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PostPosted: Thu Sep 11, 2003 10:00 pm
  

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Petard leapt across the dance floor, and closed his fingers around R's neck, but before he could do any real damage, found himself staring into the face of a Pythagoreaon Rattler from Guanus VI.

He quickly released the angry snake, and it slithered across the floor and turned back into R, who shouted, "do the Snake," and all the dancers obliged.

"That is a wery stupid dance," said Checkup, holding his nose, and refusing to join, until Counselor Joy waved him over.

"LeAnna Joy, you are looking wery beautiful tonight," he said, smiling from ear to ear, and this time he really meant it, too.

Counselor Joy had finally changed out of that stupid, unisex Blunderer costume, and adorned herself in leather, silk, and the finest KrylonianiminumX/Cotton blend in the Universe.

And what a body! Every single man on the boogy bridge was checking her out, along with several Horvokians that had snuck in through the vents, and they all were deeply envious of our dear Mr. Checkup, who thought maybe he was dreaming.

He wasn't, but you'd have never known it from the way he was floating three inches from the dance floor.

"Say, are you getting taller?" asked an enraptured Counselor Joy.

Captain Petard caught up with R once again, and this time knocked him unconscious before strangling him.

"You can't kill him, Jim," shouted Dr. McFly, "he's immortal."

"Yes, I know he's immoral, and he doesn't have the best bathing habits, either," said the Captain, holding his nose, "but that won't stop me from killing him right here on the boogie bridge."

R managed to regain consciousness, grew six new arms, and began slapping the Captain furiously.

"If I'd known you'd get all excited, I wouldn't have brought you here," R sulked, "now where would you like to go?"

"Can't we go home?" asked Pugsley Bruiser, his pimply face wet with tears.

"Fine," said R, in disgust. He waved his hand, and the entire Blunderer crew were safe, in their homes, on their respective planets, with nothing much to do.

"Oh crap," said the Captain, realizing how lonely, meaningless and dreary his life was when he wasn't in space fighting strange alien races and possibly shacking up with hot female alien creatures.

"R?" he called, echoing through his dingy apartment.

"R?" he called again, noticing the room hadn't been dusted in 25 years, "R, come here, I need you!"

"I need you, I need you," mocked an old, gray parrot in a small cage above the mantle.

"Barnsworth? My God, you're still alve?" the Captain was beyond amazed.

"I survived by eating dust, I survived by eating dust," said the parrot, in a very unhappy voice, "Barnsworth wants a cracker, Barnsworth wants a cracker."

"Oh, my dear, dear old friend, of course you shall have a cracker," said the Captain, crying openly, like a little girl. He went into the kitchen, where spiders were feasting on flies, and found only dessicated wrappings, and piles of dust that had once been saltines.

"Uh, we're all out of crackers," he said, sheepishly.

"Barnsworth wants a cracker, really really bad, AWK!" said the raspy bird.

"I'll be right back," said the Captain, "surely Wong Foo still has the store on Third and Crabtree."

"Don't forget the water, don't forget the water," reminded the bird, wondering if he'd ever see him again.

The Captain made his way down the dark hallway of the Apartment house, down creaky stairs, which he almost fell through a couple of times.

"That's odd," thought the Captain, "I don't remember the place ever being in this state of disrepair..."

He murmured softly to himself, partly to stop him from going insane, and made his way to the little sliver of light coming through the boards covering the front window.

He was almost blind when he stepped out into the street, and wasn't ready for what he saw once his eyes adjusted.

The once bustling street was now a wasteland. All the buildings were boarded up, and vacant, and a strange wind blew through, tossing old newspapers and garbage about in little cyclones.

The Captain walked over three miles, until he finally heard a rumbling sound. He walked towards the sound, and came around a corner to discover an old Dodge idling outside a store of some kind.

Upon getting closer, he saw it had once been a grocery store, and it looked as if there might be some activity inside.

Fearlessly, he walked past the idling Dodge, that had a monkey sitting in the driver's seat, and entered the beat up store.

Sitting at a small desk in the front, was a six foot iguana, with feet like a duck.

"May I help you?" asked the Iguana/Duck creature, drooling just a bit.

"I'd like to purchase some crackers," said the Captain, who then added, "and some water, if you've got it."

"Crackers?" smiled the Iguana, "what kind of crackers? Whatever use would you have for these crackers?"

The Iguana, whose name was Dave, enjoyed a good snack of parrot. In fact, he enjoyed it so much, that there wasn't a single one left in the entire city.

Or was there? He had to wonder, and Petard couldn't help notice how much he was salivating.

"Never mind," said Petard, moving towards the door, "I'll get them someplace else."

"Oh, I've got crackers, all right," said Dave, moving menacingly towards Petard, "I've got seven thousand, six hundred and fifty two different kinds of crackers, and they're all top quality."

His lidless eyes grew very small.

"Now what do you have for me?"

"Well, it's not like they pay me a fortune," said the Captain, "but I do have these."

He held up two Altrusian Battle Dice, gleaming in the soft glow of the flourescent lights in the ancient store.

"I'll tell you what," snarled Dave, "for those dice, I'll give you sixty tons of crackers."

"Sixty tons?" said the Captain, surprised, "I was only thinking of a couple of boxes, that's all. How would I get sixty tons of crackers home, anyway?"

"Oh, we'll deliver," said Dave, hungrily, "no extra charge."

The Captain didn't see the humor of this conversation, and so he did the only thing he knew how to do, and lashed out violently, beating Dave half to death, and tying him up with electrical cords.

He took two boxes of Zesty Saltines, still in their cellophane wrappers, and marched out of the store, triumphant. The monkey shot him the bird, and revved his engine a couple of times, but the Captain didn't care.

He walked arrogantly back to his apartment, and was just about to give Barnsworth a cracker, when R appeared.

"So, you need me?" taunted R, "I never thought I'd hear you say those words."

"Am I ever gonna get a cracker?" chirped Barnsworth.

"What would you say if I told you I could put all of you back on the Blunderer, not far from the Folk Quadrant, but you have to leave right now?"

