Nooz21B

Once again, and in a surprisingly short time, we here at the Nooz have settled into a pleasant routine. We arrive at the office in the new Nooz Towers at 8am, fortified with a good breakfast and several cups of strong coffee from Joe's Not So Bad Cafe, and carrying the latest edition of the Hellmouth Star Ledger and Daily Chronicle under our arms. As we pass the water cooler and the paper clip bin, we usually say good morning to Myra Spitztingle and Henrietta Farthingwurtz, two of our most dedicated secretaries. We might glance into the brightly-lighted office of Eric Scotmeister Fleiglehaus, and if he's not away doing a "Report from the Field," we might share a joke with him. We will probably wave across the main room to where Dr. Dick Doody is sitting, chewing a pencil and thinking about his next "Cutting Corner" feature. In the background, and not completely obscured by the sounds of clicking keyboards, we can hear the hiss and pop of the hydrogen laser spotlight as Bill Measely ceaselessly tinkers with it, trying to get it to not swing around without warning and burn people severely. There are often one or more guest primatologists on the premises, perhaps working on a special "What is...?" column, and if that is the case, it would be natural for us to introduce ourselves and say hello.
Finally we reach our office on the fourth floor. We spend a few moments tidying up our desks, repositioning photographs of our wives and children, blowing dust off our letter openers, and generally getting ready to face the day. There is usually a memo from publisher Arnett Putney, III and executive editor Widen Lundale, Jr. regarding our assignments for the day. Sometimes there are telephone messages that require us to return calls. At ten, the whole editorial staff assembles for a meeting in which we attempt to decide the subject matter for our next exciting editorial. Although most of us are fond of each other, this get-together is frequently rancorous, and sometimes concludes with name-calling and fisticuffs. We are just like a family here at the Nooz, and like any family we occasionally feel like murdering each other.
There's a bunch of other stuff that goes on in a typical day, but we don't want to bore you with that. Suffice it to say that we feel pretty darn good about how things are going here at the Nooz now. We expect that we'll be around for hundreds of months to come, reporting on fruit shortages, plummeting injuries, award presentations, primate breeding programs, building collapses, mad monkey disease outbreaks, and thrilling new finds. So when you do send in your renewal card, be sure to check the subscription time period box that says "10 years," and you won't be sorry. Do it today, or tomorrow.

200 Months Ago Today

200 months ago today, on a day not unlike this one, a man sixteen and a half years younger and much more liquescent than he is now was conducting some palingular research and underwater excavation in the Santa Rubia Straits when by a complete accident that was at the same time both fragellative and highly carpalistic, he discovered the amazing fact that Santa Rubia Island had sunk at least twelve times before, according to the geological record that was revealed to him. Dr. Oscar Simon Bolivar Bolivar-Fuentes de la Hoya was on a circumspedial leave from Gorgonzola National Technical University when he made the stupendous and almost irremorphical find that there have been repeated episodes of subsidence.
Sea floor magnetic taxemiants and other dendroitic evidence seemed to suggest that the most recent sinking was 947 years, 3 months and 21 days ago, and that occurrence was probably witnessed by members of the Chiquita Indian tribe, who left behind an extensive array of arculed tree carvings depicting that terrible scene. Before that, the island sank about 3500 years ago, and that event was also recorded by contemporary artists in the form of black umbrageous obsidian rock chippings and porsidized anoglyphs. And 75,000 years ago, when the weather was cooler, there was a period when Santa Rubia Island apparently rose and fell several times in a very short period. Dr. De la Hoya proposes that the material underlying the island is riddled with cavities like Swiss cheese, and that the island keeps falling into these cavities as the tectonic plate it rides on carries it westward. Similar cases of sinking islands have been quite rare in geological history, although St. Lucia sank off the coast of South Africa just last year.
In light of Tuesday's unfortunate sinking of Santa Rubia Island, it now appears beyond doubt that the stories we have heard and once dismissed are indeed true, and that this small body of land may have been popping up and down like a cork in an old bottle of turbid champagne for millions of years.

(AP) Cheesequake, AZ. The highly-venerated and sometimes busy Cheesequake Man and Mammal Museum, which has been for generations of Cheesequakers, Runnamuckians and Hellmouthites the virtual mainstay of their scientific education and a magnet for schoolkids and itinerants alike, was notified on Monday of another round of staff cuts to be implemented next month. Cheesequake Mayor Spurl Daniels stated that she very much regretted the action, but said that it had become essential because of the current state of the economy, and because it was necessary to maintain the Director, Merlin P. Musselwhyte, in the style to which he has become accustomed. Senior museum curator Bob Alinsky of the Cheesequake Man and Mammal Museum Staff Cuts Investigatory Group denied that the staff layoffs were needed, and said that it was Director Musselwhyte who should resign immediately. He challenged the Director to a duel in the Cheesequake Town Square at noon on Saturday, but it is very much open to question whether such a duel will actually be fought or not. Regrettably, the Nooz will not be able to bring you any further information about this problem since we have other things to report about.

EARTH'S AXIAL TILT IS
AFFECTED BY METEORS

(BBC) London, UK. The meteors that have struck near and almost destroyed three primatological institutions in the past year have seriously affected the Earth's axial tilt, sources at the Greenwich Astronomical Observatory announced last week. The result is that apparently the Earth will not have any seasons from now on, and it is unclear just how this will affect global weather patterns and the gorogo bean market. Primates that were interviewed generally expressed disinterest however since most of them live in tropical regions and don't have any seasons to speak of as it is.