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Space Drama!

20 May

May 20, 2014

Space Drama!

A stage play of Space Suspense and Space Action! Set in Space!

The place: Spaceship XR-17, somewhere out in Space!

The time: The future, but not so far in the future that people have stopped wearing pants.

The characters:
Duke Spaceace, captain of the XR-17
Larry “The Cable Guy” Sputnik, a crewman
Robot the Robot, a robot that pretends he is not a robot. He isn’t fooling anyone
Commander Louie Mazola, an alien from the planet Merkin

space patrol 02

ACT ONE: On The Bridge

CAPTAIN SPACEACE is sitting in the captain’s chair. ROBOT is plugged into an outlet next to the refrigerator. Enter LARRY “THE CABLE GUY” SPUTNIK.

LARRY: Captain, I’ve fixed the space engine. The spaceship should be working A-Okay.

CAPTAIN: Good work, Larry. Hey, that’s a nice pair of pants.

LARRY: Thanks. I read somewhere that in the future people will stop wearing pants.

CAPTAIN: Get on the space phone and call Space Command. Tell then that the space engine is fixed and we’re ready to resume our space mission.

LARRY: I’ve been trying to call them for the last 15 space minutes but all I get is their space answering machine.

CAPTAIN: Flarking spleeznuts! Robot! Hey, Robot, get over here!

The ROBOT unplugs himself and walks over.

ROBOT: I keep telling you, I’m not a robot.

CAPTAIN: And I keep telling you, you have a zircon hyperzoid space computer where your liver should be. That’s a dead giveaway.

LARRY: Plus you’re made of plastic.

ROBOT: That’s a skin condition!

CAPTAIN: Whatever. Look, keep trying to call Space Command. If you get through, tell them we’re continuing on our space vector to planet Ernest Borgnine 9. If you can’t get through to an operator, press seven and just leave a message.

LARRY: I think their tape is full.

CAPTAIN: This is the 83rd century and they don’t even have a digital answering machine?

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ACT TWO: In Deep Space

CAPTAIN: Space is sooo boring. Are we there yet?

LARRY: How do I know? Whenever I try to look out the window all I see is my own reflection.

CAPTAIN: I keep telling you, turn out the light and then look out the window. You’ll see fine. Hey, Robot!

LARRY: Captain, we really don’t-

CAPTAIN: Robot! Get over here. When are we getting to Ernest Borgnine 9?

ROBOT:  In about 8.129477476930 space hours, give or take .67838090 space minutes. (To himself): I’m not a robot, I’m just precise.

CAPTAIN: (To LARRY) See? That wasn’t so bad.

ROBOT: However, there are many variables to consider.

LARRY (shoots a nasty look at the Captain): Wanna bet?

ROBOT: First, this area of space is noted for its variable gravity fields, which could throw my calculation off by as much as .23%

CAPTAIN: Well, hey, that’s no big deal, why don’t we-

ROBOT: But also consider the third moon of the local binary star. It has been known to emit zeton radiation, which acts as a repelling force to our space engines.

CAPTAIN: I really don’t think-

ROBOT: There are also more local concerns, such as the mass of our cargo, which has shifted downwards .09% since the start of our journey, which can act to increase our speed.

CAPTAIN: So I say that-

ROBOT: But our biggest concern should be the fact that we are being held in a tractor beam emitted by the Merkin warship off our starboard bow.

CAPTAIN: Merkins! I have no use for them.

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ACT THREE: In Communication With The Merkin Commander.

CAPTAIN DUKE SPACEACE is arguing with Merkin Commander Louie Mazola over the space video phone. The Merkin is very hairy.

MERKIN: You’ve got 10 space minutes to get your space junk out of Merkin space or we’ll blow you into little itty bitty space pieces.

CAPTAIN: Stop calling my ship space junk! I bought her new and she’s almost paid off.

MERKIN: Nah nah! XR-17 is a comet’s tail! Nah nah!

CAPTAIN: I’ve had enough. Say what you want about me but leave the XR-17 out of this. I named her after my girlfriend and I’m very sensitive about her.

LARRY: Your girlfriend is named XR-17?

CAPTAIN: Yes. You’ve never met her. She’s a model. And she’s rich. We’re going to get married.

MERKIN: Enough of this nonsense. Get out of here already!

ROBOT: Captain, I’ve finally gotten through to an operator at Space Command. It cost us 99 space cents per space minute, but I have new orders for us.

CAPTAIN: Talk to you later, Louie. (Shuts off the space video phone.)

MERKIN: Hey, wait a- (cut off as screen goes dark.)

CAPTAIN: What did they say?

ROBOT: Space Admiral Bobo wants us to reverse course and return to Earth. He says that there’s a problem with our warranty.