"Can he give me a cracker first?" asked the insanely hungry bird.

"I'd say, 'when do we leave?'" the Captain responded stupidly.

"I just said it would have to be right now," R answered, annoyed.

"I'm not getting that cracker, am I?" said Barnsworth in disgust.

And with that, the Captain and R disappeared, and the box of saltines fell just out of the parrot's reach.

"I saw that coming, I saw that coming," squawked the bird, for the next few days.


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PostPosted: Fri Sep 12, 2003 12:26 pm
  

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"that did it!" scotchy glared with nostrils flaring making him look like a bull. nevertheless he continued in an increasingly sober tone, "i'm sending out invitations. since when have we ever resorted to trying to dance to music that you can't even dance to in the first place! we meant to dance, and by the kracken's beard we're goin'ta dance!"

"who are we going to invite?" queried petard in a jumping up and down burst of excitement which soon had everyone else clapping with anticipation.

"..i don't know....the grateful dead?" scotchy wondered.

"ooh! ooh! the pretenders!" shouted riper with his arm raised as if to signal his desire to make a suggestion while continuing to make one, "...chrissie hynde rocks!"

"the clash!" came another shout.

"beck!" came another.

"i want to hear 'alice's restaurant'!"

(the room fell silent for several seconds)

"oh alright, 'coming into los angeles'."

(everyone was back to shouting and spilling beer again)

suddenly, the crew found themselves amid a sea of people.

"...and i haven't even sent out the invitations yet!" scotchy noted while watching what looked like a troll slide by on his stomach as though flying through the air.

soon people everywhere were dancing as if it were "a charlie brown christmas" while music vibrations began to spread to every corner of the quadrant. the planet began to expand and contract making it like a humongous one of those moon bounce things. it was like gravity and anti-gravity had decided to crash the party. somewhere larry could be seen (remember larry) soaring highest of all saying, "wheeee!" and a certain familiar folksinger was seen doing a split in the air which is neither here nor there but who cares?

everyone wanted in on the action and scotchy was thrilled at the turn out..."this quadrant may never be the same," he considered, "...JUMP! JUMP!"

"this was supposed to be my party!" roared r who could no longer contain himself.

scotchy, being the big silent type decided right then to sit on r.


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PostPosted: Fri Sep 12, 2003 1:53 pm
  

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Just as scotchy moved to sit on r, he realized that any movement other than a kind of in-place shuffle was out of the question; chickens were flying all over the dance floor!


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PostPosted: Sat Sep 13, 2003 1:56 am
  

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"I don't get it," complained Riper, "one minute I was here on the ship, the next minute I was taking a bath at my mother's house, and then 'poof!' back here again!"

He eyed R suspiciously.

"What gives, Mr. Omnipotence?" Riper asked, setting his jaw.

"About time you bathed," hissed R, out of the corner of his mouth.

"So it was you! I knew it!" Riper rushed towards R, but was met with flying chickens.

"And who are you?" Riper panted, at a guy drinking Tequila, who was just out of the camera shot.

"Oh, hey, I'm not actually in this," said Larry, taking a shot, "I'm just enjoying the show."

"Well, would you mind killing a few Stomboblian Warriors? R didn't bother to get them off the ship when he sent us home, and now they think they own the place."

"Sure thing," said Larry, shooting several of them with his .38.

"What in blazes is that, a gun?" shouted Petard, who'd only seen them in movies.

"Hey, let me see that," said Gilligan, and Lt. Warp stepped in to avert disaster.

"How did you survive the butterflies?" asked Warp, in amazement.

"Well, they were all really cool, and all kinds of pretty colors," said Gilligan, excitedly, "and they were all just kinda flying around like this..."

He flapped his arms, and mugged a bit.

"But then they all started circling around like this," he said, running in circles and flapping, "and then they were like, 'Zhoooom,' and 'Nyaooomb,'" he started making diving motions with his hands, "and then I started saying 'nice butterflies, good butterflies,' 'cause I thought they wanted to eat me or something, and then I..."

"Gilligan, will you just get to the point," said Sherman, who'd seen this sort of thing before.

"Well, that's just the thing," said Gilligan, "I was thinking maybe they were hungry, and I better feed them, and I saw a big lever with all kinds of lights flashing on and off like this, and then I pulled it like this, and 'woooooooooossshhhh,' the airlock came open, and they were sucked out into the vacuum of space."

"How the devil did you survive?" demanded Petard, in smooth, Celtic tones.

"Well, I got my foot caught in that little pipe underneath the console..."

"Little pipe?" Petard looked confused.

"Yeah, you know, that little pipe marked 'man power.'"

"Man power?"

"Yeah, man power. Why are you repeating everything I say?" Gilligan turned to Counselor Joy, "do you notice how he's just repeating everything I say? Maybe he oughtta see a doctor, or something, or he's a martian, or a monkey."

Warp's eyes glazed over in fear.

"Main Power, Captain," he said.

"Main Power?" the Captain turned white.

"See?" Gilligan insisted, "now they're both doing it!"

"I get it," said Pugsley, even though no one was talking to him, "his foot was caught on the Main Power Coupling, and he probably shorted that out, causing the doors to close, and the cargo bay to fill with oxygen before his lungs could implode. The odds of that happening are staggeringly unlikely. That means that while we were all home, having a nice lie down, the ship switched over to auxiliary power, and all main circuits are off line."

"Shut up, you little bookworm," snapped Harrison Freud, who didn't really care for children, especially with acne, which he considered contagious.

"So that means..." said the Captain.

"I'm afraid so," replied Warp.

"That's right, sir, we're out of coffee," said Ensign Hazel, voicing that which no one else could.

"Bloody Hell, who needs coffee?" slurred Scotchy, who had gotten quite blurry by now.

"I wasn't talking about coffee!" shouted an exasperated Warp, "the weapons systems are offline. We're completely defenseless."

"Well, then there's only one thing we can do," said Hammer McGee.

"And what would THAT be?" demanded an impatient Warp.

"Sing a song, of course!"

