Non-lethal technology…OLÉ!
If you’re sitting in the waiting room at the dentist’s office, thumbing through old copies of Popular Science, you will quickly learn 2 things: 1) If you agree to send a certified cheque (or money order) to a P.O. box in Akron, Ohio, it is apparently possible to build your own, totally safe, working jetpack for $399, and 2) for decades, governments and private defense contractors have been hot on the trails of developing various, futuristic, non-lethal weapons. These are weapons whose use would, when put in the hands of trained military and law enforcement officers, greatly reduce the number of casualties on the battlefield and on North American city streets.
There have been lots of different weapons explored, and each of them, if you`ll excuse the cliché, have less in common with science than with science fiction: You've got your standard stun guns, your laser guns, your immobilizing goop, your heat rays, and, my favourite, the nausea ray. This last one is not really a ray and more so just a powerful flash bulb that, when pointed at an assailant, will temporarily blind him or her, induce vertigo, and, if all goes according to the $1-million plan, will make them immediately vomit on the spot. To be fair, such a device sounds more like the product of the ultimate prank machine than a battle-tested alternative to a taser gun or rubber-bullets (what’s next, the nuclear powered whoopee cushion?). Having said that, I guess a ‘perp’ blowing chunks is a perp who is easily subdued, and that’s what counts in these things.
I thought of the puke ray last night as I struggled to make my way through the tapas I had ordered at a local Spanish restaurant. I don't want to be sued for slander, so I won't mention the restaurant's name, suffice it to say it was called Red Room, in Spanish. Fuck it, it was Sala Rosa on St. Laurent boulevard. I was out for dinner with a friend, and I had recommended the place based on a previous, positive dining experience. We ordered 5 tapas, which included chorizo (greasy), calmari(simultaneously rubbery and soggy), rappini(so-so but not terrible), tortilla (quite good), and sardines (horrible!). The plates all came at once, which I appreciated, as it feels like you have the whole meal gauntlet laid out in front of you, and you can plan your food assault accordingly.
Things had started out well enough as I took bites from all 5 dishes. It was around the time I took a second bite out of the sardines, however, that it felt like someone had zapped me with a puke ray. It wasn’t only nausea that I felt, but a brief sense of incapacitation. I was in mid-sentence and then I just froze: as if the puke ray was hunting me and I believed it would leave me be if I remained motionless. My dining companion immediately sensed my discomfort, especially because I had stopped speaking, mid-sentence. “shit, are you gonna puke or something?” she asked. “No,” I assured her, as I took deep breaths (those familiar deep breaths tantamount to puking). Sure enough, seconds later, I was fine again. I had lost my appetite, but the compulsion to blow chunks had completely subsided. Sure, it could just have been the sardines. Indeed, they were disgusting enough to have had such an effect. But then how did I recover so quickly? It was a puke ray, my friends. Trust no one.
FS
There have been lots of different weapons explored, and each of them, if you`ll excuse the cliché, have less in common with science than with science fiction: You've got your standard stun guns, your laser guns, your immobilizing goop, your heat rays, and, my favourite, the nausea ray. This last one is not really a ray and more so just a powerful flash bulb that, when pointed at an assailant, will temporarily blind him or her, induce vertigo, and, if all goes according to the $1-million plan, will make them immediately vomit on the spot. To be fair, such a device sounds more like the product of the ultimate prank machine than a battle-tested alternative to a taser gun or rubber-bullets (what’s next, the nuclear powered whoopee cushion?). Having said that, I guess a ‘perp’ blowing chunks is a perp who is easily subdued, and that’s what counts in these things.
I thought of the puke ray last night as I struggled to make my way through the tapas I had ordered at a local Spanish restaurant. I don't want to be sued for slander, so I won't mention the restaurant's name, suffice it to say it was called Red Room, in Spanish. Fuck it, it was Sala Rosa on St. Laurent boulevard. I was out for dinner with a friend, and I had recommended the place based on a previous, positive dining experience. We ordered 5 tapas, which included chorizo (greasy), calmari(simultaneously rubbery and soggy), rappini(so-so but not terrible), tortilla (quite good), and sardines (horrible!). The plates all came at once, which I appreciated, as it feels like you have the whole meal gauntlet laid out in front of you, and you can plan your food assault accordingly.
Things had started out well enough as I took bites from all 5 dishes. It was around the time I took a second bite out of the sardines, however, that it felt like someone had zapped me with a puke ray. It wasn’t only nausea that I felt, but a brief sense of incapacitation. I was in mid-sentence and then I just froze: as if the puke ray was hunting me and I believed it would leave me be if I remained motionless. My dining companion immediately sensed my discomfort, especially because I had stopped speaking, mid-sentence. “shit, are you gonna puke or something?” she asked. “No,” I assured her, as I took deep breaths (those familiar deep breaths tantamount to puking). Sure enough, seconds later, I was fine again. I had lost my appetite, but the compulsion to blow chunks had completely subsided. Sure, it could just have been the sardines. Indeed, they were disgusting enough to have had such an effect. But then how did I recover so quickly? It was a puke ray, my friends. Trust no one.
FS
posted by filthy soapbox at 12:17 PM
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