James puns and the world takes cover

Scott:
That was the pun equivalent of a nuclear device. The radiation is burning me.

James

[Scott enters the room in a reflective plastic radiation suit.]

"Control, I'm scanning the area now. Wordplayometer is on."
*crackle of static* "Careful, Scott. That suit will protect you, but not forever and not if the levels get too high."
"Checking the read-out, there's acceptable background pun radiation, but nothing serious."
*crackle* "Okay... proceed, but be careful."
"Hmmmm... just saw a small spike... jumped briefly from normal levels to Douglas Adams, but dropped ag- wait! The needle's climbing, Control."
"How high? Scott, how high?"
"It's topped Adams and ticked over into Pratchett... still within safe levels for this suit."
"For now, yes. That suit is rated up to Fforde levels, but only for a few minutes. If levels climb above Pratchett, I'm pulling you out. Do you understand me, Scott?"
"Loud and clearm Control. Hmmm... I see evidence of recent pun activity. I can see a few words that have been twisted beyond breaking point, and... oh my god..."
"What is it, Scott? . . . Scott, talk to me!"
"I've found a body, Control. Oh, Jesus... looks like they copped an Asprin-level blast right in the face. The face... oh, the expression of pain... horrible..."
*beep beep beep* "Scott, I'm getting a warning tone. What's going on?"
"Pun levels are spiking. Oh god... I have to get out of here!"
"What is it, Scott? Talk to me?"
"Xanth, Control! The needle's flipped right into the red and maxed out on Xanth. I need to get out right now!"
"Scott, that suit will only take Xanth-level pun radiation for a minute at most! Move!"
*pant pant* "Control, I don't think I'm going to make it..."
"Don't say that, Scott, just keep moving! Save your breath."
"If I don't make it, tell the world... someone has developed a Piers Anthony pun dirty bomb and used it on a civilian population. This is... monstrous!"

James writes a Japanese movie

[All dialogue badly out of synch with speaker's mouth]

"Oh no! The Brunasaurus has risen from beneath the sea! it is going to destroy Tokyo!"
"Again? We only just finished cleaning up after the last time!"
"What can we do? We are doomed!"
"Look! Michzilla!"
*ROOOOOAAAAWWRR!*
"They are fighting each other!"
"Ever noticed how the buildings of out city look oddly fake whenever giant monsters turn up?"
"Quiet!"
"Michzilla is victorious! "

...and now, the same scene with Japanese dialogue and English subtitles:

"No! Brownsaurus is rising from ocean! Tokyo will been destruction!"
"Curse also! Recently our city had clean from previous assaulting!"
"I can't think to do! We have doomed!"
"See behind! Michizira!"
*ARRR!*
"Amaze! They go at fight!"
"Has they seen that toy plastics house where the monster giants coming?"
"Shut!"
"Michizira victorise!"

James could have a windfall

Rebecca:
what would you do with another one?

Scott:
Build a robot with it that could take over the world.

Michelle:
gift it to less technologically equipped friends...

Scott:
Build a cargo cult around it that will enslave millions and force them to build giant stone idols of you!

James:
An excellent suggestion, but my advisors tell me I should sell it and use the proceeds to buy either a 360 or a Wii.

They also tell me that the people are unhappy and demand a Colosseum.

Scott:
They get the Colosseum once they stop complaining about the high crime rate.

Another option would be to sell it and use the proceeds to buy yourself a nice LCD monitor in time for your new PC.

James:
$500-600 would buy a 27". Such a huge monitor would surely drive a man mad.

Scott:
At The Monitors of Madness, by H.P. Starcraft.

James:
For three days Wilkinson muttered and raved and screamed, with perspiration falling from him in sheets. Most of it was mercifully incomprehensible, but sometimes as I mopped his fevered brow with a cool, damp cloth I caught snatches of phrases. They were meaningless gibberish, but somehow they filled me with dread, and made the already claustrophobic room feel suffocating. He babbled about "interlace versus progressive" and "plasma panels". It was at the end, as his skin burned so hot I felt sure he must begin to smoulder, that he opened his eyes. He locked gazes with me, and the cloth dropped nervelessly from my hand. "Stephens," he whispered, a harsh sandpaper rasp, "Stephen there were... dead pixels... dead pixels in the sky..." Then, he died. Yet still, the horror of his words lives on in my tortured mind.

James discusses Scott's wrongness

Rebecca:
James does Scott dabble in the ocean of wrong or does he run into the water, butt naked screaming that he's a squid?

James:
He's born there and spends his entire life cycle there. He frolics in the cool Southern seas of wrong in the summer, migrates north to warmer, wronger waters in the winter time, and in spring he fights his way up the river of wrong to spawn.

