Blamblog - Brett Lamb's Blog



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Fark Garlicster Metafilter Plastic The Register SciFi Daily Sexblogs Slashdot Space.com The Smoking Gun Zeropaid [ CARTOONS ] Corrigan Children of the Atom Fiona Smyth Maakies MacKay MNFTIU.cc Secret Lair Smell of Steve [ VARIETY HOUR ] B3TA Hoogerbrugge Milk & Cookies Mumbleboy Onion Rathergood XE [ RERUNS ] [ 2005 ] JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL MAY JUNE JULY AUGUST [ 2004 ] MAY JUNE JULY AUGUST SEPTEMBER OCTOBER NOVEMBER DECEMBER [ 2002 ] [ 2003 ]	Thursday, October 14, 2004 Looking Ahead I was passing through downtown this afternoon and I was reminded that it was twenty years ago this week ... heck, probably twenty years ago today ... my class went on a school trip to Toronto. We were a bunch of kids from a tiny, rural hicktown, pop. 2,200, visiting the country's largest city. It was quite a day. I decided to use the Time Tube to go back and visit myself way, way back then. Back in ... Kensington Market, October 1984 BLAMB 2004: Psst! Hey, kid! BLAMB 1984: [startled] Huh? BLAMB 04: Come here. BLAMB 84: I'm not really supposed to leave the group ... BLAMB 04: Quit being an idiot and come here! BLAMB 84: Ok, but I don't know the city and I have to stay with my group ... BLAMB 04: Don't you recognize me? BLAMB 84: Recognize you? BLAMB 04: It's me! BLAMB 84: Uh huh? BLAMB 04: I'm you! BLAMB 84: You're me? BLAMB 04: Yeah! You from the future! I came back from the year 2004! BLAMB 84: Holy crap! BLAMB 04: I remember taking this trip, it was such a nice day for it and I though I'd come back and check it out again. Have you recovered from that sandwich? BLAMB 84: It was hot, I didn't think my mouth would ever cool down. The ice cream at the Sicilian ice cream place helped. BLAMB 04: Ha ha, you'll end up living around the corner from there in about twelve years. I still go once in a while. BLAMB 84: Really? I'm going to live here? BLAMB 04: Oh yeah. BLAMB 84: Can I ask you more about the future? BLAMB 04: Sure. We're probably breaking some sort of 'time law', but until the time cops show up, what the heck! BLAMB 84: What are some of the big things that happen between 1984 and 2004? BLAMB 04: Well, The Cold War ended when the Soviet Union dissolved, the World Trade Centre was destroyed by terrorists and George Lucas made a bunch of really awful Star Wars prequels. BLAMB 84: Wow. Did anything good happen? BLAMB 04: Uh ... I dunno. Internet porn? BLAMB 84: What's an Innernit? BLAMB 04: Oh, it's like a big global computer network ... um, on computers. Everything's on computers these days. Oh, write this down! BLAMB 84: What? BLAMB 04: When the time comes, BUY YOUR DOMAIN NAME! Heh heh heh. Got that? Australian Brett Lamb will never know what hit him! BLAMB 84: I don't even know what that means. BLAMB 04: Just do it. You'll thank me later. BLAMB 84: So, are we married? Do we have kids? BLAMB 04: I have a great dog ... BLAMB 84: WHAT? Do we have a girlfriend? BLAMB 04: His name is Zack and he's a Golden Retriever and he can sit and lie down and ... BLAMB 84: You don't have a girlfriend? Are you crazy, why? What happened? BLAMB 04: Oh relax, you'll get your girlfriend. Sucker. BLAMB 84: What did you say? BLAMB 04: I said that you're a dopey, 15-year-old idiot with only one thing on his hormone-soaked mind! BLAMB 84: I don't want to turn into a mean ol' grump like you! BLAMB 04: That's it, enough! Disrupting the timeline! No more information! BLAMB 84: BUT! BLAMB 2024: Hey, hey, hey! Cut it out you two! BLAMB 04: This is between me and him .... wait a minute! BLAMB 84: What is it? BLAMB 04: He's us! BLAMB 24: Yes, from twenty years in your future and fourty years in his future. Although, I'm not exactly the two of you. BLAMB 84: You're not? BLAMB 24: No. I'm actually a clone implanted with the blended personalities