British Man Renovates Apartment, Likely Fails to Get Laid

Technically, this was posted on Gizmodo on Tuesday, which means I'm a day late to the party. In blog-time, that means this happened in the Pleistocene Era, but I wanna talk about the guy who turned his apartment into a set from Star Trek: Voyager, anyway.

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My immediate reaction is "Ai yi yi," and I shake my head in embarassment for Mr. Alleyne. No, that's a filthy lie. My immediate reaction is "COOL!" because I am a sucker for this kind of stuff. Then I catch myself, and do the whole "Ai yi yi" thing. Because on the one hand, it is really cool: fancy lighting, voice controls, etc. On the other hand, it's um, Star Trek. He's wearing a uniform from the fictional future. On the other other hand, I may or may not have had Star Trek action figures and a poster of the Enterprise-D, and there may have been a Star Trek "How to Host a Murder" hosted by someone I know and am. On the other other other hand, I have adjusted socially to become a person who others don't run shrieking from. Mostly. On the other^{^4} hand, if I had the time, resources, and talent, I'd probably turn Chez Whipple into a U-Boat that you have to operate the Enigma Machine to get into. Which might irritate The Uncles, but as long as we're fantasizing...

Let's look a little deeper into this, shall we? For starters, the impetus for the project was when, "after his wife left in 1994, Alleyne needed a project to keep his hands and mind busy." No kidding? I get the impression this was quite the free-fall. You're probably going to have romantic liason issues with that whole scenario right there. "Hey, sweetheart, why don't we go back to your place, because mine's a construction mess right now - I haven't finished installing the LCARS system, and the transporter room assembly's in pieces on the kitchen counter. Wait! Where are you going?" Then again, he removed his bed because his sciatica was screwed up, and he has to sleep on the floor anyway. Do me a favor and imagine me throwing my hands up in the air, completely befuddled.

Again, I shouldn't make fun, because the idea of having your radiator and a/c make the "whoom whoom" sounds of a warp drive sounds really appealing to me. Which, is kind of embarassing, but COME ON. That's pretty damn awesome. I don't necessarily want to put on forehead ridges, or learn Elvish, or even engage in Ren Faire jousting and socializing - that's all really creepy - but a swoopy, touch-screeny apartment? Tell me you can't get on board with that. You're lying.

I don't want the outfit, but I do covet the surroundings.

Meanwhile, this project apparently bankrupted the guy as well. That's probably difficult to explain. It happens to a lot of people, and it's a very tragic thing, but rarely does it involve a conversation that goes: "Yes, so I transformed my bathroom into a holodeck, and added transporter controls with sound effects and sliders. No, I can't pay off my credit cards. Is that weird?" The good news is that it seems to have enabled him to parlay this into a business, 24th Century Design. The bad news is that the subsequent requests have given me more things to make fun of. Apparently, a lot of the requests for design assistance were also requesting that his assistance be free.

Mr. Alleyne: let me break something to you gently. I hate to paint with a broad brush (LIES. I love it.), but Internet Nerds rarely want to pay for anything. There's the whole concept of the Open Source Free Range Interwebs that you have to deal with to begin with, where the exchange of ideas is some sort of Wild West Barter System nonsense, and if you have a good idea, the World Deserves This. That's the first problem, it's a good thing sometimes (see: wikipedia), but it's a bad thing if you have goods and services that you don't simply want to give away. The second part of the problem is that SCIENCE FICTION NERDS DON'T WANT TO PAY FOR ANYTHING, BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO MONEY. They refuse to sell out to the Man, and get a cube jockey job, because they're more important than that. Eventually, they'll give in and work for IT somewhere and put a Seven of Nine poster up in their cube and have a Wedge Antilles bobblehead, but until that day, they want things for free, because it's their inalienable right as a Denizen of the Internet.

In other bizarre news, he wants to sell the place for $200,000, which is remarkable, inasmuch as you can't get a refrigerator box for $200,000 in Chicago. If you look at the real estate adds, and they say "recent renovations," and/or "new appliances," or something, and it's $200,000, any or all of the following things are probably true:

• It was built on the site of a crack house, which was built on the site of an Indian burial ground, where the occupants were murdered by poltergeists, except for the priest who was attempting the exorcism, who was killed in a drive-by shooting, and the gang members who were involved in the drive-by immediately crashed into a light pole and exploded, and now they all haunt the place. This would be a great sitcom.
• By "new appliances," they mean "new to the unit," not "recently manufactured." In fact, it may be Fisher-Price appliances.
• The unit is not big enough to swing a cat in. It's not big enough to swing a cat fetus in. It's not big enough to take a deep breath without flushing the toilet.
• "Recently renovated" means "indiscriminately perforated with a sledgehammer." Not "turned into a swoopy 24th century starship."
• "Indoor" plumbing.
• [noun]-infested. For [noun], we will accept: rat, vermin, tick, soccer hooligan, typhus, radon, jell-o, or fire. Write-in candidates are always welcome.
• There's also Nigerian royalty who needs a secure American bank account to temporarily hold his riches.

So, what have we learned? I have no idea. I'm still split on the coolness vs. socially-crippling nerdosity debate. Clearly, you have to respect the guy's skill and his dedication. And who among us wouldn't want touch-screen everything and voice commands? That's why everyone on Earth likes the Star Trek idea, even if they wouldn't be caught dead watching the show. I fervently believe this. I'm ready to admit that I'd like to live in this kind of place temporarily. However, there's no way I'm going to say that I'd play Dress Like Captain Picard. I think that's why this is so compelling: it slides enough into Weird Creepy Fetish Land where you're comfortable making fun of it, but not so much that you can't still say, "Yeah, but if it wasn't quite so creepy? I'd want that."