"They Sea Monkeys are Going to LOVE it!"

NU-WOOD

"Oh, hello there Mr. Vandershand. You're so quiet I didn't hear you approach."

"Maybe that's because you were too busy installing that NU-WOOD panneling."

"Drove the last nail in not ten seconds before I noticed you there."

"So you had no problems receiving the shipment, then."

"No Mr. Vandershand; everything went just as you said."

"That's good to hear."

"Well...there was one thing, now that I think about it."

"Yes."

"The fellow who dropped off these sheets, he was kind of...well, he was a strange fellow."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, he didn't say much, and when he did, he had a high, squeaky voice. But it wasn't just that. He was dressed kind of strange, like his cloths didn't quite fit him right. And it looked like he had some kind of mask over his face...some kind of transperant plastic mask."

"Did you give him the parcel I left?"

"Yeah, and he just kind of stuck it in his jacket and vanished."

"That's to be expected. How's the NU-WOOD paneling?"

"Easy as butter on toast to install. You can hardly see the seams. Nice stuff, and strong."

"It is a product from my homeland, the Lost Continent of Mu."

"Well, I'll be! But then, why's it called "NU" wood?"

"Simple semantics. If we were to have called it "MU-WOOD" it might have been confused with a dairy product."

"Right! I guess that's why you're the business man and I'm the NU-WOOD paneling installer."

"I guess so."

"Well, nice to see you Mr. Vandershand."

"You take care now."

"Will do."

Glaxicol the Magnificent

The giant, pulsating head floated above the recently polished linoleum floor, illuminating Eleanor's mango sunrise cabinet/countertop ensemble with flickering tinges of mauve, filling the kitchen with a strong odour of ozone.

"Fantastic!" exclaimed Elanore to herself. The eldritch tome she had purchased from the wandering Gypsy hawking cheap cookware door to door had been worth the milk money she had spent on it. Though but a novice conjuror (this had actually been her first attempt at contacting the denizens of Mid-Sub Limbo) she had managed to summon a Lesser Djinn, who, according to the ancient text (if her rough translation of the Sumerian cuneiform was correct) would be her devoted servant for approximately 6 hours, 47 minutes.

What a pleasant distraction from the seemingly endless chores involved in maintaining the newly renovated split-level home Eleanor's husband and she had purchased in the sprawling suburbs south of the city.

Just then, the entire kitchen started to reverberate with a mighty, droning voice.

YOU HAVE SUMMONED GLAXICOL THE GREAT. WHAT IS YOUR WILL?

The floating head looked something like a gigantic translucent melon. Veins of electrical current pulsed through the quivering jelly of its cranium, and the being's tennis ball sized eyes rolled about in their sockets in apparently random directions.

"Wow! You're the real deal!" Elanore was unaccustomed to conversing with pan-dimensional beings, and didn't know it is best to maintain an air of haughty superiority to avoid post-conjuring hauntings and other crank calls from the Outer Worlds.

REALITY! WHAT WOULD A FOUR-DIMENSIONAL CREATURE LIKE YOURSELF KNOW OF REALITY? AND FURTHERMORE, GLAXICOL MAKES NO DEALS. YET SOMEHOW, YOU, A PUNY MORTAL, HAVE MANAGED TO PLACE ME UNDER GEASE.

SO I WILL ASK YOU AGAIN:

WHAT IS YOUR WILL?

"Errr...OK then." Elanore was beginning to wonder if she shouldn't have started out with some more rudimentary conjuring, like an Arcadian Phase Cat to sweep out the chimney.

"Well, I haven't had a chance to clean the bathroom yet. I guess you could start there."

BATHROOM?! YOU HAVE SUMMONED GLAXICOL TO PERFORM LIGHT DOMESTIC CHORES?! I HAVE FASHIONED PALACES FOR THE CHROMIUM LORDS FROM THE MISTS OF MOLOCH. I HAVE BANISHED LEGIONS OF RAVENOUS HELLDOGS TO THE LAND OF SHADOW AND GRAPPLED WITH THE TWELVE-STOMACHED COW OF CHAOS TO RETRIEVE THE GHETTO BLASTER OF THORZILLA!!

Elanore had to use one arm to shield her face from the strange ozone wind generated from the djinn's prodigious outburst. She was trying her best to act non-chalant about the whole situation.

"Oh. In that case, you can polish the chrome and shower tiles, too. You have no idea how difficult it is to get those to sparkle."

