Has The Guy Who Draws Beetle Bailey Ever Seen A Squirrel?

Before I get into writing way too much about way too small a point, I want to mention my mathematics blog, where I had some more comic strips to write about yesterday. I’d like to say a little more about that, because I want to include an image of a comic strip with alarming art in it.

And if I pad the text enough before including the image, then WordPress makes it appear below the little block on the left with the dateline and tags and so on, then the image is larger, and that’s better.

And I need like one more line before it works on my computer to come out right.

Maybe one more.

One more, I think.

No, don’t need that one.

Mort Walker and Greg Walker’s Beetle Bailey for the 15th of August, 2017. So, in the vintage circa-1960 run of Beetle Bailey also on Comics Kingdom they have this fascinating running joke. General Halftrack frets that he hasn’t gotten any orders from the Pentagon for the last three years or so, and that last order was to just wait for their next order. It’s a good joke. It also feeds into the fan theory — yes, yes, all fan theories are the same fan theory — that Camp Swampy is some dopey military-fantasy camp with no connection to the actual US Army. I don’t care for the fan theory but, must say, an utterly forgotten camp kind of makes sense.

OK, so, yeah, since about 1950 comic strips have relied on this Mid-Century-Modern-influenced styling. Every comic strip develops its own non-representational but, hopefully, expressive design. And trying to fit something very different into that design can be difficult. Charles Schulz never figured out how to put a cat he liked into Peanuts. But this … I mean … what the heck?

I’m not saying I can do better. My own squirrel-drawing abilities are sharply limited. I would probably give you a better squirrel if I handed a canvas and ink brush to a raccoon and asked her to draw something. She would refuse, because it’s really crummy to ask an artist to draw something for free. I would offer the onion we kind of forgot we’ve had in the refrigerator since May as payment. She would insist also on getting the block of year-old cheddar that’s going a bit off because we’re not eating as much cheese as we expected. I would say she could have the parts that are starting to go dry, but not the salvageable part. And there we would reach an impasse. In any case, we wouldn’t get some Apartment 3-G nightmare like that. That’s what I’m saying.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index rose a starting 23 points over the day to close at 400, a new high number and a nice, round number too. Everybody’s in quite the giddy mood, pondering, what can they possibly do to top this? Someone came in from consoling Lisa with the suggestion of “401”, but was called a mad fool and a dreamer.

400

Meanwhile In Town

The trading floor alluded to this yesterday. But Saturday there was some kind of open-air smooth-jazz festival going on down at the Armory, which is a couple miles away from here. I’m assuming it was open-air. If it wasn’t then the performers have to have obliterated the Armory with the force of sound alone. It was loud enough out here to recognize individual songs, which only got weird when someone started performing, for some reason, “Smoke On The Water” and that isn’t even me joking.

Besides a couple stray bits of that, though, the whole Eastside spent the day smothered under a blanket of background-worthy music. It finally ended around 9:30 in the evening, when someone thought to press a button and we finally moved, letting dozens of blocks of Lansing get out on the second floor.

As you’d figure there’s complaining about this on the neighborhood Facebook community. My love tells me there’s a sharp division between people who are annoyed at hour after hour of extremely soft jazz rattling their houses, and those who are annoyed at hour after hour of extremely soft jazz rattling their houses but think the complainers are just too old to enjoy music. You know, the hit music of DuPont industrial shorts from 1962. I’m only getting the good bits of the dispute, but that’s a good bit. And I haven’t made up a bit of this.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index rose sixteen points today and then Lisa came back from some kind of lunchtime meeting about her proposed TV show and you do not want to get anywhere near that. Neither did the index, which fell five points after all that went down so we settled in at about an eleven-point rise.

370

In Which The Journey Is Its Reward, Turnip Edition

I don’t remember why I was reading Wikipedia’s article about turnips, but it was justified by running across this sentence and its parenthetical diversion:

The Macomber turnip (actually a rutabaga) dating from the late 19th century features in one of the very few historic markers for a vegetable, on Main Road in Westport, Massachusetts.

Yes, they have a photograph of the historical marker (“Legend of the Turnips”) and no, I’m lying. I know why I was reading Wikipedia’s article about turnips. I just don’t want to admit what it was.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index dropped fourteen points and while there’s a faction trying to argue that that isn’t anything more than if it lost like four points back when it was at a hundred there’s people running around screaming and just making everybody all tense.

356

After The Weekend

My love and I spent last weekend at the State Games of America in Grand Rapids. We were in the pinball competition because there’s a pinball-contest organizer who’s a genius at getting bigger events to host pinball tournaments on the side. The pinball competition was in Ballroom B, as were the darts and the billiards contests. There was also a bar set up in the ballroom. I honestly don’t know if there was supposed to be or if gathering enough pinball, darts, and billiards players in one room caused it to spontaneously manifest.

In the fourth corner of the room they also had a boxing ring. That was inspirational, watching people holding up the championship belt. Boxing championship belts combine two great traditional guy interests, that of celebrating our ability to hit one another and that of celebrating how we can do take something ordinary and make it so large and dramatic that it’s useless for its original purpose of controlling the rate at which our pants fall down.

It turned out Michigan’s were the National State Games and the organizer told us that while Michigan residents could just show up and compete, residents of other states had to win their own state games first. I looked this up and it’s slightly off, not in important ways. If your state has games in that sport you’re supposed to win that first before going on to nationals. But per their Qualifying Standards document:

Due to National Congress of State Games neighboring state policy, athletes residing in Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana and Ontario, Canada are allowed to compete in SGA 2017 without qualification

My obvious question: so, wait, Wisconsin doesn’t border Michigan suddenly? Guess not. But Wisconsin only borders the upper peninsula, the whole population of which is abandoned copper mining platforms sinking into contaminated lakes. I can understand overlooking that. Not answered: Wait, so Illinois borders Michigan somewhere?

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index dropped nine points as the trading floor felt mixed emotions following the City Council primary vote. On the one hand, the guy whose campaign site was just one page, half of it a picture of Neptune, won’t be in the November election. On the other hand, we ain’t voting for a novelty-act candidate for anything ever again and we’re going to kick in the shins anyone who says they are, thank you.

381

In Which The Facts Are Kind Of Annoying

So the Salisbury steak was invented by the physician James Salisbury. He was of the opinion that people should eat Salisbury steak three times a day, if possible. All of this is as true as something attested on Wikipedia could be. And I’m annoyed because this sounds exactly like what I’d produce in the first two sentences if you gave me the topic ‘Salisbury steaks’ to riff on. It’s an injustice of some kind.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index rose twelve points to yet another record high somehow, as all the talk about Salisbury steaks has got people thinking maybe they’ll be for dinner soon. Many of the traders have fond memories of Salisbury steaks, since they grew up in the 70s and early 80s, when white American home-cooking was yet to quite emerge from its “Hey, what if we boiled it?” phase.

392

Championship Posing

The local alt-weekly had a piece about competitive yoga, which is neat since the national championship was just this past weekend at the State Games of America, held in Grand Rapids. My love and I were there, competing for pinball. My love went home with a bronze medal for the Pro Division. I went home with an extra T-shirt the organizers had that isn’t actually in my size.

