Clicking image advised. Hi Dan,
The two outermost planets in the Vleeptron-Hoon-Yobbo system (its sun has a name, but I've temporarily forgotten it) are the All-Female and highly xenophobic planet Mollyringwald, about which almost nothing is known, and the recently discovered Björkguðmundsdóttir, a geologically interesting hollow planet through which you can see distant stars. Here's the first image of it:
Make sure you click to enlarge the image. As the text explains, there's actually something quite unique and remarkable about it, but you have to guess or snoop around to figure out what it is.
And finally the new stamp you asked for [top of post].
We know they issue stamps, but the postal authority of Planet B is strictly for domestic use, and the few stamps we ever see are either smuggled out or mailed to Ciudad Vleeptron by accident.
Though we know so little about Planet B, hints and clues have begun to convince Vleeptron's xenoculturalanthropologists that Planet B is inhabited by members of the Pythagorean Mystery Cult, loonies who are convinced that our reality (the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the global economic meltdown, Britney Spears, Michael Vick, etc.) isn't Really Real at all, it's just a ghastly illusory shadow and distortion of The True & Ultimate Reality, which consists entirely of Positive Whole Numbers.
Well, I know it's ridiculous, but that's what the Ps believe wherever in the Universe you encounter them.
This latest stamp is the big tipoff. Everybody in the Milky Way and in Vleeptron's galaxy, Dwingeloo-2, should recognize it and its meaning and significance.
Oddly enough, about 2400 years after Pythagoras' proof, James A. Garfield (at the time a congressman) discovered an entirely original proof of the relationship.
Sagan and Schlovskii described 19th-century schemes to plant huge fields of different kinds of grain in the famous pattern so sentients seeing Earth through their telescopes would unambiguously recognize mathematically advanced intelligence lived here; I don't think anybody ever really planted such a field.
In a cab in Reykjavik, my nephew and I were making dumb tourist Björk jokes, and the cab driver lit up and yelled "Guðmundsdóttir! That is Björk's name!" (It's very possible he knows Guðmund; this is a very small community.) I personally just love to pronounce her name over and over again, I don't know why.
You should visit Iceland, and this year the poor broke Icelanders would love to see you and offer you a mega-bargain. Reykjavik is no boring backwater; it's a surprisingly rockin hard-partyin hard-drinkin music town, and quite sophisticated. (I was invited to eat whale steak at a ritzy restaurant, but politely declined.)
Outside of town, in all possible directions, is nothing but natural wonder and beauty unique on this planet. There's an entire valley that smells of rotten eggs, and a place you can stand on two colliding tectonic plates and see the calm but massive wreckage that causes. (The plate collision makes the volcanos which create Iceland.) The world's first democratic parliament, the Althing, was held in tents there each summer, starting around 950; now it's in a big permanent building in Reykjavik, and runs all year.
And Björk herself, and the Sugar Cubes -- well, that's not chopped liver. There really is a volcano, Sneffels, in the shadow of the volcano Scartaris, down which the intrepid spelunkers of "Journey to the Center of the Earth" entered, and they're very proud of it and of all their volcanos, the hot ones and the dead ones.
When you get tired of volcanos and geothermal fields and earthquake zones, you can see the glaciers. On horseback if you like. Or you can spend the day cooking yourself in a giant pool of sulfurous hot goop which, they claim, will keep your skin and complexion young forever.
It seemed that Iceland was a natural for downhill skiiing, and they developed a ski resort, but ferocious ocean winds kept blowing skiers off the mountain.
I wasn't paying attention to the calendar, and after we went to sleep at the hotel, I woke up at 4 am, and it was full daylight outside and the streets were full of revellers and pubcrawlers; we'd landed smack on the Summer Solstice. Iceland hangs about a mile south of the Arctic Circle (so the sun never rises for a few weeks six months later at the Winter Solstice).
Hope you like the stamps.
Bob
Ah this one definetly made my day....The millions who do not visit your blog don't even know what they have missed...Is this one of the pics rumoured to be smuggled out of Planet Björk ? If so, then fix that bloody Zeta Beam, I am moving on.....never to return !
...oh yes that old bugger ! Now I know where I heard the name before ! It was just on the evening news...
No, nothing going on here, nothing interesting to see, just walk on, haven't missed anything, nothing happened.
(Note: Dirty Ol' Sugardaddy has ihs own TV station which I can get here on cable. If you think Fox is dumb then you have never seen Itali Uno. Last Sunday or so the old man booked one hour on his own TV station to explain to the nation what was going on. Nothing apparently and it took him one hour to explain that in full detail....)
I wish first to apologize to all my 9 devoted readers for this filthy pornographic image. Its publication was far beneath the High Standards that have made Vleeptron and VleeptronZ a legend in electronic information processing and dissemination.
The AV-P Ombudsperson has thoroughly investigated, and has learned that Lenny & Spike, the universe-wandering teenage dropouts from rural South Carolina, were on duty and responsible for the blog last night when this smutty Lolita-tinged image was posted.
The Alps are Tall, and the Passes often blocked with snow -- have you not been getting your morning newspapers reliably delivered from Italy?
Worse, you are A-VP's Mensch-on-the-Ground in Mitteleuropa, and YOU were supposed to have e-mailed this foto, and many more, to ME, your beloved old editor at A-VP Galactic Headquarters.
You speak Italian, for Christ's sake.
Not that speaking Italian is necessary to perceive the positive aspects of this attractive image of Healthy Youth.
What's the skinny on this thing? Did the Dirty Old Gazillionaire goose the child at her birthday party? Did they do Inappropriate Stuff at his villa on Sardinia?
I love this scandal. If Berlusconi had paid me to think of a plan to get him destroyed forever, I couldn't have done better than this.
This has everything! Starting with the word no Italian wife should ever whisper:
an ex-wife, 8 kids -- dogs, cats, ponies -- yachts, villas, and this adorable Sweetie Pie, with the questionable age photo i.d. legal age card.
Viva Italia Siempre! Viva Berlusconi! Viva the Testicles! and most of all -- Viva Noemi!
Oh Oh I left out some juicy parts, it's about a Dirty Horny Powerful Old Man who makes a really sleazy secret deal with a real creepy guy:
========
FAUSTUS. One thing, good servant, let me crave of thee
To glut the longing of my heart's desire:
That I might have unto my paramour
That heavenly Helen which I saw of late,
Whose sweet embracings may extinguish clean
These thoughts that do dissuade me from my vow,
And keep mine oath I made to Lucifer.
MEPHISTOPHELES. Faustus, this, or what else thou shalt desire,
Shall be performed in twinkling of an eye.
Enter Helen [brought in by Mephistopheles]
FAUSTUS. Was this the face that launched a thousand ships
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.
[They kiss]
Her lips suck forth my soul. See where it flies!
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.
[They kiss again]
Here will I dwell, for heaven be in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena.
Enter [the] Old Man
I will be Paris, and for love of thee
Instead of Troy shall Wittenberg be sacked,
And I will combat with weak Menelaus,
And wear thy colours on my plumèd crest.
Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel
And then return to Helen for a kiss.
O, thou art fairer than the evening air,
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.
Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter
When he appeared to hapless Semele,
More lovely than the monarch of the sky
In wanton Arethusa's azured arms;
And none but thou shalt be my paramour.
Exeunt [Faustus and Helen, with Mephistopheles]
===
Hubba-Hubba!