Post by punctuator on Dec 28, 2006 1:25:41 GMT -5
First of all, sorry for the serious header, for the following is a most lame attempt at humor. Couldn't help it! 
This just came into my head all in a rush, and it made me laugh, so I thought I'd pass it along. Up-front note of explanation: I like Chris Evans, but his character Mace looks and sounds like something of a jarhead next to Cillian Murphy's Capa, from what the teaser snippets have shown us. So I thought it might be fun to take a look at Mace's space journal. And not that it’s gonna be all-Mace-all-the-time: Cassie and Capa are chiming in, too, and I’ve got “entries” from Corazon and Kaneda in the works. Warnings: rough language, grammatical ineptitude, general dumb space hijinx. Here we go:
MY JOURNAL by MACE
My therapist, he says I should keep a journal. Back on Earth he tells me this, before we take off. Not right before we take off, you know I didn’t mean that, it’s not like he’s at the launch station holding my hand like I’m some kind of girly man (that’s Capa’s job. The girly man thing, not the hand holding thing, no guy holds my hand, but more on Capa later, and not like he’s my sissy, I’m not that kind of guy either), but he says I have control issues. My therapist. Control issues, he says. Me. The d*¢k. Not even like he’s really my therapist, I didn’t hire him, the agency said we all should talk to him one on one before we take off because being in space this long can make you nuts. Like they know. The d*¢ks. Him too. The therapist, not Capa. But more on him later. Capa.
I didn’t even know what to write in this thing until one day, one day when we’re like something like a month out, and Capa one day he says at breakfast you know, real quiet like he always does, like he’s some kind of d**n android with its volume broke, all Look at me folks, I’m Mr. Spock, he says to our resident hot chick Cassie (and not like you’re ever gonna read this and I’d break your face if you did, Capa you nerd), “Wonder how Mace is doing with his journal,” and both of ‘em giggle like it’s junior high. Like I couldn’t hear ‘em. So I think, man I should bust his skinny face right now and that it would be funny as hell and he’d have it coming, too, but then Corazon looks at me like she’s gonna beat my a** if I do (like she did last week but more on that later), so I think I’ll show ‘em. I’ll show ‘em all. You see that word up there? That word resident? That’s like almost four syl-- sill-- parts in that word so up yours Capa. Like your dumb bomb. This is the last d**n mission I take where they put the smart guy in charge of the payload. Cause if that bomb wasn’t your baby Capa, I’d airmail your skinny ass home. What’s more, you’d tell me Mace, there isn’t any air in space ha ha (like I didn’t already know that you scrawny geek I was there when Harvey went out and checked like I told him to), and then I’d beat your skinny ass first. Corazon or no Corazon. Man that chick is hot too.
So here’s my journal. Skipped a couple days here and there, sue me.
Stardate XXXX-1 I’ve always wanted to write Stardate something. Actually I’ve always wanted to say it out loud-- you know Captain’s log, Stardate something-- but I better not cause if Capa hears me he’ll say something smartassy and I’ll have to stuff him back in the suit locker like last week, but more on that later. Anyway Kaneda’s the captain not me grrr bet he says Captain’s log, Stardate something all the time when we’re not around, I bet it’s even in his contract that he can say it any d**n time he wants. Today we had a team meeting. Crew meeting. Corazon and Capa they hog the table like always. Like they’re all, Look at us we’re the smart people we get to talk all the d**n time. So what they said was kinda like
Corazon: You are hogging my resources with your bomb Capa my plants will wilt and we’ll, like, die. (I put that like in there for a dramatic pause, okay?)
Capa: If you don’t let me hog all your resources (that’s another big word Capa, see, right there) my bomb will wilt and the earth will, like, die so there hot beyotch. And then Corazon beat his ass right there in the meeting.
No. No she didn’t. Not really. Ha ha ha. Really had you there for a minute huh?
