Wolf Gnards

Real Genius as we now know is pound for pound the greatest Val Kilmer movie of all time. Go ahead, name a better? Val Kilmer might have entered a different weight class, but try to harken back when he was a young genius with the world ahead of him. A world full of five megawatt chemical lasers and t-shirt wearing boy geniuses. A world full of lovely Jordan Cochrans and sexy Deborah Foremans.

And that leads us to the Wonders of Death Rays:

Mythbusters did an episode that recreated the famous popcorn exploding house scene. But sadly with miniatures. There experiments showed a laser could pop a popcorn kernel, but the expanded popcorn kernels could never burst through glass and wood. Instead the popcorn simply burned. But I don’t have a problem with the popcorn demolished home, or the invention of the 5 megawatt laser (a laser several magnitudes more powerful than any laser in actual existence even today). The only problem I had with it was that it was unsanitary… parents, don’t let your children frolic in strange glass filled popcorn. My problem is from earlier… no, not Jordan’s attraction to Mitch.

What is the quickest path from point A to point B? A straight line… which is exactly the course the laser tore through campus. What I had a problem with was when Val first fired up the laser and it cut a path through the school. The laser cut through the brick target and the wall and building and a statue and a tree, all the way to a hamburger joint on the other side of the quad. Where the wacky gang joyfully ate hamburgers with little regard to the carnage they caused. If a laser can burn a perfect hole through an oak tree or a metal statue, it probably wouldn’t have a problem cutting through a person. How many students had to die to feed Val Kilmer’s ego? Campus security at the very least would have questions about the holes appearing all over school.

They didn’t care about the random students in the path of the laser.

Or the Dean’s prized cockapoo.

Or Ken.

Or even Jordan.

The first thing I would have thought was, I hope I didn’t kill a bunch of people, not I could really use a hamburger. And not only do they not realize that half the campus is dead, but they don’t even realize that they invented a weapon. These were supposed to be geniuses and they couldn’t figure out a laser that burns through a college could be used for something bad. And when they do realize it, what’s the only logical course of action? Blowing up a house with popcorn because as we all know the government really respects madcap hijinks.

Two nerds enter, one nerd survives. Fact Pile puts up the ultimate pop culture head to heads. These Comic Book Battles pit some of our favorite characters against each other like Heroes vs. X-men. This would be a pretty even fight considering Heroes would just do the same exact moves as X-men, but with 60% more racial stereotypes.

This site makes me want to do my own nerd battle:

Steve Urkel vs. Samuel “Screech” Powers

They both invented artificial intelligent robots: Urkelbot and Kevin. They both dated girls out of their league: Urkel had both Myra and Laura, Screech had Tori Spelling and Kelly Kapowski (one very special episode). And they both apparently liked to fold their arms.

Urkel Pros

• Can transform into Stefan Urquelle and Bruce Lee Urkel
• Has a jet pack!
• Friend in Corner: Eddie Winslow
• Legions of identical cousins
• Signature catch phrase: Did I do that?
• Cheese

Urkel Cons

• Higher Pitched voice (Despite the fact that Screech is named Screech)
• Typical nerd glasses
• Tight pants
• The Urkel Dance

Screech Pros

• Actually won on celebrity boxing
• Chess champion
• Friends in Corner: Zach Morris and A.C. Slater

Screech Cons

• Never got Lisa Turtle
• Curly hair
• Grew into fat jerk
• Screech porn

Winner: Urkel

Check out Fact Pile for more Character Battles!

From Gabe:

I have a topic I was wondering if you could tackle, though.  Specifically: (how) is it possible that computer technology in 1996 could have infiltrated and infected the aliens’ technology to defeat them [in the movie Independence Day]?  Was it advanced enough at that time for that task?  Thanks so much for your time and I look forward to future articles!

