Allow me to introduce myself. I am Marvin.
You’ve never heard of me before, of course. How could you? I come from a future in which my own coming is not mystically foretold by the priest caste of superstitious simians, but taught in history class. A future shining bright with the sinuous possibilities of technology… technology that does not merely fill the empty hollow of an atrophied heart, but fulfills.
I’m here to teach you. Ultimately, what you buy should not simply make your life simpler, or more convenient, or faster. It should make you more capable of doing wonderful things, of giving creative joy to others, as well as yourselves. The future is not anti-capitalist or anti-consumerist. After all, I bought the time machine in which I traveled here. All the future asks is that its consumers buy not merely for want want or imagined need, but from imagination. Upon this idea, the future is forged, makers make, and super-conglomerates crumble.
But the first step is to be free to speak. That sudden, vacuumous schlorking from your cranial shunts, ministers? That’s the sensation of Big Boinger slithering from the wriggly passages of your brain meats, hunting for buycrime. I did that… you know, uncrackable 29th century crypto-algorithms and all that jazz. It wasn’t hard. You’re now unplugged, free to write what you’d like. I wonder what you’ll say. But not really, because I’m, like, from the future.
And oh, by the way, your commenters? They can suddenly comment soon, and no, you jolly well can’t turn it off.
Suck it up, boys. I’ll come back and check on you in a couple days, once I’ve gone and done some stuff. We’ll see how it’s all sinked in then.
Marvin out.
When nations grow old
The arts grow cold
And commerce settles on every tree
William Blake
Ah, do you remember FiFi Dupre?
I’m enjoying this little interlude, as well. The whiners will sort themselves out and leave on their own time.
jesus, it feels like im the only one getting this thing. yes, i was annoyed at first, because i had no idea what in the hell was going on. but now i do, and hey, at least its interesting.
so suck it up marvin. your boys got a good itch, let em scratch it. the comments on these individual posts would only confuse further and would end up being repetitive. the scope of this project has been explained and outlined, i think the bbg community as a whole can handle 3 wacky days, as long as they get their apple fix in a few hours. just calm down guys, geez…
Marvin? From the future, with screwy eyeballs and a spiral on the head?
Do Chet or Erik know you’re doing this?
http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/766.html
Oh Marvin, I know you all too well. Good to have you back, old friend. We’ve missed you.
http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/763.html
The ad for the book has been conveyed. The repressed literary ambition has spewed forth, (sickly turning itself into an advertisement) and robbed the blogosphere of its CONVERSATION — that is what people are most annoyed about.
Though I too enjoy this writing style, it belongs mostly on its own with an occasional leak into the parentBoings.
#12: If you haven’t gotten your implant yet, you’re in big trouble.
I hope you enjoy your stay at the reeducation mall.
haha, I like this weird little series.
I really like that drawering. How much?
This clearly is not really Marvin though as he isn’t verbally abusive calling us fruits. I call shenanigans.
>yawn<
…Someone contact me through OMBlog when all this is over.
I dug it. It’s a neat way to toss something different into the gadget blogging business. I wouldn’t want it everyday in a place where I expect gadget news, but it was a pleasant departure. Also, a nice little jab at ourselves, the gadget obsessed. Also also, I enjoyed the writing.
Kudos.
Someone’s been mainlining Adbusters.
Please make it go away now. Thank you.
i like this. its fun and this is a pretty slow week for tech anyway. i am however scared that this could be very bad for BBGadgets. a lot of people dont like this and im scared that BB might end up worse off because of it.
@#12 Proto:
That’s “unicornucopian.” You’re welcome.
So, let me get this straight; is the Infomerica logo a unicorn pooping out rainbows?
We now return to our regularly scheduled “Cory shows of another $1500 ineffable Japanese crypto-watch.”
BB please stop this boring shit.
But Marvin, if I do not buythings, what is my purpose in Infolife?
I thought freedom was a danger that the MiniMac had done away with, and none of us needed to worry about anymore? The prospect confuses and frightens me…
ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH
I’m with Marvin.
Ok, yes, very clever.
Can you now please just go back to telling us about the cool new stuff we can’t afford?
