Between Denzel and Bill this one reads really gay

Last night we rented our first Blu-Ray movie and honestly I wasn't all that impressed with the picture but knowing very little about technology I was just glad my house didn't blow up when I put the Blu-Ray disc in the machine. The scientists who made the atomic bomb were in much the same position. I am overly cautious when experimenting with untested technologies, which is why I still don't have a microwave and part of why I left my cell phone in the hotel toilet at Botcon 2006.

SO the movie we watched was "Deja-Vu", a time travel story starring Denzel Washington who is really good looking and I hope he's gay because the Queen of Macrocrania looks a little too hard at the screen when he's on. In a nutshell he's a cop investigating a terrorist incident who goes back in time a couple days to stop the TERRORZ from happening. It's essentially "Man on Fire" but with a time machine and some really bad driving. I don't think Denzel gets in a car the whole movie without causing at least three multiple fatality accidents. That's probably why I couldn't figure out if this was supposed to be high drama or an action comedy. Whatever it is it's been made to appeal to people obsessed with time travelling and terrorism and who drive their real car like they're playing Need For Speed Carbon. That niche market may well describe the American voting majority.

Par for the course for my brain is to dream about the movie I saw before I went to bed so I was not surprised when in my dream I was transported back to 2003 when I was in Chicago for the official Transformers convention. I'm never really in control of my dreams and this was no exception but I do remember all sorts of terrorisms kept happening. Apparently my mind was taking my real memories and integrating exciting terrorisms, making this the wildest robot convention ever. Alongside my memories of the convention, planes crashed into the hotel from out of nowhere and I kept getting wet with toilet water. I don't know how the terrorists pulled off the backed up toilet flooding just in my room or how that constituted a win for jihad. Maybe it was terrorist toilets. If my in-dream mission was to stop the terrors I was doing a bad job.

But the thing about the robot Chicago convention was that was where I met a guy named Bill. I was putting up a statue of Megatron I had made in the art room and instead of being instantly awestruck and spontaneously combusting (the usual response I get), Bill gave me tips on how I could make my Megatron better. I kept asking myself, "Who is this guy? Why am I strangely attracted to him?" And most importantly, "How is it that he is not on fire?" wHEN i go to Transformer conventions I run around a lot, partly because I am scared and/or I have to go to the restroom. Consequently my time with Bill was short but I remember him vividly because he made some very impressive robots himself and he wasn't afraid to help anyone see how they could be better. Bill was already pretty famous in online robot fandom circles and he went on to do many great things in the Transformer customizing community in the ensuing years. I was always impressed with how he wasn't afraid to be outspoken about his opinions or his talent and that encouraged me to be a little more self confident myself. At Botcon 2006 I entered my Megatron statue in the art show and I made the improvements Bill suggested. I hope he saw them.

Too bad I never said thanks or anything because last month Bill died of a heart attack at 31. The online Transformer community all took time out to reflect on this guy and what a huge help and inspiration he was. I'm not involved in the online robot community and I wasn't close to Bill at all as much as everyone else was, so I kind of laid low since there's nothing much I could add to all the nice things people had to say on the various message boards. But I did want to mention him here and I was greatful for the chance last night to relive in dreams our brief encounter amongst the crashing planes, spontaneous cumbustors and flooded toilet.