"I'm Lisa Nowak, Astronaut. Whether I'm on my way to the International Space Station or travelling cross-country to eliminate the competition, nothing keeps me more comfortable and secure than Depend Undergarments. Why risk embarrassing leaks while you are struggling over a can of pepper spray or being booked into the county jail? Depend Undergarments cover your ass-- for all of life's little 'Oh shit' moments."
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists issued a major announcement today. Acknowledging that the world is a crazy place Yo, the Atomic Scientists have proclaimed Flavor Flav as the Perpetual Keeper of the Doomsday Clock and moved the clock's hands forward by two minutes. It is now five minutes to midnight.
(If your Doomsday Clock is flashing 12:00, don't panic, that just means the electricity went off momentarily.)
Some days the old day job is the greatest job in the world. Yesterday was just such a day. I had the rare treat of interviewing Hal Graham, the world's first rocketbelt pilot, and one heck of a ukulele player.
I was four years old on July 20th 1969 when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took mankind's first historic steps onto the surface of the moon. Even at that young age I recognized the historical significance of their achievement. I sat transfixed in front of the television as the astronauts cavorted across the lunar landscape and thought to myself, "If man can do this, man can do anything."From T minus ten seconds and counting I wanted to go along. My earliest dream was to become an astronaut. It was a dream that lasted throughout my childhood, until a crushing encounter with algebra buried it under the reality of my mathematical ineptitude. (If not for my inability to figure out what the heck X was and move beyond that to more advanced calculations, I might be on the International Space Station today.) But in those early days my enthusiasm for space exploration was undampened and my heroes were NASA's astronauts. I wanted to be a space cowboy.
I remember that the Gulf service stations at that time gave out glow-in-the-dark cardboard punch-out and fold up lunar modules as a premium with every fill-up. I insisted that dad only fill up at Gulf, to which he happily obliged, and patiently inserted every tab A into every slot B. I would fall asleep each night gazing at the softly glowing LEM across the room on my dresser. I carried an Apollo XI lunch box until I got into junior high and wore my favorite Apollo XI T-shirt almost as long. My most traumatic childhood event was the day I came home from school to find that Mom had cut my shirt up for a dust rag. I would give almost anything if I could recover any of those artifacts.
No sooner had I walked in the door from the PGCBF this afternoon when Shempbot came tear-assing into the room, hooks flailing. He was jabbering on about a cousin of his being in a horrible accident. When I finally got him calmed down, he switched on his viewplate, struck the "Stork Spreads Wings" posture and tuned in CNN. NASA's Genesis probe was returning to the Earth.
Ever see a two-hundred and sixty million dollar discus?
"We should be seeing the drogue chute deploy at any moment," droned the commentator as the Genesis capsule hurtled Earthward. The craft tumbled wildly as the reporter told of NASA's cockamamie scheme to snatch the gizmo before it hit the ground with the Bat-copter and one of those Shepherd's hooks they use to yank Vaudevillians off the stage. The idea was to save the fragile contents within the probe from the trauma of a rough landing.
"I don't think we see the chute yet. I'm not sure what we are looking at..."
"Actually Mark, that's a video feed of where the spacecraft, traveling at roughly two hundred miles an hour impacted the desert floor."
And so it was. There sat Genesis, buried in the ground like a sesame seed wedged between two molars.
A NASA spokesman was quoted as saying, "KAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHNNN!"
I've got one word for you: Icarus.
