Minor Annoyances Unit

Or: How to make a cardboard badge

So, some time ago, during my usual late-night habit of annoying the crap out of a few friends of mine online, an exchange occurred that gave me the idea of making a police badge for "The Minor Annoyances Unit." A specially trained unit to bring in for all of the most minor and petty complaints that cops get all the time.

Now, if you are unfamiliar with the way I do things in life, let me explain. If I find an idea even the slightest bit funny or entertaining, I jump at it and get right to work. Whether the idea is actually good is debatable, along with if it’ll be entertaining to anyone other than myself.

That should explain why within a few hours of the conversation I had a detailed plan of exactly what I was going to make.

First, using a stock image of a badge from the NYPD, I drew up an idea of how the badge would look.

All of my best plans are on post-it notes.

Pretty much just a copy of the stock image, but with an added ring on the inside to specify it as a badge for the Minor Annoyances Unit, as well as putting the badge number on the bottom as I’d seen in other stock images.

Another thing I noted while looking through stock images of badges was that if you’re going to go the whole ‘Law and Order’ route, you need an id to go with the badge.

Identity hidden to protect the innocent.

Just your basic id card. Picture of the officer, name, rank, etc. One bit I liked that I saw during my reference search was the idea of having the chief of the department or an otherwise higher ranking person sign the identification in order to authorize the officer on the force. Since I figured I would be the first person to get hit with the abuse of power, I put that bit in with the intention to name myself as the commanding officer.

This would also lend itself to my favorite movie cliché of being able to threaten to take her off the case for letting it get too personal just before she saves the day without the force’s help.

I'M TAKING YOU OFF THE HEDGE-TRIMMER CASE, IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, YOU CAN TURN IN YOUR BADGE!

Because seriously, who doesn’t want to be Frank McRae?

I even tried to come up with a decent logo design for the department which I could put onto the id:

Latin classes up anything.

While the final product would come out differently, the important bits are that the department’s initials held the center, and around them would be the Latin phrase “Muto Omnis Pro Nullus Causa,” which translates to “Punish All For No Reason.”

With planning complete, actual building begins.

Step 1: Get some cardboard and cut out the shapes.

A bunch of scraps.

I shouldn’t have to explain how to cut things out of cardboard. Get a knife (I use an old stencil scalpel in order to avoid crushing the cardboard from scissor pressure) and cut. I should probably give advice about cutting away from yourself and such to avoid injury, but I stab myself at least once every time I make anything even when following all the safety tips. Didn’t bleed on the project, though!

It's magic!

If everything was scaled correctly, the pieces should look good together like this.

Step 2: Base coat.

Check out that fancy Palatte.

This step might be optional, as my final product ended up with paint far too willing to chip and fall off, but I wanted to ensure the colors stayed as bright as possible instead of just bleeding into the cardboard. White paint everywhere.

Step 3: Colors.

That yellow sure looks like gold. Yup. Not like crap at all.

More painting done. Cover up all the white with the background color you need. The yellow I mixed came out a bit too bright, but in the end it still worked. I didn’t think to take a picture of it, but if your paint is thick enough, you can actually paint the sides of the cardboard, where there are likely a million small holes. Just use a large enough glob of paint and you can spread a layer that will hold together over the holes, making it look solid and smooth. A good trick, even though it is the messiest thing.

Step 4: Details, eye strain, start to panic.

Everything done freehand, obviously. I can't draw straight lines. Ever.

For the badge number, I used a smaller brush. Easy.
The center piece, however, called for details so small that no brush available would do. Every line, every letter, even the seal of New York in the center all had to be painted on by dipping the tip of a sharpened pencil into the paint and painting everything dot by dot. If you love monotonous work, or are actually an inkjet printer who somehow thinks you’re a person, you’ll love this bit.

This is also when I discovered that my paint was beginning to chip as it dried. While pencil-painting the center section, the head of the bird on the seal (or vaguely bird-shaped blob, as my painting work suggests) actually lifted off as I pulled the pencil away! If you ever want to hear me use a string of obscenities for ten minutes straight, just have me work on something for hours and show me that it’s begun to fall apart before it’s even finished.

Step 5: ASSEMBLE!

Almost done.

Glue those bits together!

I didn’t have glue, to be honest.
I did have adhesive putty.
So, this badge is being held together the same way a lot of posters are being held to college dorm walls. Works surprisingly well.

BONUS STEP: Damage control lamination.

Done!

Yep. I covered it in tape.

At least the paint won’t chip and fall off, now.
I also drew some other details on in ink just to make it look a touch better.

After a quick bit of photoshop, the badge and id were finished.

The image on the id changed, but the basics are still there.

The id was printed onto blank business card stock. If you don’t have business card stock, then I don’t know what to tell you. Abandon hope and give up forever.
Or just print it to the right size on some sturdy paper and cut it out, you know, whichever.

