Fortifications

Recently, my home town of Encyclophobaticsburg has started to fortify its barriers. Since the city is not very organized and the style of buildings can change drastically every block or two, this is not an easy job. The government is also out of workers because the Encyclophobaticsburg Fruit Shop, being richer than the government itself, keeps luring them to work as cashiers because of the better pay. Consequently, there are only 12 workers trying to build a wall around an entire city. I believe the latest report is that it is 0.04% done.

You may be wondering why the government wants to build fortifications around Encyclophobaticsburg. Now, remember that Encyclophobaticsburg is situated on a peninsula that juts out into the ocean, and all of the land leading up to it is owned by the Fruit Shop, which is where they grow most of their produce.

The other day, a firework was launched into the city limits and hit the main Encyclohobaticsburg plaza, which is the center of the city. It exploded and caused the plaza to be blackened in the middle, and 4 goats that were walking by to run away (thus causing 2/3 of the local Encyclophobaticsburg Goat Pasture's income to vanish. As you may have surmised, the local Encyclophobaticsburg Goat Pasture isn't a very large operation, but they are planning to double the size of their headquarters by adding 10 square feet soon). Anyway, the firework had a note (on fireproof paper, of course) attached to it, that said:

"We are planning to attack your town in six months. Please don't tell."

So of course, every citizen of Encyclophobaticsburg who read it didn't tell any others, but then the mayor, who read the message and was frustrated by the lack of communication it caused, cut the end of the message off and everyone could start discussing it.

Anyway, this firework-message has caused most of the city to start building fortifications, and we hope to have a full defensive front in 6 months.

Also, the government has been upgrading the army. Since Encyclophobaticsburg has been peaceful ever since it was founded, the army has been a little lax, and currently consists of 1 insane old man who never speaks except to inanimate objects, a caterpillar, the army commander, and 4 people who signed up on accident and haven't realized that they are part of it yet. The newest army outfit design is a metal bucket for a helmet and a slingshot, so we need to make a few advancements in six months.

I have been asked by the government to investigate the source of the firework and head the new Encyclophobaticsburg intelligence agency. Between recruiting new recruits, filing paperwork, and field missions, I might not be able to post much.

Right now I need to convert two rooms of my HQ into paper-filing rooms, so I must go.

The Interests of a Co-Worker are Not to be Expressed (Part II)

IMPORTANT! If you have not read "The Interests of a Co-Worker are Not to be Expressed" yet, do so before you read this one.

Hello again! You may remember me. I am known by some as "the guy who is over there" but that is not currently important. I must continue my story about how I discovered Larry the Imposter.

At the moment in time that we are speaking about, I was on the ground after having jumped into the air, and then I stole Larry's wallet and did a cool gymnastics move. You see, I had discovered that the best way to find out about a person was to steal their wallet and then make up an excuse. This is what I did.

As Larry cried out "Hey, man! Why'd you grab my wallet?", I was rifling through it.
"Face it, Larry!" I yelled at him, pulling something out of the leather wallet completely at random. "This thing that I am holding in my hand will show who you really are!"
I inspected what I had pulled out, and I realized that it was an expired coupon for four dollars off any purchase at the Encyclophobaticsburg Fruit Shop, except those containing any type of organic materials. I immediately waved it in Larry's face, who stepped back a ways, startled.
"You might think that this ordinary-seeming coupon is anonymous, right? Well, think again!" I said. "As you can see, this coupon is for the fruit shop. So all I have to do is go to the fruit shop and ask them who they gave out coupons to!"

I dragged Larry and his four cats along to the Fruit Shop, and once I had navigated the atrium, sales department, advertising department, merchandise section 1, merchandise sections 3, 4, 5, 7, 11, 19, and 457, I arrived at a cash register. Walking up to the sales clerk, I demanded of him "Who did you give these coupons to? I demand to see a list!" Waving the paper in his face this time. He slowly said "Um, sir, we put those coupons in the local newspaper! Anybody who gets the paper could have one."

I thanked him most sincerely for his kind services, and in payment shipped him four priceless paintings and signed him up for tent-building camp (at half-price, through my government connections). Larry and I (although him not entirely willingly) and his four cats who were curiously barking set off for the newspaper office. When we got there, a strange man wearing entirely yellow clothes except for his monocle, which was yellow as well, stopped us. He tried to feed me a banner, but I told him it was bad for my oral health and pushed him aside. Then we entered the newspaper building.