and experiences of the orginal BLAMB and Demi Moore. BLAMB 04: Demi Moore? I hate Demi Moore, she's an idiot. BLAMB 24: I know! It's a crazy experiment! BLAMB 84: If you're a clone, where's the original? BLAMB 24: Saturn. A bunch of people decided to attempt an interstellar voyage to Alpha Centauri and are, at this very moment, preparing a grand space vessel! BLAMB 04: So that's it? We leave the Earth? We'll never see home again? BLAMB 24: Oh no, you can visit. There's a vacation clone available and you just beam a digital copy of a brain dump back to Earth, into the clone and then update the original when the trip is done. It's all quite simple. BLAMB 84: But if you can do that, why bother going in the first place? Why not just send a bunch of clones to Alpha Centauri and then beam your brain junk into them when they get there? BLAMB 24: Ah ... we never thought of that. BLAMB 04: I take it that, in your time, the human race has reached the singularity and we've entered a transhuman era. BLAMB 24: Well, it's not as neat and tidy as all that. The mess began in your time when that Bush fella was elected. Now, in my time, the future is very uncertain. BLAMB 84: What happened? BLAMB 24: War. Terrible war. BLAMB 04: They're still in Iraq? BLAMB 24: Far worse than that. In the western democracies, technological progress achieved two ends: one, the internet 'woke up' one morning and became a global super-conciousness, and two, citizens of the secular, western democracies developed the technology to allow us to enter a transhuman stage. BLAMB 04: And now the transhumans are fighting the internet? Like in the Terminator movies? BLAMB 84: They made a sequel? BLAMB 24: No, no, no! The secular transhumanists are fighting religious fundamentalists of all stripes who finally recognized a common enemy and banded together. To complicate matters further, the earth became infested with a strange race of vicious mutant creatures. Those three factions are now fighting one another for control of the planet. Artist's Impression BLAMB 04: Creatures? What are they? Aliens? BLAMB 24: We suspect that the global super-conciousness engineered the creatures and is also pulling the strings in the conflict between the transhumanists and the fundamentalists. BLAMB 04: But why? BLAMB 24: To buy time, that's all we're sure of. We have a theory, but there's very little proof at this point. BLAMB 04: What's your theory? BLAMB 24: We think the planet is preparing to leave. BLAMB 84: LEAVE? BLAMB 24: We've found some evidence, sketchy evidence, that the super-conciousness is engaged in several construction projects aimed at preparing the planet for interstellar travel. We think that sometime within the next century, the planet will be ready to leave the solar system. BLAMB 04: But why? What's the point of leaving? BLAMB 24: Astronomers have found what they think are gathering places in the galactic core where planets go to meet and live. It seems that what is happening to the Earth may be a common stage of planetary evolution. BLAMB 04: And what will happen to the fundamentalists and the transhumanists? BLAMB 24: Our evolution is continuing, so I imagine that when the time comes, some of us will go with the Earth to see those other planets and discover what their societies are all about. Perhaps there's a role for us there. The rest, I reckon, will leave and explore the universe, just as the original is doing. As for the fundamentalists ... I don't know. Perhaps they will become the cartakers of the planet, once the fighting simmers down. We really don't know what will happen to life on the surface of the planet once it leaves. The three Blambs bow their heads and stand silently. BLAMB 2004 takes a deep breath and sighs, then looks up at the bright blue October sky. BLAMB 1984 turns towards him. BLAMB 84: So. What's sex like? 11:43 PM , # , \|