Awesomeness and Doctor Who, not linked in my mind for once

I spent most of today watching a Doctor Who marathon. I have a few comments and gripes about that but I'll keep them to myself until tomorrow, when I've watched the last two serials I want to see.


You know what's weird? How people started using "+" to represent "and" and then other people started writing "plus" instead, which is actually longer than the word it was originally meant to be shorthand for.


So, I've had an idea. I think it might work well as a web cartoon but it's been kicking around in my head for a while, possibly as a film idea. I don't know why I let film ideas stay in my head. Probably something to do with hopeless optimism and rampant egotism.

The basic premise is that some guy has super powers that let him do anything, so long as it's awesome. If it's not ridiculously over the top and cool, he can't do it. Shooting somebody is outside his range. Shooting somebody with a laser gun is getting there. Lasers coming from his eyes is closer still. Shooting someone with a laser-chainsaw (somewhat like a light sabre) launching sniper rifle at point blank range would qualify.

There are a few secondary characters, most of whom have far more depth than the titular Captain Awesome but none of whom are as interesting.

So, I've compiled a list of things that Captain Awesome has to do at some point.

• Ride a dinosaur through the sun.
• Slam dunk a planet into a black hole.
• Repair a starship's faster than light drive while teaching someone how to dance, including moonwalking.
• Coding a piece of software to stop a virus that is about to detonate a nuclear bomb in an orphanage. This is made yet more awesome by the fact that it is done in binary and to the rhythm of Bohemian Rapsody.
• Have a gun that fires chainsaws. This may be in the style of a machine gun but a revolver would really be better.
• Surf on molten lava. The surfboard should be a Transformer.
• Break a dentists drill on his teeth. They may also stop bullets and/or bullet trains.
• Be able to breath and cook a light breakfast in space.
• Win a staring contest with a snake*.
• Never make a footnote like the one denoted by the above asterisk.

So, there you have it. Some of the adventures that Captain Awesome always has in my head. The two other characters are an evil guy and a damsel in distress type. Their mutual lack of interest in Captain Awesome may well bring them together in a touching love story. Until they explode.



*Snakes have no proper eyelids and thus do not blink. Instead, they have an immovable lens called a brille which evolved from a fusing of the upper and lower eyelids. Biologists believe that this was to combat either marine or subterranean conditions, the exact genealogy of snakes being a matter of debate. Both theories also explain the loss of external ears. The word "brille" is actually the German word for glasses.