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Re: Nationals - Divisional Stories 2006
This is a HILARIOUS idea and "thanks" to those of you who created this inspiring idea.
I have taken the "robot names" from 2006 Curie (well almost all of them) and created this entry for the Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest. Have fun with it; sorry if I left anyone in Curie out. You can append the story!
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The Cure in Curie
by Doug Hitchcock
“It was a dark and stormy night” he began to bang-away at the typewriter. Looking over his shoulder, Eleanor (9) simply groaned, “Nobody uses a Winchester (378) typewriter anymore except those dweebs over at BattleBots. “I mean, come on and get real”, she continued, her arms firmly planted on her hips. “Even Dean and Woodie know better. What’s gonna happen if you make some sort of mistake while you’re typing? How are you possibly going to correct a spelling error on that old Robodog (435) of a typewriter?”.
Outside, the RollingThunder (1511) got even louder. This just made PoofDaddy (525) pound away even harder on the keys of that old typewriter. “Look”, he said, “I know that Dean has invented all sorts of neat giszmos, and I’ve ridden his Segway transporter, but I still like the sound of my 'Robodog', as you call it. And, besides all that, I never make a mistake when I’m typing my story.” Again, he turned to the keyboard and repeated the words ‘It was a dark and stormy night’, but then he paused as if some sort of a hex (488) had taken over his fingers. His eyes veered away from that old typewriter, they were actually being pulled away from the paper by some strange green cold cathode light that suddenly lit-up on his desktop. It was the display on his video IPod that had somehow turned itself on.
Both Eleanor and Poof Daddy almost stopped breathing at the same time. Their stares were transfixed on the that cold cathode IPod display, pulsating its fluorescent green screen at them, as if to say “Poof! I'm the genie in the bottle and you need to let me out!”. They drew closer to the screen, almost expecting the IPod to open up like Pandora’s (540) box, but it just sat there with that same, cold, bone-chilling green light. Eleanor was ready to start making more opinions about the old Winchester typewriter. Thinking aloud that at least the IPod could run by itself, she decided to give up on arguing with Poof Daddy about his use of that antiquated typewriter. “Why doesn’t he just go out and Aim High by getting the G99 Mac?" The thought, I’ll never understand him. It’s as if he’s from some other planet, like maybe from Gemini (279). But deep inside, she knew that her strength came from her brain, with her advanced engineering degree, along with the proper tools, she could conquer the world and become a real StarBot (337).
He must have been reading her mind, because he turned away from the typewriter and said “Eleanor dear, Gemini isn’t a planet, it’s a constellation”. She already knew that; it was just a metaphor. She was about ready to claw (222) his eyeballs out, when all of a sudden the IPod’s green screen changed abruptly into TV static and the speaker volume rose in a loud buzz (175).
On the Ipod, they both could now hear the famous voice of Wilbur (980) from the TV show “Mr. Ed”. The screen changed from static to a re-run in black & white of the old SitCom. Both Eleanor and Poof Daddy, whose real name is Geoffrey (38), now moved closer to the screen of the IPod, their faces illuminated by the glow. But they dared not reach out and actually touch the IPod during its autonomous actions…..after all, they both know that neither one of them had touched it to turn it on.
No sooner had they started watching the “Mr. Ed” show, than the screen went dark again, but then immediately re-illuminated. They recognized the TV show as an old episode of the “Adams Family”. On the IPod screen, Uncle FESStor (1680) was doing his thing with the light bulb by screwing it into his mouth as the on-screen audience laughed. By now, both Geoffrey and Eleanor were transfixed. She was the first one to speak, “Well, at least he uses some sort of advanced technology unlike you”. Geoffrey could only say “Eleanor, I know that you’re no Sinderella (1942), but I do use technology and innovation. It’s just that this IPod is really acting weird, turning on by itself and showing all these old TV shows. I don’t get it. What’s going on here?” She calmed down at that point, and they both returned to gazing at the Adams family TV show on the screen. The screen went dark again momentarily, popping up with a Captain Krunch (9) commercial. That, in turn was followed by a brief clip from the Flintstones, showing BamBamand Pebbles playing 'Thumper (1305)' together on a rock pile. Then the screen went dark again, leaving Eleanor and Geoffrey in the dark, holding their breath for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, the screen illuminated one final time and then went completely black. On the screen for just a brief time were the words “Technical Difficulties” (1502).
Outside, the RollingThunder (1511) brought them both back to reality. “That was really weird” they both said at exactly the same time. Eleanor stammered “I think the Martians (70) must have landed right here in our back yard in Odin (204)”. "We’d better call Cornelius (469), the chief of police in town”, Geoffrey muttered. “Since we can’t figure out how the IPod turned itself on, we’d better go ask Cornelius, he thinks of himself as the Delphi (48) anyways”. “OK”, Eleanor said, “but before I go to town, I really need to clean up. I was working on the new hyper-threaded nano-cooled house robot before I came up here to see what you were typing. I need to wash my hands with some of that new soap (108) I bought today from the Chop Shop (166).