At this point, Larry seemed to have given up any resistance and was walking like a normal person. Anyway, I asked the newspaper clerk, and she gave us a complete list of everyone who had ever bought a newspaper from the building. I scanned it and found the name "Larry", which conclusively proved that this man was indeed Larry and not Frederick. I paid the clerk with some dirt from the side of the road, and left in style (I had fifteen paid actors swing across the exit and drop confetti as I left).

Now that I knew that this Larry guy was trying to be an imposter, I had to uphold the law and give him the punishment, which in Encyclophobaticsburg was 3 years in a prison of the criminal's choice. Once I had thoroughly explained this to Larry, and resolutely withstood all his attempts to redeem himself by saying "I don't know what you are talking about!" and "I was just walking my dogs!" and "My name is Frederick!" and "The average trajectory of an eliptical ball with an irregularity of 3.4 is not determined by the wind" although that last one might have actually been a science proffesor by the name of Eins T. Ine walking down the street behind him.

He chose to have his punishment, after much argument, on the entire planet, and with satisfaction I picked him up and placed him back down in his prison.

By the way, I later found out that he was my co-worker, which is why I put that title. Neat, huh?

Also, two years and 364 days later he won an all expenses-paid trip to the moon, but I cancelled it because this evil-doer had to see reason.

The Interests of a Co-worker Are Not to Be Expressed

Good afternoon, morning, evening, day, night, or whatever it is right now as you read these words (if it is not something I already mentioned, you should perhaps be concerned.) Anyway, you might be wondering about that title. I mean, weird, right? Totally true, my wise and esteemed reader. However, the reason that I put it there (which is the usual reason for titles) is because that is what I will talk about in this section, known as the "body". This will then be followed by a long boring bar of random things such as the responses, comments, date and time posted, who posted it, and probably some random unimportant tidbits like a nation security alert or something. Well, good to get that out of the way, I always say. Gotta have those random bars of text, or life just wouldn't be the same. Whether it would be better or worse is, of course, an entirely different matter.

So, today as I was walking home from all that great secret agent stuff that I do every day, like fighting fang-toothed toothless bandits or other such adventures, I noticed a slight disturbance in the peace of Encyclophobaticsburg's normally peaceful air of peace. Looking around, I noticed the problem seemed to rest in a sideways man named Larry who owned four cats, all black except three who were white. This is rather a lot of information to take in at once, but we highly esteemed secret agents of the Top-Secret Encyclophobaticsburg Investigative Branch (all secret, of course) are able to detect subtle clues in the world around us, because of our extreme training. I detected these things because:

The man was not walking on the ground as normal people in Encyclophobaticsburg usually do, but instead was parallel to the street. Please note that in the previous sentence, when I referred to "normal people in Encyclophobaticsburg", I meant that they were normal relative to the Encyclophobaticsburg standard. It is widely accepted that Encyclophobaticsburgians are not always as normal as... well... other people, and so of course I had to make a note of that. Well, back to my amazing story.

As I said, I knew many things about this guy because of my powers of observation. I knew his name was Larry because he had a name tag that said "Hello, my name is: Frederick" on it. However, lots of people try to be sneaky and write different names on name tags to throw off the enemy, so I at once knew that he was in fact named Larry and not Frederick. I knew about his cats because I saw four animals with four legs, ears, tails, fur, teeth, and eyes that were walking along with him (also parallel to the street). Like I said, all of them were black except three were white. I then decided to ask him why he was disturbing the peace, and marched up to him.

"Excuse me," I said, "But you, who are Larry who is walking parallel to the street and owns four cats, all of which are black except three, which are white, are disturbing the peace by walking in this way. Why are you doing such a thing?"

He said "Well, my name is Frederick and I am just walking my four dogs here, and I am walking the right way on the street, so I don't see what the problem is."

I immediately knew he was lying, because his name was clearly not Frederick. I immediately jumped at him, but suddenly realized as I did so that I had been lying in the street, which was the reason he appeared to be sideways. Since I was already flying through the air, I needed to think of some excuse for my jump, and fast. I changed course at the last second and instead of pushing him to the ground, instead grabbed his wallet and ended up in a rather spectacular gymnastics flip upon landing.

