Great… they’re sending a radioactive microbot up my shirtsleeve. You think the TSA is tough? Try the customs line on The “Goldilocks” planet.
I want to start this week’s “usual rubbish” blog with a thank you to all of those who helped bail us out of the Kaztropharian jail. (You know who you are.) Not sure how everyone worked out how the bail-bond system works on Kaztropharius 137b – must have looked it up on the interwebs. (You have to put up at least three cases of cotton swabs per pound of body weight. It can get costly… so hey, thanks.) Well, as much as I like it on Kaztropharius, we left the moment they opened the cage door, overdue as we were for the next booking on our super-fantastic ENTER THE MIND: THE ULTIMATE BIG GREEN EXPERIENCE interstellar tour. A little place called…. The “Goldilocks” Planet.
It was kind of a long passage, so we had some time to rehearse. Matt wanted to polish off some older material. We ran through a few numbers in the hold of our cheap rental spaceship – a bit of a challenge, since there’s no artificial gravity (or genuine gravity, for that matter). John’s sticks were flying all over the place, Matt’s bass amp kept unplugging itself, every time I hit a chord my legs would go up to the ceiling… it did add another dimension of effort to the whole enterprise, I must say. We asked Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to help us keep it together, just so we’d have someone to blame when it floated all to hell. Damn you, Marvin!
What was our Thanksgiving like? Well, about as good as it can get in deep space. We brought out a couple of days’ rations and squished it all together in the shape of a roasted turkey. Then we buried it, because it was disgusting. Burial in space, you understand… you put the waste in the wasted disposal tubes and order Marvin to hit the eject button. Then we gather around the starboard port, like the little family that we are, and watch the mangled wads of tofu disperse into the void. That’s what we call Thanksgiving.
Well, back to the inspection line. B.T.W. – if you’re watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, look for us. Through the miracle of holographic imagery (thanks to ingenuity of Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor), we’ll be performing on the ACME Markets / BIG M float, right below the massive generic bread loaf balloon. (The now-defunct supermarkets decided to share a float this year to cut costs.) Watch us… then SHOP, SHOP, SHOP!
(Note to parade organizer: Send check to Big Green, Abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, Nowheresville, NY, 13502.)
No one seems particularly bothered about this, but Bush’s proud admission, along with Cheney’s, is basically a declaration that our justice system is in a shambles; that the law applies only to the powerless and that cruel and unusual punishment is acceptable. Torture is a violation of U.S. statute and of international conventions to which the U.S. is both a signatory and a primary participant. Waterboarding is torture; it has been recognized as such since the days of Torquemada and before, I’ll wager.
We’re running this little web-a-thon to raise funds for our bail, frankly. That’s why we’re broadcasting from this cramped little cell in a Kaztropharian jail. Yes, yes… we landed back in the crowbar hotel here on Kaztropharius 137b thanks to the efforts of Mitch, here, who took it upon himself to start playing ducks and drakes with the planet’s gravitational field. Long story short, it ended up more drakes than ducks, and a pound of flour on Kaztropharius 137b now clocks in at about five tons. At 37 drachmas a pound… well, you do the math. No one can afford the stuff. Bread factories are closing down. Bread riots have plagued the capital. And as the last pockets of resistance are vanquished, the emperor gazes ruefully down from his citadel and ponders the fate of his… his…
of a massive technological thumb on the scale of every commodity on the planet. To say nothing of the Kaztropharians’ self-esteem. They all weigh several tons now, and most are too ashamed to go to the beach. (Of course, here on Kaztropharius 137b, the beaches all front pools of liquid methane… so if you were considering this a possible tourist destination, consider again.) So, into the hoosegow we went. Sad but true. Got any good ideas about getting out of here? Seriously, if you ever did time on this planet and found a tunnel to the nearest launch pad, get in touch with us pronto…. like NOW.