Mir Disaster Scenarios

Mir: 8-miles from burn-up - The Mir space station, having slowly descended to the Earth's outer atmosphere, is just eight-miles from burning up. The aging space station had glided down to about 143-miles above the Earth's surface on Sunday, Russian news reports said. Russia space controllers are allowing Mir to descend gradually in preparation for an operation later this week to dump the 15-year-old, and increasingly accident prone, station in the Pacific Ocean.

As reported in a previous news update, one which I'm far too lazy to look up and find the exact date for, the Mir is crashing and burning faster than Robert Downey Jr. in a... ah, screw it. You don't really even need a punchline anymore for Robert Downey Jr. jokes. Just mention his name and hey, that's the joke. It's funny because he's a crackhead! Ha ha!

The Mir Space Station. Not drawn to scale.

So the Mir is headed towards Earth, 130 tons of burning metal and computer components which will probably be just as functional shattered into 400 million pieces on Earth as they were originally in space. Although the media is making a big stink about how unpredictable the forced landing of the Mir is and how you could be crushed to death by it while you're getting raped by gang members who are convincing your children to start a heroin habit while cheating in school and running off with sexual predators they met in illegal Pokemon eBay auctions, this is not the real danger. The big problem is that we will soon have to deal with the Martian Space Organisms which have hitched a ride back with Mir, ready to infect the human population and turn us into even bigger drooling zombies than we currently are.

Now I'll be the first to admit that I have no medical background history. In fact, the only time I've ever been exposed to medical science was when I turned on the TV and caught the first 10 minutes of an "ER" episode, the one where some inner city child was being treated for gunshot injuries. Actually, by Congressional mandate, EVERY episode of "ER" has to now feature a cute inner city child who was shot up in a gang crossfire. This wouldn't nearly happen as much if kids played more violent video games, as "murder simulator" first person shooters teach essential skills such as side stepping, strafing, crouching, and cycling through inventory. Regardless, the point remains that I really have no clue what I'm talking about when it comes to medical science. This topic joins the nine million other things that I have approximately zero knowledge of, including ancient irrigation techniques, every country on Earth which isn't the United States, theoretical physics, and the last half of the alphabet. So this isn't any real shocking development here.

Anyway, I began thinking of the medical ramifications which might occur when the human population is exposed to the Space Virus Death Germs From Hell that are piggybacking on the Mir. This whole issue popped into my head when I was at the store and was deciding what I need to purchase for the upcoming week. Since I'm heading up to the GDC, I was cruising down the aspirin aisle, trying to remember the various industry buzzwords which inform me what anti-headache products I should be interested in purchasing. I soon noticed that not a single tub of "Val-U-Save Aspirin" claims to counteract the effects of Venusian Hell Spores. After brainstorming for a few hours, I soon realized this was because nobody really knows what will happen to the human race once we get infected by Space Mutant Bacteria. I also realized that I had been sitting in the middle of a grocery store for half a day, obsessing about alien space germs of doom, but that's not too unusual for me. This breakthrough caused me to think of the various effects that the Hyper Dimensional Galactic Death Virus will cause. As a service to mankind, I decided to write them both down and type them up so you, the viewing audience, will be better prepared for the day of reckoning:

OUTCOME #1: Mankind becomes bloodthirsty zombies bent on slaughtering the living and eating their brains.

While this is certainly not one of the most pleasant outcomes, I really can't say this event is highly unusual. Mankind has a real weak resistance to "becoming bloodthirsty zombies bent on slaughtering the living and eating their brains," so it's kind of expected in this case. When this disease is contracted, all motor functions die down and the subject finds themselves lumbering around like a 500-pound elderly man covered in tar. Conversations all gravitate towards consuming brains and the process of finding living people to make dead or slightly less living.

A "zombie ninja," one of the lesser known types of zombies.

POSITIVES:

Zombies aren't very concerned with fashion sense. You'll be able to plod around in public like the slob you are, wearing the same set of clothing until you die. Don't worry if you spill the blood of the living upon your shirt, as the other zombies won't care. Hell, having blood and dirt on your clothes might actually be COOL to other zombies. That brings up the whole zombie peer pressure issue, and I'm really hesitant to launch into that discussion because it's already been covered in various ABC After School Specials starring Fred Savage and that girl from "Family Matters" who in all probability is addicted to inhaling paint thinner by now.

Zombies are really hard to kill. As humans, it's pretty easy for us to die. If I were to walk up to you and shoot you in the chest with a shotgun, you would probably die (or at least be somewhat perturbed). Not a zombie though! The only way to kill a zombie is by making their head explode, so if you're a zombie and you manage to find a Kevlar helmet, you're pretty much set. I'm not sure what a zombie's life expectancy is, as most movies end in roughly 90 minutes, but I assume it's somewhat longer than that. On the flip side, there's not much for you to do once your torso has been blown in half by a shotgun. I guess you'd just sit around and cheer on other zombies while you examine your large intestines scattered across the floor.