Well, I will leave it here for now. Next time I will tell you more about my adventures, but in the meantime I will leave you with a cliffhanger. I was told by someone that adding a cliffhanger to the end of something makes people more likely to keep reading the next bit, so here:

Fang-Toothed Toothless Bandits

It turns out that the museum was in fact raided by fang-toothed toothless bandits! I figured this crucial clue out only moments after someone told me. Once I had established the important facts, I quickly made for a wall panel that was slightly discolored. As it turns out, I had built this panel myself a few years back in case I ever had to escape quickly from the museum. I really did have to escape the museum, as I was about to find out. But I just went to the panel to avoid the awkward moments where everyone looks at you, as if willing you to find a clue in midair.

Anyway, I quickly pressed the panel in the secret 4,098 spots (I did, however need the help of the handy manual. You see, since I knew that in the pressure of such a situation, I might need a manual to help me. So I put a handy little booklet with all the location on a string next to it. I know, very helpful). Launching myself through the hatch that opened, I found myself in a cylindrical chimney. Then I realized I was falling.

Moments later I remembered that this particular panel led to the museum's chimney system. If my memory was correct (usually not the case, but in this situation I decided to have faith in it), there should be a set of jetpacks at the bottom, complete with a lever. I pulled the lever on my way down, and the jetpack immediatly flew upward to meet me. I was glad too, since four feet further would have spelled my doom in the form of a large broiler. Anyway, I jetted up through the chimney.

As I went, I noticed something peculiar. I couldn't quite place it, but somehow something seemed a little... wrong. Then it clicked. Right in front of me was a flashing neon sign suspended by dancing winged monkeys with the words "Look down" upon it. I immediately looked up, in case the enemy was attempting to catch me off guard. When I had sufficiently scanned the air above me for any hiding intruders, I did indeed look down. And fainted.

What I saw was the stuff of movies. In slow motion, with cinematic 3D (I noticed 3D glasses had somehow appeared over my eyes), the entire museum exploded. Then again. And again. It was so marvelous I was totally distracted by the great FX (not to mention the fact I was in the process of fainting) that I didn't even register that the museum was doing this process over and over again.

Then I realized that I had been watching a puddle for shrimp the entire day. And I only found one pebble named Frederick Van Brodensckeim Herald Percival "Pooky" HaidoSunwaKalotai.

Mischief in the Museum

Today, a very terrible crime was committed in the Encyclophobaticsburg National Museum. As you know, the Museum holds some very important things, not only from the past of Encyclophobaticsburg, but also a few random objects that were found on the streets. One such item is the 'Umbrella of Peace, Justice, and Dryness". Anyway, this umbrella was picked up in a dirty subway somewhere, but it undoubtedly represents Encyclophobaticsburg because it has the words "Kill the Spare" Printed across it in large letters.

So about the crime. Somebody stole this fabulous piece of culture, and it is no longer there. I am still getting the details, but as soon as I find out more I will tell you guys. Right now I m being called to take a closer look, so until next time:

Agent Pizza, Under and In.

Eating Granola Makes Time Slow Down.

Did you know? It's true! Scientifically proven! By whom, you may ask? Well by me, of course!

I, Agent Pizza, have recently discovered the astonishing fact that Granola does in fact slow time. While eating some this morning, I was delighted to find that for a moment (well for me, but probably longer for everyone else because time had slowed down) every movement out the window seemed to simply... slow. A pack of heavily laden merchants walking by in the salty ocean air started to take exaggerated slow steps, and a rare green-jeweled pelican swooping low over the water suddenly caught a fish with fluid, yet very slow, flashing of its brilliant beak.

Then time caught up with me, and as I had been leaning out of my chair, suddenly it registered my weight and I crashed to the floor as a multitude of sounds came back and I realized what had happened. Thinking quickly, I analyzed the situation from the ground, and after several seconds of furious thinking I discovered that the most likely cause of this phenomenon was the granola. So I took another bite, of course.