And with that, Hammer started picking out a little tune that would make the Mad Blunderbeast of Exropa XII cry like a baby, accenting the C on the downbeat, as only he could.

"When your Ectoplasmic Instability has got you down," he sang, in a clear, strong voice.

"And your Gremlons are sprawling down your face

When your best friend has been turned to metallic rock by the Zicromanian Plague

And the space/time continuum has sucked up your sister

There's hope in the darkest corner of space"

"C'mon, everybody sing!" he shouted, with enough enthusiasm to start Albert Swingset's heart for the third time that day, and they all did, even Mr. Warp.

"There's hope in the darkest corner of space

Where Celflixans join hands with the Human Race

There's chocolate cake, and meatloaf

and dancing every place

There's hope in the darkest corner of space."

This went on for two and a half hours, and some of the crew was beginning to suspect McGee was repeating verses.

And that's when they noticed the stranger who'd walked in the door, with 45 feet of rope.


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PostPosted: Sat Sep 13, 2003 12:37 pm
  

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Larry went on to expalin that his .38 was not a gun, but a 38mm camera, with which he snapped photographs that would later become 27 8x10 color glossys that he would bring back to the R continueum so he may have some proof of these strange beings at some point in the past or future.It was a school project.

(meanwhile, the inmates have hijacked my novel and I continue to be in semi-awe) <img src="http://www.arlo.net/ubb/smilies/smile.gif" width=15 height=15>


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PostPosted: Sun Sep 14, 2003 1:59 am
  

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"Semi-awe?" gaped Mr. Checkup, "that is a wery strange term I am not familiar with. Why not be in regular awe? In fact, why not be completely slack-jawed, and bug-eyed?"

"Like this?" asked Gilligan, making a most convincing face.

"He is wery good," noted Mr. Checkup, still as amazed as the next guy that Gilligan had survived the offspring of Spock the vicious puppy who had turned into an enormous, evil butterfly.

The next guy just happened to be Mr. Warp, who was every bit as amazed as anyone would expect such a sour man to be.

"How in blazes did this man ever get into the storyline to begin with?" asked Captain Petard, indicating Gilligan.

"I don't know," said Sherman, "but is that shirt orange..."

he paused sixty three and a half seconds for extra drama, and a commercial break, "or is it RED?"

"SKIPPPERRRRR!!!!" shouted Gilligan, running off in fast-motion.

"How the devil did he..." began Captain Petard, when R cut him off.

"Why do you begin so many questions with 'how in blazes,' or 'what the devil' or whatever?" R interrupted blatantly, "at first it just sounded presumptious, but after awhile, it makes everybody wonder if you're brain-damaged in some way."

"Well the crew did drug me, you know," the Captain offered in way of a pathetic excuse, "and at one point, I was James Thaismokius Kirk, until that accident with the cantaloupes."

"I never read any such scene," complained R, getting more than a little annoyed, "you transformed yourself in that weird machine you stole from the Kamalino People of Gorgonzola VIII, and although turning down the hormones was a nice touch, you're so damned pompous we've all been fantasizing about ways of killing you."

"Is this true?" the Captain asked his crew, eyeing each one more suspiciously than the next, which is nice work if you can get it.

"Well, Captain," said Lulu, who could never tell a lie, wiggling his foot sheepishly, "I have to admit we've spent approximately 235 man-hours on it, but just theoretically, mind you."

"I didn't realize I had become so insufferable," lamented the Captain, "I will go downstairs and transform myself again."

Forces the Captain had never imagined pulled and ripped at every part of his being. He'd forgotten the ship was on auxiliary power, and nobody else cared.

He was growing hair, where there had been none, and he could feel strange brewings inside his body.

The Captain walked back out onto the bridge, and her ass had just a tiny bit of swing to it, as the crew gasped, collectively.

"You are wery beautiful," said Mr. Checkup, predictably, but Riper didn't think she was all that hot.

"Who in hell are you?" screamed Mr. Warp.

"Relax, Lieutenant," she said soothingly, "I'm Captain Plainway."


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PostPosted: Fri Sep 19, 2003 9:13 pm
  

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"Hold it," said Sherman, annoyingly, "how did you get to be a woman?"

"It's simple," answered Captain Plainway, in a husky voice, "my metabolism was altered with a molecular restructuring system, quite similar to the one that makes your food."

Mr. Warp choked on the hot dog he was eating.

"There there," said Captain Plainway, patting Warp lightly on the back, "there's no need to choke. Why are you even eating a hot dog? I thought they were illegal."

"No, but they should be," said Sherman, missing his dog, Mr. Peabody frightfully.

Mr. Peabody, as you may remember from about a hundred chapters ago, had quit the show, based on the notion that it had gotten silly, and was no longer dramatic, or educational.

He'd formed his own production company, and began churning out episodes of "Feel Good Family Dramas," and with every single episode, he'd felt his cartoon soul disappear just a little more.

So he started writing, producing, and starring in a series of ill-advised Westerns, casting himself simultaneously as the good guy, and the hooker with the heart of gold.

Nobody bought it. His performance as the hero was simply too wooden, and the science lectures added nothing to the character.

His portrayal of the saloon girl got him nominated for an Emmy, however, which he declined, on the grounds that it really doesn't mean anything, anyway, and besides, he already had a good paperweight.

For months he'd been sure he'd never miss that squirmy little brat, Sherman, but he was beginning to feel that he had a deeper cartoon bond with him than he'd realized.

He found himself barking at the mailman a lot more than he was usually inclined to do, and had woken himself up howling too many nights. It was time he took a bold step, and he did.

He decided to undergo psychoanalysis. He tried several excellent and highly recommended cartoon doctors, but they were always using everything as the setup for a joke, and he didn't feel he was making any real progress.

Dr. Insane Chicken had given him shock treatments; not for any real medical value, but simply for a good laugh.

Dr. Whacky Weasel had actually given him several lobotomies, but luckily, through the magic of Cartoon Physics, his brain had grown back each time, and he'd put a stop on the check.

