Epicology
So, things ended up working out… I went to my friends wedding, which was awesome (he walks up to the altar to the symphony orchestra version of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir,” it doesn’t get more epic than that) and got to see Max Payne afterwards, which was less awesome (how can you take such an epic idea of giant winged demons and make it so non-epic?)
This leads me into a discussion of “epicosity.”
Epicosity is the measure of how epic something is, and epicology is the study of epic things (in England, epicology is called by it’s less formal name, “beer gazing,” and the French refer to the study simply as, “that thing we never do.”)
Epicosity can be measured simply by this formula:
E = [(A + B²)(W - R) + c³] / [S + Ψ]
wherin, A is the number of action scenes in the movie
B is the number of times Bruce Willis is in the movie
W is the number of romanticized weapons that appear in the film (usually this is swords or bo-staves, although guns are becoming more romanticized ala ‘Equilibrium’ and the “Dark Tower” book series)
R is the number of romantic (love interest) scenes in the film
S is the sequel number (if the movie is an original franchise, a ‘1′ is used, although this applies only to movies made pre-1984, when Hollywood stopped using original franchises)
Ψ is the number of minutes that Steven Spielberg or George Lucas was involved in the production. The symbol Ψ in this case is not used because of some abbreviation, but rather because it resembles the devil’s pitchfork that is used by Satan to flay fans of Indiana Jones.
c, of course, is the speed of light.
Speaking of epic things, I need to tell you that, although the talk balloon in today’s strip covers it up, Bob does have a Steven Segal poster next to his bed.
Segal’s personal epicosity rating is 1,247.68
October 20th, 2008 at 6:52 am
This is the most genius thing I’ve read in a long time. You should patent this and then run for the Nobel Prize in awesome.
October 20th, 2008 at 9:21 am
I concur. In the kingdom of Awesome, you are King.
October 20th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Hahah.. funny stuff. I see no flaws in the formula.
October 20th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Haha, thanks guys, this was fun to write
October 20th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
I see a problem with the formula. In the event a movie were made where George Lucas was crushed by the body of Steven Spielberg who had been lit on fire and thrown off a building (or some variation thereof), then the net total of Ψ could approach -1 (because it would be a negative net sum of Ψ) which would result in a divisor of 0. Theoretically speaking, this would create a situation where the movie would be infinitely awesome, which would be true, but mathmatically speaking it would be undefined, creating the issue. But what a good issue to have =]
October 20th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
I think I”m a fan of the wrong comic strip…I didn’t know I’d need advance calculus to “get” this place. Clearly I need a place for me, a website where I don’t have to know why “X = funny.” I would call it “www.IWentToBibleCollegeAndCanTalkTheologyIfYouWant,ButMathIsFromTheDevil.com”
October 20th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Damon… that made me laugh outloud so hard right in my office, and now everyone is looking at me like I’m a psycho (and they’re not far off). Thanks for that.
Chris, don’t worry, next week I’ll be using the Old Testament exegesis to prove that brunettes are hotter than blondes in the eyes of the Lord…
…and the eyes of me.
October 20th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
That is pretty genius. I know this because it went right over my head.
I haven’t decided if I want to see Max Payne or not. I’m getting a little tired of movies being more disappointing than they should have been.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:37 am
Kirsten, the key is this…have NO expectations and avoid the trailers as much as possible. (TiVo helps with the latter, not sure what helps with the former.)