=idsf2

Call me Bill.  Ishamael is just too passe.

I'm told that scientists on Planet Earth -- you know, that rather
unintelligently designed one in a unistar system on the outskirts
of one of the minor spiral galaxies -- have named me WM3G7XQ/73OP,
 
but that's actually one of my neighbors, with whom -- which,
rather -- I am scarcely on speaking terms.  

And anyhow, it's hard to remember, much less quickly pronounce to
any other being with whom you would really rather not spend more
than 3 nano_seconds at most -- and those prefereably at a distant
of noz less than approximately 35 Mega_Light_Years.

I had been well on my way to retirement when I got a recall notice
from Galactic Central.  


Apparently Schmdrik Associates -- our erstwhile subsidiary whose
cut_rate but supposedly intelligent design of the origin of
species on planet Terra has cost us so many complaints from
Quality Control that it was all I could do to get out the back
door with my Gold Watch -- 
#L2
to use your terminlogy; in fact it is less like a
pocket_watch than an exceptionally upper_range
Yellow_White__SuperNova , though that description barely does
it justice.  
#L3

But I had wanted to keep some souvenior of all my
MegaEons as -- Product Manager, I suppose you would call
it.
#L1
  
I mean, almost a hundred tolerably if not reasonably sentinent
species in the Kali Yurga alone, distributed with sufficient room
for natural growth over -- well, let us just say, an
incomprehensibly large number of galaxies -- and we have to run
into problems with this one.

If I ever meet Mr. Schmendrik -- if that really is his name, and
for that matter if he really does exist -- I shall certainly give
himn a piece of my mind, which I'm sure he could use.
#L2

Or Mrs. or possibly even Ms. Shmendrik -- 
#L3
though that does open other options which one really
oughtn't ever to explore -- 
#L4
pardon my poetics; I mean only to say: other
tunnels of thought into which I ought not go, not
at my age anyhow.  
#L5

But --- well, I have vowed not even to think
of my wife for the duration of this
assignment, and I shall do my best not to do
so.  Oh, bother your langauge.
#L6

Well, forgive a fond old man his
ruminations.  
#L7
Or is that what cows do, whatever
cows are.  Something one must take
with coffee, if I recall, although
take to where I'm not quite sure.
#L1
So, to my story:

As you recall, when I had last attempted to make an --
unannounced, of course -- Field Visit to Schmendrik Laboratories,
in the Alpha Centauri system -- 
#L2
-- for obvious reasons we do not wish to diivulge the precise
location -- 
#L1
I had found the gate padlocked -- 
#L2
I use your symbolic analogues, of course; you would have seen
only a galaxy_sized virtual formation of dark matter with
incipient singualrities -- 
#L1
with a sign saying only 'Deus Abscondit'.  


A bit of an unnecessary dig, that, and it got our Retrieval Team
sufficiently motivated -- something that normally can not be done
even by the most officious of us in less than the life_span of a
moderate_sized nebula -- that they actually ran them down in their
new hidey_hole somewhere -- 
#L2

-- again, I must not be too specific; theree are quite a few
dissatisfied customers by now, and some of them rate rather
high on the gamma_ray scale, not to mention the antimatter
platter -- 
#L1

-- in the HoreeHead Nebula.

Yes, I know all the all the old jokes about Horace Head -- that he
built it as a lolly for his dolly as they tell me that you say --
but those are really not to the point.
   
TO BE CONTINUED, IF I DON'T IMPLODE.

================================================================= 

Notes:

I'm looking now at National Geographic, November '04, "Was Darwin
Wrong" by David Quammen.
The subtitle is: 'No.  The evidence for evolution is
overwhelming.'	

This looks like a serious article, much more so than the IHT
screeds -- too serious to work into this parody.
I'll have to deal with it seperately.  

===============================================================
sa, Campra, 2 Jan '06 -- 3 teveT I guess
===============================================================