Victor: One day I’m going to finish my robot tigers and we will rule the world.
me: It’d be easier if you just took over the world with real tigers.
Victor: Robot tigers are scarier than real tigers.
me: No. Real tigers are scarier because they’re unpredictable.
Victor: My robot tigers have a random setting.
me: Like a shuffle function on an iPod?
Victor: Exactly.
me: That is way scarier.
Victor: Plus they could beat you at chess.
me: Well, not me specifically. I’m pretty damn good at chess.
Victor: Not as good as a robot tiger.
me: Live tigers are still scarier because they’re real and you know they hate you. With a robot tiger you understand they’re just doing their job when they kill you.
Victor: My robot tiger would be a cold, calculating killing machine – set on random – that also has an emotion chip and laughs at your pain.
me: That actually sounds scary as shit.
Victor: I KNOW. I just gave myself a panic attack just thinking about it and I don’t even get panic attacks.
me: Imagine the synthesized growl you could put on that thing. And the synthesized laughter.
Victor: “HA. HA. HA.” That’s a robot tiger laughing at your chess skills. And also, you really aren’t good at chess.
me: I am. I’m so not good at it that I move wildly and unpredictably. It makes me dangerously erratic.
Victor: My robot tiger has a random chess move ability generator.
me: Well now we’re all fucked.
Victor: The future is going to be scary. Maybe I should make robot pumas.
me: No.
Victor: Robot cougars?
me: Mmm…no.
Victor: Robot Bobcats.
me: Robobcats?
Victor: Don’t be ridiculous. Robo-bobcats sounds much scarier.
me: I think just you’re starting to come up with excuses as to why you won’t build robot tigers.
Victor: You might be right. I won engineering awards from NASA when I was a teenager, for God’s sake. You’d think I would have invented robot bobcats by now.
me: I’m sure NASA is very disappointed in you. You probably haven’t invented robotic minions yet because you don’t apply yourself. And that’s why the robobcats will never see the light of day.
Victor: A million unborn robo-bobcats suddenly cried out in in pain.
me: Like Alderaan. You can almost hear them screaming: “YOU’RE SO LAZY.”
Victor: Fuck this. I’m building my robot tigers. THE ROBOT TIGERS ARE COMING. And their slogan will be “THEY’RE GRRRREAT!”
me: We’re gonna get sued.
Victor: Yeah, but we’ll bring the robo-bobcats to the trial and they’ll growl angrily.
me: And Tony the Tiger would be like “I FEEL VERY INTIMIDATED” and our lawyers would be like “THEY HAVE A RIGHT TO BE HERE, TONY. THIS CONCERNS THEM TOO.”
Victor: And they’d growl, but with big smiles. Which would be even scarier.
me: And also less likely to get thrown out of court because who gets removed from court for smiling at the plaintiff? “This is their natural resting state, Tony the Tiger. THEY’RE BEING ENCOURAGING. IT’S THEIR HELPFUL GROWL. YOU CAN TELL BECAUSE THEY’RE SMILING.”
Victor: Holy shit.
me: Yeah.
Victor: There is no way we’re losing this case.