Whedonesque : Comments on 12968 : Firefly vs. Gandalf vs. Owning a really huge Bag of Holding vs....

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April 15 2007

Firefly vs. Gandalf vs. Owning a really huge Bag of Holding vs.... After winning the first poll, Firefly is up against a variety of nerdly options in this elimination round on the LiveJournal community created to determine the best thing ever.

Sabbrielle | Firefly&Serenity | 08:17 CET | 25 comments total | tags:

Okay, as much as I love Firefly, there's no way it's better than a machine that could record my dreams!

crossoverman | April 15, 08:25 CET

Personally I can't imagine what the use of a dream recording machine would be, it would be like a machine to go through my garbage: what good would that ever do me?

embers | April 15, 08:45 CET

Man, I had to pick that dream machine. I have the most awesome dreams, but no one ever believes me! Of course, I'm assuming the thing would let other people see the recordings, because otherwise there's no point, y'know?

I almost want to ask that first replier what his idea of the Best Thing Ever would be if his response to a geek list is 'ugh.' Not that I have anything against people who are anti-geek, mind you, I'm just curious.

LiLi | April 15, 09:02 CET

Firefly's awesome and all, but c'mon. Dream recorder.

I guarantee that somebody, somewhere, has had a dream about something that would make for better TV than Firefly. There are literally billions of dreams a day. That dream recording device would undoubtedly produce great shows, and as much as I love Firefly, some would be better.

And that's just one argument for the dream recorder. Obviously there are many, many more. That's just the most relevant, and IMO it alone beats Firefly.

No offense, Joss ;) I really do love Firefly. But I really love Restless too :)

jfhlbuffy | April 15, 10:15 CET

Why choose anything BUT Firefly?

* It's already got a grey-haired advice-spouting dude who has some alleged but pretty inscrutable connection to the divine, who occasionally kicks butt.
* It's got the ability to squirrel away a LOT of cargo, and what bag of holding ever was useful for interplanetary travel? (Well, except if you throw a portable hole inside it...)
* Dream recording? River could absolutely do that.
* About the only thing it doesn't have are video games. But with a crew complement like that, who needs 'em?

jclemens | April 15, 10:37 CET

Um... what's a bag of "holding?" Does it just, y'know, hold stuff?

Firefly FTW!

blueanddollsome | April 15, 10:52 CET

A D&D magic item, it looks like a regular bag but will magically hold vast amounts more.

If I could have one magic thing from anywhere else, I'd be torn between a Bag of Holding and the magic library-book thing Wesley had at Wolfram and Hart.

kishi | April 15, 11:32 CET

Really a bag of holding is only necessary if you need everything everywhere you go! And, you know, you probably don't need that.

Personally I can't imagine what the use of a dream recording machine would be, it would be like a machine to go through my garbage: what good would that ever do me?

You know, if you think your own unconcious thoughts are garbage, who are we to argue? ;-)

But, seriously, your dreams are important. Probably more important than Firefly and Gandalf combined!

crossoverman | April 15, 11:42 CET

I bet Spike wished he had a dream recorder back in BtVS Season 5.

TwisTz | April 15, 11:46 CET

Oh, with the Bag of Holding, I could carry my entire library with me! Are you implying I don't need that? Those are fighting words! :)

And then I'd also have room for some snacks.

kishi | April 15, 12:21 CET

Hmmm, well until I'd read down this thread I had absolutely no idea what a bag of holding actually was, but then the only D&D I'm really familiar with was the cartoon series from back when I was a kid. Y'know, the one where Dungeon Master looked like a cross between Gandalf and a Hobbit? Not sure if they ever had a bag of holding in that but I sure don't remember it if they did. Either way, only any use to me if it was a bag of CD holding and frankly that's what an iPod is for and I've already got one of those.

The "Collected Products of the Golden Age of Video Gaming" would only be any use to me if I actually ever played video games, which I don't. So that's out.

