Musings

There is no doubt in my mind that I am a very intelligent person. It wouldn't surprise me at all to find that I'm somewhere around the genius level, if I were given the correct test to measure such a thing. For all that, I don't think I'm very smart.

If intelligence were horsepower, and smart were torque, I would be a car with a lot of horsepower, but without a lot of power to actually get rolling. In other words, I have the potential but not the means.

But just as a car can be modified to increase the horsepower and torque, so can my brain. Or anyone's brain providing there isn't some kind of damage.

When I had the opportunity to be around a group of people I always indulged in theoretical speak. When the movie, The Matrix, came out there was a lot of talk about how the characters were inside a virtual world. I had already had this idea before that movie came out and had given it quite a bit of thought, so I argued in favor of there being the possibility of being inside a computer system.

In my story the main character locked himself in a mountain cell in Tibet and spent all his time meditating on the spirit world. Eventually he broke down the physical world and woke up on a space ship. The Earth had collapsed and a colony ship was traveling to a new planet to colonize it. Since the trip would last a very long time, and to keep people sane, they were kept alive but their minds were active in a world created by a computer. The big problem was that nothing was created after the year that the ship left, so at a certain point the program would be reset and everything would start over again. People could be shifted about so that if you were poor in one life, in the next you would be wealthy. I explained away things like “deja vu” as things that actually happened, but in a different life time. It also solved the idea of karma.

To me, I don't see any problems with everything around us being artificial, created for us. Other people did. For most of it I rationalized it as being created on the fly. If a few scientists worked it out that there should be a quantum particle named “paradox” that should be have in a certain way, then the computer system would change it's rules around to allow a sub-atomic particle that behaved the way that “paradox” was theorized to behave.

The kicker is that we'd be programmed to rationalize it out. If you threw a ball and, after ten feet, it took a 90-degree turn downwards, you'd be able to work out the physics of why that happened and it would make sense.

After an evening of such musings, and others, I stated that I thought God had taken away my ability to do mathematics because I would be too dangerous. The truth is, I decided to not be good at math. I can't point out an exact time, but I think it was when I was taking geometry in high school. Perhaps even earlier than that. I don't know why I decided I was not going to be good at math, either. Right now, I don't see why I couldn't be if I didn't make an effort to figure it out.

Maybe it's just laziness. Maybe that's why I have as many problems as I do. If I took the effort to expend some energy, perhaps my life would be better overall.

But I do like to think, and theorize. In the interests of creating plot devices I have figured out how a person could be invisible. How magic might work. How we could live inside of a computer. I don't know that they would work, but it all seems reasonable to me.

I don't like to think in terms of “can't.” I will think in terms of “why not?” Why couldn't there have been life on Mars before we evolved? Why couldn't there have been actual gods walking the Earth in the times of the ancient Greeks and Egyptians?

We'll come up with answers, too. Some are non-nonsensical and some seem pretty well thought out. But we're limited. We're limited by who we are and what we are. We're good at figuring things out and creating rules and laws to help us figure things out, but we rarely ever know. We think we know. We're pretty sure we know. But for many things we will never truly know.

We will never know how a star forms, or how our planet was formed, or what happened to the water on Mars. We may be able to look, and analyze, and make a really good guess – but that's all it is, a guess. We don't have the lifespan, or the ability to see in the past. We can take data and make assumptions. And what works in out little corner of the universe may not work somewhere else, but we'll never know that, either.

If you told me you were a huge fan of Stephen King and that you had a book shelf in your room then I could reason out that you have a Stephen King book on your bookshelf. It's a perfectly good rationale. But I could be wrong. And I would never know for sure unless I went to your house, your room, and looked at your bookshelf. That's the only way that I could ever know for sure that you had a Stephen King book on your bookshelf in your room. If I never have the opportunity to go to your house, then the best I can ever have is a really good guess.

And that's what we face as a race.

I watched Speed Zone this weekend. I was surprised because it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It was supposed to be the third movie in the “Cannonball Run” series but, for whatever reason, it didn't get the title.

It's got a lot of cast members from SCTV, like John Candy, and quite a few other big names (for the time). If you like the “Cannonball Run” movies I'd check this out, if you're able to. It doesn't appear to be very popular.

I like cars, but I don't love them or base my life around them. I particularly like the 70's era muscle cars and anything that reaches “exotic” or “supercar” status. But I do like driving. You won't find me with a wrench, but at least I know where the go-faster pedal is.

That's probably why I like racing games so much. I don't like games where the cars are made up. I really prefer the ones that license real cars. And I prefer games that don't make you race around a track all the time because I think it gets boring really quick.

I'm almost tempted to pick up a steering wheel for Test Drive: Unlimited, though. It's a $100.00, but I think it would be neat, especially since TD:U has real cars and doesn't make you race around a track. In fact, it lets you race on “real” roads like you were in your own little “Cannonball.”

There's a psychologist who thinks you should start giving your kids alcohol at a younger age (watered down and/or in moderation) so they get used to it and don't feel like they have to binge when they get into their teenage years. I do agree with this. I think if you want a kid to try something out then tell them how forbidden it is. Part of the job qualifications for youth is to be rebellious. It happens. But I think if you're honest with your kids and don't patronize them you get more respect out of them. When they respect you then they're more likely to think of you when their low life friends try to get them to do stuff they know you wouldn't be happy about.