Scott:
And you really, really don't want to know how the Wrong Squid (architeuthis wrongus spazzmodica) spawns...

James and the mechanoraptor

Amber:
Meanwhile, if I never have to write the phrase 'rapidly-adapting mechanoreceptor' again, I will be a happy person. Until the exam, at least.

James:
Damn, I'm disappointed. I was sure you wrote "rapidly-adapting mechanoraptor" for a moment and I thought "Cool! They're teaching her to make killer dinosaur robots!"

Amber:
Killer robot dinosaurs that LEARN.
That's not until second semester.

James:
Screenplay excerpt from MECHANORAPTOR, written by James Dominguez and Lee Murray
Scene 46

INTERIOR - RUINED LABORATORY

The MAIN LABORATORY of the research facility is ruined and dim. SIMPKINS lies on a desk, using it as a makeshift stretcher. His right arm ends at the elbow with a bloody stump, covered in scarlet rags. FLETCHER is attempting to barricade the door of the laboratory, which is shaking under repeated assaults by the MECHANORAPTORS.

FLETCHER - I don't understand, Simpkins. What did you do here? How did this happen?

SIMPKINS - [Speaking weakly, perhaps dying] We were given a brief by the army. Make them cybernetic, make them raptors, and make them rapidly-adaptable.

FLETCHER - It's such a simple plan! What on earth went wrong?

SIMPKINS - We could never have anticipated it. We put them in the finest cardboard boxes available, shackled them with chains made of only the highest quality liquorice. Armed guards patrolled their containment facility no less than once a month.

FLETCHER - It's the least I would have expected from you, but how did such extreme security measures fail? How, Simpkins?

SIMPKINS - We never expected... We made them highly-adaptable as requested, but we never thought... they would adapt in a bad way.

FLETCHER - [Shocked] No!

SIMPKINS - Yes. In our hubris we never thought that being highly-adaptable they might adapt to kill us too.

FLETCHER - My god! It's so simple! How could I not have realised it before? I feel so foolish!

SIMPKINS - None of us realised it, Fletcher. Don't blame yourself. In a movie like this, the monster always has to get loose in some matter, no matter how contrived.

Scott:
At this point the door bursts open, knocking FLETCHER to the floor where he shelters behind the corner of the desk. A growling MECHANORAPTOR slowly enters the room, teeth bared. The MECHANORAPTOR is wearing glasses.

MECHANORAPTOR - [speaking in a clipped, upper class English accent] I say chaps, what do we have here? Could be time for a spot of lunch, what?

FLETCHER - It can speak!

SIMPKINS - Of course! The adaptability! It must have learnt from the educational software on the computers in the nursery we built for those staff with children!

FLETCHER - Astounding! And not in the least contrived!

James provides excerpts on Afghanistan

James:
From page 9:
"Most of what little export revenue Aghanistan earns comes from umbrellas. Afghan umbrella farms cling like moss to the small patches of arable land, nestled in sheltered mountain valleys. Local farmers import cheap paper cocktail umbrellas from the West and plant them in a mixture of soil, camel dung, and shredded raincoats. Even this peaceful lifestyle has its risks: strong winds in the summer of 2004 destroyed most of the umbrella harvest by turning the fruit inside
out."

Scott:
partial extract from page 12:
"The Afghan political system is dominated by corruption on a massive scale. Afghani politicians are known to accept bribes of umbrellas for favours: the larger and more elaborate the umbrella, the more likely the respective politician will accept the bribe. Consequently the demand for umbrellas with which to bribe politicians has become so great that it threatens the viability of the umbrella export market. Additionally, a poor umbrella harvest can have devastating effects on the Afghani policial system. The failed crop of 2004 left many senior Afghani politicians completely umbrella-less, and in order to import substandard western umbrellas many politicians were forced to hustle their arses on the streets of Kabul for as little as one US dollar a trick."

James answers a simple question

Amber:
Have I missed stuff?

James:
Well, let's see... In early March I was narrowly beaten in my campaign to become UN Secretary General by three children riding on each other's shoulders under a long coat. There go my plans for world domination. I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those meddling kids.

Later I travelled to Monaco so seek my fortune as a gravel prospector. I thought I was going to be rich when I found what I thought was a massive granite pebble the size of a potato. Unfortunately it turned out to be an actual potato. I threw it at a petty royal in a bikini and felt much better. Why those Monacan princes think they can get away with wearing bikinis I will never know.

I was short-listed for the crew of the first manned (and, presumably, womanned) mission to Venus, but pulled out at the last moment when I found out the main cabin would not be clothing optional. If they think I'm flying all that way in zero gravity wearing clothes, they have another thing coming.

Oh, and yesterday I ate a sandwich.

You?