In The Dog House: Follow-up

You sonofa…

I took your advice about the nutria for a family pet and the damn thing went on a rampage! It bit my son’s legs off the same night I brought it home. Luckily my wife is a skilled Amazon Huntress and was able to kill it before it got further. But man you should be locked up for the “help” you give. You’ll be hearing from my lawyers!

-Miguel
Sarasota, FL

Mikhail,

And you sir shall be hearing from my loan officer!

Seriously though, you should be on your knees thanking me now that your son can follow in your footsteps. With Amazonian genes in him, did you really think your kid’d have any chance of being a jockey without some sort of amputation? I just saved you $30,000 in leg shortening bills.

No Charge,
Mr. Eccentric

Dear Readers,

Although my words should be law, they are not. I but sit here in my padded cubicle ticking away at my keyboard, putting me out of posture to have a gun to your head. So if you don’t have the time to dedicate to keep vigil over your sleeping children while a bloodthirsty megarodent sleeps in their beds, please consider an antfarm to an exotic pet.

Yours in disclaimer,
Mr. Eccentric

In The Dog House

Dear Mr. Eccentric

My name is Miguel. I am a jockey from Florida, and keep a whole bunch of horses on my land. But my son, he wants a real pet like a dog. I told him if I won my next race, I would get him his dog. At the time, I didn’t realize that my entire family was deathly allergic to dogs. What do I do?

Miguel
Sarasota, FL

Dear Mike,

Ah Florida… land of sun, rain and its legally binding verbal contracts. You sir are in a jam, especially since it is also the land that gave birth to kids divorcing parents.

At first, I thought, that due to your stature you could easily dress up in a dog suit and pose as the family pooch. You wife would say you went out for oats and never came back. But I won’t go there.

Then I was watching The Tick on DVD the other day (yes, its a plug. A man can’t live on dispensing free advice alone!). In an episode to be released later on he comes across Speak, the capybara, and mistakes it for a dog. Now, I am in now way advocating importing a 140lb rodent into your family.

No, you can easily go for a Nutria, a 20lb rat / beaver… thing that’s become quite plentiful in your neck of the woods. They were introduced into Louisiana in the 30’s by fur trappers as a new source of pelts. Since then they’ve gone forth and multiplied and have spread throughout the southeast and become quite the pest. But your adopting and spaying and/or neutering one will help curtail the spread of the “brown menace!”

Call it a Chilean Root Hound. The boy will be happy, the family won’t sneeze to death, and you have a good excuse for your HMO to approve rabies vaccines.

Philatelist of Grievances

Dear Mr. Eccentric

What is up with the bump in stamp prices?! It’s not like it gets ‘em there any faster!

W.H. Russell
St. Joseph, Missouri

Post marked May 1st… point taken sir.

Interesting thing postage. They, that is to say THE THEY, would have you believe that the postage you now pay is used to cover the expense of mailing stuff. And, up until 1998, this was true… to a point. Now however the little square on the envelope is used to keep the price of oil down. I know, I know… you scoff at this idea each time you blink your eyes these days, but its a fact.

In 1932, analysts predicted that the use of the postal service would, due to the increase in telephone services and private carriers such as UPS (est 1930), slow to a point whereby it couldn’t fund itself via postage alone. So the price of a stamp was raised from .02 to .03 each. The actual cost to mail was still only .02. That extra penny was secretly siphoned into a fund called the “The Obsolescence Fund.” And from that point on a percentage of each stamp went into that account.

Fast forward to 1998 and the still infant days of the Internet. The craze of instant communication swept the globe; email was both functional and a fad and chat rooms buzzed. The mailmen panicked and invoked the fund.

Now you know that bit where by you take a penny, double it, double that, then double that still. Yeah well, needless to say the postal service could mail the Earth to Alpha Centauri and still have a tip for the delivery dude.

But you just couldn’t declare free postage for all! There would be chaos. People would be shipping bricks… just because they could. So no, they had to keep postage in place. But what to do with it?

It was about this time that oil spiked from $15 to $30 a barrel (was there such a time?). The grandchildren of the 1932 analysts also became analysts and also foresaw gloom and doom - this time in the oil trend. So, a new “Obsolescence Fund” was established to build a “floating” petroleum reserve: secretly buying as much oil as possible and flooding it into the overt US oil market.

