There’s a scene in the otherwise enjoyable fifth “Mission: Impossible” movie where rogue agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is trying to describe the vast conspiracy he’s uncovered to his colleague Benji (Simon Pegg). Rather than just tell Benji about it — “There are some bad guys,” would probably suffice — Ethan shows him a complex audiovisual presentation on the wall-mounted displays that are installed in the secret room of the Amsterdam canalboat they have sought refuge in.
First, Ethan calls up a Mercator projection map of the world, then photos of dozens of secret agents, then a close-up on a particular agent. The presentation has a unified color theme and a nice typeface. All I could think was: When did super spy Ethan Hunt have the time to pull it all together?
[Review: The fifth “Mission: Impossible” injects new wit and energy into the franchise .]
I mean, in the midst of evading the CIA, MI6 and a shadowy terrorist group, he goes to the trouble of creating an incredibly complex PowerPoint. And it goes off without a hitch or a single phone call to technical support!
In reality, I think that scene would have gone something like this:
Ethan: Benji, the Syndicate is real. Look at this.
Benji: At what?
Ethan: Oh shoot. Hang on a second. I swear this worked last time. [Fiddles with keyboard. A box pops up on the screen.] Darnit!
Benji: What’s up?
Ethan: Error message. It says “PowerPoint cannot open the file C:/Users/EthanH/TerrorPlotFinalFinalFinal.ppt. The file may be damaged, or it may have been created in an earlier version of PowerPoint.” Should I click “OK”?
Benji: Beats me. Are you sure it’s on the C drive?
Ethan: I always use the C drive. I did save it on a thumb drive, too.
Benji: Try that.
[Ethan retrieves a drive from a secret compartment in his thumb, inserts it in the USB port and taps on his keyboard.]
Ethan: Ah, here we go. Wait, those are the wrong fonts. It’s replaced all my fonts!
Benji: I’m sure that’s not important. Now, what about this international conspiracy?
Ethan: No, it’s much better with the correct fonts. Do I drag the font over from my Word file? Let me just Google “Missing PowerPoint fonts.”
Benji: Ethan, really . . .
Ethan: This will only take a sec. Ah. “Select missing font from upper list box. Select replacement. Click ‘replace.’ ”
[Five minutes pass.]
Ethan: Finally. Okay, Benji, the Syndicate is real!
Benji: Does Brandt know about this?
Ethan: He . . . Son of a . . . I can’t believe this!
Benji: What is it?
Ethan: The slides should fill the screen. But my thumbnails are stacked on the left, and you can see the control panel at the top.
Benji: It’s fine. I still get the drift.
Ethan: Should I click on “Outline”? I’m clicking on “Outline.”
Ethan: Ah! It’s made it worse! Where did my thumbnails go? I’m Googling “Where did my thumbnails go.”
Benji: Maybe click on the green “play” button underneath where it says “Slide Show”?
Ethan: Of course. It seems obvious now. There we go. Where was I? Oh yeah: The Syndicate is real! Dozens of agents from the world’s intelligence agencies . . . What the?
Benji: Ethan, please, just tell me what’s going on and what we need to do next.
Ethan: I swear I had all their photos before! Now half of them are missing! What does that little icon with the turned over corner mean? Is that an Adobe thing?
Benji: Ethan, I don’t need to see what the agents look like.
Ethan: Do you know how long it took me to track down all those pictures? I had to go to every single one of their LinkedIn pages and do a “Save image as.” Then I had to put them all in a PDF file and transfer it to PowerPoint. I wonder if that was the problem. Can you put a PDF in PowerPoint?
Benji: I don’t know, Ethan.
Ethan: You don’t know? I thought you were the Impossible Missions Force’s computer whiz.
Benji: Yeah, I can remotely control an Airbus Atlas transport aircraft from my laptop, but I don’t know anything about the Microsoft Office suite of products.
Ethan: I wonder if I brought my MacBook in to the Genius Bar if someone there could help me.
Benji: We don’t have time for that, Ethan! And you can’t take classified material into a Genius Bar!
Ethan: Well it’s kind of moot now.
Benji: What do you mean?
Ethan: Look.
Benji: Ugh. It’s in Comic Sans.
Name the new panda Elvis
Some might say that my mission to name the National Zoo’s new giant panda Elvis is impossible. It’s a mission I’m willing to accept. It is logical to name the cub after Elvis Presley.
As Dave Metzger of Bethesda writes: “Pandas are animals. To quote from the Web site of the Society [for the Prevention of] Cruelty to Animals International: ‘The SPCA International mission is simple but vast: to advance the safety and well-being of animals globally. We continually work to save animals from cruelty.’ One of Elvis’ greatest hits was ‘Don’t be Cruel.’ So . . .”
Exactly.
Send me more reasons this cub should be named after the King of Rock-and-Roll. Put “Panda Elvis” in the subject heading.