I found the same result. Noise seemed to become somewhat muted as the soundwaves slowed, and everything seemed to be slowing down from my perspective. However, my motions were slow too, and only my thinking seemed to be going at a speed different from everything else's. I could only attribute this to the fact that the illusion of time slowing down must stem from my perspective, not the real physical actions around me.

So naturally, I grabbed several handfuls of the stuff and shoved them into my mouth, causing time to slow down even further. Realizing I should have been very cold because the atoms wouldn't vibrate with their normal speed, I quickly deduced that my nerves weren't responding fast enough to notice. Another effect I experienced was a slight feeling that I wasn't in my head. I seemed to be leaving my body and senses in a way, since my perspective and thoughts could catch up far faster than all of my sensory organs. The combined symptoms of this slowed time were extreme, and I was almost glad when I returned soundly back to Earth, as time caught up around me. Let me tell you, it is not a great experience to be caught in between when the time stream is trying to make up for lost time. Events whirled by me and I felt like the middle of one of those commercials where all the people are zipping around by you. But instead of people, it was the little things, like dust motes in the room or clouds moving in front of the sun, that really overloaded my brain. Luckily it was all over, and after a few waves of nausea and a quick splash of cold water, I was back to myself.

Then I bought all the granola I could get in Encyclophobaticsburg and went into my laboratory to study it. After finding that it was, in fact, regular granola, I gave up on the finding-out-how-it-works approach and began using a combination of thermo-nuclear black hole propulsion electron beams and silly putty to condense the granola into one tiny pill. The size of only four pieces of granola, I figured this thing would contain as much effect as four packages.

Then I ate it.

And nothing happened.

Moral: Don't play with Silly Putty, you could end up eating it and choking.

Moral 2: Try to catch a Green-Jeweled Pelican, they sell for lots of money. About $5.98 on the current market.

Cliffhangers

Cliffhangers are very

Architecture Analysis

Since I have come back to Encyclophobaticsburg, I will give you viewers insight on the marvelous Places here in Encyclophobaticsburg. I will call this segment Architecture Analysis, and I am also working on a map of Encyclophobaticsburg to show you all.

The Local Fruit Shop

Here in Encyclophobaticsburg, fruit plays an important part of the city. Very close to my HQ is a shop that sells fruit. A lot of fruit. The shop has entire rooms devoted to pears, apples, Yodelberries (They even sell the stew), and grapes. It covers 14 city blocks, and has to index its cash registers because there are so many. Most of the building is made out of clay, however, the current owner has been doing some remodeling, and one wall is studded with diamonds every 2 feet. Unfortunately, these diamonds seem to mysteriously disappear when nobody is looking, and it is slightly expensive to keep replacing him, although the shop's revenue could afford to remodel the entire city with diamonds if they chose to. In fact, they were about to (to most of the city's chagrin), but an election was occurring and one of the candidates, wuite close to winning, said he would prevent that is he got into office. The next day, there were so many votes for him that the voting office's floor broke. He immediately passed a law that prevented "Any person or persons from remodeling the city using diamonds spaced anywhere from 1 inch to 19 feet apart if they were funded from the revenue of a fruit shop". While this discouraged any further planning of the remodeling, one group of workers did attempt to convince some lizards to do the job to avoid the "person or persons" part. Luckily, the lizards misunderstood and started eating the diamonds, costing the fruit shop many millions. Although it is a source of pride for us in Encyclophobaticsburg, the fruit shop has also caused a war, known as the Great Food Pyramid War of 1983. When the government was deciding on a new food pyramid design, the fruit shop sent several agents to try and enlarge the fruit section so people would buy more fruit. THe government began to send police forces in, but since the fruit shop was not only richer but also more powerful than the government, they held their own. Fortunately, the war was mainly fought with celery sticks (let's just say there were a lot of manufacturing mix-ups), so no-one was hurt.

So now that you know about our mighty fruit store, you will undoubtedly be inspired to throw melons out the window. Good Day.

At Last!

At Last! I have returned to Encyclophobaticsburg! I am so very sorry for not posting all of this time. Unfortunately, I was on a 5 day cruise, which turned out to be a lot longer because... well let's just say there was a series of unlikely events that contributed to my absence. I will try to keep posting, and fix this blog up a bit. I might even tell you guys what happened on my cruise.