blogduglod

On Krobol our space technologies are far more advanced than those on Earth. As part of my role here I’ve been meeting ambassadors from different countries to see how we might be able to assist them. One of the interesting ideas we’ve put forward is using images from space to boost their harvests.

Since last year we’ve had a number of requests to help people with their wine crops. Basically we take some images from space at regular intervals and then send them the results. Over time we’ll take other images so they can see if their improvements to crop production have worked. Since no one wants to admit that they’ve bought these images from “aliens” we have to transfer our images to Earthling providers who then pass them off as their own. I don’t mind as Krobol is earning 25% of the fee and it’s very easy work for us. I’ve been told me that if I can increase the number of Earthling subscribers to the program they’ll give me a salary increase.

For Earth the concept of using these space images for wine harvests is revolutionary but we’ve used this approach back home for decades. On Krobol, producers of fermented spicy kuplungoo juice plan their whole agricultural strategy around space imagining. Unlike Earth, we prefer a more coordinated approach than random satellite imaging and so dedicated pilots fly over the planet taking images customized for each subscriber. Any one of them can call up at the drop of a hat and ask for additional images. The system works and so it’s no wonder that fermented spicy kuplungoo juice is the best alcoholic beverage in our solar system!

In fact I have a bit of a personal connection with this area since my cousin Mobleedung was a pilot for one of these companies. He used to earn a fortune in commission from his job, as the farmers behind the fermented spicy kuplungoo juice industry are very rich. Unfortunately, as often happens in my large family, the success all went a bit to his head. After one spectacularly profitable month one of his company directors gave him a bonus of 15 crates of fermented spicy kuplungoo juice. According to what we saw on the news, instead of saving the bottles for a special occasion, he decided to drink some of them during his next flight. He was supposed to be surveying the agricultural zone of Spokulbatz City, but lost control of his spaceship and veered off into the city center. He tried to land on the main high street but the alcohol hampered his coordination and he didn’t even get close. Unfortunately his spaceship crashed through the magnificent glass dome of the city opera hall and wedged itself into the stage, showering the audience with fermented spicy kuplungoo juice. Considering that “The Ancient Mysteries of Queen Plogbit” is an opera with a very historic setting, it couldn’t have done much good for the atmosphere to have had a giant space ship suddenly drop onto the stage and a half drunk alien emerge and vomit all over it.

To add to the financial impact of the disastrous chain of events, a number of the actors took legal action to get him to pay for the dry cleaning on their fancy clothes. I had to use all my diplomatic skills to negotiate with the city authorities and get them to reduce his sentence to 1500 weeks of community service cleaning the city drains off the coast.



Until next time. Pablit noglit splijbit pabalab (This day, may you avoid being flattened by meteorites).

Nilbert  

As fascinating as Earth is I really do miss Krobol (as I know Splagparp and Biflip do). Therefore imagine my surprise when I received a spacecall from my funny cousin Ploibs, that he’d be passing by during a routine work trip!

For the past five years Ploibs has been employed by Spongoo & Sons Inter-galactic Haulage, transporting goods across the universe. It’s a very tiring job flying those huge rusty spacetrucks for millions of light years. Anyway, Ploibs told me that he was in the process of shifting a 3 month supply of stinking beedsy fish to the Trobnobeepips Cluster to be used for animal feed and that he could sneakily bypass Earth if I gave him some directions. With a bit of luck his boss wouldn’t find out....

Ploibs told me that Glapbee Spongoo, son of the retired owner, is a real pain in the backside and is always forcing them to do extra long journeys, even though official regulations state that pilots must have a rest stop every few hours. On his last trip Ploibs was so behind schedule, because of inter-galactic traffic jams, that he was unable to go to the toilet for several days. When he got back to headquarters one of his colleagues passed out when he opened the cockpit door. As a result, Ploibs has now installed a portable toilet underneath his seat, complete with an anti-gravity device and nuclear fusion-powered flushing. That way he can fly for longer without a break.

