Feeling blue?

For the last while I've been trying out an alternative form of swearing. Rather than use the standard f-bomb for everything, "That f-ing f-er really f-ed up this time!", I'm using another equally flexible, but more socially acceptable word: "Smurf". The cartoon Smurfs used this word for everything, in the same way that some people use f&*$, but Smurf can be used for everything!
I was talking about this with B-monster this morning, and strayed into the subject of cleaned-up movie dialog. Some movies, when sanitized for TV, actually become much funnier. I'm thinking of Repo Man as a good example: "Flip you, melonfarmer!"

So how about one of my favourite movies, Aliens, done with "Smurf"?

Hudson: Hey Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a smurf?
Vasquez: No. Have you?

Hudson: [puts his rifle against Burke's head] I say we grease this rat-smurf son-of-a-smurf right now.

Ripley: I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Hudson: Smurfin' A...

Hudson: Well that's great, that's just smurfin' great, man. Now what the smurf are we supposed to do? We're in some real pretty smurf now man...

Hudson: That's it man, game over man, game over! What the smurf are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do?

Ripley: Get away from her, you *smurf!*

Vasquez: You always were a smurf, Gorman!

Perspective

I just finished watching "The Shadow of the Moon", a documentary about the Apollo astronauts. Brilliant film. It got me thinking about this:

This is the famous "Pale Blue Dot" image taken by Voyager 1. The tiny dot in the center is the Earth, from 4 billion miles away.

"The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light."

-- Carl Sagan
From "Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space," Random House, 1994

So think about this the next time you're fuming about the price of gas, or the latest celebrity idiocy, or some other trivial issue. And think about how critical this little speck in the darkness is to our survival. This is all there is.