UM World Tour
Entry posted by Taun
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The UM Grand Tour
Main Central Compound
Today we begin our grand tour of UM’s (Unexplained Moosteries) world wide network of facilities, industrial areas, administrative centers, science complexes, polka parlors and taco stands.
Since UM has so many different centers spread out across the world (and even on the moon!) we will break this tour up into several segments.
Today we start the tour right here at the main UM compound.
The main compound – as any school child knows, and according to research by the UM Department of Highly Improbable Archaeology – was first settled in the year 49,347 BC by a wandering band of outcast Neanderthals who were searching for the mythical Land of “Polka Paradise” (revealed to them by a shaman who was hung over really badly)… After many years of travelling in lost and fictitious parts of the world the weary band of questing Neanderthals found a huge, deep crater in a part of the world few people have ever seen – or even thought about. They made their way down the crater’s steep western slope that became known as Nosebleed Ridge, Eastward across the lovely and scenic plains they named the Trackless Plains of Despair, until they arrived at the exact center of the huge crater where they received a sign that told them they had found Polka Paradise. (It was a flashing neon sign actually – no one knows who put it up, how it worked (without electricity) or even why they bothered.
Over the centuries and millennia the crude huts of twigs, untreated skins and empty beer cans grew into a bustling metropolis of many several a couple dozens of near humans… In a rare moment of near rationality one of the (many) self-appointed chiefs stopped scratching at his fleas long enough to decide that the group must “get Organized” (just as soon as they could figure out what the word “organized” meant)… The first election was held and after all the votes (and bribes) were counted the title of MODS (from Might Oughta Do Something) was created. Thus, in the year 11,945 BC the first MODS proclaimed that UM was officially founded…
The Main Compound (as it is known to all many some a few a couple) is the center, hub and heart of the UM “Empire”. Constructed entirely in a circular pattern (except where it’s not) four main thoroughfares radiate outwards from the Great Central Keep and it’s surrounding Grand Plaza… The Grand Processional Way runs North and South and divides the compound East and West (though it changes its name to The Great Southern Freeway once it goes through the Great Southern Wall – which is the southernmost limit of the Compounds Urbanized area. The main compound is further divided North and South by the aptly named Great Pitted Parkway…. Many lesser streets, avenues, alleys and cul-de-sacs wind their way through the densely packed urban area and help facilitate the heavy traffic that habitually clogs the Central Complex.
A few of the many world famous buildings – all done in UM’s unique architectural style of “Pre-Modernist Hap-hazardousness” are:
The Majestic Phlegm Building – a Ninety-Three and a half story building (eight of which are above ground) which houses the UM Ways-To-Be-Mean Committee and Taco Stand Licensing Bureau…
The Famous Grand Inquisitors Tower – known worldwide as the “Colossal Pile of Rubble” – which looms (and leans) 105 stories over the Grand Central Plaza… It is here that all Inquisitors are trained, equipped, and dispatched from… The Inquisitors College is world famous and used by many dictatorships, “banana republics” and Despotic Regimes as the official training site of their various enforcers, snitches and busy-bodies…
Nearby is the massive Chiliagon shaped (1,000 sided polygon) Dome of The UM Department of Simplification, Self-Effacing Modesty and Austerity… (currently unoccupied)
Near the center of the Western leg of the Great Pitted Parkway, lies the Impressive Rotating Tower of the UM Office of Tourism, Recreation and Sanitation… What is most impressive about this 30 story eight-sided tower of glass and aluminum foil, is that it rotates – not along its “Y” axis (i.e. turning like a merry-go-round) but that it rotates along it’s “X” axis (i.e. sideways, like a fan does)… Clever design features (and bungie cords) hold (almost) everything (more-or-less) in place inside the heavily occupied building, allowing the many (very dizzy) employees to maintain their hectic work schedule…
As was described in an earlier report (the Annual Tennis-Shoe and Tuxedo Wear-It-Backwards Ball) the magnificent UM Grand Ballroom (now) is located at the extreme southern tip of the Urbanized area – right up against the massive Great Southern Wall and Main Bastion. This cylindrical building is the site of most of UM’s fancy balls, cotillions and hootenannies – or was up until it broke free and rolled down the Grand Processional Way after the fire and explosions… The crater vacant lot where it had been (just off the Central Grand Plaza) is now planned to be the site of a brand new racing tricycle factory (“Mike’s Yikes Trikes”)… This large industrial concern will bring many new jobs to the Complex and provide nearly $15 annually to the Tax coffers!
Scattered about the complex are many hundreds of small 5 story blockhouses buildings which serve as the entrance to the complexes massive underground web of interconnected dungeons, oubliettes and cellblocks quaint, comfortable apartments for the many Lurkers, Newbs and Members of the UM Community… Interspersed with them are numerous torture chambers recreational centers where our large staff of grim floggers, torturers and Inquisitors cheerful Recreational Specialists keep the Lurkers and members in line help maintain UM’s traditionally high morale and happiness..
One other site bears mentioning… Recently the UM staff dedicated a massive 300 foot (91 meter) tall statue of Francis Fudge… UM’s pre-eminent mathematician who single handedly caused the almost instant improvement of the Mathematics scores of UM’s school children, and who’s formulae allowed UM’s engineers and scientists to jump to the forefront of the worlds leading designers, builders, theorists and inventors!
Prior to Professor Fudge’s formulae, UM’s students scored dead last among the world’s school children in mathematics (even behind those areas where they had no schools!)… UM scientists, mathematicians and Engineers were the laughing stock of the civilized world and struggled to design even simple structures…
His world famous “Fudge’s variable” (also known as “The Fudge Factor”) stated simply that it was “the value that you add, subtract, multiply, divide or otherwise factor into the answer you got – to get the answer you should have gotten”… It was immediately embraced by the students, engineers and scientists and virtually overnight UM’s school children went from an average mathematics score of -75 to a universal 100… Suddenly UM Engineers and architects were able to design the massive, impressive buildings you see around us today and UM scientists are almost hourly creating and discovering new theories, inventions and processes that the rest of the world can only shake their heads over (obviously in jealousy) … There is talk among the Grand Inquisitors, to nominate Professor Fudge for the status of “Legendary One” – unfortunately, according to UM law and custom, a person must be deceased in order to be made a “legendary One” and Professor Fudge is apparently unwilling to fulfill this last requirement…
The complex is also the site of many parks, plazas, marketplaces, fast food stands and city dumps playgrounds, all of which make the Great UM Central Complex the shining jewel of the UM “empire” and a great place to live!
Prior to the release of this report, it was hoped that an illustrated “coffee table” book of photos of the Central Complex would be available for purchase… Unfortunately the books printers thought the photos we submitted for publication were “horribly out of focus, and or very poorly done digital drawings, and threw them out… However the 350 page volume of high gloss blank pages is available for purchase from your local Flogger or Inquisitor…
The next stop on our tour will be the Pacific Region around our Pago-Pago offices!
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