Couple items of note.

First, the great purveyor of worthless, dashed-off tripe (Hey, it was on his résumé), Joe Tetreault writes a positively glowing—and suspiciously inside-joke ridden—letter to us.

Hail Czar of Muscovy,
Thank you for the kindly mention of my humble opinion shop, after ‘Puter’s mention of the same. Indeed it is aptly named. I suppose it’s the providence of the Mandarin’s machinations or perhaps one of the Volgi’s spells, I care not which, to be the proprietor of such a well named establishment. Your kindness will not be overlooked, sir. I have diverted a shipment of vampires that were destined to Hollywood for your staking pleasure. The driver is an Armenian with a scar that traces his orbital bone. He’s a teddy bear, so be at ease. Unless you have Turks roaming Castle Gormogon. In which case, it would be best to shoot first and ask questions later.
Until my services may again be of use, I remain, sincerely,
Joe Tetreault
purveyor of worthless, dashed-off tripe

Wow. Pretty much nailed us spot on. Vampires tend to be the Volgi’s playthings of course; the Czar is happy nailing peasants to walls, and ‘Puter is happy nailing anything that moves. And oy, what the Mandarin did to the ice machine scarcely bears mention!

Do we, indeed, have Turks amok in the Castle? We should look. The Volgi will have them making him coffee. If so, we must be careful; two of the kitchen staff are Greek.

Nice vocabulary on Mr. Tetreault, though, eh?

Also, the head of Security for SEUS, JAB, writes in with further evidence of a leaky gasline somewhere in the house:

Your Czarness:

Whilst on patrol today in my pick-up (yep, it’s tricked out with a gunrack!), I happened to hear a most curious story on NPR’s “The World”. Seems that this day in history is the birthday of the dude who “invented” Esperanto.
Now, knowing as I do, that the residents of Castle Gormogon are dedicated to the “… imprisonment of Esperanto speakers,” I listened intently. Normally, I’d ignore it as just more noise about something completely inane and crank up some loud, raucus music instead.
And boy-howdy did I get an earful.
It seems that there are 100,000 people on the face of God’s green earth who claim to speak Esperanto regularly, including a clearly-addled English professor at Princeton who has written extensively on the subject. She actually sounded close to weeping as she described the “inclusive” nature of the language and how it was soooooo much more “acessible” than the other world-language, i.e. English. Wouldn’t you just love to pay $50K a year for your kid to go to Princeton and listen her drivel???
They also interviewed some geek in Tel Aviv who hosts regular meetings of fellow speakers of Esperanto. So they can [wait for it]…speak Esperanto. Yee-haw, what a rockin’ party that must be!
Please, somebody stop them before they breed!!!!
Other, odd info for the enjoyment ofthe residents of Castle Gormogon….William Shatner made a movie shot in Esperanto back in the 60’s and someone has recorded “The Girl from Ipanema” sung in…Esperanto.
Well, I do imagine that I have provided you gents with a target-rich environment. Happy Hunting!

JAB
Head of Security for the Southeast Quadrant of all the Gormogon domains

That seems better than being a worthless purveyor, but we take what we can.

First, JAB has raised suspicion over her febrile knowledge of Esperanto, but the Czar can only say (a) that’s exactly the kind of crap you learn listening to NPR, and (b) yes, we are aware we misused the word ‘febrile,’ but it is high time that word made a resurgence.

If indeed Esperanto is so inclusive, perhaps Dr. Princeton could list five Hakka imports, any Burmese loanwords, or any Nahuatl contributions to this inclusive language. Otherwise, Esperanto comes off as another Eurocentric fantasy. But then, what other cultures matter to them?

Also, congrats on JAB’s self-promotion to all the Gormogon domains. The Czar is not opposed to this, but regrets the pay raise will be less than expected.

‘Puter, dig deep and fire up the Shatner on 8-track. We know you have it.

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.