Every Bar On Lombard & Boston Dynamics

Let me tell you a terrible story, dear reader, about three young men who tried to summit the Everest of Portland drinking- the deadly Every Bar On Lombard Run. First, to set the stage. This was Portland circa 2002, when gentrification was a foul notion that still had boundaries in The City of Roses. Lombard in those days was twin to 82nd, where the people were predominately white, uniformly poor, and very often crazed with a heady mixture of shit beer, fast food delirium and pre Walter White meth. Charge that up with some heavy metal and we’re talking powder keg. But we went, and from bar number one, Tiny Bubbles, I knew, and I mean with utter certainty, that this would end in epic disaster. Why didn’t anyone try to stop us? More importantly, why didn’t we try to stop each other? Why did we go down this road to certain doom? For the same reason Mallory died on Everest? We did it because it was there? And it did end poorly. I dislocated my jaw. The car we drove (not mine) was never, ever the same. One of us, again not me, tore his favorite pants. We were almost killed half a dozen times. None of us were as bright in later years. We killed too many brain cells that terrible night.

Boston Dynamics and their unholy fucking robot dogs, their quest to design the first lethal robots for mass marketing, is eerily similar to the Lombard debacle. Why the fuck aren’t we trying to stop them? Why aren’t they trying to stop themselves? Are they doing it just because they can? Is this line of reasoning suitable for marauding 20 somethings the very same reasoning of engineers? I’m not going to mount an assault on Boston Dynamics. You aren’t either. The robot dogs are inevitable. Humanity has already left Tiny Bubbles on this one and the terrible game is well afoot. BUT, the moment I read of a single robot dog in Oregon, I’m buying a gun. I’m an anti-gun kind of guy, but this isn’t a gun designed to kill people, or even deer. No no. It’s a gun designed to kill small mountains. I’ll be purchasing a customized, one of a kind version of the gun above, but it will be a seven barrel shotgun. And I will kill any robot dog on sight. Will this matter in the end? Will my act of heroism be rewarded? Or will I live out the remainder of my days in a shack in Rio as Juan Pepe, hiding from the law and robot dogs both. Take a stand with me, dear reader. If you’ve never been to Rio, why, just look at the images your computer and imagine- beaches, cheap beer, dancing, and shells for your robot dog gun aplenty.

How bad can it be?