Battles Past and Reinforcements

Over the weekend Paco and I were toured by some of the youth of the BVC around outer Manila. Like a Filipino version of the Da Vinci Code we went from secret holy shrine to random yet meaningful obelisk standing in the middle of roundabouts, a dark and unusual path we found ourselves on. Thousands of people gathered at these places of worship and odes to past glories completely unaware of the powers hidden above, under, and within the tiles they knelt on.

I’m of course speaking about the secret Particle Accelerator that was built as collaboration between the Spanish, Americans, and the Japanese during the Vietnam War. All three countries felt that they owed the Philippines something after all of that colonization business. The accelerator was named Newton’s Tropical Playground or N.T.P. but goes by the nickname the Newt. The churches, obelisks, and holy thing-a-majigs act as detectors and other what-have-you’s. It is actually quite a coincidence that Churches were used as the mask for the detectors because the main objective of the Newt is to try and allocate the so called God particle.

Our brothers in the BVC are aware of the Newt and even help fund some of its research. Having been one of the advisors on the building of the Large Hadron Collider I must say that the Newt is quite a marvelous piece of machinery, a real testament to human ingenuity. The device though is a little old and when it really gets humming I can feel it shake my room at the BVC. While they have yet to create the God particle they have perfected the first instances of Time Travel although they haven’t been able to control it yet. I would offer some advice but I feel humanity must run its own course.

While the touring of the Newt was exciting Paco and I were much more excited about the arrival of one of our oldest friends and mentors Roman Paur. Roman’s real name has been lost to the ages but as he was one of the founding members of the Roman Empire the name Roman just kind of fits. From knife fights to equestrian tricks to a fantastic fiscal mind and a wunderkind with the stock market the Romski is a master of it all. Alas not all of his exploits are the most noble as it was he who trained Don Diabolico as well. It was decades after he had taught me and the Don had wormed his way into Roman’s good graces and Roman always having a soft spot for troubled youths thought he could reform him. Little did he know that he would help to mold the most fiendish mind the world had ever seen, as well as create a man who is my equal in most regards.

So now he is spending a little of his retirement joining Paco and myself. I am hopeful that his trained eye will help me root out some of his former students past and with the information maybe, just maybe, bring his reign of evil to an end. For right now though we are spending our time reminiscing over past exploits over the finest scotches and smoking fat cigars. You know high class stuff.

Oops the floor is a rumbling must be the Newt hard at work again…

Crackity Rages Against the New York Yankees

What in carnations? Wait what do flowers have to do with this? AAAGGGG I’m so mad I can’t even get my exclamatory remarks right. Rabble, Rabble, Rabble, Rabble, Rabble, Rabble, Rabble, Rabble, Rabble, Rabble, Rabble, Rabble, Rabble, Rabble, Rabble, Rabble, Rabble.I swear to all things holy and unholy, how in the hell can people take any pride in being a fan of the New York Yankees? We all know the reasons why they win, they sit back and wait for players to prove themselves in the league, become fan favorites and hometown heroes, and then offer them more money than their current team is worth. After they leave the team that made them into the players they trusted and loved, their old fans turn bitter and vengeful, booing and jeering them whenever their name is announced on the loud speaker. But what do the players care, they’re playing for the Yankees while becoming filthily rich. Of course then they are traded when they don’t hit at least 20 homeruns and a batting average of .270, whereupon they still have the pariah stamped on them from betraying the team that made them what they are.

So by now you’ve probably noticed that this post is a little different from my usual musings but we have entered playoff baseball season and I see the Yankees are up to their usual shenanigans. Right now they are playing a humble little team from the Midwest known as the Twins. Now I don’t like to play favorites but any team playing the Yankees is the team I want to win. While the Twins seem to be struggling to produce much offensively their defense in general has been top notch. It’s just too bad that the umpires seem to be on a mission to erase their hard work. Strike after strike is thrown and ball after ball is called. This indignant spectacle has happened twice now, a Yankee should have struck out on a pitch and then hits a lead gaining hit the next pitch.

Oh it is enough to make one weep, but then I remember there is no crying in baseball and of course I run for the liquor cabinet. But should we be really that surprised, this is the classic behavior found in all evil empires. They will do anything to win even if that means reshaping the rules to their own advantage. While this whole ordeal has been rather heartbreaking the worst part of all is the announcing of the games. The dialogue is filled with not so subtle favoritism towards the Yankees, and when they are not massaging the ego of the baseball giant they are filling the listener’s ears with the most senseless and pathetic dribble ever uttered in human speech. All it consists of is taking some popularized sports catchphrase and using it repeatedly at the most inopportune moments to create the illusion that they know something about the sport or about the team facing the Yankees.

Uggh I hardly know what to do with myself. Thankfully I have taken up the cooking duties for the monastery for the weekend. Nothing like the smell of my signature potato soup and fish frying to put me in a better mood. However make sure you are cooking for a large group as a surplus of food can do quite a bit of damage on the hips, they do not lie.

Back to the boiling pot, as you know if you stare hard enough it you can prevent it from boiling no matter how hot the water is, or at least that’s what I think the expression is. Bon Appetite…

Musings on Time Travel

 A month my friends, a month have I spent in the service of the BVC. It seems like it was only 27 days ago riding with the Admiral through the earth. But as they say time flies, which when you think about it is a very odd term. Flying time as if time is normally under the constraints of gravity, oh well I’ll ask Einstein next time I’m wandering around the early 1900’s. Which happens to be the topic of my post today; Time Travel.

Now I don’t like to bend the likes of time to often as the more you discover in the past the more the future as well as the present you know becomes vastly different. There are many schools of thought on how time travel can change the future and the different paradoxes that will arise: the Terminator Paradox of a son sending back his father to procreate himself, or the shifting time in Back to the Future that is changed as Marty McFly tampers with his parents childhood, and of course the very complex and ever changing time logic found in Doctor Who. In my experience though it has been a combination of all of these, it all depends on the event and the people. Really it is pretty hard to explain but rest assured that the fabric of existence in intact, I think, well the important thing is don’t worry.

As such I have seen quite a bit of this world’s history and it is fantastic. I’d share some tidbits with you but I do feel a moral obligation to keep things secret left that way, however I do pop in on some friends every once and a while with lottery ticket picks and the like. Oh and the song We Didn’t Start the Fire was written by Joel and I as an attempt to shift the focus of our actions when we tried drinking our way through moments in history. So truthfully Billy Joel and I did start the fire but unintentionally on one hell of a bender. Yeah not the best choice I’ve made but Joel got a hit song out of it so not a total loss. Since then I have been much more careful when traveling in time, I don’t take shots anymore.

As I await the next term to start my teaching I’m spending some time traveling some history as a refresher. Hanging out with Caesar, although I wouldn’t recommend doing this when he’s courting Cleopatra, talk about whipped. Smoking cigars with Churchill, I’ve seen him take a drag for up to two minutes, and of course who could pass up playing guitar with Ziggy Stardust himself. No not David Bowie  I mean the real Ziggy who rocked Madison Square Garden in the classic 2080 show The Martian Invasion. Oh wait that hasn’t happened yet. Forget what I just said and go back to your 2/2 techno/rap music.

Bum Ch Bum Ch Bum Ch…