This is why in 1998, the USPS switched to self adhesive stamps – it was for “legal” purposes. The sticky stuff is petroleum rubber based… so in essence the postage would be paying for the oil to make the rubber. A weak argument, but this IS Washington we’re talking about.

THEY tried something like that in ‘74, during the gas shortage. A self stick stamp was issued around Christmas time, but it fell through. There backlash from the leftover hippies who complained that they needed the lickable stamps in circulation so they can pass off their LSD tabs as legit.

Long story short - whenever theres a bump in oil prices, theres a bump in stamp prices.

Figure this – one .42 cent stamp, per day, per person for one year: .42×365x300million = 45,990,000,000. Imagine our oil prices if this WASN’T supplementing it. Phew.

A Cookie Question

Dear Mr. Eccentric

Me and some of my Navy buddies noticed something the other day. Major brand cookies, like Oreos for example, seem taste different from season to season, even pack to pack – like hard cream and crumbly cookies one day and gooey cream and rock hard cookies the next. Are we imagining things or do the recipes change for some reason.

Commodore De la Galleta, Ret.
U.S. Naval Station Rota, Spain

Dear Commodore,

You and your sweet eating swabbies can relax. You’re right, the recipes do change.

Now, the official story they’ll have you believe is that the taste differs slightly based upon manufacturing location - i.e. the whole hard water/soft water differential. They also will say that they change some ingredients based upon, as you said, the season – like additives to chocolate chips in the summer to prevent melting, and so forth.

However, that’s all a crock. The truth of the matter is there is only one manufacturing location… and it’s mobile. Well, they’re mobile at any rate. You see all major brand cookies are made by a large nomadic tribe called the al-Zulaabiyyah, who follow herds of the rare Double Humped Pastry Camel (Camelus Crustulum). That’s why they taste so good – because they’re all made by hand.

The tribesmen use the camels’ milk and a gluten made from the hooves as the base for their confections. The reason there’s a slight change in taste is the additional ingredients and preservatives used in cookie production. Being nomads, they use the resources of the land around them at the time. Camelus Crustulum’s migratory pattern is vast (from North Eastern Latvia to Souther Saudi Arabia). As you can expect, bake shops and supermarkets vary from country to country so it’s not always possible to be consistent.

Thanks for you question sir, and keep snacking!

In Need of a Quack

Dear Mr. Eccentric,

I am a 14-year-old wreck. I am obese and eat way too much, play too many video games, stay up way past midnight, ditch classes and sleep with all sorts of people. I know its bad the lifestyle I lead, but it’s hard for me to stop. I went to my parents with my problems (well, except for the sex), and they pass it off as just a phase; but I think I need help!

Is it too late for me?

Spinning My wheels,
Spread Eagle, Wisconsin

My Dear Ms. Spinning,

I hope “injecting Sterno between my toes” is thankfully not in that litany of miss deeds because you don’t do it, rather than merely omitted because you just spaced out.

Your parents are right, however; it is just a phase. That is, if by phase they mean it will end in its own due time. Then yes, it’s a phase. And, it will end… on a slab in the county morgue!

But it’s not too late. By realizing you are wastrel whore and by admitting that raiding fridge is not a glandular problem… you can be saved. Though from what I can see this is a very tough case to which your standard psychobabble won’t cut mustard.

So I recommend you do what all troubled teens with asinine parents do, join a cult. Theres one near you just two towns west called the Union of the Celestial Wooden Duck. It began in 1977 with the launch of the Voyager Space probe. One of the scientists snuck a hunting decoy into the Golden Record compartment. On the duck he carved a bunch of random squiggles figuring it just had to read “Please Return to Sender” in some language somewhere out there. Now he and his followers wait for the glorious return of that decoy in the loving arms of an intergalactic woodwork lover.

But with their guidance I’m sure you’ll be able to shape up. A steady diet of Kool-Aid and rice will get you nice and trim; the no technology mandate will get the controller out of your hands; and the strictly enforced chastity dogma will beat the promiscuity out of you. You’ll be even be able to catch up on your school work what with their top-notch re-education program.

