Due to Hiko's new Monday night Browns column, we've moved Moot Points to the weekend. Our weekly dose of comic relief here at TCF once again fails to disappoint this week, as Hiko theorizes about just how far technology may take us one day. He also hits on Stiller fans infesting Ohio and the movie Braveheart ... and also addresses more hate mail from adoring readers.

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iLife

How long before we can neurologically reproduce sexual intercourse?

What I am inferring is that some day (and it won’t be long) you will be able to hook a couple diodes up to your temples, which allows access to the human nervous system, and, with the right electrical wave pattern, gives the user a completely convincing sexual experience.

No longer do you need to go to a bar and pick up whatever is drunk enough and slutty enough to come home with you. You just simply plug an Elle MacPherson or Scarlett Johannsen chip into your iSex, and your brain causes you to feel, hear, smell, and taste everything you might experience during an actual sexual encounter with said woman/man.

In the back of your mind, you know that you didn’t actually have sex with Scarlett Johannsen, but, hey, it certainly seemed as real as the real thing. Maybe even more so – because we’ve all had a time or two when we’ve woken up and wondered exactly what it was we did and who we did it with and why we’re naked in a dumpster.

Let’s say you’re ugly. Or fat. Or God didn’t see fit to endow you with an adult sized penis. With iSex, you can participate in the adult games as Brad Pitt. Or Taye Diggs. Or John Holmes.

And no longer is there begging or pleading for certain things. There’s gadgets and gizmos and swings and fireworks. Whatever you desire.

Of course, this inevitable invention has huge repercussions on the human race.

If you can have iSex with whomever you want, why even bother leaving the house?

Human companionship? Why bother, when you can sit on your couch and have an iConversation with an iFriend? You can drink an iBeer at an iBar and down an iSteak. And your mind won’t know the difference between the real world and the iWorld.

So once human beings actually stop interfacing with other human beings, then the idea of social interaction becomes a thing of the past. And, somewhere far far down the line, we’re a race of people locked in small individual compartments, living entire completely believable fake lives full of completely believable fake experiences with many completely believable fake friends and completely believable fake loves.

It’s empty – but as long as it seems real, then maybe it is real – at least to that person. Reality is subjective.

Is it Utopia? Or is it Hell?

I don’t know. Go ask Aunt Nell.

***I just went to my local watering hole here in Canton, Ohio, and was surprised – nay! – shocked to see a mule tied up out front.

This is odd, I thought. Shrugging, I entered anyway.

The sight upon entrance was disturbing. Large large women crushing poor barstools with sheer mass. Billy Ray Cyrus on the jukebox. Some toothless guy doing tricks with straws. A few goats chained up in the corner.

“What the hell is going on here?” I asked the bartender.

“It’s the start of Hall of Fame week,” she replied.

“Yeah, so?”

“Don’t you know who’s playing in this year’s game?”

“Yeah, it’s the Saints versus the… Steelers. Oh.”

Batten down the hatches, fellow Cantonians. The Pittsburgh infestation will be over soon. Free vaccinations will be available immediately upon their departure.

***It is time for me to apologize to my friend, Zeus.

You see, I watched Braveheart again this week, and it brought me back to a time when Zeus, myself, and about 8 other guys all went to see the movie together at a New York theater.

As you know, those English bastages in the movie killed our boy William Wallace, and Zeus bore the brunt of our inevitable verbal slings and arrows, because, well, Zeus is English.

I don’t know what made me think of that incident, o Zeus, but I must admit that it was foolish of us to hold you accountable for the 800 year old actions of your countrymen. That would be like holding me accountable for Viking raids, or the slaughters at Hadrian’s Wall, or the time I bit the ambulance driver.

***Dear Mr. Hiko,

So, I hear that you’ve been obsessing about me. It’s sad. Really. Envy is such an ugly thing in a person. It’s not my fault that you didn’t make it.

You can imagine my surprise when a friend of mine forwarded me the article you wrote for some website calling me names. As you yourself point out, I’m sure that not many people read it. But enough did.

Is this really what you do now? Is this how you ended up? Sad, dude.

I don’t care about your life, but I don’t appreciate you talking shit about me in your little article.

Get a life,

(Dude’s name)

Dear (Dude’s name),

First, as you well know, I do not like you. This is not a secret. I’ve made that plain for years.

And, what do you care?

Why do you care?

So someone out there doesn’t like you. I get that all the time. Life’s tough all over.

Secondly, I could’ve easily used your real name and/or the name of the show. Instead, I chose to refer to you by a nickname that you have not used in 12 years, and that you never ever used during your time in LA. There aren’t that many people that would know who I was talking about in the first place (by referencing your old nickname), and I found it highly doubtful that any of them would be reading articles on this – or any – sports website.

You weren’t even remotely the focus of the article – your tale was meant as a humorous aside.

But, since this is the World Wide Web, I had to assume that there was a possibility (albeit slight) that it might get back to you, so the article contains no language that I regret you discovering. Even the part where I referred to your personage as a “moldy dildo”. I’m sorry – you are.

Third, and this is most important, I do NOT envy you.

This is a point which so often is lost on individuals in your field. I really think that you are deluded into believing that you have the coolest job with the coolest people in the whole wide world, and that everyone envies the glamour and the glitz which surrounds the business you work in.

It may be “cool” to you and the people you work with – but most people couldn’t give a shit less. Believe me – you are a lot more impressed with yourself than most of the people you meet are, especially outside the vacuum of reality that is LA.

I can only speak for myself, but I found the Film/TV industry to be a hollow, disingenuous, self-serving, unsatisfying existence. Not only do most of the people suck, but the hours suck, the job security sucks, the red tape sucks, the location sucks, and – most of the time – the product sucks.

Regrets? I have a few. But most of them involve not being able to see the friends I’ve left behind in Southern CA. None of them involve dropping that career like third period Calculus.

No, rest assured, I do not envy you.

To sum up – don’t like you, didn’t think you’d ever read the article, not sure why you care, unconcerned if you’re offended, don’t envy you, still don’t like you, have a nice life.

Now, get back to work. You have a show to write that I want to see, and I’ve gotta scoot on down to K-Mart and shop for a life. I’ve got a coupon for 50% off.

Disdainfully Yours,

Hiko