Anyway. Competitive yoga. I haven’t been to a yoga class in years, and I admit what I got was the sort of suburban yoga where the instructor mentions yeah, there’s some stuff about philosophy and a set of beliefs you should be considering about the nature of humanity and its relationship to the universe, but mostly if you need a towel to do a leg lift please do. I need many towels to do a leg lift, because I have the flexible hamstrings of a parking garage. Still, I have trouble imagining just what this is, and apparently yoga competitors have it to. From a particularly defensive quote:

“India has had a national yoga federation since the ‘70s,” said [ National Yoga Asanda Champion ] Ann Chrapkiewicz, “They’re going on their 42nd national championship, so it’s not an American thing that we made up.”

I appreciate that Americans will take anything and then form a championship out of it. If there were a way to do so much blinking that it might make somebody weep then we’d have National Blinking Championships. So I guess it’s nice that some other countries will championize what might otherwise just be things you enjoyed doing. But I guess I knew that already. Like, over in England there’s competitive pipe-smoking. I’m not sure the exact way it works. I think it’s a thing where you get two chances to light the pipe and one long draw, and then organizers watch to see which of the contestants have been dead since Rhodesia was expelled from the Commonwealth. (“Who amongst you is dead? Show of hands, please … yes, yes, I see you, Montgomery. No, you’re not dead then. Better luck next time.”) So I suppose we all have our traditions of doing things until we can give people medals for it.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The Another Blog, Meanwhile Index drifted down four points as traders hoped to get back to listening to some of those podcasts that have been gathering dust since mid-June.

380

Thinking About The Mud Supply

I’m not among those outraged by reports that a New Zealand music festival has spent NZ$90,000 importing five tons of mud from South Korea. What do I know from what New Zealand music festivals need? And besides, Juicero. I got to tell a friend who’d missed that all about the Juicero nonsense yesterday and it was great fun. But the people of a planet that produced Juicero investors have no place faulting music festival organizers for being part of the international mud trade.

No, what’s got me is that festival organizers said this purchase would meet their needs for the next five of their concerts. If this is an annual event, that’s five years’ worth of mud they’re buying. Again, I don’t fault them buying in quantity. If you know you need something and it’s nonperishable and you have the storage space, sure, buying in bulk makes sense. What’s got me is having a projection of your mud needs for the next five years. I have no idea what my mud needs are like. I know it’s killing my budget to keep running to the corner convenience-store-that-wants-to-be-a-neighborhood-grocery-but-isn’t-trying-very-hard to get a box every time I run short. I should write the festival and ask for their advice on mud need estimation. But now that they’re being made fun of in public I bet they wouldn’t think I was sincere. Too bad.

Also I had some more comic strip stuff on my mathematics blog. You might like that. I also started a new sequence of explaining mathematics terms, which I always like doing.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

Somehow the Another Blog, Meanwhile traders found another 26 points to rise and I don’t know where they all came from. They can’t all be from swiping digits out of the Labor Of Like Index. We got those allegations cleared up by pointing at them and declaring that they were not allegations but crocodiles instead, and this set off a healthy Internet know-it-all intellectual dogpile from people who insist they do too get the joke but there’s a real point here that some other people might be confused about. I’m innocent, is what I’m saying.

368

Also Seen While On The Road

Again no photograph because we were on the road, and while I wasn’t driving I wasn’t going to get my camera out in near enough time for this. But the tall highway sign promised the place was the “House Of Cigar”, just like that. Just as if it were a 1960s-style Chinese Restaurant that had somehow got things really quite wrong. Or as if it were yet another Little Pig harassed by the Big Bad Wolf, who huffed and who puffed and reduced his house to an enormous and unpleasant blue stench rolling through the village. There’s no way to know, I guess, except by standing next to that friend who’s always going on about how They’re just ruining fairy tales by taking out the graphic violence and horribly abusive behavior. Get in range of that friend for maybe fifteen minutes and they’d explain all about how there used to be, like, Fifteen Little Pigs before Disney’s cartoon suppressed a long folkloric tradition. Like, there’d be a house of cigars, and a house of ice, and a house of matchsticks, and a house of muffins, and a house of floppy old boots, and a house that’s just a bunch of guys with really long necks huddling in a circle, and on and on and they all got cut because it made the cartoon run too long and we don’t ever hear about them anymore. Anyway, if you find this friend and can get a report about the pig with the house of cigars thing I’d appreciate it.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

So much for natural trading ceilings.

342

The Conversation

My love’s father was thinking about town and said, “I wonder if the ice cream place is still serving.” My love went to the hypothetical: “Or what if there is no more service, and the place has degenerated to a Hobbesian battleground of all against all, customer, clerk, and pedestrians taking what they might without respect to law or custom, the Leviathan made manifest over the double-chocolate cookie dough?” They had this conversation over a year ago and I’m still thinking about it.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

And now the index finished another trading day at 331. This is four days out of the last five it’s been here and analysts are already starting to form talk about a natural trading ceiling being at 333, what with that being kind of like a nice round number if you approach it with the right attitude.

331

In Which I Apologize For Messing Up All of Time

Yeah, so, it’s my fault. I’m sorry. That thing where we all went around all day Wednesday thinking it was Thursday? And a whole bunch of Thursday thinking it was Friday? That was me. I messed up somehow and took two days off my Peanuts page-a-day calendar. I don’t know how. I’m usually good about this, taking one day off per day lived. I haven’t got any excuse and I apologize for having everyone’s sense of what day it is messed up. I’d like to make it up to everyone by leaving it on Saturday/Sunday for an extra couple days but I know deep down that would just make everything worse. Best I can do is spread the word, let people know why all this is going on, and we’ll get back to normal as we can manage. I mean normal for us.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

So one of the traders asked why football fields don’t draw the cross lines, the way they used to in really, really old photographs, back when you could understand why they called it a “gridiron”. And I said it because of wartime paint rationing the cross lines were dropped, and everyone liked that so well they stuck with it even when peace returned and anybody could get as much white paint as they wanted. And that’s satisfied everybody so much that the index rose thirteen points and the trading floor is in a great mood. And now I’m worried about, like, what if I was right and that’s why they don’t draw the grid lines in anymore?

275

In Which The Retirement Community Billboard Baffles Me

No photograph, because I was driving and I’m not that reckless just yet. But if I didn’t read it wrong, the retirement community billboard said you didn’t have to be a Mason to live here. And I’m glad to know that, I guess, what with it not being like enough people have homes. And I’ve only had two encounters with Masons that I’m aware of, one when I donated blood at the Masonic Hall in grad school and then like fifteen years later a Red Cross flyer suggested I might make it to a donation drive they were having there again. The other was a guy I was chatting with online who mentioned he was off to a lodge meeting and I was surprised because I knew he was under the age of Like 80. Also I guess it’s nice to know this retirement community has gotten past the hot social struggles of 1856? Well, I’m glad at least someone has.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

Uncertainty gripped the markets today and drove the Another Blog, Meanwhile index down seventeen points when a letter arrived from the bank that bought out the accounts of the bank that bought out the accounts of the bank that bought the bank we originally started the account with. The letter explained that they were extending indefinitely some fee waivers that were due to lapse in September. That there wasn’t any explanation of why they were doing this stoked fears that they’re trying to build customer goodwill ahead of doing something awful or being caught in something awful they already did and nobody wants to deal with that.

