses the game, it flings its arm about, flashes its lights and shrieks." end id.]

I assumed this emotionally dysregulated chess robot was just a 1980s fever dream, but apparently it exists, and glories in the name of "The Novag Robot Adversary":

Quoth the gorgeously Web 1.0 (but still updating in 2023?!) Chess Computer UK:

The Novag Robot Adversary is the most iconic of chess computers. There are several reasons. Firstly, for a product of 1982, its startling futuristic appearance. Secondly the robot arm which in terms of robotic character, comparative speed and range of movement is extraordinary for a consumer product. Thirdly the variety of functions - including autoplay, automatic setting up of the pieces for a new game, trace and review, best move, sound, lights, printer support, and not forgetting the tantrums produced by the ‘emotions’ button which involve waving of the arm, flashing lights and noisy sound. These functions all contribute towards a very impressive and entertaining machine, which was outstanding when it was first sold, and has not been bettered since.

That page also has videos of the machine in action, including this heart-rending footage of it losing its shit:

I am inordinately happy to learn about this. -- July 2025 Update: This post is my first (and so far only) one to get any notes. My midnight rambling while deliriously tired and anxious due to work travel in May 2023 got picked up by @derinthescarletpescatarian and spread to the various fandoms of cute little guys, and it has been utterly heartwarming to watch over the last two years. Thanks to everyone who added their comments in the tags, I've extracted some of my favourites below:

My absolute favourite (which I sadly did not screenshot) was something like "what having no vag does to a mfer".

Credit obviously to Mike Watters of the Chess Computer UK site for his material, along with the Usborne Guide to Computer and Video Games (1982), and of course Novag for their extraordinary machine. Thanks also to @thesingingone for letting me know the original link was broken, prompting this update.

donutlover417

transfem noelle is kinda growing on me as a headcanon because like. im imagining a depressed and dysphoric baby noelle desperate for change, working up the courage to come out only to watch in horror as she slides seamlessly from the "perfect son" to "perfect daughter" role. because at the end of the day, a noelle is just a noelle, regardless of the coat of paint

luck-system-shenanigans

i feel like im a weird age where i got just a blurry glimpse at the world Before. it used to be cold in the mornings and websites had fun games and the search results showed you what you searched for. covid wasn't a thing. can anybody fucking hear me. did i dream it all????

naking

mom, dad… i’m…. RANDOM!! LOL XD

danistotallyuncool

The bible said Adam and Eve not Adam and TACO PANCAKES!!!!!!!!!!!!! xDD

ytposter

dredgen-dumbass

mccoy doesn't have a chair on the bridge cuz he's the kinda guy who stands behind the couch to watch a whole 45 minute episode of something while insisting he doesn't need to sit down bc he's just checking out one scene. does this make sense

eatingmarkerz

jarona guy

i-bet-the-max-limit-is-32-symbol

hopefully OP doesn't mind if I

Visit Original Link

butchyena

this is the funniest fucking billboard possible. who the fuck paid for this

businessboybrick

A Star Trek idea: A comedy sitcom where instead of a Vulcan on a mostly human ship it is a human on a mostly Vulcan ship

hanasheralhaminail

All the Vulcans are fiercely protective of the ‘fragile, illogical, prone-to-danger, smart, reckless little human’.

To make the human feel more accepted (as it is only logical) the Vulcans try to include aspects of terran culture in the ship’s day-to-day life, failing spectacularly at it.

The human loves them even more for it.

southerndrawlinmypants

They’ll get better at celebrating the human’s birthday next year. It’s the thought that counts.

sergle

@jvlianbashir THAT’S A GOOD END TO THAT EPISODE THOUGH… the vulcans put together awful, bland decorations. they make a cake because it’s of “significant importance”. they go through the process of putting together this party and Studying this Human Ritual and the entire episode is setting up to what you KNOW will be a horrible result. they do a bad job!! then when the human’s birthday comes, and they reveal the off-the-mark, underwhelming looking birthday bash, the human just. starts crying. because they had no idea their crew would go through all this trouble to celebrate their birthday, and even put up DECORATIONS, or make a CAKE, and there’s a birthday card with extremely polite impersonal messages written and a hundred perfectly tidy signatures. and the vulcans are just standing around like “you appear upset. the Birthday Party was unsatisfactory”.

rumshop

I would watch the fuck out of that

“Humans require regular physical contact to remain healthy. We have a weekly rotation for The Daily Shoulder Pat. Please inform us if this is insufficient contact, either in frequency, magnitude, or duration.”

carmineeyes

Okay, I reblogged this because of how adorable it is, but then I started picturing McCoy as the sole human.

teawitch

I would like to offer a counter argument.

Bones grumbled as he fumbled for the manual override for the cargo bay lights.

“Surprise!”

The word was not yelled so much as chanted as soon as the lights flickered on. Only Vulcans could breath so quietly that he wouldn’t hear three dozen of them laying in wait.

This had to be Jim’s fault. The cargo bay had been draped in black bunting and hung with “Happy 50th Birthday” and “Over the Hill” signs. Someone had replicated black balloons. Someone had sent pictures to the Vulcans. Jim.

Bones stood in amazement as the ship’s choral group sang an old 20th earth Happy Birthday song followed by a Vulcan chant of blessings as 50 ritual flames were kindled in his honor. They’d baked a cake. Baked, not replicated. Trimmed it in black icing with “Happy Birthday Bones” written on it and a couple of icing bones underneath.

A ritual dagger was pressed into his hands “you must cut the first piece.”

They were watching with that quiet tension that he’d learned to recognize as Vulcan anticipation. A handful of the younger crew members had managed to find spots at the front of the group and looked almost eager. It couldn’t be for the cake. Vulcans weren’t overly fond of sugary desserts.

Then he realized. Vulcans struggled to understand human frivolity but no one had a more highly tuned sense of ritual. Most of the crew had little experience with humans and were thrilled, in a quiet Vulcan way, the be able to participate in a human birthday ritual.

He cut the cake. No one turned down a slice. He watched as they took careful bites using their forks and contemplated the sugary sweetness. Then catching the eyes of one of the younger crew members, he picked up his slice with his fingers and bit into. The young Vulcan barely hesitated. He picked up his cake and bit it. Others saw and did the same. A group of young faces, smeared with black icing waited to see what he’d do next and he let out the first real laugh he’d managed since boarding the ship. A sigh of satisfaction ran through the crowd.

He was presented with a bottle of very excellent bourbon as a gift. Then instead of a birthday card, the ship’s captain unrolled a ceremonial scroll. Precise Vulcan calligraphy wished him a Happy 50th Birthday and the formal house stamps and signatures of the crew attested to their agreement to the statement. “Damn thing belongs in a museum” he muttered.

…In the fullness of time, the scroll found its way to the Space Museum on Earth as one of the few example of Vulcan ritual scrolls outside of Vulcan itself. The museum director on hearing a senior Vulcan ambassador describe his experience in the birthday ritual as a young crew member once asked why McCoy had been honored in this fashion. The ambassador had explained that only Kirk, one of the few humans to have heard about the Pon Farr ceremony (much less having participated in it) could have understood the importance of ritual to Vulcans how honored the Vulcans were to be asked to host such an important ritual for his friend McCoy as the “Over the Hill” Birthday celebration.*

*Scholars of the era debate whether James Kirk arranged the ceremony with this understanding of Vulcan ritual or whether he thought he was playing an enormous joke on his friend McCoy. Kirk never answered the question with anything more than a smile and a twinkle of his eye. Even after Kirk’s death, his husband Spock refused to bring any clarity to the matter.