Parallel Time: November 2008

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

A great player and an even greater man

Wow. I never thought the Eagles would get off to a 9-0 start this year, not with all the trouble The Player caused right before the first game.

Well, I'd say it's a testament to his maturity that he took back his words against the fans and donated this year's salary to the poor.

You know, that's just the way he is. A paradigm of reason ... a great player and an even greater man. A true philanthropist. ... I just wish I could get a bet down. Ever since The Irish Tenor crossed over to non-Parallel Time, I've been unable to track down a reliable sports book.

Well I must say I won't miss that fellow Ronan.

... Or that flock of crows that was following him around. What was that all about anyway?

Oh, apparently in non-Parallel Time his ancestor Cuchulainn made enemies with all corvids by killing a flock of their gods -- the sea ravens -- and leaving the head of their leader on the rocks for all to see. Before that, Cuchuilainn was in good favor with the crows, who had helped him on several occasions.

But all of this happened in the other timeline?

That's how I understand it. ... When the mortally wounded Cuchulainn was slain by Lugaid's magic spear, he tied himself to a pillar of rock so that he could die on his feet. Lugaid's soldiers were afraid to approach him until a crow landed on his shoulder and plucked out his eyes, assuring them that he was dead. Lugaid then cut off Cuchulainn's head.

A fitting end, I guess.

Indeed. And here's another one: I'll take that bishop, thank you very much!

Oh, you're very welcome indeed. Check.

Clever. Luckily I have my knight in reserve ... um ... drat, your queen has me penned in!

Good move. I'll take that rook, thanks. Check again.

Goodness gracious! I seem to be in a bit of a pickle. Is that checkmate in three?

Two, actually, maybe one, depending on your next move. Give up? ... Good game anyway! Are you going to the Pawlowski Center to hear Vice President Bennett speak tomorrow?

I concede. ... I wouldn't miss that speech! I hope she brings her Nobel Prize along.

Stranger things have happened. ... OK, see ya then. We'll pick up the monorail outside Tommie Tomorrow's.

Cheerio!

