I Have Questions...

[dr_phil_physics]

... About TV Commercials

You know those commercials for the Off clip-on thingie for repelling insects? They came out last year or so, at least up here. But I don't know anybody who has actually used one. So I don't know if they work or whether they're so powerful or aromatic that they're worse than just slathering yourself in Cutters or DEET or whatever.



But...

The commercials make it look like those belt mounted personal shield generators they use in Dune. You know, project a hemisphere of shield protection. My problem with this? What if the mosquitoes are armed with knives and move in very slowly, so they can penetrate the shield? What good are those shields gonna do now?

See, this is why you need to be up on your genre literature. Because if you don't understand these SF/F references, why then you might make some terrible consumer choices. Unleash forces you don't want unleashed.

I'm just sayin'.

Dr. Phil

Comments

[selfavowedgeek.livejournal.com]

Oh, this entry hit all my big geeky buttons! Most excellent, sir. Most. Excellent.

(erm, I also have a replica crysknife from the miniseries which ran on SyFy when it was SciFi)

So true.

[charyvna.livejournal.com]

:)
You crack me up.

Nothing to fear

[eric vannewkirk (from livejournal.com)]

What if the mosquitoes are armed with knives and move in very slowly...?

I wouldn't worry about that too much. Hunter-Skeeters were banned by the Landsraad and not even the Emperor himself would violate the terms of the Great Convention.

:D

[wendyb-09.livejournal.com]

I'm still laughing from the mental image of teh very slow mosquitoes I got when we were chatting yesterday.

[steve-buchheit.livejournal.com]

Greater intelligence means you can tell better jokes. Of course, now I have an image in my head of the giant bees from Futurama struggling with Fry riffing on the weapons training scene from the beginning of Dune.

Also, as I'm sure you're aware, a sent based repellent will only work well if there's little or no breeze, and you're pretty much stationary.

On the plus side, the NIH just proved a mosquito repellent made from orange squeezins. And it's twice as effective as DEET.