Blowing the Lid of Everything

First off. Last rant I left a hanging promise of an other section update. The bad news is, I never got around to it. The good news is, I'm going to be posting a 5th rant this month, so my promise of 4 this month still holds if you count next week's and this one.

Another thing I meant to get into last week is my mother's shocking revelation about Ramen Noodles.

We all love Ramen Noodles. You buy a bag containing a solid brick of noodle, and a package of salt. Boil it, and you get a good tasting and satisfying (while totally unhealthy) meal, and it only costs you something like 17 cents. The eternal question here is, how can people make a profit this way? I mean, let's break it down.

• We can safely assume that in order to justify taking up valuable shelf space, 10 cents of that is a markup by the grocery store.
• There is some base cost of raw materials to create the noodles and salt packs.
• There is an additional cost for packaging.
• The noodles must be shipped about the country. Wages for the truckers.
• There are inherent costs involved in running a factory, ranging from lease of the space, to various utility bills.
• The workers at these factories must be paid. Even if the factories are fully automated or run by zombie slaves, you'd need to pay for the extra electricity or zombification procedures.
• The remaining funds must be sufficient to allow those in charge of the company to lead the life of the rich and privileged.

Unless I am SEVERELY underestimating pretty much all of these costs, there is no way for the Ramen industry to turn a profit. So, how do those behind it make money? Why it's simple.

The entire Ramen Noodle industry is a money laundering front for the Yakuza.

Think about it. The Yakuza knock over a back or something, take the money, invest it into a Ramen factory, and while they only make back 50% of it tops, they are now carrying nice clean Starving College Student money.

Of course, coming to this conclusion does not at all effect my likelihood to purchase Ramen Noodles in the future. Also, should any members of the Yakuza be reading this, please bear in mind that I am not a person who is ever taken seriously, so it really isn't worth it to wipe me out for knowing too much.

and now, The Top 5 Stupid Sci-Fi Conventions Which are Never Necessary to the Story (In no particular order):

Convention: If you're in America and you go back in time to the year 1200, you invariably end up in England.
Easy solution: Have the time traveller start in England to begin with.

Convention: Every planet has a single climate, one government, one language, one city, and no animal life save the dominant species, which is named after the planet.
Easy solution: The only inhabitants of this planet we've made contact with don't want to cause panic and paranoia, so they ask us only to make contact here.

Convention: There are no significant variations in the individual members of that race that can't be found in humans.
Easy solution: Let your makeup people take some liberties.

Convention: All sentient life in the universe has the exact same optimal living conditions and dietary requirements.
Easy solution: Give aliens groovy backpacks and masks.

Convention: Despite being much more expensive, both in production and ammunition, having a lower effective range in a vacuum, and generally being portrayed as rather slow, traditional firearms have been replaced with high powered lasers or similar zappy type things.
Easy solution: Have guns fire bullets! if you want streaks of light, it actually works better that way!
(Note: I realize good ol' death rays are practical for ship to ship combat, I'm mainly talking about personal sidearms here.)

The following receive honorable mention, because while they are just as stupid, there are story telling reasons they are sometimes needed:

• Any race that has a hive mind has a Queen. Killing that queen kills the whole lot.
• While instantaneous travel between planets is impossible, communication is ALWAYS instantaneous.