Rather uncharacteristically (the title in the first two words! That, Dear Reader, is the first instance ever of the subject of the issue ever coinciding with the purported title in sanemagazine or the previous incarnation, and, we must admit, we're quite proud. We figure it shows an increasing, if slowly, maturity, a growing up, if you will, leaving behind the odd whims of mental adolescence and moving on to bigger, brighter, more worldly things, things that are relevant to other things, things that sing with clarity and impressive reserve, sallying into realms hitherto unexplored, by us, anyway, realms of fantastic and wonderful Truth. Yes, Truth. Because we finally saw fit to explore an avenue to it's full conclusion, to see what we had been missing. And we found Truth. Staring right back at us, taunting us, almost, asking us what had taken so long, it had thought we'd forgotten about it and just stopped at the pub for a few drinks. It is a marked improvement, this coherence, this precedent, this estimable leap of both faith and mind, and you can trust, in this august year, that we can go nowhere else but forward, into better and more refined heights of dizzying sensicalness, or sensicality, as we like to call it.) of us, we would like to address the recent launch of a space thing towards Mars by NASA. Insider sources, or our closest available thing, have learned that there is a new space thing launched off towards Mars, the ancient and mythical "Red Planet," so named for it's rolling hills.
Now, normally, we wouldn't touch news of this sort with an unreasonably long pole, and if we were to we'd complain about how unreasonably long the unreasonably long pole was, throw it down in disgust, perhaps, and stalk off to complain to yet more people about your insufferable insistence that we touch the news with an unreasonably long pole. Nor do we tend to print much about that sort of news. But we are. Because it's been a bit of a slow day, and all our writers were off playing footie with the masseuse staff.
So the NASA blokes tossed this thing off, sometime a few weeks ago, or maybe before, even, we don't really care.
And they happened to toss it in the direction of Mars. What starry-eyed young kid hasn't dreamed of some day visiting Mars? All right, so it may be quite a lot, if given a choice between Mars and just watching television, but, deep down, they all really want to go to Mars. Badly. So, one way you can use this news is to pack their bags, give 'em a shove out the door, and have 'em catch a plane to NASA, and ask to be put on the next flight out. It will fulfill a lifelong dream for the most of them.
This thing is supposed to land on Mars, somewhere near the south pole, "for the penguins and simply divine martinis," a mostly reliable source has been quoted as saying, where it will take a whole bunch of pictures, wear the most garish clothing possible, most of which has "I've been to Mars and my Grandkids are Gettin' Nuthin'" somewhere on it, a big straw hat, to keep out the sun (which, incidentally, is the same one we have here, we're told, again, by a mostly reliable source), and horribly pale calves, which it will show off at every possible convenience.
The pictures and other assorted things the space thing is supposed to do will send back us Earth-bound people and such all kinds of data on pH balance of the soil, the effect of releasing helium balloons into the atmosphere of Mars, and if it's just as joyous occasion as it is here, atmospheric readings (before and after the balloons, of course), a first close-up look at the south pole of Mars, which will later, no doubt, be found out to only be the magnetic south pole, 130 km from the actual south pole, a close-up look at snow on the south pole, and the wily but friendly Martian natives, who have been having a contest where they each submit half-hour sitcoms to the contest board, who will review each and determine the winners, who will get to appear, the best in the prime timeslots, on the space thing's camera.
There is no word, as of yet, whether or not the space thing will discriminate based on it's personal taste of television viewing, nor whether or not it will refuse to socialise with the natives because of their strange customs and habits.
disclaimer:
Sound samples will also apparently be taken while the space thing is on Mars, though we don't expect to hear much more than a cheap Beatles cover band that may occasionally cover a few Monkees' songs.
This has been your anchor, Cantankerous Pete.
Yer Weekly Horoscopes. see you on Mars.