You have entered Parallel Time

While the demon Marge presides over the stick-by-stick destruction of non-Parallel Allentown, things are really nice over here in Parallel Allentown. Parallel Allentown has a monorail, two space ports, a hockey arena that is home to the Jersey Devils, an entire minor league baseball league, the world headquarters of several Fortune 100 corporations (including Tofu Turkeys and the world’s largest horse-processing plant, the Glue Works), dozens of theme and amusement parks, including the Whoo-Hoo Works, a string of glittering riverfront resorts, the world's largest department store (Hess's Dammit), 18 Irish Brew Works and several Tommie Tomorrow's Mexican eateries. The town is also famous for the milk it produces at its state-of-the-art dairy facility, the Moo Works. Allentown is also known for having the realm’s largest concentration of TV chefs per square acre. The city is home to Parallel Time's most prominent blogger, Parallel Atown-Liker, and his team of intrepid diarists. Allentown's first Irish mayor, Barry O'Bama, once walked across Lake Muhlenberg, but lately he’s been up to his knees in goose shit. The city’s previous mayor, whose name may only be spoken on sanctified ground, has been beatified after being carried to heaven by angels during a ground-breaking ceremony. He has been credited with legalizing prostitution in Parallel Time and establishing Allentown's first legal brothel, the Screw Works. Now that Ronan and the Irish Tenor have left the realm, the crime rate here is 0. ... However, not all is well. Incursions from Non-parallel Time have shaken this once-tranquil Camelot. Deceased non-Parallel actor Paul Newman has declared himself Lord of Parallel Time, taking over the Twin Tofu Turkey Towers and converting them to The Pew Works, a church dedicated to worshipping himself. He canceled half-price wings in Parallel Heaven and initiated the Celestial Lockdown Protocols, barring all travel between the realms. His dog, Ponzi, has stolen more than $50 billion from President Madoff and has barely escaped several attempts by the TV chefs to eat him. Though the Celestial Lockdown Protocols have insulated Lord Newman from any attempts by non-Parallel Heaven (which nominally rules Parallel Heaven) to remove him from power, it has also prevented the Crows from carrying out their somewhat vague but nefarious plans. Typically the Crows can fly through space and time, going from realm to realm as easily as they fly from tree to tree. The protocols have prevented the Crows from traveling between realms, prompting Bramwell, the Lord of the Crows, to befriend Mrs. Egram, the proto Marge who has emerged from an alternate timeline created by several clumsy attempts by a band of time travelers from non-Parallel time to kill her. Mrs. Egram had hoped to travel from alternate Parallel Time to non-alternate Parallel Time using a transphasic freight elevator hidden in the underground rest station (The Poo Works) that links Parallel and non-Parallel Time and is guarded, respectively, by Donovan and Old Donovan -- her theory being that all alternate timelines intersect with the one non-alternate timeline in the bathroom beneath center square, which is really more of a circle. Her goal is to confront Marge, who she believes has acted badly by destroying non-Parallel Allentown and has cast shame upon the good name of the Egram family, who are descended from proud caste of vampires and assorted demons and semidemons. Bramwell convinced Mrs. Egram to allow him to accompany her and her companions (part of the group who created her by botching two attempts to kill her in an earlier stage of her life) on a transphasic elevator ride that he had secretly re-routed. Bramwell double-crossed the group, exiting the elevator in the Realm of the Really Big Crows and leaving Mrs. Egram's group, including their pet dinosaur, Scrapple (a gift from Jesus during a stop in the prehistoric past), to be destroyed in a transphasic bubble that was about to burst. Meanwhile, sensing a threat from the Crows as well as the realization of apocalyptic prophesies, Parallel Pope Boneyface has moved Vatican operations to the South Pole, where the intense cold freezes the crows' little bodies before they can do much damage. They fall to the icy ground and are eaten by jackass penguins. As a result of the threat posed by the crows, Jesus has allowed part of a team led by Agent Bauer to bypass the protocols. Using transphasic toilet travel, Bauer was sent to the South Pole to help prepare for any incursions there by the Crows, learning in the process that Newman was secretly sent by Jesus to Parallel Time to keep tabs on the Crows and their ties to elements in Parallel and non-Parallel Hell. Atown Liker and the Player were sent to Parallel Allentown to bring Newman to the South Pole to join with Bauer and Pope Boneyface. However, three of their team members, Rudolph, Gen. Trexler and the angel Bubbles, were prevented from making the trip when they could not answer Old Donovan’s questions. Rudolf and Trexler were condemned to Hell, while Bubbles was condemned to the Macungies. All three were later rescued by extraction teams sent by Jesus in a blog entry that has mysteriously never been seen, even in flash-back form. Mrs. Egram’s group was saved from from oblivion when Scrapple was snatched from their elevator by a transphasic bubble, which set off an alarm that alerted St. Onslo to shut down the system, leaving the elevator to crash-land in the rest station in non-alternate Parallel Time. Tiring of Mrs. Egram’s demands to be sent to non-alternate non-Parallel time, Onslo sent the team via toilet to the only place that could still be accessed by the faulty system – the non-alternate Parallel South Pole. The TV chef Andrew, who was having lunch in one of the stalls, was also transported to the South Pole accidentally. Meanwhile, now in the Realm of the Really Big Crows, Bramwell traveled to the North Pole where he attempted to use a transpolar destabilizer to open a rift that would allow him to travel to the South Pole in Parallel Time (see Shish Kebob Theory). However, he and his No. 1 henchcrow came under fire from Santa Claus after Bramwell had subdued one of Santa’s polar bears. One of Santa’s bullets struck the destabilizer, opening a small rift that pulled the henchcrow into the same transphasic bubble occupied by Scrapple, who had become self-aware with the ability to reason and speak. That bubble then burst, leaving the two in the Parallel South Pole wilderness, where Scrapple promptly ate Bramwell’s second-in-command. Avoiding a drunken Santa’s bullets, Bramwell finally got the destabilizer to function and escaped to the Parallel South Pole. Narrowly surviving an encounter with Scrapple, Bramwell has accessed the Vatican basement through a crevice and seeks to free the Great White Crow, which was imprisoned under the ice after its epic battle with the Irish warrior Cuchulain, many eons ago.

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Tuesday, November 11, 2008

A great player and an even greater man

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