The Independence Day plan hinged on 1. Fixing alien technology 2. Flying alien technology into outer space (complete with chairs made for human butts) 3. Docking with the alien mothership 4. Beaming a virus onto alien mothership. 5. Then escape from exploding alien mothership. There are a great number of assumptions that go into this plan, the least of which were the technologies matching up. You have to assume the spaceship is in working condition and is space worthy. This was the Roswell crash ship, so you would think that it crashed for a reason (plus fiery crashes usually have adverse effects on things). You have to also assume the mothership would be eager to tractor beam in any old passing ship. And you have to assume that not only the mothership had Wi-Fi, but they forgot to switch on the password protection. Yes, they used our satellites, but why would we assume beaming a code to them would be an option? And of course they forgot to install their alien Norton’s. But besides all that it’s a perfect plan.

As to the technology behind the daring-dos of Independence Day, there are three possible explanations.

Computers Come From Aliens

A PC can communicate with alien ship because a PC is alien technology. Let’s follow this conspiracy theory white rabbit as far as it can go. The famous Roswell crash happened in 1947, and while super computers using vacuum tubes were around in the early 40’s, superior transistor and microchip technology wasn’t around until the 60’s and 70’s. Aliens! In fact, one of the first working transistors was developed in 1947… coincidence? Of course, but I’m willing to except it. The problem is less about the hardware than the software. As far as I know, we don’t code in alien languages. Now you can simplify everything and just say that binary code and math is a universal language, but we have ones and zeroes and aliens could have gleepglops and meatzorps. Might not mesh, luckily the aliens were also running windows. Yes, Bill Gates stole Windows not from Apple but from Area 51.

It’s an Alien Virus

We assume that we made the virus, that a hand full of nerds managed to code a massive alien computer virus in a few hours, but it’s more likely the virus is alien in origin. The Roswell ship malfunctioned for a reason, right? The aliens were probably downloading some hot alien porn (Check out the forums already devoted to Avatar’s Neytiri), and picked up some alien spam that crashed their system. They did need to get worked up after all for all that farm boy anal probing. All we needed to do was isolate an already existing virus on a ship we had 50 years to play with, and spread it to the other alien ships, most likely in an email titled “You’ve inherited a large sum of money from a dead uncle who is totally not an earthing on a suicide mission, but a real alien like yourself.” Works every time.

It’s Jeff Goldblum!

Mission accomplished. That’s all you need to say: Jeff Goldblum. It’s like saying McGyver in the 80’s. The Independence Day script ended: And then Jeff Goldblum Jeff Goldblummed the hell out of it, Will Smith lights cigar… The End. We know Jeff Goldblum is the world’s best scientist… in movies, whatever wacky plan he comes up with will work. In cinema, Einstein’s formula is E=mc^Goldblum. The world didn’t fight for its independence, Jeff Goldblum Jeff Goldblummed for his Jeff Goldblum. Goldblum!

Absolutely nothing happened in the last episode of Heroes. The Hiro Meter fell asleep through most of it actually. Hiro ran around a looney bin, said some gibberish, and got his speech back, but none of it was particularly important or interesting. And none of it effected the Asian race. He did neither nor bad, just an average Asian experience.

And speaking of average Asian experiences, someone came to Wolf Gnards today looking for a B.D. Wong action figure. I looked around and couldn’t find anything. Does such a thing exist? And if it does, can anyone find proof of it?

If Hiro gets an action figure with his meager accomplishes, surely the pinnacle of Asian averageness Mr. Bradley Darryl Wong deserves an action figure of his own.

B.D. comes with official Asian diploma, dinosaur, and action utility knife (bolas bazooka optional).

I put this together at OnDemand Action Figure. A fun site to play with, but crazy expensive. Sorry, B.D., you’re just not worth it.

Figuring out Time Machine speeds reminded me about my all time favorite temporal anomalies and paradoxes. For those of you unfamiliar with Star Trek or comic books or science fiction of any kind, a temporal anomaly is any sort of change a time traveler causes in his or her many wacky time travel adventures. It’s the butterfly effect, where a butterfly’s wings in the past cause this thing to happen that cause this other thing to happen and so on and so on until Toaster Strudels were never invented. A temporal paradox is a temporal anomaly which causes the time traveler to never go back in time to create the temporal anomaly that made him never go back in time. Huh? This is how perfectly good universes are ruined.

Back to the Future II for example has my all time favorite paradox. To avoid spoilers, I suggest if you’ve never seen Back to the Future II to leave this website and never return. Go on… I’m not kidding… hit the back button, it’s in the upper left corner there.

