Dr. Anomaly

Q: What's the national anthem of the first permanent space colony? A: Don't make me do math...math makes me psychotically violent...

Q: Is it true your mother has a slight weight problem? A: It has to be EXACTLY $423.32 -- I have a feeling it will be the 32 cents that will be the hard part...

Q: I don't care if this clock is an antique...we've got to break it to save the world...what part shall I break? A: I can explain how that got caught in her zipper...

Q: What led to your career as a homicidal maniac? A: That phone number has one too many digits.

Q: As a bank loan officer in training, what is the proper thing to say to a client when they are late with a payment? A: Six of one, half a dozen of the other

Q: What would have been the greatest work of Ego in modern times? A: No, no no! Tuck it IN, not turn it OVER! (trying this one again)

Q: How do you like your kiwis? A: No, no, no...tuck it IN, not turn it OVER!

Sorry...I'm too tired right now to tackle the 'Images' one, but I need to comment about the 'Sticky' part of the above construct. I used to model contageous diseases just that way, until I happened to think about the same sort of situation with something like clinging napalm. When I asked Steve about how you'd keep the entire population of the world from going up in smoke, he ruled that in the case of 'Sticky', it will spread from the original target to anyone who touches them, but WON'T spread from those secondary sufferers. In other words: A is hit with a 'Sticky' power. B, C, D all touch A. B, C, and D are now affected by the power. E and F touch C; E and F remain unaffected. When I said that would make modeling infectious diseases impossible that way, Steve replied that infectious diseases should be done using Transform (into sufferer of the disease who also has the Transform others into disease sufferers).

Q: What lame special effect did the BBC use in THIS week's show? A: At the bottom of the bucket, right next to your incisors.

Gee...there's so many things, though most of them would probably seem rather trivial. First, I'd like to satisfy my curiosity about a lot of things. The Roswell crash...sightings of the Loch Ness monster and Bigfoot...Amelia Erhart...and so on. A lot of 'legitimate' research, too: as someone already mentioned, the Library at Alexandria just for starters. I'd like to get my body rebuilt by tried & true biotech (no bionic replacements, thank you) to get rid of my bad joints, my diabetes, etc. I'm also real tempted by future tech that would be comonplace then but hi-tech now, though I'd be a bit worried about introducing anachronistic devices into the past. So that means at least one jog into the future. That's going to take money, though. So into the past for some gambling & investing, and maybe a lottery ticket or two. I'd have to take care not to let myself get too out of hand on that account, though (remember the first episode of Odyssey 5?). I'd have to take my time, plan, and spread things around a bit. Now I've got money, health, a comfortable standard of living for me & my loved ones, and my curiosity satisfied about a lot of stuff. Now comes the fun! There's lots of stuff I missed out on originally because I didn't find out about it/get into it early enough. Original Transformers. Magic: the Gathering back during Unlimited. The HERO/Champions system before v4. Those kinds of things. As someone else mentioned, recording all the lost episodes of Dr. Who. Those I *would* release to the world, not for the money (I've already got that) but for the adoration and notoriety in the Dr. Who fan community. I want to be famous, but just with the right people! I'd go back in time and buy a lifetime supply of those things I liked that have been discontinued: Sunshine Punch Kool-Aid, Tony's Pizza before they changed their pepperonis, Space-Food Sticks (gad, am I old!), the original Slime. As I said, things that no doubt seem rather trivial. In part that's because while I'm concerned about other people and civilization itself, I'd be afraid of truely world-changing actions (like offing Hitler before he got going, or saving Kennedy's life by finding & taking out the gunman before he shoots.) because I don't know what I'm doing! The other part is that if I made those kind of sweeping changes, I might find that friends and/or family members no longer existed, or no longer felt about me the way they do now. That would be a tragedy that I wouldn't want to face. I mean, what if I changed history in such a way that DOJ Games never formed, and we never got 5th Ed?

