Friday, January 31, 2003

I wish I had a flying car. It's a frequent fantasy of mine when stuck in traffic. There's a particular scene in "Blade Runner" that is the quintessence of my flying car dream. Harrison Ford is parked outside a decrepit hotel and a hovering police car (called a "spinner" in the production notes but never referred to as such in the film) drops into view while its driver checks on Ford's ID.

(There's a misconception among "Blade Runner" watchers that Ford's character has his own "spinner." He doesn't. He drives an old-fashioned ground-car that looks a bit like the Honda Insight hybrid crossed with a Delorian. There's even a brief discussion in a "Seinfeld" episode in which Jerry mentions Harrison Ford's "cool" flying car.) My impression from the film is that the spinners, far from being common, are toys of the postindustrial elite.

I would love to tool around Kansas City in a Moller Skycar. Supposedly these things will become reasonably affordable by 2015. (Although if I had a choice, I'd prefer a force-propelled flying saucer a la Bob Lazar...)

10 comments:

  1. Part 1 of 2:

    [Damn Google's 4096 character limit!]

    I've decided to start at the beginning of the beginning of Mac's blog for some reason.

    I think it has to do with only becoming aware of him and his blog sometime in either 2005 or 2006, but I'm really not sure, and I also don't know when I first started to make comments on his blog posts, but I would guess sometime in 2006.

    So, in order to see what Mac had to say between 2003 and 2006, which amounts to hundreds of posts, I think it would be enjoyable to fill in that gap, and observe the evolution and movement of Mac's thoughts and interests.

    I'm not sure if this really is Mac's first post ["I wish I had a flying car. It's a frequent fantasy of mine when stuck in traffic." -- Jan. 31, 2003], as I recall years ago going through to what then was the beginning of Mac's blog, and posting a comment there and then, yet all the January 2003 posts, until now, this one, have no comments at all.

    Weird. Mac, as the blog owner, was of course automatically notified of my "first!" comment in that prior iteration of that act, and added his response in the comment thread, but I have yet to locate it. Cap'n Maaaark copied the entire blog to his "digital archive" in case Google/Blogger ever decided to delete this blog, so maybe he knows if there were any posts prior to Jan. 31, 2003 that for whatever reason are not now accessible.

    The reason I mention this is because if this is Mac's first post when he initiated his blog 7 years ago, you'd think he would have started it out somewhat differently, like by introducing himself, noting why he began the blog, etc., but no, it starts right in with "I wish I had a flying car," which became a bit of a running joke on the blog, and which I occasionally joined in on in comments, saying things like, "Yeah! And where's my damned jetpack? Is dis da future or what?! Huh?" with the requisite, unspoken Brooklyn accent implied.

    Anyway, I think I first started to post comments as anonymous, then created a pseud for Mac's blog, using "Mr. Intense" as my first handle, and later adding additional sock puppets to express differing kinds and tonalities of comment under other pseuds, like "Dr. X," "Wintermuse X-9," "Observer," and a few others for special purposes.

    I finally grew tired of that schizoid multi-identity and settled on "Intense," particularly after I ran a Google search on "Mr. Intense" [which originated as a description and covert name for the original "Captain Crunch" phone phreak / computer hacker John Draper, who was and is still quite intense and difficult to be around much in a social setting due to his personality], and discovered that there's a gay porn site with the same name, bizarrely enough. Ahem. So I became simply "Intense."

    But, enough about ME! Heh... 8^}

    ReplyDelete
  2. Part 2 of 2:

    I just wanted to post this comment here to, oh, I dunno, stake a claim as it were. as FIRST!!! (?) Yeah, I know, pretty lame.

    Another thing I realize now I wanted to add is that I still miss Mac, even after over a year since his passing. He was a great human being, and even when he was alive, it occurred to me to think on occasion, "Hmmm... wonder what Mac's going to do and write when he's older?" since he was so damned smart and showed such broad promise so relatively young.

    While I posted many comments on his blog in the later years, and only had a few phone conversations with, and exchanged more email with him during that period than anyone else individually I sent or got email from, I still think I missed out on getting to know him better.

    It was in the few phone conversations we had that Mac really shined, and was one of the most enjoyable, quick, and gracious conversationalists I've ever gotten to know. The only one I know who was even more intriguing in the range of his interests and polymathic intelligence in conversation was Jacques Vallee.

    What else? Well, I can't think of anything else to note here at the moment, so I guess I should end this comment here, concluding what most of his friends, fans, and acquaintances feel and would say:

    "I still miss Mac."

    ReplyDelete
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  5. Oblate Spheroid3:08 AM

    12-27-2017

    Paradigm shift imminent.

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  6. flying car is actually great thing but it doesn't exist yet so i keep riding the ordinar cars, by the way i always rent cars using this rental, im sure if flying cars appear they gonna be the first to offer them :D

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