NEPTUNE - As the Empire prepares to celebrate Dependence Day this July 4, planet Neptune celebrated National Sovereignty Day.
Imperial troops withdrew from all major Neptunian cities as Operation Quagmire drew to a close, ahead of the Empire's annexation of the planet, the cause of celebration.
Meanwhile, the Empire built up for a reinvasion of Uranus, a world we invaded years ago.
"We pull out of Neptune and immediately plunge back into Uranus?" said one patriotic citizen. "Maybe we should have finished Uranus before invading Neptune?"
"There's nothing like an invasion to make me proud of my Empire," explained Chancellor Jack, appointed governor of Uranus, "except perhaps a reinvasion."
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Friday, July 03, 2009
RFS Price
"Mo-Tron" Price,
It is my great pleasure and privilege to promote and appoint you to the fulltime position of Reptilian Forces Supervisor with all the rights and advantages thereof. This promotion goes into effect immediately, if not sooner.
Furthermore, I order your immediate transfer: You are requested and required to assume command of the West Coast Outpost, in what used to be Los Angeles, no later than July 15, 2009.
Your directives:
1. Recapture the feral velociraptors running lose on the continent.
2. Balance the budget.
3. When able, assist Commissioner Custer in maintaining civil order.
4. Prevent additional interdimensional incursions (and here I mean illegal immigration from bordering dimensional planes).
** Top secret sub-directive: Keep a close eye on Master Assassin Rockel 2.0 and especially his clones. **
You are authorized to exceed speed limits for the duration of your assignment.
Know this, you are near and dear to my heart, and therefore I must push you away so you can never hurt me. That is the only reason for this transfer, but not the reason for your promotion - that you earned through loyalty and service and undermining your competition.
Andronicus
It is my great pleasure and privilege to promote and appoint you to the fulltime position of Reptilian Forces Supervisor with all the rights and advantages thereof. This promotion goes into effect immediately, if not sooner.
Furthermore, I order your immediate transfer: You are requested and required to assume command of the West Coast Outpost, in what used to be Los Angeles, no later than July 15, 2009.
Your directives:
1. Recapture the feral velociraptors running lose on the continent.
2. Balance the budget.
3. When able, assist Commissioner Custer in maintaining civil order.
4. Prevent additional interdimensional incursions (and here I mean illegal immigration from bordering dimensional planes).
** Top secret sub-directive: Keep a close eye on Master Assassin Rockel 2.0 and especially his clones. **
You are authorized to exceed speed limits for the duration of your assignment.
Know this, you are near and dear to my heart, and therefore I must push you away so you can never hurt me. That is the only reason for this transfer, but not the reason for your promotion - that you earned through loyalty and service and undermining your competition.
Andronicus
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
Durham No. 1 at last
Most drunk city in the land! Yes, Durham rules.
http://www.menshealth.com/drunk/
http://www.menshealth.com/drunk/
Thursday, June 25, 2009
To the Time Machine! - part 21
Today's story is in honor of Stegall Day 2009
We pick up our story after the pickup (truck) was the victim of a hit-and-run from the Space Chariot.
The Past, before the Dark Times
Buies Creek
Tied with a green ribbon to the rear-view mirror was an old CD, its label faded from years of sunlight. This CD flapped and spun about in the fierce wind.
Mo-Tron, Stegall, and Jernigan filled the cab of the truck with their screams. The ground rushed up at them.
Well, at least we'll have met our screaming quota, Germ thought. Did women always scream so much or was it the alcohol?
And to top it all, Mo-Tron was documenting the whole experience with her camera-bot. So the screams were interrupted by periodic, blinding flashes of light.
"Do something!" one of them shouted over the din.
"Working on it," Germ grunted. The only thing he could think to do was activate the chrono-circuits and jump to another time period, preferably one covered in pillows, marshmallows, and feathers.
Fate had other plans for our team. The temporal controls did not respond. Germ pumped the primer and tried again. Nothing!
Curses.
