Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Last Stand at the Remington: Starring Godzilla and a Noiseless 8. Really.

WARNING:  This blog post contains disturbing images of potential historic typewriter abuse.  The viewer is advised that no typewriters were harmed in the making of this flight of fancy.

My Noiseless 8 still requires finesse.  I find there is a fine line between over-powering the key stroke and getting a proper space advance.  It is loosening up with use and I am experimenting with Remington gun lube.  As for me, in the age before word processors, I could actually spell words like "heroes".  Sad.
So, just when you thought this blog could not get any weirder, along comes a story featuring Godzilla, a robot and a very strange vinyl toy I can pretty much guarantee you have never seen.  Before I go any further, I must give credit where credit is due:  it was a Typospherian and blog follower, teeritz, who suggested that the Remington Noiseless 8 looked like a Deco skyscraper.  I just took that concept a step further.

OK, I took it a few steps further.

The story starts with a trail of destruction that did not get captured on a digital sensor.  Well, it was, but the photographer was crushed by falling debris.  The best documentation from the scene starts with a lone robot, Commander Zogg, making a valiant last stand at the Remington Building.

The National Guard tried; they really did.  If you are at all familiar with the depredations of Godzilla in Tokyo, you have an idea of how well that worked out.  Still, the government had one secret weapon in reserve.


Pretty much any pilot worth their salt can tell you that we're all just one atomic breath weapon away from eternity.  Just like those poor Japanese pilots.  It was a nice plane.  Bummer.

Things were looking pretty grim for our hopeful hero.  A space robot can only take so much.  The radiation was getting intense and Godzilla was throwing everything he could get his scaly claws on.


Commander Zogg withstood a barrage that would have brought the great kaiju of Japan to their knees.  The roar, while painful to his auditory sensors, was manageable.  He easily absorbed blast after blast of the atomic breath by rotating the frequency of his quantum resonance shielding.

People fleeing in terror stopped long enough to look over their shoulders at the tremendous confrontation.  At least one adorable boy in a private school uniform even dared to voice hope: 

"It's Commander Zogg!  He will save us!"

But hope is a rare and tenuous commodity.  How quickly a situation can change.  And change it did when Godzilla unleashed his most powerful weapon:  the full body nuclear pulse.  Suddenly, it appeared that Zogg, the bravest robot of his time, was doomed.






As Commander Zogg's strength began to wane, he was surprised when the mighty lizard paused his orgy of destruction.  As if in a dream, a new hero appeared.  Yes, it was the mighty Astro Mu Earth! He came from Japan by way of Jupiter as soon as he detected the world wide distress signal.



Godzilla isn't known for restraint or logic.  While quasi-intelligent, he is primarily a creature of passion and instinct.  Few weapons are known to injure a monster of his stature.  However, he does remember pain.  He also remembers the Oxygen Destroyer all too well.  Having been skeletonized  once before, he eyed Astro Mu's canon with trepidation.

  
With a grudging snarl of admiration, the Tyrant Lizard broke off his assault and trudged through the debris of New York back to the inky depths from whence he came.



New York, or what was left of it, was safe once again.  Godzilla may return, but he will certainly face new, determined defenders.

        The End

Behind the Scenes

With the largest budget ever in the history of Vintagetechobsessions Productions, the crew created an unparallelled  alternative reality for our viewer's pleasure.

Typewriter safety is a priority at the studio.  In order to assure humane treatment, a representative from the Typewriter Protection Society (TPS) was on hand to witness filming.  An after action report was filed in accordance with the Typewriter Safety Act of 2004.


Cast and Crew:

Godzilla                         Shogun Warriors Godzilla (second version*)
Commander Zogg         Himself 
Astro Mu Earth             Reproduction Astro Mu (because the real one is unattainable)
Remington Building     The Eight Millionth Remington Typewriter

* Yes, it takes a true Nerd to know the difference.

The Outtakes

Ultraman was originally cast as one of the heroes.  A product of the studio system, he looked heroically heroic.  However, his conventional good looks did not set well with the the Executive Producer's vision.



All photos and text are copyrighted by Vintagetechobessions in association with Vintagetechobsessions Productions.  Unauthorized reproduction may result in strange toys appearing in your bedroom late at night. Yeah, they are watching...

