The Smell Of Progress

This just in: brace yourself, people, but it seems that the internet has some really weird things on it.

Alert the media.

I know that there are those who think that pedophilia didn’t exist before chat rooms and My Space, but the truth is that the people in general are really sick and twisted. Maniacs and predators have always existed. Only now they all have blogs and instant messengers (I mean, don't look now, but you're reading a maniac's blog right now). And, in some cases, large grants from Japanese investors.

A while ago, I wrote a whole post on why I have no fucking idea what’s going on with Japanese culture. This story does nothing but underline that fact for me.

Why, in God’s name, would you possibly need a machine that simulated smells? Forgetting for a second that the name was stolen from Matt Groening's Futurama, why would you EVER purchase a TV or attend a movie that offered “Smellovision” (I kid you not, see paragraph 8 of the news story: Smellovision). I don’t care how attractive people think Paris Hilton is. Under no circumstances will smelling her will enhance the experience for me. I already know what “whore” smells like.

Seriously, the Dennis Hopper line from Apocalypse Now, “I love the smell of Napalm in the morning” is an all time classic. Is there any chance my kids get to watch that movie without having to smell burning human remains?

This latest development signals two upcoming disasters:

1. All the old movies will have to be redone in “Smellovision.” So mark my words, 5 years from now, I’ll be unable to find a replacement DVD for my copy of Goodfellas that doesn’t flood my apartment with the smell of shit when I play the scene where Pesci strangles the dude in the car with piano wire.
2. It’s only a matter of time before this breakthrough comes to the world of porn.

I can’t even imagine how it’ll be incorporated into scenes of barely legal girls getting fucked by guys with child molester mustaches and shaved taints. Ok, so that’s not true. What I should have said is that I don’t WANT to imagine how it’ll be used.

And don’t even think I’m off base here. If there’s any business that’s shown no reluctance in using the latest “gadgets” creatively, it’s the Porn Industry. I have it on good authority that a number of X-Rated films have already been made that use the “Bullet time” spinning camera effects of The Matrix. Oh, how I wish I were joking. Just when you thought watching a man with a unibrow and a waxed nut sack blowing his load on a 70-year-old amputee couldn’t get any creepier.

Maybe I’m making too big of a deal out of this. It’s just depressing to me that somewhere in Japan there’s a group of dudes who couldn’t think of a better way to spend their money.