The Amazing Entertainer

Scene I - Ness

Ness stared at the blackboard uneventfully. Today must have been the dullest day of his entire life: no chance of using his PSI for practical purpose, no saving the world, he had to actually say something besides "Yes" and "No" at the blackboard, and Paula was busy at the preschool. "Sigh..." what a boring day.

"Now, class, today I'd like to do something fun!" said the math teacher.

Everybody groaned in succession.

"Oh, come on, just please don't fall asleep. Now, see, I've got a subtraction problem, 342 - 173, simple no? Well, I bought this "Revised Math" book for $800 yesterday and I'm not going to lay it to waste. Ready?..."

"You can't take three from two,
Two is less than three,
So you look at the four in the tens place.
Now that's really four tens
So you make it three tens,
Regroup,
and you change a ten to ten ones,
And you add 'em to the two and get twelve,
And you take away three, that's nine.
Is that clear?

Now instead of four in the tens place
You've got three,
'Cause you added one,
That is to say, ten, to the two,
But you can't take seven from three,
So you look in the hundreds place.

From the three you then use one
To make ten ones...
(And you know why four plus minus one
Plus ten is fourteen minus one?
'Cause addition is commutative, right!)...
And so you've got thirteen tens
And you take away seven,
And that leaves five..."

"Well, six actually...
But the idea is the important thing!"

Ness looked up.

"Now go back to the hundreds place,
You're left with two,
And you take away one from two,
And that leaves...?

Everybody get one?
Not bad for this class!

Hooray for New Math,
New-hoo-hoo Math,
It won't do you a bit of good to review math.
It's so simple,
So very simple,
That only a child can do it!

Now let's do this in base eight.

You can't take three from two,
Two is less than three,
So you look at the four in the eights place.
Now that's really four eights,
So you make it three eights,
Regroup, and you change an eight to eight ones
And you add 'em to the two,
And you get one-two base eight,
Which is ten base ten,
And you take away three, that's seven.
Ok?"

Ness was thoroughly enjoying himself now.

"Now instead of four in the eights place
You've got three,
'Cause you added one,
That is to say, eight, to the two,
But you can't take seven from three,
So you look at the sixty-fours..."

"How did sixty-four get into it?" sid Ness.

"Well, sixty-four is eight squared, don't you see?" said the professor.

"Well, ya ask a silly question, ya get a silly answer!" remarked Ness.

"From the three, you then use one
To make eight ones,
You add those ones to the three,
And you get one-three base eight,
Or, in other words,
In base ten you have eleven,
And you take away seven,
And seven from eleven is four!
Now go back to the sixty-fours,
You're left with two,
And you take away one from two,
And that leaves...?"

"Now, let's not always see the same hands!
One, that's right.
Whoever got one can stay after class and clean the erasers. "

"Hooray for New Math,
New-hoo-hoo Math!
It won't do you a bit of good to review math.
It's so simple,
So very simple,
That only a child can do it!"

Everybody applauded in succession.

Scene II - Paula

"Oh, Mom, he just refuses to go to sleep!" said Paula

"SILENCE, INFIDEL! I SHALL DESTROY YOU WITH THIS ION CANNON!" said the toddler in the red hat.

"Well, Paula... put him in his sleeping bag and sing him something." said Paula's mom.

"Which song?" asked Paula.

"FOOL! YOUR HYPNOTISM SHALL NOT WORK, FOR I POSSESS--"

"Sing him a song that appeals to his interest," said Paula's mom briskly.

"Well, okay..."

"Sleep, baby, sleep, in peace may you slumber,
No danger lurks, your sleep to encumber.
We've got the missiles, peace to determine,
And one of the fingers on the button will be German."

"Why shouldn't they have nuclear warheads?
England says no, but they all are soreheads.
I say a bygone should be a bygone,
Let's make peace the way we did in Stanleyville and Saigon."

"Once all the Germans were warlike and mean,
But that couldn't happen again.
We taught them a lesson in 1918
And they've hardly bothered us since then."

"So sleep, baby, sleep, your eyes should be shuttin'.
We know our buddies won't fool with the button."

"Heil - hail - the Wehrmacht, I mean the Bundeswehr,
Hail to our loyal ally!
M L F
Will scare Brezhnev.
I hope he is half as scared as I!"

The cute kid in the red hat was now fast asleep on the floor. Paula tucked him in and turned out the lights and left the room.

Act III - Jeff

"Dad... I need that EGi All-In-Wonderment Kage 128 Pro chip now..." said Jeff.

"Okay, okay... mmm, sugar coated... here you go, son." said Dr. Andonuts.

Jeff put the chip in, and turned the power on. Immediately a woman with green hair and 12 cats popped out of the machine.

"Dad! That was the NeForce XM!"

"Oops."