At Vintagetechobsessions, We Make Farces Fun! (TM)

My Remington Noiseless 8 is reviewed in full and loving detail elsewhere on this blog.  As always, thanks for reading!

22 comments:

  1. Love the photography! Very creative; you did an amazing job making them look like film stills. The model cars and trains helped a lot, of course, and the special effects are impressive too. All quite believable! Not sure if I could watch the movie though, I'd be too scared for that poor Noiseless!

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    1. Thanks! I had fun with this one. To tell the truth, I did a number of exposures with various settings, creative filters and angles and story boarded later after picking through the images. Scary that I have all these toys laying around.

      I'm afraid I am not ambitious enough to do a stop action movie. I am a little jealous of the guys that did the Lego Captain America video on Youtube. Warning: way violent, but fun if you like the Lego action genre :)

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  2. Entertaining! It is so cool all the work you put into your posts like this one. I have a similar problem of spaces with my Remington Model 7 Noiseless. One day it will be on the workbench and get a good cleaning and perhaps the skips adjusted out of it.

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    1. Writing the blog took more time and effort than the actual photo shoot. Photogenic cast - it's all good!

      The skipping is annoying. It only happens when I am typing something I plan on scanning. I need to flip the machine over and try a bit more lube. I bought some Remington brand gun oil and it seems to work well and not leave a sticky residue.

      Delete
  3. We of the 100+ Plastic Dinosaur Collection laud this stunning piece of cinematography and narration!

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    1. That is a collection that needs blogged ASAP!

      Thanks for the compliment. As I confessed earlier, the storyboard happened after the fact. I just let the characters do their thing. Shogun Godzilla is a charismatic actor.

      Delete
  4. Dwayne, you are totally immature, and I mean that in the best way!

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    1. I am reasonably sure my family would agree with you! By day, I do really esoteric regulatory and technical policy - generally with relatively high stakes for my employer. Thank goodness for the opportunity to let my inner child come out and play.

      Delete
  5. Replies
    1. Oooo...ooo...oooo...oooo! Sounds way better when BOC does it ;-)

      Delete
  6. You're just a kid in an adult body. Very entertaining!

    (These Captcha images to validate the posts are so frustrating! It's taken me a dozen times to find one I could read...)

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    1. There are days being a 100% responsible grownup is highly over-rated. Thanks goodness for Godzilla and all of the other Nerd icons!

      I think I killed the captcha :) I had the exact same problem as you last night. Why they rolled out a two word mutation is beyond me. We're just content farm providers. Oh, well.

      I have an idea rolling around in the back of my head regarding the demise of captchas. Who knows what toys will come out to play.

      Delete
  7. @Cameron: You and me both! That's why I've turned them off on my blog :-)

    Dwayne, going to Settings->Comments->Show word verification for comments? should get you started.

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    1. Thanks! I'll reply to everyone's comments when I have a little time. I found the reason why I had been confused on turning off captchas.

      The requisite settings tab is not available in the newest version of Blogger's Interface. The first step is to go to the "Old Blogger Interface". I hope the dreaded Word Verification is now dead.

      I prefer the new interface as the news feed is cleaner. The lack of full settings options is just strange.

      I am having problems on some other blogs where there appears to be no way to enter comments. Perhaps that is a passive/aggressive means to get users to switch from Firefox to Chrome. That's not going to happen given the latest "privacy" policy.

      Delete
  8. My God(zilla), what have I done!!!??? Actually, I really like the composition of the photos and the lighting. Very German Expressionism. With Godzilla, too!
    The first shot makes the Remington badge on the typewriter look like a billboard lit up at night.
    Do you find that you spend so much time setting up these photos and then you start laughing at how much trouble you go to? Or is that just me?
    A champion effort, dude!
    Here's to never growing up!
    Another milkshake, Dwayne?

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    1. Well, you never know what kind of madness you may unleash with off the cuff comments. Keep them coming ;-)

      The photo shoot was a lot of fun. The set up didn't actually take that long. The worst part was trying to figure out who would look best taking on the big guy. It think the whole shoot, including the set up took maybe an hour and half. I like simple set ups. In this case, one desk lamp did the trick.

      Picking which photos to use probably took almost as long. The whole project was totally worth it.

      Delete

Dang. My blog was hit by Spam comments. Comment moderation has been turned on for some time yet to be determined.