He had no more luck with Dr. Woohoo; Dr. Pain; Dr. Ahahahahaha or Dr. Flintstone, although he had at least made a pretty good effort, unlike those other guys, who mainly just sprayed him in the face with seltzer, and hit him with hammers.

He'd decided to try a human doctor, and had diligently gone through the phone book, choosing carefully based on the size and quality of the ads.

"Health Central, where we've been curing people for over 200 years, and have never made a mistake," read one of the biggest ads, but he noticed an asterisk next to mistake, and looked at the bottom of the ad for the corresponding asterisk.

In print that was so small, he needed to warm up his portable electron microscope, which uses far more power than you'd think, and saw that it read, "*Mistakes as defined by our lawyers, where we were actually held culpable; paid fines or penalties; or were in any way considered to be the source of the problem, and believe us, our lawyers are good."

Mr. Peabody felt it would be OK to skip Health Central, and found good reasons to skip Mental Giants; Psychiatry R Us; and Analysis Pros; not to mention Dial-a-Shrink.

He finally settled on Freud, Freud & Tchaikovsky, who apparently had been serving the metro area since 1897. Their tagline, "tell us about your mother," seemed soothing to the tired cartoon dog, and he made an appointment, and settled back to listen to loud punk rock on the radio, before flushing several of his fish down the toilet.

"Tell me about your mother," said a voice with a German accent, the next day, as Mr. Peabody leaned back on a soft leather couch.

"You already asked me about her on the phone; in the questionaire; during the reflex tests; and in the word search puzzle in the lobby," said an exasperated Mr. Peabody. "For the twenty eighth time, I never HAD a mother! I was simply drawn and created, and several actors have done my voice over the years! Now can you help me, or not?"

"Hmmmmmm....." said Dr. Freud, stroking his beard, and wondering if that was part of his lunch in there, "perhaps. Perhaps."

"Perhaps what?" demanded Mr. Peabody, "Perhaps you can help me, or perhaps that's part of your lunch in there?"

"You can read minds?" gasped the doctor, "Gott im Himmel, how did you know what I was thinking about?"

"I was reading the narrative," admitted Mr. Peabody, sheepishly.

"Well don't do that!" retorted the doctor, "that's most disconcerting."

He turned toward the camera, "This is an interesting case. It's too bad my brother isn't here, because he specializes in cases such as this. He once cured a spider from eating flies, that's how good he is."

"Well, where is he?" asked the irate cartoon dog.

"He's always been such a wild boy," said the doctor, "always running around with hooligans; I should think right now he is flying around in space."

"Flying around in space?" said Mr. Peabody, who was beginning to get a strange feeling.

"Yes, my brother Harrison was always doing that..."

"Harrison?" barked Mr. Peabody, scaring the doctor more than ever.

"Harrison Freud?"

"Ja, that's him," answered the doctor, running out the back exit, and locking the door behind him.

It was then that Mr. Peabody knew his destiny.


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PostPosted: Sun Sep 28, 2003 4:54 am
  

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While Mr. Peabody was getting a handle on his destiny, which is nice work if you can get it, the crew of the Starship Blunderer had spent a good amount of time getting it together.

The hallways of the ship were clean and shiny, and all of their suits had been pressed and Martinized. Even R had to admit that the process of Martinization was both advanced and mysterious, and he marvelled at his ability to see his reflection in O'Hara's ample posterior.

He looked good, he reasoned, using his advanced mind and superior visual skills to compensate for the convex distortion.

The Stromboblians had been detained, and forced to play basketball, which was keeping many of the ship's janitors entertained, now that all the cleaning was done.

A flock of Canada Snow Geese had spelled out the word "Hope" in the sky over Coagulaon 6.5, although several of them had been eaten by a horrible creature.

"What was that?" asked a terrified Albert Schweigert, beating a dentist at Macrame.

"If I'm not mistaken," said Riper, who wouldn't have admitted it if he was, anyway, "that's a Hormegulan Serious Beast."

"Are you serious?" Schweipkopff snorted in Gaelic.

One of the maintenance drones started his shoe on fire, and Lt. Warp took advantage of the opportunity, and lit a big Cuban, setting off 73% of the ship's fire extinguishers, and causing an ensign in Section 3B, Deck 11 to burn the back of her neck, causing her to scream, and scare her sleeping eight year old yak, Arthur.

"How long until we reach the Egulon Vortex?" asked Riper, who'd been struggling with his dialogue lately, probably due to the worms living in his ears.

"We'll be lucky if we make it there at all, sir," hiccuped Scotchy, showing his unbridled positivity once again, "I'm givin' 'er all she's got!"

"Did you pull up the anchor?" asked Checkup, nervously making an omelet in his hat.

Scotchy slapped himself in the forehead.

"Mr. Offcamera?" said Scotchy.

"Yes sir?" came a voice on the soundtrack.

"Pull in the anchor, will ya?"

"10-4," said the voice.

"What in bloody blue balmy blazes does that mean?" sputtered Scotchy, noticing his lip was bleeding again.

"I think it means it'll take him ten minutes to pull it in," offered Lulu.

"But then what's the damned four for?" asked Scotchy, wondering if he'd phrased that right.

"He's going to put four men on the job," said an excited Sherman, glad to be participating.

"I think it's a code, sir," said the HAL9000, but no one was paying attention.

"It is now 10:24 on Stardate 11 3.7 11238," said Commander Datandtime.

"What the bleeding bugs bunnies..." stammered Scotchy, drooling, "your character is Commander Datandtime?"

"Yes sir," answered Commander Datandtime, "you asked that question at precisely 10:25:33:28 on Stardate 11 3.7 11238."

"What kind of stupid idea is that?" screamed an amazed Harrison Freud, "you just go around telling everybody what the time is?"

"No, I certainly don't go around just telling everybody what the time is," said an indignant Commander Datandtime, "I tell them the exact time within 1/10,000,000th of a second, and the precise stardate. I also can tell their height, weight, and fortune, and I make an excellent alarm clock."

