Here, boy. Heeere, boy! That’s a good boy…. come on, got a little treat for you. Over here, boy. That’s right. Over…. oh, goddamn it!
Oh, hi, friends. (And I mean friends in the Facebook / MySpace sense…. in other words, total strangers.) Caught me at a bad time, actually. No, I’m not trying to coax a stray dog out from under the tool shed. It’s the man-sized tuber…. he’s gone all reclusive on us. I think it’s a “back to nature” kick of some kind. Here tubey’s been as mobile as a biped these last seven years, and he seemed quite content, really… especially since we procured that ergonomically designed go-cart for him some time back. Of course, appearances can be deceiving, and apparently (or non-apparently) our man-sized tuber has been harboring some regrets over his life with the humanoids. Pining for the fields of home, it seems. He misses his fellow tubers, and who can blame him? (They make such good companions…)
Anyway, he took his little tuber scooter out into the courtyard one morning this week and made for the front gate, getting as far as the local green grocer’s shop before we caught 
up with him. (Good thing he didn’t break down in front of the vegetable stands – he might have ended up the catch of the day for some hungry vegan.) Between the four of us (Matt, John, anti-Lincoln, and myself), we wheeled the tuber back into the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill and locked the gate behind us. No more escapes, we thought. Of course, we didn’t anticipate the option for internal exile… our tool shed has a door that locks from the inside, strangely enough, and the man-sized tuber took refuge inside, throwing the latch behind him. Why? Could be the dirt floor reminds him of mother. (I’m guessing. It’s probably a lot more complicated than that.)
Why didn’t we see this coming? Well, we’ve been taken up with the serial problems of Marvin (my personal robot assistant), who has been having his own personality issues, as you may recall. (There was that little tweak he had over the 
Canadian space robot whose name must not be spoken. Please… don’t say it!) And of course, the return of mad scientist Mitch Macaphee and his notorious ticking steamer trunk. (Turned out to be a forgotten alarm clock he’d borrowed from the Buenos Aires Hilton. Again… keep this to yourself.) So what the hell, we’ve been losing a few pounds a week in pure sweat over here – a little too preoccupied to notice the subtle mood swings of an overgrown sweet potato. My apologies, for chrissake. Next time I will have my litmus paper ready, just in case he gets a little less acidic than normal. (The tuber’s dropping acid again…. not good.)
So, yep…. a bad case of tubotosis here at the mill. Last week it was ticking bomb-a-tosis. Before that, robot-pain-in-the-ass-atosis. What’s next? CD release-atosis, I hope.
at least a cursory hearing, you will have been severely disappointed. This is turning out to be the first 100% issue-free election season, stuffed with infantile claims, charges, and counter-charges that would shame an elementary school contest. An astounding 45 minutes was spent at the outset on 3 points of earth-shattering concern to every American:
These events should be hosted by some neutral institution, with questions that reflect people’s actual concerns, not the demands of the 24-hour news cycle. Instead, we have Gibson and Snuffleupagus acting as the arbiters of political virtue and personal propriety, asking Obama at one point if he feels that Reverend Wright is “as patriotic” as Obama is; declaring the flag pin “controversy” as somehow relevant because it is “all over the Internet,” and so on. I don’t know quite what the standard should be for determining debate questions, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t include suggestions from the like of Sean Hannity, who can’t even be bothered to look into the William Ayers comments before opening his festering yap (i.e., Hannity excoriated Ayers for making comments about Weather Underground bombings on 9/11 “of all days”, when it hardly takes a genius to work out that his comments were printed in the New York Times on 9/11/2001 and made a long time before that date). That’s ABC’s research department: FoxNews.
Still hear it. Try again. Nope, that didn’t work. I can still hear it. Try something else. No, no – that’s worse!
his gear all packed away and his mad science experiments reconstructed to his satisfaction (there was the one with the bishop’s head transposed onto the body of a ginseng root…. not sure I want to know how that comes out), Mitch was ready to start ordering the help around. He started with Marvin (my personal robot assistant), which was a good choice, because that gave him the opportunity to see just how screwed around our mechanical friend’s mind had become since last Mitch saw him. I think there was a certain amount of shock involved. (Marvin isn’t properly grounded. I’ve talked to him about this a number of times.) Hopefully Mitch can work through Marvin’s serial issues. (No fruit loop jokes here – I can spell, even if you can’t.) 
Matt and John both know it’s my fault for signing on with Loathsome Prick Records – a label too cheap to pay for mastering. It’s getting so that the only one talking to me around this lousy place is Big Zamboola, and his conversation tends toward the tedious, to put the matter delicately. (Always going on about gravitation. I guess planets have kind of a rivalry going on that point – a “mine’s stronger than yours” sort of thing.) I mean, even the man-sized tuber is pissed off at me! (Not enough plant food in the watering can.) And the Lincolns prefer Booth, frankly.