Tag: Mars Needs Moms

Better Educational Video

Created: 28 Oct 2015

Believe it or not, our Psychology class was assigned to write another narrative. I was instantly struck with giddiness. I knew I had to fashion a wretched continuity out of this senseless storyline. The words flowed from my fingertips without resistance that night.

I got an A on this one too.

Bram awoke, aware not of his situation, but of his burning desire for revenge. Were his brain not that of an 18-month-old baby, he would have been awash with humiliation. A defender of humanity such as him, reduced to an inept child in what might have been his finest hour.

None of these thoughts occurred to Bram of course, there was nothing but primitive vagueness inside his baseball-sized brain, jumbling around. All he was aware of, as he awoke, was his burning desire -no, lust- for revenge.

However, a headless humanoid hologram hovered close at hand, hankering to help like a happy high-minded handyman.

First, the alien-mom scientists requested a computerized scan of Bram’s infant mind, hoping to find a possible Unconditioned Stimulus to put to work. The hologram quickly identified Bram’s want of revenge, isolated it, and sent the data back for approval. The scientists, curious and frightened, reserved the go-ahead, thinking it would be quite unwise to use a hostage’s hatred to Classically Condition them.

So instead, the hologram calculated a more appropriate method to elicit an Unconditioned Response, and settled on letting Bram eat a cupcake. On the opposite end of the laboratory, an advanced 3D printer printed a delicious chocolate cupcake, and a gun. A mechanical arm carried both across the room to the examination table.

Sure enough, as the cupcake was dropped into Bram’s mouth, he smiled. That was more than enough evidence to continue, so they quickly had the Neutral Stimulus, the gun, placed in his right hand. This time, as they fed Bram a cupcake and he smiled, they also had him fire the gun. The pastry-induced smile lingered on his face as he shot at the impenetrable ceiling.

The first Trial was a success, so the scientists all nodded pleasantly, positive that after several thousand successive Trials they would soon have a baby that really liked shooting things. So they totally left him alone and said they’d check back on him later. Days past, unchanged…

Finally, when satisfied, the scientists returned to check on Bram, hoping to find a kid who could defend himself with a gun and won’t need so much supervision, y’know? They did not give Bram a cupcake this time, just the gun. They waited with baited breath to see if firing it would cause Bram to smile, just as if he were eating a cupcake. Sure enough, he fired once, and a grin broke across his little face. The Acquisition process was a roaring success!

But the joke was on them! They didn’t correctly follow the steps of Classical Conditioning; they skipped making sure the Neutral Stimulus didn’t elicit an Unconditioned Response.

Their lazy scientific method would be their downfall! It turned out that Bram loved guns the whole time anyway. You can take the age- out of an agent, but you can’t take his weapons training!!!

Bram’s baby mind now had both the vengeful drive, and the capability to take back everything that had been taken from him, everything he could still feel at night.

This has been  Mars Needs Moms 3: Mars Needs Help Now  with your host: Bret Huston.

There was a spark of hope in my mind that the trilogy wouldn’t end here. But that’s a story for another day…

Good Educational Video

Created: 17 October 2015

Our Psychology class was assigned to write a narrative using all the parts of brain and nervous system…

The vocab words in order of appearance:

  • Sympathetic Nervous System
  • Parasympathetic Nervous System
  • Autonomic Nervous System
  • Somatic Nervous System
  • Peripheral Nervous System
  • Spinal Cord
  • Hind-Brain
  • Mid-Brain
  • Fore-Brain
  • Medulla
  • Cerebellum
  • Pons
  • Thalamus
  • Cerebral Cortex
  • Pituitary Gland

…And that seemed like such an arbitrary and farcical thing to base a
narrative on, so I decided to write mine in the most contrived and
ridiculous way possible. So if you ever watch the video and feel your brain repulsed by the force with which the “educational” material is dumped, know that that even happens to me when I try to rewatch it. My goal was definitely not to make the subject matter palatable; if I’d managed to do that, it would be called something less ironic.

Here’s the unaltered text which I turned into the teacher (and got an A+ on).

Bram approached the large glass window with determination evident in his face, staring outside at the impending alien invasion. Mankind didn’t yet know what advanced technologies might be trained on them, but they were confident in their ability to turn the tables.

But a brain-beam hit Bram, breaking all his barriers, blocking behavioral bodily balance, and basically beginning the battle.

First, Bram’s Sympathetic Nervous System was corrupted, disabling his fight-or-flight response. Following shortly was his Parasympathetic Nervous System, as Bram’s carefully trained heart-rate beat out of control. With those two components out of the way, Bram felt his whole Autonomic Nervous System sputter, not to mention a bowel movement like nothing before.

As things picked up speed, his Somatic Nervous System was the next to take a hit. His limbs each twitched briefly as he lost control of them, falling to the floor. His entire Peripheral Nervous System was now out of commission.

Thinking perhaps that could be the end of it, Bram sighed in angst. Little did he know his very thoughts and knowledge were next on the chopping block! His Spinal Cord promptly deactivated and retired, leaving Bram paralyzed from the neck down, little more than a functional brain. Not functional for long though.

His Hind-Brain, Mid-Brain, and Fore-Brain all switched off in quick succession.

He’d been breathing steadily up ‘til now, but without his Medulla to regulate, he began to pant. The loss of his Cerebellum did little to phase him, as his muscles were already unavailable, and with no lower brain left, the Pons had no good reason to stick around. Although there was still function in his eyes, the subtraction of a Thalamus meant he was no longer receiving info from them, rendering him blind.

Bram didn’t know what to do now, his training never prepared him for such an onslaught. Oh, and there goes his training. The climactic defeat of his Cerebral Cortex signified the shut-down of all four of his lobes, incapacitating any ability to hear, touch, learn, remember, speak, process anything, or even to think.

In this, Bram conceded defeat.

But the joke was on him, the beam was just deactivating his bodily/mental functions to prepare him for the real part! Bram didn’t -couldn’t- feel it at this point, but the beam now targeted his pituitary gland, not to deactivate it, but to release hidden hormones to TURN BRAM INTO A BABY. Yep, that’s right. The aliens were the ones from Mars Need Moms, but now there were too many moms so they needed kids too.

This has been  Mars Needs Moms 2: Mars Needs Kids  with your host Bret Huston.

Shortly afterward, I decided to recycle this essay as a script. I read it out into my crappy $20 mic, rewrote the whole thing in text boxes in Vegas, and added some choice midis.

Interesting notes:

  • I actually had those midis lying around because I’d already started working on Kidneyworld.
  • The name Bram comes from a character I created nearly a month before this, for another class, Business and Personal Finance. We were tasked to come up with a budget for a fictional character, and Bram Bernstein was born. He was a a “rich successful screenwriter,” who got his first name because I was reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula at the time, and his last name from a discussion about the Berenstain Bears I think?
  • It’s also worth noting that I came up with a second accompanying character, Nikki, who worked as a wrestling referee because that made for a more interesting budget plan (because she was supposed to be super poor). Anyway, might come up later.

source: http://www.midiworld.com/files/1132/