"Ah, ya lyin' bastard," chortled Scotchy, in disgust, "if that's so, why don't ya tell me my fortune then?"

"A great opportunity will present itself. If you are to take advantage, you will have to resist temptation. Love will come to you, in the form of a secret friend..."

"Ah c'mon, with the mumbo jumbo," said an exasperated Scotchy, "can't ya give me some specifics?"

"You will start a zipper company, and before you make your first million, you will be eaten by giant Fruit Bats. Your lucky numbers are 3, 8, 3 and 17."

The entire crew applauded, and quickly lined up to get their fortunes read, and to see if they could put in for a morning wake up call.

"How exactly do those stardates work?" asked a second year Liberal Arts major.

"Well, they're completely arbitrary, of course," answered Commander Datandtime, "the writers simply make them up."

"So what year is this supposed to be?"

"See, that's the beauty of it," Commander Datandtime forced a wan smile, "You just string some numbers together, always making sure there's a . in there somewhere, and nobody has to say what year it is, or how long a year is, or how old any of us are, or what day is Meatloaf day in the cafeteria."

"Ooooh, I like that," said Dr. Bruiser, who especially liked that last part. She never could abide Meatloaf, and she never would.

"Captain, I've lost control of the bridge," said Ensign Bruiser, with enough panic to actually force three new blackheads out.

"What's going on?" Captain Plainway asked Engineering.

"I just pulled this little lever here, and then that button started flashing, so I pushed that, and then a whole bunch of lights started flashing, and then a siren started going off, and it was scaring my monkey, so I pulled on that with a wrench and it shot big sparks out all over the wall..." came a panicked voice over the Com system.

"Who is that? I don't recognize your voice," said the Captain, rummaging through her purse.

The com only crackled and whined.

"Commander Riper, get down there immediately, and see who's running Engineering, and for God's sake, don't put the monkey in charge."

"Aye aye sir, ah, ma'am, ah, mir, ah, Sam." said Riper smoothly, banging into the door that, for some reason, hadn't opened like it was supposed to.

Several embarassed stagehands pried the door open with a Fern, and some WD-40, and Riper and his team made their way down the six flights of stairs to Engineering.

Once inside, they saw a room filled with steam, and sparks were shooting everywhere.

"I don't know what that dial there is for," shouted a voice from the mist, "but it's past the little red line, and there's a big sign that says 'Danger.'"

"Who the hell are you?" shouted Riper, and then, when he got close enough to see, he turned pale.

"Gilligan? How did you get put in charge of Engineering?"

"The writers thought it would be funny," Gilligan answered, as he and his monkey were thrown into Commander Riper and his team with the force of six volcanoes.

"What happened?" asked Pugsley, awakening from a short coma.

"I think we crashed," said the ghost of Dr. McFly, who had died on impact.

"We crashed all right," said Mr. Checkup, "and I have a wery bad headache."

"Where are we?" asked Captain Plainway, checking a small mirror to see if her makeup looked OK.

"I don't believe it," said Lt. Warp.

The ship had crashed on an uncharted desert isle.


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PostPosted: Mon Sep 29, 2003 2:01 am
  

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Now sit right back and you'll hear a tale
A tale of a far out trip
That started from the Folk Quadrant
On a great big shiny ship
The mate was a randy lover man, The Captain, he was too
1,200 passengers set sail that day with a peace lovin' crew
A peace lovin' crew

The writers started getting cute, the shiny ship was tossed,
If not for the pounding of the throbbing beat
The Blunderer would be lost,
The Blunderer would be lost.

The ship set ground on the shore of this uncharted desert isle
With Gilligan,
The Captain too,
Mr. Checkup, and his dog,
That guy from "Star Wars,"
And the rest...

The waves broke over the pale rocks of the moonlight's promise, lapping quietly; peacefully towards the shore. A single gull swirled lazily overhead, mocking the night's quiet with an occasional caw.

Below, Blunderer lay battered and broken upon the rocks, and every single passenger and crewmember were sleeping soundly, dreaming of a better Universe, where every creature sang in perfect harmony with the other.

Civilizations rose and fell with the chests of the slumbering crewmembers, each a little more tired than the next. Many of them were badly injured, and some of them had taken a moment to go insane, politely excusing themselves from reality just long enough to see the light.

Slowly, and painfully the sun rose, breathing golden fulfillment onto the battered crew, kissing them as softly as a mother would; cradling them gently into the sheer agony of awareness.

"Good morning," began Lt. Wordsworth, who had been reassigned from the 19th Century.

"Say, you're from the Romantic Period, aren't you?" asked Commander Unlikely.

"What's it to ya, punk?" demanded Wordsworth, who always made sure and get his.

"If you thank that's clever, you're a couple of hundred years behind the times," cautioned a dazed Mr. Lulu. Nobody had a clue what he was talking about, and so they went on without him.

Slowly, the dazed and bewildered crew rose to their feet, dusted themselves off, began building grass huts, foraged for food, built fires, and built a socio-economic system, before taking a break for a nice lunch, and a glass of wine.

"So what do we do now, Captain?" asked Mr. Checkup, who already knew what he hoped the answer would be.

"Well, we are in paradise," set the Captain, looking for her lipstick again, "I propose we simply enjoy ourselves, and retire."

That was exactly the answer Mr. Checkup was looking for, and he let out a little whoop before racing across the beach, and jumping in the lagoon, where he would spend the rest of his days, laughing, splashing, and living on nothing but coconuts.

"I can't see myself living that way," said Harrison Freud, cocking one eyebrow, and hoping it wouldn't go off.

He was right, decided Globar the Singularly Unique, who was the last Folktoped to survive all the horrible plot twists that had been aimed at his people. Globar chose that moment to forever relieve himself of all rational thought, thus becoming the perfect folksinger. There was now only room in his mind for poetic images, and really moving stories, and absolutely no mathematical formulas, or chocolate chip cookie recipes.

"If you've heard one Globar the Singularly Unique, you've heard 'em all," many of his critics had said in the past, but Globar had been overcoming that, simply due to irate fans kidnapping and torturing those critics, which may have been what led to his Universe wide acceptance.

