ATTACK - OF THE VAMPIRE STICKLEBACK!

I Know, I Know, I'm Pushing It
Eventually the readers will turn on me like freshly-minted zombies, driven mad by the endless recourse to piscine* puns.

Fish.  Close enough.

     But I can't help myself!  Saturday is traditionally a day of low blog traffic, and today is Valentine's Day, when folks have even more reasons to be out and about, wooing and - er - <thinks> - cooing over each other, instead of reading blogs that will save them when the alien invasion fleet arrives.   Yet there are already 18 hits.  
     I ought to explain to non-British readers** that the "stickleback" is a small freshwater fish that can erect spines on it's back if attacked by a predator fish, tending to thus jam in the attacker's mouth.  After a second or two of this, the predator spits out the stickleback.

Sticklebacks attack - if you're drinking Bacardi!

A Filmic Interlude
Actually we begin with television.  "The Man From U.N.C.L.E."  What does "UNCLE" stand for?  "United Network Command for Law Enforcement" of course.  A kind of UN police force, if you like.  Formed from an international body of police and soldiers, the series followed Illya Kuryakin and Napoleon Solo, Russian and American respectively, as they dealt with threats to world peace, principally from "T.H.R.U.S.H."  It ran for three seasons and Conrad, as a small boy, absolutely loved it.  He had Man From Uncle Books, Man From Uncle guns and a Man From Uncle Oldsmobile car.

Press the periscope, they come out shooting

     So, when he happened to come across a trailer on IMDB for "The Man From UNCLE" he was both curious and apprehensive.  A remake?  A re-boot? A resuscitation? Well no, it's actually what might be called a prequel, set in 1963, about the establishment of UNCLE, in a response to a potential global threat.
     A trailer isn't enough to base a sound opinion on, but Conrad is hopeful.

Conrad.  Looking hopeful.  Or hateful.  It's hard to tell

Of The Fast, The Furious And Finances
BANGBANGSHOOTYSHOOTYCARCHASEEXPLODEYBIKINI
That, I believe, is the plot of all seven "Fast and Furious" films.  Conrad hasn't seen any and isn't really interested in seeing any of them in future.  If they were on television I might move my eyes to and fro across the screen, which is more a reflex action and doesn't imply any kind of actual, you know - watching.  Oh, in Number Seven the Enemy of Choice is: "Lethally Skilled Mercenary Drivers".  Yeah.  You gotta watch out for them, they sound like Taxi Drivers From Hell.

"You called?"

     Well, mock the franchise if you wish.  The latest version of Car Porn is the seventh of these films, so somebody is watching them.  Studios don't make sequels from films that bomb at the box office.
     Now for some figures.  F & F #6 (does it have a title?  Not sure, not really interested) had a budget of $160 Million, and made $238 million globally.  That's a profit of $78 million, quite a tidy chunk of change.  However, the first F & F film cost a mere $38 million; this sounds like a lot of money - okay, it is a lot of money - but in fact puts it squarely in the economy budget for Hollywood.  It made $374 million, almost ten times the budget.  So between these two films you're talking $600 million, which is a lot of money.

All ready to go into "Monopoly" boxes

     Here a caution, and a ray of hope for film buffs who like black and white subtitled Swedish art films about lesbian dinosaurs in dancing school.  The ratio of return has diminished drastically over the franchise, from nearly 1000% down to 50%, so number seven might well be the last.


A Little Musical Critique
No, no, Art and Paul, you can come out from behind the sideboard!  It's not you today.  No, today we focus on one of Conrad's favourite bands, Eels***, and a track called "Flyswatter".  Conrad, myopic and over-quick in reading, originally thought this track was called "Flys Water", which is an interesting concept if not what Mr E intended the song to be about.  It comes from the "Daisies of the Galaxy" CD, which was held up by the White House administration of the time as a dreadful example of trying to get children to listen to songs about - er - flyswatters, and beautiful days, and wooden nickels and daisies, and demonic shizzle like that.  Anyway, on with the Mutley!^

"Little field mice living under the house"

This is only possible, Mr E, because all your houses have those crawlspaces

"Never eating much"

Ah, the dieting fad has reached even the field mouse community?

"Tough life for a mouse"

It could be worse.  Ever heard of Mrs Frisby?

"And if you think you're gonna be spared"

Mr E!  Please!  It's "going to"

"You're wrong"

Very blunt.  But I appreciate the candour

"Field mice, head lice"

Excuse me!  I use a nit comb weekly

"Spiders in the kitchen"

Technically this is okay except I am terrified of spiders

"Don't think twice 'bout"

"ABOUT! ABOUT!" do not omit the "A"!!!

"Whatever keeps you itchin'"

These lyrics, for one.  Mention "head lice" and people begin to itch

"Ice water, flyswatter"

Ice water, fine, I drink it at work.  Keep the Flys water away from me, though.

"Gonna get you through"

"The day"

What about lunch?  and the mid-morning coffee? And witty banter? 

The Maths Of Evil
I did promise, or threaten, this yesterday, but it did require a fair bit of working-out and that took up quite a chunk of the afternoon.

Look at all that working-out!
(Don't look too closely it might be wrong)

     Okay, reading about "Avengers: Age of Ultron" and Michael Crichton's "Prey", Conrad was struck with the actual timescale of becoming dominated by Our Robot Overlords^^.
     The Scenario:  In the pursuit of cinematic perfection, J.J. Abrams creates an autonomous robotic Artificial Intelligence, which he nicknames "Bad Robot",which is left in a locker away off in Silicon Valley.  J.J. is then killed in the Great Hollywood Zombie Event of 2025 and Bad Robot is left all alone.  He/she/it decides to create a mate.

JJ gets the Dr Evil "Lip-Finger of approval"

Iteration One
It takes 6 months, but Bad Robot creates a duplicate.  The two Bad Robots create a third in 3 months.  These 3 Bad Robots build a fourth in 2 months. It takes them 6 1/2 weeks to build a fifth Bad Robot.  These 5 build another in 22 days.
     By Day 37 they are churning out Bad Robots at the rate of one every 0.007 seconds, at which point it's adios muchachos, goodbye Hom Sap

Iteration Two
Each Bad Robot works on another Bad Robot.  Thus, after 6 months, there are 2.  After a year there are 4.  After 18 months, 8.  After two years, 16.  After 30 months, 32.  After 102 months (5 years) there are 131,000 and again it's adios muchachos.

Iteration Three  The Big Pull Model
FYI, "The Big Pull" is a somewhat bleak television sci-fi thriller from the early Sixties, about an alien invasion that wins.  Each alien attack doubles the number of victims and halves the time taken to attack.  
     So, after 6 months there are 2 Bad Robots; after 9 months there are 4; after 10 1/2 months there are 8; after 45 weeks there are 16.
    By the time we get to Day 336.1 there are 131,584 Bad Robots and again - adios muchachos!

"But - if humnz b extink who i be ADORABULL for?"

* "Fishy".  Translation by Mister Hand.
** Who have my sympathy already
*** Not, NOT, NOT "The" Eels.
^ Mis-spelt for comic effect.  It IS comic!  It is, I say!
^^ A real film title.  Check out "Empire"