"Extend all drag flaps and braking fins," Germ commanded. "I'm going to try to level off and initiate emergency landing protocols."
Jernigan flipped switches and pressed buttons. "I don't see a landing strip," she shouted over the wind.
"Reckon where do they want one?" Germ yelled back.
"Are we going to make it?" Mo shrieked.
"No," Germ shouted over his shoulder at her. "I did the math in my head. We're doomed."
That was all she needed to hear: Imperial Plumber Stegall hefted her mighty wrench, turned in her seat, and bashed out the rear windows of the truck cab. Shards of glass filled the air as the wind rushed through the cab. Stegall covered her eyes, regretted shattering the glass, and crawled out the back of the cab. She hefted herself into the truck bed and straddled the chrono-incursion equipment.
"What are you doing?" Mo-Tron hollered, snapping photos with her F-stop-er-rator.
One of the camera flashes caught Stegall by surprise and the Empire was nearly short one plumber. "Do you mind?" she shouted.
"Sorry!" Mo-Tron called back. And although the camera was digital, Stegall could hear it rewinding, even over the ruckus of the airstream. It sounded like a growl.
Stegall cracked open a casing on the outer panels of the device. With her wrench she pried the cover off. The wind quickly whipped it away, almost smacking Stegall in the face. She docked the wrench safely in its tool belt loop
Holding onto the truck by just her tightly clenched knees, Stegall jerked first one and then another tube off the temporal engine. She reversed the two hoses, plugging them into the wrong receptacles. She disconnected some cables from their ports and plugged them into each other, somehow jamming the two female ends into one another.
Let me just skip the detailed description and tell you she hot wired the engine, rerouted the exhaust, and fired up the engine manually. The combination of the cold start and her improvised reconfiguration managed to funnel hot plasma byproduct through the time drive's secondary emitters.
Obviously, it superheated and vaporized the air around them, but the controlled explosion stalled the truck's downward progress significantly, if only temporarily. This was none too easy on the lungs of our truckers, but they would survive.
Stegall let the truck gain speed before she punched the ignition circuit again. In this manner, blow by blow, she slowed their fall enough to keep them from totaling the truck on impact.
"Keep it coming," Germ called back. This might actually work.
"No can do," Stegall replied, crawling back into the truck cab. "That was the last of it."
"We're gonna hit that great big tree (again)," Mo-Tron shouted and pointed. And took a picture.
Sure enough. She was right.
Germ hefted the anti-grav gun once more, braced, aimed, and squeezed the triggers. The device sizzled and fizzled and failed to comply. Perhaps the impact with the windshield earlier damaged it?
Next, Germ pulled up on the wheel like an airplane pilot would, which of course did nothing.
And then he noticed something peculiar down below. The skyscraper plant was lumberjack-knifing to the ground. If he timed it just right, Germ could use the leaning limb as a ramp to roll to earth.
Ironhide bottomed out when he hit the titanic trunk, but bounced up, subsequently smacked into the trunk a few more times, and careened down the tree.
Germ pumped the brakes with his right foot while also fumbling around with the left for the emergency brake.
"I've got good news and bad news," Jernigan said, bouncing around in her seat and holding onto the 'oh shit' bar. "Good news - we're not going to crash into the ground. Bad news - we're going to crash into that building instead."
"We have got to work on your bed side manner," Stegall told her.
Germ recognized the fine arts building, or what was left of it. Funny, he didn't remember it getting destroyed when he lived through this the first time. He must have slept in that day.
At the base of what was left of the flytrap, a small group of people stood gawking. Germ honked the horn at them.
"Who are those people?" Mo asked.
"We can worry about that after we hit them," Jernigan replied.
"If they don't like the way I drive, they should stay off the fine arts building," Germ added, grunting to keep the truck on the trunk.
"Death death death death death," the Death Alarm chanted, "death death death death death…."
"That is getting real old real fast."
He stood on the brake pedal, pulling back on the wheel for leverage. The Emperor had not been kidding about the "iffy" brakes.
