Maybe it’s just the zeitgeist in the corner of the universe I inhabit, but I gotta admit, last night’s Venture Bros. episode made me do a little victory dance. First off, we got to meet Col. Venture – Hank and Dean’s great (great-great?) grandfather – a guy who flies around in an airship with Sam Clemens, Fantomas, Oscar Wilde, Aleister Crowley and Sandow pursued by Nikola Tesla. Cement the retrofuture-steampunk-Venture connection? I’d say so. Also – a glimpse at the origin of the Guild of Calamitous Intent. Then, during a commecial break, this ad for Scion.

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Say what you will about the Scion line (I understand many are put off by the officialitude of the Scion factory mod parts) the fact remains that what they are trying to do is to tap into the customizer vibe – something that I noted earlier.
Update – I predict the orb is either a seed (universal self-replicator as in The Diamond Age) or a complete kludge/failure – or both. If it’s a seed, I really appreciate its incremental genesis – like the Cryptonomicon in the eponymous novel. Is Jackson Publick a fan of Neal Stephenson?