I take it you've never heard of Einstien? Remember, E=mc^2 ... that 'E' stands for 'Energy' and the 'm' for 'mass'. And in case it isn't obvious, an equal sign lets you move freely BOTH ways, or it isn't an equal sign. In other words, you can convert matter into energy (fusion, like in the Sun or an H-bomb). You can also convert energy into matter. Particle physicists do this on a daily basis at those huge particle accelerator research facilities. The only real drawback is that it takes a HUGE amount of energy to create a tiny bit of matter. Just FYI, it used to be 'the Law of Conservation of Mass' and 'the Law of Conservation of Energy'...two seperate laws. After Einstien, it was changed to 'the Law of Conservation of Mass-Energy', recognizing you can freely interchange between the two states. Ultimately, since physics usually deals more with energy states than with matter larger than the subatomic size, it was shortened down to just 'the Law of Conservation of Energy', since matter is just energy in a 'frozen' state. It in no way implies that you can't change energy into matter or matter into energy just because it no longer mentions matter. For an analogy, imagine this. You know about water, and about ice. If you smash to bits or shave into flakes the ice, the total amount of ice remains the same, though it may now occupy a greater volume. If you pour a single container of water into several smaller containers, the total amount of water remains unchanged despite is now being distributed in different places. Since your measurments show these amounts (ice and water) remain unchanged, you come up with 'the Law of Conservation of Water' and 'the Law of Conservation of Ice.' Now imagine that you discover you can MELT ice (change its state)...and you get WATER! This makes you wonder if you can turn water into ICE...and after some trial and error, you discover how to do that. You combine the laws into 'the Law of Conservation of Water-Ice', since if you melt ice you get a certain calculable volume of water, and if you freeze water, you get a given amount of ice. Changing it from one state to another doesn't alter the total amount of combined water & ice you have, it just alters the ratios between them. (Example: 5 parts ice, 5 parts water. You melt two parts ice; now you've got 3 parts ice to 7 parts water, but still 10 parts total.) Now you realize that since ice and water are really just two states of the same substance, you decide that using the long 'Law of Conservation of Water-Ice' is redundant, since you're using two words (water and ice) to talk about the same thing. You decide to shorten it to just one word, but which word? After some thought you realize that water is what you work with a lot more often than ice, since water is easier to use in experiments...you can more easily divide it up into small pieces of any size you want, it will combine with many other things to create a practically infinite variety of solutions, while ice doesn't readily form solutions and it can be difficult to get just the right size piece of ice for your experiment (it tends to chip, you know). In the end, you decide to simply shorten it to 'the Law of Conservation of Water.' This doesn't mean you've forgotten about ice, or that you can no longer turn water into ice or ice into water; it's just a convenience to shorten the name to describe the state you tend to use most often in your experiments, even though you could still talk about (and do experiments on) ice. In much the same fashion, physicists find energy easier and more convenient to work with than matter, and it's what they use the vast majority of the time. So it just got shortened to 'the Law of Conservation of Energy.' Does that clear anything up?

Q: What's so special about this new self-polarizing Crayon? A: A weed-whacker, a live chickin, and a jar of peach preserves.

Q: Do you want to add some scrambled eggs to that? A: No, the Sun won't last that long.

Q: What is the famous quote from the last gun-bearing security guard that Northwest Missouri State University employed? (side note...Yes, really! Or almost, rather. The exact quote was "Stop!" BANG! BANG! BANG! "Or I'll shoot!" ... caught on video tape...) A: Mr. Kiss-Kiss

Q: Why can't I get the "Always On" Limitation for my Mental Defense with the "Tranquil Inner Thoughts" special effect? A: If you shake it more than twice, you're playing with it.

Q: Waiter, what is this synchronized swimming team doing in my soup? A: Not if you were the last man on Earth...unless it was a Tuesday.

Q: Given the fact that you've just caused the reactor to enter its countdown to self-destruct, what's your reaction? A: No, no, NO! Never tug on that! You never know what it might be attached to!

Q: Will you yodel? A: Not in any month with an "R" in its name.

Q: As a jeweler, what was the most unusual thing you ever had requested? A: Pepperoni, hold the motor oil.

Q: Who do you LEAST want to find out is your blind date? A: Perfume from Brazil, but not by choice.

Q: What are three things you would be sure to EXCLUDE when stocking a shelter with Post-Holocaust provisions? A: Beatniks and Irishmen

Q: What cargo are we sending up to the International Space Station? A: One Big Mac, hold the beef.

Q: How would you describe the perfect romatic picnic in the Blasted Lands? A: None for me, thanks; I'm driving.

Q: When are your taste buds deadened enough to drink Tequila straight? A: Yes, but only in public.

Q: Should I go to a biker bar? A: The whole mustache