"Truck, whoa truck," Germ urged. "Truck!"
He stomped on the emergency brake. And almost fell forward through the windshield.
They screeched to a stop not inches away from the Emperor himself.
"Thank you for using the Death Alarm," the truck said.
Imperial Guards surrounded the pickup, weapons trained on the cab.
"Come out with your hands up," shouted one.
Our time travelers complied. They had little Choice. Except for Germ. He in his fury leapt from the truck and proceeded to kick the left fender. "When I says whoa, I means whoa!"
"In the name of the Emperor, you are under arrest," the head guard bellowed at them.
Germ kept kicking on the truck. "Rackin frackin---!"
"Citizen, unless you wished to be charged with vehicular assault, I suggest you cease and desist," the guard shouted.
Reluctantly, reticent even, the Germ complied.
Stegall's tools and tool belt were wrenched away from her. They took Jernigan's stethoscope. They even took Germ's multi-tool.
"My camera!" Mo-Tron exclaimed, and struggled with the guard who tried to rip it from her neck.
"Leave it," Germ whispered. She complied, but pouted.
"A black truck full of white people," Lorma Doom observed, cleaning pulp from her blade, but then she stopped in her tracks. She recognized these white folk.
"Lorma Doom!" Jernigan said with glee. Her darker sister was alive and well. For now. She wanted to rush to embrace Doom, but one of the nice guards encouraged her to remain still.
The Foretold One looked from the newly arrested foursome over to the lumberjack and back again. The young Emperor prided himself on familiarity with every minion in his command, but these new arrivals were unknown to him. If this kept up, he was going to need some kind of filing system to keep track of everyone.
Just then, Screech and his charge joined them. To the pterodactyl's neck clung a very terrified young woman.
"Alright, who are you people and why are you here?" Emperor Andy demanded.
Germ and the girls looked at one another, not sure how much they should say.
Lorma Doom, on the other hand, had just battled a leafy leviathan and no longer cared about timelines or discretion. "We're from the future," she said bluntly.
"One possible future," corrected Germ.
"Secure these prisoners," Andronicus snapped. "Somewhere quiet. Not campus security. And impound the truck."
"Yes, my liege," the guards moved in.
"Drop the Ax," the head guard ordered Lorma.
"Nuh-uh, no way," she said, and tightened her grip on it. "You drop your guns!"
"Lorma, better do as they say," Dossey urged her.
"Why do I have to go to jail?" Lorma exclaimed. "I helped stop this plant."
"Aren't you with them?" Andy asked.
"Uh, no," the brutal wench replied, not lying very well. She then raised her Ax to the sky and shouted, "I didn't land on this plant! This plant landed on me."
"Lorma, I'll get this all straightened out," assured Dossey. "Just go along quietly - for now."
"Drop it now," the guards repeated, much firmer.
Reluctantly, she did drop the Ax. And there it stayed.
"Man, the past sucks," Lorma grumbled, as they were all six led away in handcuffs.
We pick up our story after the pickup (truck) was the victim of a hit-and-run from the Space Chariot.
The Past, before the Dark Times
Buies Creek
Tied with a green ribbon to the rear-view mirror was an old CD, its label faded from years of sunlight. This CD flapped and spun about in the fierce wind.
Mo-Tron, Stegall, and Jernigan filled the cab of the truck with their screams. The ground rushed up at them.
Well, at least we'll have met our screaming quota, Germ thought. Did women always scream so much or was it the alcohol?
And to top it all, Mo-Tron was documenting the whole experience with her camera-bot. So the screams were interrupted by periodic, blinding flashes of light.
"Do something!" one of them shouted over the din.
"Working on it," Germ grunted. The only thing he could think to do was activate the chrono-circuits and jump to another time period, preferably one covered in pillows, marshmallows, and feathers.
Fate had other plans for our team. The temporal controls did not respond. Germ pumped the primer and tried again. Nothing!
Curses.
"Extend all drag flaps and braking fins," Germ commanded. "I'm going to try to level off and initiate emergency landing protocols."
