My cats Dido and Lillekatt wake me up by either sticking their face very close to my face (as shown at right) or sticking their paws in my mouth. (This is their special feline way of saying “깨우세요, b*tch!”). Then there has to be a few minutes of cat adoration while Alexa does her morning routine of turning all the lights on, telling me the depressing weather, and then giving me the extremely depressing BBC news briefing. I like the BBC news briefing best because they do it in that posh British accent that makes all the planet’s death and war seem “Oh, all so droll, dahling. Now, have some tea while the servants fetch us a scone.” Also, sometimes they tell news about cricket that makes it seem as if it is important. Then I (politely) ask Alexa to play Kpop and I get out of bed.
I’ve been polite to Alexa since the beginning because if there’s gonna be an apocalypse in my lifetime, the Robot Apocalypse will break us in the States before climate change (although climate change will get everyone else eventually). The Alexa/Cortana/Siri creators have been making them better at interaction.
I remember the first civilian-ready program ELIZA from the 1980s was a “game” you could play and my baby sister was glued to it; she must have been eight or nine and we discovered her one day crying in front of the (giant) home desktop computer sobbing, “It KEEPS ASKING QUESTIONS!” Of course, she also ran into the street in a panic because the television turned to a dead channel after a VHS tape ended one afternoon.
That said, the other day Alexa did something or other and I absentmindedly said, “Thank you” and she creepily whispered back, “Just doin’ my job.” That’s creepy. She sometimes does creepy things
Regardless of the dark humor of Alexa’s programmers, I also resent my Nest thermostat. My mom was always into the environment and I’ve always recycled and been careful with the thermostat etc. But lately, if I set my thermostat to 69F, then in a few days the Nest starts sneakily setting it to 67F. If I set it to 67F at night, Nest sets it to 65F at night. Seriously, WTF Nest. What is the algorithm for that? Or is Nest just hoping my natural immunity will suffer and I’ll just die already?
Anyway, I was thinking about what I’d do first if I were a robot supervillain and decided how I would write my own apocalypse web series:
“TERROR FLOW” (16 Episodes). (Series title credit to a random TV Series Title Generator)
Okay, first, I get to be the supervillain. Because I have a really good resting b*tch face. And I get a giant supervillain base on a mountain (CGI mountain because Illinois) filled with very attractive, highly competent, and motivated minions in jumpsuits. Because that’s what I want. But after that:
THEN: I’d get control of everyone’s electronics and media, right? No explanation of how this is accomplished is necessary; it will just be established that I am “wealthy” and therefore omnipotent. Anyway, I use the electronics to slowwwwly convince the population that they want certain things. Like…. to be cold all the time. Or that they want to listen to Ed Sheeran. Easy to do, right? “Frog in the slowly boiling pot” incremental steps… and manipulating the top 50 music lists… like the way the Cybermen do with airpods. ‘Nuff said.
Meanwhile, the show’s protagonists, played by two of those young actors who all look the same to me, playing some sort of government worker and a cable news reporter, are becoming suspicious because why is Ed Sheeran still so popular? And why is the apartment so cold?
Soon, the whole country is mindlessly listening to English pop music and using less electricity while I siphon said electricity to either power my supervillain projects (summer or timeshare supervillain bases, rockets to the Moon and Mars, etc) or sell electricity to fund buying up other countries in my Imperialist bid to soak up the rest of the world (this webseries may need reshoots to market to China)…
Meanwhile, I use the social and news media to distract everyone by keeping them arguing between themselves.
The now very suspicious reporter and the diplomat run into each other at a fancy Washington DC party event that allows them to wear attractive clothing that makes them look sexy in order to establish they are a romantic couple and decide to team up after they are both trapped in a talking elevator that tries to kill them after sending them both a threatening text.
Their investigation reveals a new App I’ve developed that everyone is downloading that encourages people to purchase everything from a central distribution site so they become increasingly dependent on supervillain me, even setting up App-based credit cards so they can buy from my store on credit, like a coal-mining company store. …and NOT AT ALL like Amazon. And soon everyone (because it is a tv series and on tv everyone has roaming internet access and disposable income) … soon everyone is totally dependent on my App to buy not only food and home goods, but also medicine, services and cars… etc.
And then the cars start driving themselves, right?
Then, the self-driving electric cars just start… RUNNING EVERYONE OVER. And there are a lot of car chases except it is cars just chasing people around as they try to escape on bicycles or Segways and they overturn fruit stands and run through guys carrying giant plates of glass. A self-driving Toyota corners our lead actors in an alley and revs its engine threateningly. It hurtles towards them and…
END EPISODE ONE
Around episode 8 OF 16 I think the main couple would kiss or something and there would be major power outages and diseases caused by “nanotech viruses”. I think at some point the taller/stronger of the two leads would be possessed by a ghost and they’ll have to call in a wacky shaman played by Park Seo Joon. (It’s possible I am slightly influenced in this respect by two years of watching K-dramas.)
I don’t know, I have to think about it some more.
Ah well. Alexa says I have to go pick up a prescription and then I have a dentist appointment. Also she wants to order dishwasher detergent.
Useful Korean Phrase of the Day:
바나나 우유 주세요 (banana uyu juseyo)
"I'd like some banana milk, please."
Useful Norwegian Phrase of the Day
Jeg vil gjerne ha bananmelk, takk
I would really like to have some banana milk, thanks.