I would just bail out when the Grand Oaken Mallard breaks out his telescope and HAM radio.

It’s Plane to See

Dear Mr. Eccentric

Sir, you’ve got to help me. Right now I’m on a airplane headed to Australia. We left from Newark NJ and the captain said we’re currently just over Redding, PA. The problem is the child in the seat behind me has already begun the whole kicking the back of my seat thing and he looks like he’s had a few caffeinated beverages… I see no end in sight and no work getting done on this flight.

What should I do?
Rich and Flighty CEO
30,000ft, OH

Ah, the miracles of modern technology. Not only can you bug me from a 30 ton flying cigar tube traveling at supersonic speeds, but you can be bugged as well for hours on end – strapped to your doom with a hyperactive mite in the 3×3 open-lid coffin behind you..

This reminds me of my days working the old Northwestern Pacific Railroad Line. They had just installed one of those newfangled telegraph line thingys. Cripes almighty it was annoying. When it didn’t dotdotdot on about ladies corsets or the latest rhino horn, my co-engineer was busy dashing his girlfriend in Tulsa. “Get off the line you damn Irish,” I’d say… but he wouldn’t listen, what with the phonograph bell in his ear and all.

Anyhoo, the train got all robbed and whatnot one day. I tried to message ahead for help; but, when we got to our stop later on, I heard that there was a cow with a bucket on her udder sittin’ there on the tracks mooing in Morse code… so the locals burned her for being a witch, forgoing the desired help sending effect.

Things have progressed nicely since then, and luckily for you there were no unholy ducks with antennae to interrupt your email to me. Dang it.

So, to answer your question I quote an unruly mob… “JUMP! JUMP! JUMP!” It’s your only recourse. What you think is a vexatious child in the seat to your aft is actually a highly trained air marshal. It’s part of the FAA’s top-secret terrorist identification program. They figure any terrorist would never put up with the undisciplined antics of a spoiled American-pig-sloth child, and reveal themselves.

To beat his head with a shovel will only get you shot; to ask his mother to do something would offend her and get you maced or glared at by the collective unconscientious unconsciousness of the other bad parents on the plane. That causes cancer my friend.

The parachute’s by the door,
Mr. Eccentric.

Which Way to Oxford?

Dear Mr. Eccentric,

I’m a bachelor, 30 years of age, living in Burbank California. My nephew from a brother I’ve not spoken with for a good 12 years (out of his own volition) has phoned me. He’s 18 and wants to stay with me a while whilst searching out Californian colleges.

Yes, he’s blood, but do I have an obligation room and board the son of a man I barely know anymore?

Please advise,
Anonymous

Say, you aren’t the Anonymous are you? I mean, some of the world’s greatest prose came from some dude named Anonymous. And I must say, your note shows verbosity there Shakespeare.

Anyhoot, you want to know if you have to hole up this nephew of yours. The short answer is no. I mean, you got a deadbolt right? If you don’t, and live in Burbank, then you sir are a brave brave man.

But, I’ve never been one for short answers.

You don’t honestly think this kid is gonna travel all the way to scenic downtown Burbank to scout out colleges do you? I mean you got, what, a cosmetics school and piloting school without an airstrip?

No my friend, the tot’s got a script… and you’re in it. Think of it, a well written gentleman takes in his estranged nephew into his swanky bachelor pad filled with priceless heirlooms… the same heirlooms that split apart two brothers years ago because mom liked you best! The nephew attends the local community college and decides to make the arrangement permanent. He joins the basketball team, invites his new found teammates over for tea and crumpets and they manage to break every last chochkey (in hilarious fashion!). So, enlisting the help of the geeks in the chess / nuclear physics / renaissance actors guild, the lot of you go back in time to stop the the destruction. But, due to the over zealous nature of a rogue renaissance actor, you over shoot your target by 600 years and 5500 miles and you land in Merry Olde England, where you live out your days writing plays under a pseudonym.

It’s gold I tells ya! GOLD! Let the boy in. I’ll be your agent. We’ll call it “Which way to Oxford?” Alec Baldwin will play you, Liv Tyler can play him (re-write… hey, it happens). Think of the sequels! Call me. Your people and my people will do lunch while we’ll get some hookers. It’ll be a kick.

