Reader Poll

Following the Global meltdown of the financial markets will you:

A. Bulk up, get facial tatoos, join a facist movement

B. Get guns, multiple wives, head to hilly compound with bell cows and vegetable garden.






C. Use time machine to travel to the year 2009 when everything will magically be better because the media will be in love with President Ventura.











D. Genetically engineer gills for myself and my family and take to eating seafood.










E. Status Quo . . . a sleepy pastoral existence

F. Get the last of the V8 interceptors and rule the desert as Mad Max. Help out friendly colony of oil well drillers.








G. Take to the barricades with pitchforks and torches, storm the prisons to free political prisoners all the while singing wonderful operatic songs.











H. Embrace sharia which does not allow usury.

Behold His MIGHTY HAND!!!!!

MATT MILLEN FIRED!!!!

Inane: (adj.) - lacking sense, significance, or ideas

Fade in. The location is Captain Nemo's personal dining room on board the Nautilus. Seated at the table are Nemo, Lord Turnips (with a bandage wrapped around his head), and Brigadier Rossaroni.

Rossaroni: Well Nemo, I've got to hand it to you, in addition to your ingenious plan which retook control of the Nautilus from Marzipan's minions, you've put your dining salon back into top form. Pray tell us what we have in store for us this evening, in addition to this marvelous port and salmon roe you've served for the amuse course.

Nemo: Delighted to, sir. After the amuse course, the palate is best served with some sort of cold appetizer. In this case, wild mushroom canape. As the canape is a bit spicy, the lobster bisque that follows will be an excellent taste juxtaposition and should enhance the flavour substantially.

Rossaroni: But if you're planning to serve some shellfish after this course, which I assume you are, wouldn't that clash with the lobster?

Nemo: That is precisely why we have a boullion between the two courses!

Rossaroni: Ha! Ha! Of course! I should have known! Turnips, by the way, how's that head of yours?

Turnips: It's nothing compared to the worry I have over my poor boy. How long before we get back to Kowloon?

Nemo: We should arrive tomorrow night, m'Lord. Now, where was I? Oh yes, as you correctly surmised, we will be having shellfish after our broth. Steamed scallops with ginger and garlic to be specific. Now, and this I believe you will find most exciting, as we move into the Antipasto phase of the meal, I'm going to completely change course and shun seafood for the rest of the meal.

Rossaroni: How daring!

Nemo: Indeed. I believe you will find the bruschetta antipasto an excellent lead-in to the parmigiana di melanzane of the pasta course. It's one of my chef's specialities.

Turnips: I'm a big fan of turnip dishes, how nice of you to have one tonight. Say, when did you say we get to Picadilly?

Nemo (casting a glance and a raised eyebrow to Rossaroni): We get back to Kowloon tomorrow night, m"Lord.

Turnips: Splendid!

Rossaroni: Ye...es. Um, back to the dinner then. Let me see if I can guess what we'll be having next, if I may?

Nemo: Certainly.

Rossaroni: Well, naturally, I assume we'll be having some sort of sorbet Intermezzo at this point, but after that I fancy, in order to be in keeping with your daring seafood free schema, you'll be going in the direction lamb or bird at this point.

Nemo: Well, which one? I can't let you guess both.

Rossaroni (laughing): Indeed not. Well, if for no other reason than you're a Navy man, I'm going to say that you're not a big fan of lamb, so I'm going to go in the avian direction. With chicken being too pedestrian for you, I'm going to hang my hat on Cornish Game Hens.

Nemo: So close! So close! It's quail.

(General laughter ensues)

Nemo: After the quail we will dive straight into the beef. Beef Wellington, in honour of your great general. And we'll be adding a mischevious twist, with a french sauce, bringing France and Britain together at last!

Rossaroni: Nicely done! I can only imagine what the dessert courses will look like.

Nemo: I think I'll keep that secret until we're done with the beef. To build the anticipation. But I'll give you a hint that there will be a pudding, ice cream, cheese, fruit, coffee, and Petit four course. That makes a total of 16 courses.