Jernigan flipped switches and pressed buttons. "I don't see a landing strip," she shouted over the wind.
"Reckon where do they want one?" Germ yelled back.
"Are we going to make it?" Mo shrieked.
"No," Germ shouted over his shoulder at her. "I did the math in my head. We're doomed."
That was all she needed to hear: Imperial Plumber Stegall hefted her mighty wrench, turned in her seat, and bashed out the rear windows of the truck cab. Shards of glass filled the air as the wind rushed through the cab. Stegall covered her eyes, regretted shattering the glass, and crawled out the back of the cab. She hefted herself into the truck bed and straddled the chrono-incursion equipment.
"What are you doing?" Mo-Tron hollered, snapping photos with her F-stop-er-rator.
One of the camera flashes caught Stegall by surprise and the Empire was nearly short one plumber. "Do you mind?" she shouted.
"Sorry!" Mo-Tron called back. And although the camera was digital, Stegall could hear it rewinding, even over the ruckus of the airstream. It sounded like a growl.
Stegall cracked open a casing on the outer panels of the device. With her wrench she pried the cover off. The wind quickly whipped it away, almost smacking Stegall in the face. She docked the wrench safely in its tool belt loop
Holding onto the truck by just her tightly clenched knees, Stegall jerked first one and then another tube off the temporal engine. She reversed the two hoses, plugging them into the wrong receptacles. She disconnected some cables from their ports and plugged them into each other, somehow jamming the two female ends into one another.
Let me just skip the detailed description and tell you she hot wired the engine, rerouted the exhaust, and fired up the engine manually. The combination of the cold start and her improvised reconfiguration managed to funnel hot plasma byproduct through the time drive's secondary emitters.
Obviously, it superheated and vaporized the air around them, but the controlled explosion stalled the truck's downward progress significantly, if only temporarily. This was none too easy on the lungs of our truckers, but they would survive.
Stegall let the truck gain speed before she punched the ignition circuit again. In this manner, blow by blow, she slowed their fall enough to keep them from totaling the truck on impact.
"Keep it coming," Germ called back. This might actually work.
"No can do," Stegall replied, crawling back into the truck cab. "That was the last of it."
"We're gonna hit that great big tree (again)," Mo-Tron shouted and pointed. And took a picture.
Sure enough. She was right.
Germ hefted the anti-grav gun once more, braced, aimed, and squeezed the triggers. The device sizzled and fizzled and failed to comply. Perhaps the impact with the windshield earlier damaged it?
Next, Germ pulled up on the wheel like an airplane pilot would, which of course did nothing.
And then he noticed something peculiar down below. The skyscraper plant was lumberjack-knifing to the ground. If he timed it just right, Germ could use the leaning limb as a ramp to roll to earth.
Ironhide bottomed out when he hit the titanic trunk, but bounced up, subsequently smacked into the trunk a few more times, and careened down the tree.
Germ pumped the brakes with his right foot while also fumbling around with the left for the emergency brake.
"I've got good news and bad news," Jernigan said, bouncing around in her seat and holding onto the 'oh shit' bar. "Good news - we're not going to crash into the ground. Bad news - we're going to crash into that building instead."
"We have got to work on your bed side manner," Stegall told her.
Germ recognized the fine arts building, or what was left of it. Funny, he didn't remember it getting destroyed when he lived through this the first time. He must have slept in that day.
At the base of what was left of the flytrap, a small group of people stood gawking. Germ honked the horn at them.
"Who are those people?" Mo asked.
"We can worry about that after we hit them," Jernigan replied.
"If they don't like the way I drive, they should stay off the fine arts building," Germ added, grunting to keep the truck on the trunk.
"Death death death death death," the Death Alarm chanted, "death death death death death…."
"That is getting real old real fast."
He stood on the brake pedal, pulling back on the wheel for leverage. The Emperor had not been kidding about the "iffy" brakes.
"Truck, whoa truck," Germ urged. "Truck!"