So the meeting it goes on and Trey the dope he has to ask again, like he always does like he’s dumb or something, Hey Capa tell us again How does your bomb work? But then you know, I see him kinda laugh after he says it, real quiet, and then I know he’s yanking Capa’s chain and then I kinda laugh too and so does Harvey and Capa doesn’t dare say sh*t to us on it cause we’ll hang him upside down in the garbage chute like we did last week but more on that later and so he has to tell us. And I can tell Kaneda is mad as hell at Trey for asking and at us too, and Searle wants to knock all our heads together, and Corazon she’s pissed cause Trey didn’t ask her how her plant stuff works (he does that on our meetings Monday and Wednesday and today’s Thursday so it’s Capa’s day).
So Capa he starts telling us again how his bomb works, and every word out of his fat head is like the biggest word in the d**n world like always, like My bomb big word big word big word neutron bigger word bigger bigger word fission big big big word sun, and pretty soon I’m like with my hand making Blah blah blah ooh I’m Capa look at me I’m the smart guy talking motions, and Trey he like snores, and Kaneda says, Meeting adjourned like he always does now before Capa starts crying like a sissy ooh boo hoo, no one understands my bomb and Cassie and Corazon beat our asses like last week, but more on that later.
Tomorrow: more journal unless Capa's bomb is broke and blows us up first.
*****
JOURNAL/Cassie
I drive the ship, okay?
No tips, no bonuses, no nothing. Well, there is one bonus-- No: not going there. Why am I not going there? Because Mace, who is not the “bonus,” will find this and read it. Like he’s probably doing right now.
YES, YOU, MACE. PUT MY D**N JOURNAL DOWN. NOW.
NO. NOT ON THE FLOOR. PICK IT UP AND PUT IT BACK IN MY LOCKER. WHERE YOU FOUND IT, YOU CREEP.
So I drive the ship. Beats driving a cab, I guess. Just wish I could’ve slapped another coat of wax on this thing before we left. Been picking up dust all the way in. Of course, if we ever take a hit from anything bigger than a golf ball, all the Zymol in the solar system won’t help. That shrink we saw before we left, I said to him, “You think my collision insurance covers meteors?” And he does this hollow little “Heh” thing, like he’s thinking, As if you’re coming back. I mean, yes, I know it was a dumb thing to say, but I always thought shrinks were supposed to be supportive. Who am I kidding? This close to the sun, Zymol would just melt anyway.
MACE: ZYMOL IS A KIND OF WAX. PUT. THE JOURNAL. BACK.
Wonder if Capa could help me rig a booby trap for this thing. Nothing too fatal, understand: I’m not psychopathic-- yet (“Just give it time!” Dr. Shrink might have said, ha ha), but I’m getting really sick and tired of not writing about
the real bonus on this trip
and of FINDING GRANOLA CRUMBS IN MY D**N JOURNAL. MACE: GO AWAY!!! GO READ CORAZON’S JOURNAL.
Better go now. Capa’s still upside-down in the garbage chute. Last time we forgot about him for nearly six hours. Corazon and I pulled him out after we heard him snoring. Not that he snores all the
MACE: GONE. YOU ARE *SO* GONE.
Anyway, I drive the ship. Have to get Capa out of the chute. Andkill maim pound Mace. That’ll be poetic justice, right?
Later.
*****
JOURNALISTIC EXPOSTULATIONS, PERSONAL, by Capa
The woman is insane.
To specify: re: “woman”: Corazon. To specify further: re: “woman”: re: subcategory“exquisite” “not insane”: Cassie. [Reaction, involuntary, to mention of subject in category “woman,” subcategory “not insane”: tingling in abdominal area, specifically stomach, unascribable to indigestion, accompanied by languid release of breath (reference: dictionary entry “sigh”).]
To expostulate: The woman is insane. We all will be there eventually; she has merely preceded us. Exemplar re: Corazon’s insanity:
[Understand: I speak re: Corazon’s burgeoning madness with the greatest respect. Specifically, with the greatest respect for her skill in (a) physical combat (the woman does know karate, as it turns out, as well as judo, hopkido, kung fu, kickboxing, and a particularly nasty form of full-contact Pilates) and (b) assisting this humble journal-keeper in extricating himself from less-habitable areas of the ship into which certain ruffians see fit to insert him (note re: ambiguity of identification of said ruffians: one could observe, were one so inclined, that their leader bears a name that rhymes with approximately one-hundred percent precision with the word FACE).]
