Only two things are necessary for a perfect life: a force field and a ray gun.<\/p>\n
With a force field and a ray gun, you could secede from the union and set up a sovereign nation on your own personal estate, driving away tax collectors and forcing the government to send ambassadors to come and treat with you. Washington would end up giving you crap if you would only please, please not sell the force field or ray gun technology to the bad guys, and we\u2019ll give you anything you want. So you demand a billion dollars annually, tax free, and you go from there. And instead of throwing you in jail for being an extortionist and a blackmailer, the simpering weasels will be all too happy to appease you like crazy and praise your wisdom and statesmanlike conduct.<\/p>\n
And if someone gets into office who actually has some spine, just turn up the settings on the force field, and even nukes will bounce off it. Or aim the ray gun at something expensive that nobody will ever miss, like a casino or Paris Hilton. You wouldn\u2019t have to kill anyone \u2013 just set it to stun, but fry off her hair as a warning shot. Save the maximum setting for people like Keith Olbermann or Michael Moore. No, I\u2019m not calling for the murder of Keith Olbermann or Michael Moore. Unless you have a really cool ray gun that you absolutely can\u2019t test any other way.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s just been pointed out to me that the force field would have to allow beams from the ray gun to shoot out, but not allow return fire to come in. That\u2019s absolutely correct. I don\u2019t want to give anyone the impression that a force field that does not allow outgoing fire would be part of a perfect life. Because that\u2019s wrong. Entirely wrong. It couldn\u2019t be any more wrong.<\/p>\n
With a one-way mirror style force field, it\u2019s all good. Besides, I hear the chicks dig force fields and ray guns.
_________<\/p>\n
Took the young\u2019uns to see Kung Fu Panda<\/span> this weekend. I was very pleasantly surprised at how very good it was. I was expecting something Shrekkish \u2013 you know, lots of smarmy pop culture references, plenty of flatulence, a saccharine sort of feel-good ending where we all learn how to love again. I feel the same way after seeing those movies that I feel after eating a gallon of week-old cotton candy \u2013 sickly sweet, stale, and vaguely nauseous.<\/p>\n Kung Fu Panda<\/span> is nothing like that.<\/p>\n No pop culture smarm. No bowel humor. Nothing saccharine about it. And Jack Black gives a remarkably restrained, clever vocal performance. The story is focused and fun, and the kung fu action is really, really cool. I don\u2019t know how they could have marketed this any differently, because no one expects a panda doing kung fu to have as much substance as this movie ended up with. But,\u00a0when\u00a0all is said and done, it’s still a movie about a panda that does kung fu. \u00a0The theatre wasn\u2019t particularly full, though, so I hope word of mouth will push this one over the top.<\/p>\n My 11-year old daughter didn\u2019t like it, though. I think she\u2019s too cool for school. Don\u2019t listen to her. Listen to me. I\u2019m the one with a ray gun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Onlytwo things are necessary for a perfect life: a force field and a ray gun. With a force field and a ray gun, you could secede from the union and set up a sovereign nation on your own personal estate, driving away tax collectors and forcing the government to send ambassadors to come and treat ... Read more<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5229,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions\/5229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}