He stomped on the emergency brake. And almost fell forward through the windshield.
They screeched to a stop not inches away from the Emperor himself.
"Thank you for using the Death Alarm," the truck said.
Imperial Guards surrounded the pickup, weapons trained on the cab.
"Come out with your hands up," shouted one.
Our time travelers complied. They had little Choice. Except for Germ. He in his fury leapt from the truck and proceeded to kick the left fender. "When I says whoa, I means whoa!"
"In the name of the Emperor, you are under arrest," the head guard bellowed at them.
Germ kept kicking on the truck. "Rackin frackin---!"
"Citizen, unless you wished to be charged with vehicular assault, I suggest you cease and desist," the guard shouted.
Reluctantly, reticent even, the Germ complied.
Stegall's tools and tool belt were wrenched away from her. They took Jernigan's stethoscope. They even took Germ's multi-tool.
"My camera!" Mo-Tron exclaimed, and struggled with the guard who tried to rip it from her neck.
"Leave it," Germ whispered. She complied, but pouted.
"A black truck full of white people," Lorma Doom observed, cleaning pulp from her blade, but then she stopped in her tracks. She recognized these white folk.
"Lorma Doom!" Jernigan said with glee. Her darker sister was alive and well. For now. She wanted to rush to embrace Doom, but one of the nice guards encouraged her to remain still.
The Foretold One looked from the newly arrested foursome over to the lumberjack and back again. The young Emperor prided himself on familiarity with every minion in his command, but these new arrivals were unknown to him. If this kept up, he was going to need some kind of filing system to keep track of everyone.
Just then, Screech and his charge joined them. To the pterodactyl's neck clung a very terrified young woman.
"Alright, who are you people and why are you here?" Emperor Andy demanded.
Germ and the girls looked at one another, not sure how much they should say.
Lorma Doom, on the other hand, had just battled a leafy leviathan and no longer cared about timelines or discretion. "We're from the future," she said bluntly.
"One possible future," corrected Germ.
"Secure these prisoners," Andronicus snapped. "Somewhere quiet. Not campus security. And impound the truck."
"Yes, my liege," the guards moved in.
"Drop the Ax," the head guard ordered Lorma.
"Nuh-uh, no way," she said, and tightened her grip on it. "You drop your guns!"
"Lorma, better do as they say," Dossey urged her.
"Why do I have to go to jail?" Lorma exclaimed. "I helped stop this plant."
"Aren't you with them?" Andy asked.
"Uh, no," the brutal wench replied, not lying very well. She then raised her Ax to the sky and shouted, "I didn't land on this plant! This plant landed on me."
"Lorma, I'll get this all straightened out," assured Dossey. "Just go along quietly - for now."
"Drop it now," the guards repeated, much firmer.
Reluctantly, she did drop the Ax. And there it stayed.
"Man, the past sucks," Lorma grumbled, as they were all six led away in handcuffs.
Wardenship Downs, Transmission 1
News Flash
ANDROCITY - The Department of Agriculture, partly directed from the chair of the Imperial Game Warden, announced today that, on Earth alone, they had “lethally controlled” almost 5 million animals of varying species, double what it reported for last year.
The agency stated, “While this might alarm some, that's because they are uninformed and overreacting because of their lack of gathered intelligence on the matter.”
As predicted, environmentalists and tree huggers frothed fumed and fomented over the slaughter of innocent animals.
These over-reactors claim that the agency is "waging a war on wildlife," a point that, while alliterative, seems to be a bit of hyperbole. If war was being waged, hunting season would never close, and all the rats would be off that island near Alaska (Journal Post).
However, neither of these has actually happened. And, as the Dept. of Agriculture and the Wardenship Downs Office both have access to better science than those claiming they're murdering scum, then life should continue for those of you who don't know you're being saved from animals overrunning everything. Everything!
And besides, most of the animals killed are predators threatening livestock and humans, invasive non-native species, or birds who take up residence near airports (some of which were built right over the known existing migration pattern of said birds, which has existed for more years than white people have lived on this continent).
