#portalling

"…oh…of course Port, go on ahead and tell me."

Very good! You are now in possession of the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. With it, you can create your own portals.

At the moment, all we had to do was go home. There was no reason to start trouble now. If we get home, nothing else will matter. This mission will be done with and we can all go out separate ways.  "All right, everyone," Akaal said. "Gather round. It's time to send you back to the earthly plane." She rubbed her hands together and then began chanting. Slowly a portal began to open up in the air.  "Ok, Frank. Take them home " 

"Thank you, Akaal," I told her. "We'll never forget what you've done for us." 

"Just make sure it wasn't all in vain and get back home."

I stepped through the portal and the world flipped upside down. I could swirling light sand little else. And then I was rolling out onto pavement, someone was yelling at me. “Get out of the way, ya bum. Can't you see I'm walking here. It's 8 in the morning and you're already drunk?" 

I looked at the man standing over me. "Sorry, sir, but I assure you I am completely sober."

"Yeah right," the man scoffed. "No one would wear a costume like that and stumble around the street sober." 

And that was when I remembered that I had switched bodies back in the other dimension and no longer looked human. Unfortunately, I hadn't accrued enough instability to try transforming again. I was stuck like this for at least another day or two. At least I wasn't about to be joined by two equally strange looking companions.

...oh, wait.

to be continued here next week

You know, as I was eating lunch today, I couldn't help but think of all the wonderful things one could do with a real-world portal gun, such as the ASPHD in Portal. If you don't know what that acronym stands for, shame. Shaaaaame. But if you DO know what it means, then you probably already realize where I'm going with this. For convenience, I'm going to do this in list form, and acknowledge right there that I physically can't and won't list every possible use. But I'm still going to list a few you might not thought of.

Now, before we go on, just imagine for a moment: What would you do with a portal gun? And in addition, let's just say that this portal gun comes with long-fall boots, for convenience. Just think about that for a moment, all I ask, and see what you get. Then take a look at my list and enjoy, eh?

1. Portable door. This was the simplest, easiest thing I could think of, while still existing as being pretty cool. Bending space time for simple tasks can be fun. And who wouldn't like to be able to say, "I've walked through walls before"?

2. Travel miles in minutes. Everybody these days has cars. But not everyone has portal guns. And with proper use you can probably go faster than a car, how awesome is that? If the portal gun can shoot a portal to the moon in under ten seconds, it can probably reach a mile away in no time, bring you there, and then reach another mile. You can get where you need to, when you need to, and look damn cool doing it.

2.5 Travel tedious distances. Short distances may be short, but sometimes they're too short, like when you've sat down on the couch, got all nice and comfy, and then you realize the remote is out of reach. Nobody wants to ruin that cozy position, so I'm sure your personal ASPHD won't mind portalling you a remote, phone, soda, or whatever else is just inconveniently out of reach.

3. The best sleep ever. Tired of having an uncomfortable bed, which you can never find a comfortable, lumbar-supporting position on, causing you to be restless and pointlessly toss and turn? The Portal gun can fix that. Just imagine it, shoot a portal on your ceiling and on your floor, one right over the other, and hop in(Long-fall boots recommended if you wish to safely leave "bed"). Your constant, unending falling will cause no stress on your back whatsoever, leaving you with a zero-gravity bed you can always rely on and take anywhere.

4. Free skydiving, without a parachute. Remember how I mentioned those long fall boots for convenience? Well, they can do more than just be convenient. If they're going to allow you to safely land from a fall of any height, it would be irresponsible to not use them for skydiving. And with your portal gun, getting high into the air will be cheap, and easy, too. Just remember to land feet-down after your high-flying tricks in the air.

5. Having the best exercise course possible. Don't want to pay for gym memberships? Just portal walls opposite of each other and BAM, you now have your own treadmill to run through as long as you want. This also works with stairs, swimming pools(in certain conditions), and performing cartwheels and front/back-flips.

6. Use it to prank people. Who doesn't enjoy a good laugh now and then? So how funny would it be to secretly drain a lake on someone from fifty feet away, or have a severed limb crawling around? I don't know how portal-placement works, but if you could put it on a fabric, that would be quite the illusion for arms moving through it.

7. Be a real-life vigilante. Because what criminal wants to be shot to the moon out of nowhere, and sucked into the vacuum of space? Or I suppose you could do the same as the villain, and use powers for evil and what-all. But that would be rude.

8. Win races in record time. Who cares if some jagoff ran track in high school when you can run a marathon in 4 seconds*? Sure, you could be off using this thing to win Nobel prizes or something, but that's too obvious. (* Disqualification for using portal gun may occur.)

9. Fuck around with water. Because the physics uses with a portal gun are practically infinite, and frankly, bound to be hilarious. Besides, who wouldn't want to piss into a hole, and then watch it come out a different hole, and THEN land into the toilet, or wherever they were aiming? Trick shot urinating, yo, it's the new hip thing to do these days.

10. Fun with traffic. Because being able to shoot a portal onto a truck moving at sixty miles an hour and then use this portal to throw eggs at other cars is fun. Well, eggs, or whatever your imagination can come up with. Just remember, you aren't a monkey, and throwing feces isn't necessary in the urban jungle.

11. Fun with planes. Even if you're not going to go skydiving out of them anymore, why not portal onto one's wing and soar through the air like a majestic eagle piloting a blimp?

12. Fun with "planes". Just think of what you could do with two pieces of paper! One thing I've always wondered about is if you had two portals on two walls, or pieces of paper in this case, before pressing them together. Not pushing one into the other, mind you, but just up against each other. Would there still be space in-between the portals, or light? Could you bend the portals with the paper, or as with the aforementioned fabric? Weird science.

13. Fun with Slinkies. 'Nuff said.

14. Make a Rube Goldberg machine. Because portals could only make those things even awesome, and be all the more absolutely ridiculous for just pushing a button or accomplishing some other menial task.

15.Drop a safe on your enemies with ease. Also works with pianos(If the piano is small enough/portal big enough), anvils, refrigerators, cinder-blocks, iron crates, kitchen sinks, floor tiles, ham radios, and grenades.

16. Best game(s) of Hide-and-seek ever. Nobody will expect you to hide into that closet, or behind that tree, or in the mailbox, or half-way around the world, or inside the mirror, or on the moon. Unless they've played hide-and-seek with you before.