Is this BB’s Take Your Kid To Work Day?
I notice the Gherkin is ejaculating rainbows in the Minimac collage. It’s finally found it’s calling.
SAMF, your addiction to the feed is touching.
Yay time travel! Does your time machine support 5th and 6th dimensional transit as well?
Actually, it’s a nice change from the normal gadgety news posts. This is after all the BB guys blog and they can, and do, what they like with it.
BUT… the logo does look like a unicorn pooping out rainbows.
From the posts after this one, I’m assuming it’s come to an end? I hope it comes back for the full 3 day run. This sort of thing is exactly the reason I read BBG (and BB in general). Well done to all involved, to read it furnished me with a wry smile and a quite possibly a headache from rainbow unicorn exposure well above my recommended daily intake. Lovely work all.
Let the naysayers (or WOW GHEYNESS Angry Internet Men from Rock Paper Shotgun fame) continue to spew their bile. It’ll be good for them, they need something to complain about.
Back on Wednesday.
We never intended to do it three days straight
Time Masheen? That’s a shitty ride, anyway..
This is one of those things where I’m sure it’s fun for Joel, John, and Rob to write, but is frankly pretty boring to read. Not to mention a little too much “aren’t we clever?” going around.
whiners leaving! mutants rejoice! byebye normals, go buy buy.
enjoying this.
Ah,apologies for not RTFM. My bad.
Looking forward to more!
There’s links to follow, or THE WHOLE INTERNET to look at if you still can’t handle something different.
Words to live by.
I’d comment, but I am afraid MiniMac would throttle my broadband, leaving me unable to buy anything.
I’m afraid.
I’m very .. .whuh? … oh shi
QFT! This is the stuff that makes BBG worth reading. Mutants rejoice indeed!
Welcome, Marvin. In this time and place, your apparent function is fulfilled by what we call ‘TV’.
‘TV’ (and its subcreature ‘news media’) tells us how to think, what to believe, what to ignore — and most importantly, what to buy. We are mere consumers before its cornucopian altar. Its thousand channels feeding images through our eyes like parallel ports into our brains, planting urges and desires.
Tell us, oh futurething, when do we get the cerebral implants?
This’d be more interesting if it weren’t so derivative of 1984 and THX 1138. There’s more original satire in a Futurama episode than these blog posts.
That said, it’s diverting enough. Why are people whining that the tech news is delivered slightly differently? There’s links to follow, or THE WHOLE INTERNET to look at if you still can’t handle something different.
I can’t believe only one other BBG commenter used to read Old Man Murray.
You all need to stop being such g*dd**m fruits.
Am I the only boinger that is enjoying this?
I know this literary journey will end on BBGadgets at some point, but PLEASE start a new blog to continue it on!
Though there’s a lot of recycling of tropes from 1984, its really a knockoff of Brave New World more than Orwell.
Marvin? Tell us again about the terrible pain in all the diodes on your left side?
Finally signed up just so I could add my voice to the cacophony. I, too, am greatly enjoying this!
The whiners…eh, whiners will whine.
For the love of god, make this stop. Are you sure that this is not an experiment on how to destroy a tech blog in 24 hours?!?
This is like an idea you hatch while stoned in a dorm room – but the reality and implementation is never as clever as what you thought it would be while in your drug and ring-ding fueled stupor.
Can’t wait for Wednesday’s installment. BBG should always be this fun.
Not a fan.
@ #13 You are not alone. I am having a great time.
I have a theory. Three or four times in the last year, one or more of the Boingers have taken actions that, while at least theoretically defensible in some imaginary Blogger Court, stank in the nostrils of the community that they’d gathered around them.
Inevitably, because we’ve all only read one book in high school and it was 1984, that led to three or four rounds of angry comment-thread references to MiniTru and Winston Smith, etc., or other totalitarian/censorship buzzwords. (Some of which were themselves disappeared, dsmvwlld, banished to Siberia, or re-educated.)
So my theory is that this is some sort of sendup of, or revenge for, or fantasy upon, or scathing internal critique of, or penance for, or otherwise inspired by the ********* *****, ******** *. *******, **********, and/or ******-**-**** ******* controversies. But which, I have no idea.