Rossaroni: Bravo! Marvelous!

Turnips (sotto voce): That's monstrous.

Did You See the Sunrise This Morning?

Ok, I don't think I'm talented enough to actually write this out so I'll just go with the macro idea.



1. We see Scaramanga and Captain Stuart brought to General Tang's encampment.



2. They will be reeducated.



3. Stuart will see his dear friend Scaramanga killed by the CHICOM reeducator named . . . er, um Major Xian.



4. Stuart and most of the surviving crew will be able to escape and will flash forward approximatly a dozen years when one of the crew (Luke) will show up in his life out of the blue.



5. It will turn out that this long-lost friend Luke is actually trying to "trigger" one of Stuart's crew Robbie using drugs and hypnosis. This will unlock programming that occured in the CHICOM reducation.



6. Colonel Xian will arrive on the Island where Captain Stuart lives with Higgins, TC, and Rick. He will meet clandestinely with Luke.



7. Royal Navy intelligence officers will bring Captain Stuart in on special duty to investigate why Colonel Xian is on the Island.



8. Luke, acting as Colonel Xian's robot, will make an attempt on the life of Prince Charles, who happens to be visiting the Island. Only swift action by Captain Stuart will save Prince Charles. But sadly, Luke will die.



9. Captain Stuart is despondent at the death of Luke. He mopes about on the beach in the early morning thinking about the value of Luke's life and all the others who have died because of his inaction.



10. Captain Stuart and Rick stop Colonel Xian on his way off the island. Stuart kidnaps Colonel Xian and confronts him.



11. Colonel Xian dismisses Captain Stuart as a weak member of the aristocracy whose love of fair play and bourgoisie code of ethics prevents him from acting. "If I were coming at you with a gun, you could kill me. But like this. You cannot. I know you too well Stuart." Colonel smugly walks away.



12. At that Captain Stuart turns and calls Colonel Xian."Colonel Xian""Yes""Did you see the sunrise this morning?"

"Yes"

at that Stuart raises his pistol and fires point blank.

Sticks and Stones

(imagine this is a very attractive Chinese woman in a tight sweater, mini-skirt and go-go boots)

After Captain Stuart Turnips and Scaramanga enjoyed their corndogs and their discussion on metaphysics they decided to go back into Mr. Woo’s shop and see if they could get a good deal on the Headstone of the Staff of Ra. As it turned out they were in luck. Apparently, Mr. Woo and his sour attitude toward the English were on lunch break and a young Asian woman was working the counter. Scaramanga let out a low whistle when he saw the tight sweater, mini skirt and go-go boots worn by this comely lass.

He decided to turn on the charm to see if he could get a deal on the Headstone.
[Scaramanga] "‘ello luv".
[Comely lass] "Hello, welcome to Woo Store".
[Scaramanga] "'a treachie ‘ow much does this cost". (points to the headstone)
[Comely lass] "Um, not so sure…let me check in book." (looks down into a 3 ring binder) "I think that is 75 Pounds. "
[Scaramanga] "Would ya take Niffty Quid for that"? (holds up a fifty- Pound note)
[Comely lass] "Ok, ok, sure, sure".

Scaramanga and Captain Stuart looked at each other unbelieving their luck to get such a deal on the headstone. They purchase the headstone and decided to head out of Kowloon Walled City back to Scaramanga’s Island to regroup, figure out what to do with the headstone, perhaps formulate a plan for rescuing Captain Stuart’s crew, and see if any of Scaramanga’s entourage had survived.

As they pulled Scaramanga’s ultra-modern yacht cleverly disguised as a Chinese Junk into the lagoon where he maintained his moorings, they noticed a pall of smoke rising from his compound. Scattered around the grounds of his estate were the dead bodies of Scaramanga’s surviving “Army of Martial Artists”. Men who had thought so much of themselves for their victory at the Lucky Dragon now lay dead. Scaramanga inspected the carnage. It was evident that Chop-xin, Lin Ye Tan, Fang Chi, Timothy and about a dozen unidentified members of Scaramanga's entourage did not expect that General Tang’s men would be waiting for them here on Scaramanga’s Island. They appeared to be mowed down as they emerged from the dockside. Scaramanga shook his head.