Fooled Moon

Dear Mr. Eccentric,

Is it true that the moon landing was done in a Hollywood studio like some people keep telling me it was, or did it really happen like I think?

Sincerely,
Curious in California

Dear Mr.Curok,

Ah, how politicals illicit such intrigue in our lives. It is a good thing, Kurki, that you forwarded this question to, the all knowing, classified document stealing, purveyor of Persephones… wait is that right?

Down to business. Really kibbers, it all depends on which moon landing/invasion/conquest you’re talking about. The publicized one of 1969 was an obvious forgery - shot not only in Hollywood, but also in a down town London studio and in a secret base in West Berlin. The real landing took place in 1746; and, actually, you’re all the better for it. What you’ve been taught to identify as the moon and Mars, are actually the two launch pads the last hope of our dying solar system used to invade and conquer what you know as earth but what is in fact the moon.

You see, the hated Rubber Duckie Brigade was rending the 14 other planets in this solar system limb from limb over an offensive body oder no one would ‘man up’ to. After the fall of Mars, or rather the Planet of Germany, there was little hope left for anyone. So, they boarded up on their bath-time funmobiles and jetted over to the moon. The original inhabitants were of course slaughtered with what is still the most state-of-the-art military armament in the universe, the matchlock musket.

However hey have not been eradicated entirely. Now they live in the supposedly “lava filled” core of the moon/new earth. They have really no way of waging war other then the proliferation of house cats and natural disasters, however we’ve been jamming their control with both disastrous results for both them and us.

And so, there you am, Lindsay Martin of LA, CA. Yes we did land, but it was not on the moon you thought.

A Dindin Din

Ah, hello there. Allow me to introduce yourself to myself. For legal purposes you cannot possibly fathom, my name is Mr. Eccentric, and I am the problem to all your answers… wait, what?

I am the resident advice columnist for the New World Otter. It is here that I will provide answers to all your burning questions about anything at all. Think of me as Dear Whats-her-face - only a guy and minus the straight jacket.

That over with, let’s get to the inaugural question:

Dear Mr. Eccentric,

Help! My boss just invited herself and 30 of our colleagues to my house for dinner. I don’t know what to make. What do you recommend?

“Hungry For Knowledge,”
Eaton, Co

Quite the conundrum. Thankfully this is my area of expertise. I was a mess tent commander during the invasion of Lichtenstein in 1992. Don’t bother to look it up, it’s classified.

What you need is a meal that can feed an army in a short amount of time. You need lasagna. If you’ve not heard of this rare delicacy, its a pasta/cheese/meat dish developed by the British in the 14^th century, and claimed by the Italians soon after. They had a cannon and a flag, so there was no arguments.

Anyway, prepared correctly, a 12in x12in pan can feed half the subcontinent of India; if you have garlic bread, the whole shebang will eat.

Normally, ready made pasta will work. However, this is your boss and only scratch made will make an impression, to be sure. So you need to go out and get your first ingredients – eggs, water and fiberglass.

Fiberglass, I’ve found, is a versatile food stuff. It’s everywhere you look these days, and when prepared can be banged into that signature wavy shape that lasagna layers have. Wet noodles will loose their shape because they have the durability of, well, wet noodles. It’s all in the presentation you see.

Next you need a sauce. No jar stuff for you. You’ll need two bottles of ketchup, vinegar, and 32 bulbs of garlic (to mask the fiberglass aftertaste). Place the bottles of ketchup into boiling water overnight so that the contents leech gradually into the mix. Add the vinegar and crushed garlic (not whole, because thats just disgusting) the next day and let reduce to a thick paste. Add salt to taste.

Finally… cheese. Not one, but two types - any will do; and a lot of it, because you’ll need something to block up the colon to prevent diarrhea.

Layer it all into the pan and bake for 10 minutes. Then presto, a meal for fit for a queen!

With any luck, the meal will end in trip to the hospital for your co-workers and a pink slip for you, because you really shouldn’t be working for someone who invites the entire office to your house for dinner!

Great question, Alicia Ingles of 111 Wilbur Rd. Remember readers, you can submit your questions in total anonymity via the NWOt forums, or emailing somebody connected to the site. It’ll get to me eventually.