Dear Amritsar,
After I uploaded my consciousness to Blaisdell's Brazil, I established myself in a modest mansion - Casa Phil. Really, it only has seven bedrooms, five bathrooms (only three of which have marble toilets), a games room, a library and a four car garage. The stables only have room for one unicorn, two horses or 17 stoats, and the mansion doesn't even have a dwarf tossing room.
What can I say? I hate ostentation.
One of the advantages of uploading your consciousness into a virtual world - other than the obvious savings on toilet paper - is that if you find yourself expressing an emotion that is not appropriate to a situation, you can tweak the parameters of your brain and change it. It's easier than a masse shot in pool, and twice as adumbrated.
This has been my experience of the feature: my third female partner in the weekly city square orgy, Belleepheremone (she had been in Blaisdell's Brazil long enough to have adopted a local name...but decided to keep her birth name anyway) was upset that I ran over her kitten with anime eyes Trixette with my six story tall monster truck. She knew the kitten could be restored from backup - indeed, she had done it just a week earlier when she accidentally burned the small fishing village she ruled over to the ground. Still, Belleepheremone allowed herself to feel sorrow in order to “live in the moment,” and she wanted me to feel remorse.
I tried. Really, I did. But, the most I could feel on my own was a little heartburn mixed with smothered lust. So, I enhanced the remorse parameters of my brain. And, Belleepheremone was so impressed, she gave extra attention to my right elbow at our next orgy! It worked out great! Except...
Soon after, I found myself inexplicably angry every time I thought of the film History of the World, Part One. Unfortunately, this was in the middle of a Mel Brooks film festival on the clouds of the Theatre in the Sky, so I was mad a lot. I reached into my brain to lower the anger parameter, but this resulted in a crying jag every time I contemplated the farming practices of peanut growers. This was a problem because, at the same time, I had intense cravings for peanut butter and bologna sandwiches.
I think you can see where this is going - but, if need be, I can always draw you a map. Damn! Most recently, I tweaked my acceptance of those who enjoy atonal music, and now I find myself being politely sarcastic. It seems like every time I change one parameter of my mind, I unwittingly change another. Really, this isn't funny. If it wouldn't be too much of a burden, could you please tell me how I can stop this? I really don't want to accept people who enjoy atonal music!
Phil
Hey, Babe,
Nice sturm, could use more drang. But, uhh, don't change your brain on my account.
The brain, like any complex system, is complicated. Emotion aren't singular and linear, they come in clusters, sort of like Turtles, but without the ooey chewy goodness. Which, come to think of it, is probably a good thing.
If you want to change a single emotion, you have to deal with the entire cluster out of which it grows. (And, honestly, when you get a box of Turtles, who can stop at eating just one?) The good news is that the Dewar's Institute has done a lot of research into solving just this problem, and has come up with a suite of recipes for a variety of inconvenient feeling states that were recently published in a book called Emotions for Dummies. For example:
Remorse Mocktail
INGREDIENTS
23% angst increaseINSTRUCTIONS
Mix ingredients. Wait five minutes, dice the onion and let the resulting tears flow freely. If they do not appear within 10 minutes, add 9% increase in stubbornness. NOTE: if decreasing annoyance is not available, substitute a 7% decrease in rambunctiousness. Substitution may cause an increase in physical attraction to smelts.
If you had been aware of this when your problem first cropped up, it could have saved you a lot of embarrassment (which, of course, you could have ramped up if you needed to: see page 47). I would suggest that you download Emotions for Dummies directly into your long-term memory. Then, the next time you want to change your emotions, the recipe will pop into your mind faster than you can say, “Six sick oversexed sextants sucked stock sacred socks!”
Send your relationship problems to the Alternate Reality News Service's sex, love and technology columnist at questions@lespagesauxfolles.ca. Amritsar Al-Falloudjianapour is not a trained therapist, but she does know a lot of stuff. AMRITSAR SAYS: Sex is nothing to be ashamed of. It's just hugging and kissing until somebody makes a mess all over the bed. Or, floor. Or, kitchen counter. Or...