[Scaramanga] "I just can’t believe it. Chop-xin, Lin Ye Tan, Fang Chi, Timothy and about a dozen others. Tang you Bastard!" (at this Scaramanga clutched his fist)
[Captain Stuart] "It looks like General Tang was waiting for them. If he’s done this what could he have done with my crew"?
[Unidentified Voice] "You’ll have plenty of time to find out for yourself Young Captain Stuart."

With that Scaramanga and Captain Stuart looked up to see the glowering fu-manchu- mustached face of a Red Chinese General. The General was accompanied by at least a company of stern faced soldiers, armed with bayonets, rifles and submachine guns.

[Scaramanga] "General Tang you swine"!

With that General Tang motioned to his men to seize Captain Stuart and Scaramanga. As burlap bags were placed atop their heads they saw General Tang walk over to the dead body of one of Scaramanga’s entourage and collect the “mis-borrowed” first edition copy of Balzac’s Human Comedy that had caused the feud.

[General Tang] "Sticks and stones may break my bones . . . Sticks and stones."

With that he began laughing, and following his lead, his lackeys began roaring with diabolical laughter.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles & Its Gross Innaccuracies About Nuclear Power

Last night's Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, while quite entertaining and enjoyable, was a TRAVESTY of innaccuracies about nuclear power and nuclear safety! Easily the second most innacurate thing I've seen on TV this week.*

ITEM 1: Since when can Sarah Connor and a frickin' Terminator get a security clearance for a nuclear power plant? And in one day!!! Isn't she "off the grid" and living under assumed names? How can her background "check out"?

ITEM 2: Derek Reese (played by Brian Austin Green, from Melrose Place ...er, so I am told, as I never watched the show...) drives his truck right up to the entrance to the power plant and walks right in. Hello? Where's security?

ITEM 3: The cartoon that Sarah and the Terminator watched on nuclear power, while technically accurate for the most part, depicted fuel rods as glowing green dancing girls. This is a gross exaggeration.

ITEM 4: Sarah, who apparently is just a janitor, is told to enter into some sort of nuclear waste storage area to clean up a spill. A janitor with 1 day on the job, and no experience, training, or authorization in the handling of radioactive material! Oh, and she entered the storage room wearing a hazmat suit (at least the kind of hazmat suit you see on TV). Sheesh!

ITEM 5: After being in said storage room, she is said to be "crapped up." There is no such term in the nuclear power industry. Now, radioactive particulates found in the reactor piping are called CRUD (which stands for Chalk River Unidentified Deposits - named after the Canadian reactor where it was first discovered), but this has nothing to do with getting contaminated. Why didn't they just say she was "contaminated"?

ITEM 6: John Connor meets a hot blond at school and takes her to his home after knowing her for, like, 4 hours. Very unrealistic in my experience (sadly).

Like I said at the top, a very enjoyable show, but would it have killed them to hire an expert in nuclear power? My rates are very reasonable.

- Coach Rossaroni

* The most innaccurate thing I saw this week on TV was a Sci-Fi movie I flipped by on Saturday, in which an actor was wearing an Air Force blue short sleeved shirt with Sergeant stripes, Captain bars on his collar, and was being called "Lieutenant" by his Navy Commander boss.

Precious Treasure

Captain Stuart Turnips and Scaramanga decided to purchase some corndogs from the vendor. Scaramanga figured that Mr. Woo was probably going to drive a hard bargain for the mysterious talisman that formed the Headstone of the Staff of Ra.

He knew that he had around 50 Pound Sterling in his wallet. That might be enough if Mr. Woo was desperate enough. He had the Golden Gun (tm) of course but he wasn't trading that for all the Egyptian biblical talismans in China.