PuffDaddy started the car while he waited for Eleanor to clean up and put on her raincoat. Eleanor’s Melungeon Mobile (1655) was a better choice to get to town over the muddy roads than his old beat-up ’74 MisCar (1574). half-way to town, they both jumped when they heard the air raid (1745) sirens, knowing that it meant that the bridge over the EVO (1834) was likely to be washed away by the raging sea biscuits (1280) and that they might need a Rowbot (1906) to get back home if they stayed in town too long. He gunned it hard, providing enough G-force (192) to squeeze Eleanor back into the plush leather seats of her Melungeon. “Slow down, you little devil (650), you don’t really need to show-off the advanced power (815) of my truck tonight. Driving at warp 7 (865) is plenty fast enough for me..OK?”
When they arrived in town, they went straight to the police station. It was quiet, but then they saw Gus (228) sitting behind the one desk, his face buried in the sports section of the local SPIKE (293) newspaper. “Hey you two”, he glanced up, “what brings you into town, is this some sort of scientific mission on the C-4 (1002) from your two young circuitrunners?” Eleanor wiped her rain-soaked face and it looked like a heatwave (312) had taken-over her whole body. But she shivered at the same time. “We need to see Cornelius right away”, Geoffrey said. But his voice was more like a mechanical dragon (302). They both started to tell the story of the glowing IPod to Gus. In the back room, they couldn’t help but hear Cornelius, the chief doing his ROFL-bot (772) routine. He invited them into his cramped office, complete with several stuffed heads of coyotes (610), bears (247), and falcons (234). On his desk, the paw (710) from some Floridian swamp animal. It was obvious to Geoffrey that the chief considered himself somewhat of a Rhodewarrior (121).
Both Geoffrey (aka PuffDaddy) and Eleanor told the chiefdelphi their story about the glowing IPod including all the TV re-runs. The chief sat back in his chair and paused. “Ya know, I just got another call from TJ Squared (88) over at the Huskie Brigade (65). He told me that there were some robowranglers (148) that got loose into the atmosphere tonight and that, when combined with MommaJack DOS (128)all comes together with 8 million jigawatts of lightning to form the 'Red Dragon (1270) effect'. I’d never heard of it before, but I then confirmed with Dr. Flowers at MIT and he told me that it does indeed create a skybot (346)-sort of time warp and katastrophic (1421) results for all IPods in the vicinity”. Chief Cornelius went on to tell Geoffrey and Eleanor that the way to eradicate the ghosts from their Ipod was to simply force-fit a downloadable BDR3 (896) code into the Ipod. They looked puzzled. But the chief quickly continued, "Heck kids, that's easy to do. You just gotta upload those darned newfangled FIRST anthems from the web site. Both of the anthems contain the metalmenace (967) virus which will certainly eradicate that TV time-warp mousetrap (1324) from your IPod." Then, somewhat under his breath, but loud enough for Eleanor to hear, the chief mumbled, "Now if I could only get Poofdaddy to get rid of that infernal clacking Winchester typewriter".
After speaking with Cornelius, they both headed over to the Double Deuce (22) to ask the chef, Homer (22), if his IPod was also acting up. Up-front, the hostess, Karen (842) was kil-a-byting (1024) time by watching the Silver Lightning (1089) streak down through theupper layers of the ionosphere. It wasn't the lightning, but the place smelled like freshly-baked Spam (180). The hostess, Karen was a spicy (395) woman from Beckham (1114), which was really a foreign country away from this sleepy little town of Odin. By day, she was a megamaid (1726), but now at night as a hostess, dressed in her black penguinbot (1717) uniform, she looked way out of place.
After a couple of Mountain Dews, exhausted from their FIRST weird-science adventure, Eleanor and Geoffrey returned to their house and turned the key in the lock. Even from the front hall, they could see the glow from the IPod, which again was on and blaring. But, even from a distance, they could both tell it was just some old Chuck (358) Norris movie, and they’d seen it before.
So, they closed the bedroom door, turned on the wireless remote control fire starter (312), creating an instant heat wave and promptly went to bed and dreamed of higher-technology robotics…..it was the only thing they could really control on this dark and stormy thunderous (1511) night.
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The THUNDER just keeps getting LOUDER in 2008....
Team 1511 now supports over 15 FLL teams
RollingThunder....Winner of the 2007 Chairman's Award at Finger Lakes Regional and Spirit Award at Boston.....Winner of 2006 Finger Lakes Regional Engineering Inspriation and Boston Imagery awards.......Winner of 2005 World Championship Rookie All-Star (plus FLR Rookie All-Star, Buckeye Top-Seeded Rookie, GTR Champion, Spirit, and Inspiration)
"Gracious Professionalism is a WAY of life".....
Last edited by dhitchco : 21-04-2006 at 13:25.
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