Helpful Hints for the Handyman Department

Editor’s note: “Helpful Hints for the Handyman,” a new feature here at Dispatches from Outland, is written by expert handyman Lester “Three-Fingers” Wilcox.

A basic household flamethrower is a great tool for getting rid of those annoying little cobwebs in the corners of the living room ceiling.

And this is a good job to give little Johnny some experience handling this versatile tool. What red-blooded boy doesn’t want to play with a 50-foot stream of flaming death?

Just remember: Safety first! Even a simple tool like a flamethrower can cause damage or injury if not treated with respect.

If you don’t already own a flamethrower, ask at your local hardware and surplus military munitions store for a recommendation.

Lester will be back with his next helpful hint as soon as he’s released from the hospital.

I Dare You To Eat That Department

Other food products have some cool slogans.

"Got milk?"

"Beef: It's what's for dinner."

"Behold the power of cheese."

"Bacon: We don't need no stinkin slogan!" (OK, I made that one up, because bacon is so good that, well, it doesn't need a slogan.)

Tofu needs some help, so I'm announcing the official* Tofu Slogan Contest.

Here are a couple to get your creative juices flowing.

• Tofu: The other white stuff-that's-not-even-remotely-like-meat.
• It's not as bad as it looks!

Your turn. Add your slogan ideas in the comments.

*Not sanctioned by the American Tofu Promotion Board.

From the Frontiers of Science Department

Gaspard, B.F. (2009). On the synchronicity of the discharge of ionized sulfur particles from Io’s polar regions and Ms. Astrid Lingonströtter commuting patterns. Journal of Applied Planetary Research and Ironmongery, 257(1), 77-193.

Abstract: The author describes several months of detailed observational data on the duration and intensity of discharges of ionized particles of sulfur from the polar regions of Jupiter’s innermost Galilean moon, Io, which are synchronous with the daily trips taken by Ms. Astrid Lingonströtter on the J bus, when she rides from her apartment on 42 Avenue to her place of employment on Euclid Avenue.  The author notes an increase in intensity of these discharges when he worked up the courage to say hello to Lingonströtter, and describes a hypothetical system of sympathetic resonance between Io and Jupiter, and Lingonströtter and himself. He provides a mathematical model for predicting the intensity of the ion discharge when he asks Lingonströtter if he can meet her for coffee after work.

Wasting Their Talents Department

“The reason you keep thinking Hollywood’s finally hit bottom is because you forget how well they dig,” says John Nolte.

Good diggers, eh? Put ‘em to work digging a grave for the Obama/Pelosi/Ried “stimulus” bill. That thing needs to be buried deep.

Plus Ça Change Department

I found this cartoon in the June 1962 issue of Farm Journal.

It seems vaguely familiar to something current, but I just can’t quite put my finger on it.

It looks to me like this piece is the work of Dan Dowling, who died in 1993. According to his obituary in the New York Times, “Mr. Dowling created some 10,000 cartoons in his 25-year career. A fervent Republican, he was best known for his caricatures of Democratic leaders, including Presidents John F. Kennedy and Harry S. Truman.”

I’m not going to mess with Dowling’s work, but I could see this cartoon being perfectly timely today with some slightly different labels.

News Briefs Department

Local Man “Feels Fine” After Brain Removed

(Outland News Service) Mr. Marion “Half-a-deck” Pratt reports that he feels fine following a 8-hour operation that removed his brain.

Dr. Flosskopf displays Mr. Pratt's brain. A surgical team at St. Albacore’s Medical Center and Oyster Bar, led by noted neurosurgeon Dr. Stanislaw Flosskopf, removed Pratt’s brain when Pratt decided he wasn’t using it much anyway, and decided to donate it to science for the tax deduction.

Dr. Flosskopf, who has recently come under fire for performing unnecessary procedures, defended this operation. “People have elective surgeries all the time to correct self-perceived defects—face lifts, tummy tucks, breast enhancement, liposuction, and so forth. Why, Hollywood as we know it would not exist today if it were not for elective medical procedures! So get off my back!”

Following his recovery, which is expected to take only a few days, Pratt plans on pursuing his lifelong ambition of becoming a politician.

Rocketpacks and Jetcars Department

The researchers at the Outlandish Research, Technology, and Cream Cheese Danish Laboratory (conveniently located just west of the lichen rendering plant on Lithium Ion Drive) have just released a new breakthrough technology that allows Common Citizens to expound on public matters with the same locutions favored by the politicians in our highest offices.

The Aphor-Matic Bloviator 2000® can create high-sounding phrases that really don’t mean that much, with just the touch of a button. With settings that include Measured and Statesmanlike Tones, Folksy and Homespun Horse-sense, and Fiery Stemwinding Stump Speech, you can go toe-to-toe with talking heads anywhere.

The Aphor-Matic Bloviator 2000 also includes a complementary Botoxulator Subcutaneous Pump, to deliver constant doses of facial-muscle inhibiting Botox, enabling you to spout off such phrases as “We are facing challenges unlike any other time in history,” “A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe,” and “Let’s not make the perfect the enemy of the essential,” while keeping a straight face.

Life’s Great Unanswered Questions Department: #2

(An irregular series; published in no particular order.)

Consider the aphorism “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” (That was first said by Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., and not Billy Ocean, by the way.)

Why do the tough wait until the going gets tough to get going? Wouldn’t it be better to get going before the going gets tough? And what have they been doing all this time, while they’ve been waiting for the going to get tough? Frittering away their time, I bet!

And what about the wimpy? When do they get going?

Ideas Whose Time Has Come Department

Given the recent spotlight on the tax problems of Tom Daschle, Tim Geithner, Charles Rangel, (et cetera ad nauseam), here are a couple of brilliant ideas:

1. Declare a one-year moratorium on IRS audits of middle-class taxpayers.
2. Audit ALL public officials.

Sounds good to me.

One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other Department

For Exhibit A, we have President Barack Obama, the tough Chicagoan, inured to the cold and snow:

President Obama led off a meeting on the economy yesterday with a lament familiar to local parents: "My children's school was canceled today. Because of what? Some ice?" he said, a note of derisive incredulity creeping into his voice. "As my children pointed out, in Chicago, school is never canceled. In fact, my 7-year-old pointed out, you'd go outside for recess in weather like this. You wouldn't even stay indoors."

Okay, we've done our share of complaining about hair-trigger school closings. But something, well, rankled, just a bit when this newcomer thumped his chest about "flinty Chicago toughness" and proclaimed that "when it comes to the weather, folks in Washington don't seem to be able to handle things."

In fact, didn’t he proclaim during his pre-election European tour that Americans should show leadership and turn their thermostats down? Why, yes, yes he did!

We can't drive our SUVs and, you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees at all times, whether we're living in the desert or we're living in the tundra and then just expect every other country is going to say OK, you know, you guys go ahead keep on using 25 percent of the world's energy, even though you only account for 3 percent of the population, and we'll be fine. Don't worry about us. That's not leadership.

Let’s look at Exhibit B, President Barack Obama, the hothouse flower, shall we?

NYT: WASHINGTON — The capital flew into a bit of a tizzy when, on his first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket. There was, however, a logical explanation: Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat.
“He’s from Hawaii, O.K.?” said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. “He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.”

What was that you were saying about leadership, Mr. President?