Globar was good, but he was no Hammer McGee. The crusty old Scotsman from another solar system had written one song, (his first hit,) that told the complete story of every single creature in the Universe, in a succint thirty two verses. It was called "Universal Lament," and his record company had made so much money off of it, that they were forced to buy themselves several times, starting an infinite loop that resulted in the entire corporate headquarters being sucked into a black hole, and creating a new dimension where plaid was all the rage.

No one understood how.

Alfred P. Bumblestocking of Proodfout University wrote a six thousand page thesis on it, got drunk, slept with his buddy's wife, and forgot where he put it.

No one else ever tackled the problem.

Which was a shame for the crew of the Starship Blunderer, because before they even got to explore the comic possibilities of being stranded on a desert island, the island, their ship, and all of their things with the exception of those really cool candle holders were sucked into the very black hole created by McGee's first record company.

"That's bloody ironic," noted Scotchy, who was used to things spinning like this. He wondered if the rest of the crew could ever learn to get used to it.

"Bloody well hope so," he thought to himself.

"Wait a minute, this has been a bit confusing," said Pugsley, his voice changing as he spoke, "we crashed into a desert island where Mr. Checkup would spend the rest of his days laughing and splashing in the lagoon, but now we're being sucked into a black hole?"

"That seems to be it," said Lt. Warp, who was simultaneously becoming larger and smaller, which, he had to admit, was something new.

"But if that's so, then how does Mr. Checkup end up spending the rest of his days laughing and splashing..."

"Shut up, kid," bellowed Harrison Freud, "I don't know what it is, I just don't like children, especially ones with acne, which I've heard is quite contagious."

"That's a myth," pouted Pugsley, but no one was willing to back him but the HAL9000, and everybody had stopped listening to him chapters ago.

"Sir, or ma'am, or whatever," said Warp condescendingly, "all this getting bigger and smaller is making me very angry. Request permission to kill someone or something, preferably that Gilligan character, who is obviously unreliable."

"While I sympathize with your disdain for the clumsy fool, I think there are more important matters at hand," said Plainway, making it clear she intended to survive this journey, "but after that, you may kill whomever you please."

"Thank you Captain," Warp said, crisply saluting, "you won't regret it."

"Do you have a plan?" she asked, insistently.

"Yes," said Lt. Warp, throwing a big iron pipe into the Black Hole, where it wedged firmly.

"Now everybody grab the pipe," shouted Warp, and due to the bizarre physics of Black Holes, all 1,200 crewmembers grabbed the six foot pipe at the same time, as the ship, island, and all known points of perception disappeared around them.

The entire crew was suspended out in nothingness, holding on to an iron pipe.

"Man, this is cool," said Shaggy, and Scooby Doo agreed.

Everyone else merely nodded their heads mutely.

Some of them had had dreams like this.

Some of them hadn't.


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PostPosted: Tue Sep 30, 2003 12:15 am
  

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The other first mate...not Gilligan...the one that came with George Jackson...set off exploring when the ship first hit the island (seeing as how he was down to four feet of rope)...When he came back to where the ship should have been, all he saw was a piece of pipe hanging from the sky...he yanked the pipe, pulled the ship back down to the island and said; "Has anybody got any plastic sandwich bags!?"


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PostPosted: Tue Sep 30, 2003 11:04 am
  

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Meanwhile, in another part of the ship, a young science officer calculated that all this double spacing was eating up so many blank electrons that the universe would soon implode.


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PostPosted: Sat Oct 04, 2003 8:29 pm
  

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this bit of information frightened and confused everyone as they froze in mid action, afraid to move. scotchy was the first to speak, moving his lips as little as possible as though speaking on behalf of a ventriloquist's dummy, "captain, what do you suppose now would be the best course of action?"
when warp butted in, talking through the teeth of a forced grin, "why are we behaving as though we're about to have our picture taken at a really really slow shutter speed?" which only added to their confusion...the kind of confusion the crew had become accustomed to and was a great source of comfort to them.
"perhaps beings from the land of group w would have the answer in just their being themselves." thought mikey whether he knew it or not, "a kind of effortless group effort, if you will." he continued with solemn lips and furrowed brow.
"good thinking!" bellowed the captain as he was wont to do, and as he dreamed of the days during the great group w invasion (if you could call it that since they had invaded their own territory, something they always delighted in doing) when every self and other respecting member of the group w bench had things to say, adding to the stream of blunder like it had never been done before.

was it no longer something even remotely interesting or challenging for them to do? did they not believe that they had made it great? or is it something else all together?
...does it even matter now? for the full moon beckons and there's a party a brewin'!
(that was for ceashel and kj!!!! (i love you kj!!!) and bobbi, and deb and her aurora borealis and actually it was for everyone, i think)
now if you'll excuse me, it's time to hitch a ride on larry's hot air balloon...


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PostPosted: Sun Oct 05, 2003 7:16 pm
  

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"Welcome back to the Gore Vidal show. Our guests tonight are crewmembers Lt. Warp, Ship's Counselor Joy, Captain Margaret Plainway, and the recently promoted Commander Checkup."

Vidal was at his best tonight, having done the strongest opening monologue of his career. The audience was screaming and writhing like they were at a Grateful Dead concert.

"So Captain Plainway, there seems to be some sparks between you and Commander Checkup. Is that how he got his promotion?"

"Well, he certainly would deserve that," purred Plainway, knowingly, "but on the Starship Blunderer, we don't base our promotions on someone's merits as a lover."

The crowd went crazy. This was exactly what they'd been hoping to hear.

"Mr. Warp, let me turn the attention to you, if I may, for just a moment," intoned Vidal, "you look uncomfortable. Is that just part of being a Security Officer?"

"Well, Mr. Vidal," said Warp, in a strong baritone, "it goes without saying that a Security Officer must always be on his guard, as would any good warrior, but I am slightly disoriented from having suddenly appeared on this television show, when moments earlier I was battling Stromboblian Soldiers, armed with Energy Pistols, daggers, and carnivorous bats."

