Posts tagged with “mystery”

We’ve been kicking this question around the office for a while and are unable to come up with a satisfactory answer. Is Inspector Gadget a man or a machine?

There is ample evidence that Gadget is some sort of Cyborg with extensive implants; that would certainly explain the fact that his limbs all seem to function in mechanical ways at times and “normally” at other times. It also explains his demeanor and human personality.

But at what point does one stop being a Cyborg and become a full fledged robot? Gadget regularly has things pop out of his head (see above image), implying that his skull is storage space and indicating that he may in fact be a robot. An alternate theory is that he is entirely human and has some sort of advanced nano-robotic implants which construct (and then deconstruct) his gadgets upon verbal “Go Go” commands.

The rabbit hole goes pretty deep on this one; if Gadget isn’t human, what is his relationship to Penny? Is she actually his niece, or perhaps some sort of highly trained and competent caretaker? Evidence in the cartoon show would certainly support this theory. And what about Brain? Does he have some sort of neuro-stimulation of his own going on? How else could we explain his extraordinary intelligence as a K-9?

What do you think? Let us know where you stand on this in the comments!

This Thanksgiving some friends of mine from RPI in good old Troy NY invited me to their annual Saturday night Second Thanksgiving Dinner, for people who couldn’t get enough on Thursday night. At the end of the night they have a tradition of eating pie. Specifically, 10 pies. Between 14 people. I’ll chronicle some of the more interesting pies here, in the order we ate them.

Chemical Pie: All of my friends were cracking up as this pie was served. I took a bite, and I didn’t get it – the pie tasted like an ordinary apple pie! When I said I didn’t get what the fuss was about my friends cracked up even more… and informed me that there were absolutely no apples whatsoever in the pie, nor anything that tasted like apples. I guess this was the pie equivalent of a Long Island Ice Tea, where many weird ingredients mix together to make some sort strange new flavor. Or maybe the local chemistry student made it and just dumped in a bunch of hazardous compounds that I just thought tasted like apples. Who knows.

Mince Pie: We were pretty worried about this pie, since we thought that it was a mincemeat pie and would be full of random animals. When we found out it was purchased by the resident vegitarian we were a bit less worried, but still disgusted when we found that it was chock full of vegetables, fruit, and turnips. Despite looking revolting it actually wasn’t so bad, but I’m not sure I’d get it again.

Protein Pie: Oh man, this was a doozy. You know how you go to Jamba Juice (or any smoothie place) and they’ll put in some protein powder in your shake? Ok, now imagine a pie made out of chocolate pudding, peanut butter, around 14 cups of that nasty powder, and topped with freshly cut banana. Yum. The maker of the pie (the girl in the pictures below) informed us that each slice had 40 grams of protein and twice your daily recommended intake of cholesterol. Eating this was like pouring cement into your stomach.

Granola Pie: This one was a lot better than it sounds. A bunch of granola and other yummy stuff all shoved into a granola crust and served with a heaping scoop of whipped cream. It was really good, but each slice probably could have been its own meal.

Mystery Pie: I have no freaking idea what was in this pie, and the nut who made it wasn’t about to tell us. My guess? Cap’n crunch and artificial flavorings. PROVE ME WRONG, CHEF.

Strawberry Mango Pie: This one sounded great on paper, and was the most vile thing ever once we started eating it. The strawberries and mangoes were in some sort of horrendous sugary goo type syrup, and the whole thing just tasted miserable. I’m pretty sure I developed diabetes after eating a bite of this one.

The other pies: We also had a few standard pies thrown in, like a homemade berry pie, a Hershey’s chocolate pie, a Boston creme pie, and of course a pumpkin pie.

The result: I made it around halfway through the lineup but I didn’t last. After an attempt to rally I just gave up and started collecting pie on my plate, taking care to eat at least a bite of every slice I got. At the end I was so far behind I did the only honorable thing I could think of and face planted in what was left and ate what ended up in my mouth. Only four of us failed to get through the whole ordeal, so I’m going to have to train hard if I’m going to be ready for next year.

Thanks to Bob + Turnip for inviting me, to Vona and Josh for egging me on and getting me to eat more pie than I would have ever though possible, and to everyone else who joined in the madness.