252

In Which I Question Santa’s Staffing Decisions

Recently I got to visit Story Book Land, a small nursery-rhyme-forest and amusement park in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey. Also there’s a place called Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey. Yes, it has that name for the reason you’d expect: it’s a township. Story Book Land is a grand place, lots of displays of fairy tales. So this Santa Claus’s Workshop scene caught my eye:

A lot of Story Book Land’s displays have moving parts and buttons along the walls that kids can press. The buttons here make the deer up front move the pencil back and forth, and I think the reindeer in back pats at the adding machine. (I just grew uncertain as I wrote this.) If you need to keep a kid amused, put lots of buttons in walls they can push. The Roadside America model railroad in Shartlesville, Pennsylvania, learned this years and was why as kids we insisted on going to it like forty times a month.

Clearly I’m not in a position to tell Santa how he should run his business, and I shouldn’t disparage anybody’s qualifications before I know what they’re good at and what they like doing. It just seems a little cruel to give a lot of writing duties to a species that hasn’t got fingers. And I’m not too sure it’s considerate to put a reindeer on adding machine duty either, given, again, the whole hoof issue. Maybe Santa knows something I don’t. I just expect there’s all kinds of dropped … things, and probably shouting, involved.

Also I wish I had the courage to go to work wearing outfits like these reindeer do. And I work from home.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The Another Blog, Meanwhile index rose four points in trading, and then fell right back again. Then it dropped four points, and rose the four points to right where it started. Analysts credit this movement to the purchase of a new swingset. Surely someone has purchased a swingset, somewhere, at some time, right? Sure.

256

MiSTed: Galactic Federation Update, Part 4/4

Part 1.

Part 2.

Part 3.

OK, so, MOS Burgers: at the time I was living in Singapore and they had the Japanese(?) chain there and I really got into their whole style. Not just a good variety of burger and burger-like patties, and the choice to have a rice bun instead of a bread-based one, but also, like, advertising copy about being in touch with nature and all that. The reference to someday getting to be Head Beagle is from Peanuts, of course, and a storyline that they reran earlier this year that made Charles Schulz seem impossibly timely. Seriously. Scarily timely.

I suppose it’s inconsistent with my opening-sketch claim that Professor Bobo was good with forms that he misreads one in the closing sketch. The idea that he would be good with forms was ripped off of The Mary Tyler Moore Show where Ted Baxter had some weirdly specific moments of supreme competence. (Knowing who had won every local-TV award ever, for example, or being able to do arithmetic instantly as long as he imagined it was about money.) I like idiot characters with narrowly-defined fields of competence.

The closing line about Heidi Klum refers to a cranky person who used to haunt the late-night talk show newsgroups on Usenet. He had the idea that the aliens guiding human destiny left clues to their plans in the news about Heidi Klum. Sounds ridiculous? All right. He was incredibly happy to answer any and all questions you had, indefatigably. He eventually promised his wife and therapist he’d stop promoting his Heidi Klum theory, and as far as I know he did. But boy did he leave a deep impression on everyone who saw his work.

---

>

> Today, we have discussed segments of our shared history that

> explain your origins and the basis of your present condition of

> consciousness.

MIKE: Next week, remember, we’re doing the Polish-Lithuanian monarchy,
so read up chapter eight and be ready with questions, people.

> We ask you to use this awareness to examine how far you

> actually have come!

CROW: I’m suddenly more aware of my tongue.

TOM: You don’t have a tongue.

CROW: Then I’m suddenly confused and distressed.

> Your liberation and new world service are truly

> within reach!

TOM: As soon as you pay up your library fines!

> We now take our leave.

MIKE: [ As Groucho ] I’ve had a wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.

> Blessings, dear Ones! Know, in

> your Heart of Hearts,

CROW: In your Diamond of Diamonds,

MIKE: In your Spade of Spades,

TOM: In your Club of Clubs..

> that the eternal Supply and perpetual Prosperity

> of Heaven is yours!

MIKE: This reads like the advertising materials for MOS Burgers.

> So Be It! Selamat Gajun! Selamat Kasijaram!

CROW: They’re either Malay or the Klindesteron beademungen.

> (Sirian

> for Be One! Blessed in Love and in Joy!)

TOM: And there’s some fine print where you sign up to buy two CDs
each month for a year.

>

> Planetary Activation Organization

MIKE: Somebody check the Earth’s batteries. Venus was dead
three months before we noticed.

> http://www.paoweb.com

>

> This copy was reposted by Robert E. McElwaine

TOM: The `E’ stands for `Extra.’

CROW: Robert E. McExtralwaine?

> PAO Member

> Eckankar Initiate

MIKE: And a good friend.

> B.S., Physics and Astronomy, UW-EC

CROW: Hah … Mike?

MIKE: Not my fault, guys.

> http://members.aol.com/rem547 PLUS

> http://members.aol.com/rem460

TOM: That adds up to rem 1007.

>

> See also http://www.paoweb.com/sn122600.htm ,

CROW: A URL actually created by a snore.

> http://www.disclosureproject.org .

>

> P.S.: PASS IT ON !

MIKE: You’ll never guess which of your close friends is waiting
for this very message!

>

> ok

TOM: OK? Is that all you have to say for yourself?

[ 1… 2… 3… 4… 5… 6… ]

[ SATELLITE OF LOVE DESK. GYPSY, TOM SERVO, and CROW are there, with
many papers scattered on the desk. A pencil is wedged into
CROW’s hand. ]

GYPSY: You need line 17 from form 8-E.

CROW: I know, I’m just — look, how many amiable characters from the
movies and shorts we watch have visited us on the Hex Field View
Screen this year?

TOM: 28, including four visits from Marrissa Picard.

GYPSY: You have to tell them how you made Jay Gordon cry.

TOM: Tell them 35.

CROW: I’m not cheating on these forms!

TOM: Oh, like they’ll check?

GYPSY: It kind of goes against the spirit —

[ MIKE enters. They all hush up for a few seconds. ]

MIKE: So. Who wants to —

[ Simultaneously: ]

GYPSY: Crow.

CROW: Tom.

TOM: Crow.

MIKE: Well?

CROW: We realized we haven’t filled in our reports for the
Galactic Federation of Light this year yet.

TOM: You wouldn’t believe how many forms it is, either,
but it’s worth doing.

GYPSY: It’s an important part of bringing light to the universe.

MIKE: [ Playing along ] Plus you might get to be Head Beagle.

GYPSY: So we’re listing all this year’s light-bringing.

CROW: You got anything you want reported?

MIKE: I, uh, cleaned the burnt pizza stuff out of the toaster oven.

CROW: That’s good! What else do we have?

TOM: We played keep-away with Observer’s brain for like ten minutes.

MIKE: That didn’t really uplift anyone’s soul.

CROW: Well … what about that fun we had playing backgammon? That had
to bring something good into the world.

GYPSY: We just moved the checkers around randomly for five minutes,
got bored, then you threw them like ninja stars until
you broke the McVote McDLT glasses.

CROW: Oh yeah.

TOM: Well … we had to have done something, right?

GYPSY: We didn’t stop anyone from bringing light.

TOM: Yeah!

CROW: OK, I’m writing that in — Mike, you have any stamps? We
need to mail this to the Galactic Federation of Light Central
Processing Bureau in Menominee, Michigan.