I, GLAXICOL, HAVE SOLVED THE RIDDLE OF THE RIM BARONS AND PLUMBED THE DEPTHS OF THE DARZYDIAN SCONE CLUSTER. LESSER DJINN AND GENII BOW BEFORE THE GRANDEUR OF GLAXICOL AND BRING HIM THEIR TRIBUTES OF FROSTED LOW-FAT FLAKES OF ETERNAL BOOGIE SHRIMP. WHAT YOU ASK OF ME IS AN INSULT AND WILL SURELY BRING DEATH AND DEVASTATION TO YOUR ENTIRE FAMILY AND LOCAL MUNICIPAL ELECTORAL RIDING AS WELL. SEEK, THEN, NO FURTHER TO INCURE THE WRATH OF GLAXICOL AND, FOR THE PENULTIMATE TIME, TELL ME

WHAT

IS

YOUR

WILL?

A pregnant moment passed as Elanore pondered her predicament. This djinn had some kind of pan-dimensional Napoleon complex, but she wasn't going to be cowed by some melon-headed maniac from Planet Limbo. Problem was, young Billy Jenkins had already been by that week to cut the lawn (oh he was good with the lawn), and she had had the rugs shampooed just the other day. The dinner ham was already cooking in the oven, and the potatoes and salad wouldn't take but a minute.

Elanore supposed that she should have worked out some kind of plan before she tried her first summoning, but now it was too late; she had to think of something for this being to do, and fast, or risk having the entire neighbourhood of Picket Glen zoned mixed residential/commercial after the next by-elections...or worse!

"Ok Glaxicol, can you really do anything I want?"

YOUR PUNY PLANE OF EXISTENCE IS LIKE A TINY SOAP BUBBLE BREECHING THE SURFACE OF THE PAN-DIMENSIONAL DEPTHS OF PURE ENERGY IN WHICH I FROLIC. I CAN TWIST THE VERY FABRIC OF THE STUFF YOU CALL "REALITY" TO SUIT YOUR FONDEST WHIM. SIMPLY SPEAK AND IT WILL BE DONE....AND MAKE IT SNAPPY SO I CAN GET BACK TO WATCHING THE PANDORIAN BOXING CHAMPIONSHIPS.

Realizing, at last, the scope of her situation, Eleanor's imagination started to shift out of the workaday domestic mediocrity that years of habitual boredom sprinkled with biannual packaged holidays and occasional romantic flings with the gardener had habituated it to. She felt stirrings in her soul that she hadn't known since childhood, when she had entertained wild imaginings with her best friend in the little grove they would repair to after school behind the playground. She recalled her fantasies of being a faerie princess and living forever in a castle made of daffodils on a hilltop of emeralds while candy floss clouds drifted through a marzipan sky. Lost for an endless moment in that blissful revelry of recollection she was only summoned back to the present by the sudden shifting of the djinn's giant floating head.

AHEM!

She looked upon the hovering pulsating head in her kitchen and realized that these childhood fancies she had all but forgotten could suddenly be brought to stunning reality by the mere voicing of her whim. She felt drunk and giddy with the possibility of it all!

"Ok, mighty Glaxicol. I want to be larger than life, a figure of ravishing beauty."

YES. IS THAT ALL?

"And I would like to live forever in this fabulous house that my husband and I have so painstakingly erected and decorated."

YES YES, ANYTHING MORE?

"And I would like to be like a flower that never wilts, a sparkling, shimmering beacon to the world, a startling figure of beauty to all who behold me. "

ANYTHING ELSE?

"I would like to never have to do dishes ever again."

I SUPPOSE I COULD SWING THAT.

VERY WELL. THE GREAT GLAXICOL SHALL MAKE IT SO!

With that there was a cataclysmic bang and a terrific lightning flash. Elanore suddenly found herself in her lovely, artfully-styled backyard Japanese garden, surrounded by the shimmering waters of their decorative pond. She felt taller, and, peering down at her reflection in the green, still waters of the pond, was astonished to see that her skin shone in the sunlight with the sparkling radiance of 24 karat gold. Strangely though, try as she might she couldn't seem to move a muscle, and the djinn was nowhere in her field of view.



Her immobility was slightly disturbing, but was compensated for by the stunningly beautiful reflection peering up at her from the pond water. Her husband would soon be home, back from a day's work at the accounting firm. And wouldn't he be surprised and delighted to see her there, his darling Elanore, so stunningly poised over the pond, her gold skin casting dazzling reflections off the water to ricochet about the garden like so many flickering phantoms of light!

Hommage to Handkerchiefs

Having seasonal allergies is like having a cold for two or three months straight. I guess it's better than having year-round allergies to, say oxygen or water, but it's bad enough. I'm thinking of seeking out one of those environmental bubbles and sealing myself in for a couple of weeks.


There are no allergies in space.