NEGATIVES:

Zombies are really slow. We're talking "the guy in video games who has the most firepower and hit points so the game designers made him really slothlike and a pain in the ass to control for the sake of balancing gameplay" kind of slow. It'll take you like 40 minutes just to walk from your front porch to your car each morning, so plan on a longer commute to work. This will have a horribly negative effect on the professional sports industry, with the exception of golf, which is already played by zombies across the globe. So golf will be unaffected, except there will probably be more brain eating involved. That should boost ratings a bit.

Zombies have limited social skills. When you become a walking member of the undead, your vocabulary just goes right out the window. Forget any in-depth conversations about 18th century literature, as all your discussions will turn into the following:

YOU: "Guhhhhhhhhhhh."
McDONALD'S CASHIER: "Gahhhhhhhhhhhh."
YOU: "Guhhhhhhhhhhhh uhhhhhhhhhh." (drooling)
McDONALD'S CASHIER: "Muuuuuuhhhhhhhhhh."
TONY BLAIR: "Gaaahhhhhhhhh uhhhhhhhhhhh."
YOU: "Uhhhhhhhhhhh."

OUTCOME #2: Mankind evolves into mutants and select members of the population receive incredible superpowers.

OH NO, RUN, HE'S SILVER.

A much more preferable option to turning into bloodthirsty zombies bent on murdering the living, this outcome is a bit more pleasant and cheery. A good example of this effect can be witnessed in Marvel Comic's hit superhero, the Silver Surfer, who was bitten by a radioactive space surfboard and mutated into a bald man with excessive amounts of White Out in his eyes. Of course not everybody can get such incredible powers as The Silver Surfer, which would be even more impressive if I could actually remember what the hell the guy even did in the first place. Didn't he just fly around space and punch a giant floating head all day? He probably shot some kind of beam from his hands too, because that's like the generic attack that all Marvel comic writers bestow upon characters when they're too lazy to think of real superpowers.

POSITIVES:

You'll get a "wild card" draw from a long list of really cool powers. Science is really vague when it comes to how exactly people become psychic or are able to spray fire from their skin pores after being exposed to mutant / alien microbes, but hey, that's science for you. Forget the "why" behind your powers, just think about how cool it will be once you have them!

BOSS: "Hello YOU, I bet you're wondering why I called you into my office this morning."
YOU: (reading your boss' thoughts with your newfound psychic mindreading skills) "You are firing me."
BOSS: "Yes I am. You're fired."
YOU: "Aren't you going to ask how I knew that before you actually told me it?"
BOSS: (thinking) "No."
YOU: "I knew you were going to say that."

Wow!

Spandex will be back in style. Remember the 1980's? Back when you could wear bicycle shorts to your grandma's funeral and get away with it? Well those times will come back again with a vengeance, as EVERYBODY will be running around in skintight clothing with more colors than your average gay whorehouse. The more neon in your outfit, the better. No longer will you have to worry about matching and coordinating outfits, as even the most garish of styles will be perfectly legit. I hope a good majority of people are blessed with the superpower of being color blind, because they'll need it.

NEGATIVES:

Lots of municipal property will be destroyed. Superheroes only battle in large, downtown cities, so it's a fairly safe bet that they'll be flying into and knocking over all kinds of shit. If you've got anything that's breakable or worth more than $20, you'd better run to the middle of the woods and bury it. Luckily for me, I buy all my furniture and Precious Moments figurines at Target, so the combined value of everything in my apartment is less than my last haircut.

There will be a dramatic increase of deadly robots roaming the streets. If you've got superheroes, you've got to have supervillians. More often than not, the supervillian's grand scheme to get rid of their "do good enemies" involves building a gigantic robot of death. Having a killer robot is kind of the supervillain "catch all" solution to dealing with any problem. Pesky superhero foiling all your plans to rob the city's gold depository? Build a robot! Need something to guard your floating metallic base of doom? Build a robot! Tired of paying outrageous property taxes? Build a robot! Frustrated because you never have enough robots? Build a robot! I suppose if you stay inside your house all day and tape one of those "No Jehovahs Witnesses" stickers outside your door, only you replace the phrase "Jehovahs Witnesses" with "Deadly Killer Robots of Doom," you'll be relatively safe. Use caller ID too, just to be on the cautious side.

From: cliff yablonski
Subject: you dying

richard I have updated my site. link to it now. 4 pages of shitfaced losers that I would like to injure. Link to it now or you will find your ugly ass mug on my site soon

cliff