MIKE: Oh, fresh out. Let’s check in on Pittney-Bowes, shall we?

TOM: Four, five — hey, does Sonic the Hedgehog still exist?

[ CASTLE FORRESTER. The stage is filled by shipping cartons of all
sizes, marked “LIGHT BULBS” and stacked precariously high.
BOBO, PEARL, and OBSERVER are squeezed in front, reading
papers on a business envelope. ]

OBSERVER: Dahdahdaaah … appreciate your filing early … blah de
blah … having reviewed your Federation of Light returns this
year … yeah, uh-huh … computed against withholding reported
in form 671-X …

PEARL: So how much of a light-bringing refund did we *get*?

BOBO: [ Pointing at a line ] Fifty-five thousand, three hundred
forty three!

[ A pause, as PEARL simmers. ]

PEARL: That’s our Zip code, you — [ She pinches his nose. ]

[ BOBO barks, Curly style; his left arm windmills around and hits
OBSERVER’s brain, which he drops, apparently onto PEARL’s
foot as she grabs her foot and hops. She trips into BOBO, who
bounces against one pile of boxes, sending it crashing. He
rebounds to knock PEARL and OBSERVER into their own huge stacks,
which sends off volleys of crashing and imploding light bulb
sounds through the credits … ]

                              \  |  / 
                               \ | /  
                                \|/   
                              ---O--- 
                                /|\  
                               / | \  
                              /  |  \ 

Mystery Science Theater 3000 and the characters and situations
therein are the property of Best Brains, Inc. The essay “GALACTIC FEDERATION Update: August 5, 2003” comes to us from Robert McElwaine
and Sheldan Nidle. This MiSTing as a whole is the creation of Joseph
Nebus, who intends no particular ill-will towards Robert McElwaine,
Sheldan Nidle, or any nigh-omnipotent beings guiding humanity towards
a glorious new destiny in the stars, but does enjoy following Kansan’s
reports of how they signal their intents through the life and career
of Heidi Klum. Come back, Dr. Mike Neylon!

> Greetings, dear Hearts! We return with more interesting topics to

> share with you.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

With a rise of eight more points it’s starting to look like we’re never going to get traders off of this Belgian cricket diet bubble. We may have to resort to drastic measures.

229

MiSTed: Galactic Federation Update, Part 3/4

Part 1.

Part 2.

Write enough MiSTings and you pick up your own little habits and recurring jokes. One of mine was “if [someone] had gone straight to the police, this would never have happened”. Recognize the origin? You’re fine if you don’t. It’s from one of the very many very minor Woody Woodpecker cartoons of the 50s, Bronco Busters. I was really into Woody Woodpecker when I was a kid. Of all the not-actually-good cartoons I watched obsessively back then it was probably the best of the lot. Apparently in the cartoon the line is actually “if Woody had gone right to the police, this would never have happened” but please understand: I wrote this before YouTube was a thing. I had to remember what the line was from decades earlier.

Gurmit Singh’s a Singaporean actor and comedian whom I saw a lot when I was living in Singapore, as I was back when I wrote this. I had come to figure, why not make local references that refer to my locality, rather than to the Minneapolis-local references the actual MST3K crew knew and made? What do I know about Minneapolis-local references apart from what was actually on the show? Exactly. I don’t remember that anyone ever was baffled or curious enough about this to ask, ever.

---

> At times, these wars seemed endless.

CROW: It was like watching the History Channel.

> The

> devastation’s intensity was inconceivable. We were always astonished at

> the extent to which the star-nations of Anchara would go in order to

> ‘win’ these wars.

MIKE: Star-nations of Anchara? There’s galactic warfare about whether
to accept Captain Archer and Team Bland on `Enterprise’?

> Their fierce stockpile of weapons and unspeakably

> brutal military forces sparked a reign of terror across this galaxy.

CROW: Yet still they can’t explain John Ashcroft.

>

> Eventually, our growing alliances led to the Galactic Federation

> of Light.

TOM: And that’ll have to be enough for you.

> The Galactic Federation was one of a number of organizations

> – neutral, dark or one with the Light – operating in this galaxy.

MIKE: And all striving to become the Master of Orion.

> At

> any rate, the wars produced a vast number of ‘wandering’ star-nations

> that moved about according to the circumstances caused by the wars.

CROW: If the Galactic Federation of Light had gone straight
to the police, this would never have happened.

> From them, we learned a great deal about the hate and the needless

> actions and divisions caused by limited consciousness

MIKE: You know, like when you overdo the Robitussin.

> and its constant

> train of fear and wrongly-derived assumptions. We found this quite an

> eye-opener.

TOM: It was zesty, and it had a great minty taste!

> We also learned the extent of the Ancharites’ deception.

CROW: The Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Dionne Warwick — none of them
ever really existed!

TOM: What?

> Although we were shocked, initially, at how dark this galaxy had

> become, we realized, deep in our Hearts, that this insanity would

> definitely end.

MIKE: Oh, yeah. Superadvanced cosmic being and I bet they just
whip out the Ritalin.

> Until that divine moment, we had to do whatever we

> could to stalemate the continuous wars.

TOM: But the Galactic League of Nations proved to be a disappointment.

> Thus, we created technologies

> and strategies that would bring about the required results.

CROW: That seemed too hard, so we started playing Europa Universalis II
for a couple millennia to kill time.

>

> Ultimately, just over two million years ago, these wars produced

> conditions that allowed us to colonize your solar system.

MIKE: And we’ve still got half our stuff in cardboard boxes.

> A new set of

> broad-based attacks by the Ancharites, nearly one million years ago,

> destroyed these first human colonies.

TOM: A million years these Federation of Light creeps float about
the planet and none of them remembers to not leave sitting ducks
all around.

> Later, a counter-attack by

> Galactic Federation forces culminated in the second Earth colony of

> Lemuria

CROW: So Joey the Lemur was a space alien?

TOM: Actually, yeah.

> and the destruction of the Ancharites’ main planetary world.

MIKE: The genocide was necessary, as otherwise some of the Ancharites
might have lived.

> Its explosive end produced the asteroid belt that now revolves between

> Mars and Jupiter.

CROW: Explosive ending! No one will be admitted during the
last five minutes of the Ancharites’ home world.

> Moreover, many of the smaller moons of Mars, Jupiter

> and the solar system’s other outer planets are the result of the

> carnage from these explosions.

TOM: A couple of them were just tchochkes we picked up at garage sales.

> Indeed, your solar system is a curious

> monument to the violence that was part of these wars.

CROW: Please observe silence while visiting the Solar System.

> It even extends

> to the outer layers of cosmic dust and larger particles that form the

> edge of your solar system.

MIKE: This is all related to Blue Kryptonite, isn’t it?

> Because these clouds were unduly charged,

> the outcome was a constant barrage of comets and asteroids.

TOM: But they do all look really festive come Christmas time.

>

> Even your Sun was not spared the degrees of violence of which the

> Ancharites were capable.

MIKE: And with our powers and a million years to try it was
too much work to fix it up again.

> They attempted to permanently disrupt your

> Sun’s interaction with her planetary daughters,

TOM: By being vicious gossips.

> resulting in the highly

> elliptical orbits that still characterize the way your solar system’s

> planets circle your Sun.