I’ve been telling Ploibs for ages to invest in an inter-galactic GPS but he claimed he didn’t need one. He thinks that Plikulgoop’s Space Map^Ó will get him anywhere but he doesn’t understand that the universe is changing. He’s a bit stuck in his ways like his mother – my Aunt Gwabfrip, of giant vegetable growing fame.

So there I was thinking it would be plain flying but silly Ploibs mistook Nepal for New York and took a right turn as he entered the atmosphere instead of a left turn. When I got out of my meeting I received an urgent message from my diplomat friend Sergei in Moscow, Russia explaining that Ploibs’ spacetruck had arrived there and was beginning to cause a scene. People were reporting a huge halo appearing in the sky, a smell of rotting matter and odd-shaped fish dropping from the sky. When I heard this I was in a panic about what to do!

I immediately got onto my spacephone and told Ploibs to urgently get out of there before he was spotted - and to remove all evidence of those stinking beedsy fish! The damn call cost me 2,000 Krobolian goblibbels but it was worth it as the story had already begun to appear on Earthling television. Thankfully Sergei and I managed to bluff to reporters and the networks reported it as a natural phenomenon.

By the time Ploibs got to New York he was so behind schedule that it only left him time to get cleaned up (he stank of rotting beedsy fish!), have a quick cup of boiling fribgee tea and drop off some spicy binglee biscuits that Aunt Gwabfrip had made for me. I have to say that he wasn’t terribly impressed by what he saw of Earth. For a start he said that the signs for space directions were awful above Earth and that he had to navigate using the outlines of continents. At this point I managed to restrain myself from bursting out laughing. Everyone in the family knows that Ploibs’ geography is pretty terrible – he always failed the exams at school – so that explains where he went wrong on his way here.

I couldn’t stand the thought of him getting lost again in this primitive solar system so I gave him Biflip’s inter-galactic GPS. I know Biflip was unhappy about it but he can pick another one up back home on Krobol during his next trip. The Sixth Lunar Eclipse sales should be coming up soon and I know Biflip was interested in getting some bargains.

I guess it will be a while before I get any more visitors from back home (most of them expect me to come back and visit them instead). For now, whenever I’m feeling homesick, I’ll just nibble on my spicy binglee biscuits over a cup of boiling fribgee tea.

Until next time. Pablit noglit splijbit pabalab (This day, may you avoid being flattened by meteorites).

Nilbert

The Earthling press are such a nuisance. This morning we’ve had hundreds of calls regarding the discovery of a new ring off the planet Saturn. Our reaction was “big deal” but these Earthling reporters are going crazy about it.

Basically, they’ve “discovered” a gigantic new ring around the planet and can’t work out why they didn’t come across it before. According to one of their experts, it’s made up of ice and dust particles but because of the distance between them the ring is difficult to make out. Well all I have to say is that if these Earthlings had been a little more observant they could have saved my driver Biflip a lot of problems on his way to Earth.

During his trip he had to travel past Saturn and that damn ice and dust played havoc with the engine of his space ship. He’s tried cleaning the engine several times with Plikboo’s Gunk Zapper™ but it hasn’t done much good. We can’t take it to any of the primitive mechanics here on Earth and so I suppose we’ll just have to wait until its scheduled 200 million mile maintenance back home.

Until then we’ll have to put up with the inconvenience. When Biflip’s traveling at low speed our inter-galactic shuttle rattles and shakes quite a bit. The other night when we took an evening flight around Manhattan the shaking was so bad that Splagparp spilled his pot of hot Frukbee soup all over me. I was not very happy to say the least – it’s taken 10 washes to get the brown stains out of my official Krobolian ambassador’s uniform and it still stinks of rotting doplig roots. I guess I’ll just have to cancel my planned meeting with the French ambassador next week.

For now I’ll have to put up with these stupid reporters and their obsession with Saturn. When I told one reporter that we’d passed Saturn and were well acquainted with the planet’s rings he asked me “Did you also discover any new rings around Uranus?” and started laughing hysterically before putting the phone down. What was so funny?! I really don’t get their strange humor!

Until next time. Pablit noglit splijbit pabalab (This day, may you avoid being flattened by meteorites).

Nilbert