Skip to main content

Curiosity Killed the Cat

Dear Members and Constituents,
This week, the most complex and expensive Mars mission to-date successfully landed on the red planet. Some of you may have, understandably, been too distracted by the Olympic medal race between the U.S. and China to notice, so I have taken the liberty of summarizing the news (by the way, this is one of those rare occasions where the line “were you on another planet?” does not have the desired effect). NASA’s six-wheeled car-size rover made an entrance in dramatic fashion, borrowing a page from Hollywood with seven minutes of terror, during which it transformed its shape five times and stuck a landing in a routine that would make any Olympic gymnast jealous.

In an ironic twist, the first surface image to be sent by the rover –whose mission it is to search for signs of life—showed what appears to be a dead cat. During a hastily arranged press conference to explain this discovery, Dr. Fick Sho-Nahl, an exobiologist at NASA’s JPL indicated “the current hypothesis as to the unfortunate mishap involves the Martian feline being lured to the site by the heat shield’s glow, only to be smothered by the rocket engines delivering the vehicle to the surface. On the bright side, our search for life in other planets is an unqualified success.” Having discovered (and ended) life so quickly, the 17 camera array, lasers and radiation detector on board this nuclear-powered mobile lab now seem like overkill. Speaking on condition of anonymity, another source at the space agency acknowledged that “in hindsight, we have long known the red planet’s surface resembles a giant litter box, so it makes sense that cat-like creatures would evolve here –after all, they can ‘go’ wherever they please.”

Obviously, if the cat references in the preceding paragraph were true, you’d see a lot more coverage in the news. Still, wouldn’t it be cool if Curiosity did find life? (almost as cool as, say, a taxidermy cat helicopter scaring some cows to the tune of Airwolf –a must see video if you ask me). As it stands, the closest I expect we’ll get to finding life is a false positive from the Teflon in one of the instruments. And while Curiosity’s tires can’t go flat, that was unfortunately not the case for Satinder Juneja’s automobile –which explains the slight delay this morning. Fortunately, you don’t have to travel cosmic distances to find a sign of these donuts, so come grab one. While you’re at it, maybe we can chat for a bit – unless, of course, the cat ate your tongue.
Happy Friday!

Disclosure: I am admittedly not a cat person, however, no cats were harmed in the production of this message nor, to my knowledge, by NASA’s Curiosity mission.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Donut Doodle Dandy

Dear Members and Constituents, In trying to figure-out Wednesday’s cool-looking Google Doodle ( Jorge Luis Borges’ 112 th birthday ), I stumbled across a list of Google Doodles you’ll never see. This, and a Rockies game later that day, were sufficient inspiration to get my head spinning around what other doodles Google might never noodle? I’m sure you’ll probably have a few ideas of your own, but I was able to come-up with a couple. How about a former Colorado Rockies player whose unfortunate encounter with a moth put him in the news this week? The Matt Holliday doodle might look something like this… Another item which, surprisingly enough, has not been made into a doodle are donuts. Although I was slightly taken aback to find this delicious pastry has not been featured, after the initial disappointment, I decided to take matters into my own hands and take a stab at one (perhaps Google can use it next year for national donut day )… or to celebrate Greek police having “ blown a ho...

Gilding the Donut

Friends, Despite writing about donuts (sort of) for over 20 years, I don’t believe in sugar coating, after all, honesty is the best policy. Gilding, on the other hand I’m good with. Take the church of the Society of Jesus in Quito, (AKA La Compañía). Built in fits and starts between 1597 and 1765, the volcanic rock baroque facade conceals a spectacular interior. I had the chance to go inside this week and although I had heard about the gold leaf work inside, the descriptions had not done it justice. The details from floor to ceiling transport you to another world, perhaps that’s the point. If you’re ever there, be sure to visit. And while you’re there stop by one of the many panaderías … if you’re lucky they might even have a donut. Happy Friday!

Out with the old

Friends, I’m not much for using arbitrary dates to make life changes – you can do that at any time. I am, however, very much into building and burning effigies to close out the year – an Ecuadorian tradition we call Año Viejo. The theme we chose to represent 2024 was Steamboat Willie, the Disney movie whose copyright protection had been extended through the end of 2023 by the 1998 “Mickey Mouse Protection Act”. Now that he’s in the public domain, Mickey has been rebelling and doing things his parent company would not approve (a nose ring, two earrings, smoking, a public domain tattoo and an Iron Maiden logo on his hat – a nod to Paul Di’Anno’s passing in October). Despite losing his head a few times (literally, it kept falling off) we proceeded to read his last will and testament (a playful roast of the party’s attendees), pouring accelerant and lighting a match at the stroke of midnight (after the obligatory countdown, of course). If you’re curious, you can find this year’s Año Vi...