MIKE: The tragic result of putting unbalanced loads in the washer.

> Initially, these orbits were almost circular.

> For that reason, a circle has a 360-degree arc.

CROW: Bake your circle at that 360 degree arc for fifteen to
twenty minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center
comes out clean.

> In your world, this

> commemorates the original solar year of 360 days, each lasting 24

> hours.

TOM: Is that mean solar or sidereal time?

> The first colonists of ancient Lemuria decided not to alter this

> situation,

CROW: This reminds me of a story that happened once in … Zobooland.

> and kept this anomaly as a sign to future generations of

> what had actually occurred in this once splendid and beautiful solar

> system.

MIKE: Nice of them to leave us such a hint.

> These wars also caused the conditions needed to plunge you into

> the morass that we know as limited consciousness.

CROW: So, the Federation of Light wants to bring Light to the universe
and does it by leaving a broken-down solar system and dropping
colonists on it who’ll be too stupid to do any Light-bringing?

TOM: It’s the Galactic Federation of Durrr.

>

> Clearly, the dispersion of humanity into your solar system – even

> your fall into limited consciousness – are by-products of these galaxy-

> wide wars.

TOM: As soon as you leave the solar system, though, you’ll figure out
how to travel interstellar distances.

> Furthermore, the Galactic Federation’s acceptance of a

> nearly ‘hands-off’ policy was the result of circumstances brought about

> by these same wars.

MIKE: That hands-off policy that did so well to avoid the war
in the first place.

> This policy allowed the Anunnaki to become your

> overlords, and their earthly minions to secretly control you for the

> past 13 millennia.

TOM: Oh, *good* one, Galactic Federation of Light.

> However, this situation was dramatically changed by

> your rise in consciousness and by the Anunnaki’s recent turn to the

> Light.

CROW: And, what the heck, nothing good on TV this week anyway.

> These events have made possible the Galactic Federation’s direct

> intervention in your affairs.

MIKE: The protection money we demand will be reasonable
and collected infrequently.

> It has also given us an opportunity to

> assist those forces of Light that are laboring to transform your world.

TOM: Unfortunately, the only agents they have on the scene are
Judge Reinhold and Gurmit Singh, so it’s taking a while.

> This has resulted in the agreements that are about to be revealed.

CROW: I’m betting they call for people to wear less black, though.

>

> Heaven and your collective self are co-creating your reality.

MIKE: You put it that way, I feel so *naked*.

> You

> are interconnected Beings who are sharing the same destiny. That

> destiny is to be returned to fully conscious Beings of Light.

CROW: Just two weekends a month, and two millennia a geologic age.

> The

> concluding phase, before this divine transition can be fully revealed

> to you, has taken much too long for our liking.

TOM: Frankly, you’re on the verge of failing this class!

> Finally, the last

> vestiges of the dark have begun to see that their continuing battle is

> truly in vain.

CROW: The movies of Jerry Bruckheimer will get more desperate.

> This acknowledgement has allowed a new energy of

> positive intention to envelop your beautiful, blue orb.

MIKE: Clean it every other weekend with a damp cloth, and keep it
out of direct sunlight.

CROW: This is what the Mirror Universe had instead of “Highlander 2.”

> This energy has

> provided additional courage to those who are enforcing the agreements,

TOM: This is all going to end up at the World Trade Organization somehow.

> which guarantee that a new reality can be manifested, now, upon your

> world.

CROW: Watch your doorknobs for signs of opening blue eyes.

> We thank all who have helped and, especially, convey our deepest

> gratitude to all Light workers. Your victory is approaching!

TOM: No, really. Going to be here soon. Can’t see it taking more
than another 375,000 years at the *latest*.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index rose thirteen points in trading excited by word of a Brussels startup trying to sell crickets as food to Belgians, even though we’ve been through this before and we’re just not doing the insect-eating thing, thank you. Not as anything but a novelty, and no it does not help if you’re going to make them garlic flavored. If they were garlic-flavored we’d be eating them for the garlic, not the cricket, and we can get garlic flavor from non-insect-based sources. Anyway, this can’t last.

215

MiSTed: Galactic Federation Update, Part 2/4

Part 1.

So, a lot of MiSTings inspire a certain crankiness. Yes, we, the writers, choose to read these things and write jokes about it and immerse ourselves in the whole thing. And it’s mostly fun. But there is still a slog to it because when you look at every line of a post you realize there’s a lot of lines to it. And so many of them are boring. Not this time, though. This was a giddy, playful piece to write. I had fun and I think you can tell from the silliness of a lot of my riffs.

“The Swan” was a short-lived reality-TV show about taking people who were Hollywood Ugly and dressing them up until they could attract A MAN. This sort of thing seemed important to denounce back then.

---

>"Robt McElwain" <rmcelwaine@visto.com
> wrote in message

news:87befcb5.0308151233.2e7aa480@posting.google.com…

CROW: It’s the 21st century and we’re *still* getting Robert McElwaine.
Could we get some new cranks in here?

>

>

> Update from the REAL Galactic Federation

MIKE: The other Galactic Federation is just full of phonies.

> and The Spiritual Hierarchy

> August 5, 2003

TOM: They’re masters of space, time, and dimension, but their Usenet
servers are kept up by turtles.

> Communicated thru Sheldan Nidle of The Planetary Activation Organization

MIKE: So stop teasing him.

CROW: Shel-*dan*?

> http://www.paoweb.com/updates.htm

>

> Greetings, dear Hearts!

TOM: Howdy, lovey-kins.

> We return with more interesting topics to

> share with you.

MIKE: And we’ll give you six of them for four easy monthly payments
of $24.99 each.

> One of the things that we find most interesting is how

> your concepts of cosmology have distorted the origins of this physical

> universe.

CROW: Why, thank you. I think one of my most endearing features
is how my concepts of cosmology distort the origins of the
physical universe.

> Its genesis lies not in a ‘big bang’, but rather in a simple

> series of multiple creations.

TOM: This `Big Bang Burrito’ theory we expect will be slow to catch on.

> These creations produce many different

> dimensions and an abundance of realities. The crucial element is

MIKE: Erbium.

> divine

> consciousness. All of us dwell in a living, conscious universe.

TOM: Except for the audience of “The Swan.”

> That

> universe is composed of inter-dimensional Light and Time, which

> combine, in infinite ways, to form space.

CROW: Is this gonna be on the final?

> It, in turn, creates

> realities and shapes physicality’s countless dimensions. The physical

> universe is a magical place.

MIKE: So that’s why everyone’s after me Lucky Charms.

> The only limitations that exist in any

> reality are those that its inhabitants and its heavenly guardians,

> together, permit.

CROW: I already saw “Free To Be You And Me.” Can I go?

> Your laws of physics are a true misnomer.

TOM: They’re more nagging suggestions of physics instead.

> Your growth

> in awareness or new collective perceptions can instantly alter these

> so-called ‘laws’.

MIKE: One morning I took too much Sudafed and the Rydburg constant?
Pfft. Out like a light.

> Now, this important process has begun.

TOM: No, no, no, don’t go rushing into anything right now.

> It promises to

> create an entirely new reality for you and indeed for the rest of

> physicality.

CROW: You know, I can’t get “2000 Flushes” to work right.
Should I be part of creating a new reality for everybody?

