My Holo-Mat Misadventure
As you may know, we Time Lords can live forever, barring accidents. When our bodies become old or sick or injured, we have this process called 'regeneration' - a tumultuous biological upheaval that rearranges the cells in our body, renewing and rejuvenating, giving us a body and a new personality, often wildly different to the preceding ones. Normally, we can do this twelve times, giving us thirteen 'incarnations'; this was a rule imposed by the High Council in order to avoid the immortality trap. There are, however, ways round this, and we can be given new regenerative cycles; this is not done often, and usually as a reward for great work done (in the case of, for example, the beloved President Pandak). That cunt the Doctor is about to be given a new regenerative cycle, in the televisual representation of his adventures, as you will find out at Christmas. In addition, Time Lords can become quasi-vampires, leeching off the energy of other beings to prolong their lives, as in the case of my good mate the Master. As for myself, I am on my eighth incarnation (I think), so I have regenerated seven times. I therefore have a good long while yet before I think of bothering the Time Lords or half-inching the Source of Traken or some such other alien life-force.

We Time Lords can, therefore, survive a lot more harm, self-inflicted or otherwise, than you puny humans. The story I am about to relate is an excellent example of this.

You puny humans have probably, no certainly, never heard of Professor Julius Scanlon. He is one of the most brilliant scientists I have ever known. His work was (or will be from your point of view) instrumental in the development of T-Mat, the Tachyon Accelerator and the Continuous Event Transmitter. I collaborated with him on several projects, one of which combined the technology of T-Mat and the CET in order to project physical objects into a holographic recording. This device, the Holo-Mat, was designed to be the future of entertainment technology. With it, you could project yourself into any holographic recording, and walk around it as if you were part of it. The Holo-Mat project was eventually abandoned due to the instability of the projection - it would only last for a few minutes at a time, and then snap you back to reality with an uncomfortable jolt. But during the exciting research phase, I became the test subject, and got to use Holo-Mat to enter a great many recordings, mostly TV programmes and films.

I bet you think you know where this is going, but I didn't do that; it's bad enough having to live in a universe where the bugger exists, without diving into fictional representations of him. No, instead, I used Holo-Mat to enter holographic representations of various of my favourite films. Many you won't have heard of, as they haven't been made yet, as of December 2013; but there are two from your era I did explore, one of which led to my moment of accidental self-harm. These were Blade Runner and Fargo.

As you can imagine, it was mint wandering around inside Blade Runner. Mint! I explored the crowded neon-lit rainy streets, of LA, the corporate edifice of Tyrell Corporation, and the smoky bachelor squalor Deckard's apartment. Thanks to the immense processing power of Holo-Mat it all felt real, sounded real, even smelled and tasted real. With Holo-Mat, you could fast-forward and rewind yourself to any point in a holographic representation using a special watch that you wore before you were projected. You could even use this to pause events so you could examine them up close. As the characters are recordings, they cannot interact with you.

So I could, and did, kick Harrison Ford in the bollocks, many times, and he didn't even notice or react. And I had a good long look at and grope of Sean Young and Zhora and Pris. Hell yeah, I had a lot of fun in Blade Runner.

I also had a lot of fun in Fargo, before the rather unfortunate accident which led to a regeneration. To start off I spent a lot of time wandering around Brainerd, trudging through the freezing snow, marvelling at the ability of Professor Scanlon's machine to make this feel so real. To warm up, I fast forwarded to that cafe in where Marge meets Mike, and watched their painful conversation as I warmed up over coffee. Then I went to the motel where Shep Proudfoot beats up Steve Buscemi, always a hilarious scene, and even more thrilling to actually be there. I joined in when Shep whaled on Buscemi but of course neither of them noticed or reacted.

Things came to a messy end when I fast-forwarded to the woodchipper scene. Everyone who has seen Fargo will know this as a grotesque comedy highlight of the movie, as Peter Stormare morosely feeds Steve Buscemi's remains into a woodchipper, which then sprays him relentlessly and incontinently out onto the pure white snow. Unfortunately, I got a bit too close to the woodchipper, and as I tried to rewind the scene I must have done something wrong, as the whole projection seemed to convulse and heave around me, and I was pitched into the woodchipper, head first!

I remember opening my mouth to scream, then a moment of blinding white pain, and then waking up, naked, in an office chair, the concerned, kindly blue eyes of Professor Scanlon staring down at me.

'What do you think?' he said, and held up a mirror. I beheld a stranger's face staring back at me. 'What the hell happened?' I asked the Professor.

'Well,’ he said, ‘You hit rewind a bit too harshly, causing a stochastic manglewrench in the flungward niddle-noddle of the Holo-Mat projector, and so into the woodchipper you went! I hit Eject and you emerged from the projector cone - or rather your remains did.' He pointed to the projector cone, a giant metal cowling surrounded by electric coils and tubes and all sorts of technical gubbins the like of which I barely understood. 'A great big geyser of mashed-up flesh, blood, bone, guts, brain, gristle and grue came fountaining out of there, spraying and splattering all over my nice clean lab floor. When it finally finished, I was about to go and fetch a mop and bucket, but then I noticed a golden spangly glow break out all over the glistening mess. This golden spangly glow spread all over the grisly puddle and shone brighter and brighter until I could barely look at it. Then with a sort of scrunching, cracking, popping, whooshing sound it coalesced into a golden pillar of fire, which then resolved itself into a golden glowing humanoid shape, which then transformed into - you. It was quite fascinating. I've never seen a regeneration at first hand!'

I stood up and paced around the room, getting used to my new body. Professor Scanlon threw me a lab coat which I donned to hide my nudity, and then we sent out for Chinese food. I never used the Holo-Mat again, and the project was abandoned several weeks later.

Last I heard, Professor Scanlon was working on something to do with transdimensional energy transduction.
(Dr Skagra glorious glargzhem, Tue 3 Dec 2013, 22:44, 2 replies)

so, in summary:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ece9eMshys
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Tue 3 Dec 2013, 23:11, closed)

GUESS WHAT I WON'T BE READING THIS WEEK

( BraynDedd Natasha Kaplinsky's labia majora, Tue 3 Dec 2013, 23:37, closed)

Love letters, Christmas cards, invitations to parties, citations for bravery, and "The New Death and others".
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Wed 4 Dec 2013, 1:11, closed)

That's so Battered! ;]

(s0ckpuppet logging out to reply to you if you're not careful, Wed 4 Dec 2013, 2:33, closed)

VWP

( d.r._and_quinch when will you be famous?, Wed 4 Dec 2013, 7:52, closed)

I've got to admit, that was a good one.

( BraynDedd Natasha Kaplinsky's labia majora, Wed 4 Dec 2013, 16:51, closed)

Bit fucking early for Christmas cards innit?

( BraynDedd Natasha Kaplinsky's labia majora, Wed 4 Dec 2013, 8:02, closed)