My ideas on energy conservation are different than other people's. I don't think we should cut down on the amount of gas or oil that we use. I think we should use it all up as quickly as possible. Get those cars with a big V8, drive an SUV, run the lights all the night. Go ahead. Use up all the oil and then, when we're all sitting in the dark and walking to work, then you'll see how fast we start working on alternative forms of energy.

As it is, nothing will change because we're all so used to everything this way. Unless someone comes up with something really new and radical (i.e., cheap) then we'll keep doing what we do until we're forced to change.

Nostalgia continues to creep over me like a fungus.

This weekend I watched several movies. The first of these movies was Death Proof. It’s a Tarentino movie, part of the Grindhouse movies, and it deals with car chases. Q wanted to capture the feel of the 1970’s exploitation and car chase movies. It was all right. It wasn’t actually all that great, but it mentioned several other movies that I’d never seen but had wanted to for quite a while.

Vanishing Point is about an ex-cop-military-race driver turned junkie. He delivers cars for a living and makes a bet with his pusher that he can drive from Denver to San Francisco in 15 hours. Thus beginning a long police chase as he eludes them in the Challenger he’s supposed to be delivering. There’s not much plot there, but it’s an interesting flick.

The original Gone in Sixty Seconds is about a group of car thieves getting a collection of 48 cars to be shipped out. It includes a massive chase scene at the end involving a bunch of cop cars and a yellow Ford Mustang fastback. I’ve read a lot that says it was a Mach I, but it didn’t look like a Mach I to me; it was missing the Shaker hood for starters.

Then there was the classic I’d never seen but always heard a lot about, especially in the context of computer games: Death Race 2000. One notable thing about this movie is that it has Sylvester Stallone in it. It’s a highly satirical movie about a futuristic race (it takes place in the year 2000, ahem) where the drivers get points for killing anyone dumb enough to be on or near the road during this presidentially sanctioned race.

Finally, as a counter to the revolution-themed movies, I watched Herbie the Love Bug. A movie I haven’t seen since I was just a wee little lad. For being a Disney film, I have to say the acting was better in the this older movie. And, yes, it’s quite dumb and silly but it’s still better than Herbie: Re-Loaded.

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I had thought that movies had gotten a bit raunchier as time went on and standards slipped a little more. I was really surprised by the amount of swearing and nudity in these movies.
Vanishing Point, for instance, has an entire scene with a naked woman riding a motorcycle. She does her entire scene naked and nothing is said about it. It was like she was wearing clothes, but she wasn’t. Death Race 2000 also had quite a bit of nudity. Not that I’m complaining, mind you, I’m just surprised. Gone In 60 Seconds only had Playboy centerfolds hanging on a garage wall, but it had a lot of ethnic slurs. Against the Polish. When was the last time you saw a movie where the main characters were Polish? I grew up in a Polish family so you can imagine my surprise when one guy told another to shove something up his ‘dupa.’

What current movies have, though, is more sex. Less nudity but more sex. How does that work? Herbie, being a kids movie, filled it’s own quota quite nicely. It’s got sex, violence, alcoholism, and esoteric conversation. And hippies.

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So what did I get out of all this? I really miss my car. I drive around in a stupid SUV and I hate it. I wish I could plop down a couple hundred dollars to get a 1970’s Dodge Challenger or Charger, but those things are running anywhere from $14,000 up to $100,000. Not cheap.
The desire to hop in a car (not an SUV) and drive cross-country still grows, just as it’s been growing since I was a teenager. Back then, the idea of getting in my RX-7 or Trans-Am and hopping on Rt. 80 and following it west was very tempting. And things aren’t the way they were back in the 70’s, or even the 80’s. It’s not the same world.

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Smokey and the Bandit, Cannonball Run, Gumball Rally, Vanishing Point, Gone in Sixty Seconds, Death Race 2000… There’s probably a few movies I’m missing. In fact, next weekend I’ll have to see if I can find Bullit and Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry.
If any of you can think of more car chase type movies, just let me know.

If anyone knows where I can get at least a working yet inexpensive Challenger, Charger, Barracuda, Mustang, Camaro, Duster, Scamp, Demon, or Dart you can let me know that, too. I’ll learn how to restore cars if I have to, and I’m a quick learner when I want to be.

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Oh, before I finish this I want to look at two things.

There was a television remake of Vanishing Point about ten years ago. I didn’t see that one, either, but reading through the plot line I see they changed it. Instead of having not much of a plot, they give Kowalski (another Polack!) a full name, a wife, and an actual reason for driving 1200 miles eluding the fuzz.

In the remake for Gone in 60 Seconds (made in 2000? Was it really that long ago?) the main character (who is no longer Polish) is an ex-car thief who has to steal cars to save his brothers life.

When did we become such pussies? The heroes in the two originals were criminals. They broke the law and they got away with it (sort of). Somehow we lost that rebellious edge, and I think that’s sad, too.