A machine that could record my dreams? Too much trouble and frankly any guy with a girlfriend should be aware of that. ;)

So it comes down to either Firefly or Gandalf. Firefly, a television series that managed to become an obsession of mine despite never actually getting a complete first season and Gandalf, a character from a series of books that have held a very special place in my heart for as long as I can remember and still do to this day. I seriously have never looked forward to any book more than I am looking forward to reading The Children of Hurin, released in just a couple of days now.

Very close but had to go with Gandalf. Not very many things that would have even come close though so Firefly did damn well to even make it a difficult choice for me.

Buffysmglover | April 15, 12:45 CET

kishi: ...and the magic library-book thing Wesley had at Wolfram and Hart.

Oh, hells, yeah! I've actually dreamt about that morphing book-of-all-knowledge. I want that damn book. I need that damn book.

Gotta run with the dream recorder. Dreams are significant, have meaning, are the main way your subconscious can reach you & help you bring parts of yourself into consciousness. And I love me some Jung.

I adore Firefly and I wouldn't kick Gandalf out of a dream. But a recorder - to track your dreams for yourself, as well as share the occasional dream with another? Dreams -- the source material of much wonderful art (as well as my two little tattoos.) Man, that would be the "It" of "Its."

''I don't want to create responsible shows with lawyers in them. I want to invade people's dreams.'' - Joss

Oh, yeah, and I'm so freakin' glad I've reached an age where I no longer worry about what's "geeky" or "lame."

"Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart . Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." - Carl Gustav Jung

QuoterGal | April 15, 13:02 CET

I dunno. Is Firely better than LOTR? Yeah. But better than Gandalf? Better than the man himself? I'm sorry, I gotta say no. Until Firefly fights a Balrog and wins, it's the G-man.

dispatch | April 15, 13:26 CET

Is Firely better than LOTR? Yeah.

Um, sincerely, and in a million ways - no.

Oh, with the Bag of Holding, I could carry my entire library with me! Are you implying I don't need that? Those are fighting words! :)

I was thinking that I was not thinking... you make a good point.

I'd still want the dream thing, because sometimes I forget dreams!

crossoverman | April 15, 14:01 CET

Oh, hells, yeah! I've actually dreamt about that morphing book-of-all-knowledge. I want that damn book. I need that damn book.

Y'know, since the 'magic book' was really just a way of accessing what WR&H already had in their vast library, I don't think it's too far overboard to say we already have those. In fact, we're all sitting in front of one right now ;).

Personally, I think dreams are a way (or possibly a byproduct) of processing information we've picked up (or thought up) during the day so for me recording them is kind of like backing up your swap partition in Linux. Even if you could, why bother ?

(that said, they're often pretty entertaining and I guess I can see how they might be an inspiration to creative types and if we knew enough about the 'processing' taking place they might be useful, kind of like the 'workings' of a calculation)

Never been that huge a LoTR fan (not read the books except for 'The Hobbit' in school, thought the films were pretty cool) so though I like Gandalf a lot it'd come down to which age was the 'Golden Age of Video-gaming' to decide between that and 'Firefly'. Close call.

Saje | April 15, 14:11 CET

Dreams are the best. Even people who seem dull as dishwater have really creative, entertaining dreams, and I'd often rather hear about them than listen to their analysis , for example, of why the Steelers didn't win on Sunday.

I'm not sure why, but a lot of people really get yawny when other people tell their dreams, so I don't regale them with mine-just write them down, imperfectly. That dream thing would be great.

On the other hand, my bag is always way too full. I think that enchanted bag would be good for my sore shoulder, since I absolutely always have to take everything with me. All the time-and those books are heavy. I assume it's outside dimensions allow you to take it on when flying?

And we already have Gandalf and Firefly, in better-than-real form. I'm going with the dream machine.

[ edited by toast on 2007-04-15 13:42 ]

toast | April 15, 16:22 CET

I normally remember my incredibly dull dreams. Haven't read LotR, but like Saje...love them flicks! Bag of Holding sounds cool, but meh. Not into video game. So.....

Firefly it is!! No contest really here!!