That’s how it’s done!

So, how were the props received?

What the hell did you do now, Steve?

Quite well, actually.
You can now rest easier knowing that the Minor Annoyances Unit is out there stopping people from bringing 11 items to the 10 items or less lane and all other annoyances with their own brand of justice.

Yet somehow I’m allowed to remain the complete annoyance I’ve always been.

The Tree

You want to know why that tree is so special? Alright little one, I’ll tell you the legend as it’s been passed down through history.

Long ago, there were two great warriors, the best in the land. They were frightful enemies, however. Always getting into quarrels, but their fight was never allowed to finish. For one reason or another, one of the warriors would be called away to fight in war, or conduct a mission for the Emperor. Despite them being terrible adversaries, the two believed greatly in respect and honor toward even their opponents, and they understood that the needs of the country must be held above their own feud. Thus, when one warrior would be called away, the fight would be forced to cease, each promising that someday they would finish the fight and see victory over the other.

 What’s that? Why did they hate each other? Ah, that bit of the story’s been lost, unfortunately. In those days, the slightest insult could lead to a generations-long feud, if those involved were of the right temperament. Not too unlike today, really.

Anyway, after years of begrudgingly postponing the finish of their battle, the two warriors convinced the Emperor to release them from his service until they could finish what they had set out to do. It was a time of peace, so the Emperor agreed, as long as it was promised that the victor would return to aid the country again.

With their other obligations out of the way, the two set about planning the time and location of what would be their final battle. They would meet in a clearing outside of the capital, a level area where neither side could be said to gain an advantage. It would be a fair fight, each warrior armed only with his sword and his life of training and war. They would begin at dawn, and they would not stop until only one of them stood alive.

When dawn arrived, the two took their places in the field and began sizing each other up. They studied each other from a distance, looking for any weakness, anything that could give them an advantage. There they stood for hours, each planning the entire battle in their head, preparing for anything, preparing for everything.

It wasn’t until after noon that it happened.

It was like an explosion went off in the middle of the field. The two had charged so violently at each other and had countered so perfectly that the ground shook for a mile around. Every strike following only added to the quake, as the two were throwing such fury into the fight yet were so perfectly matched that the only thing capable of giving way was the ground itself.

It didn’t take long for the nearby villagers to come and see what was happening. Their very homes had shook and the air was filled with the violent ringing of swords. Within an hour of the first strike, the clearing became completely surrounded by a crowd of curious onlookers, a crowd that continued to grow the longer the fight went on. Everyone wanted to see the two great warriors fight, the spectacle being what it was.

The fight lasted longer than anyone could expect, though. Days passed, weeks, months, years. The seasons came and went, and the two fighters remained where they were, noticing nothing other than their opponents actions. It was believed that the fight would go on forever, as neither side showed the slightest hint of giving in. Despite terrible exhaustion, they refused to give in, refused to die. The world changed drastically around them, but they fought on.

Until one day.

One misstep and it was over. There was a victor. It had been many years since the fight began and the world was very different, but it was over. And on the edge of the clearing there stood this tree. It was a boom mic operator for a television broadcast of the fight that started when the crowd first arrived. I think his name was Terry.

Yeah…yeah, it was Terry.

Now he’s a tree.

That’s the story, little one, now go the fuck to sleep already.

Future Origins

It was 2052 when scientists first figured out that they could potentially create a black hole in the lab with tools they already had. Naturally, the world of science was excited at the possibilities for study. The general public, however, only needed to hear the phrase ‘black hole’ and commenced with a large outcry of worries and fear.

Science marched on undaunted, though, and research began on how the inevitable lab-made black hole would be contained. If the hole proved powerful enough, any containment system would merely be the first thing sucked inside.

For another forty-seven years, scientists struggled with the problem of how to contain one of the most powerful forces of nature. Some rogue elements of the field began working on creating their homegrown black holes, but were thankfully stopped by world governments. It marked the first time all of the governments of the world came together in agreement on something, that such an experiment should not be undertaken anywhere near the planet. Even when the material for containment had finally been figured out, experiments on creating a black hole were still banned worldwide. The risk was just too great. At the turn of the 22nd century, the scientific community had seen the idea of researching a real black hole up close go from an almost certainty, to nothing more than a dream.

The material they had created for the purpose of containing their dream, however, became widespread in its uses. It was a light, rubbery material, pink in color upon creation, that was able to bend and flex in shape, yet was also able to keep its form rigid when exposed to strong forces. It was called a ’Non-Newtonian Solid,’ a nickname that stuck likening its properties to those of Non-Newtonian fluids. For it’s flexibility, yet incredible resistance to force, it soon showed up anywhere and everywhere. Building materials, soldier’s armor, vehicles; everywhere you looked, you saw the material either shining pink or painted some other color to blend in. It even had the ability to take on properties of certain things injected into it, inject something hot in the material and the material would constantly give off heat, electrify the material and it would become something of a generator, every year a new mixing of the material would be discovered and put to use all over the world in items and fields the material hadn’t previously reached.

