10 Unknown Facts About: Philip K. Dick

Ladies and Gentlemen, I love a good read, especially if it involves robots or space or things of that nature, so when I saw that today was Philip K. Dick's birthday, I had to learn more about him. He may be the author of numerous science fiction novels, several of them became movies (Minority Report, Blade Runner, Total Recall, and A Scanner Darkly). but here are a few things you probably didn't know.

10 Unknown Facts about Philip K. Dick:

1. After writing Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep? he decided, in fact, that no, they shouldn't since real people don't dream about real sheep. So he built a robot to have dreams about flying gravy boats like the rest of us.
2. Philip K. Dick's first name was originally spelled Phillip, but the other l was shot off in the war and doctors were unable to reattach it.
3. Philip K. Dick could grow his beard at will, hence its impressive bushiness.
4. Philip K. Dick took on a part-time job as a temporal conduit through which time traveling tourists could experience life in our days by mentally possessing his body from time to time. In return, he was able to visit their times (similar to Quantum Leap). This was often mistaken as mental illness.
5. There have been so many adaptations of Philip K. Dick's books and stories that some scientists believe they spontaneously adapt themselves to film, television, and radio if left unattended for too long.
6. Philip K. Dick was a pastamancer who could summon a plate of spaghetti five times a day.
7. Philip K. Dick knew how to fly an interstellar space shuttle. His greatest sorrow was that they didn't exist yet for him to fly.
8. The K stands for "kick a-- and take names," which made it difficult for him to fill out forms.
9. Philip K. Dick was able to punch through walls no thicker pi inches thick, regardless of what material it was built out of.
10. The scene in Back to the Future where Marty McFly plays the song at the dance and Chuck Barry's cousin calls Chuck and lets him hear it was based on an incident from Philip K. Dick's life (again due to the Temporal Conduit job), except the song was "Stars and Stripes Forever" and John Phillip Souza's cousin Cindy Souza passed the song along.

You have been informed.

Snow in Mississippi?

Ladies and Gentlemen, as my fiancee may have informed you, it snowed yesterday. Well, there was snow mingling with rain. And in that cold snowy rain, I had to climb on the roof and rehang lights. As such, my fingers were too frozen to type and I had her post for me. I hope you enjoyed her guest appearance.

This does, however, make me question the weather. If we were promised global warming, why am I getting snow two years in a row in southern Mississippi, where it's usually balmy even in winter? Jackson, I'm told, a city a mere three hours north, took six inches. Prior to these, the last real snow I remember was when I was in Jr. High (eighth grade). Perhaps someone actually attempted that fire-extinguisher bomb I proposed. Probably not, or we would have noticed a climate change much sooner. No, what must be happening is that the Southern Hemisphere, sick of Florida, Hawaii, the Caribbean, and the Mediterranean getting all the snowbird tourists seeking warmth and as such have created a heat-vacuum, which is sucking all of the hot air toward the south pole to boost seasonal tourism. Now even people in warmer climes need to go south for winter. As the hot air moves out, the cold air rushes in to fill its place, pulling northern cold fronts down. Those cheeky Australians! Stop stealing my heat!

In other news, sugar molecules were found in a nebula far far away by French scientists. What this means is that when we start interstellar travel, we can bring along a pastry chef and not have to waste valuable storage space on sugar. Mmmm... pastries without the closet space.

You have been informed.

Glow, Kitty, Glow!

Ladies and Gentlemen, sleep is good. But then you knew that already, so I suppose I should tell you something you didn't know.

Scientists have cloned a glow in the dark cat. Well, a glow-under-a-black-light cat.


I understand the benefits this has to medical science and everything, and that's great. My excitement is what this means for the space program. Here we have a cat that glows under UV light. Surely there are such places, such planets, moons, and asteroids that have UV light as opposed to regular light (regular? wow that comment was so earth-centric). Organisms that evolved in such places would clearly have UV within their visible light spectrum, right? This is where I believe we discover the true intention of these scientists.

UV Kitty glows. We place UV Kitty on one of these distant places. It glows. Organisms there see it. If it gets eaten pretty quickly, we know it's unsafe for unarmed colonization. If it gets left alone, we know it's safe for colonization. If it gets petted, we know my girlfriend has access to a space ship and where the heck is she hiding that thing? There isn't a cat in the universe she won't pet. But at least we'll know we can survive there.

The next shuttle launch will be on November 14th. Do you think it's a coincidence glow-under-a-black-light kitty was cloned so close to blast off? I don't. The fact that the cat is a clone proves that they intend to explore a lot of planets. Look out space. UV Kitty is coming.

You have been informed.