Jeff was working on a new kind of bus for his motherboard. He had several ISA and PCI slots hoocked up, and now he wanted to create his own slot: the JEFF slot (Junction Energy Function Factor Bus). He wanted to hook up a video card to his homemade peripheral slot, but things just kept going wrong. His dad walked out of the room, looking sad and misinformed at the same time.

Ness came in the door.

"Ness! How good to see you! Have you seen my new JEFF expansion cards?" Jeff said.

One of Jeff's Token Eagle JEFF cards promptly blew up, as if on cue.

"Darn."

"Jeff, where do you get all of these crazy ideas from?" asked Ness.

"Well.........."

"Who made me the genius I am today,
The mathematician that others all quote,
Who's the professor that made me that way?
The greatest that ever got chalk on his coat."

"One man deserves the credit,
One man deserves the blame,
and Nicolai Ivanovich Andonutski is his name. Oy!
Nicolai Ivanovich Andonut..."

"I am never forget the day I first meet the great Andonutski.
In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics: Plagiarize!"

"Plagiarize,
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize...
Only be sure always to call it please research."

"And ever since I meet this man my life is not the same,
And Nicolai Ivanovich Andonutski is his name. Oy!
Nicolai Ivanovich Andonut..."

"I am never forget the day I am given first original paper to write. It was on analytic and algebraic topology of locally Euclidean metrization of infinitely differentiable Riemannian manifold.
Bozhe moi!
This I know from nothing.
But I think of great Andonutski and I get idea - haha!"

"I have a friend in Minsk,
Who has a friend in Pinsk,
Whose friend in Omsk
Has friend in Tomsk
With friend in Akmolinsk.
His friend in Alexandrovsk
Has friend in Petropavlovsk,
Whose friend somehow
Is solving now
The problem in Dnepropetrovsk."

"And when his work is done -
Haha! - begins the fun.
From Dnepropetrovsk
To Petropavlovsk,
By way of Iliysk,
And Novorossiysk,
To Alexandrovsk to Akmolinsk
To Tomsk to Omsk
To Pinsk to Minsk
To me the news will run,
Yes, to me the news will run!"

"And then I write
By morning, night,
And afternoon,
And pretty soon
My name in Dnepropetrovsk is cursed,
When he finds out I published first!"

"And who made me a big success
And brought me wealth and fame?
Nicolai Ivanovich Andonutski is his name. Oy!
Nicolai Ivanovich Andonut..."

"I am never forget the day my first book is published.
Every chapter I stole from somewhere else.
Index I copy from old Vladivostok telephone directory.
This book, this book was sensational!
Poo - ah, Poo - Poo said: (Dalaam double-talk)
It stinks.
But Paula! Paula said: (French double-talk)
It stinks.
Metro-Goldwyn-Moskva bought the movie rights for six million rubles,
Changing title to 'The Eternal Triangle',
With Brigitte Bardot playing part of hypotenuse.

And who deserves the credit?
And who deserves the blame?
Nicolai Ivanovich Andonutski is his name.
Oy!"

Act IIII - Poo

"I really need a vacation from being Prince, Master." Poo said glumly one day.

"Patience... your time will come," proclaimed the Master.

"But that's what you've been saying for the past six months!!!" exclaimed Poo.

Poo had been swamped with royal affairs for the past year -- ambassador to Japan, being in the royal court for a scandal against him, earthquakes, floods, submarines mysteriously surfacing in Dalaam's calm, pink waters and injuring small wooden boats on the surface -- Poo had been overloaded. "I want a vacation NOW!!!"

The Master suggested a new travel agency in the southwestern part of Dalaam. Poo ran down the hill and into the small, modest hut and quickly said: "I need a vacation now for whatever price to... America."

"Yes... let me see here... your name?" asked the lady behind the counter.

"Prince Poo of Dalaam," Poo said, accenting the Prince and Dalaam.

"Yes... well, I have some advice for you..."

If you visit American city,
You will find it very pretty.
Just two things of which you must beware:
Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air!

"Pollution, pollution!
They got smog and sewage and mud.
Turn on your tap
And get hot and cold running crud!"

"See the halibuts and the sturgeons
Being wiped out by detergeons.
Fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly,
But they don't last long if they try."

"Pollution, pollution!
You can use the latest toothpaste,
And then rinse your mouth
With industrial waste."

"Just go out for a breath of air
And you'll be ready for Medicare.
The city streets are really quite a thrill -
If the hoods don't get you, the monoxide will."

"Pollution, pollution!
Wear a gas mask and a veil.
Then you can breathe,
Long as you don't inhale!"

"Lots of things there that you can drink,
But stay away from the kitchen sink!
The breakfast garbage that you throw into the Bay
They drink at lunch in San Jose. "

"So go to the city,
See the crazy people there.
Like lambs to the slaughter,
They're drinking the water
And breathing [cough] the air!"

"Uh, thank you, travel person... but I don't really want to go to America right now." said Poo. He gulped nervously.

"That's okay," the lady said. "Nobody does."