Swords and Squids (also, Swords against everything except Squid)

Yesterday, me and a bunch of my friends (of whom a surprising number were connected with physics) went to see the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Don't read any further if you don't want to know anything from the movie in advance - things like this one:

The God is black, and is a women. :)

I had an enormous amount of fun watching the movie, despite the outrageous hollywoodiness* of most of the movie-probably due to some completely acid-trippy far out scenes that are probably too weird and incomprehensible for anyone that *hasn't* been on a far out acid trip. Fun! :)

Of course, this movie really wouldn't be worth mentioning if it weren't for the inimitable Johnny Depp, who is the perfect embodiment of the Hunter S. Thompson's vision of "one of God's own prototypes-too weird to live, to unique to die". Depp's portrayal of Cptn Jack Sparrow is, I admit, the only reason why I went to see the movie in the first place. His slightly swaying, constantly drunk super-lucid character, combined with by far the best lines given to any character in Pirates, are so much like what I feel most of the time, that I can not but love both him, his character and the movie itself. To misquote one of my favorite moments: "No-body move! I just dropped me brains!" :)

Coupled with that, the movie has some awesome camera moments: Apple-commercial like scenes in which Jack is pulling his ship on a rope, while stone crabs are watching, great scenes of ships disintegrating under cannon fire, Steve from Coupling, Cpt. Teach playing guitar, Legolas..er, Orlando Bloom, yes, fightin' for justice, evil chinamen, dead Englishmen, weird songs coupled with mass hangings, undead monkeys fired from cannon, dumb Englishmen, Shakespearean minor characters, dead giant squids, sword that everyone looks at (for no readily apparent reason), compass that tells the obvious, toy lead soldiers, smarmy Englishmen, Star Wars flying scooter scenes, the best squid pirate argument speech ever, 9 pieces of 8 (and no Star Trek references!!), honourable but confused Englishmen, extinct volcanoes, the guy named Larry, conversation about pirate's lack of vocabulary, Cthulhu tentacle moments galore, Englishmen being hacked to pieces by fishmen, and conversation about reasons why having fishmen as a crew leads to lack of discipline, at least 2 Nautilus moments (submarines exploding out of the sea). Also, you can see Keira Knightly's feet. They get more coverage then even squid, which to me is a sure sign of foot fetishists on board the producing crew.

Mmmmm. Keira Knightly. :)

"Mmmm! Peanut!" Cpt. Sparrow

* Hollywoodiness is when movie: has inspirational music playing in the background when some major character extolls other people to die for freedom, has scenes of impossible swordplay in improbable places, when bad people die just before they do something nasty to good people, when every major character has great teeth, when English fleet runs away after they lose one ship, when German forces retreat after losing one tank, when pirate towns look like Disneyworld sets, when major characters fight bad guys and get married at the same moment, when large numbers of redshirts die for no apparent reason, undead monkeys, evil Chinamen, magicaly regenerating ships, giant squid for no apparent reason, extinct volcanoes for no apparent reason, 50 feet women for no apparent reason, scrumping, people breaking off parts of their body due to cold, things exploding for no apparent reason, penniless Frenchmen, etc, etc.

A weird day

Today started with, of all things, a RL pikachu lookalike (and I am not talking about my gf) on some German T-shirts. It turns out that this pikachu is an actual weirdo deep-sea octopus from genus Grimpotheutis, and not just another Elbonian politician in superhero disguise. Life seems to be stranger then fiction...and sometimes it just looks like something out of Call of Cthulhu.
The actual weirdness of the day started earlier in the morning, when my cousin and me (driving in his red Clitmobi...er, Batmobile) almost run over a middle aged hippie bicyclist who spontaneously (and suddenly) decided to use all 4 lanes of a rather busy crossroads to drive in circles, while listening to ipod thingie. The incident reinforced my belief that ipod thingies are devilish devices designed to weed out certain strains of genes from humanity's gene pool.
Which brings me to bacterial sex, a subject of some interest, which unfortunately, I never have time for. It seems to be *the* process for an entrepreneurial gene hacker/nanotech gadgeteer, especially when it is combined with the ultimate in geek niftiness, the portable DNA copier. According to wonderfully named Mr. Ugaz ("Stepped in" in Elbonian language), this truly revolutionary device (for dictators of small countries with no oil, for example) seems to work on principles akin to lava lamp - a device that enthralled and still enthralls hundreds of thousands of students who love nature.
Seriously, though, a cheap and portable DNA copier is just one step away from making a cheap and reliable Von Neumann machine factory. Since the best machines on nano-scales seem to be biological molecules (usually encoded by RNA or DNA), we only need to find a cheap and reliable device that creates cell-like environment, and bingo! we have our own nanotech factories. In a few years, we might end up exchanging DNA and RNA strands for cool new designer bacteria and cellular factory products ;)
This would be hot, if it weren't for the fact that other people wrote about it many years ago. It was also probably done in Simpsons, since it seems that every other good idea was done in Simpsons, too.
In the meantime, I was hijacked from my work by a friend who came nearby to plunder the military library-they were about to burn some old books (because that is what military libraries do - why sell or recycle when you can have a big bonfire?) and he wanted to take interesting tidbits for himself. While talking to him and his colleagues, I heard the most wonderful story about the men who managed to break his own leg while sleeping in his bed. This same person is (in)famous in Elbonian military for his enigmatic cloud of extreme clumsiness - he managed to fall under our Navy flagship while carrying extremely expensive video equipment (they dragged him out with a pole), he routinely manages to find uncovered manholes to fall into, etc. Of course, if there is a female of the species present anywhere on the scene, the results are even worse - another poor geek who probably won't breed. Because I am a small hearted person, I laughed very hard and secretly felt relieved in knowledge that there is someone clumsier then me.
Which brings me to duck genitalia. Which are weird and disturbing in too many ways.