To continue re: madhouse exemplars. Today: confronted Corazon in Oxygen Garden.
Purpose of confrontation: To discuss Corazon’s use of ship’s power for heating greenhouse (read: for pampering silly weeds).
Form of confrontation: Polite discourse.
Argument regarding choice of confrontational form: Incident, as witnessed Saturday a.m., involving 1. last remaining cup of Apple Jacks; 2. Harvey purloining said cup of Apple Jacks, aforementioned cereal being Dr. Corazon’s favorite; 2.a. with comment “Guess it’s Cheerios for you, sweet cheeks”; with 3. resulting demonstration of fighting skills (appearing to combine hopkido and full-contact Pilates, aforementioned) on part of Dr. Corazon; resulting in 4. relinquishment of said last remaining cup of Apple Jacks from Harvey to Corazon; with 4.a. comment (from Dr. Corazon to Mr. Harvey) “[Bleep] your Cheerios and the horse they rode in on, nancy-boy”; culminating in 5. visit to sick bay (non-terminal) on part of Mr. Harvey. End argument.
Form of expostulation re: incident illustrating Corazon’s madness: brief comments in narrative form (brevity being, of course, the soul of wit and of clarity as well). To proceed:
Tuesday morning 0930 hours:
1. Entered Oxygen Garden by way of doors. (To counter-expostulate: Not by way of wall, which would pose a problem both in terms of this journal-keeper’s physical density and his potential and/or necessary velocity-- said computations available, of course, upon request, Mace.)
2. Espied Dr. Corazon directly ahead, her torso and head inclined toward a tomato plant. (Read [for those who tend toward the “poetic”]: She was leaning over the Beefsteak.)
3. Heard Dr. Corazon address said tomato plant as follows: “Izzums my boo-boo BUM-kins!”
4. Politely (read: completely without disdain) spoke as follows: “Dr. Corazon--?”
5. Noted (with careful blend of intellectual acuity and horror) Dr. Corazon’s reply, as addressed to aforementioned tomato plant: “Bum-kins! You CAN talk--!”
6. Essayed further attempt at contact, to wit: “Dr. Corazon, it’s Dr. Capa. May I speak to you?”
7. Observed a. Dr. Corazon peering closely at base of tomato plant (possibly to ascertain whether a miniature of myself [shrunken, perhaps, by the radiation bombarding the ship] had taken refuge beneath the lush foliage of said Beefsteak); b. Dr. Corazon noting, through use of peripheral portion of vision, my surveillance of her and the tomato; with c. reaction as follows: Dr. Corazon (1) straightening at the waist whilst (2) assuming a facial expression of great inscrutability and sobriety (which said expression makes her, truth be told, the terror of poker night aboard ship).
8. Presented argument, as outlined briefly thus: “You [that is to say, ‘You, Dr. Corazon’] are squandering for your plants resources better suited, if not essential, to the service and proper functioning of the solar re-ignition device [that is to say, ‘my bomb’].”
9. Received response from Dr. Corazon as follows: “Well, howzabout you and your bomb catch the next [bleep]ing bus, buttercup?”
10. Retired to hallway outside Oxygen Garden to contemplate (a) Dr. Corazon’s professional suggestion and (b) the ramifications of what I had observed prior to our chat.
Regarding: said observations; an explanation, by way of example, of improper (read: plain crazy) manner of addressing one’s work: I would never stoop, either asleep or in a waking dream-state, to referring toBig Mister Boom Boom the solar re-ignition device as “izzums my boo-boo bum-kins,” “moody-doody big badoodies,” “mattie-patattie doopie-doozies,” or “bunny-wunny bun-kins,” all being terms Dr. Corazon has used to address her plants. (The fourth, I note, is most alarming, as it indicates our resident botanist’s growing inability to distinguish between the animal and plant kingdoms.)
