by MARCELLA CARBORUNDUREM-McVORTVORT, Alternate Reality News Service Food and Drink Writer
The ancient Greeks hosted the first Olympic Games. Plato was an ancient Greek who believed in the power of the mind. Therefore, the Olympic Games believed in the power of the mind.
QED. FTP...ASAP?
The power of the mind is being harnessed at the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver (see - it all ties together). Visitors to the Games put a metal band around their skulls (sort of like a bracelet for your head - a headcelet, if you will - and, even if you won't, I will, so get used to the term) that monitors their alpha and beta brainwaves.
And, what are these collective brainwaves being used for? Solving the world's economic crisis? Creating a permanent solution to Haiti's political instability? Ensuring that there will never be another Alvin and the Chipmunks movie?
No. The brainwaves of people in Vancouver are being used to control the rotation of 360 The Restaurant, the rota - err, turning restau - uhh, dining room at the top of the CN Tower.
"The brain is an amazing thing," explained Chris Aimone, Chief Technical Officer of Interaxon, the company that created the technology that allows people to do things with their minds. "It's grey and squishy and feels kind of slimy to the touch, yet it gave us Beowulf and the Blues Magoos!"
When the person in the headcelet (come on - the term is growing on you - why don't you just admit it so that we can get it into the next OED?) relaxes, the device captures the change in their brainwaves. These electrical impulses are then translated into instructions for the restaurant's rotation drive shaft using "beta waves TO Hungarian" and "Hungarian TO rotation drive shaft" translation pages the company found on the Internet.
"I loved it!" enthused Helvetica Anterior, a downhill skeet shooting enthusiast from Ballast Falls, Oklahoma who inherited her tickets to the Olympics. "I put this uncomfortable metal thing on my skull, practice for several hours and something I can't see happens somewhere I've never been!"
"Uhh, yeah, maybe it would be a good idea to set up a screen to show participants what their brainwaves are actually doing," Aimone allowed. "Lesson learned."
Not everybody was impressed by the technology. "It was the worst night of my life!" groused Verlaine "I Don't" Zinfandel, a waitress at 360 The Restaurant. "Not only did I not get a single cent in tips, but I had to clean vomit stains out of my clothes from six different customers! I haven't had that many vomit stains since I bused tables at Snow White's wedding party!"
"Somebody thinks in Vancouver and somebody tosses his cookies in Toronto," Aimone crowed. "How can you not love this technology?!"
"Oh, please!" Zinfandel moaned. "It was like living in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, only without the waffer thin mint!"
You might have thought that once the word spread about the speedily rotating dining experience, patrons would have canceled their reservations to the restaurant faster than Tiger Woods sponsors dropped him after his ill-fated drive down the street. If so, you would have misread the latest culinary fashion: after word of the experience spread, the lineup to get in the restaurant went down the side of the Tower, around the SkyDome, out to Yonge and straight into Lake Ontario.
"I would strangle a polecat to get a table at 360!" used goat wholesaler Monty Percoset metaphored. At least, for the sake of the polecat population we hope he was metaphoring. Percoset, an outspoken member of Toronto's private elite, added: "Throwing up in a restaurant that spins too fast is the new snorting cocaine off the carapace of a live lobster!"
"I heard about this place from Buffy, who heard about it from Zelda, who learned about it from Valkyrie who had it from GooD auThoriTy 27 that this was the place to be on a Wednesday night!" said socialite Antigone von der van, stroking the polecat that stuck its head out of her purse. "Good thing I got my latex jumpsuit back from the cleaners!"
What's ne -
"Oh, don't you worry, Chairman Mao," von der van added, "there will be no polecat strangling tonight - not while I'm conscious!"
What's next for Interaxon? "We're considering a William Tell kind of thing," Aimone stated. "People in London, England will be able to use their minds to shoot an apple off the heads of people in Toronto with a specially outfitted crossb - what? Why...why are you shielding your face like that?"