It was the material’s ability to constantly give off energy when mixed correctly that caused it to be a major component in the first interstellar spaceships. It was nearly a century after the material’s creation that the world was finally ready for such exploration, due to the public’s fear of the unknown and the world’s governments willingness to bend to fear. Science kept marching on, however, and by the time the first ships were being built, there had been enough research and new theories to greatly diminish any concerns about such travel.

For a time, humanity seemed to forget about creating small black holes for research. The species spread across space, colonizing other worlds, finding previously unknown life, and basically living the sci-fi dream.

Eventually, the fates aligned and science finally saw an answer to the problem that had plagued research for what was new a few hundred years. Black hole research had improved by leaps and bounds due to the constant space travel, but observing from a safe distance can only reveal so much. The desire was still there to create such a powerful entity in a lab, where it could be studied up close and personal. Now, finally, there was a planet willing to see the research begin. It was a mostly uninhabited planet, given up to the animals and plants left on it.

It was a misshapen and oddly luminous planet, which previously served as a host to all sorts of entertainment venues. If you were a pop star, you very likely would have performed on this planet multiple times for broadcasts reaching out all over the universe. In more recent years, it lost the luster that fame brought to it, as an asteroid field had sprung up around the star system, making the planet much too much of a hassle for most to bother going to. Virtually no one lived on it anymore, so no government saw much of a problem with running the experiments there. The worst possible scenario would lead to a number of casualties reaching a few hundred maximum. Less than even the amount made from recent problems with starship captains texting while driving.

By 2463, the lab, which had gained a silly nickname from scientists who saw it as a land where the great research dream of the past few centuries would come true, was up and running, ready to begin creating the Non-Newtonian Solid container that would house the lab’s main focus.

The design of the container was spherical, with two pads on the bottom for stability and a short handle on each side. The front could be opened to get at the contents inside, but when closed created a perfect seal. Getting the device, which they called a ‘research ball,’ to work exactly as they hoped against stress tests was harder than expected, though. Research balls A through G had failed, leading to a discovery that the factory providing them with the Non-Newtonian Solid material was not working up to code, and as such were providing an inferior batch.

Funding was beginning to run low, forcing the scientists to reach out for funding from more sources. The main source turned out to be Klaxxon Industries, who had an interest in black hole study as a leading transport company. Learning more about black holes would lead to more efficient routes around them. The only minor issue the lab had came to be that the company required that the K.I. logo be stamped on just about everything in the complex.

With the new money, the lab was able to put together more of the new ‘Klaxxon Industries Research Ball’s, trying to get just the right mix and setup so they could ensure there would be no catastrophic failure once they finally created the most dangerous thing in space inside. Balls H through L didn’t mold correctly, M through O didn’t hold up to stress tests, and all sorts of various little problems continued to plague ball after ball.

Finally, Research Ball Y held up to all the tests. It was perhaps the perfect container, coming up with less than a ten-trillionth of a percent of error in any test they put it up against. Once it was set, they hooked it up to the computers and added new programming to the nanochips embedded inside. With this programming, the container would have enough of an artificial intelligence to monitor its own vitals and move to shut down experiments if they became too dangerous, or perform some of the actions needed for the experiment on its own if situations called for the human team to avoid close contact.

Soon, the galaxy’s first lab-created black hole came into existence, and was placed inside Research Ball Y, which the scientists affectionately referred to by the initials painted on its side. The results were immediate. Within a few months, more knowledge about black holes had been figured out than anyone could have ever dreamed. New safety measures were designed for dealing with wild ones, new technologies in major fields were being created, and like when the material of the container was created, there was a general boom of advancement.

With new technology, however, comes new ideas for war. The Non-Newtonian Solid leant itself towards defensive tech, but artificial black holes and black hole study leant itself more easily towards weapons. All it took was one rogue faction with extremist views to get hold of the tech in order to start a war reaching across the galaxy and wiping out a large percentage of the human race.

Eventually it ended, and things began to rebuild. The pop planet turned land of scientific dreams, however, was still difficult to get to and as such became forgotten. The lab fell into ruin, and nature continued to take over the planet, eventually turning the area once full of science into a field the greenest of greens.

The small container filled with a black hole survived, though, wandering the world and slowly learning more than its programming began with. The initials may have worn off its side, but it still remembered what it was called, and it still knew that its purpose was to swallow whatever it could find in order to learn more about the universe, and to keep everyone safe while doing so.

It would always be hungry. For matter, and for knowledge.

File Photo: Klaxxon Industries Research Ball Y