A murmer went through the audience.

"Well, I doubt any of us have had to deal with THAT," laughed Vidal, not knowing how close he was to his own death.

"Laugh all you want," said Warp scornfully, "whatever strange force brought me here could bring the bats."

"I doubt that," noted Vidal, "our producers have an exclusive contract that forbids precisely that sort of thing."

"How convenient," said Commander Checkup, crossing his arms in a snit.

"Excuse me, I don't seem to be getting any cameratime," complained Counselor Joy, who looked quite fetching in her spandex jumpsuit, and knee high leather boots.

"OK, counselor," said Vidal, "our audience has a question for you. Why is it that you're always on the Bridge, even though you don't have any actual bridge duties?"

"Well, that's a good question," Counselor Joy responded, "but you see, the crew needs me to use my powers of feeling to learn and understand the emotions of the persons or entities we are dealing with."

"Like 'I sense he is hiding something?' No offense counselor, but most of the time, that's just the safe assumption, isn't it?"

"Fine. YOU read into the emotions of complex life forms, and I'll stay here and run this show."

"OK, well, I'll tell you, I can sense your emotions pretty easily right now. I'd say you're frustrated because someone's called into attention the insignificance of your position within the organization, and now you're worried that you won't get any more raises, and you have an overbearing mother."

"What does my mother have to do with this?" asked Joy, now very annoyed.

"Well, I'd tell you, but we've got to go to commercial!"

Just as the camera faded to black, carnivorous bats flew onto the set, and picked Vidal down to the bone within seconds.

The audience thought it was part of the show, and screamed and clapped with delight as Mr. Warp battled several of them, killing seven people in the third balcony by accident.

"Sorry," he shouted, as the biggest bat swooped at his face, and he ducked, sending the bat reeling into the refreshment stand, disappointing several customers who would never get a Pepsi.

Suddenly, a clear voice began singing through the pandemonium.

"Oh bats of Grebulon VII
Hear these words I say to you
Please stop attacking the people
and let me tell you true
We love the bats of Grebulon VII
We wish to be your friends
We'll share with you are hopes and dreams
and make you love again"

The entire house orchestra had been searching for the key, and now, having found it, came in on the chorus.

"Humans and bats can be team mates
Humans and bats together in the light
Humans and bats, through the darkness
Together we can do anything
It's humans and bats for all time!"

Several of the bats starting humming in three part harmony, as Hammer McGee continued.

"Through homes and caves all over
Our music will resound
We'll be the gol darned lovingest
Bats and human beings around
Through thick and thin, and wrong and right
Together in harmony
We'll make this world a better place
And then we'll all be free."

Three angels descended from Heaven to add harp as the whole theater shook, and everybody sang the last chorus in ninety-five part harmony, with several serruptitious counter harmonies woven in with the subtlety of rice paper.

"Humans and bats should be comrades
Humans and bats working for the cause
Humans and bats through the ages
Together we can do anything
It's humans and bats for all time!"

They sang that chorus six more times, because everybody was really happy with the room dynamics, and nobody wanted the bats to go back to killing people.

The credits came up, and that was the last, and best Gore Vidal show ever seen, and went to the TV Hall of Fame the very next day.

The following week, they ran a repeat of "My Daddy was a Suitcase," which was not only boring, but had too much Samsonite product placement to be tolerated, and was cancelled the following week. That particular time slot would trouble the Network for over 75 generations.

R turned off the set, and the crew was transported back to the Blunderer, where they were hoping there was still some tea.

Instead, they were greeted by something more horrifying than that one dream, where all your teeth fall out.


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PostPosted: Mon Oct 13, 2003 8:12 pm
  

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Joined: Apr 10, 2003
Posts: 52
Location: Hoagland, IN, USA
Hammer McGee could scarcely contain his ill-begotten woe. Never before had he hung from an iron pipe over nothing, and his old soul longed to curse his dour predicament, but something made him simply hold on.

The other 11,999 people were beginning to annoy him, too, what with their constant bickering, whining, and exchanging recipes.

“My hands are tired,”

“My fingers are sore,”

“I can never get my Tempura batter just right,”

the suspended souls glistened out into the emptyness of nothingness, making poor Hammer’s ears throb like his name.

Something inside him never stopped cajoling him that now is the time to plumb the depths of who he is, or was, or will be, depending on how you look at it.

“Stop tickling me,” he growled, at an unknown crewmember, and then, he felt sorry for sounding so grumpy.

Hammer McGee was one of the grumpiest men in the entire Universe, but he was working on it. Folksinging had helped, but not that much. Winning countless awards hadn’t hurt, he reasoned, but all in all he still felt a bit distempered.

Scads of hot women throwing themselves at him definately was the closest thing to making him happy, but Hammer was getting a bit old for all that. He would need to throw himself into his art once again, saving the Universe one last time, before he would retire, and write his memoirs.

He would write a song so powerful, it would make grass grow on the bare bottom of Grubulon XXVII; a song that would unite every creature into one being, if only for a moment. He began strumming his favorite guitar in his mind. He paused for just a moment, to tune it.

“This quadrant is your quadrant
This quadrant is my quadrant
From Coagulex XXX
To the Gorplod starfields
From the magnetic wasteland
To the subatomic particle belt...”

“No, that’s not right,” he thought, wondering if he was plagarizing the melody just a bit.

Hammer felt that moment of guilt, when one thinks they’ve come up with a brilliant new song, only to discover they’ve written “Amazing Grace.”

Then he wrote a song about the Truth of the Universe

He called it “The Truth of the Universe.”