>

> Creation is a continuously unfolding phenomenon. The divine plan

> has dealt out to us all a multiplicity of sudden twists and turns.

TOM: You are in a maze of twisty divine plans, all alike.

> Now,

> as a direct result, countless sentient species live in the physical

> universe.

MIKE: The Asian short-clawed otter alone occupies four galaxies.

> Their many different languages, cultures and rituals create

> an immensely wide range of traditions and perceptions that center upon

> the origins of their realities.

TOM: Yet they cannot tell a cabbage from a lettuce.

> They have inspired us to closely study

> the residences of this nearly infinite universe. In our galaxy, it gave

> rise to the creation of

CROW: Kickapoo Joy Juice.

> numerous spiritual sciences, dedicated to

> developing a full understanding of this knowledge, and to discovering

> its precise part in the whole.

TOM: In order to make more efficient ABC Afterschool Specials.

> Eventually, this study laid the first

> foundations for a spiritual anthropology and, later, a spiritual

> sociology.

MIKE: And later still, spiritual philately.

TOM: Spiritual geology was a big hit.

CROW: People say spiritual ichtyology is an easy major, but there’s
a lot to it you don’t see.

> These sciences gave us a wealth of information about our

> common origins,

CROW: For example, origins turn out to be common.

> which are far greater than the processes that brought

> about human evolution on the third planet of the Vega solar system more

> than six million years ago.

TOM: As of next Thursday.

> Actually, our beginnings filled a physical

> and spiritual niche foreseen by the divine plan.

MIKE: I mean, it’s like they had God or something setting things out.

> Prior to that event,

> we were all spiritual Beings hanging tenaciously to the vast Life-

> streams of Heaven.

TOM: Oh, here it comes.

CROW: Yup. This is the hard sell. How much, McElwaine?

>

> As humanity advanced through this galaxy,

TOM: We started shooting everything we didn’t understand.

> we encountered physical

> Beings quite unlike us in form, culture and language.

CROW: We would have given them the chance to surrender,
but we didn’t want to look weak.

> If we did not

> succeed in bridging these huge differences, war often resulted.

MIKE: And, really, we went out with the best of intentions.

> At

> first, those who aggressively followed the dark principles of their

> creator-Being, Anchara,

CROW: Leader of the Imperium Sweaters.

> distressed us greatly. Suddenly, we were

> involved in an enormous galactic war that had woven itself across the

> breadth of our galaxy for many tens of millions of years.

TOM: A most savage alien race, they were. When we shot them
they fought back.

> This struggle

> created a need for many alliances to form with thousands of other like-

> minded star-nations.

MIKE: We had to shoot first. We had them surrounded.

> It also introduced us to the continuing strange

> and violent process that is destined to transform this galaxy from the

> darkness that has engulfed it.

TOM: They’re using the F-U-N-D cheat, aren’t they?

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index rose a dozen points today as the radio had a bunch of great songs all in a row. Um. Also there was a commodity listing for Rough Rice that totally dominated their thinking about long-term fiduciary potentiometers or something.

202

MiSTed: Galactic Federation Update, Part 1/4

So, I was digging around and found some Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan fiction I had completely and utterly forgotten I’d written. Since some of this goes back over a decade I hope you can forgive me that. But I felt like sharing so, here goes. This is from the “riffing on someone’s rant” mode, although in this case the original text is less a rant than a … well, bit of crank literature, let’s say.

The reference here to “Commodore Schmidlapp” is steeped in rec.arts.tv.mst3k.misc folklore, such as it is. Something like a year before this MiSTing was posted, Doctor Mike Neylon had taken down his Web Site Number Nine, the center of the MiSTing community, for a weekend for some kind of upgrades or whatnot and he hadn’t been seen since. So I thought it would be a merry little joke that the right people would get if I snuck in a bit suggesting he had been kidnapped by Pearl Forrester and her crew. Thus you now understand why this is a correctly-formed joke construct and shall laugh.

As I remember it, I was right, folks did like the joke. Still haven’t seen Mike Neylon. I suppose if he ever does reappear I’ll have to resolve the joke in a new MiSTing.

Please, enjoy?

Oh yeah, before you do: comic strips in my mathematics blog. You might like that too. I do.

---

[ OPENING CREDITS ]

[ 1… 2… 3… 4… 5… 6… ]

[ SATELLITE OF LOVE BRIDGE. TOM SERVO is behind the desk. MIKE is
sitting up front, near the camera, facing TOM. ]

TOM: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the Satellite of Love. I’m Tom
Servo, your host. Today we’ve got wonderful news for all of our
loving and devoted fans. Starting Tuesday you’ll be able to find
our new Special Collectible Crow T. Robot Gold Edition.

[ CROW, looking as he always does, enters from the left. ]

CROW: Hi, everyone. The gold edition me comes complete with netting,
fresh-polished nose module, top-of-the-line sarcasm resequencer
and an array of opinions on Peter Potamus. But there’s more —

MIKE: [ Raising his hand ] Does that come with director’s commentary?

TOM: Uhm —

CROW: Sure! Lots of commentary.

TOM: Won’t be able to shut him up!

[ GYPSY enters from the right. ]

GYPSY: And with the Ruby Edition collectible Tom Servo —

MIKE: Hold it; does the Crow come with trailers?

CROW: I — uh —

GYPSY: A trailer hitch.

MIKE: Is he in 5.1?

TOM: He’s … in … 8.3. I think.

MIKE: Anamorphic?

CROW: I’ve heard of that.

TOM: Is it good?

GYPSY: I think so.

CROW: Yes! Any further questions?

[ MADS SIGN flashes. MIKE walks back to the table to get it. ]

MIKE: Hang on, the deleted scenes are calling.

[ MIKE taps the sign. ]

[ CASTLE FORRESTER. PEARL and BOBO are at a desk working on a great
many forms; BOBO is dressed as accountant. OBSERVER watches the
camera, curious. Calculators, notepads, and slide rules complete
the table clutter. ]

OBSERVER: Does Crow come with animated chapter breaks?

BOBO: Deducting form 8-E, line 17 …

PEARL: Hello, Mike. Peculiar doll-thingies.

[ SATELLITE OF LOVE. ]

CROW: Hey, we’re action figures!

GYPSY: Yeah!

TOM: I’m comfortable being a doll.

MIKE: Ah, what’re you doing, Pearl?

[ CASTLE FORRESTER. BOBO is muttering to PEARL. A bell rings
from off-camera. ]

PEARL: [ To BOBO ] Oh, what, *again*? We’ve had him in the dungeon
a *year* now and we’re not getting through.

BOBO: For the capital invested in keeping Doctor Mike — you can’t
argue the return-on-evil. Look at the figures.

PEARL: Brain Guy, can’t you do this?

OBSERVER: Oh, Pearl, you know Bobo does forms better than I.

PEARL: [ To MIKE ] What are we doing? Oh, wouldn’t YOU like to know?

[ SATELLITE OF LOVE. CROW, TOM, MIKE, and GYPSY are there. ]

MIKE: Well … yeah.

GYPSY: [ To TOM ] I just never saw you as a doll before.

[ CASTLE FORRESTER. BOBO is fiddling with a slide rule. ]

OBSERVER: Sorry up there, Mike; we’ve got some reports to fill in.