In his most recent session of The Talkdown, Warden Doyle explained it this way: “The teeming masses should rest assured that we are only killing the ugly and/or scary animals,” he stated, his eyes darting about the camera frame. “We make sure to spare the cute, cuddly creatures.”
What about deer? Those are cute. Doyle covered that topic as well, explaining that deer most definitely fit the scary category. “You try hitting one with your car,” he added.
In other unrelated news, the Imperial Game Warden has also been reviewing the status of the black bear as a native, non-invasive specie. With recent growth patterns (Journal Post) showing them to be growing at an alarming rate, Warden Doyle has begun to wonder if these animals are truly native. If an animal is native, it usually has difficulty surviving in its natural habitat, and when transplanted to somewhere it is not native, grows and thrives. This is mostly due to the fact that there are no natural competitors for similar food for the animal, and the animal generally populates quickly and kills off other native species. So you gain more of the non-native, but lose all of the native; it’s a very delicate balance. In the case of the black bear, their resurgence strikes a new note in the process of understanding recovering animal species.
In the end, His Wardenship would like to let all inhabitants of the Empire know that he is doing his best to keep control of the animals in a similar fashion to the control shown by The Emperor. After all, emulation is the sincerest form of flattery.
ANDROCITY - The Department of Agriculture, partly directed from the chair of the Imperial Game Warden, announced today that, on Earth alone, they had “lethally controlled” almost 5 million animals of varying species, double what it reported for last year.
The agency stated, “While this might alarm some, that's because they are uninformed and overreacting because of their lack of gathered intelligence on the matter.”
As predicted, environmentalists and tree huggers frothed fumed and fomented over the slaughter of innocent animals.
These over-reactors claim that the agency is "waging a war on wildlife," a point that, while alliterative, seems to be a bit of hyperbole. If war was being waged, hunting season would never close, and all the rats would be off that island near Alaska (Journal Post).
However, neither of these has actually happened. And, as the Dept. of Agriculture and the Wardenship Downs Office both have access to better science than those claiming they're murdering scum, then life should continue for those of you who don't know you're being saved from animals overrunning everything. Everything!
And besides, most of the animals killed are predators threatening livestock and humans, invasive non-native species, or birds who take up residence near airports (some of which were built right over the known existing migration pattern of said birds, which has existed for more years than white people have lived on this continent).
In his most recent session of The Talkdown, Warden Doyle explained it this way: “The teeming masses should rest assured that we are only killing the ugly and/or scary animals,” he stated, his eyes darting about the camera frame. “We make sure to spare the cute, cuddly creatures.”
What about deer? Those are cute. Doyle covered that topic as well, explaining that deer most definitely fit the scary category. “You try hitting one with your car,” he added.
In other unrelated news, the Imperial Game Warden has also been reviewing the status of the black bear as a native, non-invasive specie. With recent growth patterns (Journal Post) showing them to be growing at an alarming rate, Warden Doyle has begun to wonder if these animals are truly native. If an animal is native, it usually has difficulty surviving in its natural habitat, and when transplanted to somewhere it is not native, grows and thrives. This is mostly due to the fact that there are no natural competitors for similar food for the animal, and the animal generally populates quickly and kills off other native species. So you gain more of the non-native, but lose all of the native; it’s a very delicate balance. In the case of the black bear, their resurgence strikes a new note in the process of understanding recovering animal species.
In the end, His Wardenship would like to let all inhabitants of the Empire know that he is doing his best to keep control of the animals in a similar fashion to the control shown by The Emperor. After all, emulation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Dark Implications
Is it just me or does this hunt for dark matter sound like a case of the Emperor's new clothes? "Oh you can't detect it, just infer it." Right.
And now I have Devo's "Working in a Coal Mine" stuck in my head, but with Gold Mine instead of Coal Mine.
And now I have Devo's "Working in a Coal Mine" stuck in my head, but with Gold Mine instead of Coal Mine.
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