The fall is my favourite season, but it's hard to enjoy when you have to hide behind a handkerchief 24/7. Yes, in keeping with my oldschool proclivities, I still use that nosewipe of yesteryear, older than Kleenex but younger than sleeve cuffs, the handkerchief. I've got a stack of them taller than a goldenrod stalk that I keep (piecemeal) in my sock drawer. There's nothing more comforting to the allergy-afflicted than burrowing into one's trouser pocket to find a cool, moist handkerchief just waiting to make contact with one's traumatized proboscis.


Cylons have pollen-filters built in to their helmets.

Don't get me wrong. A new and dry, neatly folded handkerchief is good too--and a helluva lot better than desperately frisking yourself, whilst surfing the cusp of an oncoming seismic sneeze, and finding nothing but an expired bus transfer and a handbill for a discount jewelry warehouse in your pockets. But, after several weeks or even months of incessant nose-wiping, the exterior nasal tissue tends to become inflamed and tender, and there is no small amount of discomfort involved in the process of breaking in a newly laundered, dry and somewhat abrasive-feeling noserag.


Lorne Greene had one nipple bitten off by an alligator.

While lotions and softeners have been part of the high-end disposable tissue market for years, there is no comparable product that I know of for the pre-softening of reusable handkerchiefs. Given the increasingly environmentally aware nature of the average allergy sufferer, perhaps some kind of spray-on substance to render newly-laundered handkerchiefs more supple and pliable would be a product with at least half a hope of surviving on the shelves of modern drug stores. But I am neither a chemist nor a pharmaceutical entrepreneur, so I must leave such things to more able and inventive hands than my own.


Some people may be allergic to robotic dogs.

Luckily, nature in her infinite wisdom has provided her own handkerchief-softening substance, and further research into the matter may reveal that there is no better protection from fabric abrasion for afflicted nostrils than the very mucous they produce in the transmitting of offensive pollen and dust particles from over-sensitive sinuses into the friendly folds of one's pocketrag.


Cylons are allergic to humans.

And so, let us take this moment to strike up a great Fakiegrind salute to nasal mucous and it's amazing fabric softening properties. In these pollen-filled, mould-laden days of fall, it is in the dampened pocket handkerchief that I take refuge. This trusty friend is always close at hand to offer comfort, solace and much needed relief when inner-nasal pressures become too great...too great for...when you feel a....a....a....A CHOOO!

The Koala Kid

The inscrutable, irrefutable, non-computable turntablist extraordinaire, Kid Koala is coming to town, and I'm about to git me a birthday ticket. This ninja marsupial uses the turntable as a kind of jazz instrument, manipulating tones to create his own trumpet and sax solos. I can't wait to see him operate on the vinyl.

He also has a pretty neat web site.

He's got some tracks on myspace.

And, of course Youtube.

He doesn't run with the pack, and tonight he's going to show us where it's at.

Behold: The Fakiesaur

It's official! The tiny dinosaur I dug out of the garden yesterday is an entirely new species of microsaur. Specialists were working all night to classify the find, and have declared the petrified lizard to be a remarkably well preserved specimen of a hitherto unknown variety of microsaur.

Microsaurs are the tiny, ferocious lizards that roamed the earth about a billion years ago, before their kind were replaced by the much larger dinosaurs. This particular specimen was one of the top feeders on the food chain in this region, and the micro-palentologists have conceded to calling it "Fakiesaurus" to honour the discovery.

Digging is continuing in the back yard of Fakie Central in the hopes of uncovering more pre-historic treasures. I've always dreamed about raising funds to launch an expedition to search for the lost civilization of Micro-Atlantis. This miniature utopia was believed to have flourished some twenty thousand years ago, occupying an area of about half a metre square.

The chances of any archeological remains having survived twenty millennia of wear and tear are slim, but if even a small portion of this magical kingdom could be recovered, I believe it would have great positive ramifications for human civilization as we know it.

ATTENTION READERS!

If you think Micro-Atlantis might have once flourished in your own back yard, please, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO UNDERTAKE THE DELICATE TASK OF MICRO-EXCAVATION YOURSELF. Rather, contact us here at Fakie Central and we'll send out a special archeological task force, with proper equipment, to undertake the project.

Amazing!

I was out digging in the yard today and unearthed a tiny petrified dinosaur. The thing is no bigger than a cricket, but it's solid proof that very small lizards once roamed the earth. I would post a photo, but our yard is currently crawling with scientists and micro-paleontologist who are eager to catalogue the find. I'm hoping that it turns out to be an entirely new variety of "microsaur" so that we can name it Fakiesaurus. I'll post some photos just as soon as the hubabaloo settles down.


There is speculation that microsaurs originally came from outer space
in great, sponge-likes vessels quite unlike the ones picutred here.