Course of action, immediate: Discuss (with great professional tact, of course) my findings regarding our residentnutter botanist with subject (as noted well above) category “woman,” subcategory “not insane.” Possibly in an attitude of recumbency, if she be so inclined (see: dictionary entry “pun”). With a languid release of breath, or several, to follow. To end up, no doubt and nevertheless, stuffed in the suit locker at some point in the evening.
Which-- still-- provides room enough for two. And thus with a word I sigh.
*****
More to come....
This just came into my head all in a rush, and it made me laugh, so I thought I'd pass it along. Up-front note of explanation: I like Chris Evans, but his character Mace looks and sounds like something of a jarhead next to Cillian Murphy's Capa, from what the teaser snippets have shown us. So I thought it might be fun to take a look at Mace's space journal. And not that it’s gonna be all-Mace-all-the-time: Cassie and Capa are chiming in, too, and I’ve got “entries” from Corazon and Kaneda in the works. Warnings: rough language, grammatical ineptitude, general dumb space hijinx. Here we go:
MY JOURNAL by MACE
My therapist, he says I should keep a journal. Back on Earth he tells me this, before we take off. Not right before we take off, you know I didn’t mean that, it’s not like he’s at the launch station holding my hand like I’m some kind of girly man (that’s Capa’s job. The girly man thing, not the hand holding thing, no guy holds my hand, but more on Capa later, and not like he’s my sissy, I’m not that kind of guy either), but he says I have control issues. My therapist. Control issues, he says. Me. The d*¢k. Not even like he’s really my therapist, I didn’t hire him, the agency said we all should talk to him one on one before we take off because being in space this long can make you nuts. Like they know. The d*¢ks. Him too. The therapist, not Capa. But more on him later. Capa.
I didn’t even know what to write in this thing until one day, one day when we’re like something like a month out, and Capa one day he says at breakfast you know, real quiet like he always does, like he’s some kind of d**n android with its volume broke, all Look at me folks, I’m Mr. Spock, he says to our resident hot chick Cassie (and not like you’re ever gonna read this and I’d break your face if you did, Capa you nerd), “Wonder how Mace is doing with his journal,” and both of ‘em giggle like it’s junior high. Like I couldn’t hear ‘em. So I think, man I should bust his skinny face right now and that it would be funny as hell and he’d have it coming, too, but then Corazon looks at me like she’s gonna beat my a** if I do (like she did last week but more on that later), so I think I’ll show ‘em. I’ll show ‘em all. You see that word up there? That word resident? That’s like almost four syl-- sill-- parts in that word so up yours Capa. Like your dumb bomb. This is the last d**n mission I take where they put the smart guy in charge of the payload. Cause if that bomb wasn’t your baby Capa, I’d airmail your skinny ass home. What’s more, you’d tell me Mace, there isn’t any air in space ha ha (like I didn’t already know that you scrawny geek I was there when Harvey went out and checked like I told him to), and then I’d beat your skinny ass first. Corazon or no Corazon. Man that chick is hot too.
So here’s my journal. Skipped a couple days here and there, sue me.
Stardate XXXX-1 I’ve always wanted to write Stardate something. Actually I’ve always wanted to say it out loud-- you know Captain’s log, Stardate something-- but I better not cause if Capa hears me he’ll say something smartassy and I’ll have to stuff him back in the suit locker like last week, but more on that later. Anyway Kaneda’s the captain not me grrr bet he says Captain’s log, Stardate something all the time when we’re not around, I bet it’s even in his contract that he can say it any d**n time he wants. Today we had a team meeting. Crew meeting. Corazon and Capa they hog the table like always. Like they’re all, Look at us we’re the smart people we get to talk all the d**n time. So what they said was kinda like
Corazon: You are hogging my resources with your bomb Capa my plants will wilt and we’ll, like, die. (I put that like in there for a dramatic pause, okay?)