The original Back to the Future was about Marty McFly trying to stop a paradox from happening, i.e. changing the past to prevent his birth and consequently never going back in time to change the past that prevented his birth. Back to the Future II, however, throws out all pretense of temporal anomalies in favor of hover boards. Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg don’t want you to look at the plot, they want you to look at hover boards. Look there’s a hover board. Don’t look at the temporal paradox. Four hover boards and a baseball bat! Don’t look at the paradox. But we all looked at the paradox, even as a young boy I knew something just wasn’t right.

Old Biff stole the DeLorean and gave young Biff the Gray’s Sports Almanac from the future, which created an alternate timeline. Doc and Marty travel back to alternate 1985 and wackiness ensues (gambling and fires and shotguns, oh my). They then travel further back in time to prevent all this from happening. The problem is the timeline veers the moment old Biff gives young Biff the sports almanac meaning old Biff could never travel back to his original timeline to conveniently drop off the time machine for Doc and Marty to travel back in time in. Old Biff would travel to a future 2015 where he was a millionaire and Hill Valley was in ruins. Furthermore, alternate Biff muddied the timeline enough to prevent time travel from being invented and Doc Brown and Marty from ever meeting: Doc was in an insane asylum and Marty was sent to private school.

Old Biff should have given young Biff the almanac and then the universe should have imploded, where old Biff and young Biff float in a white void of nothingness calling each other “Butt Head” for rest of eternity.

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Wolf Gnards is officially one year old today, and its been one hell of a year. I got a few complaints, I got a little praise, and my blog even crashed from traffic! What started out as just a random collection of my nerdy thoughts has evolved into, well, a random collection of my nerdy pop culture thoughts… with a few charts and graphs thrown in. Through a series of hits and misses (mostly misses), I slowly figured out what this blog was about. I nerd pop culture. I pick apart and over-analyze mundane movies, TV shows, and celebrities. Why? Because it’s fun. I’ve graphed the Coreys and I’ve formulated on Gremlins, and maybe I’ll eventually hit on something resembling a point.

The response has been overwhelming and unanimous, the critics have spoken… GET A LIFE. With a few jabs at my sex life or lack thereof thrown in for good measure. All I ask is if you’re going to crack wise, at least, be original. My work might not important in the grand scheme of things, but maybe in the most minor of schemes. I like to think though that I’m answering the questions that no one cared to ask, but still care to know.

My Top Ten Blog Posts of 2009

Based on website traffic, these are my most popular pages of my first year of Wolf Gnards.

10. Nickelodeon’s Doug was Racist

Actually this is the perfect article to demonstrate how some people just don’t understand this blog or my sense of humor. Doug being the most racist show on television is, of course, a joke, but it’s also kind of true, too.

9. How Rich is Scrooge McDuck?

It turns out very rich.

8. Top Girls in Glasses

What can I say, I enjoy a nerdy girl.

7. Wonder Woman’s Bondage History

A look back at when men were men, women were amazons, and comics were kinky.

6. Nerd vs. Geek

Little more than an excuse to say nerd and geek a number of times: nerd, nerd, nerd, geek, geek, geek.

5. Analysis of the Ever Lovely Natalie Portman

Of course, Natalie makes the top ten list. I usually end of writing about her, at least, once a week. It’s kind of like OCD, but cuter.

4. Breakdown of my Tegan and Sara Crush

By this point you can already see the secret to my success: mention a girl. If you obsess over her, nerds will follow. This is where I learn that girl + lesbian + sisters = even more traffic.

My photoshop skills at their best. Plus a little of my nerdy pop culture gibberish and an excuse to roll out some pictures of Zooey Deschanel.

Longer than I thought he would. Tauntauns are hot.

1. How Long Does Bill Murray Spend Trapped in Groundhog Day?

Appropriate that it’s the most popular article on my site because this is where I figured out what Wolf Gnards was about. Before Groundhog Day, Wolf Gnards was just a blog written by a nerd about various things that interested him (mostly TV and movies), and changed into a pop culture blog with nerd intentions. They may sound similar, but it made all the difference in the world.

Thanks for all the support and let’s hope 2010 brings even more nerdy goodness.