PEARL: Something *you* will understand perfectly after you get through
this week’s experiment — if you DARE!

[ PEARL begins to cackle; OBSERVER pats her shoulder. ]

OBSERVER: [ Low-key ] It’s not all that evil.

PEARL: [ Similarly ] No? I thought we were picking these —

OBSERVER: You have to give them a change-up, something odd and then you
let go with the force-ten brain-imploder. It works better.

PEARL: You’re the brain guy, but I want them to suffer more —

[ The bell rings again. ]

PEARL: Oh, somebody get Commodore Schmidlapp his tea already.

[ BOBO hits his palm against the slide rule, launching it to stage right.
There follow several crashing glass noises, and then the hissing and
bubbling of horrid liquids seeping places. BOBO whimpers. ]

PEARL: Brainy?

[ SATELLITE OF LOVE. As before. ]

GYPSY: They’re getting stranger.

CROW: I just never saw you as a doll.

TOM: You should try accepting an expanded self-image.

[ MOVIE SIGN flashes. General alarm. ]

MIKE: Oh, great, save it — guys, we got movie sign!

[ Screaming and such continues. ]

[ 6… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… ]

[ ALL enter theater. ]

MIKE: Wait, she’s torturing other Mikes?

>Path: rpi!uwm.edu!newsfeed.cs.utexas.edu!in.100proofnews.com!in.100

>proofnews.com!news-out.visi.com!petbe.visi.com!feed.news.qwest.net!

>news.uswest.net.POSTED!not-for-mail

>Reply-To: "Baron Maximillian von Schwartzmeinoppenhause"

CROW: Zany? You’re soaking in it!

><schwartz@baronville.com
>

>From: "Baron Maximillian von Schwartzmeinoppenhause"

><schwartz@baronville.com
>

TOM: That’s for everyone who missed the zany before.

>Newsgroups: 24hoursupport.helpdesk,alt.alien.research,alt.alien.visitors,

>alt.revisionism,sci.astro,soc.history.what-if

MIKE: The gang.

>References: <20030814025106.21510.00001411@mb-m07.aol.com
>

><87befcb5.0308151233.2e7aa480@posting.google.com
>

>Subject: Re: GALACTIC FEDERATION Update: August 5, 2003

CROW: Attention Mister and Missus Galaxy and all the ships at sea!
Flash!

>Lines: 159

>X-Priority: 3

TOM: Better tell Wolverine and Professor Xaiver.

>X-MSMail-Priority: Normal

>X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1158

>X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1165

MIKE: [ Clapping his hands ] Ole’!

>Message-ID: <hqX5b.733$Qa.55492@news.uswest.net
>

>Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 02:02:48 -0600

TOM: We get the August update in September?

CROW: They’re pretty laid back in this part of the federation.

>NNTP-Posting-Host: 67.1.139.151

>X-Trace: news.uswest.net 1062748941 67.1.139.151 (Fri, 05 Sep 2003

>03:02:21 CDT)

>NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2003 03:02:21 CDT

MIKE: There, see? Told you it was Central Daylight Time.

>Xref: rpi alt.alien.visitors:516492 alt.revisionism:1566553

>sci.astro:445867 soc.history.what-if:738420

TOM: Inside The GPS Signal.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The Another Blog, Meanwhile index plummeted nineteen points as traders considered that story about the guy who tried to get rid of some bees by setting a firecracker on their hive and ended up destroying his own garage and while that’s kind of funny it also feels really bad to laugh about that, plus, you know, there’s the bees to consider. Nobody feels really proud about the whole situation.

190

---

Tue/Wed 11/12
MiSTed: Galactic Federation Update, Part 2/4

Part 1.

So, a lot of MiSTings inspire a certain crankiness. Yes, we, the writers, choose to read these things and write jokes about it and immerse ourselves in the whole thing. And it’s mostly fun. But there is still a slog to it because when you look at every line of a post you realize there’s a lot of lines to it. And so many of them are boring. Not this time, though. This was a giddy, playful piece to write. I had fun and I think you can tell from the silliness of a lot of my riffs.

“The Swan” was a short-lived reality-TV show about taking people who were Hollywood Ugly and dressing them up until they could attract A MAN. This sort of thing seemed important to denounce back then.

---

>"Robt McElwain" <rmcelwaine@visto.com
> wrote in message

news:87befcb5.0308151233.2e7aa480@posting.google.com…

CROW: It’s the 21st century and we’re *still* getting Robert McElwaine.
Could we get some new cranks in here?

>

>

> Update from the REAL Galactic Federation

MIKE: The other Galactic Federation is just full of phonies.

> and The Spiritual Hierarchy

> August 5, 2003

TOM: They’re masters of space, time, and dimension, but their Usenet
servers are kept up by turtles.

> Communicated thru Sheldan Nidle of The Planetary Activation Organization

MIKE: So stop teasing him.

CROW: Shel-*dan*?

> http://www.paoweb.com/updates.htm

>

> Greetings, dear Hearts!

TOM: Howdy, lovey-kins.

> We return with more interesting topics to

> share with you.

MIKE: And we’ll give you six of them for four easy monthly payments
of $24.99 each.

> One of the things that we find most interesting is how

> your concepts of cosmology have distorted the origins of this physical

> universe.

CROW: Why, thank you. I think one of my most endearing features
is how my concepts of cosmology distort the origins of the
physical universe.

> Its genesis lies not in a ‘big bang’, but rather in a simple

> series of multiple creations.

TOM: This `Big Bang Burrito’ theory we expect will be slow to catch on.

> These creations produce many different

> dimensions and an abundance of realities. The crucial element is

MIKE: Erbium.

> divine

> consciousness. All of us dwell in a living, conscious universe.

TOM: Except for the audience of “The Swan.”

> That

> universe is composed of inter-dimensional Light and Time, which

> combine, in infinite ways, to form space.

CROW: Is this gonna be on the final?

> It, in turn, creates

> realities and shapes physicality’s countless dimensions. The physical

> universe is a magical place.

MIKE: So that’s why everyone’s after me Lucky Charms.

> The only limitations that exist in any

> reality are those that its inhabitants and its heavenly guardians,

> together, permit.

CROW: I already saw “Free To Be You And Me.” Can I go?

> Your laws of physics are a true misnomer.

TOM: They’re more nagging suggestions of physics instead.

> Your growth

> in awareness or new collective perceptions can instantly alter these

> so-called ‘laws’.

MIKE: One morning I took too much Sudafed and the Rydburg constant?
Pfft. Out like a light.

> Now, this important process has begun.

TOM: No, no, no, don’t go rushing into anything right now.

> It promises to

> create an entirely new reality for you and indeed for the rest of

> physicality.

CROW: You know, I can’t get “2000 Flushes” to work right.
Should I be part of creating a new reality for everybody?

>

> Creation is a continuously unfolding phenomenon. The divine plan

> has dealt out to us all a multiplicity of sudden twists and turns.

TOM: You are in a maze of twisty divine plans, all alike.

> Now,

> as a direct result, countless sentient species live in the physical

> universe.

MIKE: The Asian short-clawed otter alone occupies four galaxies.

> Their many different languages, cultures and rituals create

> an immensely wide range of traditions and perceptions that center upon

> the origins of their realities.

TOM: Yet they cannot tell a cabbage from a lettuce.