As Captain Stuart Turnips and Scaramanga sat on the curb directly outside Mr. Woo's Magic Shoppe eating their corndogs and sipping their cans of refreshing Coca-Cola, they discussed in hushed tones the possibilities of the Headstone of the Staff of Ra. They seemed oblivious to the entire narrative of the previous few minutes where nearly half of Scaramanga's entourage of lackeys and yes men were mown down in a vicious, if spirited and victorious battle against a unit of General Wango Tang's CHICOM forces.

Captain Stuart spoke: "You know it just seems rather odd"

Scaramanga: "What does?"

Captain Stuart: "I don't even know why I wanted a corndog. I don't think I'd ever had one before. I just seemed to know that they were something that I might like. It was as if I had it in my soul somehow."

Scaramanga: "You mean like you were programmed for it?"

Captain Stuart: "Programmed? What is that?"

Scaramanga: "It means that even though you never consciously had the experience of eating a corndog, one of your ancestors or perhaps a future version of yourself has. This meme has passed via the collective unconsciousness somehow."

Captain Stuart: "Wow."

Scaramanga: "Its possible that a future version of you has enjoyed corndogs and that information has somehow passed to the four year old version of you. You merely lack the context for understanding these things."

Captain Stuart: "If that is true. I wonder if I can train myself to recognize this sort of thing?"

Scaramanga: "I don't see why not. If you are having the feeling that you feel something odd like this...rather something known as synchronicity, the temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events as Carl Jung would say. Although Jung was hung up on a sort of world spirit, feel-goody, mumbo jumbo that doesn't really seem to fit your craving for maize bread encrusted bangers. "

Captain Stuart: "Wow"

Scaramanga: "Yeah, i think a lot of this has something to do with the original inhabitants of Earth who lived in Atlantis. They seemed to have access to this kind of knowledge. They could manipulate various dimensions of time and space with impunity."

Captain Stuart: "Atlantis, eh? What is that?"

Scaramanga: "I think it was some sort of dolphin petting park. The people who worked there were once incredibly powerful super beings. Legend tells of men and women of superior intellect, amazing physical powers and some special attributes such as psionics and assorted other special powers such as flight or telekinesis."

Captain Stuart: "Dolphins, really?"

Scaramanga: "So the legend goes they ruled the dolphins and passed much of their intelligence onto the sea mammals. Many of their artifacts would have powerful magics. I wonder if Mr. Woo has any of those?"

Captain Stuart: "How do they do that saw-a-woman-in half trick anyway?"

Freeing the Nautlilus

Lord Turnips cocked the cruddy commy knock-off automatic and checked the action. Rough, durable, made of lousy commie pig iron. In many ways it resembled the lousy commies who designed it and built it. No self-respecting American would have chosen it as his primary weapon. The kind of metal that won't really last because its a knock-off of a knock-off. Some Chinese weapons plant got the blue prints from some Ruskie who stole the plans from an American or a British plant where a guy had to actually do some thinking. Dirty commie sneaks getting over on hard-working arms manufacturers just trying to make a living the honest way.





Lord Turnips spat. "Lousy commies."

(Lord Turnips demonstrates how he'd give the back of his hand if a commie was around)



He looked over the blood-soaked halls of the Nautilus and regarded his school chum Brigadier Rossoroni and school associate, and debtor Lord Woodpecker-Smythe. Rossoroni looked like he could handle a fight. His recent dietary and lifestyle changes seemed to have given him back some of the energy that saw him take down one of Napoleon's columns at Talavera with the 2nd Division under Daddy Hill. Woodpecker-Smythe was always wirey like showbusiness people usually are. Gdamn artists are always mooching and usually begging from meal to meal. Turnips figured he'd run at the first sign of a fight if he hadn't been trained by Don Jaime in Spain in fancy sword-fighting on the supposed notion that it would help make his stage fights more "believable". In his mind he could recall the day Woodpecker-Smythe was at his country house with his miserable hat in his miserable artist hands begging for money for the sword training. "Say Turnips, my production of Oh Calcutta could really use this."



Turnips spat: "Damn artists"!