Capa: If you don’t let me hog all your resources (that’s another big word Capa, see, right there) my bomb will wilt and the earth will, like, die so there hot beyotch. And then Corazon beat his ass right there in the meeting.
No. No she didn’t. Not really. Ha ha ha. Really had you there for a minute huh?
So the meeting it goes on and Trey the dope he has to ask again, like he always does like he’s dumb or something, Hey Capa tell us again How does your bomb work? But then you know, I see him kinda laugh after he says it, real quiet, and then I know he’s yanking Capa’s chain and then I kinda laugh too and so does Harvey and Capa doesn’t dare say sh*t to us on it cause we’ll hang him upside down in the garbage chute like we did last week but more on that later and so he has to tell us. And I can tell Kaneda is mad as hell at Trey for asking and at us too, and Searle wants to knock all our heads together, and Corazon she’s pissed cause Trey didn’t ask her how her plant stuff works (he does that on our meetings Monday and Wednesday and today’s Thursday so it’s Capa’s day).
So Capa he starts telling us again how his bomb works, and every word out of his fat head is like the biggest word in the d**n world like always, like My bomb big word big word big word neutron bigger word bigger bigger word fission big big big word sun, and pretty soon I’m like with my hand making Blah blah blah ooh I’m Capa look at me I’m the smart guy talking motions, and Trey he like snores, and Kaneda says, Meeting adjourned like he always does now before Capa starts crying like a sissy ooh boo hoo, no one understands my bomb and Cassie and Corazon beat our asses like last week, but more on that later.
Tomorrow: more journal unless Capa's bomb is broke and blows us up first.
*****
JOURNAL/Cassie
I drive the ship, okay?
No tips, no bonuses, no nothing. Well, there is one bonus-- No: not going there. Why am I not going there? Because Mace, who is not the “bonus,” will find this and read it. Like he’s probably doing right now.
YES, YOU, MACE. PUT MY D**N JOURNAL DOWN. NOW.
NO. NOT ON THE FLOOR. PICK IT UP AND PUT IT BACK IN MY LOCKER. WHERE YOU FOUND IT, YOU CREEP.
So I drive the ship. Beats driving a cab, I guess. Just wish I could’ve slapped another coat of wax on this thing before we left. Been picking up dust all the way in. Of course, if we ever take a hit from anything bigger than a golf ball, all the Zymol in the solar system won’t help. That shrink we saw before we left, I said to him, “You think my collision insurance covers meteors?” And he does this hollow little “Heh” thing, like he’s thinking, As if you’re coming back. I mean, yes, I know it was a dumb thing to say, but I always thought shrinks were supposed to be supportive. Who am I kidding? This close to the sun, Zymol would just melt anyway.
MACE: ZYMOL IS A KIND OF WAX. PUT. THE JOURNAL. BACK.
Wonder if Capa could help me rig a booby trap for this thing. Nothing too fatal, understand: I’m not psychopathic-- yet (“Just give it time!” Dr. Shrink might have said, ha ha), but I’m getting really sick and tired of not writing about
the real bonus on this trip
and of FINDING GRANOLA CRUMBS IN MY D**N JOURNAL. MACE: GO AWAY!!! GO READ CORAZON’S JOURNAL.
Better go now. Capa’s still upside-down in the garbage chute. Last time we forgot about him for nearly six hours. Corazon and I pulled him out after we heard him snoring. Not that he snores all the
MACE: GONE. YOU ARE *SO* GONE.
Anyway, I drive the ship. Have to get Capa out of the chute. And
Later.
*****
JOURNALISTIC EXPOSTULATIONS, PERSONAL, by Capa
The woman is insane.
