Anyway, whatever that nonsense up there is, that’s what you get when you try to hack into GorT’s brain. Here’s how it went down.

So the Czar is strolling through the basement of the Castle Gormogon (motto of our basement: If you still want it, chain it down) looking for a place to stash a late birthday present for the Царица (a six-pack of Mickey’s Big Mouth) when he passes an open door of the Mandarin’s lab.

“Dude,” the Mandarin calls out. He has, for whatever reason, started calling people “Dude” a lot lately. Ah, to be inscrutable! “Check this out,” he says—which in his case is either an invitation or a warning to duck.

The Czar entered the lab to see the Mandarin futzing around with some goofball machine with tubes and wires and what one is pretty sure is a 1950s oscilloscope. “GorT is sleeping; I just hacked into his dreams.”

Just so you know:

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.