The Czar wandered about the Castle and asked how each of us would be celebrating the Bicenennial of our first Independence Day.

Ghettoputer was planning on throwing hand grenades into the fishing pond. There is evidently a bass of significant size he has been after and is pretty sure it has been lurking around the hole in the bottom of the pond where he chills his bourbon. Then, whether he catches it or not, he will drink the bourbon and sleep it off on the lawn. Later, one of the local kids will probably come by and place a small, paper American flag in his nostril.

GorT will be bringing back souveniers from our Centennial and Tricentennial. Specifically, tea cakes and razzers from the former, and dihydrodines and YamdiParts from the latter.

Mandarin is planning on providing a firework celebration in which he turns the Moon red, white, and blue, before turning it back to its usual faint gray. He will do this with a Quantum Exobit Laser, with an optical relay TVRS. Also, he will eat watermelon.

Dr. J will be tuning some light sabers to hum “Stars and Stripes Forever.” Light sabers will of course be colored red and blue. He would like to white light sabers, but desperately needs YamdiParts if he can get them from somewhere.

Czar will be eating and drinking himself into a horrific stupor. Tomorrow will be a Bicentennial-sized headache.

Volgi, for reasons known only to him and GorT, is packing up all his shit and closing his Tehran office.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.