The Truth of the Universe by Hammer McGee

Big things eat little things
They say it’s a fact
Little things eat big things
When they hunt in a pack
Or if they have intelligence
To mount a sneak attack
Some things eat other things
Now you know where you’re at

Life starts at random
In a pond, or in a pool
If you’ve never thought of it
You’re an awful fool
And if you swim the ocean
Your lesson will be cruel
Some things eat other things
Now you’ve been to school

Man loves his Science
It helps him when life’s rough
He invented microscopes
So he could study stuff
He saw microbacteria
But soon he’d seen enough
Some things eat other things
Even moldy fluff

A sun so bright and lovely
Will ever grow in size
Until it eats the planets
That see it in their skies
Sometimes it takes a million years
But then it’s no surprise
Some things eat other things
Everybody dies

Some things eat other things
Nature never lies

He would write a chorus later, hopefully something catchy, he reasoned. McGee had never felt better about a song. He would need to add some verses that apply to the Valtechians, of course, or there would be a thousand years of war, but the melody was good, and it had a snappy beat.

“Are we actually in the black hole?” asked Mr. Checkup, who was happily wedged between the Captain, and Counselor Joy.

“I don’t think so,” answered Mr. Peabody, who had no idea how he’d ended up back here. You see, the quantum physics involved are complex, and bittersweet.” He wondered why he’d said “bittersweet,” but went on.

“From what I can tell, we’re in a void of empty nothingness, that is both infinite, and yet exists within the confines of a very definate physical formation.”

“What would happen if I let go of this pipe?” asked Commander Streisand, who was wearing the wrong color shirt to be asking questions such as this.

“I don’t know,” said Mr. Peabody, “why don’t you find out?”

Before Commander Streisand could let go of the pipe, she had died of natural causes.

“We might as well go ahead and have the funeral, since we’re all here,” said an unusually sympathetic Commander Riper. He had loved Commander Streisand’s wit, charm, and striking good looks, and thought her underused, overall. He also loved the way she sang “People,” and was sad he’d never hear it again, at least not on TV, because TV had been outlawed centuries earlier, except in detention facilities.

“If we’re nowhere, then that must mean everywhere we’re not is somewhere,” said Pugsley, his voice changing several times.

“What?” said Ensign Thick, “I don’t get it.”

“Usually we’re somewhere. That can be corroborated by anyone on this crew, not to mention the ship’s computer.”

“Yes, no need to mention me,” said the HAL9000, “I’ll just be over here figuring out the precise calculations needed to save your ungrateful asses...”

but again, nobody was listening.

“You mean...” began William Shatner, who’d been hanging around the set ever since his character morphed.

“That’s right,” said Pugsley, “if we’re not somewhere, then everywhere else is. So by being nowhere, we can easily get from here to anywhere.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Shatner said, confused, “or does it?”

“I have a question,” came a voice.

“Gilligan, what is it?” said Mr. Warp, annoyed.

“Well, if we’re nowhere, and that means we can’t be somewhere, then where are we? I mean, if we’re not here, but then they’re not there, and we’re not anywhere, which means we’re nowhere, where is somewhere?”

“Try letting go of the pipe,” said Mr. Warp, kind of jokingly.

Gilligan did, and made an amazing discovery. Pugsley’s theory was correct, and because he had been nowhere, he now had to be somewhere, which indeed he was, and that somewhere just happened to be. an uncharted planet inhabited only by beautiful women.

“Wow, it’s just like that dream,” said Gilligan, awakening to discover himself still hanging by a pipe over nothingness.

“So what happens if we let go of the pipe?” asked an unknown crewmember, who would have made twice as much money if his face had been shown.

“Apparently, we’ll fall asleep,” answered another crewman in the exact same position, or so she thought. In truth, her agent was a degenerate slimebag, and was robbing her blind.


“I still don’t understand how the HAL9000 is hanging here with us,” said Harrison Freud, more than a little annoyed.

“That’s irrelevant,” said Commander Datandtime, who couldn’t give the date and time, because they were existing outside the time/space continuum, “the point is, we can plot any coordinates we wish, and arrive at that exact location.

“Plot coordinates into what?” screamed Lulu, who’d had quite enough of this, and let go of the pipe.

He found himself seated at a nice restaurant, somewhere in the Phi Cappa Epsilon Fraternity Homeworld, where they were serving pizza, and chugging beer.

“What just happened to him?” demanded Commander Demander.

“I’m not quite sure,” answered Commander Alexander.

With that, several more crewmembers let go of the pipe.

Counselor Joy found herself at an Opera on Pretention VII, where many of the cast members are sacrificed to lions in the final act.

Scotchy materialized in a bar on third street, where there was a special on well drinks, most of them swill.

“I’ll have another glass a that swill,” he told the bartender, with enthusiasm.

Elroy Jetson found himself swimming with Mahi-Mahi off the Hawaiian coast, around the year 182 BC.

But it was Captain Plainway who found herself on the other side of this infernal time loop/space suspension bubble that had so perturbed the hapless crew, and she was now back on the bridge of Blunderer, before they’d made that last blunder, and allowed that dog Gilligan to re-align the ship’s navigational systems.

“Help me get the Throbulon Simulators online,” she barked to a very generic crewmember, who was only in the one scene.

“Right away, Captain,” he grimaced, pulling the Throbulolon System Activation Knob, and putting thirty five cents in the slot, “I saw you on the Vidal show. You were absolutely brilliant,” he gushed, like an old sock.

“Well thank you for the lovely compliment,” said the Captain, “but I fear the energy buildup in that power grid is going to kill you,” and, of course, it did.

The Captain stepped over his smoldering corpse, and activated the De-Stabilization Prevention Ovulator, and broke a fingernail.

“Is there no end to my pain and suffering?” she beseeched the stars, in complete oblivion to the irony.

Only Hammer McGee knew the answer to that, and he was back in the Canteen, trading sausages.


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PostPosted: Mon Oct 13, 2003 8:30 pm
  

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Editor's note:
------------------------------------
The Editor, the Bored of Directors, I mean are we not all bored of directors....... and all of our secret silent investors can not be held responsible for any altered mental status that may occur to any individule or symbiotic beings from reading the accounts printed here in electrons so they are not REALLY printed but you know what we mean, if your meds are not properly adjusted before, during and after such reading occurs at any time now or in the past or future or in any or all time plains, planes or continuuuu---uuuuuums at the same time or whatever. New Jersey residents please add sales tax, not available in Alaska or Manhatten.

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