Harmalicious | April 15, 18:45 CET

I assume the dream recorder is a Red Dwarf reference. I think the Cat's dream is my favorite Red Dwarf scene.

And hello! This is my first post.

Music | April 15, 18:50 CET

Eh, I don't think I'd want a dream recorder. I'd rather not replay nightmares.

Meltha | April 15, 19:49 CET

crossoverman said:

Really a bag of holding is only necessary if you need everything everywhere you go! And, you know, you probably don't need that.

That's what I thought too, but my geeky husband reminded me how much we hate moving and how cool it would be if we could fit the contents of our entire house into a bag and then take everything out in a new place. That is pretty freaking awesome.

browncoatamanda | April 15, 21:53 CET

Y'know, since the 'magic book' was really just a way of accessing what WR&H already had in their vast library, I don't think it's too far overboard to say we already have those. In fact, we're all sitting in front of one right now ;).

Oh please please don't say it! The internet does NOT have everything! Even if it does have us!

Lioness | April 16, 05:23 CET

Yes, Saje my dear man, speaking as one who has spent hours trying to run down a particular quote or subject, as miraculous as the innertubes are, they emphatically do not offer many things. Leaving aside that the text of many current books, for instance, does not appear on-line, there are simply many source materials and subjects that are not, I guess, of interest to enough people, and so very little or nothing about them may appear on-line.

And dude, seriously, consider looking at your dreams as a different kind of information than you currently do - you might be surprised at what they have to say to a mathematical IT brain such as your own. (Not to mention that I think you are a "creative type" - as many more people are, I think, than believe they are. This is only said just in case you were referring to "others" as creative types, and not yourself...)

QuoterGal | April 16, 06:45 CET

Yeah, fair point, I guess I mean the potential to be that (as I mention, the book was really just a convenient interface to WR&H's library, not 'magic' magic). Still, there's plenty of stuff online that's not free and so not readily searchable (e.g. the complete OED, Encyclopaedia Britannica etc.) and you might be amazed at the number of books that can be found (though not necessarily entirely legally so obviously that was a friend that told me that ;). Agreed though, not quite the fount of all human knowledge (yet ;).

Re: dreams, well, I rarely remember mine anyway but the little Freud and Jung i've read felt a bit like 'just so' stories, interesting and even sometimes seemingly accurate but hard to gather evidence for. Still, seems wise to stay open to different perspectives.

Which is not to say they can't be useful (i've actually dreamed the answers to problems I was working on the previous day a few times) and definitely essential to our emotional and psychological well-being (there's evidence that a brain deprived of REM sleep for long enough goes a bit, well, kaka). And I can also see them as indicators of desires or anxieties that you're maybe not consciously aware of.

Plus, fun ;).

(and by 'creative types' I guess I mean people that earn a living through small t truth - which dreams are useful for - rather than big T Truth - for which, not so much IMO. Agreed though, anything involving problem solving is creative I reckon and that probably includes most human endeavours at one point or another)

Saje | April 16, 13:09 CET

At first I thought: Bag of Holding! I can pack whatever I want when I fly! Then I pictured taking a Bag of Holding through airport security.

Gandalf's fun to read about, but the book version of him can be quite scary. As he should be.

I have to go with the video games. Firefly is also awesome... but not playable in 8 bits awesome. It can't stand against all those games. It's not a fair fight unless it's title-to-title. Zelda 2 vs. Firefly? Now that is a difficult choice.

[ edited by Sunfire on 2007-04-16 16:26 ]

Sunfire | April 16, 19:23 CET

It's hard to see picking over Firefly... But I've long wished for a dream recorder. For the details I can't quite remember, and the ones I'd like to experience over and over again. Stuff with my family; being back in college - or lately, ones where my wife's been with me at college; and more adventurous stuff - including a few as a part of the Scoobies (!). Actually, there was kind of a combining of two of those the other night, with Xander as my college roommate, and Dawn was... well... Okay, I'm blaming that one on just having read issue 2 of the season 8 comic...

LKW | April 17, 06:11 CET

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