Final Post (probably)

The new blag is here: A Quality of Aspiration.

Have a look!

Please Stand By.

Technical Difficulties.

(There will be an announcement made in 13 days.)

In Which A Tongue Is Held Firmly In Cheek

Ser Andrew, Ser Ulysses, Ser Rutherford, and Ser James decide to have an adventure.

Or, more accurately, Ser Andrew decides that Ser Ulysses, Ser Rutherford, and Ser James will have an adventure. Any objections they may have go decidedly unheard.

"But what sort?" Ser Ulysses asks.

"We'll go to the Moon!" Ser James suggests, getting into the spirit of things.

Ser Ulysses cocks his head. "Um. How?"

The notion, tragically, is rejected.

"How about going to Poland, then?" Ser Andrew suggests, trying to salvage the expedition. "We can see the churches, tour the brothels, maybe burn a few schtetls... it'll be great!"

So they do!

Hooray!

Book of Baitings

Best Playground Equipment.

Swing: The classic! Generations have grown up learning the essential secret of the swing: tuck your legs in going back, and stick them out going forward. Why? Who knows? It works! This is a valuable lesson for later life. A-

Slide: Also a good choice. Going down gives one a wonderful sense of speed; climbing up, an invigorating challenge! The trouble comes when these activites are mixed. B+

Climbing Bars: A great place for playground mockery and painful falls! It is said in the writings of the ancients that a set of climbing-bars under which no child has broken a bone is an unholy thing; therefore they ceremonially broke a child's arm under each one they built. In modern days, we have abandoned the rite; here all our sorrows stem! C

Rocking Horse: Powerful springs, constructed within a narrow range of motion. Doesn't every child dream of their being - set loose? B

Giant Tic-Tac-Toe Board: A game so simple that kindergartners grow bored of it. And so we build it, permanent, in larger scale? It is a shrine to all mankind's follies. D

edited for typo.

The Unibrow of Dr. Frederick

Frederick was concerned about his unibrow.

When it first grew in, that was - surprising, but not shocking. Dr. Frederick shrugged, when he noticed it in the mirror, and went about his work.

When it began to tickle, to itch, even to sting, Dr. Frederick became somewhat alarmed, and might have taken action - but the sensations vanished within two days, and so Dr. Frederick promptly forgot the matter.

And the sleepwalking, the wakings in odd places - why, Dr. Frederick didn't connect that with the unibrow at all!

So you can see that it took rather extraordinary circumstances to prompt Dr. Frederick to concern - circumstances which were nonetheless provided. For the unibrow began to speak to Dr. Frederick - urging him to kill!

Dr. Frederick knew that this was a problem. A severe problem - one that required the attentions of a specialist! So, with a heavy heart, Dr. Frederick went through the secret channels, said the right words, and allowed himself to be blindfolded and taken to a small room. There, the blindfold was removed, and Dr. Frederick saw the face of the man he had gone to see - the most famous doctor in the world - the man who could cure his problem - Dr. Zhang!

"What's your problem?" Dr. Zhang asked, politely.

"Kill," Dr. Frederick's unibrow whispered.

"I - " Dr. Frederick began to say, but Dr. Zhang interrupted.

"Your unibrow just told you to kill," he said.

"You could hear that?" Dr. Frederick asked, surprised.

"Couldn't you?" Dr. Zhang asked.

Dr. Frederick paused a moment to consider this.

"Kill the filthy Zhang," the unibrow hissed.

"Is your unibrow like this to everyone?" Dr. Zhang asked.

"...not really," Dr. Frederick admitted. "Mostly it just tells me to kill you."

"And that's why you're here," Dr. Zhang clarified.

"Yes," Dr. Frederick agreed. A pain was beginning in his head, again.

"Should I be worried?" Dr. Zhang asked.

"What?" Dr. Frederick asked. "Because I might - I might - actually kill you or something? That - that's crazy! I'm not crazy!" His head pounded.

"Dr. Frederick, calm down," Mr. Zhang said. "Please sit down."

"What, you think I'm crazy?" Dr. Frederick asked, shaking. A dull roar echoed in his ears. "You - I came to you for help, and you insult me, you deride me? I - I'll - "

Dr. Zhang ducked under Dr. Frederick's wild swing and swept the doctor's feet out from under him with one leg. "The unibrow is using you!" he said. "Stop - think about what you're doing!"

"You - you!" Dr. Frederick said, crawling backwards towards the wall and using it as support to rise. His face was flushed red, and spittle dripped from the corner of his mouth. "You - unbelievable - I - to think that - " A metallic flash appeared within his coat.

"No!" Dr. Zhang shouted, leaping back from Dr. Frederick's scalpel-swipe. "I don't want to hurt you - "

"DIE!" Dr. Frederick roared and charged, scalpel held before him like a lance.

He crumbled three steps later, darts vibrating in his back.