CAPTAIN: What warranty?

LARRY: When you upgraded the robot to Windows 72 you used a bootleg copy.

CAPTAIN: It was cheaper!

ROBOT: So that’s why I can’t download any updates!

LARRY: I thought you said you’re not a robot.

ROBOT: Yeah, yeah, whatever. (Storms off the bridge.)

CAPTAIN: Larry, tell the Merkin commander he wins. I didn’t want to go through his stupid space anyway.

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EPILOGUE: (Just Like A Quinn Martin Production)

LARRY: We never did get to Ernest Borgnine 9.

CAPTAIN: No, but we got something better.

LARRY: What?

CAPTAIN: We got rid of the stupid robot. I sold him for scrap and bought some really cool decals for the ship. Look, this one’s an eagle!

LARRY: You know, these pants really are nice.

THE SPACE END!

 

 

 

 

 

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From the Mr. BTaRchives

6 May

May 6, 2014

This blog has been on WordPress since 2009. It has been around a lot longer than that, but you had to be on MySpace to see it, and we all know what happened with that site. So when everyone upped and moved out of MySpace one day, leaving me all alone (“Hey, where’d everyone go? Huh? What’s a “Facebook”?) I moved most of my old posts over to WordPress and continued on.

But while the posts were the same, the look was not. Although I didn’t keep any screencaps, I found a lot of old images of the blog on the Internet Archives site. Here is a smattering of the old looks of Mr. Blog’s Tepid Ride.

1btrnov2009

Here we are, back in November of 2009, and I love the white text on a black background. However, I got a few complaints that it was hard to read so that didn’t last long. There are a few things worth mentioning here. First, the header. I took that picture myself in Coney Island. Since then, Astroland has been sold and the rocket has gone with it. If you go there today the burger boy is still there, but the rocket is long gone. The header also features one of my old taglines, “It is what it is.” We’ll see some more tags later on. That page also features my old bio, before the current one written by Mac of BIOnighT.

 2btrfeb2010

This is from February 2010. The black background is gone and you can see a little more of the Coney Island header. (There is much more to that image, still unseen.) I liked this theme because it leaves the header image clean. The sidebar has one of my favorite “raves,” from Jim at relicradio.com.

3btrapr2010

This is April 2010 and we’ve gone to a more modern header. In fact, I’m currently using a variation of that header right now. Do you see the grammatical error in this one? It isn’t really an error. At the time this was made, the software didn’t support apostrophes. I figured it looked good and no one would notice. The tag has also changed, to “some guy’s idea of fun,” which I still think sums this blog up.

4btrjune2010

June 2010 and we’re starting to look familiar. I changed to the current theme, but I’m using one of the generic WordPress color schemes. The tag has changed once more, to “Based on the novel “Mr. Blog” by Sapphire,” which is making me chuckle as I type but may be too dated to reuse.

5btraug2010

August of 2010 brought a new tag (“A shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist. Wait- that’s Knight Rider.”) as well as a new “rave,” from the multi-talented JRD Skinner of flashpulp.com. He picked right up on my Superman obsession. There is also a “contact me!” link, which today can be found at the bottom of the “About me” page. I have to warn you, though- now, as then, I never check that email. All I ever get is spam about people wanting me to run their ads.

6btrjan2011

January of 2011 and I’ve changed to the green color scheme, which won’t last long. The tag has also changed to something close to my current tag. The header image is the first of a few city scenes and highway signs I’ve used over the years. This version of the blog added a few new pages, including the Scrappers page which is mercifully long gone. I added the Invisible Man founder image, and it popped up once or twice more over the years. I also wasted a lot of space with more “raves,” none of which appear on the blog anymore due to, quite honestly, my embarrassment. This particular Conway Twitty post still gets a ton of hits and the occasional angry comment.

7btrapr2011

In April 2011 I added the custom background which looks a lot better now than it does here. It still isn’t quite finished yet, but this is close to the way the blog currently looks. The founder is gone, replaced by my teaser (and I still love that ad) for the return of Mr. Know-It-All.

8btraprlate2011

Here we are. I added the sidebars, and there’s my Conrad Bain plaque. (Why? Why not?) You can also see an early version of the long running city header, which ran for longer than any other image.

There have been some other changes along the way, including a ton of American Chopper headers, and the Tepid Zombie header, which I still dust off when appropriate.

zombie-header

By the way, here’s the full Coney Island rocket header:

16_astroland_rocketBMJ2K

The graffiti on the windows is my addition, but the rest of the building looks the same if you go there today, except for the rocket.

The blog hasn’t changed much in the last three years. The tag changed yet again, and there are some other small alterations. The site is due for another change, but no matter what, I promise not to go back to the white letters on black background.

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