Brigadier Rossoroni realizing that the moment to use the Mickey Spillane-ified Lord Turnips as a means of recapturing the Nautilus, getting back on track to recover Captain Stuart Turnips and possibly recapture the Ur-Gin was now. He took the copy of Catcher in the Rye from Woodpecker-Smythe and smacked Turnips over the back of the head.

He began speaking slowly:

"Lord Turnips. You are angry. You are very angry."

He flipped open the first page.

"Holden Caufield was angry too. You remember when I asked you to read this book, don't you? You remember when I had you stay at my country estate for that fortnight and I read you this book?"

He turned the page slowly.

"Holden Caufield hated phony people didn't he? You remember when I gave you the delicious golden elixir and had your read this book, don't you?"

He turned the page.

"Holden Caufield hated the people who captured the Nautilus and he hates the Chinese General who captured your beloved son, Stuart."

He turned the page.

"We are going to storm the bridge and I need you to fight until everyone of the crew on the bridge is dead and ignore every thing you hear from anyone else but me until I tell you to read this book again. When I tell you that you will go back to being the genial Lord Turnips, lover of agriculture, country gentleman."

Egress From Woo's

Scaramanga and Captain Stuart Turnips decided to leave Mr. Woo's magic shoppe. It seemed appropriate as they had just given him a bronx cheer to cut off his altogether strange ramblings about British colonial policy during the Second World War.

Just as they were about to leave they noticed an item hanging from the wall.

Scaramanga gasped.

Was this the headstone of the Staff of Ra? Could this be the key to finding the lost Ark of the Covenant and with it the power of the Hebrew God? How much would he have to pay Woo for this now that he had been rude to him?

Captain Stuart Turnips gasped as well. Just across the street there is a corn dog vendor! I really could go for one of those.

Children of Mu

Cued by a sinister symphony of kettle drums and baritone strings, Madame Helena Blavatsky ushered in her guests, a Monsieur Charles Etienne Brassuer and the self-styled “Colonel” James Churchward.

“Velcome, Velcome to my home!” she called out brightly in a heavily accented voice, her expansive bosom heaving with excitement, “Today, the Theosophical Society shall address the issue of great import to all of us … namely the Land of Mu and some gin.”

Brassuer carefully stroked his goatee before replying, “My dear madame Blavatsky, what is it that concerns you regarding the Mu for surely it’s location remains hidden from all in this dimension.”

“I think have an inkling of the issue that ‘tugs at her corset’ so to speak” the Colonel replied.

Brasseur spoke sotto voce, “Do go on then sir”

“You see my fine French friend, those Barrister’s Keepe imbeciles have come a croppers with our Oriental friends in search of that blasted UR-GIN which we know is a Lemurian creation, the predecessors of Atlantis.”

The Colonel was about to continue, his hand tightly cupped about the bowl of his pipe, betraying an inner sense of panic, but was interrupted by Madame Blavatsky.

“Yes, at least one of zem nearly discovered the secret entrance in the Magyk Shoppe in the Kowloon Walled City but were subsequently distracted – distracted like a kitten vis a ball of ze string und zen hijacked on ze high seas by the dread Lady Marzipan.”

The Colonel broke in suddenly, “Ah yes, the Ur-Gin, according to my translations of the Naacal Tablets, written in the ancient Naga script, the gin is located safely in the center of the city. The city is surround by three moats and three walls of increasingly impenetrable materials. The last being pure Oreichalk.”

“What!” cried Brasseur, “Oreichalk is as precious as gold and as durable as steel.”

“Tut, tut” Madame Blavatsky said, pouring both gentlemen a cup of tea, “the gin is safely located within the temple of Poseidon – I’m sure ze intrepid Captain Nemo’ is aware of zis story though – as long as his wessel is incapacitated we have nozing to be fearink.”

Brasseur lost what remained of his cool. “What if Lady Marzipan gets her hands on that Oreichalk or the Terrible Crystals? She could easily power a dozen Q-devices by tuning in the power of cosmos! ”

Madame Blavatsky took no apparent notice and replied "You look a bit distressed Charles, vould you care for a funnel cake wis extra powdered sugar?"