"Thank you," Dr. Zhang said, nodding to the dart-gun bearing guards standing behind Dr. Frederick. "You can take him away now."

They did so, carrying Dr. Frederick on their shoulders; Dr. Zhang closed the door behind them.

"I really thought I could reason with him," Dr. Zhang, now alone, mumbled. "Man, why do people always have to be that way? Man. People."

He sighed.

"It's Nikolas, obviously," Dr. Zhang said. "He's been planting mind-controlling unibrows on people. This is the third I've seen in the last month, and I've heard stories of more. Driving ordinary people insane, just to distract me, divert my efforts? Despicable! Nikolasian."

He sighed.

"Time to finish development on the airborne mass-depilliation device, I guess," Dr. Zhang said. "The giant hair-ogres and beard-seeking missiles were bad enough, but these unibrows are intolerable! The only answer to Nikolas's vile hair-technology is to destroy all hair on earth."

Then he did!

(And can you imagine - that dirty Nikolas tried to call it a bad thing?)

What Recourse Against the Intrusion of Authority?

"Oh, you think I'm just stopping by for a class?" the Grace complained. "You don't think I'd come by just to say hello? What kind of friend are you, Mr. Turner?"

"You won't go with me to get food?" 2.0 asked. "Terrible! It looks like you are the soulless machine, after all!"

Mr. Turner drew in a breath.

"ENOUGH!" he said.

"If you do not stop, I will be forced to return to my home and native land," Mr. Turner said. "I am very busy here, so I have no time for that. So: stop!"

2.0 and the Grace sighed in unison.

"What will we do, then?" the Grace asked. "I've got half an hour until my class starts!"

"For a start, one of you could check to see that everything in the closet is fully hidden," Mr. Turner suggested. "I don't want anything lying out for unexpected guests to see."

"Why not do a quick inventory?" the Grace suggested. "I've been meaning to check out what you've got back there. So to speak!"

2.0 and the Grace set to work. But it wasn't long before there was a knock at the door!

"RAs!" the call came. "Open up!"

"!" 2.0 said, its head snapping up.

"What do we do?" the Grace asked, turning Mr. Turner. "Everything's spread over the floor! They'll see everything!"

"Quick!" Mr. Turner said, pulling a small object from the floor. "To the back!"

The knocking at the front door was repeated as Mr. Turner & co. ran to the patio. "What's here?" the Grace asked. "Are we making a run for it? We won't make it on foot - "

"Hardly!" Mr. Turner said, and twisted the object he held.

With a rumble, the floor of the patio fell away; the Grace leapt back in astonishment. From it rose an object - a long pointed cone, fins rising from each side. A hatch on the side popped open, fog pouring from within.

"A spaceship!" the Grace gasped.

"I built it!" 2.0 boasted.

"Inside!" Mr. Turner ordered. "2.0, to the conn!" -

- and when the RAs burst in, they were greeted only by the thick cloud of smoke and cacophonous noise from the rocket's eruption.

"Ha!" the Grace said. "Take that, pigs! We're home free now! Though - I'm not sure what we'll do when we get back - "

"Not time to worry about that yet!" 2.0 said. "Look - on the radar - they're coming after us!"

The race was on!

Umbrellas Defend The Earth

Once, the tenfold-noble Semolian Guard stood watch over the Earth. With umbrella in one hand and las-gun in the other, they put fear into the heart of any black-guards that dared threaten Mankind. Their service was long and storied; but tragedy struck in the end. Fighting a race of space-devil-goblins, the Semolian Guard were, as one, sucked into space by an enormous vacuum, leaving only their umbrellas behind to mark their passage. It was a tragedy beyond comprehension; and it would not be the last.

With the Semolian Guard gone, the enemies of Man redoubled their assault, launching attack after attack. The deaths, the destruction - horrific! Many tried to take the place of the Semolian Guard - but, lacking their discipline and skill, nearly all perished. Only one survived the attempt - a woman named Xi Xu at her birth, but who, in later life, was more widely known as the Umbrella-Speaker, for the same reason as allowed her unique success. After the vacuuming of the Semolian Guard, their umbrellas had retreated into hermitage, mourning their failure to protect their masters. It was Xi Xu who found them, beating past the guardians that protected their land of loneliness, so that she could persuade the umbrellas - not just to rejoin the battle for the safety of mankind - but to lend the use of their hermitage as a shelter for others. It is now the safest place on Earth - protected by legions of umbrellas, training for the day when they, too, must join Xi Xu on the front lines.

When the fire rains from the sky - when the space-devil-goblins seek to wipe the last humans from the earth - the umbrellas do not shy from their assault! Instead, they laugh at space-devil-goblins' attacks - use them to train, by deflecting their fireballs into targets for points!

This is the code of Xi Xu and her Umbrellas; the code of the Laughing Warrior.

See it in action here!

you will probably not regret it