Cru Jones Society

Today’s guest post comes from Brad, who, along with a cast of disturbed characters, writes at the sometimes gross, often offensive, always hilarious Spherx’s Domain as extra-terrestrial columnist and namesake Spherx. He likes to unwind watching short videos produced by his talented colleagues at Nebulus Visions Multimedia, who strive to inspire and promote creativity through art. He also enjoys popping open iTunes to check out their Nebcast, where they tackle a variety of subjects, but mostly focus on movies. For now, he answers the question: What would happen ”If Brad Had a Robot”?

So, I was skateboarding to school today when I stopped off at my crazy scientist friend’s lab for guitar practice. Usually he’s not home in the morning and, to my surprise, today he was – busily working on some new experiment. When I asked him what he was up to, he replied by asking me, “Brad, if you could have any robot in the world, what kind of robot would that be?”

My first suggestion was a “money-printing robot”. But I guess if Doc could print his own money, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Dude!

How sweet would driving with icy roads be with a “de-icing robot” riding shotgun and packing a flamethrower?

I like potato chips! How about a “food dispensing robot”?

After thinking about it for a second, I realized what a difficult question this actually was to answer. If I could have a robot that does anything, what kind of robot would it be?

The term ‘robot’ itself is vague and has a couple of different definitions. According to Merriam-Webster, the simplest description of a robot is “a device that automatically performs complicated, often repetitive tasks”. In this day and age, is there anything we don’t already have robots for? We’ve got it all! Most everything in our lives is automated by computers and, in a sense, is controlled by robots. Desktop and laptop computers are basically administrative assistants. Smart phones are not-hot secretaries (unless you’re an iPhone – purr). Factories produce cars that then mobilize us. And just take a look at your kitchen. It’s loaded with robots! The toaster, waffle iron, blender (food ninja), are all machines that simplify our lives by performing repetitive tasks. There are robots that build other robots. Some robots even keep us alive!

So if a robot’s purpose is to sub for my menial tasks, what do I need simplified in my life? When I look at my day-to-day tasks, there’s nothing I do that doesn’t already have a robot associated with it. If washing dishes is a pain in the ass, I can just turn to a dishwasher. Calculating my taxes too complicated? I can buy and install TurboTax on my computer. Can’t decide what to wear? If I had an iPhone, there’d be an app for that!

The only robots left are “useless robots”. A robot that serves no greater purpose than to entertain my whimsical fantasies. Like: a robot that shoots cake at sadness (frownies?), or a robot that makes neckties out of shoelaces (neck-laces?), or flies kites made out of wet macaroni (kite-a-roni?). Nah. The future of robots is too open-ended to settle on any one of those.

Then it hit me. Robots have yet to replace me! And myself has plenty of deficiencies that can be corrected by a robot, my most notorious deficiency being social-anxiety. Yeah! A confidence-boosting robot named B-R.A.D! Brad’s Really-Awesome-Droid! What a day that would be! I wake up to its mechanical voice telling me how awesome I am and what a contribution I’m going to be to society. Then at work, it surprises me with a free pizza and ties a balloon to my desk! Later at a party, it can attend in my place and offer clever and interesting conversation. Then when people ask where I am, B-RAD can explain my absence with a number of heroic excuses. “Really? Brad rescued a baby from a burning building? I’m impressed!” Actually, nevermind. That just sounds like a robotic version of my birthday party.

At this point in my thought process, 30 minutes had elapsed and Doc had left the room at some point, leaving behind a note with the instructions: “Call me when you figure it out.” I was also late for class. So I thought some more about my perfect robot while I raced to school. It eventually occurred to me that I was probably over-thinking my perfect robot. I was thinking too much about what the robot should do instead of all the awesome things that should go into making it. From there, its purpose would find itself. And after-all, from a pure science perspective, the highest combination of awesome things equals perfection. So when I got home I made a list of things that are awesome and told Doc to combine them all into the robot.

The next day, Doc invited me over for the unveiling of B-RAD:

B-RAD has laser and x-ray eyes, a jetpack, an ice cream shooting arm, a lightsaber arm, speaker ears that blare a rotation of the entire catalog of Huey Lewis and the News’ songs, a mini-fridge chest stocked with ginger ale and a Scrabble board mounted on back, flamethrower mouth, pogo stick legs with interchangeable ATV wheels or snowboard, vanilla-scented octopus tentacles, and a sweet pair of boobs.

After B-RAD booted up, we flew to the zoo and shot pandas with Neapolitan ice cream. When the zoo asked us to leave, we flew to Vail and had a lightsaber duel down the mountain, during which, I accidentally cut off one of B-RAD’s tentacles. B-RAD computed that it was “no big deal” and handed me a ginger ale that I drank while roasting marshmallows and playing Scrabble. My idea to add pogo stick legs was validated when B-RAD’s juggs fell out while we were hopping home. The perfect end to a perfect day. I wanted to show everybody my robot but unfortunately Doc couldn’t build a battery with enough power to sustain B-RAD for more than a day. So B-RAD was scrapped and sold off as parts. I guess I’ll just have to think of another robot to build.

If you’d like to get in contact with Brad, send us an email at staff@crujonessociety.com