> They have inspired us to closely study

> the residences of this nearly infinite universe. In our galaxy, it gave

> rise to the creation of

CROW: Kickapoo Joy Juice.

> numerous spiritual sciences, dedicated to

> developing a full understanding of this knowledge, and to discovering

> its precise part in the whole.

TOM: In order to make more efficient ABC Afterschool Specials.

> Eventually, this study laid the first

> foundations for a spiritual anthropology and, later, a spiritual

> sociology.

MIKE: And later still, spiritual philately.

TOM: Spiritual geology was a big hit.

CROW: People say spiritual ichtyology is an easy major, but there’s
a lot to it you don’t see.

> These sciences gave us a wealth of information about our

> common origins,

CROW: For example, origins turn out to be common.

> which are far greater than the processes that brought

> about human evolution on the third planet of the Vega solar system more

> than six million years ago.

TOM: As of next Thursday.

> Actually, our beginnings filled a physical

> and spiritual niche foreseen by the divine plan.

MIKE: I mean, it’s like they had God or something setting things out.

> Prior to that event,

> we were all spiritual Beings hanging tenaciously to the vast Life-

> streams of Heaven.

TOM: Oh, here it comes.

CROW: Yup. This is the hard sell. How much, McElwaine?

>

> As humanity advanced through this galaxy,

TOM: We started shooting everything we didn’t understand.

> we encountered physical

> Beings quite unlike us in form, culture and language.

CROW: We would have given them the chance to surrender,
but we didn’t want to look weak.

> If we did not

> succeed in bridging these huge differences, war often resulted.

MIKE: And, really, we went out with the best of intentions.

> At

> first, those who aggressively followed the dark principles of their

> creator-Being, Anchara,

CROW: Leader of the Imperium Sweaters.

> distressed us greatly. Suddenly, we were

> involved in an enormous galactic war that had woven itself across the

> breadth of our galaxy for many tens of millions of years.

TOM: A most savage alien race, they were. When we shot them
they fought back.

> This struggle

> created a need for many alliances to form with thousands of other like-

> minded star-nations.

MIKE: We had to shoot first. We had them surrounded.

> It also introduced us to the continuing strange

> and violent process that is destined to transform this galaxy from the

> darkness that has engulfed it.

TOM: They’re using the F-U-N-D cheat, aren’t they?

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index rose a dozen points today as the radio had a bunch of great songs all in a row. Um. Also there was a commodity listing for Rough Rice that totally dominated their thinking about long-term fiduciary potentiometers or something.

202

In Which I’m Afraid I Just Let You All Down, But Argue It’s The Local News’s Fault

I’m going to get my review of what was popular and why around here in June soon. I’m just thrown off my game yet again, this time by the local noon news. Yesterday during the weather reports they tossed in mentions of the ultraviolet index and then some reports about what to expect for people “going to mid-Michigan beaches” and now I’m stuck pondering that. I mean, there are some right fine beaches, fully equipped with large bodies of water and sand that’s too hot to actually be comfortable on and, in select cases, carousels to ride that are accessible from mid-Michigan. But they’re, like, on Lake Michigan, which is mid-Michigan in about the same way that Ocean City, Maryland, is in South Jersey. At least so it seems to me. But after the multi-part fiasco that was my just talking about Michigan’s Secretary of State offices when I got my license plate tags last year maybe I shouldn’t say anything with too much certainty. I could end up looking quite the fool again.

Here’s some more comic strips talked about on my mathematics blog. That’s the last of that until next week, or should be.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index rose eleven points despite investor anger at seeing a DVD of Bambi in the store with a note on it that Rotten Tomatoes certifies the movie Fresh. “What the flipping heck,” they would cry out, not in unison. “Bambi gets a Rotten Tomatoes sticker like it’s flipping Monster Trucks or something? What is wrong with the world like this?!” It’s hard to know what to say.

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In Which I’m Afraid I Just Let You All Down, But Argue It’s Captain Janeway’s Fault

We got back and were just settling in after the amusement park stuff, but then my love turned on the TV and what do you know but Star Trek: Voyager was on? And not just any moment of its, like, 850,000 hours of talking about chronometric isofluctuations, but the scene that made My Love finally decide to hate Captain Janeway with the white-hot intensity of a thousand burning transwarp macrophases? So we’ve been busy watching that instead and trying to remember stuff about Voyager without looking it up. Remembering stuff is a fun old pastime, something done today mostly by podcasters recording a live episode while on stage when they’re away from their cell phones. We do it recreationally. Anyway, we’ve been trying to remember exactly what the deal with B’elanna was. Our best estimate right now is that she’s half-Klingon and half- … smart? That seems right but that can’t be everything, right? Research continues, at least until we hit that episode where Janeway and whats-his-name get turned into space lizards. That one happened, right? Actually I’d watch that again. It was awful but in the good ways.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The Another Blog, Meanwhile index was not traded today as everyone wanted to get to a Lansing Lugnuts ball game while the weather was nice. Was the weather nice? We’ll tell you when they get back.

UNCH

In Which I’m Afraid I Just Let You All Down

I don’t mean to disappoint. It’s just that my love and I have been busy the whole last week, visiting small amusement parks and giggling at mistakes in their signs. I should say we’re not doing this maliciously. We go in expecting we’re going to have a great time, wearing the T-shirts for other small, obscure amusement parks, sometimes on other continents. And we do have a great time, because there is a real delight in a small park where they’re still going on about how they put in a frog jumper ride in 2011, and at any moment you might blink and be in the middle of a swarm of up to forty kids, some of them reaching up to the lower end of your knee, in a screaming birthday-cake riot. But the point is I haven’t had the time to write anything amusing and I apologize for that. Here’s my mathematics blog writing about comic strips yesterday. Thanks and I’ll be back to normal not tomorrow because that’s going to look at the June statistics. But sometime or other. You’ll know it when you see it.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The Another Blog, Meanwhile index rose above 200 which is being treated as a great triumph for the long investors what with this being index territory nobody has seen in two days. Well, if it makes them happy, good. They can deal with it.

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Me Week: The Quintessence Of My Humor Style

If anything characterizes what I think is funny, it’s “slightly over-researched stuff”. So here’s some pieces that exemplify that. When Time Came To New Jersey was somehow not that week’s long-form piece, but rather just a little something dashed off because I got to thinking about the switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. And the question it raises I still haven’t answered, although I also haven’t asked any of the many people I in principle could to get some kind of answer.

In Why I Never Finish Just Reading A Stupid Book Already I get thrown off a book about usury and debt by a casual line about what the Secretary of the Treasury was doing in 1853. So I’m not just a person who reads about a history of usury and debt but also thinks about the change of office between Secretaries of the Treasury that happened in 1853.

And then in What Causes People To Sometimes Read About Canada there I go again, reading about the prelude to the British North America Act of 1867 (oh hey, happy birthday and stuff there) gets me thinking about the nature of boredom.

If you needed something else to read, here Twenty Books About Things That Changed The World and I thought I had read a majority of them. Huh.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index fell 29 points today as analysts and traders realized suddenly the year was half-over and they were just starting to feel good about that when they realized there was as much 2017 yet to come? And actually even more 2017 since the 30th of June is only the 181st day of the year and there’s 184 left in the year if we see the whole thing after all.

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