To specify: re: “woman”: Corazon. To specify further: re: “woman”: re: subcategory
To expostulate: The woman is insane. We all will be there eventually; she has merely preceded us. Exemplar re: Corazon’s insanity:
[Understand: I speak re: Corazon’s burgeoning madness with the greatest respect. Specifically, with the greatest respect for her skill in (a) physical combat (the woman does know karate, as it turns out, as well as judo, hopkido, kung fu, kickboxing, and a particularly nasty form of full-contact Pilates) and (b) assisting this humble journal-keeper in extricating himself from less-habitable areas of the ship into which certain ruffians see fit to insert him (note re: ambiguity of identification of said ruffians: one could observe, were one so inclined, that their leader bears a name that rhymes with approximately one-hundred percent precision with the word FACE).]
To continue re: madhouse exemplars. Today: confronted Corazon in Oxygen Garden.
Purpose of confrontation: To discuss Corazon’s use of ship’s power for heating greenhouse (read: for pampering silly weeds).
Form of confrontation: Polite discourse.
Argument regarding choice of confrontational form: Incident, as witnessed Saturday a.m., involving 1. last remaining cup of Apple Jacks; 2. Harvey purloining said cup of Apple Jacks, aforementioned cereal being Dr. Corazon’s favorite; 2.a. with comment “Guess it’s Cheerios for you, sweet cheeks”; with 3. resulting demonstration of fighting skills (appearing to combine hopkido and full-contact Pilates, aforementioned) on part of Dr. Corazon; resulting in 4. relinquishment of said last remaining cup of Apple Jacks from Harvey to Corazon; with 4.a. comment (from Dr. Corazon to Mr. Harvey) “[Bleep] your Cheerios and the horse they rode in on, nancy-boy”; culminating in 5. visit to sick bay (non-terminal) on part of Mr. Harvey. End argument.
Form of expostulation re: incident illustrating Corazon’s madness: brief comments in narrative form (brevity being, of course, the soul of wit and of clarity as well). To proceed:
Tuesday morning 0930 hours:
1. Entered Oxygen Garden by way of doors. (To counter-expostulate: Not by way of wall, which would pose a problem both in terms of this journal-keeper’s physical density and his potential and/or necessary velocity-- said computations available, of course, upon request, Mace.)
2. Espied Dr. Corazon directly ahead, her torso and head inclined toward a tomato plant. (Read [for those who tend toward the “poetic”]: She was leaning over the Beefsteak.)
3. Heard Dr. Corazon address said tomato plant as follows: “Izzums my boo-boo BUM-kins!”
4. Politely (read: completely without disdain) spoke as follows: “Dr. Corazon--?”
5. Noted (with careful blend of intellectual acuity and horror) Dr. Corazon’s reply, as addressed to aforementioned tomato plant: “Bum-kins! You CAN talk--!”
6. Essayed further attempt at contact, to wit: “Dr. Corazon, it’s Dr. Capa. May I speak to you?”
7. Observed a. Dr. Corazon peering closely at base of tomato plant (possibly to ascertain whether a miniature of myself [shrunken, perhaps, by the radiation bombarding the ship] had taken refuge beneath the lush foliage of said Beefsteak); b. Dr. Corazon noting, through use of peripheral portion of vision, my surveillance of her and the tomato; with c. reaction as follows: Dr. Corazon (1) straightening at the waist whilst (2) assuming a facial expression of great inscrutability and sobriety (which said expression makes her, truth be told, the terror of poker night aboard ship).
8. Presented argument, as outlined briefly thus: “You [that is to say, ‘You, Dr. Corazon’] are squandering for your plants resources better suited, if not essential, to the service and proper functioning of the solar re-ignition device [that is to say, ‘my bomb’].”
9. Received response from Dr. Corazon as follows: “Well, howzabout you and your bomb catch the next [bleep]ing bus, buttercup?”
10. Retired to hallway outside Oxygen Garden to contemplate (a) Dr. Corazon’s professional suggestion and (b) the ramifications of what I had observed prior to our chat.
Regarding: said observations; an explanation, by way of example, of improper (read: plain crazy) manner of addressing one’s work: I would never stoop, either asleep or in a waking dream-state, to referring to
Course of action, immediate: Discuss (with great professional tact, of course) my findings regarding our resident
Which-- still-- provides room enough for two. And thus with a word I sigh.
*****
More to come....
